01/05/2019 DAB Transcript

Genesis 11:1-13:4, Matthew 5:1-26, Psalms 5:1-12, Proverbs 1:24-28

Today is the 5th day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today as we reach the conclusion of our first week together in this brand-new shiny, sparkly, new year and, I mean, it’s not our first full week, right? We just…we started this new year in this week, but this is our first weekend and tomorrow we’ll start our first full week of the year, but it’s good to be here with you as we take the next step forward and continue to move away from shore and into the deep as we move through the Bible this year. So, we’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week and that’s what we’ll do today. Genesis chapter 11 verse 1 through 13 verse 4.

Commentary:

Okay. So, of course, in the book of Proverbs, the voice that is saying these things right, “since I called out and you refused, since I extend my hand no one paid attention”, this is the voice of wisdom speaking. And, so, what wisdom is telling us today is that the choice is ours. We can pay attention to wisdom and allow wisdom to guide us and we will avoid the pitfalls that the lack of wisdom would present. However, if we’re not gonna pay any attention, well then wisdom will end up laughing at us. In other words, wisdom is attainable and the lack of wisdom in our decision-making is avoidable, which brings us to the word for the year.

Every year, all of these years, there’s been a word that’s kind of been our north star, something we can focus in on really and really pay attention to and that usually gets announced at the end of the year. And, so, in the community ending the year last year we mentioned what the word for this year is and the word for this year is “Maintain” and we will look at what it looks like in the stories that we will encounter in the Bible for people to maintain, we’ll look at that as we go along, but we also need to remember this word and put it in our own lives and just kind of see what it does. Like, if it means nothing to you all year long, that’s not problem, but I might mean everything to you, it might be the word that you actually need because maintaining requires awareness and vigilance. Like, you have to maintain things for them to work properly, right? If we don’t maintain our health it will go away. If we don’t maintain our vehicle it will break down. If we don’t maintain our spiritual lives, then we will be weak and everything will fall apart and we’ll find ourselves once again shaking our fist at God in the sky for letting something bad happen to us that was completely avoidable had we paid attention to the voice of wisdom. The voice of wisdom in the Scriptures today basically says you can listen to me or you can mock me but if you do then when calamity strikes you’ll feel as if wisdom is mocking you back because you didn’t pay any attention and you avoided wisdom so that you could reap the harvest of calamity that you are experiencing. Wisdom is something that we must maintain in our lives and if we will it will lead us to a narrow path and if we will walk that narrow path it will lead to life and isn’t that what were here for?

Prayer:

Father we thank You for allowing Your word to speak to us in these first few days of the year so profoundly on so many levels and we haven’t even sailed out of the harbor, we’re not even out in the deep yet and Your word is speaking to us and we’re thankful for it. Show us how to maintain wisdom God. And one of the ways that are practical is that we continue to put wisdom in our lives each and every day. So, come Holy Spirit, as we submit ourselves to You, Your will, Your ways. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here and we’re talking about what’s going on around here and we talk about it every day but as we move into the new year, you know, we kind of try to highlight little things that are good to know as we take the journey.

