Ep 996 | Jase Faces Down the Church Police & What to Do About Baptizing Infants
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I am unashamed. What about you?

Welcome back to Unashamed. Zach, your new podcast is out there. It's pretty awesome. It's out there. Tuesday was the day. It's doing really well. Oh, so you've already done your first podcast? Oh, yeah. Are you doing this? I have to ask this. Are you just doing this by yourself?

No, I have. I'm going to bring you on an episode or two because this is a deeper dive. Okay. Zach loves point counterpoint. I don't like to argue. There's a passage that says stay away from foolish arguments and controversial things over genealogy. No genealogies, no controversies and quarrels about the law. None of that.

So but it is a little bit of a it's a little less storytelling and a little more Bible. But then you're having Jason. Oh, here we go. Hold on. Jason's me. Jason's me. A John Tyson. A couple weeks ago, Jason's me. John Tyson sermon, which was which was 55 minutes long. So Jason's listening to the kind of content that I'm talking about interacting with. Yeah.

Well, y'all said we were going to talk about politics. We did. So I thought, here, I heard this sermon here. I mean, I'm not a political. But you're saying, Zach, you were surprised that he was listening to Tyson. That's what you're saying. He reads and listens to things that I might. No, Jace is going the route that dad trained us all. He said, boys, you can always be smarter than you look.

And you can do a lot more, but you can't go the other direction. Well, now that we've just opened up this can, let me... Here's my deal. After the argument y'all started on the last podcast, I felt like we had to... It wasn't an argument. It was a discussion. It was a discussion. Well, look, the last podcast we had on Colossians, when we got to Colossians 2, which, look, the book of Colossians, like all of the other books, is about...

Jesus. Yep. It is highlighting Jesus. Yep. Big time. And look, we really did a poor job when we got to Colossians 2 of getting, and myself included, the point is these people were being tempted to go back under the system of Judaism, which what's a good practical definition for that for the people who are new to the faith?

They were trying to go... The old covenant, the old system. Yeah, because this verbiage in Colossians that says, you know, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy. This is Colossians 2, 8, which depends on human traditions...

and the basic elements of this world rather than on Christ. Well, that's the point. And I found like, James, we did a pretty good job. One thing we did a good job on was showing that even under the old system, from God's perspective, from Jesus' perspective, because he's always been, he is,

He was always in the system. They just didn't recognize it. They didn't realize it. And then many missed it even when he came, which is what he's trying to talk about here in these letters. What I was going to say about opening up the can, I was going to say, I always say, I mainly, 95% of the study I put in is in the Bible. I'd say 95%. And even when people speak,

I'm not a big fan of quoting other people that are not, that they don't have their name in the Bible. They're like, so-and-so said, I've never heard of so-and-so. And it's like a Bible verse that comes on the screen. And I'm like, what if he's wrong? You know, that, that's my take on it. So, and I don't like making categories, which is where me and Zach argue a lot over, uh,

you know taking a greek word the new testament was written in greek and then making like eschatology because i think most people don't use that in their everyday language which is talking about what happens in the end the end of times

And so I'm like, Zach's making big words. Great again. Well, I know I'm always a little careful of that because I feel like that becomes something like, like the rapture. I've, I've talked about that before. People say, what do you think about the rapture? And I'm like, well, I don't think that words in the Bible, but boy, and people, you don't have a fit when you say that they're like, well, it means called up and they go to first Thessalonians four.

But my underlying joke there, which they don't think is funny, is I'm like, always be careful when you take an issue, make it something kind of separate from the Bible that has all these legs and tentacles to it based on whichever denominational group. Basically, you're saying don't rupture over the rapture. Well, I'm just like, be careful when you get so far down an issue where it almost becomes detached from the focus of

of the Bible, which I believe is to God revealing himself in Jesus. There's a lot of things we can talk about, you know, but, and I always go back to this same argument in the book of Acts, it was a proclamation of Jesus first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles, and then all the people around in the surrounding areas, just like he said to go and do in Matthew 28, when Jesus told his disciples to do that, it wasn't,

you know, a lot of apologetics and arguments. There are some references, you know, Acts 17, Paul kind of came to a group and kind of based on the creation, what you see, he uses some of those things. But when you read it in its totality, it was an introduction to who Jesus is and what he did, what he's doing and what he will do that. And people responded. But I think, I think that's a fair, a fair caution. Yeah.

