Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. In order for any relationship to heal, the cross has got to become larger. It's not that the cross isn't there, it's just it's not that weighty to you. The forgiveness is not that grand.
The treasure of Christ is not that magnificent. That's why small things bother you, and that's why small infractions against you are so devastating. The cross has to become larger. Yeah. Welcome back to Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich.
Okay, has the smoke detector in your home ever woken you up just chirping in the middle of the night? It always seems to need new batteries at the worst times in my house.
Now, we all recognize the sound of a low battery and truthfully often ignore it for a while if we can, but what about an all-out alarm? We don't lay in bed ignoring that, right? We act quickly.
Well, today, Pastor JD encourages us to mind the smoke detectors of anger and bitterness in our hearts before they turn into fires in our relationships. It's part of our teaching series titled First Love. Remember, you can always reach out to us at jdgreer.com or give us a call at 866-335-5220. We've got resources available to help direct you in your journey with Jesus. For now, though, let's rejoin Pastor JD for the second part of his message titled Fighting Jesus Style.
God put inside of you this little tuning fork called a sense of justice. And whenever something is unjust, it goes off and you've got to see it resolved. That's why we love revenge movies because you know it's being resolved. And especially if the injustice is directed toward you, you just feel like you're not at peace until justice has been served, right? And when you are repaying somebody for the injustice they did to you, you feel in that moment the authority of God repaying justice where justice needs to be to be.
be repaid. Which is what makes what Paul says in Romans 12, verse 19 so very important. Do not ever take revenge, my friends. But leave room for God's wrath. Because it is written: It is mine always to avenge, I will always repay, says the Lord.
Paul says, look, justice will be served. And because justice will be served, you can leave room for the wrath of God. It means you never have to take upon yourself the responsibility to vindicate the wrong that was done to you. You know, one of the things I've realized is some of you will hear this is over the top, but let me just say it like this. I realize that every single wrong that has ever been done to me will be repaid in one of two places.
It will either be paid for by Jesus on the cross or it will be repaid by that person in hell. Therefore, I do not have to take upon myself the responsibility to right any wrong because God is going to take all the vengeance that is necessary. That releases me from all that malice and wrath and rage because it's just that I don't need to have it anymore. You know, I hear people say sometimes, like, well, you should just forgive and forget in your marriage. And I understand kind of what they mean, but I mean, let's be honest.
When you've really been hurt. You can't forgive and forget. At least you can't forget. I mean, be honest, if somebody has really hurt you, you can't just be like, oh, I don't remember that anymore. It's too painful.
God doesn't forgive and forget. Yeah, what? God is, you know what we use the word omniscient? Which means he's all-knowing. There's no day that God looks back on and is like, I cannot remember what happened on that day.
He didn't forget anything. When we say God forgives and forgets, what we mean is that God chooses not to remember or to hold that against us because Jesus has paid for it on the cross. For you to forgive somebody else, listen, is not that you forget about the wrong altogether, it's that you choose. To not remember or hold that wrong against them because you know that God will take care of it. Has taken care of it on the cross or will take care of it now.
Vengeance is his, so I can put away all that wrath. You see where Paul says back in Ephesians 4: Don't let the sun go down in your wrath, give no opportunity to the devil? You see, when you hold a desire for vengeance, watch this. You are actually opening the door for Satan to enter your heart because you are doing the same thing Satan did that made Satan Satan. You know how Satan became Satan, and Satan wanted to be God.
When you are taking a role of vengeance on yourself, you are wanting to play God and to actually give vengeance. And what that is happening is that is corrupting and destroying you. And many of you are right there. You got bitterness in your heart toward a spouse, toward a fiancé, toward a next boyfriend, a girlfriend, a next spouse. And you know, I've heard this before: that holding unforgiveness and bitterness in your heart is like trying to repay another person by drinking poison yourself.
You have got to let that go. You have got to say, This is an issue between me and God, and you have got to forgive. Because vengeance doesn't belong to you. And you have to separate yourself from that, it belongs to him.
So he gives you that first command: put away all malice and wrath and hatred. And in order to do that, you got to know where it comes from. And it comes from two places: one, it comes from idols that you worship that have replaced God. And number two, it comes from your desire to play God and get vengeance. And if you will let God be God in your life on both accounts, then you will find that that stuff just goes away naturally because you've pulled up the roots of malice and anger and hatred and rage.
