Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 512 | Jase Points Out Something Ironic About Jesus & Zach Distinguishes Between Strategy and God’s Plan

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Jase discusses the irony in Jesus being referred to as "the Word." Zach warns against the human desire to put our stamp of approval on God's strategy before we are willing to submit our hearts to him, while he already knows the plan for all of his temporal creation. Jase details a formula for developing trust and shares the three definitions of hope. Phil talks about how God's plan goes beyond the entrapment of the Earth. Zach shares what happens when you give glory to God. Watch the Unashamed overtime show, only on BlazeTV: https://BlazeTV.com/Unashamed - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we're back. The last podcast we talked about overcoming difficulties, finding forgiveness. Jay said quite the tale to tell us. But it really is just a kind of a great sort of illustration or arch for what we're talking about in the book of Hebrews, especially in chapter 5, because we talked about the Hebrew writer sort of making this. idea about the priesthood and Jesus. And then there's what I would call kind of an interlude before we get to chapter seven when he's going to flesh that out a lot more, where he does what he's done in every chapter so far, which is give a warning to the people that he's writing to. Because obviously a lot of people have gone back under the old system, the old covenant.

That, you know, as we read here, they at least understood Jesus. they knew, you know, why he came. At some point, they seemed to embrace that, but then it wasn't enough for them, and so they went back under law. What you think about it is to leave Jesus and leave what he offers, you really do, what do you call it,

James, burden the bridge, the only bridge that can lead you to something better? Well, he's fixed to introduce this idea of having a sure hope. And when you try to wrap your head around that, And I really feel like hope is the least stressed aspect of those three things from First Corinthians when he said faith, hope, and love. And we talk about faith. I mean, in the religious world, as a general rule, because people are unsure how you follow an invisible being.

And so you are like, well, it's a faith. It's called something called faith. And then he said the greatest of these is love. I feel like we do a good job of that. Having God is love, and that is part of the foundation. When it gets to hope, you're like, well, that's kind of like faith. Yeah. Because we're going to get to Hebrews 11-1.

Because you really hope and faith go hand in hand. You can't have one without, you wouldn't believe if there was nothing of a future consequence there. I mean, you wouldn't believe if that didn't mean. something for the future. Why would you believe? If what's fixing to happen is not a positive. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's where he's getting, and I do think that that's ultimately goes back to why you focus on Jesus, because when you think about hope, if you take Jesus out of the equation, just look at it like this, what happens when someone loses all hope?

What are the things that happen? Yeah. Nothing good. Right. I mean, you're explaining why today's culture looks like it does. What happens when people give up? Yeah. What happens when they're hopeless?

They go out on the streets and they march for this and that and the other. Whether they're religious or not. When someone loses all hope, what is fill in the blank? Yeah, the results are bad. It reminds me, Jay's there's a scene in Shawshank Redemption, which is very, very powerful when I think it's after Andy has played the, he locked the doors and he played an opera in a all-male prison back in the 20s. And his idea was he wanted them to hear this music that was outside of their just day-to-day prison routine.

So he's having a conversation after he gets out of the hole. And Red, who's the Morgan Freeman character, they're talking about hope. And so Andy says, well, here's where you need it the most. And Red is like, that's a dangerous concept. You don't, the last thing you want to do is have hope in a place like this. But it was really the two battling concepts. It really does go to what Jason is talking about because in a hopeless situation is when you need hope the most. Yep.

But some people in their hopelessness think, well, the last thing I want to do is think there's something better. Yep. Because my situation is so bad. So I really think that I've always thought that scene was such a powerful thing to show the two lines of thinking. between what's good and what's bad, you know, and hopelessness is a big part of it. What Luke recorded in Acts 1, 1 through 11, the opening salvo of the book of Acts, the reality of what went down when Jesus was on the earth. He died, was buried, he raised from the dead.

