God Keeps Trying

Transcript

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[0:00] All right, well, week three, here we are in our sermon series called Rescue the Bible in Eight Weeks. And let's have, we got the pens and the little papers. You guys are so helpful, thank you so much. And once again, you can keep that pen, but if you already have like five of them at home, just, you know, put them on the table when you leave and we'll recycle them for next time. But they're just such nice pens. And I got another one in the mail today from the people that make us pens, and it has a little fidget spinner on the end of it. So I think I'm going to give that to Nathan.

[0:38] Because you like those things, don't you? I guess. I showed you my other one and you were really into it. Oh, in 2016. Well, no, not the fidget spinner, but at the end of the pen. You know, spin it, spin it. All right, well, we'll give it to somebody who wants it. All right, and then, yeah, so we have our handout. And just as a reminder, the very first week, the topic was the creation. Last week, we talked about the fall. And believe it or not, this week, we're still in Genesis. So it's really hard to do the Bible in eight weeks, but the first three weeks are all in Genesis. That should tell you what an important book Genesis actually is. It is so fundamental to everything else. So again, we're in Genesis today, and the topic is the promised land, the covenant that God makes with Abraham or Abraham. And then next week, the promised king. Then the last two, followed by exile and return. Then the life of Jesus. Then on May 24th. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Oops. No, no.

[1:38] All the rest. I can take all the rest. That's good. Steve needs one. Yes. I know you guys take these home and put them on your refrigerator. I know. I haven't found any like half filled out ones in the back of the church ever. Never, never, never found them. Okay. The life of Jesus on May 17th, which is Norwegian Independence Day. Don't forget. And then May 24th. Pentecost. And the church, which also happens to be Pentecost Sunday. So it kind of falls together. And then May 31st, we'll be looking at the book of Revelation, the future hope. So there's a lot going on yet. And today's just the third out of eight.

[2:09] So just a reminder, in the first week, we talked about the creation where God rescues us from non-existence. He creates us not because he has to, but because he wants to. And because he wants humans to care for the rest of creation in a meaningful way and to be creators ourselves. So that's the first week. The second week, into the beauty and goodness of what God created, evil appears and it deceives humankind and the consequences of that we are living with to this very day. We understand that evil is this spiral of ever increasing peril to the world. It's terrible. It's not just, it's not just like a goody two shoes problem, like we're saying, oh, sin and evil in the world, how sad, the Christians are always so depressed about sin. Sin has brought about stuff that we should not do. all really care about like injustice and murder and warfare and all sorts of death and destruction it's not a small problem it's not just for uptight people to talk about it affects everybody's lives and so there's these real world consequences like like what i just said and we can insulate ourselves from those if we're lucky if we're affluent you know if we live in certain countries we can kind of insulate ourselves from that but that's the lucky people there's many people in

[3:21] the world that this is what their everyday looks like so they care far more about the problem of sin and evil in the world than than we do but we should care as much as they do or more we should care much as god does and in each case god says his heart is completely broken and but that only increases his resolve to rescue us from it so god wants to rescue us from sin and evil and this week we're going to look at one way god tries to address the problem of evil which is his covenant so we're talking about the promise of the land but that's in involves something that we call a covenant that word is like a word for a contract or an agreement between two people in that time when the bible was written that was very common you would have a covenant between families you would have a covenant between villages covenant between kingdoms and there was a lot of sort of pageantry that go went around with the making of a covenant and we'll see what that looks like later when abraham and god make a covenant there's kind of a lot that goes along with it now this is one of the ways that god tries to address the problem of evil and you may have noticed that i said uh that he tries um by the way if you want to fill in the first thing i'm just i made it for myself so if

[4:33] you want to fill in the first thing you'll say it's where it says the first one is always the bible is a book about right and each week this sentence is going to get longer there's always the same sentence kind of catchy so last week the first week was the bible is a book about god the second week was the bible is a book about god rescuing us from sin and this week it is the bible is a book about god rescuing us from sin by the covenant. Okay? And that's all true. So that's our first line if you're filling out lines.

