Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 706 | Jase Caught Some Flak on the Street in NYC & What’s Worth Waiting 1,000 Years For?

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Jase returns from New York City with tales of the praise and abuse directed at him during his visit. The guys discuss further the meaning of the “blessings and woes” and how they are applied to real life scenarios. Jase deconstructs a recent sermon he gave to a rowdy bunch of Christians at his home church, which details the need for humility over pride in our walk with Jesus. Phil ponders the only thing worth waiting one thousand years for, and Zach drops a brain-twisting concept about the restorative nature of Heaven.  In this episode: Luke 6 verses 17-49 https://philmerch.com – Get your “Unashamed” mugs, shirts, hats & hoodies! Show Hollywood we're willing to show up for great movies with a strong Gospel message. Get your tickets to "The Blind" TODAY: https://www.fathomevents.com/theblind — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. I got Zach back in the house with us today. Zach, we missed your last few podcasts. I know you've been a busy man. Oh, yeah. It's been wild, but I'm back. You got any movie updates since we got you back?

I know you've been working feverishly on the blind. Yeah, we got, at fact, I think, I don't think I know. Tickets are available now, which is. very far in advance. I understand that, but it's a big deal because the more tickets we sell up front, the more theaters

that they're going to open up to us. We got a pretty wide release, but I'd love to get over 2,000 theaters on that opening weekend. That's going to be pivotal for everything. So, yeah, we screen the film for a pretty large group in Florida last week, which went very well.

And then Sunday, I'll be screening it for the family. So I'll be down there in your neck of the woods to just a few days. Yeah, Dad and I have not seen it yet. I did see the extended trailer. And Lisa, and I also went on theblindmovie.com. And you can see if it's in your area and you can actually get those tickets. Zach was talking about so we actually have already done that.

It's really great to see exactly where it already is and expand that. Well, and you can, if you're in an area, a lot of our audiences in rural America. So we worked out a deal with Fathom where if you're not within 25 miles of a theater, then you can actually host at your church. You can actually host an event at your church and sell tickets and watch the movie with your church family. So if you're in an area that's not within 25 miles of a theater, then you can go to blindmovie.com and the information's on there. but you can actually put your info in and one of our team or one of the fathom team will reach

out and they'll set you up and you can actually show it in your church and that would be a great evangelistic tool for your community. Yep, we're moving along. Absolutely. It's rolling now. I love it. Jase, you've been to New York City since last we were on. Tell us about that experience.

What did you learn from going to New York City? Well, I learned that it's a long ways from here. So there's a great distance between here in New York. Yeah, it seems to be a little more even divided, you know, just culturally. I mean, you walk the streets of New York, which surprisingly, you know, a lot of people, they recognize me on both sides of the division. So in one breath, you know, it was like, hey, man, we love y'all's podcast. Did you get in a new, no good, death? Oh, yeah.

And then on the other hand is, you rotten scoundrel, I hate Duck Dynasty. I got that twice. Wow. It's a bitter world out there, huh? It's a bitter world. But only twice, that's not bad. Only twice. Well, you know, those are the things I could repeat.

There were a few other things that I thought they must have me confused with somebody else. They might have thought you were me. No, I think what happens... They don't like me. I think what happens is when you're... Yeah. That's funny. I've got some letters I'd like to show you sometime when you run out of something.

No, don't show them. Well, I will say this. The one thing that is in my life right now in the last couple weeks is that I have things to do. I have not run out of something to deep here. I feel like it's been a world. whirlwind. But, because then I came back and spoke at Celebrate Recovery. Like, we flew back in late.

We were there for three days. And then the next night, I was with the Celebrate Recovery crowd, which that was my opening line. I was like, because it, the contrast, you know, you're with the masses of people in New York. You're doing live TV. And, you know, they interviewed us while we were in New York. It's a, you know, it's a news show.

They're asking you about every controversy. issue on the planet, you know, and you have no idea what they're fixed to ask you, which is, well, I think, like, the next day you're walking the street. Some people, you know, they watch what you say, and they're like, well, how dare you? Because if we got asked about that, the Dodgers game, which I had no idea. It was news to me. You're arguing about a baseball game? Well, what happened was the baseball, which Al has always been a dogger fan.

