Live Free with Josh Howerton - Who Are You Becoming? | Ep. 35 | Friday March 24, 2023

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

When we find new life in Jesus, we shift our focus from who we’ve been to who we’re becoming. Our actions then align with that mindset and we begin to live a life that honors Him. In today’s episode, Pastor Mike shares how to be transformed from the inside out and how to find joy in the process. 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. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Mike Bro, and so grateful that you have chosen to hang with us today for just a few minutes. And I don't know, you might be driving. We call this the daily drive. That might be what you're doing. It might be working out. Maybe you're getting ready for school, fixing dinner, or maybe you're sitting like me with a cup of coffee. Wherever you are, all we're trying to do is just kind of open our minds, open up our hearts and slow ourselves down so we can hear from God a little while every day. So I thought that just for the next few weeks, weeks, or however long it takes, we'd all walk through a little letter that's tucked in the back of the Bible called Philippians. Now, if you'd like some background on the entire letter

of Philippians, I'd really encourage you to log on to the Bible project. It's a really great site. And you can check out their whole overview of the book of Philippians. They do such an amazing job. And they do really cool graphics along with the overview. And I'm a guy that needs pictures. And you might too. So you can log on there and get some overview for the book of Philippians. And Philippians is only four chapters long. And we're just going to, as we've been doing it, go verse by verse, unpacking whatever God might want to say to us. And just by the way, this is something that I am personally working through.

This is not for sermon prep. It's not for podcast content. I'm just asking God to stretch me and teach me through all this. So I just thought I'd invite you along for the journey. And I can't wait to see what God does in all of us. There's this guy, his name is Paul, and some of you have no doubt heard about him, but he was formerly like a really bad dude named Saul. But he had a radical heart change and a strategic name change when he encountered the resurrected Jesus.

And God chose this guy to spread the good news of the love of Jesus Christ all over the world. So he and teams of men and women, planet churches, all over like the Mediterranean region. And then he wrote these letters to new churches, and some pretty major cities of the day. Cities like Rome and Corinth and Ephesus and Colossi, and this city in the Roman Empire called Philippi. And that's what it's called Philippians. And you can read all about how the church got started over in the book of the Bible called Acts. Acts chapter 16, the church starts with a woman named Lydia and a really, really cool story about this unique prison break. You ought to read it sometime as some of the background to this letter of Philippians.

But what we're going to do, we're just going to walk through this letter that was written by Paul and this young pastor named Timothy to a group of brand new Jesus followers living in very uncertain times. And the theme of this entire letter is joy. And man, could you use some more of that these days? I could. And it's such an amazing, hope-filled letter that will point us more toward being than doing. I think as performance-driven people, we can say, okay, God, so, what do I need to do? Just show me the checklist and I'll get after it. As a result, we can suffer from like purpose, anxiety where our life and our value and our identity is all wrapped up in how we're doing.

And I think this book will help us focus on who we're becoming. And then all the good things that we do in our life will flow out of who we are becoming. It's all about new life in Jesus. It's all about modeling his humility and shining his light and resting in his performance. and being transformed from the inside out by his power. So like we've been doing, we're going to just take these verses in bite-sized form. And I personally love this format for Bible study. I mean, I can only eat like one Chick-fil-A sandwich,

but I can eat like 100 nuggets. Anybody else? So just picking up one at a time. So what we're going to do, we're just going to kind of go through each day without the dipping sauce, and just take a nugget at a time. And I believe that if we could just stick that in our heart, that God will use it to bring about some really good stuff inside of us. So, y'all ready to get started?

If you got a Bible or you got an app like you version, I'm going to be using the New Living Translation. And this is the way Paul starts this letter. And we're going to hit on 12 words today. That's it. Verse 3, every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. I love this. I mean, wouldn't it be great that when we text each other or we zoom each other, we would open with those words every time I think of you.

Every time I think of you. Every time I hear your voice, every time I see your face, I just thank God for you. I'm just saying that maybe we ought to intentionally go out of our way to make sure that people know just how thankful we are for them. You know, I talked in an earlier episode about the power of gratitude and how the practice of regularly making gratitude lists has been a heart-changing thing for me. Instead of always thinking about what has to get done, spending time thanking God for what he has already done has done more to foster contentment in my soul than just about any other spiritual practice. So today, let me ask you, what are you thankful for? and more specifically, who are you thankful for? Who is it that you can honestly say,

every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. So why not bring them the mind right now? And just thank them right now. Thank God for them right now. And while you're at it, why don't you let them know? 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.