Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 949 | Jase's Public Display of Manliness Backfires Spectacularly, Spiritual Con Men & Cult Leaders

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Jase puts on his semi-annual display of rugged manliness for his wife and neighbors, only for it to backfire in a way he wasn’t expecting! Phil receives hopeful news that changes his outlook for the rest of the year, and Jase takes a leaf out of another country’s plan to get voters to actually show up at the polls during elections. The guys compare the traits of spiritual con men and cult leaders to the principles of the Bible to show just how far off base religious types can be if Jesus isn’t their center. In this episode: Ephesians 4; James 3, verse 17; Ephesians 6, verses 1-4, 10-12; Hebrews 10, verses 14-29 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. I know we're out ahead maybe a little over a week, I'm out, when we record to when you guys are actually hearing it. But I do want to mention that Lisa and I are going to be super busy on the road in September. But I love mentioning where we're going to be because many times you guys will make an effort to come see us and come to the events we're at. If you go to Al and Lisa Robertson.com, there's an events thing, and you click on there, and it tells all the places we're going to be. We're going to be in Clanton, Alabama, Rootville, Georgia, Charlottesville, and Culpeper, Virginia, Des Moines, Iowa, and Raleigh, North

Carolina out this month. So check it out. We'd love to see you. I love meeting you, hearing your stories and kind of all of your unashamed stuff. So we appreciate the support. So you know what this means, Al. What's that? The first of September. symbolizes in a way a new birth for duck hunters. That's right. It's the leading edge, as dad calls it. It's more of a seven-month, you know, what's the word?

Odyssey. Gestation period. I'm not sure what the word is I'm looking for. I don't know if that was it. It's a seven-month pregnancy. Well, I guess gestation would be right. I didn't know that's what you were going. We were talking about the new birth.

earth last time. Yeah. Well, for duck hunters, you get to be reborn. And the big duck season for us is nine months away. Right. That's why I'm making this. But you have teal season and oh, they're so good and tasty. And so this has been a week.

I've spent the last week in all things wilderness. So I usually symbolize it by doing something in my neighborhood because I do live in a yuppie neighborhood just to show that I'm a man and I'm a hunter and I do manly things. So Missy had been talking about a couple trees. She couldn't see the water to the pond, you know. And so most people, you know, they call their yard man, which I have a yard man because, you know, the way I was raised. You don't mow the grass.

And so there's a difference. But you can still do manly things. in a yuppie neighborhood field and I'm going to tell you what I did. You would need to know how to do this. Well, I went out and got my chainsaw a couple mornings ago. Well, I guess it was four mornings ago and fired it up at a nice 7 o'clock a.m. Well, I'm out making a statement. It's time.

We're men. And I fired that puppy up. And your neighbors were cursing your name. What's amazing is. What's amazing is you. wait and you understand and it's it's a godly thing. Yeah. When you look up back to the north and you begin to see large groups of blue wing,

Blue wing starts the streak going all the way from the Canadian. The Grand Passage. The Grand Passage. You just look up and you look. What did you say? It's a godly thing. It's a godly thing. Why do they keep coming south, Phil?

Because there's a God that sends them. I agree. I've said that many times. Don't you think if God hadn't designed them to feed the food chain? I would just stay up there. Oh. Look, at some point you'd have a meeting and say, hey, guys, this is not working. Let's take our chances with the way.

The animal world is waiting for the food supply. Yeah. So human beings, you get. into that and you'll look and it's really it's really more than just ducks then because today is coming i saw two different sets of a dough and a phone right behind her same thing they're getting ready it's gearing up ducks are the door dash of god's creation five big turkeys were right up from the house there right on the other side of the house where i live yeah five big turkeys walked out there in the middle of the road yesterday you know right right in the middle so when you look at them do you see the

drumsticks and the you're seeing it as a oh yeah i'm like jace i mean that the lord is you can put it's a spiritual moment so faith the blue wings are coming coming well there i was with the chainsaw and i'm i cut down every non-desirable tree that that is serving no purpose so my wife can see the pond anything that a critter could feed off of i left i just laid them down in the neighborhood and which I didn't factor in that it was 104 degrees. So after about an hour, I was like, if you run a chainsaw, even early. That's right.

Which is one of the reason why you were there early. And I was in, you know, by the pool and there was this tree that had grown through the fence, non-desirable also. It bent the fence growing through it in just a couple of years. I just couldn't believe it. Yep. So I thought, yep, I came in and Missy's like, well, was all that about i was like i just helped your yard out now you can see the pond she was like great job

babe so what could the next morning and when i went to get out of bed my left leg was not functional really sore so i get to you know i start inspecting well something when i was in that thicket in my yard something bit me upper leg and the little round certain round certain circle form. Jayce, you know what this was? Nature fighting back. Oh, yeah. You were taking his home, and so he saw a predator.

