Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 941 | Phil Sticks His Foot in His Mouth with a Pro Athlete & Jase Is Called Out for a Hat in Church

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Phil offers constructive criticism to a new hunting partner, only to find out later that he’s a World Series-winning baseball player. Jase heads to Tennessee to check on the extensive post-tornado cleanup at his home but wasn’t expecting to get called out at church for wearing a gospel hat in the service. The guys discuss the meaning of the phrase “fullness of God” and where it appears in various texts. Zach suggests that much of our anxiety comes from trying to assume power in our lives that doesn’t actually belong to us. In this episode: Ephesians 2, verses 13-18; Ephesians 3, verse 19; Ephesians 4, verses 6-13; Romans 8, verse 26; 1 Corinthians 2, verse 12; Colossians 1, verses 19-23  -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. The gang is still all together. You know, it's funny because you guys get a day in between or two sometimes on our podcast, but we're just, we're running it back to back. So we're glad to have Zach back, even though he's a little bit puny. Yeah. I'm not any, I'm not any better than I was the last episode. Well, we had, we had 10 minutes in between, Zach. I was expecting a mere, miraculous recovery.

It just didn't happen, did it? It was hard being away from y'all. It's kind of funny. I was telling Jill, I said, I really talked to Phil, Jason, Al, more than anybody else. I talk to you guys so much every week.

I mean, it's, I really, we really do talk a lot if you think about it. We do. Not just on the podcast, but even outside of that, all the different ways we're trying to impact the kingdom. And it is kind of interesting

because we were mentioned in between the now max is heading to nashville national is becoming the uh gathering place uh for for jason zax all your progeny yeah that's wound up well in that area we may have a studio up there we need to might need to have to build us a studio that's right we might have to start recording from national that well i had a studio and then a tornado hit and uh at my house so that's why i had a house there because i mean you realize that when you want to come visit. I mean, my oldest son, he has three kids now under three.

So you might ought to go somewhere else and then just check in. Yeah. Because at some point. So where do y'all stay now? When you just went up there, where did you stay? Well, that's what I was going to tell you. This is a funny story. So my house is two months post-tornado, and we have the power back on.

But my house has to be totally reconno. instructed. So I would call it now a really nice tent. And it has tarps on the roof and all this blowing in the wind. And there's lots of heavy equipment in the yard. And look, they've been working over two weeks getting the trees gathered up. And there's a process, which I watch. And, you know, I'm talking, because I'm really not sure what to do other than we got to clean all this up. So there's, Phil, you'd love this. Huge burn piles. So they're burning a lot. They're taking out a few logs. But I'm so high on a hill that, you know, they're coming down this hill with a load of logs. And guess what happens?

Whoop. Truck turns over. Too many logs. Too steep a hill. So then you have all this chaos. But nobody was injured, which was good. Then there's a stump removal going on. And then there's different piles of debris from other people's houses of the tornado. So that's why when all my buddies were like, hey, you know, I got a chainsaw. Let's go clean that up. I'm like, no, unless you have some big piece of equipment. Because just think, two and a half weeks of dozers, backhows, chippers. It would almost force you to start quoting scripture from Ephesians chapter three.

So we're dinned up. We're dinned up in our house because one side of my house was less affected. And it's not terrible. I mean, but every time it rains, it leaks and all. But luckily, it was rain. By the way, here in North Louisiana, there are a lot of trees on hit the ground when it tore our year's stuff up. Oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, it's like this in places.

Yeah. You don't get through. I mean, it would take a, it's going to tell. like a bulldozer and scratching it out. That's him in the middle of woods. And that's where we're at. But you know what hit me and all that I was looking? Because it's so surreal.

And it's hard to explain. I took multiple pictures and we can share some of those. I'll give to our young Maddie, our producer. And, you know, it's hard to capture what's going on from my pictures because it's so severe. What happened to you was the first choice on looking on how Jews and Gentiles better come together because the reality is found. But that's what I was going to say. And the trees that came from the earth and piled up, barely missing your son.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I had 17 trees that hit my house in some capacity. Some were thrown on it. Some fell on it. And so, you know, what hit me, though, in this is the process of new creation is rough. I mean, it went from just. terror and hoping my son was alive. Your whole property of 30 acres of virgin timber.

