Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 552 | How God's Timing Shocks Jase, Men Who Cook & How the Apostles Would Have Used Hot Spots

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Jase can't believe God chose to reveal the message of Jesus by word of mouth, knowing that a technological boom was right around the corner! Al talks about how many more men are becoming great cooks in our culture. Phil discusses the hot spot technology that the apostles would definitely have taken advantage of if they had it. Jase is joined in the studio by Ryan Lee and Gary Witherall to talk about the incredible weight and power of forgiveness and the rarely known joy that can be found in suffering. 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? All right, welcome to Unashamed. I'm still in the eastern time zone. Jase, we got you. Looks like you're up and running good this time. We had some issues with you in the last podcast. Yeah, my vault, which is where I'll be mainly doing the podcast from when I'm up here. It's great except the, there's no Wi-Fi at the end. So we'll get some kind of hot spot situation figured out, but it's going to be a good setup. But I'm at my son's house, and I mean, look, he's doing quite well, I guess.

I mean, gee, it looks like a nice place. Yeah, he built this house. They've been living here for six weeks. And look, I'll tell you this, Phil. I was shocked. Last night, he cooked, it was filet mignon with some. chicken, wild rice, I mean, not wild rice, fried rice. It was habachi style. Just awesome. And the night before, it was some kind of thin spaghetti. It was an Italian dish with big shrimp in it.

It was tomatoes. It was something I had never eaten in my life. Red pepper had a little heat to it. but I was like, when did you learn how to cook this good? And he said, I guess I got it from the gene pool. I said, well, I appreciate you carrying the heritage there. Oh, it's been fantastic. That's my first question, said, we just got married, we're happy. And I always say to the man, can she cook? And there's all kind of little grins and people that's looking around, you know,

I just want to know if she cook or not. Because in our day, today's culture, it's kind of a, it's not of a front and center. And a lot of young marriages these days. You notice that, Jace. But there's a lot more men that are cooking now, Dad. And I look at the Robertson men. I mean, there's some pretty good cooks in our heritage. And even my son-in-law, who's not a Robertson, but, I mean, the man can cook,

especially when it comes to grilling and eats, you know. What's crazy is that when I said, well, Brighton, it must be nice to have a man that can cook like this. And then Reed said, well, she cooks better than I do. There you go. And I thought, well, life's good here. I would care that as a badge of honor. You have to eat. So, you know, people who learn how to cook, it makes life a little more enjoyable, I would think.

Well, the difference in our family and a lot of people is that my wife, coined this phrase and I really believe it to be true. She said a lot of people just eat to survive, but we survive as Robertsons to eat. Yeah. Well, I... It's a pretty good way to put it. I weigh what I'm supposed to weigh, Jace. You weigh what you're supposed to weigh. Al's got a few pounds on him. So, you know, he might cut back, tell the cook, tell the cook whoever she is. You might ought to back off a little bit on the butter. Oh, that's hard to do, but you're probably right. So, Dad, I had a question from earlier. So are you using hotspots to deal with your Wi-Fi issues?

Is that how you go about it? I've never heard those words before in my life. Hot spot. I don't get it. Well, Phil, the last time he used Hot Spot, it's when we hunted in the middle of the property. And he said, boy, this is a hot spot for the ducks. I'm computer illiterate.

So it would be safe to say that, dad, hot spots deal with his why flies not his Wi-Fi's right why these ducks flying in here is because we're in a hot spot the only thing i got going for me when i say what am i missing by not having a cell phone and they pause and they say actually nothing so i'm like well why i food with it well you'd be missing the unashamed podcast film that would be devastating One can be successful without, yeah, I'm glad everyone else has them because you wouldn't have a podcast. So I think the Apostle Paul would have used the cell phone if they had that technology in his day. I think he would have used it.