I'm a huge Dodger fan. I've been severely disappointed. Yeah, and I was too. Well, they asked me, they said, you know, what do you think? And I was like, well, what? It was live TV. I was like, well, what exactly is the issue? So they showed a video.

And I'm going to have to admit for me to see this video on live TV because I had not seen this. But it was basically an image of Jesus on a cross. So a guy is like carrying his cross. and then another guy comes up and they like do a simulated sex act to make fun of the Christian religion. Well, this was the group of people. And this is how they did it. This is how they were doing it at the baseball. They were inviting these people, you know, to celebrate pride month, the gay pride month.

And I was like, now there's one thing, you know, about what people do in the world. you know, behind closed doors, you know, in a country. There's another thing when that goes on in the church, you know, and people that are claiming to be in Jesus. But then there's a whole different thing when you're just supporting a group of people who are mocking the Christian faith. I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything that they were even representing. So, and for their, you know, they're supposed to be playing baseball.

Why are you bringing this in it? So we commented on that. And, I mean, we were pretty blunt about our views about that. That was just not acceptable. And so I'm sure that led to some of the taunts on the street. But anyway, when I get back to Celebrate Recovery, I was like, man, this is quite the contrast of, you know, of crowds where I was. And then, because you know how raucous those celebrate recovery crowds are for the Lord. they're fantastic

well particularly the one at Weiss May Road that's a that's about as that's about as rowdy as it gets that's a raucous crowd it was good I knew it was good it was a good spiritual therapy you know I love those people well and it was kind of it was kind of quid pro quo jays because we had Rucker on the podcast

while you were there so you were able to come back and do something because Rucker runs our settlement recovery he and Derek well I actually taught the lesson or the passage that I based the talk to the Celebrate Recovery was from Luke 6.

And I pulled a, I pulled what you do is, so they gave me a topic. They gave me John 15. I am divine, you know, that section. And I read it.

And then I just, just made a segue to where you've been studying. Yeah, to where I've been studying. because I had no time to prepare. And so I am the true vine. And, you know, the things that the Lord prunes in us as we remain in him,

you know, I basically centered it around pride. I was like, and so I did three points, without saying I got three points. But I talked about the two bursts, your natural birth, which is confusing and bewildering. And I told a, you know, a personal testimony. I said, look, when I got to be about six or seven years old, and I was informed on how I got to this planet. Because I asked my mom, I said, how exactly did I get here? And she said, well, at one time, you were in my belly. And I said, I don't believe that.

I did not believe it. Yeah. I thought, no, seriously. I can see a six-year-old, seven-year-old. Yeah, we're living out in the woods here. I'm looking around. Yeah, and I'm like, where'd I come from? And you were in my belly?

I said, I don't believe that. And my point was that when it comes to the new birth, it's not exactly what you think. I mean, even us as human beings, you know, later on we figure out, oh, yeah, this is how it happened. I mean, but it's not what anybody would think, even when you're here as a child. And so I said when you're young in the faith, it's hard to wrap your head around how exactly the new birth operates. I mean, God moving in you. I mean, when you start thinking about it, it is hard to wrap your head around. I would add most people that that information, a lot of them never did find out where they came from.

Well, exactly. So that was kind of the way I went. And then I went with the two attitudes, which was pride and humility, which are very hard things to wrap your head around. And I made a point that, you know, pride is actually way more difficult to deal with than any other sin because it's all happening in your mind. And you're elevating yourself and justifying yourself and a lot of times encircling yourself with religious principles and excuses. Yeah. And I got that from Luke 6. It's more of a pride thing.

And so I went through that, and then I did the two kingdoms, the worldly kingdom, which the two kingdom is all other kingdoms. That's in one category, and then God's eternal kingdom. But I based it off Luke 6. That was kind of the point of where I went. And, of course, I focused on Jesus in all three. of those areas. But I did do something funny. I thought y'all would get a kick out of this.

Because you know how raucous the crowd is? And I told Missy, I was like, look, I just have a straight-up Bible sermon. I have no jokes. I have no. It's just, this is just, and I outlined what I was going to do. And she's like, I think that's great.

I was like, but I need an icebreaker. And she just, off the top of her head, she said, well, what you need to do is when you stand up there, you just say there's a knock on your door, you open it, and someone says, congratulations, you have, and let them fill in the blank. And I said, well, what's the point? She said, well, you need to make up a point. I'm just giving you the illustration.

That's a good interaction, which was hilarious. That was, as I was walking up the door, she said that. So the 10-minute drive, I said, you know what, I'm going to do that. And I came up with a point in the 10 minutes. And so I did it. I said, I did exactly what she said. So the first answer was about six people simultaneously said money. It was either a denomination of money or just the word money.

Now, one of the older members said a free ticket to heaven. And I said, okay, so after round one, we have six people wanting money, and one of the more mature members of this group set a ticket to heaven. He went a spiritual, which technically we already have that. So why would you be? So I'm putting all of y'all wrong. You know, you should have already said, I already got that. His name is Jesus.

So then I said anything else. So I pride more. Somebody said ticket, the tickets to LSU season tickets. And then I just waited. awkwardly for a pause. And then some girl finally hollered out. She said, well, I need a new truck. They all laughed, you know.

And I said, well, I'm surprised that nobody, you know, said the winning lottery tickets or, I said, what is the lottery worth right now? And it was dead. Everybody was shaking their head like, we don't know, we don't know. And I was like, come on. Nobody in this filled room knows what the lottery is worth right now. And I waited for five seconds. And finally there was a voice.

And it was old Sturgis, Al. He said, $256.4 million. And the whole place erupted. Because they just didn't want to say, but I know we're buying some lottery tickets around here. There's some lottery tickets. Somebody's buying some lottery tickets. Come on. There's anything wrong with that.

And so we laughed. It was a good icebreaker. but then I made the point which I came up with on the way up there. I said, here's what's strange. I said, because y'all know why I did that, because Luke 6, I set them up for what I read in Luke 6. These are the things that the worldly kingdoms pursue. Money, tickets, lottery winning.

These are neutral. So that's not what we're all about. Not many would say something about eternal. eternal life. Well, it just wouldn't do it. But I said, look, here's the deal. I said, if I told you that those winning things were found in Matthew through John, if there was the winning lottery numbers for next week's lottery,

if there was a map where you could find buried treasure worth millions of dollars, I said, if all these things, I said, they are found in Matthew to John, All you got to do is go and read and figure it out. I said, I guarantee you tonight at your house, you would be combing that through. You would invite your friends and neighbors, and you would say, look, it's in here. All we got to do is figure out where it is. And so then I said, my point is, what is offered in Matthew to John is a picture of the invisible God, Jesus. and it's way better than any of the things you said that a guy could say knocking on your door.

It's so much more greater than that. It's just laughable. So then I said, have y'all been reading your Bible? And it was just silence, you know. That's where I got. I thought it was a good illustration. It's a real good explanation. No, I think it's super appropriate.

It was an excellent idea about Missy. which you got a future in preaching. You're getting your icebreakers on the way out the door and then you're shifting your text to what you're studying to be able to get that out there. That's welcome to preaching ministry. That's excellent. But I was thinking to the particular audience

that you were speaking to who most have come to our community and especially to our church because some addiction or some powerful thing has taken over their lives, that particular approach to what they're really looking for was outstanding. I mean, that's it in a nutshell. There's no money wouldn't get you out of all that. In fact, some of the most drug addled bitter individuals are people with money and all the things you would think would be a difference maker, but it's not. And so I think that's an outstanding approach with that particular audience. It's good for any of us, but especially good for them.

Yep. Well, I thought I could kind of go through my, you know, because we're in Luke 6. Yeah. And I thought I could, you know, read that text because it is difficult and I don't think outside of our podcast, and I'm not bragging, I'm just being truthful. There's not a whole lot of people talking about Luke chapter 6. There's not a whole lot of sermons because you, you know, you want to have an audience. and these things are not, they're really tough to look at as something that God says is great. And do you want to do that, Alan? I can go through, because I had a few points I wanted to bring up and get y'all's thoughts on it.

Yeah, no, that's outstanding. I would add, I would add, Jace, right here, when you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, you've been waiting 1,000 years. The weight has been 1,000 years. 607 AD before Jesus, you have a guy saying, in the future, way in the future, there's going to be a kingdom set up

that will never expire or be crushed. So he gave the idea Daniel. Daniel 2. Daniel 2. He said, empires are you going to see

they're going to come and they're going to go. They're going to come and they're going to rot and fail. And he started with the Babylonians and then he went to the Medes and the Persians and then he went to the Greeks and their great empire.

