Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 996 | Jase Faces Down the Church Police & What to Do About Baptizing Infants

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Jase has a bone to pick with the so-called “church police,” and Zach is shocked to find that Jase might be ready to embrace the big words movement. The guys address infant baptism and what it means later in life, and Jase succumbs to the lure of philosophical discussion. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. Zach, your podcast, your new podcast is out there. It's pretty awesome. It's out there. Tuesday was today. It's doing really well. Yep. Oh, so you've already done your first podcast? Oh, yeah. Are you doing this? I have to ask this. Are you just doing this by yourself? No, I have, I'm going to bring you on an episode or two because I, This is a deeper dive, okay?

Zach. He wants point, counterpoint. I don't like to argue. There's a passage that says, stay away from foolish arguments and controversial things over genealogy. Well, you all are right. No genealogies, no controversies and quarrels about the law. None of that.

So, but it is a little bit of a, it's a little less storytelling and a little more Bible. but uh and you're having jason oh here we go i hold on jace sends me a jes sends me a john tyson a couple weeks ago jays sends me john tyson sermon which was a which was 55 minutes long so jace is listening to the kind of content that i'm talking about interacting with well y'all sell we were going to talk about politics we did so i thought here i heard this sermon here i mean i'm just i don't i'm not a political But you're saying, Zat, you were surprised that he was listening to Tyson. That's what you're saying. He reads and listens to things that I might.

No, Jace is going the route that dad trained us all. He said, boys, you can always be smarter than you look and you can do a lot more, but you can't go the other direction. Well, now that we've just opened up this can, let me. Here's my deal. After the argument, y'all started on the, last podcast, I felt like we had. It wasn't an argument.

It was a discussion. It was a discussion. Well, look, the last podcast we had on Colossians when we got to Colossians 2, which, look, the book of Colossians, like all of the other books, is about Jesus. Yep. It is highlighting Jesus. Yep. Big time.

And look, we really did a poor job when we got to Colossians 2 of getting, and myself included, The point is these people were being tempted to go back under the system of Judaism, which what's a good practical definition for that for the people who are new to the faith? They were trying to go. The old covenant, the old system. Yeah, because these, this verbiage in Colossians that says, you know, see to it, that no one takes you captive through. hollow and deceptive philosophy.

This is Colossians 2,8, which depends on human traditions and the basic elements of this world rather than on Christ. Well, that's the point. And so then... I found like, Jay, as we did a pretty good job.

One thing we did a good job on was showing that even under the old system, from God's perspective, from Jesus' perspective, because he's always been, he is, he was always in the system. Yeah. They just didn't recognize. it. They didn't realize it. And then many missed it even when he came, which is what he's trying

to talk about here in these letters. What I was going to say about opening up the can, I was going to say, I'm mainly 95% of the study I put in is in the Bible. I'd say 95%. And even when people speak, I'm not a big fan of quoting other people that are not, they don't have their name. in the Bible. They're like, so-and-so said, I've never heard of so-and-so, and it's like a Bible verse that comes on the screen,

and I'm like, what if he's wrong? You know, that's my take on it. And I don't like making categories, which is where me and Zach argue a lot, over, you know, taking a Greek word, the New Testament was written in Greek,

and then making, like, eschatology. Because I think most people don't use that in their everyday language. which is talking about what happens in the end, the end of times. And so I'm like... But Zach's making big words great again. Well, I know. I'm always a little careful of that

because I feel like that becomes something, like the rapture. I've talked about that before. People say, what are you thinking about the rapture? And I'm like, well, I don't think that words in the Bible. Boy, and people, you don't have a fit when you say that. They're like, well, it means called up and they go to First Thessalonians for.

But my underlying joke there, which they don't think is funny, is I'm like, always be careful when you take an issue, make it something kind of separate from the Bible that has all these legs and tentacles to it based on whichever denominational group. Basically you're saying don't rupture over the rapture. Well, I'm just like be careful when you get so far down an issue where it almost becomes detached from the focus of the. of the Bible, which I believe is to God revealing himself in Jesus. There's a lot of things we can talk about, you know, and I always go back to this same argument. In the book of Acts, it was a proclamation of Jesus, first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles, and then all the people around in the surrounding areas, just like he said to go and do in Matthew 28, when Jesus told his disciples to do that.

