Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - You Need a Team | The Writings | 1 Chronicles 12

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Do you think you can live the Christian life on your own? Spoiler alert: you can't. We all need help. In today's episode, Keith looks to 1 Chronicles 12 to discuss how God uses the people around you to accomplish his plan. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Chronicles 12

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Maybe you've seen some of the YouTube videos of runners helping their competitors across the finish line when they couldn't make it there on their own. I think those videos and those stories behind them are really remarkable. And I usually don't get sucked into videos like that. But once I start watching these, I have a hard time stopping. It almost always happens in a long-distance race where toward the finish line, maybe,

say the last hundred yards or so, one runner falls from exhaustion. The runner's so close to the end, but it just can't finish. I've seen it in high school and college and some of the well-known marathons as well. At their lowest point, when they can't make it on their own, one or more of their competitors stops to help them up and assist them to the end. Sometimes they even have to carry them to the end. Even the best runners need help. Maybe you just recently watched the Super Bowl. I don't know if you're a man of the Chiefs or the 49ers or maybe neither team. But you might know that at the end of the game, Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback for the chiefs, was named the most valuable player, the MVP. Now, when people get that award, what do they always say, or at least they should always say it?

And that is, I couldn't have done this without my teammates. They give credit to their teammates because they know, in Mahomes' case, that football is a team sport. No one wins on their own. Well, the Christian life is a team sport. No one makes it to the finish line on their own. We all need help. Every Christian is in a situation now, or they will be soon, where they need help. We've needed someone to pick us up and get us going again. Well, help is one of the main themes in First Chronicles 12. The author of the book is telling the story of Saul and David's kingship in Israel. So to just reset the scene for you, Saul is currently Israel's king, but David has been anointed the next king.

It's no surprise that Saul is very angry about this. He doesn't want to share his power with anyone, but especially not David, who isn't even his son. So Saul has his armies out hunting for David with the hope of killing him before he can be made king. For his part, David is trying to honor the fact that Saul is currently the king while staying alive until it's time for him to take the throne.

To put it simply, David is on the run for his life. So that's where First Chronicles 12 start. Here's verse 1. These were the men who came to David at Zichlag, where he was banished from the presence of Saul, son of Kish. They were among the warriors who helped him in battle. They were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed. These verses then are followed by a list of men who came to help David fight. The word help help occurs seven times in the opening 22 verses. And several of the men who came to help David have the word help in their name. So, for example,

there's a man named Ahizer, and that means my brother helps. And Joe Ezr, which means Yahweh helps. And there's one guy whose name is Ezr, which literally means help. So the author is making his point really clear. David, you can't do this on your own. David needed help. And so God raised up helpers for him. I think it's really important to see that God's help came in human form. In other words, God sent people to help David. He didn't do a miracle and provide help apart from people. Instead, God helped David through people. It reminds me of the story, maybe you've heard it, about the guy who was stuck on his roof in a flood. So he'd gone up there to escape the rising water, and then he prayed that God would help him. Soon a man in a rowboat came by, and the guy in the

rowboat shouted out to the man on the roof, jump in, I can save you. Well, the stranded guy shouted back, no, it's okay, I'm praying to God and he's going to save me. So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by and the guy in the motorboat shouted, jump in, I can save you. But the stranded man on the roof said, no thanks, I'm praying to God and he's going to save me. I have faith. So the motorboat went on. Meanwhile, the water keeps rising. So a helicopter comes by and the man in the helicopter shouts down, grab this rope and I will lift you to safety. To this, the stranded man again replied, No thanks, I'm praying to God and he's going to save me.

I have a lot of faith. So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to heaven and he finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he said, I had faith in you, but you didn't save me. You let me down and I don't understand why. To this, God replied, I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. What more did you expect?

See, sometimes God saves us through a miracle, but most of the time, in most of our lives, he just saves us through ordinary means. Back to First Chronicles 12. Now we're in verse 16. Other Benjaminites, and that's just one of the tribes of Israel, and some men from Judah, another tribe, also came to David in his stronghold. David went out to meet them and said, if you have come to me in peace to help me, I am ready for you to join me.

But if you have come to betray me to my enemies when my hands are from, from violence, may the God of our ancestors see it and judge you. David doesn't know all these men, so he's not sure exactly how to react to their presence. He wants their help, but he also warns them that if they're lying and they're really going to betray him to Saul, well, he warns them that God will deal with him. Then the spirit came upon Amassai, chief of the 30, and he said, we are yours, David. We are with you, son of Jesse. Success, success to you, and success to those who help you, for God will help you. So David received them and made them leaders in his rating bands. Finally, at the end of this section, it says day after day, men came to help David until he had a

great army like the army of God. So what are some things that we can learn from this story? Well, first, God normally works through means. In this story, that looks like God helping David by sending men who are willing to fight alongside him. In our everyday life, that might look like God keeping us safe by using seatbelts, or God providing for us through our job, or God using medicine to heal our bodies. Could God protect and provide for you in miraculous ways? Sure, but he doesn't normally. Normally, he uses means. The danger is that we start trusting in the means instead of in God. It's easy to start trusting doctors or medicine instead of God, or it's easy to start trusting insurance policies instead of trusting God with our security. We want to be the kind of people who recognize that God

at work through means. That keeps our trust anchored in him. I always think of the story of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall and it said when the enemy's attacked, he prayed and posted a guard. He prayed, so his trust ultimately was in God, but he also posted a guard because he recognized that God usually works through means. So God protected him through the guard. But it was God who did it, and he knew God was the one he ultimately needed trust in, that's why he prayed and then posted the guard. The second thing we can learn is that we need help to live the Christian life. God doesn't intend for any of us to be lone ranger Christians. That's why being a part of a community is so important. God designed us to depend on each other. We can help someone through listening or praying for them,

or we could maybe help them move, or help them get into counseling, or help them learn the Bible, or just model how to be a Christian spouse. There's no limit to the ways that we can help others or might even need help ourselves. So the key thing here is to invest in relationships, because by the time we need help, it will be too late to find Christian friends. Build those relationships now. A third thing that we can learn is that we need to let people help us. Like we need to help other people when they're in need, but then we also need to be willing

to share our needs and not be. be afraid to ask for help. There's a certain kind of person who has a very difficult time asking for help or even letting other people know what they're struggling with, what their needs are. The Bible has a name for that kind of person. Are you ready for it? It's fool. Proverbs 1215, the way of fools seem right to them, but the wise listen to advice. When people are giving you advice, that means they're helping you. And the wise person knows they need their advice. They know they need help. And so, So they listen. Or how about this one? Proverbs 1522. Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. The person who has many advisors is the person who knows that they need help

in making decisions. Or there is a story in Exodus 18 where Moses is trying to rule over all the Israelites, and it's just more than he can handle. So listen to what his father-in-law says to him. He asked Moses, what are you really accomplishing here? Why are you trying to do? Why are you trying to do all this alone while everyone stands around you from morning till evening. What Jethro, Moses' father, law is, you are a fool for trying to do all this by yourself. Why don't you ask for help? There are a lot of people who would love to help you. In Matthew 8, we see that a centurion came up to Jesus, and it said that the centurion asked him for help. Isn't that the first person we need to go to and ask for help is God?

and then God may very well help us through other people. Psalm 287, the Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy and with my song I praise him. God, we need your help. We need other people's help. We are weak people who can't do life on our own. We can't make it across the finish line of faith.

We can't finish our life here, loving you, serving you, following you without other people helping us. I pray that we would be humble people who seek help and who help others in their time of need. Amen.