Exodus 32:1-33:23, Matthew 26:69-27:14, Psalms 33:1-11, Proverbs 8:33-36
Today is the 11th of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you at the threshold of a shiny and sparkly, new week out in front of us. And I’m excited to see where the Bible leads us in this new week. And I’m excited for the Holy Spirit to continue to do the work that has been begun through the word of God in our lives this week. So we’ll go back up to Mount Sinai where Moses is receiving the law up on top of the mountain. He’s been gone a while. The people are down below waiting for him. And we’ll pick up that story reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Exodus chapter 32 and 33.
Commentary:
Alright, in the book of Exodus we have quite a bit of drama. So, Moses is on the summit of Mount Sinai and God is speaking to him, giving the laws to govern the people and shape the culture. The people are down below and they’ve already told Moses, we don’t hear God for ourselves, we want him to talk to you and you tell us because we’re afraid. And, so, he’s up on top of the mountain God, is doing that, shaping the culture, giving the law. And they get tired of waiting. Something, maybe something happened Moses. Maybe he’s not coming back down the mountain. After all it’s been a little over a month. And, so, they pressure Aaron, who gives in and the next thing you know, there’s this wild craziness going on, worshiping this golden calf that was made in the desert, and they’re claiming the thing that they just made is what brought them out of Egypt. It’s heartbreaking. It’s also a bit indicting, because we’re taught to wait upon the Lord. Right? And we know this idea, this concept, but do we wait a month before we start turning to something else to give us life before we start thrashing around trying to navigate things on our own. And when we do that, do we not make things worse? Do we not just invite whole new categories of trouble in our lives? Of course, the people to repent and follow Moses once he comes down the mountain, but not before it’s just a tragic story. And we would do ourselves a pretty big favor if we would remember this story when we find ourselves waiting on the Lord, because we might find that the waiting is, at times, to show us where our hearts truly are. Right? We can give lip service all we want, but we remember the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him. And we get a good picture of this kind of friendship in our reading today between Moses and God, because Moses is speaking to the Lord saying I know you have said we are friends. And if we are friends and if you are pleased with me I want to see Your glory. So, Moses is saying I want to go deeper. I need to go further. If I’m going to leave this people, I will never be able to do it without You. Show me Your glory and as we. And in our reading from the book of Exodus today, God has agreed. He’s told Moses He’ll put him in this little cleft of a rock and guard his eyes and move past him and he’ll be able to see His glory and he’ll be able to see Him from the back. And this invites us to consider, are we waiting on the Lord so that he will come through for us and do what we’ve asked. Is God really just a way of fixing our problems and having some sort of order to life or do we want to see His glory. Which begs us to consider why we’re doing any of this in our spiritual lives. What is this about? To find success in life? To grow our congregations? To make the pain go away? Why do we seek a relationship with God? Is it for the benefits that we think we will get or is it because we are on a path to see His glory and to walk with Him and intimacy every step of the way until we not only see his back but we see him face-to-face? I want to see God in His glory, don’t you. And we first have to examine what we’re really after in this relationship, because it exposes the true nature of the relationship. And if the true nature of the relationship is that we can be protected, we can find success, we can walk with the Lord in His will and he will do nice things for us and keep us safe, then this is conditional love. I love you and I’m going to stay close to you because you will shower me with gifts, which obviously sounds a little more like a sugar daddy and a little less like the Almighty God, Creator of all things known and unknown, including the next beat of our heart, which is different. So, let’s take the story that we read today, apply it to our lives, and consider today, why am I in this? Why am I doing this? Because it’s a great opportunity to realign ourselves and invite the Holy Spirit to speak.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, we invite You to speak to us and show us the areas in our lives that we’re not in alignment, we’re waiting on You to get something. We’re walking with You because of the promised benefit. And Lord, we acknowledge, we need the benefits of the relationship. We can’t do anything that isn’t going to turn into a disaster, eventually without You. So, yes, we need everything that You bring to the relationship, and we simply confess that we don’t have much to bring to the relationship besides our hearts. And somehow to You, that is the very thing that You want. Even as we read of the story of your betrayal and your trial in the book of Matthew, all of that was to reclaim our hearts and restore us into fellowship with You. So, we confess, without you we can do nothing and all we have is our heart to give, but that’s all You wanted. But we also confess that we haven’t loved You with our whole heart and we’ve waited and then made a golden calf gave our hearts in worship to something else. Forgive us Lord. We re-center ourselves in You. We seek You and You alone, not for what we’re going to get, but because you are the Almighty God. We want to grow in intimacy day by day. We want to see your glory. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it’s home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.
