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The Objective of the Church · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, to the one.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, to the one.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: His first friend was Abraham.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Surely said to Abraham.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I am that I am.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I am that I am.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Live from Stove, Vermont, and Utilla, the Bay Islands, Honduras, is a cup of friendship.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: Utah.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our host, the mayor of the airwaves, Rhett Palmer.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually on WCNO, which this airs on, uh Jonathan said, uh, you're no longer mayor of the airways because here Jesus is the mayor of the airways.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know what?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fine to abdicate any throne I thought I had of mayorship and give it to Jesus gladly.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so uh Brett, uh, when you wake up in the morning, what is your first thoughts about what the day is going to bring for you?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: My first thoughts.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: What like what's this day gonna go?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm wondering uh what uh doors will hope the Lord will open, how he's gonna use me, where I'm gonna go, do, you know, and okay.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's a that's that's a really good answer.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's uh uncommon that uh most people, I don't I don't think most people think that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think they uh wake up thinking about bills they have to pay, uh medical situations, relational situations, uh the weather, what their next vacation is going to look like.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: But God has a completely different uh schedule, a completely different objective for our days.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: He gives us interruptions that are blessings.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we've talked a lot about this over the last uh few weeks.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: And Paul is writing uh a letter to his friends in Ephesus, and they are brand new, they're pretty relatively new followers of Jesus.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: This is Ephesus was the cultic center of Asia.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's where a huge temple to Artemis was built.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, if you've ever been to Ephesus, and if you go on a cruise in the Mediterranean, uh, you will probably stop at Kusadashi, and that's the port for Ephesus.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: You'll probably go to a uh a rug factory where they are weaving, hand weaving uh uh silk and cotton uh and wool rugs, and then you'll get to the ancient site, which is huge.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's got an amphitheater, uh a cartoon a uh main street, it's incredible homes, uh, and it has a big field with one column standing of a huge temple uh of Diana, and this this was the uh economy of the city.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: People coming to offer their uh worship to Diana, the goddess of the huntess, the hunt, and other things.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Paul went there, spent three years, established a church there.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And later he finds himself in Rome where he's awaiting trial, and he decides to write a letter to his friends in Ephesus.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Now, Paul's uh being guarded by the Praetorians in Rome while he's awaiting for his hearing.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: The Praetorians, yeah, the Praetorian Guard, that's the personal bodyguards of uh the Caesar.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: And Paul is under house arrest, so he's awaiting, he's actually chained to a guard 24-7.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Chained to an actual guard?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, to a Roman soldier.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: And imagine the conversations Paul is having with these guys.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: In this particular uh time period of uh Roman history, Julius Caesar, about a hundred years before, has conquered most of I was trying to lock the seat and I went down.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: I thought you were gonna disappear for a moment.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: We're the many people for Jesus.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: So um remember, there's a whole influx in the last hundred years of German people, Germanic people into the Roman Empire.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Julius Caesar conquered them, they became, quote, Romans.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Many of them know that the way to um uh wealth is to join the Legion, and you share the spoils of conquered people.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: So Paul is finds himself chained to a uh a Roman soldier that's probably a German of German birth.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: The real action for a legionnaire is at the front lines, that's where the spoil is.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: If you get assigned to guard duty in Rome, you're not gonna be making money uh when you're out conquering people.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I think probably Paul has been having uh conversations with these guards that are Romans, but they're really not Romans.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And they're wondering what it means to be a Roman because they're from a town up in uh along the Rhine River, and even though they have the title, they're still ethnically a different people.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: This is what was going on with new Christians in Ephesus.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: They came from a very diverse multi-god background with very little knowledge of Yahweh, and then uh suddenly over a course of months they may become followers of Yeshua, followers of Jesus.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: And Paul now, after spending three years with him, wants to write a letter to really explain what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, chapter one, I mean, this is Rhett, this is the one of the most foundational books in the Christian scriptures for you and I to understand things like our identity and what God thinks of us, uh, what our purpose is in this life, how we are to walk out the life, and then of course, uh what uh he finishes up with uh how we deal with spiritual, uh the spiritual world and the elements.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: So, chapter one is all about God uh chose you, he redeemed you, he uh made you part of his family, he gave you every spiritual blessing, and he did this, he adopted you into his family, he redeemed you.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, all of these things that God did, and he was very happy to do this.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Words like, which he lavished upon us or showered upon us, okay?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: And and in verse 9, now we see the purpose that God has brought us into our family, adopted us as his son, is because at the right time, everything in heaven and on earth is going to be brought together under the administration of Jesus, and we are going to be part of that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Paul's next uh point is that you were dead in your sins, and God made you alive, and it's because the grace of God that you've been saved, nothing that you've done, not the results of works, for we are God's workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus, so that we could do the things He planned for us long ago.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: So suddenly we have a divine purpose here for our daily lives.