Ep 1107 | Missy Reaches Her Breaking Point & the Misconception That the Story of Christ Can Save You
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I am unashamed. What about you? I remember Bill had instilled in me a certain fear of microbes. Speaking of microbes,

We had a funny story yesterday, and I want to share it with y'all. Do y'all have thick skin? Yeah. Well, now you get me nervous, but yeah. So the way these podcasts work. Is it directed at me? Oh, yeah. Do y'all have thick skin? It's directed toward y'all. It's funny. I got thick skin. Jill, do you?

We'll see. We'll see. Let's roll the dice, Jay. I don't know how to fake, so you'll see. This could be volatile. This could be a volatile segment. Oh, boy. So, you know, the way our world works, because everybody schedules, and we said, I mean, y'all came in for, I guess, Bill's funeral. But, you know, y'all have been here.

What, eight days? Yeah. Yeah. Leads to the question, when are y'all going to leave? But...

I think I said that yesterday on a Denver podcast. That seems to be Jace's theme now. Is that the part I needed to fix skin for? No, no. It's coming. That was the undercut. Well, we're staying at Al's house. Al doesn't care because he's not there. I don't care. I'm not there. We're going to replenish the coffers before we leave. Usually, we have a day or two off before we do some more podcasts, but we're literally churning them out on a daily basis.

And yesterday, so in your world, it won't be yesterday, the people listening. But we had Shane and Shane on, and we did a podcast. So who knows how that'll come out in the batting order. But then we did a song with them on their little Devo, which, look, so you got to remember, I'm surrounded by world-class singers, including my wife and son, and Missy taught them a song. It was really, really fascinating.

And boy, she had that little, like she was in charge, you know, cause they had never heard the song. Yeah.

And, boy, she was snapping in a good way. But just like this is – because they were like trying to get the concept. Is there snapping in a good way? Is that really it? Oh, it is. Because one of the Shanes kept bringing the guitar, and she's like, oh, no, we're just singing this with voices. Because her point was the power of this song is there's four parts. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a payoff when each part comes together. And the song is about loving one another. So it's like you have different voices coming together. And it was one of Phil's favorite songs. And they agreed, but it was so funny that they kept trying to interject. They were trying to just learn the song. And she was like, listen, listen to me. It was hilarious. But they definitely weren't real wrong about it because...

We were supposed to do another one, but they were on somebody else's podcast. So we were like, well, we'll go home and then come back and meet you and we'll do another one, which never happened because of the story I was going to tell you. So we go to our house and we pull in and it was just, it was buzzing. I could hear voices and hollers and.

From inside and outside, I'm like, who's here? Because I thought. Was Sarah there? Yeah, I didn't know what was going on. So I walked in, and I guess it's your niece, Pepe. She looked, just the look on her face, looked like she had been in a 15-round fight. And I was like, what happened? And she didn't say anything. She just had a dumbfounded look.

And then I realized there are kids everywhere. Y'all's kids, Reed's kids, but none of y'all are here. And so Missy snapped her head and she looked up and she said, wait just a minute. She walked out that door and I don't know what she said, but she had her hands on her hip because I could see three boys walking

On a place on our pool that you're not allowed to be because they were jumping from there.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Lives were in danger. The three boys were Fred, Cohen, and then I bet Gus was in the mix. And Gus was there. Oh, boy. I thought it was Fred, Bear, and Gus. No, Bear's not here. Bear's home. It's my nephew. It's Fred and then Grant's son, Cohen. Okay. And then Gus joined the – it was like a – It was a cousin fiesta.

stuff. I mean, it was just, yeah. And I told Missy, I was going to tell this story, and she said, do not embellish it where I sounded mean. I never heard what she said, so I'm going to assume... It's good snappy, Dave. It was good snappy. I'm going to tell you this, the look on their faces...

And Missy's standing there on that porch. Good for her. Hey, that, that. You don't ever have to worry about me being offended at my children being snapped at. She got on them boys. And I looked and they took off. They're gone. I never saw them again. But when she came back, because I forgot about that, because Reed's kids were up there. They had been taking a nap. They were like, had some kind of simultaneous holler going. What?

wah, wah, wah. And Pepe was dealing with the little one. Pepe had five, she had, I guess, six kids under her care. I added the Reed's crew on there at the end because he was going to come do the thing with y'all. I said, oh, Peyton will watch them. She don't mind. So that's how they kind of migrated over. The last thing I told her as she would limp toward ours is I said, well, I hope they paid you. And she just...

