Session 6 – Lesser Known Women of the Bible; The Daughters Who Changed the Law: Mark Lanier, 11/17/24

Women Lesson 6
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[00:00:00] Going into Lesser Known Women of the Bible, the series that we've been in, and, and I'm excited about it. Last night, a number of you may have come. We had the, the ribbon cutting and the dedication of Trowbridge Village. That's the village that's been built for our interns here at the church, the residents in the resident program.

And we named it Trowbridge because that's a three-generation name in Becky's family. Her brother's middle name was Trowbridge. His son, our nephew Alex, middle name Trowbridge. Her father, middle name Trowbridge. Somewhere back, the family came from [00:01:00] Trowbridge, England. And so we've got a village built that's inspired by British, uh, architecture and British, um, uh, motifs.

And so what better thing to do than to name it the family name? So we have Trowbridge. Now, if you go over to Trowbridge, England, the sign's a little different than ours. The population's a little different than ours. But we've got that family name, and it's from my wife. And so I thought it especially appropriate as we're teaching on women in the Bible with today's lesson on names that I teach the lesson my wife asked me to teach We're sitting at dinner and she says, "Hey, husband, would you do one on the daughters of Zelophehad?"

And I said, I, I took Hebrew-- I've read Hebrew for [00:02:00] forty-five years, and I can't say Zelophehad enough to teach on Zelophehad. And she said, "Yeah, you can." So Becky, this one's for you. Daughters of Zelophehad. We're going to call this The Daughters Who Changed the Law. Yay. And we're gonna do it, Ms. Carolyn, in three points.

Okay? So if I open that back up. Point one, I'm gonna tell you the story of the daughters of Zelophehad. Then after I tell you the story... Whoops, that didn't work well. I will tell you the context. We will look into it in more detail. And then after we look into it in more detail, we will finally apply it.

And the application has a little bit more than normal. Dale Hern will appreciate it. The point's for home longer today. All right? So with that, let's first do the story. [00:03:00] Now, this story is found in the Book of Numbers. It's in chapter twenty-six for a few verses, and it's in chapter twenty-four. And, um... No, twenty-seven.

That's a typo. That's a bad typo, too. Hold on. I mean, somebody's, like, gonna be watching this on the internet, and they're gonna comment, and it's not gonna be a pretty comment, and we gotta fix it. So we are going to fix this little puppy right now

There. Yay. 27. Yeah. All right. So we are in chap- Numbers chapter 26 and chapter 27. I got up at 2:28 this morning to prepare this PowerPoint. That may not be the last problem we have. So bear with me. We want to do [00:04:00] exactly what Pastor Jarrett said this morning. I had no clue what his message was gonna be. I sure wish I'd had his visual because I'd have put it in this message, but his message meshes with mine pretty cool ways.

So we'll look at it. But the book of Numbers, we need to start out with the context. The context of the book of Numbers has Israel on the edge of promise. Now, Israel has been promised land down here in the Middle East, and if we're going to use a timeline to help us understand this, we can go back to the time of Abraham.

Abraham is about 1900 years before Jesus. Father Abraham, father of the Hebrew people, father of Israel, father of modern Jews. Father Abraham in 1900, and he's [00:05:00] living in Ur of the Chaldees down here. His father and he get a call to go where God takes them, to leave their ancestral home, and they do, and they go up to Terah, and his dad stays there while Abraham continues to journey over into what becomes the Promised Land.

And while Abram is there, or Abraham, as he becomes known, uh, uh, you wind up ha- he winds up having kids. He's got Isaac, who has Jacob, who has 12, and those 12 wind up going over to Egypt, and this is about 1700 BC. And they're over in Egypt for centuries, like four-plus centuries. [00:06:00] So they're in Egypt, and it starts out like a pretty sweet deal, but it turns into one of slavery.

And they're in slavery when along comes Moses, and God uses Moses to pull them out and take them to the Promised Land, and now we're about 1250 BC. So we are some 650 years or so post the promise that was given to Abraham, that God gave Abraham, as they come into the Promised Land. And as they're going over there, God tells Moses to number the people, to number them by...