She says, put it all away. By letting God be God. Here's a second command. And be kind to one another. Tenderhearted.
Verse 32, forgiving one another, just like God and Christ forgave you. Underline that little phrase, as Christ forgave you. You see, Christianity is supposed to be the experience of being so overwhelmed by the magnificent grace of God towards you that every relationship in your life changes because of how greatly you have been loved. The first, it's just the experience of having been forgiven.
So that you know that there's nothing, listen to me, there's nothing your spouse could ever do to you that would compare in the slightest bit to what God has forgiven you of. I've told you this before, but one of the clearest lines of demarcation in my marriage was the day that I sat in an office and a counselor looked at me and my wife and said to me, a pastor, your problem, JD, in this marriage is that you don't really think of yourself as a sinner. He said, Theologically, you know that you're a sinner. He said, But it's never really gripped your heart. And you want to know how I know that?
Because you can't forgive your wife of the places that she's forgiven you. And that points to the fact that you don't really see yourself as a sinner before God, because if you had any concept of how much God had forgiven you of, forgiving your wife of much smaller things would become very natural. He said, You think of yourself in your marriage as first one who has sinned against, and then later you think of yourself a sinner. He said, You're going to have to reverse that. You are first a sinner, and only secondly, sinned against.
And there is nothing you will ever have to forgive you of your wife or she has disappointed you that compares in the slightest bit to what God has forgiven you of. You want to know why some of you find forgiveness so difficult? Because you don't really see yourself as a sinner as being forgiven by God. Because if you did, it would just come naturally. Listen, when you won't forgive your spouse.
You know what you're saying? You're saying your sin against me is worse than my sin against God. Do you really think that? I know that you would say, no, I don't think that, but the fact that you hold other people accountable for those things shows that you don't. believe.
And that you haven't been gripped by how much you've been forgiven. Because if you did, it would just come naturally. Here's the other part of that. Christianity is supposed to be this sense of having been given such a treasure in Jesus. That everything else that happens to you, even the bad things in your life, they become trivial.
John Wesley, the 18th century. Pastor, one of the guys behind the Great Awakening. He said that Christianity is discovering the gospel is like a man who hears that he has a relative who has left him millions of dollars. And he didn't even know that relative existed. He said, so he is summoned to the bank to collect this enormous inheritance that he didn't realize was coming to him.
He said, as he's on his way to the bank, the carriage that he's riding in. One of the wheels falls off on it. He's about a quarter mile from the bank. He said now what is that guy gonna do? Is he going to jump out of a carriage and start kicking the carriage and like you scubat Campbell and cursing at God about how bad his life is?
He said, no, he probably wouldn't even notice it. He'd probably just jump out of the carriage and just skip the rest of the way to the bank because he's so overjoyed about what he has obtained that all the things that have gone wrong seem like they're just trivial or meaningless. It's just a carriage wheel, and I got millions of dollars. He said, a Christian who is bothered by anything that happens to them in his life, what they're showing is that they've lost touch with the greatness of the grace that God has given to them. Your ability to be joyful in all things is the test of whether or not you actually understand the gospel.
Your ability to forgive the smallest infractions. In God's sight. are the tests of whether or not you know how much you've been forgiven. Can I tell you what the real issue is in some of your marriage? Listen.
Is that the cross is so small in your lives? And in order for your marriage to heal, in order for any relationship to heal, the cross has got to become larger. It's not that the cross isn't there, it's just it's not that weighty to you. The forgiveness is not that grand, the treasure of Christ is not that magnificent. That's why small things bother you, and that's why small infractions against you are so devastating.
The cross has to become larger. That will do more for you than any sermon, any seminar, any book, any couple's counseling, any weekend retreat, anything. It's just for the cross to become larger. Because when you fix the vertical relationship, the horizontal ones just fix themselves. Which leads me to command number three: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Paul has identified in this command two different kinds of speech. If you understand the first two commands, this will come naturally. You know, there's two different kinds of speech. Watch. There is the first kind of speech that tears down.
