Unpacking Ephesians: What It Really Means to Be Chosen by God

Episode Transcript
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Pastor Brent McQuay (00:17):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode
of Between Sermons. I am your host,
Brent McQuay, and I am the lead
pastor of Disciples Church. And we are
going to have a lot of fun
today because we started a series out
our church on the book of Ephesians.
And today's episode actually becomes a super
important one for our church because the

(00:39):
whole premise of Between Sermons is we
want to continue a conversation. But this
week, we really are continuing the conversation
because I promised we'd walk through Ephesians
chapter one, and we got all the
way through verse 14. The problem is
there's 23 verses in the first chapter.
So we. We are going to really
continue this conversation by digging into not

(00:59):
just what we talked about on Sunday,
but also what we did not talk
about on. And we're have a lot
of fun doing it because I'm joined,
as always, by the wonderful Taisha.

Ti’heasha Beasley (01:10):
Why did I say you?

Whoop, whoop every single week.

Okay, we gotta come up with a
new you guys advice. No, I'm gonna
talk.

David Beasley (01:19):
Say, yo, yo.

Get it together. Yo, yo.

She's just nervous because she has her
husband next.

I am nervous.

That's what I do.

Excited. That's what you do. Okay, okay.
We're not gonna go there anyway. Yes,
today we are joined by my amazing
husband, David Beasley. And honestly, before we
even got started, you two were going
back at it. So I don't even
know how much you're gonna see me
in this episode, but I can guarantee
it's gonna be a great conversation. So

(01:47):
I'm excited to dive in. So good
morning, guys.

How's it going? I do have to
point out, David, let me see your
Bible.

Okay. Yeah.

Look at that. Tried and true.

He got the big old ESV study
Bible filled with stuff.

Papers and notes and years of consecration
and dedication and meditation.

What may be actually the exact same
study Bible. I don't know. We'd have
to compare the who did the study.
But yeah, mine was a birthday present
a little over a year ago. That's
new. That stays mostly at the church
and becomes like my study Bible when
I'm here. And then I have a
bunch of other Bibles, so mine is
not. Mine's more crisp. It's not as

(02:28):
damaged. As damaged, but. But both are
well used. Esv Study Bible. So, Taisha,
show us yours.

You see? You know what? First of
all, whip out your iPhone, baby. We're
starting again. And this time. You trying
to drag my husband into this.

I'm just saying we came prepared.

Behave.

Yeah, we.

We we came. We came prepared.

I am the a co host, so
I'm asking the questions, okay. And the
word of God is written in my
heart. Amen.

Come on now.

At least.

At least pull out your phone so
when we start getting into stuff, you
can be like, oh, yeah, I can
read that right here.

Okay. Pretty, can you get my phone
over there? Okay, so while Pretty is
getting my.

Screen, can somebody check lost and found?
There might be a Bible.

Oh, my gosh. I read my word.
Wow. Thank you. Thank you.

No, no, I'll stop throwing shade because.
Because Taisha does love the word of
God.

She does.

She.

I mean, I see it every day.

Thank you. Thank you. I have someone
on the show to co sign that
I'm a believer in real life.

I study the word crying out to
the Lord old school style. They don't
make them like that no more.

I'm like, right. The grandma.

Head. Oh, God.

Real talk. Yes. I do have. I
don't put it on my head, but
I thought about it a couple times.

Man, there's some times where I need
something extra sackcloth and ashes in the
Word.

And I feel like that's why I'm
really excited about this episode today, because
I feel like you went straight, like,
old school. For real. What is that?
Old school? Like studying the word, taking
out the storytelling aspect of, like, your
sermons. How was that? How. How was
that? Do you like this more?

Oh, absolutely. If I could just do
that. If we just like a walk
through the Bible for the next 40
years. Because that's probably how long it
would take us. At the rate I
go through a chapter. No, I'd be
super happy. Yeah, I'd be super happy.
And. And one thing that, that's kind
of neat is there was a season
where, like, people in our generation didn't

(04:37):
want that. Yeah, they wanted the storytelling
and the jokes and the humor. And
it was like, it became like the
common thing for churches was a TED
Talk with. With scriptures kind of sprinkled
on top.

Yes.

But it's changed and it's. It's changed
within our generation, but also in the
next generation where they're like, you know
what? Stop doing all that stuff. Like.
Yeah, like, I don't need all the.
The hoopla. Like, just tell me what
the Bible says. Yeah. And so, like,
I'm. I love it. Yeah, fantastic.

I think that's great. And I think,
I mean, we had to stop the
hoopla because the hoopla was not transforming
lives.

And it, like, it started in a
good place, I think, like, People wanted
to become better communicators, more engaging. And
I think that there's, there's space for
that. Right. Like, cuz it's still like
God's word is alive and active, but
you still need somebody to communicate it
in a way that causes people to
understand and to want to hear it.
Like I've, I've heard some people read

(05:33):
through the Bible and it puts me
to sleep. I've heard other people read
through the Bible and I'm like fired
up. I'm ready to storm hell with
a water pistol afterwards.

Yes.

And it's the same Bible, but the
way the person is communicating affects how
you receive. So I get that, like
that that whole world started in a
good place wanting to be more engaging.
But I think that it, it became
okay, we're more engaging now. We got
to become more and more engaging and
then more and more and more engaging
and now we gotta have like trampolines

(06:02):
on the stage and like it's just
all of those motorcycles.

So you're not gonna bring out any
major props for any of your sermons
this year?

No, I still do props. I'm still
awful because of the, I mean, so
great. It's still like, it's visual representations
I think are important. You know, even,
even yesterday in the message like I
talked about like the chalkboard thing, like
yeah, if we wanted to be super
extra, I could have had like somebody
wheel out the giant chalkboard.

True.

So like there's visuals help us understand
things.

So yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's good.

I say one of the reasons. Oh,
can I jump in?

No. Yeah, jump in.

One of the reasons I would say
people are done with the hoopla for
the most part is because we live
in an age where people are sick
of being deceived, I think. So every
time you look at social media, you
hear what fake news or what's the
truth or what's real and what's a
lie. And especially like the Gen Z
millennial generation and even other generations, it's
like, let's get down to the bottom.

(06:58):
What's the truth?

What's the truth?

I need to know what really put
the list out. Every time there's a
list of something, something, some celebrity in
there, we have a list of people.
What's the list? We want to know
what's going on. So people are sick
of like facades. People want to hear
the truth, including in the church. So
people are coming to the church, they
want to, they, they're interested in spiritual
things, spirituality, and they're giving things a
try, but they want to hear the

(07:20):
truth. So people are open to hearing
what the Bible teaches because people are
now TikTok on TikTok. People are scholars,
you know, quotations, TikTok scholars. And they
can say all type of things. And
it sounds. It sounds genuine. It sounds
like it's. It's reputable. But, you know,
at the end of the day, people
want to really know what God's word
says because their life is hanging on

(07:41):
it and they're sick of lies, so
they want the truth.

So I can agree with that.

Yeah. Cracking open the words is walking
through it because people, People want that.

Right. It can be very confusing listening
to your favorite influencer or pastor and
just not like one person saying one
thing and another person, and you just,
like, confused. So you're like, what's the
truth in the Bible? Is the, the
light that shines on this shines the
truth?

Yeah. And I think there's also. And
I don't want this to become, like,
bashing stuff, but I think there's a
danger in our culture when we just,
we gravitate to the verse of the
day. And so, like, there's so many
people that are reading their Bible every
day, but they're never reading it in
context. And when you just take a
verse.

Yeah.

Like, then, then it becomes, okay, what.
What do I think that this verse
is talking about? Or what does this
verse mean?

Yeah.

And you have to do that because
it's out of its context. Like you,
you know, six words. Right. And so
we need to get back into a
mode of actually reading large portions of
the text. Like, yeah, it'll take you
about 20 minutes or so to read
through the entire book of Ephesians. And
I think everybody needs to do that
maybe this week as a start to

(08:50):
this series, because what Paul says in
verse one ties into what he says
in chapter six. And so, like, like
we talked about on Sunday how many
times he says in Christ just in
this first chapter. But that's not the
only time he talks about being in
Christ. He talks about being in Christ.
I think I would have to, like,
double check myself on this, but I
think he brings up in every single
chapter. And so, like this, these concepts,

(09:13):
these ideas, they're sprinkled throughout. And so
we need to. We need to start
reading the Bible within its context.

Yeah, that's good. But I would advise
not to read it on the toilet
like you.

Man, my wife got so mad at
me.

Like you said in the sermon.

Look, I was. That was One of
those moments where Brent says things, and
I don't really think about the.

Do you have a Bible in the
toilet? Like, the people want to know.

Everybody's looking at the phone at least.

Right? Okay. If you're on the toilet,
should you be scrolling Instagram or scrolling
your Bible? Which one would be no,
but my wife object. My wife was
highly offended, and. And I. I admitted
to her we were at lunch, and
I was like, you know what? Yes,
I. I should take back that statement
because there's. There's a reverence for God's
word that's missing. And I think that

(09:59):
when we talk about, you know, sitting
on the toilet, like, we're losing the
rever. I would never bring this into
the toilet with me, but I would
bring my phone, because norovirus is real.
Okay, so. So, honestly, have I ever
read the Bible while sitting on the
toilet? Yes. Yes, I have.

Oh, gosh.

If you know, you know.

David, have you ever read the Bible
while sitting on the toilet?

I plead the fifth.

Come on, David. This is a place
of honesty and transparency.

This is our online life.

I went to the verse of the
day on my phone. So, yeah.

Okay.

There you go. See?

So I guess it's Taisha. I don't
even bring my phone to the bathroom.
It's only men that spend a lot
of time in the bathroom.

That's because it's a quiet space.

Right?

If you're a married man, the bathroom
is the only quiet space.

You thought what? I don't know where
this conversation is going, but you thought
I was the only one. What's he
doing in there?

I'm catching my breath.

Catching a Sabbath and everything.

Okay, yeah.

The bathroom is the Sabbath.

Mom is hilarious.

That'll preach.

Well, there you go.