Which all happened in history. That's correct. It happened and then there's the Roman Empire. Well, here comes that thousand years in advance. Daniel gave it. The 600 years goes by. God is quite for the next 400. So you're looking at a thousand years that it's gone by.

That's why I say that kingdom's coming in the future. But when you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke John, specifically texts like Luke 6, it's a demonstration of what the kingdom that they've waited on, that the world is waited on for a thousand years. When it finally gets there, Jesus is explaining how the people in it will be. People will reject your name is evil because of the son of man, and people they'll laugh.

Yours is the kingdom of God, he says, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. showing them that the kingdom now is at hand. It's within reach. It's going to happen before some of you die. So Daniel, what he said, you bring it all forward. And when you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it sounds so ironic. And so out of reach, most people be thinking, what in the world is he talking about? It's what the kingdom is going to look like. And now it's, you can see the king telling you what it's going to be like. Sometimes I think the religious world, if you ask most of the religious world, where is the kingdom of God?

You said, well, it's already here. Let me show you something of Luke 6. Here's the way it is. Here's the way the people are. It's an explanation of us. But amazingly, we don't act too solid in what I just said. You put Daniel and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together, and presto, here comes. Jesus, you're going to see this before you die.

Mark said, so when you look at it, you say, man, alive, that was a turning point in history of the world. Turning point. I mean, it was the point of the whole thing. So I'm fired up about being in a kingdom that we have an invisible king, but he's all over the earth and the kingdom is growing. And it's been tried to wipe it out over and over and over, but we're all still. here. And Jason, you were proof of it when you went up there and told them people in New York.

Yeah, exactly. It's always tied to the kingdom. Blessed of you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom. You don't have to be rich. This is another another kingdom. Well, that's exactly where I went in the lesson because, you know, I made a point early on that, you know when we think about what we have to do to enter the kingdom we think you know we need to surrender we need to suffer we need to submit and even die we're not worth saving we're we're out here drug and fessies everything well right and but we're we're like you got to you know repentant we talk about repentant what you have to do yeah but when you really think about it those things

surrendering, suffering, submitting, and dying, none of those things is in God's nature. When you think about who God is, all providential, he's obnient, he's eternal, so, you know, he couldn't die because he's eternal. He's all holy and justice, you know. So when we think, well, we have a problem

because we're sinful and we're, we physically die. This is kind of how I started the meat of the lesson. Well, you can't relate to God because he doesn't have those qualities. And I made a big deal. I paused in there. I said, but if he became a man. Because God in his nature, he seemingly can't do what he's asking us to do.

And so people are like, well, I don't understand how this works. Well, if he became a man, then he could surrender. His will he could suffer. He could die because he was a man, but he could do it perfectly because he's God, which is exactly what happened. And you know, when you read, exactly, when you read Hebrews 4, and I read,

it's one of the few notations I've ever read out of a book, but I read a paragraph out of C.S. Lewis's mere Christianity about the process of understanding, you know, you don't understand temptation and you don't understand being bad until you try to resist it. I mean, if you just give in every time, you really don't understand what being bad means

because you're not giving it time enough to understand. You just quit every time. It's like, oh, well. And so he made this point based on Hebrews 4 that we have a high priest who is tempted in every way just as we are, but never sinned. So he's able to help those, because he understands temptation.

You know, a lot of us don't understand a specific temptation after five minutes of resisting the temptation, because we don't last that long. But he understands what it looks like an hour later and two hours later. And I mean, that is, that would be the ultimate in what you would need

for to have an advocate on your behalf. You're talking my understanding, every temptation from every conceivable angle. And was without sin. And was without sin. Yeah, the suffering, the suffering and the submission and the sacrifice of Christ is, is embodied, literally embodied in Jesus, in the incarnation of God himself in Christ. But I would argue that that flows from one of his, primary attributes of love.

