Ep 1108 | Jase Decodes Tom Cruise’s Mission, Zach Faces Drunken Cajun Fury & God Rewires Our Desires
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I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. We were talking in between the podcast here to reposition about Jason. I've been staying up late at night and watching baseball. Last time we got to text with each other back and forth during the game. I was so stressed out. Of course, this will be out after everything's happened when we record this, but LSU made it to the Super Regional, but

Jase, I was so stressed. I couldn't hardly... It was hard for me to watch it because I knew I had to go to bed and try to sleep. Well, what's crazy is I've had my son and all his kids in my house for like eight or nine days. And...

Usually I don't care how loud I am if I wake the kids up, but after about eight days, you know, I had to celebrate quietly with my son, which was difficult because the last thing I wanted to do was... You couldn't holler. I didn't want to wake them. But he was watching the kids and his wife went back to Nashville without the kids. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a... I mean, you think about that right there. That's a big move.

Well, that's where old Lulu comes into play. That's why I think today, I think she's going to get a massage. She said, just don't ask me anything for two days. Lulu being Missy. Yeah, that's her grandma name. Or as one of the kids called her, Udo, because they haven't.

perfected the English language. It drives her crazy, and we all think it's the funniest thing. It's like, it sounds like some kind of Star Wars character, you know? But, Al, you're right, and I know people don't want to talk about LSU baseball, but it's a fabric. It goes back to when I was a child.

And it's just what we did. It's one of the most exciting things every year. It's been a tradition since I was a little kid because LSU has always been good at baseball. And you can never underestimate the power of a bunch of drunk Cajuns watching the game because the crowd was...

Because they start these games so late. Well, they're doing it on purpose. They're like, get the Cajuns drunk. Get all lubed up and come out and cheer for the Tigers. Everything in Baton Rouge is, you know, inebriation is a part of that process. You know what? When I was in college, Jeff and I, your brother and your brother was my college roommate. We've kind of told a little bit of that story on the podcast before. We were not –

How do I say it? We weren't necessarily living...

For Jesus. Just go ahead and confess your sins. We were in sin. We were living in sin. You were heathens. We were heathens. We were rank heathens, as Phil would say. We rank heathens. Yeah. And we went down to an LSU football game. And I grew up in Gainesville, so I'm a Florida fan. We've had that. Did you wear a Florida hat? I made the mistake of wearing a bright orange Florida hat. Because you're trying to make statements with your attire in general. And I wasn't going to say anything about today. Okay.

What's wrong with what I got on? Well, here's what happened. The last time you visited me, you came on with a neon orange vest that you wore for three days. And I was like, Zach, nobody's going to shoot you. No, it was a hat. It was a neon hat. You went the other way now. Because now you dressed up like a deer.

You literally look like a deer. Well, look. I'm wearing a Duck Commander hat. But it has a deer on it, and you have the color of a deer. And I'm like, don't wear an orange vest with a hat and all that.

But don't dress up like a deer. They will shoot you around here if you cross the road. I mean, if you go to the store over here and cross the road without a vehicle, you're in danger. You're not watching. I got on a brown shirt, a brown hat, and black pants and brown shoes. So I can see the point. I can see the point. Let me give you a tip, though, if you want to take a walk.

If you hear the mud grips, slow down. That's when you need to take that hat off and take your shirt off and say, I'm here. Because deer in our ditches, and I learned this from Phil, he said, I know something about these deer. He said, they're listening before they're looking. Because you can drive right by and you're like, oh, look at the deer in the ditch. Yeah.

But if that car slows down, they're gone. They're gone because they know the next thing they're going to hear is boom. Did you get him, Pete? Well, I wore my orange hat to an LSU football game. And to your point, it was at night.

which was a bad and they weren't even playing florida and uh we get in there why would you wear that hat i mean i'm a florida fan well if you wear an orange hat at an lsu game and things go wrong guess what they're taking out all their anger on the guy in the orange hat oh it's it was the most i'm gonna tell you guys it was the most most ruthless experience of my life we end up at a party again i tell you we weren't living right oh boy and uh

And we're at this party and there's a, I'm dancing with this girl and I'm there with your brother, Jeff, and I'm dancing with this girl. And there's this guy in the corner behind her, just like giving me this eye, like, I'm going to rip your head off. And I think he wouldn't. I mean, he's looking at me like, I want to kill you. And I thought it was the hat. And I'm like, this guy back there, you know.

he was staring me down and she turned around looked over her shoulder oh that's my ex-boyfriend we just broke up about two hours ago yeah oh but he was a little guy and i was kind of a loud mouth i mean you know me i mean so i'm like he starts he kind of approaches me yeah and i said and i said son i said if you if you don't quit running your mouth i'm gonna bend you over my knee and i'm gonna wear your butt out so i'm like i'm like making fun of him but i'm like i'm thinking i got this guy

And so we're kind of mouthing back and forth with a girl saying,

His ex-girlfriend of two hours before came up behind him as he's yelling at me and pours a beer on his head. And he, I mean, lost it. And he runs toward me and to like bulldog me to the ground. I actually pick him up because I was about twice his size. And I just power drive him into the ground. I did not know, though, that he was somehow connected with the swim team, the LSU swim team.