Well, in that period from there to the arrival of the kingdom of God, the Hebrew writer starts out in Hebrews 4. You know, we also have had this gospel preached to us and all that. Well, here's Peter's fixing to talk to the Jewish nation. And their problem was what the Hebrew writer had just said, beginning in Hebrews 4, 14. Since we have a great high priest, he has gone through the heavens, gone into heaven. Well, if you look at that right there, you say, well, when did that take?

place. So Luke, he might have wrote Hebrews, by the way. In my former book Theophobos, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven. Here's a briefing in the book of Acts of what the Hebrew writer is talking about in Hebrews chapter 4, 14, and fallen. I'll show you a little bit more on that in a minute. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs he was alive. trying to get people to understand that Jesus is the way. He appeared to him over a period of 40 days. This is after he was resurrected and spoke about the kingdom of God,

which the Hebrew writer mentions twice that the kingdom of God is here. On one occasion while he was eating and drinking, he said, don't leave Jerusalem. Stay right here. Then in verse 6, so they met together and said, Lord, you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel, It's going to be us Jews that rule the world. It's not for you to know all the times and dates.

After he said this, here's his departure. He was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hit him. They were looking into the sky, and Luke recorded him saying, look, I mean, an angel appeared and says, look, he's going to come back the same way you've seen him go. Well, when the Hebrew writer covers that, therefore, verse 14, 414, since we have a great high priest who has gone into heaven.

Luke just recorded it in the book of Acts. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest. Here's a great verse, who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. He's going into heaven. And other verses say he's seated at the right end of God there to mediate for us. one mediator, just one, Jesus at the right hand of God. And that's how he can sympathize with our weaknesses. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Our sins are not counted against us. And Jesus is the reason why, because he never sin, and in him is no sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace. grace with confidence. You say, well, you know, how am I going to make it? I mean, what I need to do, and I mean, I need to keep the law. He said, no, no, just put your faith in Jesus and he will be your way. You have this mediator for you, 24-7. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy, God, I have it, and find grace, got to have it. The law is a killer to help us in our time of need.

So you put those two together, Acts chapter one, the very time he left. And it is interesting that just after that, after Acts chapter one, he's gone into heaven. He'll come back in the same way you've seen him go. He's going to return. Peter then preaches the gospel to him in Acts 2. Then he gives them the response to the gospel and the promises for you and your children. Well, we're back in the Hebrew writer. That's what he's saying.

But the framework of all of it, it's already been laid down in the book of Acts and the other epistles. But the Hebrew writer is just saying, you have a great deal going here. You got Jesus at the right end of God. Since we have a great high priest, he's gone through the heaven. I mean, you know, you get to looking at it,

it makes the Jews of that day say, whoa, here, I miss him. I've missed it all. Well, that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Right. You better hold on. That's all put in play, you know. Righteousness will be the scepter of his kingdom.

Right. Hebrews won. Well, I think that's why now we're in Hebrew 6, which it's almost like the problem of trying this without Jesus. So he goes through, you know, Hebrew 6. But then he says this is based on a promise. Because he don't want them to give up. He wants them to have, I guess this is the bad,

which is the problem with humans, is that we want to do it ourselves, the good, which is what God did through Jesus. But then you have the beautiful, instead of the ugly, I was thinking of that good, bad, and the ugly, which is it produces this hope that you can be sure of. I mean, it's not like... Your sins are not being counted against you.

Yeah, I mean, and it's a guarantee. T. This is, yeah. So he, he goes through the problem and he doesn't want them to give up. And he makes a,

Jay's, he makes a stark contrast in six and seven between the results of doing it with Jesus and without. Remember in verse 7, he says, here's what it looks like

when it does great. It produces a crop. It's a blessing. It's a blessing from God. But then he says, but verse 8, land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless

and in danger of being cursed. In the end, it will be burned. So, which is a problem. It's a huge problem. Yeah. It's kind of, it's like a bad cop, good cop. That's right.

Because then he gets to 13 and I'll read it because there's a lot of hard to understand things that he addresses here. But he says in 13, when God made his promise to Abraham. So now he brings up Abraham. Since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. So God is making an oath to himself. And so after waiting patiently, Abraham will see. Talk about waiting patiently.

Just look at the time frame out. Well, I put a formula here. I put a formula. I didn't read this out of book. So if I'm wrong, y'all can take me on it. I'm sure that well if I'm in error. Because I thought, why I promise? I thought, why I promise?

Why does he go from the problems of trying to do this to do this without Jesus, the problems of trying to have the system that was instituted by the Jews, this Jewish nationalism that were supposedly going to look to the Savior that was to come, and then said, we're not going to focus on the Savior that came or that was supposed to come. We're going to focus on kind of like the illustration of you get a present that never arrives, but you find the owner's manual, and you put all your faith and trust in the instructions, but you never get around to the actual product that was supposed to be delivered that you can participate in that's going to bring joy. His point is what he said in Galatians.

Before this faith came, and there they all were, we were. we were held prisoners by the law, but the Jews didn't see it that way, locked up until faith should be revealed. The Jews didn't see it that way. So the law, what y'all think you have to be under, was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come is the Hebrew writer.

I'm reading Galaisons 3 now. Yeah, I have Galatians 3 now. We are no longer under the supervision of the law. You have to get that out of your head. So he's saying all this, and it's based on a promise. So I wrote down this formula. Promise plus time equals trust. So he gave a promise.

Yep. Time happened. Well, what developed? Abraham had to do the same thing we do. Are you going to trust the promise, the one who gave the promise? Now, with Abraham's case, this promise seemed a little far-fetched. Because when you go through Genesis 12, the initial promise about the land.

Then Genesis 15, you go through about, you're going to have a son. Well, he was, what, 85? I think he was 75 when the first promise. 85 when the second promise. So we've got to have some time allowed. And he still didn't receive while he was alive the promise. Well, he's waited patient. The one about Jesus.

But, you know, let's take a break. But so he gets to 100. And this first promise, I think the land came first, but then of having Isaac happens. We just think at 100, this is a hard promise to wrap your head around. At 76, I'm like, I don't know what I could pull that off. You're 76. 24 years from now, you're going to have a child. And it's going to bless all nations.

And your ancestors are going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. I'll try to convince your mother that can't happen, but I don't think I'm going to be able to put it off. Tell her to be sure not to laugh. But remember, Jay said the 86-year-old mark, which would have been, you know, about 11 or 12 years after. So Sarah came up with a plan, I was like, oh, hey, oh, this is what God must admit. You sleep with my maid, sir, but you marry her, and then that child will be the child of promise. So for 13 years, they thought they had pulled it off until guys said, oh, by the way, now that you're 99, now's the time to tell you about the real plan.

So, I mean, to show, to your point, that shows you how hard faith is, right? That's why I put promise plus time that there's going to be some trust. And I think that was God's idea. And so, oh, go ahead. I was going to say there is this huge connection here with what Phil mentioned in Galatians. There is a covenant or a promise that God's making by himself, that's working in conjunction with our faith. I was saying Genesis 22 has a reference where God says,

by myself, which I think is what the Hebrew writers alluding to, by myself, this is in 2216. By myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed, I will greatly bless you, and I'll give you a bunch of descendants and whatnot. If you back up to the initial promise in Genesis 15 that he's going to give him a son, if you remember the story what happened when he took, Abraham took the animals and he cut them

in half and he put them like one on one side and the other half on the other side. And the idea was that you take these animals and you cut them in half and then there's a covenant, a deal that's being made here between two parties and they walk through the animals. and what they're saying is when they walk through these animals, they're saying, if I break this covenant, may this happen to me. But what's interesting in Genesis 15 is that Abraham cuts the animals and half and he puts half on one side and one on the other side and the birds of the prey come down. He sees, get away, get away, get away, gets them away.

And then instead of Abraham walking through the middle of that saying, if I break this covenant, let this happen to me, guess who walks through? the Spirit of the Lord. God's presence moves through the center. So God himself says, if you break this covenant, Abraham, let this happen to me. Now think about that. There's a unilateral covenant that's being made with man that God is saying, Abraham, if you break this covenant, not me, I'm not breaking it.

If you break it, may I be cut in half, may I suffer death, may I die, which is a foreshadowing of exactly what happened. Jesus took on the payment and the penalty for our sin. So we get to Hebrew 6, then you talk about assurance. The reason why we can find assurance, even in this passage that says it's impossible for those who fall away to be brought back to repentance. To Jason's point, the point is that without Jesus, you ain't getting back ever. If Jesus is not enough for you, then there's not enough.

But the reason why we can be assured is because God made the covenant by himself, not based on what we did, but based on what he did. He walked through those animals. I think he's on to something. No, perfect lead in. Oh, we're tracking. Perfect lead in to me reading the rest of this, and I want to make one point.

It says in verse 16, so men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all arguments. And I want to make just a sidebar here. Even people in the world do that. Have you noticed that people in the world will use the Lord's name in vain

and will be like, I mean, just people who don't believe in God, but they're constantly saying, you know, Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, you're like, why are they doing that? Because it makes them feel powerful. Because they're taking someone greater than themselves, even if they don't believe in them.

Because they want to be like, I'm powerful. And they've got him up. Be intimidated. They've got him up as the judge when they say G, D, Well, but I think it makes them feel part. They're intimidating. That's why when somebody doubts, somebody said, wait a minute, no, I swear to God, this really happened.

Oh, exactly. Well, that statement alone says it's got to be something bigger than me because you don't believe me. That was a sidebar, but I do think it's interesting. That that happened, what's something written this long ago. Yep. You even see it in non-believers. Oh, yeah.

Why they keep doing it. That's right. Because it makes them feel more powerful. That they're like, not only that, I've put him almost under me and I use him as my witness to my greatness. And even outside of God, Jay, when somebody says, I swear, you hear them say, I swear on my daughter's life, I swear on my... They say God is my witness. But it's always something, because it's got to be, my word is not enough. It's got to be more. So the next time somebody does that, use it as a conversation charge. Say, are you feeling weak right now?

That's right. They're like, what? Well, I noticed you were using the Lord Jesus, which is someone greater than yourself. So I'm seeing that as a sign of weakness that you want to feel powerful. You want some confidence? Let me tell you how you can get it. There you go. It'd be an interesting conversation. Why you keep doing it? So verse 17 says, but God, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. Instead of giving up, you're greatly encouraged, right? We have this hope as an anchor

for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary, to Zach's point, behind the curtain where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. There's the friend in high places. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchazadec to Al's point in the last podcast, priest and king. So here's my point. You have somebody compiled the list of promises God has made in the Bible and they came up with over 7,000. So instead of me going down through 7,000 promises, which we just read, it's impossible for God to lie. And I think the second unchangeable thing is that his nature doesn't change the nature and his purpose which is the previous verse i want to read this verse and i think to go with zach's point and the reason i said

we're tracking if you read second corinthians one in verse 20 with in mind that there's seven thousand promises made at various places and that god cannot lie listen to this for no matter how many promises as God is made. I said there could have been about 7,000. Here's this point in Hebrew 6, the earlier passage. They are yes in Christ to finish the verse. They are yes in Christ. Oh, wow. That's why you can't burn the bridge of Jesus. You can't burn that bridge. If you think back to what Jesus said in John 5 in this specific context, and he's like, you're studying these scriptures thinking that By them, you'll have eternal life, but you refuse to realize that these scriptures are about me. Well, now that makes a whole lot more sense when you get over here and look at this.

I mean, these are scriptures that Jesus himself had memorized and he knew, and he was trying to get them to see, whatever promise God has made, and he cannot lie, and it's all good, nothing bad. They're yes in me. So you don't have to be that smart. But think about this, too. It's the same thing you said from a different angle, though. I mean, it's the same, you're going to reach the same conclusion. Well, I think what you mentioned, though, I'm so glad you said that because it ties together

what I just said earlier, which is a unilateral covenant and then faith. What ties the unilateral covenant to faith? And it's the promise is yes. So what is faith? faith is hearing the promise of God and then believing that the answer is yes. Sure of what you hope for and certain of what you don't see. Exactly. 100%.

So when you move to Genesis 22, because we're talking about Abraham here. We're not talking about Abraham, but this is what's being mentioned here in Hebrew's chapter 6 in this one-way covenant. I swore by myself, what he said in Genesis 20. And you get to 22, when Abraham is in this position or in actually the, 22's when he said it, that he's about to offer his son, Isaac. Now, I think about what the promise was. The promise was, it's always yes, but the promise was, I'm going to give you a grandson, a son, and that grandson is going to give you a lot

of grandkids. I mean, we're talking about so many grandkids that you won't even be able to count them all. And now here we are in Genesis 22. He says, okay, I want you to kill the only way that I'm going to be able to give you grandkids. I want you to go killing. Abraham had faith, and according to Romans chapter 4 and it was credited him as righteous. What was his faith? He still believed, and Genesis 22 against all hope, he believed that God had the power to do what he said he was going to do. In fact, in Hebrews, we're going to find out later as he's building this case. He actually thought that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead, which is not what God did. God offered a substitutionary sacrifice in the form of a ram caught in a thicket. But when he went

up that mountain, there's a couple of things in Genesis 22 that we learned about the faith of Abraham, he says, we are going to go up the mountain, and he tells his servants, and we are going to come back. So even though he knew he was going to sacrifice Isaac, he knew God was going to do something because he knew they were coming back down. Why? Because he knew that the promise was yes. He knew it.

