Live Free with Josh Howerton - Reject Self-Preservation | Ep. 283 | Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

When we are so self-focused, we miss out on the good things in life. Some of the people who had seen Lazarus' resurrection reported it to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were trying to preserve their selfish interests and missed seeing Jesus for who He is and what He was there to do. Are you missing out on Jesus and the life He has for you? 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.com. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive. My name is Bro, and we hang here Monday through Friday for just a few minutes, trying to get to know God better, and I'm grateful for you in the journey that you're on.

We started the year in the Gospel of John, and we are all the way to Chapter 11, and I hope that you're reading along, and if you missed any of the episodes, you can always go back and you can catch up. We left off yesterday in John 11, right after Jesus raises his good friend Lazarus from the dead. Let me repeat that. He raised someone from the dead. He says that he is the resurrection and the life, and then he backs it up. Well, the family and close friends are blown away, and it says that many believed in Jesus after that.

I mean, a guy that can turn water and a wine and heal lepers and the death, the blind, the lame, a person that can walk on water, calm the storm, cast out demons, and raise people from the dead? Why, it must be God, right? You know, live your life in self-preservation mode as a sad example. not talking so much about being afraid to take risk, but trying to protect everything about your life, your way, your comfort, your income, your empire, your little kingdom. When life is all about you, your heart never grows. And you miss out on things like joy and gratitude and worship and awe and laughter

and celebrating the success of other people. You miss out on things like real life. And it's so sad to me that most of the Pharisees missed out on all of that. We learned yesterday that some of the people who witnessed the miracle outside of Lazarus's tomb began to believe in Jesus, but other people went directly to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done. So let's pick back up in verse 47. Then the leading priest and Pharisees called the High Council, called the Sanhedron together. What are we going to do?

They ask each other. This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. then the Roman army will come and destroy both our temple and our nation. You know how Romans don't like messias. If everybody turns to him, they will come in and they will drop the hammer and everything we're trying to preserve, everything we're trying to protect, our whole religious empire, our way of life, our standard of living.

It's all going to be gone. Verse 49 says, Caiaphas, who was the high priest at that time, said, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't realize that it's better for you, that one man, should die for the people, then for the whole nation to be destroyed. It's better for one revolutionary to die than the whole nation to go down. And John adds here, verse 51, he did not say this on his own. As high priest at the time, he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation, and not only for that nation, but bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around

the world. Man, you got to love that. God in his sovereignty uses a self-centered, self-referenced, righteous, evil man like Caiaphas to speak truth, to prophesy what would happen, even though he didn't realize what he was saying, that through the death of this one man, Jesus, all people would have access to God. Well, his words

would stoke the fire, and it says in verse 53, so from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death. Self-preservation mode will make you do some horrible things. Verse 54 says, as a result, Jesus stopped his public

ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness to the village of Ephraim and stayed there with his disciples. Now, Jesus did not retreat. He didn't shrink back. He just withdrew for a while. It goes about 12 miles north of Jerusalem to wait for God's timing, for it was not the Sanhedron's plot that would determine when Jesus would die for the sense of mankind. It would be the father. So with the death plot brewing, Jesus and his disciples withdraw to the desert before the huge Passover celebration in Jerusalem, they're far enough away from the Sanhedron, but they're close enough to walk to the Passover when the time is there.

Well, people are arriving early, and the religious leaders are looking for Jesus, and some say he probably won't even show up. But the religious leaders tell everybody that if they see him, they must report it so that they can arrest him. Well, he's going to show up. He's coming to the Passover, and he's not just going to slip in, blend in, or hide.

In fact, their worst fears would come true, true, when the people would lie in the streets and cheer his arrival. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. We've got to do something to stop him. They tried. They tried. But this podcast, our church, your faith, is testimony that they failed. It's really hard to plot against the great I am, the one who holds the keys to life and death. And I hope that today, you will reject self-preservation mode the way Jesus did and live for the sake of others and the glory of God. We'll pick up Chapter 12 tomorrow. Hope you have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online

live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive.