Being Strong in God, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Let the gospel dominate your thinking. Let it come out every pore of your face and your body. Pray in it. Think in it.

Love in it. Put on the spiritual. You ought to do that every day. I don't mean necessarily you go through and think of all the different pieces, but you ought to apply the gospel to yourself every day. You ought to learn to think through the implications of the gospel for your life every day. Welcome to Friday here on Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you show up to a presentation or an interview and you're not wearing your pants? I mean, it's terrifying.

And of course we would never do it in real life. But today pastor J.D. explains that we often forget to get dressed spiritually and we show up naked to the battle.

That's a scary proposition. It's the conclusion of our series called Mystery and Clarity. And if you missed any part of this study, you can hear it all at jdgreer.com. Now here's pastor J.D. with a message titled Being Strong in God. Second piece of armor he gives you to put on is he says, take up the breastplate of righteousness. Take up the breastplate of righteousness.

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

How you think, how you relate, what you do, all of it. Now I know that word righteousness scares some of you because it sounds really religious and you're like, righteousness? I mean, what does that mean? It's like some kind of weird holy sort of thing. Just think of the opposite of that word, wrongness, right?

Nobody wants wrongness to be a part of their life. Righteousness means that what is right, what God sees as right, the proper things to know and love, they become a part of who you are. And Paul says, cover yourself with it so that Satan doesn't have any place that he can take a habit, he can take a relationship, he can take a loss of self-control, a thing of pride, a temper and use it to destroy you or your children. The second thing I think this means is that you begin to feel like God feels when he looks at the world. Your heart begins to beat with his sense of justice, his sense of mercy, his righteousness. I learned something this week I didn't know about this passage and that is the phrase breastplate of righteousness was a Jewish image for somebody that God used to bring justice somewhere. When somebody puts on the breastplate of righteousness they're becoming God's instrument to create righteousness. Isaiah 59 is a good example. Isaiah 59 it's talking about injustice in Israel and verse 15 Isaiah 59 says this, then the Lord saw it the injustice and it displeased him that there was no justice. Verse 16, and he saw that there was no man to stand up for the afflicted. Verse 17, so he the Messiah put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. When you put on the breastplate of righteousness you begin to feel what God feels when he sees injustice. This watch this is how God motivates his people to go into the world to engage in warfare because they see situations of injustice, they see situations of poverty, they see situations of suffering and something in them just moves and says how could I not go and be a part of making that stop?

