The Resting Place

Already Included

• Ben and Logan Robbins • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Ever feel like you’re sprinting on a spiritual treadmill and still not getting “there”? We press pause on the grind and ask a sharper question: what if the place we’ve been trying to reach is actually where the New Testament says we begin? Drawing from John 14 and Ephesians 1, we unpack a counterintuitive starting line—already included in the Beloved, already accepted, already blessed with every spiritual blessing because we’re united with Christ.

We explore the difference between doing for approval and acting from approval, and how that single shift reshapes prayer, obedience, and daily life. Prayer stops being a megaphone to get God’s attention and becomes awareness of the attention we already have. Obedience stops feeling like a transaction and turns into the natural expression of love. Along the way, we clarify a crucial distinction: impartation (a gift you steward) versus imputation (a righteousness you cannot lose). Mixing those up fuels burnout; seeing them rightly unlocks peace, courage, and steady devotion.

The Holy Spirit sits at the center—Teacher, Advocate, and the One who makes Scripture come alive. We talk honestly about fatigue, family, and ministry limits, and how union doesn’t erase ordinary trouble but changes how we move through it. Our long hope is simple: a people so convinced of their beloved identity that their lives begin to look more like Acts than anxiety—present, generous, joyful, and grounded.

If this reframes your week, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a comment with the moment that hit you most. Your words help others find a path from striving to belonging.

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SPEAKER_01:

