Ep 930 | Jase Suffers a Spiritual Assault, Responding to Our Enemies & Middle School Rivalries
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I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. I was asking Jace before we came on, because you know Jace always has a story of something that's happened to him. And they're so fantastical. It's like, this could happen to nobody but Jace. No, it's because I'm out there living. Well, no, but you're living...

You're living. I'll always remember this. Your take on everything is like the worst possible thing that could have been derived out of this situation. It's going to happen to you. I'm going to explain that to you. Because true joy, there always has to be an element of danger involved. You have to be a risk taker.

So like frog hunting is one of the best things you can do. Or like you sneaking down to fish in your brother's pond. It can't be just like, I got to go catch some fish. It's like, I got to slip in there and be a man, come back, impress my wife. It's understood that when Willie put those fish in there,

He would dump the fish, then he's looking over there at my house, seeing if I'm watching him dump those fish. Well, that told me something. Because what he didn't know was I was watching. He was right. I was watching. But the fact that he was looking for me to see if I was watching. He was laying down the challenge is what he was doing. That told me he expects me to come.

You received that as an invitation. Yeah. But I asked him point blank because look, stealing's wrong. So I was like, how are we, how are we approaching this? Do I need to give a donation to the fish? You offered him. You offered him. And he said, no, no, you come down here anytime you want. So the first time I did and had a bunch of fish. He slipped up there. He slipped up there.

And I said, which means he's watching too. He said, what are you, he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm in, I'm enjoying our arrangement. And I said, do you want some of these fish? And he said, no, no, no, that's good. I was just, I was just checking. So then a little birdie told me a few weeks later that he told one of his employees that he thinks Jace had caught all those fish that he had put in there. And he was probably joking. Yeah.

Well, that's called fun. Where did I go wrong in there is what I'm saying. I don't think he was joking, Jace. I think he might actually think that. Yeah, that you caught all the fish. That was fine, which we know is not true. No, the reason I was bringing it up is because I was like, Jace, you got a story for us for our podcast because we've been into several recordings here. And he's like, no, I got nothing.

I've been just laying around. I explain this. I have been down for about 12 days.

Because here's what I think happened. And I think our viewers might find this interesting. I went on about a two-week run where I spoke, I think, including these podcasts, 19 times in about 16 days. I'm in the middle of one of those runs right now. I got it. And in that, I got a sinus infection. One of my speeches, which was at the church where you preach at, I don't even have a memory of what I said because I was so sick. I thought I was going to pass out.

You had to get up. You thought you were going to throw up on the floor. Oh, yeah. I was just completely sick. But the Lord got me through it. All I heard was how good it was. But what I, well, it wasn't me. I had an out-of-body experience that morning. But what I was going to say is then I hurt my back putting on my shoe, which is embarrassing. And so I was down for five days and slowly started getting better. Well, yesterday, I mean, I was fixed to do an MRI tomorrow.

But yesterday I woke up and there was zero pain. So I ended up canceling the MRI, which the doctor said, I'm sure it'll flare up again. We'll see you. I'm just going to keep it ready for you. He wasn't as optimistic as I was because I'm telling you that because I have done nothing. You're saying a 100%. We talk at 100%. One, I woke up because look,

If you would have watched me the last few days, I mean, yesterday, the only time I went outside was to take the garbage out. And I was so, I had been hidden for so long that I was bare feet and I had been living in a cave so long. Just think about what I did. I took the bag of garbage and walked to the end of my driveway and put it in there barefooted. Well, guess what happened?

I literally burned the bottom of my feet. It's 100 degrees. See, this is what I'm talking about. Look, it started- Dace is going to the garbage can is the worst possible thing that's ever happened. Well, look, if you want to do something in Louisiana that will bring a lot of discomfort-

Just go walk on asphalt in the middle of the day, barefooted for about 30 yards. I need to give you a lesson on how to take care of your wife when the years begin to add up. Oh, boy. You do the cooking and you take care of her to the best of your ability. This is reminding me of a segment from Hee Haw. For two months, that's what I've been doing.

