Being Strong in God, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and apologist, J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you show up to a presentation or an interview and you're not wearing your pants? It's terrifying. And of course, we would never just forget to get dressed in real life. But today, Pastor J.D. explains that we often forget to get dressed spiritually and then we show up naked to the battle.

I mean, that's a scary proposition. It's the conclusion of our teaching series called Mystery and Clarity. So remember, if you missed any part of this study, you can hear it all free of charge at J.D.

Greer dot com. Now here's Pastor J.D. with the second part of a message he titled, Being Strong in God. Second piece of armor he gives you to put on is he says, take up the breastplate of righteousness. Take up the breastplate of righteousness.

This means two different things, I think. The first is you don't allow Satan any room to mess with you. When you think about your breastplate, that's going to cover all your vital organs and that means that you let God's righteousness saturate every part of you until he has claimed every part of you because Satan will take whatever part of you is uncovered and exposed to him, he will take it and he will use it against you. So you put on yourself a breastplate of righteousness until God's ways, his righteousness saturate every part of your life.

How you think, how you relate, what you do, all of it. Now I know the word righteousness scares some of you because it sounds really religious and you're like, righteousness? I mean, what does that mean? It's like some kind of weird holy sort of thing? Just think of the opposite of that word, wrongness, right? Nobody wants wrongness to be a part of their life. Righteousness means that what is right, what God sees as right, the proper things to know and love, they become a part of who you are. And Paul says, cover yourself with it so that Satan doesn't have any place that he can take a habit, he can take a relationship, he can take a loss of self-control, a thing of pride, a temper and use it to destroy you or your children. The second thing I think this means is that you begin to feel like God feels when he looks at the world. Your heart begins to beat with his sense of justice, his sense of mercy, his righteousness. I learned something this week I didn't know about this passage and that is the phrase breastplate of righteousness was a Jewish image for somebody that God used to bring justice somewhere. When somebody puts on the breastplate of righteousness, they're becoming God's instrument to create righteousness. Isaiah 59 is a good example.

Isaiah 59 is talking about injustice in Israel and verse 15, Isaiah 59 says this, then the Lord saw it, the injustice and it displeased him that there was no justice. Verse 16, and he saw that there was no man to stand up for the afflicted, verse 17, so he, the Messiah, put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. When you put on the breastplate of righteousness, you begin to feel what God feels when he sees injustice. This is how God motivates his people to go into the world to engage in warfare because they see situations of injustice, they see situations of poverty, they see situations of suffering and something in them just moves and says, how could I not go and be a part of making that stop?

How could I look at the sex slave trade? How could I look at people who suffer? How could I look at 1.8 billion people that have never heard the name of Jesus and just do nothing about it? I've told you before that when God called me to go overseas, God suddenly opened my eyes to the fact that 1.8 billion people had never heard the name of Jesus. Now, up until that time, I had prayed, and I'm pretty sure I was sincere, I had prayed, God, whatever you tell me to do, I'll do it. And I kept thinking God was going to write something in the sky, you know, send a random person on a train to tell me what God wanted, write something in my Cheerios, you know, Afghanistan. Oh, clearly, Afghanistan. spells it out right there.

That's what I thought. I really think I would have done what God told me. But when God opened my eyes to 1.8 billion people that had never heard his name, it didn't make sense for me to be waiting on God to tell me to do something that he had already told all of us to do when we know how he feels about those 1.8 billion.

Does that make sense? I mean, the way I compared it is, you know, you're walking in downtown Raleigh, and you're walking by train tracks, and on the train tracks is a three-year-old kid who's paralyzed, and he's laying there on the train tracks, he's alive, but he can't move, and you see a train coming. What do you do in that moment? You get down on your knees, you're like, God, what is your will in this situation? What are you calling me to do, God? Write it in the sky. And God will be like, no, you moron, get up.

Take the kid off the tracks. You know how will is in this situation. And we keep talking about finding God's will.

It's not lost. God is not willing that any should perish. We know how he feels about the nations. We know how he feels about injustice.

We know how he feels about people that are suffering in our city and around the world, right? Put on the breastplate of righteousness and go, which leads you to the next thing he tells you about warfare. As shoes for your feet, put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. You see, readiness means you understand God's purposes in the world.

You're ready to extend them. You understand how God feels and that he's already paid the price for every human being in the world to live in peace with him and to live full of him and in his blessing. So when I see over a billion Muslims who think that if they observe the five pillars of Islam enough, then God will take them to heaven. I see millions of Buddhists who think that every cycle of life they're having to pay for the sins of their previous life.

