1 Chronicles 26:12-27:34, Romans 4:13-5:5, Psalm 14:1-7, Proverbs 19:17
Today is the 18th day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it’s great to be here with you today and every day, like always, as we gather around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together, which of course, is leading us back into the book of first Chronicles in the Old Testament and the letter to the Romans in the new. We are certainly rounding the corner on first Chronicles; couple more days and we will conclude first Chronicles which will lead us into second Chronicles in a couple days. But first, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week, first Chronicles chapter 26 verse 12 through 27 verse 34.
Commentary:
Okay so, we are several chapters into the letter to the Romans now. And so, we’re getting the cadence of Paul and we’re seeing, he has a lot in one sentence but he’s laying out right now in this letter, what is fundamental to the Gospel that he preaches. This is kind of the foundation that everything else gets built upon and it’s really important for us to kind of understand what’s going on here. Paul is a trained Pharisee. So, Paul knows the ways of Judaism right, he was born into it, raised in it, so he knows the vocabulary. I mean, we have a like, Christian people typically have some type of vocabulary. Sometimes, people even call it Christianese; the language of the culture, things that we might say like, praise the Lord, or But God, or any of the things that we kind of normally say, we can say these things randomly and people may look at us like we’re a little nuts, but if we say to another believer, like it’s part of the cultural backdrop and tapestry that we’re used you. So, Paul would’ve known like Jew-ese, I guess. Paul knew the fabric and tapestry of the culture and had devoted his life to becoming a Pharisee. We can look at the Pharisees as the people who were against Jesus and that is true but the Pharisees were devout, very, very dedicated people to studying the Torah, to obeying and adhering to the law and teaching and even enforcing it out among the people. This is Paul’s background. He knows the law that was given to Moses, the Mosaic law, and the understanding among the Jewish people was adherence to that law makes you righteous before God. And so, that is how you live your life. Adhering to the law, being made righteous so that you can have hope for the future and the Pharisees did have a hope of resurrection. So, as followers of Jesus, we have the hope of the resurrection, through Jesus. For Paul and his contemporaries, there hope certainly was in God, but their righteousness was attained by adhering and obeying the law, right. So, if you, are you following me? So far, when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, a shift began to occur and we witnessed that seen in the book of Acts. But after encountering Jesus and beginning to read think what he thought that he knew, while holding onto his allegiance to Moses, he began to realize, hang on, this story includes Moses and there really isn’t a figure more prominent or powerful than Moses in this story, but Moses didn’t start the story. The person that we look to you, and I’m speaking to Paul’s kind of eyes here, the person that the Jews would look to as kind of their founding father, like the first patriarch, his name was Abraham. We met him in the book of Genesis. And so, we can begin to kind of look into what Paul is thinking what did everybody do before there was a law? Like, how…how did things work before that? And so, he goes back to the first patriarch, he goes back to Abraham and looks at that story and realizes Abraham couldn’t have obeyed them, actually Abraham didn’t obey the Mosaic law a single day in his life, because it didn’t even exist. So, how did Abraham become righteous? How did anybody, without this set of rules that you obey, and if you can perfectly obey them, you can be righteous, how could anybody do this? And the answer that Paul found is actually in the life of Abraham. God visited Abraham and told Abraham that He was going to make him the father of many nations. He told him this, at a time when that was very improbable and extremely unlikely. Because as Paul said in our reading today, he’s almost 100 years old and his wife Sarah, she’s too old to have children too. So, maybe it’s theoretically possible that Abraham could still get a younger woman pregnant who could bear children, but the promises to Abraham and Sarah, and so this is very unlikely. But that is precisely when, the thing Paul was looking for, happened. Abraham believed God, and God counted that trust and belief toward him as righteousness. So, what Paul is saying is, faith in God came first. That’s how the story starts or just…just to quote from Romans “no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours, also. It will be counted to us who believe in Him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” So, I realize that the idea that we believe with all