You've heard it here first, folks. Well,
let's dive in to Ephesians because we
have a lot to cover. But before
we do, what is something that really,
like, impacted you from this sermon?

What impacted me, I would say, is
the fact that, you know, even though
Pastor Brent, he gave you did a
great job of breaking down terms like
predestination and. And. And. And helping us
understand that better. I will say that
for me, I just see it as
a fact. I just see it as
the fact that God. God chose us.
He chose to save us in a

(11:40):
way that wasn't an afterthought. Like, it
was something that was intentional. I see
a lot of intentionality when I look
at Ephesians, chapter 1. So God was
intentional to determine beforehand to choose us
In Christ, right? Those who are in
Christ belong to Him. And it was
something that wasn't on the fly, on
the cuff. It wasn't like a backup

(12:01):
plan. And like, oh no, what's going
to happen? Because. Because Adam and Eve
failed and now what's the. What's the.
What are we going to do? And
the Trinity looks at each other, Father,
Son, what are we going to do?
We got to come up with a
plan. No, it was something that was
predetermined before the world even existed. God
chose us before the world existed in
Christ. And that was something that stood
out to me. It helps me realize,
like, if God chose to do this

(12:23):
for little old us and little old
me, then I don't have to fear
or worry or wonder if he loves
me or wonder if he's there for
me or wonder if he'll ever leave
me or forsake me. Everything he did
was done before any. Anything ever existed.
His mind was made up. So me
just hearing that helped me realize, like,
this is not an afterthought. And even
though debates can arise and.

We'Ll get to that, so don't.

I'm not gonna go deep, but debates
can arise from these type of verses
and these type of conversations and sermons.
I think praise should arise. I think
when Paul wrote this, he wrote it
to a group of believers who needed
to hear this so that they can
glorify God and look at each other,
say, do you see what God did
for us? Look at the extent in
which God chose to love us and

(13:05):
chose to save us. It wasn't that
just happened out of nowhere. It was
something that he had planned in his
heart before anything existed. This is the
true example of love. It's like preparing
for your. It's like, I know people,
I've heard podcasters and people who are
not married and they don't have any
kids, but they have savings accounts and
things set up for kids they don't

(13:27):
even have yet. Saying, when I get
married, have kids, I already got something
for my son, for my daughter, for
my children, for the future. Am I
married? Nope. Do I have a prospect?
Nope. Do I have kids? Nope. But
I'm preparing for them. That's how much
I want to be prepared. I've heard
somebody say that. I said, that's. That's
crazy.

But it's not next level.

It's next level. It's next level. But
that's what. In a sense, that's what
God did. Physically. We weren't here yet,
but it was already pre planned. And
laid out before any of us came.
So that's what caused all of us
to say, God, wow, thank you. Thank
you for loving us and choosing to
do this for us. So that's how
my mind works. That's what my mind
is.

I mean, you're on another level, so
we're going to come back to you.
So for those who did not. Because
I'm. I asked that question from a
place of. He already heard the message.
For those who are tuning in and
did not hear the message. Pastor Brent,
can you give us a brief summary
of those? I don't know if it
should be a brief sign. It's not
gonna be brief.

Brief summary of Ephesians 1.

Okay, can we walk through. Can we
start walking through those, those verses?

Sure. I mean, if you want to
start with the bigger picture. So Ephesians
6, chapters. Paul's writing this. We know
it's Paul writing this because he claims
he wrote it. Which for some people
that's not enough evidence. Which is kind
of funny because I think some people
have this weird idea that it was

(14:49):
first century and then nothing happened, and
then like 18th, 19th century. But, like,
the person that Paul taught, taught somebody
else, taught somebody else, taught somebody else.
And so there's an issue with us
Protestants that we don't have enough knowledge
of church fathers to recognize like, like

(15:10):
names like Irenaeus. Right. Or, or, or
people who actually studied under Peter, John,
Paul. And so if Paul didn't write
this, one of those guys would have
said, hey, Paul didn't write this. Right.
And so we, we recognize this is
a letter of Paul because it's claimed
in the text and it's supported by

(15:30):
the church fathers. So when they quote
Paul, they quote Ephesians.

This is gonna sound. This gonna make
me sound really crazy. Who are the
church fathers? I've never heard of this.

Yeah, so Church fathers. Church fathers. Because
you're Protestant. Right. Like, we don't. We
don't recognize this stuff. So Peter, James,
John, Paul, all those disciples, they started
training up other people. And we know
names like, like Timothy. Right. But there
are others that were like Ignatius and

(16:06):
Irenaeus and Polycarp. Polycarp, yeah. Justin Martyr.
So, like, these are first, second, third
century men who were trained and taught
by the disciples who went on to
write. Like, actually, you can take the
writings of the church fathers and recreate.
I think it's like 98% of the

(16:27):
new Testament.

Wow.

Just from their quotes of the New
Testament documents.

Wow.

So, like, there is maybe. Maybe someday
we should do It. I'm not the
person that's qualified for it.

I mean, you know, more than somebody.

Somebody needs to.

Just not the person who's qualified out
everything.

But what do I know?

We need to reintroduce the Protestant church
to the church fathers. And I think
part of the issue is when Protestants
broke away from Catholics, they kind of
broke away from tradition in a way
that shouldn't have. Like, yes, we believe
that Scripture is the sole premier authority,

(17:07):
the highest authority, but that doesn't exclude
all of these other writings as being
authoritative or having influence or being truth.
Right. And so, yeah, I think Protestants
need to do a better job of
learning the church fathers.

Okay.

And they don't start with Martin Luther.

Right. And the church fathers don't start
with Martin Luther. It starts in the
first century. And we did talk about
some of those names, some of those
guys in some of our life university
courses. But yeah. So rabbit trail moment,
I guess.

But it was needed foundation.

So Paul writes a book to the
church in Ephesus, the believers in Ephesus.
It's a special place in his heart
because he's the one that started that
church. On his second missionary journey, he
goes back and spends three years there
pastoring them. You know, from our understanding,
that's best way to put it. Like,
when you stay somewhere for three years
with one group of people, you're no
longer a traveling missionary. Like, you've become

(18:02):
their pastor. And so there's just a
love that he has for them. And
then Ephesians is this unique book because
all of Paul's other letters, with I
think I said maybe the exception of
Philippians, Philippians may or may not were
all written to bring correction. It was
like, you guys screwed something up. You,
you misrepresented what we taught and now

(18:23):
we need to come in and we
need to fix it because there's been
false stuff, teachings, there's been wolves in
sheep's clothing that have come in and
corrupted things. Or you've just gone off
into some weird sin stuff. Like he
starts talking about, man, you're sinning in
ways even the pagans don't sin. Like,
like he, he gets. It's a slap
in the face when you read Paul
and, and at least 11 out of
his 13 letters. But Ephesians, it's a

(18:46):
warm hug. It's like.

But is that why you chose like,
to, to do Ephesians? Because you said
in your sermon that if Paul wrote
a letter to the modern, like, oh,
he be.

I think I posted the meme yesterday.
On Sunday afternoon on. On Instagram of.
It's. If Paul was writing to the
American church, you know, peace, grace and
peace be upon you. You've been blessed
and highly favored. I don't even know
where to begin with you. Like, like
that's, that's kind of where we are.

Oh my God.

American church in a lot of ways.
Which, which is sad, but it's kind
of true. But no. So we, we
picked Ephesians for. For. So I nominated
Ephesians. So we do a whole sermon
calendar planning thing together as a group.
I nominated Ephesians because I love Ephesians.
But we actually chose it because there's
six chapters and we could do a
six week series.

Okay.

A chapter a week. So like we,
we finally landed on it for like
the most like, silly reason.

Right.

But it was nominated. I think I
nominated like four books or five books
of the Bible that we could walk
through.

Yeah.

And we're like, you know what? Six
weeks would be a perfect timing. We
could do that as an all church
campaign. We usually try and do six
weeks for those. So it was like
the fact that Ephesians is six chapters
and we wanted six weeks for a
series. It just got it. And then
I was, I was just doing a
happy dance because it's my favorite book.

Happy dance. Because of God's sovereignty. No,
I'm just playing. We're not gonna go
there.

Is that foreshadowing for the conversation to
come?

No, no, because remember you was bashing
me for. Well, not believing in the
sovereignty of God. But we had this
whole thing about the sovereignty.

We all believe in the song.

We all believe in the song.

Okay, we're not gonna go there because
you cannot on this show.

I'm just saying we all do believe.

Okay.

Yeah, I believe in the sovereignty of
God.

Yes. Back to Ephesians.

Okay, so. So back to Ephesians. So
Paul writes this beautiful letter. You know,
it's. It's doctrine set to music. It's
actually some of the. The way he
writes it really is like an overture.
So it's like it's setting the tone
for all of his writings. Like, it's
just. It's a beautiful letter. And then
he divides it into two sections. So

(21:00):
chapters one, two, and three, and then
four, five and six. And chapter four
starts with therefore. Technically it says I,
therefore. So it starts with I. But
the very next word is therefore. And.
And it's there to, to make this
divide between beliefs and behavior. So chapters
one, two and three is heavy doctrine.

(21:20):
Right. Which means the next three weeks
at clc, we're going to be getting
into some heavy doctrine. It's going to
be a lot of fun. But then
weeks four, five, and six, we're going
to get. Okay, what do we do
with this doctrine? That's good. Because good
theology should lead us to good practice.
Like, the stuff we know should influence
how we live and what we do.
And if you know stuff but it
doesn't affect how you live, then you

(21:41):
don't really know it very well.

Yeah.

Or you're being a hypocrite.

Yeah.

And so it's this beautiful layout. Two
sections divided by the word therefore. Here's
what we need to know. Here's what
we need to do. It's just. It's
beautiful. Yeah. And it's so much hope.

And you really light up when you
talk about the book.

