Genesis 16:1-18:15, Matthew 6:1-24, Psalms 7:1-17, Proverbs 2:1-5
Today is the 7th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today. This is day seven of the New Year. So, we’ve technically we are…or we are technically accomplishing our first week together in the Scriptures, even though we’re kind of in the middle of the first full week of this year. And look at how much ground we have covered in that amount of time. You see…you see now the Bible…the Bible is very relevant when we start looking behind the stories behind the customs behind the clothes that they were wearing behind how the world was thousands of years ago. When we look behind that we realize the human hearts longs for God and we have been longing for God and reaching for God and we have this chronicling of God over time, revealing Himself to us and that is timeless. We long for the same sense of union with our Creator and a context for what this life is all about just as our ancestors did over the last thousands of years. And the Bible is timeless as it deals with and pokes and prods and comforts and nourishes and cares for our hearts. So, congratulations…even though we’re in the middle of the week…congratulations on making it through a week of this new year. And let’s dive in. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Genesis chapter 16 verse 1 through 18 verse 15.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in our reading from the book of Genesis today we have this situation where Abraham now does have a son. His name is Ishmael it’s just not by his wife Sarah. And it was Sarah and Abraham who were given the promise of offspring. And, so, there’s obvious tensions that have arisen inside the family and those tensions…those tensions still exist in the world until this very day. And, so, Abraham’s waiting and he’s 99 years old. So, the Lord comes and reaffirms the promise, “this time next year your wife is going to be holding a baby boy.” And she’s laughing at that because although it may be a promise from God it is also impossible. It’s an impossible promise. She has moved beyond the age of bearing children, well beyond the age of bearing children. Abraham’s 99 years old. So, yeah, it doesn’t look like that’s a promise that can be fulfilled. And, so, she’s, you know, maybe just to protect her own heart and her own hope just kind of dismissing it. And yet God won’t let it be dismissed and he presses in on it and confronts the laughter and essentially asks a very very important question for all of us, “is anything impossible for the Lord?” That question might seem like, “well…we would all…of course we would answer ‘no, nothing is impossible for the Lord. The Lord can do whatever he wants’”. But we don’t really functionally live as if He will, and we certainly don’t function and live as if He will for us on our behalf. And, so, it might as well just to be impossible, right? his is where the mirror comes up. This is what we were talking about a few minutes ago. This is where we look behind the story of the Bible and realize this is a hard issue, as are all of these stories. Where is my faith? Do I believe that? Because that’s what we’re supposed to wrestle with. We’re looking at Abraham and Sarah. And believe me when I tell you this, had they chosen differently there would be no Bible. There may be some kind of Bible it might be called something different, but it would be full of completely different people. Right now Abraham and Sarah, we’re looking at them and going, yeah they’re famous Old Testament characters”, but I’m telling you they…they color everything that happens from here. And this trust, this faith that we are seeing come from Abraham toward God, that is fundamental, foundational Christian theology that will be unpacked very meticulously when we find our way into the letters of Paul.
We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because we’re in the Gospels and we’re sitting at the feet of Jesus and we want to do that, we want to do that as long as we can this year and just listen to what He is saying. And what we see Him saying is a continuation that we’re living a backward life. We’re living a life that is not going to lead to life. And what He says today is it…it…it is largely about prayer and largely about caring for the less fortunate and the most vulnerable in our cultures. And yes, indeed we are supposed to step into that and be a part of the solution. But Jesus is saying, “the thing is just do it. Don’t do it so that you will be praised. Do it because it’s right. Do it because it’s in your heart to do. Do it because it’s what God would have you do not so that you can be seen doing it otherwise you have your reward. You did it to achieve praise and to continue to construct this image that you are presenting to the world called your personality. You did it to embellish that construct that you are presenting to the world.” So, you got what you wanted. People clapped their hands and praised you and thought you were super spiritual and awesome. There is no other reward. You got your reward. But if you want to do this true, if you want to stop living false wearing a mask feeling naked and ashamed and hiding then you have to live true. Do it because it’s what God would have you do. It’s in your heart to do. Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, then you’re doing it for the right and true reasons.” But Jesus also said something today that is so profound and so black-and-white and so completely ignored that if we would pay attention and it would finally lock into place then so much of the rest of our lives would make sense. Jesus said, “if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others your Father will not forgive your offenses”, right? And that’s coming right on the heels of the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our debts or our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In other words, the Lord’s prayer is asking God to forgive us as we forgive others. I know we’re just getting going, we’re just getting unpacked on this voyage, we’re just moving in, we’re just getting our bearings and then this comes along and it’s like, “wait. What? I never really…what? I have to forgive in order to find forgiveness?” That’s the way of God’s kingdom according to Jesus, who is God made flesh. And it’s really easy. We’ve just come through the holiday season. Maybe there’s brand-new offenses that we’re licking our wounds over. But maybe there’s this long-running stuff in our lives. Everybody…everybody has been broken at some point. We have been the offender many times and have had our hearts broken but we have been the offender as well. Like we are broken people who break things. And the thing that we break the best is other people. And it’s not true and it’s not right. And it’s not God’s kingdom. And, so, here’s Jesus inserting this idea, this truth into our lives, “forgive and you will be forgiven.” And we can just be like, “that’s not fair. The things that have happened to me I can’t even hardly…I can’t even say out loud.” And we can confront it with things like this, we’re in the Bible, we’re like, “gosh…I just don’t like that. I just don't…I don’t even know how to move in that direction, like the direction of forgiveness, which is so booby-trapped and so complicated, and so full of so many moving parts. We can become frustrated and feel as if what God is trying to do is box us in with a bunch of rules that are really really difficult sometimes to live into. That’s not the goal here. Like, that…that…that’s not the God of the Bible. Like that’s not what’s happening here. There are plenty of directives and rules and commandments in the Bible. Things that we are to obey, things that we are to be, and things that we are to live. Indeed, that’s true. Is the point because the Almighty sovereign God, the most-high God who not only created this lush and beautiful planet that we live on that…but has created the universe as far as we can know and as far as we can know is only the beginning. You think he’s so uptight that He needs to just keep creating rules for humanity on this little spec, this little ball in the middle of his creation? He just needs to jack with us all the time to show us that were failures? I think probably He’s more-high than we can possibly comprehend, more powerful than we could ever know, well beyond what we could ever think. And yet He still loves us and still came in person to show us how to be true and how to actually live life as it was intended to be lived in union, in covenant with God. And we’re seeing this covenantal language begin to materialize in the Old Testament. It will carry its way forward all the way to the end of the Bible. God’s goal is our restoration so that we might be who we were created to be. Living in unforgiveness makes that impossible. All things are possible with God. But when we shut it down and say this is my will and then God is a gentleman and says, “you can have what you want but it’s not going to go anywhere and it’s not going to lead you to life.” Forgiveness is essential in God’s kingdom because forgiveness then removes things, entanglements between us and other people. And imagine for a moment what it might be like to live with nothing between you and anyone else, right? There are no offenses. You are true and you are disentangled. But the only way for that to happen is to live in forgiveness, rapid forgiveness, which obviously isn’t easy, which obviously is a practice, something that we practice, something that we master over time. And, so, we begin by just opening our hands and releasing things to God understanding that forgiveness isn't…isn’t affirming anybody’s actions. By us letting somebody go, by us setting someone free, by us for giving we’re not saying it was okay, we’re not denying that it happened, we’re just saying I’m not staying in these chains anymore, I’m not staying chained to that person anymore, they’re not even in my life and yet I’m still chained to them because I won’t…because I won’t let it go…because I won’t let go. When we let go, we release these people and these events to God. God is the judge. We release them to God so that we don’t have to carry it around anymore. So, what Jesus is doing is perhaps telling us something very difficult but He is telling us something essential if we actually want to live, to live free and true.
Prayer:
Jesus, we enter into that. It is a tricky difficult subject. It is also a topic that will be a recurring theme in the Bible because we cannot let this go. You didn’t just mention it one time and think that we wouldn’t forget. This is something constant. It’s something that You modeled with Your very life when You said Father forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing as You were being killed. So, Holy Spirit, come and let that sink in. We are to follow the path of the Savior. We are to become Christ like by being like Christ. Help us with that Lord. That’s not…that’s not possible in our own strength. This is one of these situations where we do have to open our hands and surrender to You so the impossible becomes possible. Help us learn how to forgive. It starts right here. Seven days in the year. Now we can start practicing this because by the end of the year we will be a master at this if we continue to press in to what might be like to be true, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to be the Jesus with skin on in this world, to be Your ambassadors, to be Your representatives in this world. We can’t do that without forgiveness. So, come Holy Spirit teach us how to forgive we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Song:
Matthew West - Forgiveness