of our heart, in Jesus and have faith, like that…that sort of fundamental foundational Christianity. Here in the letter to Romans is where we begin to see this be fleshed out in the Scriptures. And as I said, like this is a fundamental building block, a foundational piece well, of the faith itself, but certainly of everything that Paul has to say. This is where he’s coming from. So, knowing that that’s foundational, that’s where he’s coming from, helps us in all of the other things that he has to say. So, as we who adhere to this, as we will believe this, our faith in God through Jesus is what makes us a disciple of Jesus and grants to us redemption and righteousness and eternal life. It’s good to know how this came to be. But a lot of the times, since it is foundational and almost ubiquitous and certainly ubiquitous in the Christian faith because it's…it’s the doorway right, faith in Jesus is the doorway. We can very, very easily just take for granted things like grace and mercy and just…just know that, no matter what we do, the Lord will love us and although that’s true, that’s not really how you treat somebody that you love. And so often, we can kind of like, allow these things to become callous in our lives and so we focus on how much of an over comer that we get to be because of Jesus. And then we get a little bit skewed because it’s like now this life is supposed to be soaring 6 inches above the ground, at least. And the higher we can float the more holy that we are, when all of us actually have to get up in the morning and put our pants and dresses or whatever on. We have to get dressed and go out into the world into the day, and yeah, it can be in overcoming day or we can get flattened like a pancake. So, when we do become callous to some of the fundamental foundational things, we lose track, well, we lose the plot of the story. Paul, as he’s laying this out, actually brings everybody back to earth, in the final couple of sentences that we read today. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace that we now stand in, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So, like we’re all on board like, everybody’s tracking here and then he says like, take a breath, says another sentence. “Not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” This theme of endurance, anyone who’s ever been through the whole Bible before and kind of moves deeper and deeper into the New Testament, begins to realize that that theme, that reminder, that thing that we can’t forget, that endurance is part of the story. It won’t let us be. If we didn’t know that, we had plenty of examples of endurance happening in the book of Acts. And so, Paul is saying essentially, we have moved from death to life, we have been transformed by this grace and nothing gets wasted, including our times in the wilderness right, our times of suffering and hardship, because suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. We rarely think about the difficult times in our lives as positive things, until we can look back upon them, until we’re away from them, until we have hindsight. But what if we were able to reframe the whole experience of life, knowing that, we have been made right before God, we are his ambassadors in this world revealing his kingdom. And everything that we encounter can take us, the next step forward if we’re open. And obviously, there’s any number of directions we could go to conversation like this one, but the point. The main thing to remember here is this is a foundational building block that Paul is putting into place and it’s something that we’re going to hear over and over a lot of times, it’s faith that came first, the other stuff came after and it’s important stuff, but faith came before there was a law, to obey.
Prayer:
So, Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for the letter to the Romans that we’ve been able to pour over and analyze and consider and meditate upon for thousands of years. And so, now it’s our turn and we’re considering, pouring over and rejoicing in the Good News, that it tells us, help it to sink in. Help us to know that everything is an opportunity for us to grow because we have been ultimately set free. Come, Holy Spirit, and lead us into all truth, we ask. 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:
Hi DAB family, this is Shielded in Colorado. I’m calling today to ask the family to pray for all the people who have lost children recently. My cousin and his wife lost their 18-year-old son last week and as it comes close to my son’s birthday, it’s been on my mind. My son died six years ago, but it’s also made me think of all the people out there who have lost their sons and daughters. And all the DABers who have been calling in for their children. So, if we could pray for them. Jesus, please help all the families who have lost children or have children with issues. Give the parents strength, give the family strength and put Your grace over all of it. Thank You Jesus. Thank you DABers. Love you all. Bye.
