Day 181: God Leads His Dear Children Along [1]

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Genesis 46:1-7, 46:26-27 
• Numbers 9:15-23; 10:11-32; 33:1-48  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Thank you so much for joining us here on day number 181 of the Canon Connected. Almost halfway through the year. And we are ending six months exactly today. It's just not quite halfway because February is so short. But regardless, I'm glad you decided to join us. Today we're starting a two-day study. This is not part of a larger study like most of the year has been and will be. But today's beginning of the two-day study has to do with the idea of God leads his dear children along. Alright, and I take that from the old hymn. Some through the water, some through the flood, all through the fire, but all through the blood. I love that hymn. Used to always try to sing it at my old church on Persecuted Church Sunday because of how the chorus plays. But regardless of whether you know the song or like that hymn, um, the truth is as you read scripture, you can see God does lead his dear children along. He leads us. Um, he shows us where to go. He makes paths for us. You know, that's phraseology you can find in the Psalms and other way, other ways. And of course, with the Psalms, I definitely think about how, you know, God makes his paths for us through his word. His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. And I I love that about our God. And truly, this idea is so dominant in the Bible. If we studied everything that could even remotely be considered God leading his people, um, we would be doing this for weeks and weeks and weeks, and we just don't have time for that. And plus, many of the ways in which God led his people, for example, um Abraham, well, the way God led Abraham as part of his covenant and Abraham's faith and following God's leading and God's call, um, have already been discussed a lot. So we're gonna look at some different passages that are clearly about, I think, among other things, about God's leading of his children. Um, but there are passages that uh where I think this is the more dominant theme, whereas Abraham has so many dominant themes it would be hard to label even just one. But one of the things I love about this study the next couple of days, because we're gonna talk about some very practical um applications of this, um, because I think that the way God leads his people in the current day is very similar, all right, to how he led people in the Bible. And in some senses, some instances it's the exact same. But there are definitely some differences because God doesn't speak out loud anymore, he speaks through his word. So that's what I mean by you know being similar. Um but there's a variety of ways that we can see in which God leads people, and that's something I think that Christians need to understand and perhaps even wrestle with. And I'll explain why I even use uh that phrase uh toward the end of the discussion today, and then we'll revisit some of the applications tomorrow. So we need to know in life what are our next steps? What should I do next? It's truly one of the most common questions I've encountered in my, you know, branch of Christianity, and that is, you know, it's often phrased this way, predominantly phrased this way, what's God's will for my life? And of course, that could mean, you know, marriage or college or where to live, what job to have, what major to choose if you go to college or if not to go to college, what you know, what job do I want to do? Those sort of things. And um I think those things are very important, and I think what we're gonna speak to today speaks to those. But one of the things I think will become obvious over today and tomorrow too is that God's leading truly is a daily thing. You're not gonna wake up a single day in your life if you're a Christian and not truly need God's leading that very day, okay? And of course, one of the biggest overlaps between the readings in this study and us today, as far as direct connections, is the Holy Spirit. Now, that is the same, and we're gonna study some passages in Acts tomorrow on that, on that part of it. But you need God's leading all the time. And so it's, I think it's helpful to look at this through a biblical lens and through how we see how God leads in connected passages because we can see the God of Christianity truly, you know, doing the same things over and over and over again. God speaking to people to show them how to lead, God making sure that we He communicates to us in big ways and subtle ways, and yet at the same time seeing the diversity of how God leads. So the first passage we read today, Jacob leaving his homeland, this promised land, okay, which has been so important, and I truly did not place it, you know, these readings after the study of the promised land for this reason, but it definitely is a good follow-up to that because we see how significant it is, even though this is not the Moses Joshua, you know, entering into the land, and it's not even after 70 years of exile, and Ezra and Nehemiah going back into the land. But still, Jacob leaving Israel, okay, as it would eventually be known to be, it would eventually be known to be uh to be by name, his name, okay, truly. Um his name got the country name. That's fascinating. Uh that's uh that's a legacy right there. He left to go down to Egypt to be with his family, and this is truly a significant event in the Old Testament because, again, they're going to be there for over 400 years, 430 years plus 40, I assume. And they are going to be, you know, immigrants and even slaves eventually. And this is a huge deal because they left the promised land. And God led them to do that. You cannot read this passage and not come to this conclusion, I think. I mean, God clearly tells him. It says that during the night God spoke to him in a vision. Jacob, Jacob, here I am. Jacob replied, I am the God, the God of your father, the voice said, Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation. I will go with you down to Egypt. That's a huge part of following God's leading, by the way. We can never forget that. Every single day of our life, God is with us. That's what the name Jesus meant and means, and that's what the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit of Christ does with us now, and we will dwell with God forever. He's always with us, always. Not even just talking about heaven. Right now, I will go with you, and I will bring you back again. And wow, what a promise there. I