EP 1090 | Jase Baffled by Emojis, Turns to Gen Z for Help & Can Our Digital Selves Be Demonic?
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What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. We've been doing some marriage counseling. Yeah. In between. All the way of counseling. Jace literally asked Maddie, if you really want to know, all you got to do is ask me. But he said a version of that phrase probably 10 times.

Yeah, he kept going until he got her to ask the question. Until she finally said, okay, what is it? And then he said, okay, since you asked, I'll tell you. After he's prompted her eight times to get there. Well, you got to be connected. And whenever young Maddie speaks, it reminds me of my early days in marriage. Because I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

And she doesn't realize that, but you realize when you're – those first five years of marriage. And Maddie's like in year two, like early year two, I think. I think I gave a quote that my dad told me. Young Maddie's in the jockeying for position stage of marriage. That's what he used to say. About a five-year, you're kind of, who's going to run this show?

Which is all embarrassing when I think back. But he's right. That's just the way it is. Well, but you got to keep in mind, Jace, not everybody has the same dynamic as – me and Jill certainly had that dynamic of a very robust – Well, you may still be in denial. No, I'm saying that – I mean, we had – our relationship was –

How do I say it? It was very passionate one way or the other. So we, you know, we had, but not everybody I've learned over the years. Some people don't have, they have a different dynamic. There's a lot of different dynamics is what I'm saying.

You know what I mean? So that we don't know. I think every couple that gets married, there is a period of wilderness where you're jockeying for position. Yeah. How's this going to look over the long haul? Yeah. I'm going to stand by that blanket statement. But you may be right. Some are more passionate. I think you said passionate trying to make a joke, but I would use the word volatile. Yeah.

Volatile. Yeah, we were like the stock market. We would be up and down, and now it's kind of leveled. Our levels are more –

So until, I will say this, we did have a major relapse after your marital intervention when me and Joe came on the podcast. We had a little relapse after that, after y'all's counsel. I just try to speak truth to power. Well, y'all may want to get out of the counseling business because that didn't work out. We got the biggest fight we've gotten into in a long time. Well, I'm leaning on the greatest counselor the world has ever known.

I will tell you this. I read the comments and, okay, I want to say this about the Unashamed Nation. 90% of you guys are so kind and encouraging. And then there's about 10%, maybe 9% that can...

be a little stinging. And then there's about 1% that you guys go for the jugular. That's 101% if I did math. It's 90% are just amazing. 9%, you're like, okay, I hear what you're saying. Then 1% is like, whoa, you guys are kind of brutal. Oh, I thought you were going to use since you did the 101% because I still can't add, even though I went to Pinecrest, which I love that school. But...

Math was not the specialty. I thought you were going to use the 1% as the celestial powers, demonic forces. Oh, okay. I wasn't going to do that. Okay. Well, I think your gauge is wrong because when people comment, and it's been five or six years since I've read comments on the internet, but back when I did. Yeah.

I realized that I think that's an embellished version of humanity. I wouldn't... You're saying what you're reading on social media is the comments are an embellished version of... Yeah, what I mean is you're a real tough guy when you're...

on the couch in your underwear eating Cheetos. Yeah. You know, making speeches about what you think about something, you know. Well, it's called... Or you may think that's Terry from, you know, Ohio, and it's actually Rita from...

That may be true. Yeah, you get behind the avatar. I get a lot more courageous behind an avatar, too. Then you bring up something I've never heard of. What is an avatar? An avatar? Like your social media avatar. It's like your online presence. It's a fake. It's not you. It's a representation of you in the virtual world.

Yeah, I would say that could be demonic. No, it's just, well, not in and of itself. I'm just saying you have a- Well, if you're living a lie, you've now gotten to a camp who's the father of all lies. I think we're getting to that in John 8, are we not? We might. We are.