Yeah. With my house like, it's down to piles in a matter of seconds. I mean, I would say over... It sounds like that what's going on in the, between the Greeks and the non-Greeks and the prisoners, the prisoners and the non-pruders, I mean, boy. So I'm talking to this bulldozer operator and, you know,

and they're going in there and doing all this. And I was like, I got a question because I was just looking at the lack of trees that I have left. I said, how many oak trees survived? And he said, one. And I kind of laughed, and he's like, no, I'm serious.

There's only one. And it's the only one. It's just in a dirt spot for, I bet, five acres. There's not one tree, and there's a young oak coming up. And I was like, man, that's almost, depressing. So I'm really struggling in what to do as far as how to do I go back and plant trees. So whoever's an expert on this, I got 30 acres, I'm on the top of a hill, over 90% of the trees

will be gone, and they're literally just grating the side of the hill. It's just dirt. I mean, that's it. So I mean, I'm sure they'll plant some ryegrass or something for the short term, but you either got to figure out what you're going to maintain or like all my fences gone. completely gone. Your best bet is fast-growing trees. Well, I thought about that, but I was like, you know, what exactly? Because you know, Jay's, you rang a good point. We're we are lowlanders.

I mean, we spend our whole lives living in a delta. I mean, we do have trees, but we don't have hills. And people that live in hills in mountain, mountainous areas, it's a whole different thing. in terms of topography and all that stuff. So you're right. We have zero expertise. The tallest place in Louisiana, and we call it Mount Driscoll.

And every time I miss it, when I go somewhere where there's true mountains, they all laugh because I say the highest point in Louisiana is about 700 feet high. And that's it. I mean, that's over in Arcadia. And everybody lasts. They said,

that's our mountain, you know. And so we don't know about hills. We don't know about how to, but if you don't do it right, you can have some problems down the road. It's either going to grow up into a thicket again. You know, I was just wondering, I wanted to appeal to unashamed nation.

I'd be interested to see, okay, when it all gets down to dirt, what do we do? Because even like in a moment, I'm taking pictures early in the morning, and I see a small deer to the left side of my driveway. Well, to the right side, it's just dirt. But the deer stepped out kind of like, what happened here? And the deer looked up at me, and I looked at the deer. deer and so I took a couple of pictures and I caught that deer on the dirt that is that had just been created making a run for it because they used to just you know be right at my front door eating grass but now they're all like what what happened here I caught that deer with a pitcher

in mid-leap it reminded me of when me and you were hunting in the in well when we used to do the duck videos and the deer came walking across, which it was probably what's profound about that is the greatest scene we ever had in 20-something videos when we had the VHS as duck hunting was actually a deer that Phil shot, which was legal. Don't write us in because people did that for years. Because in some states, you can't shoot a deer while you're duck hunting. But in Louisiana, you can as long as he's walking. He's swimming that's out. But the deer was walking, and you actually missed him.

You didn't. You were on target, but he stepped down in a hole. Just grazed the top of his back with the first. And when we recovered the deer, it actually, the first bullet didn't even go through anything but hair. It literally grazed him, just took the hair off his back. I'm saying he, I think it was a her. Was it a buck or a doe? I think it was a doe, wasn't it?

The dough. Yeah. So then most people would say, well, I missed that because the deer took off running. But Phil pulled off the shot heard around the world and hit that deer. At a dead run. You can call it luck and divine providence or a miracle. I don't know. I'll accept any of those three.

But, uh, and to hit that deer and to get it on camera was amazing. But this little deer, you'll also. I led him about 10 yards. I led the deer quite a ways. he was right open. I just pulled on a lot to give her a, give her a, like you would a duck. And the most surprising thing. It ended up, we were chicken fryer, so I mean, you know.

Well, right. Because we, you know, we're wilderness people. I mean, ducks are good, but they're more of the appetizer. A deer, you know, you can eat on that for a week. And I believe a deer's better taste than, especially one of that caliber. And so, but what was amazing is Phil pulled that. shot off. Of course, we're filming. You know, back then, we're struggling to figure out how to film what we do.

