Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 904 | Phil Encourages Searching for Your Spiritual Gifts & How the Bible Is a ‘Living’ Book

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Phil reveals why the lesson for his “Unashamed” Bible class at church never changes and encourages Christians old and new in their faith to find and use their spiritual gifts. Jase finds treasure in the podcast studio parking lot, which is interesting considering it’s in the middle of the woods! The guys put forth their own educated opinions on the overarching theme of Ephesians and how we’ve all contributed to the environment of sin that we live in. Jase realizes that no one can ever grasp every truth of the Bible since it was written by God, but our understanding of it can evolve as we grow and learn.  In this episode: Ephesians 1, verse 17; Ephesians 2, verses 19-22; Romans 7, verses 18-24; 2 Corinthians 5, verses 1-15; Genesis 1, verse 28; Exodus 19, verses 4-6 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. I have a presentation to make. Oh, really? To begin our podcast today. This is a pretty cool thing, Dad. You're going to like this. This is to you. It even has a certificate of authenticity. Duck Commander themed jig collection. This is a young man at our church, Grant Weatherford, Uncle G's Jigs. These were feathers from ducks that you two And others in the duck mine killed this last year

Burley Jennings got some of the feathers Gave them to Grant and he crafted them into fishing jigs It's just it's a hobby for him But so he's put a few little things together So if any of you out there are interested in checking that out It doesn't have many because he does it for fun But it's Uncle G's J's I actually recognize

You see one of the other of those is one that flew by. No. Oh, the feather, okay. I've been to say, if you can recognize the ones you killed from looking at the tail feathers, then you are a true duck hunter. You are a true duck. Jay said, yeah, I got this one right here.

Well, that's like the way Said does, you know, we shoot the ducks. And then he says, boys, whatever you do. Okay, geez, jeez. Yep, see the little tail feathers? Oh, yeah. I'm like a mid-statement here. Was that a present to the, was that a present to dad? I'm, yeah.

Si I'll say, whatever you do when you clean these ducks, don't look at the size of the bullet holes because I'm shooting a 20 gauge, so I'll have smaller pellets. He said, you'll realize then that I shot way too many because he claims all of it. Well, I heard that Cy got one too, one of these jigsets on the duck hall room. I think they presented it last week. Martin gave it from Grant. So I think he made like 15 of them. And so he gave one to Dan. I need to get on that list.

Yeah, I was going to say. What about Jay's? What about me? I mean, me and Grant did ministry together for four years. You did? He's one of your young disciples. I forgot about that. Yeah, but after we heard about your fishing trips, I think you might have been excluded.

You don't get jigs if you go on a fishing trip and don't get any fish. He's like, well, we got two. You perch and it was kind of that story in the Bible of trying to make a meal needing supernatural intervention. Yeah, Mark 6. That was our sermon this Sunday, so I know it well. I'm just glad that Zach wasn't planning on eating whatever they caught and not bringing any other food. That's good. I brought food.

Yeah, I know. Zach, stick to being a fisher of men. You tried the actual fishing. You'll start to death. I can catch fish. He's from Florida. I had a bad canoe trip, and it was, they were extenuating circumstances. There was a massive flood.

Yeah. Well, that's part of fishing is checking the conditions of which you are now going to be participated in. The point of the trip, Jase, was canoeing with the family, and then I just brought a couple fishing poles. So it wasn't the primary purpose, but agree. But the reality is what happened is if you say, look, I'm going to be the provider for this family and show them how to fish.