That's my caution. Thank you. Well, I'll say this. The second episode that actually went, and by the way, it's called Not Yet Now Podcast. You can look it up on anywhere podcasts are heard or on YouTube under Dasher Zach, Z-A-C-H. But the second episode, because I thought about that when we finished the first one, we quoted a lot of people. I do like to quote other authors, mainly because

I get ideas from them and I don't want to plagiarize their material. So I want to give credit where credit's due. But somebody recently told me, we handled this in the second podcast. Someone was telling me a story when they went to seminary and they would sit around and have these discussions and they would quote,

Luther, Calvin, whoever. I mean, name the church father, Augustine. And every time they would, their professor, during the debate, he would force them. He's like, well, hold on. You just quoted somebody. Quote a scripture to back it up.

And if you couldn't quote the scripture, they said this guy would just decimate you or may make you feel so small. And he said, but that trained me in my training that as I'm quoting philosophers, as I'm quoting other thinkers, as I'm quoting writers, I better be able to back this up with the scripture itself. And so I do think that everything that when we do talk about other people,

pastors, theologians, philosophers, whatever, anybody, these ideas are all great, but they should be able to be supported in the scripture that God inspired by his Holy Spirit. If they can't be, then we really need to... Which I'm glad, I'm glad Jay's brought it back 17 because we've talked about that, but I agree with what you both said.

It is the exception, not the rule. There is an exception that sometimes we talk philosophy. I mean, the Holy Spirit of God still lives in people, so people do say things that will impact you. But the rule is if we can't find it in the Scripture, then probably we should really take a serious look on the validity of it. Yeah, going back to our argument, which I don't want to call it an argument because—

I wasn't real sure what Zach was talking about. He was pushing back, but I was... Because, and here was my illustration. I'm not sure we did it on the podcast. Maybe it was right after it ended. But I was like, I'm not sure what part you were disagreeing with me about. And Zach made a statement. He said, well, you were pushing baptism regeneration. Baptismal regeneration. Well, there you go. I can't even remember how it was pronounced. Well, see, to my ears...

I have no idea what you're talking about. I got crickets on that. I've never, it's not a biblical term. I've never read that. I didn't, I'm not familiar with it. And now I'm like, well, now you're putting me into a box that I didn't even know was a box. Cause I have no idea what that means. And so that's what I'm uncomfortable about. Cause I'm like, I asked you to, but I asked you the question. I clarified. And by the way, this is for those listening, this is a healthy way for families to work through conflict. Yeah.

I hope so. Well, because we've been doing it for 50 years. Well,

Put you in the podcast and Jay's like, I don't know, Zach. You may want to go take everything you said out of the – Well, I recommended when I thought you were saying – because we were agreeing. And I disagree with what Jay said because a lot of what Zach was saying, a lot of people think that's true. You were disagreeing with what I said? No, what you said to Zach about cutting it out because I'm like, no, leave it in because a lot of people –

Say that same thing Zach was thinking we were saying, but that's not what we were saying. We don't believe in baptism. Well, I don't even know what it is. I know what it is, and that's not what I believe. Well, that's the problem I'm saying when you go down to come up with these phrases that somebody came up with in a seminary.

So what I was going to say is, you know, I go back to Acts 4. You remember when Peter, you know, and they said, we're unschooled ordinary men, but we've been with Jesus. And there's so many of those examples in the New Testament. Well, the road to Emmaus, why he was with us, where our heart's not burning. Well, exactly. And even Paul to the Corinthians, he was like, we didn't come to you with wise and persuasive words. You know, we're not...

trying to interject human wisdom here to negate the power that is in the gospel. I mean, the power of Jesus, when we are talking, and look, I'll go back to this, the football player who responded. I mean, the next day he was up in front of a group of kids and he has sent me a hundred texts

Since then, Bible versus sin, what does this mean? What does this mean? What does this mean? Last night, because his time is two hours ahead of me. I was fixing to go to bed, and it's like, I've been studying this. He's just getting started. It's the fire hose in the mouth, and he's getting it all. But even the next day, it was powerful. I mean, he's learning the Bible now.