So I was expecting, okay, what are we going to talk about now? And I look over there and Phil, I mean, after pulling off the greatest shot I've ever seen before. Oh, it's amazing. Or since. The deer's full, like, leap in the air. Yeah. It's the deer. And the deer does a complete flip.

It does a cartwheel, yeah. You used to could watch it on YouTube these days. Who knows? Who knows? But Phil's response was crazy. so when I looked, because I thought, what am I going to say after that? Phil's already sipping his coffee. Like it was just, okay, that happened.

We were moving on. And so I was like, well, you got some more of that coffee? Phil was like, yeah, he was getting his coffee. You got some more that coffee. Yeah. So then we filmed for like 45 minutes giving play by plays. But when we were in the video, we just ran exactly what happened. I was like, you got some.

more of that coffee. Yeah. It was so anticlimatic that it was hilarious. I mean, yeah, you're, because you're expecting everybody to be like, what? But we, yeah, we didn't create it. Phil did it. He was just like, his blood pressure never rose through that. Oh, that was so funny.

Most videos, especially back in those days, hunting videos, would have been people high-fiving and, you know, just yelling and screaming, which that was the appeal to all of our early stuff is it was just like this is what we do. Like nobody's, nobody's acting all foolish. Like this doesn't happen every day. You have a shotgun right here. That will do with ducks.

But we always carry this just in case the deer comes by. Yes, right. Yeah. One did. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times Jayes would be in the blind and you'd look over to us and say, is it dove season? And we're duck hunting.

But you'd look up and see two doves coming. And so it's like, then we had to figure. it out. Oh, yeah, yeah, you could shoot them, you know. So it's like, oh, I've done that many times. Yeah, because I'd rather eat a dove than a duck. But it's so funny, my best friend outside of family is a guy from, he lives in Missouri, but he, well, we hunt with him in Kansas. Phil's been up there many times. But the first time we went there, I mean, he has a hot hole. And we, we were like, oh, my goodness, you'll see more mallards there in a day than you'll see all year. And so we have the cameras. Remember we had a couple of professional baseball.

players. I'm not sure how we all got together at this guy's place. But he had his brother there because it's like, hey, these are the duckmen or whatever. So we get a bunch of mallards in the hole. I mean, in over the decoys. And it was probably a couple hundred, wouldn't you say? Oh, yeah. And we just waxed them legally. But, you know, we rained them out. It was one of the greatest scenes of all those videos we ever did over ducks. Well, the guy. who invited us his brother, he went nuts right after we shot him. Because, you know, it's just something you don't see as a duck hunter, 200 mallards just at point blank range just funneling in.

It's like they went through a funnel over the decoy. And he's hollering. And so, but we're, we're acting like, okay, we've been here before. And so Phil said, you got to remember, Joe Paterno would tell, and I was thinking, what is Phil talking about? because we were filming, but Phil wasn't worried about filming. He was telling this brother of the guy who invited us, he was like, when you score a touchdown, there's no dancing, hollering.

You need to act like you've been there before. And I remember in that moment being so nervous because I thought these guys have invited us and feels like, hey, calm down, act like you've been there. There's no celebrations. We're acting like something that should have happened. just happen. This is what's supposed to happen. Dad used to always say, the one thing you never want to see on camera is some guy looking around saying, I got him. That's that iconic poster from Duck Dynasty. When I was in Louisiana

last of the commander, I saw the poster and me and Alex, your daughter, how we're talking about Phil's posture because the four faces are Cy, Jace, William Phil. Of course, Jays, has a weird eye thing going on. Yeah. Willie looks just goofy. And then Sil looks crazy. That looks crazy. And then Phil is deadpan.

There's like, no, it's just like. Mount Rushmore. Yeah, just Mount Rushmore. I'm just, I'm here not moving. But it was that character. I mean, it's here you are, Phil. I mean, it's just, it's hilarious. I didn't know I had a weird eye thing going, this is breaking news to me.

Oh, yeah. He's right. You kind of got this look like you're, you've got something on your mind that nobody else knows about it. It's like one eye halfway open. Like you're like, it's, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I've actually seen dad with that same look that Jay's had on that poster that you're talking about. It's like an eyebrow raise.

Yeah, it's kind of one of those like, I'm not so sure about all. I don't know about all this. Well, I'm sure what happened was they took thousands of pictures and I, I wasn't trying to do that. They just picked that out of a bunch of pictures.