I mean, you need to give her some money. As she lived. Because, I mean, she just looked completely exhausted. There are few hearts more golden than Peyton Mack in some materials. She is the best. They were jumping off those rocks. I already shut that down before. Look, you brought up that trifecta. So two of those three, one time we went up to visit y'all in North Carolina, and two of those three, and then my grandson, Corbin,

They went next door. I don't know if y'all remember this. We were staying on a lake somewhere near y'all. And they went over next door and completely removed all the landscaping from someone's flower bed. Yes.

I mean, everything that was put there by other people, they moved it all and just had a big rock pile going on. And then when the neighbors come over, I mean, I've never had that. You put some combinations together. And that Gus. That Gus. You're not saying anything I don't agree with. Hey, I will say this, though. The beautiful thing about this story is that they weren't on screen.

Exactly. There you go. What did Jessica say? Jessica sent Jill a text. Oh, yeah. She said, Gus, you know, he's been hanging with the boys all week. And she said, he's like, man, they're the most fun people I've ever hung around. Yeah, because they're breaking the law. They're jumping off rocks. No, but remember Dr. Haidt when he was on the podcast. Remember what he called it? At-risk play. Those three got it down. Well, the finale of the story is –

You know, I was a little wrong now that I realize who it was because they never came in. You know, they were wet and all that. But so Missy, I kind of forget about that. I'm trying to console Pepe and just make her not quit on life itself. So Missy comes in with one of the new garbage bags that I had to buy. I told that story earlier. I mean, it's a 30-gallon hefty bag, and it was slam-full.

And I said, where did that come from? She said, those three boys. I picked this up out of the yard. It was a full 30-gallon garbage bag. What was in it? Trash.

Probably their pizza boxes. I said, how in the world could three boys in that short of time? Now, that does make me mad. I'm going to do it again. That makes me a little hot. And so she looked at me just like she was holding that garbage bag up. And I said, babe, you've been Dasher. And she laughed. She laughed.

It's funny you say that because I call it dashed. We've been dashed. I mean, it's funny, but at the same time, I know how this family operates. But look, I will say this. This is what's going to happen from here. This story will be told for years. It will become known. And it will grow.

Yeah, it'll be their identity. They'll never escape this. It was funny. What's funny is Bear almost got, like, was in it and not even here. I thought it was two dashers. That's why I said dashers. If I'd have known it, I wouldn't have said it. It was two dashers. I think it still works. So what's funny is then Missy's headed upstairs, you know, to get the reeds to.

And I stupidly said, are we going to go do the Shane and Shane thing? And she went, are you serious right now? So now we know. I tell Shane the Shanes why the second one got canceled was because of us. Yeah. We got dashered.

I've been Dasher for 20, almost 24 years. Let me just go ahead and say, I watch you a lot with, with her, not just her kids, but also the whole, you know, brood that's up there. Cause they have a commune like we do. And she, her, if you could video Jill and it wasn't already being trademarked and use, you'd call it Snapchat.

Because Jill has no problem with the good snapping. She is feisty and she lets them have it. I've seen it many, many times. In y'all's defense, later we laughed about it. And I told Miz, I was like, you know what? It pretty much sums up my childhood.

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I was the three guys out there jumping off a rock that I shouldn't have been jumping off of. Jase, how many trips to the ER for you? Multiple. Through the years. You know, and I think there is something about, you know, we don't want them to die. But, I mean, Al, we definitely put that. We went right up to the line. But I do think there's something about, you know, not.

coddling your kids. I mean, our culture now is way too much. Let's go have a conversation. You know, and I actually don't read that because I was on the phone and one of the reads was just,

I was trying, I was on the phone and he was just standing there in the middle of the whole living area, just going, ah, ah. And I was like, Hey, well, I scared him. Cause I said, Hey, I said, move out. Which is what my dad used to tell us. It wasn't personal. It's like, I can't hear move out. Well, he just, he took off running. And I tell Reed, I was like, that kid's got, he's got hope.

He's got to hang out. He's so cute. He was like, well, he'll probably be forever scarred by that encounter. I was like, he can't cuddle the kids. I mean, it's time to move out, you know. Now, if you worry about the scarring, all you have to do when you look at the funeral is see dad did the exact same stuff and all of his grandkids loved him and honored him. So it's all going to work out. Yeah. Yeah.

Somebody said something about John 8 one time. I don't know if that was a fan. I tell you what, I am super excited. Yesterday and today, I have been back into John 8. So I'm going to reset for us where we were in our Bible study. And Jill, welcome, by the way, back. Thank you.

Always good to have you on the podcast. Well, I'm actually purposefully going to make a connection with the story we just told and what we're fixing to read. So this was intentional. This was a parable for you. Oh, yeah. My wife has trained me after the singing lesson. Yeah. Be intentional. Be intentional.

All right, I love it. Before Jace ties the stories together, which he's good at. No, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. You'll hit the verse, and I'm going to say, remember that story I told y'all? Okay, perfect. About the dashers? You got dashers? So here's the reset, because it's been a minute since we were back here. And again, thanks for patience. I know you guys love the Bible study, so do we. We started this whole conversation with,

And John 8 with you remember John 7, 53 through 8, 11, which was a story that we all think was not included in the original text. For sure, it was a story that happened. But then about the fifth or sixth century got placed here in the book of John. And to quote N.T. Wright, you had to put it somewhere. And so this was not a bad place to put it.

because it shows in our take on it that Jesus really is the only one. He's the one and only who has the right and the pedigree to condemn. I mean, that's what came out of that text, which is a perfect airdrop into what he's going to be teaching beginning in 8.12.

And so I call it the who am I, I am section, because that's kind of the theme that's throughout this whole text. How many I am sections? There were at least 10. I don't have it in my notes. I want to say it's 13, but it's 10 plus times he uses I am in this text. And that's not including the other places than John where he says I am.

So there's a lot. But this text has 10 plus. So obviously, that's his point. And the people you kind of see where it's kind of a roller coaster of how their response to this is.

They contradict him. They're cynical. They deny. They try to insult him. They're dripping with sarcasm. And at the end of it, they pick up rocks to stone him, which is kind of the tie into the earlier story because they want to do the same thing to the woman. So the two sections we've already dealt with are eight, 12 through 20, which was I am the light of the world.

And that's a repeat kind of from chapter one, which we did. We spent a lot of time talking about that. And then the last one that we kind of fleshed out was 821 through 29. I am from above, which is really interesting because we spent a lot of time talking about that because he's come to the below. And

And the idea of bringing heaven to earth. So we had a lot said about that. And it echoes that there's way more about God coming down. Well, yeah, I was thinking Exodus 3. Again, we've mentioned this before, but that's Moses at the burning bush, which is God coming down. And when he says that word, he says, well, who do I tell him to send me? He uses the same phrase. Tell him I am sent you.

And that phrase, I am, actually is more than just like I am in terms of like I exist eternally. And it is all that, but it also means God's manifest presence with people. So it's the transcendent, it's the out of this world, in this world.

That's what it is. So you see an echo of that right here when he keeps using that phrase, when he refers to himself, I am, I am, I am. You know what's interesting is that before we get into the text, which picks up in verse 31 today,

We've read this, but I want to read it again so we can reset this idea about slave. Because he says, I am the truth here in this one and how that sets us free. But, you know, I've taught Joshua a couple of times throughout my years in ministry, but we're preaching to it right now at the church. And so I've been hanging out there in Joshua a lot just in my private study because I'm preaching this weekend on Joshua 3.

And you just mentioned that about presence. And so I never really put it together until our current study and what we've been talking about, especially in John.

But, you know, you had that miraculous cross of the Red Sea, which we talked about, that idea of coming out of slavery. And now I'm right there at that point in Joshua 3 where they're about to have that second miraculous crossing of the Jordan, which we've mentioned on the podcast before. Because it's where Jesus got baptized. Exactly. And the idea of coming into something. But, you know, I noticed something in my study this week I had not noticed before, which

Even through all the Old Testament and the shadows of it and the foreshadowing, it's all there. And it's so clear to me now about understanding it. I missed something that I had never noticed before. The Ark of the Covenant goes ahead, which is representative of the presence of God. But when they followed it into the promised land, they still had to keep a thousand yards away from it. Hmm.

And I remember that, you know, you heard him talk about the thousand yard stare. You know, the idea is even as as good as what they were about to receive, the Abraham promise of the land that now they would get. There still had to be more. This wasn't complete. I mean, you could even get within a thousand yards of the ark or you would die.

And so there was still the idea that as much as Israel was looking at, you know, what was going on in their current lives and these thousands of years ago, they still needed more. They needed the Messiah. They needed the Savior. They didn't know it in the moment, but it still wasn't there yet. So every time I get into one of these texts. Jill, you remember what happened in Exodus 3? Oh, I remember. When God, when he manifests his presence in the burning bush, he's like, whoa, stop.

Stop. Don't come any closer. That's exactly right. It's that, you know, it's, and it's that, it's that C.S. Lewis quote from Narnia when they're asking about the big lion, Aslan, the character Aslan. And they're like, well, is he, is he safe? Yeah.

And the response is, well, no, he's a lion, but he's good. And that's the picture there. He's not safe. Like we come before this holy God, is he safe? No, he's not safe, but he is good. He's not safe, but he's good.

And it's at the burning bush when he says stop, right after he says stop, don't come any closer. He says, take off your shoes for the place where you're standing is holy ground. And I've never thought about this before, but when I read it a couple of weeks back,

I was like, if there's ever a place that I don't want to take my shoes off, it's next to a burning bush. Have you ever thought about that? But what he's saying is he's not saying, stop, I don't want you. Because God is a God that wants us to come near. That was my first question.

Why does he say stop? Doesn't he want us to come? He doesn't want us to bring our own protection with us. We have to take off whatever we're trying to cover and protect with because he's like, when you're on holy ground, I'm the covering. I'm the protection. Yeah. Yeah. Leave it. That's so good. I like this. I think that's why I've always been enamored with that conversation in 311 when Moses says, who am I?

And he actually says the opposite. God responds, I am who? Yeah. Because I have dyslexic tendencies. Yeah. But I'm thinking, isn't that clever? But isn't that the way we fit? Because what's he asking? He's saying, what's my credential? What's my credentials, Lord, that I'm going to lead these people? And God, who am I? He doesn't give Moses his resume. He says, oh, I'll be with you. Like, in other words, your credential is I'll be with you. That's your credential. Yeah.

You don't need to know who you are. You just need to know that I'm with you. That's a message that we'll preach today. Maybe we're trying to find our identity. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Maybe it's the same message. God's like, quit trying to figure out who you are. Figure out who He is. Figure out who I am. Yeah.

Al, you and Lisa, y'all are always flipping homes. You're buying one, then you sell it, then you buy another one. When's the last house that you bought? Well, Zach, that's what happens when you're married to a real estate agent. And yes, we're in a new home for this last year. Well, if you're in the market for buying a house, that's a big time money decision. And you need to write in for

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through 41 again. And we'll talk a little bit more about this because we talk a lot about Moses. We have this morning as well, because it gets brought up in every chapter, Jace. I think you recognize that before every chapter we've studied so far, Moses is interjected and this time they're going to bring up Abraham. So they kind of bypass Moses and go back, but look, but look how they just, they're having a hard time accepting what Christ is telling them.

So so the end of verse 30 says, even as he spoke, many put their faith in him. So that's a good thing. Sort of in the middle of this story is they seem to be having an understanding of what Jesus is trying to tell them. So then he's going to take it a step further and say to the Jews who have believed him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So he brings that extra element in there of who he is. And what he's basically saying is he is that truth. They answered him. So they missed it. To Jill's point, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? And that that wasn't that's not even a true. That's not a true statement. They had been slaves to a lot of people. Jesus replied. He doesn't even deal with that. He just says, I tell you the truth.

Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. So he's going to bypass all the nationalism, all that talk, and just go straight to the heart of the matter. A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. He is the one and only, see? So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know you're Abraham's descendants, yet you are ready to kill me because you have no room for my word.

I am telling you what I have seen in the father's presence and you do what you have heard from your father. Now that's the thought he's going to take in the next section because it's a choice of good and evil every time, no matter what the conversation is. And then they said, Abraham is our father. If you were Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do the things Abraham did as it is. You are determined to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does. That's twice now. He gives them the inclination of where he's going. And then I believe this is aimed at him because of his background, but I may be wrong.

We are not illegitimate children. I put in the brackets there like you, because I mean, you know, they're going personal now. The only father we have is God himself. Well, when he brought up, if so, if the son set you free after he said a slave has no permanent place in the family and without going through a review, you know, when you see slave here,

It's not what we think. And I think that's why we have a hard time seeing this. But it's really his point in that when the son sets you free, you become a son slash daughter, children. So I brought up an illustration about children. And even us as born again, as we grow in our faith,

We do some risky, stupid things. But the bottom line is we are a family. And he makes that saying that they have no permanent place. I looked up the Greek where it said, so if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. And the implications even of the word indeed is forever. I mean, you think he's an eternal God forever.

He's the Son of God, and he came to set us free. Of course, they're immediately thinking in a physical way, we're not slaves to anyone. And they had this relationship in the household, think Ephesians 5, where you had the workers because that was their basically job. And it was a path to economically making some money and having their own place. That's just the way the system worked.

