The Life We Long For: JD & Veronica Greear

Being able to say, Hey, the greatest thing that Mom and Dad can give you is not some impossible standard to live up to. It's a deep awareness of our Savior, that Daddy needed a Savior.

That's why Jesus had to die. The reason that Dad got mad last night and blew up at all of you and spoke harshly to Mom is because Dad is very selfish. And if Dad's the center, you better believe Mom is. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

This is Family Life Today. All right, so I was thinking about this. It's been a long time. But my New Testament final in seminary, you probably don't even know this. You know what I had to do? What?

One of the questions was, outline the entire book of Romans by memory. Oh, whoa. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Guess what? Could you do it now? I aced it. No, no, don't ask me now. I can't do it now.

I can't do it now. But, I mean, it's one of the most fascinating foundational books in all the Bible. Every time I read the entire book of Romans, I'm struck with, like, this is the most pivotal book. Like, if you're going to give one of the New Testament books away, I think I'd give away Romans. But we're going to find out if J.D. Greer can outline the whole book of Romans from memory.

We've got J.D. Greer and his wife Veronica in the studio. It's been a long time since you've been back to Family Life Today, but welcome back. Well, thank you. How many years? It's been about six years, I think.

Yeah, you were in Little Rock. Yeah, that's right. Well, I can tell you this. Y'all were so satisfied with my previous one that I guess it just felt like... It was so good, you know, but I can tell you this. The co-host is a lot better looking now.

Oh, that's true. Ann Wilson. You know, Bob, you're a good looking guy, but I tell you, you can go hold the candle to Ann. Well, J.D., you have your wife.

Veronica's with us, too. How many years have you guys been married? Twenty-three and a half.

Nice. Four kids. Four kids, yeah.

Two at college, two still at home. Yeah, and J.D., obviously you wrote a book that we're going to talk about a little bit today, Essential Christianity, the Heart of the Gospel in Ten Words. And I didn't know it until I picked it up, but the book of Romans. Yeah. And it was a series you did at Summit Church where you're a pastor. How many years pastoring?

So, I've also been a pastor for about 21 years. Wow. There the whole time?

Yeah, the whole time. Wow. It's the only full-time job I've ever had.

So, Veronica, pastor's wife, give us the goods. Do you like it? I do. I mean, I wanted to be in ministry, and so, you know, for me, I love it, yeah. Really?

Yeah, it's true. All right, so talk to us about, I mean, this isn't just a book. This is a series, but something you've thought a lot about, Understanding the Essential Foundation of Christianity from the book of Romans. I know as we read through the book, you're walking through the book. Yeah. So, why this one? Yeah, well, there were two kind of different impetuses.

Is that impetus? How do you pluralize that word? Our editors will fix it. Okay, gotcha.

Put it in there. Whatever it is, there's two of them. And one of them was, you know, when you go back to church history, you realize that every major awakening, spiritual awakening in our country, and you could almost say in Christian history, has come in part because of a study of the book of Romans. Really? Whether you're talking the Reformation with Luther and Calvin and them, you just look at the writings to the preaching of, you know, Wesley and Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards. Romans is so, you know, kind of core to it.

So, that was one thing. I just really wanted to do it at our church as a way of bringing us to the centrality and the clarity of the gospel. And the other one was, I mean, we're in a day of deconstruction. Sometimes, you know, because of rightful concerns they have about the fusion of Christianity and politics, or, you know, Christianity is basically self-help. And, you know, there's a lot of people, especially in the area that I pastor in, that are deconstructing. And so, I wanted something that would just really get us back to what the essence of the gospel is, when you strip everything away. And when you look at the book of Romans, it is a very logically laid out outline. Probably your seminary professor had you do that.

For the first hundred or so years of Harvard's law school, they would have them study the book of Romans as an example of argument, counterpoint, you know, illustration. And so, anyway, all that to say is I started to teach our church through it. And, well, we had a thousand people profess faith in Christ that year through this series. And it brought the renewal to our church. And so, when it was all said and done, there were some other people that I thought, man, I'd love to be able to get this in a form that would assist them in sharing the gospel with people outside the church.