Well, I say that because there was one – I won't even repeat the comment, but there was one really funny comment about the dynamic between me and Jill that was pretty brutal, but it was kind of funny. I really don't want to repeat it, but it was funny. But I read all that stuff. Well, Jill – the same reason I like to have Jill on the podcast and Missy as well is because both of them are strong women.

strong, godly women, but they don't have any qualms in taking both of you on, which I personally love to see that twisting because we spend a lot of time together and

And you guys are both self-assured in where you are. But then when your wives come in, all of a sudden, they're really putting you to the test. Well, look, and you talk about passion. I mean, Zach, it's actually a good word because I've mentioned this before. I think it was Joe Beam talking about marriage when he had these three circles that overlap. And in one circle, passion.

You had intimacy, which includes passion for a married couple. But it overlaps with conflict. So there's this little space where those two circles overlap. And a lot of times we go there because we don't always agree. And we are trying to do the jockeying, trying to figure out on any particular issue what

You know, who's right, who's wrong, you know, and you balance those things. But the third circle you had over here to the farther right, which also also overlaps conflict, was withdrawal. And when a couple gets there, then they don't care anymore.

And that's a terrible place to wind up because when you're in withdrawal, you sometimes will venture into a little bit of conflict, but you're more comfortable not having intimacy. And so he always used to say, when you get in withdrawal to get back to intimacy, you have to go through conflict.

And so I think there's a lot of truth in that. But it also, I mean, we love peace. And as we do grow and mature, we get a lot of peace in our marriage because you're not worried just because you disagree with your wife. It's like you were describing with you and Jill's that you may have a disagreement about something, but you're not worried that she's going to walk out the door and leave you over some disagreement. You have a certain confidence and peace in knowing that you two are together for the long haul. There's a difference in that. And then people that don't have that. Fast forward 30 years.

some odd years into my marriage. And I have to give Matty credit. Now, granted, it took one full podcast, and I've been here for a few hours. We've already done a podcast that will, you know, in your world, we put them out, what, every two or three days, Matty? Yeah. But we do two every time we sit down. And no one noticed that not only did I get a haircut, I cut half my hair off.

None of you even noticed. Did you notice, Al? I did not. But I'm looking at you without my glasses on the screen. I can just barely make you out. Well, half. I mean, it was over a foot long. It was down to the middle of my back and probably cut over half. I'd say two-thirds.

I remember you saying on a previous podcast you needed to cut it, but it's gotten so long you couldn't cut it yourself. I do remember that. And that actually wasn't a true statement. My wife said I needed to cut it. That's why I was getting into the marriage here. I got you. I got you. And so when I was coming back to do this podcast, Maddie said, did you get your hair cut? Which was kind of odd because I'd been here two hours already.

And I was like, yep, you're the first person who noticed. So actually what I did since my wife has been dropping hints, subtly saying, might ought to do something there above the neck. And so I did it. So I sent her a picture. And, of course, I asked Maddie if she could guess who actually cut my hair. And she said, do I know this person? I said, eh.

I think so, but I thought I would give you a shot at it. Al, do you have a guess? Of who did the job? Yeah, because of course, you know, I don't go to barbershops. Cricket. A girl named Cricket. No, she cuts. That was a good answer because if I had to...

Reach out and figure out who's going to cut my hair. I like that name. I would guess Mia. If Mia was in town, she might have cut it. Yeah. Nope. Those are wrong. Springtime is here. Some would say summer's here and the living is easy unless you've got to do a lot of yard work like me. Jill's got me outside re-landscaping. Ow.

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I was going to say Jill because the last time you got a – well, you did a viral video that went – it went viral where you shaved your beard and cut your hair, and Jill did it, my wife. She's not in town, so I know she didn't do it. Yeah. But there was that story. So, boy, this is a riveting cliffhanger. Actually – and the reason I told you I'm not sure, Matty, is I actually did it myself.

And it was not easy. That's why I said, do you really ever know someone? But I did want Maddie to guess. When she said, do I know this person? I was like, well, absolutely. I'm standing here talking to you. I did it myself, and I thought I did such a good job. And I basically just got in front of a mirror. And it wasn't easy, but I did it. So I sent a picture to my wife saying, what do you think?

