How far does a dead car go?

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to the Christian Car Guy radio show. Good morning.

Good morning. The Christian Car Guy show. As you noticed, probably immediately, this is not Robbie Dillman. This is Richard. I'm here with my friends. I got Christian.

I got Greg. We out in the back. We having a good time. We having a good time this morning. I hope you all are doing well. I'm super excited for the opportunity to be able to speak to you all this morning.

We're going to go straight into it. I'm not the Christian Car Guy. I'm the Christian that like goes to car guys, so I think that's the closest that you're going to get out of that from me. So what I really would love to do is take an opportunity to just let us know who we are, share about what we plan on doing today. First off, like I said, I'm Richard. I'm Robbie's assistant. We got Christian, our producer.

We got Greg, our producer. We here to have it a good time. Such a great and amazing opportunity to be here, to just be able to share some scripture, to be able to encourage the saints or to encourage the people that God is reaching to. That God is reaching out to, to share his word with. And Robbie has been an amazing mentor for me in saying and explaining like, hey, you need to be in the word.

You need to be having a one-on-one conversation with God. And God is going to be sharing scripture with you. He's going to be showing you the things about him and his word. And so the main thing he told me is share what God is sharing. And you know what?

That's exactly what I'm going to do today. Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two is an amazing text. It is in some sense, a life text.

If you want to know who I am, that's a first thing I'll probably talk to you about. Mainly because Paul's my favorite author. He's my favorite person that writes the Bible. And when he writes his letters, his letters are usually very straightforward. It's statement, therefore, statement because you'll, you'll see these therefores and you have to see what they're there for. And they're just straight to the point. If you, if you look at books where in the beginning, it'll start with a lot of theology and then somehow he'll throw in a therefore or because practical, very practical.

Yes. So when you look at Romans, when he says therefore in chapter 12, he's saying because or based off of one through 11, those chapters, therefore I appeal to you brothers. Like it's, it's amazing. But today when Ephesians, Paul is talking to the Ephesian church, of course, and he is sharing what I actually believe is he he's, he's unifying them. You see in chapter one where God is moving and you see exactly what God is doing to save his people. And then you have chapter two where he gets personal or you actually start seeing Paul do a little narrative, which is why I enjoy that kind of the most. Once you get through there, you see how, once you get to chapter three, you see this beautiful unity of the church and why no one is better than anyone else because we're all saved. We're all in need of the cross. And then four, five, you start seeing practical applications.

But today I won't go too far. I won't try to do a big old commentary, but today we'll look specifically at chapter two verses one through 10, chapter two, verses one through 10. And it's so beautiful to me. It's beautiful to me because it is showing us a story in the reality of not only who we are in our natural state, but once you get to verse 10, you see God call us his worksmanship. And when you see the word worksmanship, you may say, well, what does that mean? Well, I'll give you a better word, masterpiece.

Yes. A masterpiece. How in the world, when we look at ourselves, when we look at where we've come from, the things we've done, the things we haven't done and all those things, but we come out with that title masterpiece.

And honestly, if somebody said masterpiece outside of Christ, we might call them arrogant. So we get to look and explore and just enjoy this beautiful story and this beautiful reality, this truth of what God is doing on our behalf. And what else could we rejoice over?

What else could we do? One of the things I was thinking about when it comes to, you know, as the Christian car guy, and I was kind of thinking like, am I supposed to do like some kind of car reference? Anything car-related.

I don't know. Do you even have a car? Barely. Listen, I barely have a car. It's a blessing, but one of the things is how far can a dead car go? So when you ask that question, it's like, if a car doesn't have the tires, or tires with no air, if a car doesn't have an engine that works, if a car doesn't have gas, guess what it's not doing? Going.

It's not going anywhere. And when you look at verses one through three, it specifically talks about us. And he says, Paul says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind.

And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Paul did not say they, he didn't say them over there. He didn't say that, that girl over there, that man over there. He said you. You. That hits hard.

