Live Free with Josh Howerton - A Winning Strategy | Ep. 302 | Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Pride wants to run rampant in our lives, but God offers us a strategy to defeat it. Philippians 2 shows us the one who lived a perfectly humble life: Jesus. Jesus left everything He deserved and lowered Himself to death on a cross, a death He did not deserve. God calls us to watch His way of life and mindset so that we can model our lives after Him. 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.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. I'm Mike Bro, and honored that you would give us a few minutes today to maybe center your heart and hear from God. I know that a bunch of you could care less about the NCAA basketball tournament, but I love it. The road to the Final Four is one of my favorite things. I've been following it, picking brackets, flipping channels to catch all the games, the upsets, the stories, the excitement of college basketball.

So since it's going on right now, I thought that maybe you could indulge me, and we would spend some time this week talking about the fatal four, not the final four, but the fatal four. Four things, that if we don't guard against them, they will take us out. And we kicked this off yesterday talking about the number one seed, the sinister thing called pride. And I told you yesterday that today we would look at a strategy to win by looking at the one who modeled this radical version of humility, than anyone. His name, of course, is Jesus. There's this awesome passage of scripture in Philippians chapter 2 that talks all about this. This passage actually became one of the favorite songs of the early church. It was this hymn, this worship song that reminded them to be on guard against selfishness and pride to embrace Jesus' approach to life and daily lay their ego on the altar. And it

starts this way. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. You know a lot of players in the NCAA tournament are asked, like, who did you model your game after? Was it Jordan? Was it LeBron? Was it Kobe? Was it Steph Curry? And almost all

have an answer, because they have watched film on that particular player. They have studied their moves. They have practiced those moves in the driveway or the gym. They began to emulate someone who was really, really great at the game. And when it comes to life, I'm telling you. Jesus is the goat. He's the greatest of all time. There is no one like him who modeled the kind of humility he did. So this passage begins by saying, watch his game films, study his moves, study his reactions, his practice habits, his defensive instincts, his unselfishness.

Choose to pattern your life after Jesus. You just choose to have the same mindset. You roll out of bed every day make it a conscious decision and asking the Holy Spirit to remind you throughout the day, today in regard to my own self-importance, my own ego, I choose to have the same mindset as Jesus, who really is the center of the universe. So you begin this process by choosing to have the same mindset as Jesus. And then it says verse 6, who being in the very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Now that word used there for the very nature God is the Greek word morpha, which means the essence. So this doesn't mean that Jesus was, you know, sort of like God, or that Jesus had a few godly

characteristics, or he had a little bit of supernatural magic about him. No, no, no, who being in the very nature God, the very essence, God, in reality he was God, is God, creator and sustainer of all things. Colossus chapter 1 says all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is God in the flesh, God incarnate, he was fully God. Even though Jesus, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

He made a choice. He said, even though I could, I'm not going to cling to my divine rights. even though I could, I'm not going to power up on people. Even though everything really is mine, I'm not going to clench my fist and hold tightly to what is rightfully mine. I'm going to open up my hands. I'm going to let it go, lay my ego on the altar, and surrender fully to the will of the Father. He came to this earth and laid down his divine prerogatives for 33 years. And while Jesus didn't empty himself of his deity, he did empty himself of self.

And verse 7, rather he made himself nothing By taking the very nature of a servant And being made in human likeness You know Jesus came in as much obscurity as someone possibly could Starting with mangers, shepherds, and cow manure He then grew up as a carpenter's son in a little bitty hicktown Framing houses and laying stone He lived in obscurity for almost 30 years

There was no grandiosity at all in Jesus He came as a servant to reveal who God is. I don't know how many of y'all are downscaling these days. You might be saying, yep, that's us. We're down-sale. Sell our big house, going to go down to a two-bedroom condo or a ranch-style house with no stairs because our knees are shot. Or you're saying, yep, giving up my bedroom of my parents' house to move into a tiny dorm room with a roommate. Or you're saying, yep, trading them a monster truck for a Prius hybrid. We all kind of downscale, right? But look at what it goes on to say about Jesus in verse 8, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming

obedient to death, even death on a cross. Man, talk about downscaling. He leaves heaven for a zero bedroom timeshare, goes from transcending all time and space to be infensed in by Middle Eastern geography. He goes from absolute perfection to learning how to walk, having ear infections and chickenpox and zits and throwing up and experiencing hunger, exhaustion, and know what it feels like to be hot, to sweat, to get the chills, to be made fun of, rejected, laugh that spit upon, beaten up, stripped, humiliated, to have nails driven through your hands and your feet. And again, he did not lay down his divinity. He laid down his self. He crucified his ego. He nailed his self-interest to the cross and thus saved us all from ourselves. And all he's asking you and me to do,

is to do the dishes without being asked, to throw in a load of laundry, to go last in line, but let someone else have the parking spot, the one who voluntarily went to the cross is asking you and me to apologize to our spouse, to pick up the phone and forgive somebody, to tell your daughter how proud you are of her,

to tell someone what they mean to you, to ask somebody for help. So our coach, Jesus says, you need to be aware. Pride is a strong opponent. number one seed in the fatal four. So follow me. Watch me. Listen to me. Learn how I do it. Don't let pride screw up your relationships. Don't let it make you small. Don't let it keep you in prison, steal your capacity to love and wreck your life. Instead, model your life after me. Embrace the

kind of humility that leads to freedom and victory. So let me just leave you with a helpful question to ask yourself today and ask God and ask somebody you trust. The question is this. In what way this pride play out in me? Be honest, ask yourself, how does it play out in me? Do I exaggerate? Do I boast, like in a humble way? Do I get defensive? Do I get envious? Do I count the number of likes I got on social media or the number of followers that somebody else has? When looking at group photos, do I look for my picture first? Do I have trouble showing affection? Do I have a hard time showing weakness? Just ask yourself, somebody close to you. Come to God and say, search me, oh God. What does pride look like in me? How does it play out in me?

Because knowing your tendencies will really help keep you in check. I love the last paragraph about what happened as a result of Jesus approached to life. It says in Philippians 2, 9 through 11, therefore, God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

The best way up is down. So what do you say we get after this sinister thing called pride and not let it wreck our lives? Have a great day. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services

on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive.