Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. You were created for Jesus by His design, for His love to thrive under His rule.
That means you will always feel incomplete, unsatisfied, uneasy until you're in right relationship with Him. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist, J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today is Good Friday, a day when we remember the weight of our Savior's death, but thankfully the incredible hope it brings. And as we conclude the teaching we began yesterday, we're leaning into a truth that turns our natural thinking upside down. You see, most people believe that surrendering to Jesus means losing freedom, but in reality, it's the only way to truly find it. When we trust and lean on Him, we step into a life of abundance. Today, Pastor J.D. shows us how Jesus proved His commitment to us on the cross and now promises to use everything He allows into our lives for our ultimate good. Turn in your Bible to John 10 as we join Pastor J.D.
for the conclusion of this message titled, I Am the Dwarf. No one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him. Paul would say it this way in 1 Corinthians 12, 3. Nobody can even say that Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. Meaning if there is some heart level recognition in you that Jesus is Lord, if there is a desire to be near Him, to follow after Him, that can only come from the Spirit of God. When Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah, right, you know, you are the Christ, who do you say that I am? You are the Christ. Jesus didn't say, way to use your intellect, Peter.
Your logic is flawless. Instead, He said, Peter, flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. In other words, your flesh, your brain didn't figure that out, Peter. Only my Father in Heaven reveals that. Now, some of you say, well, does that take away my freedom of choice?
No, it's still yours to choose. The analogy I always use is this. Imagine there's a man who is genuinely insane. He thinks he's Spiderman.
He's standing on top of a 30-story building in downtown Raleigh somewhere. You approach this man and you say, don't jump. Don't jump. Listen, you don't have web shooters in your wrist. You're going to fall to the ground and die.
You're not going to swing through the city and stop crime. You're going to die. But the man genuinely believes he's Spiderman. What is he going to choose to do every single time you give him that choice?
Every time. He's going to jump. Now, say that you have, same scenario, you had the ability somehow to restore his sanity to him. Maybe there was like a serum that you could come up behind him with and you could inject it into his arm and his right mind would suddenly be restored to him. Now, now you offer him that same choice. Hey man, you can jump and die, or you can walk back down here with me to safety. Now what's he going to choose every single time? He's going to choose every single time to come with you down to safety. In both moments, the choice is his. He chooses freely.
The difference is that the first choice to jump comes out of an insane mind. In the other, it comes from a sane mind. The choice is always yours, but spiritual sight, spiritual sanity belongs to God.
Well, then you say, well, why didn't God give this kind of spiritual sight to everybody? Admittedly, there's some mystery here because listen, listen, the Bible always puts the blame on resisting the voice of the Holy Spirit, always puts that on us. Never puts it on God's sovereign will. Never. For example, Matthew 23, 37, Jesus looks out over Jerusalem after they've rejected him and he laments, watch this, watch, pay very close attention to the words.
Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, all the city that kills the prophets that are sent to it. How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing. Not, yeah, I wasn't willing. It wasn't in my sovereign will. You weren't elect. You weren't predestined. No, I wanted to. I tried to, but you resisted it. You weren't willing. I was willing.
You weren't. I know you just try to think about that too much if your head feels like it's about to explode. We can only come to Jesus if the Father draws us. We only recognize his voice that the Father gives us ears to hear.
But if we don't recognize his voice, the resistance is not in him, it's in us. And you start thinking about that, you say, well, how can both of those things be fully true? Good question.
I don't know. At this point, I will only pass on to you the wise words of my Father who did not go to seminary, who said to me, when I first came home from Bible college with my head full of first year theological knowledge, had all these questions about God's sovereignty, and I laid out all these deep truths to dad and I'm quoting dead guys from the fifth century, you know, fourth centuries. And I'm like, dad, I just don't understand how all these things work together. And he said, son, for 2000 years, people a lot smarter than you have been trying to figure that out.
And they haven't done it yet. I doubt that you're going to be the one who figures it all out. So why don't you just do what the apostles did in the book of Acts, preach Jesus.
And so that's what I've been doing ever since. Y'all, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things I don't understand. And the mysteries of God's providence are high on that list.
But there are some things I do understand. And I do understand that Jesus said that he is the only door of salvation. So I hold these two things intention whenever I preach. On the one hand, only Jesus gives spiritual sight. And on the other hand, if you haven't come to Jesus, that's on you, not on him. He invites whosoever will to come, which means you can come today if you choose.