And, you know, there's a guy out of Princeton that I read a book or listened to a lecture he gave on this idea of contemplating what God was doing before he creates or initiates creation. And he asked the question, was God, who is God having, pouring his wrath out on before he creates? And you start to think about that when all that exists is the fire. the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then there's no one for God to pour wrath out on because there's no sin. Then he asked the question, well, who or what was God pouring his mercy out on before he creates? All that exists is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the answer is, well, no one because mercy is what you give to people who sin, right?

You're giving them unfavored merit and you're giving them forgiveness, but there's no infraction. So there's no mercy. He asked the question, who or what was God being sovereign over before he creates? And when all that exists is the father, son, and spirit. Of course, the answer, again, is no one, because sovereignty is how God relates to his creation and how he rules and reigns over his creation. But then he asked the question, who or what was God loving before he creates? And the answers, obviously, he was loving himself eternally.

And I think that when you read the Gospels, when you read the Gospel of Christ, and this idea that Christ would condescend, that Christ would come, that Christ would pour out. Like, this is what flows out of a God who, in his very nature, verse John 4.8 says it, that God is love. And so the gospel and the fact that Christ took on the nature of humanity, the fact that God allowed us to get our hands on him, the fact that God allowed us to kill him, the fact that God suffered a cruel death, all of that, all of that flows. out of his primary nature of that God is love first John 4.4.8. So I think it's into all of these things that were pointed back to this transcendent beauty of who he is. And that should, I think it does draw not all men, because some men reject this, but the intention is to draw all men into this and captivate us into this incredible beauty.

Because as Phil said, we, like, no, but none of us stand worthy of any of this. So, you know, I do think it flows from his primary nature. Yeah, that takes you right into that next text is what I was thinking, Jason, because you come out of those blessings and woes. And it's exactly what Zach described that even you could have the love that Jesus showed while he was here. And we talked about this on the podcast that we had Rucker on, that in that passage from 27 to 36 of Luke 6, I mean, everything that Jesus says that we should do, he did. you know, every one of those things in there, he did. He was hated. He was cursed.

He was mistreated. He was slapped across both cheeks multiple times. His cloak and his tunic were taken. And he gave everyone mercy that had mistreated him. So, you know, I mean, it's the ultimate example to follow. Yeah, that's why I moved. That's why I moved into the humility and pride as the character things. Because basically, we were.

following the same line of thinking, but I made a point that, you know, we try to illustrate what Jesus did and what God's plan was, but it's almost like the more religious people try to illustrate it, the more that it becomes about the illustration than wrapping your head around, just the fact that Jesus, God in human form, died on a cross for the sins of the world. and through his resurrection he disabled death itself i mean you can try to illustrate that but just declaring it is is wrapping your head around that is the more powerful thing that did happen i saw three people change their life yesterday the morning when they heard what you said needed to be said.

I just told him about Jesus. We started from over here in Old Daniel when he talked about the kingdom would come. And I gave him Luke to. I said, who's ruling the roost here? You know, the Roman Empire, I said, when the Roman, when that kingdom comes, that's when the king of all kings is going to arrive.

That's when he's going to come. And everything points to that. Yeah. Well, and then I made a statement that, look, we believe that. We reenact it. We do the Lord's Supper. We do, you know, baptism. We live that out.

We declare it. We grow in it. And you say, just the fact that he was crucified for the sins of the world and that his resurrection destroyed death itself. So some of those things you do in your mind with your voice. in your heart, you don't believe in it. But really, that's how it spreads, which was God's, God's measures. So after I said that whole speech, I said,

that is the new birth. Yep. It's just hard to get it down to one thing and illustrate, because you've got a lot of people in the crowd that I was speaking at are very young in the faith. And so I did that analogy of, which I've done before, I got it from Tim Keller about,

the acorn and the oak tree, you know, and the growth process in the faith. Of course, what's funny is I said, you know, how many of y'all know what an acorn is? And, you know, I said like, 14 people raised their hand. I'm like, y'all need to go outside and look around on the ground, an acorn. Well, oak trees. But if you would have said acorn, they probably would have known it. They probably would have known it. They've made it. Acorn. Maybe it was a southern Lingo, yeah. Acorn. Yeah.

And so, you know, I did that analogy about, you know, it just seems so you step on it, it crushes. But you put it in the ground, give it some time, some sunlight, and some water. Amazing. Boy, well, who's making that happen? You know, forget religion for a second. That is a miracle of nature is what they would say. You know, Mother Nature, whatever they're going to say.

