Live Free with Josh Howerton - Choosing Compliance Over Clarity • Pastor Levi Lusko | Ep. 312 | Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

When was the last time you did not understand what God was doing? Even the disciples experienced this while present with Jesus. Just like them, we sometimes have to choose to comply with what He wants us to do instead of clearly understanding the purpose behind it. Even when things are murky, we can trust the wisdom of our good and loving God. 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.com. dot church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey Lake Point Church. My name is Levi Lesko.

I was just here yesterday. Feeling any deja vu? Just kidding. It's Tuesday and I'm really excited to be back on the Daily Drive with Lake Point Church podcast. And it's just so fun. I'm assuming it's morning, but you know, maybe you're watching this later in the day, getting the tacos ready for Taco Tuesday.

My wife pointed out to me that she really enjoys Tacho Tuesday. This is where you make tater tots and then you proceed to create nachos on top of them as though it was chips, but it's tater tots instead. You've got to scoop it out with a big spoon and there you go. You're welcome. Tacho Tuesday. Tag me on Instagram if you make some and you'll provoke jealousy in me because I am 42 and so I have to really limit how often I eat tachos. But I want to talk to you today about choosing compliance over clarity. choosing compliance over clarity.

The text is John chapter 12, and it's a familiar text. You know it every year at Passion Week. We kind of get back into these beautiful texts. Christ headed towards the cross, but of course, along the way was Triumphal Entry, the events that we call Palm Sunday. It says the next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, verse 13 took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him and cried out,

Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it, as it is written, Fear not Daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming sitting on a donkey's colt. And then here we go. This is the passage, for me, the part of the passage that just jumped out at me, which is so cool, by the way, and why we should never go, oh, I've already read that before. Like if the pastor, you know, turns your attention to a text that you're super familiar with, almost to, like, put down your pen and notes because, like, you think you've gotten everything you can get out of a text. Someone said that we've never seen the same river twice, because every single time you go to a river, it's different water.

The river has changed, and so have you. Well, isn't Scripture kind of like a river? Doesn't Jesus talk about the spirit being like rivers of living? water out of our heart. The truth is, when we come to John 12 today, it doesn't matter how many Palm Sundays we've read it, how many times we've gone through John, how many times we've heard that text, it's not the same river, and neither are you. So God will keep speaking new truth to you, so long as you stay humble and have a heart that says, God, I want to see new things about who you are. I have new pain. I have new experiences. I'm in new struggles, and so teach me something.

So it was so fun to me when I read this text and was like, oh my gosh, I've never seen this before, because that's just how good is God, right? So here's the verse. His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him. The reason I think that hit me so hard was it made me feel relieved about not always understanding what God's doing, but helps me to see that the power isn't in me having perfect clarity over what God is doing and even why he's doing it, but rather more have the heart that says, God, I'm going to comply even when it doesn't make sense, even when I don't fully know the plan,

even when to me it doesn't even seem like the right choice. The disciples were told by Jesus, and you have to give them some credit. He told them the weirdest stuff. He was like, hey, guys, that's what we're going to do. I need you to go steal me at donkey. They're like, steal you a donkey. That seems off-brand, Jesus. Yeah, just go untie that donkey and get it.

And they're like, if we do that, the owner of the donkey who's going to see us on his ring alarm because it's going to go chirp, chirp, as we walk up to the house, right? Which is like every pastor's favorite thing now. We have to just preach to the sound of everyone's ring alarms going off, the chimes because someone walked up to the house. It's just my Amazon package getting delivered.

So they go, you're just going to go steal a donkey? You can't be telling us to do that. and he goes, it's okay. When the master comes out, just tell him, I need it. Like, how punk rock is that, by the way? The master needs the donkey. He's going to be like, oh, by all means. So they go, and they're like, dude, our job is weird.

