S1:E3 "Hope, Wealth, & Power"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Do. Welcome. Welcome to the third episode of the Gathering House postscript podcast. I'm Brad Stewart. I'm with Joe Olinger and Phil Campbell and we are jumping back into another episode here continuing our study in Ephesians number. Pretty exciting stuff. Number trace. That's for our Spanish speaking audience. Not very good at Spanish, actually. When I was in Spain back in September, I went to go order and I really might. You know, my grandfather, he was from, well, his family was from Spain. He was first generation here, Spain. Spanish was his first language. And so I thought I could fake it over there. And I was like, I'm going to see if I could do this. And so I sat down at a restaurant and I started ordering and can't just picture this. The waiter goes, english? I said, yeah, I speak English. He goes, let's do that. Turns out my Spanish is not very good. [00:01:25] Speaker C: Ordering chicken feet and whatever. [00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, good stuff. If you're just getting going with us here on the post script podcast, we round table discussions about our Sunday morning sermon topics. And so we're going through the book of Ephesians and today is in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 15 to 23. And in the future, we've talked about this before, we're going to be doing ministry highlights. This was not planned, but I do have my mission serve hoodie on who is our missions partner. We went on a missions trip this year. We went to Memphis, Tennessee and man, you know what we should do guys, is have some of the people on who went on that mission trip. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:16] Speaker B: And share some of their stories because wow. Absolutely. Wow. God did some cool stuff and what a wild experience. And then this upcoming year we are going to Huntsville, Alabama. So I'm looking forward to that. [00:02:30] Speaker C: And mission trips are awesome. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah, they are. [00:02:34] Speaker A: They really are. [00:02:35] Speaker B: I'm kind of a NASA nerd too. I like space. If I wasn't going to be a pastor or a musician, I think I would have rather been an astronaut. So, you know, Huntsville is kind of a big, big town for that. So yeah, so we're going to Huntsville, Alabama. So shout out to mission serve. Thanks for all that you guys do. And we'll be doing more ministry highlight stuff. And also as a reminder, if you go to info at thegatheringhouse church, that's not go to but you can email info at thegatheringhouse church. We would love your questions or your comments on the things that we're talking about and if you have questions about some of these podcasts and we can take those on we would love to be able to do that. And they may not even be related to what we're talking about, and we're okay with that, too. We would just love to continue our conversation with you. So that's our housekeeping stuff. I would love to jump into prayer before we kick off this episode here. Either one of you guys want to pray before we jump in? You want to fail? [00:03:47] Speaker C: Sure, Lord. We thank you for this time, God, that we can discuss these topics, Lord, and discuss further in your word. We just ask, Lord, that you would be with us, God, and that your words would be heard through us, God. And we don't want to get in the way, God. We just. We just want to discuss it, Lord, with the. With the right mindset and the right words and just ask you to bless it now and bless everyone that's watching Jesus name. Amen. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Amen. That's it. I just want to get out of the way. That's one of the favorite things when we pray on Sunday mornings. Get them out of the way. Just get me out of the way, Lord. Just don't let me be a roadblock here. I feel that way today. All right, guys, we're jumping into Ephesians, chapter one, verse 15 to 23. The first two episodes. We didn't even make it past 14. I think we did three to 14 kind of twice. So let's keep moving here. Phil, would you like to kick us off with some reading? [00:04:50] Speaker C: I just love reading. This is good for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all ruler, rule, and authority, and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Amen. [00:06:04] Speaker C: A little bit of authority There. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Yes, we can just go ahead and wrap this one up. [00:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Any questions? [00:06:10] Speaker B: Wild. So there's a few real. I mean, we could. We could be in here on a lot of different things, but the. There's this one thing that's kind of jumping out at me. Oh, I should say three things. But it starts in verse 18. Verse 18 and 19 specifically. But I want to make sure we have the context around it. Verse 18 is talking about. So Paul's praying for the believers. He's like, my prayer for you, right, Is having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope of which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might? So in a lot of ways, you break it down. It's three things. Hope, wealth and power. Right? And Paul's like, my prayer is that you understand, you know, this. Well, we'll start with hope, this hope that he's called you to. Right. And I, And I spent some time thinking about this