And she didn't respond for a couple of hours because she's in Nashville. And I think it took her a while to notice that I had cut my hair because same problem you all have. So this was her response, Maddie. So this is Marriage Counsel 101. She put, nice. And I see, honestly, anything would be good. But you know what? I read that about five times and I thought,

Is that a compliment or is that a criticism? And I do not know to this day. That's called a backhanded compliment. It's what it's called. It's like Maddie telling Alex to tell me I look great, but tell me respectfully. It's basically saying you look great now, but we didn't want to tell you not so much earlier. Well, and the problem was she put one of those, what do you call the little faces?

What do you call those? Emojis. Emojis. I thought it might have been a valetor. No, what was the other word you said earlier? Oh. Verrallti. What was that? Avatar. Avatar. It might have been an avatar. Verrallti. It's got a little yellow face, and it has tears coming out of both sides, but it has a smile. Well, that means it was a joke. She was joking. That means it was a joke. Yeah. That's what she meant. That she's laughing about. Yeah, she's laughing about it. Honestly, anything would be good.

What was the emoji? It's a little yellow, laughing, crying. Yep, she's like saying a joke and this is like tongue in cheek. Like, hey, you think it'll look better? No, I think this is speaking in tongues. I need an interpreter. But no, here's the thing. There's truth in it, though, Jase. There's just happened last night. So Beth has been trying to get me to go on the duck call room.

And but I just been busy and had a lot going on. And so she sends me a note and says, hey, are you in town to go on the duck already? And I said, no, I'm in Gulf Shores. And she said, and then she sent me one back and said, well, I don't want to be a pest, LOL. And then I sent her a picture back of a ear with a mosquito right next to the ear and

And then I sent her an emoji of with me winking like it's a joke, but it's sort of like there's some honesty because you are being a pass, but it's OK. I mean, I understand that's what you do. You have to get gas. So that's that's what Missy did as well. It's she's she's telling you she's kidding because she loves you. But, you know, anything is better than what you have.

Oh, all right. Well, finally we solved that mystery. See? You brought up Mia because the other day she sent, she asked me something. Somebody left her some money and she's like, how much was it? And I sent her a picture of the, it was a hundred dollar bill. But she sent three of those emojis all different. And I had no idea what that meant. I said, I don't know what this means. I bet Manny would know. I mean, well, then she defined them. She put shocked, surprised, and...

Let's see. It means I'm surprised and shocked. But then she sent another one after that sentence.

And I thought, this is just too, it's getting too weird. Why didn't you just say that? Because now we have to have an interpretation. That's right. It's faces I've never seen. I don't even know what. That is interesting, James. You brought up an interesting point. I never thought about the emojis now. And people at Maddie's age understand them immediately. It takes me a little while to figure them out, but it has become its own language. Look, I'm going to send these to Maddie.

And you try to tell me what these things are. I mean, I've been on the earth 55 years. I had no idea. I sent her a picture of how much money she got, and she sent me that. So there's a world that we're living in.

that I'm not familiar. I don't speak that language. Well, they also, I'll tell you another thing that happens is there's like letters. People just put out letters and half the time, I don't know what that they are. And sometimes they're not good. When you find out, you're like, oh, I wish I didn't know that.

But, yeah, there's like they just now it's like this. What do you call it? Shorthand, I guess, language because of texting. I guess it makes sense, though, that every time you get a new venue to communicate, you're going to have to learn a whole new language. Is that right, Zach? I mean, is that what we're describing? Well, I really feel like the application of all this, which was not planned, obviously, but is why, you know, Jesus is encountering such opposition here.