You know, remember, you have 12 tribes of Jacob, whose name is also Israel. So you've got these 12 tribes of Israel, and they're going over [00:07:00] there, and they're-- And Moses is told, "Number them by the tribe, but then within the tribe by the clans, and within the clans by the families, because ultimately they all get some land.

And the land they're gonna get is land that I promised to Abraham." And so it goes to them based upon number Families and clans that are bigger in number get more land than families and clans that are smaller in number. And so the land is to be distributed, and the Book of Numbers is called the Book of Numbers because it's got the numbering of the people.

The sons of Joseph, Joseph is one of the 12 tribes, one of the 12 sons of Jacob or Israel. The, um, the sons of Joseph according to their [00:08:00] clans, you got Manasseh and Ephraim Then the sons of Manasseh, you've got the Machir clan and the clan of the Machirites, and Machir is the father of Gilead, and of Gilead, the clan of the Gileadites.

And then you've got the sons of Gilead. You've got Lesser and his Lesserites. You've got Helek and the Helekites, and Asriel and the Asrielites, and Shechem and the Shechemites This is all just going on more and more and more. Then you've got Shemitah and the Shemitah- Shemitahites. You've got heifer and the heiferites.

Now heifer

Zelophehad is a son of Hepher. But Zelophehad doesn't have any sons. He has a sorority [00:09:00] house

He has five, count them, uno, dos, tres, quattro, cinco, wi- um, not wives, daughters. No sons. The names of the daughters of Zelophehad are Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Miglah, Milcah, excuse me, and Tirzah Now, I tried to get on the internet to get a picture of Zelophehad 'cause I wanted to see what this guy looked like That's not him.

Turns out they didn't have cameras back then. Who'd have thought? But through the wonders of artificial intelligence, we just said, "Hey, generate me a picture of, uh, some, uh, uh, ancient Hebrew man who looks worn out from having five [00:10:00] daughters." And that's him, Zelophehad, a man of Manasseh. Would you like to meet his five daughters?

In a second. All right. Now, these were those... We gotta finish that part of Numbers. These were those listed by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who listed the people of Israel in the plains of Moab. By the way, God's just amazing. You realize Moses grew up in the house of Pharaoh, and he was trained in the way of the Egyptians.

That would include training for this, because the Egyptians taught their princes how to number the people and to use scribes and all to keep track of them because of all of the work they had to do. This is easy for Moses. But he gets Eleazar the priest to help. They listed the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, but among these, there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest who had listed the people of [00:11:00] Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.

When he first listed them, by the time they're about to go in, none of those men are still alive, save Caleb, the son of, uh, Jeph- Jehu- Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. Do you know why? All the rest died off during the 40 years of wandering because they weren't faithful enough to enter the land God's not gonna give the land to them if they're not willing to trust God to give the land to them.

So the only two-- So that tells you Zelophehad is dead at this point. Sorry. May you rest in peace. However, his daughters are still alive, and I've called them brave sisters because indeed what they do is quite brave. So here they are. You have, [00:12:00] uh, Machlah in Hebrew, or we just read it as Mahlah. But you say, "Who's gonna name their kid Mahlah?"

Well, nobody. They named her Machlah there. Noah. Okay, well that seems weird. No, it doesn't. This is Noah in a, in a, a feminine spelling. Hoglah, um, which is Hoglah in Hebrew. You've got Milcah, which in Hebrew is Milcah. And then you've got Tirzah, which in Hebrew is Tirzah. So that's, that's their names. Now let me tell you their story.

Their story begins in earnest in Numbers chapter twenty-seven. It's eleven verses. I'm gonna put it up here in English and in Hebrew so you have fun, uh, looking at, uh, Hebrew letters. "Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad, the [00:13:00] son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, from the clan of Manasseh, the son of Joseph.

The names of his daughters were..." Now, what do you see here? The daughters draw near of Zelophehad, who's the son of the son of the son from the clans of the son of Joseph. Son, son, son, son, son, son, son. Because the land's gonna be distributed to the men Well, they don't got a man They can marry someone and then the land that would have been their share, what happens to it?

