Ep 949 | Jase's Public Display of Manliness Backfires Spectacularly, Spiritual Con Men & Cult Leaders
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I am unashamed. What about you?

Welcome back to Unashamed. I know we're out ahead maybe a little over a week, huh, Maddie, from when we record to when you guys are actually hearing it, but I do want to mention that

that Lisa and I are going to be super busy on the road in September, but I love mentioning where we're going to be because many times you guys will make an effort to come see us and come to the events we're at. If you go to alandlisarobertson.com, there's an events thing, and you click on there, and it tells all the places we're going to be. We're going to be in Clanton, Alabama, Rootville, Georgia, Charlottesville and Culpeper, Virginia, Des Moines, Iowa, and Raleigh, North Carolina this month. Check.

Check it out. We'd love to see you. I love meeting you, hearing your stories, and kind of all of your unashamed stuff. So we appreciate the support. So you know what this means, Al? What's that? The 1st of September symbolizes, in a way, a new birth for duck hunters. That's right. It's the leading edge, as Dad calls it. It's more of a seven-month, you know, what's the word? Odyssey? Gestation period.

I'm not sure what the word I'm looking for. I don't know if that was it. It's a seven-month pregnancy. Well, I guess Jeff says it would be right. I didn't know that's what you were going for. We were talking about the new birth last time. Yeah. Well, for duck hunters, you get to be reborn. And the big duck season for us is nine months away. That's why I'm making this. But you have teal season. And oh, they're so good and tasty. And so this has been a week. I've spent the last week in all things wilderness. Wilderness.

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

And so there's a difference. But you can still do manly things in a yuppie neighborhood, Phil, and I'm going to tell you what I did. You would need to know how to do this. Well, I went out and got my chainsaw a couple mornings ago. Well, I guess it was four mornings ago.

and fired it up at a nice 7 o'clock a.m. Well, Al, I'm making a statement. It's time. We're men. And I fired that puppy up. And your neighbors were cursing your name. What's amazing is you wait and you understand, and it's a godly thing. When you look up back to the north and you begin to see large groups coming

Blue Wing starts the shriek going all the way from the Canadian. The Grand Passage. The Grand Passage. You just look up and you look. What did you say? It's a godly thing. It's a godly thing. Why do they keep coming south, Phil? Because there's a God that sends them. I agree. I agree.

I've said that many times. Don't you think if God hadn't designed them to feed the food chain, they would just stay up there? Oh. Look, at some point you'd have a meeting and say, hey, guys, this is not working. Let's take our chances. The animal world is waiting for the food supply. Yeah. So human beings...

You get into that and you'll look. And it's really more than just ducks, Dan, because today I was coming, I saw two different sets of a doe and a fawn right behind her. Same thing. They're getting ready. It's gearing up. Ducks are the door dash of God's creation. There were five big turkeys were right up from the house there, right on the other side of the house where I live. Five big turkeys walked out there in the middle of the road yesterday.

you know right right in the middle so when you look at him do you see the drumsticks and the you're seeing it as a oh yeah i'm like jace i mean that the lord is you can put it's a spiritual moment you can put faith the blue wings are coming coming there i was with the chainsaw and i'm i cut down every non-desirable tree

that is serving no purpose so my wife can see the pond. Anything that a critter could feed off of, I left. I just laid them down in the neighborhood, which I didn't factor in that it was 104 degrees. So after about an hour, I was like, if you run a chainsaw, even early. That's right.

Which is one of the reasons why you were there early. And I was in by the pool, and there was this tree that had grown through the fence. Non-desirable, also. It bent the fence growing through it in just a couple of years. I just couldn't believe it. Yep. So I thought, yep, I came in, and Missy's like, what was all that about? I was like, I just...

helped your yard out now you can see the pond she was like great job babe so i woke up the next morning and when i went to get out of bed my left leg was not functional really sore so i get to you know i start inspecting well something when i was in that thicket in my yard something bit me upper leg

And the little round circle form. Chase, you know what this was? Nature fighting back. Oh, yeah. You were taking his home, and so he saw a predator. So then I figured I was resigned to death through an insect bite because it just got worse and worse. I've been limping for about three or four days. But I woke up yesterday. I didn't know how to treat it, but I just put some Dr. Tishner's on it, which burned. Burned.