Yeah. Because he's just speaking in a language which was their language. Yeah, that's a good segue. They just can't... I mean, I felt when I saw that, I'm trying to figure out what exactly is this. I don't know if this is good, bad, indifferent. I'm not sure what my next move is here because this is foreign to me. It just made no sense. And so, you know, I think that is a good segue. No, because you're exactly right. Truth...

is still truth spread across whatever different way we find it communicated. And so no matter what you plug into it across time, that's the beautiful thing about the Bible. We were talking about spiritual warfare recently. And the idea is that truth is going to always stand for what's right because God is always right. I mean, the two inalienable things about God, he never lies and he always is.

And so you can always depend on his faithfulness, which imagine from Jesus's perspective, Jase, that here he is talking to his people that he freed from Egypt because he's always been. And yet they have no idea what he's talking about. Exactly. Well, I'm thinking I have to preach this Sunday and I listened to your sermon from Ephesians six, which I highly recommend, uh,

And we had Chad Wright and Jay on the last podcast. We were talking about spiritual warfare. But I kind of did something that was crazy. I don't know if you've ever done this, Al. I had a thought. You know how you start thinking about, what am I going to preach on? You asked me to give an overview of Ephesians. And even though y'all have been studying Ephesians...

Which kind of came from our podcast that we did on Ephesians. It did. I haven't studied Ephesians. I mean, that was, what, a few months ago. Yeah, we've been in John for a while, yeah. Yeah, and so I was like, well, to give an overview, wow. But I thought of this illustration where, kind of like what we're talking about, where I feel like we kind of have in our religious world, and I mean in America, we kind of have this grid that says,

It's kind of like you punch your ticket to get off this planet and be saved. And that's really the main focus. And when I read Ephesians, it gives this vision of what God accomplished in Jesus, which that's the main phrase in the book of Ephesians, in Christ. It's like...

the happy place of heaven and earth from the history of the world to the present world to the future world. In Christ is where every human needs to be. And where is he now? He's at the right hand of God. And it's more about what's happening now. That's why there's so much of it about the church. And so I feel like, you know, that what Ephesians reveals and then our kind of American culture

narrative of just punch your ticket and we're just waiting. We're just, you know, waiting. Do you deal with stress or anxiety throughout the day or do you find yourself on your phone constantly? If you're like me or a lot of other people I know, I can easily get sucked into the doom scrolling. But I want to tell you about something else that I've been using that is really helping ease my mind called the Abide app.

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And so I wanted to do an illustration that proved my theory on where we're kind of missing what God is doing now, what Jesus is doing at the right hand of God. And the verse I was kind of getting all this from was in Ephesians 1.10, where it says, you know, God goes through that from the beginning, he had this plan for people to be in Christ, Jews and Gentiles, which means the whole world.

to be under this umbrella of in Christ. And here's what that's going to look like of all these people from all these different countries and different nations. This is what it's going to be like. And in Ephesians 1.10, it says, and this all, the whole plan was to culminate with, I'll read it.

I'll start reading in verse 9. He made known to us the mystery of his will. You know, what does God want for humanity? He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his pleasure, which he purposed, there's a phrase, in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. I mean, drum roll. Everything through time was leading to this one declaration that

to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Yeah. So I'm like, man, what a statement. So I think we have two narratives. You have the one of Ephesians where all things in heaven and on earth are brought together now. Yeah. And this is, he wrote that to the Ephesians.

what, almost 2,000 years ago? Correct. So we're still living that. But it doesn't feel that way in our religious establishments. It's kind of like, well, we're just waiting on this to happen. And so I did an illustration last weekend. I spoke out at camp. Did I tell you all about that? No. They had like a sportsman's day at Camp Chiocca.

Where we've all been, I mean, I think I first went to camp as just a little kid, which is why I did that.

And Willie and Corey met at camp, like on the Moonlight Hike. My parents met out at camp, and my mom took you to that camp. She did when I was nine years old. I didn't meet my wife there. I met her at the church that sponsors camp, but I saw her out there, and that was part of the process. I was like, what?

Boy, because they always used to ask, who are you going to take on a moonlight hike? And I was thinking, I'd like to take that girl, but she probably wouldn't go, which was eventually going to be my wife. So I didn't even ask. But so what I did, now they had, you know, people from all over came and it was kind of a, I mean, I think it was a fundraiser for camp. I didn't really know what it was. They asked me to.