That, it had nothing to do with me. Ha, ha, ha, that's what I'm saying. Don't be fool by marketing. If they take a thousand pictures and one time I was thinking about something else,

they're going to get you. And they captured it. And then they're like, oh, look, Jason's got a weird eye going. Well, it just, but Zach's right. It captured something about y'all from the show that mattered because it was such a big picture. Jay's you mentioned about, I forgot to tell the story. We had the Robo Show's on recently, Chad and Hunter. talking about their new book.

Because you mentioned about the baseball players in the blind. I don't know if one of them was LaRoche. I think it was Adam LaRoche and J.D. Drew, which I haven't seen J.D. Drew before or since. But he may not. And we love Adam. We see him all the time. So I guess Adam took the rebuke well.

J.D. Drew, not so much. No, I don't know. It was a good guy. But he got offended also. Because the same guy that was hooping and hollering asked him what he did for a living. And he's like, I play baseball. And he's like, for a living? And he's like, yeah.

And he said, well, who do you play for? And he's like, the Boston Red Sox. And he's like, oh, he's like, well, did y'all have a pretty good year? He said, yeah, we won the World Series last year. And he's like, oh, okay. Well, I guess things are going good. So look, so I'm reading Chad's new book. And I knew that Adam,

But last time we had Adam on the podcast, he talked about he had been doing, like, going to other countries in some of these sex trafficking rings. And, I mean, he, he's not just like playing golf and, you know, hunting in his retirement. He's, like, doing some amazing things. So I'm reading the book. And I asked Hunter, because one of the compelling stories in there, they were in Ukraine. And they got this mission to somebody's got to go get Benjamin Hall, who's a Foxx. news guy, a reporter, who had been in a terrible strike and four other people were killed, including two Fox people.

And he was gravely wounded. He wasn't going to survive unless they went into the war zone and got him. And so he said there were, in the book, it says there's 11 people sitting in this room. I think it was 11 people. And the guy comes in and tells them, he says, is there anybody that will volunteer to go get him? And all 11 people raise their hand. And then I was shocked, Jay, so I was reading it, said, and one of the guys was Adam LaRoche.

Yeah, he wasn't even the military guy, but he's like, I don't even know why he was there, but he was like, yeah, I'm going. And so he winds up going with him on this mission. And then Hunter was a little bit of heard about it because he's like, hey, I'm a trained military guy. How come the baseball guy is getting to go and not me? Yeah. And so I forgot to mention that to them about La Roche. But I just thought that was interesting. It's like the world's most interesting man.

I mean, he's a great guy. I was like, what does he do in Ukraine with a bunch of, you know, special ops guys? And they let him go. Yeah, he went. I mean, he could have died, but no, I love Adam. We've been friends for years. It just shows you the heart of people. And we talked about them before being guys you can depend on.

But I love the selflessness about it. And I mentioned this before because Ukraine's another one of those political footballs. A lot of people were against all the money that's been sent. There's a lot of corruption. But Chad just approached it so well in the book because he says, look, I realize all that's true. And there's political gain and there's terrible stuff at the political level. But at the end of the day, there's hurting people. That's right.

And a lot of them are believers. And the reason I went over there was to help my brothers and sisters and people who are hurting. And I thought, man, if there's ever a message that who we're supposed to be, that's it. Well, that's why me and him are great friends because that's our connection and that's why I endorsed his book because, you know, I don't talk a lot about it politically because I went over there for a month, you know, in the early 1990s and I got a lot of friends there. I know these people and they came to Christ and they're my brothers and sisters. So, you know, I'm behind him 100% because I met a lot of people. And guess what they are? They're just people.

