Jep Robertson's Early Marriage Struggles and an Adoption Stat That Will Make Your Jaw Drop | Ep 320

i am unashamed what about you so we're uh still in north carolina was that still here still here uh we have added jeppico jepico was a surprise guest today jeff what's up what are you doing in back home i just came visiting and uh i've been in the woods with phil sounds like a tv show it used to be a show everything over there is trying to kill you i got stung by a bee i killed a giant congo well it's uh it's a jungle i i forgot how bad it's like predator over there you get used to it after about 50 years now so you're the jesse ventura in the in there i've noticed phil has a tendency whenever anybody knew comes on scene he now has someone to send in first well i look for young bucks who are well built and disciplined have plenty of muscle and you don't want them too smart so they get they go to pontificating on you all you want is manual labor so get the drag get out there on the beaver dam and start quacking so yeah we cut beaver dams they put them back overnight you said why don't you kill them all we don't have the time or the wherewithal to sit down there all night every night waiting on a beaver to swim by i mean it's just we trapped some but the bottom line is we're draining water and we're trying to reach the level where there's a mud flat what was water about waist deep we're trying to get that out make a mud flat we flew rice in in an airplane like a crop duster type you know well they also plant rice so they planted the rice in about four inches of water then they came to me and said make sure you get the four inches of water off the piece of real estate because the rice is going to germinate with the water on it but you have to get it off of it when it begins to germinate the rice will come up through the silt and you'll have your rice crop there so they flew it in and that said okay get the water off of it after five days so we went down there and we've been fighting the beavers ever since and uh it's quite the we've got it down to about 25 of the mud flat it's probably think about about 100 yards wide and about a quarter mile long so it's down to to muck now so you have to have the equipment to get in there and uh it's a challenge these young bucks you get about 35 40 minutes out of them and they want to go home jeff how does it feel to be well built phil said you were so all this stuff you said i'm none of those and actually i think i'm pretty smart so i'm the exact opposite of what you're talking about jeff got stung he said i thought this was a horse fly but does a horse fly leave a mark like that and i could see where the stinger had penetrated his left arm and i said honey he said honey honey what are you talking about i said put a drop or two of honey on it when we got back i said put a drop of two of honey on it does that work it actually does it worked there he is right there by b and the remedy is honey yep bees sting people and the almighty allowed bees to make honey that you put on your body when you get stung by the bees i don't know if i believe that or not that sounds like an old wives ass jeb did it help it helped and then bobo lifted off and then i was back to where i started you got to keep the dogs from licking your arm because they'll take care of your helmet trust me be careful around bobo i don't know if you've gotten the latest report but i don't think i want bobo's teeth anywhere near my body yeah yeah bobo will tear your lips off by the way miss k is miss k is fully healed up all it looks like now is somebody got a little botox heavy on the bottom part the bottom lip on the left-hand side looks like a little botox where it's inserted there she needs a little more right to the right there's a little dent in her lips but when you get 75 you don't care jason i'm just getting you ready for your womanhood see what i'm saying i appreciate it i i tell you this my wife does not like animals in general so she's not she may have something happen but she's not going to be down in the face of a dog by the way i heard many many many more than i would ever thought contacted they didn't get a hold of me but they got a hold of people that talked to me and said people people are reporting that that happened to their daughter she had her lips eaten off by a dog part of her nose some of them said but they awoke they they awoke a sleeping dog the old adage is let a sleeping dog lie but but everybody that has animals out there and i know a lot of you do we love them but uh and probably there's been animals that lost their life for less than that but i mean in this case the dog was asleep you just don't want to get too close to them with your face when you awaken them because it can't happen because a lot of people more than i thought told me about it jason well i've i told you my philosophy every time a dog because i got several in our neighborhood that there are attack dogs which i i can appreciate that people have dogs in their in their yards and that's the first line of defense but they don't realize that i live here and so if i'm in my yard and that dog comes charging at me because i'm not going to mention any names but you know willie and some of his crew they got a dog that keeps running in my yard trying to attack me yeah so when i see that dog coming i take off right he needs to learn a valuable lesson neighborly be neighborly yeah you know that's why my my my dogs my my people to live next to me good brother and a sister they have a dog but i i give him a little grub from time to time just to show him we need to be friends yeah oh mutt's his name but he'll walk up to him you know he's a grinner he's one you've seen him dogs that are grinning yeah i