So I think that's what he's introducing here. And just reading a couple of the commentaries we've been reading to go along with this, I think you see this concept come out in a strange place when he gets to chapter 20, post-resurrection. I think I got this from N.T. Wright. All he did was read the verse. Because up until this point in John 8, he keeps saying, my father.

Jesus is saying me and the Father are one. My Father, my Father. Now, you could throw in when on the Sermon on the Mount, when he taught his disciples how to pray, remember he said, our Father in heaven. But the first time this phrase is mentioned in John 20, the one I'm introducing, and I think you'll see where I'm going with this, is when Mary came up, you know, thinking he was the gardener, which is interesting.

Because think new creation, think the garden, the new gardener. He's been raised. And, you know, she's crying, and Jesus is like, who are you looking for? And Jesus said, Mary, this is 2016. So she turned toward him and said, Rabbani, which means teacher. She recognized him. Jesus said, do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.

Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am returning to my father. And then this is the first time he introduces this phrase, and your father. So it's like when he's talking about a slave has no permanent place, well, obviously he's talking about a slave to sin, and he's referring to a father that's

The devil, which is all about, what's he all about? Lies. Lies, sin, and death. Yeah. Which I think the reason this was put in this section with the woman who was caught in adultery is they were trying to stone her. They were trying to kill her. Well, the phrase he keeps mentioning here in John 8 in this context is, you're trying to kill me. You're trying to kill me. And I think you really have to stop and realize the reason he's being so blunt

is these are people claiming to believe in the same God that he says is his father, and they're trying to kill him. He's like, why are you trying to kill me? You're trying to kill me. Why are you trying to kill me? Because that's what the devil does. It's a death work. What you see, by the way, if you go back to the Exodus story, again, because this is all new Exodus language, what did Pharaoh do?

in Exodus when he saw at the very beginning of the book of Exodus, and it says that the people of Israel have multiplied, they were fruitful and multiplied, which is reminiscent of the cultural mandate from Genesis 1 when he said, be fruitful and multiply. So they're doing that in Egypt.

And what is Pharaoh who represents Satan, who represents evil? What does he want to do? We got to kill him. So it's always the end is death. But don't you think it's interesting that the first person he has a conversation with post-resurrection, he uses that phrase, your father, which implies what?

John 8, he's like, if the son says you're free, a slave has no permanent place in the family, but the son, he said you're free. You'll be free indeed. You'll be a child of God. You're adopted. That's adoption language. That's the first thing he says when he comes back. To bring it back to where we're at right now today, we've been here eight days. I think you may have said this before the podcast. I can't remember, but you said, when are y'all leaving?

Like you said it kind of jokingly, but kind of like, but it was on the podcast, right? I just said it. Yeah. We're having so many conversations. I can't remember what we're, but, and you, but before the podcast, you said Reed left today and you were like, Hey, and you were like happy about it. Right. And, but like we said, when you're like, we're here and we're in Al's house and we're having a good time, but me and Jill today, like, man, I'm ready to get home because as much as I love it here and I love staying with you guys, um,

Like after my granddad used to say, the company's like fish. They start stinking after about three days. And we know that. And so we're like, I want to be in my, I need my permanence. And I think that picture here is like when you're in your own home, your own kids, your own people, like there is a level of security and comfort and like it's permanency. I love the language that you use. It's abiding. I would love to go back to that word abide just a second because it's

you've all hit on this when you mentioned, Al, the scripture right before that said that some of them were starting to believe. You know, new believers, they're starting to believe this. So do you go straight from belief to being set free? He says, so if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And I just think of that word abiding. I think sometimes that's the...

And I like to call it a step because it's not a step. Like you're free in Christ the second you believe, right? But there is something to abiding. We have a hard time. And abiding means to dwell in, to sit in, to be in the presence of, to make your home. So it's literally diving into everything that God is. Because where does a son live?

In the house. In the house. The slave doesn't live in the house. Right. The son lives in the house. And the slave can be dismissed at any time. Yeah. But the son that's abiding with his father in his house, that abiding leads to revelation of truth. And the revelation of truth is what leads to freedom. Yeah.

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And truth also leads to transformation. I mean, you have to have that moment of truth. And that's true with anything you do. I mean, we've been talking about weight loss and all this stuff. Any journey you begin that transforms came about because there had to be a hard truth accepted. I mean, that's just we all realize that you want to go and, you know, be have a career in the military. You're going to have a moment of hard truth to say, am I up for this task?