and praying about it, meditating on it, and the idea of hope, right. Like in 21st century America, the idea of hope is. It's sort of like a wish, you know what I'm saying? I just. I would like for this to come true. Yeah. You know, it'd be really great if it did. It's sort of like how people hope to win the lottery or, you know, boy, I hope someday I can retire on a beach in Mexico. You know what I'm saying? Like that's. It's this wish or a want. But I. As. I've kind of done some word study on this in the Greek, there. It seems to be a stronger implication. You know, it's a. It's an anticipation or an expectation. You know, now none of us can tell the. Can tell the future, Right? Would we agree with that? Yes, most of the time, yeah, for the most part. But. But if I have this pen here, I think you guys can hopefully see it. If I were to let go of this pen, what's going to happen? Probably gonna fall. It's probably gonna fall. Now, look, we don't know without a, you know, who knows that maybe gravity turns off in the next five seconds. But, but life experience. I have a. I have an anticipation. I would bet my life savings that if I let go of this pen, it's gonna fall. I'm that confident in what I know and what I've Experienced. And so that's sort of the implication that as believers, the hope that we should experience when we experience God, when we experience Christ and the Holy Spirit's ministering to us and working with us, we should be living in this place that. That our hope in Christ is just as. As confident as this pen dropping onto the table. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, It's. It's a. It's an anticipation or, you know, by. [00:09:38] Speaker C: Definition, hope can be a verb. It can be a noun, which is rather interesting. [00:09:45] Speaker B: That is pretty interesting. [00:09:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:47] Speaker B: To cherish something. I had not gone that far in. Into the grammar part of it. [00:09:52] Speaker C: I guess I did a little bit. So if you. So as a verb, the first thing is to cherish. Cherish desire with anticipation, to want something to happen, which is what we already talked about. The second one of that is trust. Now, if you use it as a transitive verb, to desire with expectation of obtaining or fulfillment. But what I like is when you use it as a noun, it's a desire accompanied by expectation or belief and fulfillment. And I think that's. That's. [00:10:27] Speaker A: It's really a full picture of faith because you use two words, Descriptive effect. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Which. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Another word for that also would be a confidence that we have a confidence in knowing. You know, faith is a substance. You know, the substance of things. Hope for or the confidence. [00:10:48] Speaker C: Yes. [00:10:48] Speaker A: Of things to come. And so then you have trusting in the Lord with all your heart, leaning not unto your own understanding. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:56] Speaker A: And so faith is the idea or that we hope because Christ is our hope. We know Christ is going to come back. As believers, we have that confidence. But the full picture of that is, not only do I know that the pen is going to fall or not, not only do I know that Christ is coming back, but I can stake my life savings on. [00:11:18] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:11:19] Speaker A: I can literally fall because the trust, remember the trust fall. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Basically the same thing. You're like saying, God, I know you're coming back. I know you are who you say you are. So much so I'm willing to fall backwards in your arms in total, complete confidence that you're there. [00:11:37] Speaker B: Exactly. You know, our. Our experience in Christ should move us to a place where we can continually trust more. Because as we trust and God provides, we trust more. God provides. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Relational. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Right. It is totally relational. 100. [00:11:56] Speaker A: You know, you're with your wife or someone, the more you begin to trust them or not trust them. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. God will never let you down. Like. Like humans will. What I think is interesting, though, is that Paul, Paul goes, my prayer for you is that the hearts of your, the eyes of your hearts are enlightened. As if to make this statement that as believers, like, as believers, I think that hope should be kind of one of the first things that's associated to us because of the hope that we have in Christ. But, but there's, if Paul's addressing it and saying like, hey, I hope. My prayer for you is that the, the eyes of your hearts are enlightened to the hope that we have in Christ, there's an implication there that you can live a life in Christ without living in the hope of it, which is sad. You know what I'm saying? [00:12:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Or the idea of like, you know, when you're, when you're hoping in him and that grows and all of a sudden now it's this idea of that you're longing for him. Now it turns into this, it strengthens. And now it's like, it's so certain. Now the closer I get to this thing and closer I get to him is I'm like anticipating it. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:17] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [00:13:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:18] Speaker B: I think what happens is that, number one, as believers, you know, we're still human, right. And understanding the things of God, especially because we believe in an invisible God. Right. And learning to trust, that is an infinite task in our humanity. Right. And a lot of it. I would say the mass. Majority of our problem is my opinion on why we struggle with this is because of where we live. Right. And I, and I say that not like, not geographically where we live necessarily, but 21st century idea of sin. Right. That it's, it's a heart problem. It's something that we do and it's, it's, it's those things and it is those, like sin. We sin, right. We have a, a sinful nature that's biblical. But also I think what we don't teach enough of in the church is I'm going to, and I'm going to take a little rabbit trail here. Is this idea of sin being not just something that we do, not just a heart condition problem, but also a jurisdiction or a dominion or an authority that we live under, right. Pre Christ. So, so up until God gets ahold of us, we live our whole lives under the jurisdiction of sin. And I know that this might be a foreign concept to someone who's listening right now who's like, well, wait a second. I mean, when I think about sin, it's just that I did, you know, I took, you know, I stole money out of Grandma's wallet for whatever, or I beat up a kid at the playground or whatever. Whatever. Poor action, right? How we treat people in traffic can be sinful. And so I think, you know, those are most of the time what people associate sin with. And so I'm. I know that for some of you, this may be a new concept of the idea that we live under the jurisdiction of sin, but I think when we look in Scripture, oh, it's overwhelming the amount of times we see in Scripture where, Where it's referred to as. As a principality, as an authority. You know, you look at Romans, chapter 6, verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace, sin will have no dominion over you. That's. That's not. That's ruling over somebody, right? When you look at. Continue on in 16 and 18 in the same same chapter there, you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed, and having been set free from sin. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Have become slaves of righteousness. We were slaves to sin. Now we're slaves of righteousness, which we could do a whole side sermon on that. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Oh, dude. You know, the idea of, you know, being under the jurisdiction of the law, going back to Galatians 3. [00:17:06] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:07] Speaker A: That we were. Because of that, we were under the law, Paul says, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian, which is a type of prison. Right. We were under that jurisdiction of the law until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. And this is another rabbit trail for you. But justification, that word that we're justified in him as it pertains to the law, isn't that I paid the penalty and I did all that I had to do in order to get out and to wipe my name clear. But to be justified is as if I never sinned. What Christ did, as it pertains to that, freeing us from the jurisdiction of. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. So if we shift our mindset, not forgetting that it's something that we do, but also understanding that it's. It's something that we live. It's. It's a. It's a foreign country. So as believers now, you know, these scriptures are saying, you know, we've been set free, we're no longer slaves to sin anymore, right? We, we have, we have a new master, right? And, and we are no longer, we're no longer slaves to the jurisdiction of sin. You know, Philippians 3:20 says our, our citizenship, right? That's a, that's a picture of principality. Our citizenship is in heaven now. Now, now we're transfer, you know, transitioning from when we were before Christ, when we were under the jurisdiction of sin. Now Christ is Lord and under his lordship we become citizens in heaven. And from, from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? Then Second Corinthians says this thing that in, in 5:20, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. And I love the word ambassador because you know, doing, going overseas and stuff. One of the things that's most important is understand where your embassy is, right where your ambassador to that country exists. Because if you run into any problem on foreign soil, right? Back in September, I was in seven countries in Europe and it was, I had to know where every embassy was because, you know, everything thankfully went really smooth as we expected it to. But you want to know where that is, because if you can get to the embassy, right Then, then, then you're there, you're on U.S. soil, right? And you can deal with whatever you got to deal with. And so sometimes I think that we, we lose sight of this picture that the first century church really understood of the Kingdom of God, that we are ambassadors. You know, when people encounter us, they should be encountering heaven on earth. You know what I mean? We represent the kingdom of God in a foreign land and that foreign land is under the jurisdiction of sin. You know what I'm