Nobody is really explaining the photos. synthesis process of how that's going on. We've just accepted it in our minds. Yep. But that needs to be challenged because that should not be happening. I mean, it goes from something weak and fragile to something powerful and full of years and mighty and can be a resource for, you know, all sorts of things. Because then I went back to the John 15, which saying, you know, who Jesus is and with the

tree analogy, you know, remain in him. if you're just a branch that's falling off, well, you're back to an acre and again. I learned it in the morning on my way to worship the father of life and the father who put the trees on the earth through the acron. I drove through the gate and my gate, and right on the other side of the gate, there is a large oak tree that has fallen and blocked all traffic.

I mean, this thing, You can you. So. That acre and had come a long way. The acin's come a long way. So as I got right on the very end, pretty bumpy, but I've climbed up over in my truck, four-wheel drive truck. I went up there and told the local redneck who works for me.

I told him, I said, a tree across the road down there. I said, you got the equipment up here to get it out of there, move it out of there. So I went on. So he, I looked this morning, and he had taken that. it took a track hole to get down there just to pick up what that acre and build. And I mean, he had to come with heavy equipment and put them logs over in the ditch over there and make it smooth sailing again. But it'll stop all vehicles, one tree.

And it was about, it had rotted. So it was about, oh, I would say that whole thing when it hit was probably 150. She, 200 years old. Which is a beautiful picture of what we become. Really is. And the spirit moves in and describing the birth process. One of the things that I think is difficult for us is analogies are great, but they can only take you so far. And when we're trying to build analogies for, as a reference point, for God who is self-referential.

That's the difficulty. Ultimately, all of our analogies. in comparisons are going to fall short. And I think we want that, Jase, because we want to be able to tidy this thing up so that we can contain it. And it's like, there's something unnerving. There's something that unsettling about moving into the new birth or are moving into a kingdom that I can't even really answer that.

What is the kingdom? I mean, it's kind of like, and then you can go through all the things, but it's like we don't possess the ability. to explain this. Why are you there, Zach? What's interesting, listen to the way this reads and based on behavior, Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Yeah, that's 621.

That's pretty cool right there. That's where I went to the humility. I'm weeping to laughing. The humility and the pride is. you because I think you make a point that the first section, the ones that are blessed, these are humble. Humility is going to come from this. Blessed of you who are poor, yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed of you who hunger now, you will be satisfied. Blessed of you who weep, you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you when they exclude you and insult you and reject you, reject your name is evil because of the son of man. So I made that point a couple podcasts ago. that when you put these things in the categories, you know, it's power, it's comfort. It's, I think the laughter is more of a gloating success.

It's peace. It's like you won the election. You know, you won. You beat your gloat, you're laughing. There's a party. You're successful. You've made it. Yeah.

And so, and recognition and celebrity. So you have a picture of humility and then a picture of pride. because it gets to 24. Of course, you know, I skipped over 23, but that is the picture that he's also representing is that the prideful is getting it now, this kingdom. The ones looking for eternity, they're the humble spirit.

Because he says, you know, greatest reward in heaven. So then he says 24, but woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. woe do you who are well fed now for you will go hungry woe to you who laughed now for you will weep a morning week woe to you when all men speak well of you for that is how their fathers treated the false prophet jace when we reached out you me and the rest of the crowd and aisle and all the family robertson family we went in poor we came out rich well that's what's ironic and i'm i mentioned that in my lesson so a lot of

people are saying, well, don't you, aren't you rich? And I said, because it is an awkward thing to discuss. And they're like, they forgot the going in poor. Yeah. And I said, well, yes. I said, but I did everything in my power to find joy in Jesus and not pursue those things. Now, I can't help it if he's just going to fly over and just dump it. He literally, it was a knock on the door and say, congratulations. That's exactly right. So what you do with those blessings or I think a responsibility that has to move on, but I treat them like a temptation.