And so they were there, all his buddies. And the next thing I knew, I was out on the porch and they just jumped and just beat the mess out of me. And I lined up on the back porch. Some guy from Monroe that we had known somehow got me outside. I'm like, what just happened? He said, you just got the mess kicked out of you. And I said, well, where was Jeff? He said, oh, he was out the door.

So I took a beating by a bunch of drunk Cajuns at an LSU football game. And our buddy Kevin got gutted at an LSU football game. He did. So it's a dangerous place. Yeah. Well, this is what happens when you run with the devil. It's called death by the reason. Yeah.

Sounds like it has a whole new meaning now. Fortunately for you, because that sounded like the opening of a Dateline episode where I wound up in a casket. I repented, though, and about six months later, I repented and said, I'm going to run with, I still would say, the godly now. Yeah. Well, it's unfortunate, but it usually comes to some kind of death-like experience to get your attention. Yeah. I've been saying that.

even in Phil's death, it makes everyone reflect on your own mortality. Yeah. But you got to remember, it'll get your attention, but the resurrection of Jesus is what changes your life. That's true. So it's...

It's good to think in those ways. But it's actually, it squarely leads us back to our text in John 8, Jace, because they're trying to kill Jesus here, which N.T. Wright makes the point so passionately. He's like, one of the reasons why the language we're getting to today is so graphic and stark is

It's because it really is about life and death. And I mean, that's why he came. But I mean, that's what he's facing in the moment. This is not just some people that like like Zach's situation was, you know, once they whipped Zach, they felt a little bit better about themselves. Although it was the girl who poured the beer on his head. Right. Yeah. But you took the whipping. I took the whipping for what she did.

Exactly. Well, that's why he makes these graphic statements when he says, you know, I know you're Abraham's descendants in 837, yet you're ready to kill me. And then this little phrase is so thought-provoking because he says, because you have no room for my word. Yeah. I mean, what a statement. It's like it's crowded with way down deep in your soul with everything that

but what I'm telling you. Well, he says the same thing, Jason 43. He says, why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say because you belong to the devil. So it's that the idea that the heart is not where it needs to be to even listen. He's saying the right things, but they're not hearing it. I have thousands of memories, thousands of when I'm sitting there sharing Jesus with someone and,

And then you see it dawn on them that if this is true and if they acknowledge Jesus as the son of God, the changes that must occur is so great that they, you know, you see people are going back and forth with that in their deep down heart. They're like, and some people, unfortunately, they have that same conclusion. There's no way.

This is going to fit into my current life. Well, it's just kind of the picture of the wineskins that Jesus had. And you see that, that I just ran a little search on this, um,

Colossians 3.16, because they didn't have room for the Word of God. Colossians 3.16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. John 15.17, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done. James 1.21, receive with meekness the implanted Word.

which is able to save your souls. And then Hebrews 4.12, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. And so I think you think about that, like God doesn't want you just to hear his word. It's not just like a cognitive, okay, here's the information. Well, the word became flesh. The word became flesh. It's a person. Yeah, it's much more intimate, right? It's like a, because I think what we want to say is give me the right info. Well, exactly. Give me the right info, then I'll be good. You're like, well, no, it's beyond that.

That's a very humanistic way of approaching God's word. Jace, I want to tell you, I forgive you, my brother. Go for it. I forgive you for hanging up on me. But I'll tell you why the forgiveness has been easier, because it did actually get me to switch my cell phone coverage to Pure Talk, which actually I have incredible coverage with my new wireless provider, Pure Talk, and I'm getting it at half the price.

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And the average family, I'm here to tell you, they save over $1,000 a year. That would include us. I am a Pure Talk customer, and I can tell you that the coverage is second to none. Switching to Pure Talk is easy. It can be done in as little as 10 minutes. And we love the fact that these guys are committed to helping support veterans. They donated a lot of money to scholarships to support veteran learning trades after they get out of active duty. Also, they are helping to eliminate veteran debt.

And they're raising money to end veteran suicide. Just go to puretalk.com slash unashamed to switch hassle-free in as little as 10 minutes. Again, that's puretalk.com slash unashamed to support veterans and switch to America's wireless company, Pure Talk. Well, the good thing is he simplified it into you're getting your information that you're basing on your whole life on two sources. Yeah.

One is an evil one, and one is a holy one. You know, the father. Which father are you going with? I mean, that's basically what he does. He turns it into two camps. Yeah. And if you ask the question that, if I ask you the question, what, except if they don't have room, how much room do you need to hold the word of God? I think you got a clean house. You got to clean it. You got to clean it. You got to.

You got a clean house and start over. Renovate, renovate the whole house. Yeah, it's kind of like, because you think about the wineskin argument, it's like you think about what kind of wineskin could hold the new wine. Well, whatever that wineskin is,

The one quality it better have is it better be able to expand forever. Well, that's why the, you say that. That doesn't that, like you tell that story about yourself and, and I have stories like that too. And you remember them so well, but now in a new house, uh,

doesn't it feel like when you tell a story like that, it's somebody else. It's really not even you. I mean, you can't hardly imagine yourself being, putting yourself in the positions that you used to put yourself in. Well, that's why if you do a word study on fill or full in the, cause you're full of something. Yeah. Yeah. And to make a, you know, back to the, the drunk Cajun scenario, uh,

I mean, there's a lot in the New Testament about being filled with the Spirit. Just think, do not get drunk on wine, but be filled with the Spirit. You're going to pour something into yourself. And I think that's the point he's making. But ultimately, Jesus and God, the Father of all, wants to fill everything and everyone in every way. And it's ever-expanding. It's like the...

The passage in Ephesians, when he talks about the temple, he talks about that because that's the house. That's the container that we all have is our bodies. But it's a language that's expanding. It's growing. And so God comes in because when the word gets implanted in you, it just comes in you a spring. The Holy Spirit lives in you. It's a spring welling up to eternal life. So I think the devil, what the devil, he operates in like a net sum or zero sum game, you know, where it's like,

here's the thing, we're all fighting over the same pie. That's the devil's mentality. The Lord's mentality is, no, the pie is ever-growing. It's abundance. We're all participating in whatever this life is. And I think that's what he's kind of getting at here, is they had a container that they wanted to put God in in John 8, and their container was actually...

Something that God gave them, which was good. The patriarchs, Abraham, the law. But they're like, oh, we're going to put God in the temple system. We're going to put him in that. Which is funny because if they actually had read their own Bible, they would have read Solomon, what he said in 1 Kings 8.

surely you're not going to live in a temple made by my hands. They would have got to that same conclusion. But it's all based on a lie when you're following the evil one. That's why he said you'll know the truth and the truth sets you free. Everyone under the control of the evil one does not acknowledge that.

That's why he's bringing it up. Why is that? Why do you think they don't? Why is that? Because it's all based on a delusion and a lie. It's all masquerading as something else. Whether it's, you know, it's like people who have this, I'll tell you a lie. It's like deep down, most Americans think, well, if one day I can make this big payday, then I'll be set.

You know, if I win the lottery, if I make some deal, you know, it's like, well, then I'm going to be set. Are you really going to be set? It's actually a lie because it's not. Some of the most depressed people that I know of have a lot of money. Yeah. I mean, they're just miserable human beings. And you're like.

And you start to talk to them about it, and they can't figure out what seems to be the problem. You know, especially in like the professional sporting world, because, you know, when you become famous, you meet other famous people.

And I would say that's probably been the most disappointing experience of my fame life is meeting other famous people because they're just depressed. And it's like the only relationship I have with some of them where they were reaching out to me as in saying, well, how come you seem to be fine with everything? Well, you know, now we're getting into Jesus. So it's like... Well, because the delusion is you think if I obtain...

at least in the fame world, I'll be fine. But think about the king of rock and roll. You know who that was? Elvis. The king of rock and roll, yeah. Elvis. How'd he die? Depressingly. Yeah. The king of pop. You know who that was? Michael Jackson. How'd he die?

depressingly not well king of grunge kirk cobain the king of country hank williams you know the the queen of the queen of r&b whitney houston the queen of rock janice joplin you go down the list the prince the prince of funk i mean like anything when you get to like you get to the top of the game and that's the delusion you get to the top of the game you've accomplished all there is to accomplish you have all the accolades all the wealth all the things

And you get to the top of that mountain, and you're like, whoa, the high place didn't deliver. Didn't deliver. It didn't deliver. I think that's what's good. And you see it just in our culture. So I went down a rabbit hole today. This would be the, remember when I said to be continued? This was your tease, Jay. Well, because we've done so many podcasts in a short period of days, I thought, well, I'm going to have a couple days off. Missy's exhausted because of the kids. And I was like, maybe we'll go see a movie. So I was like, well, let's see what's out.