Hi everyone, I'm Ben.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm Logan, and we're the Robin.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. John 14, 15 through 16, but we're going to start here. And I'm going to start with a few comments and then we'll lead into John 14 and then over to Ephesians 1. Really, what I want to do is highlight how the teachings of Paul and the teachings of Yeshua make a couple of declarations to us that we spend our entire Christian life, most of us, trying to get into. If you have not love, you've become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. Tinkling is a hilarious word, first of all. Second of all, second of all, um these declarations were not meant to be something we heard and then moved on from. So 13 years. No, 15 years. Goodness. 15 years now. 15 years. Holy cow. I'm so old. It'd be be longer than I've be. I will have at some point I realize I will have been living this way and uh doing my best to live the way of the kingdom for longer than I didn't. I'm not there yet, but I'm at 15 and I'm 38, so I'm only eight years behind. So in eight years it'll be even, and we'll start passing it. Um so and next week, Logan and I will have been married for 10 years. That's what we're going to, we're going to we're going to Colorado. That's why we're going to Colorado. We're going to halfway to 20. Halfway to 20. I thought you guys were doing something significant for that. Um it's going to be awesome. I can't wait. Um, but uh Paul and Yeshua both make declarations to us that are in their teachings introductory to the king the kingdom life or the Christian walk. And I have found over the last 15 years that most of what I have been discipled into through religious teaching has been antithetical to the introductory statements that both Yeshua and Paul make to us about the beginning of our Christian walk, not the what we do in religious indoctrination most of the time, unless you live in California, which is a magical land where they don't have religion. They just they just take all the good parts of what Paul and Jesus taught and are like, hey, this is true. And the rest of us are sitting over here living in a cave and and making tools out of rocks. So like the I'm like the crudes. It's like the crudes in California. California is like Guy, and everyone else is like living like the crudes, and guy's like, hey, I have fire. And everyone's like, oh, fire. Um I thought that was a great, I thought that was a great explanation. That was funny. The second one is so good. Um tomorrow, they're going to find tomorrow. Um, so most of what I find over the last 15 years is that I have I have found myself trying to effort my way into the place that Paul and Yeshua both declare that we begin. And what we have done through, at least my experience, now this may not be everyone's, but at least in my experience, even my even my subconscious mind has been so baptized into the way of effort and the way of having to attain something in order to get somewhere that I have a hard time realizing the thing that I was taught is the highest accomplishment or most mature form of the Christian life that I have to spend years maturing into is actually where we start. Because we're included. And we spend, at least I have spent, I'll point the gun at myself, I have spent years of my life measuring accomplishment, measuring activity, and then also on the other side, not measuring accomplishment and activity, but measuring what I'm not doing. And the things, and this is probably more accurate. We spend a lot of our mental energy measuring the things we're not doing, not accomplishing, and the areas we're failing, and we're analyzing whether or not we've become mature enough to become included in the beloved. The new King the King James Version says you have been included in the beloved. We'll get there, it's in Ephesians 1. You have been included in the beloved. That's what Paul says. You're included. And we spend, at least through popular Christian teaching, we spend the entirety of our Christian lives exhausting ourselves on the treadmill of religious activity. Now, I'm not, I'm going to tell you in a moment that activity is a good thing and that obedience is a good thing, but we're doing it incorrectly, and it exhausts us because we're doing it incorrectly. Jacob said this. It says this of Jacob in Genesis. It says that he worked seven years for the woman that he loved, and it seemed to him as though it were only a few days. This man was doing husbandry. Y'all know what husbandry is. Husbandry is the art form of working with animals. He's herding sheep, he's herding goats, he's taking care of all of Laban's herds, and Laban was a wealthy man. He's dealing with all the herdsmen, which all by itself, dealing with that sort of individual, there's a particular kind of human that's a herdsman. There's a particular kind of human that you have to deal with, and they're not easy to deal with. That's why they do what they do. They're difficult personal. Y'all don't know anybody that does husbandry. They're difficult personalities, they're individualistic people that do those sorts of things, very independent. And Jacob's dealing with those personalities on a daily basis. That's exhausting to me. Holy cow. And he's doing this for seven years. And he's also dealing with the herds. He's moving them from one pasture to the next. He's making sure that they're having the appropriate water supply. He's having to do all of it. I don't know what kind of genetic uh information they had at that time, but I think there's some at least archaeological evidence to suggest that their herding abilities were farther advanced than we assumed. They weren't just throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks. They were actually doing some analysis and deciding which genetics they wanted to pass on, which genes worked with other genes, and they were doing those things. And he's doing all of that too. This man wasn't just, you know, kind of sitting around in Laban's camp. He was working himself to the bone for the woman he loved. And then Laban tricks him and gives him the wrong woman, and he has to work seven more years, and it says that he loved that woman so much that it seemed to him as though it were only a few days. And we look at that in comparison, so we can take that, and it's right to juxtapose that to the teachings that we have been given, or the religious indoctrination that I have been given in order to effort my way into the kingdom. And then I would find in my Christian journey, maybe I'm the only one, but I find in my Christian journey that as long as I'm trying to effort my way in in order to, this is important, in order to gain approval, there's a difference. There's a difference between doing something from approval or doing something for approval. There's an important difference between attempting to gain someone's approval and always falling short because that person is perpetually, constantly, and always disappointed with the ways that you fail. And the ways that I was taught, and this is not intentional, I'm not, I'm not throwing stones at because I grew up in my parents' church. I grew up love those people dearly, but some of the ways that I was taught to think about God, not all only through them, through other influences. But I was taught that God is patient with us, although we only fail. God loves us although our failings are many. He is still very patient