This being the first weekend, you’ll find that when you wake up tomorrow there will be an additional program and it will be called DAB community prayer. And, so, you know, you’ve been a few days into the year now. And, so, you know that at the end of each program there are other voices, brothers and sisters from all over the world rejoicing and also asking for help and prayer and that’s part of the community experience. We come together each and every day, allow God’s word wash over us, understand that were not alone, you can never listen to the daily audio Bible alone, that’s the irony. If you’re listening to it right now, then so is someone else. You’re never alone. Like, it doesn’t matter what time of day or night, like, this is an ongoing thing, there are tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of us that are taking this journey. You are never alone when you’re listening to the Daily Audio Bible, someone else is listening to it too. And, so, we’re a community, where a family, we’re taking this journey together and one of things that if you’re knew that you’ll realize over time is that none of us are here to hurt anybody else, we’re here to let God’s word speak to us and to do that in community because it helps to know that our struggles are not individual and we’re not really alone. It helps to know that, but we come together, and we accept each other, and we understand that we are each a work in progress. And, so, whatever the story is that’s brought us to this point, no matter how much we’ve avoided the voice of wisdom and caused calamity. Hey, every day His mercies are new, and every day is a chance to start again. And, so, we accept each other like that, as works in progress. And, so, we pray for each other, we love each other, we rejoice with each other, we cry with each other, but there’s no way to play every single call that ever comes into the Daily Audio Bible. We tried this at one point but it got to the point that, you know, we’re investing a couple of hours a day and it’s mostly not about the Bible anymore. So, at the end of each week we come together so that every voice can be heard so that we can all pray and spend some time just hearing from each other and you’ll notice that showing up tomorrow if you knew. Of course if you’ve been here for a while you already know the drill, you already know the ropes, but at the beginning of the year these reminders, these refreshers, they help us…well…they set us up to succeed as we move through the year together. So, watch out for that. That’s coming.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it’s on the homepage and as I have said and will say, what we’ve done we’ve done together and we can’t do what we do if we don’t do it together. So, thank you for your partnership. If what we do as a community brings light and life and good news to you each day, then thank you for being life-giving so that we can continue to do this every day. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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, this is for Sharon the Victorious and I just heard your pain and I’m reaching out to you from the other side because my son passed away a year ago and my husband died __ and I just want to tell you to hold on, hold onto Jesus, hold on because it doesn’t get better but God gives the comfort to those who…you know…He just comforts us. And when it gets really bad if you just keep on believing, keep on praying. I just…I’m lifting you up today and I’m just knowing that God’s wrapping His loving arms around you and He has just got his hand on you and He will never leave you nor forsake you and every weapon formed against you is not gonna prosper. And I just pray, I have no idea how you lost your daughter, but I lost my son to suicide and the grief I know feels overwhelming, but I know that God carried me. He just picked me up and I know that grain of the sand __. That was my God. He picked me up and He walked me through because I couldn’t, but he could. And when we lean on Him with everything that’s in you He sees you through and, you know, I’m gonna just tell you like everything’s great and everything’s fantastic because I still have days where I don’t feel like getting out of bed, but you know, what God is __, and I know that He loves me and every single day that’s what I tell myself. And that one day I will see my husband, I will see my son again, but until then I have to live because that’s what we do. We just get up and do the best we can and that’s what I keep telling myself. And there are days when I don’t want to, __ you will because God says you will. Because He says you can you all things through Christ who strengthens you and that’s the truth we can and I love you and I’m praying for you.

Good morning my family, sorry I’m have a cold, but I needed to get this message out to my sister Sharon, to our sister Sharon who is victorious. God gave you the power to call your DAB family Sharon, God put you in this family for a reason. You are loved, and the Holy Spirit nudged my imagination this morning, He gave me a picture of all of us sitting around the global Daily Audio Bible campfire with our arms entwined and singing, “it only takes a spark”. I’m not going to attempt to sing it to you because I can barely talk but it only takes a spark of God’s love to rescue Sharon, it only takes a spark of the love of Jesus to pull you up and out of the pit that you’re in right now. It only takes a spark __ to restore you and to use you more than you can ever ask or imagine. You are not alone. Be Victorious Sharon. I can’t wait to see how God uses you and your story in this new year coming. I love you sister, we all love you and I pray that all of you have the best new year, all my brothers and sisters and God really, really is good, He makes us strong in our weakness. Wendy, I think it was Wendy from California, whose husband is spending new year’s in jail, homey, I pray for restoration for you as well and for everyone that’s going through mental illness. I pray extra strongly for our brothers and sisters in Christ that are dealing with mental illness in our family __ in Jesus’ name. I pray for all of you. Amen

Hey Daily Audio Bible family, I wanted to share with you a conversation I had with my second-grader and my first-grader in the car. They both were driving with me and they asked, “can we listen to Brian?” And at first, I had no idea what they were talking about. I said, “Brian who?” And they said, “you know, Brian who reads the Bible.” I want to thank you, Brian, for what you do. For making my six-year-old and my seven-year-old want to listen to the Bible. It’s a wonderful thing. I want to ask prayers for my two sons who have some disabilities and are trying to overcome some delays in speech and delays in eating and a beast to be called autism. So, if you could pray for my boys, but I want you to know how much the Daily Audio Bible means to my family. Thank you for what you do and have a wonderful 2019.

Hi this is Mike from Denmark. I have a message for Sharon the Victorious and we heard your request when you called out to all of us here today the 30th of December. I just wish to tell you that God is with you, Jesus is with you and I just ask that you find a place to be quiet and sit and listen to the Holy Spirit and let him cover you with your love, with His love and His peace in this moment. I ask that the Holy Spirit would be heavy on you and will give you the peace, will give you the joy that you so need right now in this moment, and know that you will never walk alone as you are a daughter of Christ, of God. You will always be with Him, will always walk with Him, and you will not be alone.

Hello my DAB family this is Mark Street from Sydney Australia and I’m actually just ringing for a New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day well wishes for my whole family. I just want to say how much I love you all, everybody, the prayer warriors, the people that ring in with their stories and sharing them so. You have all been such a wonderful part of my life in 2018 and I’m praying for you and I’m looking forward with excitement to sharing 2019 and trying to be a little bit more giving back to the community in 2019. I wish you all a wonderful new year and Brian and Jill and family, I certainly wish you a wonderful and happy new year as well and look forward to hearing from all of you in the new year. Love you all my family. Talk to again soon. Mark Street from Sydney Australia. Bye-bye.