They said it's a sportsman day. People who appreciate the outdoors. And they had like – you shot bows and threw hatchets. And they had all kind of fun things for the kids. And there were probably a couple hundred people there. Yeah, including my four grandchildren were there and loved it, too. Yeah, I missed all the festivities. I just came in for the – I was the last speech there. And so I guess they figured I'm a guy –

who kind of discovered God in the outdoors and the life change of our parents, Al. But, you know, it led me to the Bible, which led me to Jesus, which led me to my surrender. But, you know, it all started me just looking at the creation thinking, I think somebody created this. And so I gave my little speech, but I did this illustration to prove my point. And so I asked three questions. I did this right at the first. I said, well, let's do some audience participation here. Let's get to know each other.

And I've been famous for asking three questions that I got from Acts 17, which, by the way, echoes Ephesians 1. And maybe this will be a good test for y'all to say whether I should do this illustration. So here's what I'm doing. I'm doing an experiment to see if my thought process is right, that we kind of missed the big picture of Ephesians 1.

And so I'll read this Acts 17, which I quoted without planning on doing it in my speech. But when Paul got up and shared to a group of people who are bowing down to an altar, this one inscription on this altar in Acts 17, 23 got his attention because he looked carefully at the objects of worship from the people here in Athens, in which I've been to this place modern day.

It's still there. Yep. And he says they had an inscription that said, to an unknown God. He said, I'm going to proclaim this unknown God. And so he starts this sermon. He said, the God who made the world and everything in it. Now, watch what he first says right off the bat. Is the Lord of heaven and earth.

He says the same thing he wrote in Ephesians that was saying this is the culmination of God's will and plan. He said he's Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn't live in buildings built by hands. And then you remember the rest of it. He's not served by human hands. He gives all men life, breath, everything else. Well, his sermon, which goes on to say,

He did this so that men would reach out for him and seek him and find him and where his offspring, but he's not far from us. And then he goes on to end it by saying, he set a day when he'll judge the world. And he has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. Well, out of that, I came up with three questions out of that sermon. So I asked them the three questions without reading that first sermon.

I just said, let's get to know each other. I said, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to ask you all a question, and I want everybody at the same time to answer it. I was like, it'll sound weird, but it'll be fun. And we'll see if a common theme comes out. So the first question I asked, I said, where are you all from? And when I said that, 200 people simultaneously told me the state where they were born.

And really, there was no one state. You would have thought it was Louisiana, but actually I didn't hear anybody say Louisiana.

I heard some Arkansas. It was like I was organizing some speaking in tongues here when the spirit poured out. Some Texas, Oklahoma. I actually heard a Hawaii. There was a couple that I met later that were from Hawaii that came all the way to this. That was a frequent flyer award. So then I asked the second question. I said, what do y'all do for a living?

I kind of gave a redneck question. Well, then I heard everything from, you know, barbecue to plumber to outdoor guide. I mean, it was just all these, you know, things that people do to make money. Of course, if you think about the question, I said, what do you do for a living? These were carefully orchestrated questions.

Well, then the third question I ask is, I said, where are y'all headed? And to my surprise, I only heard one thing from 200 people. You know what it was? Heaven. They all said heaven. Now, for my illustration purposes, I actually thought that I was 0 for 3 because then I read Acts 17. Now, remember what I'm saying here. I'm prefacing and saying, well, they got the third one right.

But my whole point for doing the illustration is that while we're here, we tend to think, when I say where you're from, I was surprised that no one said I was made in the image of God. That's technically where I'm from. But we just tend to think, oh, I was born. I said, you know, I would have felt better if you had said, well, I was born in Alabama. But where I'm from, I was made in the image of God.

Zach, I'm such a good cousin to you because when you come into Westman Road, you usually stay at Hotel Al and Lisa's.

