Latest / The Daily Word / April 16 - I Am His Beloved
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whatever time you were joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Cory Barnes and it's my privilege to pastor our Catawba campus. I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode where we're going to be doing a devotion from the New Testament portion of our Life Journal Bible reading plan. Today is April the 16th, so let's go ahead and let's dive right in to our New Testament portion, Matthew chapter three. Now, Matthew three, it starts by laying a little bit of foundation of who John the Baptist is. He was a prophesied prophet who came and prepared the way for Jesus's ministry. And the chapter ends with that scene, that beautiful scene of Jesus himself being baptized by John the Baptist. I love it. What stood out to me today is verses 16 and 17, where we see what happened immediately after Jesus's baptism. Verse 16, reading from the new King James today, when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold the heavens were open to him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and a lighting. upon him. What a beautiful scene that as soon as Jesus comes up out of the water, the clouds part, sun starts shining down, and the Holy Spirit of God comes and descends on him like a dove. Quick, caveat. ⁓ The Holy Spirit is not a dove. The Holy Spirit appeared in this instance in the image of a dove to show us some of his characteristics, show us some of who he is. and his personality, but the Holy Spirit is not a dove, but he comes and he rests upon Jesus. So we see the Holy Spirit in action after Jesus is baptized. And then in the very next verse, we get to see the father speak to Jesus for all to see verse 17. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. I love this verse. I love this picture. I can't wait to one day get to eternity, stand and like get them to roll the tape back and let me see this moment that Jesus is baptized and hear those words spoken over him. You know, the word there, this is my beloved son. is the Greek word ⁓ and you can kind hear it there agapetos if you have heard teaching on the love of God then you probably recognize that that root there is the word agape which is the God kind of love that ⁓ supernatural ⁓ all encompassing kind of love, the kind of way that God loves us. And what this word means is a person who's in a special close relationship with a nut with one another. It indicates someone who is considered dearly loved or valued. So when Jesus is baptized and he comes up out of the water, the Holy spirit descends on him like a Devon. He hears the voice of his father telling him how much he loves him. how much he is pleased with him. And And I have to tell you, looking back at my own life, I can point to moments where I have heard, felt, experienced the Lord communicate just how much He loved me. And I can only tell you that this is life transformative to feel just the smallest fraction of how much God truly loves you. It changes everything. And this is what Jesus experienced. And I think that we should also see that this is something we can experience knowing the love of God. Now it may not look as dramatic or as Hollywood picturesque as what happened with Jesus, but the clouds parting the Holy Spirit, all this, all this imagery, it may not look like that. It may look completely different when the Lord reveals his love to us. He may just speak it on the inside of our heart. Maybe he brings us into an experience where, he just supernaturally provides for us or he does something for us that just lets us know how much he loves us. But did you know that you actually have permission in the Bible to ask the Lord to give you a moment like that? Did you know that you have access to ask him to show you how much he loves you? If you were here with us in November, we taught a series called praying like Paul. If you haven't heard it or if you haven't listened to it in a while, go back in our podcast. was four messages we did where we're looking at different prayers. The apostle Paul prayed over the churches that he had planted in his letters. Ephesians one, Ephesians three, Colossians one and a feet and Philippians one different prayers. He prayed. And when we taught on the prayer from Ephesians three, we covered the fact that we can pray to know the love of God. Let me read that to you. Ephesians three verse let's pick up in 16 that he would grant you. This is Paul praying over the church at Ephesus that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through this, through his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend, may be able to know with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. Did you know that you can pray for the Lord to show you just how much he loves you? We have permission. to ask him for that. I think it's one of the things that really brings delight to his heart as a father, to show us how much he loves us. And that's what he did for Jesus in that moment. And we can ⁓ ask the Lord to do that same in our life. whether we've never experienced it or whether we haven't experienced knowing the Lord's love, we can ask him to remind us how much he loves us. And that's our application for today, is we see Jesus, Lord, you spoke how much you love Jesus, you told him that, you made sure he knew how much you loved him. Would you do that for me? Would you show me the depth and width and length and height? of your love, would you show me just how much you love me? would you show that to me? I want to know your love the way Jesus knew it. So that's going to be our application. And it's a prayer ⁓ at the same time to ask him for that and then be expectant. ⁓ we, when we, when we pray for things like this, ⁓ believe that it's going happen in faith. We receive it in faith. So after we ask Lord, would you show me how much you love me? ⁓ Be faith filled and walking in expectancy he is going to do that for you. That's our application. So let's pray. Father, I just thank you. I thank you that every time we come to your word, you open it up and you show us things that we can walk away with. That speak to us right where we are and father I ask for me and I ask for all those that are listening today that you truly would come in and that you would reveal the width depth length and height of your love that you would root us and Ground us in love that you would show us just like you spoke to Jesus This is my beloved son and whom I am will please tell us show us speak to us show us how much you love us and help us to live our lives out of that love. Not based on who we think we are, not based on how much we love ourselves, but based on how much you love us. Conform us into your image, Jesus. Shape us to look like you. Help us to continue living this life and help us to be planted on the firm foundation of your love. how much you love us, how much you care for us, before you even created this earth, you already had us in mind, you were already loving us ⁓ and that that something we can live our lives based on. ⁓ We love you, and we are faithfully expecting for you to do what we have asked of you today, because we know it's according to your will. ⁓ We love you, Amen.