How could I look at the sex slave trade? How could I look at people who suffer? How could I look at 1.8 billion people that have never heard the name of Jesus and just do nothing about it? I've told you before that when God called me to go overseas God suddenly opened my eyes to the fact that 1.8 billion people had never heard the name of Jesus. Now up until that time I had prayed and I'm pretty sure I was sincere I'd pray God whatever you tell me to do I'll do it and I kept thinking God was going to write something in the sky you know send a random person on a train to tell me what God wanted write something in my Cheerios you know Afghanistan oh clearly Afghanistan spells it out right there right that's what I thought I really think I would have done what God told me but when God opened my eyes to 1.8 billion people that had never heard his name it didn't make sense for me to be waiting on God to tell me to do something that he had already told all of us to do when we know how he feels about those 1.8 billion does that make sense? I mean the way I compared it is you know you're walking in downtown Raleigh and you're walking by train tracks and on the train tracks there's a three-year-old kid who's paralyzed and he's laying there in the train tracks he's alive but he can't move and you see a train coming what do you do in that moment you get down your knees like God what is your will in this situation what are you calling me to do God right in the sky and God would be like no you moron get up take the kid off the tracks you know what my will is in this situation and we keep talking about finding God's will it's not lost God is not willing that any should perish we know how he feels about the nations we know how he feels about injustice we know how he feels about people that are suffering in our city and around the world right put on the breastplate of righteousness and go which leads you to the next thing he tells you about warfare as shoes for your feet put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace you see readiness means you understand God's purposes in the world you're ready to extend them you understand how God feels and that he's already paid the price for every human being in the world to live and peace with him and to live full of him and in his blessing so when I see over a billion Muslims who think that if they observe the five pillars of Islam enough then God will take them to heaven I see millions of Buddhists who think that every cycle of life they're having to pay for their sins of their previous life and instinctively you want to say no there was already one who lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death and broke the cycle of violence and having to pay for your own sins if you understand what God is doing then your feet are ready to go and you're looking for opportunity another thing about this is when Paul says in the context of warfare that your feet are covered with the preparation or the readiness of the gospel of peace it means that Christians are very quick to forgive because watch this forgiveness is what breaks the power of the enemy that's why their feet are covered with peace and ready to put peace where there is not peace because peace listen forgiveness for the believer is the most powerful tool they have in breaking the stronghold of the enemy I read a book recently about the genocide that took place in Rwanda where if you were familiar with this years ago that the Hutus massacred over 800,000 of the Tutsis the the book I was reading was by a Tutsi pastor who wrote this account of how the country of Rwanda what it did afterwards and he talked about the fact he made the statement he says the only way to overcome the work of Satan is to forgive not justice you seek justice and you're just going to continue he says the only way to break it is to forgive it even before the people you are forgiving are sorry for what they did the only way to break the cycle of violence and to overcome the work of the enemy and them is to forgive them in advance there was a story of one woman who had watched this one soldier burn her husband and son alive after this genocide after this stuff was over this soldier brought into court confessed his crime and the judge listening looks at her and asked her what she wants for justice this elderly woman in her 80s said she says well I know that God forgives this man and so I can forgive this man and she said to prove to him that my forgiveness is real I want to know if the court would allow me to embrace him here in the middle of this courtroom and if the court would require that she come to my ghetto where I live twice a month so that I can give him as a mother some of the love that I still have to give the guy writing this account said justice was not served on that day but the power of evil was broken this is the most powerful tool that you have in breaking the cycle of the enemy at work in your marriage in your family where you work many of you deal with the works of satan in your marriage on a much lesser scale your most powerful tool to break his power at work in your family in your marriage is to forgive even before the person who has wronged you has asked for forgiveness you got an ex-husband you got a past boyfriend you got something against your father mother you forgive because that shatters the power of the enemy that's how the cross worked next one above all taking the shield of faith by which we extinguish the fiery darts of the wicked one fiery darts are the lies of satan that he lobs in okay bow and arrow he lobs in these flaming arrows to you for example he tells you this situation you're in it's out of control nothing but darkness and misery ahead of you or he tells you you know that's it it's too much your divorce means that you've messed up too much to come back and have a significant life or he tells you your future is going to be full of failure just like your past has been because of the mistakes you've made god is going to spend the rest of your life trying to pay you back for screwing things up those lies are extinguished by faith faith in the god that is revealed in the gospel don't listen to your heart the gospel doesn't come out of your heart the gospel comes out of heaven and it sometimes contradicts what your heart tells you there's this phrase in ephesians that i've really been enamored with and you know that because i say it like every other week right but paul was enamored with it i'm sure which is why he said it he said he prayed for them twice they would get this he says i pray that you would understand the length and the height and the breadth and the depth of god's love the length means you understand that god has loved you from all eternity and will love you for all eternity and nothing can ever change that the height of his love means you understand the intensity of the love that he has for you the intensity and says that is measured by the highest star compared to the earth he says the