mean his lips go back he i said what's happening up and he'll grin at me i'm like okay buddy he bears his teeth but it's a smile it's not like uh i'm gonna eat you up yeah he just smiles and i'm like that's a good dog yeah yeah okay dog smile by the way if for all of you dog lovers there are darning all kind of things dog smile if you get stung by a bee put some honey on it jase that's what i'm trying to get you to understand is is don't let the uh the stock market totally complete the whole you know take over your whole mind well trust me it's not i'm a long-term investor dad's got the wit and wisdom today he's like uh he's like uh you know will rogers a little bit of everything even i mean what i'm most impressed with is dad knows about botox how would you even know about that i didn't think they did that they saw some television show and then women out in l.a are big on the botox so i just kind of took it and ran with it i said yeah they want their lips puffy and you know if a dog chews on your lips i mean when it's all done this part of it is bigger than it was so i just thought well try that try botox miss k said i'm not going to do anything because i don't mind it but she didn't do anything dude no oh you're just saying it looked like that but it she actually didn't do anything she didn't do anything yeah just let it heal up and it healed up fairly rapidly kiss her on the cheek yeah you know well we're going to have her own before too long so she can give us her version of it so tell us about what you tell us since we didn't know i didn't know you were even in town tell us a little bit about all guys children what you're doing these days uh it's pretty awesome we just started a um we got a building in ethiopia because there you actually need somewhere for people to go because in like colombia we work with orphanages that are established um you know we bring in people to to help get these kids over sexual abuse and just any kind of abuse and uh but in ethiopia we just got a building and it's awesome and they're like super fired up so they can come and stay um and get treatment and so we're we're excited about that so that's good is it like the food too meal oh yeah it's everything so there you go there's there it's a place they can come get help from whatever they need what age group are we dealing with here i mean like pretty small kids i mean like i would say kindergarten age uh really yeah all the way up through these people these kids abandoned or they are so when i went kidnapped abandoned what when i went when you just walk down the streets of addis ababa which is the capital of ethiopia there is kids every i mean thousands just walking the streets so and they and they said don't give them money because if you do some some guy will see that and go back there and beat that kid and take the money so they're like if you if you give them something they'll so let's make them now what's the what's what's ethiopia is it a some kind of republic a dictatorship uh oligarchy what i'm not sure what their current political status if it's like most african nations because what i just heard doesn't doesn't sound too well i mean how big a problem is this in the united states probably i mean i mean it's not like i mean it's a third world country it's they don't have a lot of structures that's why we were like we got to get a place established where they know like if i need help i can go to this place boy talk about romans 13 jace you know loving your neighbor needing to be implemented here in ethiopia what would you think hal well and what i love about it is is jep is a part of an organization you know all guys children that does this but there's a a lot of them in the u.s that are working all around the world it's pretty it's pretty neat to see there's still that spirit of you know we want to help kids wherever they are you know whatever their circumstance easy to say well you know third world country you know they got a lot of problems you know we we just worry about ourselves but i think you're right the spirit of always wanting to help those who can't help themselves i mean for the church that should be you know in a christian's that should be our main goal is it you know in wanting to help people understand the gospel but also just to take care of people who can't take care of themselves by the way in lieu of what jace the speech he gave yesterday about romans 13 you know love your neighbor and you fulfill the law just looking at it big picture al when did john the apostle write first second third john what would you say it was late i mean most of most it was late most of them guessed that around 90 a.d it was right before he did revelation so here's the world of 90 a.d al just think about it and now fast forward 2021 dear friends this is first john 4. john the apostle do not believe every spirit but tests the spirits to see whether they are from god but this is back in the in the 90s 80s because many false prophets have gone out into the world this is how you can recognize the spirit of god every spirit that acknowledges that jesus christ has come in the flesh is from god but every spirit that does not acknowledge jesus is not from god this is the spirit of the antichrist which you have heard is coming and listen to this and even now 90 a.d is already in the world he said dear children you're from god and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who's in the world they are from the world and look at the look at this the ramifications of what he's saying they're from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world and the world listens to him we are from god and whoever knows god listens to us but whoever is not from god does not listen to us this