Life is War, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Alcohol adds excitement to your life by giving you a cheap thrill. The Spirit adds excitement to your life by bringing you into the presence of God where there is fullness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore. You don't need a fifth of Jack. You need a fill-in of Jehovah. You don't need absolute vodka. You need absolute truth. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Bitovitch. Now, there's no doubt that we'll all have hard days, and in fact, sometimes hard seasons. So when life is inevitably hard, where do you turn for comfort? Some people lean on alcohol or sex.

Others turn to more subtle crutches like binging TV shows or overeating. But no matter what form our vices take, they're never really going to fill us the way that we want them to, and they most certainly won't remove the difficulties. So today, Pastor J.D. reveals the only true cure for our broken and hurting hearts.

It's part of our study at Ephesians called Mystery and Clarity, and Pastor J.D. titled this message, Life is Work. If you are going to grow with God, it's not going to happen naturally. You've got to intend to do it. You've got to choose to do it.

If you're going to grow with your family, you've got to choose to do that. You don't just have extra time laying around to figure out how to do that. It's like your budget. You're going to tithe. You don't wait to how much money you have at the end of the month.

You do it at the beginning. You see what I'm getting at? If you're going to get to know unbelievers, if you're going to share Christ with people, you've got to intend to do that. You've got to choose to do that. Otherwise, just the tedium of the world takes you the opposite direction because it doesn't value God.

You hear what I'm saying? I'm not saying that you're not going to do this because you're out worshipping Satan. I'm saying you don't do it just because you lose time.

College students, listen. If you're going to grow with God this summer, it's not just going to happen. It's going to be because you go home and set a plan. It's going to be because you set priorities. It's going to be because you intentionally prioritize those things that will help you grow. Stay at home, mom. If you're going to grow with God, it's not just going to happen.

Because one of your kids is always going to need your attention. It's going to be because you established that that is a big rock and you were going to devote time to it. Y'all, Jesus told the disciples to pray that they would not enter into temptation. Remember this? Garden of Gethsemane? They slept because they were tired, and as a result, temptation overcame them when it was presented to them.

It's the same still for us today. If you don't take time for God to search your heart, if you don't devote attention to prayer, you are dead. That's what happened with the disciples. That's what's happening with you. You've got to be intentional about those things.

Is this making sense? Number three. So far, how to engage in warfare. Point one was to look carefully at how we walk. Point two is to be intentional with our time. Point three, verse 18. Do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Number three. Choose the Spirit, not the spirits, to deal with life.

I know it's a little cheesy, but maybe you'll remember it. Choose the Spirit, not the spirits, to deal with life. Check this out. Life is hard. Anybody disagree with that? Lots of pressures. If you don't believe that, then just have kids.

You'll change your mind. Lots of pressures, lots of disappointment, and most everybody learns throughout their life that life is difficult. Paul identifies the two ways people most often deal with life's pressures and anxieties. By the way, when I say alcohol here, I'm not saying, because some of you are like, well, I don't have a problem with alcohol, so this doesn't apply to me. This is really anything that is a means by which you cope with life's pressures. So it may not be alcohol for you, it may be busyness or something else, but just let me use alcohol since that's what he used. The first way that people deal with life's pressures is alcohol. The second is the Spirit of God. Now, there's a lot of similarities to what the Spirit does in your life and what alcohol does in your life. Do you believe that?

Check this out. People drink because they're worried. The Spirit of God gives you the peace that passes all understanding. Some people drink to get courage. Well, Acts says that when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were filled with boldness. Some people drink because they're having problems, and alcohol for them becomes an escape.

Romans 5 says the Spirit of God sheds abroad God's love in our hearts and assures us that we are the children of God, and that is our refuge. Some people drink because it helps them open up and be vulnerable, well, about their feelings to others. Well, the Spirit gives you the security by testifying to your spirit that you are a beloved child of God, and that gives you the security to let others see your weakness. Alcohol and the Spirit both produce some of the same things in you, but they do it, get this, in entirely different ways. Alcohol is a depressant that dulls your senses to reality. Alcohol makes you less aware of your surroundings. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, is a stimulus that makes you more aware of reality. Both alcohol and the Spirit give you a way to cope with life's difficulties, but they do it in entirely different ways. One dulls your senses to realities. One awakens your senses to greater realities.

Does that make sense? Say you were a soldier and you were fighting in a battle. You were in a foxhole.

It was just you and like three other guys. You're in this foxhole and suddenly you get word that two miles away there are 200 enemy troops. You are all by yourself and they are coming and they are going to kill you. How do you get the courage and the confidence to be able to fight them in battle with just four of you and the 200 of them out there?

