Numbers 32:1-33:39 ~ Luke 3:23-38 ~ Psalm 62:1-12 ~ Proverbs 11:18-19
Today is the 21st of March. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s good for us to be together today. It’s good that we come back around the global campfire and just spend some time together and allow God’s word to wash over us. This week we’re using the New Living Translation for that. Numbers chapter 32, verse 1 through 33, verse 39 today.
Commentary
Okay, so as we read in the book of Numbers, we can feel, we can sense that something is coming. We’re coming to the end of something. We’ve been in the wilderness a long time. For us it has been like what? Maybe a month? For them it was like a whole generation of people. Forty years. So we can sense that something is coming.
The tribes of Reuben and Gad, they are shepherds, and we know that goes back into their history all of the way, right? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, whose name was turned to Israel and he has children and those are the first children of Israel, right? And then Joseph goes to Egypt. When they come into Egypt and the great famine, what do they say to Pharaoh? “We are shepherds.” So they get this good shepherd land to begin with. So this goes back into their history.
They have found a perfect land. They have already conquered that land. They ask to stay there and they are just kind of fleshing out what they are actually saying. What they are saying is “we want this land, but we will go across the Jordan and fight with our brothers.” So we can sense that this is coming. They now have the Law. They now have a culture. They now have an understanding between themselves. And the Lord is bringing them back to the Jordan River once again with an opportunity to cross over and that is coming for us very soon.
Then in the book of Luke there is a fascinating story. Jesus is doing what he came to do which is to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, and signs and wonders are following him everywhere he goes. So yeah, it is spreading. The word of Jesus is spreading around the countryside. People are flocking to him. And there is this interesting story today where he is at the shores, the banks of the Sea of Galilee and the people are crowding him. I can just see that, having stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee many times. I can just see that, how this culture and these people would press in to get closer and closer. People pushing from the back or pushing people forward and Jesus is like, “My feet are wet and…” But he sees these two boats and he climbs into one. The fishermen that were out in the boats were on the shore cleaning their nets. They hadn’t really caught anything. And Jesus climbs into one of their boats.
It’s fascinating. Put yourself in that position. You’ve driven in your nice car or minivan or SUV or whatever you drive and you’re at the grocery store and you went in to pick up a couple of things and they didn’t have what you were looking for so you’re coming back out because you have to go to a different store and all around your village or town there has been this word of somebody doing something great for God. And you’ve heard about this and you haven’t really been involved, but you know kind of the stories. And you come back out to your vehicle and that guy is sitting in the passenger’s seat of your car. So, you don’t know what to do – 911? Say hello? Climb in the car? What are you supposed to do?
But he smiles at you and he’s like, “Be at peace. I’m not going to hurt you. Just need you to drive me across the parking lot to the hardware store.” Right?
So you do the battle in your mind and you’re like, “But this guy’s reputation – he’s so good.” And so you risk it and you drive him across the parking lot. And he does his business and then he tells you, “Okay, now let’s go back to that parking place we were in before and you can let me off.”
That is kind of like what these fishermen have going on here – a guy who has a reputation of being magic at least, but maybe a prophet of God, he is sitting in your boat and he is asking you to just row you out a little ways. And so they do.
Then Jesus has a little bit of distance between himself and the crowd that was pushing him into the water and he’s able to teach them from just a little ways out. Not way out, just a little ways out. And it’s beautiful because the water then becomes this natural amplification. Everybody can hear. Jesus isn’t getting crowded into the water. And he teaches them. And when the teaching is over, Jesus says, “Okay, let’s go out a little bit further. I want you to cast your nets down again.”
And of course they are like, “The thing is, Jesus, we are professional fishermen and we fished all night and we didn’t catch anything. It’s not really a good time to fish right now. But if you say so, we’ll do it.” And they do. And they cast their nets down counterintuitively and bring in the greatest haul of their fishing career. Now it is not Jesus being crowded into the water. Now it is a problem of the boat sinking because there are so many fish.