I was doing what Peter was doing, fishing, so I know what he was going through. And it was, and J.S. you had your hand on the boat throttle for many, many years in there when we're running these nets, we're catching the fish. And we were humble, but nobody was singing the blues that I know of. Because we were in Christ. Yeah. But you read the, if you read the text, though, there is a clue in the text that he's not saying, this is not a general socioeconomic, like, attack on the rich. Yeah, I agree with that. That's correct. Yeah. And yeah. And it's also not a general blessing for the poor, for the hungry for those who are weeping and those who are hated. This is, I mean, there will be poor people that will not be in the kingdom of heaven. I mean, that's a fact. And so that first line that he said, He's speaking to a certain group of people, verse 20, I think 20, yeah, looking at his disciples, he said.

So he's speaking to followers of the way. He's speaking to disciples of himself. And these people are going to go in, they're going into a pretty difficult position. I think if we read this as a general overview of him addressing four groups of people, we've missed it. He's saying, if you are a disciple of mine and you're poor, blessed are you because yours is the kingdom of God, which establishes really the whole context of this whole thing, which is why Phil brought it up at the beginning. I was going to ask the question, what in the world do these blessings and woes have to do with the kingdom of God? And they have everything to do with the kingdom of God because what's being established here is these two kingdoms. He's showing how they relate.

And one is the king of Augustine called it the city of. God and then the other, he called the earthly city. And that's the seven, I mean, sorry, the four blessings are the kingdom of God. Blessed of the poor, because they received the kingdom. Blessed are the hungry, they'll be filled. Blessed are those who weep, they'll laugh. And blessed are those who are hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned because they will, their reward is in heaven. Then he flips it to the woes.

That's the kingdom of earth. That's those who have put their faith and their trust and their hope in the earthly kingdom. And so he said, well, what about them? Well, the rich, he just reverses everything. You know, woe to the rich because you already have your reward. Woe to those who are full now because you're going to be hungry. Woe to those who laugh now because you're actually going to weep. And woe to those who are spoken well of because they also spoke highly of the false prophets.

And he's building this picture of if you put your hope, and the things right here on earth, then you're going to be let down. But if you put your, it's your eyes upon Jesus, what's the old hym say? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. And the things of this earth

will go strangely dimmed. Those things that, it's an upside down kingdom. And he's giving us a description here of what that upside down kingdom looks like. Well, I agree with that point. And he knew he was going to send them out also.

And, you know, people in the church, just like people in the world struggle with pride. I think the difference is I've never heard a non-Christian view pride as something wrong. Never. You know, they talk about, you know, certain sins, and we kind of all agree on things that's going to lead to something, but you're not going to run up on a non-Christian and say,

well, this pride is a bad thing. And so I think people in the church, you know, they're going to always struggle with that. and you see that later because when you get to chapter 10 you remember when he sends out the 72 because to your point Zach he was talking to his disciples well remember they got all giddy that miracles were happening and demons were being cast out and jesus rebuked him and made an interesting statement when he said in 1019 i have given you authority to trample snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy nothing will harm you however do not rejoice that the spirit

submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And so that's why I said, I think, at the end of the day, he was trying to teach them that you're going to be humble, you're going to be persecuted. This is not going to be pleasant. This is, but it's not about you, which is, I tied this in with the John 15 analysis. Because at the end, you remember when he told his disciples about remaining in him, he also said, I chose you. You didn't choose me, which is a real interesting thing.

statement. And my point was that when you combine that with 1 John 4 where it says this is love for God, not that you love me, but that I love you and sent Jesus here to die for you. And you say, what is the point? What's he trying to say? Well, it's an attitude thing. What happens is if, you know, you get in and you surrender to Jesus and all of a sudden things are happening and you saying, well, God, God thinks I'm better than old brother so-and-so because look at what's happening in my life. Well, now all of a sudden, we've missed something here. This was never about you and it's still not, whether you're in Jesus or not. And I think that's the undertone of what he's getting at because then it leads to loving your enemies, which seems crazy. I mean, really?