At some point, when the young kids, the stomach is growling, it becomes a problem. It gets awkward. Yeah. No, there's not a, there's a zero percent chance that I could do anything in the outdoor space to where you guys would say, Zach, that was great. If that's not going to happen, no matter what I did. You know, so I don't. Well, you might say, well, you could say, you know, we went

hiking and saw a waterfall and I'd be like oh that's great Zach because you're in a beautiful area well there's some benefits to being raised in the wilderness Phil so thank you for that yeah I mean my wife frequently says a lot of times you know when storms have hit and you had the COVID you know and I began to grocery shop in the wilderness oh yeah and she really she really likes that that if something happens where we're shut down I can go get some food the old-fashioned way. There was a guy yesterday that met with us, a dad that you and Joe baptized. And I'm not exactly sure where he was from on the Mississippi River,

but he said one of the reasons he was here and has surrendered his life is because when he listened to our podcast and he was like, I think he told me he was through episode 80. I said, well, you got about 820, you'll catch up. He got a while to go. But he said the reason he loved it. much is because he was a river at on the Mississippi River, hunt, fish, just like you're talking about Jay's, made his way of life. But he got, you know, in a bad place spiritually, didn't know

anything about Jesus. But when he heard us telling stories, he was like he immediately connected because he was a river rat. And so in the story, of course, of you coming to Christ, changed him. So he was in tears yesterday, but it was great more. And there were several that. Well, in any venture, you have to embrace the process. See, I don't have anything. It'll take me about, for you young bucks, my view of how you should view this, this material. So I'm looking, I'm looking, I don't know when we're going to start the wheels are rolling. Well, what we're doing, Phil, is we're doing what they call a cold open, which is what's been going on.

But I saw a seed line of an illustration because Ephesians, gives you a big picture of the whole story going back to Genesis 1 all the way to Jesus and what's going to happen next. And so I was saying there's a process in every, like fish, you want to be a great fisherman? You've got to learn the process. Yeah. What fish do, what, you know, you have to basically be able to look at water and figure out what lies beneath.

Yeah. And the patterns. What's the big picture? The weather. into the, yeah. I mean, you do it to anything. Treasure hunting, same way. I mean, at first I thought, you know, you buy a detector.

You go out there and, oh, you're going to strike it rich. No, there's way more to, you know, you're getting into maps and you're getting into the history involved. And, you know, I finally realized that if you want to be a great treasure hunter, you need to go where people gathered hundreds of years ago. Guess what you're going to find. And the dirt cannot be disturbed. So, I mean, there's a. process that happens. Look, today I got out of my truck. I mean, you have a rock parking lot out here. Look, Phil. Treasure. Two, two coins. Because I'm a, since I'm a treasure hunter,

I stare at the ground. You're always looking down. And I thought, well, something's out of place. You don't look for, you know, just coins laying around. You look for something out of place. I look down so then. See, I'm just, I've said, Jay. I spend a lifetime in ministry, so I'm always looking up. Yeah. I'm thinking this may be the day when the Lord comes back and... Well, but Luke 15, the Lord himself looked down.

You did. When you find... It's not right or wrong. It's just you're looking down and I'm looking up. Something lost, and you find it, there's joy in heaven and on earth. And he was meaning people that find Jesus or Jesus. Jesus finding them. He's a human treasure hunter.

So I thought, well, these have been recently dropped because they were just on the surface. Yep. But when I looked at the dates, you have a 2001 nickel and you have a 2002 quarter. So it takes a pretty good while for something to go under the ground. Yep. And I can tell. Those coins were minted 23 years ago. With these goggles that I'm now seeing.

10-10 with. Is that your official coin goggles? They should be because I'm telling you right now. I can see every hair on George Washington's head. What do you got on there? You got on

reading glasses? But they're like reading glasses on steroids. They got quite a look about him. He looks like the nutty professor. My wife got tired of me borrowing her glasses. Not that she didn't want to help me out, but Hers are like pink and any color that I usually wouldn't put on my body anywhere.

But when I need a pair of glasses, I grab hers. Right. And I think she was embarrassed for me because I would use them out in public. So she went with. Yeah, that's quite the, it looks like just from me glancing at the thing, Jay's, that looks like about a three on the scale of, on the strength scale. So I determined in the process that within the last 20 years, somebody dropped those two coins, but

I'm just saying it's hard to feel bad about that. You get out of the truck and you're like yep. Treasure. 30 cents and I hadn't even I'm just walking to So what I'm saying is we're looking at on this podcast

of material that's down in front of us but most of the time I never change what I'm fixed to tell you from Sunday to Sunday. Yeah.

