A Thread of Promise

This week we pause our study of the Epistle to the Ephesians, and consider a thread of, or the fruit of His faithfulness. What do people taste of God's Kingdom when they are with us? Do they encounter the fruit of fear, anxiety, bitterness, and unbelief? Or do they encounter the fruit of God's promise, His peace, His love, and His faithfulness? Give a listen. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to Messiah in Life, the podcast where we explore the intersection of biblical faith and daily living through the lens of Messiah Jesus, hosted by Justin D. Elwell, Bishop of Restoration Fellowship International and Messiah Congregation in Washington Mills, New York. Thank you for joining us for episode 243, A Thread of Promise. Before we begin, we want to take a moment to thank all of you who faithfully listen, pray, and support this podcast. Normally, we would be continuing our study through the Book of Ephesians. However, due to a health situation within Justin's family, we felt it best to pause our series for this week. We want to express our sincere appreciation of your prayers during this time. Your encouragement and intercession mean more than words can adequately express. Lord willing, we will return to our study of Ephesians next week and continue our journey through Paul's remarkable letter. For today, we consider a brief devotional reflection entitled, A Thread of Promise. In it, we will consider the faithless report of the Ten Spies, the significance of the command for fringes in Numbers 15, and how the promises of the Lord are meant not only to be remembered, but lived out in faith and obedience. So wherever you may be listening today, thank you for allowing us to spend these next few moments with you. Let's open our hearts to the Word of God and consider together a thread of promise. Now to Bishop Justin.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

We read in Numbers chapter 15, beginning verse 37. The Lord spoke to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God. And it just creates a very cleansing and a very healing sort of environment as you're able to appreciate the cycle of life and the faithfulness of the Lord to bless his people, to send rain on the just and the unjust alike. But the blessing that comes from this, the greening of the earth, we might say, the bringing forth the fruit from the ground. And that will play into what we are studying today. So what I've just read is actually the conclusion of the Torah portion called Schlachlicha, or Schlach, as many people just referred to it. And that portion begins with the Lord commanding, giving this command to Moses, saying, Schlachlecha no seem, but yetur et arets kanan asher anni noten livne Israel. Send for yourself men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. When we look closely at this command, we notice that the Lord did not say send spies to determine whether the land was good. Is this a good inheritance? He didn't uh send them to decide whether it was even conquerable. He didn't send them to vote on whether the promise was realistic. The Lord had already declared the land which I am giving to the children of Israel. The promise then preceded the investigation, the Vayaturu, to spy out, to search out. And when the spies returned, of course, ten of them focused on, not on God's promise, not on his promise, but on the obstacles standing in the way. They brought back evidence of his faithfulness, evidence that supported exactly what he said this land would be, a land flowing with milk and honey, a very fertile, fruitful land. Yet they spoke words of fear. They carried the fruit on their shoulders, but they carried doubt in their hearts. So the tragedy was not that they saw giants. The tragedy was that they saw giants more clearly than they saw the Lord. They saw the giants living in these fortified cities, but they did not remember that the Lord was there in the midst of the camp, right there with them, doing miracles every day, showing his power and his presence. So an entire generation would die because of this testimony that they brought back, because they embraced the fearful report of the ten spies rather than the faithful testimony of Caleb and Joshua. So there's a very important lesson in this. We may hear another person's fears. We may even understand their concerns. But it's a dangerous thing to fear, to allow fear, I should say, to become the lens through which we interpret the promises of the living God. The spies carried the fruit of that promise, but they didn't believe the promise. So that's the danger every faithful person faces. How often do we hold evidence of the Lord's faithfulness in our hands while simultaneously questioning his ability to lead us forward? How often do we remember what he has done yet doubt what he will do? So the Lord answers, or I should say, the Lord's answer to Israel's failure, of course, would surprise us. So immediately after the rebellion, the judgment, the wilderness wandering, God gives a very unusual command, and that's what we've read in verses 37 through 41. Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to make tassels or tzitzit on the kanaf, the corners of their garments throughout their generation. So why tassels? Why tzitzit? Why these fringes? Well, at first glance, the command seems disconnected from the story of the spies. Yet the connection is very profound. See, the spies, of course, they forgot. They saw the fruit, but they forgot the promise. They saw the blessing, but they forgot the giver of the blessing. They saw the challenge, but they lost sight of the covenant. And therefore, the Lord gave Israel a visible reminder to wear every day. See, the tassels or the tzitzit are not just religious decorations. They're living reminders of the Lord's covenant faithfulness. So the Lord explains their purpose. He said, You shall look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes. Consider that progression. Remember, then obey. Faithfulness begins with remembering. And that's why we have so much remembrance in our faith. We have reminders