And he also said when he got up there, Isaac says, Dad, I see that we had the wood for the burnt offering, but where is the sacrifice? And what do you say? God's going to provide. The gold moment. And it's called when he announced the gospel. in advance, which was going to be handed to us way, way, way. Hang on.

Hang on, let's take a break. Which is why it said in the beginning was the word, because look, God, because people read this, there's like, I don't understand what it said, well, God confirmed it with an oath. God gave you his word. Just think about that statement. And it was yes. And here's where it matters.

And it's ironic that Jesus was referred to as. the word and the word became flesh. You know what? One of my questions I'm going to ask when I get to the other side is, did Abraham tell Sarah what he was doing? I mean, you know what I'm saying? I mean, that's a good question.

I wonder she knew because they had gone through all this stuff, it's almost 40 years have gone by now. And he's going to take him up and kill him. I mean, even because he had that much. And even in the world, you notice they make fun of that story. Yeah. Because they're like, I mean, why would you want to be involved in something? Well, someone was encouraged.

It didn't have him saying, you're going to do what? He said, he just surmised. But you know why the world can't wrap their head around it? Because they haven't put their faith in Jesus. They don't realize that death is not the end. And trust is part of the process. Right. You have the promise of God and you got, that's why we're here.

That's why time is here. So it develops trust, which is the key to any relationship. And trust, and trust, here's the thing about trust. By the very definition of trust, it means I may not understand the how. That's why it requires trust. I don't know the how God's going to do what he's going to do. I just know the who, the one who said it. He's going to do what he said he's going to do.

And that's what Abraham, we know for a fact that Abraham did not know how God was going to deliver his promise. In fact, according to Hebrew, the Hebrew writer, Abraham actually got it wrong. He, in his mind, the way he had rationalized it, and the Bible says he reasoned that God could raise him from the dead. So Abraham used his ability, has God given ability to reason to figure out how God was going to fulfill his promise? But that's not how God did it. So it doesn't, that's the thing. We may not understand the how God's going to do it. We just need to understand and believe who said it.

And he's going to do it how he wants to do it. Well, and it was credit to him as righteousness. Because, I mean, God didn't say, well, you didn't know exactly, but you didn't figure out how exactly I'm going to do it, so you're out. That's right. Yeah. Which I think is important. Which, I mean, look in the religious world.

Everybody says we got to figure out every detail about life and scripture and all unite on exactly how everything works and how it should be. That's a wrong way to think. You're going right back to the old system. Yeah, we want to be. be able to contain it. When we're really saying God, what we're really saying is this. Well, we want to control it.

We want to control it. And then we want God to run his strategy by us so that we can say, yeah, okay, yeah, that's good. Go with that. And God's like, that's really what we're saying. Run it by me. Let me give my stamp of approval on it because I'm not comfortable with leaving this. Let me call my buddies.

We'll give an answer. Well, that's one of the beautiful, huge. One of the beautiful human things about Abraham was that you see instances in his life. We mentioned one about when Ishmael was born, that whole plot for Ishmael. And there's another one where he gets afraid of, you know, that something's going to happen to him because of, you know, they wind up getting pushed into Egypt. Both times, he shows that faith is hard. I mean, he had moments of lapse. And yet he's still the father of the faithful because ultimately he trusted God in the moment.

So I've always taken that as a great, you know, confidence for me in my weaker moments that thankfully God's grace extends to me because it extended to Abraham. What's interesting is we're the penalty of Ishmael, we're still dealing with, we're still chewing that bone all these years, thousands of years later because of those two sons. Because all the Islamic faith goes back to Ishmael. So we're still fighting that back. You know what I tell my boys, every time they fight, and then they fight a lot. I mean, it's like constant. And I keep thinking that verse. I said, don't be like Ishmael whose fist was raised in hostility towards his brothers.

That's right. I'm like, don't be that guy. Would you say, dad, a wild donkey of a man? Yep, a wild ass. Well, I want to read this. In verse, you know, verse 11, he wanted to make their hope sure. And then he says in 18, I want to reiterate this. God did this so that, I mean, we're basing this on a promise.