[5:03] But notice I said try. God tries to address the problem of evil and that deserves some explanation because you could look at God and say, wait a second. Does he have to try anything? You remember Yoda? Yoda in I think it was the Empire Strikes Back, you know, he says you gotta go do five somersaults and pick up a rock with your brain and Luke says, I'll try and what does Yoda say? No, there is no try. Only do. Try not. Only do. And you could say God doesn't try things. God does things. He speaks the world into existence. He doesn't have to try but he does try and why is that? Because he could if he wanted to because God limits his own power and agency. This is something we talked about last week. God does take away some of his own agency so he could take away all the evil in the world but he would either have to take all of us away because evil is now living inside of us because of original sin or he would have to take away our ability to choose between good and evil and he loves us too much to do either of those things. So he's limited by his love for us. This is what limits God often is his love for his creation and so he doesn't flip a switch and make us all good little robots. He won't do that. He gives us the choice all the time. So the second

[6:30] line in this little handout is God will not take away our creative agency. Right? He will not take away our ability to be creators ourselves and so this all ties together. Remember that he made us in his image as creators on a lower order and that means he's given us agency over our lives and our own creative thoughts and he can't take that away with without taking away one of the key defining traits of who we are and in whose image we were made so God for God to do that would actually undermine his own creative work when he created us he created us as co-creators and gave us the ability to choose and make things and to work with him in his kingdom and if he were to take away our ability to choose he would be he would be sort of in a way destroying his own creation And He loves His own creation too much to do that. But I'm getting at the point is that He loves us so much that He… and He loves His own creation. He called it good. And He's not going to uncall it good. So God tries, which means He keeps giving us choices. And the trying on God's part is good, and the choices are good. But the failures, and there are failures, the failures belong to us. So, it's not a failure on God's part that what He tries doesn't work.

[7:52] It's a failure on our part, obviously, right? So today, as we read, I want you to listen to God and Abraham have a conversation with each other. There's a lot in this. This is one of the most pivotal parts of the entire Bible. You want to keep your finger on Genesis 15 always. It's really important. Listen for the idea of a covenant or a contract between God and His people. So let's go to our reading. Genesis 15. Genesis 15 verses 1 through 16.

[8:21] Sometime later the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you and your reward will be great. But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit my kingdom. If I am free, I will inherit all my wealth. If I am free, I will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.

[8:55] Then the Lord said to him, No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir. Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. that's how many descendants you will have. And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. Then the Lord told him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession. But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it? The Lord told him, bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side. He did not, however, cut the birds in half. Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away. As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep and a terrifying darkness.

[10:16] The Lord said to Abram, you can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations, your descendants will return here to the land of the Lord. You will be a slave for 400 years. You will be a slave for 400 years. You will be a slave for 400 years. You will be a slave for 400 years. You will be a slave for forefront land. For the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction. Let's pray.

[10:53] Father, thank you for your word, and we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're going to get to all of that. There's a lot going on there, and we're going to get to all of it, actually. Some parts in short detail, but some in more great detail. But of course, we have to start now with a line from a famous book called The Righteous but this time we're gonna go with the last line of the famous book. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Anyone?

[11:30] A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. That's the ending of The Tale of Two Cities. And this factors into what we're doing. We'll explain what that quote is about a little bit later. You didn't know that you were gonna have like junior high English class here today, but you are. It's fun. Okay, so let's go to our text. Go back to the text. We got Genesis 15, 1 through 6, and it is not short. Did you notice it's a little bit longer? And that's fine.

[11:58] But we have two promises made to Abraham. Well, so I'm gonna say Abraham just because I'm used to it. Abram's name is changed from Abram to Abraham. It doesn't... He's the same person. So I'm probably just gonna keep saying Abraham out of just out of familiarity with his name. That's what we more often call him. So I'm gonna say Abraham. And we have two promises made to Abraham. The first was for descendants. This is beautiful. Go outside your tent. Look at the starry sky. Just imagine this conversation between Abraham and God. And he really was. Like everybody around him had kids, grandkids. He was at the... He had already retired. He was required minimum distribution. He's getting Social Security. People at the country clubs were showing him pictures of all their grandkids. And he's like, I got Eliezer in Damascus. He's kind of a screw-up. I don't really like him. He's gonna get all my wealth when I die. And God's like, nope, just be patient, like Victoria said, just wait a while. This will happen. And not only that, it's not just gonna be like a little thing. It's... If you can count the stars, which as we know... actually there are billions and trillions of stars in the sky. But do you remember Carl Sagan?

