Live Free with Josh Howerton - From Sinners to Sons and Daughters | Ep. 73 | Wednesday May 17, 2023

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Sin drives a wedge between God and us, but through Christ, we can be reconciled to Him. Whether you are just starting to investigate what it means to walk with God or have been doing so for a long time, today’s episode with Pastor Mike is full of encouragement, hope and truth. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive podcast. Thanks for joining us as we try to spend just a few minutes every weekday, diving into some truth, some wisdom, some hope for the journey.

And we are walking through a letter that's tucked in the back of the Bible called Colossians, and we're just in Chapter 1. So if you're just joining us, there's not a whole lot of catching up to do. You can go back and catch previous episodes if that would help you out. Or, you know what, you can just jump right in today. And please know, it doesn't matter whether you've been walking with God for a long time or you're just starting to investigate what that might look like. Hey, remember we're all on different mile markers in life,

and we all need God's grace. And we all are the object of God's love. And I just want to tell you I'm grateful for you. We saw yesterday what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. We read that he qualified us. He rescued us. He transferred us. He purchased us.

He forgave us. And he, he did all of that. Now we're all the way down to verse 15 and following, where the writer Paul, it kind of goes into, I don't even know what they call it, kind of like a spoken word piece about just who it is that has done all this. It's kind of like a first century rap where he just starts flowing with the Holy Spirit crafting his words. And like Philippians too that we talked about in our last study,

this also became a favorite worship song of the early church. Now I have no idea what the tune was or what the beat was, but the lyrics, oh my goodness, check it out. He begins like this. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus. He is God with skin on.

He existed before anything was created, and it's supreme over all creation. Like the Gospel of John says about Jesus as the eternal word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. For through Him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. Jesus was not created. He is the creator of everything. He, Jesus, is the genius behind DNA, photosynthesis, and the cardiovascular system. He is the creative artist behind snowflakes, sunset, and mountain ranges.

He is the out-of-the-box thinker who came up with giraffes and kangaroos and fireflies. He, Jesus, made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him, including me and you. We've been created through him and for him. You and I are not mass produced. We are wonderfully, uniquely, handcrafted, masterpieces made for the purposes and glory of God. Verse 17, he existed before anything else.

Where did time all begin? There's your answer. Began with him. He's the great I am. the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. He says he holds all creation together, that he is the glue. He's the glue that keeps us from falling apart. Verse 18, Christ is also the head of the church, not pastors, not bishops, not elders, not boards, not denominational headquarters.

He is the head of the church, which is his body. And that's all of us who follow Jesus, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his heart, all with different gifts and abilities. and all the important functioning parts of a body moving through this world together with this love. He says he is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. In other words, Paul is saying he went first. His death and resurrection from the dead gives everyone who follows him the same victory over death and the same eternal life because he did it, we will do it too. So he is first in everything.

He's saying there is no equal, there is no rival. He's never been first runner up. Never will be. He is first in everything. Verse 19, for God in all of his fullness, all of his fullness, was pleased to live in Christ. This is a shout out to all the false teachers who were trying to tell the Colossian people that Jesus was merely a good man. He was just a man.

But he might have been a good man, but just a man. More on this in another episode, as we're going to get there pretty shortly. But he inserts this here, I think, to let them know. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus wasn't just a good man. He was God in all of his fullness. Verse 20 and through him, God reconciled everything to himself. Again, he did the reconciliation.

He initiated a peace agreement. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross. The curse is reversed. A new day is coming. Verse 21, this includes you who were once far away from God. Man, that sure described me. You were his enemies separated from him by your evil thoughts and action. Sin does that.

It drives a wedge. It separates. Evil puts us at odds with good. But you got to love this, verse 22. Yet now. Yet now. You are friends. Your sons and daughters.

He has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. Man, that is amazing. Some of you may be artistic. If you took an art pencil, maybe a charcoal pen, and you drew a beautiful landscape, and it just turned out exactly the way you wanted to.

It's like, that's pretty good drawing right there. But then you gave it to your toddler to color it with a big red crayon, and they just scribble it everywhere. I mean, your picture is ruined, right? But then if you would put a piece of red cellophane on top of your picture and look through that, the red scribbles disappear. Now, of course, this is not a perfect illustration, but I'm telling you, God looks at you and me through the blood of Jesus Christ, and he sees us as holy and blameless without a single fault. No scribbles, just the pure, beautiful masterpiece he created.

And Paul tells them and us today, never forget these things. Let it fill you with gratitude and wonder in all that the creator and sustainer of all things, the glue, the great I am, came to earth, lay down his life so that you could live forever. That's what he has done. Hold on to it, build your life on it, stand firm in it, know that you are radically loved today. See you back here tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today.

For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast, was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe. Church slash Daily Drive.