I love the book of Ephesians and,
And then, like. And, like, things that
we didn't even talk about on Sunday.
Like, he's writing to the Gentiles to.
To really prove to them that when
the Jews around them say, you know,
we Jews are the chosen ones. Paul's
like, no, no, no. All of us
in Christ are chosen. That's the mystery
of the Gospel. You thought it was

(22:19):
just you Jewish people who were chosen.
No, no. God was choosing everyone in
the world who will be in Christ.
And so, like, he's like, bringing hope
to the gentiles that, like, hey, you're
a part of this thing, but you're
not an afterthought. You are. From the
beginning of time, God was planning for
you to be a part of this
whole thing. Like, that's the mystery of

(22:39):
the Gospel. It's beautiful. I love the
way he writes it. And then verses.
Oh, verse three through 14 or four
through 14. I can't remember if it
starts in verse three or starts in
verse four.

Well, you have your Bible open.

Well, it's in the Greek. I don't
have. In the Greek language. It's the
longest sentence in the Bible outside of
genealogies. So it's. It's. It's literally, it's.
It's. I think it's. Verse 3 through
verse 14 is actually one sentence.

Wow.

Which is part of why when we
say you have to read the Bible
in context, like, how could you take
a sentence and just take one thing
out of the sentence and run in
a weird direction with it? So, like,
in the English translation, he does. We
do throw in periods and commas and
stuff. But when Paul was dictating it
because our understanding was Paul would have
had a scribe.

Yeah.

And so he's speaking out loud. The
scribe is writing what he's saying. Like,
I feel so bad for the scribe
because, like, Paul's just like going and
going and going, and the scribes, like,
man, are you gonna take a breath?
At what point do we stop this?
But it's, it's one long sentence. And
the structure of the sentence is the
Trinity, which is just beautiful. He talks

(23:52):
about the role of the Father, then
he talks about the role of the
Son, and then he closes the sentence
with the role of the Holy Spirit.
And so it's just, it's so beautiful,
like, when you start getting into the
nuances, how Paul wrote this and how
he set it up. Like, I'm sorry,
but, like, how could you not be
excited about the Bible?

So. Yeah, and I have a question,
because the way you and David and
some other pastors here get excited about
the Bible, like, I love the Bible,
but I don't get that excited. Is
that a gift?

Because I think it's a personality trait.

Okay.

What you're describing is what we would
lovingly call a nerd.

Okay.

So some of us are just, we're
nerds. And so, like our nerd and
nerdendom, our nerdity, our whatever. I don't,
I don't know what that.

Can we make a nerdism?

Nerdism. The thing that makes us nerds
would, Would probably play out in a
lot of things. Like, okay, David probably
gets the same excitement when he talks
about basketball stats. Like, I, I get
the same excitement when I talk about
football stats or when I talk about
video games. Like, there are things that
I'm just, I'm obsessive, which is not
a good quality in a lot of

(25:01):
places. But when it's focused on Scripture,
like, then it becomes.

Yeah, because you're like, on fire talking
about Ephesians.

A lot of it is how you're
wired. You know what I mean? God
used a lot of the, See, I'm
heavy into, like, apologetics and learning the
original Greek, Hebrew and breaking down stuff.
And God used that to help, like,
keep me in the faith. Especially when
it came to hearing certain views that
were anti Christian and other religious perspectives.

(25:30):
And, and the Bible is not true
because of this, and the resurrection didn't
happen because of that, and God don't
exist and all those things. And what
helped me is that I'm nerdish. So
I dived into the arguments and dived
into the scriptures, and then God showed
Me. No, this is true. So kind
of the way I'm wired kind of
fuels that. So it continues on in
my studies and in my conversation in

(25:51):
regards to just biblical topics. That's how
I'm wired. But God knows how to
keep his people based on the unique
way he fashioned and formed them. Right.
So for me, that helped keep me
for somebody else. They may need, you
know, an experience of something like God
is written. I need that too. And
I need that too. But at the
end of the day, we all need

(26:11):
both. We need both. But how much
more do you need? I value all
the experiences I've had with God. But
I need. God knows I need more
of a heavy understanding of His Word.
You know what I mean? That's just
how I'm wired and that's what God
used to keep me.

Yeah. And if that's not how you
are wired, like don't feel bad or.
No. Like you're not less than, less
than. Like, yeah, you might, you might
feel awkward in some of these conversations.

Not having my Bible on this episode.

That was just for fun. That was
funsies.

Sure. Making up words today.

No, but I think that everybody is
wired differently.

Yeah.

Because we're all parts of one body.

Yeah.

But if everybody is a hand, we
ain't walking nowhere.

That's good.

Like if, if everybody is a heart
and just feeling all the things, we
ain't getting nothing done. Like so like
you, you need the different. Right parts
of the body working in unison together.
And so like, like this Sunday, this
coming Sunday, my wife is going to
be bringing us chapter two. It's gonna
feel very different. And at one point
she's like, well, I really need to

(27:21):
see how you're approaching this so that
I can do the same. And I'm
like, I don't want you to approach
it like I approach it it. Yeah,
I want you to approach it how
soul approaches it. Cuz like the, the
reason why we have a teaching team
and we rotate through is cuz different
people learn in different ways.

Got it.

And so the way that soul communicates
is going to connect with people. That
the way I communicated on Sunday, I
missed them. Like they're sitting there going,
man, he's, he said homiletics and herma.
What? Like what is he even talking
about?

Like now you have to give definition
for those who did not get that
definition.

Homiletics is the art and science of
preaching. Hermeneutics is the art and science
of interpretation. Textual interpretation. In our context,
that's biblical interpretation. But Technically, you can
have hermeneutics for Shakespeare. You can have
hermeneutics for, you know.

Any writing of antiquity, any old writing.
You can use the hermeneutical approach.

I'm on the wrong episode.

And so it's just a way to.

Figure out what something meant. Just trying
to figure out what was the original
meaning of this writing, this document.

I love Jesus. I love his Word.
And I feel like my gift is
of evidence, edification.

That's how I have a strong prophetic
gift, too.

I. That's how I.

All that good stuff.

Because I'd be nervous to teach now.
Okay. No, because I'm just like, I
don't know this. I don't know how
to break down that one passage and
pull out. I can tell you what.
I feel like. I know the background.
I know what he's saying, but it's
going to come out way more emotional
than how you guys.

And there are people, male and female.
Like, please don't even think that this
is a male or female thing. Like,
there are females that think and operate
like we do. There are males that
think and operate like you do. Like,
it really is just how God has
wired you. And, like, in 100% honesty,
there are people on Sunday that were
listening to me talk, going, man, I
really love how passionate he is, but

(29:05):
I don't get it. Like, it's just
too much, right? And so, like, that's
why we need the body of Christ
together. That's why. And shameless plug. Everybody
needs to get in a D.C. group.
Like, because you need to be in
a group where now all of a
sudden, you can be talking and sharing
and there's somebody else in the group
that thinks more like you do. And
you're like, man, I really didn't understand
when he said this. And somebody else

(29:26):
is going to be like, yeah, I
was actually struggling with that, too. But
here's a great way that I began
to understand it. And now you're kind
of feeding off of each other. Like,
this morning, you know, I used Noah's
Ark as the explanation for In Christ.
Pastor Asa quoted a study Bible that
talked about being sealed in an envelope,
right? And you're in the envelope. And

(29:47):
I'm like, oh, that was a cool
picture. Like, I didn't even. I never
even pictured that.

That was cool. Okay, I'll tell you
my thoughts afterwards, I was a little
confused because I'm like, I heard your
message. You went a totally different way.
And then that went a totally. So
it was, like, not confusing. But if
you Just don't know the basis of,
like, what that scripture is saying. You
can walk away. Like, these interpretations are
taking me out.

Yeah, yeah. And they're, they're. You have
to be cautious. You know, not everybody's
interpretation is a correct interpretation.

Right.

You know, just because you have one
doesn't mean it's right.

Facts.

Just because I have one doesn't mean
it's right.

So you. Funny you said that, because
that brings me to the, the topic
of predestination.

I was wondering how long it was
gonna take us to get there. I
mean, we're just gonna skip through, you
know, versus.

I mean, when you think about the,
the whole passage, I think that was
a great summary. But there, there, I
think that one part is a part
that people get caught up on. So.
So you, you ended the statement by
saying, this is my opinion. Do you
think it's your opinion or do you
think this is like, fact, like, elaborate?

Yeah. I mean, so, like, obviously if
I, if I hold the opinion, yeah,
I think it's true.

Okay, right.

Like, so, like, I wouldn't hold an
opinion that I know is false.

But I mean, an opinion, Mean, there
could be other opinions.

Yes, there are other opinions. Absolutely. So.
And you know this. I know you're
just setting up the audience. Yeah. So
honestly. And this is one of those
where, like, I held back to not
confuse people. Like, we could have talked
about Calvinism, Armenianism, Molinism, and thrown out
all these terms because that's where. So

(31:31):
Ephesians chapter one. It also comes up
another place in Ephesians. I forget which
chapter off top of my head. And
then it's. Is it Romans 1, Romans
2? We're in Romans. He go back
to predestination for those.

Whom he foreknew he predestined.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's Romans 3.

3. I was way off.

I have my phone.

Anyway.

I might be off myself.

Anyway, it's, there's, there's basically. So if
somebody has that Calvinist approach to predestination,
they're going to use Ephesians 1 and
Romans maybe 3 as the proof text
for that. The reason why I disagree
is because of the phrase in Christ.

(32:14):
And it's this phrase that is repeated
10 times in just 13 verses. He
repeats it again in all the other
chapters. Like the whole concept is those
in Christ. So then we have to
decide based on the reading of the
text, is it the people, Are people
predestined to be in Christ or is
the destination of those in Christ Predetermined.

(32:38):
So we have to. That's the argument.
Okay, which thing is predestined? The people
or the location? Based on my reading
of the text, I come away with
the interpretation that it's the location. It's
what happens to those in Christ is
predetermined. In other words, you can't be
in Christ and not be adopted. You
can't be in Christ and not have

(32:59):
eternal life. You can't be in Christ
and not have forgiveness of your sins.
You can't be in Christ and not
be blessed. Right. Because if you're in
Christ, these other things have been predetermined
before time even began. That basically before
time began, God the Father, Jesus the
Son and the Holy Spirit were around

(33:20):
each other saying, okay, what's the plan?
Well, the plan is we're gonna allow
sin to happen. We're giving them free
will, which is another.