Same story every time. Right. Because there's different people sitting there. There's a whole new group sitting there. You see what I'm saying? Yep. And I've just been watching. You're locked in.

I've been watching. And the same amount are submitting themselves to believe in Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection, that's on the board. Every class I give, every lesson I give, That's what it's about. I met the ones that you talked to yesterday. Yeah. Because they stayed around.

I had a sermon on Melchazadec, which you don't hear a lot of sermons. When's the last time we heard a sermon on Melchazade? Did you preach yesterday? If ever. I preached yesterday, yeah. I was in Hebrew 7, sort of setting the stage for Melchazade. But you know, it's interesting. I had never really tied it in to what we're talking about in Ephesians today.

But it's the same, it's on the same idea. which this study we're doing now, help me even in looking at that, because, you know, the whole idea of Abraham and Malkesidae is a picture of kind of what we're talking about here, this idea about God's providence as he worked through the process way back in the ancient days. It's all those covenants, all of it ties right into what we're talking about. So it was interesting. I start in over to Matthew. I waited until Jesus said, here's what's fixing to happen.

Right. Once he came out with the information, from that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples. You say, what time? He's got to see, I'll give you the keys to the kingdom. Jesus told him. Matthew 16. He's going to unlock the door.

You're going to see the death. You turn over here. If you just turn a few pages, the crucifixion. That's preached every Sunday morning coming out of my lips. the death of Jesus every morning, every Sunday morning. That material will be in there in various ways. The burial of Jesus. The resurrection.

And under the Great Commission, not everybody is called to preach. It's different, they have different... Gifts. They have different functions. In my case, it's the same thing. every time. I'm just preaching the gospel of Jesus,

the response to it, and amazingly, we average about five at a time. Five at a time. On average, sometimes ten, some time two. But there's a response 99% of the

time. That's a good thing in lieu of the gospel of Jesus. Now that's just Matthew. You get to Mark first out of his mouth, the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the son of God. So he's a, you follow Mark. And he clarifies, Phil.

He calls it the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom. Then they work that in. The death of Jesus, the burial of Jesus, resurrection. He was said to all of them, go into the world, preach the good news to all creation. We do it all the time. Whoever believes in it is baptized to be saved.

Whoever does not believe will be condemned. I stand on that truth and when you get to places like Ephesians it's you see it in action you turn up you get out of Ephesians you get to Galatians and then you get to Ephesians but it's the same thing

every time without and they all started and all four Matthew Mark Luke and John they all ended up saying the same thing go out go preach this go preach this. Well, when I read, I'm under an edict.

So I have nowhere to go about what I'm doing because that's what I was put here to do. That's right. And you've been doing it for a long time. Well, I think that's... The fruit there is... It's still bearing. Still bearing fruit.

That's right. I think that's why Ephesians has all the benefits and blessings about being in Christ. Yep. 20 times it's either in him, in Christ. Is it 20? I've been saying 10. Through Christ.

Well, when you add through Christ as well. So, I mean, it's just, it was, you know, and I got that from our little outline we've been looking at, but it's hard to miss the point of who this is. And in fact, back to my sermon yesterday, Jay's, I had never really thought about it before. why was Melchazadegh greater than Abraham? And it was just, to me, it was so simple.

And I just missed it all these years is because Melchazadec represents Jesus. And Abraham represents us. That's why he's greater. That's as far back as you can reach. Yeah. So nothing's new here. You have a job to do. You'll find out what gift you have.

You'll find. Yeah. Some of them just to help others when they're sick. When they visit hospitals, they do good deeds. I met a guy yesterday. He said he was a chaplain at a nursing home. I said, God bless you. Because, I mean, what better place to go and to help people than there, you know?