Yeah. And so when people suffer, especially people you know. you have a different agenda than some kind of saying a political statement and being like, oh, what side are you on? You know, it's just different when you know those people. Yeah, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away, all of our, the ungodly non-Jews, they were far away that had been brought near through the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace. who has made the two one Jew or Gentile

and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law and with its commandments and regulations his purpose was God was to create in himself one new man out of the two Jew or Gentile

thus making peace between them All this is coming to a head, and we're reading about it, and in this one body, to reconcile both of them, Jew or Gentile, to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility, which is just amazing, he came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near Jew, then Gentile, for through him Jesus on a cross

and a resurrection for through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit brings us all together which is a perfect place that is cool

yeah the segue and the power of prayer which is you know the first three chapters you have this big long prayer intersected by that yep but he you know he says that

through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. I mean, it's something you just read over, but if you think about it, that's why he's praying. Oh, yeah. And we view it a lot of times just because we do it so much

or we do it in formal settings. But if you have... The reality of it is shocking. If you have the access to the creator of the world? Unlimited access to the creator of the world, and you have the spirit of his son in you, This is thrilling news. This is like something you, you know, you study, you read, then you walk outside and start hollering.

And there's no other way to get there. None. Jay's I was going to read this last time you brought this up in the last podcast. But in Romans 8, because he brings up in the next verse in verse 16 of where we are in Ephesians 3, the spirit. Out of his glorious riches, he empowers us by his spirit in our inner being. Listen to what, listen to the way Paul put this to the point you just made about prayer in Romans 826. He says in the same way, because he was talking by the way about first fruits and us being adopted as children, in the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans and words that words cannot express.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. Yeah. So you talk about a powerful interaction when you're communicating with the creator of all things and you have his spirit living in you. You better believe it. Helping make that connection. How can you not be stronger? Lisa and I have said this about her cancer deal. So many people were praying.

We felt a peace that was not natural. And her especially because she was going through it, but I was going through it with her. And look, it's been supernatural in terms of how well she's done. And we totally credit that to the prayers that were lifted on her because so many people were focused in that moment. I mean,

that's the only thing we can, this is only reason. And I know people that were not believers, would not understand that. They said, oh, she's got good genetics, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're like, no, we felt it. We knew it in our inner being that she was being lifted up to the almighty to get through that without any problems.

And she has. It's been amazing. Lots of power went down through that. No doubt about it. To your point on anxiety, I mean, most of our anxiety comes from when we try to assume a power that's not ours. and then you have to take on the responsibility of making sure that this thing works out. And when your face with something like a cancer or a tornado that wipes out however many trees in a matter of five seconds,

then those are moments when you're like, I don't have as much power as I think I do. And I'm so glad you mentioned the role of the Holy Spirit there because it's the Spirit. I mean, Paul says that I didn't come to you with wise and persuasive words, but a demonstration of the Spirit's power. And he further defines that in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. He says, the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What we have received is not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. God so that we may understand what God has freely given us. That's where the peace comes from is that that we have the mind of Christ now. We have the mind of God through the spirit. He makes these things known to us. And I think that's that eternal rest that we enter into when we put our faith in Jesus. What I would like to do is when I read this prayer, you know, we have Al and Zach had an outline of how this prayer is kind of a reflection on the first three chapters.

And I wrote this down because even though it's a little technical and there's a lot of verses, it kind of gives you the big themes that are said over and over and over and over again. And I'd just like to go through it and see what y'all think about it and comment on it. But if you start reading the prayer when he gets to 314, he says, for this reason, I kneel before the father, from whom the whole family, in heaven and on. earth derives its name. Well, that's one thing that keeps coming up. Because if you go back to

chapter one in verse 10, remember when he said, in verse 9, he said, God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head. You see that same vibe of heaven and earth coming together under one head. So when he prayed in 314, you know, he was talking about family. But in chapter one and verse, you know, it's the same verses over and over. But in verse 20 and 21, you see the same concept.

If you pick up in the middle of 19, it says that power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority power and dominion and every title that can be given not only in the present age but also in the one to come and god placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church which is on earth which is his body, the fullness who fills him in every way. And you remember in 2.6 where it says

he seated us with him in the heavenly realms? Because that connection of us having his spirit and him being exalted in the heavenly realms, heaven and earth is coming together under one head. So that's one. The second theme, if you read in 16, the first part, it says, I pray that out of his glorious riches,

it's amazing how many times. riches is mentioned. And when you think about this is all done in Christ, he was homeless, penniless, and was deemed powerless. And the whole thing keeps talking about all these riches that you have in Christ. So it's here.