Like tears streaming down my face. That was dad's favorite. Ick the Ma and Dr. Tister's dad. That was your two go-tos. So anyway, I woke up yesterday morning and it felt better because the whole thing turned red, looked weird. I thought my leg was fixed to rot off.

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

because he's been taking care of mom, so we've been handling a land project. And we've deemed it Save the Cypress for Phil. Save the Cypress. So Phil planted a bunch of cypress trees about 10 or 12 years ago. Very few people do. Yeah. But what happened was the underbrush grew up so quickly and so thick, you wouldn't know there was a cypress tree there. And it hit me. I thought, well, Phil's vision –

was to have these cypress trees with water up under it, but you would never know they were here. And by the time we do know, because at some point they would have probably blossomed out, we'll all be dead. So me and Jay... We'll be hoping there's cypress in heaven. We rented one of these chippers. So now Jay's doing his manly thing.

And we're just shredding these undesirables for ducks because we want grass and we want them feeding on the grass under cypress. Is this why Evil Eye's son is here? That's why he's here. Okay. And we say that affectionately. Yeah, he's a good guy. Phil, you know. Dad calls him Evil Eye. He's got an eye problem and Phil called him Evil Eye. And for some reason, he kind of got. He loves. He got tickled about that.

He calls himself. When he calls the house, you answer or call your phone. He says, hey, this is Evo. So he literally calls himself that. It's because it took years to remember his name. Well. You still don't know his name. Well, and you kept trying to get his attention, but he was looking at you and you didn't know it because he was sitting in the blind and you kept saying, hey, hey. And he's like, Phil, I'm looking at you. And you're like, your eye's pointing the wrong way. Yeah, we're unveiling a podcast.

Labrador retriever, the man that took him, he's got him ready to hunt. So he's with all your signals and your word to him.

Deuce. They call him Deuce. This is your new dog? Deuce comes in after dinner here today. I'll see him. I'll get the man to kind of run through, let him take a look at him. We're excited about Deuce. And this is Son of Blue, right? Let me finish my story or we'll be doing this the rest of the podcast. I promised we would do a Bible study. Here we go. Jay's excited, and then guess what happens?

The next day, I think it was day four of the Save the Cypress for Phil. Save the Cypress. They...

you know this thing's a chipper that we rented it it just and it's a little bitty contract kind of narrow it just goes up to a button will and goes and it just not a fan not a not a food source so yeah we got too many buttons too many buttons so there's just chip it turns it into chips it doesn't disturb the ground and all which is why we're in it so so jay's walking in a big

chip debris patch, you would think it's relatively safe. And he steps on a cottonmouth.

Which the difference in his story and mine is I don't know what bit me, but the snake didn't bite Jay. But when you step on a cottonmouth, there's trauma. It gets your attention. In a hurry. Because all he had to do was bite him and you're dead. Because by the time we get Jay to the hospital, we're way too far from him. It probably wouldn't kill him, but I would wish he was dead.

He was wished. This is it. Because we saw Blue, right? His head swole up like a basketball. I'm telling you. You know what I told Jay? I said, you know what that means? I said, you need to capture that feeling because we're in Ephesians 4. Yeah. And it says, we're going to get to it. We hadn't read it, but it says, in your anger, don't sin. Jay, you're still in the training stage. Yeah.

But what the next one coming up is the one I just come out of. Yeah. 50 years. I appreciate that. It makes me feel young. If I'm 55 and I'm still in training, but I told Jay, I was like, you know how you've struggled with anger in the past? And he said, yeah. I said, you need to take that moment and that fear that you had for the first 10 seconds and

That was the illustration. Because he felt it move under his foot. Oh, he stepped on it. I know. That's what I'm saying. And I said. When you step on something and it moves in a setting like that, it gets your attention. I quoted that verse to him. I said, in your anger, don't sin. He said, well, you mean I wasn't mad? He said, I was scared. I said, you going to let me finish reading the verse? I was quoting the verse. He said, and don't give the devil, who is known as the serpent, a foothold.