[13:19] Billions and billions, that's how he would say it, billions and billions of stars. He didn't count that high because all you can ever see at any one time is a few thousand. But the point is it's a myriad. It's an uncountable number. But that's how God's blessings are, is that they're sort of uncountable. When he does bless you, it's just this amazingness that comes out. So all these descendants, these will be your descendants, so that's one promise. And the other promise was, again, kind of at Abraham's sort of prompting was, what good is it to have descendants if there's nowhere for them to live? You know, how will I know that this land you promised us I'm really going to get? And so that was the other promise, was there was a promise, the promised land. If you have children and descendants, they need a place to live. Now, when Abraham said, how will I know that this is going to happen? God says, oh, so you want like a special ceremony to mark this agreement with us? That's fine. I mean, that's how the people around you do it. So I'll do it too. So we're going to sacrifice some animals and there's a list of animals. I kind of feel bad for the animals. But that's what they do. They grab all these animals. And so,

[14:35] um, and the animals are, they're killed and their carcasses are divided in half. And then sometimes they would do this in the old times, they would divide these animals in half and they would walk in between them. And there's a lot of symbolism here. But one symbolism I want you to kind of think about is that what happens to the animal is a warning that may this happen to me if I break the covenant. So you're going to do something. I'm going to do something. That's the covenant. You know, I'm going to give you this. I'm going to give me this. And in God's case, it's, I'm going to give you land and children, and you're going to worship me and you're going to be my people. And you're going to follow me all the days of your life. And you're going to love me. And you're going to be in relationship with me, the kind of relationship I want with humanity. And if you fail, if I fail at that, you can kill me. And if you fail at that, then I can kill you. So that's sort of the, the, the warning in there. So there's a warning and there's also, but there's also a substitute. So the, the covenant is sort of, the life and death matter. So the shedding of blood is important. It kind of shows the, the solemnity and earnestness of what's happening. And the blood of the animal substitutes for the

[15:50] blood of humans. So if you want to fill out your, your little form, the next thing that says the sacrificial animal is a substitute and a warning. It's a substitute for human blood. And it's a warning about human blood that will be spilled if the covenant is broken. So it's a substitute and a warning.

[16:11] And the, a lot of things are sort of solemnified by blood. This kind of happens a lot in the, in the Old Testament, but also in Old Testament times, but it happens. I think it happens in literature. So we'll go back to a tale of two cities and the quote from the tale of two cities, the two cities are London and Paris. Those are the cities that the tale is about. And there's this semi villain of the story whose name is Sidney Carton. And he's basically, the doppelganger of the protagonist, Charles Darnay. And they look exactly alike basically to most people, right? And he's the semi, Sidney is the, the semi villain. Charles Darnay is the protagonist. Charles Darnay is in the prison. He's about to go to the guillotine. This is the French revolution. And the love of his life is going to watch him die. And Sidney, since he knows that he looks like Charles, he's going to watch him die. And he's going to watch him die. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live.

[17:27] And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. And he's going to watch him live. Right This is the best thing I've ever done in my life. Like my life has been so horrible that I'm finally doing one good thing in my life. You know what I mean? And it's a far better thing that I've ever done. And it's a far better rest that I go to than I have ever had. So he understands in his own way. So that's the other aspect of the sacrifice is a sacrifice of substitute for other people. So covenants are important. God makes covenant. I just want to call back to what Clark had read. God starts the whole covenant making business with the covenant after the world dries out, after the flood where Noah is saved and God, in a way, regrets basically flooding the earth and just keeping one small family alive. He says, the evil of the world had gotten so bad. This is the problem of evil and sin that I had to do this. I had to kind of clean it all out. And because only Noah had really found favor in my sight. But he said, I will never do that again. That's not going to be my. I tried that. It failed. So now I'm going to try something else.

[18:43] So I tried cleaning the world out. That didn't work. Now I'm going to try having a covenant with my people for land and for descendants. And we'll see how that works out. Now, you know, spoiler alert. God keeps trying things. We keep failing at them. So and this is only the third week. So you can be guaranteed. That. This is not the end of the story. But this, again, it just shows God's faithfulness and God's desire to keep trying to rescue his people, whether it works or not. But along the way, we're building the story of how God cares for and loves his people and how he keeps trying to reach out to them. And one part of the Bible says, all day long, I have held out my hand to a stubborn and rebellious people. You know, that's kind of that's God's gestures. He's like, you know, I keep trying. I keep trying. So and just a little bit more about our passage.

[19:40] There's one prophecy of trouble. I think this is very interesting. In Genesis, there's a prophecy about what happens in Exodus. Right. There's a prediction that the people, the Abraham's descendants would be held captive in Egypt for 400 years. Wow. How does Abraham go about his life thinking someday my descendants will be 400 years in another country? But God says that's not the end of the story. Right. They're going to be rescued by God. And just think about the Dead Sea. You know, people walking through the Dead Sea on dry land. They're going to be rescued by God and return to the land that's being promised to Abraham. And they would return with wealth to start their lives. So they plundered the Egyptians on the way out. They came to the new land. Not right away, because that also failed at some levels. But they finally made it to the land. And then this is the hard part. We have to talk about this. Verse 16. If we show it again. Um. So when that's the other one, you'll die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age, which is nice. But verse 16.