They don't get a share. They are not going to inherit. They have no right to land because dad didn't produce a male So [00:14:00] these five gals together team up, and I would have loved to have been there. You know, "Somebody needs to complain about this to Moses." "What? I, I'm not going to that guy. I mean, people have complained to Moses before, and he's-- like, the ground opened up and swallowed them."

"Yeah, but one of us has to. You're the oldest. You go." "No, no, no, no, I'm not going. You're the youngest. You go. He'll have mercy on you. I'm not going." "Well, you look like one of his daughters. You go." But they all five go. It's the buddy system. So all five of them,

they

go to Moses. Uh, now, this is James Bijon. He's at Tyndale House, which is a evangelical think tank in Cambridge. He is the world's leading authority on Old Testament names and what they mean. And some of these names are kinda iffy. But [00:15:00] I asked him, I said, "Can you give me what you think is the best meaning of these names?"

'Cause I can come at it with my limited Hebrew, but my Hebrew's good enough to know that I'm not a Hebrew scholar. His is, like, pristine, okay? So James Bijon sends an email out yesterday, and here's what he says: "Well, Zelophehad probably the," may he rest in peace, "probably the best translation we can get of his name is Pimple Cheek."

Hey, if the shoe fits, wear it. Okay? So old pimple-cheeked, um, uh, may he rest in peace. Uh, old pimple-cheek is there, and he's got five daughters, and I wanna translate their names for you, okay? Mala or Mahlah is sweetness. That's [00:16:00] that firstborn Then they had Noah, who's fragile Then they had Hoglah, who is a partridge.

Milcah is a princess, and Tirzah is desire. Or maybe in English, the desire in a name form for a girl is Desiree. Okay? So now we can put the scripture back up there, but we'll translate it. "Then drew near the daughters of Pimplecheak, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Mada- Milcah, uh, uh, Makir, the son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh to the son of, uh, the son of Joseph.

The names of his daughters were Sweetness, Fragile, Partridge, Princess, and Desire." So these are the gals that go to Moses. "And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the high priest, and before the chiefs and all the [00:17:00] congregation at the entrance of the tent of meeting." That's why I called them brave.

That's not easy to do Here's what they said, "Our father died in the wilderness." Now, different people died in the wilderness for different people. There were some who, Korah's rebellion, where the ground did open up and swallow them whole. He was just one of the guys who died 'cause he didn't have enough faith to enter the land.

"Our father died in the witness. He wasn't among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah." He just died for his own sin, and he didn't have any sons Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he didn't have a son? Give to us a possession among our uncles.

Let us get our dad's share as a possession [00:18:00] Moses said, "Hmm, interesting. I'll talk to God about it." So Moses brings their case before the Lord, and the Lord said to Moses Hey, they're right. "So give them possession of an inheritance among their father's brothers," their uncles, "and transfer the inheritance of their father to them."

Change property law

And then God said, "And you shall speak to the people of Israel saying, 'If a man dies and he doesn't have a son, then transfer his inheritance to his daughter.'" Tell me God wasn't cutting edge It would take most of the world a few thousand years to catch up to that [00:19:00] If he doesn't have his daughter, then you can give it to the uncles.

So if he doesn't have a son, doesn't have any daughters, then it can go to his brothers. And oh, by the way, if he doesn't have any brothers, then you give his inheritance to his father's brothers, his great uncles. And if his father doesn't have any brothers, then you give it to the nearest kinsman of his clan.

And this shall be for the people of Israel a statute and a rule, as the Lord commanded Moses." And they changed the law. Kinda cool, huh? That's the story. Now what I wanna do is I wanna put it into context

Look at this key verse. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? This is a classic illustration [00:20:00] of the way we need Jarrett's-- Pastor Jarrett's diagram of understanding scripture, that we read it in context, and before we just apply it, we bridge over the culture.

We've gotta understand the river that we're crossing. And the word name is a pet peeve of mine because we misuse it in modern society. Let me tell you why. If we put it under the microscope or magnifying glass. A name, an, an idea of name is certainly in Old Testament days as it is today an identifier. I know that that is Greg.

