Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Path that Leads to Life | Ep. 269 | Thursday, February 15, 2024

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Tune in today as we continue looking at the Gospel of John. In chapter 8, Jesus declares that He is the light of the world. When the religious leaders confronted Him about it, Jesus stood firm in His identity and relationship with His Father. He wants everyone to know the truth of who He is because it will set them free. Do you know this truth? 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, welcome to the Daily Drive where we just spent a few minutes diving into God's Word. I'm Mike Bro, and we are walking through the Gospel of John in the New Testament section of the Bible, and we are in Chapter 8. Jesus was in Jerusalem for what was called the Festival of Shelters, and there's lots of people there.

As Jesus was teaching out in front of the temple, a woman who was set up and used by the power-hungry religious leaders, she gets dragged before the crowd and thrown down the dirt in front of Jesus. As the people get ready to stone her for her sexual sin, Jesus stoops down to be with her in the dirt, gets down on her level and tells the people, whoever is without sin, go ahead and throw the first stone. So let's just pick it up now in verse 12 today. It says this, Jesus spoke to the people once more and said,

I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life. Now, during the festival, they would light these 16, golden bowls filled with oil, and they would give light to the inner courts of the temple. So Jesus was likely standing beneath them when he says, I am the light of the world. He is making the claim that anyone who follows him would have life. Now, of course, there is big-time pushback from the religious leaders.

They shouted him. You're making those claims about yourself? Such testimony is not valid. See, in Jewish law a claim required more than one witness, and Jesus tells them, these claims are valid, even though I make them about myself. For I know where I came from, heaven, and I know where I'm going, heaven, but you don't know this about me. You judge me by human standards, but I don't judge anyone. If I did, my judgment would be correct in every respect because I'm not alone. The father who sent me is with me. Your own law says that if two people agree about something

their witnesses accepted as fact, so I am one witness, and my father who sent me is the other. I love this he going there's your two witnesses they ask him where is your father and jesus answers back since you don't know who i am you don't know who my father is because if you knew me you would also know my father jesus made these statements while he was teaching the section of the temple known as the treasury he often taught out there because both men and women were allowed there but he was not arrested because his time for the cross had not yet come you know one of the things i've noticed throughout the Gospels is the only people Jesus was kind of blunt and harsh with was of religious leaders. He got angered by the way they were using people and abusing people and getting rich off people

and actually leading people away from his father whom they really did not know. You know, we tend to think of profanity when we see the command to not take God's name in vain. But here's the deal with the religious leaders. All the bad things they did, they did it all. in the name of God. Talk about taking God's name in vain. So Jesus says some pretty direct and honest things about the condition of their hearts. He uses terms in other places in scriptures where he says,

you're like snakes, you're dead wood, your bad fruit, your whitewashed tombstones, your self-righteous, you're hypocrites. And in this eighth chapter, John, you can read verses 31 and following, he calls them, children of the devil, tells them that his father and their father are not the same. Their father's a murderer, while his father gives life. His father is full of truth, and their father is the father of lies. Yeah, they really don't like Jesus.

Their self-righteousness, their self-centeredness has blinded them to the truth of who he is. Pride will do that to you. It'll take your heart to cold and dark places, and it will keep you blind to what real life is. I think that Jesus wanted them to believe. I believe like it is with everyone. He wanted them to also know eternal life, but he knew. knew that they were ever going to repent of their pride and turn toward God. He needed to speak directly, honestly, even forcefully, to their ego.

You know, I've said it many times, but ego stands for edging God out. When you and I are so full of ourselves, there's no room for God. And gang, edging God out is a dangerous heart condition. So Jesus bluntly tells them in verse 24 that if they continue to reject him, they would die in their sins. Now let me go back to verses 30 and 31. He's been talking about he and the father are one, that he has been sent by the father to bring life and freedom.

And it says that as he was talking, many people who heard him believed. And then Jesus says these famous words, verse 31. Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. You see, just knowing the truth doesn't set you free. Following Jesus and remaining faithful to his teachings leads to the truth, and that truth leads to freedom.

The more you get to know Jesus, you see that there is a pathway that leads to life, a life where knowing the truth about your pride frees you to love other people like you never knew you could, a life where knowing the truth about the destructive nature of envy and greed and anger and fear and bitterness and unrestrained pleasure-seeking. It's revealed for what it really is. And you're set free to pursue joy and peace and kindness and goodness and gratitude. You start to realize the beauty and the absolute freedom of living a God-centered, other-centered life. So my prayer for all of us today is that by looking at the life of Jesus through these few minutes every day,

that we would get to know him. And through knowing him, we would want to follow him. And by following him, we would know the truth, the kind of truth. that leads to freedom. And man, I hope you have a great day experience in the freedom of walking with him. See you back tomorrow. 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.com.

Daily Drive.