[20:40] After four generations, your descendants will return here to this land for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction. And that's problematic. One question is who are the Amorites? The Amorites are the people living in the land of Canaan, the land that's been promised to Abraham.

[20:58] And that's kind of challenging because it's hard to live in the same land as two groups of people living in the same land. What is the sin of the Amorites? Large scale perversion and injustice. This is kind of listed out in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. Large scale perversion and injustice and defiling the land. And so these are the sort of things that God cared about. Everything that's opposite of what the Garden of Eden was like this. This beautiful land that you're supposed to take care of. And the people, the Amorites are doing all the opposite. Their own personal conduct is terrible. Their national conduct is terrible. A lot of injustice, a lot of perversion. I won't go into it all. And then also the land is defiled because of their activities. And so God is seriously concerned that mixing in with them would lead the children of Abraham to take up their ways. It's like sending your kids to public school. You know what I mean? And they're going to learn some swear words and they're going to come back and you're like, where did you learn that? No, I'm kidding. That never happens. But that's the idea. And if you don't send your kids to public school, that's fine. They'll learn it somewhere else. I promise you.

[22:09] Maybe at church. No, hopefully not. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No. But so God's worried about, and this actually happens. So God is always predicting things and God is always right. So in Leviticus, it states that the land itself wants to, in essence, vomit out the Amorites. The land itself is almost personified. It's this entity that wants this sort of, it's like bad food you ate. You know, he wants to get it out. But there's, listen to this reminder.

[22:43] So the Amorites are expelled because they're evil, if you're making a note there. But listen to this next part because this will help you fill out the next part of that line. Deuteronomy 9, 4 through 6.

[22:55] And it says this. God speaking to his people about the expulsion of the Amorites. Do not say in your hearts, The Lord has given us this land because we are such good people. Don't say that. No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way. It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The Lord your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness. And, this is important, to fulfill the oath. He swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You must recognize that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land because you are good. For you are not.

[23:47] You are a stubborn people. This is the Bible. Isn't that funny that God says that to his people? He's like, do not put on airs. This is not about you. In a way, it is about you, but it's not about how great you are. It's about how bad they are. They have to go. And so, if you want to fill out your form, it says the Amorites are expelled because they are evil, not because the Israelites are good. And that's important to remember. Okay. So, let's talk about why this whole passage matters. I remember I said this is pivotal. Genesis 15. You want to keep a bookmark on it, fold over the corner in your Bible. God wants to deal with sin by choosing a people to be a light to the world, to be an example of what a good covenant relationship with God looks like. So, God's new, trying, his new plan is to say, the whole world is still corrupt. I'm going to pick one man, Abraham. I'm going to call him out of his home. I'm going to bring him to a new land. I'm going to promise him the land. I'm going to give him children. His children, we're going to have a special relationship with them.

[24:49] Not so that they can be in their own special club and just be happy with themselves, but they are to be a light to all the nations. They are to be a way of showing all the nations what a good relationship with God looks like and how great that can be. Now, again, God's going to try. How are the people going to do at it? Well, stick around because we've got five more chapters, five more weeks to talk about how horribly this fails. But it doesn't mean God failed. It means that we failed. But that's God's plan is to create a people for himself that will be a light to all the other nations. So, God wants to deal with sin by choosing a people to be a light to the world. And that's the plan. But, you know, with the fall, there's always this mixture of tragedy and victory and there's moments of true beauty. And then of this horrible injustice. It's more complex than like a simple children's Bible story. You know, it's always more complex.

[25:42] And Abraham is by no means a perfect person. In fact, he seems to make more mistakes than things he does right. And if you read about Abraham, mistake after mistake after mistake, punctuated by these moments of brilliant goodness and righteousness. And like the one time where he has an argument, with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he's rooting for this town to be saved. You know, this is beautiful, right? Other times he lies about who his wife is. He tries to jumpstart God's promise to him by starting a family with one of his servants. It's not good. And that leads to all sorts of problems. So it's a mixture. Abraham is not perfect. He makes a lot of mistakes. But God says, well, I will work with what I have. And that's the good news for us. Because, you know, we have to find ourselves in this story. It's not in God's place, but it's in Abraham's place. God says, you're all boneheads. You're really stubborn people. You make a lot of mistakes. Every now and then you do something right. I'm going to work with it. I mean, this is the best I have. This is like, you know, the Hollywood director is not happy with all the stars on the set, you know, and all the props and all the camera people. And he's like, well, we're going to try to make a movie anyways.

