Stop Carrying What ISN'T YOURS to Carry!

This week almost nothing Almost nothing Almost nothing was carried by the people who benefited from it. A heifer was killed outside the camp and burned ash. And the man who prepared the cleansing went home unclean themselves. Each of the men. So a family who had touched death could be made clean. A bronze serpent. Bronze serpent went up on a pole and people dying. A snake bite. People who had already said out loud that they'd sinned. We're not told to heal themselves or stop the venom. They were told to look. A king three hills away. Spent a fortune trying to curse a nation that was down in the valley cooking dinner with no idea any of it was going on. And five women whose father's name was about to vanish stood up in front of the whole nation and asked one question. And God said they had spoken right. Five days. And in almost every one of them, the thing that mattered most was something you couldn't do for yourself. You couldn't make the water that cleanses. You couldn't turn a curse into blessing. You couldn't put the bronze back on the pole. What was left for a human being to do was small. It was real. Ask. Keep your word. And in one hard chapter this week, stay faithful. Because the people who forgot that at BailP Or, they learned what it costs. So tonight, one question runs underneath everything. Everything last week. What part of this is actually yours to do? Because if you're worn out doing a part that was never yours, and neglecting the small part that was, tonight is the night we sort which is which. Welcome. This is true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean. I'm Sean. Welcome to the Sunday summation and the deepening. Hello, Susan and Linda, and all others joining us in the live chat. Some of you are listening live Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Some of you are listening on Playback, and some of you are listening in any one of the nine places we're streaming live to now. In addition, uh we go out to Spotify, iHeartRadio, iTunes, 23, 25 other places. I don't know how many. So if you're on any of those, click on that. But I encourage you if you're if you if you could, doesn't cost anything. Come to True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, S H A W N YouTube channel. It's the one with about 4,000 subscribers, and click on that. Click on subscribe, click on the little thumbs up, click on the little bell for all notifications. That'll be awesome. Tonight we gather the whole week days 115 through 119. Tomorrow, 120. Numbers 18 through 30 from a tribe that received no tribal land at all to five women who stood in front of the entire nation and were told they were right. By the way, my book, True Word, Faith for Life. True Word, Faith for Life. It's available really anywhere books are sold, but um we do best. The mission does best if you buy it directly from True Word FaithforLife.com store. It's up at the top on to the right. By the way, there's a blog that lays everything out I'm going to talk about tonight. Everything we got after last week, and um it has footnotes and Trabian style bibliography. So everything is there, and even some links. Um, I think you'll enjoy the blog and the study guide as well. So, as to the book, get a copy, maybe get one for somebody who's trying to been they've been trying to fix themselves forever, but for all the time you've known them. They've been trying to fix themselves before they'll come to Christ. Give them this book. It'll make them laugh, it'll make them cry, it'll make them mad. And they'll enjoy my picture that I I shot on the front of a beautiful bald eagle. Waited hours and hours and hours and hours and hours in the freezing cold for that eagle to land right there. So, tonight's question. One more time. What part of this is actually yours to do? What what part of this is actually yours to do? Good evening, good evening, Miss Lynette. Sean spelled correctly, Miss Colleen. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Sound is good, she says. Happy Sunday evening to you all. Or whenever you're listening to this. So, what part of this is actually yours to do? Tricky question. Watch how the week moved. Monday, Numbers 18 and 19. Levi is given no tribal territory. Every other tribe gets an allotment. And Levi's told, I am your portion. And though they still receive the tithe, and later, cities and pasture land to live on. That's what they got. Then the red heifer, killed and burnt outside the camp, its ashes stirred into water that cleanses anyone defiled by contact with death, with a paradox at the center. The men who prepare that cleansing become unclean in doing it. Tuesday, Numbers 20 and 21, Midiam dies in a single sentence. There's no water in a grieving Moses or Moshe. He strikes the rock. He was told to speak to the rock, but he struck the rock. Aaron dies on a mountain. The people bitten by serpents, they confess that they've sinned and beg Moses to