It wasn't, you know, a lot of apologetics and arguments. There are some references. You know, Act 17, Paul kind of came to a group and kind of based on the creation, what you see. He uses some of those things. But when you read it in its totality, it was an introduction to who Jesus is and what he did, what he's doing, and what he will do. And people responded. But I think that's a fair.

fair caution. That's my caution. Thank you. Well, I'll say this. The second episode that actually went, and by the way, it's called Not Yet Now podcast. You can look up on anywhere a podcast or heard or on YouTube under Dash or Zach, Z-A-C-H. But the second episode, because I thought about that when we finished the first and we

quoted a lot of people, I do like to quote other authors, mainly because I get ideas from them and I don't want to plagiarize their material. So I want to give credit where credits do. But somebody recently told me, we handled this in the second podcast. Someone was told me a story when they went to seminary, and they would sit around and have these discussions, and they would quote Luther, Calvin, whoever. I mean, name the church father, Augustine. And every time they would, their professor, during the debate, he would force them. It's like, well, hold on.

You just quoted somebody. quote a scripture to back it up. And if you couldn't quote the scripture, they said, this guy would just decimate you. It may make you feel so small. And he said, but that trained me in my training that as I'm quoting philosophers,

as I'm quoting other thinkers, as I'm quoting writers, I better be able to back this up with the scripture itself. And so I do think that everything that when we do talk about other pastors, theologians, philosopher, whatever, anybody, these ideas are all gray, but they should be able to be supported in the scripture that God inspired by His Holy Spirit. If they can't be, then we really need to which I'm glad. I'm glad Josh brought up back 17 because we've talked about that, but I agree

with what you both said. It is the exception, not the rule. There is an exception that sometimes we talk philosophy. I mean, the Holy Spirit of God still lives in people, so people do say things that are, you know, will impact you. But the rule is if we can't find it in the scripture, then probably we should really take a serious look on what the validity of it. Yeah, going back to our argument, which I don't want to call it an argument because I wasn't real sure what Zach was talking about. You know, he was pushing back, but I was because, and here was my illustration,

I'm not sure we did it on the podcast. Maybe it was right after it ended. But I was like, I'm not sure what part you were disagreeing with me about, you know, and Zach made a statement. He said, well, you were pushing baptism regeneration. Baptismal regeneration. Well, there you go. I can't even remember how it's pronounced.

Well, see, to my ears, I have no idea what you're talking about. I got crickets on that. I've never read. Is this not a biblical term? I've never read that. I didn't know. I'm not familiar with it. And now I'm like, well, now you're putting me into a box.

I didn't even know was a box because I have no idea what that means. And so that's what I'm uncomfortable about because I'm like. Well, I asked you to, but I asked you the question. I clarified, and by the way, this is, for those who are listening, this is a healthy way for families to work through conflict. I hope so, because we've been doing it for 20 years. Put you in the podcast and Jason is like, I don't know, you may want to go take everything you sent out of it.

I mean, he's like, well, I recommended when I thought you were saying, because we were agreeing. And I disagree with what Jay said because a lot of what Zach was saying, a lot of people think that's true. You were disagreeing with what I said or what? No, what you said to Zach about cutting it out because I'm like, no, leave it in because a lot of people say that same thing Zach was thinking we were saying,

but that's not what we were saying. We don't believe in. I believe, well, I don't even know what it is. Right. But I know what it is and that's not what I believe. leave. Well, that's the problem I'm saying when you go down and you know, to come up

with these phrases that somebody came up with in a seminary. So what I was going to say is I go back to Acts 4. You remember when Peter, you know, and they said, we're unschooled ordinary men, but we been with Jesus.

And there's so many of those examples in the New Testament. Well, the road to Mayas. Why he was with us, we're a heart's not burning. Well, exactly. And even Paul to the Corinthians, he was like, we didn't come to you with wise and persuasive words. You know, we're not trying to interject human wisdom here to negate the power that is in the gospel. I mean, the power of Jesus when we are talking, and look, I'll go back to this, the football player who responded. I mean, the next day, he was up in front of a group of

kids and he has sent me a hundred texts since then on Bible verses him. What does this mean? What is this mean? What was this mean? Last night. I mean, because his time is, he's two hours ahead of me. I was fixed to go to bed and it's like, I've been studying this. He's just getting started. It's the fire hose in the mouth, you know, and he's getting it all. But even the next day, it was powerful. I mean, he's learning the Bible now. What did he do? He just shared Jesus

and how he responded to a bunch of young people. That was powerful. You didn't have to know, you know, the whole... And here's the thing, Jay's... He probably didn't even know how many books were in the Bible. That will be powerful 25 years from now. Exactly. Even when he knows a lot more Bible.