[26:57] You know, we're going to see what happens. That's what God does. God just, you know, God says, it's okay. Not okay, but I have a covenant relationship with you. I'm going to stay with you. You're going to make mistakes. I'm going to keep being faithful.

[27:15] So there's also in Genesis 15, that's why this is so important. There's a clue in here for how God will work with his people far into the future, about 1500 years from this point on. There's another sort of cryptic hint about how God is actually going to make this all work. And Paul writes about it. This is what Clark read from Romans, where he's in essence saying that the good news about justification, and that's God making us righteous and restoring the relationship, justification is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And that's the absolute sort of core of what Protestantism teaches. And that's where, that's the group we're in, by the way, we're all Protestants. Justification is by grace through faith. And Jesus Christ. And the case for that is made in the 15th chapter of the whole Bible. It's there from the beginning. It's also in Habakkuk chapter 2. You can find it in a few other places. Paul is a good Old Testament scholar. He finds it in the Old Testament. He quotes these passages while he's writing the book of Romans, because he wants people to understand that this isn't a new idea that came about just with Jesus, but it's been in the Old Testament the whole time. And it's part of the story the whole time.

[28:34] And the passage we have, we should go back to it, is verse 6. I'm sure we'll find it. There we go. And Abram, okay, go to the next one, believed the Lord, now read the next part, the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

[28:57] Not because Abram, Abraham, had done something wrong, but because he had done something right, had performed some act that was correct, had even kept his part of the covenant. God didn't call him righteous for that reason. Why did God call him righteous?

[29:14] Because he believed that God was faithful. And that's a reminder to us that this is pointing forward to the time when actually God stops trying and actually starts doing in a way that's sort of foolproof on our end.

[29:32] Paul is in essence saying that Jesus is going to be and does become the new covenant. And in a sense, Jesus is the new Israel. He's the new, Jesus is the new promised land. And Jesus marks the new covenant by a sacrifice. Isn't it interesting how this all falls together? The new covenant also has a sacrifice, not of an animal, but Jesus' own flesh and blood. And the entry into that new covenant is not by ancestry anymore. You don't have to be a descendant of Abraham to collect the benefits of this new covenant. And it doesn't promise a particular piece of land on the earth. It doesn't promise a certain real estate that is divided by national borders or anything like that. We enter the new covenant by faith alone. So the new covenant is for us. I'm getting way ahead of myself, but what I'm telling you is that God rescues his people by the covenant. And the covenant in the Old Testament is by the covenant of the promised land and descendants. But that's always pointing forward to the new covenant that comes about by Jesus. And we enter that covenant by faith in what Jesus has done for us.

[30:43] So let's leave that aside. You can see why this is such an important passage. Genesis 15, 1 through 16. Such an important passage. And we couldn't have left it out. Because we can't really understand the Bible well without this. And this is super important. I can't stress that enough. Now, I want to say something here. It just is a more meta sort of background, higher level looking at this. When we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament. So we're just going to change gears here. Was there something we needed to write on our thing?

[31:11] Yeah, rescued and renewed relationship come about by faith in the promise of God. There it is right there. Sorry, I got so excited. But there's one last question there. And I want you to be thinking about this question. And I'm going to read the question now. I'm going to talk a little bit. But I'm going to ask for some of you to respond. How does this view of the Bible that we've been developing in this series so far, everything that's happening in the Bible moves the story forward of how God is rescuing the world, help you understand Scripture better? And I think this is a challenge that we have as we look at Scripture and we're kind of sometimes go, what does this mean? So I think, and I'll be honest, when I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, I can get bogged down in the difficult part. Like the genealogies, you know, or the numbers of, oh, we had 500 people in this tribe. Okay, well, that's great. But, you know, we can get bogged down in those difficult parts. But if we keep this framework in mind, then a lot of it falls into place. And you could say, well, the 500, that's important. But yeah, I get the 500. But there's a bigger picture here. God is rescuing his people. And these 500 are part of how God is rescuing the world, right?