How do you do that? A lot of people would use alcohol. Or you would dull your senses so that you would be brave and you could meet them with confidence. But what if you did a little reconnaissance and you found out that a half mile away there were 2,000 friendly troops. And they were headed to you. And they were going to surround you and protect you from the 200 enemy troops. That would give you a joy and a confidence in the midst of that foxhole.

You see what I'm getting at? In one of them you got confidence and bravery by dulling your senses to reality. In the other one you had a greater sense of reality that gave you confidence to face the same thing. The Holy Spirit gives you a way to cope by opening your eyes to the reality of God. Alcohol gets rid of worry by making you forget. The Spirit gets rid of worry by helping you remember. Alcohol gives you courage by making you unaware of the dangers around you. The Spirit gives you courage by making you aware of how much larger God is than the fears that are around you. Alcohol adds excitement to your life by giving you a cheap thrill.

The Spirit adds excitement to your life by bringing you into the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore. You don't need a fifth of Jack. You need a fill-in of Jehovah.

You don't need absolute vodka. You need absolute truth. Commentators point out that Ephesians 5, 18-20 and Colossians 3, 16, and 17, one of Paul's other letters, are parallel passages. And in order to understand the one, you've got to understand the other. Ephesians 5, 18-20. Be filled with the Spirit. Watch this. Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's Ephesians 5.

Watch this. Colossians 3. Colossians 3, 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Now watch. Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Did you hear that? Same passage.

Same one. Except for one phrase. And that one phrase is in Ephesians 5. He says be filled with the Spirit. And in Colossians 3, he switches it to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. You know what that shows you? It shows you that in the mind of Paul, being filled with the Spirit and having the word of Christ dwell in you richly is the exact same thing.

That's very important. That's what it means to be filled with the Spirit. In Ephesians 3, watch this, Paul had prayed in Ephesians 3 that we would be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. That you may be, see this phrase, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. How are you filled with all the fullness of God? You comprehend what is the breadth and length and the height and the depth of God's love for you.

Do you get that? You're like, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? It's to have a knowledge, a present knowledge of how much God loves you.

You're like, what do those words mean? Length and breadth and height and depth. Length of God's love. In Ephesians, Paul has explained that God has loved you from eternity past and will love you for eternity past. That there was never a time that God did not know about you and love you and that there is nothing you can do in the future to change God's love for you. That's the length of God's love. The breadth or let's go height of God's love. The height of God's love. Psalm 103 says, as high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how great his love is for those of us who are his children. What that means is when you get out your telescope or you look at some of these images from the Hubble telescope and you see the farthest star, that is the dimension God used to measure the intensity of his passion for you.

How much he cares about your pain, how much he cares about you. The breadth of God's love, what's that a reference to? Well again, Ephesians 1 has explained that there's not a molecule in the universe that is outside of God's control. And that God has marshaled every molecule in our universe for your good and his glory. Which means that you never have to worry about something happening to you that is going to derail his plan for your life. The breadth of God's love is as wide as the universe.

God controls everything for the purposes that he has on earth. The depth of God's love, what's that? That's a reference, Ephesians 2, to the fact that God reached down into the grave to the sin that we had rebelled against him with and came to earth to live a life that we should have lived and then to die a cursed death that we should have died so that he could save us. It refers to how deep God had to reach to save you. And Paul says when you get your mind around the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of God's love, when that word of Christ dwells in you richly, then the Spirit fills you. You can cope with life's difficulties. You see that? That's a much better way to deal with life's problems than getting jacked up on Grandpa's old cough medicine, isn't it?

Yeah, right? We need to be filled with the Spirit so we won't turn to things like alcohol or pornography or overworking or mindless, tedious entertainment or extramarital affairs to deal with life's pressure. And that's why Paul gives you the commands of the next verses.

So again, just to make sure you're following along here, how do we engage in warfare? Number one, look carefully at how we walk. Number two, be intentional with your time. Number three, choose the Spirit, not the spirits, to deal with life's problems. Number four, verse 19, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

Here's number four, sing a new song constantly in your heart. I love this. Verse 19, look at this. He's telling them to remind themselves constantly of God's great love on their behalf. Here's what's interesting.

Watch, watch, watch. It's interesting that he tells them to do it through music. Watch, he didn't tell them to quote scripture to themselves. He didn't tell them to listen to sermons on your iPod.

Not that there's anything wrong with those things. But he chose music. Why? Why would he choose music there? Is that because he's a worship pastor and he wants to really exalt music?