They row back to shore. Peter is blindsided. He is in contact now with someone that he doesn’t have a grid for and the goodness of this man and the power of this man contrasted with his own life brings him to his knees. It’s beautiful. Brings him to his knees. “Lord, I can’t be in your presence. I can’t. You’re too good. I’m too sinful.”
And Jesus just smiles. “Don’t be afraid. You’re going to fish for men now.” And they row back to shore.
This is so beautiful. They had just captured a haul of a lifetime. This was the windfall they had been hoping for. Maybe now they can get some new nets, fix the boat. Now they can get a little ahead finally. But that is just not what happens. They get to the shore and leave it all behind and follow Jesus.
This is such a beautiful portrait of the gospel because Jesus comes and all of a sudden we feel the truth of his presence and contrasted with our own lives it brings us to our knees. Jesus is kind and he says, “Don’t be afraid.” Don’t be afraid.” And we realize Jesus isn’t some prophet, some magic man that can do good things for us if we invoke him in our lives. And if we look at our lives, we’ll realize that is what this relationship has looked like a lot. What can you do for me in exchange for my belief in you. Right? It’s like a transaction. If you do this for me, I will do this for you. I guess we need to realize that Jesus doesn’t need us to do anything for him. He doesn’t need anything. He wants to know you. He wants intimacy. He wants fellowship, closeness. That’s it.
We have to want the same thing. It’s not about what we can do. It’s about who we are. So may we, like these first disciples, leave it all on the shore and follow Jesus into the adventure of a lifetime, a life of becoming each day, day by day becoming who we were created to be. In other words, to be sanctified, if we want this to be theological, to be set apart, to be holy, to be becoming more and more like Jesus every day. And every day we become more and more like Jesus is a day that we have become more and more who we really are.
Prayer
Jesus, we’ve done this at times for seasons, but we’ve always found ourselves kind of back, looking for something else instead of continuing forward in the journey, and most of the time this happens when we find ourselves in wilderness seasons. We get mad and misinterpret why we’re there, that these times, they come upon us all and they can have rich and deep meaning and purpose if we’ll continue to follow you through, because you use the wilderness to go after things in us that will never let us get further on the journey. So in this whole season that we’re reinterpreting everything to you, we offer everything to you. We’re sorry for the ways that we’ve used you in this relationship, the ways that we’ve thought of you as some magic person that can do magic things on our behalf if we’ll just be good boys and girls only to find out that we’re not capable of doing that on our own. If we were, we would do it. May we be as simple as the disciples and realize we have come in contact with something that we have no grid or understanding for, but it is good. And we may never get this chance again. And so this haul, this thing that we’ve been working so far and so hard on, it is not going to set us apart and make us holy. It’s just an accomplishment. We’ll leave it behind, if that is what you want. We want to be with you in the adventure of life. We want to become who we are. We want to be who we were made to be and that can’t happen if we’re not in collaboration with you. That can’t happen if we’re not intertwined. So Jesus, come. Come into all these thoughts. Come into all the emotions that this brings up, all the situations, all of the things that have happened in our lives that have led us to this point right now, right here, this very second, and in this moment we give you our hearts once again, fully, unreservedly, completely. We just want to be with you and we don’t care where we go. If we’re together, we don’t care where we are. We don’t care what it looks like. We don’t care. If we’re with you then we’re becoming who we are, and that has been the lifelong search and here is the answer finally. So we lay it down, all our struggles, all of our fears, all of our anxieties, all of our depression, all of our relational problems, all of our work problems, all of our kid problems, all of the things that have become our lives when there is something greater and bigger going on here – our liberation. So come Jesus and help us reinterpret everything. We invite your Holy Spirit to lead us forward. We don’t want to make another decision without you. We’re sorry. We do that all the time. Come Holy Spirit. Show us. Show us the path, the narrow path that leads to life. We ask this in your name, amen.