is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood that's quite that's quite the summation of what happens when you don't love god and you don't love jesus christ and you don't love your neighbor you'll go to places and you'll say where'd all these children come from i mean where who's who loves these little children where where do they go i mean that's uh so what's your answer to that there zachary you're kind of a pontificator yeah very very next two and a half three verses gives us the anchor for the whole thing it's about love listen to this first john 4 8 it gives a description of god's nature when it says the one who does not love does not know god for god is love which is interesting because you know we think about the attributes of god i mean when you consider who god is in his inner life father son holy spirit that's what he is he's loved that is his nature so i think all of this is rooted in the very nature of god we're made in god's image genesis 1 26 1 27 so if we're actually living out our real potential and our full nature then we are reflecting who god is and if god is loved then for us to reflect that would be for us to love each other so hang on dad let's take a break so jeff we talk a lot about trying to save money on this podcast and part of the reason ways we do that is by some of our great sponsors and one of those is a company called gabby insurance and there's a lot of people out there that claim they compare rates but gabby actually does it that's kind of their whole deal that's the one thing that they're good at and so they get fast verifiable true comparisons they're not just a ballpark guest and you can save quite a bit of money in fact on average it's like over 900 a year that you'll save by their comparison which is really good uh you use your current policy to find a better better policy and then they're going to check it against the top 40 providers so all the big boys you know they check them out and see all the big boys all the big boys and we like that lisa and i actually used it uh when lisa got a little car and we used what they do and we saved about 950 which is exactly what they claim that they do and it's true so you can check it out uh it's it's free uh and it shows these policies so you have nothing to lose by giving them a shot here's the way you do it you go to gabby.com that's gabi.com unashamed gabby.com unashamed and save yourself some money on car insurance so the question is is it a political fix zach or or a spit or a spiritual one well i think it's a spiritual one phil it's always going to be a spiritual one you're not going to be able to i mean obviously when you get into the interesting thing you brought it out is this book is written later and so there's been a few years now to be able to observe the church how we how they function with each other what you see and you know from the earlier epistles that paul did that there was a lot of in this back to romans 13 14 there was a lot of inner division and a lot of love not being shown between brothers and sisters as well so i think what happens is that's what the ones best defense against the church is to turn her against herself each other you get all the infighting you don't have love therefore you have nothing to offer people by the way well fast forward to 2021 21 so what's the death between now and what the apostle john said was going on in the 90s a.d think about it is that is it still here no love among the brothers and no love among each other i mean all it is is 2 000 more years of the similar stuff the the good news is it didn't de-evolve to the point that there's still not love that is shown to the point that we started i mean you see whoever started jeff's organization they want i mean they want to love people so it's still here what what christ left for us is still here it's just the constant attack i think that you know the war within is what i call the enemy with them yeah and there's police i think there is going back to your previous point phil there are political certainly the kingdom changes politics but it was never like the intention it seems like a jesus to go have political change it just systems change when people change and people change whenever they have an encounter with who god is and and his presence and and his love i mean even god's wrath and murder his wrath flows from his love his mercy flows from his love you know so i think that love is is one of these um primary attributes that aren't contingent upon creation and there are things of god that come into play and how he relates to his creation like things like god's sovereignty you know that comes into play when god creates something that he's sovereign over or god's mercy god's showing mercy whenever people sin and he gives them mercy god's wrath that's what happens when people sin god gives them wrath but god's love was existing before god it existed before god created anything because there was father son holy spirit you have three persons in the godhead that were eternally loving each other in fact they loved each other with such a purity that they're actually one being and that's i think that's why when we talk about like who we are and we we we have this longing for intimacy we have this longing for connection we've got a longing for a community we've got a longing for relationship that the reason why we're like that is because we're made in the image of god and and when we're not doing that when we're hurting each other it's while it's that's why misery and pain and death come that's why people jet works with i mean when you look at thousands of kids in the streets of ethiopia like something got messed up there and there's pain as a result and then the church our job is to go in now and