Latest / The Daily Word / April 24 – Live for God’s Approval, Not People’s
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night. And welcome to the Daily Word podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes and it's my privilege to pastor our Catawba campus. Excited to be sitting down for you with another devotion for our Daily Word podcast where we're looking through the New Testament portion of our church Bible reading plan from the Life Journal. and just doing devotions based on those New Testament portions every day. So today is April the 24th and we were reading in Matthew chapter 11 was the New Testament portion. ⁓ This chapter, John the Baptist sends disciples to Jesus to ask if he was the Messiah. Now Jesus tells John's disciples to go back. and give John a report of all that they had witnessed, all the miracles, all the things that he was doing. And this must have occurred in front of a crowd because after John's disciples go back, Jesus starts speaking to the crowd, to the multitudes is how it's described in there about John. Jesus tells them that John the Baptist was the man that Malachi had prophesied would come to prepare the way and in verse 11, Jesus says, assuredly, I say to you among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist, but he who has least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Now that's, that's a pretty good stamp of approval from Jesus, isn't it? And that's, that's what I think kind of makes verses 18 through 19, particularly interesting. Jesus speaking again, for John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. Now the son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, look, a glutton and a wine beaver, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by her children. So Jesus shares that there are people who looked at John, the greatest of those born of women, the prophet who came to live a radically chase life. mean, he was wearing like scratchy camel hair. He was eating locusts, just living off the ground, wild honey. As he prepared the way for Jesus to came in, they look at this man living a radically set apart, radically different kind of life to fulfill the calling that was on his life. And they thought he had a demon. then to contrast that Jesus points to the fact, that those same people who had criticized John for not eating, for not drinking, they criticized Jesus because he did eat. He did drink. They called Jesus a glutton and a drunk, probably because he ate with gluttons and with drunks. And he probably would have been considered guilty by association. And what I want us to see here is that no matter how we live our lives, Whether in our personal walk with Jesus, we feel led to lay down all the pleasures of life and live a radical set apart life, laying down all the accoutrements, all the, all the little things ⁓ that we feel personally in our relationship with Jesus. He wants us to lay down or whether in our relationship we feel that we can embrace the freedom that Jesus has given us to enjoy things in moderation. whether we're called in our life to lay things down or to enjoy in that moderation. Here's the truth that I want us to see. People are always going to have something to say about it. You can never please everybody. ⁓ you might find a community of like-minded folks who have the same call on their life and they may affirm your convictions and they may live similarly. But as soon as you step outside of that little circle, you're going to bump into people who have opinions, thoughts about the way you're living your life. And that's why we're not called to live according to people's opinions of us, but according to Jesus's opinions. See, Jesus invites us to walk with him, to let him direct our path and what we do or don't do. We see at the end of this chapter, those beautiful verses, verses 28 through 30, where Jesus invites us to walk with him that way. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly and heart and you will find a rest for your souls. for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So all of that kind of squished together is scripture and observation. My observation clearly being that ⁓ people were never going to please all people, but our aim is to please Jesus. So in terms of application, what we can do with that, have we set our hearts? to follow after Jesus and his opinion of us and not the opinions of those around us. meet people who are completely bound and shackles and bondage to the opinions of people around them. They don't even know what these people are gonna think, but before they take any action, before they do anything, they're already weighing what will people think of it? What are they gonna say about me? What are they going to say if I do this? If I go and embrace my freedom in this area, what are they going to say? Or if the Lord tells me to draw back and not do that thing, what are people going to say? Regardless of what end of the spectrum is people get caught up in that. Have we purposed in our heart to allow Jesus's opinion of us to be what rules and reigns in our heart for it to be the center of our identity? Remember he came and he died for us. He died for you. He loves you so much that he gave his life so that you can be connected with him so that you can be yoked with him so that you can labor and walk with him, share the path with him, delight in him. So we need to set our hearts to follow Jesus and his opinion of us. And we need to give up the need to control how other people see us or to appease others who ultimately will never be satisfied. But the good news is the truth is that Jesus does love us and he is satisfied with us. Let's pray. Father, I thank you. I thank you that you do not think like men. You do not set our value. Are your thoughts towards us are not set by what we do or don't do. You placed value on us before we were ever created, before in an eternity past. You purpose to love us, to care for us, to send Jesus to die for us. And we praise you and we thank you Lord, that you are a good God. I thank you Lord, that you lead each of us individually along a path. It's a very individual journey about what we do and what we don't do, what convictions you place on each of our hearts in terms of how we live our lives. Lord, I pray that you would bring us into peace that after we've prayed about things, after we've sought you on things, and we believe you've given us answer on how to conduct ourselves and how to live our lives, that you would just give us peace with living before you, that you are the goal, pleasing you is the goal and pleasing men, pleasing people around us, even pleasing other Christians is not the goal. The goal is to please you and please you alone, Lord. We lay down and we surrender the need to control how other people see us. We laid down the burden of their opinions, carrying that, being yoked to that, tied to that. And we pick up your yoke. We pick up the opinion of who created us to set the course of our lives and be the core of our identity. We thank you, Jesus, that every day we come to your scripture. You meet with us, you talk with us, you love us, you show us such good things. We praise you and we thank you Jesus that when we come back to your word tomorrow, you're going to be here to meet with us again. We love you, Jesus. Amen.