Live Free with Josh Howerton - God Wants Your Honesty | Ep. 242 | Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Do you doubt God or struggle with questions? God loves your honesty and invites you to come to Him in your uncertainty. Nicodemus, one of the most educated men of the day, came to Jesus wrestling with questions and we can too. 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, what's up everybody? My name is Mike and super honored to get to hang with you for a few minutes each weekday here on the Daily Drive. Thanks for tuning in, and thanks for sharing it with your friends. We are on a pursuit of getting to know God better through looking at the life of Jesus, God, and the flesh.

Where we're walking through the gospel, which just means good news, written from the perspective of Jesus' follower and closest friend, a guy named John. And we have seen how John Rice is someone completely blown away by the power, the love, the compassion, the the humility of his best friend and his Lord. And my prayer is that all of us would be blown away as well, and we would be able to call him best friend and Lord. Or in Chapter 3, and we're introduced to a man named Nicodemus. Now, I talked about him at length in a podcast about a year ago, but let me kind of refresh his story.

It's the beginning of an amazing journey of faith. It is such a great story, and it might take us a couple of episodes to work through all this, but here goes. Let me ask you first of all, you ever have trouble sleeping? You ever have just one of those nights where you're tossing and turning? Maybe even last night. Maybe it's heartburner, maybe your bladder, maybe the video game you're playing right before bed

will not stop playing on the back of your eyelids. Ever been there? I heard a guy talking about how he was having trouble sleeping, and his friend told him you should get a memory phone. He said, memory phone, that's my problem. I need to pretend that never happened phone, right? Does your mind ever get swirling with all kinds of thoughts, all kinds of to-do lists, regret, spears, questions,

where you just cannot shut it down? ever have just one of those nights? Well, it seems like this guy Nicodemus seemed to be having one of those nights. All kinds of thoughts, lots of questions were stirring, racing through his mind. And I don't know if he goes to see Jesus at night, because it was the only time Jesus could fit him into his busy schedule. That's very doubtful. I don't know if Nicodemus goes to see him at night

because he was afraid to be seen with Jesus in broad daylight. That's highly probable. But what I do know is that this guy had questions. questions, questions that would not let him rest. Nicodemus was a scholarly kind of guy who possessed a pretty impressive pedigree. Even his name Nicodemus means victory for the people, so greatness was expected of this guy since the day he was born. And I would guess that it was his heritage, his background, his success, wealth, his intellectual prowess that made him so easily accept it into the exclusive religious country club for the spiritually elite, known as the Pharisees.

Have you heard of these guys? There were some 6,000. of these elitist in Jesus Day, they were supposed to be strict observers of the law of God, as well as their own man-made bylaws, which you might guess superseded gods most of the time. They had taken the original Ten Commandments and added over 600 rules of their own. And most of these guys became masters of twisting God's word to justify their own lifestyle, while at the same time piling guilt on the common people for religiously underachieving. They were racist, they were judgmental, they were judgmental, They were power hungry.

They were intimidating and, tragically, as a result, the common people. They began to see God in the same way. Well, then comes Jesus. I said last week that Jesus did not come only to lay down his life for our sins. Now, that is huge, but he also came to show us what God is really like. And as Jesus moved among the people, as he reached out and touched and loved and healed the outcast and the broken, the disease and the unwanted and the forgotten of society, the ones who were labeled by the Pharisees as quote-unquote notorious sinners,

he started to blow away their misperceptions of God. And I believe that really intrigued Nicodemus. Now, not only was Nicodemus a member of the Pharisees, but he's also a well-respected part of the inner circle known as the Sanhedrant. There were 70 of the sharpest Jewish intellectuals that were chosen to rule spiritually and somewhat even politically over the entire Jewish nation. They were the most powerful influential leaders of the day. So when Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, he comes as a significant leader, an intellectual

Old Testament scholar. But most of all, he comes as a man whose restless mind would not let him go to sleep. And this is how the story begins. John chapter 3, there was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening he came to speak with Jesus. Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you. Now, a couple of things jumped out at me when I read those two verses.

First of all, I think it's kind of cool that Nicodemus refers to Jesus as rabbi. You see, Jesus really didn't have all the credentials necessary in his day to be officially honored by the Pharisees with such a distinguished title. He had no formal seminary training, wasn't a long-term disciple of another rabbi. He had no internship, no degree, no master of divinity, no Ph.D., just a simple carpenter from Nashrith, who just happened to teach with real authority like nobody had ever heard before. So Nicodemus addresses him

with this title of respect. And did you notice how he said, We all know that God has sent you to teach us, your miraculous signs or evidence that God is with you? I was taken back, not only by Nicodemus' admission that the miracles that Jesus was doing, proved he was from God, but also the use of the word we.

Because in using the word we, it makes it seem like he wasn't the only one not sleeping well. Others in his group had questions, others were curious, others were intrigued, others began to wonder what if. Like, what if this guy really is from God? Maybe John the Baptist was right when he said, look, there's the Lamb of God

who takes away the sins of the world. So Nicodemus, and using the plural here, is saying, some of the guys were wondering, but he was the only one who actually had the courage to step up and meet Jesus one-on-one. And you know, I think Jesus respected that about Nicodemus because God has always honored,

even embraced skeptic. seekers, doubters. And you know what? He's always open to honest dialogue. And you need to know that if that's where you are

right now. God wants to hear your questions. He invites you to ask and dig and research and probe and experience because anyone who humbly cracks the door to the possibility

that he is real, he'll show up and help you find your answers. God loves honesty. He loves skeptics. He loves doubters. He loves you. He even says,

if you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me. And I've learned that it really is a head and a heart kind of thing. It's been my experience, sometimes, sometimes. People who will construct the intellectual argument for their belief that God does not exist, really are just kind of building a wall of intellectualism around a heart that's been wounded somewhere along the way. And if they were able to get honest with that, get vulnerable enough to open up their heart to risk experiencing God in the emotional core of their being, while at the same time, engaging their mind and weighing the evidence,

then small seeds of faith get planted, and a light starts to come on, and God becomes very real. And I'm guessing that maybe God's been longing for some honest dialogue with some of you. And I'm telling you from my own experience, he really does want to satisfy your head and your heart. So let's just push Paul's on the story right there, and let's pick up here tomorrow, go ahead and read the rest of John chapter 3, and you'll see perhaps the most famous verse in the entire Bible, and I think you'll really start to like Nicodemus,

and I think you'll really start to love Jesus. Have a great day, and hey, hope you sleep well tonight. See you back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time.

Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out. For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.com slash daily drive.