God did this by two unchangeable things. It's impossible for God to lie. We have fled, so fled anything not based on God and what he did through Jesus and the promise he's made to us. To take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged instead of greatly disappointed without Jesus. Because that's what you're going to be if you try to do it on your own or some kind of system that doesn't include Jesus as the focus. we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm, and secure. So I listened to this sermon in a waiting room, you know, Omea's Surgery by Rick Warren, because they were launching, this is a few years ago when he did this,

but they were having 40 days of hope. And so he did like 40 consecutive lessons. But the first one was really good. And he said, you know, in our world, in our practical world, he had three definitions of hope. And the first one was wishful hope. And it's the kind, so you're late, you're supposed to be somewhere, and you look at the red light, and you're like,

I hope that turns green. Well, that's just wishful. You have absolutely no control, and it's really not hope. It's what is that? It's a wish that you have no control over. But I think some people, when you transition this to the Christian life, there's some of that going on. Yeah.

Or somebody will say, I hope I'm wrong about this, meaning something they have no control over, something's going on. You got an opinion, but you're really just wishing. It's a bad view of hope. You're just wishing. It's, you know, I hope I win the lottery. Yeah.

What's that going to do? I mean, you know, oh, I have a bunch of money. So then. Oh, yeah, you're in deep debt. And so you said, what's your answer to get by this? I'm going to buy a lottery tickets. A lottery ticket. That's hope.

I put my hope. Well, that's not going to be a good anchor. Your boat is probably not going to sit there long. You don't have good eyes. Let's take another break. So the second one is an expecting hope where you do something and expect a result, like where you plant a field and say, like the first one, be say, I hope some tomatoes, I get some tomatoes from my garden that I didn't plant.

Well, that'd be wishful. But let's say you actually go plant something. Well, now you're expecting it be, in a, he used the example, was kind of sobering about people, you know, a woman who's pregnant and you're having this expectation. And then that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to happen. Right. People have miscarriages, unfortunately, you know, every day. It's sad when it happens. But so he's still saying even that is not this certainty, which is the third one.

It just means you now have some bit of effort into it on the expectation. But what God is offering is this certain hope. And he references as an anchor for the soul. We're talking about something different here because it's based on a God promise. And a God promise is always true. It's something you can, even though it's an idea of hope of things that may not necessarily have happened, it is a guarantee because of the one who made it. Even though, like to Zach's point, you don't understand exactly how it's going to happen,

but you can guarantee it. Well, that's something totally different. And that's what separates the hope that we participate in on anything that the world has to offer. So I did a little research on an anchor. When you think about it, what does an anchor do? I mean, what does it do? Because I think practically looking at this

helps us understand day-to-day life. So what does an anchor do? Basically holds a boat in place. It keeps it in place. So if a storm comes up, so it keeps it from drifting. When you look at that spiritually, it keeps this from, I mean, this hope in God's promises specifically through Jesus. I'll tell you, another thing I thought of.

It doesn't make you lose your progress. You know, you picture a ship coming from way off. Well, you put that anchor because if you don't, the wind comes, and you lost every, which I think in this case applies to them a lot. I mean, they had made a lot of progress, and all of a sudden, there's like, pull the anchor. We're going back to where we came from. Right. And he's like, no, because that's not based on what I was trying to pull off.

So. And here's the deal on that, too, Jase, is that it may not, you're going to drift without the anchor, whether a storm comes or not, because the current of the world, the current of the culture is going in the opposite direction of where the kingdom of. of God is going. So if I just sit there in my boat with no anchor and I'm just like no anchor, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sit here and relax. You're going to look up in about 15 minutes and you're going to be downstream because you're going to go backwards because the culture is moving in one direction and that's where you're going to go naturally. You're going to move in the kingdom. You've got to stay anchored in Jesus. You have to stay anchored in him. Yeah, exactly. Now he did illustration on, he found the,

largest the world's largest anchor which guess how much it weighed several tons a lot 150,000 pounds the chain on it each link weighed 500 pounds just wrap your head around that yeah now he made it a cruise ship he had a picture of it he actually put it up there i mean it was it was the biggest thing you've ever seen but his point was and i thought it's a good point you know he read that verse where it said, Jesus said, I've come to have so that you'll have life and have it more abundantly. And he was like, big ship, big anchor. Big life, big anchor. I mean, it was a good point because he was like, you don't, you know, God is the ultimate anchor.