everywhere. The Lord, through the Word of God, gives us reminders, not just on the corners of the garment, but Messiah talks about being the door. We can see the reminder on uh as we look at any door, we can remember him. He's given us the elements of remembrance on the table of the Lord and so on. There's always reminders. So throughout scripture we find um that forgetting often precedes disobedience, while remembrance strengthens faith. The Hebrew word seed seed comes from the root seeds, which means a blossom or a flower, even. And the image is beautiful. A blossom is not the final fruit, it's not the final product. It's the promise of fruit to come. And every blossom announces that something is growing, something is alive, something is developing according to the Lord's plan. In that sense, the tassels served as reminders that obedience to the Lord always contains the promise of future fruitfulness. So his commands are not burdens. The commandments of the Lord are not burdens meant to diminish life. The Apostle John mentions that the commands of the Lord are not burdensome, 1 John 5, 3. But rather the commandments themselves are blossoms pointing toward the harvest that the Lord intends to produce. Biblical fruitfulness is never just something we possess. It's the evidence of his work, his life at work within us, his presence at work within us, his presence at work around us, among us, and so on. I think you get the point. So from the beginning, the Lord called humanity, of course, to be fruitful and multiply. Fruitfulness is the visible manifestation of life, of growth, maturity, blessing, and so on. And this brings us to a remarkable contrast. The Ten Spies returned carrying fruit while they were spreading fear. Now think about, they were carrying grapes between two men. That's how fruitful, that's how incredibly beautiful and the fruit was. But we saw this. We were as grasshoppers in the eyes of the inhabitants. The cities are too big, they're too fortified, we cannot overcome them. And of course that produced fear. But Zechariah saw another group of ten. So the Torah gives us a group of ten who lead to fear and destruction. But there's another group of ten. We read in Zechariah 8:23. In those days ten men from every language of the nations nations shall grasp the corner, the kanaf, the tzitzit of the garment of a Jewish man, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. One group of ten discouraged people from entering his promise, from receiving it. They take hold of the corner of the garment, the tzitzit on the kanaf. And of course, we can take that imagery of the son of righteousness who will arise with healing in his canaf in his wings, and the woman with the issue of blood taking hold of the tzitzit and so on. Beautiful redemptive uh thread that runs through scripture. So one group of ten discouraged, another group of ten are drawn toward because of the fruit, the potential fruit, the presence. So what was the difference? Well, faithfulness. Faithfulness was the difference. One carried fruit externally, the other displayed the reality of God's presence. So the the corner of the garment became a symbol of a life that testified to the faithfulness of the living God. Yeshua himself, of course, wore tzitzit as commanded by the Torah. The Gospels record people reaching out, taking hold of the fringe of the garment, the woman suffering from the issue of blood, as I've just uh mentioned, believed that if she only touched his garment, the hem of his garment, the tzitzit of his garment, she would be healed. Why? It was her faith was rewarded, your faith has made you well, you know, and he he calls her back into covenant because she had been excluded, he calls her back into covenant community by saying, Daughter, your faith has made you well. So in the Siah, the promise symbolized by the tzitzit, the tassels, find, of course, their fullest expression. The outward reminder points to an inward reality. So the blossoms have become fruit. The blossoms have become fruit. The spirit of God produces within us, as we read from the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, the fruit of the Spirit, as we say, fruit, of course. So these qualities are the evidence that the Lord's promise is alive within us. They are the fruit of his work in us, they are the testimony of his faithfulness. And Paul continues this thought in Colossians. He says, put on compassion. Of course, when we have that language of put on, it's a very important idea of being clothed. Why? Because we can each relate to that. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, above all things, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So just as Israel put on tassels, remember Paul's language of put on believers, the faithful and Messiah, are called to put on the character of Messiah, to evidence the character of Messiah, to show that the Spirit of God is working in us and conforming us to the image of the Son of God. So the world is not convinced by our religious vocabulary, as beautiful and eloquent and meaningful as it might be. The world isn't convinced by it, the world isn't impressed by it, the world is convinced when it encounters the fruit of God's Spirit, of the Holy Spirit. When people interact with believers who are faithful, who have put on kindness, compassion, humility, uh, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, and so on, when they see that, when they experience that, they're touched by it. It's meaningful. It's not just another slogan or sloganized perspective or argument. It's something that is meaningful because it touches the nature of who they are. It meets them where they are. And by the power and the presence and the wooing of the Holy Spirit, Lord willing, they'll be drawn to saving faith. And fruit is meant to nourish others. We don't bring forth these character, uh, these uh character traits, we might say, this evidence of the Spirit of God in us, simply for ourselves, right? An apple does not bear fruit just for itself. A vineyard doesn't produce grapes just for itself. Fruit exists for the benefit