Right here in the chest. He said you. I'm like, we're reading it now and he's talking to us. Right. He's writing this to Christians.

Yeah. But then there's beautiful, because what he says is you were dead in your trespasses. Your car was dead. Underline that word, was or were. Were, past tense, past tense. Powerful.

I love it. Right. And so when you really see that word dead, we really, it doesn't seem like rocket science, but I think sometimes when we get out here in the world, when we get out here and just get, we overthink things, we don't stop and think, well, what does a, what does a dead person do? I'm alive. We ain't talking zombies either. We ain't talking zombies. No, no, we are not talking zombies.

Right. Dead in the soul. Dead in the soul, spiritually dead, incapable of seeing God for who he is, incapable of seeing the things that God is even doing.

And I don't mean like, oh, that leaf blew. And so I know that God is calling me to go in this direction. I mean, like, when I look at you, Christian, in your life, if I'm spiritually dead, I'm not going to actually be able to see or even speak into what God is doing in your life. Cause I'm blinded.

I'm oblivious. Right. And so we can't see it, God working in each other. We can't see God working out in, in, in the world. And we can get real caught up with that.

We can get real stuck in that. It also says, we were following the course of this world. So of course that means we were following the way of society. We're following the ways that everybody is doing. It's like, oh, if that's what's right, that's what's true. You know, you got to remember what it says in Romans and Romans one, it said, you know, people will see what is foolish and call it wise and what is wise, call it foolish. And so that's what the world does.

And we were following along with it. Yeah. Uh, that's, that's not good.

That's not good. You know, that's one thing I loved about Paul. Yeah. He gracefully corrected the culture. Right.

Always engaged the culture and corrected them in love. Yeah. You know? Yeah. He wasn't silent. Yeah. He wasn't silent. And he wasn't like, he didn't hold, he didn't hold nothing back. Right.

But he wasn't like me either. Amen. So I just think when we really think about being the sons of disobedience, which in some sense, I could just say we're following Satan. I mean, that's kind of how that goes. That makes it clear. Uh, we have to ask the question if, if that is who we were and that is who we are.

Well, how in the world is God going to call that a masterpiece? So call in, give us your thoughts. 866-348-7884 or 886-34 truth.

You know, you millennials, y'all got to learn how to do the little letters. So if you have any thoughts, any stories call in. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. Yes.

KB 10,000 reasons. My guy never met him, but I love him. That's crazy. Uh, thank you for tuning in. Once again, this is the Christian car guy show.

We're at truth network 866-34 truth or 866-348-7884. Call in, share your stories about how you understand your life of becoming from, from coming from, sorry, coming from death to life and being called God's masterpiece. So as we was discussing earlier, we were talking about verses one through three in Ephesians and how it paints a terrible picture of naturally who we are. We're spiritually dead, how we're following the ways of the world. We're not interested in anything that God has going on.

We're actually rebelling against him. Um, all of these things and yet you still see later that God calls us his masterpiece. The beauty of verses one through three and I'll move on from it. I'll try to at least beauty is we can all relate to that. It didn't, it didn't just say when you were the person that was addicted or you were the person that stole or you were the person that didn't vote this way or that way or whatever, whatever, whatever thing you want to put there, it puts everybody in the same position and that position is in need of grace, which leads us to the beautiful verse four.

Verse four says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Amen. It's like, uh, well, wait a minute. What did I do? What did I do to get this kind of love? What, what are you talking about? It seemed like we had some, some very, very, some beef. We had some beef. It's like, okay, I understand Paul, what you said God is doing for people in chapter one. I understand you're doing that.

Okay. But now you just use what started verse two, we're talking about me. And isn't that the thing that's kind of the hardest to grasp sometimes? Sometimes it seems to be so easy, at least in my life, I'll say that my life, sometimes it's so easy for me to see these truths applied to you, to them, to those people that have been saved and not really in some sense being transparent or grateful or whatever to realize like, Oh, I'm a part of that too. Like Jesus has saved my soul as well from death. Like you can't get worse than death.