Announcements
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hello. This is Teri from Toledo and I just heard Candace from Oregon. Oh, my heart is just breaking for you. I’m rejoicing for your husband because I know he is with the Lord and that is what his whole life was about, but I really am praying for you, Candace, and I’m just lifting you up. And I am praying Psalm 22 for you. And Asia from Munich, right on. Right on! I was thinking that very same thing. Sometimes he wants me to call and then sometimes I just don’t get anything. And that’s okay. He lets other people call. So I just thank you and I bless you guys. You are just so much family for me. You really are. And I’m praying for the conference and I’m praying for safe travel and I am with you in spirit. God bless you all.
I haven’t been able to listen to DAB since I helped my husband go home to be with Jesus on March 11, but I need to say to the woman, because I’m just now starting to catch up now and very grateful to listen to you, Brian, and all callers. There is a woman who called about and sang “God will take care of you,” and everything you said and sang spoke directly into my heart. And there was a caller right before you as well. I love all of you and thank you for your prayers for me and for our three children. Thank you so much.
Hello Candace from Oregon. Hey, this is Annette A. My sister, I love you so very, very much. I was praying for your husband when I heard that he had had surgery and I was sure hoping that everything had gone well, everything in the Lord’s time and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I just wanted to express my condolences and my love for you, sister. And I hope that you will lean on us to support you during this time. I wanted to let you know how much I love you and I am holding you up and I hope that the Lord just grabs ahold of you and loves on you and reminds you of how much he absolutely loves you. I’m so thankful to your husband for pointing you to us so that we can be around you in your time of need. I love you and I will be thinking and praying about you often. This is Nette. Bye-bye.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Wrapped in His Unfailing Love from __________ Florida or Dorothy. And I’m calling for Candace this morning. Candace, so sorry about your husband, Brad. I know that he is with Jesus and I know you know that too, but sometimes we need help in our grieving and I want to help you grieve today because I know what you feel. And God knows what you feel too. So just know that there are so many people praying for you and that God is close to you because he is close to the brokenhearted. You’ve been such a blessing to us and I know I know, and I know that you know that you will see him again. God bless you, Candace. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Good morning guys. This is Jen in SoCal, aka Prayer Warrior Princess. Father, we thank you for Candace’s husband, that he recommended that she become a part of our community. We thank you for his legacy. We thank you for his love for you. We thank you that he is with you now, rejoicing in heaven. And Father, we rejoice for you and we rejoice for him, and we weep with Candace. She is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. We pray that she would fear no evil, for your rod and your staff would be her comfort. We know that you prepare a table for her in the face of the enemy right now. We thank you that you will comfort her, that you will be her guide through this valley, that you will minister to her through your Holy Spirit. We thank you that you love her. We especially pray for the difficulties that she is going to encounter with her adult children. She has expressed some issues with at least one of them, I think it is her son that I have been praying for, Lord, with regard to substance issues. Lord, this is going to be magnified. The relationship issues, the substance abuse issues are all going to be magnified in the suffering, and so I pray an extra measure of grace upon each and every member of this family. I pray that you would be in the midst of all the communication, that it would be seasoned with grace and tenderness and kindness. That you would minister in the night watch to dear Candace and keep a song on her heart and her lips even in the midst of this suffering. We love her and we love you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Hey DAB family. This is Jocelyn in Atlanta. I’m just calling to lift Candace from Oregon up in prayer. Candace, I’m so sorry for the loss of your husband. And I’m sorry how everything went down, but I am praising God and rejoicing with you that you will be reunited with him one day in heaven and that he is resting peacefully now in the arms of our Savior and I just lift you up in prayer. Heavenly Father, I just ask that you would give Candace comfort right now, Lord. That you would wrap your arms around her, that she would feel your presence and know that you are with her every step of the way. For all of the decisions she will have to make moving forward, that you’ll give her wisdom and strength and peace and fill her heart with joy, Lord. We ask these things in your name, amen. Love you, Candace. Bye.