saying? [00:20:33] Speaker A: Foreigners just passing through. [00:20:35] Speaker B: And we live, guys, as a church. This is what Paul's I think telling Ephesus and I think it's relatable to us today. Not that I'm inserting us into the passage, but, but the truth of this is so, so good that Paul's like, man, my prayer for you is that the, the eyes of your hearts are enlightened to understand the hope that is in Christ. Stop living your life in constant expectation of what's going to happen because of living under the jurisdiction of sin. And start living under the expectation of what's going to happen because you're a child of God and you live as ambassadors for the Kingdom of Heaven. You are free from the jurisdiction of sin. You're not a slave anymore. Stop living like that. Stop living with that expectation, because even though you're saved, you're allowing yourself to be robbed of hope. Right. You know what I mean? Like, what a. What an incredibly powerful message that is. Yeah. Wow. And I, and I think that we're. We do that today. We sell ourselves short of what God. What God is capable of doing. And part B of this. I know I'm on a tangent, you guys, but bear with me. Part B of this is that often as a church, we forget that eternity begins the day that Christ gets a hold of you. Yes, we live. And I have talked to so many believers all over who are like, man, you know what, brother, we just got to go through this right now. But brother, someday I'm going to be in glory. And I'm going. [00:22:27] Speaker C: Glory now. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Right now. We don't have to. You don't have to wait to die to experience the hope that we have in Christ. The hope that we have in Christ, because the day that he gets a hold of us. Amen. Yeah, man, we don't know how to live. [00:22:44] Speaker C: Like, I'm thinking of Romans 8:12, right? Therefore, brothers and sisters, you're not obligated, right? So our first thought is, right, we're obligated. You're not obligated to that sinful nature anymore. Now you can have hope and you can walk away from that. That's really. It's not just a mindset. But it is a mindset, right? [00:23:10] Speaker B: Well, no, it's only a mindset. That's a great passage. I didn't even have it. My notes. And it totally fits perfectly here, this idea that we live as if we have an obligation to our former master, but that debt has been fully paid. Right. We have been bought at a price, and Christ blood paid for that in full. And so we have no obligation back to that foreign jurisdiction. Right. We are simply, we are here and we're not. That doesn't make us immune from the consequence of sin. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Right? [00:23:47] Speaker B: Right. I'm not saying that we go on and don't sin anymore. We still sin because of our sinful nature that still exists within us that's at war with our spirit. But we are no longer obligated. Like you said, we're no longer to say no. [00:24:07] Speaker C: I mean, really, if it's tempting you. Right. You have the authority to say no and walk away. [00:24:12] Speaker B: And we have hope of a savior that don't rescue us from. [00:24:16] Speaker C: A lot of people don't have that. I've heard people getting saved and they said, I didn't realize that I didn't have to do that. They just lived in sin, didn't know any better. Then one day their eyes were open and they saw it and they went, hey, I don't have to do that anymore. There's actually a different way, right, which is. That's been. It's revolutionary. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy. We got to start living, living real time in the hope that we have in Christ. So that's, that's. I think Paul's kind of first thing that he's saying here is, yeah, that's good. My prayer is that your, Your. The eyes of your hearts are enlightened to the hope that we have in Christ. Then he goes into the next part, which is talking about wealth. And it's an interesting, you know, and I'm not talking about financial wealth, but it says, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? I love this, I love this passage because in Ephesians, last week, last episode, we were talking about Ephesians 1, you know, it was 11 to 14. And the, the passage that, that we kicked it off with in verse 11 there says, you know, in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. So we have, we obtain an inheritance in Christ when God gets a hold of us, right? And we are like we talked about in the last episode, that's sealed by the Holy Spirit, right? But that's not what 18 says. 18 says, having the hearts of. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of which he has called you to and what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? His glorious inheritance. [00:26:35] Speaker C: His. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah, and I love, I love this, right? We are the inheritance of God. That's mind blowing to me. So not only do we have this incredible hope and security and confidence in Christ, but how valuable. And I will tell you guys in full transparency, I struggle with this idea because I don't, I don't know if I have a mental disorder or what, but I, I. My most of my life, I've really struggled with feeling any sort of value at all as a, as a human. So I struggle with the idea of, of feeling any kind of value. It's easier for me to see it in other people than it is to see it in myself, if that makes any sense. So I've tried, I've tried spinning this passage into saying it in any other way, but the reality of it is that the text says what it says, right? And what I've landed on is what the key is, is where the value comes from. Right. It's not because of what we've done. We don't make us valuable. I do not make me valuable. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Christ really showed that value. I mean, he looked at. Look at first Peter 1:18, that it wasn't with perishable things such as silver of gold, that redeemed you from the empty way alive, handed down to you by your ancestors, but by the precious blood of Jesus, the lamb of that blemish. So it's like this picture that the inheritance that he paid for, I mean, he really, to us, or to him, we were or are valuable because he was willing to give the most precious thing in order to purchase us back. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah, the value comes because of Him. Yes, right. When. When I was putting the value around, I. I stole a page out of your. Your book there, Joe, but I modified it a little bit. This is a authentic counterfeit $20 bill. And just kidding, I didn't know if you caught that or not. Now, this is. This is a $20 bill, right? And it's not counterfeit, so. FBI, don't knock down my door. The paper is worth nothing. It's not worth anything. The ink and the paper, it's not worth anything. What gives it its value is that the treasury has backed it and says that it's worth $20. Similarly with us, in and of ourselves, we're just. We're just dirt. You know what I mean? Breathing dirt. We don't have any. We don't have any value because of anything we've done. But what God has done is God's placed value in us. And because He's. He's called us valuable. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Yes, there's a story similar to that. When I heard years ago, it was. It was a story I think Jay Leno was sharing or someone was showing, talking about Jay Leno. Jay Leno is a collector of cars and bikes and pays all this money. And there was this man who was going around to these garage sales, right? And so he sees this old Harley Davidson. It was a. It was a clothing rack in some of the garage. [00:30:13] Speaker B: I know this one, by the way, but it's a great story. [00:30:16] Speaker A: It's so crazy, dude. [00:30:18] Speaker B: It. [00:30:18] Speaker A: He's like, hey, how much do you want for the bike? And the guy, well, it's not for sale, you know. And he goes, no, no, seriously. He's like, well, I'll just let you have it. He goes, well, let me give you something for it. And so the guy ended up taking 400 bucks for this old Harley Davidson. Wasn't running. He rolls it up in the back of his flatbed, takes it, and guy gets it home, and it ends up being his clothing rack for several even years. And one day he looks at it and he goes, you know what? I'm going to fix this thing up. So he calls a local Harley shop and he's like, hey, I need this and this and this and this. And he goes, well, can you give me the serial number on the bike so I know you're getting the exact thing that you need? And so he gives him the serial number, and the guy comes back on the phone and says, sir, can you repeat that? I think I misunderstood you. And so he gave him the serial number, and he goes, sir, I will give you $100,000 for that bike right now. And the guy's like, what? No, it's just an old ratty bike. You know, I'm just fixing it up. So the guy hangs up on it. And so he calls, and this happened several times, and the price kept kind of going up. And finally, Jay Leno contacts this guy and says, I will give you $400,000 for that bike right now. And he was like, you know, with all due respect, Mr. Leno, I mean, this bike is, you know, it's trash. I mean, you're a collector of fine things, and this is not a fine thing. And he goes. He goes, I want you to do me a favor, Jay Leno says. He goes, go over there and lift up the seat or look behind the seat, and I want you to look under there. And it says, the property of Elvis Presley. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. [00:31:55] Speaker A: The name, it was a ratio bike that was worthless and it wasn't running just like us. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's because of who it belonged to. Everything, right? Yep. [00:32:05] Speaker C: Yep. [00:32:05] Speaker B: Because of who it belonged to. And when we. When we belong to Christ, what value we have, the name changes, who are we? You know, who are we to say that we're not. There's no value in us? Right? [00:32:19] Speaker C: When he sees value, he sees value. [00:32:21] Speaker B: He called us his very inheritance. And I will tell you, it left me convicted. When I. When I did this study, it left me so convicted because it let. I had two questions that kept spinning around, kind of haunting in my head. The first being, if Jesus came back today, how do I feel about my life being presented to him as his inheritance? [00:32:48] Speaker A: And within the flip side of that, you have Paul. That's kind of this idea of like, I'm this dirty sinner, I Have no value except. But it was that same realization that his only value was price. He was just kind of talking about his own nature. And so I think when we. When we see our value, because I think there's a fine line there. Because then you have the extreme where people are like, well, I'm valuable. So it becomes almost an arrogant thing. [00:33:15] Speaker B: It's sort of like it goes back to in the last episode when we were talking about being grafted into the vine. And there can. You can approach that with arrogance and be like, look how awesome I am. I got grafted in. You Sure. I mean, you could try to, you know, puff your chest up and be like, you know, look how valuable I am. Because I'm God's inheritance to me. And I think what it should do for the believer is lower. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:44] Speaker B: You're like. Like, wow. I mean, the fact that. That the creator of the universe has placed this value in me and, oh, you know, now I gotta be like, what am I doing with this? [00:33:56] Speaker C: You know, I was just thinking about that today. It's been on my mind actually, a few days is, okay, we're here. What are we doing that's eternal? What are we doing? Right. When you pass away and you're. You're. Now you are there. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:12] Speaker C: What can God go like, okay, what'd you do? [00:34:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:16] Speaker C: You know, it's obviously relationship with Christ. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:21] Speaker C: I mean, to me, that's. That's the will of Christ, or the will for your life is to spend time with him and then he puts desires in your hearts to. To do things. [00:34:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:34] Speaker C: But how am I. How am I doing that? [00:34:36] Speaker A: And that goes back to the foundation of Christ. Right. Building upon the foundation. Yeah, it's the, the, you know, the judgment or the, the judgment seat of Christ. You know, that. What are you doing with what God has given you? Are you wondering, are you truly trying to build upon the foundation of Christ and being willing to tear it all down and start back from ground zero if necessary? [00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah. It's because it's not. We're not building. That's the thing is that building on the foundation of Christ, not building our own kingdom. Right. You know what I mean? And. But it's. It's a heavy. It's a heavy thing to sit with. [00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:14] Speaker B: If my life were to be presented today as his inheritance, you know, how do I feel about that? And probably the more important question is how do I feel about the way that I have treated his inheritance in relation to other people? You know what I mean? In particular, the Ones that require more attention, like the hungry, the suffering addict, the sick, the lonely, those who are, you know, forgotten about in prison and. And written off by society like those. I mean, how do. If I. If I were to meet God today, how do I feel about saying, hey, this is how I've treated your inheritance? Because now there's a value on other. More so there's a value on other people. [00:36:03] Speaker A: You know, and the thing about that is, I mean, we see that in scripture when, you know, you. You have this one group of people that are standing before God that are saying, lord, didn't I cast out demons in your name? Didn't I do all these wonderful things that he's going to say, depart from me, workers of iniquity. I never knew you. [00:36:21] Speaker C: Never knew you. [00:36:22] Speaker A: Then on the flip side, he says, then there are going to be those who are going to stand before him. He's like, when I was hungry, you fed me. When I. When you quote, you know, when I was naked, you clothed me. And he's like, and the disciples were. Or the believers are like, when did we ever do this? They were completely oblivious of that idea. All they were focused on is loving God. And by so doing that, you cannot love God and not love people. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Right? [00:36:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Yep. [00:36:48] Speaker A: And so by loving God, they were remembering the poor, but they were doing it without, like, any idea. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:54] Speaker A: Just simply doing what he told them to do. [00:36:56] Speaker B: It was up. He did it under them. [00:36:57] Speaker C: You did it unto me. Right. [00:36:59] Speaker B: It's an overflow of this relationship with God. And it just happened. It just happened. You know, and. And so it's. It's those two things for me, out of. Out of that were really convicting. It's definitely something that. And I just want to be. I want to be able to go to God someday and be like, lord, I lived in this hope that you. That you gave me from. From early on in my, you know, walk with you. And I. And I. I didn't take lightly the fact that you called me your inheritance or that you called others your inheritance. I did what I could to. To try to be faithful and. And treat your inheritance in. In a way that represents the love that I have for you, you know. [00:37:53] Speaker A: And then, man, Paul, you know, Paul is like, you know, I'm the chief of centers. [00:37:56] Speaker B: But then what did he write? [00:37:58] Speaker A: Timothy? He was like, I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith. Now there are weights for me. An eternal glory that far outweighs them. All. Right? So it's this idea that. That Paul Even though he saw his sinful nature, Paul could honestly say that I did fight a good fight. And I think that we should