Okay. If somebody calls you and you got, or if you trying to go to work and you get in that car and that car dead, guess what's happening. You getting another, another rod or something.

You ain't going to wear in that car or whatever. But as I said, and you know, there's a joke and I don't even know if it's off color or not, but it's a joke is like the biggest, but in the Bible of verse four, I guess it's more in delivery because I still didn't like it when I said it, I should've just not said it. But anyway, it was, it is a game changer.

Yes. Cause it should say, this is who you were. This is what you did.

This is what you thought. This is how you lived and God's still being good. Judged you according to your sin. But this, but God doesn't just point to, he looked over it. The blood of Jesus paid for it. Amen.

Which is why it's now a gift. It's not a, Oh, well you're not that bad. It's no, you're that bad. You're so bad that the son of God has to die. Somebody's blood going to get spilled.

Whose blood is it going to be mine or yours or mine or yours hours are his. There you go. Right, right, right. It's just, I have spent so much time and especially maybe in some of the circles that, you know, I've gone and rolled with theology and theology is I think sometimes we can get so overwhelmed with the bad, so overwhelmed with like what's going on in the world and all these things that are happening and all these bad things are happening and all these people, we want to be saved and all these things that is not to be ignored. We should not think about those things.

We shouldn't shouldn't do that, but what's wrong with taking a minute and saying, well made a minute. We've been raised up with Christ. Like let's not forget. We have a victory here. Yeah. We have a victory here. We don't, we don't have a loss. There is loss that out there and God is redeeming. God is doing what God does best and that is fulfilling his will. Amen. Right. Yeah. And so when we start thinking about God fulfilling his will and us being a part of it, it's not just, Oh, well, I'm a masterpiece.

Huh? It's no, like I was a sojourner. I was far off and he has brought me near and I don't understand why I could not sit here and lie to y'all. I'm not going to sit here and lie to y'all and be like, Oh, well I know exactly why he saved us. I know exactly why he did whatever.

Actually. He says, this is what Paul says. When you go to six, it says he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ verse seven. So that, okay, here we go again, Paul again with these transitions right here.

So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. It ain't got nothing to do with me at all. Nothing. I mean, honestly, think about it like verse one, he's writing to the Ephesians, but also at the same time as he's writing this, he's talking to himself. I was dead. Even though he's saying you, he's talking to himself in the third person saying, you, Paul, you were dead.

Now, when he says in, uh, what was it? Uh, verse six. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, a lot of people, I know a lot of people think about it like that, but there are some like out there in the world that are like, oh yeah, I've read the Bible before. Or, or like, like, yeah, I've heard of Paul and stuff like that.

I've heard the Ephesians two and all that. Yeah. And it's like, he's talking about himself. Y'all. Yeah. Yeah. Not just, not just us. Yeah.

Everybody himself. It's awesome. It's awesome. Call in. This is us. We want to hear from you.

We want to hear from the rest of the us's. 866-34-TRUTH. 866-34-TRUTH.

866-34-8-7-8-8-4. Call. We'll be right back. Yes, sir. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. Good morning.

We are back again. Christian car guy show. Give us a call. 866-34-TRUTH.

866-34-8-7-8-8-4. I don't know how these radio guys do that so well, but call in. We want to hear you. It's a God thing. Yeah. That's awesome.

Call in. We want to hear your stories. We want to hear everything that you have to, to share about you and your life, how you went from a you over there, you sojourner, you person that was rebelling against God and everything else to being brought in by him and saved and loved and cherished.

I want to hear those stories. That's how we, that's how we relate. Honestly, that's the reason why it's there in Ephesians two is to unify. So, Oh, so everything's being good right here. So let's move on. We said, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Amen. And when you think about that, we then turn around and say, it says four. Okay. Here we go. There's a therefore or four.

