Today on Summit Life with JD Greer. If you are going to get the high place with God, You're gonna take a low place. That the way up in Christianity is always the way down. The way that you release God's power and blessing in your life is by taking the role of a servant and by considering the needs and the interests of somebody else as more important than your own. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor Jidi Greer.
As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich.
Okay, tell me if this is you. As you go through your day, you notice the needs and interests of other people around you, and sometimes you're even empathetic to those things. But at the end of the day, those interests of others are almost always secondary to your own. What do we do with this reality, and why are we this way? Today on Summit Life, Pastor JD shows us just how important the interests of those we love truly are.
As always, if you miss any of our programs or if you're in search of our featured monthly resource, you can find it all online at jdgreer.com or by calling us at 866-335-5220.
Now, here's Pastor JD continuing our series with a message titled One Simple Question. We have begun. A series on relationships. A couple of points I just want to review with you really quickly. First, we talked about the fact that there are no married people issues, there are only single people issues that get worse in marriage.
Marriage does not usually create problems. Marriage simply reveals problems that are already there. Marriage does not create problems in our heart. The pressures of marriage, all it does is reveal problems that are already there. And I know that some of you don't want to admit that because it's very convenient for you to blame your spouse or to blame your marriage for your unhappiness.
Or any of your other problems, but I'm telling you, if you're honest with yourself, you're probably going to have to admit that marriage is just unearthing the existing problems that are already in your heart. Your marriage did not create selfishness in you, your marriage simply revealed that desire that you have for control. Marriage reveals your impatience, marriage reveals your propensity to anger and to rage. Those problems are problems in your heart, and then your marriage only reveals them.
So, the second thing we looked at was that marriage and singleness are, according to Paul, probably the things that God most uses in our lives to teach us about our relationship to Him. This is what Paul calls the divine mystery of marriage. And when you unlock this mystery, I'm telling you, it's going to yield for you so much understanding, so much understanding about what God is doing in your marriage, why your marriage is the way that it is, and why you feel the way you do in your marriage. He's even going to reveal to you what he's doing in those seasons in your life when you're not married and you really want to be. Both of those points are going to be really important today.
Because the Apostle Paul is going to teach us a principle that should undergird all of our relationships. People say to me, they're like, Yeah, why are you doing a series on marriage or related to marriage when you've got so many people in your congregation that are single? I told you last week, 65% of the adults listening to me right now are single. It's like, why in the world would you do a series related to marriage when you got so many people that are single? The reason is because the focus of our study is just on the human heart and what marriage or singleness reveals about the human heart.
That's why. And because there's very few things that just show you, shine a light on the heart the way that singleness and marriage do. Second reason is I want some of you who are single to know what you're getting into when you get married. And I want you to go into it with your eyes wide open so that you can be prepared as you go in. I'm going to try to summarize this principle that Paul's going to teach us today about relationships.
I'm going to summarize it in one question. One simple question that I'm going to tell you: if you would ask this question in your relationships. It would transform all of them. All of them. I'm going to explain to you, it's one of the unknown secrets to happiness.
It'll probably do more to replace strife with peace in your heart and in your home than anything else that you could do. And not just in marriage, in all of your relationships. One question. That would just be the game changer for you.
Alright, now, I'm not going to give you that question until about halfway through the message. All right, so you type A people, I know it's going to drive you crazy. But I want to let the Apostle Paul build for you the reasoning behind the question. Because I'm warning you, this is so counterintuitive. It's going to go against everything you have thought, everything you have been trained by, the assumptions you've grown up with.
It is so counterintuitive. I got to take time to actually build the logic for it.
So we're going to let the Apostle Paul do that from Ephesians 5. Let's begin in verse 21. Here we go. Paul is literally in mid-sentence. In mid-sentence.
If your English translation has 20, verse 21 as a standalone sentence, it is a wrong translation. I'll explain that later and why that's important. Verse 21. Submitting, Paul says, to one another, Out of reverence for Christ. If you underline stuff in your Bible, and you should, underline out of reverence for Christ.
Verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Now, as the church submits to Christ, So, also, wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Okay, this is probably the most unpopular verse in the New Testament. If you're ever watching someone on TV trying to diss the Bible, this is almost always the passage that they go to. They'll quote this in some way. Oh, yeah, we can't possibly believe the Bible. It actually says things like, and they'll quote some version of this verse, and it's so backwards, the Bible.
