Live Free with Josh Howerton - Humility Leads to Freedom | Ep. 50 | Friday April 14, 2023

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Humility is a lifestyle and it’s modeled best by Jesus! He lived His life on earth serving others, putting them first, and looking out for them. This last episode of the week is a great reminder to do the same. Pastor Mike instructs you to follow Jesus and see that your life reflects His. You’ll want to turn the volume up and prepare your heart for the Scripture discussed 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.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive podcast, where I do these devotions while I'm actually driving. I'm just kidding. There's no way I can pull that off.

But maybe you're on your daily commute to work or school, wherever your day is taking you. Or maybe you're just sitting with a cup of coffee. Wherever you are, thanks, thanks for joining us. Hey, my name is Mike. And we're just taking a little bite-sized nuggets of God's Word and asking him to stick it in our hearts every day. And we're journeying through a little book called Philippians. It's a first century letter to feel so fresh and so relevant today. By the way, God's Word is like that.

It's living and it's active and it reveals something new about you and me almost every time we read it. And we are in Chapter 2 working our way through this amazing chunk of scripture that became a favorite worship song of the early church. And it has definitely made it on in my playlist to actually memorize the lyrics because I need a constant reminder to daily place my ego on the altar and embrace humility as a lifestyle. For our example for that is none other than Jesus himself, the most humble person who ever lived, and in his humility, accomplished more than anyone who has ever walked this planet. So let's back up to verse three and kind of get a running start to all of this. Paul starts this way.

Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others better than yourself. Don't look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others too. And then he says, let me show you an example. of what I'm talking about. You want a role model for this? And he says this in verse 5. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Take a look how Jesus lived his life and chose to embrace the same mindset, the same attitude, the same radical approach to humility that

Jesus himself chose. Verse 6, though he was God, we talked about being the essence God, he did not think of equality with God, something to cling to, even though he had every every right as God to cling to his divine privileges, he did not do that. Verse 7. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. You know, right before his crucifixion, Jesus and his guys are gathered in the upstairs room, and testosterone is flowing as it does. Sometimes with God, they're all, you know, trying to one-up each other, arguing about positions and power and greatness, and Jesus kneels down and begins to wash their dirty feet, totally shocks them.

Here's the master of all on his knees with water and a towel doing the job of his servant. And he gives them four words that have been a game changer for me as a leader, as a husband, as a dad, as a neighbor. I think they're four words we all ought to stick in our heart and be reminded of from time to time. This is what Jesus said to his guys. He said, you know, you know how the rulers of the Gentiles, you know the Romans. You know the Romans. They lauded over people and their high officials exercise authority over them. And here's those four words.

Not so with you. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. So when you're tempted to power up on somebody this week,

maybe you'll hear Jesus say, not so with you. When you're tempted to fly by all the other stalls, traffic and cut in line at the last second, not so with you. When you're tempted to grab the credit, when you're tempted to do some negative rant on social media, not so with you. Verse 8, when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

You know, some of you all might be downscaling these days. You may be an empty nester going from like a sprawling ranch to a smaller condo, or maybe going from a two-story house, one with downstairs because your knees are shot, or maybe you're moving out of your parents' house into a little bitty tiny dorm room, or maybe you're going from a huge moxter truck to a Prius. I mean, we all downscale eventually.

But, man, talk about downscaling? Jesus goes from transcending all time and space to being fenced in my Middle Eastern geography. He goes from absolute perfection to learning how to walk, having ear infections, chickenpox, zits, throwing up, experiencing hunger and exhaustion to know what it feels like to be hot, the sweat, to get the chills, to be made fun of, rejected, laugh that spit upon, beaten up, stripped, humiliating nails driven through your hands and your feet. And make no mistake about it, he did not lay down his divinity.

He laid down his self. He crucified his ego. He nailed his self-interest to the cross, and thus saved us all from ourselves. And all he's asking you, and immediately, do is do the dishes without complaining to let somebody else have that parking spot to let someone else grab the spotlight the one who voluntarily went to a cross is asking you and me go check on your elderly neighbors go apologize to your spouse pick up the phone and forgive somebody tell your daughter how proud you are of her tell somebody what they mean to you take somebody to a recovery meeting leave the last piece of pizza for your little brother it's just the way of Jesus And Jesus says to us today, follow me.

Learn from me. Don't allow pride to continue to screw up your life and make you small and cheat you out of love and keep you locked up in solitary confinement. Lay your ego on the altar and be free to walk in humility and grace. Can I ask you a favor? Would you pray for me today that I would walk through my day like that? I'll certainly be praying for you to do the same. Have a great day, sir. serving somebody. 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.combe.com slash day Drive.