Live Free with Josh Howerton - Secure in the Source | Ep. 156 | Monday, September 11, 2023

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Ever feel like you are missing out? Not growing the way you want to, not engaged in spiritual things like you know you should be? Check your root. Is the Bible a chore or a life-giving source? Let today's episode remind you that God is the source of all life, and His word has the power to change us. 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.combe.com slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, what's up, everybody? This is the Daily Drive podcast, and we've spent about five minutes just drawn closer to God, and we are in week two of a 21-day experience where a whole bunch of us are just slowing down our pace. We're seeking after God. We're living aware of its presence throughout the day. We're doing some inside-out soul work. Many of us are taking an honest and fearless moral inventory. We're praying for other people. We're finding ways to serve beyond ourselves. And in short, these 21 days are just a picture of what everyday life ought to look like. Last episode, we began talking about one of those three-word phrases that can change everything,

and no, it's not Monday night football. I know those are three words that some of you are pretty excited about, but the three words that come from the lips of Jesus are these. Remain in me. Let's read those verses again from John 15, and this is Jesus talking. He says, remain in me, and I will remain in you. for a branch cannot produce fruit if it's severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

Yes, I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. He's saying, if you want to become God's best version of you, if you want to live a life of purpose and passion that finds deep fulfillment, if you want to produce some eye-popping fruit that leaves a legacy, if you want to experience life to the full, then here's three words that will change everything for you.

Remain in me. I told you the last episode that I wanted to use the word sap to talk about the payoff of staying connected to the vine. We talked about how the xylem and flume of a plant carry the vital nutrients up and down to give that plant life. They act sort of like our cardiovascular system. And Jesus made it clear that we are not our own vine. We are the branches.

And branches need a source. of life. And we need the life-giving nutrients that come from him and him alone. That's why it tells us. Stay connected. Keep the remain thing, the main thing. So in keeping with this world of botany, the S and the word sap stands for security. Security. When you remain in him and he remains in you, you know who you are. All that trying to find yourself and define yourself, it's over. You begin to move through life confident in your identity. As a much-loved man, a much-loved woman, that you are a treasure child of the Most High God, and you internalize the words he has spoken about you. You internalize truth like, you know what, I am God's child. I'm Christ's friend. I've been justified,

redeemed, I've been qualified for heaven. I have forever free from condemnation. I've not been given a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and self-discipline. I'm a temple for God. I'm God's coworker. I'm supernaturally gifted to make a difference. I'm the soul to the earth, the light of the world. I'm complete in Christ. I could do all things through him who gives me strength. You know, Jesus tells us in this passage, let my words remain in you, or let my word make its home in you. Now, you might have to move some other things around, even take some stuff to the dump, so that his word has room and feels at home in you. But when his words take root, you start to walk in that truth. You're secure in who you are, whose you are, why you're here, what you're

about, where you're going. Having his words remain, stay, abide, dwell in you, makes a huge difference. My good friend Paul, I've talked about him before, he never really knew who he was. He was very, very insecure, and that played out in various ways. To make a long story short, he was my next door neighbor. We got into a really cool friendship and ended up getting a baptized him as he accepted Christ. But then his past crept up to bite him, and he had to go to prison for three years. He was later exonerated, but he had to spend three years in a minimum security place. And we bought him a brand new study Bible. He took it with him, and he said, I'm just going to act like these three years are like seminary, and I'm going to devour God's word. And man,

you ought to see his Bible. It is incredible. He took little post-it notes and color-coded all kinds of different things in the margin. It's pretty cool. He read it through the Bible. He read it through three times. And he said this to him. He says, bro, you know what? In prison, I was so free because his word found a home in my heart. I like what my buddy, John Orberg, writes, he says, one of the greatest gifts God has given the human race is scripture. Yet we often turn it into a burden. Sometimes people will ask me, how many minutes a day am I supposed to read the Bible? Seven, fifteen, I mean, what is the minimum I can read and not have God mad at me? Oh, that's the wrong question. God has not mad at us for not reading the Bible.

No matter how much we read the Bible, he won't love you anymore than he loves you right now. The question is, what can you feed your mind with so that it can flourish? You see, the reason to read the Bible is not to get extra credit from God or to gain more knowledge or to smoke somebody in a game of Bible jeopardy. It's to stay connected to the vine. It's to plant yourself by the life-giving river. You know, Psalm 1 talks about people who do that. It says they delight in the law of the Lord, meditate on it day and night. They're like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit in each season.

Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do. Here's kind of an aha moment for me and a freeing realization. The job of the tree is not to produce fruit. The job is to be planted by the river, and as a result, it puts a result. produces fruit. The job of the branch is not to produce fruit. His job is to remain in the vine. And as a result, it produces fruit. That's why the Apostle Paul wrote this in Colossus chapter 2 7 says, let your roots grow down into him. Let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth that you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

The Center for Bible Engagement surveyed 40,000 Americans from ages 8 to 80. They discovered something they weren't even looking for. You might have seen this before. They discovered the people who read the Bible one time a week, maybe only saw or maybe read a scripture in a church on a weekend, saw a negligible difference in their life. Their anxiety levels or habits or behaviors are pretty much the same. Those who read the Bible two times a week also saw negligible difference.

Those who read it three times a week experienced a small blip like a heartbeat on an EKG, but not much of a change. But here's what shocked the researchers. Those who engaged with the Bible four times a week or more, there was a huge jump like a life change spikes off the chart. They found that reading the Bible four times or more per week resulted in significant life change such as feeling lonely dropped 30%. Anger issues drops 32%.

Bitterness and relationships drops 40%. Alcoholism drops 57%. Feeling spiritually stagnant drops 60%. Viewing pornography drops 61%. And on the positive proactive side, sharing their faith jumped 200% because they had so much confidence who God is and who they are.

And serving others living beyond themselves also jumped 230%. So Jesus says, remain in me. Let my words remain in you and you'll never stop learning and growing and your life will flourish in ways you never imagine. You will walk through life knowing that you are accepted and secure in my love.

And man, I'm praying that you will feel that security today and that you will walk with a humble confidence. 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.