I'm excuse. Gloom, despair. I have a doctor. They heard me singing the blues. I have a doctor's excuse on that fail because my wife's out of town because a tornado hit our place in Tennessee. So she's been gone. I see one sick wife and throw in a tornado. Yeah. I think, I think the point Jay says is that he's showing you that his suffering is, is

There's a greater degree of suffering, and yet he's not. I wasn't complaining. That is correct. Here's why I said all this. I deemed that when you go out and declare Jesus that much, it draws attention. I mean, Ephesians, we're going to get to it.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's not about the back. It's not about somebody saying, hey, I don't like you. It's about a battle about the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, right? That's right. So all of a sudden, do you think it's just a coincidence that I get the worst sinus infection I ever have and I just rip my back up, put it on my shoe?

And so I was down for 12 days. And that's when you had some R&R coming when that happened because you were on your way to relax. Exactly. So I have been at my house for 12 days and I have done, I would say 90% of that time outside of eating and going to the bathroom and sleeping, I've just studied my Bible because I thought I'm going to use this as a...

Good way to recharge the Bible study. That's all I've been doing. That's why I don't have any stories outside of burning my feet, walking on the asphalt. So you pulled it out. I was just needing one story and you got it. There it was. Pretty big story that you went to bed with excruciating back pain to the point that you had ordered an MRI and then you wake up the next morning and you're, it's gone. 12 days late. Yeah. 12 day, 12 days of misery.

But it's just a nature. And I woke up. And right now, look, no pain. I couldn't have done this. I couldn't have done this in the last 12 days. Have you visited your local Pentecostal preacher lately? Has there been anything that you want to tell us about? That's what I said. I've spoken at a few in the last year. Me too. You may have had a Pentecostal preacher pray over you. You may have had one of our charismatic friends pray over you.

I'm really not getting what you're saying. I mean, I prayed. I was like, I realized that I'm in a spiritual battle here. So I'm obviously being attacked. That was my opinion. Or it could have just been, I was putting them on my shoe and, you know, I have a perishable body, but I woke up my thought. Thank you, Lord. It's, it's, it's nice. And I mean, I actually, if you could have filmed my first 20 steps out of the bed this morning, I,

that would have gone viral because i was testing but the more it didn't hurt the more i began to have a rhythm like music was playing and i started a little frontwards moonwalk dad when's the last time you got out of bed like that doing a moonwalk and i stepped i got i got up making sure that i'm getting my wife of about 60 some odd years

Take care of her. Bill, that's a noble. You've done well. And mom, by the way, I asked her, I finally asked her officially yesterday if she's ready to come back on the podcast. She said she is because she's been doing so good. And she has been more like herself the last few weeks. So we will have her soon.

On the Unashamed podcast. Of course, she did tell me, she always does, she said, I've got to have hair and makeup. I said, all right, we'll take care of it, my woman. Well, let my neighbors know this morning that I'm back. Because as I started to move, just think, 12 days down, and now I'm pain-free. Yep.

And so I just, there was nobody at my house. I'm by myself. But I just, I began to talk louder and louder. Like, I'm back, baby. We're back rolling again. Are you going to retire the clubs? Are you going to, I mean, what are you? That'll be the test. That'll be the first test when I go. Test it slowly, James. Don't bite off a big. Here's the good thing. I've done all the paperwork. And so if I go out there and try to play golf,

And we get back to where I was 12 days ago. I'll just drive from the golf course to the orthopedic center. And that doctor said, you'll be back. I was kind of surprised. He didn't talk me out of it. He was like, you feel perfectly fine? You can tear two of your vertebrae on your backbone. That becomes...

And you were where it's failing. Yeah. That's what happened to you. That's what happened to me. I had the x-ray. They cut me open, inserted inside the, what do you call it? Spine. The spine. The vertebrae. The spine, the pulpit, and the...

They put some concrete in there. And that was put in there, and they said, whoops. I told them, I said, still got too much pain. They looked again. They said, that other one right below it, that one there will fill it. So they basically bored holes in it, put cement inside it, some type of cement, and now...

Not one even twinge of pain. Now it's all gone. Did you ever think there would come a day in your life where you would have concrete in your spine? Took about a year to get there, but you know, you get the concrete in there.

