Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Great Somebody | Ep. 29 | Thursday March 16, 2023

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Have you ever selfishly chosen your own desires over the needs of someone else? If so, how did that make you feel? In today’s episode, Pastor Mike shares about a time that this happened in his own life and explains how it changed the trajectory of his decisions to this day. Tune in to hear more about the impact your choices have on others! 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, hey, hey, welcome back. We're welcome for the first time. My name is Mike Bro, and we're hanging every day.

I don't know if for three to five minutes, something like that, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. But thanks for hanging with us. They're just putting ourselves in a position of humility, saying, God, we need to learn from you, what it means to live a distinctive, countercultural, intentional, full of light kind of life. And what we're doing is working through Romans chapter 12, a first century letter that feels like it was written like last week. and we hit the first part of verse 16 yesterday where the writer Paul gave us all the challenge

of living in harmony with each other because harmony is a big deal to God and harmony is so countercultural. Verse 16 goes on to say this, live in harmony with each other. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceded.

Somebody spotted a sign posted on a kid's Treehouse. It said clubhouse rules. Nobody act big, nobody acts small, everybody act medium. That's just wisdom from kids right there. I like the way the message translates this verse says, get along with each other. Don't be stuck up. Make friends with nobodies. Don't be the great somebody. I told you in the beginning that as we would work down through Romans 12, I just share some stuff, some personal stuff that was written in the margin of my old Bible. When I revisited this chapter and I saw the words, Hagen Hospital written in the margin, I got to be honest with it, I got a little sick to my stomach.

And I wrote it. Man, it's been well over 30 years that I wrote that in the margin of my Bible. I'm hesitant to share this, but I'm telling you, I wrote it. down because this event marked my life. I was at a growing church pastor, and I was a young guy. I was probably, I was on my late 20s, something like that. And our church was growing. Just to be honest, I was kind of full of myself.

And we did three services that morning. I was pretty tired. I went home to eat lunch, and I was just going to kind of take a nap, watch a little football, whatever. I was just tired. Then I remembered, oh, man, I'm supposed to go to the hospital today and do devotions on the geriatric wing. They're kind of a nursing home combined with the hospital. And I thought I'd done this before.

It's not a big deal. I mean, there's only, you know, a few people that show up for the thing. And I thought, you know what? I'm just not going to go. Somebody at the hospital can take my place. And I just won't show. So I just blew it off. and I get a phone call from the hospital and said,

Pastor Bro, are you coming today? I went, oh, yeah, I'm on my way. I'm just leaving. So I got in my car. I went to the hospital, and I get there, sure enough, I walk in the room. There's three older people sitting there. As soon as I walk in, this old lady grabs my hand and says,

do you sing? I said, well, a little bit. And she goes, could you sing Amazing Grace? So I sang Amazing Grace. Another older lady said, Would you read Psalm 23 for us? The Psalm says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He'll leave me besides quiet water. So I read Psalm 23. Then this old man had to be in his 90s. He's grabbed my hands. He says, son, would you pray for us? And so I prayed for those three older people. It didn't take five minutes.

I walked down the hall straight to the hospital chapel, closed the door behind me, got on my knees, and cried like a baby. It was like God was saying, who do you think you are, man? Don't try to be the great somebody. You're a hot shot pastor at this growing church. You didn't have time for these precious people today. And so I wrote it down in the margin of my Bible, so I would never feel like that again because I never want to try to be the great somebody.

Think about it. That was Jesus' example. He never walked with a sense of supremacy. And he actually was. So today, maybe we'll always try to walk like he did with a sense of humility, a sense of kindness. And I'm just praying that you will never. have to write a reminder like that in the margin of your Bible. But I'm glad I did. And I'm so grateful that God has changing me. See you next time. 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. Church slash Daily Drive.