How could you possibly believe it? And sadly, this verse has sometimes been used as a justification for the subjugation of women. But that is because this verse has been misunderstood and lifted out of its context and twisted. Let me give you two quick observations here to show you that. First of all, what is the first word in verse 22?
Look at your Bible. What is the first word in verse 22? Wives, that's right. Who's he talking to in this verse? Wives, not husbands.
He's talking to wives.
Now, you husbands, you're going to get your own verse in a minute. This verse was not written for you, however. It wasn't written for you to give you a tool to wield against your wife. If God intended for you to use this verse that way, He would have addressed the verse to you.
So you stay out of your wife's verse. You don't like her messing in your stuff, you stay out of her verse, all right? Second, do not forget the verse right before verse 22. It began verse 21: submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Now, do you see a qualifier in front of that one? Nope, that's written to every follower of Jesus. We are all to be submitting ourselves to each other: wives to husbands, husbands to wives. Wives, submit to your husbands, is a specific application of a principle that is given to every follower of Jesus.
Now, I'm not trying to deny that this has unique implications for women in marriage. Just that this verse is given in an overall context of an entirely new way of looking at relationships, and you can never separate this verse from its context. See, Paul continues, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Both husband and wife submit themselves to one another out of reverence for Christ.
The husband submits his life to the wife by laying down his life for his wife. The wife submits herself to the husband by submitting herself to her husband. And this was done, Paul said, to teach us the mystery of our relationship to God. It was there to teach us what it means to love like God loves and what it means to experience God's love for ourselves. Let's explore this further.
Philippians chapter 2. If you got your Bible, flip over one book. We're going to go to chapter 2, where Paul takes the same concept and he fleshes it out a little bit. Philippians chapter 2, verse 3. Do nothing Paul says from selfish ambition or conceit.
But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Verse 4: Let each of you look not only to his own interests. But also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
Underline that. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. I have a question specifically for you women. Was Jesus fully equal to God?
Well, yes, of course he was. He was God. But he voluntarily submitted himself to the Father. This was not an assault on his dignity and did not imply any inferiority on his part. He was fully equal to God.
If it was not an assault on his dignity to do that, it is not an assault on yours either. Quite the contrary, it makes you more like him because you were doing what Jesus did. If it was not below him to voluntarily submit to another to whom he was equal, it is not below you either. And what Christ did is an example for you men too. He laid aside his glory.
He laid aside his comfort. He leveraged his power not for his own benefit, but for ours. There are two phrases in that passage that are so absolutely counterintuitive that if they don't like arrest you and kind of shock you, then you just didn't read it right. Verse 3: Count others, and their interest is more significant than your own interest. You know, when I walk around each day, I am vaguely aware that other people have interests.
You know, and sometimes when I'm in a good mood, I'm empathetic to their interests. But always my interests rank higher in my heart than their interests do.
So, if my interests come into conflict with your interests, I'm glad you've got your interest. I'll try to make way so you can have some of your interests. But your interest, in my view, comes second to mine. I get the parking spot, you park at the back, right? If I get there first, at least this is my interest, this is not.
Right? We're all like that.
Okay, verse 7: watch. He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. When I have power, Well, what do I do with it? I leverage it for me. When I got the money, when I have the position, I use it to serve myself.
That's what we do. If I know that I'm in the right. That's a kind of power. If I know that I'm in the right, how do I press those rights? I demand them.
I demand them for me. I'm in the right. I got a position of power. You're going to recognize my rights. You're going to give me what is due to me.
But Jesus had these things, and what did he do? He emptied himself, and he took the form of a servant. You are listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. Let's take a quick moment to recognize and appreciate a truly special group of people.
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Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. You don't usually take the form of a servant. You are assigned the form of a servant. If you have a roommate, you think of your interests.
And you recognize that they have some. And so, what you do if you got a roommate is you kind of compromise and you work it out where they have some of their interests. You can have some of yours. And if you're a good roommate, then you just figured out where the boundaries are and how you can both be happy and get along. Jesus thought entirely differently.
He thought not of his interest. When he had power, he considered our interest more significant than his own. You see what I'm saying? That is so counterintuitive. None of us think like that, at least naturally.
Verse 9, watch this. Therefore God has highly exalted him. Why? Because he did those things. and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.
Because he took the low road, God gave him the high place. Because he took the form of a servant, God gave him the name that is above every name. That is a crucially important principle if you're going to do what we're going to talk about today. Because you got to trust that if you are going to get the high place with God, You're going to take the low place. That the way up in Christianity is always the way down.
The way that you release God's power and blessing in your life is by taking the role of a servant and by considering the needs and the interests of somebody else as more important than your own. It is completely counterintuitive. Mark chapter 10, go back toward the beginning of your New Testament. Mark Ken. James and John, who were two of Jesus' closest disciples.
You know, there was an inner ring of disciples, right? There was three of them: Peter, James, and John.
So, two of those guys, James and John, come to Jesus and like, hey, Jesus, we got a favor. And Jesus is like, Okay, what's your favorite? He's like, Hey, all right, when you come into your kingdom, when you come into your power, we want to be at your right hand and your left hand. I want to be vice president, secretary of state. I want to be over Europe, and I want to be over Asia.
Okay, that's what's basically what they're saying. And Jesus says, Well, why is that? And they're like, Well, you know, hey, we've stuck with you.
Well, we bought in when the stock was low, so we should benefit when the stock's high. We've earned it. And Jesus said, That's how people outside of the kingdom of God think. Verse 43, but it shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.
Whoever would be first among you should be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. and to give his life as a ransom for many. This was a revolutionary view of power. That somebody would use their power to serve somebody else?
No way. I mean, what good is power if you're not going to use it to benefit yourself? I mean, that's why you go after power? Isn't that why you make money? Isn't that why you go after the position?
You go after it so you can have the power as a way of blessing and benefiting yourself. John chapter 13. Go two more books to the right. We'll be in the Gospel of John. John 13.
On the night before Jesus died. His disciples, they'd just eaten their last meal together. Verse 4: Jesus stands up for the meal. He laid aside his outer garments. It's kind of an important phrase.
And taking a towel, he tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet.
Now, that would be gross today. In fact, I get a little awkward, just being honest with you, thinking about this, about washing another grown man's foot. That just kind of creeps me out. I'm not going to lie. But in those days, It was, I mean, because in those days, I mean, you know, they walk with open-toed shoes and there's animals everywhere, and there's animal poop and pee all over the roads.
Dirt rug. It was disgusting. I mean, their feet were absolutely and totally and completely disgusting. These were not, you know, nicely manicured feet where you slipped off their Versace Italian slippers and their satin socks and dabbed their feet with a hot lemon fresh towel. That's not what's happening.
All right, this is humiliating. It is disgusting. It is the work of the lowest kind of servant. Here is the Son of God. Who deserves all power and glory, who commands the armies of angels, who speaks worlds into existence.
Laying it all aside. And taking the form of a servant and washing dirty, disgusting feet. By the way, and not just dirty feet. You think about these feet. These feet are about to carry the disciples away from Jesus in just a few hours when they abandoned him in the hour he needed them most.
These are betraying feet. And Jesus is washing their betraying, disgusting, dirty feet, and perhaps giving them, listen. The clearest picture of the cross that he would give them that night. Even clearer, maybe, than the bread in the cup. Because in just a few hours, he would take off the garments of his glory.
He would lay aside his power and his right to rule, and he would clothe himself in the garments of shame so that we could be washed in his blood. And he says, verse 12. Do you understand? What I have done to you? You call me teacher and lord.
And you're right, because so I am. If I then, your Lord and your teacher, have washed your feet? You ought also to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you. In places, listen, where you are Lord.
Or teacher. or boss or head. We are to use that not to Be served, but to serve. Husbands, whatever power you have in a marriage, you use it to serve your wife. Wives, whatever power you have, you submit it to your husbands and you serve him.
You say, he does not deserve it, or you say, she does not deserve it. She is so selfish. Did the disciples deserve for Jesus to wash their feet? Oh no. You see, you remember that phrase back in Ephesians 5:21, and now we're back there submitting to one another out of reverence for whom?
Out of reverence for them? Nope. Out of reverence for Christ. They don't deserve it. But Jesus does.