No. It's because songs communicate emotion and worship. Remember a few weeks ago I explained to you that gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in your hearts?

Remember that? It's only when the beauty of God captivates your heart that you'll actually change. And when a heart is captivated by beauty, that is better represented by a guy with a song in his heart than it is by a guy who can quote verses or explain doctrines. To be saved means that you are in love with Jesus, not knowledgeable about doctrine only.

That's why I have told you I want you to study Jesus, but not like the seminarian studies doctrine. But like someone would study a sunset that left them speechless. Or the way that a man who was in love with his wife studied his wife until the music of her beauty burst alive in his heart. And his rapture with her beauty drove out all the other enticements for other women. That's what it means. That's why Paul is saying that.

Because to be saved means you get swept up into a song that becomes so beautiful to you and so forming in your heart that it makes you dull to the music of the world around you because you've got a greater beauty. The other day I was driving down I-40 and I saw the little summit church sticker on the back of a car and I didn't recognize a car so I was like I'm going to go see who this is. Because I always like to freak people out. I like to drive up by them and I kind of look at them. They recognize me as the pastor.

I just kind of shake my head and keep driving. So I pull up next to this guy and this guy, I don't even know who he is. He might be here.

I didn't recognize him. I mean just clearly in his car, worshipping at the top of his lungs. Just singing and I was trying to get his attention because I was like I know this will humiliate him if he sees me seeing him do this. And he would not pay any attention to me or anybody.

He was oblivious to what was going on. He was just so caught up in the midst of this moment. And I thought not that you have to do that everywhere you drive around but I thought that's actually a really good picture of what it means to walk with Jesus. Is that your heart is so captivated by beauty that you're not really aware of a lot of other things because you're swept up into this beauty of this God that you have suddenly become a part of. That's much better than what happened to me by the way a little while ago.

I was, listen I'll tell you the truth about it. About every six months I listen to one of my own sermons. Only every six months. Because I do it because I like to hear all the little annoying speaker things that I do and you can hear that when you listen to yourself.

I was doing that only every six months. And I was in my car and I had the windows down so I had to have it turn up really loud. I mean clearly right? So I had to have it turned up loud. Well I come up to a stoplight.

Before I have time to turn it down somebody from the Summit Church pulls up next to me with their windows down and there's me sitting in my car listening to myself at full blast. I was like, no! No, no, no. I'm scratching my nose.

Not picking. I promise. Look, look. Whoever you are I'm not nearly as narcissistic as that made me seem.

Okay? Only every six months. But the point is, look. To be saved means you get swept up into the beauty of worship. So we are commanded to sing a new song constantly in our hearts and we're also commanded, number five, to sing that new song to others. See that verse 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? Like what does that mean? Does it mean we walk around to each other and we're like, hello?

How are you? You know, I mean it's like we're in a musical. I went to see Wicked the other night at the Durham Performing Arts Center and my wife and I, Durham had a baseball game and it was a mess downtown so we were late. It wasn't our fault. We were late.

And so if you don't get there on time for this particular show, they actually hold you out until about ten minutes out. And so my wife and I are sitting out with a small group of people who all got there late. We're sitting out there, you know, ashamed. And I'm, you know, like no big deal. It's like whatever, you know. And this girl beside me who didn't come with us, she was, I mean she was distraught. She was crying and she said, you gotta let me in.

She's like, I don't know what's going on. What if I miss something? What if I miss part of that? And I was like, look, plot movements in these things take about 45 minutes. One guy makes one statement and then they all dance around about it for about 45 minutes, right?

You're not missing anything, I promise. He's not saying your life is a musical where you sing to each other all the time. What he's saying is, our love for Jesus is constantly put on a display in a way that entices other people to the beauty of Jesus.

That's what he means. So we're singing this song to others. That happens in a big way right here in worship.

We see this all the time. A lot of times, I cannot tell you how many times somebody who is not a Christian comes and they're not persuaded to open their heart to Jesus through a sermon that I give. Or through the logic of an argument, but they're persuaded when they are captivated by the beauty of Jesus they see put on display in worship.

For example, Anne Lamott, which if you're into literature you know who that is, a popular novelist, for a while she was an adamant non-Christian. Recently became a Christian and she said she was first attracted to God through the music of a local church. She said before she could even stand to sit through a sermon, the music revealed to her God's beauty and redemptive power. She said, and I quote, when I was in the worship service, something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender. Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries that kept me feeling so isolated, sitting there and then eventually standing with them to sing, sometimes so spiritually aching and sick that I felt like I might tip over. As I sang God's praises, I began to feel bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of. It was almost like I was being tricked into coming back into life. God was tricking me through music. Y'all, we see this all the time at our church.