He knows a lot more about, you know, how the old system worked and the new system, the power is still... in that freshness of a changed life. I mean, that's why we still get excited about that. I mean, every Sunday when I see people come to Christ, you know, or in some other setting at any time during the week, I mean, it does something. I'm excited.

It does something to me, and I've been doing this for 50 years. I'll say this. The context of what we were discussing, I think there is a key point here that because even in discussing it, this is how dangerous and crafty the devil is, that even in discussing the text that says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty to seed according to human tradition, like even in discussing that,

like we can get so caught up in the philosophy of the captive philosophy that you miss the point of who he's pointing you to. So I think that I actually hear the warning, receive the warning, and also would say that on the, what I hope to do in my podcast and what we're doing here, what I hope to in my ministry and our ministry, I do hope that as we're analyzing and talking about the philosophies of this world

that are based on human tradition, I hope that what we're doing is we're learning them to deconstruct them so that we can point people to Christ and show the emptiness of these human philosophies, because they are empty. That's what it says here. The see to it, so there's a, there is a call here, an action that he's saying, like, be aware of these hollow and deceptive philosophies, is I think the NIV was what the NIV says. Yeah. See to it that no one takes you captive by these philosophies that are empty and they're deceitful.

They're based on human tradition according to the elemental spirits of the world. So there's something demonic in it and not according to Christ. And so that's the, that's the switch, though, here. here for in him the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. In other words, he's not in the hollow and deceptive philosophies. God's not there. The thing that you're looking for, that longing in your heart, that what's your heart is indexed toward that you're trying to fill.

What Paul's saying is, it's not going to be found in these other things. It's only going to be found in Christ, where the fullness of deity actually dwells in a body. Yeah, and you're right, Zach. he, and he's going to later, because I think we read through 15 in the last podcast, but in 16, he's going to pick up on just what you were saying, and he's going to mention, you know, religious festivals, celebrations, Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.

So he's going to reiterate the point you just made after talking about these physical things that it's this idea that's got to be linked to Christ. And that's sort of the reset to back what we were talking about the last. podcast because we were talking about circumcision because that's what paul brings that was the illustration he used was circumcision but he made the point as jace dove into that even way back when circumcision was a physical mark of the covenant you read in deuteron with a couple of past you read it was always a heart situation even though it was a physical thing a circumcision the foreskin of a man of a man which is there was always a spiritual connection to the idea which which which is what was a spiritual connection to the

idea. Which is what the Lord's Supper is, too, though. Correct. I thought Jayce's point was actually great, and you don't hear this point a lot when talking about baptism in the church. You don't hear this. You really don't hear the point that he made and connecting it. And Jason didn't really make the point. Paul did, but connecting it to circumcision. We went back and looked at Genesis 17 and Genesis 12, for that matter, to look at what was circumcision? How was it connected to the covenant? And it was a sign of the covenant, but it's the cutting off of. But typically when you hear about baptism, it's like, it's like an expression of your faith is how I've heard it preached or taught, or it's like a

testimony, a public testimony to the church. But we are missing the point of what baptism is. Roman 6, which I think you brought up in the last podcast, there is, baptism does, what it is, it is a dying to self. It's an old man that's like dying. And he's being. buried in the grave, which the water symbolizes the grave, and a new creature is coming up. So it symbolizes a death. It symbolizes a burial, and it symbolizes a resurrection, a new birth, which is what the gospel of Christ. It's really a funeral, Zay. I mean, it's a funeral. It's, that's the concept. And a birth. And a birth at the same time, which is why I said it was like, I've compared it in the past of weddings, because it's the death of the individual.

and the rebirth now of a union of two people living their lives together. That's what a wedding is. Which is like it symbolizes it. Like in the movie The Blind, that scene where Phil is talking with Bill, Pastor Bill, and he says, man, everything I've touched has turned to dirt. And Pastor Bill goes, well, you know what I would do if everything I'd touch turned to dirt? And Phil's like, what's that? He's like, well, I'd quit touching stuff.

And it's like this hilarious moment in the film. And one of the few funny moments, we probably could have added more humor. But Phil's question back to Pastor Bill was, well, how do I do that? I mean, how do I not touch anything? I'm a human being out. I'm going to touch stuff. And then the response is, well, you got to die, Phil. Yeah.

Like that you got to die because everything you touch turns to dirt. You got to quit touching stuff. The only way you're going to quit touching stuff is if you die. And then you got to be. And then not only that, Zach, just to continue on with your analogy, because it's so good. Whenever the guys show up to go out for another round, let's, hey, let's go back and get our party on Phil. He says, hey, the guy you're looking for, he's dead. He's dead and gone.

He's dead and gone, which is that power of, then you can touch things, which, of course, dad's been doing for 50 years. And it brings life, you know. Which is why Peter says that it saves you by the resurrection, because you quit touching. stuff because that guy dies, new man's born, he's resurrected with Christ, and now he can touch stuff because it's Christ in him, which goes back to Colossians, the whole point. It's Christ in us. That's good.

I'll tell you, so here's a funny thing that happened. So after I thought maybe we had an argument or whatever, and 95% of the time I study the Bible, but I like a lot of NT-write stuff about the kingdom. and so I ordered a bunch of his commentaries only when I found out, because I've listened to him speaking, look, the guys, he's over my head. I have to have the Bible and a dictionary to listen. And a bottle of town on him.

But he did some commentaries, and it's basically like the one I'm recommending here is Paul for everyone. Now there's an irony there. He's one saying Jesus is for everyone, but he dumbs down his jargon in the commentary for simple-minded people to understand. And I love it. And I just use it sometimes to go and read and say, well, let me see what he thinks about this,

if there's an area of conflict. Not that I'm agreeing with every one of his assessments at the time. And even about baptism, I had no idea what he thought. but I wanted to go look because I thought, at the end of the day, I don't want to be saying something that's wrong. Right. But I wanted to read what he said, because when I read this, I thought, well, that's probably what I should have said.

I mean, that was my initial take of this. And he was a lot more than we did, giving the context, saying, evidently there was a Jewish audience here that was having trouble believing that Jesus was... Because he wouldn't use circumcision as an analogy had it... They wouldn't even know what it was. Well, and you know what he actually said? Now, you can take this for what it...

He's a scholar, so... That word that says, take captive before I read what I was going to read. So look, I'll read you this before I read what he said about the baptism. But he actually said that that word for take captive in verse 8 is a word that is like almost almost exactly synagogue. Let's see if I can pronounce this. Sillagin. And his opinion was that since he was addressing the Jewish audience here

who were putting their faith in Judaism, he took a word that sounded like synagogue, almost exactly. He's like, but it's hard for us to do that in English because we would never get the point. Now look, he's a scholar. This was his opinion. But he said they literally knew that he was viewing that as a negative thing. To go back to the synagogue worship and defy Jesus.

So I just thought that was interesting. Because when we get to verses 13 and 14 and 15 and 16, you're going to see he starts relating this, you know, about the Sabbath and law keeping. Right. He's like, you're trying to. go back under that system. So the point I wanted to read is what he said about this,

about the circumcision, because I made a presentation about it, the common bond to me is the promise. It's in Acts 238 when the first sermon Peter preached, and they responded. The spirit had been poured out. And it says, they repented and were baptized, every one of them, the name of Jesus, they received God's spirit, and it said,

the promise is for you and your, you and your children. So I see that, even in Ephesians too, when he says, it's by grace you've been saved. In verse 11, he starts talking about the promise and that Jews and Greeks are coming together. And we're going to see that in chapter 3, when he says, look at your identity. Now, there's neither Jew nor Greek.

We're all in Christ, you know, male or female. Look, he does the same thing, Galatians 3. That whole book is about trying to make circumcision. your identity into the Jewish nation, adding that to the gospel. And boy, he vehemently got on that. But you remember what's right in the middle of Galatians 3? That same identity thing.

You were all baptized into Christ. You put on Christ. There's neither male or female. And by the way, in the Galatians text, and the same as in Romans 4, talks about Abraham. What made Abraham great? The fact that he was circumcum,

the first one to ever be circumcised or his faith? I mean, his faith was what made him great, not the fact that he was a person. Galatians 4 brings up that very thing. Exactly. Same thing. So after saying all that, I wanted to read what he said, because I said, usually I don't do this, but Zach forced me to go to a commentary, and now I'm reading from it. But I just thought.