reinstitute god's nature into the into the world and to expand his kingdom in such a way would you agree that our our response to the sins of the world that's swirling all around us jepp's saying in ethiopia and foreign countries and all that going on maybe john 4 12 first john 4 12 no one has ever seen god maybe that's why it's hard to make an argument for him but if we love each other god lives in us and his love is made complete in us we know that we live in him and he and us because he's given us his spirit well if that's not seen among the people of god if that's not front and center i guess my question is why not what's holding us back well and i was going to say um you were talking about who started it all guys children's the frasers and they were just an adoption agency until like six years ago and they just saw the need there was still orphans i mean they knew a lot of organizations that worked with orphans but there was still so many that needed help so it's like we can't just keep watching it we love these kids we got to help so is it the church's responsibility uh aisle or is it the government's responsibility for so just where is the fixer in this the government or god's people i just don't think it's ever structured for government to have spiritual qualities i mean i just don't think you're ever going to get love out of institutions now you know they're supposed to care about in america it was set up that the people actually were in charge that's kind of been flipping over you know for quite a while now but how can you get love out of law how can you get love out of you know all we do is throw money at it we throw money at it gov must throw money at it and throw money at it but how much money do you have to throw at it to make any impact it's just a it's what i'm saying is that structure will never be able to do what we were called to do and that's because it has to be reflected through us it's like like the frasers that jet mentioned i mean they were they were called to do this ministry and that so who's going to do it more efficiently you know right jeff yeah and i will say what's pretty cool about the law and government is in colombia there was not a law when you were in an orphanage you could be there indefinitely till you were be able to get adopted coming because we we're we're trying to get those kids adopted in the u.s with people who you know want to have you know a kid and they can't well we worked with the government to change a law that makes it where they have um i think six months until they're eligible or not for adoption so they did we did help change a law which is pretty cool so they don't just put them in the bottom of the stack every time like after six months like but they can be adopted or they can't let's see you've adopted kids jason you've adopted kids uh who else in the family will he's adopted kids zach you've adopted them right so yeah i've adopted one yeah is that is that the answer i think it's part i think it's part of the answer i think that there's a paradigm i think the whole gospel is a paradox when you hear when you hear jesus say things like um if you want to if you want to receive and you have to give like that's a paradox which is a perceived contradiction that upon further investigation it's you realize it's not he says if you want to live you have to die if you want to be first you have to be last and if you want to win you have to surrender yeah it's like everything is opposite of what you think and i i used to think that that was uh like if i want to be first then i would go get in the back of the line like when you're in elementary school then and then the the i want to be the line leader so i could get in the back of the line and then the teacher notices how humble i am and then she escorts me to the front of the line where i get to look at the rest of these schmoes you know but i really think what christ is getting at is that the best place to be is in a place and in a posture of giving rather than receiving because that that reflects the nature of god uh christ philippians 2 who being in very nature god did not consider equality with god something to be grasped but made himself nothing so you see even and even in the the incarnation of christ of god becoming flesh you see a god who pours out and i i think that's what god's glory is primarily about is it's about this all-powerful god who who gives it doesn't make sense it's bizarre but yet somehow it's profoundly beautiful so i think anything that we do as a church you know we're we're basically called to be the manifold wisdom of god to the world i think what that means is is that we are to reflect his glory by this selfless life that we're to live part of that's adoption although ironically it's a great example i adopted our child to to help her in the process i found myself receiving way more from the relationship than i that i'm giving so it's it's it's it's a paradox here's a good step for you if if one family and every evangelical church adopted a child in the u.s there would be no orphan care system and no foster care system it that every kid would have a home a christian home like how is this not how have we not done that's pretty that's pretty i mean you look at that you're like well so uh let's take a break one of the things i find interesting is that the older daggetts we're still young bucks his mind but we're really we're really older i mean i guess jeff and zach down here we've got some 40s you know back on the pipe but me and jason are in our 50s so when he calls us young bucks that's only in comparison to him being 70 something years old did you know she did that dad well i saw you all as uh children and now you're grown men but and i'm looking at gray