I know who Greg is. Greg always sits in that chair, in that row every Sunday morning. He's diligent. That's him. That is Sharon. She always sits in that chair every Sunday morning. I have my birth mom, Carolyn [00:21:00] Lanier, over there, and my second mom, Miss Carolyn, down here. They always sit in the same place. I know exactly where everybody is sitting who sits in the same place, and I can call them by name It's an identifier.

But name meant something much more than that in antiquity, in both the Old and New Testament. Shem, the Hebrew word for name in the Old Testament, it meant your character and your actions. Your name meant more than simply an identifier. It meant who you were in your essence. We use it a little bit like that now.

We could talk about someone who has a bad name or someone who's made a name for themselves. That [00:22:00] doesn't mean they got a dictionary out and decided what their name would be. It's talking about their character, their actions, their curriculum vitae or their resume. And I've talked about that a lot. I won't spend too much time on it.

But there's a third aspect to the Hebrew name that we need to be aware of, and the name represented a continuity of being or existence. If your name is still present, even my father, William H. Lanier, went by Bill. We speak of him often. We speak of him fondly. My father passed away on a Sunday. In fact, I had to rush from teaching to the hospital before he passed, but it was February 1 of 2004, so over [00:23:00] 20 years ago.

And yet we still speak of him. And the kids-- I made some, um, we were at a, a traffic light. I was there with our daughter, Sarah. Sarah's 20... Uh, we don't know. She's the youngest, and we quit counting. Um, 25? Is she 25? 20-- Catherine knows. The aunt knows. Um, 25. And so she would have been less than five when my dad passed away.

She doesn't have a lot of memories of my dad. The kids called him Daddy Bill. But we were sitting at a light, and I couldn't turn because all of these cars were coming the other way, and they just kept coming. And I said to her, I said, "Sarah." She said, "What?" I said, "Somebody left the gate open." She said, "W- what do you mean?"

I said, "Look at all these cars coming. Man, somebody's left a gate open somewhere." She said, "That sounds like a joke your [00:24:00] dad made, Daddy Bill." And I said, "You're right, my dad made that joke, and it's a dad joke, and you can laugh." And she said, "Not really." But my dad's name is still there. And because of that, my dad still exists in a way.

It was even more so true back in biblical times. The presence of a name represented the continuity of existence. Take, for example, Genesis 11:4 when they're building the Tower of Babel. They said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth."

Name there is this is a continuity of existence. We will always be known because our name will be associated [00:25:00] with this tower. We will make a name for ourselves. It will continue. God said, "No, I make names for people, not you," and we know the story of that. Name, continuity of being or existence. Let me give you a fourth way name was used.

Name was part of community memory. It was part of your place within the community. We live in a very transient community. I, I lived in 13 different places by the time I was in middle school, and by, by different I, I mean, like, spanning from Dallas-Fort Worth to Shreveport, New Orleans, Abilene, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Rochester, New York, before we found God in Lubbock, Texas.

All of that. I mean, He was in those other places, but He was a lot more obvious in Lubbock. Um- [00:26:00] We live in a transient world. Back then, they lived with community in a much more intense way, and name is part of that commitment-- I mean, community memory. It's, it's, it's your place. It's part of who you were.

It's your identity. Let me give you a passage as an example. In Ruth, when Ruth finally has, uh, uh, been married to Boaz, they have a son. The women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who's not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel." May the name of this child, may... That, that, that's your place in Israel.

That's your community. God can be exalted because you've got a place. You belong, and the name is used for that. The name also has this very spiritual use in scripture, and it's tied in with God's covenant. [00:27:00] So let me give you some examples of covenant in this spiritual look, the place in God's covenant.

Isaiah forty-three:one. "Now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel." And look, this is calling Jacob and Israel by their names. They've been dead over a thousand years, but their name is still associated with the people. It's the community. "O Israel, fear not, I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name." You're mine. When God says he calls you by name, it's not just, oh, he knows Mark, or he knows John, or he knows Dorothy, or he knows whomever. It's, it is the idea that, that we are in a covenant relationship with him that is not by our identifier, but it's our character. It's who we are.