And in our guest room, guess what I have reserved for Zach and Jill Dasher? It's a Helix. It's why I stay there. I want to stay anywhere else. I thought it's just you were cheap, but it's because you love the Helix mattress. It's the Helix. Jill and I took the super simple Helix sleep quiz because we weren't sleeping well. And we were matched with a mattress called the Midnight Luxe mattress. Not too firm, not too soft. It's perfect for us because we're side sleepers. We've had our mattress for a couple of years now, and I'm telling you, it has changed the

the way that we sleep. Yeah. And Jace, you and Missy have Helix as well. Yeah. We're one big Helix family. Lisa and I, when we took the quiz, we're moonlight. Uh, we're not side sleepers. We're back sleepers. And we like it just a little bit more, uh, in the middle. So there's, it fits you. It fits your lifestyle. It fits where you sleep best. And look, wherever you go, you want to be able to sleep on these mattresses. It's the thing I miss most when I'm on the road. Cause we do a lot of, uh, speaking around the country, uh,

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Exclusive for listeners of Unashamed, that's helixsleep.com slash unashamed for 27% off site-wide and a free bedding bundle with any Lux or Elite mattress order. Check them out, helixsleep.com slash unashamed. Number two, what do you do for a living? And they said all that. And I would have said I would have felt better if you had said, I'm a disciple of Jesus.

Because in him is life. You want to live. The whole book of John has been about that. But I use as a platform my plumbing skills. And then third, where are you headed? Heaven. I said, I would have felt better because when I said this, I said, look, I don't want to offend you because I don't think that's technically wrong.

But the Bible says way more about being with the Lord than it does the place. And actually, you can make an argument of a new heaven and a new earth, which is usually how I frame it, based on Revelation 21 or 22. My whole point in that was to show what I think the point of Ephesians is, which is

understanding the fullness of God, which he says we have many times, which is God the Father who's for us, God the Son who's with us, came to be with us, and is with us now at the right hand of God, and the Holy Spirit which is in us. And that's really what this stress, that's what Ephesians is stressing. And I think the disconnect is that.

We're here to do worldly things. We're born in states. We do things to make money. Oh, and one day we're going to go to heaven. And I think that's the disconnect. And it proved my point. That was not our answer to be ready to go immediately into those spiritual aspects of the Godhead. There's an interesting thing that you just said there that I—

If you indulge me for just a minute, I think it'll make a great point.

When someone asks where you're from, if you go back to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 2, so if you read Genesis 1, it's the creation account, but then he kind of starts over in chapter 2 and gives a little bit more detail after he says that God rested on the seventh day. And then in verse 4 of chapter 2, listen to this, what it says right before he talks about the creation of Adam and Eve.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created and the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And then he gets into when man was formed. And so when you were talking about that Ephesians passage of the coming together of heaven and earth,

That is the ultimate goal, right? That heaven's going to come to earth. But if you think back at the beginning of creation, Adam and Eve really came out of, they were the generations of heaven and earth. So when you read the command in Genesis chapter one, and just listen to this language, you think about generations, heaven and earth coming together, all the nations, every tribe, that whole thought process. He says in Genesis 128, be fruitful and multiply.

and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So when you get that picture, it's not that man is out of heaven at the creation. No, he's actually ruling over all these things. It's in conjunction with. So then when you skip forward to chapter 9,

It says, I mentioned this in a previous podcast, this is after the fall, after the world got so wicked and God saves Noah and ate. He says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So same language that you saw at the creation. Then Genesis 12, the calling of Abram, in you all the families of earth shall be blessed. Skip forward to Genesis 18.

Just a few chapters later, he says, Skip forward to Genesis 25.

And it says, "...two nations are in your womb, two peoples are in your womb. The older will serve the younger." Chapter 26, "...I will multiply your offspring as stars in the heaven, and I will give your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring," here's the promise, "...all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abram obeyed my voice and kept my charge."