hair you know wandering around you know i i i'm just wandering around [Laughter] we don't really wander that much but one of the things we do share i have to admit as we get older is aches and pains from inflammation yeah uh and so we have found a great sponsor omega xl we love these guys 35 years of clinical research they're fantastic they really focus in on inflammation because that's where all the problems start so we want you to try this it's a big help for us dad and i take it every day it's the only thing dad takes so it tells you something right there you go to omegaexcel.com slash phil you're going to buy a bottle you're going to get a second bottle for free so that gives you a couple of months which is about what it takes to really feel the difference so it's omega xl.com feel or you can call them 800-844-4888 that's 800-844-4888 and work on your inflammation [Music] so when lisa and i go around the country and we talk you know we speak in a lot of pro-life settings obviously trying to convince people that abortion is not only immoral but you know you're killing children but one of the things we always mention is that if you're going to be pro-life then you're going to have to alongside that be pro-adoption because if we're bringing more babies into the world and not slaughtering them which we should be doing then they have to have someone that's willing to open their arms and say we want these children because many of these the way they got in the situation is because the person can't take care of them you know it's not in a position to do that maybe it's drugs or some other situation so they have to run simultaneous and i think that's why that's part of the whole pro-life idea you don't hear as much about it but it's crucial yeah you know really to be able to provide that it's kind of like you were talking about zach to do this right to do it god's way it's a daunting task to make children that are not your own but just make them your own by your decision to say come on into our family structure we're going to love you we're going to feed you we're going to raise you we're going to teach you and that's where it's going to be i guess you're right yeah but if just you mean if if every one family just one and it is the gospel i mean that is the gospel i mean it's it's we didn't deserve it you know they didn't you know it's it's yeah it makes sense to me i don't know i find it fascinating that even thinking about you three you know out of us talking today all of you had a heart open to opportunity it wasn't like you were necessarily looking like okay we're gonna this time's gonna come and we're gonna adopt it wasn't like part of your family strokes your plan you all just had an opportunity and jay's described it before on the podcast you know for their situation this was a what jay she was 17 or 18 years old and became 17 and and it was just a situation outside of her control here's an orphan girl who's educated herself worked hard her whole life put her faith in jesus she just needed a break she took the internet which you know has a lot of things that are evil and bad but she used it as a resource to educate herself get a scholarship to go to high school eventually you know made the step up to get her scholarship to go to university in america i mean she did this pretty much on her own i mean she had the one of the pastors of the church there kind of was a mentor to her and now a civil war breaks out in our country and she's stranded with no money no family no phone and so gets word to the guy at the church and they call us and basically said well yeah we all help this girl and it was so crazy that the story was uh you know by the time you tell somebody especially when you're dealing in different countries now helping the girl but by the time the information got to me it was a 24 year old woman who's stranded and it was actually a 17 year old girl orphan girl and so i was like if you get her up here yeah we'll take we'll we'll try to help her but i never realized after a while i just watched her because she stayed with us and so how difficult has the work been because people would say i might think about doing that but i don't this sounds like hard work to me raising children especially children that are not your own flesh and blood to take that step and say i'll tell you what come on in and so you you lived at jace and you lived it too well i'm still living it yes i got a young one so how hard how hard is the work it's not easy i mean it's really not because genetically i've learned a lot about that and we do a lot well maybe that's what what uh dasha was alluding to when he said you know whoever's first would be elijah you say you know this is work yep and you and your sacrifice and suffering for someone else's benefit i think maybe you're on it there zach you know what i'm saying yeah yeah but i i would add that you you do receive a blessing in it as well i was a little nervous about it because i didn't know what it would be like with you know how what my affections would be like for some for a child that wasn't connected to me with you know to my genetics but um you know we've had ruth now since easter and um and man i love her as much as i love any of my biological children so she's become your own in your mind she she's yours no question and and to jepp's point it it for me it's been one of the greatest maybe the greatest manifestation of the gospel that i've been able to experience because god like i chose her not based on anything that she had done and in the same way that's how god chose us and so you're you're you're reaping this benefit it's like you're you're seeing the gospel played out and and the way i love her i'm like man if my father my heavenly father