But they walk up to the house and they untie the donkey. Sure enough, the master comes out like, hey, what are you guys doing with my donkey? That's like totally grand theft donkey that you just did on my animal here. And they go, hey, Jesus said he needs it. And then the master, sure enough, it's like, go ahead, take it. And as they walked along, they're like, why does he want a donkey? He's a king. A king should be riding on a great stallion, but welcome to the tension of the kingdom. It's majesty and meekness. It's power, but with weakness. It's the mighty king who spoke the world

into existence who condescends to be born. I mean, someone said Jesus basically would be born behind a 7-Eleven if he had come today, thinking about a cave in the city of Bethlehem. And then to be raised in Nazareth, can anything good come out of Nazareth? To be, you know, raised by parents who there was just gossip about them. Jesus's whole life, had they been unfaithful, had Mary, you know, hooked up with some other guy, the mockery Jesus had to do with, can he even read, they would say to him? I mean, just when he would go to read the scripture, oh, you can read, you came from where? And so it's just this powerful king, but on a donkey, lowly, coming to the city that would reject him. But the part that got me was that the disciples not understanding in the moment didn't keep them from

obeying. And so we get to tell this story today. Why? Not because there was clarity, but because there was compliance. And so let me just really quickly give you five things that you can do when what God is up to feels murky. This is born for my personal experience, walking with Jesus, and a lot of times feeling like, God, I do not know why you want me to do what you want me to do. But I trust that God doesn't need or require clarity on my part. He just wants me to say, here am I God, send me that I'm willing, that I'm available, and he's looking for the same from you.

The first is, and we're going to spell the word murky, muscle confusion, physical trainers at the gym will mix it up. They can't just let you do chest day on Tuesday and then triceps on Thursday and, you know, a little core on, well, we don't want core because that's uncomfortable, right? If you stick with a regimen like that, you're going to plateau, your gains are going to diminish. Why?

because your muscles need to be confused. Things have to be mixed up. They have to be kept on their toes. There has to be instability. That's why there's bosu ball things and stuff to just kind of TRX band stuff that just gets you off kilter so that you have all these other muscles

that are having to kick in because they don't know what's coming at them. Why would it be any different with your soul? God knows that you need confusion, so to speak. Of course, you're like, but the Bible says God's not the other of confusion. It doesn't mean we won't feel confused. honey. All right? Abraham, go move to a country. Where? I'll show you when you get there. That would

feel confusing, right? How do you pack for a trip like that? I'll tell you when you get there. You and your wife are going to have a baby, but good, we're really old. Like, that's confusing. God is at times going to call us to do things so that there'll be faith. So if you feel confused today, hey, he's shaking it up so you can get jacked, spiritually speaking. You, murky, we're well and murky here unorthodox methods god has ways that are not our ways i would never think of like we need a big event catered let's get a little boy to bring his lunchbox in but for god it was a perfect solution he has unorthodox methods and so we need to in the language from the chosen tv show get used to different he will often stack the deck against himself in order to receive all the glory

when he does what cannot be explained by man. The R stands for readiness. Readiness. The text tells us that they went and got the donkey for Jesus, so it was ready for him to get on when he needed it, when he was ready to present himself. Other times, he would tell them, keep a boat ready for me so that he could be pushed out to shore in the boat. But they had to keep that boat ready. So we should have a spirit of readiness. A spirit of God. I don't know what today's going to look like, and I don't know what you want me to do, but I am here for it all. I love that spirit that says, God, the answer is yes, what's the question?

And we're not waiting to see what God's going to tell us and then decide if we're going to obey. The fourth is K, M-U-R-K stands for kingdom. If we're going to choose compliance over clarity, we need to remember it's about God's kingdom, not ours. And a lot of the times that we bulk at doing something God calls us to do is because we're ego-driven and focus more on our kingdom. And what he's doing isn't compatible with that.

But we need to have the spirit of a John the Baptist who says, you increase, I want to decrease. Not what I will, but what you want. So I'll comply no matter what, because this isn't about my name, my clout, my, you know, Riz, right? It's about you having the fame, you having the glory, you having the praise. And then let's end here with why. What does why stand for?

Why stands for you'll know more later. We can be okay following God, even when it's murky, because like the disciples discovered, they did not know when they did these things to him at the time of significance, but they understood these things later when Jesus was glorified. And so I love the thought that says, hey, I don't need to know now. I will one day know even as I am known.

And when I look back from the vantage point of heaven, I'm going to look and I'm going to say, God, you did all things. Well, if we knew everything God knows, we would want things to be exactly as God is seeking to work them. And so let's like Proverbs 3 says, trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, lean not on our own understanding, in all of our ways, acknowledge him, and trust at the end of the day, he will make our paths straight. 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.com. Church slash daily drive.