It's in one, seven, and 18. It's in two seven. I mean, we can just pick one or two out and read them. What is two seven? Yeah, and God placed us, seated us with him in the heavenly realms in order that in the coming ages he might show his incomparable riches of his grace one seven in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins and accordance with the riches of god's grace i mean don't you find that kind of fascinating

he also says it in three eight uh the unsearchable he wanted to show the general Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. I just thought it was interesting that he keeps saying that. Well, because think about what we often do when we present the gospel, we often present it as what happens after this side of heaven ends. Like, it's the future. But I think that language you're referencing there is this is language now. And it makes me think of that John 17, 3 passage, when Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God and Jesus Christ's son whom he sent.

Like that, the riches are in him. It's like actually in a relationship with Christ. So the prize isn't, isn't me living forever. It's me living with Christ forever. He has the prize. And think about it. All of us know wealthy people that have no peace of mind. because they don't have a connection of the Holy Spirit into grace.

And you'd think if you had enough riches and a big enough house, enough money in your bank account, that's all you would need to have peace of mind and what we're talking about here. But we all know that's not true. If you understand the grace of God, which is why you use grace twice, Jase, when he was talking about incomparable riches,

that's much more peace of mind than what's in the bank account. Well, that's where I'm going with this. I'm like, if you look at this just from a, and I'm using this in quotes. You know, if you're just like, oh, look at all this doctrine. He's praying based on the persecutions and the pain, just like we all have as human beings as the backdrop. But this is so thrilling that, you know, in both the,

we've only done two that he keeps using the same things. But think about it. If you walk outside after reading this, you're like, hey, everybody, heaven is here. Yeah. Heaven is here. And people are like, well, that's weird. This guy's crazy.

Or you walk out after you've come to Christ, you heard Christ, you respond, you walk outside, and you're like, I'm rich. And they're looking at your house. Like, no, you're not. But you've discovered something that's way beyond this earth. And it came through Jesus. He wouldn't just be doing that over and over if he didn't actually believe it to be true, that the riches you have in Christ far exceed our definition of what it means to be rich.

Oh, yeah. And I think the same thing about all these people waiting to go to heaven. You know, why does he keep saying over and over? Look, heaven and earth has come together through this movement called the church. Yeah. Which is what I was going to next. Where death has been conquered. So 16B, he keeps bringing up the indwelling of the Holy Spirit inhuman.

humans and how that is being shown through wisdom and peace and working, which is God working, peace, wisdom, and actual working, declaring this, making Jesus' presence known. So he says that in 16B, which we read, I pray that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. So these people that are saying, no, I'm not sure the spirit indwells you. Oh, it indwells you. Yes. And when you read Ephesians 1, 17, you see the same thing.

He's given us a deposit, or 14, deposit guarantee in our inheritance. No, I skipped it. 13. Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. It's in your inner being. Jay, those two Greek words, inner being made inside a human being. That's what the literal words mean. Yeah, and if you think about what you said earlier,

where heaven and earth meet. There actually is a word for this in the Bible. It's called the temple. That's where heaven and earth meet. That's where God meets with man. Well, that's number four. That's number four. Look, that's number four.

I was going to, that was the next one. Zach's not even looking at the list, and he's quoting the list. Not even looking at the list. 317, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts. And you say, dwell. Well, when you read Ephesians 2, 19 through 22, which we've read many times, but it says, verse, I'll just pick 21, in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. That is the natural connection. But you see the same thing. God is dwelling with and in people. So, you know, we're going to get to what that means God dwelling through you because then you're going to come to the conclusion on what I am to do. So God is going to work through me to do a lot of things, which is why you get into that verse, Phil brought up earlier, when it said, in love, we speak the truth. the actual truth being a person, Jesus becomes a verb because he's working through you to do a lot of things like he did when he was on the earth.

So that was four, five is God's love over and over. That's in verse 318. He says, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And you remember where he started in Ephesians 1, verse 4? Remember he was like, he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. And people all over the religious world argue about exactly what that means and what are

the repercussions of that. But I know those next two words is the foundation, because it says, in love. He predestined us. And now here he's saying, he's praying that they can grasp. And you're rooted in this love, verse 17, and you may grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ. So it's not only the new temple, but it's, you know, when you think about being rooted in love, it's the new tree of life.