So then I figured I was resigned to death through an insect bite because it just got worse. And where I've been limping for about three or four days. But I woke up yesterday, I didn't know how to treat it, but I just put some Dr. Tishners on it, which burned, like tears streaming down my face. That was dad's face. Ickhamal and Dr. Tister's day. That was your two go-toe. So anyway, I woke up yesterday morning, and it felt better because the whole thing turned red,

looked weird. I thought my leg was fixed to rot off, but it didn't. And so whatever it was, which I mean... It was either poisonous or you're allergic to it. You got to remember, when I went out and did this, I didn't have any skin exposed. A little cotton mouth no longer than this can give you a lot of mystery. Well, that's my next story. So meanwhile, we got a project going on at the land.

And I feel he got wind of it because he's been taking care of mom. So we've been handling a land project. And we've deemed it save the cypress for Phil. Save the cypress. So Phil planted a bunch of cypress trees about 10 or 12 years ago. Very few people do. Yeah. But what happened was the underbrush grew up so quickly and so thick.

You wouldn't know there was a cypress tree there. And it hit me, I thought, well, Phil's vision was to have these cypress trees with water up under it, but you would never know they were here. And by the time we do know, because at some point, they would have probably blossomed out. We'll all be dead. So me and Jay. We'll be hoping there's cypress in heaven. We rented one of these chippers.

So now Jay's doing his manly thing, and we're just shredding these undesirables for ducks because we want grass, and we want them feeding on the grass under cypress. Is this why evil eye's son is here? That's why he's here. Okay. And we say that affectionately. Yeah, he's a good guy. Phil, you know.

Dad calls him evil. He's got an eye problem and Phil called him evil eye. And for some reason, he kind of got, he got, he got tickled about that. He calls himself. When he calls the house, you answer or calls your phone. He says, hey, this is evil eye. So he literally calls himself that. It's because it took years to remember his name.

Well. You still don't know his name. Well, and you kept trying to get his attention, but he said. He was looking at you and you didn't know it because he was sitting in the blind. And you kept saying, hey, hey, and he's like, Phil, I'm looking at you. And you're like, wait, your eyes pointing the wrong way. Yeah, we're unveiling a Lavaldoer, the man that took him, he's got him ready to hunt. So he's with all your signals and your word to deuce.

They call him deuce. This is your new dog? So deuce, deuce comes in after dinner here today. I'll see him. I'll get the man to kind of run and run through, let him take a look at him. We're excited about Deuce. All right. And this is son of blue, right?

Let me finish my story or we'll be doing this the rest of the podcast. So then. I promised we would do a battle study. Here we go. Jay's excited. And then guess what happens? The next day, this thing is it's day four of the Save the Cypress for Phil. Save the Cypress.

They, you know, this thing's a chipper that we, we rented. It just, and it's a little bitty contract. It's kind of narrow. It just goes up to a button will and goes, and it just, right, right, right, right. Not a foot fan, not a, not a, not a food source. So we got too many button wells. So there's just, it turns it into chips. It doesn't disturb the ground and all, which is why we were in it. So, so Jay's walking in a big chip debris patch, you would think it's, it's relatively safe. And he steps on a cop. And he steps on a cotton mouth, which the difference in his story of mine is, I don't know what bit me, but the snake

didn't bite Jay. But when you step on a cotton mouth, there's trauma. It gets your attention. In a hurry. Because all he had to do was bite him, and you're dead. Because by the time we get Jay to the hospital, we're way too far from a. He probably wouldn't kill him, but I would wish he was dead. He was wished.

Because we saw blue, right, his head swole up like a basketball. You know what I told, Jay? I said, you know what that means? I said, you need to capture that feeling because we're in Ephesians 4. Yeah. And it says, we're going to get to it. We haven't read it. But it says, in your anger, don't sin.

Chase, you're still in the training stage. But what the next one coming up is the one I just come out of. Yeah. 50 years. I appreciate that. It makes me feel young. If I'm 55 and I'm still. Double old double nickels still in training over here.

I'm still in training. But I told Jay, I was like, you know how you've struggled with anger in the past? And he said, yeah. I said, you need to take that moment and that fear that you had for the first 10 seconds. That was the illustration. Because he felt that, he felt it move under his foot. Oh, he stepped on it. I know.