of uh we think the uh propagation of the type, uh the uh nourishing of the soil around it, but also that it would be um consumed by us, by humanity. So the same is true spiritually. The fruit of the spirit is not just for our enjoyment for us to feel some somehow superior or more evolved or enlightened or any of that type of language. No, it it exists, the Lord brings it forth in us as he's conforming us to the image of the Son of God, of Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus, so that others may taste and see that the Lord is good. I would submit that if you listen and you listen this far into this podcast, you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. You've experienced that, you know that and it's something, and I've I've I've tried to explain this over the years, it's something that we can't fully communicate. We fully we can't fully communicate it. It's kind of like you know, uh people like to say today, if you know you know. And I would say that's true regarding taste and see that the Lord is good. If you know you know. And as much as you uh try to share that, express it with others, they have to know, they have to taste for themselves. And that's part of the mission, of the Great Commission. So every day we leave an impression on those around us. We either spread fear, like the ten spies, or we spread faith like those who testify that the Lord is with us. That in fact he is with us, that he is leading us, and that no matter the giant that is before us, whatever however that might be identified, however strong it may appear, he is with us. And he will overcome. Because ultimately the battle, beloved friends, dear faithful, is not ours. We either magnify obstacles or we magnify the faithfulness of the living God. We either communicate despair or we communicate hope. It's easy. We respond, we react in despair. You know, in the natural man, that's kind of how we're hardwired in many instances, many cases, or that's already been our experience. But we learn to communicate hope because hope has been given to us, and hope is a person. And hope has a name, hope has an identity, hope has words that we read, hope is present with us in the person of Jesus. So the question is simple. Why do people taste what do people taste of the Lord's kingdom when they are with you? What do they taste? Do they taste his goodness? Do they receive his mercy, his compassion, his love? Do they encounter the fruit of fear, anxiety, bitterness, or unbelief? Heaven forbid. Or do they encounter the fruit of his promise, of his peace, of his love, and of his faithfulness? That's our endurance. And as we are enduring in faith and moving on through the obstacles, no matter what they might be, people see that it's not based on our own strength and our own ability, but on his promise. It's not a peace that we generate from within, it's his peace that is in uh uh imparted to us. It's not a love that we generate, but a love we've received. And it's not our faithfulness, but his. Israel could have entered the land immediately. But fear spread. Fear spread like a virus, like a fire through the camp. More quickly than faith. Ten voices overpowered two voices. But I pray that that not be said of us. I pray that not be said of us. Instead, may our lives become a thread of promise. A visible testimony woven into the world around us. We have that thread. We have that uh the red thread of redemption, we have the blue thread that is wrapped up in the fringes of the colored. We have that hope that's there, we can reach out and touch it, we can see what he has commanded, what he has promised, and what we are setting our hope in. May those who encounter us find evidence that he is faithful. May they taste of the fruit of our lives. May they find his peace, his hope, his salvation. May they see the fruit of his spirit. May they be drawn closer to him. And may our testimony always be taste and see that the Lord has good. Amen. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Dear listeners, it's it's uh it's been a season, and today's podcast, this week's podcast, is a pause in where we were in Ephesians um for this week. Lord willing, we'll return next week to that study. But um right now we're wrestling, and this message today, as much as it was I prepared these notes several days ago, just as I knew I had to take my wife to an appointment, and I knew we had to uh change the schedule for this week, and I prepared these notes, I prayed over these notes, and this is the Lord's grace and his mercy. I didn't know how much I needed this message today. So if you're blessed by it, hallelujah to God be the glory. But it was really meant for me, and I'm saying that with all honesty and transparency. The Lord does that. He has us prepare the very words that we need at the time that we need them. So I'm grateful, I'm thankful. And I'm thankful for all of you who are listening. As I say so often, or I used to say so often before we started doing the live tapings at Messiah Congregation. I'm seeing the podcast spread and grow and reach the places in the world that I always look up if it's a name that I don't know, a place name I don't know, I look it up. I want to see where is the Lord sending this and where are the people that are hearing it. So I'm so blessed and I'm so grateful for all that he's doing through this. You know, this is being this isn't, you know, this isn't in our sanctuary today, it's not in my studio, it's on a porch with rain in the background, a little bit of thunder here and there, sitting in his creation, which is the ultimate studio, the ultimate environment, the beautiful, the environment of environments. Um pray that you are blessed. And until next time, as I used to uh, and I still do, I guess, but as I used to do all the time, we sign off by giving you this blessing. May the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Messiah, Yeshua Jesus. Amen. Amen. God bless you all, Amen.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Amen. Thank you for studying with us. And until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.