It's our

place in community life with God.[00:28:00]

Give you another passage. Um, uh, I've got it wrong as Isaiah 43. "He'll give their kings into your hand. You will make their name perish from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you until you've destroyed them." I think that passage is actually out of Deuteronomy, so I'll fix that, too. But the, the, the point is what the people are being told is we're-- y- you will go in.

If you are faithful, God will deliver the kings into your hand, and their names will perish from under the heaven. They won't have a place in the land. They won't have a place in the community. They will be gone. Their name is gone. Their placement is gone But this spiritual look, if you are cut off, it is severe punishment if your name is cut off.

So when your name perishes from [00:29:00] under heaven, you are cut off Let me give you another passage. Daniel 12:1, "There shall be a time of trouble such as never been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people will be delivered, everyone whose name is found written in the book." If your name is maintained, your place in society, in the world, in community, and in God's kingdom is maintained.

Name is associated with your placement, but it's got this spiritual role of your place in God's covenant. So he calls you by name, he calls you into a covenant, a relationship with him, and we don't wanna lose track of that. So why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan? Why should he disappear?

If you don't give us any land [00:30:00] where it's put down in the records that we're of that Zelophehad then yeah, there's an identifier that's gone, but more than that, he's gone

His existence is written out of the history books. The placement in the community is just absorbed. We're just people

And the place in God's covenant seems to be missing And so they want his name to be sustained. Their argument isn't just about inheritance. They're about maintaining their father's existence

They're trying to keep his place in the covenant and [00:31:00] ensured his continued presence among them Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan? But it doesn't only say that. Give to us a possession

Give us his share of the land. I had no idea what Jarrett was preaching on this morning, but boy, does it fit hand in glove with this class. Land in Israel's day, and this is some of what Jarrett was saying, because I think we tend to read land and we just think of geography. So we see passages like that Chronicles passage, and we think that it's talking about just geography.

No, the, the, the, the Holy Land is called Holy Land for a reason. It's got theological significance in scripture, and we should never lose track of that when we're reading these [00:32:00] things. It is God's ultimate fulfillment of what he promised to Abraham. God told Abraham, "I made a covenant with Abraham," said, "To your offspring, I will give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river," the River Euphrates.

This is a fulfillment of a promise God made, and it's important to us as Christians because as Paul will explain in Romans, we understand that it was Abraham's faith that was counted to him as righteousness, and the promised land that was a covenant is akin to, metaphorically, the promised eternity that we have as we put our faith in Christ.

It's a covenant of land with theological significance. In Exodus 6, [00:33:00] "I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob," calling them by name. "I'll give it to you for a possession because I'm the Lord." But if you look at this, it's a divine inheritance that these people were getting, and this is important for us to understand when we read land.

The land will be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. To a large tribe you'll give a large inheritance, to a small tribe a small inheritance, but every tribe shall be given its inheritance according to its numbers. This is God's divine. He has written this. He has decreed this.

This is the land of theological significance, and the land is there then to tie these people to God Look at this passage in Leviticus. "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity because the land is mine," God [00:34:00] says. "You're strangers. You're sojourners who are in my land. I've given it to you as an inheritance, but it's still mine."

And this land ties those people to God. And when it's given to the people with names, it ties them to God. It's this covenant relationship. Naboth. Naboth had this really cool vineyard, and wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel wanted the land. So Ahab tries to buy it. Naboth says, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers."

This is the land that God gave us as an inheritance. I can't just pal-mal sell it to you I hope we're getting some of this cultural difference here. The land ties the people to God. This is all in addition to the land being economic reality. I mean, land gives you food, [00:35:00] gives you collateral for a loan, gives you employment.

You can hire people. You can go to work, farm your land. Land is part of the social structure. Land is part of the family legacy. Land is part of the cultural identity. They'd have festivals, harvest festivals. They'd have threshing floors where they had big outdoor parties. When you have a gorgeous full moon like last night, they would have celebrations of the moon.

Stage So we've got the name under the microscope But we've also got the land, and I was meant to have land there. I don't know how that messed up. So just imagine this says land instead of name, okay? Land shows God's promise. It's a divine inheritance. It's a tie to God. It's economic sustenance, [00:36:00] and it's the social fabric.