That's what I'm saying. And I said, when you step on something and it moves in a setting like that. that it gets your attention. I quoted that verse to him. I said, in your anger, don't sin. He said, well, you mean I wasn't mad? He said, I was scared. I said, you're going to let me finish reading the book?

I was quoting the verse. He said, and don't give the devil who is known as the serpent a foothold. I said, so when you stepped on that snake, the next time you get mad, you need to have the same feeling that you had when you stepped on that snake about what you're going to do about that anger. Yeah. he said, what are you getting all mad at me for? I was like, no, I'm not mad. It just made me think of a spiritual application for you.

Just trying to help the guy. And Jay said, noted. So I thought that was funny. So we have that project going on because we're excited. So with that, I want to, this came out yesterday, Phil. I did this to get you more involved in this discussion because I thought this would excite you. The 2024 waterfowl survey came out via Duxle Limited. The 2024 waterfowl survey.

Duck numbers are up. Up. They're up, Phil. Look, last year they say there was 6,126 breeding pairs of mallards. This year, 6,609. I don't know. These are millions somehow or another. That's what I say.

That doesn't sound like a lot of ducks to me, James. You've got to be. Yeah, I'm looking for the millions. It's way more than that. I mean, Mallard Jard. There's six, yeah, a million. Okay. So this is somewhere between five and 19 million.

That's right. So there was 6.1 million last year. Now there's 6.6 million. Now, Gadwals were down a little bit. American Widgin, look, there was 1.8 million. Last year, 2.9 million. We're going to see more Widgin, Phil. More widgeon. Here's the one that's going to move the needle.

Last year, 2.5 million green wing till. This year, a smidge over 3 million green wing till. That's your best eating. And another one, Sculp last year, 3.5, because we have a lot of those. over four million. Everything's out. One of the reasons last year, we had an extreme drought

and the Canadian prairies going all down the Mississippi River. It was a very, very dry year. We never did fill our duck hole up all the way. We pumped and we pumped and we pumped the ground was just soaking it up, soaking it up.

So it's good news what he just said. So we're combining increasing ducks with Save the Cyprus. This may be Save the Cyprus.

You got me so enthralled in the conversation that was... But this is what got me to thinking. Now, as exciting as that is,

then it hit me when I was reading this. I thought, who counted these? The government officials. Well, how did they do that?

They would... We can't count... They would put nets. They would mark off a block. Yeah. You know, like a... Like a city block?

City block. Okay. They make a percentage out of that? They would, they'd stand shoulder to shoulder and they walk across there and they flush whatever is in these, that grass on the Canadian prayers. Well, Phil, the Canadian prairies is a pretty big place. It is a huge place. That's why they're doing that point.

Two year to walk out across there and the percentage that come up, a lot of, a lot of, They've got nets a lot of times on top of the ground. They get tangled up and they catch them and they put bands on there. I've got a row of bands from hunting them from here to the wall over there. So my point is, though, this is not an exact science. That's right. Because I thought. It's a big world and ducks are out there.

And if this is true, then I need to grow up and be a duck counter. Oh, there's 6.1 million. Wink, wink, wink. Jason, you are a duck killer, not one. That's all you've heard of you. You're here to kill. I just thought it was funny because we talked about different government programs versus God's programs are better.

And I thought, so you've got to take that in the spirit in which it was delivered. I mean, we can't even count the votes or, you know, humans. That's right. I mean humans are here. It seems to me, because every time I see that about the border, they're like, oh, last month, 157,000 people come through. I'm like, well, why didn't you stop them? Just let them come.

If you know how many came in, well, why didn't we stop it? They're like, oh, well, I guess we're just estimating. I guess they're doing the same thing. Yeah, well, they process a lot of them. They're looking at a little section. Well, you know what I mean? A lot of people walk by and don't get counted. I'm not believing the numbers that you're telling me unless you're just guessing.

Right. So my point is, I know there's a lot of people coming. I'm not saying that. I'm saying we count things in various ways. And so that's why like for elections, I'm for, I think we want to be like Australia. If you don't vote, you should get a fine. And it shouldn't be a whole lot, like 10 bucks. and we'll take that money, you know, and give it to some people who care about the country.

Yeah. But I don't know what's wrong with that. It should be a national holiday. You should vote. You don't want people voting who aren't paying attention and don't care what's going on. Well, exactly. But, I mean, I'm saying if you're going to live here, you vote or you get fine. I mean, there should be a pitcher ID so we know who you are.