Why do you think, Al, to reach people? No doubt. I mean, let's take a break. Didn't he say an accident by every means possible? I'm not knocking them. I just said, I don't think I want to go down that road. And you're the one that told us, you told me and Zach one day on a plane, you needed to be on the internet.

That's how we're going to reach people. So you were prophetic. But what's amazing to me is that God chose that time on purpose to reveal Jesus. And it was not in the technological world. and it became the greatest told story in the history of mankind. But you know what's interesting, Jay's about that, and you're right. But when you think about the Roman road, they call it, because Roman civilization basically paved the way to other parts of Europe

and the whole what was the known world at the time, in a sense, it was that sort of advance for its time. I've always thought the reason he picked that time was because of the brutality of how they kill people. And he always wanted shown his sacrifice for sin would be some of the worst possible ways to kill a human being, which is certainly the Roman cruxia fiction. That's my theory. And all this, you see God, I mean, the biggest thing I've learned, being a follower of Jesus, is a lot of the opposite things that the world lifts up as being successful in the way. of success, God chooses to do it in the opposite way.

I mean, if you want to live, you got to die. You know, bring your cross. You know, suffering is actually encouraged because it keeps your perspective on the big picture. I mean, you just wouldn't think most things that are in the religious world. They're like, you know, come come to me and all your problems will be solved. Oh, well, I'm in on that. give money and God will give you more. I mean, we try to pick those aspects.

But when you start saying, look, if you go out in public and declare Jesus says, Lord, you're going to suffer and you need to rejoice in that. Well, most people, that's not very appealing. That's true. You're exactly right. And it's kind of the theme for our podcast today. Yesterday I heard a great sermon from the pastor here when I was in Virginia on John 12 about the worship that took place.

It was right after Lazarus was raised from the dead, Jason, in John 11, and they had a dinner party there for Jesus. And so you had, you know, Mary and Martha and Lazarus were throwing this dinner party for Jesus. And they were honoring him, worshipping him. Maybe it was a better way to put it. The word is honor for what had happened and that he had raised Lazarus from the dead. And he made the point. It only said Martha served, which was her way to worship. Lazarus sat and which was a.

he made this really funny stuff about, you know, if you've been dead, you know, just just sitting there takes a lot of effort, you know. And so he talked about how he just soaked in the presence of God. And then Mary pours out this oil. And so his word for her was Mary's sacrificed. And so I love that picture that they were all there. And of course, Judas comes in and tries to ruin the moment by saying, you know, we should have sold this oil for money for the poor, which wasn't even true because he just

wanted to take it himself. But he mentioned there was always these people against worship. But out of that moment of suffering where you saw Martha and Mary thought they lost their brother. And then, of course, Jesus brought it back to life. But then Jesus wept before he raised him from the dead. So I thought it was really interesting. And dad, I want you to tell about the sermon you heard yesterday because it was in the same kind of. But yesterday we're out ahead recording.

So you'll hear this in a couple of weeks. But yesterday was 9-11. And so I know we had a sermon back home that was pretty special. So tell about that about the testimony you heard from one of our brothers there. I think he said that was what year was that when this occurred? 73, 73, I think. I remember about when it happened. But he's talking about his sister.

I think she was about 17. And a terrorist converged on him and started throwing bombs over in the plane. He had just moved to the front because of the seating arrangement. He had just moved enough away to where he didn't take some of the explosions, you know. But his sister was killed that day. And it just shows you how precious and how short life can be. It was a moving sermon, I tell you that, on how they eventually dealt with it as a family and all.

They marched on. Yeah, speak to that, Dad, because the whole purpose of the sermon from what I understood was when things happened in culture, since we were, it was on 9-11, the idea was, you know, we were attacked on 9-11. And, of course, as a nation, we reacted and responded by going to chase down terrorists. And a couple of wars began that, you know, people can debate whether we needed it. or not, but from a kingdom perspective, how we respond to evil, was that kind of the thrust of the sermon? That's what I understood it was going to be. So what was the bottom line?