You know, where I'm fit to go
with this, because we talked about this.
Allowing of the sin to happen.

Allowing sin to happen is different than
causing sin to happen.

Okay, okay.

Or making sin.

Okay, let's skip over. So, I'm sorry.

Focus on the language.

Continue. Sorry.

So they have this, this meeting in
heaven and they discuss. Okay, what's the
plan? Okay, well, the plan is, Jesus,
you're going to die to pay for
the sins of the world. And anyone
who receives that, that gift of salvation,
which Paul's going to go into in

(34:09):
another place. In Ephesians, that were saved
by grace through faith in Christ. And
so whoever is in Christ, those people
are going to have eternal life. Those
people are going to have all the
things that I just listed out. So
my argument based on the text is
God is not choosing before time begins.

(34:30):
Taisha, you're going to be saved. David,
you're going to be saved. Pretty, we
don't know. Sorry, I had to pick
somebody else.

But you saved. Pretty, you saved.

You totally saved. You're totally in. You're
totally in, girl.

We know. We see the fruit.

We see the fruit. So I, I
think that it would be contradictory to
the rest of scripture to say that
he chose Taisha to be saved, that
Taisha doesn't have a choice in this.
Taisha is going to be saved because
I said so. I think that would
be a. Forgive the language bastardization of

(35:07):
the text. Like it, it would, it
would be taking away from scripture in
order to say that. And so that
leaves us with, okay, if it's not
the people being predestined, it's what the
p. What happens to the people is
predestined. Did that, did that clear up
anything at all or did that just
make it more confusing?

No, I'm. I'm not confused.

Can I add something?

You. Yes.

Did you have.

I. I want. David, I actually, I
want both of you to add because.
So I'm, I'm an outsider. Like, I,
I actually, this is funny because I
ended up talking a lot negatively, I
guess, about Reformed theology. I actually love
reform teaching. I love reform pastors. I
love. Because reform guys, they love scripture
and I love scripture. And so when

(35:54):
a. When a reformed guy gets passionate
about God's word, I'm like, yeah, let's
do it. So actually, I lean more
Reformed, probably, than. Than anything else. I
just also happen to love the Holy
Spirit and.

Yeah.

Believe in signs and wonders and miracles
taking place.

And there are.

And I will say, yeah, you did
bring that up.

There are some who do. Like, yeah,
there are a lot of. I need
to get charismatic Reformed Charismatics.

I need to get around some reform
charismatics.

Is that where we are?

We're not Reformed. No, but we are
charismatic.

We do come from.

But, yeah, that's what I was saying.
That's why I wanted to get you
guys take on this, because while I'm
an outsider, I've. I've heard reform teaching,
but I've never grown up in it.
Whereas for both of you, you actually
were part of a Reformed church. Now,
you guys have shared your story before,
and it always led me to think,
and maybe this is correct or maybe

(36:46):
this is wrong. You can clarify. Even
when you were in Reformed churches, you
didn't agree with some of the Reformed
theology around this conversation.

Yeah, so I was going to say
we were outsiders. We were inside out.

Inside out.

So we agreed. High view of Scripture.
High view of the might and sovereignty
of God. God is God. High view
of living out the scriptures, growing in
the fruit of God, making sure you're
developing the fruit of the Spirit. High
view of Scripture in context and making
sure we understand what it means. High

(37:23):
view of discipleship and community, which.

Is all stuff I love.

But I will say, though, the fruit
of the Spirit needed to be displayed,
to be evident of whether or not
you're a Christian, truly saved or not,
which I believe is biblical. Eventually, fruit
will be displayed. Certain fruits.

That's what Ephesians 1 says.

Exactly. Certain fruits seem to not be
as displayed. So, like, joy. I remember
joy was the things like, oh, yeah,
when something happens, there's not.

A whole lot of happy Reformed guys.

To a certain extent. Oh, my God.

I have stories.

Yeah. When something occurs, something horrible, it's
like, oh, man, I'm struggling.

Rejoice.

God is sovereign and, you know, he's
using this to prune you, and he's.
And he's in control. And that may
be true, but where's the joy in
the midst of. Where's the joy of
the Spirit? To count it all joy
and actually walk that out. Sicknesses, people
needing healing and wanting to see the
miraculous and actually wanting to worship in
a way that. That invites or invokes.

(38:24):
Invokes, but invites the Holy Spirit to
just do what he do. Kind of
gets muzzled. It's like, don't wanna be
too emotional.

Too emotional.

Don't wanna be too. It's like, but
that's. But. But. And there was a
lot of people who came from charismatic
circles that were somewhat abused. So you
wanna get more solid teaching in theology,
but now you're on a whole different
end of the spectrum. So the pendulum
has swung so far in the other
direction. So you're looking for that happy
medium.

Which society is all thought, where are
you gonna be? Are you gonna be
all feelings or all thought? Right? And
I'm like, can we be both?

Yeah.

Shameless plug.

D.C. church, I think, does a great
job.

This is why we're here.

Yeah, I think we do a great
job.

Perfect balance of biblical teaching and still
being.

I mean, Sunday was, like, such a
great example. I mean, the presence of
God during worship. Like, it was one
of those Sundays where, like, part of
me was like, do we even need,
like, to do anything else? Like, God.
God's here. Let's just hang out. Like,
this is beautiful. I know. And then
I get up on stage, I'm like,
all right, we're just gonna read the
Bible, like, a whole chapter. We're just
gonna walk through it.

Perfect balance for Taisha, because we get
to go hard in worship and then
we get to hear biblical truth. So
great.

Yeah. It's funny, I had. I had
lunch a while back with Leon, who's
leading worship, and it. That was like,
the exact conversation, like, he and his
wife LeSean was like, I just. I
love the presence of God and worship
and just feeling him in the room.
And his wife Lydia was like, I
just need strong Bible foundation and the

(39:48):
teaching. And, like, both of them are
happy at D.C. because they're. Both. Their
needs are being met.

Yes. That's awesome.

Cool.

Cool.

Plug.

This is a great church, guys. I'm
saying. I'm just saying.

Shameless Plug.

We. We, like, it. We're growing here,
we're thriving and we're getting the both
of best. Okay. So anyway, continue.

I will also say, so you. What
you just said is why. Why it's
very important to understand hermeneutics like. Like
you said, the art and science of
biblical interpretation. Because scripture can. Can interpret
Scripture.

Yeah. Yeah.

So based on what you just said
about how us being in Christ is
not necessarily the predestination of the person,
but predestinate is predetermined what the person,
what happens to the person if they're
in Christ, Whoever that person may be.
Helps me think and better understand in
Romans when it says for. For those
whom he foreknew, he predestined to be

(40:42):
conformed into the image of God. And
those whom he predestined, he justified. Those
whom he justified, he sanctified. Those whom
he sanctified, he glorified. All past tense,
like it's already done. So that gives
us a sense of. That's one of
the ones that some reformed individuals or
some people believe in certain aspects of
eternal security. They'll hinge on that it's

(41:03):
done. Which I agree it is. But
the 4 no in the Greek I
know 4 no refers to intimate knowledge,
like intimacy, almost like to know Adam
knew Eve in an intimate way. God.

That's not the no sco of God.

Yeah. And we don't, of course, with
God he knows us intimately, not like
a husband and wife, but clearly an
intimate relationship to know. And I've heard
some individuals say, like that means the
person. I chose the I know that
person intimately. But based on how you
said, if they're in Christ, he does

(41:37):
know that person intimately. So that actually
balances it out for me. I wasn't
going to rebuttal. I was actually going
to say because I don't know if
you were thinking here's the rebuttal.

I was actually agreeing.

I was actually agreeing. Like that helps
me see because I've always seen that
like to foreknow mean God when I
read it every time I read in
the Greek because I was battling and
struggling back in the day, had some
buddies. I don't believe that debate. And
I was like, foreknow means to intimate.
Know God intimately, knows me. He knew
me before the foundation. That's a personal,
relational, knowing. But if the purpose is

(42:10):
for the purpose who. For the person
who comes to Christ when they're in
Christ. Yeah, he does know you. There's
an intimate knowledge that you gain and
that God has with you because you're
in him. And that helps me understand
that, yes, the predetermining factor is real,
but it's real for those who are
in Christ. And if you're in Christ,
he knows you. And guess what? We

(42:31):
can know him.

And you can even apply Romans to
that. He knows you. He predestined you,
he justify you, like, going all of
those.

And that all happens because you're in
Christ.

Yeah.

So the justification, the glorification starts with.

The choice in Christ. Yeah, and. And
that's where, like, it has to be
a choice because there's. There's other passages
that talks about, like, God desires that
all men would. Would come to salvation
in Christ. Well, how can he desire
it if he's the one that causes
people? Yes or no? Like, if he
desires it, well, then you have to
go to. Well, everyone's saved. But now

(43:04):
you've got, you know, thousands of scriptures
that are like, yeah, no, you have
to make the choice. And so there's
an interesting conversation within this conversation, too,
of, like, God's foreknowledge versus causation. Right.
So, like, God can know before time
begins that Taisha is gonna be in

(43:25):
Christ. Does that mean that he caused
you to be in Christ? No, like,
he can know it without making it
happen because he is outside of time.
He knows the beginning from the end.
He knows. He knows right now. He
knows every single person that's gonna be
in heaven. He has the foreknowledge, but
it doesn't necessitate that. That means he

(43:48):
caused it to happen just because he
knows it.

