Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too
much because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect
yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are
going to change all of that. Let's experience God's words
today and receive the power we need to live healthy,
vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, Good morning. It is Sabbath, February
twenty eight, twenty twenty six. Hello, my name is El
David Harris. I am your host, and this is your
Daily Portion where we give you God's Word every single day,
and today is no exception. We are continuing in our
Lesson study series Uniting Heaven and Earth, Christ in Philippians
and Colossians. We're in Lesson number ten of thirteen and
and our caption for today is Complete in Christ, Complete
in Christ. I love it, I love it, I love it.
Before we get into this, I'd like to just say
welcome to everyone joining us, especially those joining us for
the very first time. I'm asking you did you come
on the Musical Bible Class last evening. If you did
type of one in the chat, and if you're listening
on the radio, you're like the what, Yeah, that only
happens on the Your Daily Portion YouTube channel. If you're
on Facebook, you didn't. You didn't see that on Facebook.
So please if you did, just let the people know
in the chat how exceptional the experience was. Please please
come out on the next one. Also, we have our
Sunday School which is on Sunday mornings at eight am,
so we're looking forward to that. That's the New Sunday
School of Thought, which is based on the book Evangelism,
pages two forty two to two forty four. And of
course we have the Prayer School on Wednesday evening. So
I'm just grateful for the opportunities to expand. Please go
to your Daily Portion dot com and click the contribute
button because that is one of the ways that we
continue to expand and we continue to build faith and fellowship.
Let's go ahead and pray and get underway. Father, thank
you for this Sabbath morning. Thank you for making us
complete in Christ in Jesus name, I pray, Amen and
Amen again. When I used to work in higher ed
as assistant registrar in a university setting. One of the
quote grades that used to come up on people's grade
reports was an I incomplete. To me, that's the worst
possible grade, now I know, I said to me. That's
the qualifier. I said to me, well, okay, next to
x F, which is, you know, getting a failing mark
due to this honesty, academic dishonesty. Incomplete, it's just like
get it done, Like, at least get it done, get
it done well. In our experience with Christ, there are
people who are incomplete because those same people are trying
to do things on our own. We're trying to rush
to completion by grading our own paper and handing it
into the cosmic professor and hoping that it's enough to
get us into the Kingdom so we can graduate from
planet Earth. And the Bible is teaching us that the
only way to be complete is to be in Christ.
I got it. I think I got it. The only
way to be complete is to be in Christ. Well,
what does it mean to be in Christ? To be
in Christ is to submit our will to God. To
be in Christ means to accept the righteousness or the
righteous covering of Jesus Christ. That is what it means
to be complete. And so the Bible reads in Colossians
chapter two, verses sixteen and seventeen, somebody's gonna catch up here.
So let no one judge you in food or in drink,
or regarding a festival or a new moon, or sabbaths,
which are a shadow of things to come. But the
substance is of Christ. And so the believers of Paul's
time at Colossie were struggling with people who came from
the Old Guard, who were circumcised in their flesh, the
people through whom Jesus actually came when he was born
of a woman. They were stuck in what's called the
sacerdotal system, or the system of sacrifices, where they thought
that even though Christ came and died, you still had
to what they were drink offerings, there were festivals, there
were new moons and ceremonial sabbaths, And the Bible writer
is saying, mm hmm, all of that stuff pointed forward
to Christ. And since Jesus has come and he has
fulfilled the sacrificial law system, then all of the sacrifices
they pointed to him, all of those new Moon celebrations,
they pointed to him, all of those ceremonial Sabbaths, they
pointed to him. And so while Jesus has already come,
why would you still be looking in the past at
the shadow. And Okay, I know there are some of
the people who are a part of my faith fellowship
who want me to hurry up and get to the
part where the sabbaths referenced here have nothing to do
with the seventh day Sabbath. So there I said it.
There I said it. This has nothing to do with
the seventh day Sabbath, which is the Sabbath of the
Lord that God. Now let's get to what we're really
talking about. Like what we are talking about, though, is
the is all of the stuff that Jesus is the
actual substance of Stop going back to that. When Jesus
Christ has given his life a ransom for many, he
has been kind enough to make us holy, He has
been kind enough to be the ultimate sacrifice. He has
been kind enough to be the great high Priest. So
we're not having a new high priest every time one dies.
We're not having new priests every time the guard changes
in air quotes like, none of that is necessary, because
those really were the Kindergarten view of what the substance is,
which is Christ. So we are complete in Christ. No
need for the festivals, no need for the new moons,
no need for those ceremonial sabbaths, no need for the
drink or meat and drink offerings, because Jesus Christ has come.
Do you really want to be complete? Brothers and sisters?
If you do, it requires Christ. So number one lesson
is Christ alone is the substance and not the shadow.
So Paul was not attacking the ten Commandment's law for sure,
he was confronting man made religious systems that replaced Christ
with ritual performance. So they were trying to reinstill or
reinstall some stuff after Jesus nullified in his flesh. What
the Old Testament system of sacrifices was. The shadows pointed forward.
Christ is present. When the substance is here, no system
gets to sit in judgment over the believers. And so
what we really need to do then is to examine
our faith practices and ask one simple question. Are you
ready for the question? Does this point to Christ or
does it replace Him with performance? Does this point to
Christ or does it replace him? With performance. Are you
trying to earn your way in? Maybe sometimes we are
trying to do it without even knowing. Hmm. People are
celebrating all kinds of stuff and saying that you have
to do that. Well, is that what God wants to know?
Does it point me to Christ? Or does it replace
him with performance? Our second lesson is human religion. I
said human religion. There is a religion that is undefiled
in the scriptures. But human religion adds burdens. Christ removes them.
Christ's religion removes them. So the Bible reads in Colossians
Chapter two and verse eight, beware lest any man spoil
you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
And so false tea were sincere. They were quote religious,
they were wrong. Anything built on human tradition, ascetic control,
angel fascination, or rule keeping subtracts from Christ. When it
sounds spiritual, It even sounds spiritual. There were people who
walked by folks who needed their help because they wanted
to be ceremonially clean. And it's like, but there's a
brother right there who has been beaten up in the story,
beaten up and left for dead, and you're stepping over
him so you can remain ceremonially clean. Are you serious?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: We being complete in Christ means that we have the
mind of Christ and we live like he lived.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends, Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,