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: But then in chapter three, we see this discussion uh beginning of the Gentiles being brought into God's family.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we are his workmanship, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now I was thinking, you know, I'm always thinking about how God does everything amazingly well from the lily of the field to a simple frog or a raccoon or the birds and the bees.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you just said that, or his workmanship, oh he probably oh hey, this is one place I made an error here, these odd things called humans.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, that's not that's just the opposite.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I think that's one of the lies of the enemy is we look in the mirror and we we see a person staring back at us that has said things and done things and uh that we're not proud of, and we think that God looks on us as we look at ourselves in the mirror.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the reality is just the opposite.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: God looks upon us with love, with care, with favor, and it couldn't be any dramatically more different.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: We are seated with him in the heavenly realms, we are part of his family, he chose us, and it gave him great pleasure to do these things.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, that's one of the huge lies of the enemy.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, yeah, I we we got everything inside out because you know uh I mean I have certain visitations that take place, and I go, when I'm telling my friends about certain things I I've seen, whether prophetically or whatever, and I go, I go, if this was anybody else, I wouldn't believe it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's so incredulous.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think, why why does this happen to me?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I know uh like like one of them might say, I'm the least of these my brethren.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in my case, I know it's true.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: But nonetheless, he gives me telltale signs that he actually cares about me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, well, you're a dad, you know?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: She's uh her her chair dropped down uh as well.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, Laura.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: We love you, Laura.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hi.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I try to hide.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: What'd she say?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: She's hiding back there.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was thinking about that every day.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: She comes into the closet or something, something makes her like her appearance.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they have to have these people on these TV shows once in a while, you know.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every day, just the first time she peeked through the door and they got down on her knees.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, anyway.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, we appreciate your prayers, Laura.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate yours too.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, anyway, so I did want to say this.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, uh we have uh we have some coffee products that are called Cup of Friendship.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we have three different we have three different uh we have uh light, medium, and strong.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And my three different blends, three different blends.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they're made from the uh from high up in the mountains.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was talking to a lady from Jamaica the other day.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're made from high up in the mountains.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is that supposed to mean?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you said that they're higher in antioxidants when they're way up in the mountains.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're grown up in high altitude, okay?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but I do want to say this you know, the three coffees that we have, of course, have been by your choice, your hand, and your mixture.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking, I rent this lady from Jamaica the other day.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I told her I'd been to Jamaica a number of times, and I've been up on those mountains where they make the blue, blue mountain.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Blue Mountain Coffee.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty expensive.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember uh very expensive.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the uh the uh the store on the beach owned by Christian family, uh the beach market, they uh sponsored my show for maybe 10 years, and every week I would get a complimentary pound of Blue Mountain.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I couldn't afford it, but they gave it to me.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was$49 a pound.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it goes for now.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking, since you have three of the three choices here, that maybe Rhett should have one choice of, and I'd like to uh see if we could get some Blue Mountain to put on there, you know.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because and I asked the lady, I said, why is it so good?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: She says, because it's grown way up there.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I thought of you.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're always saying that it's you know grows way up there.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: I've been to Jamaica twice.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh once was for a wedding of a friend, which allowed us to kind of get in the culture for a little bit, and I searched out uh Blue Mountain coffee.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: I tried to get the freshest that I could.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: I brought it back.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: I tr compared it to our Nicaraguan dark, our Honduran uh dark, I compared it to our Colombian, I compared it to our Papua New Guinea coffee, and our Sumatra coffee.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: All I can say is those guys have done an incredible job of marketing because I did not find anything in that coffee that warranted a price that I paid for it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that's because see, you and I have different tastes.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like the coffees you choose are a little on the dark side, like you know, you you you're into all these wonderful flavors and everything.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: You cultivated a palate.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a common man that likes more of a common.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought we should have something that represents me.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I also want to.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so a common man is gonna get the most expensive coffee on the market.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because it's smooth, it's smooth.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't taste that great.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's not that even Laura said the blue the Jamaican Blue Mountain, it doesn't taste that great.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've tried it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've tried.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fair to bring in the vote from your wife.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's two against one here.