And I also want to put emphasis
on the mystery as we try to
break this down. It's mysterious even in
the breaking down. So I've read so
many things that some people, you know,
Jonathan Edwards, a reformed theologian from way
back in the day, he's one of
the primary voices in this from back
in the day. And even when I

(44:11):
read some of his writings, it felt
like he had a. He seemed to
think. I believe he had a. He
honed in on the market. He had.
He had to. He had it. Like,
this is what. But every time he
would explain predestination or the sovereignty of
God, it was like. It's like we
had no choice. We were like robots.
Whatever happens to us, it just happens
to us. God is sovereign. Oh, that

(44:31):
hit by a car. God predetermined it.
Oh, that person, that baby passed away.
Oh, it was a part of his
sovereign. And yet, okay, God has. Have
plans. God is sovereign. God. But that
the way it was presented was in
a way that makes it seem like
God was just playing games with us
and doing whatever he wants in a
way that is outside of the love

(44:53):
that we are familiar with when it
comes to God and the grace and
the mercy and the caring. Right. So
I feel like. And then on the
other side, Arminianism, which you didn't bring
up, is that God is like, we
just have. We just free to do
whatever. God ain't really in control like
that. I mean, he does some stuff,
but we kind of just do our
own thing. Well, that's not true either.
So it's a mysterious aspect to it

(45:14):
that we'll never understand. But I think
God has given us enough for us
to understand it in a way that
we can reap the benefits through appreciation,
through understanding who we are in Christ,
through understanding our position in Christ and
us having confidence in Christ. So we
have enough for us to be like,
okay, I have enough to understand it

(45:34):
in a way that causes me to
grow and truly appreciate everything Jesus did.
But it's still a mystery even in
the explanation.

Yeah. And so much is a mystery.
I mean, even like when we talk
about the Trinity and how the Trinity
operates and all that, like, part of
that is a mystery. Like we're trying
to understand the God.

God, He's God.

A little bit above my grasp, but
something that I found interesting and maybe,
maybe we can get off of the
Reformed people, like stop picking on them.

Sorry y'all.

Because I do love you.

Right.

100.

And I'm half of you.

Right. And like, if I was actually,
we're.

All a piece of each other.

Right.

We're all in the face, we all
agree with. We all have more, we
have more agreements than disagreements any day.

Like, and I don't think that any
of our disagreements are heaven and hell
issues, which is important to edify. One
of the things that I came to
with my struggle with, especially with, like,
true five point Calvinist, you know, tulip
believing. Like when I taught our life

(46:37):
university course on apologetics and we got
into like some of the problems of
evil in the world of pain and
suffering, I feel like if you jump
full force into Reformed theology, Calvinist viewpoint,
you have a much harder time in
apologetics because you throw out free will.

(46:59):
And free will is the best from,
from my study. It is the best
explanation or argument when it comes to
the problem of evil in the world.
And so if you remove free will,
then the problem of evil becomes God
is evil.

God is doing it.

Yeah. And so like, like, for Me,
it's like, okay, when we take the
totality of Scripture, the totality of the
Christian life, of how do we argue
these things, how do we talk about
these things? It's like you're almost shooting
yourself in the foot when you adopt
this total sovereignty of God. No free
will argument. You're making other arguments impossible.

And we limit God. God is sovereign
enough. He's powerful enough to be able
to be God. Even though we make
decisions and stuff.

That my free will does not negate
his sovereignty.

He's God, which is actually, when you
look at the Scripture and the redemptive
plan that was brought out and finally
fulfilled in Christ, it was a whole
lot of stuff that was done in
between that God said don't do, and
people still did silly things. But what
did he do? Being God, he still
brought about the plan that he made
before the foundation of the world through
his people, through rebellion of Israel, through

(48:13):
restoring them, disciplining them, restoring them, disciplining
them, finally bringing about the Christ people
thinking they about to. We going to
get rid of the firstborn when he
was born, you know, get rid of
him, he still made it through. And
Jesus death, they thought he had him,
then he's done. We gonna kill him
because of political reasons and whatever else
the case may be blasphemy. But his

(48:34):
death, burial and resurrection actually fulfilled the
plan for which he came. His death
was essential. Like, God is not limited.
So we don't have to limit him
and be like, oh man, this happened.
It's because God is sovereign. Or if
this happens because he's not sovereign. No,
the fact of the matter is God
is God. Regardless of what we do
or don't do, he's still God, and

(48:56):
that's what makes him God.

Yeah, it's good. Especially for me. I
don't know if it's impacting you the
same way, but because I come from
that, that, that background. Sovereignty was my
thing, man. Like, I stand. I was
standing.

God is in control.

Yeah, I was standing on business with
that. So I feel like even since
going back to the first conversation I
was having with you and Pastor Carlton,
like, it's been an unraveling there for
me. So I'm on a journey when
it comes to the sovereignty of God.

Well, and, and that's like, I want
to. I want to be clear. Like
we're not saying that God isn't sovereign.
And I've heard some Calvinists say, well,
you just don't think God's all that
powerful. I was like, I don't know
how you're coming to that conclusion from
this. Like, yes, God is sovereign. And
if God wants to overwrite my free
will, he will. And I think that
there's evidence of him doing that in

(49:48):
my life and in other people's life
when I make a horrible decision and
God still comes and redeems. I was
just telling my kids about one yesterday.
Like, I made a stupid mistake. I
was about 19 years old, old. I
rappelled down a line. So random, long
story. I did a lot of like,
ropes stuff and I was doing a

(50:10):
production at a church where I was
belaying an angel and demon as they
were sword fighting in the ceiling. Super
random. I know. Maybe one day we'll
talk about these experiences that Brent had.

You have a lot.

At the end of the show, I
was cleaning up. I had a blade
device to make it easier. Well, I'd
taken the line out of the belay
device, but the line, if, if it's
not tied to something, it falls. And
then I have to climb up into
the rafters and fix it and all
that. So I tied a slipknot around
the ledge just so the rope wouldn't
fall. While I was cleaning up everything
else, I started doing that. And then

(50:41):
somebody from down below yelled up. They
wanted a picture with all of the
riggers, all of the. The guys doing
the ropes. And so I'm in a.
I'm in a harness. So I grabbed
the rope, I put it in my
harness, and I jumped off the ledge
and a repel down. It wasn't until
about 20 minutes later I go back
up and I realized that I just
rappelled off of a slip line. A

(51:02):
slipknot. So a slipknot for those that
don't know knots, it's designed to slip.
So like, the whole point of it
is if you put any kind of
pressure on it, it comes out.

Wow.

So I repelled off of a line
that should have not held me.

Wow.

And yet it held me. Okay, so
free will. Brent did something stupid and
foolish. God was like, I can't have
you die now because I need you
to do some other stuff. So God's
sovereignty kept me safe.

Yeah, I got stories too, but I.

Ain'T got stories right. So many people
have stories of like, I did something
stupid. My free will should have cost
me my life. And yet God intervened.
So yes, even from a non Calvinist
viewpoint, we do believe in the sovereignty
of God. God is gonna do what
God wants to do, but he has
also given mankind free will that we
can make choices. And sometimes he does

(51:56):
not intervene. And we can make a
dumb choice that does cost us our
lives.

It's the nuance of it. It's both.

And do I know why? Or when
God's gonna step in and when he
isn't? Nope.

Wow.

Sorry, America.

Sorry, America, for that call. Man, this
is so good. I feel like between
sermons, it's just going to another level.
I've been feeling the Holy Spirit in.

These conversations, but I do want to
touch on. Look at me.

Yes. Yes. Co. Co host.

I mean, there's no time limit on
this, right? It's a long episode. You
can just watch it.

You guys can leave it any. I
mean, as long as we have some
switchers.

Because. Because I wanted. Before we jump
into the verses we didn't cover, I
did want to ask, like, was there
anything else else that we talked about
that was maybe confusing or that you
were like, I don't know if I
believe that. Like. Like, when I said
that it wasn't God's power that redeemed
you. Like, I saw some looks in
the room that were like, I'm about
ready to leave this. That man was
so here.

Yeah. Like, I can understand why you
got the looks, because when I was
re. Listening to it this morning, it.
It didn't hit me in a way
like, oh, but it was just like,
oh, I can. People probably. It's not
his love. His love is what saves
me. It draws me. But it was
like his blood.

You could argue that it's his love
is what caused him to shed his
blood.

Right.

So, yeah, you were. You were saved
because of his love.

Yeah, but.

And you can also say, yeah, you
were saved because of his power. Because
if he doesn't have power to save.
Yeah, what is he? But we have
to read the text. The text says
we were redeemed through the blood. We're
not redeemed through his power or through
his love. They might be a part
of the equation and part of the
causation of everything, part of the understanding
of why and how this thing works.

(53:41):
But ultimately it is through his blood.
Meaning if his blood is not shed,
we are not saved.

Without the shedding of blood, there's no
remission for sins. This is why he
set up the sacrificial system existed. He
was powerful then, he was loving then,
he was gracious, he was merciful then.
In fact, all that was displayed through
that system, because if that system didn't
exist, they would have to die for
their own sins. The reason he even
set up that sacrificial system of animals.
And everything was because blood has to

(54:08):
be shed, and because I love you,
I don't want you to have to
shed yours. Do it to these animals.
And that displays love. And that happened
to Jesus. And that blood that was
shed was the power. The power was
in the blood to save. So that
made sense to me. Me.

Of course it makes sense to you.

I mean, everybody framed it.

I was like, what are you about
to say? I was like, oh, that
makes sense.

I think it was. I think it
was more in the second service. And
my second service, people, man, you gotta
give me an amen every once in
a while.

Something I need to do a quick
training lesson. So when the pastor says
something, I.

Guess I could have helped. I was
sitting right there in the front row.
I'm just be looking like, pretty good.

So we gotta be the example, said,
go, brick. So when the pastor says
something you agree with, we say, hey,
man.

Hey. A buddy. We had a buddy
on the front row.

That was.

That was.

Man.

I was glancing at him too. He
was in it.

Like, man, at one point, I was
like, you know what? I'm just. I'm
just preaching to my man in the
dreadlocks in the front row. Like, I'm
just.

And he was feeling. I was like,
that's what's up. He's feeling that.

I love it.

What's his name again? Kenny. Kenny told
me his name. Kendall. Kendall.

We know him.

Are we really?

Good, brother. Good brother.

Kendall, if you're watching this, man, thank
you. Thank you for that, Kendall. I
appreciate that.

