2 Chronicles 1:1-3:17, Romans 6:1-23, Psalm 16:1-11, Proverbs 19:20-21
Today is the 20th day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here. Great to be here with you today, as we gather again and take another step forward together. And our step forward today, like right now, right here in the Old Testament leads us into new territory. There’s not a whole lot for us to talk about, we’re…we’re migrating between First Chronicles and now we will begin Second Chronicles but we’re not moving into an entirely new era, or a completely different genre of writing. We’re just moving from one page to the next. First and Second Chronicles, as well as the books of Kings, First and Second Kings, and the books of Samuel, First and Second Samuel, these were like, all one contiguous document at one point and time. But they were broken apart for the ease of locating things and finding things. So, we’re not moving into a new story, we’re continuing the one we were already in. We will simply now be transitioning between David’s reign and his son Solomon’s reign, and the generations that follow Solomon. A similar thing happens when we migrate between First and Second Kings. So, let's…let’s move into it. Today, Second Chronicles chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Commentary:
Okay, so we have reached a point in the letter to the Romans where we are beginning to see some very profound implications to the Gospel that Paul is laying out in this letter. Implications that are life-changing, implications that have changed our lives, but implications that are supposed to irreversibly change us going forward forever. So, over the last couple of days, we’ve watched Paul go back to Abraham, go back to the beginning of the story, begin laying out the argument that it wasn’t Abraham’s adherence or obedience or anything. It was Abraham’s faith in God’s promise that made him righteous before God. We’ve also learned that, according to Paul, the purpose of the Mosaic law was ultimately to reveal mankind’s inability to obey it perfectly, to make themselves perfect, to perfect or sanctify themselves so that they can come into the presence of God and say I have made myself perfect. You must now accept me as righteous. Paul says that nobody can ever do that. Nobody is righteous and nobody can make themselves righteous. And then, Paul has unveiled the fact that even in that state, that state of complete unrighteousness with nothing that we can do about it, completely estranged from God, God’s enemies, even in that state, He still loved us, and still came for us. Because it is His true desire to be in relationship with us. And the thing that destroys that relationship is sin and its sin, that Paul was talking about today. Basically, with all of this good news that’s being laid out, that we have freedom from sin, and that we can be made right before God by faith. Then, Paul asked the question, should we keep on sinning, like we don’t have to worry about this anymore. Should we keep on sinning, so that God shows us more and more of his wonderful grace. In other words, the more that we sin, the more glory God gets because His grace is on display. Should we keep doing that. And Paul was like absolutely not. We should not keep doing that. And I quote from Paul, “we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” Which brings up one of these profound implications. If that’s true, then sin is not supposed to be an ongoing part of our reality. Wow! That there is even a way for that to be true, that we can stand righteous before God, wow! But as Paul is telling us, we don’t have any way to make that happen to make ourselves sinless, any more than the Hebrew people had a chance at completely and perfectly obeying the Mosaic law. This cannot be achieved on our own. But Paul’s point is, we’re not on our own anymore. When we put our faith in Jesus, we were transformed and a major thing happened. We died. The person that we were without God came to an end. Crucified with Christ and we were remade, re-created, read born, born again, into a new life. One that is not separated by sin from God. One that is intertwined with the divine nature of God, through Jesus our Savior, restoring us to the way we were intended to be all along. Sin isn’t the default posture anymore. It just boils down to our choice of who and what we will obey. Or quoting from Paul from the letter to the Romans again, “don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey. You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.” The implication here is that we are not bound to be slaves to sin any longer. We choose to do that. We don’t have to live partially in the dark and try to partially live within the light of God’s kingdom. That’s not what the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers to us. We are invited to end the person that we were, and live as new creations, who no longer have enslavement to the darkness or any ties to the darkness in any way. Those chains have been broken by the work of Christ on our behalf. That’s what we are offered when we put our faith in Jesus. But it is an utter transformation, the old has passed away, the new has come, and we must break ties and move away from anything that would chain…chain us to a former reality without Christ. I mean, we probably all lived long enough to know that we end up in the direction we are going, the direction we are going with Jesus is toward wholeness, that all things are made new. Which means we have to sever the agreements with the darkness that we’ve made throughout our lives that will pull us in any other direction. We will end up where we are going, and the spirit of God is leading us into all truth, leading us into life, leading us on the pathway of sanctification and transformation. All we have to do is believe and walk the path. We will become the slave to whatever it is that we submit ourselves to and obey.