But I do say, Phil, I mean, we preach Jesus. But even in verse 17 of Ephesians 1, there's a little statement. Let me put my glasses on. Get them big, thick glasses on, Jay. In verse 17, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Well, here's a little statement here, so that you may know him better.

Yep. Well, once you start going down that road, I mean, I get it. You're basically presenting Jesus as the answer to everyone's problem. You're introducing Jesus. And you're part of a group. Well, exactly. But in this letter,

Not everyone was called to do what he was doing. He just said, well, look like it's about over for me. So what's fixing to happen? He said, I just crossed over on the other side. Yeah. I'll just die, but I'm good. But the work went on and it's still going on. Work went on.

That's what I'm saying. One of the challenges he gave. We're proof of that. One of the challenges he gave is getting to know him better. Well, that's a mouthful. Getting to know Jesus better. I mean, these are people that he's writing to that have embraced Christ. He's like, I want you to get to know him better.

And so some of the things we do, I mean, the Bible is about Jesus. We're never going to get off that. But some of the little details he gets into, especially with different groups of people, you know, it refers to them as Jews and Gentiles, which really stood out in our introduction to me that he's really amazing. point here is that God is bringing people together from totally different backgrounds, totally different cultures, totally different traditions. And when you look at that as a whole, we can all get to know Jesus better. And the more you do that, the more you're going to grow and

mature as a body of Christ. Well, and that also tells you by just the challenge that he he can be known better. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Some people say, well, yeah, I got it. Jesus died for my sins. And, you know, they'll just quote you what he did for you. And you're like, wait a minute. He can be known better.

And I made this point yesterday's act and you actually brought it out in the podcast that, you know, atonement for sin is an incredible, wonderful blessing to us. And usually is the first thing that gets our attention because we're sinners. But it's so much more. Jesus does so much more than just that. I mean, that's a biggie. But when you talk about the idea of being able to house his spirit literally in your body and in your mind, I mean, that's a tremendous blessing that comes.

When you think of the idea of being raised, immortal and glorified, I mean, there are so many more blessings that Christ gives us. And the more we know that, you made a point, Jason, in the past about talking about kind of how you said, if you looked over and somebody said, that's your wife. and you looked over and it wasn't her. And you said, wait a minute, I know. That's not my wife. What I've learned through this, going through this with Lisa and this cancer is I knew my wife really well, but I know her at a new level now, having gone through a life-threatening illness with her.

You learn things you didn't even know were possible. And that's what life does. When we live that life with someone and choose that and you serve another person, same thing happens with Christ. As we're going through our life, we learn things we never knew about him before. Put your heart in a different place to receive the power of who Jesus is. I mean, we all fall into comfortability, taking things for granted. Placency.

Yeah, when something happens, all of a sudden, verses that we read that where Jesus' character is coming out, exposing the nature of God, all of a sudden, light bulbs come on. That's why this is so fascinating. The Bible itself is that it was written by God. And so you just never can feel like you got a hold on all of it because your circumstances change, your heart condition changes, then you're open and you're reading things that are like, wow. that's why as it moves forward

Paul when he's in Romans just to show you how this works he's a servant of Christ Jesus yep called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God the gospel he promised beforehand dating all the way back to what you were talking about yesterday

dating all the way back so here it is power to be the son of God by his resurrection from the day of Jesus Christ our Lord. It doesn't take him but five minutes from writing as he lays this out. There's you got Romans.

Well, you say, well, let's see. What about when you get to Ephesians? Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints in Ephesus the faithful. He doesn't go 10, 12, 13 verses. You were also included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your

salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal. In other words, every one of these letters, if you just take them and you say, well, what do he say? That's Ephesians where we are. Philippians, same thing. To all the saints in Christ Jesus as Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. Grace and peace be with you.

I always pray for God but joy because of your partnership in the gospel. Right down below there, verse 7. He's right out of the box. He's defending. I'm in charge. are defending and confirming the gospel. All of you sharing God's grace with me. It's just over and over and over, Colossians.