pray, and God gives a bronze serpent on a pole for the bitten to look at and to live. Well, now we're on to Wednesday. Wednesday is Numbers 22 through 24. A king hires the most famous diviner in the region to curse Israel. A donkey sees what the seer cannot, and every curse comes out of blessing. Well, Israel never knows a thing. Thursday, numbers 25 through 27 at Baal Peor. What a curse could not do from outside, temptation did from the inside. And the cost was a plague. Then a second census where of the generation counted at Sinai, only Caleb and Joshua remain. Five daughters bring a petition, and God upholds their claim. Well, that leaves us with Friday, Numbers 28 through 30. That's a tricky one. The whole festival calendar taught again to a new generation, the continual offering underneath all of it, and the binding weight of a vow. Read straight through, it looks like five unrelated days read together. It's one movement from what God gives that we could never produce to what he asks us to actually mean when we open our mouths. That's the map. Now let's find the thread. The curse aimed at Israel had to be turned by God over the head of a nation that was asleep. They were asleep to the whole battle. They had no idea. They were oblivious. The rock had to be struck before anyone drank. Nobody generated their own rescue, none of those. And the ones who served that rescue paid for it. The men who handled the heifer's ashes went home unclean, ceremonially unclean. Levi le received no allotment for his own. And was told, I am your portion, which is beautiful and costly at the same time. Their security was God Himself and not a field that they could stand in. The people who carried everyone else's access to God held no territory of their own. Here's thread two. Notice how small the human part is, and how specific. Look, ask, keep your word. The dying weren't told to heal themselves, only to turn their heads toward that which God had provided. The excluded were not told to force their way in, only to ask. And the covenant people were told that a spoken vow binds the soul. So mean what you say. And even the looking was more than a glance. The Hebrew verb here is the bit from Nabat, spelled Nun Bit Tet. It is a directive, attentive look. The same word Isaiah he uses when God says, Look to me and be saved. Not a technique, it's not a required stare of a certain length, just your eyes aimed on the purpose of what God gave. Well, you start three, why not? We're on a roll. Twice in Israel's wilderness story. God answered a question he was never obligated to entertain. Earlier, back in Numbers 9, men made unclean by a burial, they asked why they should miss Passover, and he gave a second Passover. And this week in Numbers 27, five daughters asked why their father's name should vanish. And he said very clearly, the daughters of Zelephonad, Zalephekad, speak right. And he gave Israel, in other words, they were correct, gave Israel a binding ruling to protect their inheritance, not just theirs, but forever on. Now hear this because it's tricky. It is easy to overstate. Any of this is easy to overstate. These women were already inside the covenant. They weren't arguing their way in from the outside. They were asking that their father's name and land not be erased, and God upheld them. He didn't correct an unjust mistake he'd made. No. Little things don't mean a lot, they mean everything. So here's thread four. This is a sober one. The week also shows what happens when the covenant is treated cheaply. Whether by a leader or by the people, Moses struck the rock he was told to speak to, struck it instead of speaking to it, said. Kind of like he was the provider somehow. And he struck twice in anger. And God's own stated reasons are that Moses didn't trust him, so what did he do? Well, the price was high. God didn't treat him as holy in the sight of the people. And at Baal Peur, a nation that hired this diviner, this prophet, he couldn't curse from the outside. He fell to temptation from the inside. And a plague followed. So put down on the idea that this week teaches that nothing is required. We hear that all the time. We'd like to think that. My friends, we'd like to think that, but we're wrong. There is something required of us. There is always something required of us. You say, well, you're being legalistic here, and and and you're talking about work salvation. No. But what do you have to do for salvation? You have to believe. And how how do you know you believed? And how does God know you believe? By your fruits. We all fall away. And then we come back to him. And we remind him that we believe in him, that we love him. But there's the other thing we have to do. We have to believe. Sometimes belief is the hardest thing for some people. God's protection didn't cancel Israel's responsibility. Grace never does. What God carries for you and what he still asks of you, they're both real. And this week, this week holds those two