Prayer:
And so, Father, we thank You for this, this stark reality, this fantastic way of looking at things. And it makes the choice obvious. It’s very, very clear that where we want to be is wherever You are, and wherever You are leading. And we confess that so often, even though that’s the desire of our hearts, we make choices that lead us in other directions. We choose to obey and enslave ourselves to things that will not free us, forgive us Lord. Forgive us, we become our own worst enemies when this happens. Forgive us Lord. We accept this free gift of righteousness. We acknowledge there’s nothing that we could do to earn this, we received this is a free gift by faith, and now may we live into that faith by severing ties with the darkness that we may live in the light and reveal the pathway that leads to life. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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Prayer and Encouragements:
Hi, this is Saved by His Grace in Happy Valley. I was, my grandfather was a Methodist Minister. So, I’ve pretty much gone to church all my life and fancied myself a Christian because of that. I had a few lost years. But I did come back to the church. Even so, until I found this app, and listened not to lofty sermons or cutesie sermons but just to your explanation of what the Bible, what the words in the Bible meant when they were written and what they mean to us today. That’s…that’s what my soul needed. And I wanna thank you Brian and Jill and China for finally bringing me into the fold. I’m 82 now. I can say that perhaps for the last 7 years, I truly understand and I’m still becoming, I understand that. And then a woman, I think Rosanne from Mississippi came on today and she sort of said the same thing. I just, thank you. I just wanna thank you for helping me to truly find the Lord and begin to have a honest relationship with Him. Thank you and God bless you. Bye.
This is Jersey Jane for Jesus. Listening again to Not Shaken. And the awful situation her daughter is in. I pray for Minny Mouse, the children, for Not Shaken. You’ve been ill. The children need a steady home. Father, I ask You to create an umbrella. To place this umbrella over the entire family of Not Shaken. Father, put this umbrella in the hands of Minny Mouse. Father, put this umbrella over the entire DAB Family, as they pray for this family. They are in dyer need of help. They don’t have an attorney that is paying any attention. The court case hasn’t proceeded yet. It needs to be finished, that these people may heal. Father, put this umbrella over all that need Your help. That are desperate for confidence in themselves that they can, with Your trust and belief, go forward with their lives. Put all this behind them. Oh Father, Abbah Father, Jehovah Jirah, Adonai, help these people. Help them now. I ask in Jesus’s name. Amen.
Hello, this is CeCe from North Carolina. I’m just calling in today to give ya’ll some wonderful news that I have to share. My husband of 6 years, has accepted Jesus into his heart. I have prayed so many years for him to come to Jesus. He has always been on the fence about faith. He never really understood it. Never really believed it. But he has known. And recently he had a revelation that God had came to him in a dream and he’s considered that maybe he’s been missing God in his life and that’s why all the things that he has done in his life, either he hasn’t reached full potential or somethings been holding him back. And it’s simply amazing that after all this time of praying and hoping for him to come home to Jesus and he finally did. I am truly thankful for God and Jesus for answering my prayers. I just want to let everyone know that, if you have someone in your life, whether it be a spouse, family member, friend, someone you truly care about, and you know, they’re not fully committed to the Lord or Jesus, never give up on them. Never stop praying. Because God will answer your prayer in His time. It might not be immediate. But if you keep your prayer, God will answer you. And you just gotta keep faith. And I did and I am so happy. Happy Sunday everyone. God bless.
Hi DAB family. This is my first time calling in. And DAB has been such a gift to me. Such a gift. I’m on my third year but this is the first year that I’ve truly been consistent. And I’ve been amazed by the way that God shown up through this podcast and through spending better and more time in His word. I need prayer for my family. We have four kids. All underneath the ages of 10. And it’s really hard right now. My oldest, is full of rebellion and anger and he can be violent toward his siblings and toward me and also his dad. And we’re kind of at our wits end. We don’t know what to do and we want to parent him well and parent him gently. But we just, we’re stuck. And we’re needing Jesus to show up and I’m on my knees praying. And asking for help and asking for the Holy Spirit to show us the way. And I know that He’s faithful. But it’s hard in the meantime. And I want life and life abundant for my kids. And I want kid, my kids to know and love the Lord and to feel safe in their own homes. And I want to be a good mom. And so, we need your prayer. And I know that God is faithful and that He will show up. And I know that He can change hearts. And He does change hearts. So, just lift us up in prayer. Thank you DAB family.