And instinctively you want to say, no, there was already one who lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death and broke the cycle of violence and having to pay for your own sins. If you understand what God is doing, then your feet are ready to go and you're looking for opportunity. Another thing about this is when Paul says in the context of warfare that your feet are covered with the preparation or the readiness of the gospel of peace, it means that Christians are very quick to forgive because, watch this, forgiveness is what breaks the power of the enemy. That's why their feet are covered with peace and ready to put peace where there is not peace. Listen, forgiveness for the believer is the most powerful tool they have in breaking the stronghold of the enemy. I read a book recently about the genocide that took place in Rwanda, where if you were familiar with this years ago, the Hutus massacred over 800,000 of the Tutsis.

The book I was reading was by a Tutsi pastor who wrote this account of how the country of Rwanda, what it did afterwards, and he talked about the fact. He made this statement, he says the only way to overcome the work of Satan is to forgive, not justice. You seek justice and you're just going to continue. He says the only way to break it is to forgive it. Even before the people you are forgiving are sorry for what they did, the only way to break the cycle of violence and to overcome the work of the enemy and them is to forgive them in advance. There was a story of one woman who had watched this one soldier burn her husband and son alive. After this genocide, after this stuff was over, this soldier brought into court, confessed his crime, and the judge listening looks at her and asks her what she wants for justice. This elderly woman in her 80s said, she says well I know that God forgives this man and so I can forgive this man. And she said to prove to him that my forgiveness is real, I want to know if the court would allow me to embrace him here in the middle of this courtroom.

And if the court would require that she come to my ghetto where I live twice a month so that I can give him as a mother some of the love that I still have to give. The guy writing this account said justice was not served on that day, but the power of evil was broken. This is the most powerful tool that you have in breaking the cycle of the enemy at work in your marriage, in your family, where you work. Many of you deal with the works of Satan in your marriage on a much lesser scale.

Your most powerful tool to break his power at work in your family in your marriage is to forgive even before the person who has wronged you has asked for forgiveness. Next one, above all, taking the shield of faith by which we extinguish the fiery darts of the wicked one. Fiery darts are the lies of Satan that he lobs in, okay, the Bowen era.

He lobs in these flaming arrows to you. For example, he tells you this situation you're in it's out of control, nothing but darkness and misery ahead of you. He tells you, you know, that's it, it's too much.

Your divorce means that you've messed up too much to come back and have a significant life. Or he tells you that your future is going to be full of failure just like your past has been. Because of the mistakes you've made, God is going to spend the rest of your life trying to pay you back for screwing things up. Those lies are extinguished by faith.

Faith in the God that is revealed in the gospel. Don't listen to your heart. The gospel doesn't come out of your heart. The gospel comes out of heaven and it sometimes contradicts what your heart tells you. There's this phrase in Ephesians that I've really been enamored with and you know that because I say it like every other week, right?

But Paul was enamored with it, I'm sure, which is why he said it. He said that he prayed for them twice they would get this. He says, I pray that you would understand the length and the height and the breadth and the depth of God's love. The length means you understand that God has loved you from all eternity and will love you for all eternity and nothing can ever change that. The height of his love means you understand the intensity of the love that he has for you. The intensity, it says, that is measured by the highest star compared to the earth. He says the breadth of God's love, which means how God controls every molecule in the universe and every circumstance in your life to work his plan in you. Of working things for good so that you could know him and be like him and then the depth of God's love is knowing how far God had to reach, how far he had to go to save you to the cross.

Confidence in that extinguishes every dart of our enemy. Before we return to today's teaching, I want to share with you about our featured premium resource this month. It's the second installment of our popular Gospel Flipbook series, this time focusing on four of Paul's letters, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians.

This new resource has a ton of helpful features like a reading plan through each book, key passages and themes, some historical context and so much more. It's available exclusively to our Summit Life listeners when you support the ministry with your gift today. This Gospel Flipbook is a valuable tool for you to really know these four influential books in greater detail and then live your life with greater knowledge and inspiration.

To get your copy, simply call us at 866-335-5220 or visit us online at JDGrier.com. Now let's return for the conclusion of our teaching series through Ephesians. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Where are you the most likely not to believe God? About his forgiveness of your past? The security of your future? About his ability to guide you in the present? Where are you most likely to not believe God?

One other thing before I move to the next one. It's just too good to pass up. Shield of faith. Okay, so the Romans, you know this, the Romans had perfected this battle technique where they took their shields. You've seen Gladiator, right? And they all huddled together and they put them around and made this like umbrella. So usually they shoot the bow and arrow and they all do that and it's like a big dome and you're fortified on every side.

