1 Chronicles 22:1-23:32, Romans 3:9-31, Psalm 12:1-8, Proverbs 19:13-14
Today is the 16th day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we take the next step forward toward the end of our week. We’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week, which is what will continue to do, 1 Chronicles chapter 22 and 23 today.
Commentary:
Okay, so have you ever realized that you are imperfect? I realize that pretty much every five minutes. But we don’t always think of it in those terms. We just kinda know nobody’s perfect and yet the reality of this faith is that we, as imperfect beings, are in a relationship with perfection and we know that God is loving, we know that He’s kind and patient and that His mercy endures forever, we’re living examples of that. Like, literally right now in our imperfection we’re experiencing God’s patience and kindness and endurance toward us but we’re not supposed to be staying in this state of imperfection, we’re supposed to be surrendering our imperfections, ourselves, we’re supposed to be surrendering these things to God; dying to that imperfect self and being resurrected alive, no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. So, even in ancient times when the law was given and we went through all of that entire story of Mount Sinai. This is God orienting his people in the right direction, weaving into the fabric of their very being in their very culture who He was and who they are and who, how they relate to one another and what their purpose is. So, if a law shows this way that the Hebrew people believe, like if you could obey this law perfectly than you would attain righteousness before God. And so, a person like Paul who was a Pharisee, a zealous Pharisee, was attempting to do just that even while he was persecuting followers of Jesus. He believes he’s doing just that, upholding the righteousness of God, defending the righteousness of God and trying to live into the law and become righteous before God. The problem is, nobody could do it, and so, if you can’t do it perfectly and do it perfectly all the time, then how will you ever be righteous? Which is what brings us to one of the central foundational pieces of the Christian faith that it is through faith in Christ. Christ Jesus was perfect, did live perfect and fulfilled this law and so we, on our own in our own strength, have no ability to achieve perfection but through Jesus, through faith in Christ than we are made righteous before God. So, that’s one piece of what Paul is beginning to lay out here with the other piece, the more controversy piece, at least in Paul’s time, the thing that really set things off the rail for the Hebrew people as it relates to Paul’s teachings is that, this is not exclusive, the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike male-female, bond free, Jew, Gentile, everyone is welcome. This is not the traditional Hebrew outlook; they believed they were set apart, chosen, set apart, exclusive and if you want to be in a relationship with the most high God than you follow His laws, you convert to Judaism or you’re born into it and you live within this culture. Paul is saying, well, sin though, like sin, everybody, like whether you are Jew or Gentile you sin, you face the same judgment. In other words God isn’t just God over just one group of people and He only looks at that one group but that one group of people’s sin. That’s the only thing He’s paying attention to but everybody else is involved in any way. God is God over all beings upon the earth. So, let me just quote from Romans so that it’s in Paul’s own words but now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe since there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. So, all right, Jew or Gentile, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and yet all are welcome to be justified by faith in Christ Jesus receiving that redemption through Christ. Then he goes on to say like, this is the great equalizer friends nobody gets to boast or brag or say, I’m better than somebody else because of my spirituality, because my ethnicity or because of my religion. We have all fallen short and we are all redeemed in the same way nobody can boast, boasting is excluded, according to Paul. So, in other words, none of us deserve to be here. We are only here through faith in Christ and what Christ has done not what we have done or what we can do. Everyone has to come through the same doorway of faith. It is the equalizer, everyone comes broken, everyone can be redeemed. Now we who believe in Jesus we know this; we rejoice in this actually we’re so deeply grateful for this fundamental truth. But as we will continue to see as we continue our journey through the Bible this is very, very controversy at the time. This will brand Paul as a heretic and it’s interesting from this vantage point because we as believers, we can be like of course, why wouldn’t God want to restore all people to himself? Why, what, He loves us? He died for us. He’s opened the pathway to everybody. But then if we do some examining of our own lives, we find that it’s very, very, very easy to count people out, to consider that a person who could do or thinks this way or does those things certainly couldn’t call upon the name of the Lord or certainly isn’t calling upon the name of the Lord. Maybe those judgments are true and maybe they’re not, it’s just they’re not specifically and particularly helpful because we don’t have a say, we’re supposed to be loving toward those people not counting them out. And when we do, we find ourselves kind of in the position of the religious Jewish people that are very very much not able to understand the message of Jesus and are very much against what Paul is saying. So, as we continue through this letter to the Romans, we need to try to put ourselves on both sides of the equation and we’ll talk about both sides of the equation. But when we do that, you know it’s very easy for us to be on Paul’s team here. It’s in the New Testament. So, of course, we’re on Paul’s team and everybody who was against Paul, they’re the bad guys. And so, we can translate that into our own worldview and what Paul is saying, even to these people who are tremendously against him, he’s saying you are welcome to, all are welcome. There is a pathway for all of humanity to find redemption. There is a totally new way to be here. So, let’s watch both sides of the equation in our own hearts as we continue the journey through Romans.
