Leviticus 25:47-27:13, Mark 10:32-52, Psalms 45:1-17, Proverbs 10:22
Today is the 2nd day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we get moved into this brand-new month that we find ourselves in, the third month of the year. And I’m having a hard time believing that it’s the third month the here already. It seems like we just got started, but here we are day-by-day, step-by-step. And, so, let’s continue the journey. We’re reading from the Evangelical Heritage Version this week and picking up where we left off yesterday in the book of Leviticus. Today, Chapter 25 verse 47 through 27 verse 13.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the Gospel of Mark we are on our way with Jesus and His disciples and those following along toward Jerusalem. This is not just any trip to Jerusalem. This is the trip that Jesus will be arrested, and He won’t leave before He dies and is resurrected. And we talked about some of this as we went through the Gospel of Matthew, and we will talk about it every time that we encounter it because there’s only four times that we’ll encounter this territory. And there’s a lot for us to learn about what it is supposed to look like, what our lives are actually supposed to be shaped like and oriented toward in this long walk to Jerusalem. And, so, we encountered the story today of James and John wanting to be on His…on Jesus left and right when He enters His glory. In the Gospel of Matthew, it's…it’s their mom that does the asking. In the gospel of Mark, they’re asking themselves. But that ask and Jesus’ response gives us the shape of life and an understanding of authority in a different way and God’s kingdom. So, they are expecting something to happen in Jerusalem. Jesus has explicitly told them what’s going to happen, but the Gospels tell us that they don’t…they don’t get it. They don’t understand what He’s saying. And, so, they are expecting something to happen. And in their worldview the Messiah does things. And what they want the Messiah to do what they are expecting the Messiah to do if He were to come in their time would be to defeat Rome or at least to defeat it to the point that all of the Romans and all the Roman things, the Roman culture, any kind of inbred culture would be pushed out, pushed away and that the land will be restored completely to God. And, so, if there is even a remote chance that this is gonna happen then they want on the ground floor. Like, they have left everything to follow Jesus. They believe in Him. And, so, when He comes into His kingdom or into His glory and things get set in motion they want to be there in authority on His right and on His left. Of course, He tells them that’s not it His to give, but they will have to drink from the same cup that he is about to drink from. And then there is this teaching moment about authority in God’s kingdom, about kinda climbing the ladder of success, as it were in God’s kingdom. Trying to be the one on the right or the left, trying to be the one that’s seen, trying to be the one…trying to be the one that’s famous. Jesus says, “look” and I quote, “you know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great one’s exercise authority over them. But that is not the way it is to be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant and whoever wants to be the first among you will be a slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” That is a very, very, very different posture and look at the world than the way we normally look at things and the way that our cultures operate. What Jesus is telling his disciples, and we are also His disciples friends, is that we must lead with humility, that we must serve and that is actually leadership. Not the big bluster and authority and commands and demands. But leading by example two humility, this is what is supposed to be common and utterly normal among disciples, among the body of Christ, among those who follow Jesus. And it’s not like we weren’t just kind of talking about this even yesterday. It’s not like we haven’t encountered this before. But we’re encountering it over and over for reason. This is really really important because all…all of our climbing and all our demands and all of our condescension and all of our arrogance, this doesn’t do anything in God’s kingdom. This is just us operating in the culture where Jesus is saying this is totally different way to do this. Humble yourselves. Watch what you do and say. Understand that you are commissioned as an ambassador of the king, the most high king, the most high God. You are commissioned as an ambassador. You are carrying the authority of heaven, not to rule over people or condescend to people or demand things of people, to serve people with the same posture that our Father has toward us. Love, love, and more love. Patience, long-suffering, kindness. We could name all of the fruits of the Spirit. These are the things that are to be cultivated within us. These concepts aren’t going to go away, at least in the Bible. We can close the Bible and walk away from them, but they’re not going to go away in the Bible. This is the posture of God’s people. This is what things are supposed to look like. And that is very different than what we get seduced into in our culture. And, so, let’s just give some thought, right, some time, some openhearted time to what we’re actually after here, what we’re going for. What do we get if we win? What is this supposed to look like if we continue on the journey that we’re on? And maybe it’s time to get on a different path, the narrow one, the one that leads to life, the one that few ever find.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, come into this because these postures that we learn by example from the Savior and from His lips, they show us the posture that we are to assume in our lives, and we confess that although we walk that path from time to time many times, we’re nowhere near it. And that has got to change. We must consistently walk in a straight line toward the goal of being holy and set apart and available to You to be Your hands and feet in this world, which means we got to pry our gripping hands off of some things and let them go. Show us what that’s supposed to look like for us because this can make remarkable remarkable change in the rest of this year. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com, that is home base and it is the website and its where you find out what’s going on around here.