What was your takeaway for how we respond to that as kingdom people? You grieve. You grieve some, but knowing that your children of God, he has made perfect forever, those who are being made holy. her perfection didn't go away and she just closed her eyes and at a moment she'll open them and heaven is hers

so that's the way he pretty well that's what he came out with you know it's a mean world most of these guys who wrote the New Testament nearly all of them but one I think John was the only one who wasn't killed over it but they gladly took it

They just gladly took it up and kept on going. They died for the cause, but they knew they had eternal life, so they still live on. So I'm all in on it. I am too. No doubt about it. Well, I thought that was really interesting, kind of the approach on that, was the kingdom response to evil, which on a day when we recognize evil for what it was, right? Which made it powerful.

So, Dad, the one you were referencing to was one of our brothers, Randy, who's been one of our elders for quite a few years at our church. And his parents, his dad was a oil field worker. So, I mean, so he was like, you know, he followed over into all these different nations in the far and the east, you know. Yeah, that's where they lived. And so, you know, Randy and his sister were both, you know, they were, I think they were just out of high school. And so they were about to go into college or in college. So they would have to travel over for holidays to see them.

And so they had hubbed in Rome to when they were coming back, I think it was from Saudi Arabia. This is early 70s. I want to guess around 72, 73. And so you can look it up even, you know, this event that happened on the tarmac in Rome. These guys just lobbed these bombs over into this plane. And right where he was supposed to be sitting, his sister was sitting, it was an empty seat where his was. And one of these went off and it killed her. And it was just obviously such a show.

shocking moment, especially because this is kind of early in the whole terrorism thing, especially impacting Americans. So it was a very devastating thing. And of course, you know, I'm sure her mom and her mom, their mom is still alive. But I'm sure they dealt with a lot of guilt and grief over losing a daughter, you know, traveling back and forth from them. So I've heard part of the testimony before and it's very powerful moving. But their response is a family, both from their mom and dad, and also from Randy,

of the brother, has been pretty incredible because this could have soured them, made them evil, but instead it didn't. Like you said, they knew she's going to heaven. And so their deal was, is we're going to trust in God no matter what happens. His dad, when he came back with all the up evil and it lost his job. I mean, they had some tough years. in there. But he basically said at the end, but you only hope still lies in the resurrection of the dead. So you move on. Which is powerful. Look, we've got to take a break. On the other side

of the break, we've got a couple of guests that are going to join Dad there in the lair. One is our old friend Ryan Lee, who's from one kingdom. The other is Gary Witherall. And Gary has been on our podcast before. Gary has a story. Yeah, exactly. And talking about. And talk about suffering today and sort of how that's viewed in the kingdom and how we deal with that. So we come back from the break. We'll welcome in Ryan and Gary. We've got a special episode today. One of our good friends, Ryan Lee, who works with our One Kingdom ministry, which is kind of our mission arm around the world,

it's going to be along with Gary Witherall, who has an amazing story. Gary's been on the podcast before and talked about his wife being martyred. It was an incredible story. And so he's going to give us a little more not only insight into that, but also into what he's doing now in terms of his ministry. And it's quite incredible when you think about it. So a little bit shorter episode today, but some really good stuff that I think you guys are going to love. So let's hear from these guys. It's actually pretty interesting our connection, Gary.

You know, like Alan said, I was working, you know, Jason's, I know, Jace is, I know, we've talked a lot about stocks. But that used to be my world, right? I used to be deep into the financial world and through a mutual friend, Keith, we met. And when I heard your story, two things happened. One, I was like, I know Alan, who Allen's always been a globally minded man. You know, he sits on our board at one kingdom. I mean, I wasn't even at one kingdom back then. But I knew.