What did he do? He just shared Jesus and how he responded to a bunch of young people. That was powerful. And look. You didn't have to know, you know, the whole. And here's the thing, Jason. He probably didn't even know how many books were in the Bible. That will be powerful 25 years from now. Exactly. Even when he knows a lot more Bible. He knows a lot more about, you know, what, how the, how the old system worked and the new system, the power is still in that freshness moment.

of a changed life. I mean, that's why we still get excited about that. I mean, every Sunday when I see people come to Christ or, you know, or in some other setting at any time during the week, I mean, it, it does something. I'm excited. It does something to me and I've been doing this for 50 years. I'll say this, the context of, of what we were discussing, I think that is a key point here that, cause even in discussing it, this is how dangerous, uh,

And crafty the devil is that even in discussing the text that says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition. Like even in discussing that, like we can get so caught up in the philosophy of the captive philosophy that you miss the point of what he and who he's pointing you to. So I think that.

I actually hear the warning, receive the warning, and also would say that what I hope to do in my podcast and what we're doing here, what I hope to do in my ministry and our ministry, I do hope that as we're analyzing and talking about the philosophies of this world that are based on human tradition,

I hope that what we're doing is we're learning them to deconstruct them so that we can point people to Christ and show the emptiness of these human philosophies. Because they are empty. That's what it says here. So there is a call here, an action, that he's saying, like, be aware of these philosophies.

hollow and deceptive philosophies is I think the NIV was what the NIV says. See to it that no one takes you captive by these philosophies that are empty and they're deceitful. They're based on human tradition according to the elemental spirits of the world. So there's something demonic in it and not according to Christ. And so that's the switch there here. For in him, the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. In other words,

He's not in the hollow and deceptive philosophies. God's not there. The thing that you're looking for, that longing in your heart, what your heart is indexed toward that you're trying to fill, what Paul's saying is it's not going to be found in these other things. It's only going to be found in Christ, where the fullness of deity actually dwells in a body.

so jace if we've learned anything from this past election it's how important it is for us to fight to protect the lives of the unborn yeah and whenever you know you hear these arguments and all these things the bottom line is there is a human inside a mother's womb with a heart beating which will grow into a human

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- Yeah, and you're right, Zach. And he's gonna later, 'cause I think we read through 15 in the last podcast, but in 16, he's gonna pick up on just what you were saying, and he's gonna mention religious festivals, celebrations, Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ. So he's gonna reiterate the point you just made after talking about these physical things, that it's this idea that it's gotta be linked to Christ.

And that's sort of the reset to back when we were talking about the last podcast, because we were talking about circumcision, because that's what Paul brings. That was the illustration he used was circumcision. But he made the point, as Jace dove into, that even way back when circumcision was a physical mark of the covenant, you read in Deuteronomy, the couple of passages you read, it was always a heart situation, even though it was a physical mark.

A circumcision is the foreskin of a man. There was always a spiritual connection to the idea. Which is what the Lord's Supper is too, though. Correct. I thought Jace's point was actually great. And you don't hear this point a lot when talking about baptism in the church. You don't hear this. You really don't hear the point that he made in connecting it. And Jace didn't really make the point. Paul did. But connecting it to circumcision.

We went back and looked at Genesis 17 and Genesis 12, for that matter, to look at what was circumcision, how was it connected to the covenant, and it was a sign of the covenant. But it's the cutting off of. But typically when you hear about baptism, it's like an expression of your faith is how I've heard it preached or taught, or it's like a testimony, a public testimony to the church. But we are missing the point of what baptism is. Romans 6 says,

which I think you brought up in the last podcast, there is baptism does what it is. It is a dying to self. It's an old man that's like dying and he's being buried in the grave, which the water symbolizes the grave and a new creature is coming up. So it symbolizes a death. It symbolizes a burial.

And it symbolizes a resurrection, a new birth, which is what the gospel of Christ was. It's really a funeral, Zach. I mean, it's a funeral. That's the concept. And a birth. And a birth at the same time, which is why I said it was like, I've compared it in the past to weddings.

Because it's the death of the individual and the rebirth now of a union of two people living their lives together. That's what a wedding is. It symbolizes it. Like in the movie The Blind, that scene where Phil is talking with Pastor Bill, and he says, man, everything I've touched has turned to dirt. And Pastor Bill goes, well, you know what I would do if everything I touch turned to dirt?