Paul, to be holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colise. Always thank God the Father when we pray for you. We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, the love you have for all the saints, the faith and love that spring from the hope that stored up for you in heaven, and that you've already heard about in the Word of Truth.

there it is again, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world is producing fruit. And you can go with each one of these letters from start to finish, and the main thing remains the main thing. Jesus, Him crucified and raised from the dead. Exactly. And then what the book... I don't go to anywhere but there.

What the book of Ephesians does is it shows us in a very condensed version and that everything you just said, Dad, that began with the Jews, is now available to the Gentiles, which is his main point, I think his main point of emphasis in Ephesus and in Romans that we've talked about in kind of our prep leading up to this is the beauty of it is this is now available for everyone. It's spreading. It's spreading, but it's slowly spreading. But you look up, and after 2,000 years of men that are chosen to go preach Jesus, it worked.

Yeah, yeah, I love what you and Jace were talking about earlier about how it's, the atonement is pivotal in all of this, but it's, it's pointing to and pushing us into the life of God. And that's where I think Paul is hanging out here. If you go Google any of like commentary, not every commentary, I've got, but if you start to research the book of Ephesians, particularly the first and second chapter, a lot of people will go into this study and they're reading the text as if the main point is that Paul is making some type of argument for a doctrine of how we're saved or something like that. And whether you can extrapolate that out of the text or not, that's not the point. I don't think that is the main point of what he's doing here. I don't think that's his intention primarily. If it is an intention, it's probably secondary or tertiary at best. But what, But Jason's scripture, the one that he referenced, is, I think, a key part of this is that what's the point?

What's the motivation of Paul? Obviously, under the power of the Holy Spirit. But what is the motivation for writing this? And it is this idea of revelation. It's this idea that you would know God, that you would know Jesus Christ in a more, in a fuller way. It's that this mystery that is being unfolded that would draw us into life in Christ. And I love that idea of an increasing knowledge of him. And it's not a knowledge like about God.

I think that's to misinterpret what he's talking about here. It's not a knowledge about God. It is to know God, to know Christ in an intimate way. And so the language, you know, when Jesus defined eternal life in John 173, it's that kind of language that the eternal life is linked. It's defined as an intimate knowledge to know them in a way that, like you said, to know your wife. I know Jill. I know my wife. Yes, I know about her, but it's not simply enough to know about Jill.

She doesn't want me to know about her. She wants me to know her, and I want to know her, and I want her to know me. And so I think that's the picture that's being painted here. So when you get to the beginning of Ephesians, I think it's actually better to start at Ephesians 2 because there's like the summation of the argument that Paul's making in Ephesians 2. And so if you can see kind of the destination first, then you can go back and ask the question, well, how do we get to the destination? But the destination is Ephesians 219. and this is what it says. So then, in other words, after everything I've just said, the point is this, you know, so here's the point.

You are no longer strangers and foreigners. So we talk about not, like, I want you to know God. I want you to know Christ. Don't be a stranger. Don't be a foreigner, right? That's what he says in 117. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners. He just made the case.

But you are fellow citizens with the saints. and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Christ himself, here's temple language, Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. So you think, what is the main point he's trying to make here in the book of Ephesians? That's it. So it's that God is going to live in people, Jew and Gentile. So then you go back to the beginning of Ephesians 1 and you ask the question, well, how does he get to this?

How do he get there? So that's the context, I think, that we go and interpret this. This is not an argument for, in my opinion, of how we're saved. It's an argument for how we get, how we are going to be graphic. it into the same body and how God's going to come live in us. It's more about life and Christ and temple language. Well, I think you make an excellent point because I think where people disagree and get into so much controversy over Ephesians 1 and 2 is because you have a group of

people who are looking at this purely on an individual level. Yep. Like God picking some to be saved and some not. And the point is all groups of people. people from whatever background as a whole being built. And when you read this, I mean, what picture are you getting? It's about a group of people coming together that literally represents the presence of Jesus at the right hand of God.