I was like, man, I got to get this guy in front of Allen. And then the second thing is, you had said something that, hey, if you want to be on the front line, of mission work, you need to go to Athens. And our good friend, the unashamed friend of the program, Larry Bowles, we don't meet Larry Bowles without Gary Witherall. Because he had said that, he'd said, look, if you want to be on the front lines,

you go to Athens. And that kind of led us into a relationship with Larry, too. So it's just, I love these stories, how kingdom life brings people together. You know, the blood of Jesus just unites people because we're all, if you're kingdom focused, you're going to meet some really cool people along the way. So, Gary, to you, I know we talked about, you kind of told the full story on the last podcast,

but we always get a lot of new people. So you have a book called Total Abandon, which is I highly recommend people to go and get it. It will really touch your life. But just kind of briefly, because we want to talk something about suffering. I know you're doing a lot of work in that right now. Tell briefly our audience remind them of what happened to your first wife, Bonnie, and what you guys were doing when it happened. Yeah, just earlier, you've mentioned September 11th. And so I was living in Lebanon and you have Beirut in the middle.

And in the south you have Tyre and Seiden. Historically, these are Christian cities. It has many refugees, complex, multiple cultures and people groups, really, all kind of living together, different faiths. And in any case, I... So I was working there with local church, and Bonnie was working as a prenatal nurse. And there was a refugee camp, more than 200,000 people in this camp. And at that time, there was no medical care for pregnant women. If you could imagine that, it's just unbelievable, right?

And so the church we were working at actually had a full prenatal care right up to the first year of a child. And so she was working in that clinic. And yeah, I was there during September 11th. It was a very intense time in Middle East, which is amazing now, but it was 20 years ago. Yeah, it's just how to time moves. So actually, emotionally, it doesn't, you know, I'm still there. But in 2002, a gunman came into the clinic where she was working.

early in the morning, still before eight in the morning. And she was preparing, as she did every day, food and coffee and all the things. I think they typically had like 30 women a day come in. And yeah, so she was preparing a gunman came in and then pointed a gun to her forehead and put three bullets in her face and executed her. And yeah, I've been to Bible college. I've been involved in a lot of ministry, doing all kinds of things all around the world. But, you know, and there is, I can say my life is divided. There is this pre-suffering experience, you know, and there is this post experience where they will never meet.

You'll never meet the Gary who lived before that, because now I walk with a limp, if you you're like, you know, like Jacob. And I had this limp of being forced to live by faith, you know. And but what I can say is that God really called me to forgiveness. And I had a journey in discovering forgiveness. And I've lived in the peace of that forgiveness every day of my life. And, you know, as you guys, you know, all have wives. You know what I'm talking about.

If your wife was to be threatened in any way, you go crazy, but to receive three bullets and be executed. I mean, it's something supernatural that God has given me. And I ferociously defend the gospel because Christ has sustained my life. And I walk closely in that ruin that regard. So, yeah, that's kind of part of my story. And I'm walking through being out. to meet a lot of people. I don't just live in this circle, but I think the average person really suffers. Depression, discouragement, loneliness, lack of friendship, lack of meaning their life,

not discovering their career in life. And so the idea of the gospel meets people in their brokenness. So let's take a break. Well, he just explained when Jesus said, you've heard it said, love your neighbors and hate your enemies. He said, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. What you just said there brings that to life. Gary, you talked about the supernatural nature. I think it was the first time you told me your story, or I may have read it in the book too, but you mentioned a vision that you got in the moment of that

initial shock, where any of us would be, as you're looking at the corpse of your wife, and you see the blood that has come out of her body. And as the blood mixed in with this grout, I think was the way you described it in the tile floor, you had this vision of the blood of Jesus dripping from the cross into the dust below it. And in that moment, even, you almost had an initial pre-strike of what you had the capacity to do. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that's kind of led you to where you are now? Yeah, it's a very holy thing to talk about even. I feel like that. And just to say, Al, you know,

I've used it in a message where Mary breaks the perfume before Christ. And the disciples are astonished as that priceless material seeps into the soil. You know, they are just agitated at how can something so costly be wasted, supposedly, right? And in the same way, the blood of Christ coming off the cross going into the soil and the sense of the pricelessness of the blood of Christ, you know, being pouring into the soil and supposedly being wasted, I was traumatized by looking at my wife's blood. And then I, you know, I was on the ground. I mean, I was broken, I was weeping and I was expecting a gunman to take my life too. You know, I was thinking, this is my end.