things together. Thread number five. And it holds the others up. God's faithfulness this week is mostly ordinary and continual. It's continual. It's nothing to it. It's not flashy. It's not fancy. He counts a whole new generation by name after burying the very last one. Man, you gotta lean back into that, breathe that in. Feel what that costs and patience. He watched a generation refuse him. He let them fall across 40 years, tripping over their own feet and their own blessings and their own prophecy and their own leader and their own fears. And then he turned to their children and he counted every single one by family, by name, with the same care that he gave their parents at Sinai. A lesser God scraps the project. This one buries the failure and adopts the next line. And underneath every feast sits the Olat Tamid, the continual offering. One lamb in the morning and one at dusk, commanded worship that nobody ever wrote a song about. Across 40 years, that's roughly 30,000 lambs. That's a number we arrive at by counting. Not one scripture records. The dramatic rescues get the headlines. The quiet commanded every day, morning worship every morning. That's the rhythm God actually built the covenant life around. So, what happens when you mold all those together? You put the five together. The shape is unmistakable. What you cannot do for yourself is nearly everything that matters most. What you can do is turn your head, open your mouth, keep your word, and stay faithful where you've been placed. That's not a smaller life, it's a truer life. And for most of you, it's a lighter one than you've been carrying. Here's where we go deeper than any single day this week had room to go. We just didn't have time. Take the strangest law in the book and lean back into it. Cuddle up with it. Numbers 19, the red heifer. The Torah calls it chah. Spelled chet huf he. In the phrase hucha. It's a weird word. Haturah, a prescribed statute. It's the kind of command that comes with no reason attached. And Jewish tradition, the sages in the midrash, they treasured a story that even Solomon, the wisest man, said he couldn't, just couldn't reason his way to the bottom of this one. That's a beautiful tradition. And I want to be real with you. It's rabbinic tradition. It's not something scripture records, Solomon never saying. It's tradition. And it still preaches today. So here's the thing most people miss, and it changes everything. What made a person unclean in Numbers 19 wasn't sin, it was death. Contact with a human corpse. And here's why this matters. A man could become unclean doing the most faithful thing imaginable, burying his own mother. He hadn't sinned. He'd touched death. This is the distinction that Dr. Michael Iser presses so hard on in his teaching of the purity laws. Ritual impurity isn't the same as moral guilt. Death defiles not because caring for the dead is wicked, but because death is the very opposite of the living God. It could not be carried into his presence. As if it were nothing. So the camp had a problem. Death is everywhere in a nation on a 40-year funeral march. Folks were dying, dropping like flies, and the living God, the living God, dwells right in the middle of them. Something had to deal with death to reach. And God's answer was the ashes of a heifer without blemish that had never worn a yoke, stirred into what the text calls mikna. Mikmida. The water from purity. Something had to die to make the water that dealt worth. I wonder if you just made that connection. Something had to die to make the water that dealt with dying. And now the paradox that occupied readers for 2,000 years. The ashes made the unclean clean, but the men who prepared them, the ones who burned her and gathered the ash and sprinkled the water, they became unclean in doing it. Red is a puzzle. It's unstoppable, but red is a shadow. It shows you something. Here's the cleansing that costs the one who cleanses. The clean handler bears a defilement so that the defiled can come home. That is the pattern God built into the law, and he built it to prepare you for a person. And that person's name is Yeshua Hamashiach. And I'm not the one who draws the line to Messiah. Hebrews does, the book of Hebrews, and this is the ground I want under your feet tonight, because it's stronger than any I've stood on before. Hebrews 9, verses 13 and 14. If the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on the unclean sanctify so that the flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Messiah, who offered himself without blemish, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hear the whole trajectory in that one sentence. Outward to inward, flesh to conscience, a purity that led you back into the camp to a cleansing deep enough to set your conscience free so that you can actually serve. That's the deep thing the weak was circling. Some of you need to take a breath right there because you're leaning into it, you're on the edge. You're