See, Zach, not yet now. You're already working him over. I tell you guys. Baby steps, baby steps. Well, this is a little lengthy, but I want you to get his point. and I encourage you to read it, his whole take on Colossians, but he says,

this is NT Wright, what's the name of this, Paul for everyone, the prison letters. If you possess Jesus, because he goes back to that Christ in you before that, therefore you are already fulfilled in him and no rule or authority

can go, as it were, over his head and impose itself on you. He is the head of them all, the church in our, own day still needs to recapture the vision of the supremacy of King Jesus over all authority. This is good, right? And in particular, the point of immediate relevance to Paul's young churches, if Galatia has anything to go by, that's why I brought up Galatians, you don't need to get circumcised.

Why not? Because you already have been in the only sense that. really matters. The true circumcision, Paul boldly declares, isn't what people do physically to a male body. It's what happens when you're buried with the king, Jesus, with the king in baptism, and also raised with him through God's power. Paul will shortly explain more about what that means. For the moment, the main point is that instead of, as in circumcision, putting off a small piece of physical flesh. Baptism, and he has in a parenthetical after the word baptism, the mode and sign of entry into

the Christian community from the very earliest days to the present. Now back to his sentence, is all about putting off an entire way of life, an entire sphere of existence. It means dying to the world and coming alive to God's new one. How can people who have already done that ever suppose they need to go back and do something extra, something trivial by comparison? I thought, well, that's probably what I should have said. That's well said. Because you see what he's saying?

He came at the same vein I was. They were using circumcision as the way to identify themselves as God's people. But even God made it about the heart. He's like, even though you did this physically, you could have done that. and not really loved your fellow people or love God. Which happens even when it comes to modern day baptism. A lot of people just go down there and get wet. It's nothing like you said, Zach, magical about the water.

But those who understand who Jesus is and that he saves you ultimately, I think it's the opposite of a work. It's the opposite of a ceremony. It's the opposite of a ritual. It is a surrender in death. and burial in the power of God working. And Christ cuts off this sinful heart that's kind of the center of our decision-making process

and under the elements of the old Adam world. We become new creations, which is why at the end of Galatians, at the end of Galatians, he winds out all that up saying, neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything. What counts, you remember what he said, is a new creation. Yeah, that's it. But, man, that is so good. I think that is the part I think that is missed in a large chunk of teaching on baptism.

Because we leave out the whole point, which is a new creation. And it flows directly into what we're talking about here, because what's happening here is they're putting the emphasis on the shadow things instead of the reality that's found in Christ and where is Christ found? According to Ephesians and here, according to Colossians 1 and 2, Christ is found in you now. So if the reality is found in Christ, then that means now the reality is found in you because Christ is in you because you're a new creation. And it's not focusing on just the external things. and that's where all these things that that they're dealing with here,

they're all external like the new moon or a Sabbath. Is it a good idea to rest to the Sabbath? Absolutely. I think it's part of God's plan for our life. But like all of these things, but if you focus on that and you focus on what you could eat, what you can drink, which in their case was a kosher diet,

a festival, a new moon, a Sabbath. His point is, you've missed the whole thing. You've missed the substance of what this is all about. The substance is found in Jesus. Another point here that I was going to make, I didn't get a chance to make in the last podcast, is the reason he uses this illustration and the reason he uses baptism as an illustration

is because of availability. I mean, you think about it, circumcision was only a man, you know? I mean, it doesn't apply to women. And yet you had women. of faith all throughout whose hearts had been, you know, turned to God all the way through time. But we think about this. When you think about Jesus, we think about what he's brought to us, neither Jew nor Gentile.

Because Gentiles didn't practice circumcision, but now anybody can get into Christ. Yeah. Man or woman, sex is irrelevant. Gender. Proper or common. So no matter where you are in society, irrelevant. Smart or dumb. Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter your intelligence level. we understand who Christ is, we're embracing him. So just the availability question in what we're reading in the text is a big part of what we're talking about. And I think it's why he uses those two illustrations. Anyone has an opportunity. It doesn't matter what man-made division is there.

We're all about, we see that in our culture. We're saying in Christ, all can be brought together and new lives can be formed. I mean, it's just a recreation. So having said all that, I think the first argument people would bring up and, you know, I hate doing this. is just the way we are as followers of Jesus.