Condemning speech, and then there's the kind of speech, grace speech, that builds up. He said, your speech should be speech not that cuts and condemns. Your speech in conflict and especially in marriage should always be speech that is ministering grace and lifting up. Thanks for listening to Summit Life with JD Greer. If you want to know more about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com.
I'd like to take just a moment to let you know how much we are thankful for you, our faithful listeners. It's an honor for us to be able to be a source of encouragement for you each day on the program. But did you know that these Summit Life broadcasts are only one of the ways that you can keep up with Pastor JD's ministry? There's our website, our newsletters, but you can also follow Pastor JD on social media. Why not get some biblical insight and encouragement as you scroll?
Just search for Pastor JD Greer on Facebook, at Pastor JD Greer on Instagram, and at JD Greer on X. And definitely don't forget about our YouTube channel where you can watch Pastor JD teach multiple times per week. Follow along on all your favorite social media platforms and stay up to date with this ministry while filling up your timeline with the good news of the gospel.
Now, set your phone down for just a few more minutes and let's finish up today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD.
Now, I thought of different ways that I could describe this to you, but I think the easiest one is just going to be for me to walk you through the stages of what grace-saturated speech looks like. All right, so I want you to start. I'm going to write down some stages you need to go through in the midst of conflict, whether it's conflict at work, conflict with a friend, or conflict in marriage. All right, here's stage number one. Number one, always examine your heart first.
Even if you've been wronged, what does your anger and rage say about your heart?
Now, I'm not saying they didn't wrong you. We'll get to that. But I'm just saying that first, you got to say, why did it produce this kind of reaction in me? Has idolatry? Is that what's behind the wrath and the anger and bitterness?
Because I got to deal with that with God. You've got to mind these smoke detectors that are going off in your heart. Because those emotions are like smoke telling you that there's a bigger problem. And that bigger problem is your disconnect from God, the fact that you're an idolater. Smoke detect I hate the smoke detectors in my house.
I mean, because I don't know it's like they continually need batteries. I don't know, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but all I do is replace the batteries in those things. And they always go off like three in the morning. They start chirping at 3 in the morning. I'm getting up at 4:30 in the morning.
I'm trying to figure out which one it is and replace, I hate them. But I would never want them not to be there. Because I don't want my house to be on fire and not even know it. You've got to mind these smoke detectors, these emotions that point you back to a deeper problem, and that is the problem of your idolatry. By the way, that's why you need outside counsel in your life.
That's why you need to be in a small group. That's why you need to be connected to people because other people point these things out to you. I can't tell you how many conversations Veronica and I have had with one of our respective friends. About a problem in our marriage, and one of our friends would be like, That's ridiculous. You're an idiot.
You need to let that go. Because God gave us the body of Christ to help us see what was really going on in our heart, because no man or woman sees his heart correctly. And if you think you do, then you're a bigger fool than anybody in here. Right, at least know where you're blind and get help. All right, number two, overlook whatever you can.
You see the phrase as fits the occasion. As fits the occasion means, watch, part of grace-saturated speaking is knowing. what in a particular situation is actually going to help and give grace. And what's not really going to help? Which means there's a lot of things you just don't ever comment about.
Because you might be right about them, but they're not going to help the person or the relationship. Proverbs: here's a couple verses that are dear and near to JD's heart because he is so bad at them. Proverbs 19:11: It is to a man's glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 12, 16, the vexation of a fool is known at once. But the prudent ignores an insult.
Which one are you? My analogy for this is always playing tennis. You're playing tennis and you're warming up. And when you're warming up, you're just kind of hitting this little volley of soft, you're hitting back and forth through each other, just real soft. And then all of a sudden, somebody kind of spices one up a little bit, and you're like, whoa, whoa, you know?
So, what do you do? You hit it back. And then you keep escalating until you're like three feet from each other at the net, just killing the ball at each other.
Well, in marriage, what happens is you're in this relationship where you're just kind of volleying, you know, little shots of love at each other. And then all of a sudden, somebody gets a little feisty with one and puts a little English on it. You're like, ooh, you know, spin it back at her. And it escalates until metaphorically we're three feet from each other at the net, just pounding that ball back and forth at each other. There's a way to not get in that situation, Solomon says.
Just the first little mean ball that comes, just kind of stop and let it go by. It's a man's glory to overlook an offense.