I mean, he's, you don't want to being humble. I mean, there's a lot of things that I have to work on, but I would put loving my enemy at the top of the list. I'm telling you. So, you know, that'll be something that we'll discuss probably in the next podcast. No, I was just going to say, I think this is also a great example of why you study all of the Gospels and get those different perspectives. Because we know Luke is a Gentile. We know that he's writing this primarily for a Gentile audience. And I think that's why he took the concepts from the sermon of the Mount,

whether it's, and we talked about this when we set this up, whether it's a different sermon or just a compilation, because there's a lot of similarities. You notice he focuses on different things. And so I think to a widely, to an audience that had success and really understood the principles of the world, Luke's approach is much more effective. When you go over and look at Matthew,

you see some words like perfect instead of mercy and some other. the things that a Jewish mind would have grabbed that concept and understood it in that kind of you know the way he laid it out. So I just think it's brilliant the way he does it because he you're right. Who in the Greek world is going to love your enemies? You crush your enemies. And yet he's given this upside down as we said, kingdom perspective that really would have jarred the people that were listening to it. I mean, this is this is a whole new way of thinking. This is a, yeah, this is the new wine that can't fit into the old wine skins.

There's a great book by C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce. And there's this scene in it where he's trying to explain to this gentleman that you, humans don't, you can't understand eternity. You see, you just don't get it. And there's, and he says, they don't understand, we don't understand that heaven, there's two lines here that I want to read, that heaven wants a. He says, will work backwards and will turn every agony into glory. And I think that's what's happened here in this, in this text. He's explaining that blessed are those who are poor, blessed are those who are hungry, blessed are those who are persecuted, all that.

Because once heaven is attained, it'll work backwards and it'll turn those moments into glory. He says, and conversely, damnation will also spread back and back into their past. and will even contaminate the pleasure of sin. And he kind of ends this with people will realize that the moments that they thought they were actually enjoying themselves, those will be moments of hell in their mind for eternity. Conversely, those who thought they were suffering and in pain and turmoil, those will be moments of glory in heaven on earth in the grand scheme of things. And I think that what you see in these blessings and woes for us is you may be in a really hard place right now,

and you're grinding out, you know, your faith right now. Everything's coming against you, but you're faithfully serving the Lord. And I think that's who Jesus is speaking to here. He said, hey, when you're going through this, these moments right here, this will be, when heaven wants attain, it's going to work backwards, even into those moments, and it'll turn every one of your agonies into glory. But if you're on the other side, you know, then it's the opposite of that. And I think that's, man, that motivates me to live for him to be righteous, to try to put the death of the misdeeds of the body.

I don't want, and I don't want to live in that kind of experience for eternity. No, I agree 100%. I think what you're trying to depict, because everybody has a hard time, we look at God like he's day by day. You know, he's already seen yesterday and he sees tomorrow simultaneously. So you stop and say, well, wait a minute, that's hurting my head. I can't. But it is a fact. He is an eternal being.

You know, time is, if it was like a line on a chalkboard, well, God is the chalkboard that you're writing the line on. So, you know, but just to take a moment every day and consider that really will change how you're interacting with God. like, oh, I wonder if he just saw that. Oh, he sees. So you have to look at him in a present, yeah, it's in a present tense, but he already sees how it all played out, which is why I think that, that was. Yeah, we experience it in, and we experience it in a,

and one event, next event, next event, next event, and God doesn't experience the world that way. I mean, he exists outside of it. Let me read this real quick, because I think it's so good, This is actually an excerpt out of that passage about these two processes, which I think are the woes and the blessings. He says, C.S. Lewis here, both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of heaven. Contrast that.

The bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only. with jeeriness. And that's why the blessed will say, we have never lived anywhere except heaven, and the lost will say we were always in hell, and both will be right. I actually think that's what Jesus is getting out here. I think Lewis accurately describes what he is laying out here in Luke chapter six it's this strange kingdom quality that is and it's and i don't even think it that it's spiritually discerned i think some people hear this and think this is the dumbest i can never heard it's actually freeing that i don't have to get caught up and pursue these things to feel good about myself all right we're out of time uh one thing i want to mention before we go to

overtime uh july second uh there's going to be a faith family and freedom event out of at Logtown Estate. If you go to logtownestate.com, you can see how to get there. It's in Monroe. We invite you to come to White's Ferry Road that day. We're going to have a great celebration. Dad's classes at 9 and then at 4 o'clock is the big event out there. It's going to be fireworks and some other stuff. And so you're invited to that on July 2nd. I wanted to mention that before we let you go today. If you want to follow us into overtime to talk a little bit more about these concepts from Luke 6, it's blazedtv.com slash unashamed is where you get overtime comment. We'll see you there.

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