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so folks, uh sorry for this uh slight stepping off the trail of biblical uh research and biblical understanding, but we are uh we are at the Cup of Friendship podcast.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah uh we coffee is the friendship drink.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: The in Vero Beach at the Rio Coco Cafe, we have a roasting facility where we roast, as uh Rhett said, coffee that's high up there.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh coffee above 4,000 feet in the tropics has a longer growing season, and the seeds thus have more fats and protein in them.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: They are heavier than coffee beans that are grown at at uh say 2,000 feet, distinctly heavier, so you have a lot more to work with.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: And we roast them slowly to bring out nuances of coffee flavors.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so what we've done is Rhett and I have uh experimented and tried, and we've came up with three different blends.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: One is called Hearty Handshake, that's a more of a that's uh more of a darker blend of Sumatra uh and um uh Colombian coffees.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: We have uh um uh bridge builder, which is a medium roast, and we have Kendred Spirits, which is a uh a uh more of a lighter uh blend of Colombian, Honduran, and Nicaraguan coffee.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: So we encourage you go to uh www cupofriendship.com and you will see those coffees.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: We will roast them, blend them, and get them out to you within a week of uh your order, and you can enjoy a cup of friendship with us.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I do want to say this.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was hopeful that I know that uh Vinny Bag of uh donuts is there, and I know that Doolan is there.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering, I think we should have a link on the website that people can touch and it will go to all these interviews we're doing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, all right, I'll do I'll take care of that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can do that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not a webmaster, I know nothing about that business, you know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so um back to Ephesians.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Here we are.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, sorry folks.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: Chapter one, God uh chose you, he adopted you into his family, he redeemed you, and he did it for a purpose because Jesus is coming back to pull all things together and restore the earth to its original pristine form.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Remember, the Bible doesn't say that we're gonna spend eternity floating on a cloud somewhere or in some sort of impersonal uh uh ethno, someplace where there's no personality, where we don't even know we exist.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's Eastern We blend into the cosmos as we become one with the universe.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: The Bible says very clearly that Jesus is coming back, that there will be a restoration at Paleogenesia is the Greek word, it's a restoration.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the book of Romans says that the earth uh is groaning under the weight of sin, cannot wait for the restoration to come back.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: So, nature, uh everything is going to be set back in pristine order.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: We won't need one of these watches anymore.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Time will not be a factor.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: Have bodies that don't wear out.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, praise the Lord for that one.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: And we will be with Jesus forever, reigning with him.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: So uh the Bible's very clear on that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Chapter two, we are his work created new in Christ Jesus so that we could do the things that he planned for us.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Could you move your microphone?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you moved up for a second, you sounded better.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Could you move your microphone a little closer to you?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're getting that you're getting the echo of the room.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is that better?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: Much.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: So let's let's come to chapter three.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: And remember now, Jews were always separate from Gentiles by their morality, by their diet, and by just their communal life.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Remember, God starts off with uh a family in the Garden of Eden that rebel against him, Adam and Eve.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then he chooses one man, Abraham, uh, who uh he tells, Look at the stars, these uh so your descendants shall be.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the father of the Jewish race.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: And he uh has the uh covenant of circumcision, and now Abraham is the father, and so the next major scene in the Old Testament is a family of Jacob and the son Joseph that goes off to Egypt and becomes uh the second in command of the Egyptian government.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: The uh Jacob's family comes 400 years later, they're slaves under a Pharaoh who didn't know Joseph.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um now they are in slavery, and Moses is chosen to go bring them out of slavery, and he brings them into the land, the promised land, which is literally the land bridge between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: And now God's people are right in the middle of this.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: They build uh Solomon builds a temple, and now they are a light shining out to the world, displaying a morality that's very different than the uh Syrians and the Canaanites and the Egyptians around them.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: And now God is using the Jewish people as his uh messengers of who he is, and so in those days to become a Jew, you had to go through uh certain rituals, but then Jesus came, paid the price for our sins, and now everybody is welcome.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so we have now an influx of non-Jewish people coming in, and what do we do about that?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: How does that fit into God's great plan?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: This is what Paul is now going to address in chapter three.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so would you sure what do you want me to read?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just start on uh verse one.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, verse one, and I'm reading from I think is the New King James Version.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, uh for this uh Okay, three, Ephesians three.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: To me, who am I who am I?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: So so here's here was the mystery is if if God's people are Jewish people and they have the sign of circumcision and they have their morality and all the laws, but God's plan, according to Paul, here was always to bring the non Jewish people, the Gentiles, the pig eating pagans, to bring them into his family.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: And we remember even on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those people and they began speaking in known uh and unknown languages, and Peter stands up and says, This is what was prophesied, this is the Holy Spirit, and this gift is not only for you Gentiles or you Jews, but also for those people far away, the Gentiles.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so we see Gentiles coming into the church.