It shouldn't be mailing in pieces of paper. Get your rear in off the couch and come up there and pull something. Preaching the choir here. So we can count. I was just going to make a little side, side point about counting. What? You know. But so anyway, that's the report.

That's a report. It's that time of year. And dad, that's exciting, huh? Oh, it's very exciting. Numbers are up. Numbers are up. Dad's happy. All right.

So we're in Ephesians. But, Jason, I want to make a point because you were, you had gone to the parallel in First Peter of a lot of stuff we're studying in Ephesians. And talking about this idea about the infancy in us growing. And it made me think, I don't know exactly where you're going, because we're still talking about those three illustrations there in Ephesians. Yeah, and it's a weird illustration. You have babies in a boat and a storm with con men and schemers

trying to get you to come in their boat. And that's what this does, has caused us not to be this, but to be better. So I thought about the one in the storm, the leaky boat you were talking about the, you know, unstable boat. James, also one of the New Testament writers, a contemporary of Peter and Paul, said this in James 1-6. When he asked, it's what he's talking about people that lack wisdom. And that's part of what we're talking about is growing up, having a knowledge, knowing Christ better. When he asks, he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave. on the sea of the sea

blown and tossed by the wind so he uses that same type illustration as well which I think that's another one is in 1 Corinthians 3 and I want to hit this and this is all in light of where we're born again we're babies in Christ

and don't ever doubt the boat being tossed back and forth that is representative of the church yeah and there's always going to be babies in Christ and there's always going to be babies in Christ and there's always going to be people who have evil intent, who use things done in religion to try to lead you astray.

It's just part of it. And there's always going to be boats without an anchor. The wisdom that comes from heaven. And the anchor is Jesus. The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sin. sincere. Peacemakers who so in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. That's good. Love it. Well, and that's what we're going to get to. That's when you wise up.

So, so 1st Corinthians 3, I think is interesting. In verse 1, it says, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly, which is controversial to a lot of scholars, because look what he says, mere infants in Christ. I mean, it's a struggle. He's like, You're worldly because you say, what were they doing? They were dividing because whoever baptized them, that's who they was following. Instead of who they were baptized into this whole theme of in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, Roman 6 says you're baptized in Christ. They were looking at the person.

It has to point in the name of Jesus. It's it. Well, right. Otherwise, you think about it, there's also just the opportunity cost of that same argument is if I'm saying I'm a follower of Jace because Jace baptized me, then I'm not going to listen to Zach. Whatever he says is wrong because he didn't baptize. I ain't listen to Zach.

That's the sort of thing they were doing. And y'all remember the point, like in verse 5, he's like, what after all is Apollos and what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe us, the Lord has assigned to each his task, which is just like Ephesians 4. I planted Apollus watered, but God made it grow. So neither he is a plant.

Just such a good thought. Yeah, our waters do anything, but only God it makes things grow. Yep. Which this whole concept in Ephesians that we're in is for us growing up in Christ as one, representing Jesus on earth. By the way, that's a third metaphor now, Jays, because we talked about a building and a body. Now we're talking about a plant. Now we're talking about a field.

Yeah. Well, because verse 9, for we are God's fellow workers. Well, that's what Ephesians is. You are God's field. Yep. God's building. And so, but watch what else he says. And he goes on down to verse 16.

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God would destroy him. Just think about that for a second, bringing in the con man. For God's temple is sacred. and you are that temple. I mean, he makes the same argument later in chapter 6, Jays of 1st Corinthians, when he says that's why your behavior should reflect that,

and you shouldn't be combining the temple of God with a prostitute or, you know, in a sexually immoral way. So you mentioned that in the last podcast about how behavior is a natural result of maturity. You shouldn't be like you were when you first came in. Exactly. So I said all that and shared all that, because I thought it's interesting.

But, you know, when he says preparing God's people for works of service, we know that it's knowing Jesus is the recipe, and becoming Jesus is the result as a group of people. I mean, that's what this is about. And so I just wrote down a few things about babies that I thought were interesting. And I already made this point last podcast. as babies are gifts from God, they're good. Yep.

We're created by God. And it literally is the future of the human civilization. Our baby's been born. Yeah. But our churches, which become babes in Christ, new creations born again, they are dependent. And you're like, they're dependent. I thought I was independent. No, they're dependent on the Holy Spirit of God.

And Jesus is their Lord. Just like normal babies are dependent, what happens if they're not cared for by some other power? They die. They die. Yeah, this is what happens. They need community. Just think, what happens when you isolate a baby? Even if you were feeding them, you know, through a tube or something, nothing good.