loves me that way and even more so man i'm in a pretty secure spot i mean i got a pretty good deal going on here you know well you guys are to be you jace for what what you the story you told about the girl and you jeff for what you do and use that you all ought to be commended for your faith wouldn't you think al yeah and that's and that's the whole point i mean that's what you know when when paul says making the most of every opportunity this is something that people should be looking for uh opportunity yeah i think too you got to be open-minded you know once we had mia who is a kid with special needs we were always planning on adopting and we had talked about it but when that happened we thought well we pretty much got our hands full here so let's put that idea off and then but i think our heart was in that and i we just recognized the opportunity and it wasn't really something official it was just after being around karina for for three months i just watched her because i was thinking you know i might watch this girl there's no i kept waiting for the uh whatever my fears were to have the explosion yeah and i thought after a while i thought i i was like so much more inspired by seeing the courage of this girl thinking most humans would have quit at some point along the way so offering to help her became a great uh joy for you oh i so i one day she just i tried to give her some money because she was fixing to go off to college and she said no thank you sir i'm you know i'm good but i mean she just won't take anything she's she's oh you're living you'd have to be from a foreign country to come about that yeah but she's always had that quality which is so commendable and uh because she feels like she just wants to to work and and and make it herself so finally i said hey come on interesting so i want to talk to you because she's so much more grateful than most humans because she came from nothing so she makes she makes good grades yeah i mean yes yeah makes good grades she got her a job i mean she she just every step of the way i mean she basically just used our house as a place to you know to stay for a while as she continues her journey towards success but one day she was walking by and i said look i want to talk to you i said look you don't you know i know your parents you don't have parents i said we don't have a nicaraguan daughter so what do you think about us being your american parents and she said yes please that's a good idea i mean that was basically the formality that has that's pretty good yeah it really really is and and so now that's just the way we operate we're a family and i'm i'm just like jeff i feel as strong about her as i do any of my other other kids i move to emotional these feeds we have when i come to your house uh she'll be seated over somewhere you know over there quietly and i'll come in and if and when we make eye contact she'll go like she'll give you a little wave give me a little wave yeah she's just she's she's a great sense of humor she has a great heart she loves the lord and that girl is driven to succeed like no one i've ever been around she's just driven to to succeed and you just think about it she's in her last year now she's fixed to be a graduate of the of american university amazing hey jason let's take a break no i was going to say that like i love that how jay said he was inspired i think that's what i'm talking about with this paradox you think you're sacrificing but in what in reality you you were the one being inspired you're the one that's being transformed you're the one that's receiving so that's the paradox it's not it is a sacrifice but in the end it's not and um it's like jesus for the joy set before him the bible says he endured the the the scorn and the suffering the cross so it's a paradox he he he endured suffering but why for the joy that was set before him i think the same way we we we should suffer for that but it's for the joy that's before us right so well i think it goes back go ahead oh yeah yeah yeah um this past sunday here i preached um and zach's doing a series or he had the guys at his church out of genesis and so i preached out of genesis 16 where you have the story of hagar the slave versus you know having a child ishmael versus what god had planned to begin with which was isaac coming from sarah but they didn't know the plan and so they were kind of making up their own plan and so i made the point that the promise of god is always better than our performance what we think we can do and so to zach's point i think that's exactly what you're saying here god made a promise he said look if you trust in me and you love and you live the way that i've told you to do and you and you give me that credit for for being who i am you're always going to receive blessing no matter what's going on so your performance could be good it could be bad you could mess up you could not mess up but you still receive that and so i think that illustration and paul by the way paul uses that in galatians 4 as to show us that faith always supersedes law and so i think it's always the winner and so i think that's exactly what you're seeing play out in everything we've been talking about today yeah a good way to look at it you say we're not being good to uh the orphans and the widows james said hey pure and undefiled religion is being kind to uh the what do you say the downtrodden the widows and the orphans but you know when you look at it actually because you have a relationship with jesus because of what he's done for us because of his spirit being in us guaranteeing what he's promised he says you go forth and he said and you do things like bring children into your family you're not doing it to as a work to be saved you are saved