Isaiah 51:1-53:12, Ephesians 5:1-33, Psalms 69:19-36, Proverbs 24:7
Today is the 27th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you as we end a work week and move ourselves into the weekend and hopefully a little catching up, a little rest for us. But no matter what day it is or what part of the week it is or month or year, whatever, we have a rhythm and that rhythm includes allowing God’s word to speak into our lives bringing us clarity and rest. So, let’s just exhale all of the stuff that’s swirling around us and inhale peace and this serenity that we share around the global campfire as we let God’s word speak. So, we’ve been reading from the Voice Translation this week and we’ll continue to do that until this week is up. Isaiah, chapter 51 through 53 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, as working our way through the book of Isaiah today we encountered a scripture that describes Jesus, right? “So, that when he was hurt because of us He suffered so. Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed Him. He endured the breaking that made us whole. The injuries He suffered became our healing. We all have wandered off like shepherdess sheep scattered by our aimless striving and endless pursuits. The eternal one laid on him, this silent suffer, the sins of us all.” Right? So, this is in the Voice Translation. “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity”, right? That’s…that’s the passage we’re talking about here in the in the language that we’re most accustomed to. But this portrait in the book of Isaiah is stark and it helps us to understand that the benefits…the panoramas, right, the too good to be true moments that we’ve been experiencing in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, didn’t just happen. That happened at a great cost. It was given as a gift to us freely and we receive it freely and we can’t earn it and we understand this but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t very costly to the gift giver. And, so, understanding that God cares as much as He does about us individually, this should absolutely pull us forward and at least attempt to look clearly at all that God has given us now in this world to live this life because He envisions a life for us.
And this is what Paul starts talking about in our reading from Ephesians today when he instructs us to imitate God. And that’s what he says, “so, imitate God.” I mean, can we pause there for a second? Where do we even start? Imitate God? Like, that this is even possible, or a category is a pretty big deal. Imitate God. Follow Him like adored children and live in love as the Anointed One loved you. And the way that the Anointed One loved us is what we just read out of the book of Isaiah. He loved you so much that He gave himself as a fragrant sacrifice pleasing God. So, on one side of the coin just the idea that we are God’s precious children and that we can imitate our Father the Almighty in everything we do, that’s such…that is so overwhelming, right? Like the rest of Ephesians, it’s like almost too good to be true. On the other side of this coin, what we were just talking about, the gift came at a price and that price was the sacrifice of our beloved Savior, the Anointed, Jesus. So, we can have these awe-inspiring gifts that God has given us and we can receive them joyously because they’re ours for the taking, but the outpouring of love that made this possible should truly and deeply humble us because what we are staring at face-to-face squarely is what true and unconditional love actually looks like. And, so, where does this get…like in our lives where does the rubber meet the road on this. We’re talking about this conceptually, we’re talking about this literally, but it’s overwhelmingly good news. And, so we have to process all this and how do we begin to live this out in our day-to-day lives? Well, one place for sure would be in our marriages, which is where the apostle Paul took the discussion today. So, quoting Paul here, “the Spirit makes it possible to submit humbly to one another out of respect for the Anointed. Wives, it should be no different with your husbands. Submit to them as you do to the Lord for God has given husbands a sacred duty to lead as the Anointed leads the church and serves as the head. The church is his body, he is her Savior. So, wives should submit to their husbands respectfully in all things, just as the church yields to the anointed one. Husbands you must love your wives so deeply, purely and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love of the Anointed One, the love that he has for His bride, the church. We know He gave himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His word. He has given Himself so that He can present the church as His radiant bride, unstained, unwrinkled, and unblemished completely free from all impurity, holy and innocent before Him. So, husbands should care for their wives as if their lives depended on it the same way they care for their own bodies. As you love her you are ultimately loving part of yourself. You are one flesh.” So, for years right, this…this passage has been misused really in unhealthy and pretty controlling ways. So, listen. Husbands let’s think about Isaiah. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised…” Isaiah is depicting a person who has been disfigured because they have been beaten nearly to death. Brothers, that is what Jesus did for you. Right? He desired you and loved you and it compelled Him step-by-step forward to death. You’re supposed to love your wife like as Christ loved the church. So, what Ephesians is saying, and this is…this is a big deal. You are tangibly bringing the love of Jesus to your wife. You are Jesus with skin on and you bring the ministry of Jesus to your wife. And wives, let’s think about Isaiah, like the same thing. That sacrifice, that is what Jesus did for you, you, you, not every other woman in the world but you, you. His desire, His love compelled him forward. He loved you that much. That’s how much you are loved. And that’s how you are to submit to your husbands, as you would to the Lord, which does not mean you’re supposed to be abused. That’s not how Jesus treats you. That’s not how you’re supposed to be treated. That’s not God’s intention for you. What’s being revealed here is that if your husband is loving you as Christ loved the church then you have to respond to that respectfully, as you would to Jesus. And that’s not a big stretch to consider submitting to and trusting and respecting a love that would die for you, right? So, there’s no is no room for abuse of control in that kind of equation. And according to Paul, we’re supposed to submit to one another out of our deep respect for Jesus, which means that we’re supposed to love each other with the love of Christ. We’re supposed to bring the love of Christ to each other. So, we can look at it idealistically and just go, “well…if that could be done it would be good”. But this is supposed to be normal. And if we would live into this imagine the turmoil that would be eliminated from our homes. Imagine the joy that we would find living in the light together. But if we’re not in a live into what Paul’s saying here in the letter to the Ephesians then…then we’re not. Paul says, “live as people of the light because the light produces in you what’s good and right and true.” Is that what we’re going for? If that’s what we’re going for then we’ve been given a pathway today with what we’re supposed to be looking for as we live into this. And as we just talked about, there’s no truer place, there is no greater place for this to be lived out than within our own homes, in our own marriages. This is where it actually gets worked out.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, as we end our work and prepare for the weekend we invite You into that because the truth is we haven’t been doing what You’ve…what You’ve been instructing, not with any kind of consistency. It so often boils down to the well-worn ruts that have just been formed over the years and all of the soft spots that we like to go after in each other in ways that we like to hurt each other in order to get control and just all the stuff that we do in relationships. And we have to acknowledge, that’s not how You’ve loved us and we’re not imitating the way You’ve loved us at all. And we acknowledge that’s wrong. Come Holy Spirit. Let us love one another as You have loved us. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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