And then transformation happens. So that happens just in what we see. That happens in nature. That happens in life. What Jesus is saying, the ultimate sense is,

You can't be who you must be without my truth transforming you into that, which is where he's headed through this whole process. And so that's why he quickly draws the line and says, you think you believe in me, but do you really? And they really didn't. Well, what he's doing here, too, is he I think he's identifying it.

extremely important pattern that's also reiterated by Paul in 2 Corinthians, but you've got to remember, Jesus in this, I mean, in John, he's been revealed as the light of the world, which means he's the tabernacle presence of God. He's Emmanuel, God with us,

And the reason why that matters is because verse 31, 32 of what we just read, the goal of salvation, we have to understand that it's not eternal existence, it's eternal life. John 17, 3, we'll make this point later. And defined eternal life is to be intimate with Christ. His presence, and I think here's the pattern of what he's unfolding here, is that his presence leads to discipleship.

And that discipleship leads to an unveiled reality, which the word for that is truth, right? We get to see reality for what it is, which leads to liberty or freedom. And that's the same exact progression, right?

that you see in 2 Corinthians 3, which is a passage that Paul explicitly talks about freedom in Christ through the Spirit. He says in verse 12, going back to Moses, since we have such a hope, we are very bold, but not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face. And here's the reason. So that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end, which is a crazy thought. What does that mean?

The veil was put over so they wouldn't gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. What was the outcome? The outcome was Jesus. It's not a what, it's a who. Who is the outcome of what was being brought to the end? Was the old covenant, the law, the temple motif, all that's coming to an end today?

And it's going to be realized in the person of Jesus. And so what the Pharisees are doing here in John 8 and what Jesus is ultimately getting at is that they were looking at the system of God, like that old system that Jesus was going to fully fulfill, and they were so fixated on the thing of God that they miss God. They miss Christ himself.

And I think that is true for religious people, but that's true for all of us. When you take a gift from God,

And then you elevate that gift from God to a position of God himself, and you worship that thing. It could be sex. It could be food. It could be money and wealth. It could be the Bible itself. It could be religion. All these things, you lift these things up, and when it terminates on itself, it's an idol. And I think that's what Jesus is unveiling here, that he's pulling this veil back from

So that when the veil is taken away, yes, to this day, whenever Moses has read a veil, it's over the heart. But when one turns to the Lord, Paul says the veil is removed. And now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. When you think about those, when you look at the context of what Jesus is saying here,

And look at what's happened in 2000 years. You're talking about right on the money. So there's roughly 8 billion people now, almost that many in on the planet.

And he's talking here to a group of people that were embracing Yahweh, but not embracing him. Yeshua, the son, you know, who he said he was. Well, look what's happened today. There's 8 billion people on the planet. About a quarter of them, which, by the way, is what Jesus said would happen with the parable of the sower. About a quarter of them believe Jesus. They believe he is God. He is who he said he was.

And that they put their trust in him and he is the truth. But the others have they have a replacement Jesus. They have a Mohammed or they have, you know, a supreme being that's energy and life and force. So you recognize the creator and the forces out there, but you bypass Jesus. And so you can and some people, a huge strong people have their own God set up.

Because they don't believe in anything. But you see the point? It's just exactly what happens when you miss it. Do they believe in Yahweh? I mean, I think that's the... Well, that's his point here. You can't believe in Yahweh. Jesus is talking about his father, but they answered him in verse 39. What did they say? Oh, our father's Abraham. So you kind of see who they really hold in the highest regard. They hold the prophets. But they wanted to have a religious argument about who were...

who's the father of our faith, and Jesus went in a different direction because he was even talking about their household situation, or was he really? He was really talking about there's basically two camps. There's the camp of sin and death. Well, the father of that is one called the evil one. Yeah, that's where I'm at. That's where this lands. And then he uses an example from...

their perspective and he does this slavery versus son and and look i think that is the point that's why i went to this your father because just just let these two verses kind of pour over you that i'm fixed to read after what we just read in romans 8 15 it says for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear well what's the number one fear death yeah

But you received the spirit of sonship. I mean, he took what he said in John 8 and made it like an arrangement, a camp. You get to live in a house. We're in the spirit of sonship.

And then it says, and it echoes the same thing, and by him we cry, Father, Father, which is why I read the your Father. Now he's not only my father, he's your father. Because why? The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Yeah. I mean, that's what he was saying. I'm getting the family back together here. Yes. You're following a guy who's dead.