starting to understand everything matters. Now, some of you have heard me talk about the great exchange that at the cross our sin is credited to him and his righteousness is credited to us. That him and that he is Yeshua Hamashiach. Jesus, the Messiah. Well, that is true. And Scripture teaches it in Romans, in Philippians, in 2 Corinthians. But let me be careful with this because being careful here protects your faith instead of inflating it. Numbers 19 is a shadow that prepares you for that exchange. It isn't a coded, it's not a coded lecture on it. Don't make the shadow carry more than God asked it to. The deepest thing he does for you is something you'll never ever reason your way into or engineer for yourself. You just receive it. And look, we want to we want to never take this guardrail down when Messiah bore what was ours to bear. He didn't become defiled in himself. The book of Hebrews calls him holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners. He carried our defilement without being stained by it. That's not a contradiction. That's the miracle. So watch what this does to the exhaustion so many of you carry. If cleanness were something you had to manufacture, you'd spend your life at the sink and your hands would be raw from washing and scrubbing and never coming clean. But if it's given and it's received, the whole project changes. You aren't asked to produce it, you are asked to receive it and then cleansed to serve. That's the difference between a religion of the sink and the gospel of the heifer. He's in every day of this week. Yeshua is in every day this week. Jesus Christ, he's in every day of this week, and in one of them he points to himself. The heifer was without blemish and had never worn a yoke, and he offered himself without spot, and no one took his life from him. Hebrews said the bodies of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp, and that Yeshua suffered outside the gate to make the people holy, and of the heifer specifically, Hebrew says it plainly. In a night conversation with a Pharisee, out of everything in the Torah he could have chosen, Yeshua chose the bronze snake. As Moses lifted up the, he lifted up the serpent, the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should have eternal life. He didn't say the venom went into the bronze, he said the lifting, the lifting up, and the looking in faith, and the life. That was his own picture of his own cross. The star of Jacob came from the mouth of a man paid to curse Israel. And centuries later, men from the east came asking where the king of the Jews was born, because they'd seen a star. Moshe or Moses told he would die outside the land. God said, You're gonna die outside. You're never gonna go in that place you've been laboring 40 years to go. Moses, instead of saying, Why? How could you do this, God? I've been faithful to you. Yes, I've made some mistakes. But I've been faithful for 40 years. Instead of doing that, he said instead, he asked a question of God, he asked the mercy of God upon the people. He asked God to give the people a shepherd so they wouldn't be like sheep without one. God gave him Yhoshua the same name in its fullness as Yeshua. A thousand years later, the gospels say Yeshua looked at a crowd that was harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Moses' very same words. And he had compassion on them. And on another day he said it outright, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Take a breath, breathe, take it in. And underneath all of it, the continual offering, one lamb, morning and evening, until one day a man pointed at a carpenter and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So here the whole week in one breath. They didn't have to heal themselves first. God gave a remedy and said, Everyone who looks in faith will live. And Yeshua said that was about him. You don't have to be good enough to come. You have to come to the one who is. Heavier. And not one of these days in this past week is get your life together. Don't take that. That's wrong. Yes, we want to get our lives together. Yes, we want to clean ourselves up. But that's not the point. And that's not the first point. First, find the person in your world who's been doing the quiet, costly work nobody else will touch, the caregiver, the cleanup person, the one standing in somebody else's wreckage. It costs them something real, and it often, it often is the case that nobody says anything, nobody compliments them. This week I want you to thank them by name. This week, tell them you saw the cost. Second, take the one thing you filed under, well, that's just how it is. Just how it is. You say, I can't ask. Instead of filing it under, it's just how it is, actually ask, actually ask God for it out loud. Once before the week is out. God upheld people who brought their need to him instead of swallowing it. Third, keep one word you gave and you let it expire. Make it right. Not the great vow, the