And this is the launching pad for a big life, a lot of positive things on how God use you. in the example of Abraham, you just think about what this promise did for all of humanity. I mean, this was a big life. This was a big ship, a big, and it was a big promise because it seemed so impossible to pull off to what we discussed earlier. You're going to have a kid when you're 100? I mean, this is right next to a virgin having a kid. Yeah. I mean, same concept.

I mean, that shouldn't, this shouldn't be happening. Right. So anyway, he did this because I want to get this in and get your comments on it. So he did research and he came up with the 10 things, the top 10 things in life and in our world that causes hopelessness. And I want to read them to you because he had a really good point on this. So number one, alone or abandoned. Number two, life's out of control. number three no purpose so these are the things that causes hopelessness in life four great pain or great loss

five uh you don't have what you need six basically sin but he put you know things in parentheses like guilt shame and regret the things that happen as a result of your sin or somebody else is it'd be somebody else seven uh you're wounded or abused which causes bitterness and resentment. Eight, temptation, just the pull in the wrong direction, because life is full of temptation. Like Zach was describing with the current, right. Yeah. Nine, fear, whether terrorism physically, spiritually, just things that causes fear.

And 10, a sense of defeat or losing. And so when you think about life, and I think he's right, these 10 things, cause people to be hopeless. Well, his whole point was, he said, did you know that, of course, he made this connection, he was looking at things that cause hopelessness. Then he was reading or reciting the Lord's Prayer, and he realized that in the Lord's Prayer,

it actually addresses every one of those 10 things, which was fascinating. Now, he spent 20 minutes talking about it, and, you know, I wrote them down, quickly, but basically, you know, it starts off our father. Well, what was number one? Loneliness or, you know, being alone or, you know, our father, who are already in heaven, you know. So the power in his name, you have, which would be number two, where life feels out of control, where you're praying to a father who's in control of everything on heaven and earth. Now, it may not look like that, but that is the

prayer. That is the belief. That is the trust. three you got god's plan because he said our your kingdom come well there's a bigger purpose and plan for life which we we understand that once we understand being a part of god's kingdom your will be done yeah hang on let's take our last prayer and you know four pain and loss which we've talked about that god's future but god is life there is no death i mean the future plan is that it doesn't end no matter what scenario whether the end have died, you know, children or adults. I mean, his plan is bigger. It goes beyond being trapped on the earth. You don't have what you need, verse five. Well, what's that prayer about? God provides,

you know, give us our daily, you know, and that he zeroed in on that daily. I mean, God, God, what causes hopeless to it? Well, I don't have what I need. What am I got? God, he provides. Six, which forgiveness we know, forgive us because what causes hopelessness, the guilt and shame of sin. And so seven, the wounded or the abuse that God is just, you know, God's promises that gives us help. You know, when it gets to temptation, deliver us. And then the end, you know, God is our ultimate victory, you know, through his word. And so when you read the Lord's Prayer, I mean, I did that real quick. You'll see the connection to those 10 things.

And I thought, that's what's different. It kind of hit me. I just in that moment, listen to that. And I recommend you Google that. It's basically Rick Warren, why Jesus is the anchor of our soul. That's what it is that produces hope. Right. And I just think it was a really good illustration for how those promises that God is made.

is yes in Jesus to anything and everything that could come your way in life. Excellent point. Yeah, and a good sermon. You know, it made me think about Zach when you were talking about that situation about, you know, if you don't have the anchor down. I told you all when I was in Crete, you know, when I was looking out there, I was reading Acts 27 because Paul, you know, he went right by there where I was sitting. and then he went around the other side of the island

and he told him he said, no, look, you better winter here because, you know, we're not going to make it, but they didn't listen to him. And so when the storm hits, it took 14 days. It dragged them from Greece, the little island I was on, Crete,

all the way to Italy to ride off the boot down there on the Isle of Malta. And it finally, you know, they finally had to abandon the ship. And I just thought about that. Paul gave him truth. He told him. He said, look, God, we need to stay here. We need to listen to me. And they didn't listen to him. And so 14 days later, they were dragged literally all across the agency there and wound up, you know, at Italy where they, but God spared them because of Paul.