And Phil's like, what's that? He's like, well, I'd quit touching stuff. And it's like this hilarious moment in the film. And one of the few funny moments, we probably could have added more humor. But Phil's question back to Pastor Bill was, well, how do I do that? I mean, how do I not touch anything? I'm a human being. I want to touch stuff. And then the response is, well, you got to die, Phil. You got to die because everything you touch turns to dirt.

You got to quit touching stuff. The only way you're going to quit touching stuff is if you die.

And then not only that, Zach, just to continue on with your analogy because it's so good. Whenever the guys show up to go out for another round, let's go back and get our party on, Phil. He says, hey, the guy you're looking for, he's dead. He's dead and gone. He's dead and gone, which is that power of then you can touch things, which, of course, Dad's been doing for 50 years, and it brings life. Which is why Peter says –

that it saves you by the resurrection because you quit touching the stuff because that guy dies. New man's born. He's resurrected with Christ. And now he can touch stuff because it's Christ in him, which goes back to Colossians. The whole point is Christ in us. That's good. I'll tell you. So here's a funny thing that happened. So after I thought maybe we had an argument or whatever, and I 95% of the time I say the Bible, but I,

I like a lot of N.T. Wright stuff about the kingdom. And so I ordered a bunch of his commentaries only when I found out, because I've listened to him speak, and look, the guy's over my head. I have to have the Bible and a dictionary to listen. And a bottle of Tylenol. But he did some commentaries, and it's basically...

Like the one I'm recommending here is Paul for everyone. Now there's an irony there. He's one saying Jesus is for everyone, but he dumbs down his jargon in the commentary for simple minded people to understand. And I love it. And I just use it sometimes to go and read and say, well, let me see what he thinks about this. If there's an area of conflict, not that I'm,

agreeing with every one of his assessments at the time. And even about baptism, I had no idea what he thought. But I wanted to go look because I thought, at the end of the day, I don't want to be saying something that's wrong. But I wanted to read what he said because when I read this, I thought, well, that's probably what I should have said. I mean, that was my initial take of this.

And he was a lot more than we did, giving the context, saying evidently there was a Jewish audience here that was having trouble believing that Jesus was... Because he wouldn't have used circumcision as an analogy had they wouldn't even know what it was. Well, and you know what he actually said? Now, you can take this for what it... He's a scholar, so...

That word that says take captive, before I read what I was going to read. So look, I'll read you this before I read what he said about the baptism. But he actually said that that word for take captive in verse 8 is a word that is like almost exactly synagogue. Let's see if I can pronounce this. Synagogan. And his opinion was that since he was addressing

since he was addressing the Jewish audience here who were putting their faith in Judaism, he's like, he took a word that sounded like synagogue almost exactly. He's like, but it's hard for us to do that in English because we would never get the point. Now look, he's a scholar. This was his opinion. But he said they literally knew that he was viewing that as a negative thing. To go back to the synagogue worship,

and defy Jesus. So I just thought that was interesting because when we get to verses 13 and 14 and 15 and 16, you're going to see he starts relating this, you know, about the Sabbath and law keeping. Right. He's like, you're trying to go back under that system. So,

The point I wanted to read is what he said about this, about the circumcision, because I made a presentation about it. The common bond to me is the promise. It's in Acts 2.38 when the first sermon Peter preached, and they responded. The Spirit had been poured out.

And it says they repented and were baptized, every one of them, in the name of Jesus. They received God's Spirit, and it said the promise is for you and your children. So I see that even in Ephesians 2 when he says it's by grace you've been saved. In verse 11, he starts talking about the promise and that Jews and Greeks are coming together.

And we're going to see that in chapter 3 when he says, look at your identity. Now, there's neither Jew nor Greek. We're all in Christ, you know, male or female. Look, he does the same thing, Galatians 3. That whole book is about trying to make circumcision, your identity into the Jewish nation, adding that to the gospel. And boy, he vehemently got on that.

But you remember what's right in the middle of Galatians 3? That same identity thing. You were all baptized into Christ. You put on Christ. There's neither male nor female. And by the way, in the Galatians text, and the same as in Romans 4, talks about Abraham. What made Abraham great? The fact that he was the first one to ever be circumcised or his faith? Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, his faith is what made him great, not the fact that he was a person. Galatians 4 brings up that very thing. Exactly. Same thing. So after saying all that, I wanted to read what he said because I said usually I don't do this, but Zach forced me to go to a commentary, and now I'm reading from it. But I just thought he's – See, Zach? Not yet now. You're already working him over. I tell you, guys. I tell you. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.