be able, at the end of our lives, be able to. To repeat exactly what Paul said, or at least we should be able to if we're doing this thing the right way. [00:38:28] Speaker B: I'm with you. Which leads us into the last thing, right? Because having the eyes of your heart enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you? What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And this last part, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might? Like, I almost feel. It's not. I don't want to say disingenuine, but it's maybe watered down a little bit that we. We call God author and creator and sustainer. Because we brush over. We say those words together because they sound good together, you know, but he is the author. He is the creator. He sustains. This whole universe is trying to kill us. You know what I mean? I have someone. I have someone close to me. I think I told you guys that. Someone close to me who is like, I believe in the. In the universe, and I just throw things out to the universe and I go, look at the universe. It's trying to kill you all the time. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Like, comes another comet. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It's hurling radiation at you right now. It's trying to murder you. Stop throwing things out to it. But. But the. But the immeasurable greatness of his power. I'll tell you guys a story. This is a true story. I was. There's an amazing ministry called Barnabas Ministries that has had a huge impact on me since I became a pastor. And what it is, is it's a support system for pastors. And there are. I meet with a group of pastors and we pray for one another, we talk about, you know, ministry stuff, but we just live life together. These guys have had a huge impact on me because when I first. My first time walking into this Barnabas group that I'm a part of, I. I had been pastoring the church for two weeks, and they. They've been with me since the beginning of this journey. [00:40:42] Speaker C: I'm grateful for all that experience. All that experience. [00:40:45] Speaker B: The person who. So. So my group is some local pastors here in the area. And. But there is. The guy who is. The head of Barnabas Ministries is Pastor Doug Schmidt, who had a phenomenal. As has had and continues to have a phenomenally amazing Ministry. And truly, like, you know, he. He's done so many great things, but some. I know some people don't like mega church pastors. This guy's the real deal, Truly. He's done some great stuff. Anyway, in his retirement, he's now the head of Barnabas Ministries. So he failed to retire like a lot of great people. And. [00:41:40] Speaker C: So, anyway, good thing. [00:41:42] Speaker B: I went to this retreat up at the Barnabas Lodge, and it's. It was called Rejuvenate. It was helping develop preachers and stuff like that, and a lot of great relationships, a lot of great content. But there was this one night where I'm sitting out by the campfire. We were kind of worshiping together around this campfire. And they came down to just three of us left, and one of them was. Was Doug. We were kind of sitting there in silence and he said, can I share something with you? And this stuck with me. This had one of the biggest impacts of that I've had, and I'm so grateful for this. So we're sitting there around this campfire, and Doug goes, you know, we're talking about Peter and the denial that when Peter denied Christ happened to be around fire. We know that from John 18, you know, so, you know, Jesus is going back and forth between. He's getting passed from one person to the next, and everybody wants him dead, but nobody wants to be the one to pull a trigger. You know what I mean? Like, it's a. It's a. It's a disaster. So he's. He's getting passed around. And in John 18, verse 17 and 18, says the servant girl at the door said to Peter, you also are not one of this man's disciples, are you? He said, I am not man. That breaks my heart to even read. No matter how many times I read, he said, I am not. Now, the servant and officials had made a charcoal fire. It's important. And you look at the detail that God inspired in the. Now, the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. So here's Peter around this charcoal fire, and he just denied Christ. Well, we know what play is out, right? He ends up getting crucified. And. And Peter, as soon as that rooster crowed, right, he remembered the prophecy and he was bitter about it, right? So I think about that. Have you guys ever sat around a campfire? And the following morning, what's your sweatshirt smell like? [00:44:18] Speaker C: Fire smells like campfire, everything. [00:44:21] Speaker B: And I think about so Doug was like, imagine, imagine. Imagine sitting there and you gotta smell in your. On your tunic. You gotta smell the, the smell of that fire that you denied Goth. [00:44:38] Speaker A: And they couldn't throw it in their laundry and throw some tide? [00:44:41] Speaker B: Oh, no, no. There's, you know, there's no snuffle up, I guess, or whatever they, they call. I don't know. I don't do the laundry. Why. Liz does. But they. What's that? What's the snuffle up against stuff or snuggle. Snuggle. Snuggle. [00:44:57] Speaker C: Bounce. Yeah. [00:44:58] Speaker B: You know, there was no ability to do that, right? So I, I believe, I believe that Peter had to sit in the stench of that denial. And so we fast forward to John 21, right? And he's out fishing. He. Look, Jes. Peter's loss, his last year, he's like, I don't know. I don't know what to do with myself. I guess I'm going to go fishing, right? That's Brad's version. So he's out fishing and Jesus comes to the shore and, and, and so Peter goes running out to him, right? And just as Peter had denied him three times, Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to redeem himself. Three times. Right? But this is the best part. Subtly, in verse nine of chapter 21, it says when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread. Jesus had built a charcoal fire and gave him the opportunity to redeem. And so I had never caught it either, bro. That's why Doug is like one of my heroes. But, but sitting there, and I'm sitting there as Doug's saying this, we're sitting around a campfire. It was, it was amazing. But what was so great? And you, you want to talk about the power of his immeasurable greatness. He took the stench of Peter's denial and failure and turned it into the fragrance of redemption. Yeah, right. Wow. Wow. Yeah. He's. He's author. Yes. He's creator. Yes. He's sustainer. Yes. He's all powerful. Yes. He's all sovereign. He's all of those things. But for me, when I look at what Paul's saying here about the immeasurable greatness of his power toward the saints, it's this. It's that you could take failure, you could take the worst of humanity, and you can turn that into redemption. That to me, man, that's that immeasurable greatness of his power to work. [00:47:21] Speaker A: You know that word picture too. Imagine that like thereafter in Peter's ministry every time he went around a campfire. [00:47:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Renewed him. Yes. You know that, that I. Listen, I know this is not in screen and I'm not trying to add to scripture, but you know, when you. When I smell a campfire driving down the street, I know someone's having a campfire and those smells and it's. It's sort of like. I love music. Right. Every time I hear a song, it's like a time machine. It takes me back to a person or an event or something. I associate songs with people or things that have happened. [00:48:01] Speaker C: Place. Yep. [00:48:02] Speaker B: The smell of a campfire takes me to places where I've had great times with people that I love. And now Jesus took Peter's worst moment, hands down. It doesn't get any worse than the. Than the denial of God. And he ends up taking the same smell and the same. That same thing, the charcoal fire. And he turns it into his moment of redemption. That is the power. The. The immeasurable greatness of his power to toward the saints. Heavy stuff, man. That's good, man. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Real good. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Wow. Well, I think we. I think we hit some heavy stuff tonight too. Yeah, dude, that's. That's awesome, brother. So if you are listening and. And you don't feel like you've ever met Jesus by campfire, it's. It's a good, good time to do it. We would love to hear from you. It's not any. Anything magic. It's not some special words you got to do. And it's definitely not something you have to do because it's already done. It's all about what Christ did on the cross for us. And so if you feel that God's tugging on your heart and you want to start a relationship with him and you don't know how, know where to get started, it's just simply believing and confessing and submitting to his lordship and you'll be saved. But we would love to hear from you because we would love to talk with you about that. So you can reach out to us, email us at infohegatheringhouse Church, and we'd love to have that conversation with you. Also, if you would like to join us at church, we have service. We actually have been entrusted with a building and a group of people which still can't believe, but it is. It's in Royal Oak. It's called the Gathering House Church. And we would love to see you. Our. Our service details are on our website, which is TheGatheringHouse Church. And also if you want more podcasts There is a podcast tab at TheGatheringHouse Church. Also, don't forget to hit our email up for questions and comments as well. And once again, that is info at TheGatheringHouse Church. But we would love to see you at church if you are looking for a church family. If you are already have a church family, we do not want you to leave there. But we are grateful that you're listening. But if you are looking for someone, somewhere to worship and a family to get plugged into, we happen to know some great people. So join us for the next episode. We're going to continue on in our journey through Ephesians and we're going to get into some great, deep stuff. All these have been pretty deep. Yeah, definitely, man. That's this whole book. Buckle up. The whole book? [00:51:19] Speaker A: The whole book? [00:51:20] Speaker B: The whole book. All 66 books. But this, this study in Ephesians has been a lot of fun so far. I'm excited about it. God's doing some cool stuff. [00:51:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:32] Speaker B: And my prayer for all of you is that you that the eyes of your hearts are. Are open to his hope is the understanding of. Of being as in is in his inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of his power towards those of us who are in Christ. So Lord willing, we will see you in the in the next episode. Thanks for sticking around.