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so what Paul is saying is this has always been God's plan that He's going to make non-Jews equal heirs and equal partners of the body of Christ.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the funny side of this is imagine if you had uh somebody who has the you call them, you can call them the uh the white shirts, the white shirts and uh the white collars.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you had other people that were the garbage people.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody from the white from the garbage people said that the that the Messiah, uh that the white shirts have been the white collars have been waiting for has been born into us.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, this is this guy, Paul, who's a devout, pharisitical, religious guy, religious guy, goes out and signs the death warrants for Christians.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So now he gets literally knocked off his horse as blinded by a white light, and the white light in the white light says, I am Jesus of Nazareth, go to this town, and Paul is converted.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not only is he converted, now it's said he's told that his ministry is for the garbage people who he thought once weren't even, you know.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, only God would do that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's really yeah, yeah, yeah, unclean people.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Paul is now uh going to be the main missionary to the unclean people.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: He being the Jew of Jews, of course, had a natural uh uh what's the word?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh rever reversion against these people.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you've got to remember, Paul was uh brought up in the city of Tarsus.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: He was brought up in Roman culture, he was a Roman citizen.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he had his Jewish name and his Roman name.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: He was an intellect, and uh so he's very familiar with the culture, and I'm sure he had great relationships with people in his hometown.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: But now he's saying that the Gentiles are the fellow heirs and fellow members of the body.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's quite a bit for him to admit with his former pride.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: I agree, and but yet it's it's the ministry that he was called to, and he was the perfect, think about it, he's the perfect missionary for that.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's he's uh a Jewish kid that was educated by the leading rabbi of his time, Gamaliel, and he's also a Roman citizen, and so this plays out in his adventures that are recorded in the book of Acts so many times, the privileges of a Roman citizen of not being beaten before they're uh questioned.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, things like that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: There was a judicial process.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, verse 8 to me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, as you just pointed out, Red, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been created and hidden in God, who created all things, in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: This was in accordance with the eternal purposes which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: Now that is a revelation that is uh mind-blowing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think here is this this this uh uh academic uh Jewish guy who was a Pharisee, a Roman s Roman citizen, obviously an intellect of his age, and he thinks that he is superior.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's brought up to think he's superior.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay if the garbage people live over there, the Gentiles, uh the Goyams, uh, but over here are the chosen of God, and then uh and then he's they say that the Messiah has come through them, and he says hogwash, and he's he starts to uh sign murder warrants for these Christians, and he, you know, I mean it's anyway, so he gets converted, and now that very guy is the guy, and God's perfect timing um is humbled and becomes the servant to the garbage people as well as the the Jews to lead them to Jesus Christ and and warns us not to be entangled again in religiosity.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's the perfect person to warn us, watch out, don't be encumbered again, thinking, oh, we can only do this on Saturdays and this on Sundays, and we have to wear this makeup, or don't wear any makeup, or wear a tie and jacket, or you're in you're in India and you have a church and you turn down Mahatma Gandhi when he comes to your door.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: True story, because he didn't have the proper clothing on.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, crazy stuff.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's take this word for word here, because I think uh what's what the Holy Spirit may be um communicating to us today from the uh in in our culture and in our present time is something very, very significant.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: And and if we can grasp this, this will change the way we think about our momentary acts, our thoughts, and what we do with our life.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, in order, he said that this mystery has been hidden in God who created all things, in order that the manifold wisdom of God.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: Now, when you hear that word manifold, what does that word mean to you?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Manifold, mystery, many uh manifold.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, manifold, just many, many fold.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't really beyond understanding.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, the word uh actually in the Greek uh is a word that means diverse, multifaceted, multicolored.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, years ago, when during the war that was going on in Nicaragua, when we were living in a refugee community on the Honduran side of the Cocoa River, uh, we had a Christian uh medical organization uh working with us that sent us some nurses, and they were from Holland, they were Dutch.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: And one morning we were reading Ephesians chapter 3, and we came to this word, and my friend Yoka, who was sitting next to me, I said, Yoka, what what in your uh Dutch Bible?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: What is this word for manifold?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: She said, Prisma.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: Prisma.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like prism?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like a prism, like it when you take a prism, is what takes a uh a beam of light and it it separates it separates it into its diverse colors, and suddenly you see the rainbow on the piece of paper or on the wall, or um and so I thought, man, that is a great word.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: The prisma wisdom.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so the multi-faceted diverse wisdom of God might now be made known through the church.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now, who is the church, Rhett?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the uh followers of the Lord, the followers of Jesus, okay.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: So now the manifold wisdom, the diverse, multifaceted wisdom of God might be made known through us, the church, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: Who are the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: Who are they?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's uh the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, those are the ultimate uh rulers and authorities, but there's another level that the Bible is uh uh is informing us about, and that is Satan and his rebellion against God.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we see uh we see uh scenes like in Revelation chapter 12 where there's a war in heaven.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the dragon was fighting, and Michael the archangel fought against a dragon, drove them out of heaven.