Isaiah 60:1-62:5, Philippians 1:27-2:18, Psalm 72:1-20, Proverbs 24:11-12
Today is the 30th day of September, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today. We made it this far. All the way to the last day of the ninth month of the year. Crazy as it sounds. We made it this far together day-by-day, step-by-step, and so, let’s step in to our reading today. We’re in the book of Isaiah. Today we will read chapter 60 verse 1 through 62 verse 5. And we’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week.
Commentary:
Okay, in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we encounter some pretty lofty statements today and we’ll go through it. But if we were like, kinda boiling things down we would come to this understanding: Jesus is Lord. And I doubt that you’ve never heard that one before. I doubt that even you’ve never said it before; we say these kinds of things all the time. But for policy, Jesus is Lord. It’s not like saying Jesus is like the supreme master over things. It’s him saying Jesus is God, which is what the early church was confessing and what Paul was preaching and what was problematic and very controversial because well, we…we understand that the Jewish people would not say, would not say God’s name. So, oftentimes there’d be like a replacement, like for example Adonai, which is not a name of God, that is a Hebrew word that means, Lord. So, when they began to say Jesus is Lord, well, you see, you see the situation and yet that is indeed what we believe as Christians, and that is indeed what the early church was confessing and we do indeed still confess that until this day and that is central to what Paul was preaching. And, you can see why Paul appealed to Caesar instead of going back to Jerusalem, where they would most likely assassinate him. So, now you sitting in prison waiting for the emperor to decide whether he’s going to live or die, essentially over this, as well as his activity among the Gentiles. He’s a blasphemer in their mind; blasphemy is to elevate something to the level of God. Jesus is Lord, elevates Jesus to the place of God. We as Christians, 2000 years later who believe this and are going to get killed for believing this, we don’t always grasp how tenuous and how problematic and how what a struggle that they went through in their declaration of faith. And so, Paul uses language in this letter, essentially to unpack that and there’s plenty biblical scholars would think this particular thing this statement, this statement, that Paul makes might’ve been something that was spoken, like creedal, was something that was recited or memorize or spoken in the churches, which wouldn’t be all that unusual. We still in many, many tens and tens and tens of thousands of churches around the world do express some kind of declaration, some sort of, whether it be creed, a creed that we recite or some sort of confession that we make, it’s never been foreign, a foreign concept to the church. But what we get from what Paul is saying is a pretty clear picture of his Christology, not to get all theological but his view of who Jesus really is. And so, I wanna repeat those six verses so that we can immerse ourselves in that, this is what the early believers believed about Jesus. This is what we believe. Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead He emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when He had come as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death - even to death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is what we believe as Christians. This is what brought Paul ultimately to his execution. So, it’s reasonably safe for us to say that he believed this, he suffered for this, and he died for this and so when we say Jesus is Lord, lets understand that it’s not a bumper sticker. It’s a declaration that Jesus is one with the Father. Jesus is God.
Prayer:
So, Holy Spirit, we invite You into that. We invite You to make us more and more aware of this reality, lead us deeper into the heart of Jesus, our Savior, who is Lord. Help us, help us to do what this letter says to do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that we may be blameless and pure children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we are supposed to shine like stars in the world as we hold firm to the word of life. Holy Spirit, lead us deeper into Jesus, that we might continue to be transformed into his likeness so that we can be like him in this world. We ask this in Jesus’ name. 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.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Mark Street here from Australia. Haven’t called for a while. I have a real desperate prayer request, my brother-in-law, he’s gone missing in the Northern Territory. It’s been a couple of months now, he does suffer from a mental illness as well, we’re quite worried and concerned. He’s been through a lot, he’s lost his son, it’s real tough. Please pray for him. He’s way up in the Outback, he could be up in the Outback Bush, he’s a bit like a Crocodile Dundee, actually. But, we’re not sure and we’re really worried. If you could please really pray for revelation and closure and for him to be found and wherever he is that he’s safe with the Lord. Yeah, okay thanks a lot everyone. Bye.
Hello Daily Audio Bible, this is Alyssa calling from Colorado. I’ve been listening since the beginning of the year, I did live in Montana, I called once before. I love this community so much and I’m just reaching out today because I got COVID a few weeks ago and I have lost my taste and smell and I don’t have COVID anymore but the symptom has not gone away and I’m actually totally blind, I was born that way, and so for me losing taste and smell is really, really difficult and it leaves me depressed almost every day and I cry about it every day and I know God can heal, I know he’s able to do it. But I’m fearful that it won’t go away or that it won’t come back because I’ve heard people who don’t get it back for a long time so I just need your prayers against fear and that I’ll trust God in what He’s trying to teach me through this. But that if it’s His will I’ll get my senses back so that life will be a little bit easier for me. So, thank you so much for your prayers in advance. And I love each and every one of you. And God bless you, have a wonderful day.
Just wanted to say how much I am blessed by the Daily Audio Bible Scripture reading and how moved I am by the prayers. Thank all of you for calling in. I do want just lift up the prayers for parents. I am a parent of four and I just parents who really grab a hold of the prayer that you, that the Lord would bless our children and enlarge their territory, they He would keep their hand of safety upon them, that He would keep them far from evil, that He would even keep evil people away from our children and that every single day our children would learn to love Him with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. Thank you. We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Bonnie from Virginia. And today is September 27th. I was listening to the message, thank you so much Pastor Brian, for the message today. I had been living in the abusive marriage relation for about 14 years. But, I think, because of my culture that in Nepal, even though I was a teacher I was not able to escape from that relation because back in our culture if any marry relation will be broken it’s mostly it will be the wife, they will think it’s her fault. And so, maybe because of that scare thought I was living in the abusive relation. I had physical, mental, sexual, verbal abuse every day from my husband. But once I came to America with him, I was able to learn everything about not coping with the abusive attitude of my husband. And I prayed and got advice from other people and I was able to escape from that relation. After 14 years I was able to understand this message from the bible. And thank you very much. I hope this message will …
Hi, I’m a first-time caller from Wyoming. And I was listening to the September 24th cast and I heard a woman who asked for prayer for her 18-year-old son who was going to discipleship training school in Hawaii and I am struggling with the same issue with my daughter. She got accepted to a discipleship training school in New Zealand in January. And of course, New Zealand is closed and it doesn’t look like it’s going to open any time soon and I want my daughter to apply to a different one and she’s accusing me of not having enough faith and that God will make a way for her to go. So, I could just really use some prayer. And I am praying for your son who is going, it’s a huge step and it’s exciting and I would just appreciate prayer. Thank you.