Do YOU Even Count?

Ancient truth. Real life. True word. Faith for life.

You have a customer number. You have a customer number? An account number. You have a patient ID. You have a case number. You're a case number. You're a spot on a spreadsheet. All day long. Systems count you. And not one of them knows your name. And you felt it. A clerk who calls the number, not the person, they call the number. The form that flattens your whole life into a row. And somewhere in there, a quiet question started. Started ruminating in your mind. But you've never said it out loud. Never in a room where there were more than just you and the fish. Do I count for anything? Do I count for anything? Or am I just being counted? I want you to hear this before we open a page. There's a book in your Bible, the world named Numbers. I think in Hebrew. It opens with God counting his people. But when you see what the counting actually does, and what he named the book himself, you find out he was never, he was never treating anyone as inventory. He was lifting heads. Good morning, all. Good morning to our friend in Australia listening. Slipknot Forever, 1999. I don't know why you would choose a full-on faith-based podcast, but I'd love for you to listen and be kind. And instead of trying to convince us, realize I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm just giving you information. You can choose to take it into your heart, or you can reject it. That opportunity is yours. And good morning, mate. Good morning, Nicole, four in the morning, where you are. Good morning, Tammy and Susan. Good morning. By the way, in the first three messages on live chat, you'll see are the components of Saturday's announcement. That's the special episode Saturday morning. Saturday evening, 7 a.m. 7 p.m. Let me do that again. Saturday evening, 7 p.m. It's been a day. Yeah, 7 p.m. We'd love to have you join us. It is going to be a very challenging. Good morning, Linda. Good morning, Miss Colleen. Good morning, all. The thing is scrolling faster than I can catch the names. But it's good to have you all. So Saturday at 7 p.m., that's gonna be the special episode. It's not gonna be the normal episode you see here. If you are a subscriber to True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, Shaw N, it's the one on YouTube, about 4,000 subscribers. If you're a subscriber there, you can go and you can look at the show announcement, the show description. I'd love for you to do that. By the way, this is True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. I'm Sean. And if you're new, you belong at this table. This is a daily walk through the entire Bible in a year. In a year. Today we step into a new book, Numbers, chapters one and two. I don't know about your Bible, because I don't know which one you read, but if your Bible's going soft at the spine, I don't know if it's important to you. She's not a sponsor. People are shocked to hear that. Why in the world would you obligate this time and effort to do this? Because too often people want something for nothing. I don't want anything. She's in Connecticut. Her name is Melissa. She's on Etsy. Moose Works Bible Rebinding. This is just one of them. She's done six of my Bibles because when I pass, they're going to be passed on. And my prayer is that they'll be passed on and passed on and passed on. That's the goal. She makes them such that they can. The link is in the show description. Before we go in here, I think you figured out I usually have a question for you. You only need to put one word in the comments or chat. The comments below or the chat on the side. One word. In the eyes of the world you deal with all day. Do you feel more like a name or a number? In the eyes of the world, you're in all day. Do you feel more like a name? Or do you feel like a number? One word. Type it in and hold it, because we're gonna hand it to the text before we're finished. To feel these two chapters, you have to see the shape they make. Because an ancient person I would have known to say the second year. After four years. Thanks for listening. Appreciate you listening on YouTube. True word faith for life with Dr. Sean. Click on subscribe and hit the little bell for all notifications. A little thumbs up while you're there. I sure appreciate it. The tabernacle went up just weeks ago. We're only in our second year. We're building a nation here. So the tabernacle went up weeks ago. And now God gives Moses two jobs. Count the men and arrange the camp. Here's what the first hearers, right? We need to know what they heard. What they understood. What was going on? So here's what the first hearers, what they knew that we don't. This is a war camp. War. In the ancient Near East, when a great king marched, his army didn't sprawl. It formed a rank square with one tent in the dead center. That was the king's. And everyone faced in. And Israel had just spent 400 years watching Egypt do exactly that. The God King's tent at the heart of an ordered camp. So when God musters the fighting men, well, then he raised the three tribes on each side of a tent in the center. Nobody was confused. Didn't sound strange. They were looking at a war camp with a king in the middle. It looked familiar. The only shock was whose tent it was. The center of this army belongs to the Lord. Not behind the lines, but in the middle of the camp. You imagine. Not way back there, where there's no risk to the four-star general. But right in the middle. So start with the name on the book. By the way, how's the sound? I didn't even ask. So start with the name on the book because the translation already made a decision for you, you weren't aware. Your Bible calls it numbers. It comes to us through the through the Greek and the Latin Eritmoi Numeri. The translators chose it for the two big head counts inside. There's a lot of counting in there. That's not what God named it. In Hebrew, the book is called Bamidbar. Named. Sit in the gap. Sit right there for a second. Because it's the whole episode. One tradition looked