Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 622 | Jase Chokes Up About His Foster Child & Phil’s Vision Almost Came True

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

Phil and Jase have been arguing for years about a vision that Phil had that nearly came true! Jase gets so tickled telling a recent hunting story that he nearly cries. The guys reminisce about the extreme hunting difficulties they faced when they were kids. Jase and Zach explore the differences between innocence and repentance. Jase gets emotional thinking of his grandchildren and foster child when reading verses about angels. Plus, what’s the perfect setting for discipleship? One where they can’t get away!  In this episode: 1 Peter 1, verse 13 - 1 Peter 2, verse 3 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So, it's the last, is it the last week of duck season? The last week? We're going into the last week of the last week of season. I'm going to miss the last week of duck season. If you got to film. I'm filming.

We're actually doing podcast tomorrow, so I'll get to go hunting a couple of hours before that. That'll be my last day. It's kind of sad. We're actually about 200 more. this year than last year. The numbers are up. Filling those numbers. He's looking so.

Last year was one of the worst seasons that we've ever had, though. Yep. So it's not that this year's been that great. We've been markedly better this year. I've got a camera guy coming in this week. Do y'all know that? To get some footage of ducks flying and ducks falling. Well, I hate I'm going to miss it.

The ducks falling, maybe. I will give this for all our longtime listeners and people that have followed us back when we were doing the duck men videos and trying to capture the elusive duck on camera. It's very hard to do. I've seen some of the best cameramen in the world who came down and thought they were, just because they were good cameraman, they thought they were going to be able to film ducks.

Didn't happen. They were humbled. Ducks are real unpredictable. And the problem I have with them is that when you're trying to convince ducks that are from Canada that these painted pieces of plastic, called decoys are real. It's very difficult to do that. What's the guy that got up high in the trees and went to work back in Arkansas

and he was ran there for about a decade? I'm going to Lyle? Lyle. How can you forget Lahl's name? Lyle. Because they're getting old. Lyle, you talked about people who were good at it. I think overall Lyle got the best footage.

He was fantastic. He was the best one. I should that's what I should have done is got loud to come in because I got because you're making me nervous chase because I'm I'm flying a guy in from LA this is for the movie it's because there's the scenes in the duck line where when the movie looks great except for the ducks it oh you don't have good footage well he's going to be humble he's going to be humble we'll say what happens here's what you do I'll give you some advice we didn't have plans to do this but if you want to film ducks I'm going to give you the key to filming ducks

The key to filming ducks by Jace Roberts. 30 years of being in the industry of filming ducks, if you're a camera operator here is the key. Not top 10, there's one thing. One thing. You go from the hunter to the ducks. They will always lead you to the ducks. Because if you're trying to follow the ducks on the camera,

they're never experienced enough unless they were a duck hunter, which Lyle was. but Lyle said when in doubt he always looked at the hunters and wherever their eyes went that it just took him by the way you just you just touched on the key if you were ever hunting in the blind with the duck men so because I never wanted to flare ducks I never looked at the ducks I looked at the ends of the blind the guys who were calling the ducks to know when things were going to be happening so I never looked here I looked here So I knew exactly what was happening by watching Jays or watching Dad because y'all were watching them. So the two guys on the end.

I only bring Lyle Sinky up because... He's probably one of the best we ever had. I sit down in my chair on a Wednesday night, and I think one of y'all had given a lesson. I had spoken. I remember this like it was yesterday. I spoke out of John 15. We were going through John on Wednesday night class. I did a...

But here's this cameraman. and kind of a lot of fix-it types. He was there. But anyway, afterwards, we drove back to my house. I sat down to my chair, and he walks by me in front of me in my living room, and he lies down on the floor. He collapsed. So I got the TV on there, and I'm looking down at Lyle,

and he got his heads like this, and he's just lying there. So I turned the TV down. And I said, I said, Sinky. Which is nice of you to do that. He's lying on my floor. I said, something is up here. I said, what about it? Well, he went through his drug use among others, sins.

And he says, I'm not getting anywhere. He gave his life story. And it wasn't good. This is pitiful. And he gave me his life story. And I'm sitting there to listen to him. I said, well, you want to come to Jesus and get it over with, be forgiven, guaranteed you and be raised from the dead.

He said, that's what I want. He was like, and he asked a few questions. But I spent about an hour with him. He never looked up. He just had his head down on the floor and had his on his arm like that. He was talking. He came out of that. So he did become a child of God.

Yep. Through it all. He did. No, he did. He's, he was, he's an interesting fellow. And his, his conversion was a complete transformation. Yep. It was awesome, got his family back together.

Like Jason and I, he went through a biblical training. Although like us, well, like you, I guess I did. This is after. After, he never really, like, did official, like, work for a church much, but he had the, you know, he did that Bible base, kind of like we did. Oh, yeah, you need it. The sermon I actually preach, it's so weird that I remember that. the things I can't remember. I do remember that because he worked for us for years before this happened. Yeah. And we knew he had some problems. But, and the field's credit wasn't anybody else. He was just

patient with him. And, you know, you can imagine all the gospel presentations he heard. And, you know, he just had to work through it all. But the actual sermon, because I remember it, was a, it was the quote that Jesus made, John 15, 25, where it says, they hated me without reason. And the previous verses, you know, says if you belong to the world, this is in verse 19, it would love you as its own, as it is, you do not belong to the world, but I've chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. And so that was kind of the gist of it, which is, it's clear.

You're either in the world. He knew we loved it. You're either in the world. world, and that's what you're all about, or you're in Jesus, and the world hates you and doesn't understand you. And I think somewhere in his life, you'd heard Jesus many times, many duck blind situations, and he had actually come to church with us quite a few times, but for some reason, I guess the line was drawn in that sermon, because really that's what it is. It is a depiction on, are you worldly or are you in Jesus? There's no middle ground. You're not on the fence.

You're not checking it out. Jesus is not a compartment. You're either all in or you're all out. That was basically the gist. And somewhere in there, it just hit him. He's like, you know what? What am I doing here? And it was very moving for all of us to see him change.

So I've got a duck hunting question because I haven't hunted this year. But at the beginning of the year, we talked about a new hole, the ring of fire. which was a vision of a prairie hole that dad had seen up in the river bottoms. All let me just interject before you go on. Now, we ended the last podcast with an argument, and you're fixing a head down another argument. Oh, excellent. I love when I swerve into a good argument. Non-biblical argument.

Yeah, we went 18 minutes in the overtime, which is we're scheduled for 15, but Jay's is so argumentative that he took us like literally an extra three or four minutes. Well, those of you haven't crossed over to overtime. If you want to catch a great argument, you might want to see it out. We made the hole. We never hunted it. We decided to hunt it. It was a lot of wood ducks in there, but we said, well, maybe a few big ducks too.

So we had a little thing I call the ring of fire inside the hole. It's about 30 acres of just left the big trees. And the grass grew up after we cleared it up, had a logger do it for me. I gave him blow down. from a hurricane. He had enough wood where he didn't have to pay for it. Fells explaining this.

Everything got happy. So we tried it and four of us went. We did kill full limits of woodies. You were past shooting them. The argument was... We hadn't been back since. When they made the hole, my thought was,

and I can't keep my mouth shut. So they cleared out this, this, whatever it is, 10-acre spot. 30 acres. 30-acre spot. And in the middle, they had a ring of trees.

Right. They had a hole in the middle of the ring. So you basically had, think a donut with an island of trees. And then another meaning donut with a hole. And I was like, I was shocked when I pulled up the first time because when they put the blind in, I thought they were going to put the blind facing toward the donut. Not inside the hole. I thought, but they had it faced inside the ring of fire.

You see what I mean? I thought the ring of fire was the hole, the opening. The big, so you just move your blind around the island facing outward. But when it was faced inward, I thought, I don't like this. Yeah, what we found was the blind inside the ring of fire, we did get about four or five out of several hundred. had the opportunity to come in there. About four or five came down in the ring of fire and we shot them.

But they lit on the outside, which is what I was. I'm not trying to say I was right. Our ducks came from wood ducks flying over our head going anywhere but there. So they just come over low, which you. I mean, to be fair. I hadn't tried it yet, but I'm going to try it and just see what that to do. To be fair, I didn't mind feel trying it. I mean, I thought he may be right, but I feel like that's asking a lot for him to get down inside this.

So the reason I brought it up, not knowing any of this debate that went on about where to put blind, was two things. One is because I loved the last episode. By the way, those of you that are subscribed to Blaze TV, you get in the woods with Phil, which is dad's show that was on before we started doing the podcast. in the last episode of In the Woods with Phil, we filmed it in that spot, Dad. That was our last episode. Oh, is that right? That was right.