Every horror movie you've ever seen, you know, when they trace back these serial killers and all, isolation or abuse or what have you. We saw it, Jay's when Anna was in the NICU. this has been almost 40 years ago and babies that sometimes they're I don't know because they were sick or what I don't know why but a parent a mom nobody would ever come and the nurses tried their best

to provide community for this baby but a lot of times they would die or develop serious health problems because no one was there to nurture them I said last podcast they can't discern well which we know that you know when I said you give them poison they'll eat it but that's why

I think one point we haven't made about where it says instead we grow up when we speak the truth and love when you've got to break that down because a lot of people who are new to the faith they say what does it mean speak the truth in love you know who's truth what truth you know and I keep we we keep saying well it's going to go back to Jesus but what that means practically is you got to be willing to have conversations you know especially when babies are involved you're you're having conversations with people who are claiming to be in Christ. I mean, the worst thing you can do is know somebody is struggling or you don't see somebody.

They come to Christ and all of a sudden you look up and you don't see them for a month. Well, I guarantee you nothing good is happening. You know, what happened? I thought you were a part of this. Where are you at? Right. Why didn't you let somebody know? Why didn't you have a conversation?

And you're like, what do we do about it? Well, somebody's going to have to go speak the truth and love and see what's going on, you know? Because think about it, what's happening is you described it. You're cutting yourself off on that spiritual milk that you read in 1st Peter. And so you're not being fed. Well, if you're not being fed by something good, something bad happens. That's just a natural result. Babies have poopy diapers, which.

I'm making notes. I don't know how to write that one. Well, I think this is the most profound point. So when you go to where the church gathers at a building and you're looking around and you're like, man, what this this stinks well yep babies have poopy diapers and we're all babes in cry what do you think's going to happen i'm serious what i'm saying is lower the bar as far as who you think are going to show up where i'm not even talking about the world i'm talking about new new Christians it's so you're going to constantly because i hear people say this all the time man we're just we're going

through a crisis at church. And then I start hearing, it's like, some guy, you know, had an affair. And we caught this other person. They were on drugs. Can you believe that? I'm like, none of this is ever going away. Sounds like poopie diapers. Sounds like people with poopy diapers.

They're not going to stop pooping. That's a good point. It's just the way it is. And it is the unpleasant part, but it's all part of growth, right? I remember. Well, that's what I'm saying. I think we have an unrealistic expectation of what the church is to look like. What we do really is everybody goes up there and acts like we've never had a

poopy diaper in our life. You know? Yeah, exactly. And it's just, oh, how are you doing? Great. Good. Couldn't be better, you know. I remember Alex saying when her third child, because they're all pretty close together, she said, when I got that third one out of diapers, my life changed for the better. And that's what you meant, because it's not pleasant to deal with. You got three grandkids under three. You know what that says? Out of poopy diapers. I've changed more poopy diapers in the last couple of years than I did the entirety of when I had little kids. Part of growth. Because I realized, you know, that's just the way it is. You're right, profound point.

I just wrote poopy diapers in my mind. So I got the next little babies are easily distracted. I mean, the attention span. So when we had this little one, it was in the hospital when Miss and I came in, you know, if you want to see a baby struggle, time down. into a bed for about three days and hooked something, put a needle in their arm where they can't go anywhere and every time they move it hurts. Well, you know, any kid, this is just...

Torture. So when we walked in, he looked at us like, thank the Lord. Get me out of it. Well, that's exactly what happened. We sat down and he's like, let's go bye-bye. And we're like, sorry, bud. Well, guess what? Then he was back to... Nope, you're not going to do it.

you're out everybody's out because everybody walked the door he's like get me out my point was you know we were trying to entertain i mean i was doing stupid human tricks we were reading books i had my phone i was playing music i mean i was trying to do anything because it's just not normal to take his mind off what it'd be strapped down in pain he's already you know it just had surgery and you know he's healing up and it was really sad you know but i just thought well the church is full of infants who've gone through all these struggles. This is just the way it is. It's not going to be us sunshine and rainbows walking through the park saying,

boy, you know, the struggle is real. Things happen. With a greater point that's really good about what you just described is he doesn't know that his mom and you guys and others and these medical professionals are doing all this to save his life. and make him stronger and better. He doesn't know that. He's just a little baby.

He doesn't have the capacity to know that. That's right. Well, think about us as spiritual babes with our Father in heaven and our Lord and Savior Jesus as our older brother. Same thing with us. We go through things and we're like, well, this is bad. This needs to stop right now. I mean, you know, we cry out and say it. But what we don't know is there's someone greater looking out for you.