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Well, this is a little lengthy, but I want you to get his point, and I encourage you to read it, his whole take on Colossians. But he says, this is N.T. Wright, what's the name of this? Call for Everyone, The Prison Letters.

If you possess Jesus, because he goes back to that Christ in you before that, therefore you are already fulfilled in him and no rule or authority can go, as it were, over his head and impose itself on you. He is the head of them all. The church in our own day still needs to recapture the vision of the supremacy of King Jesus over all authority.

This is good, right? And in particular, the point of immediate relevance to Paul's young churches, if Galatia has anything to go by, that's why I brought up Galatians, you don't need to get circumcised. Why not? Because you already have been. In the only sense that really matters, the true circumcision, Paul boldly declares, isn't what people do physically to a male body.

It's what happens when you're buried with the king, King Jesus, with the king in baptism and also raised with him through God's power. Paul will shortly explain more about what that means. For the moment, the main point is that instead of, as in circumcision, putting off a small piece of physical flesh,

baptism, and he has in a parenthetical after the word baptism, the mode and sign of entry into the Christian community from the very earliest days to the present,

now back to his sentence, is all about putting off an entire way of life, an entire sphere of existence. It means dying to the world and coming alive to God's new one. How can people who have already done that ever suppose they need to go back and do something extra, something trivial by comparison?

I thought, well, that's probably what I should have said. That's well said. Because you see what he's saying? He came at the same vein I was. They were using circumcision as the way to identify themselves as God's people. But even God made it about the heart. He's like, even though you did this physically, you could have done that.

and not really loved your fellow people or love God, which happens even when it comes to modern-day baptism. A lot of people just go down there and get wet. It's nothing like you said, Zach, magical about the water. But those who understand who Jesus is and that he saves you ultimately, I think it's the opposite of a work. It's the opposite of a ceremony. It's the opposite of a ritual.

It is a surrender in death and burial in the power of God working. And Christ cuts off this sinful heart that's kind of the center of our decision-making process and our life.

Under the elements of the old Adam world, we become new creations, which is why at the end of Galatians, he winds all that up saying neither circumcision

or uncircumcision means anything. What counts, you remember what he said, is a new creation. Yeah, that's it. Man, that is so good. I think that is the part I think that is missed in a large chunk of history

teaching on baptism is we leave out the whole point, which is a new creation. And it flows directly into what we're talking about here, because what's happening here is they're putting the emphasis on the shadow things instead of the reality that's found in Christ. And where is Christ found? According to Ephesians and here, according to Colossians 1 and 2, Christ is found in you now.

So if the reality is found in Christ, then that means now the reality is found in you because Christ is in you because you're a new creation. And it's not focusing on just the external things. And that's where all these things that they're dealing with here, they're all external, like the new moon or a Sabbath. Is it a good idea to rest at the Sabbath? Absolutely. I think it's part of God's plan for our life.

But like all of these things, but if you focus on that,

And you focus on what you could eat, what you can drink, which in their case was a kosher diet, a festival, a new moon, a Sabbath. His point is you've missed the whole thing. You've missed the substance of what this is all about. The substance is found in Jesus. Another point here that I was going to make, I didn't get a chance to make in the last podcast, is the reason he uses this illustration and the reason he uses baptism as an illustration is because of availability.

I mean, you think about it, circumcision was only a man circumcised.

I mean, it doesn't apply to women. And yet you had women of faith all throughout whose hearts had been turned to God all the way through time. But we think about this, when you think about Jesus, when you think about what he's brought to us, neither Jew nor Gentile, because Gentiles didn't practice circumcision, but now anybody can get into Christ. Man or woman, sex is irrelevant. Gender. Gender.

Proper or common, so no matter where you are in society, irrelevant. Smart or dumb, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter your intelligence level. We understand who Christ is, we're embracing him. So just the availability question in what we're reading in the text is a big part of what we're talking about. And I think that's why he uses those two illustrations. Anyone has an opportunity. It doesn't matter what man-made division is there. We're all about, we see that in our culture.

We're saying in Christ, all can be brought together and new lives can be formed. I mean, it's just a recreation. So having said all that, I think the first argument people would bring up, and I hate doing this, but this is just the way we are as followers of Jesus. We have a certain number of policemen in each group, you know? Yeah.

So because people would then come to me and say, okay, Jace, that was great. You and NT Wright, you know, agree on this. But when you look at the practical things of the group that he's with, they also baptize infants. And I, you know, the group I'm with, we do not. Now it doesn't bother me that people baptize infants. I'm just giving you my opinion here because I think the parents are

are trying to do something that's good. So it's no big deal to me. But I believe that infants who are just born are sinless. I believe they're innocent. Now, I realize there's religious people who disagree with that. But I'm just telling you for the sake of argument, where here I'm lining up with this, but then people say, well, they're baptizing babies. Because I've spent a lot of my life in Bible studies

when people grew up and understood what sin was and then understood who Jesus is, came to me and said, look, my parents baptized me before I even could. I don't even have any memory of it. But now I know I want to surrender to Jesus. Even the fellow that I baptized the other night, he brought that up. He was like, my parents told me I had some kind of conversion thing.

But I think I need to do this. And so I think you find a balance in practicality on these types of things. I mean, we're not all going to line up on that. But I wanted to be fair and bring that up because that's what the problem with going to other people, you know, for like he wrote a commentary and there's like, would you believe this?

You guys remember the game? It wasn't really a game. It was just something back in the 90s we used to say. We were all six degrees from Kevin Bacon, and the idea was that everybody is. I've never heard that phrase, and I don't know who. You've never heard six degrees to Kevin Bacon. Is it six degrees? Maybe it's seven degrees. I like bacon. Do you know who Kevin Bacon is? No. He was in the first Footloose. I remember that.

Yeah. Well, anyways, we're all six degrees. The idea for those of you who may not, it's a little thing called Kevin Bacon, Jay's pop culture. Let me ask you, let me put it like this. What book did he write in there? I don't remember. Did he write a book in the Bible? Yeah. I represent and fill there. Um,

But we're six degrees away from anybody. I mean, and so like, I, I hate, I hated that when like we live in a world where you quote somebody and all of a sudden you're taking on all of their, you don't have to. And that was my point. Yeah. And I think that's a, I think that's a good point on the baptism front though. I think that it's, it's important to under, to, to again, like, let's go back. Cause I would agree with you on infant baptism. Um, because mainly because baptism, if you see it as a new creation, um,

And water baptism, I do think, is a symbol of a spiritual baptism of a new creation. But it is a new creation and particularly happens through worship.

Are being able to pledge a good conscience towards God because we're connected with Christ now. And so my conscience that I'm claiming is clean. The conscience that I bring before a holy God, because it says we're enemies in our mind and a previous part of Colossians that we were. So I can't go to God because I'm an enemy in my mind. I know that I'm guilty.

So my conscience is not clean. So in order for me to go to God, then my conscience has to be cleaned up. I got to deal with that. But I can't deal with it because I know my sin. I know what's in my heart. The only way I can deal with it is if I can claim the conscience of Christ, if I can claim his righteousness that has been imputed to me. So I claim the righteousness not of me. I claim the righteousness of Christ because I've been connected with him since

through baptism, right? Baptism is that I'm connected with Christ and that I'm dying to myself, being buried and raised a new creation, resurrected with him. And here's what Peter says about that when it comes to baptism. He says, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the body, but here it is, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.

Through the resurrection of Christ. So the problem I have with the infant baptism thing is that I don't know how a baby can, I'm just trying to reconcile this. How does a baby appeal to God for a good conscience? He's not making a decision. Well, he doesn't. We agree, but I don't, what I'm saying is I always err on the side of grace and I'm not going to,

you know, walk out of the building or like, you know, it's like, well, look, and I even a good little stretch of that. Jace, we had, uh, in Katrina back was what? 2005 when we had a terrible hurricane and it pushed all these people up from new Orleans. And so we wound up having people that lived with in our church building at first, but then later moved into our houses. And then another hurricane, they just came up and came straight into our house. We got to know these folks, uh,

uh they were they were catholic we were not but we we shared in this moment of kind of what zach's been going through a great moment so when they had baptized a couple of their babies they wanted me to come down and lisa to be a part of that and we went oh yeah because we loved it like yeah i'm saying like it wasn't like i didn't agree with it doctrinally or how i view things but i love this family so much i was like

You bet. It's a beautiful dedication. I've been to them. I've been to them. And look, when people are searching, which is- It led us, by the way, to have a lot of conversations about that and a lot of other things as well. I totally agree. And I even have had many discussions with people, and it doesn't bother me. And I see where they get it from. They get it from Jesus' baptism, because they're like, well, he was innocent. Right. Yeah.

