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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 1: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 1: more about God and his will for our lives. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Kyle Norman. After a brief message from one

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Speaker 1: of our sponsors, we will continue with today's verse. Today's

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Speaker 1: verse can be found in Isaiah chapter fifty eight, verses

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Speaker 1: nine and ten. If you do away with a yoke

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Speaker 1: of oppression, with a pointing a finger and a malicious talk,

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Speaker 1: and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry

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Speaker 1: and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light

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Speaker 1: will rise in the dark, and your night will become

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Speaker 1: like the noonday. One of my favorite theologians is a

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Speaker 1: man named dieterch Bonheffer. He was a German pastor and

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Speaker 1: theologian in the nineteen twenties, thirties, and forties. At the

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Speaker 1: start of his career, his preaching was very nationalistic. He

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Speaker 1: would preach how God was for Germany. God was blessing Germany.

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Speaker 1: God wanted to expand the German people. His understanding of

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Speaker 1: faith and his reading of the Bible was very much

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Speaker 1: intertwined with the German national politics of the day. His

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Speaker 1: theology was a theology based on power, but things changed

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty when he went to study in the

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Speaker 1: United States. While there, he started worshiping and volunteering at

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Speaker 1: Abyssinian Baptist Church, which was a Black Baptist church in Harlem,

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Speaker 1: and there he met people who loved Jesus not for

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Speaker 1: the place of power and prestige, but from the place

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Speaker 1: of vulnerability and need. For the very first time, he

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Speaker 1: was a part of a Christian community who saw Jesus

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Speaker 1: not as blessing their greatness, but as joining in their suffering.

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Speaker 1: And it was when this tall, blonde haired, educated, aristocratic

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Speaker 1: white German began to embrace people he never thought he

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Speaker 1: would ever embraced. He says, I met Jesus for the

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Speaker 1: very first time, and his life changed. He went back

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Speaker 1: to Germany and began to talk about how God's people

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Speaker 1: needed to stand with the oppressed, the suffering, and the vulnerable.

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Speaker 1: God is not interested in some self focused, pride based

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Speaker 1: sham of faith, the kind of faith that is only

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Speaker 1: concerned with our experiences. God always called us to embrace others.

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Speaker 1: God always calls us to live in this world as

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Speaker 1: people who serve the vulnerable and lift up those who

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Speaker 1: are less fortunate. Isaiah says to Israel that unless they

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Speaker 1: care for the poor and the oppressed around them, none

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Speaker 1: of their liturgical correctness matters to God, because they would

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Speaker 1: have fundamentally lost the plot. Being the people of God

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Speaker 1: is about recognizing God's presence in the poor and the needy.

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Speaker 1: We aren't called to welcome, to serve, to embrace others

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Speaker 1: merely as an act of charity, but as out of

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Speaker 1: a profound understanding that God is for them and that

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Speaker 1: God is with them. And so Isaiah calls to Israel,

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Speaker 1: and Isaiah calls to us, if you do away with oppression,

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Speaker 1: with pointing your finger and with malicious talk, and if

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Speaker 1: you spend yourself on behalf of the poor, then your

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Speaker 1: light will shine like the dark, and the Lord will

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Speaker 1: guide you always. When we do away with all of

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Speaker 1: the ways that we try to segregate our own flesh

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Speaker 1: and blood into categories of worthy and not worthy, righteous

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Speaker 1: and subhuman, we will find that we meet the God

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Speaker 1: who makes all people in God's own image. You know,

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Speaker 1: we all know that Jesus says, whatever you do to

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Speaker 1: the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you

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Speaker 1: do to me and the least of these. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean the young and the cute, those we want to

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Speaker 1: wrap our arms around and give lovely hugs. It means

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Speaker 1: the people we least want to spend time with, the

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Speaker 1: people that we are least prone to accept. There you

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Speaker 1: will find me, Jesus says. Now, does this mean that

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Speaker 1: how we pray or how we fast, how we worship,

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Speaker 1: and what we actually believe doesn't really matter? As quoted

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Speaker 1: on a bumper sticker I saw recently, kindness is my religion.

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Speaker 1: As long as we are kind that fulfills the law. No,

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Speaker 1: simply doing good things doesn't amount to authentic Christian faith.

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Speaker 1: Isaiah isn't putting forward a general vision of humanitarian aid

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Speaker 1: or some social gospel that is so watered down that

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Speaker 1: it ceases to actually be the gospel. No, Isaiah is

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Speaker 1: calling people to live intentionally as God's people. So, as

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Speaker 1: Christian people, we follow where Jesus leads, and where Jesus

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Speaker 1: leads is always to the place of sacrifice and service,

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Speaker 1: not power or prestige or the wielding of strength. The

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Speaker 1: fact is bigotry, hatred, all forms of physical, social, political,

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Speaker 1: or theological exclusion has no place with the followers of Jesus.

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Speaker 1: Now we live in a world where there's a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of injustice, where finger pointing and Malicia's talk is rapid.

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Speaker 1: It's in civic government, it's in international politics, let's be honest.

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Speaker 1: It can be in the church too, and in the

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Speaker 1: family of God, and it's in our own homes. It's

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Speaker 1: people of faith always wanting to live out the call

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Speaker 1: of Jesus. We must be willing to hear the uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: words of scripture calling us to abandon attitudes and behaviors

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Speaker 1: that betray the love and the grace of our Lord.

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Speaker 1: So here's the question that we are left with as

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Speaker 1: a response to the prophet's call, rooted in our desire

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Speaker 1: to live like Jesus. Where are we called to silence

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Speaker 1: all malicious talk and stop all evil finger pointing? Where

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Speaker 1: might God be calling us to serve others? How might

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Speaker 1: you share your food with the hungry, or help clothe

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Speaker 1: the naked, or provide for the wanderer with no shelter.

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Speaker 1: What does it mean for us to shine God's light

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Speaker 1: in this world? Because that is the type of radical,

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Speaker 1: prophetic and transformative witness that we are called to