You remember that you're going back to the garden. We're talking about the new creation has happened because of love. and really through spirit-filled human beings, being servants of Jesus, that has become the new tree of life. Get in close proximity to them. I mean, I had it happen yesterday. I actually have my hat in church, and people say, oh, I don't know if you can do that.

These rule-oriented religious people have confronted me about that. Well, yesterday, after the service was over, amen, I turned around because somebody said, hey, you look like one of them guys. from the duck, duck people. And my wife said, are you just now realizing that? You know, because we've been sitting in front of them. She did it playfully, you know. And he said, well, I got a question for you.

Now, we're in a church building. And he said, what does that mean on your hat? Well, the next 15 minutes was really good. I'm so glad you asked. Because we just had church after church was over. Because you were wearing a hat that some people said, why is that guy wearing a hat? Why is that homeless guy down there wearing a hat?

Explain the hat for the people who are listening and not watching. Hang on. Hang on before we do that. Let's take our last break. And now to show you this is contagious. Now my cousin is asking me what's on my hat. I know what's on the hat. I know, but it's another opportunity to explain an arrow coming down.

And look, this didn't go as quickly as I thought because I thought we're in church. I went through the arrow. I was like, God came to earth. I said, his name was Jesus. You know, I just thought he, I was giving him the cliff notes version. And he's like, what is the, and I went through the whole thing. He died on the cross. He was buried on a tomb, buried in a tomb.

He burst forth from the ground. I was like, remember he ate fish post-resurrection? I was throwing in a little commentary. He's at the right hand of God now. the arrow coming back, he's coming back, he will appear. I was like, but he's there now. So we're in that section wherever my finger is on my hand. It's there.

And he's like, no, no, no, back up, you know. And so we had to go back through each symbol again. He's like, well, that's exciting. I was like, well, that's why we're here. That was literally the conversation. Look out, he's excited about Jesus. And look, Jay's. next week we're having a guest on our podcast and the reason he's going to be on our podcast

is because I was watching the Olympics in Paris, France, and there's a guy in the audience with that hat on. And his son was winning a medal and I was like, we got to get that guy on the podcast. He's coming on next week. I'm excited. Does he listen? Did he listen to the show? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Al, Al. He got him to come in. But anyway, let me finish this because we're running out. So in 2-4, he brings up love. remember that was in our transition from death to life being under the control of the evil one and under the control of our Savior and Creator.

Remember, he said, but because of his great love. And the point I'm making is... And by the way, Jay, as you're making that, the word is agape, because there's a lot of different Greek words. And sometime in a future podcast, I'll give you all the different words in Greek for love. They have like seven different words. that one means unconditional sacrificial love. It's a unique love that you read about in most of the New Testament.

So it's more than just, I love chicken and Jesus loves us. No, this is something totally different. No, excellent point. We can go into detail in that in the future. But 415, we brought up many times, but he said, speak the truth in love. Now, now we're getting into being transformed people and what we do. He didn't say speak the truth in wrath. Now wrath was mentioned in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, when those who rejected and those, you know, before we came to Christ, that's where we were at.

But it's only mentioned twice in the whole book of Ephesians. He brings it up again in Chapter 5 where people were into greed, impurity, and sexual immorality, you know, this is 5-4. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, course, joking which are out of place for you can be sure no immoral, impure, greedy person, such a man is an indulgence or has any insinity. inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. And then verse 6, he says, let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of such thing, God's wrath comes on those. So it's mentioned a couple of times, but my point is the overwhelming majority of his prayer and his motivation was this whole plan was put forth based on love.

And he actually brings it up again in the previous verse in 5-2. five one and two you remember that where he says be imitators of god therefore is dearly loved children and live a life of love and so there's different ways to motivate people but when you look at the common themes which is why i'm doing this you get what this is all about and what god chose to do and what it was based on and then how we're supposed to respond which is overwhelmingly the foundation is love And so then this is number six, if you're keeping score. Knowing Christ, you remember verse 319 where he says, and to know this love that surpasses, that surpasses knowledge.