I said, so when you stepped on that snake, the next time you get mad, you need to have the same feeling that you had when you stepped on that snake about what you're going to do about that anger. Yeah. He said, well, you're getting all mad at me for it. I said, no, I'm not mad. It just made me think of a spiritual application for you. Just trying to help the guy. Jay said, noted.

So I thought that was funny. So we have that project going on because we're excited. So with that, I want to, this came out yesterday, Phil. I did this to get you more involved in this discussion because I thought this would excite you. The 2024 waterfowl survey came out via Ducks Unlimited. The 2024 waterfowl survey. Duck numbers up.

they're up phil look last year they say there was 6126 breeding pairs of mallards this year 6609 i don't know these are millions somehow or another that's what i say that doesn't sound like a lot of ducks to me jace you gotta be yeah i'm looking for the

That's way more than that. How many mileage are there? There's six. Yeah, a million. Okay. So this is somewhere between five and 19 million. That's right. So there was 6.1 million last year. Now there's 6.6 million.

Now, gadwalls were down a little bit. American widgeon, look, it was 1.8 million last year, 2.9 million. We're going to see more widgeon, Phil. More widgeon. Here's the one that's going to move the needle. Last year, 2.5 million green-winged teal. This year, a smidge over 3 million green-winged teal. That's your best eating. And another one, a scalp.

Last year, 3.5, because we have a lot of those, over 4 million. Everything's up. One of the reasons last year we had an extreme drought in the Canadian prairies going all down the Mississippi River. It was a very, very dry year. We never did fill our duck hole up all the way. We pumped and we pumped and we pumped. The ground was just soaking it up, soaking it up. So, yeah.

It's good news what he just said. So we're combining increased ducks with Save the Cypress. This may be the time of year. Hey, guys. This is Zach here. I want to tell you about one of our new sponsors, Lassie Health, which, by the way, you can check this out at healthylink.com to learn all about this. But this is an incredible plan for those of us out there who do not have

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Phil, you guys got to check this out. You got me so enthralled in the conversation. But this is what got me to thinking. Now, as exciting as that is, then it hit me when I was reading this. I thought, who counted these? The government officials. Well, how did they do that? They would put nets. They would mark off a block. Yeah. You know, like a...

Like a city block? City block. Okay. They make a percentage out of that? They'd stand shoulder to shoulder, and they'd walk across there, and they'd flush whatever is in that grass on the Canadian prairies. Well, Phil, the Canadian prairie is a pretty big place. It is a huge place. Yeah.

That's why they're doing it. They walk out across there, and the percentage that come up, they've got nets a lot of times on top of the ground. They get tangled up, and they catch them, and they put bands on them. That's where they put the bands on them. I've got a row of bands from hunting them from here to the wall over there. Oh, yeah. So my point is, though, this is not an exact science. That's right.

Hey, it's a big world and ducks are out there. If this is true, then I need to grow up and be a duck counter. Oh, there's 6.1 million.

Wink, wink. Jason, you are a duck killer, not one. That's all you've heard. You're here to kill. I just thought it was funny because we talked about different government programs versus God's programs are better. And I thought, so you got to take that in the spirit in which it was delivered.

I mean, we can't even count the votes or humans. How many humans are here? It seems to me because every time I see that about the border, they're like, oh, last month, 157,000 people come through. I'm like, well, why didn't you stop them? Just let them come. If you know how many came in, well, why didn't we stop it?