You guys did say good things, but,
like, are we name dropping oil?

Yeah, for a good reason.

Why not?

He was up there feeling. He was
like. He was like, man, hold on.
That's good, man. I was. I heard.
I had an ear shot. He like,
oh, that's good. Oh, man, that's crazy.
I was like, okay.

So, Kendall, thank you for being a
great example. Yeah, Seriously, thank you to
what we should be doing.

And if you're not watching this. But,
Kenny, I know you watch Paris. I
know you watch somebody get word back
to your brother.

He was a great example of how
you should react when the word is
impacting you.

He was feeling it and he prayed.
I heard him. You know what?

You got a whole.

I'm gonna leave that alone. That was
his business.

Right. But it's all on between.

Let's just say it was effective. I
feel like it was really effective for
my brother. And that's a good thing.

Oh, man.

That's a Good thing.

All right, so we're all clear on
the first 14 verses.

Yeah, I did have one more thought.
It wasn't a question. It was about
the adoption. You said something when. And
maybe this. You kind of cleared it
up at the end of your statement
about when you were adopted in. I
think you said the Roman culture, you.
All of your debts and things are
removed.

Yeah.

So. Because I was thinking, I'm, like,
in the United States. I don't know
if that's true, like, if you get
it, but I get where you.

Adopt me. Please, somebody adopt me.

Yeah. No, no.

I need these debts.

Clean us. You could die.

Somebody, please.

And they're still bringing their attack, your
taxes against you. Americans don't play Uncle
Uncle Sam outside.

Of every rich person's house. Adopt me,
Please, Oprah, if you're in there, adopt
me. Just, please, LeBron, open the door.
Adopt me.

No, but. Yeah, so. So Roman. So
Roman culture, that adoption process, and. And
basically, essentially what it. What it comes
down to is you were. You were
viewed by the government as a different
person.

Okay?

So, like, whoever you were before adoption,
it no longer exists. That person isn't
here. So that means that debts and
obligations, all that stuff, can't. Can't follow
you, because that's not you.

Yeah.

You are a new person. And that's
where I love. Because Paul uses that
language in several places. In Christ, we
are a new creation, so in him,
we are new. Which means whatever took
place before, it don't apply.

Yeah, that's good.

That's amazing.

So that was the two things that
stood out to me, was the adoption,
peace, the predestination. So I think that
was a good explanation of that first
14 verses that we walk through. I
just encourage you to go listen to
that message, get your notebook out and
have your Bible. Don't be like me.
And have your phone, have your Bible

(57:52):
with you so you can walk through
that message with Pastor Brent. But you
ran out of time. Did you do
that over.

It wasn't on purpose, but I knew
it was gonna happen.

Okay.

Like, it wasn't like an in the
moment. And I was like, oh, I'm
out of time. Yeah. No, like, when
I. When I put together the notes.
So. So I manuscript my sermon. So
it's, like, written out. Everything I'm gonna
say now when I deliver it, I
go off manuscript for sure. But in
the manuscript version, my sermon should be
about 3,500 words.

Okay.

And I got to verse 14, and
I was at 3,600 words. And I
Was like, well, it's a wrap. That's
a wrap. Like, I, Yep, that's going
to be too many words for me
to get through. And I look down
and I'm like, I'm at verse 14.
And I was like, but actually it's
kind of a beautiful place to break
because now headings and breaks in, in
your Bible are not by the author,

(58:44):
they're by the, the translators. So, like
in my Bible, verse one starts with
greeting, and then verse three is spiritual
blessings in Christ. And then verse 15
starts. Is it 15 or 16? I
can't see here. 15 starts with Thanksgiving
and prayer. So it's like a new
heading. Yeah, because the translators are like,
okay, he's kind of, he's kind of

(59:05):
moving to a new thought here. So
they put a break to make it
easier for you to read. And so
I got through the first 14 verses
and I looked down and there's a
natural break by the translator. So I'm
like, you know what? This is probably
a good place to close.

Okay, So I know, I know we're
not. If we walk through all 23
scripts now, if you want to do
that, we can do that.

But I, we've been going for what,
like an hour?

How long we've been on production?

One hour exactly. We can make this
a three hour episode.

So I'm going to gracefully bow out,
but I'm gonna let you guys come
on.

It's only one thing I wanted to
highlight.

We don't, we don't have to, we
don't have to go for, no, for
too much longer.

So, yeah, I, I, I didn't know
if you wanted to summarize or if
you wanted to walk through it, but
I think the best way to do
it, because we did not cover those
is yes. Have you start the conversation
with those scriptures and.

Pastor Brent McQuay (01:00:03):
Cool. Yeah, let's walk through and I'll
just kind of stop randomly and we'll
say some stuff and then.

Ti’heasha Beasley (01:00:08):
Okay, I would love, I'll find it
on my discussion.

And I am reading and I don't
think I told people yesterday, but it
was on the screen. But I use
the E ESV in my typical study.
I'll pull up an niv, an nlt,
an erv, an amplified. But my, my
typical reading is esv, the English Standard
Version. I think it's a solid, solid
breakdown. All right, so verse 15 says

(01:00:32):
for this reason, and anytime you read
something like that, you should, you should
pay attention because he's explaining something. So
for this reason, we should ask for
what reason? Because I have heard of
your faith in the Lord Jesus and
your love toward all the saints. And
what I think is really cool here
is Paul is in Rome. He's not

(01:00:56):
in Ephesus when he writes this, but
word has gotten to him from Ephesus
all the way to Rome about their
faith and their love toward all the
saints, which I think is just really
cool. Like, I want that to be,
like, the case for us. Like, I
would love for people living in Ohio
to be like, man, I've heard about
the faith and the love of those

(01:01:16):
people at Disciples Church in Illinois. Like,
man, God's really doing something amongst them.
Like, I would love that. Like, I
want to be known by our faith
and our love for each other. And
that's. That's the other thing I wanted
to. I was gonna highlight is what's
really interesting is Paul doesn't say their
faith and their love of God. They

(01:01:36):
say for one another, their love for
one another. And Paul hits that so
much in so many of his writings.
It's if. If we don't have love
for one another, we're missing out.

David Beasley (01:01:47):
Jesus said, they know you're my disciples
by your love for one another. Yeah.

Yep. And so, man, I want to
make sure that that always becomes the
emphasis for us as a church, that
we are loving each other well. So
he says, I do not cease to
give thanks for you, remembering you in
my prayers. And I think that we
should all be remembering each other in
our prayers. Please remember me in your
prayers. I would definitely appreciate it. That

(01:02:14):
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory. And then here's
where he's going to go into. I
alluded at the beginning of the message
that in chapter one is our church's
vision statement. Like you, you can find
these four things in a lot of
places in scripture, even in the Old
Testament. And Chris Hodges written a beautiful

(01:02:35):
book on this called the Four Cups,
where he actually walks through. In the
Jewish tradition, there was these four cups,
and each cup had a different representation.
And it's actually found here in this
verse and in our vision statement. So
check out Chris Hodges Four Cups, and
you'll get, like, a really cool background
of this. But he says four things.

(01:02:55):
So I'm praying to God for you
that he may give you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of him. And so first off, our
vision statement is to know God, right?
And so he's praying that you would
have wisdom and revelation to actually know
God, that it wouldn't just be and
this, this word. No, we did talk

(01:03:17):
about it earlier, right? It is that
ginosko in the Greek, which is that
intimate knowledge. So like when we, when
we know somebody beyond just like a
head knowledge of. Well, I know Taisha
because I know Tyisha's name. No, no,
there's, there's an intimacy in this knowledge.
And that's how we're supposed to know
God. Not just that we know about
him in our heads, but we have

(01:03:37):
like a personal connection to Him. And
so that's our vision for the, for
this church. We want you to have
that kind of knowledge of God that
you have experiential knowledge of Him. Not
just information, but like you're, you're walking
daily with God and He's revealing to
you more and more of who he
is and his nature and our understanding.

(01:03:58):
I mean, I'm, I'm 40 years old,
grew up in church. I feel like
an old man these days. I remember
looking at my dad when he turned
40 and I was like that ancient
man. And now I'm 40 and I'm
like, it ain't that old. And then
my body feels like it's 80 and
I'm like, why does my back hurt
this morning?

Tell me about it.

But, but like, so what I'm getting
at is like I've been following Jesus.
I've been in, in ministry, full time
ministry for 22 years. So I have
had a lot of knowledge of God.
But I still feel like this year
I'm, I'm getting to know God better.

Wow.

And my prayer is that next year
I'll get to know him better and
the year after that I get to
know him better. That's my prayer for
everybody. That, that we would, I would
echo Paul's prayer for our church, that
we would have this knowledge of Him.
And then he says, having the eyes
of your hearts 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? So those are the next three

(01:04:53):
things. So he starts with having the
eyes of your hearts enlightened. This idea
of the eyes of your heart feels
weird, right? Like we're like, Paul, you
don't know anatomy very well because your
eyes are up here, not in here.

(01:05:13):
To which I think Paul would just
laugh at us and be like, you
know, your eyes are in your heart
because you see everything based on your
heart, your experiences, how you feel, what's
happening in the world. Like the three
of us could go through the exact
same situation. See the exact same thing.
And all three of us are going
to interpret it differently. Yeah, we're going

(01:05:34):
to see it differently based on our
own wounds, our own traumas, our own
joys, our own, all of it. And
so when he talks about having the
eyes of your heart enlightened, what we
translate that to is that we need
to find freedom because there are some
things in our hearts that are actually
holding us hostage. They're holding us back.