Then you skip over to chapter 27. Let the people serve you and the nations bow down before you. Then you skip over to Psalm 22, which is interesting because Psalm 22 is what Jesus quoted when he was on the cross. And what does he say in Psalm 22, verse 27? This is the one where it says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And at the end of that Psalm, it says,

The end of it is verse 27. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families...

of the nations shall worship before you. Then you skip to Isaiah chapter, uh, chapter two, verse two, and you see all the nations will flow up the hill. Verse two, to worship the one true God. Then you go to Isaiah chapter 49 and you see that I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation will reach the ends of the earth. Then you skip over to Hosea chapter two. I'm just going through the old Testament here. Hosea two, three, um,

which says, actually 223 says, and I will sow for her myself in the land and I will have mercy on no mercy. And I will say to not my people that you are my people and he shall go to you and say, you are my God. Then you get to the very last prophet Malachi and you read in the book of Malachi right at the end of the Old Testament, verse 11, for from the rising of the sun,

to its setting, my name will be great among, guess what? The nations. And every place that

Then you enter the New Testament. You get to Acts chapter 2. All the nations are together. They're all speaking in different tongues, but they're all hearing each other. The coming of the kingdom comes in Jesus. And then at the end of Revelation 22, what do you see surrounding the throne of God?

the nations and so i i i just can't i mean when you read it this way and you go back to that ephesians passage like you see that what's happening here is god is calling all the people all the tribes all the tongues all the nations to himself to rule in dominion again where heaven and earth are now united once again that's our that's our future hope and consummation of the kingdom

at the second coming of Christ. No, that's really good, Zach. And that's, you know, speaking of overviews, Chase, Zach just did the whole Bible. I've only asked you to do Ephesians. He just did the whole Bible. But, you know, it's funny, Chase, because when you laid out those three questions...

And immediately I was thinking about my big outline for the book of Ephesians when we were preaching through it. And it so goes in line with those three questions you were asking of that audience. And I love the tie-in to Acts 17. And my outline was declared intentions was the first one. In other words...

That whole thing you read earlier of Jesus declaring, Paul making these declarations that he was who he said he was, it's the same thing we do. And that's how we get the Holy Spirit, because we declare our intentions. We're all in on Jesus. And that's the first couple of books, I mean, a couple of chapters in Ephesians. And then you get to those middle chapters, and that's our determined integrity. That's the second role in this. And that is what we do with that.

And how we live. And so you see all these passages in Ephesians about what we how we live, how we act, how we react to other people. What does it look like in our marriage? What does it look like in our family? What does it look like in our work environment? All those are reflections, right? Because that's the integrity that comes about by having the Holy Spirit.

And then you get into the last bit of Ephesians 6, and that's the third point, which is to your question about, you know, is that where are we headed? It's displaying the image of Christ.

In other words, we should look like, and that's what he says, be imitators of Christ. The more we live for him, the more we've declared that this is who we are, the more we should be image bearers of Jesus. And people see that in us. That should be natural. It should be natural because it's the flow out of the Holy Spirit. That's why he calls it fruit.

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I think to image Christ, because that's a big question, what does it mean to image Christ? And typically what I think we want to do when we try to explain that is we want to go to Galatians 5, and we want to basically do the works of the Spirit. But I don't think that's the right answer because that fruit of the Spirit, it's the fruit of the Spirit. So the fruit actually comes as a byproduct of whatever –

the tilling of the soil, the planting, all that, like the gardening part, right? So we think about fruit comes out of a garden. So if I'm, if I'm going to, if I want to have sunflowers, cause I'm going to have a big dove hunt in September and I want to, I'm going to, what am I going to do? I'm going to plant sunflower seeds. I'm going to cultivate the ground. I'm going to till it up. I'm going to plant a garden. I'm going to work a garden. I never make the fruit grow. I never make the flower bloom. That never, I never, I,

I've never done that. Because you couldn't. If I say go out there and make a strawberry, like, okay, let me get all the materials, let me analyze what's in a strawberry, and I'm going to get these elements, and I'm going to put it all. No, you don't do that. What you do is you cultivate a garden, and