They're like, oh, well, I guess we're just estimating. I guess they're doing the same thing. Yeah. Well, they process a lot of them. They're looking at a little section. Well, you know what I mean? But a lot of people walk by and don't get counted. I'm not believing the numbers that you're telling me unless you're just guessing. Right. Which they are. My point is, I know there's a lot of people coming. I'm not saying that. I'm saying we count things.

in various ways. And so that's why I like for elections. I'm for, I think we want to be like Australia. If you don't vote, you should get a fine. And it shouldn't be a whole lot, like 10 bucks. And we'll take that money, you know, and give it to some people who care about the country. Yeah. But I don't know what's wrong with that. It should be a national holiday. You should vote. You don't want people voting who aren't paying attention, don't care what's going on.

Well, exactly. But I mean, I'm saying if you're going to live here and you vote or you get fine, I mean, there should be a picture ID. So we know who you are. So it shouldn't be mailing in pieces of paper. Get your rear end off the couch and come up there and pull something. So we can count. I was just going to make a little side side point about counting. What? You know, but so anyway, that's, that's the report. That's the report. It's that time of year.

And, Dad, that's exciting, huh? Oh, it's very exciting. Numbers are up. Numbers are up. Dad's happy. All right, so we're in Ephesians. But, Jace, I want to make a point because you had gone to the parallel in 1 Peter, and

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

Get you to come in their boat. And that's what this does is causes us not to be this, but to be better. So I thought about the one in the storm, the leaky boat you were talking about, or the unstable boat. James, also one of the New Testament writers, a contemporary of Peter and Paul, said this in James 1.6.

When he asked, he's talking about people that lack wisdom. And that's part of what we're talking about is growing up, having a knowledge, knowing Christ better. When he asked, he must believe that

and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. So he uses that same type illustration as well. And another one is in 1 Corinthians 3, and I want to hit this. And this is all in light of we're born again. We're babies in Christ. And don't ever doubt, the boat being tossed back and forth, that is representative of the church. Yeah.

And there's always going to be babies in Christ. And there's always going to be people who have evil intent, who use things done in religion to try to lead you astray. It's just part of it. And there's always going to be boats without an anchor. The wisdom that comes from heaven. And the anchor is Jesus. In the book of James. The wisdom that comes from heaven. It's first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive,

full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. That's good. Love it. Well, and that's what we're going to get to. That's when you rise up. So 1 Corinthians 3, I think, is interesting. In verse 1, it says, Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly.

which is controversial to a lot of scholars, because look what he says, mere infants in Christ. I mean, it's a struggle. He's like, you're worldly, because you say, what were they doing? They were dividing Christ.

Because whoever baptized them, that's who they was following. Instead of who they were baptized into this whole theme of in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. Romans 6 says you're baptized in Christ. They were looking at the person. It has to point out.

In the name of Jesus. That's it. Well, right. Because otherwise, you think about it, there's also, Jace, the opportunity cost of that same argument is if I'm saying I'm a follower of Jace because Jace baptized me, then I'm not going to listen to Zach. Mm-hmm.

Whatever he says is wrong because he didn't baptize us. I ain't listening to that. That's the sort of thing they were doing. And y'all remember the point, like in verse five, he's like, what after all is Apollos and what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each his task, which is just like Ephesians 4.

I planted, uh, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. So neither he, such a good thought. Yeah. Water's the anything, but only God, it makes things grow, which this whole concept in Ephesians that we're in is for us growing up in Christ as one representing Jesus on earth. By the way, that's a third, that's a third metaphor now, Jase, because we talked about a building and a body. Now we're talking about a plant, uh,

Now we're talking about a field. Yeah. Well, because verse nine, for we are God's fellow workers. Well, that's what Ephesians says. You are God's field. Yep. God's building. And so, but watch what else he says. And he goes on down to verse 16. Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God would destroy him.

Just think about that statement for a second, bringing in the con man. For God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

I mean, he makes the same argument later in chapter six, Jace of first Corinthians, when he says, that's why your behavior should reflect that. And you shouldn't be combining the temple of God with a prostitute or, you know, in a sexually immoral way. So you mentioned that in the last podcast about how behavior is a natural result of maturity. You shouldn't be like you were when you first came in. Exactly. So I said all that and shared all that because I thought it was interesting. Uh,

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

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

What happens if they're not cared for by some other power? They die. They die. Yeah, this is what happens. They need community. Just think, what happens when you isolate a baby? Even if you were feeding them, you know, through a tube or something, nothing good. Every horror movie you've ever seen, you know, when they trace back these serial killers and all, isolation or abuse or what have you. We saw it, Jase, when Anna was in the NICU program.

