Judges 2:10-3:31, Luke 22:14-34, Psalms 92:1-93:5, Proverbs 14:1-2
Today is the 24th day of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today It’s hump day and the back half of this week is a busy one for me. My daughter, our daughter, my wife Jill and my daughter, the leader of the Daily Audio Bible Chronological channel, she’ll be getting married on Saturday. So, busy, busy, busy for us the next couple of days. Thank you for your prayers. But it doesn’t matter how busy life may get, the Scriptures are a part of that rhythm no matter where we are, no matter what we do, we are in this together around this global campfire. Yeah, there’s all kinds of things come up inside of the year that can pull us in all kinds of directions but if the word of God stays central and as a part of that rhythm…ahhh…the drama it can save us from…I mean we can’t eliminate all drama from our lives, but we can eliminate a lot. And, so, even though it’s a busy second half of the week for us around here, the word of God is the rhythm of our lives. And, so, let’s step into today’s reading. We began the book of Judges yesterday and we’ll be traveling along and learning of the generations of judges as we go forward for the next little bit here. We’re reading from the English Standard Version. Did I already say that? Judges chapter 2 verse 10 through 3 verse 31 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, as we launched ourselves fully into the book of Judges and started meeting some of the judges we should be able to see pretty clearly the seesaw pattern - falling away and repentance - and this will color most of the story of the ancient Hebrew people as we go forward. So, even as we met a couple of the…well…three of the judges today – Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar, we can also see how the culture was shifting away from what had been ingrained into them and that is alter dependence on God. And this began to shift and mingle and become more about the will and wishes of the people, which is spoken of in our reading from the book of Proverbs today. “Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is devious in his ways despises him.”
And then we get into the gospel of Luke and we have just come through the Easter season, I mean, we are just a few days removed from Easter and we are entering the story that situates itself at Easter. So, we are at the Passover meal, the last supper. And we’ve talked about this as we followed with Jesus back through Jericho and walking up to Jerusalem and weeping over Jerusalem. We’ve talked about the weight that must’ve been on Jesus shoulders as we’re taking this path. And, so, Jesus is sitting down to this final meal and what is he gonna face? Like, does He get to have just a peaceful last meal? He does, as long as being betrayed to your enemies and some of your friends fighting each other over who was the greatest in the kingdom of God, as long as those kinds of things don’t bother you, then yeah, I suppose it’s a peaceful meal. So, in spite of all of that drama, Jesus institutes what we know as the Eucharist or communion. And we know from other Gospels that it…that Jesus also took off his robe, wrapped a towel around His waist, and washed the filthy feet of His friends. Whether they were betraying Him or whether they were fighting each other for position or whether they were silent, whatever was going on He washed their feet. And remember Peter saying, “you’re not gonna wash my feet”. And Jesus is like, “if I’m not gonna wash your feet then you don’t have a place with Me.” So, Jesus is essentially, with His final lesson before He goes to be tortured to death, trying to show his friends the only way is to serve, the only way is to humble yourself. Or in the words of Jesus, quoting from the gospel of Luke from our reading today, “the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and those in authority over them are called benefactors, but not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater? One who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” The discouraging part of this scene is that Jesus friends could be battling each other for who’s the greatest in the kingdom having walked with Jesus and seen His ministry firsthand, first person. They still don’t completely get it. What’s discouraging about that is just how hard it is to get it. It is contrary to the world system of self-promotion and bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more and more. And yet, we’ve probably lived long enough to kind of realized that we can chase whatever we want to chase but even we’ve been chasing something and finally acquire that thing, it’s not all that it seemed. It didn’t bring the eternal life we were hoping, right? It didn’t bring the perfection that the commercial seemed to tell us it was going to. The times that we find ourselves most alive are when we’ve given something somebody needs, whether that’s in thought, word, or deed, when we’ve been able to be used by God, when we’ve been able to say the right thing at the right time or do the right thing for someone at the right time. When we’re serving one another, we walk away from that full. Whereas, we can go to the mall and spend all of our money and come home and be more empty than anything. And Jesus’ simply showing us and we’re still not getting it. Like it’s right in front of us and we’re still not getting. Jesus’s isn’t commanding us to be poor. He’s not commanding us is to do anything but be aware, that if we’re going to be like Him then we’re going have to lower ourselves and be servants to our brothers and sisters in whatever way that we can. This is the model, right? So, this is God who has incarnated himself, who has lowered Himself down to our level to then demonstrate what a life abundant can look like. And it can’t be found in the accumulation of wealth or stuff. Those things can certainly by us pleasures, but they burn off so fast. Like, you don’t end up feeling full until we’re giving of ourselves. I mean…I mean…if that became the rhythm of our lives, that we woke up in the morning not to feel like we are in bondage and…oh another day I gotta serve people…but rather to know that I get to reveal God’s kingdom today by keeping myself humble like my Savior and not just jumping into a reactionary day but looking at the whole picture and responding accordingly, seeing through the eyes of the Spirit, what is happening and how I can reveal God’s kingdom in it. I get to do that today and every day. As opposed to, I get to yell at my children and kick the dog and insult my spouse. When you start serving people it changes the atmosphere. When you have a humble posture ready to help, ready to serve and you come to the aid of someone unexpectedly in whatever way, maybe helping somebody at the office with something they’re stuck on. Maybe helping somebody on the side of the…I mean…whatever. There’s millions of ways to contextualize this. It can happen every day…like…we don’t even have to look for these opportunities. They present themselves in one way or another. And all Jesus is doing here is showing us the secret of how to live. And, so, may we take this scene and apply it to our own lives and live into it today and every day.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit we invite You into that. It’s so subtle how quickly pride and arrogance and competition and false identity present themselves. It’s everywhere, almost impossible to escape, no possible way for us to orient ourselves rightly without walking with You without Your Holy Spirit indwelling us and leading us forward. And our part in that collaboration is to listen, is to slow down and find the spacious life that You are offering us to slow down and live a life that we can maintain because the truth of the matter is that most of us are too busy to even pay attention to this. Come Holy Spirit, show us how to slow down, show us how to listen the You, and show us how to serve our brothers and sisters in whatever it is they may need. Maybe it’s a word of encouragement that they need. Maybe it’s a random smile to a stranger we will never see again that they need. Whatever it is that they need, You have allowed us to reveal Your kingdom today. Help us to do that. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that is 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 Rebecca, To Buy His Wings from Virginia. I heard Johnny’s prayer request. He’s a middle school student who called in for Nick. Johnny, your request touched my heart so much I cried. And I’m a __ __ the Army so I don’t cry often. I am praying for you. I am praying for Nick, for favor in the court system, and any home Nick is placed in will be a good, great home for him. Rebecca from Michigan, I’m praying for you. I love hearing your phone calls and your requests and your stories. I advise that you get another dog if your place allows you to get a pet. I come home to my dog every day and he shows me unconditional love. So, it reminds me of how I should come seek and love the Lord with everything I have. I have two prayer requests. Please pray for my dad Juan. He is not saved. He’s in his mid-70s and is in poor health. Also pray for my mom, her name is Regina. She is 71 years old and she’s an alcoholic. Pray for restoration that she would stop drinking. She has been alcoholic since my earliest memory of her when I was about four years old. Brian, Jill, Hardin family, for all those in the Daily Audio Bible, God bless you bless this ministry. You guys have blessed me immensely and I want to thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus every day. I hope China’s wedding is wonderful, is blessed, is protected and is everything she and her husband wants it to be. God bless you all.
Hi this is Bart from Kentucky. Heavenly Lord we thank You for the day. Thank You for Your loving and saving grace through Jesus Christ. It’s the day before Easter we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord today I want to lift up Nicholas, son of Your son and our brother Duyne from Wisconsin who faithfully prays for children. We ask You to guide Nicholas steps as he gets out of jail. Show him the right ways to walk and give him Your wisdom. Lord we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ and we also pray this for the rest of our children, be they prodigal or not. As Duane reminds us, You are the same God that saved us and can save our children. I ask these things in Jesus’ name and I pray expectantly. His victory is at hand. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Hello this is Jennifer in Indiana. I’m calling for my dad and his girlfriend. She went in for a biopsy last week. She’s been feeling ill for about a month and they said she has late stage cancer and they’re putting her on hospice. So, she doesn’t know the Lord and my dad believes in God, but he doesn’t believe in Jesus, and he is just crushed. He was talking about marriage two months ago wanting to propose to her. So, please pray for my dad Bill and his girlfriend Marion. And I’m going to see him now. Just lift them up family and pray that God’s will be done in this situation. Thank you.
Like Satan I was stubborn and I
had to be the best
hard driving inpatient a cut above the rest
insensitive self-reliant and chronically independent
I even tried to compete with God was a crazy or just demented
demented now that’s the perfect word
it has that demonic sound
and demons did control my life they ran be in the ground
it had to be poor self-esteem that may be so independent
independence made me critical egotistical and in many ways a cynic
being critical and egotistical has led to isolation
isolation led me into sin and lots of aggravation
once you’re deep within the sin you’re far away from God
and once again poor self-esteem will make you feel odd
the cycle just repeats itself you feel you just can’t win
unless some way you can get to God and make the cycle end
now how does one get back to God
there are lots of different theories
I guess that’s why a lot of give up
their spirit often varies
especially if their spirit isn’t one from the Lord
Satan tries to make it hard for us to get restored
but really its quite simple accept and just agree
deliverance is a gift by friend that’s absolutely free
you can learn to be dependent God will always bring you through
stay humble and compassionate because love will help you too
and as your faith and walk get stronger you’ll become Gods son
the cycle will be broken and your battle can be won
but there’ll be other battles and other victories too
but remember to stay close to God your strength he will renew
blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to Tony and AJ and Delta Alpha FoxTrot.