with us, and he sees all the ways that we fail, and he's just very, he's just very patient with us, and we're always we're essentially failures that don't measure up, but he'll accept us anyway in the end. But you have to try harder. And that's a very, obviously, that's a very broken down elementary way to say that, but that is the overwhelming sense that I got. Even as I got into ministry school, that was the overriding sense. Because you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna make it or you're not. Even in ministry school, there are many things. I love the ministry school that I went to. Love love those people. Had an absolutely, had an absolutely life-altering time encountering things from the Lord that I had never experienced before. But there was enough leaven of you're not gonna make it. That I have had to spend years of my life unlearning the subconscious thought pattern that that brought me into. And our subconscious is so important in all of this because our subconscious, and I know I've talked about it before, but our subconscious filters at least 98.5% of our conscious waking thought. And it takes less than two-tenths of a second for our subconscious to filter a thought. So you've got a perceived, that's where your perception comes from, is your subconscious. So you perceive something a specific way because of your subconscious, and it takes your subconscious fractions of a second to skew your thought process one way or another way. And we wonder why we spend so much time like, well, why do I think this way? And I can't quite figure out why it keeps going. Your subconscious is informing the way that you think. There's a school of thought that believes our subconscious is actually responsible for every single reaction that we have, and that our waking conscious mind, Pop calls it our lower consciousness and our upper consciousness. So our lower consciousness or our subconscious, there are some schools of thought that believe that it's responsible for every single interaction and reaction that we have, and our conscious mind is only there to unravel why we responded the way that we did, so that we can act in a coherent way. And we spend years being indoctrinated into you've got to gain his approval. Well, Jesus paid it all, yeah, but you better gain his approval. Maybe I'm the only one that has struggled with this over time. Maybe I'm the only one who has still found myself even in the previous several years. Having to stop my thought process and ask myself, where did that come from? Sure. Having a job, starting a business, having three small children, and moving to a town I don't know a soul, starting a church in a town that I don't know anyone, and having about 5% of my energy to put into that church. That's a recipe to feel like you're not doing enough 100% of the time. Furthermore, there are just some days, like last night, I'm trying to prepare for my message, and I fell asleep writing. I did. I got this far. This is how far I got on my page. I added this and this right here. And I added the stuff at the top. So this is how far, sorry, I bumped that. This is how far I got. I'll show it to the camera. This is how far I got. And I fell asleep. I'm sitting in, I'm sitting in my chair writing, doing my best to be faithful to the thing that he's given me. Because in the kingdom, we know that he gives us little things, another man's things, and money to steward well. And if we'll steward those things well, he will then, like the faithful servant, give us greater influence, right? Those are the things that we understand. This is this is a principle that's true. And so I'm doing my best to steward the thing that he's given me. There are days where I'm so tired by the end of the day. Good luck praying. Just honestly, good luck. You sit down to be quiet at all, and it's I'm snoring. I do my b I do my I'm like, all right, we're gonna get done. We're gonna try. We're gonna, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna read. I'm gonna by God read. I'm gonna get more than half a chapter in tonight. And three sentences in, um mind you, this is after having drank coffee at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, so that I can do it. So that I can, so that I can stay awake and do it. And I'm sitting there and I'm reading, I'm oh god. Ah, I'm praying in tongues. And there's enough resistance in that if you're not, if I'm not careful, what will happen to me is I'm not doing enough. And I need to be doing more, and I need to be doing better, and I need to be, I need to, by God, have this thing all buttoned up and my eyes dotted and my T's crossed, because that's the way I was taught. And if you don't, the blessing of the Lord simply isn't going to be on it. That's that's the way I was taught in Minuscule. If you don't have it completely buttoned up, the blessing of the Lord will not rest on it. It won't. So you can see how there's enough just in that one example. You can see how there's enough right there. For me, if that's in this, I'm just use, I'm pointing the gun at myself. For me, if my subconscious is trained in a specific way, it's quite easy to be like, this new teaching on grace has changed my life. But also, there are still some corners of my subconscious that have needed to be swept out. The light of the light of goodness has needed to be shown in those corners. And it can be it can be a depressing thing to sit there and realize, like, I've got all this, and I'm trying my best just to serve the Lord, let alone start a church. So there's enough, there's enough, there's enough. And that's just a very transparent look of what it's like sometimes. And so I remember one time I text Damon. I'm gonna tell on myself, I guess, today. Maybe we cut this out, maybe we don't. I remember one time I text Damon, I was at the gym. I'm crying at the gym, texting him, like, I'm I'm spread too thin. I can't do this. I've got, I'm trying as hard to pop. I'm I promise you, I'm trying as hard as I can. And the and the energy that I have for this is so little. I was trying to prepare, I text him, I was like, I was preparing, I had, I drank two cups of coffee, and I'm trying to prepare for my message on Saturday. It's when we're still meeting on Saturdays. I'm trying to prepare for my message on Saturday, and I flat dog fell asleep and didn't get any of my writing done. And that's when I was still pretty, pretty dutiful about writing three to four pages of notes. I've gotten a little bit better. The Lord's helping me with that. But I was sitting there crying, telling him, like, I don't know what to do. I said, I'll call you, bud. You're doing good. The Lord's the Lord is kind. I'll call you. We're gonna take care of it. You're gonna be okay. And we uh we find ourselves where we're at. And if we're not careful, what we'll do and what I'll do, and um again, this is pointed solely at me. What I will do is I'll exhaust myself trying to become accepted. Ultimately, that's what our hearts desire. Ultimately, our hearts desire acceptance. Our hearts desire a few things in life, and one of the primary things that the human heart requires, I don't even I don't even want to say desires, I'd say requires is acceptance. Wholesale acceptance. Not a partial acceptance where I'll accept you, but you've got to work out X, Y, and Z before you are completely accepted. You're kind of on a probationary status right now, and that's this is the way that we think about the Lord. At least I have. Maybe I'm the only one and I'm giving myself a TED talk right now. But you're on a probationary status, and there are all these things. Paul writes to Timothy, lay aside the sins that so easily beset you and run the race with diligence, the race that's set before you. All these sins, all these missing the marks, all these wrong ways of thinking, all these disagreeing with our identity, all these things, and if we don't get those worked out, ultimately we fail in the area of becoming as mature as he's designed us to become. Because if you're trying to effort your way into acceptance, what will happen? It's not a question. What will happen is we will become exhausted, and you'll take on an attitude of what's the point? I always mess it up anyway, and it'll become a self-defeating cycle that you'll go through where you'll get energized and focused, and you'll have the ability to stay with it for a couple of weeks, and you'll be like, I'm gonna buy God do it this time. And maybe I'm the only one that gets that way. Or you'll be on the other side of that curve where you'll be like, I don't screw it. Just screw it. What's the point? And that's the juxtaposing that happens, and that's the at least for me, that's the cycle of trying to earn acceptance and not fully being convinced of beloved identity, beloved righteousness, the fact that we have been that perfect righteousness and acceptance has been imputed to us, that's not something that can be taken away. See if imputation is not something that can be taken from you. That's the that's the important, not impartation, imputation. Impartation, okay. I don't know. I'm not gonna say that because I always say that. I was about to say, I don't know why I'm talking about this. Make Lucy laugh. Lucy's concerned for me. Lucy's like, oh my god. Um impartation. Paul wrote to Timothy stir up that good thing that was given to you by the laying on of hands and the prophetic words that went on before you. Stir up that good thing that's inside of you, Timothy. So there's a responsibility inside of impartation that I have. There's a responsibility when something has been imparted to you, you then are required to steward that impartation. That's not a duty thing. That's not a keep it stirred up. Keep it in front of you all the time. Remember the prophetic words, Timothy. Timothy's leading a church, he's Paul's spiritual son, he's out leading a church, and Paul says to him, Son, I laid my hands on you and I imparted to you a gift that would help you lead that region. Because when he sent him to a church, it wasn't a, hey, you've got these 800 people to pastor. No, you've got an entire region to apostolically oversee. And you're going to have disputes, you're going to have people questioning you, you're going to have people not want to listen to you. You're going to have all these good things. Don't let any man despise you because you're young, Timothy, and stir up that good gift that was given to you by the laying on of my hands. I gave you something and I want you to keep it stirred up. Okay. And the way that he told him to do that was through remembering prophetic words and through keeping in front of him the gift that was given to him. Keep that in the front of your mind. You're capable. You were given every tool that you need to do this. You can do this, son. That's one of the ways that we steward an impartation. Imputation is something different completely. Imputation is yours and it cannot be dulled. It cannot be it. I think that's the perfect way to say it. It can't be dulled. An impartation can grow dull if you don't keep it stirred up. An imputation cannot become dull. It cannot be taken from you, and it cannot become less valid. Imputation is something that is true beyond any disputation. You can't be argued out of it, whether you feel like it or not, whether you feel like you're righteous or not, you're righteous. I think I'll leave it right there. I think that's fine. So I don't even know why I got off on imputation and impartation. This is what happens when I fall asleep writing notes. I end up rambling.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't even I mean, do you really use the notes much?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah. They're my rubric for most things. They keep me, they keep me pointed. They keep me pointed. They keep me pointing. Even if I I'll I'll allow myself there are several what happens, this, I'll give you an I'm talking about myself too much today, but there are several things that happen when I prepare a message, and one of the things is I can see trails that will branch off from the main trail, and I'll allow myself to take one or two of the trails that branch off from the main trail. If I feel like it's necessary, I'll take one or two of the trails off of the main trail and allow myself to explore some of the things that are there and then bring it back around. That's why we just bring it back around. That's it. They're loops. These trails are loops. It's like how a rabbit, it's like how a rabbit runs when you're if you ever run rabbits. If you run a rabbit, this is true, you run rabbits with with beagles or whatever, you're hunting a rabbit, the rabbit's gonna run in a big circle. He's gonna lead that dog. So what beagle owners do is they don't follow their dogs. They let they they start where that dog started trailing that rabbit and they'll sit there. And what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a big, it may take a few minutes, it may take five, ten minutes, but that rabbit's gonna go like this. He's gonna go out, bring it on back, and then when he comes back, that's when you can beep and take him home and eat him. So that's how that's how I try to do, that's how I try to when I prepare messages. That's how I try to be. If I'm gonna take, if I'm gonna take a trail, I've got to loop it on back. And then we'll beep it right there. So we're back on the main trail here. All right, I'm gonna read this. I wrote it, I'm gonna read it. Most of us spend all our lives, or at least most of our lives, trying to get to the place that Yeshua declares we begin at. We exhaust ourselves on the treadmill treadmill of religious duty, attempting to make ourselves acceptable to a God who has already declared us acceptable. We try to earn the love of a father who calls us beloved sons and daughters. One of the issues I find myself bumping into occasionally is subconsciously or even consciously, I will find myself grasping at activity or measuring what I have done to present myself acceptable to the Lord. Or the inverse can be true, and we've talked about it. I find my activity wanting, and I can judge myself based upon what I have not been able to accomplish in the service of the Lord, and that can cause a change in the way that I approach him. And this is the key. This is the key. We have been declared righteous by Jesus, it has been imputed to us. That's why imputation is so important. Circle it back. That's why imputation is so important because it cannot be changed. It can't. Can't be taken, can't be changed. So we're gonna prove it and then I'll be done. It is warm in this house. Goodness. I'm sweating. Um, John 14, verse 15. I wish it'd quit being 150 degrees, just as a side note. I wish it'd quit it. 68 is a high, but then we get right back up to 80 by the end of the week, just as a just as another kiss. We're in second summer, and second summer is holding on too long.