We have a certain number of policemen in each group, you know. So, because people would then come to me and say, okay, Jace, that was great. You and N.T. right. Right. You know, agree on this. But when you look at the practical things of the group that he's with, they also baptize infants. And I, you know, the group I'm with, we do not. Now, it doesn't bother me that people baptize infants.

I'm just giving you my opinion here. Because I think the parents are trying to do something that's good. So it's no big deal to me. But I believe that infants who are just born are sinless. I believe they're innocent. Now, I realize there's religious people who disagree with that. But I'm just telling you, for the sake of argument, where here I'm lining up with this,

but then people say, well, they're baptizing babies. Because I've spent a lot of my life in Bible studies when people grew up and understood what sin was and then understood who Jesus is, came to me and said, look, my parents baptized me before I even could, I don't even have any memory of it. But now I know I want to, I want to surrender to Jesus. Even the fellow that I baptized the other night, he brought that up. He was like, my parents told me I had some kind of conversion, but I think I need to do this. And so I think you find a balance in practicality on these types of things. I mean, we're not all going to line up on that. But I wanted to be fair and bring that up because that's what the problem with going to other people,

you know, for like, he wrote a commentary and there's like, would you believe this? You guys remember the game. It wasn't really a game. It was just something back in the 90s. We used to say we were all six degrees from Kevin Bacon. And the idea was that everybody is. I've never heard that phrase. And I don't know who.

You've never heard six degrees to Kevin Bacon. Is it six degrees? Maybe it's seven degrees. I like bacon. Do you know who Kevin Bacon is? No. He was in the first footloose. I remember that.

Yeah. Well, anyways, we're all six. degrees the idea for those of you who may not it's a little thing called Kevin Bacon jays it's a little thing we like to call 90s pop culture let me ask you let me put it like this what book did he write in the don't remember did he write a book in the bible yeah represent and fill there um but we're six degrees away from anybody i mean and so like i i hate i hated that when like we live in a world where you quote somebody and all of a sudden you you're taking on all of their, you don't have to.

That was my point. Yeah. And I think that's a, I think that's a good point. On the baptism front, though, I think that it's important to, again, like, let's go back, because I would agree with you on infant baptism, because mainly because baptism, if you see it as a new creation, and water baptism, I do think is a symbol of a spiritual baptism of a new create, but it is a new creation. and particularly happens through our being able to pledge a good conscience towards God

because we're connected with Christ now. And so my conscience that I'm claiming is clean, the conscience that I bring before a holy God. Because it says we were enemies in our mind in a previous part of Colossians that we were, so I can't go to God because I'm an enemy in my mind. I know that I'm guilty. So my conscience is not clean. In order for me to go to God, then my conscience has to be cleaned up. I got to deal with that.

But I can't deal with it because I know my sin. I know what's in my heart. The only way I can deal with it is if I can claim the conscience of Christ, if I can claim his righteousness that has been imputed to me. So I claim the righteousness is not of me. I claim the righteousness of Christ because I've been connected with him through baptism, right? Baptism is that I'm connected with Christ and that I'm dying to myself being buried and raised a new creation resurrected with him.

And here's what Peter says about that when it comes to baptism. He says baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the body, but here it is, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Christ. So the problem I have with the infant baptism thing is that I don't know how a baby can, I'm just trying to reconcile this. How does a baby appeal to God for a good conscience? He's not making a decision. We agree.

But I don't, what I'm saying is I always err on the side of grace and I'm not going to, you know, walk out of the building or like if I was there. No, me either. You know, it's like these. Well, look, and I even, a good old illustration of that, Jay's. We had in Katrina back was, what, 2005, when they had a terrible hurricane, and it pushed all these people up from New Orleans. And so we wound up having people that lived within our church building at first, but then later moved into our houses.

And then another hurricane, they just came up, came straight into our house. We got to know these folks. They were Catholic. We were not. But we shared in this moment of kind of what Zach's been going through a great moment. So when they had baptized a couple of their babies, they wanted me to come down and Lisa to be a part of that. And we went. Oh, I don't think.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like, I didn't agree. with it doctrinally or how I view things, but I love this family so much. I was like, you bet. It's a beautiful. It's a beautiful dedication. Right.

