Joshua 9:3-10:43, Luke 16:19-17:10, Psalms 83:1-18, Proverbs 13:4
Today is the 14th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian’s it’s great to be here with you today as we move further into this week, further into the Scriptures, further into the stories that we’re learning about. And I guess we’re passing through the center of another month. It’s great to be here with you no matter where you are, no matter what time it is, it’s a pleasure and an honor to. So, let’s take that next step. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week and we’re in the book of Joshua and the Israelites, they’re making waves in this new land and all…all of the powerful kings of the area are freaking out about it. So, they’ve banded together to try to wipe Israel out, to push them out. Some others are just trying to figure out how to make peace in some sort of way. So, we pick up this story today. Joshua chapter 9 verse 3 through 10 verse 43.
Commentary:
Okay. In our reading from the gospel of Luke today Jesus is being quite direct. And we see this, it’s almost like waves. Like there’s these waves of unbelievable compassion on the people but once the thing shifts into becoming an attraction, like some sort of show that the people are flocking to then He has things that are very, very direct to say. Like He will not let this be turned into a gimmicky show, He’s announcing the kingdom of heaven. He’s announcing that it is here, that it is happening, and if you had eyes to see, like if you could just open your eyes you would see it. And, so, when the thing shifts, and it becomes like a show than He redirects. So, there are several postures, several things, like if we look below the surface, they challenge the depths of ourselves. First, He tells the story of the rich man and the poor man, and they both die. One goes to Abraham’s side. This is an interesting thing because Jesus is talking about an afterlife, and in this story this afterlife puts this poor man at Abraham’s side. So, he goes Abraham, he goes to Abraham’s side, and the rich man goes to Hades. And there’s an exchange, you know, “can I come over there? Can he come over here? Can I just have a glass of water? Can…if nothing can happen can he go…can this poor man, Lazarus, go back from the dead to my family?” And Abraham’s like, “yeah, they have what they need. they have the…the law of Moses, they have the prophets. They have what everybody has to hear. And the rich man’s like, “father Abraham, the thing is, if somebody goes back from the dead, then they will repent.” And we could say, “yeah, like I get that. That would be true, right? If somebody came back from the dead then they would repent, right?” And then Jesus speaks, “if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” A foreshadowing of the reality facing Him because Jesus would go to the cross, would die, would rise from the dead, and that would set off a flame that is still burning until today. But until today the religious leaders still do not believe that. And then Jesus turns His attention…His attention to temptation. “Temptations are sure to come” He said, “but it’s the one whom they come through that needs to be concerned.” And not…let’s not confuse this. Like we can immediately turn…like when we think of temptation a lot of times we just turn to like sexuality or something. Like He’s not saying if you’re a seductor or a seductress, He’s talking about temptation to sin. “If you and your life invites someone into sin, especially a young person, you should be very, very concerned” according to Jesus. And Jesus gives the antidote. “Pay attention to yourselves. Pay attention to what you’re doing.” And then He turns to forgiveness. “If you’re brother sins then rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him.” A lot of times we love a verse like that because it’s like we’re getting permission to manage other people’s sin, we’re getting permission to pry into other people’s lives. That’s not at all what Jesus is saying. He’s saying, “pay attention to yourself.” Like if your brother sins, like if your brother trespasses against you, if someone does something that offends you, you can call it out. If they repent, then you must forgive them. And if they keep doing it, like if they keep doing it seven more times in that day, and you’re so angry but they turn to you and say ‘I repent’, they repent of it, then you must forgive him.” So, it’s at this point in our reading when the apostles are like, “increase our faith.” Like they’re hearing what He’s saying and are like, “we need more faith. Increase our faith so that we can live into this.” So, we see that Jesus is being the disruptor here. He’s kind of clearing the decks. He’s like, “this is how it is. You might’ve come here because a crowd was gathering, because it’s festive and because there’s miracles, but this is how it is.” So, the apostles, kind getting it going, “increase our faith.” And then Jesus says something else profound. “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed you could say to this tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it would obey you.” In other words, “this…it’s just a tiny…like look how powerful faith is. Like if you just had a tiny bit of it then the possibilities are infinite.” And then He brings in this last posture, the posture of a servant, the posture of a disciple. And He’s talking into his culture. So, like if you have a servant, somebody working for you who’s out in the…out in the field and they’re plowing or they’re keeping the flocks and the days over and they come in, their expectation shouldn’t be to be able to sit down at a table and be served. They’re servants. They will continue to serve until the master has been cared for and then they can sit down and eat and drink and finish their day. And, so, Jesus suggests that’s the posture we are to have. When we have done all that we were commanded our posture should be, “we’re unworthy servants. We’ve only done what our duty was. It’s a very, very different posture than the world that we live in where we…especially in our spirituality, “while I obeyed you Lord and now you must come through for me by pouring out whatever it is that I was trying to be good in your site in order to get.” That’s a very different posture than what Jesus is suggesting, which is that “you’re lucky to be here at all and all that you will ever do is simply your duty before God.” This kind of eliminates a quid pro quo kind of arrangement that we think we have with God sometimes, “if I do this, then you will do that”, a posture that says, “man, I have no right whatsoever to be anywhere near your presence and yet you have enveloped me. I have no right whatsoever, in and of myself to ever utter a word that you would ever hear, and yet you sent your Holy Spirit to counsel and guide to me. I have no right whatsoever. I’m lucky to be here. Whatever I do for You is insignificant and not enough and it’s just…it’s just my duty.” That posture is the posture of a servant, it is the posture of the Savior. And when God then pours out blessings in spite of us, beyond us, that He cares for us regardless, the dynamic is completely changed to one of utter gratitude as opposed to the one that we normally carry around in ourselves, that we’re trying to earn something and if we could just be…finally level up and get good enough before God then we can get the next level of blessing. We’re not on a treadmill here. We’re just so often living backward. We aren’t in a world of lack. Our father is the Creator of all. Not only this world but everything known and unknown. It’s all His, it’s all our Fathers. There is no lack. He will take care us. He has always taken care of us. Where we get sideways is where we try to define what that care must look like and then we do not have the attitude of the servant who’s like, “I’m lucky to be here. I’m just doing my duty.
Prayer:
Jesus, we acknowledge there’s a lot here for us to contemplate, matters of faith, matters of temptation, the fact that we must pay attention to ourselves and not just everybody else and that we must walk in forgiveness with open hands and the fact that we are equipped with what we need and the fact that we are so fortunate to even be here as a servant and that as we go through this day may our posture not be one that we are just trying to level up with you somehow, somehow get your attention so you pay attention to us, but rather that this is our duty because we love you and we are your disciple and we want to be your hands and feet in this world. We invite your Holy Spirit to well up within us, that we might take these postures to heart, that this might rearrange things in us. And rather than cultivating an attitude of entitlement toward you, that utter gratitude descends upon us. Come Holy Spirit into this 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.