at this book and saw arithmetic. Thank you, Miss Golly. One tradition, one group of people looked at this book and said, Oh, well, this is arithmetic. There's just a bunch of counting going on. It's just a bunch of counting. Numbers. The name numbers makes you brace for some sort of ledger. In the wilderness tells you about who you become when the map runs out. When you're at the edge of the map, nobody has plotted it. Same text, two different doors. Now, the counting itself, verse 2. And watch the Hebrew because it refuses to be cold here. God doesn't say, well, listen, y'all, add them up. No, he's the phrase here is Sayy et Rosh. Seo et Rosh. Literally, lift the head. To take this census is to go person to person and lift each face that's been staring at the ground like they are still slaves. Four hundred years. It is very difficult to break a four hundred year habit. Kaziana 5517. Absolutely. We will pray for Susmita. And Mike Halal. Well, Trump isn't a god, and he's not the God, but that isn't what the focus of this is. So I would encourage you, give a listen, it's free. You've clicked in. And Mama Lama 1198. I talk about that in other episodes, but maybe give a listen to this. Catch what's happening here, what's happening now. Because it's important. And Ryan Rogers, Jesus Christ is King and the only way. Yeshua Humashiach. Amen. So He he counts them, the mitzbach, by the number of names, not bodies, names. Head by head, one at a time. This is the least anonymous count you'll ever read. Six hundred thousand men, and every one entered by name, by family, by father's house. Then chapter two, and the count becomes a place. Every tribe is told Ish al-Diglo, each by his own digel, his banner, Judah's east, Reuben's south, Ephraim's west, Dan's north, and at the center of the tent of meeting, the Levites ringed around it, and the presence inside. Nobody in that camp had to wonder where they stood. You had a name, you had a family, and you had a flag. You had a direction. You had a direction to face, and it was always toward the middle. Toward him. Toward Adonai Elohim. That's the opposite of a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet flattens you into a row. This camp gave every last person a name, a people, a banner, a place beside the presence of God. Might want to take a breath there. Because I want you to notice something very important and very powerful. I want you to notice who's left off of the war role. One tribe. Levi. God says don't number them with the soldiers. They belong to the tent. Hold on to that. Hold on to that. They belong to the tent. Don't number them with the soldiers. They belong to the tent. The tent of meaning. Hang on. Hang on. Put that in here. Don't let it slip away. Whatever distractions are clawing at you right now. Don't let them slip away. Because tomorrow he counts them too in a way that reaches all the way back to a night in Egypt. So come back. Come back to the number you've been carrying. The world does count you. The world does count you. That part's real. Experience it every day. But watch now. Because it's the reverse of this chapter. The systems count you to sort you, to process you, to decide what you're worth to them and what you cost. You get counted the way inventory gets counted. And when it's finished, your head is even lower than it was. But God counts in another direction. He counts to lift the head. He counts by name. And he doesn't stop. At the name, he hands you a banner and a place, and he sets that place next to himself. In that camp, nobody was uncounted. And nobody was placeless. Everyone had a place. There was no leftover Israel laid off to the side, wondering which tribe would take in. So if you've lived like the extra, the one over the edge, the one past the edge of the map, the one with no place at the table and no flag to stand under, I want you to hear. I want you to hear this. Like a daughter. Head lifted, name spoken, flag raised. The center of the whole formation is God. Looking right back at you. So here's today's step small enough to do before the dark today. Or the light tomorrow. Whatever part of the day you're in when you're listening. Find the one place in your life, nobody else's. Don't choose for somebody else. Don't don't think this. Don't figure this. Don't cipher this for anybody but you. Find the one place in your life you've been calling an accident. The spot you landed in and you never chose. The family you got, the job you're stuck in, the corner you're always, you seem to always end up in. That corner you always end up standing in for whatever reason. You've treated it like a mistake, like proof you got left out of the good assignments. Today, name it as your station. Say it out loud. This is my place in the camp. And it faces him. Then do one concrete thing that only makes sense if it's true. Serve one person from it. One person wouldn't kill you. Plant a flag where you've only ever felt stuck. Man, that's a change of mindset, isn't it? It's a change of mindset. Here's the thing. Sometimes we just refuse to plant a flag where we're stuck. We say, I'm in this group of friends, I'm in this group of believers, I'm in this group of workers, I'm I'm in my neighborhood. A lot of times we're only about halfway there. Our head isn't in it. Our heart isn't in it, especially when it comes to church. Where do you worship? How do you worship? Here's where all this counting was heading all along. A camp arranged around the presence of God, everyone facing the tent in the middle. This was always a picture waiting for a person. The God who insisted on being in the center, not behind the camp, not above the camp, in it, right in the center. Put on flesh and stood in the middle of us. Emmanuel, God with us. The center of the formation got a face. And the book of names points forward to. Listen to how Yeshua describes himself, the shepherd. He says, calls his own sheep by name. And he leads them out, not by number, by name. He says, Don't rejoice in what you can do. Rejoice that your names