But in that moment, the Lord really gave me, I don't know, a vision, a picture of looking through his eyes on the cross and seeing everybody mock him and looking at myself mocking Jesus. And, you know, there's blood and tears coming off his eyes. And then I hear the words. I'm there in this experience. Father forgive him. Father forgive him. And this is going on while there's blood all over the floor.

I mean, you can't imagine it's an intense moment, you know. But in that moment, it was the first time of my life, even though I grew up in the church and I've been in ministry as if I never understood the cross. I never understood where Paul said, I want to know you in your suffering. I want to know you in your death. and participate in your resurrection. It's right there. It's in this moment to realize that I am,

while we were yet sin as Christ die for us, we are completely free and being forgiven by this incredible act of the cross in complete forgiveness. And in there, it was like a convulsed. I said, wow, Lord, because I had a videotape of me being forgiven. Because you have forgiven me,

today I forgive the gunman. and thinking I'm going to die. I didn't even know I would ever share this 20 years later. I was thinking, it's my life's over. But just in that moment, I had a complete, I don't know, profound experience of seeing and being with the suffering of Christ on the cross. And that's why I say, I genuinely know the Christ is real. I know this is not a waste of time.

This is better, I was saying to some guys outside, this is better than Apple iPhone 14 that's about to be released. This is better than Tesla. It's better than, you know, selling stocks. You know, it's better because it is the supreme truth that you can be set free. You can find peace. You can be completely forgiven. And I think that people are very casual with the gospel, with the Bible, very casual because we live in such a free society that you can take it or leave it. But in desperate times and in desperate places, people, I've had, I've given a Bible to people and they start weeping because they never had a Bible.

And they kissed it. Thank you. Thank you. And so I think that But when the Lord allows suffering in our lives to happen When we move into a time of suffering People become desperate and they turn to all kinds of things From drugs, sex, money, whatever it is, power But actually the only thing that will set you free In suffering is Jesus

And I believe that So as ambassadors of this message we have supreme truth that can actually speak into anybody's life, whether you're a billionaire or you are a slave or you are a refugee or you're in prison or you have been violated against in some way or another that you can be completely set free by the blood of Christ. And, you know, when you think about it, it really was laid out clearly for us what you're describing. we just got finished studying Hebrews and Hebrews 210 and following and also Hebrews 5.8. The Hebrew writer made it very clear. Jesus had to suffer. It wasn't he had to suffer to know what he was doing for us.

I mean, that's the word he used. And then I've said before, Acts 916, when Jesus was resurrected, Jesus was talking to Saul about Saul on that road to the master. because we was talking to Anonis, he said, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. And then even Peter, remember at the end of John 21, whenever he's, you know, back and forth with Jesus, you know, he says, he lays out how he's going to suffer. And Peter says, what about him? He said, you don't need to worry about him. I'm talking about John. And so it was like, you know, here's Jesus and the probably, I guess, the most recognized top two leaders in the early church.

and all three said, we were going to have to suffer to be able to relay the message. And in regards to Jesus' suffering, you know, without the shedding of the blood, there's no forgiveness. There is no gospel. By one sacrifice, Jesus, by one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. your woman, your sister was perfect in the eyes of God. He has one sacrifice, he has made perfect. Yeah, and I am, I really am a person, I have peace. And I just wanted to share one verse if I can and just hear you guys' thoughts on this.

