Live Free with Josh Howerton - God Is with Us | Ep. 238 | Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Each of the four Gospels writes from a different perspective to give us a deeper view of who Jesus is. John writes to teach us about Jesus being the eternal God who dwelt among us. God’s desire has always been to be with us because He loves us. Ask Him to help you walk with Him and live with grace and truth today. 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. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive podcast. Hope your new year is off to a great start, and that you've already lost 30 pounds, you've read 100 books, or you've organized your garage and ran a marathon already. You know, we all have goals that we like to achieve in 2024. But for a few minutes each weekday, we're just going to try to get after the most important one, getting to know God. We're walking through the fourth book of the New Testament section of the Bible called the Gospel of John. Again, gospel means good news, and John writes this good news. about Jesus coming to earth. There are four different Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

all written with a different perspective, different details through a different lens, with different audiences in mind. Like Matthew is primarily writing to a Jewish audience, showing how Jesus came through the family tree of Abraham, to whom God promised long ago to bring the Messiah to earth through his family. Mark focuses in on Jesus coming from the humble beginnings in Nazareth and living his life as a humble servant. Luke is more detailed, more crime.

chronological, and he's writing to a broader audience shown in how he goes all the way back to Adam instead of Abraham for the lineage of Jesus. And John shows how this incredible man that he had the privilege of hanging out with for three years, this man that loved and taught and touched and included and embraced and healed and delivered and died and rose from the dead, how he is the eternal God. We talked about that yesterday. If you missed it, you can go back and check it out. Matthew and Luke include a narrative about the birth of Jesus. That's where you're all the angels, shepherd, stars, mangers, wise men, etc. come from during our celebration of Christmas.

But John really doesn't include a birth narrative other than this brilliant, and it gives me goosebumps every time I read it, this brilliant verse in verse 14. And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. John simply writes the eternal word, the one who is the beginning, the one who flung the stars into space, he moved into our neighborhood. He wrapped himself in our flesh, proclaiming that God can be known. He is a down-to-earth kind of God. You know, I love that phrase. I circled it in my Bible. He made his dwelling among us, because that's always been God's desire,

to be with us. And that's what he wants for you and me. That's all he's ever wanted. When he looks at you, he sees his child created in his image and radically loved, he sees someone he's always just wanted to do life with. If you go back to the beginning of the Bible, the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, talks about how God created man and woman and walked with them. That was his desire from the very beginning to walk with us.

In fact, this says this in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, long before he even laid down. down earth's foundations he had us in mind, as settled on us as the focus of his love. We were created in his image so that we might live in a relationship with him as the focus of his love. There's a time in the Old Testament of the Bible where God asked his people to build him a tent, a tabernacle, and to pitch that tent not only outskirts of their camp, but right in the middle so that they would know that he was right there with them. And God's original tent for us to live with him is also on display in the closing chapters of the Bible in the book of Revelation. The same guy, John writes this. He says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne

saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. So from Genesis to Revelation, from start to finish, God's desire has been to be with us. So God came down, moved into our neighborhood, and they called him Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. And if you think, like I used to think that God wouldn't want to be with a guy like me, God wouldn't want to be with a girl like me, you're so wrong. Sorry to be so blunt, but you know what? You're dead wrong. I was dead wrong. He came down to be with us, to walk with us, work with us,

cry with us, laugh with us, forgive us, do life with us. He's a down-to-earth kind of God. And I love how John describes him. You can describe people in different ways. Like you say, she is just so full of joy, or he is so full of wisdom, or she is so full of energy, or he is so full of, you know. But I love the words that John, through the direction of the Holy Spirit of his life, chooses to describe this God who came down.

He writes, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the Father full of grace and truth. Here's John writing. I'm an eyewitness to his glory. There's nobody like him. He was just so full of, yeah, grace and truth. You know, to walk with a balance of grace and truth is such an attractive thing. And you have to have both. In fact, the two are inseparable. Truth without love is brutal. Love without truth really isn't love. And Jesus was full of both. And I want to be full of both, don't you? To know the truth of who God is and who I am in his eyes and to see the world

through the grace healed eyes loving people the way Jesus did, I want that to be true of me. So maybe we can all start this day with a prayer like this. Jesus, thank you for moving into our world, into my world. I want to do life with you today. Keep me aware of your presence today. Help me move among people with grace and truth. Grace. Grace. Grace. and truth, grace and truth as we do this day together. I'm praying for you today. See you back tomorrow. Have a great day. 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.combe.