(01:05:55):
We've got. I usually call them hurts,
habits and hangups. I think I stole
that from like a recovery program. It
might be celebrate recovery, but they talk
about hurts, habits and hangups. One of
our counseling people could probably correct me
on this, but yeah, hurts, habits and
hangups. What are the things that have
happened in our lives that have created

(01:06:17):
trauma, have created wounds, have created issues?
What are our habits? What are our
addictions? The sin things that we're just
tied to? It's this idea of the
Jewish people were freed from Israel, but
it took a while if of wandering
in the promised land or wandering in
the desert before the promised land to
get Egypt out of them. Right. And

(01:06:39):
so we come to faith in Christ,
but we still got stuff going on.
We still got junk in our hearts.
We still got issues. And we need
to find freedom from our pains, from
our wounds, from our habits, from our
hangups, from the stuff that is keeping
us from becoming more like Christ. And
I would say that that is an
ongoing process. That's something that I don't

(01:07:00):
know that it's. It does not end
until we receive glorified bodies, which means
not until you're dead. You're gonna be
dealing with this stuff until the day
you die. And the goal, the heart
behind it is you're dealing with smaller
and smaller issues or more and more
nuanced, where it's like right now you
may be dealing with the fact that
you cuss people out like that. Okay,

(01:07:23):
okay. Well, hopefully that's not what you're
still dealing with in 10 years. Like,
in 10 years, you may still be
dealing with anger, but it's no longer
coming out in. I just cuss people
out when they. They cut me off
in the car. Now it's like, okay,
man. In this really extreme situation, my
response wasn't loving. Okay, I need to
work on that.

Yeah.

Like, so, like we're getting better, but
we're not. We're not perfect. Right. Like,
there's a process to this and freedom.
You know, we talk about freedom being
found in relationship with others, that it's.
You Know, the Bible says we confess
our sins one to another to be
healed. And so it's really in the
context of a small group and For

(01:08:04):
Us, a D.C. group, where you can
actually start working on some of those
issues. It's when we actually get into
therapy or counseling or we go to
a deliverance ministry, but it's always in
relation to other people. Like, I'm of
the belief that you don't truly find
freedom by yourself in your living room.
Like, you need other people, part of

(01:08:26):
the process of finding freedom. So then
he says, so having the eyes of
your hearts enlightened, that you may know
what is the hope to which he
has called you. And so we call
this growing in purpose. There is hope
that is found in our calling, right?
It's in knowing that God actually created
you for a reason that gives us

(01:08:46):
hope. It's that we have purpose, that
we're not an accident, that we're not
a mistake, that we're not here just
for our own personal pleasure or entertainment.
We're not just here to go to
work, eat and pay bills. Like there
is actually a work that God. And
we're going to get in this, in
Ephesians chapter two, that he created you

(01:09:06):
for a good work. And he actually
set up the work, the beginning of
time, before time began, he had a
work in mind for you, and then
he created you to perfectly fulfill that
work.

I hope I'm a little. I hope
I'm on track with mine, right?

Don't we all?

Like, that's the beginning. Like, actually, you
were supposed to work in a daycare.

What?

Yeah. And look, man, we could. We
could all be way off. But God's
grace, he'll guide us back to, you
know, and that's where, like, I think
for a lot of us, you know,
how we fulfill that work may look
different. Like, it's not so much that
you were supposed to be the daycare
worker at that daycare, but the purpose
that he had for you was to

(01:09:46):
care for people. And so how you
interpret that, care for people. You could
be in different places and caring for
people. So I am of the belief
that every single person on planet Earth
has a purpose. And the greatest thing
you can do is figure out what
that purpose is and begin to operate
within that purpose. You will feel more
fulfilled, you will have more hope in

(01:10:07):
life, you will have more joy in
life when you're actually doing the thing
that God made you to do. And
it's the people that are miserable are
the people that haven't figured that out.
You know, I love Mark Twain's quote.
Two most important days of your life
are the day you're born and the
day you find out why dang so
good. Some people are just way smarter
than me. And so I just like
saying things that they say because then

(01:10:28):
it makes me feel smarter.

There's gonna come a day we're gonna
start quoting.

Quoting me, like, read your Bible on
the toilet.

Is that you?

Is that.

That's all you? And makes sense.

So, yeah. So it's this idea of
purpose, and we want to grow in
that purpose. And so here at Disciples
Church, the path for that is growth
track. We want to help you figure
out how God has designed you. Your
design reveals your destiny. And so we
steal from Rick Warren had this whole
thing, this acrostic shape. So your spiritual

(01:11:02):
gifts, your heart, your ability, your passions
and your experiences, S H A P
E. That's what actually shapes you. That's
your design. And if you can figure
out those five things, then you can
really figure out, okay, what am I
supposed to be doing on this earth?
And that may not be whether you
should be an accountant or a manager,
but it really is okay in my
accounting field. How am I caring for

(01:11:24):
people, loving people? How am I bringing
people to Christ? And it's through how
you're shaped and wired. It's going to
help you understand that. So we could
say a lot more about that. Growing
in hopes, that's good. But what are
the riches of his glorious inheritance in
the saints? And so the way we
translate this would be make a difference.
Right. So we want you to know

(01:11:46):
God, find freedom, grow in purpose, and
make a difference. And so this glorious
inheritance in the saints. We talked before
about how the inheritance that Paul alludes
to throughout Ephesians is eternal life. And
so our inheritance in the saints, so
one another is it comes down to
who are you bringing to heaven? Like,
you don't get to bring. Like, what's

(01:12:07):
the old joke, you know, you never
see a hearse pulling a U haul.

Right, Right.

Like, you don't bring your stuff with
you.

Yeah.

But you do bring people. And the
impact you have on people is what
really makes a difference. And so our
desire for our church is that every
single person would know their purpose so
that they can make a difference in
the life of somebody else. And that's
through encouragement. That's through evangelism. That's through

(01:12:34):
just loving on people. That's through, you
know, helping them through their issues. That's
when we serve the community, when we
serve Those in need, when we greet
people as they walk into our church,
like all of those little nuances, all
of those little moments, we're making a
difference in somebody's life. I mean, the
greeter at the door, you know, I
just had somebody, a first time visitor

(01:12:55):
contacted me, talked about, hadn't felt that
loved in a church in so long.
But that wasn't me preaching on the
stage that made them feel loved. It
was the greeter at the door. And
so when you are that greeter, made
a difference in that person's life. And
so that's the, that, that's the verses.

(01:13:15):
Was that 17 through 18? That's. That's
the vision of our church. To know
God, find freedom, grow in purpose, and
make a difference.

That's awesome. Would have never got that.
But yeah, I'm glad that you were
our leader.

I mean, in full disclosure, I mean,
I told you to read Chris Hodges
book Four Cups because we just stole
that from Chris Hodges. But Chris Hodges
stole that from the Bible.

Right.

So it's totally okay to steal from
Chris because Chris stole from Christ.

Right. It's shared knowledge. Anything. Anything's game.
I got it. It didn't go over
my head.

This wasn't that good of a joke.
It's all good. It's all good. All
right. Anything you guys want to interject
with? 15 through 18, you guys were
quiet.

I would say, first of all, that's
amazing that we got to stay the
vision for the church from there. That's.
Yeah. It puts everything into perspective for
me in regards to how we function
and flow period, from TLC to dc.
That's just how, that's the culture and
the, you know, that's just how we've
been as a body. So. Yeah, that
makes, it helps it make sense to

(01:14:23):
me. One thing that stood out to
me as I was reading the background
to this, I came to realize that
in Ephesus they were heavy on. They
were heavy when it came to magic.

Yep.

And new and. And the occult practice.

The occult was huge.

Heavy in magic and occulted practices. Right.

And. And they had. And so we're.
Sorry, I'm cutting you off, but. So
he talks in a second here about
all authority and a name that's above
every name. Because in the occult system
that they followed, they had hierarchy. So
like for the Ephesians, Artemis was the
top name, but they had other deities
that fell underneath Artemis. And so like

(01:15:09):
their, their city was built around the
worship of this one deity, the highest
name for their culture. But then they
also Worshiped all these others, other deities
that were just lesser than. And so
when Paul comes in and he talks
about, you know, there's a name that
is above every name, he's saying, look,
I know that the people around you
have ranked all these names and have
put Artemis's name at the top of

(01:15:30):
that list. Can I just tell you
about the one who's above that?

Yeah, that's good.

Like, the fact is, I was just
thinking about like how timely this passage
is and how timely this whole series
is. Cause I like, you know, I
try to think of a way to
contextualize the scriptures in a way so
that it matches and fits into our
culture today. Even though it's already relevant,
it's alive and active and sharper than
any two edged sword. We know this,
but you want to contextualize it based

(01:15:56):
on how we live. And this is
heavy in today's time. People are heavy
into occultic practices, magic, New age spirituality,
voodoo, hoodoo, and whatever else you want
to add. Right. And people are trying
to. Hulu. No, people are trying. I
like Hulu though.

Netflix and Amazon, all the names.

Hilarious. People are into all type of
different forms of pagan spirituality. And the
reason is because they're searching for fulfillment,
answers, comfort, counsel, direction. People are open
more than ever to spirituality. This text
is showing us where that should really
lie in Christ. And like, just looking

(01:16:37):
at the big. It's a. I was
reading the notes. I done forgot the
man. I forgot where it was at.
It said Paul is using some type
of language. It was some type of
language to basically allude to the fact
that he's. He's magnifying Christ. Like he's.
He's purposely magnifying Jesus and making sure

(01:16:58):
that he understands how big he. We
understand how big he is in comparison
to the false deities and false gods
that are around him.

Yeah, we'll get into that in verse
21, I think.

Yeah, yeah. That's why it says far
above even the fact that, that he
worked in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and seated him at
the right hand of the heavenly place.

Places.

So that shows us the right hand.

Is the hand of power.

Power. Yeah. It signified that Jesus, first
of all, he beat death. So the
number one thing that beats everybody, he
beat. So that puts him far above
anything or anybody else that tries to
compete Right there. Death is under his
feet. Death was defeated by him in
heavenly places is where he's sitting at
the right hand. So that show. That
shows power, dominion, and that shows Preeminence

(01:17:40):
that He's first and foremost. He's God,
far above all. Verse 21. Far above
all rule and authority and power, like
you said.

No, I'm laughing because you jumped.

We.

We was recapping. Okay, good. Okay, go
ahead.

Keep going.

Listen.

He'S excited. He's like, I want to
get to 21. Right. Why are we
still in 19? I want 21.

But.

Yeah, that's Keith. I'ma shut up. Go
ahead, keep reading.

No, go ahead.

No, we'll get to it. We'll get
to it.

Okay.

Maybe.

Okay.

How y'all want to do this?

It's between y'all.

I know. I. I think you know,
to. To add on to. To what
you're talking about. That. That is. For
me, as a pastor, one of the
scariest things I'm witnessing today is New
Age influence into Christianity because there's so
many that have tried to adopt both.
And so it's like, I can have
the New Age, and I can have
God.

Yeah.

But those are diametrically opposed to one
another. Like, you cannot dive into New
Age belief systems and say, well, that's
just how I worship God. No, no,
no, no, no, no, no. God actually
lays out for us in scripture what
is and what is not appropriate. And
this New Age thought is contrary to

(01:18:50):
what scripture says. And so you can't
have both. You got to pick either
the New Age or Christ.

Yeah.

They call that syncretism.

Yeah.

When you're trying to synchronize. You're trying
to synchronize, bring two different belief systems
into one and try to merge it.
You see that when bumper stick.

The coexist.

Coexist. Bumper stickers. When you're driving by,
somebody say, you got a Muslim this
and a Jewish that and the G
and a Christian. This is like, Buddhist.

Yeah. People are like, well, God is
just God. It's. You just call them
by different names. Like, no, no, no.
There's criteria in our text of who
God is. And the God of Islam
is not the same as the God
of scripture.

Not even close.

And so. And yeah, we could go
on that for.

Yeah, that. For real.

All right. But I did want to
read 19 because it says, and what
is. Remember, this is Paul's prayer. Paul's
praying for these saints, and he says
that you wouldn't have this knowledge of
him having your eyes open, all that
stuff. And he says, what is the
immeasurable greatness of his power toward us
who believe all of this is taking
place because of God's power? You can

(01:19:52):
know him because of God's power, you
can find freedom because of God's power,
you can grow in your purpose because
of God's power. You can make a
difference because of God's power. Like, it's
all rooted in this power toward us
who believe according to the working of
his great might. Okay, so all of
this, the power that we're operating in,
is based on his power. But then

(01:20:12):
he qualifies it again. He says that
he worked in Christ when he raised
him from the dead and seated him
on the. At the right, at his
right hand in the heavenly places. Now,
before we get into 21, I know
that's where David wants to be.

My bad.

No, it's all good. But what I
love is that when we talk about
the greatest power was the power that
raised Christ from the dead. That's the
same power. And Paul uses this language
a lot where he says, the power
that's at work in you is the
same power that raised Christ from the
dead. And so the power that raises
the dead is at work in me

(01:20:47):
when I'm walking through Walmart, when my
kids start mouthing off. The power that
raised Christ from the dead is at
work in my life.

Amen. I'm teaching you how to respond
to something that is coming alive in
you. Amen.

11 o'clock service. Amen.

That's what you say.

Don't, don't. Don't throw so much shade
at the. I love my 11.

We love the 11. That's the service
we say.

That's why I feel so convicted. I
was sitting right in front of you.
I could have said, go past the
go or something.

You're too busy writing.

My bad.

You're too busy, right? But yeah, so
what? I love the contextualizing this. All
of these things that we want for
your life from God. It's all rooted
in his power. What's his power? His
power that raised Christ from the dead
is the power that's at work in
us. And then he says, raise him
at his right hand, which we said

(01:21:38):
is the hand of power in the
heavenly places far above. See, that's where
it's like this hierarchy that the Ephesians
had, where it was like, okay, Artemis
is up here, and then all this.
No, no, no. Like, right here, far
above. Not just a little bit above,
like, far, like. Like it's not like,
okay, you're here and then we're here

(01:21:59):
and then. No, no, no, no. Like,
far, like, where God can't even see
because they. So far below. Like, it's
yeah. The distance is just immeasurable. Far
above all rule and authority and power
and dominion. Okay. All of it. It
doesn't matter. He's not saying he's far
above your lesser God. God? That, that
one God that's like the God of

(01:22:20):
rocks. Like. No, no, like he's like
the, the highest power, the highest authority
you think you have around you. God
is far above all of that. Above
every power, every dominion, above every name
that is named not only in this
age, but also in the one to
come.

And what is that in the one
to come? Is he talking about 20,
25?

So there's kind of two ways to
interpret that. The. The age to come
could just be for all time. Yeah,
but I think the, the probably, the,
the more accurate what Paul's probably getting
at there is the age to come
is eternity, the new heaven and the
new Earth. Okay. Which I don't think
we got time to dive into that.

Right.

And the whole, the fact that we
all think that we're going to end
up in heaven and we will for
a short time, but then we're coming
back to the new Earth. I guess
back is probably the wrong way to
describe it since it's comes.

Back with the saints. We'll be with
them after the rap.

Yeah, yeah. That's a whole conversation. Cuz
I'm, I'm upset. I'm not going to
be married to David like in heaven.

I know, that's weird.

I'm. I'm upset and I'mma see my
man and I'm not going to be
his wife.

We'll be like, oh, Taisha, we've made
it.

Let's worship the Lord as brothers and
sisters.

God bless you. Now let me. That's
heartbreaking.

God is heartbreaking.

God knows how to make it. He'll
pan it out. That's the thing that
is interesting though.

If I lose my faith because I
lose my wife, that's where was my
faith to be a man. And so
if I can trust God that when
he says eternity is going to be
beautiful, then it's going to be beautiful.
And my relationship with soul, I don't
know what that looks like in that
place, but I know that it's going
to be good.

Do we live alone? I have, I
have a lot of questions. I don't
want to live alone.

There's so many questions. Nobody, nobody knows.

Okay.

In a mansion with an echo, I'm
about myself.

I can't even have Neo. Like, what
is happening?

Yeah, I got no clue. All right,
so Then are we good to close
out? We got two more verses. Yes.
And he put how many things?

All things.

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. So one of the cool things
too about this, put it under his
feet like that was the prophecy in
Genesis that your seed would stomp on
the head of the serpent. You'll bruise

(01:24:47):
his heel. He'll crush your head. Right.
He put everything under the feet of
Jesus. Come on now. When Genesis ties
in. Come on now. And gave him
as head over all things to the
church. So the church is not led
by Brent McQuay. Church is led by
Christ.

Yeah.

And the moment I'm not following Christ,
Brent's gone, we bring in a new
pastor and hopefully that pastor will be
following Jesus and that's the way it
is. So, like when people like, I
just love your church, I'm like, careful,
this thing ain't mine.

That's good.

This is Jesus. He's the head of
the church.

Yes.

You know, we are the local body
of that church and I get to
make some decisions as the lead pastor.
But at the end of the day,
it's still his.

Yes.

He's. He's the head and the church
is his body, which Paul's going to
go into that in, in a lot
of places about us being part of
the body, you know, each of us,
it has a role to play within
this. And so we need, we need
more believers who are actively engaging in
their role in the church. Because I

(01:25:55):
think that there's a danger in. A
lot of Christians have become spectators, but
disciples are not spectators. We're participants in
this, which is his body, the fullness
of him who fills all in all
Jesus. That's another way of putting what
we talked about on Sunday, about how
it's like the mathematicians writing out the

(01:26:15):
problem and then stops like halfway through
and writes the answer to the problem
in the corner. Yeah. So he fills.
All in all, that's Jesus bringing solution
to everything. So. And that is Ephesians,
chapter one.

Yes. That was great. A great wrap
up. So, I mean, I don't think
in this particular case, probably for this,
this series we've been talking about takeaways,
the whole between sermon. So we don't
have to do that in these episodes.
But I just encourage you. Do you
have some, something to say before I

(01:26:50):
land this plane?

I don't know, man. I love, I
love Ephesians. I hope you do too.
Yeah, we Got two more chapters of
doctrine. Heavy. Just theological teaching. And. And
here. Here's the thing that I want
to brace people for. There are some
things that are going to be repetitive
because Paul repeats himself.

Yeah. And there's a reason.

Which is a good thing.

Which is a good thing because we
need to. We need to get it.
So if you start. If, like, by.
By week three, if you're like, man,
how are we still talking about how
Jesus saves us through the blood? It's
because you really need to know that
Jesus saves you through his blood.

No other way. Do you have any
closing remarks?

No, not really. I'm just. I was
just say that I love this. I'm
excited, you know, for the rest of
the series. Just unpacking. I love that.
Like, I can't wait to see. I
feel like when we get to chapter
it was 4, 5, and 6, we
get to the. To the ortho or
the orthopraxy. How to live it out,
how to walk it out. I feel
like we'll be equipped to understand why

(01:27:50):
and have a passion to walk it
out because we've seen everything he's done
for us, and now we get to
see. Okay, now this is what we
can do for Him. Him. And we're
not doing it to earn anything.

Yeah.

We're doing it because of everything he's
already given us and everything he. He.
He earned through his life. Death, barrel
and resurrection.

We're greatly grateful to a gracious God.

There you go. Grateful.

Come on, Spurgeon.

I was going to say. Is that
a uk.

No, that's a Spurgeon. Spurgeon's a boss.

He is. I like.

Yeah, I'm. I'm excited for. For this
Wednesday. So we've got our family night
here at the church. So Wednesday night
we get to dive into this a
little bit more. At least my group
will be. I don't know what the
ladies are doing.

I don't either. Until Wednesday. So that
was a plug. To join us on
family nights. This Wednesday at 7pm we
are having D.C. kids, D.C. students, D.C.
women, and D.C. men coming together one
night. You can bring your whole family
or come along, but we will have
separate groups for the men, the women.

That's always on the third Wednesday of
the month. So if you're listening to
this podcast in like two weeks, show
up that Wednesday.

Right. So the third Wednesday. You can
join us every third Wednesday for that.
But until we meet again, make sure
to check out that sermon from last
week. A lot of you followed my
instructions. To like the page, but continue
to like the page. Let us know
where you watching from, how this between
sermons is blessing you. We want to
know. We want to know your feedback.
We want to connect with you to
continue the conversation. But tune in next

(01:29:28):
time and God bless.

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