Now, that never applies. to where the wrong that the person is doing is causing lasting damage to you or to the relationship or to themselves.
Sometimes you got to speak up. Because you know that a relationship that's going to endure can't have the presence of that in it. And sometimes you've got to go into the confrontation. Do not hear from this that a person who operates with grace never confronts somebody else, because that's exactly the opposite. You see how he said, speak the truth with one another?
There's a lot of times in my marriage where I know that I need to confront my wife about something, but I know that if I do, it's going to be the Arctic winter for about three days in the Greer household. And part, I'm a peacemaker. I'm like, this is not worth it. I just want to let that go. But I knew the loving thing to do is to actually confront and to say, hey, if we're going to be able, if we're going to, I've got to say this because this is how I'm just going to endure the winter because our relationship and our family, it's too important for me not to.
Now you say, well, JD, how do I know the difference? How do I know the difference between things I should speak up on and things I should be quiet about? I really can't tell you. I mean, I wish I could, but there's no like fast. Rule.
It's a Holy Spirit art you've got to develop. All I'll do is leave you with the words of that immortal theologian, Kenny Rogers. The secret to surviving, son, is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep. You gotta know when to hold them. You gotta know when to fold them.
You gotta know when to walk away and know when to run. All right? And that's all I got to say about that. Number three. Number three, you need to be practical in how you fight.
You need to be practical in how you fight. Again, the phrase, as fits the occasion, means that you're mindful of when a word is going to be profitable and helpful and when it's not. Just because it's true doesn't mean it's helpful at the moment. Proverbs 12:18, there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts. Didn't say they were untrue.
It is said that they're rash, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Rash words are words that might be true but are not thought out, not given in the right way in the right time. My wife and I have found it helpful to boundarize our conflict into certain zones. Right, we know that there are certain times a day we should never fight They're like, oh, but you shouldn't let the sun go down in your wrath. I'll get to that in a minute, okay?
We don't fight in our bedroom because that never turns out well. We don't fight when we're either of us in a bad mood. We have what we call the 24-hour rule, which either of us is allowed to invoke. 24-hour rule means: I'm not ready to talk about this now, but I promise you, in 24 hours, I will bring this back up.
Now men, women, if you do this, you've got to bring it back up, otherwise you lose credibility. Right, but you bring it back up at a time when the words will not come out like sword thrusts. They're going to come out in a way that is healing.
Now, you're like, but yeah, but the sun, the Bible says, don't let the sun go down in your wrath. I've heard that verse used and misapplied more than, I mean, it's all right. First of all, it can't literally mean that you never ever go to bed without having resolved the situation because, I mean, just think of it. That would mean in certain parts of Sweden, you would have three months to resolve an issue because the sun doesn't ever go down for three months. And it would mean during other seasons, you've got two hours before the sun goes down.
You got to get it worked out. That's not what he means. What he means when he says that is you've got to deal seriously with the rage and the wrath and the vengeance and you've got to get it out of your heart. And sometimes 24 hours will help you separate unrighteous, selfish irritation from righteous anger that's concerned about the relationship. All right, number four, be quick to listen and slow to speak.
Again, as fits the occasion. How are you going to know what words fit the occasion? If you don't listen. Listening, Brad Hambrook, our pastoral counselor, said that most of the communication problems in marriage, listen, biggest problems in any relationship is communication. The biggest problem he said in communication is usually not an expression problem, it's always a listening problem.
Now, these points apply to both genders, but let me just talk to the men for a while. And ladies, you can just listen in on this because we're just really, really bad at this, including the guy on the stage. Proverbs 18:13: He who gives an answer before he hears, it is a folly and a shame. My relationship with my wife consists of her beginning to tell me a problem and me interrupting her, telling her how to resolve that problem or why she shouldn't really think it's a problem. You've got to develop the ability to be what we call a servant listener.
A servant listener would be defined as one who seeks to understand before seeking to be understood. A servant listener is one who seeks to understand before he or she learns to seek to be understood. Philippians 2, when it's defined as servant, remember? A servant is one who thinks of other people's interests more highly than his own. A servant listener is one who thinks of other people's opinions and other people's statements as more significant than their own, which is 100% the opposite of how I go into most arguments.
I go into most arguments already with my points, and I'm just waiting on you to take a breath. Because the moment you take a breath, boom, I'm putting in my point because my point's more important than yours. A servant listener is one who, jot these down, doesn't interrupt. Because whenever you interrupt, what you're saying is my thoughts are more important than your thoughts. Your thoughts are so stupid, I'm not going to let you get to the end of that sentence.
Because it's just trash. I'm going to go ahead and put out the truth right here, right now, and I'm going to interrupt you. If you're a servant listener, you won't interrupt. If you're a servant listener, then if you don't know what to say, you're going to ask questions. If you don't know what to say after that, you're gonna.
Ask more questions. If you still don't know what to say after that, You just repeat what the other person said back to them. Honestly, that will resolve. 90% of the communication problems in your relationship. Because sometimes What they want is a companion in their pain, not a solution to their problem.
Right?
Sometimes that's 90% of it is: I just am expressing myself because I need somebody to feel what I feel. Can I tell you where I learned this? I didn't learn this in my marriage, I learned this from Delta Airlines. Delta lost my luggage on one of my trips back. And normally, you know, I just kind of roll with it, but I was mad.
I had rage, malice, anger, clamor, slander, all of them. I had them all bound up in one.
So I walk into that little lost luggage office and I walk in there, and there's this dude behind the desk, just kind of like just a big old smile on his face. And I was like, I'm about to go Old Testament on this guy. And. I'm looking at him because I'm like, please don't, please don't go to our church because I've had that happen before, where I go off on somebody and be like, hey, Pastor JD, and I'm like, oh, sorry about that. But he didn't look familiar, and so I just, I mean, I just, for two and a half minutes, I just, I just told him the way things were.
And he's listening to me, and he said, He goes, Yeah, I can't repeat what he said because he cussed like a sailor. He goes, bleepity, bleep. Those stupid blankety blanks, they're such idiots. They're always doing stuff like that. And I was like He's as mad as I am about this.
And I totally felt better. I mean, really, I was like, oh, yeah. And then he starts, you know, doing this thing in his computer. I know he's not doing anything. And he knows that I know he's just tapping on his computer.
Like, oh, he's working on it. But my anger was completely gone. It was completely gone because in that moment, he felt my pain. And I was like, that's. That's awesome because he didn't do anything to resolve it.
He just felt my pain. That made me feel bad. I walk by that baggage office now at RDU Airport, and I'm always like, that's my man right there. I'll see him in there. There are places in your relationship.
Listen, guys, she is not a problem to be solved, she's a person to be heard. Be kind to one another. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. You are listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. Pastor JD, our mission at Summit Life is to take people deeper into the gospel and then help them advance the gospel wider into their world.
It's a big goal. Tell us, what exactly do we mean by that? Yeah, Molly, this is what we are all about at Summit Life. You see, when the gospel goes deeper into somebody, when they truly understand it, the deeper they go, the wider they go in mission. Yeah, definitely.
So that's why we here at Summit Life work so hard to create resources that enable you to do that. Daily broadcasts, TV programs, podcasts, devotionals, Bible studies, these resources, the messages, they're all designed to help you not just hear the gospel, but to internalize it, to go deep in it. Yes. And to let it shape every part of your life, but don't let it stop there. What Paul says is it goes deep in you so that it can go wider into the world.
Jesus didn't want us just to believe, he wanted us to go. We honestly believe the greatest thing that you can invest in is the Word of God getting to people. My dad used to always tell me, son, there's only two things in life that truly lasts forever: the word of God and the souls of people. Sure, you build your life on both.
So, if you have been impacted by this ministry, I'd love for you to consider joining our ministry team. Together, we can take the life-changing hope of Jesus deep into the hearts of others. And then, here's the great thing: it multiplies wider through them into the world. Trust me, that's an investment that will echo in eternity. When you join us in this mission, we'd like to get you a copy of Pastor JD's book titled Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart.
Your gift is what keeps Pastor JD's gospel-centered teaching on the radio and web. Every time someone hears the gospel for the first time on this program, it's thanks to you. To give right now, call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or you can give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich.
Be sure to join us again tomorrow when Pastor JD concludes this message on conflict called Fighting Jesus Style. See you Thursday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