We need to know what it's there for. Right. Right. So he's already telling us, Paul's already telling us what God has done in spite of us. Now he's saying why he did it.

And then he doubles down and he's saying, because, Oh, awesome. He's saying, because for by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God, nothing or, or not nothing, but not as a result of works so that no one may what boast, man, look at me over here. Look at me. I'm so good. God loved me. God loved me because I did this and this and this and this.

You can be a Pharisee and stand up. You can say, Oh, I thank God that I'm not this. And I thank God. I'm not that. And I think that I'm not addicted and I thank God I'm not this. And, and whatever else you want to say, you can thank God all day for how great you are, but that's not what's happening.

What you are by yourself on your own versus one through three, not versus six or seven all the way to 10. Right. Right. We should only boast in him. Only boast in him. Only boasting him. Right.

Cause it's his gift. Yeah. When you get a gift, if, if, if I Christian, if I come to you and be like, Hey, I need you to give me that PS five. Okay.

I mean, if you do it, that's, I guess, technically a gift, but if you come to me like very expensive gift, I know that you bored. I know that you're doing whatever you lazy sitting on the couch doing that. I'm gonna give you this place.

I'm going to do that. Oh, we have a caller. Awesome.

We have Mr. Sean from Winston Salem. Let's see here. Sean, welcome to the Christian car guy show. Oh wow. Hello. Hello guys. Good morning. How are you doing Sean? I want to share.

Awesome. I'm doing well. So there was a time in my life where I had did really well at my job.

I had excel. I made a lot of money and a lot of people and a lot of great things. And life was just good. I mean, life was really, really good.

No complaints of any kind could do and go anywhere. I want to go. And then all of a sudden the tables turn and I lose everything.

It seems like I get shunned away by everybody. Everyone who was there was no longer there. And, and, and life just became different. I lost everything. I lost everyone and it's forcing me to sink and to come to grips with myself, come to grips with my life.

And it's something about what you guys are reading today that just make, just make this come to me, make me want to call in. And I remember saying to myself, God, why me? And you can, and God, why me? You know, did, did, did I not give, did I not give my time? Did I not give my money? Did I not give my love? Did I not, did I not give? I've been good, God. I've done things right, God. Why me?

And that's what, and that was almost, I look back and feel a little like, man, Sean, did you really say that? But why me? And then I remember being on the literal mountain top and I'm saying to myself, you know, no one has any grace for me. No one has any understanding for me. No one feels my plight.

You know, the love that I felt like I had given, no one is showing that to me. And I'm like, why God, as I'm still on the mountain top and then something just, something just happened, something changed. And then I'm just, it's almost as if God said to me, Sean, did you think you were so good that you would not be tested? Wow.

Wow. Do you love me? Am I am who I am? And I battle with that and battle with that and battle with that. And some time where I would come down from that literal mountain and some time would pass.

Yeah. And then I would meet, I would meet, I would meet a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a dear friend who's a different and I'm going to meet this different. And, uh, he was sharing his testimony and he, he, he, uh, alluded to that he was experienced.

He at one point had experienced a change in his life where things went downhill for him, but he attributed it to the fact that he wasn't doing right or he could have been doing better and he was bitter and he was angry. Wow. But what spoke to me about his testimony when I thought about myself was I said, man, our testimonies are the same.

And how is it that two people have never met who could appear to be on the opposite end of the spectrum of each other? How could they have the same outcome? Yeah. Same story, different details.

That's all it is. Same story, different details. And then after that time, I'm by myself and I hear God say, he says, Sean, what if it wasn't about how good you were or how bad he was? What if he wasn't as bad as he was?

What if he wasn't, what if you were not as good as you thought you were? But what if I'm testing you because I want you to go out and give grace to my life. I want you to go out and give grace to my people.

And I say, wow. So that initial question of why me? Why me? Because I love you and because I have a purpose for you. Wow.

100%. Because I can see farther than you can see. And I have put you here. I placed you and I have destined you for something greater than what you were doing at that time in your own or in your own way. Right. Now is a time if you choose, if you continue to love me, if you continue to follow me, if you continue to hear me, now is your time that I have designated for you, that I have set for you to go out and do my work. Right.

And just, yes. And hearing you all this morning just made me think of that and made me remember why he does love me, why he does love us and how sometimes we are in our own way. And sometimes it's not about talking to someone else or talking to the people. It is about us realizing that this message or this moment is just as much for us as well because he does have a greater plan. Amen.

Amen to that. And me and this gentleman who would have never met otherwise, we've met and we do our best to go out and we try to make sure that we are giving grace to those with whom otherwise may not get it. Because not only do we know what it's like, but it's because what God wants.

Right. He wants us to love our brother. He wants us to be there for our brother.

He wants us to let go of ourselves and think about the next person and stay it. Hey man, you guys are doing a great job. I love calling in and listening and thank you for your time. I can't believe I'm on the radio.

Yeah, man. I'm so glad you called in. That's awesome. Thank you for the testimony and praise God. Yes.

Yes. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you so much for calling.

Take care of Sean. Oh man, that was good. Right. And see, like, that's the, that's the beauty. The beauty of this text is no one is exempt from this text. Yes. You're either one through three or you're four through 10 and it's all working together for his glory. Amen. For his purposes.

For his purposes. Call in 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884. We want to hear from you. We want to hear some more of these testimonies.

We want to see how God's moving in everyone's life. Call in. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com And we are back Christian Kargosh show 866-34-TRUTH.

866-34-TRUTH. I'm so overwhelmed with how amazing that story was. Thank you so much for sharing that Sean. And there's so many of us who have the same story. One of the things that we should always understand is this is not just a text for unbelievers.

This was written to believers. One of the things that we struggle with, I think is probably one of the biggest disciplines that humanity struggles with is remembering. Yeah. And when we start thinking about and remembering what he saved us from and what he brought us to, that's where our joy can be complete. That's where we start working out our salvation and understanding that it's a gift from God and seeing that we truly are his worksmanship created for good works. Yeah. Because we're not caught up in the well I'm boasting on how good I am or I'm boasting on how bad I am or I'm boasting on or not boasting at all and following Satan and doing all these things, following the world, everything else.

Do we see the joy, the peace, the rest, the lack of confusion and just simply understanding that we are saved by grace? What could we do? Is there something? I don't know.

I don't see my resume. We couldn't do anything. We don't deserve anything. What we deserve is the death that Christ died on the cross.

That's it. Amen. But in return, we give him our ashes and he gives us beauty. We give him our sin and he gives us himself. It's like, yo, I don't want you on my sales team or nothing, man.

You're not making good deals. We are sons and daughters of the almighty God now. Amen.

Amen. Because you were a trespasser. You were following the ways of this world. You were a rebel.

Now you're a son or a daughter. What is, we'll be singing his praises forever with that alone. Like when you hear the song early, it says 10,000 reasons. Reason why it's 10,000 reasons is because every single moment that God is putting together, every single story that God is bringing together, every single thing, every single, down to the atom, he is in control of and he is bringing together for his glory. And we have no choice but to worship and praise him. What else could we do? Y'all like money. You sound silly, right?

You sound silly. And so for the person, for the people to understand that this is also not something that we struggle with before salvation or understanding our salvation. We got to understand too, as believers, as we're doing this whole sanctification thing, as in being made more like Christ, there's going to be some struggles there. Every day struggles.

Every day struggles. Battle tested. Yeah.

Trial by fire. Right. It's going to be those days. Right. And those days are beautiful.

I love it. Right. What? That's why you said 10,000 reasons. 10,000 reasons.

I jump on top of my car right now. Thank you, Jesus. That's right. Hallelujah.

That's right. And it doesn't have to be, and it doesn't have to be that excitement all the time as well as it could be, should be. I mean, maybe that's what eternity is for, right? Absolutely.

But if you really think about it, what else could we struggle with or not have that we just missed out? Let's take this caller. Hold on. Who we got here? I got Julie from Ohio. Hey, Julie. Well, hey there. How are you? Can you hear us? I'm fine.

We're kind of breaking up a little bit, but. All right. Can you hear us now? I hear you now. Awesome.

We hear you loud and clear. How are you doing? Oh, wonderful. I'm wonderful.

I'm having a beautiful day. Praise God. I was just driving down the road listening to your last caller who talked about being on the mountaintop and his pride and wondering why these things were happening to him, and it really struck me. I went through a similar situation in a whole different manner with my relationship with my husband.

Oh, wow. And things just were going down the drain really quick, and it just became a horrible situation. And I struggled through so many things, and I kept asking God the same thing. Why me? Why do I have to go through this?

Why is this happening? And why can't he change and want to change for our relationship? Why doesn't he want to do that for me and me as his wife? And God spoke to me. I prayed and prayed through all this, and this is many years of suffering. So it just came upon one time this Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, you're expecting your husband to change for you, and you have changes that need to be made as well. Look at yourself and seek the things that God wants for you and your husband. You can continue to pray for your husband, but you can't expect your husband to treat you any better than he would treat God. And if he's not treating God right, he's not going to treat you right.

Absolutely. And it has taken me quite a long time to get through that process, but once I realized that, I looked at my whole relationship differently. I actually called upon some help from some Christian counselors, and they referred to my husband as a wounded warrior. And I saw him totally differently. We're all in this world, and we all have our own trials, and we are battling evil. So God did promise us long suffering, but he gives us beauty every day. I love to take pictures, and I have cameras all over the place, and I find beauty in the smallest little things.

In a blade of grass, I can take a picture of something so phenomenal that, you know, you don't even notice. I used to walk my dog every day, and I would notice the smallest things that brought joy. It changed my perspective on life and how God looks at things. And look, if you look around you, God is everywhere. He is in everything, and there's joy in that, and he gives us this joy to get us through the long suffering.

We look to him for our peace, and we know we have salvation, and we have hope for eternity. So that is joy in itself. That's enough. Yeah, and that's amazing, and I hate to cut you off. I want you to actually finish the show, but I have to cut you off, because my producers are just like, yo, we gotta... But I really, really appreciate that, and one thing that I even want to add to what you were saying is when you and Shawn earlier said, why me?

Right? They said, why me? And when I look at this text right here in Ephesians 2, we can ask the same question, but change the tone. Lord, why me? Who am I?

Who am I? Like, you are so right about humbling ourselves before him and seeing him as he is, and I thank you so much for calling in. Thank you, Julie. We really appreciate that so much.

Thank you for your story. Oh, thank you. I'm so blessed to hear you today.

Awesome. Praise God. Praise the Lord.

Amen. You take care. Goodbye. You too.

Bye. We had another caller. I'm so sorry that we missed you.

That was Taylor. I hope you call in for the next show. Yeah, call in for the next show, Taylor, because I want to hear your story too. Amen.

I'm sure we can figure something out with that, but you all, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for allowing me to serve you with the scriptures. I pray that you are encouraged. If you do not know him, come to know him. He's asking.

His hands are out, ready to give you the gift of salvation. If you know him, hey, we're his worksmanship. Let's get to work, baby. Let's do it.

Yeah. You still have today. Today is your day. Today is your day.

To become a son or daughter of Christ. That's right. So stay tuned to the next show of Kingdom Pursuits with Richard Shannon, actually. Not Robbie Dilmore today. Nope. So stay tuned. Don't change that dial. We'll be coming back for Kingdom Pursuits with some very special guests. And thank you again for listening everyone and have a blessed Saturday. This is the Truth Network.