This is going to make you stronger, better. It's going to save your life. And the world has craved. I'm not even talking about the religious trickery, because behind a lot of these con men in the religious world are what we're going to get into chapter 5, greed, sex, immorality, impurity. You know, that should be the standard for whether somebody is speaking truth. Whenever you see those three things emerge, you know, any kind of impurity or greedy,

what are they doing with the money, you know? Yeah. You know, if your pastor's driving a Lamborghini, okay, well, maybe we miss something. But I'm telling you, that happens, and people are like, oh, no, he's a good guy. He needs that to go, you know, it's faster or whatever. It's like it always seems to make sense, you know. He's down, he's going to the strip club. He's bringing those women to the Lord, you know.

Like, you know, well, why not wait until they come out? This idea of vulnerable, Jays, I just heard a stat within the last week you were talking about immigration or in the people coming across the border. I want to say the number is 300,000 and that may not be accurate, but it's a huge number of children that came across the border and some of them were just without parents, some of them were with people, they got separated. But now, because the government is supposed to be connected them with some sponsors and they have no idea where they are.

and the fear is that the people bad people have them now they're being exploited it's happening and you know it's happening and we're talking about sex trafficking we're talking about terrible things and because they are the most vulnerable which is another reason why you need a border and know who's coming across and where they are because you've got all these vulnerable kids that are being exposed to terrible things yeah in our culture which is awful so I think just realizing that makes us realize the task at hand here I mean Then I put, they have no concept of time. Because everything about an infant is all in the short term.

You give him a package of fruit snacks. He's good for about four minutes. That's not the answer. Four minutes later. Need more snacks. Yeah, but I feel like, you know, I was thinking about how churches, they just give these little, you know, come here and get you 20 minutes. What do you call them, Zach, Ted Talks?

Yeah. Yeah, you'll 15 minute. Keep it in there. Yeah, 15 minutes. Yeah. It's a charge. Yeah, keep it light. Which leads to the last point I have, which is they must be trained.

And, you know, any kind of training takes time and moms who just become warriors. I mean, the most difficult job on the planet. I'm going to say this. And I've thought about it really hard is being a mom. Yeah. I mean, it is absolutely. 24-7 total sacrifice every day and you're just stacking days together but it's because this this baby must be trained so anybody that comes to the Lord and you're like because we're using this as a

spiritual reference we're born again we're new baby I mean this is like boot camp getting to know Jesus on how productive and how quickly you're going to mature into the whole body. So our campus guy did communion a couple of weeks ago, a communion talk, and he was talking about the contribution. And he mentioned that when he was a little kid, his grandpa would pull out of his pocket one of these little rubber things that you used to get at the bank. You remember him, Dad, you would squeeze it together and he would open up. I never had one, but they were a big deal, Dad.

So you open up, so that you keep your change in there. You keep a few quarters. And he would always open that up. And he would give a quarter to his grandkids. So when the contribution plate came out, they would, you know, put a quarter in. And, of course, he's a little kid. He didn't know him what this meant. He didn't.

But he remembered it. And it was every Sunday. And he said, now I realize I'm a grown man. I'm married, got my own family. And I realize my grandpa was training and teaching me that it's always, you always want to give, both spiritually but also even monetarily to advance. the kingdom. And he said, that was put in me. I was, I was trained that way. And when you said that about needing training, I thought, unless we teach them or just leave them exposed to what

they're going to get in the education system or, God forbid, on a college campus these days. Well, that's what I meant when I said about being a mom. I meant, I probably should have said being a stay-at-home mom because there's a difference in giving birth and being a mom. Yeah. You know, in our society, Most people let other people train their kids. Well, when you go that route, who knows what you're going to get. Because they're trying to make a living. It's not like they're not in.

In fact, chapter six, children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. It's pretty powerful. And then verse four, Dad, we've talked about that for, fathers do not exasperate your children. Yep. Instead, bringing up in training and instruction of war. Yep.

Well, that's an adjustment I've made in my Christian life. I wish I would have been more present with the little things with my own kids. Of course, back then, you know, we had no money. And I'm making the same arguments everybody else makes. But my wife, when she decided to be a stay-at-home mom, that's why I just realized how much work she's put in. But now our ventures as grandparents and has taken care of other kids that are in our life. You know, I probably don't do quite as much as my wife, but it's a lot closer.

This is pretty tough when you're looking at Ephesians after 6. Finally be strong in the Lord and then His mighty power put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, and just listen to the power of this, the rulers takes power to get it going, against the authorities,

against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly reigns. Man, you... Well, I think that's what we're growing up. That's a tough, tough road to hole there. That's where we get to as a church. is that we are warriors for the Lord.

