Live Free with Josh Howerton - How God Responds When We Mess Up | Ep. 398 | Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

God is not angry with you, tired of you messing up, or exhausted by you. We rejoice that His thoughts and His ways are not the same as our thoughts and our ways. Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” 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. Well, hey guys, welcome to our daily drive. If we haven't met, my name is Carlos, and I get to be a part of the pastoral team here at Lake Point. And we get to hang out this week for a few minutes every day as we dive into the Word of God.

And this week, what we're doing is we're taking some of the most famous Bible verses that are most commonly taken out of context or commonly misunderstood. And we're clarifying what they're actually about. And as we do so, I believe God is speaking to us in a unique way through them so that, This week, you and I can be continued to be formed more and more to the image of Jesus. But before, let me just give you some quick examples of how Bible verses can easily be taken out of context. And therefore, these are also examples of how not to read and apply scripture. So, if you need a reason to brush your teeth every day, you only need to read Job 1917, which says, my breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers.

If you're looking for a politically conservative perspective, Ecclesiastes 10-2 says, A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him towards the left. These are jokes, to be clear. Last one here. This is the single woman's favorite Bible verse Matthew 1624. If any man shall come after me, let him. But then, of course, if the wrong man comes, read Romans 113, I would not have you, ignorant brethren. That's awesome.

Hey, now, speaking of the importance of context, have you ever heard someone share the verse in Isaiah chapter 55, verse 8 to 9, where God says this, listen to this, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. neither are my ways, neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my waves, my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. First of all, let's just take a second and acknowledge what this verse is actually saying. When we read the Word of God and we find something that maybe makes us uncomfortable or something that we don't like what it says, we usually say something like, well,

God would never say that, right? Well, God would not allow that thing, would he? Well, God wouldn't do this, right? And we expect God to always think the way we think and we expect him to agree with what we like and we struggle to imagine that God would ever do something that we wouldn't do. But God here is saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm the creator. You are the creator. You are the and my thoughts are not like your thoughts, my ways are not like your ways. And so this verse is amazing because we are reminding that we serve a God who is infinitely bigger, infinitely wiser, infinitely holy, and this should comfort us and free us to trust him. And for that reason, this verse is usually used to remind others that God works everything for their good, even when we cannot fully see the picture.

It's also used to refer to the mystery of God and how sometimes we just won't understand understand what God is doing since, quote, unquote, his thoughts are not your thoughts, and God works in mysterious ways. And guess what? Those things are absolutely true. Now, this particular verse in Isaiah, primarily, though, speaks about God's forgiveness in your life. Let me show you. Literally, just before this, Isaiah says this in verse six and seven. It says, seek the Lord while he may be found. call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and be unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on them and to our God.

For he will freely pardon. And then they sit. And then it says verse 8, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways. My ways declares the Lord as to heavens or higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. If I were to ask you on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does God love you and how much compassion does he have for you right now?

What would you say? In the Bible, the word used to describe how much God loves his people is the word covenant. And what this word means is basically a relationship with a promise that God will remain faithful even when you and I are not. And what this means is that God is a compassionate God, even when we're not. faithful. Romans 5-8 says that while we were still sinners, Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. So the question, sorry, the answer to the question on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does God love you right now and how much compassion he has for you? The answer is Jesus. And that's infinitely,

infinitely more than a 10. And so if you thought that God is currently angry with you, tired of you messing up again, exhausted by you, ready to reject and condemn you, this verse reminds you. No, no, no, no, no. Your thoughts are not like God's thoughts. I know that might be something that you and I would do with somebody else that was like you and I, but God is not like you and I. If today you feel distant from God, you can look to the cross of Jesus where through his shed blood, he offers us perfect grace and perfect justice.

And because God is full of compassion, his invitation to you is to draw near. Run towards him. He's eager to embrace you with open arms to give you grace, to forgive you of your sins, to deliver you from sin, guilt, shame, and restore you no matter where you are. Why? Because he is a compassionate God. Author Gavin Ortland described it once like this. He said that basically he shared this analogy of how,

religion or a counterfeit message of what Jesus teaches. Basically, it's like a young boy or girl saying, I messed up. That's going to kill me. But the gospel is like a young boy or girl saying, I messed up. I need to call dad. Listen, today I want to remind you that God's thoughts are not your thoughts. God's love for you is not dependent upon your character. It is dependent upon his covenant. And In Christ, God does not love you because you've been lovely. He loves you because he is loving. Now, this is in cheap grace that says, oh, that's great. That's awesome.

That means that I can just go ahead and abuse the grace and I can just do whatever I want because at the end of the day, God's going to forgive me anyways. No, no, no. What this radical compassion and this extravagant grace does is change our hearts from the inside so that we are empowered to live differently. We are empowered to kill our sin. we are empowered to pursue a life that obeys the Word of God and by His grace seeks to live for the glory of God. His thoughts and His ways are not your thoughts and your ways.

What a faithful God we serve. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review,

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