ordinary one. The one you pass over so quickly, yeah, it's no big deal. The call you said you'd make, the visit you'd promised, but didn't make. Pick one and keep it because a vow bow it binds the soul. Look, ask, keep your word. Do those three, and you'll have done more real obedience this week than a month of trying to be impressive. It is not about being impressive at all. I have for you a challenge and a choice. So which one were you this week? The one with nothing under you but a promise, living like Levi with God Himself as your portion? The one worn thin, cleaning up after everybody, paying a cost nobody named, the one staring at your own wound instead of lifting your head, the one who never knew a battle was fought over you while you slept. Or the one who, like Israel at Peor, treated the covenant cheaply and they paid for it. Probably you were more than one. I knew I was. Here's the choice tonight, and it's real. You can keep trying to get well enough to come, keep swallowing the things you were meant to bring to God, and keep the sink running. And try washing your hands raw, and they'll never come clean. Or you can lift your head, open your mouth, keep your word, and stay faithful where he's put you. And notice this is not a call to do nothing. Levi still carried the tent. The daughters still stood up and smoked and spoke. The bitten still had to lift their eyes. Grace is not passivity. The rest is his gift too. But a lot of the weight in your chest, it's weight that you added. You put it on yourself. You're constantly putting things on yourself that were never yours. You're constantly taking responsibility for things that you need to let the right person handle. Or fail. Stop carrying what is not yours to carry. Stop carrying a rescue you were only ever meant to receive. Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. I want you to pray with me. Father, in the name of Yeshua, your son, thank you for a statute we can't reason our way to the bottom of, and for a son who carried our defilement and was never stained by it. Thank you for the battles we never knew about, for every curse that never landed while we slept. Thank you that you didn't tell dying people to heal themselves, only to look in faith at what you had given. Father, for everyone worn thin from costly, unthanked service, I ask that you strengthen them and give them rest because rest is your gift, it's not a failure. For everyone standing outside a door they assumed was closed, give them the courage to ask. For everyone whose words have gotten cheap, bind our souls again to what we say. And for the ones who they're exhausted at the sink, scrubbing their hands raw, trying to produce a cleanness, it'll never come. I ask Father that tonight you let them hear that in Messiah it is given and it is received, and then it sends us out to serve you, and it sends us clean because of what your son Yeshua did for us on the cross. We can't do this ourselves. I thank God that you did. In Yeshua's name, Amen. Look, maybe you've spent this whole episode, maybe you've spent this whole time listening, realizing you've been trying to get good enough before you'd come to Christ, before you'd place your faith in him. Look, I gotta I gotta get all this stuff fixed, I gotta do all this stuff right. I can't keep messing up. You're trying to clean yourself up so that you'll have something acceptable to bring him. Hear it one more time. There were people in that camp with venom. They had snake venom in them, they were snake bit. They were dying. And they'd already admitted that they'd sinned. And God didn't tell them, Well, you go on and heal yourself then. He gave a remedy and lifted it up and said, Everyone who looks in faith will live. Yeshua said that was about him. You don't have to be good enough. You have to come to the one who is. And then look at him. If you're ready for that, if you're finally, finally ready, I want you to pray with me. Let's deal with this. Pray it and mean it. Yeshua, I need you. I believe you died for me and and you rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today, and I ask that you forgive me, fill me, lead me. I'm yours. In your name. Amen. Well, you've prayed that tonight in a minute. Your hope doesn't rest on how well you said the words, how exactly right you got everything. It rests on the one you said them to. It wasn't about you, it's about him. Yeshua keeps everyone who comes to him. Welcome to the family. I think it's a phenomenal thing, and I'm excited about it. Are you excited about it? Should be. You should be super excited about it. You should want to tell somebody. Go find somebody that's a person of faith that you believe is a person of faith and tell them. Maybe that's your mom or dad, your sister, your brother, your best friend. I don't know. I need you to understand that they may not respond favorably. That's okay. Don't get in a debate with them. Just smile at them and say, well, you know, the