Isaiah 28:14-30:11, Galatians 3:23-4:31, Psalms 62:1-12, Proverbs 23:19-21
Today is the 18th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. And it’s a wonderful day to be together around this global campfire that we call our community. So it’s wonderful to be here with you today. And wonderful that we can take the next step as we move forward through the Bible on our journey this year. So we’ll head back out into the book of Isaiah where we’re working our way through. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Isaiah 28:14-30:11 today.
Commentary:
Aright. So we spent a lot of time delving into the religious and theological challenges of Paul’s time in order to better understand where he was coming from, not only in his letter to the Galatians but in all of his writings. And we’ve looked at what made his views so controversial to the religious Jews and even Jewish people who had begun to follow Jesus. And this is the inclusion of the Gentiles and how that all works. So we sort of understand the challenges. And as modern followers of Jesus who are not dealing with those kinds of issues, we don’t understand how big of a deal it was for them to get their minds around. And we can wonder why these old arguments and problems have anything to do with us. Paul’s views made it into the Bible. It’s been a long time ago and it’s been a long time since these issues were life threatening for any of us. But if we put ourselves in Paul’s time and as one of his hearers, it can be mind blowing. So today Paul said, the law was our guardian until Christ came. And that law protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we don’t need the law anymore as our guardian. So from a modern perspective, using modern ears, we can think, Awesome. I don’t have to live under the law. The Mosaic law isn’t something I have to deal with. Thank God. God sees me as righteous before him because of my faith. However, when Paul referred to law, he was essentially referring to Torah, what would been understood to a Jewish person as scripture. So if we were to read the passage again and replace the word law with the word Bible, we would immediately see the challenge. Check it out. The Bible was our guardian until Christ came that protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we don’t need the Bible any more as our guardian. Right? That’s mind bending stuff. And we have to remember that the Bible we have, the Bible as we know it, did not exist when Paul wrote this letter. There were no Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not yet written. The New Testament was in no way formed. Nothing from Matthew to Revelation could have been referred to when Paul wrote Galatians. There might have been some letters floating around from Paul, but if there were a Bible in this context it would have been the Torah. So we see why these people had such a difficult time accepting the good news. And we can read from two thousand years later and go, This has all been established. This is the good news. I am free through my faith. I don’t have to obey the law. This has nothing to do with what I do and everything to do with God’s grace and mercy poured out on me. It is a gift. I cannot earn it. And yet, we are still doing the same things that they were. So let’s talk about it. Exactly what is the Bible? What is this that we’re reading everyday? Is it God’s holy word that instructs us on how to live our lives? We probably agree with that. We’d probably go for that. However, what if we obeyed everything the Bible says? Would following everything that the Bible…. Let’s just take the New Testament. What if we obeyed everything the New Testament says. Would following those rules make us right with God? You see that that’s what we’re trying to do? And that’s the measure that we’re judging everyone else as they’re trying to do it or not do it? So if this isn’t disruptive enough, let’s take this further. Paul wrote this today, speaking of our reality. You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, just like putting on new clothes. There’s no longer Jew or Gentile, there’s no longer slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs. And God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. That’s huge. But just reading those words, you just listening to those words, that doesn’t do anything. Having faith in those words and in the reality that those words describe, that changes everything. Which, in part, has been Paul’s point. It’s not adhering to a set of rules. Or joining a specific church that is going to save us. Actually, it’s not even the Bible that can save us. Rather, it’s the Bible that points the way to the God who can. So if we’re only processing words and obeying commands, we’ve missed the point. There is a God that is behind the Bible. And the Bible constantly points us to God. But if we don’t reach out in faith, we’re not gonna find God. We’re just gonna keep reading words about God. And throughout Paul’s letters that we’ve come to so far and throughout the rest of them that we will read, this is gonna be Paul’s point. Faith is the key. That if we don’t step beyond what we think we know and into a relationship with God by faith, than we haven’t gone anywhere. Which makes us finally consider the journey that we’re on, this faith journey that we are walking with our lives. Are we worshipping and defending the Bible? Or has its pages revealed God to us? A God with whom we’ve fallen in love? Do we read words that tell us that we can die to who we once were without Jesus? Or, by faith, have we actually died to the person we once were and that person doesn’t exist any more? So often, what we try to do is to attempt to obey the rules so that God will even notice us. Cause if we’re obeying the commands and following the rules, then we can call out to God with an expectation that he’s gonna answer us and do what we ask him to do. Paul, though. Paul spent his life trying to reveal the God behind it all. The God who has adopted us into his own family as children. Now, I don’t want any nasty e-mails from anyone saying I’m somehow denigrating the Bible. Seriously. I’ve been at this seven days a week for thirteen years. I love the Bible and I love studying the Bible and I love theology. I love it. However, tweaking it and continuing to study everything that we can possibility study about the Bible isn’t going to get us to God by default. It’s going to be faith in the promise of what the Bible tells us. And this is the crux of Paul’s entire doctrine. The whole thing started with a guy named Abraham. And the whole thing started with a promise that God gave to this guy named Abraham. And Abraham believed that promise and put his faith in that God. And that God, our God, thee God, the only God, counted that faith as righteousness. It was not about obeying rules. It was about believing and trusting in a promise and entering into a covenantal relationship with God that set the whole story in motion. And according to Paul, that’s what sets our story in motion as well.