think we probably read that one in a previous reading. But we can see that God led this. This is how God led him, speaking to him audibly. All right, and then we get into some of the more famous aspects of God's leading from the Old Testament. Several of these passages, um, two of these from Numbers, I should say, deal directly with this idea of God leading through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And again, this is something we really don't have anything to compare to, at least exactly like that. God's word is definitely like that, but even there, the specific applications we get from following God by reading his word aren't always as crystal clear as, you know, um, following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God truly, you know, he they knew exactly what to do. All right. And I say that what I said a second ago for the like the Bible doesn't tell me how much screen time my kids can have. I need other ways of God's leading for that. Even if I read the Bible, I'm not going to come up with an exact number, okay? Yet I do think there are very specific things we can see from his word, and they do mirror, again, how God led his people so clearly through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And yet, Numbers 33 contrasted this. Connections are contrasts, contrasts are connections. We've talked about that several times. It truly, I don't even think is really a contrast. I just think it's, you know, saying something that was probably still true, I imagine. Okay. It's just in a different way. Numbers 33 doesn't talk about the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night. So, how did the people know how to go? At least in this passage. Again, it may be the same thing being said a different way. This is the route the Israelites followed as they marched out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. At the Lord's direction, so they're still listening to God, God leads his dear children along. And it says, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, Moses kept a record of their progress. These are the stages of their march, identified by different places where they stopped along the way. So again, under the direction of Moses and Aaron, one of the ways you are going to follow God, God leads his dear children along is through spiritual leaders, okay? Pastors, teachers, you know, parents, if you're if you're a if you're a child listening to this. Um, and again, as long as so insofar as those people lead you biblically, okay, because I will never deny that you know there is no pastor, no preacher, no evangelist, no Sunday school teacher, no parent that's above, you know, leading their children or their congregation, their flock wrongly, okay? But insofar as whoever's leading you is leading you biblically, you follow. And that's how God's gonna lead. That's what he has always done, seemingly. At least all the way back to the early parts of Genesis. And he definitely used Moses, even though Moses did make mistakes, okay? He committed sins, so much so he didn't get to go in the promised land, but still he was their leader. And under the direction, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, God letting them all these things. How many verses do we see? It just shows the menial, you know, tedious, mundane, boring parts of life. You just go from here to here to God leading along the way. And that truly is a reflection, again, in my opinion, of how life is for us today. We're not geographically moving, at least typically speaking. I imagine very few, if any of my listeners move like this, okay? Yet, from day to day, it's going to be like this. One day you do this, the next day you do that, and the next day you do that. And it's not going to be big and exciting like the bush on fire that's not being consumed, or the exodus happening, or, you know, anything like that. It's going to be just you go from day to day to day. And so that definitely leads me into some applications, and we'll talk about some even more specific and clear and powerful ones tomorrow. But that is, again, we have to see God's leading in the daily and trivial and menial and mundane. Okay? And we have to, I think that's clear from these passages, and we have to go with God's leading, even if it takes us way out of our comfort zone, and we think it's away from what our quote unquote home should be. That's what happened with Jacob, all right, when he went down to see Joseph, uh, because that's what God told him to do. And definitely clearly, when God is crystal clear about something, by all means let us follow God in the crystal clear things. Because I've said this before as a preacher, the hardest parts of the Bible to understand, when I do understand them after wrestling with them and the Holy Spirit speaking to me, they're not always as hard to follow as the crystal clear things. Okay, the crystal clear things are the things that that drive me the craziest in daily application, as I've said many times. Love is patient, love is kind, it's not self-seeking, and yet every single day of my life I fight that battle of following God's leading and showing First Corinthians thirteen to my family, and at many times in my life, even to church people, because um I don't want to. My sin and my my choices, my habits got cut against it, and yet it's crystal clear so often what I'm supposed to do in respon in regards to people. It's just like the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. When my three-year-old is throwing a tenture temper tantrum, I don't get to respond immaturely, okay? And I do sometimes. I used to wonder what it meant, you know, to exasperate your children according to Paul. Well, I think I know pretty well now because oftentimes I just poke the bear when my three-year-old is is losing it because that's my immaturity responding. But there are other ways that I want to show you that we can apply these things uh through the through the text tomorrow. And so we're gonna do a second day of this and we're gonna end tomorrow even with the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit leading and telling them no and yes, and and how to go, which is again very, very similar, almost exactly how he works through us, and in some cases, exactly the way he works through us today. So come back and be with us again tomorrow as we have the the the first uh or the last, I should say, the last um podcast of the first half of the year, and we'll continue to read the connections, see the connections, stay the connections. Thank you.