[32:26] So there's a sort of bigger picture there. And then there's the larger picture that emerges. So the question we ask when we read the Bible is, how does this fall in line with the larger story that we're examining, the larger story? And here's the larger story as we have it so far. The story is going to develop. This story gets better every week. But the story as we have it so far is that God created us in his image to be good and to co-create with him and to work in a meaningful way in his creation. And then two, that humankind is whole. We're hopelessly broken. And our sinfulness is like a virus that spreads and mutates at all times. And three, that God loves us so much he tries to help us with covenants, laws, and prophets. But since it depends on us, those ultimately fail to rescue us and repair the relationship. And then the rest of this study we'll be looking at, we enter into the new covenant by faith. And there is so much more in the coming weeks, how Jesus lives, how the Spirit empowers us to do the work of God, that he always wanted us to do, and how we live in the hope of the final rescue and reconciliation with God, where he will once again walk next to us as humanity in the cool evening breeze of paradise.

[33:40] It's all going to come full circle. But, so we have five weeks after this, and I'm actually more excited than ever. I'm not going to ask you if you're excited because that was a letdown last time I asked that.

[33:51] But, no it wasn't. It wasn't. Here, I want some feedback, and I'm asking you this question. And it's okay if nobody answers yet, because I might ask this question next time too. Can this bigger picture help us understand the Bible on a day-to-day basis? You're reading a passage and you're like, what is this? But can this help you go, oh, how is this part of that big thing that God's trying to rescue the world? So, does anyone want to just raise your hand and say, can this help you? Will this help you? Or have you been doing this? And has it helped you? And I want to get some feedback now. And then we'll take some more. Yeah, Brian. It's one thing to be rescued. It's another thing to have a power to help a life here. So I think we need to understand this. That we can embrace the Holy Spirit to help us in this day. And not have in a distant modality, but heaven brought to earth. That's great. Yeah, we almost need to ask ourselves this again at the end, because I think one of the things about God trying and us failing, is addressed when we get to the Holy Spirit. Because when we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then God does work through us. And we act in the ways that God wants us to do at all times. So, what's so great about when Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit, he ends that list by saying,

[35:16] against these things, there is no law. So when you operate out of the power of the Holy Spirit, you cannot, in essence, violate. God's law. Which is interesting. Thank you, Brian. That's good. Yeah. So, we're not ready yet, is what you're saying. But I like that. Anyone else? Anyone else? How can this or will this help you interpret the Bible as you read it on your own?

[35:42] Yeah, really. Yeah, go ahead. I think this is pointing out the selection process for Abraham as a big portion. Yeah. Like, that's interesting that that's all one of the things that we need to have to see. Yeah. You know, the reason why he's chosen. That's one of the main criteria he's chosen. Yeah. It's interesting how, seeing how that is chosen with our leadership. Yeah. You have to go through it, you know, all the different leaders. Yeah. Some of them having faith, and some of them not having all the great things. Yeah. Totally. And you think about, say, when they're going to the Promised Land, and Caleb, you know, is like, oh, we can take this. God is on our side. Okay, there's faith. You know. And these others were like, those people are too big. We can't do it. And there was faith in human ability and going, we can't do this. So, yeah, God does choose, yeah, faithful leaders. And then some unfaithful ones slip in there and make a mess of things, like King Saul, for example. You know, that's really interesting. That's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah. So, that does actually help us kind of look through this, the history of the Bible. Anyone else? Yeah, Zach. I was just, I was wrapping what Brian and Chris said together.

[36:49] And basically, God's given us a lot of examples of people who can't do it on their own. Yeah. So, I think that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. I would just add to that, you know, they really, they really have to be dependent on him to make anything happen. So, for me, this is a reminder that that dependence is the essence of the way it makes us feel.

[37:07] And it's so simple, so much simpler. We try to make these plans on our own and they get really gummed up. But when there's this sort of submission to God and living in his spirit, a lot of these things, I'm not saying they're easier from, from an effort. point of view, but they're easier from a we-know-what-we-need-to-do point of view. We always know what we need to do when we're walking in God's plans there. Well, let's stop there. That's great. We'll get more of this feedback in future. I'm very excited about the weeks to come, and the picture of the overarching themes of Scripture are going to come into sharper and sharper focus. So we're going to keep developing this theme. I'm excited about it. And we'll see why over and over again we can call this book the good news, because it's good news. It really shows up as good news of God rescuing His people. Well, let's pray. Father, thank You again for Your Word, and thank You for this overarching story of You rescuing the world from sin, first through Your covenants, but ultimately through Your Son and Your Spirit.