And so, put it into a book form. That's great. Veronica, do you sit and listen to this guy preach? And do you give him critique like my wife always did? I do, yes. I really enjoy it. Me too. No, I'm not saying, I always wanted her.

Even when she was at home watching it online, sometimes in the middle of the sermon, she'd text me. Don't say that. You might want to clarify that last thing. And people would come up later and go, man, you made that point and you clarified it later? Way to be on top of that.

Yeah, that's just me. Because I wasn't sitting at every sermon. But sometimes I might be at home and I'm listening because we're a team.

She is my biggest affirmer and also my most insightful critic in a good way. And then there's sometimes I ask, and I'm fishing for something, I want some affirmation. And she'd be like, your shirt didn't match.

Or something like that. And I'm like, that's not really what I was looking for, but thank you for telling me that. Well, as you think through even walking through the Book of Romans, and obviously we're a marriage and family listening base. Help us understand some of the truths.

You say essential Christianity in 10 words. And help us apply it even to families. Because you're parents. You've got kids.

You've got kids in that age group where you're around university students, deconstruction is a big deal. We've done many shows on that. So walk us through how the Book of Romans can be essential even for us as leading our families. Two things come to mind, Dave, when you say that. One is just the centrality of gospel to all of life. When you think about how to become a better parent, how to become a better husband. I love when I preach to be very practical and give people steps and things they can take home. But at the end of the day, when the Apostle Paul wants to motivate husbands to be better husbands and fathers to be better fathers, he points to the gospel itself.

And it's not five steps that I can give you that will make you a better husband. It's embracing the 10,000 steps that Jesus took when he came to rescue you that makes you the kind of husband and father. And so Martin Luther was the one who said it. He's like whatever the problem is in the Christian life, whatever you're trying to grow in, the gospel is the answer. The gospel is always the prescription. And so I think studying the Book of Romans will make you a better husband, a better wife, a better father. And that leads me to the second thing, and that is that I think parents listening to this, probably our biggest question that we have is how do we teach our kids to know when to love the gospel?

And our kids, as every parent I know will attest, they're a lot more in tune with hypocrisy and things that don't make sense, things that we just say it because we've always said it. And so to be able to say, here's why Christians believe that Jesus is so important. Here's why we say he's the only way.

Here's why we devote so much of our lives to this. You don't have to be an expert on everything in the Christian life, but you should be an expert on the gospel. And the Book of Romans is the book that is written to make you an expert on the gospel. Yeah, I would say that I find myself going to Romans so often when my kids ask me questions about things of faith.

I mean, it so compactly answers so many of those different questions. I'll share a story real quick from outside our family, but one of the things I had is the privilege of when I was writing this book is I'd gotten to know a, it was a professor at one of the local universities there in the Triangle area. But a very prestigious university. She was a very distinguished professor within that. She wrote for the New York Times, and she was not a Christian by any stretch.

But I had a chance to befriend her, get to know her. She'd even visited the church some, described herself as a paragon of the secular left is how she described it. So I asked her if she would read the book as I wrote it.

And I said, would you, you know, because I'm not writing this for just for people in the church, I'm writing this for, and she said, sure. And she said about halfway through it, she said, you know, it is remarkable that here's a book literally written 2000 years ago. And when you get down to the essential questions that the apostle Paul is answering, they're the exact same ones that all my students asked today. Now, praise the Lord during the process of writing this book, she became a Christian, you know, just through it.

It wasn't just because of the book, a lot of things that were in there. But all that to say is that there is a fresh relevance that you'll find in the word of God and in the book of Romans that will make you better equipped, whether you're sharing Christ with the New York Times columnist or whether you're talking to a seven year old. Now, do you know by memory what you said the definition of the gospel was?

God, in an act of grace, sent his son Jesus to earth as a man so that through his life, death and resurrection, he could rescue us, reign as king and lead us into the eternal full life we were created to enjoy. That's a pretty good definition. Yeah. I mean, did you literally sit down with the book of Romans and then just craft that out? Because that's not just a couple of words. Yeah, right. I mean, you put it all together. Well, you were teaching through it for so long.

Yeah, teaching through it for so long. And then it just sort of grew. It started out with like 10 words, going to do it in 10 words. It wasn't going to work.

It wasn't going to work. What are the essential points about the gospel? The kingship of Jesus.

That's when people all the time leave out that he's brought a kingdom and he's the Lord. And grace is what separates the gospel from every other religious message in the world. Every other religion in the world works according to the premise I obey, therefore I'll be accepted. If I obey well enough, often enough, if I'm righteous enough, I'll be accepted. The gospel flips that and says, no, you're accepted. You're accepted because of an act of grace.

Therefore, in response to that, you obey. I remember giving my life to Jesus, didn't grow up in a Christian home, but I remember the first time I read Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith and it's not of yourself. It's a gift from God. And I remember putting down my Bible because I didn't know how to get to heaven. So when I read, it's not as a result of works that anybody can boast or talk about it. It's just grace that blew my mind as a little 16 year old.

How is this true? Now, let me ask you guys this. What does that look like in your family?

Four kids and a marriage. Talk about grace. So we'll have two different answers.

I'm going to give more of a- Theological? Yeah. Yeah. And then, because I know where your mom would go with that. You want me to be practical?

Yeah, of course. I actually used this in church yesterday. I was talking about our identity in Christ and how Satan, our enemy, when he attacks us, the first thing he goes after is our identity to Jesus and the temptation. He says, if you really are the son of God. Which is ironic because that's what the father had just declared over Jesus.

You're my beloved son. And that's what Satan does with our kids too. And I said, it's almost like, imagine a swimmer who's about to swim. And as he's standing on the platform waiting for the gun to go off, at the finish line, there's a banner that says, acceptance, worth, value. And our kids grow up in a culture where that starting gun goes off and they are thrashing with all their might because they believe that unless they get there first, unless they're smart enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, that they're not going to have acceptance. And so their whole life is a quest toward acceptance. Well, what the gospel does is it flips it and says, no, no, you are accepted.

That's grace. And because of that, you can swim out of that. So now, instead of thinking of acceptance as the banner at the end, think of it as the platform that you're standing on. And I'm no longer in this race of life.

I'm not sending my kids out in this race of life in order to earn the love and acceptance of God. I'm sending them out because they have it. And they say, whatever else happens, whether you succeed or fail, whether the most popular or you're not, you have the absolute approval of the only one whose opinion really matters. And a day when we've got, you shared some of these stats yesterday, 91% of teenagers report anxiety issues. 91%.

91%. In the last 15 years, the number of girls who say that they are persistently sad and hopeless, in the last 15 years, that number has gone from 10% to 57%. And that kind of day, that's all coming out of this search for identity. And grace is the answer to that endless striving of going to be pretty enough, smart enough, successful enough.

And that's where I think grace matters. Yeah, that's good. I love the illustration. It'd be a little bit better if it was a football illustration, but swimming works. No, what a great picture that really is.

Veronica, what does that look like with your kids? I do think it's a struggle to know how to apply it, even if you're looking at consequences and things like that. Yeah, so sometimes I do think we've even had conversations about, okay, as Christians parenting this situation, I mean, you're disciplined by God because he loves you, right? That's his love at work. Not out of anger or in retribution.

Out of his love. So knowing what that application is can be a little like just situation by situation, but we have tried to really drive home like the question of identity and talking about that. And that's even like kind of Christian language a little bit.

Your identity is in Christ, trying to flesh that out. What does that phrase mean that you've heard for a long time if you've been in church? What does that mean? It actually means that your approval is secure and so you can function from that approval. It means that we've talked about this, that we spend a lot of times trying to confess our own sins to our kids because our kids, they just kind of grow up with this idea that mom and dad are perfect.