Yeah, one guy I read said, the point of Ephesians is we, not me, which I think was a really just a succinct way to put that. It helps you, it helps you understand Romans also. It does. It's the same, same idea that when you look on it on an individual basis, so when you see like, just to give you example,

you remember when in Romans 7, when Paul said, well, I know that there's nothing good that lives in me, you know, you're like, well wait a minute now does that not mean you you haven't ever done you know good things or well when you kind of look at that as a whole yeah from adam to you know to go back to his point romans five adam to moses and romew three he's been making that point well right that's where i was headed when you go back to romans 118 you kind of figured out oh we've all contributed as humans and i'm saying we all, but the entire human world, that once that sin happened, as this goes along, it's pretty

much been sin and death as a whole. Doesn't mean there haven't been moments. I mean, you think about Hebrews 11, he picks out all these men who had faith, you know. But we've all contributed as a whole to letting sin be our home, and the result has been death. And so when he gets down, you know, after he says that, because that's such a profound statement when it's like, yeah, Romans 718, I know that nothing good lives in me. That isn't my sinful nature or sinful flesh, the humanly existence on earth, you know, post-Adam. But then when he gets down to verse 24, it says, what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me. from this body of death, which is what as a whole we are.

That's why when you think about what Jesus did, like in John 6th, and they were like, we're going to make you a king. And the reason he pulled off, pulled back from that, is because they were thinking, earthly king, let's go get the Romans. And the same thing when Peter, when he was like, get behind me Satan.

He's like, you'll never die. That's why it's covered. in there. Don't repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. I mean, what a, what a statement. Well, my point is we're not doing that as a whole. Yes, we have our moments. We're not, but if you look at it individually, all of a sudden it becomes something else. And that's why I keep going back to his point about the first aspect. You know, 1 Corinthians 15, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

And so even our point about Romans 6, which he said in the previous chapter, when it said those of us who were baptized, we were baptized into his death. Well, you think, well, what did his death do? His death basically gave him the ability to separate himself from death itself in the physical, natural world of which we find ourselves trapped. Which is why when he gets to Romans 8, all of a sudden, he starts talking about the whole creation being liberated from its bondage to decay. He starts talking about the spirit. Then he starts talking about us getting the redemption of our bodies. So it's like when you try to get to know Jesus better,

all of a sudden you start realizing that when I was baptized into his death, you understanding exactly how powerful and all the things that go along with that is the only way you're going to escape this trap that we currently find ourselves, which is why he said, who's going to rescue me from this body of death? I mean, there's just no way. We keep trying to do things. We're like, well, that's why we have wars.

Yeah, the answer to that question in Romans 7, who will rescue me? The answer is the very next chapter. It's through Christ Jesus, but it's through the spirit. So we're baptized into his death, Roman 6 says, but also we're raised with him through baptism. Exactly. And so you're connected with the death, the burial,

and the resurrection. But you had mentioned this idea of sin being a huge part. part of the, it is the problem, right? The sin, it separates the whole thing. So when you, I think when you read Ephesians, if you go to verse three, if we can just start there, because we've already hit Paul, the apostle of Christ Jesus, pretty hard. We've set, we've set a foundation for that first, this first two verses. But three, he says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Now, this idea of blessing, it's very similar to what we had in the garden, right, in Genesis 1, 28, and 29. Listen to what it says, and God blessed them. So exactly what Paul just testified to, that he's blessed us in every way with every spiritual blessing. This first blessing came in Genesis 1, 28, and 29, and God blessed them. And he said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth. This was the original blessing right here.