What is going on around here right now around the world is that today is…is a special day on the Christian calendar. This is known as Ash Wednesday. And, so, for some of you, you’re well aware of that. This is the beginning of the season of lent and maybe you’re attending a Ash Wednesday service of some sort today during the day or this evening. But you also may be like, what are you talking about? This is like all new to me. I don’t know. But maybe you have been at a gas station or in a grocery store somewhere and you’ve seen people with ashes rubbed on their forehead. That is because they have gone to some type of service or some kind of observance and had those ashes applied to their foreheads. And they walk around. It’s sort of like a modern-day expression of sackcloth and ashes, which is a symbol of what can be a symbol of mourning, but of repentance, of humbling oneself. And, so, those ashes, they represent our awareness of how undeserving that we are in and of ourselves to have any hope in any way of being made right before God. It is through Jesus that these things are possible, but this season that begins on Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent and brings us all the way until Easter morning. Is a season of repentance and a season of contemplation and a season of withdrawing from ourselves some things that can be very, very distracting to us focusing on the fact that it cost something precious to give us what we take easily for granted. And that is the ability to enter boldly into the presence of God as a son or a daughter. The season of Lent, leading us to such an important day, resurrection day, the day that we hang all of our hopes on, that Jesus rose from the dead, victorious. Before we just celebrate that there is a season that allows us to focus on what it cost. And a lot of times you hear people say, yeah, I’m given up the nightly news for Lent or I’m giving up chocolate candy bars for Lent or…or whatever. Fasting is definitely part of it, withholding from ourselves certain gratifications or pleasure, something that we withdraw from so that when we think of that thing and it’s missing from our lives right now, we are reminded, we are focusing on something. We are giving our hearts to contemplating what it cost, what sin does to us, what sin is doing to our species, what sin does to humans. Because at its most basic level, it separates us from God. And we were not made that way. And, so, certainly if you’re observing Lent and candy bars are the thing that will help you remember that the most, then certainly follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Really what we’re doing by withholding something from our lives or fasting from something in our lives is to begin to be aware that everything needs to be on the table, everything about us. It’s a time where we humble ourselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and open our hands, just open our hands and walk openhanded and say I am nothing without You, I have learned the lesson of the wilderness. I am utterly dependent upon You. And, so, whatever I’m holding onto, whatever is in my life I offer up to You. And not everything is bad in our lives. Like, we have some things that we struggle with that we know we shouldn’t be doing or we shouldn’t be involved in or that we need to move away from or that they are simply not helpful or healthy. We know those things. But to be openhanded and say even the good things, maybe I have subtly and slowly put something between You and I Lord. And this thing is good thing and belongs in my life but I’m putting it in a place that makes it idol in my life, which makes it a profoundly bad thing for me. I need You to shift the furniture of my life around. I need You to move in what needs to be here and I need You to move out with does not, and I open my hands and I humble myself openly before You as I contemplate the fact that You gave everything for me, and I didn’t deserve anything, and You didn’t owe anyone anything. Your love would not stop pursuing me and I will have nothing between us because anything between us is not healthy. This is the essence of the season of Lent that leads us to resurrection day, and we get to resurrection day…well…when we reach Holy week and Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday and Holy Saturday and then Easter Sunday. But if we have been contemplating, if we have been preparing our hearts to move through those days, then we can fully celebrate and rejoice on Easter because we have been contemplating how sin separates us from God and how sin brings us to death, but that we have been rescued from that outcome because of what Easter represents, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And, so, that’s where we find ourselves in the year so far. That’s the season that we are moving into. You won’t find Lent or anything like that in the Bible although you’ll certainly find the principles of fasting, withdrawing, and humbling ourselves and getting rid of the idols and all of the things that we just talked about are certainly in the Bible. But Lent is a season where that is consolidated, and it’s been this way for well over a millennia. It’s certainly not a command in the Scriptures. And, so, we’re not trying to any way say you need to observe Lent. I didn’t grow up observing Lent. But I do now. It’s meaningful to me. There is a rhythm to it. It has made Easter a lot more than, you know, looking for hidden eggs or candy baskets or for that matter even just jumping up and down and singsong songs of victory over death. And when you have really really contemplated that you shouldn’t be here, you don’t deserve what God has giving you, but He has loved you. Well…that’s that causes love to well up inside of our hearts in gratitude and it’s meaningful as we use a season to do that. So, that’s what’s going on around here. And if you want to do it and embrace Lent, then do it. If it’s not your thing and you don’t want to, then don’t. But it is a season that our brothers and sisters have been observing for an awfully long time because it can be very meaningful. And that is Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that we’re moving into.