They're the law. Yeah, our teenagers don't think we're perfect. Yeah, but being able to say, hey, the greatest thing that mom and dad can give you is not some impossible standard to live up to. It's a deep awareness of our savior, that daddy needed a savior. That's why Jesus had to die. The reason that dad got mad last night and blew up at all of you and spoke harshly to mom is because dad is very selfish. And if dad said, you better believe mom is.

Times 10, yeah. But you can, you know, if my kids have anything, what they need from me and they need from both of us is not a Pharisaic example that they can never live up to. They need a savior that we can hope in. What did that look like practically, like sitting at the dinner table or wherever? I mean, when our two oldest went to college, we had one left in the home and I remember Cody sitting there like the first week and turned to us and goes, hey, you know, I've never really heard your testimony.

I hear you preach every week. And then he followed that up with like, so did you guys have sex before marriage? Let's go. Let's get serious here. You know, so when your kid asks you those kinds of questions, how did you guys respond? They are asking more questions as they get older like that, right? Just much more intentional questions.

Like recently, one of my daughters said, well, did you date people before you dated dad? Like, well, what do you guys want to do for dessert tonight? So that's really my way of approaching it. So avoidance. Okay, that's good. But I think truly that if you are, I mean, when you go back to this, Romans 7, Romans 8, like there is there for no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus called according to his purposes. So even when we deal with like mess ups from them, trying to contextualize for them that we've had that and look at the redemption that has been brought in my life. And you're really good at that because I'll be kind of like, this is, you have to do this. And she'll just kind of very quietly say, hey, none of us are ever able really to do this apart from the help of Jesus. And that includes us.

And I know when it feels impossible, she'll say to our kids, Jesus can help you do it. Right. Yeah. We talk about that a lot. And so when they're in kind of the depth of, you know, despair, maybe a little bit of an overstatement, but when they're really feeling overwhelmed or burdened by something, you know, explaining that because of that message, first of all, your place is secure. And that power is available to you at any moment to, you know, to do what he's called you to do. You mentioned the dinner table.

Okay. I just feel like somebody out there needs to hear this. I need you to understand that our dinner table, please don't have the image that the kids are sitting around with notebooks, share with us, daddy, great wisdom about the gospel. I mean, that's, you know, I mean, I used to, I mean, I would get so mad during a family devotion because they're mad about it. I'm trying to make a point. They're, you know, looking off in the distance.

Somebody breaks wind at the table. Now all the tensions on that and, and you know, and listen, I'm a big fan of family devotions. We continue to do them, but it's the living out day in and day out. It's the unscripted conversations. It's the confession of sin. You know, it's processing something about why this bothers me and how I'm trying to take that to the Lord and those kinds of things.

That's, I mean, again, I'm a huge fan. I'm a preacher for a living, so I'm a big fan of sermons and family devotions, but at the end of the day, it's a relationship that we're giving, not a lecture. Yeah.

I remember one year, I don't know what it was. Our boys were little and Ann was like, Hey, you know, I think it'd be cool if you know what you preached on Sunday morning at Sunday night, just give us the sermon to the, to our family. As little kids. Wow. You want me to redo it? Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Maybe that's a good idea.

I was like, they're throwing things like seriously, it did not fly. I mean, but did you, I mean, obviously as a preacher, you know, this, like the light of the gospel becomes so much brighter when you understand the darkness of our sin. Did you ever go there with your kids? They're older, so they're able to process some of the darkness in your own life. Is that something you authentically or, you know, shared with your kids or is that something you just, there's boundaries? Yeah, I think sometimes pointing out like, Hey, the reason that this is in you goes back to something that is so bad that Jesus had to die for. I mean, the first place we get acquainted with our own depravity is within ourselves. Talking about the world around them, you know, and things that we're dealing with, you know, you're trying to navigate sympathy and compassion to people who are struggling with things, but then also realizing that there is a sin nature that the only way for Jesus to eradicate was through, you know, through his death. You know, I think it's a wise question you asked Dave, because I think in our culture, a lot of people try to get to the gospel before there's an awareness of the need for it. Francis Schaeffer famously said, if he had an hour with a modern person, he'd spend 50 minutes trying to get them lost and only 10 minutes explaining the gospel. You know, and so with our kids, we're trying to, you're trying to help them see like, you need to say, everything in us wants to say, I don't need a savior. I need some religious, you know, tweaks, but the book of Romans screams. By the time you get to Paul's explanation of the gospel, if you've been paying attention and following along, there's everything in you is like, I'm desperate. I need something.