Adam and Eve were blessed by God, from whom all blessings flow. So you see, mankind has like this special privileged place in creation. In fact, when God made everything else, he said it's good. But when he made mankind, man and woman, he said, it's very great. good. God walked with them. He knew them in a very intimate way. It was like this unbridled, unfiltered just conduit of just blessing from God until what? Until sin. And so the blessing is cut off from sin and God comes back in Genesis 12 and reinstitutes the blessing when he says to Abraham, now the Lord, or Abraham actually, now the Lord said to Abram, go for.

from your country and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation. You can kind of see this same like thing playing out that happened in the garden with the cultural mandate and this idea of dominion and this idea of blessing and this idea of go build this in the name of me. Go build. Go build culture. He's giving this same thing to Abraham. He says, I will make you a great nation. And guess what? I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will dishonor those who who curse you. And in you, here's the promise. All the families of earth shall be blessed. Not all, not all the families of Israel. All the families of earth shall be blessed. And he reinstates this in Genesis 22. I will surely bless you.

and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring, listen to this, shall all the nations on earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. In other words, he gives Abraham this promise. Abraham goes outside in Genesis 22. He says, hey, I'm going to give you a bunch of grandkids. And Abraham's like, well, how many are you going to give me? He said, we'll look up in the stars.

So he looks up. He says, you count the stars. He's like, I can't count them. There's too many. Okay, that's how many you're going to have. You will not be able to count them. Abraham is interpreting this as his own physical lineage. But that's not what God is promising him there.

God is promising him something way bigger than that. God is saying that the blessing is going to come when all the nations on earth are going to be blessed because you've obeyed my voice. All nations will be blessed. So we're actually children of Abraham. Abraham, and I know I'm going off here, but I just want to set this up because I think it's the context of what we mentioned. And by the way, Galatians 3, 15, and following, Paul says exactly what you're saying. Well, yeah, and that's why that context, we started, when we started in Ephesians 2, 19, about the Gentiles, all nations coming in. Okay, based on everything I've said, you guys are all in now.

How did he get here? This is all the Old Testament stuff. This is the language out of Exodus 19. while Moses went up to God, the Lord called to him out of the mountain saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourself have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant,

you shall be my treasured possession among all people. For all of the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. So what you're seeing here between this language and Ephesians 1 and all of this is you're seeing similarities here that we have God's chosen people. We have them called God's own treasured possession. And then we have the blessing that chosen one later that gets more specific.

And as the prophet says, it's going to be someone that is going to come through the line of David, it's Jesus coming. And so you see this biblical picture in the Old Testament of the Jews first, but the promise of the coming Gentiles, that's the Old Testament. The Jews first, God's chosen people, and then grafted in the coming of all nations. And then that's going to be realized in Jesus. And so that's the backdrop of what Paul's doing in Ephesians, is he's showing how all this Old Testament stuff's coming together.

So that blessing that he's talking about here is a blessing that was promised to Abraham. Yeah, I mean, I love what you did, quote in that verse about all human families, all nations. Because that's why I said, if you look at this as a whole, the entire earthly human family dies. Right. There's a trap here. And it was a result of, you know, the sin that happened. And so I was going the same thought process that you were, but just from a totally different way. So I wanted to read this.

And it comes from when I was mentioning Romans, you know, you have this strange verse that now I completely understand. But for years, I always thought, what does this mean? And the verse is in Romans 8 where it says, if Christ is in you, this is 8, 10, your body is dead because of sin. Yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. And so that's the, we're born into a human family. Now, granted, we're born in the image of God and we're innocent, but we're born into a world where sin will eventually make its home in your life.

We're all as humans are going to contribute to that in some way as adults, but we're all going to die. And so even when you hear about Christ and hear the good news of Christ like Phil was talking about, you receive God's spirit, but you notice in Ephesians 1 here, it says that spirit is a deposition. Yep. Well, what does that mean? It's a deposit for something greater, or maybe not greater, but we're more. Something more. I have a hard time describing that because you do have the Holy Spirit. It is a guarantee, but that's where it gets into, well, that there's our purpose. Because what gets lost in all this is, well, what are we supposed to do? Because we're trapped on earth, no matter what happens, we're going to die. Now, we can either try to make this world a better place, good luck with that. Or we can say, you know, maybe we can introduce what God wanted us to

introduce is a better, and better is not a strong enough word, but a better way to live life through his spirit, declaring the presence of God is real, and that Jesus is exalted, even though it doesn't look like it. Yep. And one of these days we're going to be resurrected. So I set that up to read 2 Corinthians 5, and I want to read a lot of this, because I think when you look at it like Zach was reading those passages, when you look at it as a whole, that God's predetermined foreordained plan was that through people who house the spirit of God,

we will make his presence known and people's eyes are open that oh not only is there a god the image of the invisible god came to the same earth in the same trapped atmosphere to actually do away with us being trapped it's called salvation liberation justification yeah living forever this is god is for us and so So when you read 2 Corinthians 5, I think this is a real interesting. He says in verse 1, we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, and that's going to happen, no matter what you do, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

But meanwhile, we've grown, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. And so then he goes on down in verse 5 and says, Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose. And, you know, what is mortal being swallowed up, he says that in verse 4. And has given us the spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. He says the same thing in Ephesians 1, 13, and 14. And it says, therefore, we're always confident. but he gets down to verse 10.

I want you to watch this transition talking about our purpose now, here, right now. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. So here all of a sudden, we're talking about the entire humanity. So he says, verse 11, since then we know what it is. to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men, which is, Phil, what you describe, while you're sharing Jesus, because you're saying, look, you're going to die.

This earthly tent is going to be destroyed. You can work out, eat right, you'll die healthy, or you just may die unhealthy, but we're all going to die. And we're all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. So he says, we try to persuade men. So then it says in verse 14, for Christ's love compels us. Now this is a very interesting verse, and it's another one for years I never understood. But watch what this says.

We are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. Now, you say, wait, what? what could this mean in the context of we're all earthly, fleshly, temporary, we're going to be destroyed, but God has a plan, the Holy Spirit is a guarantee, but we're all going to have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so we try to persuade men. And then he makes that statement, for Christ's love compels us because we're convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves for him who died for them and was raised again. When you look at this as a corporate group of being part of a human family, Jesus' death

was everybody's death. That's why we're trying to persuade men. It just simply shows you that, number one, God is for everybody. He calls men through the gospel of Jesus. And that's what we're doing now as spirit-filled people, we're declaring to Jesus, I mean, we're declaring to the human family, look, God has made a way out of this place. Right. That's what we're doing here. Of course, he goes on and starts talking about if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. He's given us the message of reconciliation that God was making his appeal through us.

We're therefore Christ ambassadors. I just think that one little phrase in there, because a lot of people, when they look at this, individualistically, they're missing. It's not about God predetermining this little group of individuals. No, he died for all by that death. It's available. And so what are we doing now? We're pointing people to Jesus.

Which is why in 1st, Corinthians 15, you know, we read that passage about the resurrection. And when he's talking to the Corinthians, he's showing all the benefits of it. You're just like, man, this is incredible. The believer's resurrection, the glorification, the living eternally. But when you read what Jesus said in John 5, you realize on the resurrection, I mean, as great as it's going to be, if you've done what he asked you to do and obeyed him, then it's going to be amazing. But that's not going to be the case for everybody.

That's why you have to be convinced in this life that we want to be ready for the next one. And embrace the blessings that is Jesus and that is there. So, man, really encouraging stuff and encouraging as to why he wrote it. When we come back on the next podcast, I want to remind us of the context of, remember, because this all started because we were in Acts 19 and 20 about why he wrote it the way he wrote it. I think there was some specifics in there that we get from that context. We'll talk about that next time and a lot, a lot more. We scored.

Hey, real quick. So we're three podcasts in on Ephesians, and we're through verse three. So we're going to finish this, guys. We may have our 1,000th podcast when we're just getting through with Ephesians. We'll see where it goes. See you next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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