Even though he was a good man and he had a purpose. Great guy. He had a role. Great guy. But he wasn't the end of all this. But let me just tell you this. You're ultimately following a father who is the Lord of the dead. Yeah. You're in the wrong camp. Yep. And you're doing it in the name of God. That's such a good. I love that. It's so good. It gets practical for me. I heard Jill wants to say something. I can tell. No, no. Go ahead. Well, I want to read my other verse, but go ahead. This gets real practical because I recently heard a sermon about

And I heard this a lot. I hear this kind of language a lot. And I know the intentions are good, but I'm like, man, we have to stop saying stuff like this. That the story of Christ saves you. I'm like, no. No story's ever saved a man. Hmm.

Christ saves you. Thank you. The gospel of Christ is not what saves you. Christ saves you. The gospel is that. It is a story of that, but we can't. It doesn't terminate on a story. I'm so glad that we agree because every time I've ever heard that, I thought, why do they keep saying that? Talk about him. Don't talk about him, Mikey. He came in the flesh.

He's here. He's with us. Yeah, he's here. He's real. He's a real guy. Jesus, you're here. And he lives because he lives. I can face tomorrow. But it's so funny. I had such an interesting conversation at the Chick-fil-A this morning, and I didn't order chicken. But the Shane and Shane had brought us that Mayhall gel, and I wanted to try it. So I was like, well, I need a biscuit. Okay.

I went to Chick-fil-A. And if you go to Chick-fil-A and don't order chicken, it just sends the whole place. Which we filmed. Because you were going to test the Mayhall jelly. Yeah, I wanted to test the Mayhall jelly. So I went and got the biscuit. But it sent the woman, a college student, into just turmoil because I was like, no, I don't want any chicken. She's like, well, this place is called Chick-fil-A. It's kind of funny. It's not called Biscuit-fil-A. Yeah.

Jace, last year I had a bold prediction. So I set myself a goal to lose 60 pounds by my 60th birthday, which was a few months away. I thought I could pull it off.

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So she kind of stopped at some point and said, how are we doing? And I said, well, that's a different subject. I said, every day is a new day in the power of the Lord. Well, when I said that,

Then she's like, I love what your family does. Because she acted like she didn't know me because I come up there to a chicken place not ordering chicken. But I was trying to explain the Mayhall jelly and it just wasn't. She's so young and I'm older. She's asking you the platitudes. Like, just how you doing? You're like, well, that's it. She didn't know what a Mayhall was. Nobody knew. And I said, always remember this. Mayhall jelly, biscuits, chicken.

I was like, if we're right at the resurrection, we're going to look like geniuses. Yeah. And she said, now this has made my day. And I thought, okay, now it went into something. And I think that's what Jesus was doing is my illustration here.

They're talking about Abraham and they're having an argument. They're wanting to kill him. And all of a sudden, he started talking about life, sin, and death and how you can get around that, you know, and who ultimately the father is. And all of a sudden, nobody really cared about the chicken or the biscuits or the mayhem, which, by the way, the mayhem,

was not up to snuff. It wasn't. It got a big Phil thumbs down. Thumbs down. I filmed it out and I sent it to Shane or Jill filmed it rather and he takes, I mean, it's a whole process. Jace is spreading it out. He's, you know, play by play action. He takes one bite and he looks up at the camera and he's like,

Nope. He missed it. I didn't know y'all were filming. I was just telling y'all. Nope. He said the thock, we appreciate the gesture, but that's out. But to your point, the point I was going with that is it had not enough mayhall and too much of everything else. And that's the point about what you said about Jesus. Yeah.

They're arguing about everything else and how we got here. Yeah. Not enough Jesus. But I want to read this other verse. Think about the, before you read it, the audacity to bring mayhem jelly to the table. That's an audacious move to even try. So I do give them credit for trying. And Shane and Shane, I love them to death, but they're on the list on cuisine. Keep singing. Keep singing. Leave the jelly making dust. You're only allowed one strikeout. I mean.

I mean, you bring me mayhaw jelly. I thought, oh, they've discovered. I'm going to push back. I've eaten some good food with those guys, but they were off on the mayhaw. I'll say that. So 1 John 3, look, says the same thing. The end of chapter 2 says, and now, dear children, he talks about continuing him so that when he appears, we may be confident, and here's the name of our podcast, and unashamed before him. That's it. Mm-hmm.

At his coming. You say, why? Because we're children. Watch where he goes with this. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. What kind of beings are born?

Children. We're born again. That's his analogy, not mine. Then he says, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. Yeah. And here's the main point I wanted to get to. And that is what we are. The reason the world did not know us, the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Hmm.

which was the whole problem in this conversation. And these were people claiming to believe in the same God he's representing, which is crazy. And they had the genetics. They were genetically Abraham's descendants, but they were not spiritually. And I loved in Scripture when Jesus said, you know,

If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. And I immediately thought of, well, what did Abraham do? Well, Abraham, he wasn't trying to kill Jesus. He literally took his son, his only son. And was willing to sacrifice him because God said so. Yeah. I mean. To your point, I mean, Paul says in Romans 9, he says, not everybody who is Israel will

He said, let me read this real quick. He said, not all those of the flesh are Israel, but those who are children of the promise. So you see the same kind of thing rolling out in the book of Romans, which I argue a lot. That's the main point of Romans 9 is really an eschatological perspective.

argument more than anything else that Paul's making about Gentiles, the people of promise. Who are the real children of God? And it's these children of the promise, these children of the faith. And so you think about in John 8, it's interesting to me that

they were so obsessed with Abraham and Moses and all the patriarchs. They had that down. And that's a big part of the story, by the way. You take Abraham out of the mix, and they kind of take Moses out of the mix. I mean, if there's no exodus, I mean, the whole thing kind of crumbles, right? So these are like...

Key figures in the thing that God was doing, but they were so fixated on the figures that were accomplishing God's plan that they missed the plan of God, which actually wasn't a plan of God. It was a man of God, the son of man, Jesus Christ himself. They just missed it. Hey, and the same thing happens in church buildings all across the world. Same thing today. There's people sitting in the aisle. They came there because they believe in God or in some way down the line.

place

And when you start talking about, well, are you a son? Are you a child of God? Are you a slave to sin? And are you wanting to threaten people who are sons of God or the son of God because you have some belief system that is justifying the works of the devil? Yeah. Which is basically, it happens every day. Which the litmus test, you can ask yourself and those that you're around, if you want to say, well, how do I know if I'm like,

living in my sonship as opposed to living like the Pharisees were, I would just say, ask yourself this question, is when you talk about things of the Christian faith, are you talking about doctrines

And systems more than you're talking about who is this person. Like God as man. And are you, in your life, are you living as a slave to sin? I think you said something earlier about the Mayhall jelly that I thought is a great analogy. That when Martin was in here and you're sitting and you were eating it, and once you gave the thumbs down, Martin had already looked at the back of the ingredients. And do you remember what he said?

He said, too much, they had incited, they cut it with cranberry juice. They cut it with cranberry juice. Yeah. And I say, isn't that what we do? Think about after David, he had these gold shields that he stuck in the ground, and nobody guarded them, because Israel was so powerful under his reign and so wealthy that they created these massive golden shields, and they stuck them in the ground. Yeah.

And when his, I guess, Solomon's son took over and the kingdom had just kind of really gone into decline and they weren't living authentically with the Lord anymore and Israel had lost her wealth, what they did is those gold shields were stolen.

And see what they did? They cut it with bronze. They didn't cut it with cranberry juice. They cut it with bronze, and they stick the bronze shields that look like gold, but they weren't gold, and they had to guard them. And I thought, man, isn't that how it works in the kingdom? And if you really live out the sonship stuff, then one, you're not having to manufacture things, which the Pharisees had to manufacture their own righteousness. You're not manufacturing anything. God is protecting. God is sovereign. God is...

And prosperity and whatever it is you're like, God is rolling. You're just sitting in it. You know what I mean? You're just sitting in it. You're abiding. Abiding in him as a son. You're abiding. Because the practical thing on mayhaw is that mayhaw is actually too tart. But what they're failing to realize is, you know, sweet tarts are...

actually made millions of dollars because every time you put one in your mouth, you'd be like, it's because it's too tart. And so is a mayhem. But we want that. That is the mayhem. I know we're out of time, Al, but I do want to publicly call Shane Everett to repentance. I think he needs to repent for bringing that. I've already confronted and rebuked him, and we're good about it.

I was like, next time. Don't include that video. Do better. I appreciate his audacity, but yeah. Well, I have a part two that I want to introduce because I chased a rabbit hole today that deals with this same concept. It's not biblical, but it's based on biblical principles. And I would like to get into that on the next podcast. All right. We got the tease. Jill, I know you got to go because you got to go do another podcast, but it's always a pleasure having you on. Thank you guys so much.

All right, we'll see you next time on Unashamed. It's a taste test, Shane.

That's all I eat. No, I love carbs. Count your blessings. One, two, one, buddy. There's nothing that's any good that is not carb-related. Me and myself. I agree. Be honest. You can't spare his feelings. Nope. Let me see. Shane, dude, what are you doing, man? I just thought it would count. Nope.

We love you, buddy. Need more Mayhalls and that's whatever else. Yeah, more Mayhalls. That's it. But we're thankful. It was a noble effort. 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.