So I actually did the, I mean, you know, I see outside of Christian movies, I see random movies maybe once a year. And so wouldn't you know it? Mission Impossible. Yeah, I did not know this. This shows you how much I'm up on cultural events. I was like, yeah, I was that guy this morning. I was like, they made another Mission Impossible movie?

Because then I had to Google. I didn't know Tom Cruise was still alive. He's still alive and well. He's still running. I'm so sorry I had to Google that information, but he's still alive. And he's doing his own stunts. Yeah. Well, I've had a bit about –

That particular movie for years. Al, you've heard me do the bit. I've heard it. Have you not? Because I always just, you know, I'm one of the few people in life that when you put a title up before the movie comes, I think about the title. It's like the thesis. And it's like Mission Impossible. Then the whole movie...

is them doing it. And so you know what I think in my spiritual mind? Well, that was a lie. If it's impossible, how would you do it? Why wouldn't you say mission... It's a bait and switch. Possible. Yeah. Well, it's a bait and switch, a lot like the other one. So check this title out. Y'all probably know. Oh, yeah. Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Yeah.

Does it mean it was finally possible? The final reckoning, which is a biblical word. So I went down a rabbit hole, and look, the first place that got my attention when we translate from Greek to English the word reckon.

Would you believe the first verse I looked up? Because I thought, how is that word in Romans 6? I know Romans 6 like the back of my hand. I don't remember seeing reckon in there. Well, I'm going to read it. Now, my translation has considered, but it's the word for reckoning. Yeah. And I'm going to read it. And look, it just happens to be right where we're at in John 8. That's why I took this as a sign.

In the same way, this is Romans 6.11. Now, you remember the context of Romans 6. Yeah. If you just go back before I read Romans 6.11, he comes up with this argument saying, shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Now, go back to where we're at in John 8. He's like, hey, I don't want you to die in your sins. He says that how many times in John 8, Al? Three or four? Oh, yeah, at least three. I don't want you to die in your sins.

And so Paul has an argument that says, shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Just think of that question. God has given us grace through Jesus' death on a cross and his love and mercy. He wants humans to live with him forever. So he gives his son and it's called God's grace. It's a gift. Jesus was a gift. He gave his life for us.

Well, of all the things he could say, he says, by no means, don't go out there and sin so that grace may increase. Like, oh, since God loves me so much, I'm going to live a life of sin. Which is kind of funny because when he asked that question, it's a rhetorical question, but it like is the natural. If you just took that, if you read Romans 5 to somebody, if you just read it and said, they would think, wow.

They would ask that question. They would say, I'm just going to sin all at once so I get more grace. But think about the realities of what it looks like with the story that started this chapter off, which we're not sure where it belonged, but the woman caught in adultery, does she leave that saying and say, you know what? I need to get caught more in adultery.

you consider yourself pro-life uh here's a little wake-up call for you despite the overturning of roe overall abortions increased nearly one percent last year and you think well one percent that doesn't sound like a lot that translates to over 100 000 additional babies lives lost and obviously every single life is important and precious last year with the help of unashamed nation

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That's pound 250 baby. Or you can visit preborn.com slash unashamed. That's preborn.com slash unashamed. Well, I think it's, I think they're acknowledging how humans think. It's like, oh, yeah.

Well, because if God forgave me, then I can just go out there. If it's so wonderful, I'll go out there. But it doesn't work in that realm because of what John 8 is saying. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're a son. And then you get into this, Christ is living in you. Well, he had no sin.

He's living in you. So it's like a status, which I think helps explain a lot of these verses. But what I wanted to get to is, of all the things he could say on why you shouldn't go out there and do it, he uses a phrase that's so similar to John 8, but there's one little different word. It says, we died to sin. He's telling them in John 8, I don't want you to die in your sins.

And here, Paul, fast forward, post death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and living a life or allowing God to live in you. He says we died to sin. Well, what does that mean? Yeah. We died to it. I'll say this. I'm not going to answer the question, but I'll say this, that is to set this up a little more.

We typically teach grace as Romans 5. That's how I always heard it in the church. Well, be specific for people who don't know what Romans 5 is. Basically, I always heard grace taught as, hey, no matter what you've done, God will forgive. There's no level that you've gotten to that can't be forgiven, which is true, but

It's just not complete. So if you think about the argument Paul's making, Paul's making an argument here. Yeah, like in Romans 5, I was trying to pick out a verse in Romans 5 that kind of sums up what you're saying. Well, the more you sin, the end of it, the last verse. Yeah, he says, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace may reign through righteousness. Well, just this phrase alone from Romans 5, and I don't have it pulled up in front of me, but it's,

Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more. Grace increases all the more. Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, that just, so if that, and so that is a true statement, but that's not the totality of what the grace of God is. And I think what Paul is doing when he gets into Romans 6, to your point, which you're about to get to, is he's actually,

He's actually expanding out our understanding of the grace of God. Cause any natural mind, if you leave it at that, they're going to think, Oh, well I can go on sending so that grace may increase. And he's like,

Well, not exactly, because you're not really getting it. So he's actually setting us up, when he makes the point, to make the real point about abiding in Christ, which is what Romans 6, 7, and 8 are all about. And I think for the new to the faith, a good verse to explain what we're saying is when Paul wrote to Titus in chapter 2 and 11, he says, "...the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men."

It teaches us to say no to ungodliness, worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age. Do you know how I think it does that? I think it teaches us to say no, not in...

I'm going to give you the willpower to say no to sin by giving you the right understanding of the knowledge or intellectual knowledge. I think it's more this. It teaches you to say no because as you live by the Spirit, your affections, your desires, your wants, your longings change. So going back to that story that I told about Zach, in your point, Zach Dasher at

20 years old with Jeff the Robertson at 20 years old. If at that point in my life, like I wanted the party.

I wanted to smoke, Dave. I don't want that stuff anymore. You're not thinking in the moment, this guy could stab me between the ribs and I could die. But you very well could have. You were putting yourself in a death wish situation. If you asked me now, you said, Zach, I want you to give me a definition in your mind of hell on earth.

I would describe it says to put me in a party with a bunch of college kids, get commode, hug and drunk. I think that's well, cause your decisions put you in, where was the presence of God in, in that he wasn't there. And, but, but my point is they're like, I say no to that now. But when I say no to that now, it's not like, I'm like, Oh, I really want to do it though. But I got to wheel it away at that. My, my saying no to go into a frat party.

It's not because I'm, I have, I have like at this point in my life, like I promise you zero temptation. There's, there's nothing. I don't look at that. I don't look at that and say, man, I want that. And I'll take it. I did want it at one point in my life. I wanted that. I'll take that a little further. My idea of saying no.

to the frat party is I'll show up at the frat party with my Bible. Well, that's a different story. Well, but it is me saying no, saying y'all got a better idea out of that, you know, and I've been in some weird situations like that and it's amazing that

I think in their minds, they think you're so crazy for doing that. It scares them. It literally puts the fear of the Lord. And it's more than just age because people mistakenly think because you get older, you learn all these things and make the right decisions, but you don't.

Because the sad thing is when men our age are still trying to do the frat party in their own way, and it's just destructive and terrible and destroys relationships and terrible things continue to happen. Why? Because you're believing the lie, which is the whole point of this text. That's a good point. Jesus says there's no truth in it.

in him at all. Yeah, so you're like a Hugh Hefner before he died. And that's the man's legacy. Nobody's like, man, that's how I want to go out. Nobody says that. Everybody's like, that's creepy. But it's what happens when you believe the lie long enough. My point is...

you'll hear people say, well, yeah, I was young then. As if now, somehow, without Christ, you're better. No, you just either have a better way of hiding it or you don't care. And either way, all you got to do is look at the fruit that comes out of it and it's terrible. And to your point, he probably assumed he was king of the world.

Until he wasn't. Well, yeah. And that's what James said. And above the law. But to the Romans passage that you talked about, I mean, it is like about being, because you were in Romans 6, but also John 8. Yeah, I hadn't even got back there. But it has everything to do with slavery, because if you look at... Well, that's where I was going. When he said we died to sin rather than in sin, then he goes into this, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?

We were there for a barrier. I mean, it's like we got rid of something here that was causing some problems because of what Jesus did in our surrendering life.

to him, which sounds a lot like being born again, which sounds a lot like sonship. And that's why he goes on to say, we know that our old self was crucified. This is 6.6, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Just think about what he's introducing in John 8 to them and what Paul is latching a hold of. So you say, what does this got to do with this movie? Because when we hear the word reckoning, we usually immediately go to the end time judgment, which some of the verses rendered reckoning in the New Testament does. What I found fascinating...

is here we have in Romans 6, 11, it says in the same way, here we have an end time reckoning. It says... Not end time, end time. I end time in Christ. Look, in the same way...

Reckon yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Which made me go back out to one of my favorite movies, The Outlaw Josie Wells, and one of the common phrases you'll hear, Clint Eastwood, who was representing this

you know, injustice happened to him and injustice happened to all the people that would follow him along trying to find a place of freedom, which he eventually runs up on Otenbehr's and gives him the words of life or the words of death. Does that sound familiar? And Otenbehr said, it shall be life. But in the middle of all that,

Eastwood would keep saying in various situations, I reckon so. Yeah. I reckon not. I reckon so. Which is what we do in Duck Blinds, you know, kind of based on that movie with all my buddies, when someone says something that obviously we should be doing to help the duck situation, I'll say, yeah.

I reckon so. I'm giving them a day of reckoning in the day saying that's good logic. And now I brought up the word logic because here's what I found fascinating. You know, the root word for the word reckoning there that says count yourselves comes from the word logos. Well, who is that referred to?

Jesus. Jesus. The word became flesh, the logos, the logic of God. And so really getting back to this silly movie, they're trying to give you the logic of mission and we're going to do something. And this is the final logic, the conclusion. Everything is coming together. So, I mean, we'll watch it, but I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be anything life changing.

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Probably not an actual final reckoning. But if you think about this Romans 8 passage, I mean, Romans 6 passage that you're in is so key because it is a really beautiful picture of how we're free from the slavery of sin. And I heard this guy, his name is Josh something. So you can Google that, Josh something. I can't remember his last name. He's a pastor, I think, in Dallas. And he shows up on my feed and he's talking about pornography.

And he gives this analogy that I thought, man, if that is not the best analogy, and not just how porn works, but how sin works. He's talking about these Eskimos, the way they would hunt for these wolves. And the way they would kill them is they would get a blade. He says they take the blade and they dip it in blood and they'd let it freeze like a popsicle. Yeah. And they'd do it again.

They do it again. They just keep dipping that blade in a bucket of blood and they just let it freeze to where the outside of that blade is just ice, like a popsicle of blood. And so the wolf would smell the blood. Yeah. So he's drawn to it. He's drawn. He's like, I don't want that. So he goes and he gets it and they got that sword sticking out of the ground, that big knife. Yeah. And that wolf will start licking that blood off of that blade because

because he's licking a popsicle, his tongue gets numb. Yeah. And he just keeps licking and just keeps licking. And then he gets to the blade and he doesn't realize he's licking a sharp blade and he's ripping, shredding his tongue out when his tongue starts bleeding. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's smelling his own blood, which makes him more hungry. And he just keeps on until literally his tongue is just— He bleeds to death and dies. He bleeds to death on his own appetite. And I thought, man, if that's—and the guy was like, this is what porn is. And I thought, this is what sin is. Yeah, that's one of the greatest illustrations I've ever heard. Because it's all wrapped in a delusion. Yeah. His name is Josh Howerton. Howerton. Howerton.

So, yeah, we're lucky. I think we got it. It was a good illustration. So, especially as a hunter, I'm like, hmm. But when I wanted to look at the ratings and see how this movie was coming across, because my whole point is they're barring spiritual principles to try to sell a movie. It's like everybody would like to do The Impossible.

Well, the Bible's filled with impossible things happening. Yeah. I mean, God is the God of making things that were not possible, possible. In fact, one of my favorite verses is everything is possible to those who believe. And even verses like it was impossible for Jesus to,

to remain dead. That's in Acts 2. You remember that? Yeah. Think Hebrews 11 where it says it is impossible. Impossible for God to lie too, Hebrews 6. Well, in Hebrews 11, it says without faith, it is impossible to please God. These are the kind of missions that you should be going on. Because with God, all things are possible that are good, especially at the end life. Because it made me think of...

how they view it. And so look, of all the quotes, I mean, I didn't make this up. I did this this morning. I was just kind of looking about the movie. And they had a tagline, a quote that sums up this movie. And I wanted to, it's pretty in-depth. So I thought this would be right up your alley, Zach. Here we go. What the character at some point, I guess, in the movie says, our lives are not defined by any one action.

Our lives are the sum of our choices. So let's just think about that. Our lives are not defined by one action. Our lives are the sum of our choices. What does that mean? What does that mean when you hear that? I think it means it's the collective direction of your life. Like the Eugene, or actually the Nietzsche quote, long obedience in the same direction.

what's your rhythm? What's your trajectory? That's what I hear. Yeah. Well, I hear... Which I could agree with it or disagree with it, depending on... I could go... Yeah, context is... There's some... You know, I'm like, well, yeah, and yeah. I mean, but when I think about, you know, when it says our lives are not defined...

By one action. There's one action that defines it all. Au contraire. Au contraire. And what I came up with that I thought,

sums up what John 8, this discussion of them trying to kill him and the words he's saying. I tried to sum up one action that depicts what's going on, not only in John 8, but in my own life. So I came up with this. This is 1 Corinthians 15, 17. And it says, if Christ has not been raised, which I would say,

is one action that happened on this planet. And I'm a believer of, if that hasn't happened, your faith is futile

And you are still in your sins. And I think that was the basis of what he was introducing in this argument of them trying to kill him. And he's like, I don't want you to die in your sins. You're following your father. They're like, oh, Abraham. He's like, no, I'm talking about the devil. Wrong daddy. And when someone says our lives are not defined by one action, my life is defined by one action. And I just shared that.

What that was. What that was. Well, you know what Paul said? When the resurrection of Christ occurred, and I understood that, my life became defined by that. You were in Romans 6. Exactly. You're making all the connecting of the dots, which is why. I don't know if you're going to go here. I'm going to read it. Because of one action, this is Romans 6.10. It was the first thing I thought of. The death he died, he died to sin once.

He died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you think about it. It is defined by one thing. It is. And so then it would make that next statement make sense because we had an impossible thing happen. Yeah. A guy died.

A human being died. He was a baby. He grew up. He was a toddler. He got lost. His parent, you remember that? He went along. He started talking. He was doing, you know, some supernatural looking things. And all of a sudden they said, well, he's got to go. And this is the beginning of that phase. They're trying to stone him now. Well, eventually they found some people who had hanged him up on a cross. And then three days later, he comes back.

And the impossible has become possible because the greatest fear is death itself. This is the mission impossible. How in the world are we going to live again? And I believe Tom Cruise is suddenly trying to live that out. That's why he's doing his own stunts. He's like, look, I'm into science, guys. I'll jump out of planes. I can make the possible happen for you for $12.99.

and some popcorn and some pleasantries. But no matter how that happens, the real mission that he should be addressing is his own life. Because I started this off not realizing that he was still alive.

And you thought, well, that's crazy, Jay. No, guess what? People die. Tom Cruise, he's going to die. He may die healthy, and he may die jumping out of another plane one day. But he will die. And then the real mission impossible begins. And I think that's what Jesus is trying to convey. Can he come out of the grave? So then I want to read the tagline of that quote. Our lives are the sum of our choices. Based on the resurrection of Jesus,

Now, we're making some sense now. Oh, yeah. The choices that you're going to make about that fact, that action that happened, oh, that's really going to be telling for the rest of your life. So I just wanted to put that to bed.

I'm done with it. It's the final reckoning. I just wanted to give you some final logic on the final reckoning of the Mission Impossible. When you were talking about movies, I thought you were going to another great movie that we love because of the word reckoning, and that was from Tombstone. Oh, gosh. And what made it so good, because you remember at the end when they said, what is this? And I think it was Doc Alde said, it's a reckoning. It's the reckoning.

The beauty of this, what you just introduced, is you have the reckoning now.

Because God's grace is available for all of us. And you can be raised. You can die and be buried and raised and still be on the planet. And then there's a not yet that's going to happen, that hasn't happened, that will happen. And it's a reckoning. It is the completion of the logic that you used based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But you remember in the movie, the pivotal point wasn't the OK Corral, which is we all know about. That was just in the middle of the movie. That just forced the truth because then it was like, well, we can't live with these cowboys. And so he got to that point. How? By death. By death. Which is where does that come from? Wrong camp. Yeah. Right.

And it was a reckoning. It was a reckoning. It was a reckoning. And if you watch the movie, you're like, I mean, it's one of my favorite movies. You're like, I mean, I'm like, I want to be a cowboy. I'm like, let's go. Let's roll. Well, right. But I'm saying the opposite is true in Jesus. He came back from the dead. That's the real reckoning. Yeah. In the end, if everybody dies. And the choices then post-resurrection, like some of your choices at that point become, they become different practices because that's the text in John 8. He says...

basically everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. And I think this is true. N.T. Wright said this somewhere. I may have heard it in a talk that he gave somewhere, but he said, define sin in this way. It's that we were given dominion as humans. We were given dominion over the earth. It's delegated to us from God. We have a dominion that we can exercise over the world around us. And

It was given to us in Genesis chapter 1. What he says sin actually is, is to abdicate your God-given dominion and to give that over to the idols. And then in turn, the idols have dominion over us. So we actually become slaves.

To the depravity. We become slaves to the sin, which is the wolf analogy. You're licking the popsicle and you don't realize it's your own appetite that is leading to your own destruction. And that is the nature of sin. We see it at Celebrate Recovery all the time, people that are escaping that. But if you talk to anybody that's been in this, the deepest tranches of an addiction, they'll tell you.