And why did he do it? You know, that's another story. Well, I'll say this, our church, we dealt with this at our church when we first planted our church, because we came from a lot of different, the leadership came from different theological perspectives and backgrounds. And so we were like, we really held loosely a lot of our, you know, what we were going to, where do we stand on, on baptism? Obviously you guys know how I grew up and, um,

And we had people in our church that were baptized as infants that were clearly filled with the Holy Spirit. And we were like, what do we do here? And we just landed on, you know what? We're going to teach believers baptism as a church. And we do. If you come in, you need to know we're going to teach that. This is our position as a church. If you were baptized as an infant and your conscience is good with that, we're not binding this on you. This is what we're teaching. This is where we're going. But at the same time, we do believe that. That's what I was going back to earlier.

on the idea that Christ does save us. And it's not baptism that saves us, it's Christ that saves us. I do think it's important, though, for us to remember the point that he's making in Colossians is he's connecting, he is connecting this to a new creation in us and that Christ enters in and lives inside of us. And that's the reality that enables us

to forego and stand against and be able to withstand the temptation that comes from these human philosophies, which are wise and persuasive. That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, right? These are wise and persuasive arguments, and they're intoxicating at times. But it's only going to be the fact that the Spirit indwells us

that enables us to withstand it. And even because sometimes these things look religious. And I was thinking about that in the text here when he goes on to say, he goes into this kind of weird transition in verse 18. He says, let's read the next part first. Well, you get to, can we? Yeah. Yeah. I only got a few minutes.

So he says that, and before we get to 18, in 11 and 12, you know, he's like, in him you were circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with the circumcision done by the hands of men, but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. Then this section says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful flesh,

God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us instead opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And when he says that...

think the effects of the written code, because that was the real catch. It wasn't that the written code was bad, it's that we were bad. We couldn't keep it. All right, and I'll read the last four. Let me read my translations. Canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. There you go. All right, then it says, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them.

triumphing over them by the cross. What is your version? Yeah, read 15. That's 15. Yeah, same thing. Disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Hmm.

Which is a crazy, I mean, this is a tough read if you don't stop and think about what he's saying. So he's like, you don't have to be circumcised. This is a heart thing that you surrender to. And that's why they were preaching Jesus and baptizing people. That's why this was happening. And so then he gets to the law next, which I'm sure...

They were like, what is he talking about? I'm sure this was the hardest part. Cancel the written code or what was yours? The legal indebtedness? The debt. Remove the legal debt. And I think it goes back to what, when Jesus set this, where's that word? I think it's Matthew 15. You remember when he ran up on about the clean and the unclean?

Following of traditions and keeping laws. You remember in Matthew 15, I think it's a good place to read. It says some Pharisees, now we're talking about teachers of the law, and the Jew elite, the system of Judaism elite, they came to Jesus in Matthew 15 from Jerusalem and said,

Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat. Because you've got to remember in Colossians 2 here, he brought that up, that these philosophies that are based on human traditions, and now he's taking on circumcision, which he attacked in the church at Galatia, which Colossae was not very far from Galatia. But this just shows you an example of how they thought

Jesus replied, and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? What an answer. For God said, honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death. But you say that if a man says to his father and mother, whatever help you might otherwise have received from me as a gift devoted to God, he is not to honor his father with it. So he's kind of turning the way they're rationalizing the law, and then he says,

This, you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, with their hearts far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men. Jesus called the crowd to them and said, listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth.

And so then he goes to the end, which I wanted to read, because he's going to get into this in Colossians 3. Peter said, he starts talking about blind guides, and if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall in a pit. And Peter said, explain this to us. Jesus said, are you still so dull? Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out the body, but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart?

And these make a man unclean. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These...

or what makes a man unclean. But eating with unwashed hands, does it make him unclean? I know that was a long read, but in the context of Colossians 2, when it says that, don't you realize Jesus circumcised your heart? He put to death that old fleshly, the man that's trying to follow the rules and the traditions, like somehow you're going to be good enough to make it.