In fact, some of you, it's exactly why you're here right now. There's something that is curious to you and there's a beauty that you're hearing, it's echoing in your heart. And it's not becoming because of the force of my logic, it's coming because your heart is hearing a tune. And I'm speaking, yes, metaphorically, it's hearing a tune of beauty and that's happening through worship.

That leads me to the last thing I'm going to tell you here, number six. That means you've got to be around the people of God. That's the last command for being involved in this warfare, be around the people of God. Verse 19, you've got to be close enough to the people of God that you can hear the song in their hearts. Ephesians chapter five is one of the 58 one another passages in the New Testament. Love one another, pray for one another, admonish one another. Here it is, address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

And guys, you can only do this if you are around. So the implication for many of you is clear. You need to get off the sidelines and get involved in the church. Some of you have been here for entirely too long as a spectator and you've got to get connected. Some of you need to join the church.

This is not a membership drive, okay. I'm just talking about, you know, we need to have you on the roll. I mean, you've got to become a part of this place and not just somebody who says it's an audience. You've got to join up with a small group that told you you can only have access to the power of God when you are intimately connected to the people of God. Because the people of God are the means by which God's power flows.

See, you need to get connected here. Frequenting the community of God is the only answer to gradual backsliding. So there you have it. Life is war. These six ways, did you get them?

Look carefully on how you walk, be intentional with your time, choose the Spirit, sing a new song, sing to each other, and be around the people of God. That's how you engage in warfare. You get this. If you coast, you die.

If you coast, you die. Now, some of you are like, yeah, I don't get this though. I mean, I can do these six things, but I don't have a song coming out of my heart. If anything, the music in my heart is more like a groan. It's more like confusion.

It's more like pain. And I don't want to become a hypocrite. I don't want to fake. I don't want to pretend like everything inside of my heart is beautiful when it's not. I understand. Let me tell you where that starts, that song begins to change.

Stay with me real quick. Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2 says that Jesus, one of the main things that he did when he saved us is he put a new song in our heart. And when the writer of Hebrews says that, he quotes follow, he quotes Psalm 22, because the last verse of Psalm 22 says that Jesus will put a new song in the congregation. Psalm 22 is the song that Jesus quoted on the cross. Psalm 22, one, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22 is a song of abandonment. Jesus quoted that song because he was living that song. He was being abandoned by God because of my sin.

He was suffering the penalty that I had brought on myself, which brought into my life all that confusion and all that pain. Watch, because Jesus sang the song of abandonment for me, I can sing the song of reconciliation and joy in him. You want to know where that song changes in your heart? It's when you receive the fact that Jesus sang the song of salvation for you.

When you realize that he sang the song of abandonment for you, your heart will be filled with the song of joy. You want to know where to start? You start with the gospel. It's where you always start. You having trouble saying no to sin in your life?

You want to know where to start? You grasp that Jesus, the reason he sang that song of abandonment was because of your sin. And as the weight of that salvation comes into your heart, it will drive away your enticements for sin because you'll be captured by the beauty of the love that God showed you in the cross. Start with the gospel.

Always start with the gospel and let it change that song. Have you experienced the love of Jesus in your life? If not, let me encourage you to learn more about what it means to be a follower of Christ by visiting our website or giving us a call. You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor and author J.D.

Greer. And you can always find more information at our website, jdgreer.com. Today's message is such a beautiful reminder of the love of God. But I think for a lot of people, it can be hard to believe that God actually loves them, especially when life is hard. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to hide scripture in our hearts so that when life cuts us, we bleed the word of God. Our latest Bible study follows our current teaching series here on the program called Mystery and Clarity, and it has a new feature in it. Since 2021 is the year of memorizing God's word for us here at Summit Life, we've included a scripture memory component in this latest resource. You're welcome to request a copy of the study today when you donate to support this ministry at the suggested level of twenty five dollars or more. The Bible study is our way of saying thanks because your donations make Summit Life possible. When someone hears the gospel through this program, it's thanks to listeners like you who invest in the mission of God through this program.

So give today and be sure to ask for your copy of the Mystery and Clarity study. Call eight six six three three five fifty two twenty. That's eight six six three three five fifty two twenty or go online to JD Greer dot com.

I'm Molly Bedovitch. Be sure to listen tomorrow when Pastor JD Greer reveals that God actually has a bigger purpose for our marriages than just our own happiness. That's Friday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.