and you understand what that means and you're like you know what i'll fulfill what god said i'll love i'll love him and i'll love my neighbor i would take it a step further and say i was incapable of making that decision without the experience of god doing that to me yep i mean i just would not have noticed i would my radar would not been looking for that and that's no my one of my favorite verses that one in galatians it says i've been crucified with christ and i no longer live but christ lives in me the life i live in the body i live by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself up for me you know that's a lot of times when people i'm having in a bible study where people are just so anti-god and i kind of forget the uh the normal way of sharing with them and i start saying look if you're just not open to experience this just come try it because i know that experience of jesus which reminds me of that line from the uh the chosen when nathaniel and philip come here they're brothers and they're talking and he's like ah this can't be the son of god he's from nazareth and he's like just come and see he was like just because he he knew if you experience this it's gonna validate something that you've never even imagined that is possible and so when you think of all those verses in the bible like to show that we're treasures of clay and we do that or god designed that to to show that the power is coming from him and even the verse y'all said god is love you know with us we we decide to love somebody and then we decide not to love somebody but god just loves yeah and so when you're sitting there saying well i feel like god doesn't love me anymore well that's impossible he is love it it's it's it's there so then that first john 4 passage you know later on right after that it says we have confidence in this world because in this world we're like him well it's because we're carrying his power and his love that has taught us how to respond in these situations good point this guy hey jace uh romans let's take one last break you know to your point jace romans 12 paul says exactly the same thing you said that and uh view of god's mercy you present your bodies as living and holy sacrifices so the sacrifice doesn't you can't present your body as a living sacrifice unless you begin with viewing it in god's mercy and what he's done for us that that's that is the that is the first move it's recognizing what christ has done and his mercy he's given us and then we can go out and and participate in sacrifice all the way down to you you'll be able to love your enemies yep sounds like my ride's showing up here it's a 310 to yuma [Laughter] we're right next to a train i was thinking there's a train i thought uh i thought of another verse uh zach in romans 12 9 you know he he made just that first statement that said love must be sincere and it's not really a concept we think about but when you think of the model of sincere love there's no other standard than god's i mean he proved it by sending jesus despite our mistakes and you just think of all the sins of the world that he was willing to forgive and he did it in a sincere way i mean i think i always go to marriage in that way it's it's like you try to play the game when you're mad at your your wife or whatever and you give the appearance that you're forgiving or loving but true love is let's face it we all make mistakes and being able to be sincere i mean you're going to get that from god more than you're going to come up with it with yourself because sometimes it's kind of fun to be mad and i mean that's just by the way by the way when by the time you get to romans 14 he start talking about your interaction with your with your brothers and down at the bottom he said if we live we live to the lord if we die we die to the lord so whether we live or die we belong to the lord and there's a certain behavior is expected because he says for this very reason christ died and returned to life so that he might be the lord both of the dead and the living you then why do you judge your brother i mean look what you have look what's been done for you why do you look down on your brother we'll all stand before the guy's judgment seat so what he's his point is although it may seem difficult when you first hear it loving your brother it's got to be there and it's got to be a ongoing thing that you don't want to lose because once the quarreling and the yeah yeah yeah all this starts we got plenty of that in america or anywhere else all the time you know you know i remember the first time i ever read first corinthians 13 when he defined love i remember thinking man this is going to be tough love is patient it's kind it doesn't envy and i just kept thinking this well this is going to be difficult you know i kept reading it when i got to the verse 7 and it said always protects and i was thinking yeah i would protect the people and then it said always trust i stopped and i said i'm not sure i'm gonna be able to do this it took me a while but i about 75 years i'm still working on it i failed to realize that because i just couldn't keep reading i literally stopped right there and said nope i i'm not sure i'm going to and it says always trust oh i noticed that that's the part i had a big problem with but i then realized as my faith journey as god adopting me went along i figured out that yeah i was not going to be able to do this on my own i was going to be trained by god's love and the experience of being there and have some some help from god you know the holy spirit's not there for nothing exactly but now i've come to a place where i read it and i'm like okay all them difficult i understand that through his power i i can do that so jason lisa and i through