A few things going on around here this week. Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent. So, we’ll talk about that we get there.
And then Saturday, the 17th, is when we will begin departing for the land of the Bible and making our way into the country of Israel. Some of you will be there in person and we will represent the entire community as we go through this pilgrimage. Others of you can certainly tag along. I mean you tag along with me wherever, well, wherever I carry the computer and the microphone, because we’re a community. So, wherever this is happening it’s happening together. So, I have plenty of room for everybody virtually in my suitcase. Just make sure you bring your toothbrush, some deodorant, you know, that kind of stuff. Sorry you have to ride along in the suitcase, but we’ll be going together, we’ll be talking about it every day - what we did, where we are, what its meaning. And we will also be posting all kinds of pictures to social media - videos of the sites and places and regions that we’re visiting. So, make sure to follow us up on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page facebook.com/dailyaudiobible and we’ll be posting to Instagram as well. So, you can follow along with the journey and kind of look in and see some of these places as we visit them. So, get ready for that. And then, one day, once where there, we’ll discuss when, but we always do a live broadcast about half way through the journey. Usually we’re near the Sea of Galilee at that point. And we just get the group together and kind of just share our experiences so far, but we’ll be on Facebook Living from the Sea of Galilee. So, stay tuned for those details. But like I mentioned yesterday, we need your prayers, we need your intercession. There’s a lot of moving parts to a pilgrimage like this, a lot. And we need everything to work, from technology, to health, to stamina, to transport, everything. So, if you would pray over this and raise a canopy of prayer over it, that the continues all the way through it, we’ll be most grateful indeed. So, those things are coming up. Pretty big. And we’ll discuss them as we get closer
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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 and Praise:
Hello Daily Audio Bible family. This is Monica in Kentucky and I want to give a shout out to two of our brothers on the prayer line. One is Jordan in Michigan and the other is Byron in Florida. Jordan, every time someone calls and praise for you in your situation at the school, I’m also joining in prayer, but I’m also struck by how the possibility of you just being lonely in your walk in that atmosphere might be a problem. And I don’t know what age group you teach and if it’s even impossible, but I’m thinking of organizations that reach out to schools and try to get into the schools, like Fellowship of Christian Athletes or Child Evangelism Fellowship or even churches who partner with the urban alternative about trying to sponsor schools. And if you could be the faculty point person for some of those Christian organizations you might feel more encouraged and less alone in how your serving in your school. So, I just throw that out there is a possibility. The other situation, Byron in Florida, about your son, your special needs son, and the challenges you face and wanting to push, push, push and your confession that you realize that you are hoping that it would get easier. I just met a man who’s the father of an autistic child who has spent the last seven or eight years being one of his primary caregivers and having to overcome his own family background of work being how your valued. And he had to overcome that because his son cannot be a workaholic like his own father was and how his own father encouraged him to be and how he’s had to just surrender to God’s vision on how we get our values. And his son is valuable to him just because he’s his son. And that’s true for us as followers of Jesus Christ, where valuable as His creation and image bearers. And I just hope that that inspires you to love your son differently and to know that you have to surrender your son to the Lord. Anyway, hope all of that is an encouragement to you two fellas and I’ll be praying for you.
Hi this is Melody from Canada. My voice is a bit croaky today. So, hopefully it’s clear enough. I just heard the call from Liz, I believe in Oregon, from February 5th, praying for your future husband. That filled my heart with so much joy because I prayed for my future husband. And, actually, a lot of other people did too and that’s what we need…faith…that other people are praying for him and saying that he must exist. And I remember saying to God I want to know and God’s just like you haven’t met him yet and he ended up being the first guy that I dated at the age of 30. And now we’ve been married for almost a year and ½ and it’s amazing. He’s the man that God had for me. And, so, Liz, I pray that for you. I pray for your future husband. And I pray for healing in your heart from all past wounds. My husband has __ so many of my wounds. And now I’m praying for my future children. There’s always something new to look forward to. But, bless you sister, thank you for calling. And, yeah, as far as the rest of you, it’s been really cool this year, I’ve felt that we weren’t connected to the DAB community before, I’ve been listening every day. Myself and my husband __ and my mom and sister-in-law. And so yeah, praise God for that. Thank you. Bye.
Our dear sister Pastor Gene from Bradenton Florida, this prayer is for you. This is Candace from Oregon. Oh, how I wish I was better at being able to connect. Meanwhile, we are going to pray together right now for the full and complete healing and restoration of your health that is yours in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, family let’s pray. Thank You, Lord, thank You that you have knit us together, we are Your body, we are Your bride, and You are the bridegroom, and You are preparing us to be presented to You, spotless and beautiful, day by day by day, as the work of the Holy Spirit continues among us. Lord we bring to You our sister, Pastor Gene. We know that You love her, You love her more dearly than we can imagine, and her precious family. Come around them right now Lord, assure them of who You are and that what You are doing, even though they can’t know what that is, that it is good, it is good beyond their wildest imaginings. So, comfort them and care for them, give them strength, and let pastor Gene look to You every minute of every day and find the light that’s truly life that you continually offer. Thank You Lord for Your healing power. And we claim that as well in an immediate way. In Jesus name and by the authoritative His life, death, and resurrection for us and for Gene we pray. Amen.
Hi everybody it’s Lisa the encourager. I wanted to pray for Chris from South Carolina who has been married for 29 years and possibly going forward with a divorce and she’s just praying for restoration and she just loves her husband. So, I didn’t know exactly what to say __ so I just asked the Lord, give me the words and I just started writing and this is the words He gave me. He sees us all from the shoreline of South Carolina to the outback of Australia, from the Statue of Liberty to the redwoods in California. He sees us. He is aware of your pain and emptiness and all your tears. Run to him, reach out to him, cry out to him, forever seek him with every bit of faith in your bones. Dear heavenly Father, I pray for Chris, Lord, as she is going through a very difficult time as she been married for 29 nearing years to her husband and she’s believing and asking for prayers God. And am praying for her Lord, that you will comfort her and show her Your love in so many ways that she will not seek anything but You God, and she will know that You love her. I pray for all of those in the Daily Audio Bible that are suffering with pain and emptiness and sorrow and anxiety. God, I just pray that they will find hope in You God, this year, and love in You, and comfort in You, and not look anywhere else but in you for all things God. I pray that we would all be restored in You and trust in You and have faith in You God and know that You’re there and have confidence in you God that you are there for each and every one of us and that you love us. And I pray all these things in your name. Amen.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. Praise the Lord for this podcast. Praise the Lord for Brian and Jill and the family and China. Praise the Lord for His word. Oh, my goodness, thank you, thank you, thank you Lord Jesus for your word. Thank you for making it relevant to my life. Thank you, Lord for Brian’s commentary and for the fact that his context, your speaking from then to now, and it makes sense and it helps. So, today what got me off my backside to call was it’s Tuesday, February 5, 2018. I’m calling today to just really, just bask in the glory of God and how He is so countercultural and how our cultures across the world have got it so wrong and as Brian has said in Sneezing Jesus over and over again - backwards backwards. Little by little, that will be ringing in my head all day today and hopefully throughout my week. Just little by little. I have all these big plans. I have these dreams. I teach high school English. And, so, I’ve got a goal and I’ve got outcomes and little by little. And in my life I’ve got goals and I’ve got dreams and I’ve got aspirations and I want to be used of God and I need to remember little by little. And as I wake up and I see the mountain ahead of me that I have to climb, little by little. So, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord for today. Praise the Lord for the stuff in front of me and then the stuff in front of that. Praise You Jesus that You will walk beside me and always hold my hand. Thank you, family, for who you are. Thank you for lifting up the prayers. We’ll never know how much __ go out and look to sanctify this world we’re in. So, praise the Lord, happy Tuesday, __ day. And each of you are loved.
Heavenly Father, thank You for another beautiful day to exist and abide. Thank You for showing Your power, for showing Your presence, and Your sovereignty. I pray that Your Holy Spirit will rest upon each and every member of the DAB family, that it will come and bring peace, that it will come and bring joy, and that You will flow through us so that we not only feel the love of God and know that love, but we also are able to express it and show it to others in Jesus’ name. Good morning everybody, hi, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. This is Jubilant Perseverance in Indonesia. Just calling to check in and give you all an update on my career trajectory. ___ . As I leave my current school assignment in Indonesia, I just started a new assignment with an amazing school in central America, the Caribbean region. And it’s crazy how similar the assignments are. I’ll have the opportunity to use all of the technology teaching skills I developed here and to continue working with students from preschool to high school, but this school has a heart for social justice and not only social justice, __ justice. And that really, really, excites me. I am beating back fear over how similar the job assignments are, even down to the person who is there currently, being more an engineer and not having an education background. So, that kind of feels strange, like déjà vu….