Which is amazing. I mean, I mean. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. You talk about pain leaving. I mean, it left. That was like picking up a boat. Yeah, don't pick up any boats, Dad. I don't lift up boats anymore. No, you're out of the boat lifting business. I'm just saying, it went from bad to no problem. And you've been taking some calcium building material, which has been helping you. So anyway, I guess the situation has improved around here, which is good.

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Zach, you kind of in your last speech on the last podcast took us back to Ephesians 2 because you were talking about, would you call it the life works of...

Yeah, I was talking about like how that when you're living with the spirit, that should manifest not in a death work, but in a life. It should be it should feel like life. I mean, it shouldn't feel like death. And I've never heard that phrase, but I really like it. That's good. The life works of what we do. And so just to kind of take us back and then reset us so we can get back into Ephesians 2, 11, which is a new text for us.

I wanted to say something about what we've done up to now. In this little intermediary text of 115 down to 210, he kind of talks about how we have this access to God, which comes about through Christ. And then we talk about the Holy Spirit, His work in that, and how His power then works in us. And that's what we get to experience. And then we talked about grace.

which in the way I outlined it was that it cleanses us, it changes us, and then it creates in us something to create, which is to your point, Zab, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And I had a little something I had written down that I had not shared, and this is not to say out of the text, these were just some thoughts I had. But when you think about grace, and you think about how it's the work of God in us,

We deserve punishment, but by grace, he gave us forgiveness instead of punishment. We deserve consequences, but by grace, he showed us mercy. So instead of the consequences of our action, we get mercy. We deserve wrath, but by grace, he gave us relief and peace. We deserve hell.

But by grace, he ushered us into heaven, into the heavenly realms with Christ, which is amazing. We deserve misery, but by grace, he gave us hope. We deserve guilt and shame, you know, in a conscience that won't clear. But by grace, he gave us glory, honor, and a cleansed conscience. We deserve damnation, but by grace, he gave us deliverance. And you can add to all that. What came out of that is the...

This has been for eons, mystery. Mystery is mentioned three, four times in the book of Ephesians, starting with chapter three. The mystery made known to me by revelation, that's how he got it. My insight, here's how you notice, into the mystery of Christ.

Then they look, revealed by the spirit of God's holy apostles and prophets. That part was mysterious. The mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. And down toward the bottom, make plain to everyone that the administration of this mystery

which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, that we're all members of here, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers, authorities, and heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

In him and through him, faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. What a read. Yeah. Yeah, he actually brought it up in 1.9 when he said he made known to us the mystery of his will, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth under one head, him and Christ. Yep. So he reveals a lot of mysteries.

Yeah, it really does. But those mysteries are being revealed here in Ephesians. I love to take one of the ways I kind of say the scripture. That's good news for we Gentiles. Oh, it's great news. It's great news. I mean, one of the ways I like to read the scripture is to you kind of get like the end of a passage, like right here where there's this conclusion in Ephesians one. I'm sorry, two at the end where it says in whom the whole structure is.

Being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God.

By the spirit. I love to take that like a phrase like that. It's like kind of understand what the end point is. And then, you know, like hit rewind and then kind of rewind back and see, you know, where like how this is coming together in reverse. And if if you look at that word in Ephesians 2, 22, it says together. So there's the idea that in Christ.

The Jew and the Gentile together, which think about it, these are like mortal enemies. These are two people groups. But in Christ, they are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So as you kind of rewind that back, you start to see the argument even unfolding even more, which we've repeated many times in this episode.

study of Ephesians, but it makes more sense when he transitions this in verse 11 that he says this. He says, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcised by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

He's coming back, he's drawing the distinction between the Jew and the Gentile for the purpose of bringing it all together here at the end of the chapter. And I think that's important for us because that's the spirit that's doing that. So I want that spirit to work that same type of spirit of unity in me as well. I like the way you describe that about seeing the end of it because we're going to fix and read the whole passage.

It reminds me of that. I can't remember the name of the novel. Zach, you may remember it, but there was a series that I watched part of it, and it's based on a book about a church building, a structure being built over like 600 or 700 years. And you kind of follow. So obviously there were generations that built this, and this building is currently in England.

And so when you first started watching the series, it went, it showed you the structure that's there. And then all of a sudden it goes all the way back to however many hundreds of years, you know, it took to build this place. And it just, you're looking at a big flat piece of ground with a little river running by it and nothing's there.