The choice is yours. That means y'all, listen, I pray hard to him. Before I get up here, Jesus only you can give spiritual sight.
The reason there's boiler rooms full, filled with people at every service is because only Jesus gives spiritual sight. So I pray to him hard before I get up here. And then I preach and plead hard to you. And I say, look to Jesus and be saved whosoever will may come, the choice is up to you. And what I can say to you here is if you're feeling drawn, if you're feeling something in your heart saying, yes, this is for you, that's the voice of Jesus.
But you got to choose. The choice is yours on whether you enter that door or not. Number four, in Jesus' claim to be the door, Jesus' claim to be the door, we have a promise of protection.
A promise of protection. Again, verse nine, I am the door. Jesus says, if anybody enters by me, he will be saved. I'm going to go in and out and find pasture. Y'all listen, the life of the sheep is dangerous.
Not only are there thieves who want to steal and kill them, wild animals who want to devour them. And Jesus said, like the good shepherd in the country sheep fold, I lay my body down in that doorway between you and all danger. Nothing gets into this pen without my permission. I'm not going to spend long on this one, since we're going to get more into it in the, I am the good shepherd message we'll do in a few weeks. But do you know how much comfort it would bring to you if you lived every day with the assurance that nothing comes through that pen door into your life without his permission? Nothing. At the door of that sheep pen lays your good shepherd, your almighty shepherd.
He says, nothing comes through here. Nothing that I don't let. Psalm 84, 11, no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. No good thing does he withhold. That means, listen, if he withholds it, it isn't really good. And if he allows it, he plans to use it for good. When I say that Jesus gives us a promise of protection and that no good thing will he withhold, I don't mean God promises you a life of ease. Follow him, and you'll always get the job. You'll always receive the healing.
The relationship will always work out. People who say that to you are liars. That's not what I mean.
Think about it. Jesus' disciples did not experience a life of ease. What he promised them is that in their life of difficulty, he would use all of it for good. Jesus told Peter, for example, Peter, Satan has desired to sift you like wheat.
That doesn't sound fun. Satan has asked for permission to come into this pen and mess with you. Now, wouldn't you expect Jesus at this point to say, and I have forbidden it?
No. That's not what he says. He says, but I prayed for you that your faith would not fail. As Satan afflicts you, I've prayed that you grow stronger through it. I'm not going to keep you from pain or trial, Peter, but I promise to use it for good. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. If he withholds it, it isn't good. And if he allows it, he plans to use it for good. What if you went through life without confidence, that at the door of the sheep pen of your life lay an almighty, ever watchful, omnipotent shepherd who would not let you go? An omnipotent shepherd who would not let anything pass that he does not promise to use for good. I'm telling you, that would change how you approach any and every stressor in your life. Yes, people hurt us.
People disappoint us. You're still going to fail at certain things, but none of that would ever overwhelm you because in all those things, you'd be more than a conqueror because it would mean that this setback and this tragedy and this frustration and heart and that difficulty with my spouse and this difficulty with my kids, this illness, all of it is allowed by an ever watchful shepherd who has already proven his commitment to me by laying down his life for me and promises now to use it for good. I know it may not feel like that right now, and you may feel like, why did he let this into the pen of my life? I'm just telling you he's going to use it for good because he has proven his commitment to you when he laid down his life for you. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. We'll get right back to our teaching in just a moment, but today on Good Friday, we pause to remember the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. It's a day of sorrow, but also of unmatched love and hope because through his death, we have life. If you've never taken time to truly reflect on what the cross means for you, let today be that moment. And if you want to dig deeper into the hope that we have in Christ, visit us online at jdgreer.com for gospel-centered resources to encourage you this Easter season. And finally, if you're not really sure what all this is about, that's okay, too.
Our website has plenty of information to help you process what you're hearing, and you can also give us a call or email us with your questions. This is a special season for Christians, one we celebrate really every day of the year, but especially this weekend. So find out more by visiting our website.
Again, it's jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to the final moments of today's message. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Finally, number five, we have in this claim to be the door, we have in this passage where he explains that we have an offer of abundance. On the door, Jesus says, if anybody enters by me, he will be saved, and we'll go in and out and find pasture. We'll go in and out, that's freedom, right?
In and out, go whenever you want, do whatever you want. Find pasture, that's abundance. Jesus expands on what he means by the abundance part of the next verse, which we're not going to fully cover this week, it'll be for the later message, John 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and might have it more abundantly.
The Greek word for abundance there is parisos, it means over the top. Follow me and you're going to have an over the top life. Let me speak plainly to you.
I know that for many of you listening to me right now, particularly let's talk to high school and college students, all of you, but let me zero in on you for a minute. Surrendering to Jesus doesn't feel like the path to freedom and abundance. You're like, surrender to Jesus? That means giving up all my fun. Surrender my freedom, my ability to choose what I want to do with my body, my ability to choose what I want to do with my relationships, with my career dreams, with my money.
You are terrified to give up control of your life because you think it will lead you to a life of misery. But friend, it's freedom, and you can trust him because Jesus is a shepherd who created you. His pasture lands are the life you were created for.
You'll see us Lewis had the best analogy for this. He asked the question, when is a fish most free? When is a fish the freest? You don't set a fish free by taking it out of the water and putting it up on the land, up where the people are, up where they run, up where they walk, up where they play all day in the sun, wandering free, wish I could be part of that world. That makes for a catchy song and a questionable kid's movie, but in reality, that would kill the fish.
A fish is freest when it is swimming in the habitat it was designed for. You were created for Jesus by his design, for his love to thrive under his rule. Friend, that means you will always feel incomplete, unsatisfied, uneasy, off.
Something's off until you're in right relationship with him. And until he lays in front of the pen of your life, you will be subjects to thieves and robbers who only want to kill, steal, and destroy you. All those thieves and robbers, they'll offer you satisfaction. That's part of the deal. Come with me.
I got what you're looking for. It's over here, over here in this career, or it's over here in this relationship, but it never is. Never. They will entertain you and tantalize you for a while, but thieves and robbers only lead to greater brokenness and more emptiness.
Some of you are there now. You all listen to this New York Times reporter, Nicholas Kristof, who's written for years on the global injustice of human trafficking. Once attempted, this is 2004, to purchase the freedom of two Cambodian prostitutes that he had discovered in the process of investigation. After a lot of investigation, he concluded that the only practical way that he could get these ladies out, these particular ones out immediately, was to buy their freedom. Both had been taken into the trade against their will.
And maybe you can say, well, I'm not sure that was the best way. Maybe not, but in the moment, he felt like this was the only sure way to get these two out. For the first time in his life, for the first of the two, he said it was a rather simple transaction. He paid $150 to the brothel owner to set this girl free. But when he tried to pay the price for the second girl, named Shreimom, the owner had figured out she was dealing with a guy with resources, and so she demanded more money.
Finally, after haggling, the owner agreed to $203 as the price for Shreimom's freedom. But then Nicholas Kristof said, Shreimom told him that she had pawned her cell phone and needed $55 to get it back. Forget about your cell phone, he said. We got to get out of here. This is a dangerous place.
See, he knew that when the local crime bosses found out what was going on, they would try to stop it. He said, we got to leave now. We got to go now.
We got time for nothing else. But Shreimom started crying and refused to leave. He told her that basically you're going to choose between your cell phone and your freedom. She ran back, he said, to her tiny room in that brothel and locked the door. Even the brothel owner said to her, you better grab this chance while you can.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But Shreimom, hysterical now refused. She only relented when Kristof agreed to buy back her cell phone too. Then she asked for her pawned jewelry to be part of the deal. Kristof explained, so we went back to get the phone and the jewelry, which were, I think, never her real concern.
Shreimom later explained that her resistance had nothing to do with wanting the telephone and everything to do with last minute fear about whether her family and her village would accept her if she returned. The possibility of rejection by her mother was almost as frightening as the idea of finishing her life in the brothel. Good news is her family did receive her, joyfully. They'd assumed she was dead. And they shrieked and they hugged and they cried and it was this incredible reunion. But one year later, Kristof reported, 2005, he was devastated to find that she was back in the brothel where she was being pimped out and regularly financially cheated by her owner.
Kristof said it was a combination on her part of a desire for drugs, a way to pay off new debt she'd incurred, and a way for self-esteem. Prostitutes, he says, are often so shattered and stigmatized that sometimes they feel like the only place they can hold their head high is in the brothel. It's heartbreaking.
Obviously, that industry is one of the cruelest and most unjust practices ever inflicted by humans on one another, and we should all be working to end it. But I share this tragic story because it shows us that this broken world damages us, this broken world filled with thieves and robbers. And that damage comes to us both through our sin and the sin that others inflict upon us. And that damage creates in us a fear that will keep you in bondage to sin.