It's the legacy. It's the identity. And that's what the, the sisters were saying. Our father's name needs to be sustained, and we need to have the divine inheritance tie to God, economic sustenance, social fabric, legacy, identity. We have our share of God's promise even though we're women. Don't let it be given away All right.

You with me so far? Yeah. Now for some really cool stuff

There was a fellow that taught at Harvard a long time ago. His name was George Andrew Reisner. Lived from 1867 to 1942, and in 1910, he's been excavating over in Samaria. Samaria was the capital of the northern 10 tribes of Israel [00:37:00] When they separated from Judah, the northern 10 tribes made their city s-- uh, their, their, their country's center, their capital, Samaria.

The lower two tribes kept Jerusalem. So George Andrew Reisner is excavating, and he comes across some ostraca. That's the plural of ostracon Here, throw this out at lunch today and ask people about it and see what they do. Okay? We have Os-tri-con. The plural of ostrica

Wanna know what it was? No, it's not an ostrich. Um, [00:38:00] you have a pot, ceramic pot. It gets busted. It gets chipped. What do you do? Do you throw it away? No, that's a notepad. You take the shards of the ceramic pot and you write on it. Why would you ever throw it away? It's not like they had a bunch of paper. They need something to write on, so they would write on broken pottery.

If you find a shard of broken pottery with writing on it, it is an ostraca. If you find a bunch of them, they're ostracon. George Andrew Reisner found a bunch of ostracon when he was digging in Samaria, and in 1910, he wrote in his journal, "This may be the biggest thing I'll ever find in my life." If you go to Turkey and you can get the permission, you can go see these at the museum there in Istanbul.

I [00:39:00] think it's in Istanbul. But this has got ancient Hebrew writing

Now, why do I bring this up? This was contained within the building that, that most scholars think was probably the record keeping for the government And what these are, are receipts, records of property, and things of that nature. Now, these five Braid sisters, Sweetness, Fragile, Partridge, Princess, and Desiree Two of their names are on the fragments he found This is ancient Paleo-Hebrew, it's called, early Hebrew script.

And here you've got, uh, let's see. Yeah, here you got Noah. This [00:40:00] is the ancient, uh, M in Hebrew, so it means, uh, from, and this is Noah. So this is something that references that daughter. It's not just that daughter. We can, in addition to Noah, find one that references... Another one of the ostraca that references Hogla.

She's up here. The M there is... These, they've, they've figured out the letters that would have been there. This is Hogla. Partridge. There's a professor at Bar-Ilan University, Aaron Dembski, who's, who's published on this extensively. He's one of the world's leading authorities on name places as well. And he's able to chart out the territory of Zelophehad's daughters from this b-because these shards are found here, and we know where Hogla, Milcah, Tirzah, [00:41:00] Mahlah and, uh, one, two, three, four, uh, we're missing Noah.

I'd probably put his name over Noah. But he's, he... We're, we're able to chart. Now, where is this on the timeline? The events are happening around 1250 BC. These shards seem to date most likely from around 780 BC. The name of Zelophehad, through his daughters because of this change, is still there 400 years later, 500 years later almost.

That's the power of what God was doing. So now let's take this and let's apply it. This is my favorite part of the lesson. Although that ostraca stuff's pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie. Why should the name of our [00:42:00] father be taken away from his clan because he had no son?

Um, I am a Christian And when I say I am a Christian, I mean I am not simply a follower of Jesus, but I am in the sense of the Greek word as it was officially or originally used. I'm, I'm a little Christ-ic. I'm, I'm not, I'm not Jesus. Everybody knows. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm not even remotely that holy. But when people see me and I wear that name Christian, they should see Jesus The whole idea behind Genesis creation of humanity in God's image is when people look at a human, they should see God.

Not because we are God, not because we are Jesus. We fail miserably, [00:43:00] but we still should bear some reflection of His love, His mercy, His grace, His dignity, of the kindness, of all of the fruit of His Spirit, being loving people, kind people, joyful people, forgiving people, serving people Is it Mark where Jesus said, "The Son of Man didn't come to serve, but to be served"?

