Pastor Tim Patoka
Road Trip Route 3:16
July 24, 2022
Devotion #1: God Saves John 3:16 The Grand Canyon. It’s called that for a reason because it is the one of the largest canyons in the world. While you get different views of its grandness depending on where you are, let’s look at just the area by the North Rim and South Rim visitor centers. It’s about a mile deep from rim to river and, as the crow flies, 10 miles to the other side. Suppose you wanted to get to the other side of those 10 miles. How would you do that? You could walk it by hiking the 20+ mile Rim-to-Rim trail, but you better be in excellent shape to do that! Rather, you’ll have to drive the 4-hour, 200+ miles that goes around it via Route 89. Simply put, the Grand Canyon is so grand that it’s not easy to get from one visitor center to the other. Whether you’ve been to the Grand Canyon, you’re already familiar with a different kind of grand canyon – the grand canyon between us and God before of our sin. As it says in Isaiah 59(:2 NIV) “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” We don’t want this canyon to be there. So we try to bridge the distance. We do the best we can and hope that it’ll be enough. We redefine what sin is so that we lower the bar and make it easier to live supposedly good lives. Yet no matter what we do to bridge this sinful canyon, it’s no more successful than an Olympic track and field athlete doing a running long jump at the Grand Canyon’s Visitor Center – falling far short and falling down to their inescapable doom. So how do we bridge the canyon between God and us when there’s no Rim-to-Rim hiking trail or Route 89? For one, we don’t do anything. Rather, it’s God saves us. As the children learned on Monday from John 3:16 (NIV), “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Because of God’s unconditional love for sinners like you and me, he sent his one and only Son Jesus Christ into this world to be our Savior. He lived the perfect life we cannot so that he could die the substitutionary death we need. His death paid the price for our sins and closed the canyon between God and humans through the forgiveness of sins. When you feel the weight of your sins bearing down on you, remember that God sent his Son for you to save you from your sins. When you consider the punishment that you deserve for the sins you have done, remember that you will not perish in them for you have eternal life. When you consider the grand canyon between you and God, remember the one who alone bridges the distance, Jesus Christ, so that you may be living proof that God indeed saves. Amen.
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