That's right. Yeah. You know, and it shows itself in relationships. And all this is what I believe, you probably see where I was going with this. When he then, in Chapter 5, gets to talk about husbands and wives and children and parents. And lifestyle and relationships. Yeah, slaves and masters and this kind of thing. But I think this picture is kind of the foundation for where he's going next because these tricksters.

and con men, they're using all this in your thinking and in your mind, which is what, what he, I don't know if you want to segue into the next section. Well, I wanted to read, before we do that, I wanted to make one point about verse 16, because you laid out that scenario that was there, and you even talked about speaking the truth and love and why that's so important. And then that last little picture he gives us of the head, that is Christ. In other words, he's the head of our body that's here. The body is us, right?

head in Jesus's head. But listen to this, because in the Corinthian letter, he talked about the body, and he compared it to the eye and the ear or a foot or a hand. And so those are big things that we see. But I love it in Ephesians. He goes down to the ligament. Yeah. He says from him, the whole body. And so we're talking about the body of Christ, but he compares to a human body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love. each part does its work. Now, as a person who's had multiple ligament damage, my ACL is gone, I got a torn meniscus, I got all these things, they affect how you function and how you live.

When something is unhealthy, your whole body feels it all the time. And we all know, the older we get, Dad, how much do you depend on those vertebrae in the back, right? So everything that you can't even see is consistently keeping your healthy. And so if you compare that to the body of Christ, you just think about all the people in your life, in the kingdom, that this guy may, this person may be a ligament. This person over here may be, you know, something in between your vertebrae or an inner ear bone.

Yeah. They don't seem like they're doing that much, but they're keeping the whole thing. That's why I think the point is, I mean, I just went to this whole deal about babies and, you know, problems. And it seems overwhelming. But I think to your point, sometimes even when you're going through some major struggles if you'll just stay connected

and stay there and keep getting fed even though you don't feel good and nothing's going your way i mean because when you lose connection with the body you just thought it was bad because then you're back out in the world and here we go again and the more times that that happens the harder it is to grow yeah because now you got a lot of baggage right to deal with right so i do think there's something about being connected and being there. And I mean, when I'm saying being there, I'm not talking about the building. I mean with people.

I think it gets into these kind of questions that you should be asking yourself. Does my life look like Jesus? Well, that's one question to ask yourself, but it's way more important if you'll ask somebody else who you believe is more spiritually mature. You know, what a question to ask. If you ask, let me just ask you,

Is my life, does it look like Jesus? Yeah. I mean, if you asked me and if I knew this person, I'd tell them the truth. I'd be like, no. You know, there's some people I can just think of off the top of my head. Of course, they haven't asked me, so I haven't told them. Maybe I should arrange to have that happen. But I'm just saying that speaking the truth and love seems to have more weight within the body.

When you look at it, that we're, look, we're. infants in Christ. I mean, he didn't say your inference. He said, we are infertson. And it made me think if Paul's considering himself still an infant, we're all in trouble. Yeah, we all need to grow. Which is why we talked about this when Kyle was on the podcast, a couple back, in this context, which is why we've stressed kingdom so much when we've talked about this. Obviously here, we're talking about inside the Ephesian body. It's a church. It's in Ephesus. And when he's describing in these roles that are there. It's a certain group of people.

And so we want that. We want that community for all of us. We've talked about it. Everybody that listens to our podcast, we want you engaged in a community in a church setting, and those in your community that you're serving with, that you're being there. But this, the unashamed podcast, or the undaunted life,

when Kyle was here, we were talking about that those are kingdom things that help you do it even more and even broader. And so we want all that working together. That text in Hebrews 12 describes a lot of things in context to help us. It talked about angels in heaven that are joyfully assembling and praising God every time a new person comes to Christ. So this idea is that it's broad. And so when you think about the body, don't just think about one church and one place,

but you think about the entire kingdom of God with the king, Jesus being there in heaven. If it's a body you're thinking of, he's our head. He says it's a living, breathing body. So that means it has to have a strong support system. It has to be flexible. He mentioned ligaments. It needs to grow and reproduce. It needs to be built on love and then continue to love.

It needs workers. I mean, people who are willing to do what it takes to do the hard stuff. And, Jason, you brought this up, division in these con men, anything that divides people, obviously is the thing you realize that's the evil one trying to tear down what God is built up. Yeah, I wrote down six things about the. these con men. And look, I believe churches, there's a lot of churches out here who do this.