Like I was a slave to it. What started out as fun, what started out as euphoria became the thing that enslaved them. And that is the core of what Jesus is talking about in John 8 and his counter to the slavery. I just think this is so key going back to our last podcast. The counter to the slavery is not to will it away. The counter to the slavery is to realize that this is about sonship.

Oh, I agree. Absolutely. But I think what's very scary about this passage is

is that these were people hiding their sins in religion itself that God instituted. Oh, man, yeah. That's scary. That is scary. Yeah, we tend to think, oh, all these people in sin like the wolves and the— but these were savage wolves among people claiming God as their God, the same God that he's representing. Which is why that blood popsicle, it is pornography. Yeah.

but it can also be sectarianism in a religious sense. It can be the things of God himself. And so I think that if you let them terminate on themselves and you can be like that wolf and you're licking that pop, and you just become desensitized to it. Exactly. And you don't even realize in your own desensitivity that you're doing the very things that are leading to your death and corruption. You become so attached to that. And that's not freedom. Right.

Freedom is the opposite. Dallas Willard said that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want to do. He says in Christ, he says you can do whatever you want to do. He says in Christ, Willard says you can murder all you want, which is none at all.

That's the transformation. I can murder all I want in Christ, which is none at all, because you can't get away from the reshaping and the reorientation of your desire, your wants, and your longings. And I think that Jesus has laid the foundation for that with these Pharisees, because they had taken everything that God had given them from the Old Testament and

And they had lifted that up and everything terminated right there. And that's why that passage in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul says that thing was coming to an end. Well, let's bring up the 2 Corinthians 3. Before you look at that, Jase, I want to read you the three questions. And we've referenced these before, but in the context of what we're talking about today, because we're at the heart of it now. Three questions he asked in this text from 42 to 47 of chapter 8. Why is my language not clear to you?

We talked about why, because the hard heart. Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? That's the second question. There's where the self-righteous people have to get off the bus. You got to get off. That verse meant a lot to me when I found my way to the Lord. So clear. And then the third question. I was like,

He is the righteous. I think I'm good. He is good. I could never ask that question. Do you realize no human could ever say that who's an adult? No, that's exactly right. Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? It's not that you, we zero in on the proof, but it's not there. So the third question, if I'm telling you the truth, why don't you believe me? Yeah, I think it's three questions in one.

Yeah. Which is how you view, how you should view him.

But I wanted to say this because I know we're almost out of time. Those questions go in great. But when I scroll down looking at the movie, because I became so upset with the message of Mission Impossible, I'm still going to say it because I have to. That was my last question I was going to ask you. Well, but here's what's funny. I noticed that they only, you know, in our little podunk theater, they only have six or seven movies. I looked at the last one, and you know what the name of it was? What? The Face of Christ.

And it was like a documentary. I watched the little thing. And I was like, huh. Well, I went down a rabbit hole, you know, like trying to figure out what this show was going to be about. And they started talking about veils. And they think they have the image of Christ's face. And I was kind of rolling my eyes a little bit. With the Shroud of Torin? Yeah. I think there's something to that. Well, there's something to it. But you know what I found fascinating? What?

When I started looking up the Greek word for the presence of God, you know what the word translated mostly comes out in the New Testament is? What's that? Face. You've been in 2 Corinthians 3 all day, so I just thought this was interesting that you brought that up. So 2 Corinthians 3.16 says, Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is...

There is freedom. You've talked about that. And we who with unveiled faces, which is the same word translated, think 2 Thessalonians 1 when it says those who don't obey God

obey the gospel and don't know God, they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of God. Look, face, face of God, the presence. It's the same word used here. But what's magical, magical is terrible. What's supernatural about this verse is that we with unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory.

His presence comes and reflects off us, which is our response to grace. That's good. By the way. And then it says, "...are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory."

which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. So doing a movie about the face of Christ, the presence in that light is very inspirational. Well, I know we're out of time now, but I want to answer your question. I don't know if you asked it, but the answer to the question that Jesus asked, the three questions, he tells them right here. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. And so if you think, oh, man, I want to hear God, what do you do? I don't know him.

I'm not of him. How do I hear him? I think that second Corinthians passage, he says, when one turns to the Lord. So you turn to the Lord and then the veil is removed and you become of God and you're like, oh, oh, and you begin the process of walking in the spirit and find that transformation. Yeah, that's good.

Well, we'll pick it up here next time. We've advanced in John 8. I'm happy. We did. So we'll pick it up next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.