But in Colossians, and I know you guys are going to look at Colossians in the future. In verse 20, it says, And he, through him, to reconcile himself to all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. And so this idea, and this is really fascinating me these days, is that by, when the blood began to pour, we have the blood of the peace, the prince of peace, the prince of peace shed his. blood. And when we participate in his body, we have peace, we become peacemakers. We become men of peace. Okay, I was in Lebanon. I met a guy. He was a warrior. He was a militant guy in the civil war. And they called him the wolf. Can you imagine that your buddies call you the wolf? I mean, you're already bad. But to be called the wolf, right?

is pretty hardcore. And in a vision, he saw a cross, he came to Christ, became a really true believer, and he was starting to do Bible studies in his house. His brother came over with a bunch of guys to come beat him up and tell him to get back on the road, you know? And his brother picked up a two by four, slapped him across the head. And I saw the scar on his head. And he started to bleed.

and he said, I forgive you. And the brother said this, look at what the Christians have done. They took the heart of a wolf out and put a heart of a sheep in. Can you imagine? It's like even those people that see you will say,

your heart has been changed. Your heart's been changed. You were a wolf, but you're a wolf no more. You're a sheep. And we are a sheep. You know, we have a true shepherd. And I, so I like this.

idea of God transforms men, even the most evil, you know. So there's always hope. Let's take a break. Well, you know, one of the things we think about suffering, there's so many verses that talk about rejoicing in the suffering. And as you tell that story about Bonnie, you know, the only way that you could come to that immediate forgiveness is a supernatural power. You know, it's what we talked about in this kingdom life series of if you're really a kingdom man, if you're really a kingdom woman, you are indwelt with the almighty God within you, you cannot do that. Our human instinct is to not only reject suffering, but avoid it at all costs. And yet here, as a kingdom man, we're called to actually participate in Christ's suffering.

It's almost like when we think the word participation. It's usually an honor, right? I want you to participate. Even us sitting here, it's an honor to participate in this podcast with you guys. that's the same way. Like it's an honor to participate in Christ's suffering. It's something that we should be rejoicing for. You know, even this, you're in Colossians 1,

jump down to verse 24 and Paul says, Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you. The idea that in suffering, not be happy about it, but to be joyful that God would think that much of us, that through that suffering, he would grow us, he would mature us,

He would shape us and mold us because the thing about this ministry that you've been a part of for 20 years now. When you said 2002, it's just, I've known you for a while now. It's 20 years. And you thought in that moment that your life was actually, you know, maybe you're next. And yet God has said, no, no, no, through this suffering, my name is going to be made great. And for 20 years, you've been able to tell his story and tell a story of forgiveness, of grace, but also of rejoicing and suffering. It's pretty remarkable. Good point. Yeah, I think, uh, well, what I thought throughout all this is when you said, you know, suffering comes in different forms. I mean, you know, we had Mia,

who has special needs and her life has pretty much been revolved around suffering because she's had numerous surgeries. About the time she heals up from the last one, she has another one. And it was just such a painful journey because you felt completely helpless. And when you brought that Colossians chapter one up in verse 20, I thought about Romans 5 because we went through that process about trying to find some joy in the suffering, which, look, it took years. Because in the first few months, when we knew this was going to happen, I did not respond. I was angry. I was mad because I thought, I mean, we're out. We're sharing Jesus.

There's no standing in the camp here as far as something major. I mean, why is this happening? But, you know, after a few months, I think it was Missy who read this verse. And she's like, you know, God has done some powerful things through suffering. And this has come to us instead of us saying, why, we're going to say why not. But I wanted to read it just because it says, you know, that in our sufferings, we rejoice in verse 2, Romans 5, in the hope of the glory of God. not only so we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance perseverance

character and character hope and hope doesn't disappoint us because god has poured out his love into our hearts by the holy spirit whom he has given us and then just like coloshans what you read he then goes to the ultimate example of suffering he says you see it just the right time when we were powerless christ died for the ungodly very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man though for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. And it hit me when you were sharing your story,

and we were talking about Randy and what happened to his sister. Most people who see a headline that comes by that says, you know, a Christian is martyred in whatever country, or there three Americans died on a plane in 1973. Well, since it wasn't directly related to us or we didn't know them, we just kind of cast it off. But what about those people that experienced it? I mean, here you are on your hands and knees.