Can you imagine being so grateful to somebody? That anybody that was connected to that person, you just had to pour out kindness on them. That's what Christianity is. It is being so overwhelmed at the graciousness and the sacrifice of Christ that anybody. That is connected to Christ.
You have to do something like wash their feet because you are so overwhelmed at the power and the grace that He showed you when He stripped Himself of His garments and He bathed not your feet but your soul, not with water, but in His blood. And you're serving somebody else, including your spouse, becomes a way of saying, I love you and I'm so grateful for what you have done for me that this is one of the ways I can show it by washing the feet of another sinner. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain, I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. Were the whole realm of nature mine? Did I have all the power?
That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Of course, I'll wash the feet of another sinner. That's why Elise Fitzpatrick, one of the ladies that spoke at our church here last year, she said this: The primary point of marriage is to teach you. To wash the feet of another sinner.
Many of you think the primary point of marriage is to fulfill all your needs and make you happy. Which is why which is why you're frustrated in your marriage. Because it's not working, is it? You got married thinking this person would meet all your romantic, all your emotional needs. You were going to marry that roommate that was just going to be bliss and make everything come true.
But God's primary point in marriage is not to make you happy. It's to make you holy. It's to make you like him. And how do you learn to be like him? By learning to wash the disgusting, betraying, self-centered feet of another sinner.
Just like Jesus washed yours.
So I explained to you last week: many of you feel like you married the wrong person. Right? Of course you married the wrong person. By God's design. You always marry the wrong person because you always marry a sinner.
But here's what I told you last week: by God's design, the wrong person is the right person for you. Because God has a higher agenda for your life than giving you a flawless roommate. And that agenda is to make you more like him.
Now, let me rephrase that in your church. I want you, if you were married, I want you to write this statement down. And I want you to say it once a day. Because you need to shatter that false paradigm you went into marriage with. And if you're single, you need to get this in your mind before you get married.
By God's design, the wrong person is the right person for me. Because God has a higher agenda for my life than giving me a flawless roommate. And that agenda is to make me more like him.
Now I'm not saying that you deliberately choose somebody that you hate, okay? I'm not saying, like, oh, you're the wrong person. Being married to you would feel like washing disgusting feet, or maybe even being crucified. You're my girl. I'm not saying that, all right?
Because marriage is a blessing, and God does. I mean, I love being with my wife. She loves being with me. It's one of the greatest blessings of our life. But what I am trying to tell you is: when you get through the infatuation, which you will, and what you're going to find is that person, there was something so wrong, so bad about that person that Jesus had to die to fix it.
If they were so bad that Jesus had to die to fix them, That thing is probably going to cause you some irritation. And see, that's why God's design, you're never gonna marry a flawless, perfect person. You marry somebody you like, yes, but what happens is you conclude you marry the wrong person because that sin nature that's really bad starts to come out, and you think, I gotta get out of this marriage and get into a new one. Unless you plan on marrying an angel, which don't exist on earth, right? Then you're not gonna marry, you're just gonna marry another sinner and they're gonna become the wrong person.
Because God's point in marriage, one of his points is to teach you to love like him and to be loved by him. Yeah. While we wait until tomorrow to learn what that one simple question is, how's that for a teaser? What a beautiful picture of the gospel that we see through marriage. You are listening to Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist J.D.
Greer. We are passionate about bringing you gospel-centered Bible teaching on radio, TV, and by podcast, but it's only possible thanks to generous supporters like you. We're so grateful for your partnership. And to say thanks for your donation at the suggested level of $45 or more this month, we'll send you a book by Pastor JD titled Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart. This book deals with one of the most important questions you could ever ask.
How can I know for sure that I'm saved? Pastor JD argues that the way we explain the gospel, reducing it to the magic words of a prayer, is dangerous and often gives assurance to those who shouldn't have it and keeps assurance from those who should have it. This is a foundational book whether you're wrestling with doubts yourself or you want to get better at sharing the true gospel with others. Ask for your copy of Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart when you give by calling 866-335-5220, or it might be easier to donate and request the book online at jdcareer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich.
Don't miss tomorrow's program when Pastor JD gives us that one simple question that will transform all of our relationships. Do you think you know what it is? Join us Thursday right here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