breadth of god's love which means how god controls every molecule in the universe and every circumstance in your life to work his plan in you of working things for good so that you could know him and be like him and then the depth of god's love is knowing how far god had to reach how far he had to go to save you to the cross confidence in that extinguishes every dart of our enemy confidence in what the gospel tells you about the length and height and breadth and depth of god's love is what would put out the lies that are coming to you from your circumstances and from your conscience you extinguish it by confidence and the love of god before we go on to this next one that's a good place for you to stop and consider where are you the most likely not to believe god about his forgiveness of your past the security of your future about his ability to guide you in the present where are you most likely to not believe god situation in your marriage your family one other thing before i move to the next one it's just too good to pass up shield of faith okay so the romans you know this the romans had perfected this battle technique where they took their shields right you've seen gladiator right and they they all huddled together and they put them around and made this like umbrella so when you see they shoot the bow and arrow they all do that it's like a big you know dome and they can't you're fortified on every side right are you tracking with that reason number 838 to be in a small group right there right because you know that's got to be in paul's mind because everybody knew that romans made that famous you see what happens is sometimes my shield of faith is not large enough to keep me away from these fiery darts but the person that i'm connected to there's will i can't tell you how many times i've prayed in the midst of just being discouraged in the midst of anguish just hearing somebody pray and somebody believing in god and his goodness and his love and his promise toward me suddenly covers me and their faith becomes a part of my life because we share faith with each other that's why you should be in a small group right because we get this is not a small group right here that's right they're not a small group this is a big group nobody knows you clear right take up he says next the helmet of salvation i feel like i'm being repetitive here but so is paul so deal with it let the knowledge of your salvation dominate your thinking you see all of life to the gospel this kind of sums up all the others and i may have time come back to the very end but let me go on the sword of the spirit take it which is the word of god we take the word of god he said and we use it to speak life into people's lives because it is the word of god that creates faith in us creates faith in our children and creates faith in the people around us now interesting here he calls it a sword a life-giving sword which is kind of a contradiction right because normally you don't think of sword and life-giving think of it like a scalpel a scalpel is a life-giving sword now here's the catch you got to know how to use it or it's not life-giving if i'm sick and i'm at the doctor and something's wrong my heart he's like we're not really sure what's wrong so we're just going to cut you open and start rooting around in there with a scalpel until we cut something out that maybe fixes you you know i mean you know it's like no do not cut me open and use that scalpel on me until you know what you're doing what you're cutting out you got to know how to use it here's my question for you again how many of you believe that spiritual problems are less significant than physical problems you shouldn't raise your hand you shouldn't raise your hand this is church don't raise your hand okay i know that you know that i know that you believe spiritual dysfunction spiritual problems are worse than physical problems physical problems can only kill the body but spiritual problems can kill the soul let me ask you a question would you ever take your child to a doctor who studied the physical body as lazily as you study the word of god you see i want to hear you say to me yes i believe spiritual problems are more significant than physical problems and i want to say again humbly to you liar especially you parents how on earth could you not devote yourself to the word of god which is much more significant in the life and future of your child than simply where he gets into college or whether or not he's healthy when he's 17 years old you devote yourself to that word now i'm i hear i i just heard it you just esped it to me i know what you're saying you're like well you're the doctor jd you're the pastor that's what we you know that's what we pay you for is you're the guy that is the expert in god's word and it's like coming to the doctor and you apply it thank you for that compliment okay i appreciate that i really do but here's the problem i can't be with you when you need to apply the word of god to a certain situation and you don't want me to be right you get in a fight with your spouse lay down in your in your bed your blade on your head and your pillow at night you don't want me right there going huh let's talk about that one okay let's process that through the bible no i can't be there your kids we get them 40 hours throughout the year 40 hours is all we get you get your kids 3 000 hours i can't do in 40 hours what you parents have been commissioned as god's chief surgeon in your kid's life to do in 3 000 hours you have got to know the word of god reason number 839 why you need to be in a small group small group will help you learn more about how the word applies to real life situations to real life situations and put a group of people around you who will help you do it finally praying at all times he says in the spirit praying at all times in the spirit because prayer is the instrument listen that releases the healing power of god into the world so praying at all times in every situation no matter what you're up against praying in the spirit that's an important qualification by the way in the spirit and a lot of people don't understand what that means a lot of people think when he says in the spirit means you slip into some trance right you start praying things you don't even know what you're praying okay and and maybe there's some other places in the bible that talk about that but that's not what paul talks about here when he says praying in the spirit people get this idea you ever watch the show heroes you know where the guy when they start painting the future his eyes go white and then he paints like six hours later he wakes up and he doesn't know what he's just painted and people think that's what praying the spirit is you start praying eight hours later you wake up you don't even know what you're prayed in because you prayed it in a language you didn't understand anyway that's not what he's talking about in ephesians in the spirit he told you what in the spirit meant remember