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the dragon took a third of the angels with him.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: They were confined to earth where they now wage war on God's people.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: We see that so Satan, I never knew Satan was a dragon.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: He certainly uh in his appearance doesn't look like a dragon.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's he's referred to in the book of Revelation as the dragon.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: So we know that from uh Isaiah, excuse me, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel um 23, I think, 27, that Satan was uh uh his name was uh Lucifer, the bright shining light.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Lucifer uh at some point thought that his brilliance and his personality was equal to that of Yahweh, and he decided that the angels should worship him as much or more than they worshiped Yahweh.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: And thus it says in Isaiah 14 in that day, sin was found in you.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: So, Rhett, we know that God has two creations.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: There may be more, but we know he created us humans, but before that, he created the angels, and we know from what Jesus uh said that the angels have personalities, they can travel, they can make decisions, they vary in the degrees of wickedness, they can communicate with one another, and so these are definite personalities that have a free will that are in rebellion against God and are uh attacking and molesting his people.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we now, the body of Christ, with Gentiles and Jews, have been brought together so that God's diverse, multifaceted wisdom may be now known through us to those rebellious angels, and this was in accordance with the eternal purpose he carried out in Christ Jesus.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what's the eternal purpose at this point that God has carried out through Christ Jesus?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the plan of salvation.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: The salvation.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so think of what Paul is saying here.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: The man the diverse wisdom of God is going to be made known to Satan and his rebellious angels through us because of what Christ did on the cross to uh die for us and pay this the penalty for our sins.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: Now this is a profound thought, at least for me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: Every time I read chapter three, I start thinking about this.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: Somehow we are going to be used to be uh shown as trophies of his grace, as it says later on.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Here, Paul writes that in future ages we will be trophies of his grace.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he tells the Corinthians, Hey, can't you settle disputes among yourself?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: Don't you know that one day that you will be judging angels?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: Something as huge is going on in the next life, in the next age, and we just get a clues here and there of these things that Paul says.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: Remember, he said, I was taken up to the third heaven and I saw things that I'm not permitted to.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking, I was just thinking about it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: So somehow we now are going to be used to display God's multifaceted wisdom of what he's doing with the universe to some created beings that didn't really understand what God was doing because they rebelled against him.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then they came and took uh took us humans and deceived us by saying, Did God really say that you could not eat from that tree?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you eat from that tree, you're going to be no good and evil and become just like God.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: So God really doesn't have your best interest at heart.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: He's holding something have your best interest at heart.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: He's holding something from you.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: You need to take control of your own life.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is the devil talking.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Eat the fruit off the tree, you'll become just like God.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: You see, this was the original lie that the serpent told to Eve and told to Adam, and so they ate fruit.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: Pride of man.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I think something huge is going on where I wonder what the accusations were by those uh rebellious angels against God.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like he's so controlling, he wants us to obey him, he thinks we don't know how to handle ourselves.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: He gave us this uh ability to do what we want, so why can't we just do what we want?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: Why is he being such a tyrant trying to control me?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I'm just speculating right now.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what the accusations were.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: But when I see that scene in the book of Job where God is there with uh his uh people around him, and suddenly Satan enters the room and says, You know your man Job.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: Is he really a follower?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if if you let me uh attack him, he's gonna quickly deny you.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's an incredible scene in the book of Job.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: So somehow there's this thing going on in the spiritual world where there is this conflict going on between God and uh Lucifer and his rebellious angels.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: God has confined them to this uh world called earth, and now he's going about his business to deceive us and get as many of us on his side, because I think Satan thinks when he gets numbers on his side that God will be forced to forgive Satan for his rebellion or something, I'm not sure what, but something is going on, Rhett, in the spiritual world.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: Excuse me.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there are those who believe in the end everybody's gonna be forgiven.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now that might happen, I don't know, but I mean, uh, is is God a God a justice?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really push for justice.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for instance, I look at somebody who's uh a bad guy, and I go, go get him, God, and he should be stabbed with uh knives for all eternity and be in fiery hell.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and and yet who am I to say that when I know that uh you know uh there was a time when my love is not tested?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I don't know what we're all going.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's it's so far beyond what we can think.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Lord said, not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father's permission.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Are ye not of much greater value than many sparrows?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: For the very hairs on your head are counted.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you as I told you when you go to the beach and you look at the the shells and all the ge geometrically, how they're perfect.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: How does he do this?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um how big is your God when I believe actually he is it he knows that of this conversation right now.