And it was really interesting because then the series, the show that I watched some of, you start following these generations of families that built this over the course of hundreds of years. So you're telling me, and there's a lot of intrigue and drama. And obviously one group did this, and I don't know how much of it is real versus, you know, just made for TV. But I found it fascinating that we see things today, even in our current world. That's why that comment, we're God's workmanship, creating Christ used to do. We see something today.

And then we don't have really any idea what it took to build it, to get it to this place we're looking at. That could be a life. That could be a family. That could be a lot of things. And then we go back and we start seeing what God did to put that together. It's just like somebody had a question about, which we talked about in the past podcast, about why is this structure in place of the sacrifices and all that? Why would God do that?

over a thousand years, 1500 years. And it's, but it's the same thing. You don't understand. God is very patient in the way he's brought Jesus into this world when the times reach their full fulfillment. So he's patient and builds it. So we, every segment of understanding we get who Jesus is.

It's easy for us now, 2,000 years later, to say, why don't we just get Jesus at the beginning? But we got to understand God was building something we needed to see. And throughout the course of human history, every segment had to see what they saw when they saw it. But now we're looking back. Because the underlying theme is people are all different. We tend to be, I don't know what the word is. We like our own groups. He's saying Jew or Gentile, but among that,

That seems kind of foreign today. Now we basically... You can almost put anything in there that just divides people. We divide people by nation, I guess now. But then within the nation... Or class. You have multiple divisions. Right. Even in our... We've been talking about politics more than normal just because I guess when the former president gets shot at, you start talking about what's going on here. But...

Now you see these two political groups trying to get elected, and one obviously is trying to unite the group within the group because you have Trump, which is such a lightning rod. And the other one is kind of doing the opposite as far as they have different groups that are identifying who you are and what.

By your behavior or... Identity. Yeah, where you're from or, you know, because there used to be a time when we would call ourselves just Americans, you know. So this all plays into this when we get to Ephesians 2, because, you know, he brings up circumcision and even how that's changed. So, because you're thinking, well, only Jews are circumcised. Well, I've been circumcised, so...

I'm not a Jew. Newsflash. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying for people who are just... Breaking news. Who are new, they're like... Poor time. What's he talking about? Circumstance. What I'm saying is a lot of people are reading this and we're like, oh, this is some really good stuff. And then the first verse you read says...

Starts talking about Gentiles. About those who call themselves the circumcision. They called themselves the circumcision. I mean, just think about that. They're like, who are you? They're like, I am part of the circumcision group. Yeah. I mean, if somebody told me that, I would say. That's a group? I really don't need to know that. How do we prove that? Five times, five times in that text in chapter three.

the end of chapter two, now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away, Gentile, have been brought near through the blood of Christ. He himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has restored the barrier, the dividing wall of hospitality. You keep a little further. His purpose was to create in himself a new man out of the two, thus making peace

Peace. That's number two. In this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, to which he put to death the hostility. He came and preached peace. That's three times. He who you were far off Gentiles and far away Gentiles.

and grace, I mean, and peace to those who were near. You say, that's three, one, two, three times. And then you look over there in chapter four, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. That's five times in a short statement about like that. Well, the point is... Finally, Jew and Gentile are together. You're like under one head.

And it gives just peace of mind along with literally peace from the evil one. Yeah, but it's peace with each other because that's the problem. You're jumping ahead a little bit here, but I mean, that's where he's going with this is that what is the problem with mankind? We can't get along. That's right.

I mean, and you said, what are we not able to get along about? It's really more simple than you think because you were born across that line and I was born across this line. So therefore, we don't like you. In fact, that's been going on since the beginning of time. I know it.

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You're exactly right, Jaz. When I grew up, I grew up on this side of the Washtenaw River, on the west side.

And West Monroe. And so when I was a kid and a teenager, we would have competition with football and sports and all that with people on the other side of the river. So I didn't like the people on the other side of the river. Now it's Monroe, West Monroe, same one town. At one time they were only on one side, but why is that? Why are we like that? Why do it? Why? When I come across the Washtenaw river, when I drive, as soon as I hit the West side, even to this day, it's 60 years, almost 60 years old. Do I come across and go, Oh,

So I'm back in West Monroe. I mean, to this day, I feel that. When we were, you know, Phil has lived in Luna for, I guess, 40 years. 50 years. I'm not sure it's a town. It'll be 50 in 2020. It's just called a town.