the years have worked with a lot of couples obviously that but you know when we would see them they would be in some sort of crisis and i always thought it was interesting that the words always and never which are in that first corinthians 13 text when i would listen to a couple and they're telling me what their issue is or what they think their issue is they they use the word always and never so he never does this he never does that she always does this she always does that and it's it's not even true but it's their perception of what it is because they've gotten themselves in a place where the very reason they loved each other and got together the first place has now come into this deal about you're always this and you're never that and so i try always trying to take them back to that text because if you can realize that if you can begin to understand that your relationship is just an extension of what god has done with you that's why he says we are the his bride then you you'll begin to break the walls down and say if i can love like this passage challenges me to in my relationship i mean that's going to change me forever and you know sometimes it takes people a while to get there hey al that reminds me of me and jess remember that us coming to you a lot in the first couple of years i remember telling jess brought it up the other day and i i'm so embarrassed for saying this but i did say it like after about a year i said we made a mistake like let's just can we annul this thing how do we just end it and so i've definitely been there i'll tell you this though you get in the habit of something good i mean i made a decision 10 or 12 years ago i can't remember a long time ago that no matter what happened i was going to compliment my wife every day at least one compliment no matter what happened and sometimes you just had to just just pull up the last piece of red raw gut to say all right but i've done that every day you are quite the woman honey but now i'm such in the habit of it that i've done it every day for 10 or 12 years so but i noticed now to go to al's point is that she'll say when she's talking to other people she'll say he always compliments me no matter what and i've done it every day for like 12 years and i'm like well it took that long to notice no matter what happened but it's a habit that's always used in a way that builds up which and that's the key i think to everything and god will give you that it's just like my problem is patience you know i'm an impatient person and so but i love my wife and she she's a person that can't leave like she cannot leave thing places she can't leave which puts me in a position where i'm always battling to be impatient but i figured out a few years ago that that's why she's that's why god put us together because i needed to work on patience and so i love her more than i love my impatience she wouldn't leave last night i had to run her off very nice one yeah my favorite al there's been a to phil's point i had a few moments where we were having a knock down drag out you know but just in that moment i thought well i'm gonna throw the compliment out right in the middle of this and whatever i said and she's like will you just shut up but then she laughed like okay what are we doing which i'm sad it's been quite helpful so but but you're not gonna do that by accident because that just it took a few years oh you're my son but i'd rather i'd really rather that she be your wife and not mine yeah what i'm saying yeah well i'm thankful for that in whatever weird way that that was construed [Laughter] we're all married to the right people just got awkward and jeff i'll say it in closing that i'm proud that you didn't give in to that impulse that one year and you guys worked through and now you have great marriage you have a great family and what a blessing when we do the right thing so that's an encouragement to our audience because you may be where jeff was you're in that first year of marriage you're thinking oh man but just keep doing the right thing just keep keep loving and you're going to get there we laugh about it now but i mean it was scary at the time but it was i mean it was only you know god you know working in us to uh to show his love which we showed love to each other it did makes sense now it didn't at the time yep you'll find this funny yesterday because we're we're fixing a venture on this show perhaps if it's the lord will that's another reason jeff is here so one of the producers showed up at my house yesterday and they're you know trying to feel us out and and see how this show is gonna work and so we talk for an hour and as he's leaving he's like we appreciate you you know having us over here and he's like thanks jessica for having us and then he laughed and i thought oh boy it just got awkward if you're gonna produce the show realize who i'm married to i thought you'd appreciate that i still get about every other week someone says hey jace like no you don't look nothing to like but well i actually showed a clip on wikipedia i saw a picture of me and it's you and you look like you were having a bad year that picture is you having a bad year beside my profile which what does that mean all right the clock on the wall thanks for listening to the unashamed podcast help us out by rating us on itunes and don't miss an episode by subscribing on youtube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes and for even more content that you won't get 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Channel: Phil Robertson

Views: 73,824

Rating: 4.9550114 out of 5

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Id: lZ0cjBoI74U

Length: 52min 42sec (3162 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 01 2021