Live Free with Josh Howerton - Wearing God’s Grace • Pastor Derwin Gray | Ep. 201 | Monday November 13, 2023

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

What does God see when He looks at you? Pastor Derwin Gray shares how placing your trust in Jesus results in a powerful exchange, like receiving a new 'outfit' from God. This dynamic change leads to worship and freedom from shame. Tune in as Pastor Derwin shares an encouraging word out of Galatians 3:27. 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.compturch slash daily drive. In this week's episodes, we will be hearing from our special guest, Pastor Derwin Gray. And now, let's dive in to today's devotional. Welcome to the Daily Drive Lake Point Church podcast.

I'm Derwin Gray, co-founder, lead pastor of Transformation Church. Now, I want to take you to a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I've always wanted to say that because I'm a big Star Wars friend. But what I want to do is I want to take you back to San Antonio, Texas, in the 70s and 80s on the west side of town. That's where I'm from.

So I'm from the west side of San Antonio, Texas. And growing up, I wasn't aware that we didn't have very much. And I would shop at a store called Hand Me Downs. And Hand Me Downs, you couldn't get on Amazon. You know, you couldn't go online. Hand Me Downs was a unique place to shop because basically my big cousin would hand me down. his clothes when he outgrew them.

So I grew up going to hand me downs. Now, back in the day, kids would be a little bit, and they didn't have much mercy, and so they let me know that my clothes were not the best. When I was a little boy, I watched a movie called Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. And Eddie Murphy's character, he was like this,

he was basically homeless, street bomb, con artist. And the plot of the movie was, there were two wealthy men who wanted to a social experiment, take a wealthy guy, make him poor, take a poor guy, make him wealthy. Well, they took Eddie Murphy's character, made him wealth, and he began to wear these incredible suits. People looked at him differently, treated him differently because of what he was wearing. So little boy, that implanted in my heart, man, you know what?

One day if I ever get some money, I'm going to get some nice suits like Eddie Murphy. I'm going to look smooth because the way people treated him is the way they're going to treat me. So I was a football player, ended up getting a football scholarship, ended up playing six years in the NFL. And one of the things that I did is I made sure to have the best suits on the team. I had a tailor who would fly from Washington, D.C. to Indianapolis. And, man, he'd make me these tailor-made suits. But my favorite suit of all my suits, by the way, I still have.

have a lot of those suits. But if you ever see me wearing them, just know that the front button is not button because when I got them made, I was about 202 pounds. Now I'm way above 202 pounds. I'm never going to wear those suits again. Nevertheless, man, this all white suit,

when I would put that suit on, I just felt like a different person. I avoided things that could make me dirty. What I saw on the outside changed the way I felt on the inside. Now watch this. Galatians chapter 3, verse 27 says this, all those who are clothed in Christ.

We are clothed in Christ. 2nd Corinthians 521 says this. God made Him who knew no sin to become sin that we may become the righteousness of Christ. So, when we place our faith in Jesus, there's this beautiful exchange that the human heart can barely contain, that the human mind can barely understand that Jesus on the cross becomes the location where all of the world's sin goes, and through faith in him, he exchanges his righteousness for our unrighteousness. In other words, he gives us a new suit to wear.

so that when God the Father sees us, he sees Jesus. So if God the Father sees us and He sees Jesus, what should you and I see? We should see what God sees, that God declares us righteous, not based on what we've done, but based on what Christ has done. We haven't earned it. We haven't achieved it. It's such a precious gift. It can only be received by faith. So what would happen if you and I woke up every morning and realize that we were clothed in the righteousness of Christ?

It would lead our hearts to worship Jesus. It would lead us to remove shame and guilt because we're the righteousness of Christ. And then lastly, it would move us to be on mission to let the world know this. There is a God who's given out new clothes. and these new clothes will cover your shame. These new clothes will remove your guilt. These new clothes will give you a new identity. Hey, I'm Pastor Derwin Gray.

Marinate on that. 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.