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you're there for eternity.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we're the on the other side of the right.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh this is huge what's going on.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: So as I read this verse, I'm I'm going now, God is going to use me, I'm part of the church, to display part of his wisdom to these rebellious people, people, these angels, the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, okay, who think they have control of this earth because we gave it to them in the Garden of Eden.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus is coming back.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: But it just makes me realize that my momentary decisions, and especially when I decide to obey the things that God is telling me, are going to have a profound effect not only for me and my day-to-day, but they're going to have some effect in the heavenly realms for eternal purposes.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh I just now am looking at my life and the years that I have left as a valuable commodity in the hands of God to be something that's going to impact uh eternity in a much bigger way than I would normally think.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we yeah, and then and pride gets in the way because uh it's it's the gift of God.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: None of us can earn this righteousness.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I think this is an incredible passage of scripture here in uh chapter three that now you and I are going to be used today along with all of our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, to sh to bring a message of God's diverse and multifaceted wisdom to those rebellious authorities and rulers in the heavenly places, and it all had to do with Jesus dying on the cross and his blood covering your and my sins, and somehow the grace of God uh overcomes everything.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure that this plan that Satan uh that God had was a surprise to Satan because wait a minute, wait a minute.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: God is going to become a man and he's going to live on earth.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: Wait a minute.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: He's just gonna live a normal life without the power of the Holy Spirit in him?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: He's gonna be a normal man.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: You mean he's gonna work with his hands?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: He's gonna have uh uh sweat on his brow, he's gonna have to pay taxes, he's gonna have to endure insults, uh, he's gonna live under an oppressive government.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: You mean, and then wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: He's going to, he's gonna go to the he's gonna get executed and die on Passover?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, all those things that God said about a blood sacrifice, you mean he's gonna fulfill all of that?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and and now these humans are gonna be welcomed into God's family.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we were part of God's family.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just speculating here, Rhett.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh this is there's something going on pretty heavy uh in the spiritual world.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people are attracted to these movies where there's great darkness and great light, and there's the dark side and the light side, when this is actually uh in the invisible realm.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's even Paul said we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities of light and darkness.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in reality, people are you they're diverted into these fantasies that man makes up these cartoons or these characters, these superheroes, when in fact, there are in fact that there is a real superhero, and his name is Jesus of Nazareth.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he came and healed the sick and made the blind to see, which was prophesied hundreds, if not thousands of years in advance.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, can you imagine you see this guy and he's in your town and he's healed this old guy, Bar Barnabas, Barnabas, whatever his name, Barnabas, who's been the blind his whole life, and suddenly he sees you see someone else who's healed.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were dying and they're healed, and and you still don't believe.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't what's this?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is very inconvenient for this mess.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: This guy says he's the Messiah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want him to be the first of all, he's not that attractive that we should notice him.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, I don't want to lose my position.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big shot rabbi.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, because anytime that we come to Christ, he's going to make changes in our life, and the reality that he is the king of this universe changes everything.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we keep getting humbled.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we we as uh but at the same time, Brett, he seated uh seated us with him in heavenly places.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this now you often say that I was um uh very involved in self when I interviewed you 30 plus years ago, and probably had a fragrance of maybe arrogance, or certainly I'll put on a put on a wall.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I know it's easy for you to point the finger at me, but would you agree that maybe 20 years ago you too had a period where maybe you were a little more religious than you are now, a little more uh in you know what I'm saying?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would you uh confess that you uh have learned, have you been humbled?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Rhett, please.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I don't want to confess my sins in uh public uh like this.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, so I I look at my uh the guy in the mirror and I go, you know, it's so easy for you to go down certain roads.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: You you care about yourself more often than you care about other people.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: You don't uh control uh your voice and emotions sometimes.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: And uh well, the reality is I need Jesus in my life.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so Paul now finishes this chapter, and he really finishes this uh first part of this letter by telling.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Telling us what God thinks of us, how much he cares for us, that he would invite us into his family and redeem us, and now we're part of his eternal purpose.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: He's got very specific things that we're to do to bring all humanity into his kingdom.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: That this joining of the Gentiles along with Jewish believers is now part of God's plan to send a big message to those rebellious angels.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: So we are part of this huge enterprise of God taking control of his creation after he's allowed it to seemingly dissipate into something that was not planned.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there's a greater plan here that's always been in place.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: And C.S.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis, uh, you know, in his uh The Chronicles of Narnia, he talks about when Aslam voluntarily gives him up and allows himself to be killed on that altar.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: But then a couple days later, Aslam's uh Aslam is up and he's running around, and there's a as C.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: S.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis writes it, there's a greater magic that's going on that nobody can really understand.