Hosea 6:1-9:17, 3 John 1:1-15, Psalms 126:1-6, Proverbs 29:12-14
Today is the 7th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you as we complete, shutdown, and release into…into history the first week of this month of December. And as we conclude this week we will be going back into the book of Hosea in the Old Testament and then if we remember, we read second John in its entirety yesterday. So, when we get to the New Testament today, we will read in its entirety, third John. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Hosea chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 today.
Introduction to third John:
Alright. So, we…like…like we talked about a minute ago, we read second John in its entirety yesterday. And, so we’ll do the same thing today with third John. And this letter was probably written somewhere around the same time as the other two letters. And like the other two, was probably written from Ephesus where it’s thought that John spent the latter part of his life. But third John is just a little different than the other two letters. It’s actually more like Paul’s letter to Philemon because third John is a personal letter and it was written to a man named Gaius who was a good man, a believer within the network of churches that John had influence over and leadership in. And John wrote this letter to personally encourage Gaius because he was passionate about the gospel and it wasn’t just a passion that he gave lip service to. He was willing to serve and support those who were traveling around teaching and sharing the good news, those that John would send throughout the churches. So, like, this isn't…this isn’t like a new idea…an old idea that we’ve never heard of before. This still happens today, the custom of welcoming itinerant ministers and caring for their needs as…as they travel. Sharing the message that God has given them is common and was common. And John saw this personal letter as a necessary communication because there was another church leader named Diotrephes who was distancing himself from John and refusing to offer hospitality to these…these ministers that were moving around the churches. And then to make it even worse, Diotrephes was throwing people out of the church who disagreed and assisted itinerant ministers. So, John wrote this personal letter to Gaius to…to encourage him and commend him for doing the right thing for…for his care and his hospitality to those who were bringing the gospel. But this would’ve held more weight than just a personal encouragement, like a nice email that you get that just encourages you. Like this is a letter that put John’s opinion in writing that Gaius was doing the right thing. And, so, you…you…you can imagine that a personal letter from one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ would’ve probably carried pretty…pretty good amount of weights against this Diotrephes who was stirring up all the…the problems in the church. So, third John gives us this personal glimpse into some of the tensions that were existing in the formative years of the church and it gives us an opportunity to understand that they were struggling with, you know, the same sort of heart issues that…that we face in our own lives. And, so, we read third John.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for another week in Your word and we thank You for bringing us through this first full week of this final month of the year. And on this, the 341st day of the year, we express our gratitude, our love, our devotion, our faithfulness, our worship for You. And yet we also confess that after the same fashion that we’re reading about in Hosea, we have drifted away at times, we have…we have run away at times, we have entered into direct and knowing rebellion against You at times. And then at other times we’ve just not been vigilant. And when endurance has arise…arisen in our lives we’ve just been taken out. So, it is Your faithfulness that actually makes it even possible for us to consider being faithful. It was Your love for us first. You came for us when we didn’t even know You when we were Your enemies and You loved us, and You drew us to Yourself and You adopted us and made us Your children. And, so, we confess it’s preposterous to even consider that we would ever betray that and yet we confess that we have. And, so, we repent here at the end of this week and we look forward to going into the new week together discovering anew how profound Your love for us actually is and how important that it is that we realize that You are loving the world through us and that we must open ourselves to love. Come Holy Spirit we pray into all of this. We ask in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Announcements:
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And it’s Christmas time. So, that’s what’s going on around here. Seems like that’s what’s going on everywhere. But I remind you of the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box for 2019. That is available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop and we have packed it full of our most popular resources. So, check it out.
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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 family, this is Suzanne calling. I have stopped and started this so many times I can’t tell you. So, I really hope that some of those accidentally didn’t go in…go through. I just want to say, first of all, thank you Brian so much…it’s December 3rd…for the message today about how the…the light that Christ pours into us really needs to go out to others. And I am having a real struggle with my family. I am the only Christian in my family and there’s a lot of dysfunctional behavior that goes on and I ended up being extremely hurt over Thanksgiving. There was a lot of verbal abuse and just real selfish inconsiderate behavior towards me and I just ended up feeling so unloved and so unappreciated and ended up crying all day on Friday. So, what I really want prayer for is for me to understand how to…I just need to find tools and how to not accept unacceptable behavior and do it in a loving Christlike way so that I have His motives and I have His love and so that they can see the light of Him shining through me rather than my hurt self. So, I just need your prayer family and I appreciate it very much. God bless you.
Hello DAB this is Carla with a Broken Heart calling back again. I was just sitting here thinking about what a wonderful platform this is for people to be able to hear God’s word and to minister to one another and be able to call in with prayers because it lets me know that I’m not the only one going through when somebody else calls in with difficulties and I don’t feel so alone and too because the fact to know that I have someone that’s praying for me and don’t know anything about me or even knows anything about my situation but loves me enough to go before God for me on my behalf and my struggles means the world to me. And to be able to have a place where we can fellowship like that means everything to me. Going through my hard times and through my struggles, I feel alone a lot but just now after I made my first ball I sat here and thought about all those who pray for me, who call my name out, let’s me know that I’m not alone and that I am going to be able to get through. So, it’s just awesome to be able to have this even though Brian ministers the word and…and he reiterates the word at…at the end and his soothing voice is so peaceful to me, but just the prayers of the saints and those that call in who are struggling so that we all can love on one another means the world to me. And I can’t express how important DAB has been for me. I’ve been a member for more than 10 years and it’s carried me through some hard times and especially this time right now. I just praise God for. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. God bless.
Diana Davis this is Angel from California and I wanted to tell you my sister that I am praying for you. I know that you called in November the 30th in the podcast and you said that you were a Christian author and that you had to children with autism and that your husband is out of the home, you’re dealing with stage IV cancer. And I pray for you my sister. And I want you to know that the Lord is going to strengthen you and is gonna give you your heart desires. Praying for you. Don’t give up hope. God is the God of impossibilities. God bless you my sister this is Angel from California.
My name is Patsy, my husband’s name is Andy. We have two beautiful daughters together. He has one child from a previous marriage. I ask for prayer today. This time last year my husband left us. He said he was done, and he left. I would like to pray for reconciliation. I would like for my husband’s heart to be touched and so he’ll know that the…that divorce is not the answer, that we can work things out. I can’t change my husband, I know that, and I know that with God and through God things are always possible. God is so much bigger than this. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible for everything. You’ve gotten me through so, so much this one year alone. I’m Patsy and I love you.
Hello everyone, this is Paul calling from Barcelona. As we come into the Christmas season I might be so busy that I’ll forget to say this so I’ll say this right now, a very Merry Christmas to so many of you my friends across the world. But my heart has, you know, kind of set on one group of people in the DAB community that are almost never mentioned. And, so, I’m also sending them the warmest of readings from the bottom of my heart in the name of Jesus and that group are people struggling with their sexual identity, with her sexual orientation within our community. You know, in…in the church across the world this has become a very polemic and taboo subject. I won’t go there. I just want to talk to each one of those men and women who are dealing with this struggle with the day to day of this and often amongst us the feeling of being absolutely invisible and having nowhere to turn. And I just want to encourage you. Some of you may be listening are not able to go home to families who have rejected you because of the things you’re dealing with but I just want to give you encouragement and just want to point you to the Lord Jesus and just lay your head on His chest as I often like to say, just rest there, talk to Him about everything, share Him…share with Him everything that’s on your heart. You know, the Lord knows our hearts and His sheep know His voice. So, share everything that you want to share with Him this Christmas season and know that you’re deeply, deeply loved by your father and that’s all I have to say. I wish you peace and I wish you love. I send it for myself from Barcelona.
Good morning DAB family this is Danny from Southern Oregon. I just want to lift up those who are hurting this morning due to loss, specifically the man who called in from Florida who found his friend and neighbor passed away. Just the fact that you called your DAB family for comfort is just such a testimony to what this family does for each other. So, give us an update on how you’re doing. Praying for you for comfort and so sorry for your loss there. Also praying for Vicki from Arizona. Vicki I’ve got you on my calendar for December 10th. I’m going to be on my knees for you sister. Just the pain that you must be going through, I just can’t I can’t even imagine. So, lifting you up, praying God’s peace on you that you would feel so loved. And praying for Karen from Hemet who just lost her husband from Parkinson’s. And you described your sadness it’s…it’s just pouring over you like an ocean…like ocean waves. And I just…I just pray that that you would feel peace, that God would help you get through this difficult time. I just…I just pray for all of you who are hurting and have lost someone. Father, just wrap your loving arms around these people who are hurting, just fill them with peace Lord, let them know that you are there, surround them with love Lord and just…just…just send them people who will comfort them and build them up Lord and just love them. And I just thank You and praise You for this DAB family that we can all pray for each other…