This has been almost 40 years ago. And babies that sometimes they're, I don't know if because they were sick or what, I don't know why, but a parent, a mom, nobody would ever come. And the nurses tried their best to provide community for this baby, but a lot of times they would die or develop serious health problems because no one was there to nurture them.

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I said last podcast, they can't discern well, which we know that, you know, when I said you give them poison, they'll eat it. But that's why I think one point we haven't made about where it says instead we grow up when we speak the truth in love. When you've got to break that down, because a lot of people who are new to the faith, they say, well, what does it mean? Speak the truth in love? You know, whose truth? What truth? You know, and I keep we we keep saying, well, it's going to go back to Jesus.

But what that means practically is you've got to be willing to have conversations, especially when babies are involved. You're having conversations with people who are claiming to be in Christ. I mean, the worst thing you can do is know somebody is struggling or you don't see somebody. They come to Christ and all of a sudden you look up and you don't see them for a month. Well, I guarantee you nothing good's happening. What happened? I thought you were a part of this. Where are you at? Why didn't you let somebody know?

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

Babies have poopy diapers, which... I'm making notes. I don't know how to write that one. Well, I think this is the most profound point. So when you go to where the church gathers at a building...

And you're looking around and you're like, man, this stinks. Well, yep, babies have poopy diapers. And we're all babes in Christ. What do you think is going to happen? I'm serious. What I'm saying is lower the bar as far as who you think are going to show up. I'm not even talking about the world. I'm talking about new Christians. So you're going to constantly – because I hear people say this all the time. Man, we're just –

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

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

Yeah, exactly. And it's just, oh, how are you doing? Great. Good. Couldn't be better. I remember Alex saying when her third child, because they're all pretty close together, she said, when I got that third one out of diapers, my life changed for the better. And that's what she meant, because it's not pleasant to deal with. You've got three grandkids under three. You know what that says? A lot of poopy diapers. I've changed more poopy diapers in the last couple of years than I did before.

the entirety of when I had little kids, you know, but part of growth because I realized, you know, that's just the way it is. You're right. Profound point. I just wrote poopy diapers. So I got the next one. Babies are easily distracted. I mean the attention span. So when we had this little one, it was in the hospital when Missy and I came in, well, you know, if you want to see a baby struggle, uh,

Tom down into a bed for about three days and hook something, put a needle in their arm where they can't go anywhere. And every time they move, it hurts. Well, you know, any kid, this is just torture. So when we walked in, he looked at us like, thank the Lord. Get me out of here. Well, that's exactly what happened. We sat down and he's like, let's go. Bye bye.

And we're like, sorry, bud. Well, guess what? Then he was back to, nope, you're not going to do it. You're out. Everybody's out. So everybody walked in the door. He's like, get me out of here. My point was, you know, we were trying to entertain. I mean, I was doing stupid human tricks. We were reading books. I had my phone. I was playing music. I mean, I was trying to do anything, but

Because it's just not normal for a kid to be strapped down in pain. Already, you know, it just had surgery. You know, he's healing up. And it was really sad, you know. But I just thought, well, the church is full of infants who've gone through all these struggles. And this is just the way it is. It's not going to be us sunshine and rainbows walking through the park saying, boy, you know, that's...

The struggle is real. Things happen.

And make him stronger and better. He doesn't know that. He's just a little baby. He doesn't have the capacity to know that. That's right. Well, think about us as spiritual babes with our Father in heaven and our Lord and Savior Jesus as our older brother. Same thing with us. We go through things and we're like, well, this is bad. This needs to stop right now.

I mean, you know, we cry out and say it, but what we don't know is there's someone greater looking out for you. This is going to make you stronger, better. It's going to save your life. And the world has craft. I'm not even talking about the religious trickery.

