A Place for His Name, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Welcome to another week of trusted biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. You're joining us today right in the middle of a teaching series called The Whole Story, and we've been slowly moving from Genesis toward Revelation each day, hitting most of the major stories along the way.

If you've missed any of the previous messages, you can catch up online at jdgreer.com. But today we're looking at a tragic moment in the history of Israel. The people had turned from following God and had given themselves over to worshiping idols. Does that sound a little familiar?

Maybe a little too familiar today? It is a cautionary message for us all. So grab your Bible as Pastor J.D. picks up the story in Ezekiel chapter 10, starting at verse four. The glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and moved cherubim or the angels and moved to the threshold of the temple. So it leaves the holy place. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord's house. So they're going out the east gate of the temple and the glory of the Lord was above them. Then the glory of the Lord went up from within the city. So it keeps moving out toward the east, then going up the mountain there on the eastern side, which is the Mount of Olives, and then disappearing up into heaven.

And that's the last they see it. It departed from earth. And so you read that right before this temple is destroyed and you think, is that it? Is that the last chapter? Has the glory and the presence of God departed forever?

No. No, thankfully your Bible doesn't end in Ezekiel. God had determined to bring salvation to the human race. Interestingly, when you go to the life of Jesus, the gospel of Luke tells us that on Jesus's final ride into Jerusalem, he actually takes a very interesting route because as he's coming into Jerusalem, it says that he went up the Mount of Olives. He got on a donkey and he came back down. It says that he goes to the east gate of Jerusalem. And then he goes all the way into the temple where he takes out a whip and he cleanses it, driving out the money changers who are buying and selling in the temple. And he says, you tear this temple down.

I'll rebuild it in three days. Talking about himself. Interestingly, the place that Jesus drove them out from was the court of the Gentiles. And as Jesus is driving out these money changers, he says, Luke 1946, is it not written? My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you, you've turned it into a den of thieves. This was supposed to be, he said, a place where foreigners from other nations found to open me.

But instead you turn this into a place where you could just make money for yourselves. So Jesus took out a whip and he cleansed the temple, restoring it to its original purpose. And then he offered himself up as a sacrifice because animal blood could never take away sin and animal blood could never cleanse the heart no matter how many animals you use.

Only his blood could do those things. It could not only cleanse our sins, it could take it away and it would change our hearts so that we would love and seek God and not give ourselves to idols. And then Jesus turns and he says, whosoever will. In other words, foreigners from any nation on earth, people at any stage of life with whatever they bring to this temple, they can come to me and pray cause I'm the real temple. And they can find the forgiveness and healing that Solomon promised.

They can find it in my name. The glory of God, Ezekiel predicted would no longer be found in a beautiful place, the temple. The glory of God, he said, will be found in a beautiful person, Jesus. And anyone who comes to him from any nation by faith for forgiveness and healing for their sin will receive it the moment they ask for it.

And those who come to God through his name in prayer, God says, I'll hear the things that they're asking. So we are supposed to, you see, take all the promises that Solomon gave to them about the temple. We're supposed to take those and apply them to ourselves. But what does that mean? How do you apply these promises to you?

Well, I'll give you a handful of things here. This is what it looks like to take those promises and make them yours. Number one, God answers prayer. God answers prayer.

And I know, I know that just seems so obvious. Here's my question for you. Do you honestly believe that he does answer prayer? Listen to these promises again. Verse 29, 1 Kings 8, my eyes and my ears are going to be open to this temple both day and night. I'm going to hear whatever my servants pray, whatever they pray. When you've been defeated by an enemy because you sinned against me, when the heavens are shut up because there's no rain, even when it's your fault. In other words, when famine or plague comes to the land or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, when an enemy besieges you in any of your cities, whatever disaster or disease may come.

What disaster or disease has come into your life, into the life of one of your kids? When any prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people in Israel or for us in the church, when you spread out your hands toward this temple and pray, I will forgive and then I will act. I won't just forgive. I'll also begin to act on your behalf. I tell you one of the things I've begun the practice of in my prayer time is saying to God after I pray, I'll pray about something and then I'll say, God, I trust you with this. And the reason I do that is because I often find myself telling God about my problems without the faith that He's going to move. But see, I know that when I place my trust in Him, if you'll hear me what I mean by this, He has to move. It's not that I'm manipulating Him, it's that He's promised He won't ever abandon or let down those who lean on Him in faith. That of course doesn't mean that He's going to do things exactly like I think they should be done. Just that I know He's moving with goodness and grace as I continue to believe. He promises that He is.

Where trust exists, He moves. Recently, our pastoral team took a short spiritual retreat and one of the exercises we did as a team is individually we, in our quiet times, we rewrote Psalm 136 in our own words. Psalm 136 is a Psalm where the Psalmist recounts all the ways that God has been good to Israel.

Between everything he puts this repeated phrase. For His steadfast love endures forever. So I had the staff team, I had them write out all the ways that God has worked in their lives and then after each major movement just write the phrase for His steadfast love endures forever.

So write your own Psalm in a sense. When I got to the end and I looked back over what I had written and read it out loud, I had this overwhelming sudden sense of how faithfully God, God through His steadfast love had worked in my life. My parents, godly as they were, did not engineer most of the strategic moments in my life. God did. And see and then what I did is I began to think about my own kids because I worry a lot about being the right kind of parent to my kids and I'm like, what if I don't do something I'm supposed to do?

Or what if I do something wrong? And I'm always thinking about how do I create these moments for them? But what I realized is that God had been the one who had been so faithful to me. Couldn't I then trust that He would be faithful to my kids too?

Had His steadfast love ceased to endure forever? So I just said, God, I trust you to work in their lives. Yes, I'm, I'm praying about this and that in their lives, but I'm trusting you to orchestrate these moments because your steadfast love for them endures forever.

And I know that He's working. See, and then when, because I'm believing and then you see as a parent, I suddenly find myself walking on water and I'm not sinking underneath the waves anymore. You see, God says when we trust in Him with all our heart and we don't lean on our own abilities, but we acknowledge Him in all of our ways. He promises to direct our paths. He promises to sustain our steps. He promises to give us that power that we so desperately need. Are you trusting God with the things in your life that you need? Because when you lean on Him, He moves. He promises to be.

He has to be. Here's your second thing that you take from it. When faced with a critical need, our choice is trusting prayer or turning to idols. That's the choice you're going to have.

Just like Israel had that choice. You're going to face needs in your life. Are you going to trust God with them or are you going to turn to a substitute provider? Here's what that looks like when I'm talking about facing a need. God, I'm not sure that you can really make me happy in romance or in my sexuality. So in that area, I'm not really going to obey you fully. I'm going to take matters into my own hands. My boyfriend and I, we're going to live together. I'm going to, I'm going to kind of choose who I'm going to date. I'm going to choose what I'm going to do with my sexuality because I don't really feel like your way is going to be best and I can't trust you with it. Or maybe you say, I'm not sure God's going to supply all my needs. So I'll hoard my money.

I'll refuse to be generous and I'm not going to tithe. I'm going to overwork. I'm going to worry about it all the time. I'm not sure that God's plan is really best for me. So I won't lay down my life before Him or my career before Him as a blank check and say, wherever you want me to go, I'll go.

Whatever you want me to do, I'll do. Or I don't really feel like God can take care of me where He sends me. So I'm not going on a mission trip. You see, when you have a need, you're going to do one of two things. You're either going to trust God or you're going to turn to an idol. Turning to an idol, I hope you see from this story, will drive out the glory of God from your life and will send you into a type of spiritual exile. What are you going to do? Here's the question. What are you going to do when God doesn't answer in exactly the way and on the timetable that you think He should? How do you have that experience?

I don't know why you're not doing this. When you hit that moment, the choice is trusting prayer, waiting prayer, or now I'm going to take it into my hands and I'm going to turn it into an idol. Can you trust that God is moving even when you can't see it just because He promised He would? One of my favorite promises that Jesus gave about prayer, it's so colorful. Luke 11, 11, what father among you, what father among you, if his son asked him for a fish? Well, instead of a fish, give him a serpent, a snake. Or if he asked for an egg because he's hungry, we'll give him a scorpion. I mean, if you parents do that, your kid asks you for some chicken nuggets. You're like, I don't have any chicken nuggets, but here's a cobra. You'll play with that. Of course you don't do that, right?