Are you tracking with that? Reason number 838 to be in a small group right there, right? Because you know that's got to be in Paul's mind because everybody knew that and Romans made that famous. You see what happens is sometimes my shield of faith is not large enough to keep me away from these fiery darts but the person that I'm connected to there's will. I can't tell you how many times I've prayed in the midst of just being discouraged in the midst of anguish. Just hearing somebody pray and somebody believing in God and his goodness and his love and his promise toward me suddenly covers me. And their faith becomes a part of my life because we share faith with each other.

That's why you should be in a small group. Take up he says next the helmet of salvation. I feel like I'm being repetitive here but so is Paul so deal with it. Let the knowledge of your salvation dominate your thinking. You see all of life through the gospel just kind of sums up all the others and I may have time to come back to the very end but let me go on. The sword of the Spirit take it which is the word of God.

We take the word of God he said and we use it to speak life into people's lives because it is the word of God that creates faith in us, creates faith in our children and creates faith in the people around us. Now interesting here he calls it a sword a life-giving sword which is kind of a contradiction right because normally you don't think of sword and life-giving. Think of it like a scalpel. A scalpel is a life-giving sword. Now here's the catch you got to know how to use it or it's not life-giving. If I'm sick and I'm at the doctor and something's wrong with my heart and he's like we don't know what's wrong so we're just going to cut you open and start rooting around in there with a scalpel until we cut something out that maybe fixes you. You know I mean you know it's like no do not cut me open and use that scalpel on me until you know what you're doing what you're cutting out.

You got to know how to use it. Here's my question for you again. How many of you believe that spiritual problems are less significant than physical problems? I know that you know that. I know that you believe spiritual dysfunction, spiritual problems are worse than physical problems. Physical problems can only kill the body but spiritual problems can kill the soul. Let me ask you a question. Would you ever take your child to a doctor who studied the physical body as lazily as you study the Word of God?

You see I want to hear you say to me yes I believe spiritual problems are more significant than physical problems and I want to say again humbly to you liar especially you parents. How on earth could you not devote yourself to the Word of God which is much more significant in the life and future of your child than simply where he gets into college or whether or not he's healthy when he's 17 years old. Devote yourself to that Word.

Now I hear I just heard it you just esped it to me I know what you're saying. You're the doctor J.D. you're the pastor that's what we you know that's what we pay you for is you're the guy that is the expert in God's Word and it's like coming to the doctor and you apply it. Thank you for that compliment okay I appreciate that I really do but here's the problem I can't be with you when you need to apply the Word of God to a certain situation and you don't want me to be. Right you get in a fight with your spouse lay down in your in your bed your blade on your head and your pillow at night you don't want me right there going huh let's talk about that one okay let's process that through the Bible.

No I can't be there. Your kids we get them 40 hours throughout the year 40 hours is all we get. You get your kids 3,000 hours. I can't do in 40 hours what you parents have been commissioned as God's chief surgeon in your kids life to do in 3,000 hours. You have got to know the Word of God. Finally praying at all times he says in the Spirit. Praying at all times in the Spirit because prayer is the instrument listen that releases the healing power of God into the world. So praying at all times in every situation no matter what you're up against praying in the Spirit that's an important qualification by the way in the Spirit and a lot of people don't understand what that means a lot of people think when he says in the Spirit means you slip into some trance. Right you start praying things you don't even know what you're praying okay and maybe there's some other places in the Bible that talk about that but that's not what Paul talks about here. When he says praying in the Spirit. People get this idea.

You ever watch the show Heroes? You know where the guy when they start painting the future his eyes go white and then he paints and like six hours later he wakes up and he doesn't know what he's just painted. People think that's what praying in the Spirit is. You start praying eight hours later you wake up you don't even know what you're prayed in because you prayed it in a language you didn't understand anyway. That's not what he's talking about in Ephesians. He told you what in the Spirit meant.

Remember Ephesians 3 verse 21? He says in the Spirit means you understand the breadth and height and length and depth of God's love. When you pray in the Spirit means watch you bring the love of God. You bring the knowledge of how he feels about situations. You bring the knowledge that he loves people that he wants to bring healing. You bring it into a situation. And you release his power in it because you pray in the Spirit. You pray with knowledge of who he is and what he wants to do. Do you know that Jesus's miracles most of them well maybe not a lot of them were done because somebody perceived how much he loves somebody in a situation and just asked him.