Because behind a lot of these con men in the religious world are what we're going to get into chapter five, greed, sexual immorality, impurity. You know, that should be the standard for whether somebody is speaking truth. Whenever you see those three things emerge, you know, any kind of impurity or greedy, what are they doing with the money? You know, if your pastor's driving a Lamborghini, okay, well,

Maybe we missed something. But I'm telling you, that happens. And people are like, oh, no, he's a good guy. He needs that to go. It's faster or whatever. It's like it always seems to make sense. He's going to the strip club. He's bringing those women to the Lord. Well, why not wait until they come out?

Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. This idea of vulnerable, Jace, I just heard a stat within the last week that you were talking about immigration or in the people coming across the border. I want to say the number is 300,000. That may not be accurate, but it's a huge number.

of children that came across the border and some of them were just without parents. Some of them were with people, they got separated. But now because the government is supposed to be connecting them with some sponsors and they have no idea where they are.

And the fear is that the people, bad people have them now. They're being exploited. It's happening. And you know it's happening. And we're talking about sex trafficking. We're talking about terrible things. And because they are the most vulnerable, which is another reason why you need a border and know who's coming across and where they are. Because you've got all these vulnerable kids that are being exposed to terrible things in our culture, which is awful. So I think just realizing that makes us realize the task at hand here. I mean...

Then I put they have no concept of time because everything about an infant is all in the short term. You give them a package of fruit snacks, he's good for about four minutes. That's not the answer. Four minutes later. Need more snacks. Yeah, but I feel like I was thinking about how churches, they just give these little

Come here and get your 20 minutes. What do you call them, Zach, TED Talks? Yeah. Your 15-minute, keep it in there. Yeah, 15 minutes. Yeah. It's a charge. Yeah, keep it light. Which leads to the last point I have, which is they must be trained. And any kind of training takes time. And moms who just become warriors, I mean, the most difficult job on the planet, I'm going to say this, and I've thought about it really hard, is being a mom.

I mean, it is absolutely 24-7 total sacrifice every day. And you're just stacking days together. But it's because this baby must be trained. So anybody that comes to the Lord and you're like, because we're using this as a spiritual reference, we're born again, we're a new baby. I mean, this is...

Like boot camp, getting to know Jesus on how productive and how quickly you're going to mature into the whole body. Our campus guy did communion a couple of weeks ago, a communion talk, and he was talking about the contribution. And he mentioned that when he was a little kid, his grandpa would pull out of his pocket one of these little rubber things that you used to get at the bank. You remember them, Dad? You would squeeze it together and it would open up. I never had one, but I've never had one.

They were a big deal. So you open up so that you keep your change in there. You keep a few quarters and he would always open that up and he would give a quarter to his grandkids. So when the contribution plate came by, they would put a quarter in. And of course, he's a little kid. He didn't know even what this meant. He didn't. But he remembered it. And it was every Sunday. And he said, now I realize I'm a grown man. I'm married. Got my own family. And I realized my grandpa was training and teaching me that it's always you always want to give.

both spiritually but also even monetarily to advance the kingdom. And he said, that was put in me. I was trained that way. And when you said that about needing training, I thought, unless we teach them or just leave them exposed to what they're going to get in the education system or, God forbid, on a university campus these days. Well, that's what I meant when I said about being a mom. I probably should have said being a stay-at-home mom because there's a difference in giving birth and being a mom.

In our society, most people let other people train their kids. Well, when you go that route, who knows what you're going to get. Because they're trying to make a living. It's not like they're not being sincere. Ephesians chapter 6, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.

That it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on the earth. It's pretty powerful. And then verse four, dad, we've talked about that before. Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in training and instruction of the Lord. Well, that's an adjustment I made in my school.

Christian life, I wish I would have been more present with the little things with my own kids. Of course, back then, you know, we had no money and I'm making the same arguments everybody else makes. But my wife, when she decided to be a stay at home mom, that's why I just realized how much work she's put in. But now our ventures as grandparents and has taken care of other kids that are in our life.