Fear and shame keep you from perceiving the goodness of what's being offered to you and makes you susceptible to the thieves and robbers and keeps you hiding in your captivity from the one relationship that actually could lead you to life, to freedom, and to pasture. A friend here in John 10, here in John 10, we got Jesus, the door, a good shepherd who lays himself down at the entryway of our lives to protect us from anything that could harm us if only we would trust him. The shepherd put himself not just between us and the thieves and the wild animals seeking to harm us, he put himself between us and the rightful consequences of our sin, you see. After we voluntarily sold ourselves to sin, and sin and death had a rightful claim upon us, he stood between us and sin and death and said, to get to them, you got to go through me. And he took sin and death in our place. He stood between us and the rightful consequences of sin and death, and he absorbed those consequences into his own body.
And when he did, something amazing happened. That curtain blocking the way into the Holy of Holies was torn in two, symbolizing that Jesus' torn body was now the door back into the presence of God, the door back into the Garden of Eden, back into the pasture lands where sin and death and curse and judgment and abandonment and chaos could not touch us anymore. There is therefore no condemnation, he said, or abandonment or fear or curse or shame or chaos, none of that for those who are in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, inside Christ Jesus, safe behind the walls of Christ Jesus. I'm the door, I'm the door. If anybody enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
And this is an offer for you. Listen, this is the life that you were created for. The pasture lands of God's goodness and grace are what your soul craves, the assurance that yea, though you walt through the valley of shadow of death, you will not have to fear evil because thou art with me. Because your rod and your staff, they comfort me, they comfort me. Because your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. This is what awaits you on the other side of that door. But you got to choose to go through it. David Jeremiah tells the story of how the great Houdini, regarded in his day as the world's greatest escape artists, had proven able to be able to get himself out of any confinement, handcuffed, straitjacket, locked caskets, sealed up prison cells. Could do anything you bound him in, he could be out in less than a minute. There was only one recorded instance where the great Houdini failed to escape.
Do you know this? He was touring the British Isles and in a small town, he was invited to escape from the local jail. He said the cell door looked so ordinary, he thought it was a joke. He's like, I'll be out of here in 30 seconds. But after two hours of trying unsuccessfully to pick the lock, he gave up. And finally, in exhaustion and exasperation, he leaned against the door, conceding failure. And when he did that, to his surprise, the door just creaked open.
It hadn't been locked to begin with. How many of us stay in prison behind an unlocked door? Jesus' blood has unlocked the door to your freedom.
All you got to do is lean on him. Dr. Jeremiah said that one of our enemy's greatest deceptions is convincing us that, like Houdini, we got to work and strive to unlock the door of our salvation, to pick the lock by earning God's love through good works. But see, all you got to do is lean on Jesus and the door will open. Salvation, you see, is not what you do. It's not what you do to save yourself. It's receiving what God has already done to save you. Salvation is not about trying. It's about trusting. It's not about striving.
It's about leaning. You want to do that today? You want to walk through that door today?
You can do it today. Are you ready? There's pasture. There's safety. There's presence.
It's all right through that door. That's the invitation Jesus gives us, not to just hear these words, but to step into them, to trust him with our whole selves. If you have questions about what it means to follow Jesus, give us a call at 866-335-5220. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Chances are you've heard a lot about who other people think Jesus was, but what did Jesus say about himself? Our featured resource this month called I Am Seven Weeks in the Gospel of John is designed to walk you through some of the most powerful statements Jesus made about himself. This printed resource offers a week-by-week journey through the seven I Am statements found in the Gospel of John. Each week you'll dive into a different declaration exploring its significance through commentary, scripture passages, and thought-provoking questions.
It's a chance to connect with Jesus' own words about himself and grow in your faith with him. We pray that you'll gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus is, what he came to do, and how his life and teaching can transform your life today. We'll send you a copy as our way of saying thanks for your financial gift of $45 or more to support this ministry. Give by calling 866-335-5220.
That number again is 866-335-5220 or go online to give and request your copy at jdgreer.com. While you're on the website, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor J.D. 's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox.
It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life, and it's completely free to subscribe. Sign up when you go to jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. I hope you have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday with your church family, and we look forward to having you back next week as we continue the I Am Teaching series right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