Prayer:
And so Father, we invite You into that shaking, that disruption. That thing that takes it back out of our control. Because so often we’re just trying to get everything straight. Just tell me what to do to make this work. And that’s not how a relationship is shaped. And You have invited us into a covenantal relationship with Yourself that we receive and participate in through faith, through believing You, through trusting You. And we do. And we acknowledge we’re not capable of following all the rules, not on our own. But we are capable of trusting You. And we do trust You. Come Holy Spirit. Lead us into all truth. You have promised You will do this and we have put our faith in that promise. And so we trust You when we can’t trust anything else around us. When nothing else is making sense, even our own constructs. Even the ways to which we try to relate to You. Even when those stop working, we trust You and You alone. You are the sovereign God. There is no other place to put our hope. All of our hope is in You. So come Holy Spirit. We believe You will lead us into all truth. We ask this expectantly. In Jesus name. Amen.
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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:
Hi everybody this is Barbie from Janixsmith Pennsylvania. It is Saturday, September 15th and I just finished listening to today’s message and prayers. Micah I wanted to let you know that I’m praying for you. I have a couple friends that have been in the exact situation except on the other side as the woman. I’m praying for you that God will give you the wisdom to know what he’s asking you to fast from and that there will be forgiveness and redemption in your relationship with your fiancé. Taking that step of faith and being so honest with her is gonna show her a lot and there’s a lot of room for the two of you to grow through this, for Christ to deepen your relationship together and to give you a testimony that He can move mountains. I’m glad that you shared this with us so that we can pray with you and know that we’re with you. And let us know how your doing as the next couple of months pass by. I do also…would love to ask for some prayer from myself as well. This week I quit my job to become a stay-at-home mom and now that I’m doing that I feel vastly underprepared for the task at hand but I know that it is absolutely the right place to be. So, if you would please keep me in your prayers for that I would be thankful. I have a wonderful two year old little boy and he’s just making up and I’m off to take care of him but I love this community, I love you all. Thank you for everything you are in my life.
Hey fellow DABbers this is Joe the Protector from Georgia. It’s September 15th I believe, yup, and 7:47 in the morning. Just finished listening to the prayer line and the podcast for the 15th and wanted to call in about one of my brothers that had a request and about any other brother. It was Micah that we called in about his struggle with pornography and going through the fast before his marriage, a 53 day fast. So, Micah, here’s what I would have to say to you about that as a fellow brother who struggled with that before. It’s good if you are clean from it now but through your fast you made the statement that you want to hear from God and you want to know what he’s got to tell you and show you and how to reveal how to get away from it. Through your fast you need to make sure that you find true quiet times, not small quiet times, such as 5, 10 minutes. You need to spend…you need to find time to spend 30+ minutes in quiet time with God in worship, in meditation, in praise or however you feel most connected to God. And through that time and during those times throughout the 53 days period God will reveal Himself to you and He will give you the tools and the resources to battle and to actually endure and win…
Hello family this is Wonderful Counselor, referring to Jesus as our wonderful counselor and I am a first time caller from New England. I’m calling today in response to the lady who called in around mid-August about her broken family with issues of suicide, porn, and broken marriages. I want you to know that I’m praying for you and would love to connect with you. I’m also responding to the young man who’s engaged and confessed about porn to his fiancé. I’m praying for you too. And thank you Jesus that you are able to come clean to your fiancé and to this community. I would love to connect you to support for both you and your fiancé as you walk through this together. I am really passionate about healing through Jesus for porn and broken families because years ago my husband was enslaved to porn and sexual affairs and we could not find help. I believe this addiction to his __ at 35 leaving me to raise our six children alone but now I do know that there’s help and total freedom through Jesus. Please contact me if you’re struggling with any of these issues, both men and women. Please find me at wonderfulounselor101@gmail.com. I would also appreciate your prayers as I and some friends that have been delivered from porn and sexual abuse give presentations to churches in order to fight ignorance and offer hope and freedom. As you know, there’s much spiritual warfare involved in this work. I would love to connect with like-minded warriors against these bondages. Please find me at wonderfulcounselor101@gmail.com. Thank you and God bless you all.
Hi this is Mike I’m just calling for my wife Lindsay. She’s having a really hard time with her family. I kind of want to say there not really Christians, you know, but they are giving her a lot of grief because we chose to put our children in Christian Academy this year and it’s really weighing on her a lot and thus it’s weighing on me a lot so I thought I’d reach out to you guys who will pray a lot. And I appreciate you guys. God bless. Have a great week. Thanks so much. Bye.