I probably don't do quite as much as my wife, but it's a lot closer. This is pretty tough when you're looking at Ephesians 6. Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers. And just listen to the power of this. The rulers takes power to get it going against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly reigns. Man. Well, I think that's what we're growing up. That's a tough, tough road to hoe there. That's the, that's where we get to as a church. Yeah.

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

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

That's here. The body is us, right? Head and Jesus's head. But listen to this because in the Corinthian letter, he talked about the body and he compared it to the eye and the ear or a foot or a hand. And so those are big things that we see, but I love it in Ephesians. He goes down to the ligament. Yeah. He says from him, the whole body is,

And so we're talking about the body of Christ, but he compares to a human body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does his work. Now, as a person who's had multiple ligament damage, uh,

My ACL is gone. I got a torn meniscus. I got all these things. They affect how you function and how you live. When something is unhealthy, your whole body feels it all the time. And we all know the older we get, Dad, how much do you depend on those vertebrae in the back, right? So everything that you can't even see...

It's consistently keeping you healthy. And so if you compare that to the body of Christ, you just think about all the people in your life, in the kingdom, that this person may be a ligament. This person over here may be something in between your vertebrae or an inner ear bone. They don't seem like they're doing that much, but they're keeping the whole thing functioning. That's why I think the point is, I mean, I just went through this whole deal about babies and problems, and it seems overwhelming. Yeah.

But I think to your point, sometimes even when you're going through some major struggles, if you'll just stay connected and stay there and keep getting fed, even though you don't feel good and nothing's going your way. I mean, because when you lose connection with the body,

You just thought it was bad. That's right. Because then you're back out in the world, and here we go again. And the more times that that happens, the harder it is to grow. Yeah. Because now you've got a lot of baggage to deal with. Right. So I do think there's something about being connected and being there. And I mean, when I'm saying being there, I'm not talking about the building. I mean with people.

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custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the GOAT. Shop Blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. I think it gets into these kind of questions that you should be asking yourself. Does my life look like Jesus? Well, that's one question to ask yourself, but it's way more important if you'll ask somebody else who you believe is more spiritually mature. You know, what a question to ask. If you ask, let me just ask you, is my life...

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

When you look at it, that we're, look, we're infants in Christ. Right. I mean, he didn't say you're infants. He said we are infants. And it made me think if Paul's considering himself still an infant, we're all in trouble. Yeah. We all need to grow. Which is why we talked about this when Kyle was on the podcast a couple back in this context, which is why we've stressed kingdom so much when we talked about this.

Obviously here, we're talking about inside the Ephesian body. It's a church. It's in Ephesus. And when he's describing these roles that are there, it's a certain group of people. And so we want that. We want that community for all of us. We've talked about it. Everybody that listens to our podcast, we want you engaged in a community, in a church setting, in your community that you're serving with, that you're being there. But this...

the unashamed podcast or the undaunted life is when Kyle was here, we were talking about that. Those are kingdom things that help you do it even more and even broader. And so we want all that working together. That, that text in Hebrews 12 describes a lot of things in context to help us. It talks about angels in heaven that are joyfully assembling and praising God every time a new person comes to Christ. So this idea is that it's broad. And

And so when you think about the body, don't just think about one church and one place, but you think about the entire kingdom of God with the King, Jesus being there in heaven. If it's a body you're thinking of, he's our head. He says it's a living, breathing body. So that means it has to have a strong support system.

It has to be flexible. He mentioned ligaments. It needs to grow and reproduce. It needs to be built on love and then continue to love. It needs workers. I mean, people who are willing to do what it takes to do the hard stuff. And you, and Jason, you brought this up division and these con men, anything that divides people, obviously is the thing you realize that's the evil one trying to tear down what God has built up. Yeah. I wrote down six things about these con men, uh,

And look, I believe churches, there's a lot of churches out here who do this. These are six traits. I didn't read them out of a book. I just jotted them down. I actually have five and I just added one when you were talking. But number one, they're focused on their church, not on Jesus, which seems good. But if you think about that, it's kind of like the program is the program about the program.