I've been to them. I've been to them. And look, when people are searching, which is. It led us, by the way, to have a lot of conversations about that and a lot of other things as well. I even have had many discussions with people, and it doesn't bother me. And I see where they get it from. You know, they get it from Jesus's baptism because they're like, well, he was innocent. Right.

And why did he do it? You know, and that's another story. Well, I'll say this. Our church, we dealt with this at our church when we first planted our church because we came from a lot of different, the leadership came from different theological perspectives and backgrounds. And so we were like, we really held loosely a lot of our, you know, what we were going to, where are we staying on baptism? Obviously, you guys know how I grew up. And we had people in our church that were baptized as infants that were clearly filled with the Holy Spirit. And we were like, what do we do here?

And we just landed on, you know what? we're going to teach believers baptism as a church, and we do. If you come in, like you didn't know, we're going to teach that. This is our position as a church. If you are baptized as an infant and your conscience is good with that, we're not binding this on you. This is what we're teaching. This is where we're going.

But at the same time, like, we do believe that that's what I was going back to earlier on the idea that Christ does save us. And it's not baptism that says it's Christ that saves us. I do think it's important, though, for us to remember the point that he's making in Colossians is he's connecting, he is connecting this to a new creation in us and that Christ enters in and lives inside of us. And that's the, that's the reality that enables us to forego and, and, and, and, and, and withstand against and be able to withstand the temptation that comes from these human philosophies, which are wise and persuasive. That's what Paul says in

1 Corinthians, right? These are wise and persuasive arguments, and they're intoxicating at times. And, but it's only going to be the, the, the fact that the spirit indwells us that enables us to withstand it. And even, because sometimes these things look religious. And I was thinking about that in the text here when he goes on to say, he goes into this kind of weird transition in verse 18. Well, let's read the next part first, where you get to it. Can we? Yeah. He only got a few minutes. So he says that, before we get to 18, in 11 and 12, you know, he's like in him, you were circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with the circumcision done

by the hands of man, but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, and raised with him through your faith in the working of God, he raised him from the dead. Then this section says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us instead of post to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. When he says that, think the effects of the written code, because that was the real catch. It wasn't that the written code was bad, is that we were bad. We

couldn't keep it. All right. And I'll read the last four. Let me read my translations. Okay. The canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. Mm, there you go. All right.

Then it says, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. What is your version? Yeah, read 15. That's 15. Yeah, same things. Disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by our, by triumping over them in him.

Which is a crazy, I mean, this is a tough read if you don't stop and think about what he's saying. So he's like, you don't have to be circumcised. This is a heart thing that you surrender to. That's why they were preaching Jesus and baptizing people. That's why this was happening. And so then he gets to the law next, which I'm sure they were like, what is he talking about? I'm sure this was the hardest part of it.

canceled the written code or what was yours the legal indebted? The debt. The debt. I think it goes back to what, when Jesus set this, where is that word? I think it's Matthew 15. You remember when he run up on about the clean and the unclean? Following of traditions and keeping laws. You remember in Matthew 50? I think it's a good place to read. It says some Pharisees, now we're talking about teachers of the law, and the Jew elite, the system of Judaism elite, they came to Jesus in Matthew 15 from Jerusalem and said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

They don't wash their hands before they eat. Because you got a memory in Colossians 2 here. He brought that up, that these philosophies that are based on human traditions, and now he's taken on circumcision, which he attacked it. and the church at Galatia, which Colossi was not very far from Galatian. But this just shows you an example of how they thought. Jesus replied, and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? What an answer.

For God said, honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father, mother, but must be put to death. But you say that if a man says to his father, mother, whatever help you might otherwise have received from me as a gift devoted to God, he is not to honor his father with it. So he's kind of turning the way they're rationalizing the law. And then he says, this, you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

You hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, with their hearts far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men. Jesus called the crowd to them and said, listen and understand what goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean,

but what comes out of his mouth. And so then he goes to the end, which I wanted to read, because he's going to get into this in Colossians 3. Peter said, he starts talking about blind guides, and if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall in a pit. And Peter said, explain this to us. Jesus said, are you still so dull? Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth,

goes into the stomach, knit out the body, but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man unclean. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexually immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what makes a man unclean. But eating with unwashed hands does it make him unclean? I know that was a long read, but in the context of Colossians too, when it says that Don't you realize Jesus circumcise your heart?

He put to death that old fleshly, the man that's trying to follow the rules and the traditions, like somehow you're going to be good enough to make it. And then he's saying when you were dead, God has made you a lie. It says you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful heart. God made you a lie with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins. And having counsel with its, the written code with its regulations that was against us instead of opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross. So it's like you say, why did you go through all of that? He's saying, you don't have to be under that law. I've won this for you. I mean, they should have just said, oh. That's great. Wow.

I don't have to keep all the rules. Well, I think there's even something a little deeper on it that, he's saying that you don't have to, not only you don't have to keep the law. He's saying that he's reframing the law. Like, think about what, when you were reading the passage just in, it was Mark, I was thinking of Mark two

when they were taking the Sabbath and they were, they were holding that tradition of the Sabbath up over like the, like actually helping people. And like, you can't help people because that's actually a work. And it's like, it's insane. And, and Jesus says to them,

something so profound. he says the Sabbath wasn't made, the man wasn't made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. I created this. I gave you this to help you. And you're turning it into something. You've missed the whole point here. And so what's happening in this moment in Colossians is he's bringing all of this together

in Jesus and saying, you've missed the whole thing. You turned it into a legal, you turned it into a record of debt with a, legal demand. And what I'm doing by the cross, or what Christ said by the cross, is he nailed all that aside. He nailed that, destroyed that whole way of thinking, disarmed rulers and authorities, and he put him to open shame because he triumphed over them in him. And the result is freedom. That's the result. Well, and they were oppressing people with the law. The leaders, if they caught you breaking the law, they had stone you. They'd stone you. They They're policing people.

So that's why what Jesus introduced. But then he called the policeman, the hypocrites, because he was like, you're not even holding the standard to yourself. Well, that's what Romans is all about. None of us could keep the law. We realized in that process, our need for the grace of God. And because of that grace, we can love other people and extend them grace

because of what Jesus has extended to us. That's why he summed up the law by saying love God with all your heart, soul, minus tree. Because everything about God is good. And his love endures forever. And love your neighbor as yourself, because one, you realize they're just an old sack of sin like I am. I mean, and they're going to break the law. And this is, you don't like it or not because people have tendencies, I think. People like having policemen in the church.

And I don't mean the guy with the badge that. You mean the heretic police. Yeah, I'm talking about, well, yeah, people who are trying to, you know, the church police. Yeah, the church police. They want to enforce the law and the legal system and the rules. And somewhere in this case in Colossi, that was going on. And they missed the wonderful, you know, power of being in Jesus and what he has to offer. And look, and the truth is, like on a podcast like this, we've done a thousand episodes or so.

if the police come and they start peeling through a thousand hours of content, here's what I can guarantee you're going to find. You're going to find we got it wrong a few times. Citizens arrest. Citizens arrest. We're going to find guilt, which is what you find with all human beings. Yeah, imperfect. Yeah, but God has saved us.

He nailed that to the cross. I'm glad I don't have to fill out a sheet as far as rulekeeping when I stand up. before I got. Yeah, and it comes down, Zach, you said it earlier, and I wanted to comment on then the word decision. When you make the decision to go all in, we talk a lot about that with people, and when Lisa shares this in front of audiences, she was baptized to get into the Robertson family when she was 18 years old. It's how she looks at it now, looking back. She did not make a decision to go all in for Jesus. So guess what happened? First 15 years of our marriage was very difficult until finally she made a decision to allow Christ who circumcised her heart.

And you know what happened? In my backyard, you know, with just her laid out before the Lord. And she's cried out and rescued. Lord, rescue me, I need you. So the moment of decision is that. And you can be all around it. You can be listening to sermons. You can be sitting in church Sunday.

You can be rule keeper, rule enforcer. You can be part of groups that do that. And you can miss Jesus. And you do not want to do that. to me is the whole point of what we're talking about in Colossians, too. Well done. All right. So we're out of time.

See how we got that all solves, Zach? And we just, you agree with me the whole time. If I live next to you guys, Jace, I would invite you over for dinner tonight and cook for you and just be your cousin. I would say what exactly are you fixed to cook. It's going to be a hamburger with American cheese. I know we're out of time, but I will say this. The audience, again, they showed up. I'm just telling you a lot of people.

Well, my daughter says you're right. Is that one of my daughters? The one who is classically trained as the chef says you're correct. Always remember if you're taking up for that cheese slice, you could be in denial. All right. We'll try to do better next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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