These are six traits. I didn't read them out of a book. I just jotted them down. I actually have five and I just added one when you were talking. But number one, they're focused on their church, not on Jesus, which seems good.

But if you think about that, it's kind of like the program, Is the program about the program, you know, within churches we all have program? Or is it focused on Jesus? Well, there's a huge difference there. Number two, there's a prior. I've heard people say, this program, this whatever, save my life. Oh, yeah.

You hear that in language a lot in church. I always kind of, when we were doing the college ministry at the church you guys are at, sometimes they would say, man, this group, this group, you know, talk about this group, saved my life. And I'll remind him, this group didn't save your life. Jesus saved your life. Well, I've got people say that about the podcast. They're like, that podcast saved my life.

And I always say, well, it didn't. No. Yeah. You met Jesus there and he saved you life. If we introduced you to Jesus, we did our job, but it's Jesus saves, not us. And a good question to ask the leadership of these programs is where's Jesus in this? Yeah. Well, you had mentioned at the beginning of you were reading that passage out of the,

1st Corinthians about I follow Paul. Some say I follow Cephas. Some say I follow Christ. So it was like a, that's what that was. That's like taking the brand of whatever it is and then elevating that. And I think that that first of all, that recognition is glad you put it first. And then two,

I think that it takes a continual effort not to make the thing or the institution of the church above Christ himself. That's a, that is a, that's a constant thing we have to work on. Well, that's number, that's why I put it number one. I put number two, they're prideful, not humble, because you remember Ephesians 4. And you said, well, how do you see that? You see that and then they're not open when it comes to, you know, clear Bible passages or whatever.

They just kind of have their doctrine and they're not open. It's not open to discussion. They're usually not led by others. They are the last work. Their doctrine is where Jesus needs to be fixed. They're their own last one. That's why I said, does the function of the church look like Jesus? You've got four books.

You can make that analogy. And then you have the book of Acts as I think the model. Yeah. Well, I look around our churches. Most churches don't look like the book of Acts. That's a good point. I mean, I hate to say it. They look more like the old Jewish system where it's a ritualistic.

Yeah, temple worship. So I'm going on around here. So number three, they're more into cover up than transparency. And it's usually the leadership at the top has no accountability. You can't get to them. It's like they're untouchable. And you get a false sense that they don't function like a, baby in Christ. We're all babies in Christ, and we're all in different, you know, different

areas of growth and maturity. Instead of changing diapers, they're just spraying them with for breeze, right? Well, exactly. That's a good point. The next one is isolation over, and I put worldly because I think our churches should look like the world. You're bringing people out of the world, and it's messy. It's, but this whole, we're going to, isolate ourselves from the world has it is the exact opposite of what Jesus did he didn't just go live in a tent and then wait to die he went out in the world and caused problems and help people and every day next they focus on fear and judgment versus grace and love fear and judgment are things that the bible discusses. But when you read the book of Ephesians, the overwhelming motivation for why you come to God

and why you say no. Remember that verse that says, the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness. And the foundation of our message is grace and love. And to miss that, it's really, you would think it's really difficult. But you walk into churches, if you're walking out every Sunday feeling like you've been a whip with a baseball bat, you say, well, why do I feel that way? Because it was a focus on fear in judgment. That's right. Instead of grace. If you want to clear passage, Hebrews 10, 14 to 29, go read that.

It lays out just what you just said. Which I've been kind of shocked at the level of how even, I've heard pastors mock the idea that God is loved. They make fun of that and they make that sound like that's some kind of weak. Yeah. But I'm like, it's the gospel. I think there's a passage that actually says that directly. Did you have one more?

I have one more. And the last one is they tend to focus on rules and not a relationship. And God is all about relationship. And the reason I think that's important to the context is because when you have a rule-oriented faith, you find the loopholes. Our lovely producer brought that out in between the podcast, and which is what you're going to see in Chapter 5. They weren't just, some of them weren't openly out there sleeping with everybody they could. but they had a hint of sexual immorality. You said, what is a hint?

That means you've rationalized. You've found a loophole in the rule. That's it. Well, guess what that means? You're not being like Jesus. That's right. And so now we discredit. The only upgrade I would add that isolation point,

isolation over introduction. We want to be introducers of people to Jesus. And you can't do that if they're not part of you and who's there. All right, we're out of time. Next time we come back, if you're reading ahead, Ephesians 417, read that next section. through chapter 520, that's where we're headed in our text. So we'll see you next time, 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 Blaze TV at blazedtv.com slash unashamed.