Hello, good morning. I’m so grateful for my DAB family, this community, it’s been such a blessing for my life. I’ve been listening to it over 15 years and everyone is just a blessing to me. My family, some have already gone to Christ, not this years. And those that are here, let’s just stay faithful, looking up to Jesus. Believing in life before the Lord. When He comes, He will find us doing His perfect will. You guys are a blessing to me and those that I need, I always pray for those that call in, that ask specifically for prayer. And I love it when there’s testimonies. Thank you so much, you guys are a blessing to me. Especially today, when I heard a girl, she was so sweet. Her purse was stolen and she prayed for the person that stole. That was amazing. What an incredible example. You are amazing, thank you for sharing that. And I just wanted to put this out there. Lesson learned and we hit the enemy really hard on his head by praying for those that does us harm. Thank you, thank you girl, God Bless you. And I, I pray with you that I was in one accord with you. God will have mercy and find this person and reach his needs. And that you can get your things that you need. God is so good …
Hello DAB family, this is Jeremiah from Michigan, God Gives Good Gifts. I’m reaching out to ask for prayer today. I have set up a meeting with my parents, for this upcoming Sunday and I have taken a break from our relationship with them for the last two years because of trauma and manipulation and just a toxic relationship. And just stepping out in obedience to reach out to them. I worked through forgiveness for them over the last period. And I’m just wanting to walk that forgiveness out with them and actually walk into total forgiveness. So, please pray for me for my emotions, for my thoughts and just for the Lord’s presence. And I also just want to encourage you that are facing anger and bitterness and depression, forgiveness is the way. Jesus has paid for all of our sin, for all of their sin and He calls us to forgive completely from the heart. It doesn’t mean that we can’t make good boundaries and good decisions. But forgiveness is really the way that we’re able to unshackle ourselves from those bad choices that other people have made and really let the Lord have all of our burdens. So, let’s just bring our burdens to the foot of the cross and lay them there and let the Lord take care of them and just have our hearts be filled with His grace and mercy, His forgiveness, His peace. Let us walk that out together. So, please pray for me. I’m praying for you guys. Thank you so much for all your prayers and Brian for speaking the word to us over and over and over again. Love you guys, blessings. Bye Bye.
This is Hands to Heaven and I want to share a portion of my testimony to encourage those who have lost a child. Four years ago, this morning, I held my step-daughters hand as she walked into the arms of Jesus. An undiagnosed infection had become septic and almost before we could wrap our heads around how truly sick, she was, we were told she wouldn’t recover. We faced the harsh truth that barring a miracle, we would be burying one of our children, again. Because we had buried my son, two years earlier. I remember asking God if He was really gonna make us walk this path a second time. I remember being far from friends and most of our family and wanting desperately to be anywhere else. I remember hearing my husband pray words that broke my heart and made me thankful that he is a man of God. Lord, heal her or take her home. Sherry was a child of God and even as she lay passing from this life to the next, God was at work. Her friends began to arrive just before she was transferred to Hospice where she slept quietly for almost a week after all measures were stopped. Sherry never regained consciousness but many of her friends had a chance to see her, pray over her and say goodbye. We drew comfort from hearing how her faith had touched their lives and how she helped them grow in their own walk with God. I was awakened that morning, four years ago, shortly after 430, even though I tried to ignore God’s nudge. Glancing at the monitors, I saw the stats slowly decreasing and I remember desperately hoping I was wrong but I wasn’t. God in His infinite mercy removed the chance of this world from Sherry and set her free that day. Day-after-day I had watched her look younger and more peaceful as the cares of this world lost their hold on her. As much as we miss her and wish she was still here, I know that without a doubt that Sherry is happier where she is, than she ever could have been here on earth. Death wasn’t the end for Sherry, it was just the beginning of her eternity with Jesus. I pray those of you who have lost a child find some comfort in knowing that God loves you and cares for you and he has a purpose for your pain. God Bless You.
Hello DABers, it’s your girl, Val in Vegas. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, oh hello precious, precious brothers and sisters. I just gotta say I love y’all. And I see that Satan is up to his no good, grimy business again. He trying to mess with our minds man and we rebuke all of that in the name of Jesus. Because God, you renew our mind daily Lord and we walk with You. Lord God, right now we come against all mental health and anxiety, in the name of Jesus, Lord. We lay it at the throne heavenly Father. God, we know that staying in Your word Lord, listening to Christian music Lord, praying Father and meditating on You Lord, these are the things that build good health, Lord. Heavenly Father, I pray right now, that You just please God, heal Lord Jesus, so many people calling. Satan, you got no business here, you get away from my brothers and sisters. I claim good mental health for me and everyone that hears this call, Lord Jesus. I love you guys. I need you know that when you on the struggle bus, there’s a miracle right around the corner. So, hold on, hold on. And when it gets too tough, you call in here, you get on that Prayer Wall, you get on your knees, you get in your Bible, you reach out. Don’t struggle alone. We need to hear this; I love you guys. I love you; I love you; I love you family. Good mental health, Lord, for everyone. In Jesus name. Thank you, Father, thank you God.