And I kind of felt the same way with my daughter. I was just like, I didn't realize that one out of 800 kids have this condition in some capacity. And so I said all that to say, you know, it's been difficult. And our daughter handled it way better than we did. But now I see her running her own charity for kids with special needs, with her own condition. She's the CEO of it and has done a way more spectacular job of running it than we have because we just don't have that relatability to those kids.

And it just, it brings me a lot of joy now. And I can, I can finally say, okay, we learn to rejoice in all those sufferings, you know. Well, you know, what's interesting, Jace, when you were describing that, you know, your story of what you just shared with Mia, and also what Gary shared his story with Bonnie, we were both suffering that came about not by anything you had done,

but something that happened outside of your control. As we're having this conversation, I thought about dad and I, who lived a period of our lives away from Christ and brought suffering into our lives because of ourselves, our own bad decisions. But both of us have even learned from that,

that we now can be blessed, even through that suffering, that we caused ourselves because of the same blood of Jesus. And therefore, it has motivated us to try to tell as many people as possible not to live that life. So whether you make the call that causes suffering or someone you care about or it was made totally outside of your control, the blood of Jesus covers all. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That's what Gary made me realize that in all these specific sufferings that we have, it's relatable to us and a few people around us. But what Jesus did is took all suffering, whether it was just based on living in an evil world or somebody else's sin or our own sin.

And he took all that and died for us as an innocent sacrifice and suffered and that blood was spilled. So no matter what your situation is, even if it doesn't seem as drastic of a suffering, then someone else's, here's Jesus meeting you on that road, you know, to give you. you some joy. And it's not a hope that when we read in Romans 5 that we're like, you know, buying a lottery ticket. This is a hope that we can be sure of that not only is he going to give us purpose here, but we're going to live forever. We're going to be resurrected. I love that verse Chase in Romans 5. I go to it often because I like verses with like formulas, you know, just my human nature. I like that it, you know, says, yeah, suffering produces hope. James 1, 2 is another one of my favorites, you know, consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds,

because you know the testing of your faith that veloves perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not liking anything. And for me, sometimes because I'm just, I'm kind of a knucklehead, so I have to break it down. Sometimes I'll read that verse backwards. In order for me to be mature and complete, not liking anything, which, by the way, will never happen until Jesus comes home. But if I'm going to head in that direction, well, working backwards, I'm going to have to persevere.

Well, how am I going to persevere? Well, I'm going to have to have my faith tested. Well, how do I get my faith tested? I got to go through trials. So because I go through trials that will eventually mature me, I consider it pure joy. I rejoice. So same thing in Romans 5. If I'm looking at it, how am I going to find hope?

Well, I've got to have character. I've got to have perseverance, which going all the way back to the beginning of that verse, I have to rejoice in my suffering. And so I love verses like that because they kind of dumb it down for me. hey, if you're going to be mature and complete, if you're going to find hope in this world, you have to embrace your suffering. I love the way you put that, Gary.

You walk with a limp. I hadn't heard it quite like that. But post 2002, you've been walking with a limp. It's almost like we all have that thorn so that we can know Christ in his sufferings. That's really powerful. Look, we're out of time for the podcast, but we do have some overtime.

So Gary and Ryan, we want you guys to hang around. A couple of other things I didn't get to bring up that I'd like to bring up to you, Gary, and ask what you think about it. So if you want to follow us over to our overtime segment, it's blazedtv.com slash unashamed to talk about a little bit more about suffering and kind of what Gary is working on in that arena now. So check it out. 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, 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 blazed TV at blazestivet.com slash unashamed.