unknown:

I hope it stays asleep right now.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, no. We need we need like 50s. We need 50s.

unknown:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Otherwise, it's just gonna slam us and winter right away.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I need second, I need second, I need second summer to kick rocks down the road. That's what I need second summer to do. Go on kick rocks. I want to be able to go 68 and rainy spots.

unknown:

We can all just prepare for the nice little colds to come along.

SPEAKER_01:

I need, I need, I need second summer to kick rocks so I can go shoot a stick at a deer that has a point on the end of it. That's what I need. Because I'm not about, I'm not from Texas. I'm not gonna go sweat in the woods. I'm not gonna do it. I did that, yeah, that's right. Beep. Just beep them. Um I'm not from I did that in South Carolina enough. I'd go hunting, I'd be miserable and sweating and swatting bugs. And I was like, this is stupid. This is not hunting. Hunting is not designed to be done in the heat. The heat is dumb. Let's hunt when it's cold. That's when we should hunt. And I can't hunt right now because first of all, I hate being hot. I don't know if you know that about me. I hate it. I hate being hot. And it's hot, so we're not gonna do it. So, John 14, 15. Jesus loves the fall. That's the answer. He loves He loves apple cider, not pumpkin spice lattes, except one time a year. You're allowed one time a year. It's you can be a basic white girl one time a year. I allow myself one. I don't care for them either. I used to love them. They somehow got worse. I don't know. Maybe I maybe I uh oh that's that's a fact. I do. They do, it's true.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm still mad about it. Oh, I'm so annoyed this time.

SPEAKER_01:

So so we've got some challenges. We've got some challenges. No fall decor in any of the home goods stores, none. And it's too hot, and my kids aren't listening, my God. All right, John 14, verse 15. Here we go. If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you. Uh, Dr. Simmons in his translation says, I will give you another Savior who is just like me. Which is an interesting and I think appropriate way to interpret that. I think that's entirely appropriate. He is the Holy Spirit who leads you into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him. But you know him because he lives with you and later will be in you. He's with you. What an interesting way to say that. He's with you right now. He's with you. He's around you, but later he'll be in you. One of the ways, uh hold on, where is that? I saw that last night. Is it in here? Some of the manuscripts, so not all of the manuscripts, but some of the early manuscripts says where it says, and later will be in you. Some of the manuscripts say and is in you, as opposed to later will be in you. Some of the manuscripts will read, and is in you. So the Holy Spirit, not who is around you, but and is in you. Okay. There's that's an important distinction. Later will be in you. Verse 18. No, I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my watch this right here. Verse 20 is a key to experiencing the mature Christian expression in your lifetime. When I say the mature Christian expression, I mean the life that Jesus told us was ours. I'm talking about the life that Jesus told us was ours. All of the divine realities of the new covenant life becoming real in our life, not just uh hypothetical, not just something that we talk about, not just something that can be imagined, but something that can be experienced. So that means peace that goes beyond understanding. That means joy unspeakable and full of glory. That means your hands being stretched out and healing the sick, cleansing the leper, and yes, raising the dead. That means prosperity of soul as your as prosperity even as your soul prospers. That means a prosperous life. A prosperous life for the believer is the design of Yahweh. We could go on further down that road, but I've covered enough of the divine realities of the new covenant lifestyle that I think we all have a at least basic enough understanding of what that would look like. I'm calling that, what I'm calling that is the mature Christian expression. And a key to not just receiving mentally or ascending to mentally the mature Christian expression or living in the reality of all of these divine realities. The key to that is right here, verse 20. When I am raised to life, you will know that I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my father. You are in me, and I am in you. Moving along, those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me, and because they love me, my father will also love them, and I will love them and reveal myself to each of them. Those who accept my commandments and obey them, those who accept my commandments and obey them, are the ones who love me, and because they love me, my father will love them, and I will love them and reveal myself to each of them. Judas, not Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name said, I love that they just go so hard on explaining that this other guy, Judas, wasn't the bad Judas. Judas, not the Judas not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple who wasn't terrible, said to him, Lord, why are you not the thief and the guy who betrayed Jesus? Why are you why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large? Jesus replied, All who love me will do what I say. This is so important to Jesus. All who love me will do what I say. But I want you to see how he's writing that, how he's explaining this to his uh his apostles. All he all who love me will do what I say. He says that there. He says, um Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my father will love them, and I will love them, and reveal myself to each of them. If you love me, obey my commandments. All who love me will do what I say. My father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. This is such an important verse. John 1523 is such an important verse. 1520 and 1514, I mean, 1420 and 1423 are so important. All who love me will do what I say. My father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. So the Father's revealing a key. The father is revealing a key piece of the mature Christian expression to the apostles just before Jesus goes to the cross. This is his last interaction with them before the garden, and then his kangaroo court, ultimately his crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection, and then his appearings to them for the 40 days before Pentecost. It says that he appeared for the period of time that he appeared to them before Pentecost, and then moving into the post-um, the post-Pentecost church. The Father's revealing something really important to them that they're gonna have to remember as they move through the challenges of the coming time. All who love me will do what I say. My father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Receive anything, or be accepted. We obey the commands of Jesus because we're already there. We taught on prayer not too long ago, and we started the way that we started our thought process on prayer is prayer is not about getting his attention. It's about causing us to realize that we already have his attention. Prayer is not about getting the father's attention, and that's we'll exhaust ourselves screaming in prayer, trying because we think maybe if I pray louder, I'll get his attention more. Maybe if I'm more fervent in my prayers, my prayers will get answered more because I'll get the spotlight of heaven on my prayers. And that's not how it works. Prayer is about bringing us into the realization of the degree of presence that we're already in. Acknowledging it, coming into agreement with it. And Jesus equates the activity, and I'm calling I'm calling it activity. You can call it religious activity if you like. We're called, I'm calling it activity. Jesus, Jesus equates obedience to him and his commands and the commands of the Father to, hey, you love me. And because you love me, this is who you are. You listen to me. You're not trying to become something, you're doing something because of who you are. Does that make sense? You're not trying to become something different, you're acting this way because you are this way. I hope that makes sense. I hope, I hope I'm explaining that in a way that makes sense. And that will shift if you allow it. That can shift your subconscious mind, guys. This becomes less about trying to be accepted and more acting out of acceptance. How much more is a child willing to be parented if they know they're accepted by their parent?