Because you love your kids and so you're going to take care of them. But let's reverse that. I think we can do this. Let's reverse that. If your child parents ask you for a scorpion, are you going to give them a scorpion?

No. As a parent, sometimes you tell your kids, no, not in spite of the fact that you love them, you tell them no because you love them. Well, see, God is no different. One of the great ironies of our lives is that sometimes what looks to us like bread is in reality a scorpion.

And what looks to us like a scorpion is in reality bread. In fact, write this down. I've given you this before. Sometimes God answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for if we knew what He knew. And we trust that just like we do this with our kids, sometimes our Heavenly Father looks over our lives and says, I'm not going to give you that.

I'm going to withhold that because you don't really know what I know. No good thing does He withhold, Psalm 84-11 says, from those who walk uprightly. So when God says no, sometimes He does, you just have to trust Him.

What are you going to do when you have that kind of need? Are you going to continue to trust God who gave Himself for you at the cross or are you going to turn for refuge to substitute providers and be giving yourself in obedience to idols? Here's number three, testifying to a prayer answering God is a crucial part of our witness. Testifying to a prayer answering God is a crucial part of the witness of the people of God. Israel in the Old Testament, we, the Summit Church today, the foreigner, he said, was supposed to hear about this prayer answering God and come to the temple and experience that prayer answering God.

Not just hear about it, but experience Him. That's the reputation we're supposed to have in this community, Summit Church, in Jesus's name. Throughout the Bible, God presents answered prayer as a critical part of our witness. But when Moses described to Israel what it was about Israel that would distinguish them from every other nation on earth, you know what he said it was going to be? The thing that he said, Deuteronomy 4.7, for what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us?

For whatever reason we call upon Him. What is supposed to distinguish this church from all the other things going on in our community? It's not great music.

And I love great music. It's not great preaching, as important as that is. It's not even great generosity. What's supposed to distinguish us is answered prayer. When Elijah wanted to demonstrate to Israel which God was the true God, what was the test that he chose?

Remember this on top of Mount Carmel? It's which God really answers prayer. Prayer was supposed to be one of the main ministries that we had as a church. I'll tell you something that, there's a passage a lot of people know in Acts, but I feel like they don't really know, I didn't know it for the longest time, the big impact of this. Acts 6, all the apostles are busy taking care of widows and the poor people in the congregation.

And eventually they say, you know what? This is important, but we are being taken away from the things that God has specifically called us to, which is prayer and the word. So they appointed people that would come alongside and minister to the poor.

These people became deacons. What we always do is we say, yes, so we need to free up people that are called to ministry like me to focus on prayer and the word, but we only focus on the word part. So what I'm supposed to do is I'm supposed to prepare and teach you the word. And any prayer that I do is supposed to be a part of teaching you the word.

That's what you assume it means. I'm praying as a way of making sure that I preach the word rightly. But the way that that's written in Greek, it's not prayer like just in support of the word. Prayer is its own ministry. Prayer is something not just that we do as a help to other things that we do. Prayer is itself the thing that we do.

Does that make sense? In other words, what if we saw this time we have at the end of every service where we have prayer counselors, pastors, prayer leaders down front, what if we saw that not as simply a relief valve to, if many of you have just been overwhelmed, then you want to come talk to somebody and cry with somebody and pray with somebody. What if we saw that as maybe one of the most important things that we do when we come together on the weekend is we are people who pray for needs that are going on in our community and congregation.

What if it wasn't a relief valve? What if it was a key part of our service? Because what God has given us the ministry of is preaching the word, yes, and being the people who pray and God moves and He answers our prayers and telling other people, you can come to God and you can find in Him a refuge you won't find in anything else. Y'all, Jesus said, my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations. He didn't say a house of preaching. As important as preaching is, He says it's going to be a house of prayer. Hey, let me ask you, Summit Church members, is that how people would describe our church? If you said, give me three words to describe the Summit Church after being here for six weeks.

Is that one of the three words that they would choose? Prayer. We put a ton of energy in this church into the word, don't we? I mean, the sermons that I preach, the small groups, do we put the same energy?

Nothing wrong with that. But do we put the same energy into prayer? Are we known as a praying people? Do people hear about our answers to prayer and say, man, I want to know, I want to know this God who is your refuge this way?

You see, it's a crucial part of our witness. When I was forced to recognize this one time when I lived over in Southeast Asia, I had all these language. I've told you, you know, when I got there, I could say, hi, my name is JD. Where's your bathroom? My house is on fire. That's all I could say in their language. So I didn't know what to do. So I just prayed for people. And anytime I heard about anybody sick in my community, I'd be like, hey, can I come pray for them? And I go pray for them. And some of the people that I prayed for got better.

They were healed. And I remember, I remember very clearly, I've been there about 14 months. I remember that the day that a group of 13 year old boys showed up at my doorstep, knocked on my door. And I opened the door and one of them said, in their language, he said, I said, hello, Mr. Would you come to my parents' house because my mom is very sick and I want you to pray for her.

I said, absolutely. And one of the other kids said, uh, whoa, whoa, this is a Christian. And the other 13 year old boys, about five of them in there, one of them said, yes, he is Christian, but this is, I heard him say, this is a man that God listens to because of the reputation of praying and seeing.

All right. I was forced to that because I didn't know how to preach this way in their language. What if that became the substance of our ministry again, are we out praying for people? Have you ever just told your neighbors say, Hey, can I, can I pray for that about, about, can I pray with you? Or can I pray for you about that? I do this sometimes. In fact, in preparation for this message, I thought I needed to get back to doing this more often. Sometimes I'll just tell the waitress, I mean, somebody I just met, I'm like, Hey, you know, I'm about to pray and tell God, thanks for our food here.

Is there anything specific I can pray for you for? And I've had times where I got just somebody that just began to open up and say, this is going on my life and this is going on my life. And it became a great way to begin to share the hope in God. One of our campus pastors said, he goes, yeah, I asked a waitress that one time. And she said, yeah, I'm praying for a new job. And pastor RJ said, well, I'm going to pray that God doesn't answer that prayer before you bring me my food, but I will pray that God will provide for you. The point all I'm trying to say is what is in your workplace, in your school, in your neighborhood, you develop a reputation as somebody that said, I'll pray for you and I'll teach you to pray. And I'll, I'll put God's reputation on the line as a God who answers prayer.

And I'll point you to hope in him. Y'all like I pointed out, Jesus got the angriest when Israel obscured, obscured this dimension of the ministry to foreigners. And they just covered it up with other things. By the way, they needed money changers.

They needed people to be, they needed to be able to buy and sell. What was most angry about is that they had obscured all these little things had obscured the one central thing they were supposed to do. And that is be people of prayer.

Here's number four. We see sin finally drives out the presence of God. Sin drives out the presence of God all through this prayer. Solomon makes God's activity in our lives condition on when we repent. When you get really familiar with your sin, when you, when you're aware of it, you don't cover and you expose it to God.

That's when he begins to move. King David said it this way, Psalm 66, 18. If I regard sin in my heart, regard means I know it's there and I'm not going to do anything about it. I like the sin and I'm not going to turn away from it. If I regard sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. If I, it doesn't matter how bad the sin is. If you confess it, God forgives it.

But it's when you say, I'm not going to deal with this. Even if it's a small sin, it's like I've told you, you're never farther from God than when you're close to him and say, no. I mean, if you regard that sin in your heart, he won't hear. Paul tells us in Ephesians, we can grieve the Holy Spirit by how we treat each other. Gossiping, failing to forgive, slandering through cutting corners, telling lies, immoral compromises. A few weeks ago, we looked at a man named Achan in Israel who did something God told him not to do.

