Numbers 32:1-33:39, Luke 4:31-5:11, Psalms 64:1-10, Proverbs 11:22
Today is the 21st day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is fantastic to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together. And our next step is leading us to the final chapters of the book of Numbers. I believe the day after tomorrow is when we will transition out of Numbers and into the next book in the Torah, Deuteronomy. But for now, we are squarely in the book of Numbers. And today Numbers chapter 32 verse 1 through 33 verse 39.
Commentary:
Okay. So, there are some things in the gospel of Luke today that are just so beautiful, so beautiful and so important for us to look at and examine and apply to our own lives and in our own contexts. So, yesterday Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted then He came to Nazareth where He announced His ministry and the fulfillment of prophecy, which ultimately, after a conversation took place, had Jesus on the edge of a precipice where the…the other Nazarenes who lived in Nazareth were going to throw Him off the mountain and He passed right through them and went on His way. Today we open up the gospel of Luke and we find Jesus, about 20 miles northeast of Nazareth on the north, northwest edge of the Sea of Galilee, in a village called Capernaum. And Capernaum would become Jesus’ adult home and sort of like home base for his ministry. And let’s not get lost in the story because we read Matthew and Mark and so we kind of know how this flows. This is the very beginning. Jesus is just announcing. He’s been baptized. He’s announcing what He’s here to do. Everywhere he goes He’s doing that and the word is beginning to spread quickly. But Jesus isn’t walking around the countryside as a rabbi with 12 disciples following him around yet. He doesn’t have disciples yet. That’s what’s so beautiful about all we got to see in today’s reading. So, Jesus is in Capernaum. He is teaching. The people, they are amazed. They are bringing their sick to Him. The sick are being healed and recovering and being restored to health and wholeness. And, so, by the next morning the village is full of people and Jesus is like, I got a go to other places too. Like, I was sent here to do what I’m doing here all over the place and the crowds are pressing in on Jesus until they basically press Him all the way down to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is called Lake Gennesaret. You see that in some of your translations. They’re the same. The Sea of Galilee, Lake of Gennesaret. The crowds are pushing Jesus down to the shore. There are fishermen who are on the shore with their boats cleaning their nets. They’ve come in from fishing. They fish at night. They have to fish at night. The sea of Galilee’s a deep lake. So, during the day as the sun is warming the water, the fish will go lower down deeper further down than nets could reach. And, so, they go out at night when the fish come up to the warmer water that remains in the evening where the nets can catch them. And, so, this is the next morning and they’ve been working all night and they don’t have a big catch and they’re putting their stuff away and getting ready to go to bed so that he can get up at nighttime and go back fishing. Meanwhile, Jesus is being pressed by a crowd down to the shore and there’s a couple of boats there and He climbs into a boat like just randomly. Like, that’s so funny to me because…I don’t know…in this day and age you just don’t climb into the back of somebody’s pickup truck. You don’t just get into the passenger side of their car just because the car happens to be sitting there. So, here’s some fishermen cleaning their nets. They’re not in the boat. Here comes this guy. And they would’ve understood what the commotion was about, who this person is. Like, this is somebody doing something important. Jesus ends up in the boat and He’s just like, hey, will you take me out away from the shore a little bit. Like, basically what Jesus is wanting is to put some distance between the crowd and Him so that he could teach them, He could say what He is going to say to them without getting mobbed. And, so, they do they do. They row them out a little ways and He sits down in the boat and He teaches the crowd. It’s also just a beautiful acoustical thing since I’m an audio engineer and I love this stuff. I love that Jesus rowed out a little ways, just a little bit in the water and used the water as like natural amplification, so that he could sit down in the boat and just talk to the people and that they could all hear Him. It’s a beautiful thing. And that’s what Jesus does is He teaches from the boat and then when he’s done teaching, He asks Simon, who will become Simon Peter, who will become a disciple of Jesus because it happens to be His boat that He climbed into if they would go out and cast their nets again. And these are professional fishermen Jesus is talking to, fishermen who had worked all night and it is now day and they’re being asked to go out counterintuitively and…and fish again. And, so, they’re not disrespectful. They’re just like, you know, we’ve been fishing all night but if this is what you want this…this is what we’ll do. We’ll go out and we’ll show you how fishing looks up close and personal. And they cast their nets and it is unbelievable, the hall of fish. It takes to boats to fill them all up. And they bring them to shore, and this is astonishing to them. The amount of fish and the time that the fish were caught, this is astonishing and the implications are astonishing because this is a big catch. This is the moment when they finally broke through to a financial victory with some level of hope. They were just rewarded amazingly for the use of their boats for a little while. Peter though, Simon, he’s thinking deeper. Like, there’s other things going on inside of him. Like he’s not just a simple person. He may speak before he thinks but he's…he’s not shallow and he's…he’s the one seeing what’s going on here. He’s the one that’s actually understanding the deeper implications, like this is more than fish, this is more than money, this is a miracle. Whoever this person is, whoever this Jesus is there’s something else going on here. There…God is showing up in our midst. And Peter can see that and Peter comes before Jesus, gets down upon his knees and just asks Jesus to…to leave him, that he’s a sinner, that he does not deserve to be in this man’s presence. That is the moment though. That is the moment Jesus looks for in each of us and that is the moment that Jesus immediately tells Peter, don’t be afraid you’ll be catching people now. This is Jesus’ invitation to come and follow Him. At the moment when Peter realizes that he has just been blessed of God he is also presented with a choice because there is the invitation of God to come and follow. And as the gospel of Luke tells us, and I quote, “when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed Him.” They left it all on the shore. They left the windfall. They left this blessing. They left this alternative life. They were in the presence of something that was more important than any life they could create for themselves and they…they knew it in the moment and they made a decision because they had an invitation and they left what they had. They left the life they had and the life that they were preparing for for an adventure with God. This is such a beautiful depiction, a beautiful picture for each of us because this is the moment. This is the moment of faith that we all come to where we look at the life that we have and the life that we are trying to arrange for and we realize we are in the presence of something holy, something bigger, something cosmic, something greater and more pervasive and more present than anything we’ve ever felt. And the words fail but the reach, the leap, the jump, the freefall into the adventure with God through faith. The leap of faith helps us to realize we’re actually safe for the first time. We’re where we belong for the first time. Things were difficult for Jesus and His ministry. We know how the story ends. Things were difficult for Jesus disciples, especially after He had ascended to the Father, and they were to go into all the world. Things got very difficult for every one of these people, but they had experienced God, and it was irreversible and may that be our story brothers and sisters. May that be our story.
Prayer:
Jesus we long for that to be our story and that is our story. You came near. Whether we were expecting it or not, You came near. And in that moment, we had eyes to see, and we could see well beyond what we were seeing. We could see for a moment what it might be like to be reunited with You and become whole again. Often when we face challenging hardship and difficulty it’s confusing to us. The wilderness and the lessons in the wilderness, they become confusing to us because we lose our eyes to see and ears to hear, we become distracted. Holy Spirit, come. Remind us that we are invited to encounter You every day always, that You will never leave or forsake us, that there is nowhere that we can flee from Your presence, that You are always with us and that we get to enjoy this dance of life together following You, leaving behind the life that we were making for ourselves in exchange for a life with God. Come Holy Spirit. Remind us of what’s going on here. What’s real here. We get so distracted so often. Return us to the moment when we knew, return us to the moment and the joy of our salvation we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. 