And then it produces the fruit. And that's the picture of what, well, how do we, well, that's, that's Edenic language, right? What were they? So to image Christ, what does it mean to image Christ? To image Christ is to have dominion over the earth and,

to subdue it, to take the Garden of Eden and expand it. It's to cultivate a garden. And then the fruit comes as a result of the cultivation, not the other way around. That's what it means to image Christ. And instead, what we do is we take our God-delegated dominion and authority, and N.T. Wright talks about this in a very eloquent way, and we hand over that dominion

God delegated dominion and authority, which we're supposed to exercise over the world. And instead, we hand that over to the idols to have dominion over us. And this seems to be the very nature of what sin is. Sin is to take your God-given dominion

And in that exact—

Isn't that exactly what Jace was describing was happening in Acts 17 by the people that were living there? That's what it was. They had all these other gods, and they thought that was the pathway and all their philosophies and all their wisdoms and all the things they had. When he said right in the midst of it all, you've got the answer, the unknown God. And then he described to them who he was.

Go ahead, Josh. Well, where I was going with that is the last time we did the podcast out of John, he has this beautiful passage in chapter 7 that says, if anyone is thirsty, in verse 37, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit. So he came down here,

And it's like, you'll never thirst. I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit, and it's going to flow out. And we talked about that. You were asking the question, what is imaging God? What does that look like? Well, it looks like Jesus being on the earth, and we have his spirit. We're doing this again. Jesus has been multiplied by the millions, and now we go out. And that's why I said those answers to those first two questions. I think you should get in the habit of...

making it be what it really should be about. Where are we from? But it came from, you know, in John 6, I mean, it just had a profound impact on me when here comes Jesus, you know, after he does the miracle, which you would think that would do it, but it didn't because it became the question, well, wait a minute, where are you from? Because you're just a man, you're a carpenter. And they were having trouble, just like we have the same trouble today,

And you trying to say, oh, I have the Holy Spirit from heaven in my body right now. And I just want to reiterate this because I think right after he says that profound statement, you're going to see.

my point. But if you go back to John six, where he said over 10 times, he used this phrase, but I just want to read them just to make the point kind of like what Zach did in six 33. He says for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then in 38, he says, for I have come down from heaven and,

Not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. So is he not answering this question on where you're from? Look, in 41, he says, I am the bread that came down from heaven. I am the bread that came from heaven. Then 42, they say, well, wait a minute. I thought this was Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know. How can he now say, I came down from heaven? They're making a point of this statement.

Verse 50, but here is the bread that came down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. And they're not even focusing on that. Did he just say that we won't die? They're like, he won't drop it. 51, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he'll live forever. Look, 58,

This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this will live forever. So then you go to John 7, and look, he just says this about the Holy Spirit. And in verse 41, 40 and 41, it says, On hearing these words, some of the people said, this is John 7, 40 and 41, Surely this man is a prophet. Others said he is the Christ, till others asked,

How can the Christ come down from Galilee? Wait a minute. How many times does he have to say, does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem? And I know we hit on this point, but we didn't focus on it. Look, he could have said he was from Bethlehem because that would have been true. That's true. Wrong answer. That's not why he came. And that's why I came up with that idea about that illustration because

Don't tell me where you were born. Tell me what you're about, which is what Jesus did. No, I came from heaven. Forget where I was born. And basically their problem with him is he had the wrong zip code. And I'm not sure what the zip code of heaven is, but he tried to say in the moment it's

B-R-E-A-D from heaven. So we're out of time, but here's the deal, Jase. When somebody says, where were you born? You say, oh, that's not important. Let me tell you when I was born again. I think it's a great...

conversation starter to what we should be doing and I think we have the wrong narrative in our church buildings that's why we're not going out and declaring it I think that's so good and next time we get back in the late part of John 7 John 8 we'll pick it up from there so we'll see you next time on another show

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