Within churches, we all have programs. Or is it focused on Jesus? Well, there's a huge difference there. Good point. Number two, there's a pride. I've heard people say, this program, this whatever saved my life. You hear that language a lot in church. When we were doing the college ministry at the church you guys are at, sometimes they would say, man, this group, this group. Talk about this group saved my life. No. No.

I've reminded him this group didn't save your life. This was Jesus saved your life. And people say that about the podcast. They're like that podcast saved my life. And I always say, well, it didn't. No. Yeah. You, you met Jesus there and he saved you. If we introduce you to Jesus, we did our job, but it's Jesus saves, not us. And a good question to ask the leadership of these programs is where's, where's Jesus in this? Yeah.

Well, you had mentioned at the beginning, you're reading that passage out of 1 Corinthians about I follow Paul. Some say I follow Cephas. Some say I follow Christ. So it was like that's what that was. That's like taking the brand of whatever it is and then elevating that. And I think that that first of all, that recognition is glad you put it first. And then two,

I think that it takes a continual effort not to make the thing a

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

And they're not open. He's not open to discussion. They're usually not led by others. They are the last word. Their doctrine is where Jesus needs to be fixed. They're their own last word. That's why I said, does the function of the church look like Jesus? You've got four books you can make that analogy. And then you have the book of Acts.

As I think the model. Yeah. Well, I look around our churches. Most churches don't look like the book of Acts. That's a good point.

I mean, I hate to say it. They look more like the old Jewish system where it's a ritualistic temple worship. So I'm going on a rant here. So number three, they're more into cover up than transparency. And it's usually the leadership at the top has no accountability. You can't get to them.

It's like they're untouchable. And you get a false sense that they don't function like a baby. We're all babies in crisis, and we're all in different areas of growth and maturity. Instead of changing diapers, they're just spraying them with Febreze, right? Well, exactly. That's a good point. The next one is isolation.

And I put worldly because I think our churches should look like the world. You're bringing people out of the world and it's messy. It's but this whole we're going to isolate ourselves from the world has it is the exact opposite of what Jesus did. He didn't just go live in a tent and then wait to die. He went out in the world and cause problems and help people and every day and

Next, they focus on fear and judgment versus grace and love. Fear and judgment are things that the Bible discusses. But when you read the book of Ephesians, the overwhelming motivation for why you come to God and why you say no. Remember that verse that says the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness. And the foundation of our message is grace and love. And to miss that.

You would think it's really difficult, but you walk into churches, if you're walking out every Sunday feeling like you've been whipped with a baseball bat, you say, well, why do I feel that way? Because it was a focus on fear and judgment. That's right. Instead of grace and love. If you want a clear passage, Hebrews 10, 14 to 29, go read that. It lays out just what you just said. Which I've been kind of shocked at the level of how even, I mean, I've heard pastors mock

the idea that God is love. They make fun of that and they make that sound like that's some kind of weak. But I'm like, it's the gospel. I think there's a passage that actually says that directly. Did you have one more? I have one more. And the last one is they tend to focus on rules and not a relationship. And God is all about relationship. And the reason I think that's important to the context is because when you have a rule-oriented faith,

You find the loopholes. Our lovely producer brought that out in between the podcast and which is what you're going to see in chapter five. They weren't just some of them weren't openly out there sleeping with everybody they could, but they had a hint of sexual immorality. So what is a hint?

That means you've rationalized, you found a loophole in the rule. That's it. Well, guess what that means? You're not being like Jesus. That's right. And so now we just grade it. The only upgrade I would add, that isolation point, isolation over introduction. We want to be introducers of people to Jesus. And you can't do that if they're not part of you.

And who's there. All right. We're out of time. Next time we come back, if you're reading ahead, uh, Ephesians four 17, read that next section through chapter five 20. That's where we're headed in our text. So we'll see you next time. Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes,

And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV at blazetv.com slash unashamed.