Who's going to deliver me? I remember, I think one of our grandkids was four and she said to me, Nani, that's what they call me, Nani, sometimes I like doing what's wrong. Sometimes I like it. And I'm telling you all the time as parents, we have an opportunity to bring in the gospel. Because of that, it's that depraved, that's that sinful, like don't we all like to do something that's sinful sometimes.

And how do you overcome that? Exactly. You have those moments. Yes. Of sharing the gospel, like, well, this is why Jesus came.

I love that. Yeah. So you're saying a lot of the way you taught your kids was, at least what came to my mind, was Deuteronomy 6. Along the way, at the table, as we walk, as we sit, as we lie down, is that sort of the, is that how it happened in the Greer home?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, we, right now with teenagers in the house, we, you know, it's survive in advance. You know, I used to say that before I had kids, I had four great sermons on parenting.

They were awesome. Now I have, you know, four kids and no great sermons on parenting. But, you know, there's a, there's a sense in which, I think every parent immediately understands this, at the end of the day, our hope for our kids is not in our excellent teaching abilities.

It's in, it's in God's grace. You know, I, Elise Fitzpatrick, who I think you've had on this, this show here, she has done some stuff on parenting and, and I've read almost all the parenting books out there just for what it's worth, mainly out of desperation. But one of the things that she pointed out is most Christian parenting books follow a formula and that is, you know, if you do this and you do this, then your kids will become this. A plus B, yeah.

Yeah. And there's a lot of great principles in there, you know. She said, but what that does is it actually, it can really discourage and overwhelm you as a parent. She's like, first of all, for context, you know, God, who was the perfect parent, only ever directly parented two people and they both rebelled.

So you, you're not going to out technique God. She said the bigger tragedy is sometimes that focus on technique, even good techniques, biblical techniques, um, will keep you from the one thing that you most need with your kids. And that is hope and the grace of God. Hope that, that, that when it's all just like it is with the gospel, it's not my righteousness that saves me.

It's not my great parenting that saves my kids. My hope is in the grace of God for my salvation and for, for their salvation and development. I think the thing that I noticed about the two of you of how you're not just talking about words, you're not just talking about the scriptures, you're living it.

It's fresh. You love Jesus. How do you keep your walk with God vibrant? Because that's the most important thing we could do for our families.

Yeah. As a couple, I'll answer first on that level. I mean, you know, we, you have all the things about just the importance of, of our daily time with God. Even as a pastor, it's very important for me not to be professional in ministry, but we're part of a regular small group and all the, you know, you're not made for the stage, you're made for relationships.

And so we have all those things. As a couple, I will say that parenting actually drove us more to the Lord. I mean, it's not like we weren't walking, we prayed together, but it just, it took our prayer life to a new, there's that desperation. That's right. And the time, especially when a really challenging time in the lives of a couple of our kids where we were driven to prayer, you know, frequently, not because we, it's the right thing to do, but because it was like, you are my breath. You are my daily bread.

Who else would I go to? Right. God uses parenting. One of my mentors told me one of the darkest days that we had with one of our kids, he just said, he just said, God is doing something really, really good in you in this. He said, we're trusting that he's going to work in your kid's life, but he's doing something really good in you. And that is, he's teaching you just to depend on his grace.

And he does that through failure, not through success. We both tend to be, that's what I think kids did for us. We tend to be like, can do, like, we're just kind of like, well, we can just figure this out. Do it harder. Right.

Yeah. Work harder at it or trying to, you know, and so kids are there, I mean, you, you, for a very long time, at least we labored under the, you know, misguided assumption that Elise talks about. They're like, we could just kind of point them along the right way and it would all just work out a-okay. And if it didn't, we could just apply those principles harder and better and it would. And so with kids being their own people that you, at the end of the day, have actually no control over.

Right. You can't, I mean, you can ensure that parents- I know that just sounds very depressing for most of you, but you come to that realization. But it actually is simultaneously, it is so much in the gospel and in walking with Christ, it is kind of depressing and freeing all at one time.

It's very weird. So like, there's nothing I can do about this. This kid is going to be their own person and make their own choices that I do not always think are right and good because the Lord is doing something there that I actually have no part of. Now, I'm, he put me in their life and I'm not trying to disown that. I have a responsibility before the Lord to bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. So you can't just slough off that. But it's, it is not my responsibility to actually get them to love God because I can't get them to love God.

They'll see it in us, which is only good. That's a great thing, but I can't do it enough or right or in the right manner. And so that was why I think parenting broke us of that, you know, unacknowledged belief. Yeah. We're not really responsible for our kids as much as we're responsible to them.

Yes. Man, when I hear that, I am simultaneously deeply concerned about my kids and also feel so free knowing they're in God's hands. Do you feel like that too? It's weird to think that I can't control what will ultimately happen to my kids when it comes to their relationship with God.

And that both frees me and it kind of scares me. I'm just so thankful that in the middle of all that, God is good, loving, sovereign, and faithful. You know, we're going to hear more from JD Greer here in just a few seconds with some encouragement for us as we think about the responsibility of raising our kids. But first, I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with JD and Veronica Greer on Family Life Today. JD has written a book called Essential Christianity, the Heart of the Gospel in Ten Words. This book really offers a contemporary interpretation of Paul's message in the book of Romans, kind of bridging the gap between the biblical context and the challenges faced by modern individuals. You can go online to familylifetoday.com to pick up a copy. Just click on the Today's Resources link, or you can get the link in the show notes.

Or you can give us a call to get a copy at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. All right, here's JD Greer with some encouragement for parents when you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Psalm 136 is the story of the history of Israel. And the psalmist, in telling the history of Israel, goes through the highs and the lows. And between every thing, he puts the little phrase, the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. So I decided one afternoon that I was going to write my own history in the psalm of 136.

There was like a book that said to do it or something. Yeah, most of my great ideas I got from somebody else. I've had three original thoughts in my lifetime. Just only three.

Everything else. You really only had two. But anyway, so I was going through, and I had awesome parents. I mean, just they really were godly, faithful to each other, and excellent models.

You couldn't ask for better. But as I wrote out this history, and I wrote the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever between all the things, when I got to the end and I read it, I realized that even though I had awesome parents, not one, not one of the major turning point God moments in my life did my parents have anything to do with. And that's not because they weren't, it's just that God was writing my story. And all of a sudden it was like 1000 pounds fell off my shoulders because I realized God's writing my kids' stories too.

And so we're trying to lead them, but when they're telling their story one day, God wrote it. Not Janie and Veronica. I have to tell you this, that today is the last day to be able to get 50% off on all Weekend to Remember marriage getaways. The sale's been going on since January 8th, and today is the last day. So I want you to ask yourself and really answer honestly, how would you rate the quality of your marriage on a scale from one to 10? Now that number in your brain might scare you or it might make you excited, but regardless of where you might be, I really want to encourage you to check out Family Life's Weekend to Remember marriage getaway.

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So head on over there to weekendtoremember.com. Now coming up tomorrow, we all want to understand the transformative power of the gospel in our marriages, especially when it comes to relational challenges and the element of forgiveness. Well, JD Greer and Veronica Greer are going to be back with David Ann Wilson to talk about just that tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.