An area. It's an area. It's a loosely identified community. So Zach had mentioned that last podcast, and I'm sure people didn't know what that meant. So, you know, you're raised here. You've become friends with everybody. Well, I went to school at the little junior high. I mean, it was K through 8. You went there. Yep. It's called Pinecrest. Well, the way it worked. Were you ever Mr. Pinecrest? I don't know. I don't know. I was. I was.

I don't even know what that means. He had to be an eighth grader to be Mr. Tone. I'll take that as a no. So I didn't get into the politics of school. See, this is how Jason and I are different. So the way it worked was then you would go one year, ninth grade year,

to Woodlawn, which was about what? Two miles from Pinecrest? About two miles. And it was K through nine. And then you went to town 10 through 12 and went to West Monroe High School. That's how it worked. Well, here's what I didn't realize. All these people I knew from this community, when I went from Pinecrest to Woodlawn, the first day there were multiple fights. It was hazing. And you said, what? Now these are people that I know.

Because we're on the same community. So what happened? There's a highway called Highway 34. It's not a scenic route for anything. It's just a highway. But once you moved...

then it caused problems. That's right. Because then these people didn't like you because you came from across the highway. You show them, they say, oh, look, the pine knots are here. Exactly. And so my whole ninth grade year, I pretty much hung out with the people that I came there with because the other people didn't like me. Now, here's what's funny. Yeah, I know where you're going. When we got to town, which is now a different segment of our population because it's five miles.

From where we are. Way off. Now all the people who fought with me.

The past year, well, we're all in a huddle. We're all rednecks. Now everybody's calling us hillbilly rednecks. Boy, these people, you know, how many teeth you got? You know, stuff like that. That's the way it was, and it never stopped for three years. Because then you were battling Bowley and West Monroe and all these other. And that just keeps happening. The bigger the thing is, I think it's the idea is that we identify with tribes. Yep.

It's like tribalism. But in the kingdom, what seems to be happening here is Christ is erasing that because he's talking here when he's talking about the circumcision crowd calling the uncircumcised crowd the uncircumcised crowd. He says, remember, at one time you speaking to the Gentiles, you are separated from Christ.

You are alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. So he's painting the picture of the – you've got to remember, Gentiles, there was a time –

that you were completely out of what was going on in Israel, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Bible, God's chosen people. You guys were not in any of that. And then there's that three-letter word in verse 13 that makes all the difference. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off,

have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So it's, it's that it's the idea, Jace, of, of when you go all the hostility that you experienced, we've all experienced that in some form or fashion, but,

It's that dividing wall of hostility, which in your case was at first Highway 34, then became whatever it became. I don't know what the boundary was. Town. Town. Town. Civilization. Pass the mill. Pass the paper mill. You know when you go through a town, it'll say corp limit, corporation. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought I was perhaps dyslexic as a kid, and I'm not being funny about it, because the first time I looked at that sign, I thought it said crop limit, because I thought you can plant crops outside this sign. And I actually had an argument with my wife one time, because I said, we passed the crop limit. And she's like, why do you keep saying that? And I was like, that's what it says. I was so convinced.

that I said, okay, the next time we see one, I'll show you. And I looked at that sign and I thought. All these years. They must have changed that. I said, there was a time where they had crop limit. You could see the corn right up to the side. And so that's what I thought it was for years. That's funny. But look, my point was deeper though, because what I'm saying is I know we're immediately going to this, but if somebody's new to this, when it says, when you see that phrase, all who are far off, that is used a lot.

in the Bible referring to Gentiles because God made the promise with the Jews. And it was from a time period, they were far off from getting in because you had to go through, I don't know how many hundreds of years from Abraham to Jesus, but that's quite a few. And so, and I think that's what Romans is about as far as, you know, when you read Romans chapter one, you're seeing these people kind of

Before we had the Jewish nation and how were their sins applied? Paul's kind of trying to work with Romans 1 through 5, going through history, looking at it from how we become sinful, whether from our conscience or whether we broke the law. And I think it's interesting like that. So the Bible is using that as Jew and Gentile language because that's how God...