And that is it for today. I am Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hey DAB family this is Beloved in Texas and I just wanted to reach out to Shenna from Saskatchewan, just lift you up in prayer sister. I know that maybe the court thing has already gone through, but I just wanted to lift you up because I may not know the specific situation but the struggle to not stay in bed and cry, I totally get that, and I just wanted to lift you up in prayer. I just wanna pray for supernatural peace and understanding over you. I just pray for joy…just joy beyond measure in the midst of whatever circumstance in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Good morning DAB this is Nola calling from Grants Pass OR. Today I would like for the DAB family to all come together in a prayer to our Lord that we lift up the Ukraine nation right now Lord and we just ask that Your hand be upon it. Be with the people that are going to be displaced from their homes and from their cities and from their jobs and the list goes on. So, I just ask our family, the DAB family to come together and pray for this nation. We know Lord, we have our trust in You and our faith in You. So, we just ask Lord that You just please cover this nation. In Your most precious name Lord. Amen. Thank you DAB family. Thank you, Brian for this ministry. It has been such a blessing to so many thousands of people. God bless you and your family.
Hi this is Andy from Birmingham I just wanted to call in and respond to prayer request from Kim made in the 25th of Feb. I related to what you said so much, and I think of my own family. My family aren’t believers, and we have a situation I never thought would happen with my dad and I haven’t seen him since 2016. And we…we speak now on birthdays and Christmas and that’s it. So, I wanted to pray for you because I think the one thing I found with it, it’s left me with anxiety. And I don’t know whether I’ll see my dad before he dies. I’m not quite sure. That aside, as God gave me a moment earlier in the week when it was difficult and what He did was He showed me a picture of me as a child and it really felt real and He was the Father and I was able to hug Him. And that embrace, that just was so profound. And…and…and the thing…and then what I said to Him was I want to come home. And I guess I…if…if anything you know that He's…He’s your father and He…He will give you the best embrace and He will comfort you through situations you don’t understand why they’re happening maybe or…or that that you haven’t put in place yourself. So, you know, I will pray for you and…and God bless you.
Hey family this is Lazarus feeling today and felt like a while the worst the worst of…worst sinners. So, come to you with confessions and I come to with prayers today. I’ve not been able to breathe for almost a week now since being informed that…well…that I finally lost my ability to…to have a company. Long story but I screwed it up. I…in my pride again, I did it myself and I made every wrong move possible. And just came to a point where the government said no. Done. So, now I’m staring out into a brave new world at the age of 69 trying to fix things that are way broken. I’m cleaning my heart and my soul. So, I just need your prayers. I don’t have a dime for retirement and I’m now probably I have a…I’m challenged but I have His hand. I’m in His hands. I have His help and His commitment that He and I walk out together every day. So, I’m just ready to go through a new door with Jesus and encourage everybody who is going into some tough times, that’s the way to look at the way to pray for. Ask, seek, knock, right? So, thank you everyone. Thank you for praying. Yeah, for Val in Vegas. Worst I’ve ever heard you baby. I lift you up. Victoria Soldier, Blind Tony, Brian and Jill and…and everybody. We pray together and we form an incredible vibration full of the Holy Spirit, full of God. And I just hope that I pray for all of us that we have more courage to reach out. And that’s what I’ve been doing recently. I’ve just been preaching and it’s amazing the effect it has on others and on yourself on your heart. So, God bless you. I’m out.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Elder Cambre from __ and I’m calling in this morning to give encouragement to those who have called in with their issues, fear, circumstances, their need for healing. Father God we come before Your presence this morning Lord God giving You thanks, giving You praise, giving You the honor and the glory and thanking You for who You are and thanking You Father God for being our God. Father God we put each and every one in front of You this morning Lord God and we ask Father God that You grant them their needs Lord according to Your will Lord God. Help them Father God to focus on You, to keep You…to put You first Father God and to always give You thanks, the praise, the honor, and the glory. All these things we pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.