Well, that was eerily similar to what he said in his prayer in Ephesians 1, where he says, 17. 17, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give you the spirit. of wisdom, we've already gone through that revelation, so that you may know him better, which is then going to tie in to another theme line that's going to develop from this point on, from chapter four on, is being mature in Christ. And you say, well, how do you become mature in Christ? You get to know Jesus better, because that's who you're representing through your

spirit. So every time I struggle, and this is getting practical, because the whole book's fixed to get real practical. Yep. But every time you're doing things that you know you shouldn't be doing and it's a reflection of your old man, you know, he brings that up. Don't be like the old man. You put him off. Be like the new man.

That's when you say, I need to get back to getting to knowing Jesus better. I mean, it's a common theme that you see. That's 4.15 and 317. Number seven, the fullness of God. This one's interesting. And maybe y'all can help me with this. But in 319, and we haven't talked about this, which is why I want to bring it up.

But he says, and to know this love that surpassed knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Well, it's a common thing. And a lot of people are going to say, well, what exactly does that mean? The same word was used in 110, where he said he'll put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. it's like everything being filled.

He says it again in 122 and 23, and I've got to read this. God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be had over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. And since we haven't brought this up before, I want to read all these. So in 4-6, he brings it up again. when he says the one god the father of all who is overall through all in all verse 10 of chapter four he who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe four thirteen until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the sun

and there's the reference about maturing of god and becoming mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, in which what I found fascinating is in Colossians in chapter 1 in verse 19, listen to what it says, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Look, same themes in Colossians that we just discussed in Ephesians. In Colossians, 1 in verse 23, listen to this. So, and then even in, when I look back to what Jesus said in John 1 and verse 16, which I hadn't noticed before, but he introduced this fullness idea in John 1 and verse 16,

from the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another. And so I was interested in y'all's take on that. Man, we only got a couple of minutes left in podcasts, but we definitely will have to carry this over to the next one because to me, this is one of the great shortcomings we have as human beings because we're so empty so often on so many things. It's in other words, like you go out and drive your car, how long is it take before you run out of gas? You know, you just drive a certain amount, you look down and it's empty. you have to refill it. And that really is representative of everything as human beings. We're always getting empty.

We run out of strength. We get hungry. I mean, so many different things we're empty and have to be filled. The thing about God is he's always full. Oh, yeah. He's never empty of anything. I remember my verse now in Colossians that I was trying to get to when you read the Colossians 1.

In Colossians 2-9, to your point, it says, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form wait for it verse 10 they shouldn't have put a 10 there it was mid sentence yeah and you have been given fullness in christ who is the head over every power and authority yep you don't you there's nothing yeah you're if you're sitting there thinking i mean your car illustration is great out we drove from Nashville to Monroe yesterday from 1 o'clock to 9 o'clock. Well, if you think about this, once we went south for a couple hours, we turned and headed west. That sun was right in our face. And you're like, what's the problem? Well, this fancy car that I bought my wife, it's great.

I love the car. but the little shade that you pull down to keep the sun out of your eyes, it fell off and basically into pieces. She ordered another one, but it hadn't come in yet. Well, I was studying for this podcast. Well, she was driving when she had her visor down. O.J. stared at the sun for eight hours. And look, I lost connection and gratitude for this fine car that we had.

have because one little thing was wrong. It was making me the most miserable person on the planet. But I thought, isn't that what we do in Christ? He's giving us all these things. And then one little thing happens. And all of a sudden, we're miserable and forget that I'm driving, you know, I'm riding in a fancy car. My wife's driving.

We're, it beats walking, you know. And so these are the little cues that my wife. It's the reason why I know. Nobody's buying electric vehicles. They run out of power too fast and you can't refill them. I know we're out of time, but the last point was the last verse because he brings up the church, which is us. All these great themes are culminated in mentioning the church when he says, now to him who is able to do him asly more than all we ask or imagine according to his power

that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church. And it just hit me. I wrote this down. The church is the body of Christ. We're servants of Christ. And it's possessed. It's not processed. It's not something that you think, oh, let's go build a building and we're going to get together once a week.

And we're possessed by the spirit of his son. And that should be a movement throughout this world at all times with all this power and wisdom. and access to God the Father because heaven and earth has come together. There you go. That's a new bumper sticker, possessed, not processed. I like it. All right. We'll try to do better next time.

It's so much good stuff to talk about on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get. anywhere else, subscribe to BlazTV at blazestiv.com slash unashamed.