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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Good morning, everyone this is Abby from Maryland it’s been a while since I called but I’m calling. Val in Vegas actually made me call this morning just listening to the podcast from March 17th. And she really just spoke live to me, you know just this morning on the 18th I’m here just thinking about how I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that, I need to do this, you know, I’m just slacking off and things like that. But she made me really think about the goodness of God, the fact that I’m alive, I’m awake, I have air in my lungs. I mean, like she said God’s just sprinkled lots of joy into us. I just really, really love and appreciate you Val in Vegas. Every time I listen to you there’s just this excitement in your voice and I pray that the joy of the Lord will continue to be yours, friend. And I pray for everyone in my community DAB. I may not call in but I’m listening. I’m praying along and I pray that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guide all of your hearts and mind in Jesus’ name. And I pay for Brian and his family that the joy of the Lord will continue to be his strength, that the anointing of God will continue to rest upon him and his family. I’m praying for you all. Blind Tony, Biola from Maryland. I mean there’s too many…Diane Oliver I think that’s her name. You all are amazing. You all inspire me. Continue to just continue to encourage each other and pray for each other. God bless you all. You all have a blessed day, week, year, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hello, my Daily Audio Bible family this is Blessed Assurance calling Saturday March 18th in the evening. I’m calling because Sparky gave some advice a few weeks ago about how we should call in our prayer requests. I’ve been a listener for 10 years and this is only about the third time I’ve called in. This may sound like a trivial matter to many people, but I know a lot of you are in the same boat as I am. I’m really struggling with all this inflation. And I know…I’m very grateful for all the blessings God has given me. I really am, but as so many of you also know it’s really hard for us going from paycheck to paycheck to meet our bills. And tonight, I just found out that my…my home insurance has gone up $124 a month and I just don’t know how I’m going to make that payment. I’m using tonight to pray and commune with my savior. And that’s awesome and I do his feel His comfort, His arms around me but I’m just asking for a hug from Victoria Soldier and Val in Vegas and Sparky and the rest of you because you guys know what we’re going through here. I love you all so much. Until we meet again. Love you. Bye-bye.
I’m basking in the spirit while I’m lying in bed
the sun hasn’t risen yet and I’m glad that I’m not dead
it’s quiet and it’s dark and it seems like the world’s asleep
but I can feel you all around me God inside too real deep
it feels like I’m glowing but I know that can’t be true
pre-dawn is my favorite time to come in prayer to you
there are no real distractions no voices cars or lights
no human interference no arguments or fights
only me reflecting thoughts that spring from deep within
thoughts now filled with gratitude that used to be about sin
I come to you for power I come to you for grace
I come to you my father because there really is no other place
I lift you up for what you’ve done you’ve done so much for me
I praise you God for who you are and how you’ve set me free
it seems like I just can’t get enough I’m praising you every day
the closer that I get to you the more I love to pray
thank you God for lifting me for loving me for setting free
thank you God my eyes can see a concept like eternity
the sun’s up now and I’m still in prayer
and I can still feel you everywhere
inside outside all around
even deep below the ground
you truly are awesome
blindtony1016@gmail.com. Like to give a shout out to Deborah Canney and your sister Judy. And my condolences Judy on the loss of your husband. And I’d like to give a shout out to your brother Beau and his wife. Know that you all are daily in my prayers and often in my thoughts. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful…
Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Chantelle calling from London.
First of all, I just want to say this is my first time doing this and it’s
exciting and encouraging to know that I have a family all around the world who
is praying just as I am praying for you all as well. I’ve been a part of the DAB
family for the last two years now and it’s been such a blessing to my life. And,
so, I really felt lead the other day as I was listening to…to share my prayer
request, which is for my brother who has been struggling with suicidal thoughts
and just mental health issues for the last, I would say, about a year. And he
has been raised in the ways of the Lord. He knows the word of the Lord. I think
the enemy really attacks him when it comes to his thoughts about himself, self-belief,
and you know, his place and in God’s heart and knowing that there’s nothing
that he could do that we’ll ever separate him from the love of Christ. So, I
just wanted to ask you all to help me to pray that the word of God would rise
up in his heart, that he would just become that mighty man that God has
ordained and destined him to be and be able to speak the truth over the lies
that the enemy is just spouting in his mind. And I just pray. I know that God
gave me a vision and I know that he’s going to be such a pillar for his
generation. He’s only 15 years old but he’s such an intelligent lovely creative
young man and I know that the enemy is at work in trying to attack what God has
put in his life. But I reject that in Jesus’ name and I would just be so grateful
for your prayers. Thank you so much. I love you guys.