Live Free with Josh Howerton - Joy Beyond Suffering | Ep. 148 | Wednesday August 30, 2023

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

The final rung in the Beatitudes ladder is persecution. If that doesn’t sound appealing, you are not alone. In this episode, Pastor Mike walks us through why Jesus would have this as the final step. As you go about your day today, may God give you grace to see persecution as a momentary affliction compared to the surpassing joy of glorifying Him. 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, thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive. You might be lying in a hammock or sitting by a pool or mowing the lawn or taking a walk or sipping a cup of coffee. Driving through crazy traffic.

So grateful that you are making time to hear from God today. And I hope you listen well all throughout this day as he leads and prompts you to do the right thing and have the right reactions. But thanks for taking these few minutes just to listen for a little while. We have been unpacking this section of the New Testament called the Beatitudes. It's the intro of a message that Jesus gave on a hill. side, commonly referred to as the sermon on the Mount. And you can find it in its entirety in the first book of the Bible, Matthew, chapter 5 through 7. It is so good. I'm talking radically countercultural words to build your life upon. And I encourage you to read the whole thing. I don't know.

We might even come back to it later down the road and unpack the rest of it. But today, I want to wrap this part up. Jesus starts teaching by telling the crowd gathered there and telling us, hey, if you're looking for happiness, let me tell you where it's found. And he goes into all these different principles that lead to, as he calls it, a blessed life. And the word blessed just means supremely happy or deeply satisfied. And we've been looking at these words of Jesus like their rungs on a ladder. And we started on the bottom rung where Jesus says, blessed are the poor and spirit. I mean, how countercultural, how counterintuitive is that? That the beginning of happiness is not a new car, not a new house, not a dream vacation, or a change of your circumstances. It begins with the

awareness that without God, you are spiritually busted. Blessed are those who recognize their need for God. That's where happiness starts. And we've been looking at these rungs, looking at these like their rungs that build upon the one before. So wrong number two would be, blessed are they that mourned? We said mourn over what? The fact that they're spiritually bankrupt. We come to God with this authentic brokenness saying, God, I've recognized my spiritual poverty. I need you in my life. Then rung three was blessed are the meek. Those who are humble enough to say, I'm ready to quit playing God. Everlinguished control of my life to the true and living God. And we talked about how the word meek comes out of the equestrian world, which meant to bridle wild horses. It's saying,

God, I am handing you the reins of my life. You lead. Rung number four was the one where Jesus said, if you want to be happy, deeply satisfied, then hunger and thirst after God in his right ways. If you do that, you will be filled in ways you never imagined. We talked about how those first four are all internal, soul preparation things, and steps we work for the rest of our life, with an honest evaluation of our life, a sense of brokenness, a need, daily surrender to his loving leadership, and a hunger for this intimate relationship with him. And as we do those things, some pretty cool things start to find. flow out of me and you. The first of which is mercy. Jesus says, blessed are the merciful. I think that

it's no coincidence that the first thing that flows out of us is what we've just received. We begin to extend grace because we have received grace. We forgive much because we have been forgiven much. And then we climbed to wrong number six where Jesus said, happy art, the pure and heart, the authentic, those who are done pretending, those who are done faking and hiding, those who just come to God, cracks and all. And then last time together we heard Jesus say, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. We talked about becoming like thermostats, who instead of reacting to the temperature, we set the climate, we bring the calm, we bring the joy, the right tone, the light, wherever we go. And so now we've climbed all

the way to the top of this ladder. And guess what's up here? Let me read the words of Jesus. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil against you because you're my followers. Well, be happy about it. Be very glad for a great reward awaits you in heaven. And I read that and think, excuse me? Excuse me, I climb all the way up this ladder.

I get to the top rung and this is. it? Persecution? Ridicule? Lies? Rejection? Like, really? Here's what I think. When you live the kind of life that Jesus has been describing so far, people sometimes don't know what to do with you. I mean, you're almost like that curvebreaker in school that always shone a light on my educational ineptitude. And sometimes people honestly will applaud you for your goodness. Sometimes people will hate you. for your goodness. That's what happened to Jesus. And so he tells us, expect no less. And if or when that happens, be happy that they can see a difference in your life and endure it by knowing that eternity is waiting for you. Now, I'll never forget years ago when Peter, I prayed for me.

His name wasn't Peter, but that's what he went by to hide his true identity. He was a leader in the underground church in China, and our church had provided Bibles, and he came to thank us. And he came backstage, and he was as full of joy as anybody I've ever met. He just radiated with light and this humble confidence. Now, his English was very, very broken. And so were his fingers. He'd been imprisoned, beaten, and tortured many times. There were cigarette burns up and down his arms. He asked me if he could pray for me before I went out to preach. And I said, of course. He put his arm around my shoulder and began to pray fervently in man. and I had no idea what he was saying, but I understood every word he was saying, because I began

to feel a power and a boldness I hadn't felt in a while. I embraced him and thanked him, and then he bowed before me, and I did the same, and I told him what a hero he was to me. He left. I opened up my Bible to Matthew Chapter 5 with tears hitting the page I wrote in the margin of my Bible. Peter, I thank God for men and women all over the world who endure persecution for their faith. I pray for them regularly. And I pray for you, too, that in the face of ridicule and rejection and this whole cancel culture, that we would just live like Jesus in every way, that we would live lives of courage, kindness, humility, light, peace, and love, knowing that no matter what this life may bring. Great, great is our reward in heaven. See you next time.

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