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: And and I I think that's kind of what's happening with us.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: So Well, hold on.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have to take umbrage with this, though.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: The word magic is I'm just quoting C.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: S.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but that's what C.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: S.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis was writing a book to uh primarily the kids, but it's really an adult book.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's an allegory of Jesus.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's the phrase, it's a phrase he used.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I uh uh that guy's a lot smarter than I am, and I think he's a lot more spiritual than I am.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe and maybe not.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe and maybe not.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but Paul finishes this with a prayer.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: He said, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: That he would grant you and now Paul's gonna talk about five specific things according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_03: That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, and that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: This is uh this is Paul's prayer for his friends, and I think this is uh God's uh prayer for us today, his will for us is that we would be strengthened with his power.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: Now, when we became believers, when we when we sincerely received God's forgiveness, he sealed us with his holy spirit.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: So now we have a connection, our conscious is connected to his, he uh his spirit is in us, and now we have access to his power.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so Paul's prayer is that we would be today strengthened with his power, with his dutymus.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: This is a Greek word that we get the word dynamite, and that Christ may dwell in our heart, that we may actually experience his presence.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, Rhett, that this changes everything.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: When we experience the presence of God, our day suddenly changes.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: We have these sudden moments of exhilaration, of amazement, of awesomeness.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: We go, wow.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: If every moment could be that way.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to explain to people, uh, those of us, but I find this very common in the body of Christ.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, I had a I remember I had uh a miracle uh one one time uh with my heart.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was on the way to have the uh them go up uh what do they call it when they go into your heart?
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I and that and that day I was I got up and I was headed to Melbourne because that's the only place they did this, where they go in from the leg and go up into the heart to see if you need a uh split, uh whatever it is, uh you know, uh blockage or something.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, the sky seemed bluer than blue, and the clouds seemed whiter than white.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that day, uh uh all my bad symptoms went away.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when the doctor was in, he was an Indian doctor says, Mr.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Obama, I want to tell you, you don't need a sp- what's it called?
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: A split, a splint, or what do they call it?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: A spint, nor do you need medication.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart is perfect.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, man, you really felt like it felt like the Lord touched you.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he did, and other times when it close to the spirit, I've seen that.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: I go, wow, today the the clouds are wet.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a lot of people have said this, and it's hard to pass that along to someone who's never experienced it somehow when the holiness of God is near us, even food tastes exceptionally good.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that happen?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I mean, so this is a very valid desire that Christ may dwell in our hearts, okay?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the next thing is that we would be rooted and grounded in love.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, rooted and grounded.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: That means that what comes up and what goes out of me and what uh what people around me feel all is in a factor of the love of God for me, and that I would be very other centered today, that I would think of other people before myself, that even as Jesus said, the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the greatest among you shall be the servant of the rest.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_03: That I actually could go through the day rooted and grounded in love and be able to comprehend the breath, the length, the height, and the depth.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Breath, length, height, and depth.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_03: These are four dimensions.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_03: Now we live in a world with three dimensions, but Paul is using four dimensions here.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_03: Now, how we're in a world of three dimensions.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, I'm sitting in a room and it's uh about ten feet high, it's about twenty feet uh wide, and coming in from the door, it's about eight feet deep.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: So these are the dimensions.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: I live in a three-dimensional world.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: What's four?
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, we know Einstein said the fourth dimension is time.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: The faster you go, the time slows down, time changes.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: But I just find it so interesting in verse 18 that Paul is using four different dimensions to describe the love of God.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, Richard, describe those again.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Describe those again.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, he says, may you be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth, and know the love of Christ.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I heard a good teacher years ago say the breadth of God's love, any sin is covered.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: There's no sin that falls outside the breadth of God's love.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_03: The length of God's love for eternity, it doesn't end.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: The height of God's love, he seated us with him in heavenly places.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: The depth of God's love, he went through hell to get it for us.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_03: So this really helped me understand these four different dimensions of the love of God.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you something.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you a little aside here.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I drive, I drive along and I go, What can I give you?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh his whole life, he gives us flowers, he gives us taste buds, he gives us life and breath, and you go, What can I possibly do that would be pleasing to you?
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and you wonder, would you ever think about this?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I say, Oh, I love you, but you know, okay, but you know.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think what you can do and what I can do is do the last thing he told you to do.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_03: And just be diligent about it.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_03: And he's given us uh if Paul's gonna answer your question here in chapters four, five, and six.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_03: But uh what Paul is hoping that we understand this multidimensional love of Christ and that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_03: When I read uh John chapter uh 14 and 15, uh Jesus is having this discussion with his disciples the night before his crucifixion, and he says, If you abide in me, then you're going to obey my commandments, and those who obey my commandments love me, and I will.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: And then he says, Uh I'll send you the Holy Spirit, you will uh experience my presence, my father and I will indwell you, I will reveal myself to you more.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: There will be peace in your life, there will be great joy, there will be bearing of fruit, and there will be friendship.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_03: There's all these benefits that Jesus is talking about of our obedience to him, and our obedience directly results in these benefits of friendship, peace, fullness of Christ, um, bearing more fruit, having a revelation, having experiencing him, him dwelling, having the Holy Spirit manifest through us.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so, what I see from this whole chapter here, uh, what Paul is finishing up this first part of the letter, is that God brought us into the family for uh specific purposes.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: He loves us, and he brought the Jews and Gentiles together so that the rebellious angels would see a concrete example of God's grace, which I think they probably denied, and that we may understand these things, and that we would be strengthened with God's power, that Christ would dwell in us, that we would be rooted and grounded in love, that we would be able to understand the dimensions of this love and experience the fullness of Christ.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's an incredible uh passage, and if we take this to heart, it will change the way that we live today, and we live tomorrow, the rest of this week, the rest of this month, the rest of our lives.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have a feeling we've done our done a first hour.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: I suggest we take a break and we go on and do something else after this.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I have a suggestion.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's okay to say this in front of our listeners or viewers or whatever.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, uh I know that my friend, um our friend, our mutual friend, uh Rich, has a has a show on now, and they'll be in later today to do their show in our studio.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw I told them to break down these psychological insights to separate little 15, 20-minute segments so somebody can go on and find out about what's that PSTD or whatever it is, post-traumatic syndrome, whatever it is, and then maybe do another segment that has to do with um uh a good marriage or whatever, not to jumble it all up together.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want we're creating an audio library here, and I kind of like to be able to pay people to go there and go, oh, I want to hear about this today, and then we'll hear about that more focused, you know.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's what I was thinking.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, we've got to take a break.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we you're you've been listening to Michael Bagby, and he is a biblical historian, and we've known each other for 30-something years.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: He he's only been willing to admit that in the past couple of years.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm Rhett Palmer, formerly the mayor of the airways, but on WCNO, uh Jonathan, who heads up uh the station, said, You're no longer the mayor of the airways down here in uh Palm City.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jesus is the mayor of the airways.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: At first, when he told me this, you know, five years ago, I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, I felt a little offended.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, no, he's right.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's less less less worry on my part.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: I just get to go back to being a little old rhythm and uh getting littler, I hope.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: But um but uh anyway, so uh our our show is uh is we have a cup of friendship.com.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Check out our website, and soon you'll be able to actually go to that website and it'll it'll link you to our podcast, etc.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's www.cupafriendship.com.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to support us, please buy a bag or two or three or five or ten of our uh cup of friendship.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and um would really appreciate that.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're just starting out, we're at the embryonic stages, and uh I've yet to hold a bag in my hands, but I understand somebody came to Ritz.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_03: You've held the bags in your hand.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: We were uh we sampled them, went through and we drank each one.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: We adjusted them, and you really liked the hearty handshake.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but they weren't in the bag yet.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um because doolin has a bag right there, and Rich came in the other day, and Dolan made him a cup of our coffee.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: I brought a bag over that we had on our show.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: This was about a month ago before I came to Honduras.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh we just didn't drink it.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: You're right.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: We did not drink it, so it was just there for show.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: But he's been now Dolan's been uh letting Rich try this.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Rich actually ordered some.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was out in Colorado, and I really appreciate the support.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he immediately jumped on it and really liked it.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, uh, we don't want this to turn into an advertising show.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: One thing they do, well, one thing they do bad on these podcasts.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I've been doing this 32 years, and when people ramble, like they start off a show and they ramble on with all these ads, I go, no, no, no.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Start your show, get people involved, then you can maybe go over here, give a little mention to what you're making available, and then come back to your show.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then also the intros, people go on and on and on and on.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can feel you pointing the finger right now.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to ring my bell here.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, let's take a break and talk about doing another subject, all right?
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, uh from uh the Rio Cocoa Cafe on the Western Caribbean island of Utella.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: Aloha!
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Aloha from Stobermont, play the song, Maestro.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right.