No, "Didn't come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." And we-- if we are going to wear the name of Jesus, it needs to be more than an identifier, not simply, "Oh, I'm a Christian." It needs to show in our character and our actions We should behave like it[00:44:00]

You know, th-there's this check in my brain sometimes. It's this new-- It's not new. It's this refrain in my brain. When the tendency is to go, to think, to say, to do something that I shouldn't, it's this refrain that says, "I don't wanna be that guy." I'm of Jesus This stuff matters. "Well, you're forgiven." That doesn't, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the name that I wear. And my character and my actions need to grow to be more like the name that I wear. And if my temper gets in the way, then I need to do something about it. And if my worry get in the way, I need to do something about it, because God is here to transform us into the image of His Son.

And when He [00:45:00] does that, and He gives us that name, and He calls us by name, He is... Look, Jesus Christ had the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul wrote that to the Philippians. Paul understood what name meant.

And, and even Jesus Himself, Jesus has the character and actions that are above everybody else's. Who else is as good as Jesus? His name is higher than ours, but we're to be like Him Look at the third, continuity of being and existence. Is the name of Jesus above every name? He will never die. He lives eternally.

He sits at the right hand of God, and he comes again to claim his people. And that continuity of being and existence that makes his name greater than every name is the same continuity of being and existence that comes to us when we're called by his [00:46:00] name

And this is community memory, and this is placement

I love having people of the world meet my family in Christ Jesus is the ultimate community memory and placement. It is his kingdom. It is his. But he gives us, as he gives us his name, a placement

And finally, a place in God's covenant. The name of Jesus is above every name because of His place in God's covenant. And as we are little Jesuses, we have that place in God's covenant The name is so [00:47:00] important, and we can build a bridge as, as Pastor Jarrett did in his picture. From that lesson of the Old Testament, we can build that bridge to where we are today as we look at the name of Jesus and we look at the name of Christians, which is an identifier, our character and actions, continuity of being and existence, community memory and placement, and s- place in God's covenant.

And as for the land, well, God's not gonna divide up Texas and give you and I a big chunk. If I'm wrong on that and he gives you a chunk before eternal promises, choose Lubbock

But I will tell you this, the principle, just as Jarret said, is a principle that we understand today because we do have an inheritance in Christ. It's just not land. So instead of land, our inheritance, as Paul wrote it in [00:48:00] Ephesians, he prays that you'll have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you'll know what is the hope to which he's called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints God has an inheritance for all of us, and it's much more valuable than a chunk of land

All of the things that are wrapped up in the name of Jesus are things that are ours. And why on earth we don't walk in them is beyond me But I really wanna urge you To take time over lunch, talk to the people you eat with. If you eat by yourself, talk to yourself

Or find someone to eat lunch with and discuss [00:49:00] how can the name of Jesus grow in me? How can the inheritance that I have in God's covenant, in the kingdom of God, which by the way, I mean, you, you... If you look at the biblical expression, it's that the land promised to Israel, if anything translates to the gospel going out into all the world.

But it's not because we are hanging on to land here as an inheritance that we need to have returned to us, to have healed. It, it, it, it is rather- That God wants us to know the riches we have in Jesus Christ, and that's where we're driving if we are trying to remember the name. So Becky, the daughters of Zelophehad are worth teaching because they illustrate to us the importance [00:50:00] of these concepts.

And so it is my prayer to you that you will take these and that they will bless you. We are ending-- I'm gonna pray for us. We're ending two minutes early 'cause Becky and I have to get to the airport, so I can't talk to you. I apologize that I don't get to talk to everybody here, but, uh, we, we, we gotta go.

So with that, Lord, we don't go without asking your blessing. We pray that your name will be lifted high

Not just some identifier, Lord, but that people will see who you are and what you have done, and people will hear you call us into relationship, that we will look to walk with you, to follow you In good times and bad, on cheery roads and through dark valleys We want to, [00:51:00] to, to model your love, your kindness, your patience, your humility, and your care, and let people get a glimpse of you through us.

That is our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.