preacher guy. He said, go and tell someone that was a person of faith that I love or that I respect and that just tell them that. And I did because I thought of you first. Have a great day. And then go on about your business. Hey, maybe tell me. I can guarantee you, I'm not going to react that way. I'm going to react totally different. I'm going to be a wild man. I'm going to be happy as anything. I may lose my head. I know heaven is rejoicing right now. It's a loud joint, cheering for you. Go to true wordfaithforlife.com. True WordFaithforLife.com. There's a contact. Says contact up at the top. Click on that. You can type it out. Or on the right, there's a little thing. It's over. It's a little, I think it's gray. Click on that. That's a voicemail. It's two minutes. I'm the only one that can hear it. I'm the only one that can open it. Just like the contact thing. I'm the only one. Nobody else can open it. And I'm telling you, as soon as I get it, as soon as it goes through all the security things that we have, and I see it, I'll I'll contact you. I promise you. I'll reply you back. I'll say, hey, let's make it time to chat. First of all, I'm super excited. By the way, if you have any questions, feel free. Send them to me that way unless you know my direct contact. I'd love to hear from you. By the way, if you're on um TrueWord Faith for Life, True Word Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, the YouTube channel with about 4,000 listeners or subscribers. If you're not a subscriber, click on subscribe. Hit the little bell for all notifications. If you're cruising across thumbs up anyway, why not click on that too? Done cost you a thing. We're not going to leave you out there to figure, figure it all out on your own. That's what I'm here for. By the way, if this is the first time you're with us, we've been walking through scripture in order since Genesis, verse by verse. The ancient Near Eastern language, culture, and context. In the world it was written in. You can listen any way you want. You can listen through Spotify or iTunes or iHeartRadio or any of the 20-some of them. Usually within about two hours, we're there. I would love for you to do that. It will be awesome. Tomorrow morning, if if God keeps me here on this planet at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, I'm going to be here. I will be no better looking, I'm sorry to say. Join us tomorrow as we finish Numbers, the book of Numbers, baby bar. God as Moses wrote down every place Israel ever camped, including the ones that they were ashamed of. You know, a tribe with no land, and nothing under them but a name. A heifer burned to ash outside a camp, so a family who had touched death could come home. A pole in the middle of a dying camp, and one instruction. Look, accursed three mountains away, accursed three mountains away that never landed on people who never knew, and five women who brought their need into the light, and the God who said that they had spoken right. Almost none of it was yours to produce, only the looking, only the asking, only the keeping of your word, only the staying faithful, to put down the rescue you were near. You were only meant to receive the rescue. Pick up the small real part that is actually yours to carry. Lift your head and live. If somebody you know is trying to get well enough to come to God, send them this episode. Tell them what the whole week said. Nobody in that camp was told to heal themselves first. God gave them the remedy. They only had to look. How exciting. How wonderful. How many of you, how many of you know what that feels like? To look, to look to heaven, to look to Jesus, to look to Yeshua, to call out to the Holy Spirit, the Ruchakadesh, to call upon his name. He is absolutely listening. I hope that many of you who had not before placed your faith in Christ. I hope that you have tonight, or today, or this afternoon, whenever you're listening. Here's the thing. Sometimes you just have to learn to receive the blessing. Sometimes you just have to take some deep breaths and be still and receive. God will work on your life with you. I'll help you. Now I'm going to pray a blessing over you. I'm going to pray it in his heavenly name in Lashon Hokadesh, which is in Hebrew, Hebrew for the language of God. This is the prayer that Yeshua, Jesus Christ, as he was about to ascend. God bless you, Tommy. God bless you, welcome. Yeshua was praying this over the people, his arms outstretched. When mid-sentence, he was carried home to heaven with the Father. And now I pray this over you. I'm nobody special. I want you to take it. First, I'm going to pray it in Hebrew. And don't panic. I'm going to translate it to English at the end. It's not very long. And when we close, I will see you again, hopefully, tomorrow morning, Monday through Fridays, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Are you ready? May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Shalom Bishem Yeshua.