Prayer:
And Holy Spirit we invite You to lead us to where we need to go, lead us in our hearts posture, lead us in the convictions and motivations of our hearts, lead us to love, lead us to be the light in the darkness we pray in Jesus’ name 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.
Prayers and Encouragements:
Hey it’s Landon from Madison, I just wanted to call in a quick praise report. I called in earlier this year regarding my daughter who was identified to have a single or an isolated single umbilical artery and I wanted to let everybody know that I appreciate all the prayers and they were answered. Our daughter Elaina was born right on time and without any complications at all. So, I just wanted to update you guys on that and thank everybody for your prayers as they worked. God bless everybody. Bye.
Greetings to the church of the Daily Audio Bible, I’m calling to pray with everybody out there that loves an addict. Loving an addict is such a heard thing because we have to deal with the anger that comes from what is seemingly a bottomless pit of selfishness on the part of the addict. But like all things I think we need to catch, contact and perspective. And I think this allows us to pray with empathy and to believe that God will break through. Family, I lost my brother earlier this year to heart failure that was caused by an addiction. I’m still processing and unpacking all the feelings of anger and sadness and misunderstanding. And I’m still confused but I still know that God is good. And I place my faith in that. I want to give a shout out to our resident poet lariat Blind Tony, Victorious Soldier, I love your prayers. Slave of Jesus, it’s time to check in. And to Kingdom Seeker Daniel and Lady of Victory, we send our condolences and we are praying for you and your family. We’re praying fervently for you guys. And as always, a special prayer and blessing to Brian and Jill and their family. This is Delta Alpha FoxTrot calling from the Southern Texas Front.
Hey DAB family, James the Teacher in LA. I was reviewing some past episodes to find where I started listening this year cause I didn’t start in January and I saw that I highlighted an episode where Lisa the Encourager called in to thank me for calling in some years ago and praying for churches which sounds like something I would do and I wanted to thank you for encouraging and uplifting me, Lisa. And also realizing as I was thinking about it, God put the churches on my heart and I almost instantly started to cry, which is my sign that I need to pray. So, Father I pray for the churches of our nation and not just our nation but the churches of this world, Your church in this world, Your people. Who yes, we are under attack from the enemy all day every day in all kinds of ways but I pray for the joy of Your people. I pray that our joy would be Your joy because Your joy is our strength. Joy as a choice, not as…not just human happiness but the choice to trust that You are good that You are God that You are faithful and that whatever we suffer is not enough to destroy us or take us away from You. Lord, we love You. We praise You. And I ask this for all of us in Jesus name. Amen.
Hi, I’m calling in for Micah. Micah called in a couple days ago and I can’t stop thinking about him. His wife doesn’t find him attractive and he doesn’t know what to do. And Micah I just wanted to encourage you. Look to Jesus for your identity and for your beauty because it’s all in in Him. And trust Jesus to show your wife the beauty that you are. But focus on Him and know that your attractiveness is there and don’t try so hard to please a human and a human, no matter how important they are to you, don’t try so hard to please them by jumping through hoops and making muscles and then not finding yourself to be good enough. Because you are, you are His and you are loved and your identity is found in Him and your beauty is found in Him. Love you and I’m praying for you and my husband is praying for you.