He said, the good news is we're leaving the ship, but none of you are going to die. And they didn't, including Paul. But I thought about that picture of this idea that truth is what I am. anchorses us into salvation. But without it, that's what you get. You just get the randomness of wherever we wound up. The truth and the truth that sets you free. That's right. Well, think about that, the context of that whole,

that's funny to bring that up, because think about the context of, of there was a warning given to them, don't get off the ship. If you get off the ship, you're going to die. There's a warning, and they listen. to the warning, they stayed on the ship, the ship wrecked, but they survived. And similarly, in Hebrews, you've got a warning here. Don't get off the ship. If you get off the ship,

then you're going to die. And it was the warning that preserved them. And what's interesting about this is I was thinking about the whole concept of faith in this, that we keep running around it and talking about it. If we were to simplify two terms, faith and sin, how will we define him. I would just define them like this based on what Jason has already brought up with the verse I think it was 2nd Corinthians. Faith is believing that the promise or promises of God are yes. And sin is believing that the promises of God are no. And the danger of sin in Hebrew 6, it's not that you're going to get too many, as I think we said in the last podcast. That's not the danger. The danger is not, it's too many for God to handle. The danger of sin is that it corrupts our minds.

It corrupts our heart, and we end up, if we don't repent for that, then we end up desiring something that's not of him. So I think the warning here is it's rooted in assurance because he's pushing us into saying, look, you've got to keep anchored in who Jesus is because that's where life is at. So when you go to Abraham, the story of Abraham, and you go to Romans 4, which is this great text that Paul uses to explain the correlation between our faith and Abraham's faith, he has this interesting way he puts it in Romans 4 in the ESV version. He says that Abraham's faith grew as he gave glory to God. And I just found that fascinating. What does that mean? His faith grew as he

gave glory to God. Why did it grow as he gave glory to God? I think the reason is, is when you give glory to God, then you get to taste the goodness of God. And when I get to taste the goodness of God, then I believe God even more in his promises that they're yes. And then I give God more glory. I taste more goodness, and that's why it just keeps on moving from one degree of glory to another, I begin to receive this revelation of God of himself and get to see that he is the ultimate prize. And by the flip side of that, sin is the opposite of that. And if you just keep an unrepentant sin over and over and over again, the apostasy that was being warned against here is don't do that.

Don't leave. Don't leave the anchor. Don't leave Jesus. Don't leave him. These are the hopes at. I think a sister passage to what we just read is in Ephesians 4, you know, when he said there were church leaders that were appointed, got their gifts from God in verse 12 of chapter 4 of Ephesians, is this to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ, which is what we're referred as, may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of who, the son of God, and become mature, because I think that was just, he had just referenced, that in the earlier part of Hebrew 6 about growing up, attaining to the whole measure, and then he says this, of the fullness of Christ.

You know, what you experiencing is one thing to know him. It's another thing to experience him, and we're all doing it as the body of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves, because there's no anchor. And blown here and there by every wind of teaching, the cunning and craftiness of men, men in their deceitful scheming, which goes back to that point about that prayer, the Lord's prayer at the end. He's like, deliver us from evil. That is the victory that we, we pray to God, because we know we're going to win with Jesus as our anchor. Instead, speaking, the truth and love, we want all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ. And that's what I think

is point in Hebrews. We're growing in Jesus, in this experience on a daily basis. And looking at his life and becoming him on this earth, and then you're all of a sudden, it's a different kind of hope that the world offers. It's not a lottery ticket. It's a guarantee. That's why you have confidence. And the reason why is because, remember, the anchor,

where is the anchor? It said it was behind the curtain. Where's behind the curtain? The holiest place where Jesus is. So the anchor is in heaven now, because that's where Jesus is. So the anchor, there's no way to lose it because he's there. So ultimately, as long as we're looking to him, we're in the holiest of places that you can be.

The place where no Israelite could ever go behind the curtain, which is his point of what he's trying to show him, you know, which is our points as well. It makes you jump up and down to do a Russian tap dance. Yeah, good dance. We need to start a podcast, guys. We could talk about this. I think we could really do a podcast. I'm holding out hope. So we're out of time, but in the overtime, I had a little different take on the unchanging nature of God, which is in verses 16 through 18.

I didn't get a chance to tell you that. So I want to do that in the overtime, what I think the two unchanging things are. And it's a mystery to people. It is. It's an open for debate. Yeah, I got a little bit of a different take on that. So it's blazedtiv.com slash unashamed if you want to follow us over and check out our overtime. 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. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to BlazTV at blazestiv.com slash unashamed.