Live Free with Josh Howerton - Do the Unexpected | Ep. 33 | Wednesday March 22, 2023

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

When you react like Jesus would, it makes people wonder what you have that they don’t. It makes them think about their own actions and how the unexpected appears to be better than the expected. This episode shares how God can work through you as live your life like Jesus would instead of as the world does. 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. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Mike Bro, and man, so grateful that you would carve out a few minutes of your day to hang with us. And we just try to do it every weekday, just trying to humbly learn some good stuff from the heart of God. And we have recently been walking through a chapter in a letter in the Bible called Romans.

Specifically, we've been unpacking verses 9 through 21. And guess what? We're almost done. as a refresher the chapter begins by encouraging us to live in a way that people would see our lives and say man that dude right there that gal they're just i don't know they're just built different there's just something about them their their goodness their their peace their joy their resilience their integrity their attitude the way they treat people the way they serve other people the way they generally love god i mean whatever they got i sure would like some of that well the writer of

Paul tells us in the very beginning of the chapter says, don't be conformed to the cookie cutter mold of our culture. Don't just go with the flow, but be distinctive in the way that you live. And then he spends some time describing what that distinctive life looks like in verses 9 through 21. And we worked our way all the way down to verse 20 today. After he talks about harmony, after he talks about forgiveness and letting go of grudges and as far as it's possible, you know, live at peace with everybody, after he talks about

giving up our right to seek revenge and to get even. He says this, verse 20, on the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Now, this way that Paul is talking, it speaks to the way that Jesus taught us to do the unexpected. For instance, Jesus said one time, if somebody strikes you on one cheek, turn and offer up the other one. He said, if somebody wants to, like, sue the shirt off your back, give him your coat, too. Jesus said one time, if somebody forces you to go one mile, surprise them, go an extra mile.

When we react like Jesus, it makes people think. It makes them wonder. It makes them reflect upon themselves. Now, I have vulnerably shared a bunch of my failures during this podcast. I've shared a bunch of my shortcomings. I'm surprised you're still listening to such an imperfect. person like me that's in process. It seems like I seldom get it right.

But there was this one rare time, what I sort of did. I've been a basketball junkie all my life, and I was playing in this rec league. And our team was up by one. Again, it's our rec league. Our team was up by one because I've always been the small point guard guy, I had the ball on my hands, and I'm trying to dribble off the clock. And back in the day, we'd have a shot clock, so you just dribble until somebody fouls you. And I noticed there's this guy, he's chasing me.

He's like a huge dude. And he's like not trying to foul me. He's trying to kill me. And he fouls me really, really hard and puts me on the line. And I don't even remember whether I made the free throws or not, but I know we won the game. After the game, we're all in a proverbial line where we're going through, going good game, good game, good game, good game.

This guy gets to me and he pushes me in the chest. He goes, get out of my face. I went, whoa, you okay, man? He goes, you know, you're a dirty player, man. And you elbowed me. I've never elbowed anybody in my life. If I did, it was totally unintentionable man. I didn't elbow.

And this guy's like 6-6, and I'm 5'8. And we want, is your knee sore? Because this guy was huge. I mean, I couldn't elbow him in the chest if I tried to. And I said, I'm sorry, man. It wasn't me. If I did, I'm totally sorry, man. I'd really know.

I would never do that. And he just keeps going on. He's pushing me in the chest. And everybody around is hearing him just cuss of blue streak. and he says, all you guys are dirty. I hate playing your team, your team. And he goes on and on and on. And I'm going, again, man, I apologize.

I'm really sorry. And he grabs this stuff and storms out the gym. There's a young guy working at the scores table. He wasn't a Christian. He looked at me and said, dude, you should have hit that guy in a nose. And I said, well, I can't jump that high. I said, I wouldn't have done anything anyway, man. I'm just, I'm trying to react differently these days than the way I used to.

So everybody's gone from the gym, and I was in charge of the gyms. I was locking up the gym. So I'm in the gym by myself. And nobody else is there, and it's dark. I'm getting ready to flip out all the lights. And that guy walks back in the gym. And I'm thinking, I'm dead. I'm dead.

I am going to be on an episode of Dateline. They're going to find body parts stuffed in a locker. This guy's going to kill me right now with nobody around. He walks over to me and he goes, sticks out his hand, he goes, man, I'm so sorry. He goes, I've been sitting out in the parking lot for the last 15 minutes, just thinking about a jerk I am. He said, you're not a dirty player.

Your team's not a dirty team. I just, truth is, I just hate to lose, man. I hate to lose. I've hated losing all my life. I've been like this all my life since I was a little kid. Because I just been sitting out there thinking what an idiot I was in there. And what a fool I made out of myself. I actually got a letter from the guy two days later talking about his childhood and all this stuff.

And I thought to myself, God's word works. Actually, I wrote it down next to this verse. When you react in a way that is totally unexpected to people, it heaps burning coals on their head. It makes them sit out in the parking lot for 15 minutes thinking, oh, man, my attitude sucks. So perhaps today, instead of reacting in the way that everybody else always does,

instead of lashing out, instead of coming back at them, why not do the unexpected today and just try to react like Jesus? and just see what God might do with it. Man, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Come back tomorrow. We're going to wrap all this up together. See you then. Thanks for tuning in today.

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