Jesus in that he came through the Jewish nation and he was a Jew. Mary was from Israel. She was a Jew. So I think it's interesting, but what I was going to say, when you tie in a lot of other events that happened, when you think of the Tower of Babel, where you did have unity, you had people speaking the same language, but they didn't want to do what God wanted.

Told him to do. So he actually contributed to some of this division by confusing the languages. Right. Because the bottom line is, you're like, well, why would he do that? Because they weren't, they were wanting to be their own God. Right. Or make a name for themselves is what it says in Genesis 11. We think about our fight against the evil one.

Most of the time we think that that fight begins when we somehow reach maturity or maybe in some cases when we're actually born into this world depending on our circumstances, but unfortunately

Really, because of abortion, the fight with the darkness of evil begins at your conception. Because now there's an attempt to take you out before you ever get a chance to even come into this world. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, it's hard to look at the Lord and all these passages about everything that is created, was created by him. And you just become...

Yeah.

And really, we know. I mean, many of these decisions are made, and they don't even understand the decisions they're making, that they're snuffing out life. And so we want to be able to make a difference. We want to be able to defend the defenseless, but also share God's love and compassion with everyone. We want to see transformation happen. And some of these young women who come in with an unplanned pregnancy, they need that love. So One Heartbeat at a Time is how Preborn introduces mothers to

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To the point of before, it's hard for us sometimes to look at this. The answer to your question was how long? It was about 2,000 years before Jesus was Abraham. And the Abraham is the first time we read of this clarity of God and the singularity of God. Because the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is right before you get to Abraham. Now, that doesn't mean timing-wise there could have been some time that went on there.

But all of a sudden, the story of Abraham begins the story of faith. It begins the story of, okay, we're going to trust in God even through our differences. And really, the rest of human history leads to that moment of what happened there. Well, I was just making the point because most people tend to think we're dividing lines by race or... But the Bible does... Like, according to the Bible's definition of the two races here, as far as humans, well...

Africans and Caucasians are in the same camp. The division is the Jews and the Gentiles, people from Israel and people who are not. There's only two camps that it looks like. And you're right. That's why the things that have divided people 2,000 years later, sometimes you don't even read about those in the text. Exactly. And that's why I was bringing that up. It wasn't even able to function properly.

Before Jesus died, was buried and raised from the dead. They just couldn't be brought together until he died. Well, he had to become a human first. Become a human. So that's why you have a nation that would produce a human that would produce salvation because of who the human is. He was a sinless son of God. God's intent, verse 10 there,

was that now through the church, that'd be us, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm. Us coming together as a group on planet Earth and our brothers

who believe that God sent Jesus to die on a cross for our sins, be buried and raised from the dead. That is what holds all of us together. Well, exactly. Mess with that, and you'll bomb out. Well, when did that start? And my point is, the reason I brought up the Tower of Babel, we brought up this before. So in Acts 2, when Jesus ascends...

And then Acts 2, he pours out his spirit. I mean, Peter says that. He says, Jesus has poured out what you see and hear. So then you heard these apostles talking, but each one is hearing their message in their own language. So it does go all the way back to Genesis 11. Now God is making what went wrong right. Right. Bringing people together. Brought it together.

And so then you, you know, the first nine chapters of Acts, you have pretty much the Jewish nation coming to Christ. But then all of a sudden, Acts 10 and throw in an Acts 8, you had the Ethiopian. There were little seeds, right? There were seeds of Gentiles. But now the Gentiles come in and you're like, well, who are the Gentiles? Everybody else.

And so they were far off, if you look at it from going back to Genesis 12 and 15, when God's making this promise to Abraham that through your seed, all nations will be blessed. So that's even when Peter, when they said, what do we do in Acts 2 and 38? And y'all are familiar, repent and be baptized. But then he said that little phrase,

and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But then he said, that promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, which is Ephesians 2 uses that lingo. If you look that up in the Old Testament and the New Testament, you're going to see it's generally a reference.

to Gentiles. Yeah, I just want to say that what we're talking about right here, it hones in and puts a

spotlight on two things. One, the phrase that we, I think we've hammered pretty hard in Ephesians, the phrase in Christ, it just puts a spotlight on that. Cause you think what, what was the difference between the tower of Babel and then what's going on here? I mean, like last time we tried this last time we were all unified, what happened? Well, we tried to build a tower to get to God this time. What's the, I mean, what's different was, well, here's the, here's what's different. And the,

And the argument Paul's making is now this is accomplished in Christ. Now this is accomplished in him. So that's the first thing that is highlighted. And the second thing is, how would we ever know that it's in Christ? And that's where the spirit comes. That's why that's why the consummation of this, maybe not the consummation, the inauguration of this that happened in Acts two, it happened not when Jesus ascended.

It happened when the spirit came. And so like, like it was all part of the whole story. But when the spirit came, because that was when the spirit, when he came, that's when we could be made known. It could be made known to us. Well, both, but I think both things, both,

Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't have one. But the Spirit doesn't come without the ascension is what I'm saying. It's not in its full inaugurated state until the Spirit comes on Pentecost. Because what is the Spirit making known? That Christ died, was buried, resurrected, and ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. That's what the Spirit is testifying in our hearts to. And where this comes together is this idea of oneness,

It comes together in this idea of making peace that he might reconcile us. That's the spirit, thereby killing the hostility. This is in Ephesians 2.16. I think, man, so I want to embody – I know this is talking about Jew and Gentile, but as you guys mentioned earlier, there's a lot of different walls of hostility that are prevalent in culture.

I think it's referring to that in a general way. The way you check yourself in it is this. When I see the person on the other side of the wall that I'm on, is my reaction extreme anger, outrage, and hatred? Or is my default position a spirit? Even if I disagree with you and think you're dead wrong.

And I think you're the enemy. Do I love you? Would I want you to come to know Jesus? Would I want you to experience the peace that God offers? Is my default position one of reconciliation or one of division? And I think if we're kingdom people and we're living out what this is, our default position is going to be on the side of reconciliation and restoring our story.

One of the things I think all of us struggle with is, you know, we have to do business in the world. We buy things, we buy products, we do things. And, you know, a lot of times we spend our money and we do it in places we're not always super confident or feel great about the companies or the corporations, right? Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's very difficult to live in a world where

within a world. And as Jesus people, we try to be men of integrity and support things that are godly. So that's where it becomes difficult to do business. And I really think it puts pressure on us as believers to have more businesses, you know, that are out there for people. And our good friends at Patriot Mobile, that's sort of been their take. For the last 10 years, they've been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.

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You can do that by going to patriotmobile.com slash phil or call 972-PATRIOT to get your free month of service today. Bring Jew and Gentile together. That's a big one. I'm going to be honest. I'm going to be honest to bring anybody together. I wanted to get a little more practical because it seems we're trying to deal with the text best we can.

But I'm saying, like, when you look back at how Jesus operated, because that's what we're doing now through the Spirit of God is we're supposed to be like Jesus in this world. Well, he was going to the last people that anybody go to per generation. Let's face it. He was going to the...

Demon-possessed, the mentally challenged, those with all kinds of diseases, tax collectors. I mean, who likes a tax collector? Host of individuals. There's no generation in the history of the world where anybody liked a tax collector or wouldn't dare bring him to their house. And so I'm saying...

That's where I was trying to get with this, because even you see it in our society even now. And there's an interesting article written by C.S. Lewis called The Inner Ring. And it's a difficult read, but at the base of it is that

His idea is that humans have this desire to be in this inner circle or inner ring of importance or you can attach whatever you want to the elite. And he's like, it's not that once you get in there, you're fulfilled because what happens in life outside of Jesus, when you become part of any inner circle, or even what we say, like, here's who I'm doing life with. There's a small group of people.

that you're spending a lot of time with and he's like that desire repeats itself over and over and over because you're thinking if i get in the right circle i'll be happy but ultimately you can't find the right inner circle outside jesus and without his spirit that that's what this is about so he's like what do you do you just spend your whole life pursuing

some circle, which makes sense when you look at our politics and our culture and all that. People are driven to put themselves in a category, and they're like, this is who we are. But it's a small group of people who are trying to make a name for themselves, kind of going back to the Tower of Bibles. I think it's a really interesting article, and I think it deals with the fact what God, when it said he destroyed God,

This wall that stood opposed to us, you know, as far as bringing people together, he really did it. So I said all that to kind of get to Luke 15, one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. And it wouldn't be famous without the event that caused him to tell these, these fascinating stories, which was he was being ridiculed by religious people because he was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

And that's my point. You're never going to change this outside of Jesus and his spirit. No, and I love the idea. You just brought the Tower of Babel back because you think about it. That was a tower of achievement. We can do this. As we talk about this idea of unity, they said, we're going to unify. We're going to build this building because we can do it. We're going to do this. But this time, Zach, it's another tower being built. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises together.

To become a holy temple. This is a new structure, but this structure is the tower of ascension. It's the tower of Christ in Christ, what he's done. And when he ascended, he sent his spirit back to them, build that. That's why. And everybody's welcome. Everybody's welcome. Everybody's welcome. That's why it's Christian. Why is it still a tough sale?

Well, it's because of this. So, like, people meet Christian people, and I'm saying, like, it's a political time in our history right now because we're fixed to elect a president. But, you know, I look at both platforms. Well, there's numerous...

what they call social issues, which I call godly issues that I'm opposed to on both sides. I mean, because I'm serving the King of Kings, Lord Jesus. I'm always going to value life. I'm always going to trust him and how he says families should function and all this. But the difference is, what I'm saying is,

But I love everybody because of Ephesians 2. Everybody's a human. So it's kind of like, what are you going to unite this on? When you look around what Jesus did, here's a woman caught in adultery. I mean, in the act.

What are we going to kill her stone? Well, no, he's whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, he forgave her. He stood up for her. And I think that's the difference. You can stand on godly principles while loving people, even though you vehemently disagree. But I think that's how we should operate. So I value all humans, even the one, you know, with the sign. You know, it's like, help me. I lost my...

I lost my job, you know, and then he's checking his cell phone, you know, and checking his email, puts it back in his pocket. It was like, you know, can you spare five bucks? I lost. I mean,

I mean, you get the picture here. But at the end of the day, I don't want to have a cynic view of him because I know he's a human being and he needs Jesus. It does change your views. Zach, what were you going to say? I was just going to say to Phil, I think another reason why it's a tough sell, Phil, is because what Al just said, the initial Tower of Babel, Al said it was a tower of achievement.

Really, the second one is, too, it's just the question is, who is achieving what? And the first one was man achieving ascension to God. And the second one was God achieving salvation.

What were after at the end of the day? Why were they trying to why were they build the tower? Because they wanted to be with God. But really, they wanted to be like they wanted to be God. But it's this idea of proximity to God. They were going to work their way up to God.

In this case, in Ephesians 2, the tower that's being built, this structure that's growing together into a holy temple of the Lord is Christ coming to us. And so it's the opposite. That's what he's saying. He's going to double down that in chapter 4, talking about Christ ascending and descending. I was just looking at it. Verse 8. Descending, which is right. He led captives and gave gifts. That's why the Tower of Babel was wrong. But I get frustrated with...

People who don't speak out, yes, we're supposed to speak to powers because we have the ultimate power when it comes to morality and social issues and all that. But that's not our primary job. Only Jesus can change the heart of people. And so we go out to people and you say, well, what are we going to do? Are we going to stand on all these issues? We're going to stand on Jesus.

Because when you're in Jesus, you then have the ability through the Holy Spirit to understand, I need to trust God on the social structure of human beings. And so it's different conversations depending on where you're at. But people who vehemently disagree with me say,

They're not in Jesus. Well, I'm just going to stick with Jesus because only he can change their mind, heart, and ultimately behavior. But a lot of religious people screw that up because they're out just giving a message of judgment and pretty much hate.

without the Jesus part of it, just because of the lifestyle is different. And that's what Jesus came to destroy those walls. And ultimately his, it's his grace and love and mercy that changes the heart. And he proved it by what he did. And we already go out there and share that. And in the meantime, we're still standing on the principles of God. So we'll, uh, we're out of time. Um, once, once again, it went by fast. Come,

Come back here and camp out a little bit more in the book of Ephesians. Next time on Unashamed.