Ep 124: God Is Better Than Everything (w/Owen Carr)

Let's hear what a young believer has to say about God's goodness. I'll turn the show over to him in just a sec.

Welcome to the show. I'm Daniel Dalp, and this is For Your Sunday Morning Drive. We're the short podcast with the goal of providing some motivation, direction, and encouragement on your way to worship and helping you recenter your mind on those spiritual things on a Sunday morning just like this.

Today we're joined by Owen Carr. Owen, at the time of this recording, is 13 years old. He approached me at Western Kentucky Youth Camp and asked me if he could be on the show. Bold move, my man, but I respect it.

I think it's really uplifting that we have young people that want to share some encouragement about our God. Owen worships at the Benton Church of Christ in Benton, KY. He's involved in their youth group and Lads to Leaders. He's also recently started both designing and selling T-shirts. His business is called Wear the Word, and I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes of today's episode.

Owen, I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Let's go ahead and get the show on the road. This is episode 124: "God Is Better Than Everything."

Let's go to church.

Kelly Minter quotes, "We do not turn from our false gods to become God's children. We turn from them because we are [already His children]."

Then 1 Kings 8:23 says, "And he said, the Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below, who keeps your covenant and mercy with your servants who walk before you with all their heart."

This is talking about some of Solomon's prayer during the dedication of the temple. He is telling God nobody can ever come close to His glory. No one can ever build as great of a temple as God has. He gave us His only Son to save us from our sins. He gives us eternal life with Him one day. He gives us the opportunity to meet Him in heaven.

He is the only thing you should ever fear because He is the maker of heaven, and as His children, He commands us to not have any idols, made or not made.

In Exodus 7, we are reading about the Israelites while they are enslaved by the Egyptians. When God saw this, He sent Moses to lead them back home. Moses first is like, "No, I'm not going back there, God. I don't want to because I'm not a good enough speaker."

But, of course, with God's great almighty power, He makes Moses go.

When Moses gets there, he tells Pharaoh, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, 'Let my people go so that they serve me in the wilderness.' But so far you have not obeyed."

He goes on a little bit more, but Pharaoh says no.

So God strikes the Egyptian water and turns it to blood. Pharaoh still doesn't let them go.

So Moses goes back eight more times and tells Pharaoh to let them go. He tries again with eight more plagues. But the Israelites are still enslaved, even after frogs, gnats, livestock dying, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness.

But Moses goes back again one more time. He tells Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free. Pharaoh says no.

God tells Moses that there is one more big plague coming. So Moses tells this to Pharaoh. He still says no.

Now God brings death upon the firstborn child of every Egyptian to show that He is the only God and sets the Israelites free.

After they get through the Red Sea, God tells them that He has a land for them. It's called the Promised Land, but the Israelites complained a little too much and lost their privileges to that land.

Now that they're wandering in the wilderness, Moses is talking to God on Mount Sinai while the people and Aaron are down at the bottom.

Aaron was with Moses when they went to Egypt, but I was saving him for this part.

While God and Moses were talking, Aaron thought it would be a good idea to get everybody's gold jewelry, melt it, and mold it into a golden calf.

In fact, did you know that the golden calf was supposed to be like the Egyptian bull god? Now, back to the story.

God sees this and tells them that He is the Great I Am.

But now I'm going to talk to you about how God is present everywhere.

First, He is present in the Garden of Eden. He is physically walking and talking with Adam and Eve, as we see after the first sin, which is the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

He is walking in the garden, calling out to Adam and Eve, looking for them.

Next, He's present in the Tabernacle or temple. He is there spiritually because they are both places of worship and praise.

The last place I'm talking about is, of course, the church. I know this is almost the same as the Tabernacle or the temple, but He is more present here than everywhere because that is His physical home, because this spiritual home is heaven.

And my last point is my personal relation.

My personal relation would probably have to be screens or electronic devices. We all have them, we all love them, but if we're on them all day, every day, we might forget that God is even here in our presence.

But God is the only thing that can move, speak, or create the way He did.

So this week I want you to think about the way God shows you His almighty power, the way nobody or nothing else can even come close to showing, because God is always good and nothing else is always good.

I hope now all you see is how much better God is than everything else, more than you ever have before.

So that's my thought for you today. I hope it made you realize God is the only good God.

I appreciate the thoughts that Owen shared with us today. I can't wait to see how he continues to grow.

Our discussion questions for this week are:

What do the plagues of Egypt teach us about God's power?

Why do you think the Israelites were tempted to make the golden calf?

What are some modern-day idols that take our attention away from God?

And here's Evelyn with today's kids' question:

What is something God made that reminds you how powerful He is?

Hey, thanks for listening. Thanks to Owen for giving us some good thoughts this morning. I really appreciate you being part of the show.

Look for ways this week that you can recognize God's power. Let's continue encouraging our young people, and I'll see you Sunday.