And he hid the thing that he stole in his tent. And because of that, a bunch of Israelites went out to battle and the power of God departed from him and they died. What it's showing us is that unconfessed, regarded, harbored sin extinguishes the power and the presence of God, like water does to a flame. You come this weekend and you're like, I want God's help.

Okay. Is there unconfessed sin in your life? Now, I don't mean there's sin in your life because of course there is. Is there unconfessed sin in your life that you're regarding, you're holding onto and saying I won't deal with that. He'll forgive you, whatever it is, but you've got to confess it humbly and turn away from it. Are there areas of your life that are not under his control? He wants to help you, but you've got to surrender to him and give him control first.

Listen, he can heal. He can forgive whatever you bring to him, but you've got to bring it to him. Whatever you expose before him, no matter how bad it is, he can cover it and heal it. Sin is not more powerful than God's presence.

Yes, it is true sin drives out the presence of God, but see, it's also true the presence of God in your life will drive out sin. And when you expose your sin to him and say, God, I need you, then he will heal it. He will cover it. He will forgive it and he'll begin to fill you with his spirit so that you lose your desire for that sin.

He'll change your heart. Whatever you expose to God, he can cover and heal when you keep it covered. When you keep it covered, that's when his presence departs.

Whatever you expose, he can heal. Have you got unconfessed sin in your life that is cutting you off from the presence of God? Do we as a church have things that we harbor and hide that keep us from seeing the power of God flow through us to the community and to the nations? Summit Church, are we a praying people? Do you think we're a praying people? Are we known as a people of prayer for all nations? Do we glorify God in this church by our answer, his answers to prayer? Do we lead other people to hope in God and pray to him?

This is the best thing we can do for world missions. We always quote Andrew Murray, the one who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history. Is your small group praying for things that are going on in the mission field in our church plans? Have you said, hey, who's somebody we can partner with and pray for? It's the greatest thing we can do in evangelism.

I think of that statement that E.M. Bounds, the guy who's written a lot on prayer said, he said, we should never talk to men about God more than we talk to God about those men. It's the most important thing that we can do in the preaching moment. You know, every time I preach, what we have, we have a handful of people that are in what we call the boiler room. And it's a room where people just get together and pray for me while I preach because we know that's the secret of power.

Our goal is to have teams at every service at every campus. This is the most important part of our ministries. What if we again, what if we saw what we do at the end of the service? What if we saw our prayer times? It's not just something we do to give us power and the real things, but we saw it as its own ministry in itself. We need to become a people who, if you were going to describe us, we're a people of prayer for all nations. And we point other people to hope in God. We're called to be people of prayer.

Is that how you describe yourself? That's our challenge today from Pastor J.D. Greer here on Summit Life. You can find more information about Pastor J.D. and this ministry at our website, jdgreer.com.

All of our daily messages are available on the website as well. Thanks to listeners like you who give generously to keep Summit Life going. We're committed to bringing you gospel-centered Bible teaching without finances getting in the way. But that's only possible when we all work together to keep this ministry funded. So if you've given to support Summit Life, let me say thank you so much. And don't forget that part of our mission is that at least 10 percent of everything given goes out to support new churches in the United States and abroad.

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There's a card for each of the 66 books, and they each include details about when the book was written and to whom, three key truths gleaned from the book, where the book points to Jesus and the good news of the gospel, and a reflection question to help you apply the book's message to your life. This resource comes with our thanks when you donate today at the suggested level of $25 or more. Request the Books of the Bible Cards when you give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or it might be easier to give and request the cards online.

Our website is jdgrier.com. If you'd rather mail your gift, write to J.D. Greer Ministries, P.O.

Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 277-09. And remember to include a note requesting the Books of the Bible Cards. Before we close, let me remind you that if you aren't yet signed up for our email list, you'll want to do that today. It is the best way to stay up to date with Pastor J.D. 's latest blog posts, and we'll also make sure that you never miss a new resource or series.

It's quick and easy to sign up at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Thank you for joining us. Tomorrow we're looking at one of Pastor J.D.

's favorite stories in all of Scripture. It's one you might not be very familiar with, so be sure to listen Tuesday to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.