Ezekiel 29:1-30:26, Hebrews 11:32-12:13, Psalms 112:1-10, Proverbs 27:17
Today is the 14th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it’s great to be here with you as we move through the center of another of our weeks together and…well…frankly we’re moving through the center of the 11th month of the year at the same time. So, yeah, we’re well into our journey but we still have so much yet in front of us. So, we will take the next step forward. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Ezekiel chapter 29 and 30 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, this is our third today walking down what is known as the “hall of faith” in the book of Hebrews and it’s simply called that because it’s example after example after example, starting in the book of Genesis and working its way forward through the Hebrew Scriptures of…of people and stories that we have all encountered as we’ve moved through the Bible this year where faith was the irreplaceable thing. So, we concluded that hall of faith today in an interesting way because we concluded the book with people who had faith but did not see the promise fulfilled in their lifetime. So, we start in the beginning of the Scriptures and we worked our way forward seeing that faith is irreplaceable. Like, without faith it is impossible to please God and we saw God come through in those stories of faith, but they all faced considerable opposition, right? Like, they had to fight for it. And then today we get to people who were faithful and true and fought for it and died, hoping, hoping in faith. And then as the…as the writer of Hebrews concludes this hall the faith, basically what happens is a mic drop, a summary, a mic drop, a walk off the stage, basically, what else is there to say about walking the life of faith. And they say, “therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us.” What he’s referring to when he’s talking about this large cloud of witnesses is all of the examples we just walked through in the hall of faith. Their lives, their faith, their witness, their testimony, their story serves as an example, this is the path. So, the writer of Hebrews says, “so, since…since we have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.” And he’s using Jesus as this final example in the hall of faith. “For the joy that lay before him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right end of the throne of God.” That…that’s a pretty big mic drop moment as we’ve walked down the hall of faith and seen all these examples and realized really, it is impossible to please God without faith and really, it’s pretty much impossible to get anywhere without faith. So, since we have all of these examples, since we have this great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s walk the path. So, my brothers and sisters, listen, I mean, we’re well into our year and it’s been a heck of a year, at least it’s been a heck of a year for me. I’ve faced challenges I did not know were coming my way. And, yeah, I mean all kinds of things happen in a life in a year. So, we all have these stories and it’s so easy to come to get punched and knocked down and then think, “okay, well where is God” and just be discouraged. But since we have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, brothers and sisters let us lay aside every hindrance, all of them, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that keeps trapping us, that keeps tripping us, that keeps ensnaring us. Let’s stop those things. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us. In other words, we’re walking down this path of life. This is the road were on. Let’s run with endurance the race that we’re running, keeping our eyes on Jesus and not on anything else because all of the times that we turn our head to the right or the left and get distracted we end up in the ditch. Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. And, as we’ve been told it’s impossible to please God without faith. And Jesus is the source and perfecter of our faith. So, let’s run this race and endure what comes, keeping our eyes on Jesus, knowing that our faith is being perfected and we are becoming pleasing to God. We know it’s impossible without faith to please God, but that means it’s possible to please God by faith and Jesus is the source and perfecter of our faith. So, let’s get up off of our buts. It’s time to stop sitting around in our own self-absorbed misery. Let’s get up since we have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s go.
Prayer:
Father we invite You into that because if we look at our lives, we can see when we’re faithless, we can see what happens when that tank is empty. We cannot please You. We cannot please anyone. And we have been given example after example after example in the Scriptures telling us flatly and frankly, faith is the activator, faith is the fuel of this story we are living. And, so, we keep our eyes on You Jesus. Running this race with endurance come what may our eyes are on You. You are perfecting our faith. And as the author of Hebrews goes on to tell us that You discipline those that You love, we submit to You. We believe that You want good for us. We believe that You want to reveal the narrow path that leads to life that very few find, and we will certainly not find it without faith. So, come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth. We surrender to You and we pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus. 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.