are written down in the Lamb's book of life in heaven. There's a book, and your name is in it. He counts the way his father counted in the wilderness, head by head, name by name. Oh yeah, the world filed you under a number. But he wrote you down under your name. In his blood, in the only book that lasts forever. The Lamb's Book of Life. And he is the banner now. Every tribe rallied to its dagel, the standard you could spot across a sea of tents, and no, that's mine. Yeshua said when he was lifted up, he'd draw all people to himself. He's the flag the whole camp gathers to now. And his name is on it. So, as you might imagine, I have for you today a challenge and a choice. So go back to the word you typed. Remember, way back in the beginning, I wasn't just saying words to say words. It was on purpose. Go back to that. Go back to that word, name or number. I'll give you a second to think on it. If you said number, be honest about where that verdict came from. The systems and the spreadsheet handed to you. But the spreadsheet doesn't get the final count. Only God does. And his senses has your name. Your name. Your head lifted, your flag raised, your place set right beside him. So whose count will you trust today? Whose count will you trust today? The one that files you under a number and moves on, or the one that counts by name? And has never, not one time, never not one time lost track of yours. Prayer is not asking for an easy journey. It's asking for a strong back. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we are counted by you by name. We thank you that you count us by name. We're not just a number to you. And I confess, sometimes over the years we've believed that. We believe this spreadsheet over you. We let the cold math of the world tell us what we're worth. And we walked around with our heads down. Thank you that your census, your census, your counting, lifts the head. That every person in the camp had a name, a family, a banner, and a place beside your tent. That not one of them was a leftover. And neither are we. Father, I pray for everyone listening. Everyone who feels uncounted. Lift their heads today. I ask that you speak their names. Show them the place you've already assigned, and that it faces you. In the mighty name of our Redeemer, our Savior and our King. Yeshua Hamashiach, we pray. Jesus the Christ. Amen. And maybe, maybe that's you right now. Maybe you've never once been counted the way this chapter counts. By name, with your head lifted. And you've started to believe you're just a number. That's all you are, that's all you'll ever be. That's what you believe. I want you to hear me. The one who wrote the book of names. Well, he's calling yours. And he went to a cross to write it down for good. Answer him. Right now. Right now. Some of you, pretend atheists that are listening, can't imagine why you would come to a faith-based channel other than to disrupt. But I want you to listen. You're not a number, you're a name. And if you believe, I want you to pray this prayer with me right now. I want you to answer him right now. Because he went to a cross to write your name down for good. In the Lamb's Book of Life. He didn't stay in the grave. He rose again. I want you to pray this prayer with me right now. Yeshua, I need you. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today. Forgive me. Fill me. Lead me. I am yours. I place my life in your hands. I pray this in your name. The name of Yeshua. Amen. If you prayed and believed and meant that, maybe you don't know all the answers, but you believed it. And you meant it. You prayed that right now. Don't keep it in the dark. Type one word in the chat or comments below. Tell one real person today, hey, you could tell me if you want. True WordFaithforLife.com. Go to contacts up the top. I get back to everybody. As soon as I see it. Click it click click. I'm right back with you. We've helped a lot of people. Also tell one real person you have to know somebody that is a person of faith. Maybe they won't respond the way you'd hoped, by the way. Maybe they respond, they go, man, I know your life. There's no way in this world. Move on. Move on. Your only job is to tell someone. If they react the way they react, you're not responsible for that. Numbers 1 and 2. Tomorrow God counts the one tribe he left off the war roll. Remember? The Levites. Man, what he does with them reaches all the way back to the blood on the doorposts in Egypt. And it's pretty astounding, and that's where we'll be tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. If God tarries, we'll be live. I want you to hear this as we go, because it's important. You're not a number. You're not a number. You're not a number to the God who made you. You never were. You never were a number. But the world has reduced you to a row on a page. And yet he was going person to person, lifting heads, speaking names, and saving the place right next to himself for you. Your head was never meant to hang low. There's a hand under your chin, and his name is on your lips. And your name is on his. They've just been sure that nobody's counting them as a human being, as a real thing. Might just be the moment their name gets spoken. I want you to receive this blessing. I want you to receive this as it is intended. Are you ready? First, I'm gonna pray it in Lashon Hokadesh, which is Hebrew, the language of God. That's what he spoke to his people. That's what he spoke to his people in, and that's what they spoke to him in. And then I'm gonna translate it for you. Don't panic. I'm gonna translate it. Are we ready? Deep breath, here we go. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Until tomorrow at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Well, until then, thank you for joining us today. If you like this video, click on subscribe, click on the little bell for all notifications, click on the thumbs up. Doesn't mean a little bit anything, it means everything. Until tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Shalom Bishem Yeshua.