I know how you feel about this would you release your power. One of my favorite of these miracles is the one where that woman comes up to Jesus. Jesus walking through some city I don't know it's in Israel. And he's walking through some city and this woman comes up to him and she's an old lady from Syrophoenicia wherever that is but she's a Gentile. And she goes up to Jesus and says hey Jesus would you heal my daughter because she's really sick. And Jesus in the most politically incorrect thing ever said or recorded in the Bible looks at her and says you know I kind of like to but it's just not proud for me to take the bread that was meant for the children which is Israel and give it to dogs. And you read that and you're like what? Where's the footnote on that one?

What does that mean? Did he just call that woman a dog? Is that like touchy feely Jesus you know? That's not you know the Sunday school Jesus what just happened? Then you find some of these commentators by the way I found a number of them which will say when Jesus said dog bear he didn't mean dog he meant little puppy.

I'm saying little puppy it's okay. And other commentators who actually know the biblical language like no he meant dog he called her a dog. And the woman responds with the most remarkable statement by human being in the Bible.

We know that because Jesus said it was. She said yes I'm a dog. But she knows it's not a racial slur. She know it's a statement of her unworthiness. She says I'm a dog.

Yes. But there's enough bread on the master's table that even little dogs like me can get some crumbs. Translation what she said is I know that I'm unworthy. But there's so much grace and love that flows off of your table that even somebody like me that's unworthy. There's enough love that you care even for me and my sick daughter. So would you release your love here? Jesus turns to her and said I've never seen faith like that anywhere.

Your daughter's alive and well. What prayer is in the spirit is when you perceive the love of God and you release it. I would go so far as to say watch this. Prayer and how much you pray shows how much you get all the rest of those. Because prayerlessness is the sign of either extreme arrogance or extreme unbelief. Extreme arrogance means you don't really think you need God's help.

You're strong in yourself. Or extreme unbelief. You're not really convinced that God's love is real and so you don't ask him for it. If you are prayerless.

Okay. If you are prayerless which by the way what I mean by that is you pray five minutes a week. One minute a day or you know one time all in five minutes. You have a very lackluster prayer life. If you are prayerless it's not because you're not self-disciplined.

It's not because you don't need to form some better habits. You are prayerless because you are arrogant and unbelieving and you need to deal with the real problem. If you were not arrogant you would know you needed God's help. If you were believing you would know how willing he is to give it and you would find yourself praying at all times in all places because you would know how desperate you are for the power of God. So if you're prayerless don't blame it on your lack of self-discipline.

Don't put it in the reasons you don't diet. You put it in the category that you have a belief and a gospel problem and when you understand that you can be strong and confident in God and you're weak in yourself you will pray. Paul Miller this guy's book I read. If you're not praying you are quietly confident that your time, money and talent are all you really need in life. You see what Paul is saying here? Let the gospel dominate your thinking. Let it dominate your thinking.

Let it come out every pore of your face and your body. Pray in it. Think in it.

Love in it. Put on the spiritual arm. You ought to do that every day. I don't mean necessarily you go through and think of all the different pieces but you ought to apply the gospel to yourself every day. You ought to learn to think through the implications of the gospel for your life every day.

Not once a week, not once every three weeks when we do communion every day. Apply the gospel to you. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

We must re-preach the gospel to ourselves every day. This was Pastor J.D. Greer with the conclusion of our teaching series titled Mystery and Clarity here on Summit Life. Pastor J.D. and I sat down not long ago and he told us about how to go along with this series in Ephesians we're wrapping up today. We created a great new resource called The Gospel Flip Book.

Here he is telling us why he's so excited about it. I used to listen to preaching and teaching on a radio station probably like the one you're listening to when I was driving around the back of my parents car. I always felt like I was discipled by David Jeremiah, Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur. So whether you're eight years old or 80, one of the things that you may really enjoy is someone to read the Bible along with you. That person can always be there sitting beside you when you're having your time with God. So we produce these resources as a way of doing that, helping you get more out of these Bible books.

Just think about it. When you're listening to the messages on Summit Life here, you're reading the same passages and you've got this companion resource. I'm not saying there won't be more in each passage to learn, but it will help you navigate better and you'll get done with a book and say, I really I think of the world and I think of myself and certainly this Bible book differently. So it's a gospel flip book. It features Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, goes along with the one we did last year on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And so, yeah, if you like that one or if you didn't get that last one, check this one out.

It's our way of saying thank you for being a generous supporter. Just go and look for the gospel flip book at JD Greer dot com. To receive your copy, we simply ask that you make a donation of thirty five dollars or more to support this ministry to give.

You can call us any time at 866-335-5220 or visit our website at JD Greer dot com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you'll join us again tomorrow when we jump back into part two of our series through the Book of Acts called Sent. Don't miss it Thursday right here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.