And then he's saying, when you were dead, God has made you alive. It says, you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful heart. God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. And having counsel with it,

the written code with his regulations that was against us instead of opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. So it's like you say, why did you go through all of that? He's saying, you don't have to be under that law. I've won this for you. I mean, they should have just said, oh.

That's great. Wow. I don't have to keep all the rules. Well, I think there's even something a little deeper on it that he's saying that you don't have to keep the law. He's saying that he's reframing the law. Like, think about when you were reading the passage just then, it was Mark. I was thinking of Mark 2 when they were taking the Sabbath and they were

They were holding that tradition of the Sabbath up over actually helping people. And you can't help people because that's actually a work. And it's insane. And Jesus says to them something so profound. He says,

The Sabbath wasn't made, the man wasn't made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. I created this. I gave you this to help you and you're turning it into something. You've missed the whole point here. And so what's happening in this moment in Colossians is he's bringing all of this together in Jesus and saying, you've missed the whole thing. You turned it into a legal, you turned it into a record of debt.

with a legal demand. And what I'm doing by the cross, or what Christ did by the cross, is he nailed all that aside. He nailed that, destroyed that whole way of thinking, disarmed rulers and authorities, and he put them to open shame because he triumphed over them in him. And the result is freedom. That's the result.

Well, and they were oppressing people with the law. The leaders, if they caught you breaking the law, they'd stone you. They're policing people. So that's why what Jesus introduced. But then he called the policemen the hypocrites because he was like, you're not even holding the standard to yourself. Well, that's what Romans is all about. None of us could keep the law. We realized in that process our need for the grace of God.

And because of that grace, we can love other people and extend them grace because of what Jesus has extended to us. That's why he summed up the law by saying, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Because everything about God is good. And even his love endures forever. And love your neighbor as yourself because, one, you realize they're just an old sack of sin like I am. I mean, and they're going to break the law. And this is...

You don't like it or not, because people have tendencies, I think. People like having policemen in the church, and I don't mean the guy with the badge. You mean the heretic police. Yeah, I'm talking about, well, yeah, people who are trying to. Church police. Yeah, the church police. They want to enforce the law and the legal system and the rules. And somewhere, in this case, in Colossae, that was going on, and they missed the wonderful thing.

uh, you know, power of being in Jesus and what he has to offer. And look, and the truth is like on a podcast like this, we've done a thousand episodes or so. If the police come and they start peeling through a thousand hours of content, here's what I can guarantee. You're going to find, you're going to find, we got it wrong a few times. Citizens arrest, citizens arrest, find guilt, which is what you find with all human beings.

Yeah, imperfect. Yeah, but God has saved us. He nailed that to the cross. I'm glad I don't have to fill out a sheet as far as rule keeping when I stand before God. Yeah, and it comes down, Zach, you said it earlier, and I wanted to comment on then the word decision.

When you make the decision to go all in, we talk a lot about that with people. And when Lisa shares this in front of audiences, she was baptized to get into the Robertson family when she was 18 years old. That's how she looks at it now, looking back. She did not make a decision to go all in for Jesus. So guess what happened? First 15 years of our marriage was very difficult.

Until finally she made a decision to allow Christ to circumcise her heart. And you know what happened? In my backyard, you know, with just her laid out before the Lord and she's cried out and rescued, Lord, rescue me. I need you.

So the moment of decision is that. And you can be all around it. You can be listening to sermons. You can be sitting in church Sunday. You can be rule keeper, rule enforcer. You can be part of groups that do that. And you can miss Jesus. And you do not want to do that, which to me is the whole point of what we're talking about in Colossians.

And in Colossians 2. Well done. All right, so we're out of time. See how we got that all solved, Zach? If I lived next to you guys, Jace, I would invite you over for dinner tonight and cook for you and just be your cousin. I would say, what exactly are you fixed to cook?

It's going to be a hamburger with American cheese on it. I know we're out of time, but I will say this. The audience, again, they showed up. I'm just telling you, a lot of people. My daughter says you're right. One of my daughters. A lot of people have agreed with me on that one. The one who is classically trained as the chef says you're correct. Always remember, if you're taking up for that cheese slice, you could be in denial.

All right. We'll try to do better next time on 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.