Live Free with Josh Howerton - Choosing Worship & Wonder over Worry • Pastor Levi Lusko | Ep. 315 | Friday, April 19, 2024

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Worry does not work, yet, too often, we give in to it. We do not have control, but we are held by the One who is sovereign over all. God is still on the throne, no matter what is happening. He is worthy of our worship, and as we get to know Him more and more, we will be filled with awe and wonder. What is one way you can worship and wonder today? 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. church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, Lake Point Church. It's your boy Levi Lesko, and I am so thrilled to be back day five for your Friday

devotion as we continue on on the Daily Drive with Lake Point Church podcast. And really grateful that I've had the chance to be with you this week. Thank you to Pastor Josh, the whole team here at Lake Point. It's been amazing and really enjoyed walking with you through this week in the scriptures. And today I want to talk to you about choosing worship. worship and wonder over worry. Choosing worship and wonder over worry. Of course, we know the classic text on this is Jesus, Matthew 631.

Do not worry, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? Instead, we're going to choose wonder. For that, let me show you Isaiah chapter 45, verse 3. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord, who called you by your name, am the God of Israel. I love this. He says, I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. How easy and obvious it is that worry doesn't change.

anything. I mean, they say a great percentage of doctors visits and the things that we, we suffer with are actually caused by stress. I mean, stress causes inflammation. Stress causes lack of sleep. It releases cortisol in your system. It causes you to have that fight, flight, fright, freeze response. It literally kills us, right? And so Jesus is like, come on, man, that's not good. Can you make yourself taller when you worry? No. Can you change your hair color when you're? Wouldn't that be rad? Like, you could be like, and then your hair like goes blonde. I mean, that would be super nice. But it doesn't work.

Jesus is saying it does not work. And yet, like Albert Einstein said, we're crazy. Because insanity is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. So when in our lives has worry ever brought about a positive outcome? Never. So let's get off that worry train. What instead can we choose? We can choose worship and wonder.

When we put ourselves in that posture, when we put ourselves into the, that place, we are opened up to experiencing what Isaiah said, the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places. Now, don't think that Isaiah was a stranger to suffering. I mean, this guy, what he experienced, I mean, many people believe that when Hebrews 11 talks about those of whom the world was not worthy, and it includes that list of like being killed by lions, being, you know, struck down with the sword, and then it says, and some of them were sawn in two, that that is historically the reference to Isaiah's death.

Because here's a guy who was called by God to preach, and what a dramatic calling he had. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, seated on a throne. The train of his robe fills the temple with glory. And there was creatures flying around saying, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. And every time they cried out in worship, exalting the one on the throne, the doorposts were shaken,

the pillars of heaven itself were shaken, and smoke rose, and the earth was full of God's glory. And then Isaiah didn't say, like, I'm the man, right? He said, whoa, is me, for I'm undone. Right. And then one of the seraphim went to the altar, got the burning coal, brought it to Isaiah's mouth. How crazy is this? He used tongs. This thing's about to touch Isaiah's mouth, but the burning one, that's what a seraphim is, was like,

ooh, I'm not touching that with my hands. It's going on Isaiah's lips, but the angel won't touch it without using tongs. That's scary. But as the coal came to him, it didn't harm him. It cleansed him. Why? Because it came from the altar. What happens on the altar?

Sacrifice. The thing that came from the altar that should have killed Isaiah, cleansed Isaiah, because someone else died on the altar, and that someone is Jesus. So we, because of our encounter with God's holiness, don't die, though we should die, because he did die even though he shouldn't have died. You see what I'm saying? He died for you. He died as though he were you. Then, God says, whom shall I send, who will go for us? And of course is Trinity language. We don't have time to get into it, but who shall I send? Whom shall go for us? It's God speaking. One God, but there's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And even in Isaiah 6, you find both Adonai and Yahweh, which Adonai is almost always a reference to the Christ, the shining one, the sent one, the Messiah. And Yahweh, of course, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who spoke the world into existence. And we know the Holy Spirit is involved in all of this as well. And so we have one God in three persons, all involved in the call of Isaiah, who raises his hand and goes,

here am I, send me. He's like, I'll do it. And then God says, well, just so you know, you're going to preach your whole life. ever going to listen, how long am I going to preach for? And God says, until the city's desolate, because no one's going to listen. How's that for a calling? No one's going to listen. No one's going to respond. No one's going to repent, and they'll cut you in half at the end of your life. And you know what Isaiah said in response? When do we get started? Because it didn't matter. He wasn't worried about any

outcome. He had seen God. He had lost himself in worship and wonder. So whatever God asked me to do wherever he wants me to go. People ask me all the time. Why do you live in Montana? Because if you don't know me, our story, my wife, Jenny and I, we moved to Montana 17 years ago, start a Bible study that turned into a church. And we left Southern California, which, in case you're wondering, is a very nice climate. 70 degrees all the time. Montana, you know, we had 30 below this winter. How's your Dallas winter going? You're like, oh, it's so cold. It's like 60. I'm praying for you. Believe me, I am. We throw water in the air, and it freezes before it. It's the ground sometimes, people, okay?

And people are like, why did you go there? You know, I'm like, because God asked us to. And if he asked us to go to Siberia tomorrow or Kazakhstan the next week, like, you see what I'm saying? I'm not worried about where and what's in it for me. And, you know, am I going to have a hot tub in my green room? You know, it's like, I saw God on the throne high and lifted up and he sent his son to die from me on the cross.

I've lost myself in worship and wonder. So what need have I to worry? You see, it's incompatible to have a God on the throne who's glorious and holy and powerful, but then still to give ourselves over to worry, right? And so what do we do to practice? How can we bring this home? Well, I believe that in our pain, in our hardship, we can believe that God is setting us up for the hidden riches of secret places, for the treasures of darkness.

We are prone, of course, to worry the most when we feel the most out of connection. control when we're facing a loss. I'm not a stranger to that. We had one of our children go home to be with Jesus when she was in kindergarten, and that's hard, that's suffering, that's dark, that feels difficult. We face pain, we face difficulty, we face loss in this world, and in those times we tend to, our go-to strategy is worry. But when we choose worship instead of worry, the result is wonder. The whole earth is full of glory. Isaiah 6 begins with a king dying, King Uzai, who's this amazing king. And so Isaiah and the rest of the country is like,

how can we have a good life without our king, Uzziah, who's epic, right? The answer is that whatever throne is emptied on earth, there is one that cannot be emptied in glory. And when our eyes are on that throne, well, how does the text end? The whole earth is full of his glory. That same earth that he had just been looking at

and gone, that's terrible, it's bad, it's dark. The treasures of darkness were revealed. When we choose worship instead of worry, the result is one to be. So Lake Point Church, let's choose worship. 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.