And we talked about this vision you had for this hole. But I liked it because it took me back. And, Jace, you can remember it too. And Jace was very young of where we hunted when we were super young. When we moved down here, we made a transition. But for the first couple of years, we went back up there. And so I thought about it, the journey that people take for something that's beautiful. So we would get up here at about 2.30 in the morning, and we would get in your truck or a car and drive all the way back up, almost a two-hour drive north.

Then we would get in jeeps and Broncos and all this and go another, I don't know how long, 30, 45 minutes through mud and all that. Then get in boats and go out to this big cypress tree and then we would hunt. Of course, you had to get there, you know, before daylight, decoys and all that. So it was this beautiful place that we hunted. and I still remember all that, and you kind of tried to transport some of that idea here. That's right. Which I thought was a beautiful thing in the idea of it.

It was just why I like it. It was a perfect idea because the hurricane ravaged the woods that we had just bought. So we were all disappointed because it was so beautiful before. But then we took a dozer, got some loggers down there, cleaned it up, then made this meadow of grass amongst these big trees and this little island of trees. Oh, that's a picture. Oh, it's, you know, it's a form of, and symbolically, you know, what happens to us, you know, when we have this encounter with the Lord. Which is what I thought, Jay.

It was like a journey. The idea of a journey. A hurricane, the mess. How can this be fixed? And all of a sudden, you know, a bulldozer and a death, a burial and a resurrection. And you look up and it's something spectacular. Which was kind of the idea when Zach and I first started this idea, we produced as a judge. show in the woods would feel. It was how do you how does the guy who's in the woods impact the

world with the good news of Jesus? And that was kind of the pathway through which the show is. And it's a beautiful journey that takes place. And it was just kind of a great metaphor. So that's how we began and ended that series, which ultimately led us to this podcast, which is kind of cool. So I don't know how I got into this bigger picture. And the movie. I mean, this movie is titled The Blind, you know, so it's kind of interesting that the whole thing. It's kind of a story told through, you know, a duck hunting trip. And you just think about like how much of that is part of Phil's life.

But I mean, how much discipleship, I'm just thinking how much discipleship has gone down on your property. I mean, it wasn't even, it wasn't a planned thing. There wasn't a program that you developed or anything like that. It was just guys would come in.

And it's kind of what this podcast really is. It's like, you know, there's guys that will come in and sit for three, four, five years, and then they'll move on and go do something else. But, you know, I mean, that's what it was. And I remember when Jeff and I came out of the life we were living in, that was our respite for a season, you know, for a couple of years,

which is, that's what we did. And, you know, for me, that was, that was some of those transformative years of my life. And it wasn't intentional, but it wasn't like, it wasn't a system. It was just being around people. Well, you guys mentioned earlier about you said follow the best cameraman follows the shooter. Or if he said, look at the hunter. And you know what I thought of. Yeah, the hunter takes you to the ducks.

I thought of that verse to fix your eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfect of our faith. If you get, if you try to look at the whole outcome and you're like, I got to figure out how to do it all or even the Bible itself. Like we were talking about that in last episode, let me read the Bible as kind of my blueprint. Well, then, man, you pick this thing up right here. I mean, look how thick that is. I mean, that's intimidating. And if you don't know it, it's very intimidating. But if you just say, just look at the hunter and he'll point you where to go.

Look at Jesus. Get around God's people. And just incubate in that. Just get around God's people. Get around Jesus. And it's amazing what can happen, even in the woods, in a duck blind in the middle of nowhere in Louisiana. I finished my point about that because I think Lyle was instrumental. I had never seen it before.

A lot of times he would have that camera facing the cameraman when he didn't know where the ducks were. But when we all got up to shoot, he just went with us and then turned the camera. But it gave a unique perspective because most of the hunting shows, they try to follow the ducks, which is very hard to do. The ducks come in, they shoot. Well, you don't have the hunters interacting with it. So what they do is they call them cutaways.

Well, they fake it. Then they say, we all get up and act like you're going to shoot. But what Lyle did by, I think, just being brilliant at being a cameraman, he just had it all in one motion. And, of course, now they all do that. But back in the day, he was the first guy I've seen do that. But that's why he got, I'd say, over 90% of the ducks. because when in doubt he just went to the hunters.

Because if anything's going to happen in that two or three second period that they're going up, well, you wind up there right where the ducks are. Which is, was part of our early success was because our camera work was so much better than most of the competition on getting duck footage, you know, which is funny now. The other day we went through the tour where we were talking about they have a tour at Duck Commander headquarters and you go through there, you see some of our old footage. I was looking at the other day.

I thought, man, that's pretty good stuff. I mean, we were, oh, it's good, clean fun. You're in God's creation, which is ultimately, you know, how I even got interested in following Jesus, just because everybody has different, you know, veins that they go down. But just the outdoors to me has always been a place where I just see the power of God. Because when you're looking at all the details from whatever you're doing

as far as hunting and trapping and walking and looking and seeing life and all these various different forms, you know, from mayflies to berries to, it just becomes too overwhelming not to acknowledge that there's some kind of intelligent design behind this, you know? And then you're like, oh, he wrote a book. Oh, let me check that out. So, I mean, I think it's that. But it's also just, you know, Zach, you mentioned about having discipleship. It's the perfect setting for people to hear Jesus because they're trapped, really.

I mean, they get in a boat. they go out there, you're surrounded by water, you can't leave. Where are you going to go? Yeah, well, you're just, you're stuck here. But you're looking at God's creation. It's something fun. There's usually an occurrence that happens ever two or three days. I mean, just yesterday, it was only me, Phil, and the nurse practitioner, Chad.

And so the water's, old burrow was there. Well, yeah, so this is day four yesterday. When it was me, you and Chad went to the private hole. Yeah. And so the water's so deep now. of the blinds we hunt, you have to go by an argo because we don't have a boat there. And so Phil and Chad can be comfortable. I ride in the argo by myself most of the way on dry land.

They ride a nice comfortable rig, because argo has no windshield. It's just you're out, bugs flying in your face, whatever. So when we get to the hole, we consolidate and everybody gets in the argoat. And we got all our stuff. I mean, it's literally too much stuff and too many men to get out there, but this is what we're doing. And so we're talking about, do we have all the stuff? And there was something, Phil, do you want your seat? You know, there was a conversation. Now, we're good. We're good. Okay. You sure you don't want your seat? Yeah. Well, I take off. So I'm going. I must have went,

I don't know how far, a few hundred yards. And I come up on right when we're entering the lake, a big, deep hole. So I slowed down because I didn't want to just hit it hard. Well, when I slow down, I just hear a voice and hold up. And I realized that when we were discussing if we had all our stuff, Chad had bounced out of the argo to get Phil's seat.

But I took off and I couldn't he was like, oh wait, wait, but I couldn't hear him because the motor, you know. So now he's just running He's just running behind us wide off. Trying to keep up. He said, I knew when you hit that hole I was going to have

one and he's kind of a big guy. And he was huffing and puffing. And I'm telling you, we got so tickled. Because I thought, where else in the world can you have this happen, you know, an accident? And it'd be this funny. He didn't holler out loud. So he was just running. Well, I said, why didn't you holler louder louder?

And he said, I was out of breath after the first 20 steps. Because he had his way. And I thought, if you could have filmed that, here we are on a dark road. Well, the last time we heard his name. it wasn't he and burly pulling the boat with it you and zachary and with the shanes pulling y'all out you talk about a bad kill 15 ducks and one one gister one nurse practitioner well i tell you what i was just going to say it's you have those experiences that are just

good clean fun you know i mean it was i mean it was bad for him because he was like well i got to get in shape he's talking about it all morning he's like well i am i was like for a nurse practitioner. I mean, you need to get in better shape. I mean, I ain't never seen a man huffing and puffing someone. Oh, you run through after a four-wheeler down through the woods. You're huff and puff. Well, it's just mud, you know what I mean, and ruts. And I mean, it was horrible. Well, the beauty of it is that it is because when Jesus first taught Peter, it was the exact style he used because he got him in a boat where he couldn't get out. Remember Peter's clean his nets? He said, hey, Peter, let me get in your boat here.

Push out here. Let me preach to these people. So really, Jesus used the same style on Peter. So we're in First Peter is where we are. And we're kind of hitting a new text today in chapter 1, verse 13. But before we do, I want to hit the last part of this text because we just barely touched on it. Because it's kind of intriguing. We read 10 through 12 in the last podcast, which is kind of that idea about the gospel being present all the way across time, the prophets.

And how that, you know, the whole time the gospel was what was there. The Holy Spirit had been working. And I thought about, Jason, you know, John 1-1 talks about in the beginning was the Word, the Word's with God, the Word was God. The Word became flesh. And then you've talked about that before in Genesis 1, where you saw the Spirit of God hovering over the waters and God said. And there was that word. You know, Jesus was there from the very beginning. But I thought this is an intriguing little statement.

He threw in there that last statement where we, get to 13, he said, even angels longed to look into these things, which was pretty incredible because what he said was this salvation has been spread across human history where people knew things, and they didn't always know what the prophecy meant. They knew in their time it meant something, and then it meant something in the future. But he kind of gives you the idea that the heavenly realms didn't really know what all this meant. In other words, they saw it unfolded from their perch, but they didn't know what any of it meant. And it made me think about, I wanted to read this, Ephesians 310, the way Paul put this, he said his intent was that now,

in the present age, when Paul wrote this, through the church, so the establishment of the church, same time Peter's writing, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known. And that word, Parakepto, the Greek phrase therefore be made known, means to stoop over and look, so that God should make known to those who are stooping over and looking to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to the eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus, our Lord. But I just like that picture that in the heavenly realms, they're like stooping over to look at what's going on in our realm to figure out what in the world God is doing. I mean, when you think about that visual, that these are beings that I'm assuming are created to not die.

I mean, we don't read about them dying. So I'm assuming they're created to survive, you know. I've said this before. I believe it's because this is the greatest love story ever in the history of the world. Right. And, you know, you get the idea from seeing verses, you know, remember where the story Jesus told about not understanding the resurrection, with people trying to put what happens on this earth in the resurrection context about how many times you've been married and who's going to be your husband in heaven. And he basically said, we'll be like the angels where, you know, people won't be given in marriage.

But before that, he's like, well, you're ignorant of the scriptures and the power of God, which, so even that, they're limited. I mean, the angels are not God. Right. But they're interested in somehow these earthly beings becoming heavenly beings. I mean, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened in their existence. The concept of redemption, forgiveness. I mean, they don't know that. So they're just like, what is this?

You remember the last word was Malachi. Well, there was 400 years of waiting. Right. And these angelic type prophets and all, trying to find out the time and circumstance of which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. I mean, it was over their head.

They just couldn't grasp it. Think about it. The Savior, the world's coming, you know, and promise to go all the way back to Genesis, five, six thousand years. All of a sudden, they said, what the world are we even we're writing stuff down that we don't know what and they're there back and forth interaction let's take another break and i have commented before that you know at every phase

when jesus came here at his birth uh in the garden before his death at the tomb whenever he was resurrected when he ascended and every phase and then he says when he comes back every phase of there were angels present that's right at even phase of the gospel story. So it was kind of interesting that interaction. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves. Yeah. They were, they were not, they were revealed to them.

They were not serving themselves, but you when they spoke of the things that have been told you by those who preach the gospel to you. Everybody, that's that Jesus famous line. Jesus is coming. Five, six thousand years later, they're all. running around and say, well, what's figuring of 400 years, we ain't heard a word from God, all of a sudden they said, look for Elijah, you know, that's John the Baptist, you know, Malachi, that's what he mentions that. But they say, well, maybe it's time, but it was revealed to them

is to someone else, those who have had the gospel preach to them. So here comes the gospel. So I'm glad Peter put that in there. That's very interesting. Yeah, it is. I got that from Jim McGregan, by the way. the Old Testament Jesus is coming Matthew through John Jesus is here and Acts of Revelation Jesus coming back but it simplifies it to people that that to Zach's point earlier

that feels overwhelmed by the Bible it's like I'm going to introduce a person to you who is the image of God and let's just start here well that's really easy for people to wrap their head around I want to bring something up I've spent a lot of time since I'm around little ones now you know two grandkids now under two and the little one you know that we've been a part

of from a fostering situation you know the first year of his life i want to bring this out i've been spent a lot of time matthew 18 and i do because of that and also because of this illustration about the new birth that we're going to as we continue to read first peter it's going to keep coming up and uh so i want to bring this up you know matthew 1810 where people get the idea about having guardian angels for kids you know the there's no doubt out that in Matthew 18, when they asked a question in verse one, they said, his disciples came and said, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? I mean, I think it's a legitimate question. The disciples, you know, obviously were shocked in Jesus' answer because Jesus took a little child and had him

stand among them. And look, when we teach this passage, we always go to the illustration that Jesus had, which is, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So we always use it about repentance, which rightfully so. I'm not arguing that. But I just wanted to make the point that there's a lot in here about little ones and being innocent and Jesus welcoming them. And then it says, He who welcomes a little child, this is verse 5, like this, and my name

welcomes me. Well, look, for me to take in a kid from just the world that we really viewed as God sending from heaven, this verse means a lot to me. You see my point. It's like, I'm in this battle, you know, of wanting to pour love and, you know, and trying to get this family reconciled. Well, this, that means a lot to me. And then when it goes on to say, you know, if anyone causes him to stumble, it'd be better for him. having to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around his neck. So I'm like, I'm protecting this child.

I mean, I'm taking this serious because I'm realizing how much is on the line. But the reason I'm bringing this up, because when you get to first 10, it says, see that you do not look down on one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my father in heaven. Now, look, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I know that there's some kind of, kind of representation there. And I also know that, from reading our text in First Peter, that the idea of earthly beings becoming heavenly and eternal is of great interest to them.

And so I was only going to make that point here. I just want to make one other point, though. I had never realized until I had this little one, the responsibility of taking care of him, that in verse 12, it goes on to say, for what? do you think if a man owns a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go look for the one that wandered off so we always put that in the context of luke 15 of someone who loses their way but in this case if you keep reading i think you'll find something interesting it says and if he finds it i tell you the truth he is happier about the one sheep

uh than about the 99 that did not wander off it it's a different it's a different it's a different feel to this when he used this illustration in the same way your father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost boy in our culture the slaughter of well that's where i was going with this look when i read this look i read this in sunday morning and assembly uh and i should have been paying attention to the sermon or whatever but i got sidetracked about something else and all of a sudden i was overwhelmed i actually got tears in my eyes because it hit me how powerful a moment this was and I thought you know why have I never seen this before as in this act of this little child of stepping in the gap God using you so he wouldn't wander off not that

he sinned or did anything wrong he just little sheep wander off and we we go get them and so when I thought we go get them God arranges circumstances and and rises up raises up people to fill in that gap there. Because we don't want to lose one. No, we don't want to lose one. And so I get it. We make the point about the transformation and change, and we're working on that too. But with these little ones, there is an interest of the angels and a love from God that

he don't want to lose any of them. And I think we should, if we adapted that in our culture, and so the power of this, going back to First Peter, is that he compares this whole transformation process. to a new birth. And he compares us like little children. You grow up. And there's something really powerful about that in this. And even the,

let's take another break. Jay's even the, even when he says even angels alone to look into these things, it even sounds like almost an innocence with them as to try to figure out what's going on. Same thing with like a child. You know what I'm saying? It's like they just don't know,

but they're really curious as to what's going on. I'd never noticed that passage before. I hadn't either. I had thought about just like you, I immediately made the leap to the idea about you left on purpose, but it's not really, that's not the point he was making. I looked up in commentaries and all,

but nobody else is teaching that either, but I thought it seems to imply that he's just talking about a little innocent child wandering off. Yeah, there's something happened to. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Well, so at 1st Peter 1, I want to read this text so we can start breaking it down some in verse 13.

Anytime we always make note when you see a therefore is when we're making the transition. So, therefore, so we've laid out this, Peter lays out this really powerful beginning point about what salvation looks like. So now he's going to do a therefore, which means, okay, so you got this, now what? Therefore, prepare your minds for action. So now that you know something, we're going to do something. be self-controlled, set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, to your reference Jays, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you as holy, so be holy in all you do.

For it is written, be holy because I am holy. And that's a quote from Leviticus, several places in Leviticus. Since you call on a father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world.

but it was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. So now we're going to talk about sort of the results that happened from this salvation that we first talked about with the new birth and the living hope and all the things from there. Well, and he is going to reference that in 23, he's going to go back to the you've been born again, not a perishable seed. and you were right the you see why i went to matthew 18 because of the obedient children point but

in all just like peter does with a lot of what paul does when they write these things it's all about what god is done and then it's therefore you know there was no assertions in the first 12 verses which really is the point right does when you say because you look at this and if you just if you didn't read the first part of that and you just came to this first and said, be holy because I am holy. You'd say, I'm out. I'm out. How could I be holy?

Because you look at that task and you're like, I mean, how's that even possible? And too, I think it's going back to the conversation about even how we interpret the Bible and thinking that somehow, because I'm here's the, I think here's the dilemma. Anytime you start talking about being holy or, you know, doing good works and all that stuff, you know, if you came out of legalism and you've, you're in grace now, then the, I mean, anytime you hear that kind of language, like, wait, I thought it's not about what we do, right? But I think that what Peter does here is he explains kind of that, that tension in chapter two when he says, therefore putting aside all malice, that's something you do, right? You intentionally do this.

And all deceit and all hypocrisy and all indie and all slander. In other words, like, don't do bad things, put that away and then do these things like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word. in other words, read your Bible. But it's not just read your Bible. He gives us the reason why. And he doesn't say so that you may earn favor with me or that you may prove your loyalty to me or that you may gain favor in my sight by doing what you're supposed to do.

This is what you see. This is the reason that he gives us the motivation so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. I think that right there alone is one. of the most difficult things for us to understand that, number one, that the Lord is kind and that when we participate in the things that he tells us to do, like read our Bible and we start craving the word,

like a newborn baby creates milk, we do it so that we can see the goodness of God, because that's why we don't follow him when we don't. We just think he's not good. We think, I know you say, do this, but I think this other thing is going to be more fulfilling.

And God's like, no, it's not. I'm telling you, everything that I've revealed to you is, revealed to you to lead you to life. And it's why I think guys like Jonathan Edwards were so provocative, but also so big in their day, instituting revival because they honed in on this message or like someone today would be like

John Piper who has a website called Desiring God. And the entire premise of it is that he calls it Christian hedonism. And he says that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. So it's reaching down to the level. of not just doing the right thing, it's wanting and desiring the right thing. How can my desires be changed? And here's the way. You crave the word like a newborn baby craves milk.

Right. But I will interject that. So in 1.23, when it says, for you have been born again, not a perishable sea, but of imperishable through the living and enduring, same word is used in John 1,1, the logos of God, because I looked it up. and I think we tend to, this becomes difficult when you think I've got to obey the whole Bible. Now, there's a different word that he uses next when it says 25, but the word of the Lord stands forever, and this is the word that was preached to you, because when it's talking about the spoken, when them speaking it, it's a different word. Right, yeah.

When you're speaking it, but, I mean, I keep going back to, you know, when we were in school, I don't know, I got so much trouble. I've used this for an example. They had this little mantra, because every school has a mantra, you know, preach the word. And they had a picture of the Bible. And so for one of my sermons, you know, I said, you need to change that to a human on a cross because you're missing that.

Oh, boy. Yeah. I got trouble about that. And let me just clarify, we're not negating. or we're not diminishing the power or the authority of God's written word. That's not what we're saying. What we are saying is that the written word that is inspired by the Holy Spirit that is inherent, it points to and explains who God is.

I mean, so if you miss that and you start to read the scriptures to Jason's point earlier from the passage of Matthew, and you can study the scriptures diligently, and by then you can think that you're saved. and not be saved, because you're not saved by the scriptures. You're saved by Jesus. You're saved by his blood. This points us to him. And so it's hard to explain this because anytime you get into this discussion, the fear is that someone's going to listen and say,

oh, you guys don't believe that the Bible's inspired or they're diminishing the Bible. And not at all. We're elevating the Bible because it points us to who the sovereign king is. Exactly. And I'm glad you made that point. I feel like we have to make it every time we make this point. But the reason is so important is because if you're going around trying to follow everything in the Bible to the letter and trying to understand everything in the Bible in absolute 100% unity, which a lot of religious groups demand, you're never going to do that. Well, you're saying, you've missed the whole purpose of what we're here for and God using us.

Let's take our last break. It might be worth inviting. I mean, think about this. If you have, if you are 100% correct on everything that you have read in the Bible, we would like to know who you are. I mean, who is that person? I think most people would say, no, I don't. But then they would argue about every point thinking they were right. Yeah, I think there needs to be a humility and attention that we hold on a lot of these things.

And I've tried to rest in that space. Well, let me give you example of holding tension. From where we're at. I mean, because I think there's some really difficult things to wrap your head around in what Al read. I mean, one is this idea that it says, since you call on a father who judges each man's work. And what I was going to say is, to go in the vein of what we're talking about, I've noticed most religious groups take one of those titles over the other. So like I've been in churches where they're focused on God as a judge, and it seems a little conservative, laid back, kind of rule-oriented.

Then you go to another group who's gone, who focuses on God being our father, and they're calling him, you know, Abba father and daddy, and they'll pray. And where the people who are focusing on the judgment aspect, they feel like they're being irreverent because they're making it, you know, they're like, I mean, you hear that guy called him father's dad, you know. But I think what's interesting here is the fact that Peter has that sentence with both of those qualities in it is what's awesome about God. He is our father. Yeah.

And he is a judge. So we just tend to go to all extremes and which is how we have so many differences in the religious world. Instead of just saying, okay, there's, if you go with the illustration that is the theme of, 1-Peter he has to be viewed as our father because we're we're new born so we're obedient children so you can find you can understand that god is there is he's just there's a judgment that is going to happen then that is happening but it's not unlike something we can relate to even with a respect for our own father yeah when we were kids right you know it's like the old question is god judge or is god father and the

answer is yes. Is God love or is God wrath? Yes. Is God justice or mercy? Yes. I think that's the thing about these attributes. I would argue that God does have maybe, I don't know what the term would be like primary attributes that are there like and there's something contingent upon creation.

His character, I would say, is like, well, he's just, he's loving. But the reason he wants you to be holy. is because he is holy. Reason he wants you to be, so it's not like he's coming up with things you should do just because he, you know, is mean or, you know,

or doesn't want me to have any fun. No, he's holy, so we're going to be holy. Now, he made us holy in what he did, but I do think that's important because if you look at it from that vein, you realize that he knows what's best and not only does he know what's best,

he's done what's best for us. and it's not there's a reason for the for his character being that way so it's not like you're following the law because well it's just the law and i don't want to have any consequence no this is the right thing to do because we trust his righteousness and his justice and his love right because he because he because he knows the pathway to life because he is he is life and i think that's the when he that's why he can say blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because they'll be filled up. And I think we're looking to be filled and we're trying it with other,

we're trying it with unrighteousness. And that hasn't worked out for anybody. And I feel confident challenging anybody. How's it worked out for you? But he says if you, if you hunger and thirst, kind of that same phraseology of these is about craving the word like an infant that craves pure milk. Like when you hunger for that, when you hunger for God, you'll, actually be filled.

And I think that's the big transformation that he's offering in the spirit, is that that we can experience that fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5. And when you taste that, you taste and see that the Lord is good, going back to the psalmist. So when you taste and see that the Lord is good, you're like, man, I want more of that. And so you quit craving, you know, the Popeyes Biscuits that I mentioned earlier, you start craving God. You start craving good stuff.

You start craving who he is. and the more that you crave him, the less that you crave sin. And that's the transformation. That's why someone who's been walking in the spirit, I didn't say a Christian who's been walking in the spirit for 20 years, is not going to crave the same thing who maybe got saved at the foot of the cross and there's only 20 feet from the cross because he hasn't really moved past that. Yeah.

That guy's still going to be, he's going to be a Christian for 40 years. But if I'm still hung up at the cross and I haven't been sanctified and been transformed, I'm still going back to that place where I got justified. I want more. There's more. There's transformation that's promised in Scripture to the degree

that we submit to the spirit. I want to hear you correctly. Are you saying that eating Popeye's biscuits is sinful? He keeps bringing up the Popeye's biscuits. What he don't know is, look, if he was a true legalist,

I would offer this. I would offer this, because we could make you feel better about eating the two biscuits. Because you know what we ate before this podcast? I ate. What's that?

Three quarters. No, I'd say five, six. Five, sixth. of a large meat lover's pizza. Johnny's pizza. Look, I had, I almost had a, and I did it while driving down here. It was a pro move because Jay's pulled in behind me and said, because I ordered the pizzas to eat before the podcast. Jay said, I'm going to get mine right, right out of the oven.

I followed Al instead of coming down here in the 20 minutes of it getting cold. I followed him to the pizza place, got mine, and which as I'm driving. people going around me. Cheese all in the beard. Oh, that's funny. So I put my life with this. Well, I didn't tell you the rest of it. But I didn't confess to you either that I did eat about four pieces of fried chicken as well.

Oh, I knew. Nobody gets just biscuits from Popeye. A wise man once told me you never want to reach a certain age and say to yourself, I should have eaten that biscuit. That was Phil also in a duck blind given words of wisdom. Before we go to overtime, I just want to give one illustration. and we can talk about this. I think when you're, in viewing the characteristics of God,

if we're made in the image of God, if you think about it of buying a new vehicle or having a, you know, a vehicle of any kind, whoever designed that, they designed it for, you know, because you think, well, I bought this, so it's mine. Now I can do anything I want to. Well, wait a minute here. If you don't do what the, what was intended for the vehicle,

there's an owner's manual there and there are rules. I mean, I was right on the line trying to eat a pizza going down. But my point is, if you drive it into a wall, does that mean the people that made the truck or somehow put you in a situation? No, you didn't do what it was designed to do. If you put water in it instead of gas, guess what? Don't blame anybody but yourself.

And so I think when you view the characteristics of God and how that's going to come into your life, he is who he is. So at some point, if we're going to live forever with him, we had to become him. Yeah, which is exactly the point I want to make in overtime, which we'll talk about more of the work of the Godhead, which I think Peter does a really interesting thing in this text. And I want to talk about that in the overtime. So we'll see you there.

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