unknown:

Yeah, yeah, they're more willing.

SPEAKER_01:

I know with my own son, I can tell you that relationship is the key to that boy's heart. And if you if he doesn't think that you give a rip about him, he's not gonna listen to you no matter what you do or no matter what you say. He'll look at you and you act like he's deaf. He'll look at you and be like, oh, you want me to do what now? I'm gonna go ahead and do this. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. I didn't hear that. I'm gonna go over here and do this. You have fun though with that thing you just said. You do that. You can you can do that, and I'm gonna go do this. He'll do that to you sometimes anyway. You gotta watch him. Gotta watch him. But it becomes, it becomes more about, it becomes more about this is who you are, so this is what you do. You don't pray and spend time with the Lord and turn your attention to him to get his attention or to earn something. No, we spend time with him, we interact with him, we turn our hearts towards him because this is who we are. We're people of presence. We're accepted, we're beloved sons and daughters. This is who we are. This is why we do that. Because I love him and he loves me. I want to experience more of him. Because I love him and he loves me. I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna do that instead because he loves me. And if I do this, I'm gonna be partaking in something that would grieve his heart. And I'm I don't want to grieve his heart. What I'll do because he loves me and I love him. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna choose the better part and I'm gonna make sure that I keep myself clean because I want to experience more of the thing that I love. Does that make sense to everybody? This is how Jesus equates obedience. This is the great motivation for obedience, not trying to effort our way into being able to enter his courts with thanksgiving and his gates with praise and being able to come before the Lord with boldness and make our request known to the Lord. We get taught to come before the Lord with boldness and make our requests boldly known to the Lord. We get taught to do that only if we've been maintaining ourselves in the Christian walk. Because if we haven't, you better spend about eight hours repenting before you attempt to enter into the presence of the Lord. You better spend eight hours repenting before you try to enter into the presence of the Lord because it's not gonna work for you if you do it another way. And I'm here to tell you the only way to get out of having to spend eight hours repenting before you come into the presence of the Lord is realize that you're in the presence of the Lord right now. You're accepted in the presence of the Lord. And the beautiful thing is you don't approach him with your record anyway, because your record, even at your best, would be insufficient to make yourself acceptable to him. So what we do is we receive the imputation of righteousness from Jesus, enter into the presence of Almighty Yahweh, make our request boldly known before him, and enjoy him because of Jesus. And this is who we are. So we act accordingly. This is who we are, so we act accordingly. I hope I'm making sense. I hope, I hope. We're almost done. We're almost, I'm I'm lying. We're almost done. We're almost done. So anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me. Remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I'm telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the advocate, and I'm going to give you a key, when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, this is the important piece. He will teach you everything, and remind you of everything I have told you. When the Father sends the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I have told you. When the Father sends the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and remind you what I told you. Paul would later say, You have an anointing that teaches you all things. Paul not Paul, John. John would later say in his epistle, you have an anointing already that teaches you all things. You have no need that any man should teach you anything, but you have an anointing with you that teaches you all things. He's speaking of the Holy Spirit. It was a given to the early church. I am sweating. Is it hot in here? It's got to be this light. This light is the light. Alright. I'm I'm struggling. I don't know, but I'm sweating.

unknown:

It's like some waiting on those windows.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what it is. That's what it is. No, no, you're fine. I'm I'm gonna survive. Hey, the enormous amount of caffeine abuse in my life has nothing to do with any of y'all. Y'all mind your business. Y'all mind your own business. I want to have caffeine abuse in my life, so leave me alone. I do it because I like it, not because I need it. Oh man. Oh my. All right. So we're gonna move to Ephesians 1, but it was a given to the early church. It was a given to them that Holy Spirit was not an addendum, was not something that was nice to have, but you could get along without. Nice to have, but you could get along without? Because we have the Bible, we don't have to have Holy Spirit. No. No, you can't even properly understand the Bible without Holy Spirit. You can't properly understand the thing. You can't properly understand the teachings of Jesus without Holy Spirit revealing to you what Jesus is saying. The pinnacle of the Christian walk academic achievement in the area of study of scripture. That's the pinnacle of the Christian walk. The pinnacle of the Christian walk is to become a good academic studier of the scriptures. And there is some truth to you ought to be able to give an answer to all to all men at any time to all men who have any question of you so that you can tell them the hope that you live for. You ought to be ready at all times to give them an answer. Okay, sure. But that doesn't mean I have to sit down and debate with you five major points of why Luther left the Catholic expression and why Protestantism is now the correct path, or Catholicism is the correct path. That's that's not what he's talking about. You ought to be able to give them an answer. You ought to be able to give them an answer. Yeah, that's all. Just give them an answer. Someone has an has a question of you, why do you live this way? Give them an answer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm not talking, I'm not talking about this doesn't always give a straight answer.

unknown:

Like he doesn't always answer people just.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and there's there's there's there's and there's there's an acceptable level of mystery that you can live you can leave people in. Right. Like I frustrate Levi sometimes when I say things like his first language is silence. Frustrate Levi right now with that. He'd be like, you can tell me what that means. I'm like, nah. He asked me to one time. He was like, You gotta, you can tell, you should tell me. Tell me what that means, because that's frustrating. I'm like, no, I'm not telling you what that means. Why don't you tell me? Why don't you tell me what that means? Because I'd rather you wrestle with it. Um but it was it was a given to the early church that Holy Spirit would be necessary. Would be necessary, would be necessary to the mature Christian expression. Okay. Ephesians 1, verse 1. We're gonna do 1 through 11, and then I'll I'll be done. I'm keeping an eye on the time. This is a letter from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. All praise to God the Father, verse three. All praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, because we are united with Christ. Right there, all by itself, right there. You could you could just meditate on verse three for the rest of your life. You could meditate on verse three every day for the rest of your life and never find an end to what Paul is saying right here. Simple, concise, there's nothing confounding here, there's no deep revelation here, or is there all praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. Because why? Because we are united with Christ. Who are Paul, Paul, and the other apostles? Barnabas, Peter, James, John, all of the apostles who have who have Thomas, all of the apostles, Thomas in the region of India that he went to to establish the apostolic church there. I don't know if he'd been speared to death at this point or not, but at some point he gets speared to death. But maybe he's still there, and I'd have to look at the timeline, but maybe he's still there, and he's talking about maybe he's just talking about the men who have been sent out. Maybe Timothy, a faithful son in the spirit, maybe that's who he's talking about, is blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm because we are united with Christ. Or is he talking about that being the starting point of the life of the believer? And we spend the rest of our lives. This is this frustrates me. I'm gonna I'm gonna stop a second. This frustrates me. We get taught to spend the rest of our lives seeking the thing that Paul told the Ephesian church they start with. You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm because as a result of the truth that you're in Christ, you're accepted. You start with perfect acceptance. You don't then have to spend the next 30 years trying to fight from a deficit of acceptance to gain acceptance. You live the rest of your life with the full assurance that I have been accepted by God. And if I have been accepted by God, then all of these ancillary things are also true. All of these other pieces are true because I'm accepted. We struggle in the area of blessing, blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm because we struggle in the area of being fully convinced of how fully accepted we are. Being fully convinced of being fully accepted is the starting point of the New Testament believer. It is the starting point. We're accepted. And that's our starting point. And because we're accepted, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we're accepted. Because we're included and we're mystically joined in union with the Father, Son, and Spirit right now, we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. That's a Greek word that means every. That Greek word means every spiritual blessing. That's what that means. Verse 4. Even before he made the world, God loved us. Watch this. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. He had a grand plan before the earth was created, and that was to find us faultless. The grand plan of the Father before the earth was created was to find me faultless before him. We don't get taught that. We get taught John Calvin's version of the atonement, and because we get taught John Calvin's version of the atonement, we're afraid of a God who loves us. We're terrified of an angry judge who's saying, I find you faultless. The only rendering of the gavel that ever need take place would be that Yeshua has accomplished all that needed to be accomplished, and we have been found faultless. God decided in advance, watch this. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family, bringing us to himself through Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. We even paint, guys, we even paint like it brings him great pleasure to that that piece right there that Paul says is so important. This is what he wanted to do, and it brings him great pleasure. We even paint him bringing us together in Christ to himself as something that he has to do rather than enjoys doing. Like I'm kind of, Jesus convinced me to do this. And I know Lucy is laughing at me because she's like, I've never thought that in my whole life because you lived in California. You lived where people don't teach that stuff. I'm in fact quite jealous. So the patriarchal fathers of the early church had these teachings, had these truths, had this divine revelation of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Good Trinitarian theological teaching that is so a part of what Pop is doing now and Baxter Krueger is doing. We're thundering a message that is not new. This message has been around since 33 AD. And we're coming back around now to the patristic message of God is Father and God is good. And that has been the message from the beginning. How often would we hear growing up? How often would we hear the message from John? We have we have we hear this message and it's still we heard this message from him, it's still thundering in our ears, and we now reveal to you the thing that he taught us. In him is light, and there is no shadow of darkness at all. Nobody taught that. Nobody, nobody taught that. Nobody taught that. Nobody taught that. We lost that at the Reformation, and we're now going back and regaining the thing that we lost. This is not, guys, this is not a new message. The the Trinitarian message, the patristic message, the message of the heart of the Father, this is this is the most ancient of messages. This is the ancient beating heart of our faith. The ancient beating heart of our faith is Yahweh is good, and in him is no darkness. And he's father and he's kind. And the spirit is the one who reveals Jesus to us, and Jesus is the one who reveals the Father to us. And they, in their way of preferring one another, they prefer each other even in revelation. So the father prefers the son and allows the son to be the one who reveals his glory to his children. And the son prefers the spirit and allows the spirit to be the one who reveals the glory of the son to the sons and daughters of the most high. The father, son, and spirit. And the beautiful thing about that is we get caught up in it and we're a piece of it. That's all I'm trying to say is the most ancient. This is how we start. We're right back in. We're right back in, Lucy. I'm an expert at it. You know how often I ramble and I'm like in the middle of a rambling, and the spirit will be like, eh, turn. So, so with all of that in mind, let's reread this. All praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. This was the message they taught from the beginning that we have been united with Christ, and we have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and with all thought without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family, bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us, who belong to his dear son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding. He has showered not just his kindness on us, but all wisdom and understanding came with his kindness. Holy Spirit came with his kindness and brought wisdom and understanding to us. And I can hear James writing, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask the Father, and he will give him liberally. And the King James says, and abradeth not, doesn't rebuke you for asking for a thing that you need. Doesn't rebuke you for asking for a thing that you need. And we so far too often approach this thing like he's gonna slap us on the wrist if we ask for anything. God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ. Right here. Right here. God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. A plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. And this is the plan. This is so beautiful how he writes this. And this is the plan. At the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance and makes everything work out according to his plan. Last thing I'm gonna say is this. And this would have been something that would have been accepted by the early church fathers and so put into the foundations of their teaching that when Paul is teaching this, he doesn't mention the spirit because that would have been such an elementary truth to this that it would have been generally accepted knowledge that Holy Spirit would have been necessary for us to be able to receive these things. The partnership between Holy Spirit and finding out the things that have been made available to us through our union in Christ. We find here. We find what's been made available to us through here. This cool brand, this awesome piece of leather that I have, my grandma's Bible. This is where we find what's been made available to us. And Holy Spirit is the one who brings life to the thing that has been made available to us. By what? By our inclusion in the Trinitarian life. So I think kind of in a closing statement, because I'm going to be done talking. It's almost two o'clock. So it is two o'clock. I need to be done. But I think, you know, thinking about maybe 10 years down the road, what do I want this to look like? What do I want the resting place to look like? Because that's kind of where my mind will go at times. Ten years down the road. And I don't have. I don't have necessarily. Like I want to have buildings and I want to have a campus and all those things. I don't really have that as part of my tenure plan, Lou. What I would like is a core group of people who are so convinced that they're in the beloved. That they're in the Trinitarian life. That we don't have to fight for inclusion in something we're already included in. That we don't have to achieve our way into something we've already been included in. That we don't have to earn our way in that we're already in. That the high form, the high mature form of the Christian life, which is the divine realities that we talk about that are included in the new covenant with Jesus, those things that Paul so boldly declares to us. Life isn't going to be without troubles. Life will be full of troubles. Read Paul, read some of the apostles. It will be full of trouble. That's it's called living. Called living. The Highlander's not long for this world, and we're trying to buy a house, and I can't buy a new car till we get a new house. It's called life. It's part of it. It's called life. The human experience. But I would like to have a core group of people who are so convinced of their beloved identity and inclusion in the Trinitarian life that the expression of this looks more like the book of Acts than we could have ever dreamed it looked like. Because I think that's a natural secondary consequence of a people who have been convinced that they're included. So what would I like to see in 10 years? I'd like to see fully convinced. And 10 years after that, I hope my answer is still, I want to be fully convinced. 10 years further down the road, I want to be more fully convinced that I'm included and that my inclusion does not require my effort. But any of my efforting, or any of even any of my, I'll call it this way, activity rather than effort. Any of my Christian activity is a result of my being included and the love that Jesus has for me. All right. Amen. That's all I've got to say about that.