ephesians 3 verse 21 he says in the spirit means you understand the breadth and height and length and depth of god's love when you pray in the spirit means watch you bring the love of god you bring the knowledge of how he feels about situations you bring the knowledge that he loves people that he wants to bring healing you bring it into a situation and you release his power in it because you pray in the spirit you pray with knowledge of who he is and what he wants to do do you know that jesus's miracles most of them well maybe not a lot of them were done because somebody perceived how much he loves somebody in a situation and just asked him i know how you feel about this would you release your power one of my favorite um of these miracles is the one where that woman comes up to jesus jesus is walking through some city i don't know it's in israel and he's walking through some city and this woman comes up to him and she's an old lady from syrophoenicia wherever that is but she's a gentile and she goes up to jesus and says hey jesus would you heal my daughter because she's really sick and jesus in the most politically incorrect thing ever said or recorded in the bible looks at her and says uh you know i kind of like to but it's just not proud for me to take the bread that was meant for the children which is israel and give it to dogs and you read that you're like what where's the footnote on that one what does that mean did he just call that woman a dog is that like touchy feely jesus you know that's not you know the sunday school jesus what just happened then you find some of these commentators by the way i found a number of them which will say when jesus said dog bear he didn't mean dog he meant little puppy i'm saying a little puppy it's okay and other commentators who actually know the biblical language like no he meant dog he called her a dog and the woman responds with the most remarkable statement by a human being in the bible we know that because jesus said it was she said yes i'm a dog but she knows it's not a racial slur she know it's a statement of her unworthiness and she says i'm a dog yes but there's enough bread on the master's table that even little dogs like me can get some crumbs translation what she said is i know that i'm unworthy but there's so much grace and love that flows off of your table that even somebody like me that's unworthy there's enough love that you care even for me and my sick daughter so would you release your love here jesus turns from and said i've never seen faith like that anywhere your daughter's alive and well what prayer is in the spirit is when you perceive the love of god and you release it i would go so far as to say watch this prayer and how much you pray shows how much you get all the rest of those because prayerlessness is the sign of either extreme arrogance or extreme unbelief extreme arrogance means you don't really think you need god's help you're strong in yourself or extreme unbelief you're not really convinced that god's love is real and so you don't ask him for it if you are prayerless okay if you are prayerless which by the way what i mean by that is you pray five minutes a week one minute a day or you know one time all in five minutes you have a very lackluster prayer life if you are prayerless it's not because you're not self-disciplined it's not because you don't need to form some better habits you are prayerless because you are arrogant and unbelieving and you need to deal with the real problem if you were not arrogant you would know you needed god's help if you were believing you would know how willing he is to give it and you would find yourself praying at all times in all places because you would know how desperate you are for the power of god you would know how desperate you are for the power of god so if you're prayerless don't blame it on your lack of self-discipline don't put it in the reasons you don't diet you put it in the category that you have a belief in a gospel problem and when you understand that you can be strong and confident in god and you're weak in yourself you will pray paul miller this guy's book i read if you're not praying you are quietly confident that your time money and talent are all you really need in life you see what paul's saying here let the gospel dominate your thinking let it dominate your thinking let it come out every pore of your face and your body pray in it think in it love in it put on the spiritual armor you ought to do that every day i don't mean necessarily you go through and think about all the different pieces but you ought to apply the gospel to yourself every day you ought to learn to think through the implications of the gospel for your life every day not once a week not once every three weeks when we do communion every day apply the gospel to you the gospel is the power of god unto salvation make it the core of who you are we must re-preach the gospel to ourselves every day as you pray do so according to the compassion that jesus showed us at the cross and the power that he demonstrated through the resurrection this was pastor jd greer with the conclusion of our teaching series titled mystery and clarity right here on summit life if you missed any part of this study you can find every message and the unedited transcripts at jdgrier.com all of the online resources are available without cost getting in the way because people like you have donated to support this ministry when you give to summit life you are giving to people across the country and even around the world who are in who are in search of solid gospel-centered biblical truth and to help you get a better understanding of god's love for you and who you are in light of that we'd like to send you a copy of our exclusive summit life mystery and clarity bible study today is the last day to reserve your copy and it comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry at the suggested level of 25 or more from beginning to end the book of ephusions shows us the wonder of god's grace and the pattern of life transformation that the gospel produces chapters one through three provide doctrine and chapters four through six are practical your gospel life as you might say those things make it a great book to walk through in a study you'll definitely want to get a hold of this resource that we've created just for you ask for your copy of our new nine session study mystery and clarity the book of ephisions when you call 866-335-5220 or request the study when you give online at jdgrier.com while you're on the website you can also sign up for our email list to get ministry updates information about new resources and pastor jd's latest blog posts delivered straight to your inbox sign up when you go to jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich i hope you'll join us again next week when we begin a new teaching series that takes us through the entire bible the whole story right here on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries