First in Everything

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. God does not want your religion. God does not want your moral behavior. God does not want your tithes and your offering. God wants your surrender. He deserves the first place. You and I are accepted by the free gift of Jesus because he purchased us from death.

But what that means is because he's first and he went first, he deserves the first place in everything. Not the church stuff, not the prayer stuff, not the song stuff. He wants it all. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor and teacher J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Bidevich. You know, I think sometimes we view our faith as a bunch of check boxes on a list. We go to church on the weekends and check that box, pray at dinner and check that box and move on with our day. But right now, Pastor J.D.

reminds us that Jesus isn't one part of our life. He's first in everything. He's not only at the top of the list, he's actually the whole list. So that's what he titled today's message, First in Everything.

Let's join with him now. We are in our fourth week of a five-week series to the book of Colossians called First. Our hope in this season is that you will have a defining moment where you choose to put Jesus first in the area of your time, your talent, and your treasures. We are working our way through the book of Colossians because Paul's theme in this great little letter is that Jesus ought to be first in our lives because Jesus was first in creation.

He literally created everything. He's God, so he's first in creation. Then Paul explains he went first in salvation.

He sought us when we weren't looking for him. Therefore, Paul says he should be first in our prioritization. Jesus is first. He went first.

Therefore, we should put him first. Today, we're going to see how Paul instructs the Colossians to put Jesus first in the 90% of their lives that don't take place in church or that don't really have any religious overtones whatsoever. The first part of Colossians 3, what we saw was that Paul explains that the Colossians thought of their lives in buckets. Think of this as, we're going to call it the Jesus bucket, or the Jesus bucket here. That's the bucket that eternal salvation goes in. Man, Jesus is important in this bucket.

You've got to have him in the right place. But then they had the everything else bucket, and that was all the things outside of religion, job security and prosperity and satisfaction and success in their relationships. It's not that they kicked Jesus out of these things.

It's just that they thought of him as not that relevant when it came to those particular questions. What Paul explains in the book of Colossians, what he's in the middle of explaining in chapter 3, is that Jesus is actually the whole bucket. Everything else goes inside of Jesus, and that to put Jesus first in everything means that he's first in not just the areas of eternal salvation and religion, but he's first in every relationship and in every decision that you make. This has profound implications for us. If you take notes, I want you to write down the title of this message as simply first in everything.

First in everything. Paul is going to pick up in verse 12 where he is explaining that we have a new identity, a new identity that should redefine every interaction that we have. Here's what he begins to say in verse 12. Therefore, as God's chosen ones, that's you, holy and clearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anybody has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also are to forgive.

That's your new identity. You are people that have been deeply loved and forgiven, and therefore that should shape how you focus or how you respond in any situation. Then he kind of gets to his conclusion in verse 17 where he says, whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything. How many things?

Everything. Literally everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. In every interaction, not just the spiritual ones or the church ones or the religious one, in literally everything that you do, you should be able to say in the name of the Lord Jesus. By the way, a lot of Christians will close the prayers that they pray with this little phrase in Jesus' name, amen.

Let me give you a little insider secret if you're new to Christianity. Most Christians don't have the foggiest idea what that means or why they say it. If anything, they think it's a way of signaling to God that you're about done with your prayer, like saying TTYL over a text. It's like, hey, talk to you later, God.

Just want you to know I'm ending this prayer and I'm landing the blame. But that is not the point of saying in Jesus' name. When you say in Jesus' name, what you're saying is, God, I'm acknowledging that I'm asking for these things according to Jesus' will. I'm doing them for Jesus' glory and I'm going to accomplish them in Jesus' power. What Paul is saying is that we ought to be able to say that phrase over literally everything that we do, which means you sit down at your desk chair and you open your inbox to begin the day. When you send that first email, you can send it out with the subject line, in Jesus' name. You meet up with a friend for lunch. You can tell them the reservation that you're going to go under is going to be, in Jesus' name. A person tries to merge in traffic ahead of you. You can let them in, in Jesus' name.

You get off work early to go see a movie with a friend or play golf. You can do that, in Jesus' name. Literally everything that you do, you need to be able to say over it, in Jesus' name.

Now, be clear. I am not advocating that you actually start verbalizing that because that would sound weird. You're at Starbucks and you're paying the barista and you're like, in Jesus' name. Christians already are thought of as weird enough. Don't start that because they already think we're crazy.

So don't do that. But the point is, Paul is saying in literally every interaction, you can do it in Jesus' name, which means everything that you do. You can do first and foremost as an offering to Jesus in every word that you say, every breath that you breathe, every move that you make.

Yes, He's watching you. And yes, you can do it first and foremost for Him. Paul then goes on to unpack what that looks like in a series of honestly rather mundane, typical relationships that every Colossian would have had in their lives and that you have in your life, or most of them, at least. You've got wives with husbands and husbands with wives, then children to parents and servants to masters and masters to servants and employees to bosses and bosses to employees.

Basically, everybody, as a friend of mine says, everybody is going to participate in these kinds of relationships. And the point is, every interaction and every second of these relationships is done first and foremost to Jesus. You might look like you were doing things for that person and to that person, but you're actually doing those things first and foremost for Jesus, because in your life, you have an audience of one and He is the first person you respond to in anything. So He brings a section to a really powerful close in verse 23 when He says, whatever you do, whatever you do, do it from the heart of something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord, because you, you serve the Lord Christ at church. Well, certainly there, of course, in ministry.

Well, yes, there also, but not just those places. Literally in every place, every step, every word, every thought is first and foremost done as an offering to Him. When you are making a decision about how to respond to that person that cuts you off in traffic, you are responding first and foremost to Jesus. You might feel like that person does not deserve your patience and they may not, but the question is what Jesus deserves and what you do is first and foremost an offering to Him. When you are pursuing your job, verse 22, you were doing it first and foremost as an offering to Jesus. Your boss might be a jerk, a total jerk, and he or she may not even recognize the value you bring to the company and may not pay you what you're worth, and there is certainly a time for you to take that up and address that with them later, but you are doing your work. Your work is done first and foremost not for him or her.

It's done for Jesus. Your boss may not deserve your best, but Jesus always does. When I am figuring out how to respond to my wife, verse 19, who has been unfairly impatient with me all day, I am responding first and foremost to Jesus. I may not feel like she deserves a kind and tender response, but he always does. She may feel like her husband does not deserve another day of her faithful patient service and love, that he's taken her for granted again for the 1000th time and that he doesn't deserve any more of her patience, and that might be true, but Jesus does, and she responds first and foremost to him, not to me. Children, verse 20, your parent or your parents may not be perfect.

I can assure you, especially if your last name is Greer, that they are not. They are not perfect, but they are the God-appointed authority in your life at this time, and what Paul is saying is how you obey them and how you respect them is how you respect and respond to him. You respond to him first and foremost and only to them secondly. By the way, please understand that none of this, none of this that I'm going over is instructing you to stay in some kind of abusive relationship. If you are in one of those abusive types of relationships or you got questions about that, you need to let somebody know immediately. Enabling abuse is not loving to the abuser, it's not loving to you, and it's not honoring to God. What Paul simply means is that in the course of normal relationships, normal relationships, we do what we do first and foremost as an offering to Jesus.

That applies, he says, literally to everything. Whatever you do, whatever you do, do it from the heart. It's something done for the Lord and not for people, whether it's your schoolwork or whether it's your hobbies or your playtime or whatever, do it for Jesus, not just the spiritual church parts of your life. There is not one square inch of your entire life over which Jesus does not emphatically declare mine. I've told you before the dilemma of many people trying to figure out what it means to serve Jesus in their jobs, and sometimes they come up with just some really crazy ideas. I think I've told you before, 2004 Wall Street Journal article, an American Airlines pilot went down with his church on a mission trip to Guatemala, and man just got all fired up for Jesus, right?

And praise God for that. He comes back and he just wants to tell everybody about Jesus. So he's an American Airlines pilot, so they're taxiing down the runway down there in Atlanta, and he gets on the intercom and his little speaker says to me, he's like, hey folks, just want to know real quick before we take off, how many of you on the plane are born again Christians?

Handful of people sort of sheepishly raise their hand. He's like, great. He's like, I can't see you, but I'm sure there's some of you on the plane. He goes, I got a question for the rest of you. If we don't make it to our destination, if this plane blows up in midair, do you know for sure what's going to happen to you when you die?

Right? He says, if not, I would invite you to talk to one of these people that just raised their hand and ask them to explain to you the way of eternal life. Now you got to commend the guy for his zeal, right? We want to share Christ anywhere and everywhere, but that's not what we're talking about, right?

Yes, you should look for places and opportunities to share Christ. I'm not pooh-poohing that. I'm just telling you that when Paul says to do what you do in the name of the Lord Jesus, he's not only talking about that. In fact, I don't think he's talking about that at all. What he's talking about is the way that you, if you're a pilot, take off, and the way that you land, and the way that you treat people while you're flying, and even the way that you try to train up other people to share the power and privilege that you have enjoyed, that's all to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus.

It's all to be done for him. You see, here is the alternative. Again, the alternative is that you compartmentalize your life and you got a Jesus bucket, and what belongs to Jesus goes there. This is what the Colossians did. That's the salvation religious life bucket, and of course, Jesus comes first.

But then you got all this other stuff. Again, job satisfaction, relational success, or just your happiness in life, and you think, well, Jesus just doesn't seem that relevant there. Again, you're not like rejecting him or denying him. You just think he's not that important to be first there. You think of him a little bit, but not first, and Paul says, no, he is first. He is first in everything. Jesus is first.

He went first, and therefore, he should come first in your life. You see, when you think of your life in buckets, you tend to think of religion as this set of obligations that you've got to fulfill in order to have freedom and autonomy and blessing over in these areas. So you tend to think of questions like, how much do I have to go to church in order to keep God happy?

What's the new standard in our day? What do I got to do to keep God happier? Or you ask questions like, how morally do I have to live so I can stay on God's good side? Well, God's got a grade and a curve, so what's the curve? How do you make sure you're on the right side of the bell curve to make sure that you get a passing grade? Or you think questions like, how much of my money do I have to give in order to keep God off my back?

Right? I mean, you think of your giving kind of like a God tax that you got to pay to God so that you can go on with freedom in life. I mean, that's how I think about my normal taxes, right? I mean, I think, how much do I have to give to the IRS?

How much do I have to give so that they will leave me alone with the other part of the money that I have? And that's how people think of when they think of this Jesus bucket over here, so they got freedom over here. And Paul says, no, Christ owns it all, because Jesus is first, and He went first, and because He saved you. Therefore, you ought to be doing His will, and He ought to be coming first as much in these areas as He is in this one, because ultimately everything is done in the name of the Lord Jesus. It is first and foremost as an offering to Him.

You live for an audience of one. You respond to one person. He is first. He went first.

Therefore, He should be first in everything. There's a story in the Old Testament of a man who exemplifies this bucket's approach to God. It is a man that you may recognize, his name. In fact, he shares a name with the author of Colossians.

Paul's previous name was Saul, and I can't prove to you that Paul was thinking about Saul when he wrote Colossians chapter 3, but he certainly could have been, because Saul exemplifies what Paul is writing against here in Colossians chapter 3. Saul's story is a very tragic one. He was the first king in Israel. It actually started out pretty awesome. He was chosen to be king because he was super good looking, and because of his upstanding moral character, he had a great reputation. He literally stood head and shoulders above everybody else. He was the obvious choice for king, and when Saul got chosen to be king, not a single person in all of Israel was surprised.

At first, things went awesome. Everybody was happy. His first hundred days were amazing.

There were a lot of victories. Everybody was singing Saul's praises. But then we come to 1 Samuel 15, which epitomizes his life. Samuel, who is the prophet of God at the time, says to King Saul, thus says the Lord of hosts, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Verse 3, now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have.

A little historical context here. The Amalekites were the sworn and perpetual enemies of Israel. As you can see in those verses, it went all the way back to the Exodus. When Israel was fleeing Egypt without a standing army, they didn't have any weapons. They were vulnerable.

They didn't have enough food to make it throughout the day. The Amalekites saw them in this vulnerable position and thought, let's go take their stuff. And so they came down and attacked Israel. Well, God delivered Israel from the Amalekites, but God never forgot them taking advantage of the vulnerable.

And to make matters worse, for the next three or four hundred years, more often than not, when somebody was attacking the Israelites, he was always the Amalekites. And so by 1 Samuel 15, God's like, that's it. I've had it. That's enough. This is a cruel, a violent, and an exploited people. We're just going to, it's over. The Amalekites are finished. So I want you, Saul, to go and take Israel's armies, and I want you to destroy them.

All right? Very important. This was not supposed to be a revenge war for Israel. This was divine judgment.

God had simply chosen Israel to be his instrument in that judgment. Therefore, God told Saul, do not touch anything of the Amalekites. This is, you're not supposed to get rich off this war.

There's supposed to be no spoils of war here. This is not about you. This is about me. This is my judgment against them.

You are simply the instrument. So don't touch their stuff. King Saul goes and does what God says, sort of. Verse seven, and Saul defeated the Amalekites, but Saul and the people spared Agag, that was the king of the Amalekites, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, everything that they liked, you know, all their nice clothes, and their Air Jordan shoes, and stuff like that, they took them for themselves, and they would not utterly destroy them.

Okay, now a couple of textual notes here before we move on that you might miss. First of all, sparing Agag was not an act of mercy. In those days, to keep an enemy king in your dungeon alive was like a trophy. It's like when you hunt, you know, putting a deer head up on your wall, or something like that. Look at what I've conquered. And so really cool kings would have a bunch of other kings in their basements, in their dungeons, so when they had a party, they could bring them out and be like, look at all these kings that I've conquered. And what Saul is doing is he's putting this king in his basement so that he can show everybody how awesome he is. Second, you can't see this in English, but that verb spared in Hebrew is singular, even though Saul and the people would be plural.

That wouldn't make sense in English, but in Hebrew, it's always an indication that it applies to the first subject and not the second one. So what you're seeing is that this decision to spare Agag and all the cool stuff was not the people's decision. It was all Saul's decision. This is all about him. Okay, so verse 10, God speaks to Samuel, his spokesperson, and he says, Samuel, I regret that I've made Saul king because he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. So Samuel rises up early in the morning to meet Saul, and as Samuel gets close to where Saul is, it's told to Samuel. Well, Saul's gone to Carmel and get this, behold, he has set up a monument for himself. So who does Saul think this whole thing is about? It's not about God.

It's about him. And he set up a monument for himself. So Saul hears that Samuel was coming now. And so Saul goes out to meet him and he says, you can just hear the sanctimonious tone, can't you? Blessed be you of the Lord. I have performed all the commandments of the Lord, bless you and amen and hallelujah. Samuel, who's more of a get right down to business kind of guy, he just skips all the pleasantries and says, well, then if you have performed the commandment of the Lord, which was to destroy everything that belonged to the Amalekites, then what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?

And I noticed you got a new pair of Air Jordans on your feet. Where does it come from, Saul? And Saul says, well, hold on, hold on, hold on. They have brought them, who's they, the people from the Amalekites. Now, you know why I nerded out on you a minute ago and showed you it was Saul. It had nothing to do with people, but Saul was like, it was them, not me. They brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen.

What was I supposed to do, man? I mean, they wanted to do it and they did it. Why did they do it? Oh, they did it to sacrifice to the Lord your God. The rest, the rest of it, we have devoted to destruction, just like God said, but we kept some of the really good stuff back because we wanted to tithe on it. And so we gave God his tax, Samuel.

So man, don't worry about it. We've given God his due. We gave God the sheep and the oxen.

And so I'm sure he's happy. Verse 16, then Samuel said to Saul, Saul, stop it, shut up. The Lord sent you on a mission and he said, go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Why did you pounce on the spoil? Why did you treat what belonged to God as if it belonged to you? You stole it and now you've done what was evil on the side of the Lord. Why did you seize for yourself anything that belonged to God?

And Saul said to Samuel, no, no, no, man, you still don't understand. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I went on the mission on which the Lord sent me.

I did 98% of what he asked me to do. And I've even tithed to him on the rest of it. And Samuel said, Saul, and y'all this statement always sends chills down my spine. Has the Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in just obeying the voice of the Lord? Is this what God wants, Saul? You think God is so bored and poor and lonely that he's up in heaven and he wants some sheep and some oxen?

Is that what it's about? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. And just to listen and do what God says is better than all the fat of rams. Y'all, and then one of the most jolting verses in all of scripture for rebellion is as the sin of divination, sorcery, or some of your translations say witchcraft and presumption, which means that you do with what you have, what you want instead of what God wants. Presumption is as iniquity or idolatry worshiping another God. It's like bowing down to an idol.

I want you to let this sink in for a minute. To take any part of what belongs to God and act like it belongs to you is tantamount to worshiping the devil, even if you tithe on it, even if you're a super awesome moral person and you are the best of the best, even if you come to church every week, and even if you never miss small group, because God does not want your religion. God does not want your moral behavior. God does not want your tithes and your offering. God wants your surrender.

He deserves the first place. You see, thank God that you and I are no longer accepted like Saul thought he was gonna be accepted by how much he did for God. You and I are accepted by the free gift of Jesus because he purchased us from death. But what that means is because he's first and he went first, he deserves the first place in everything, not the church stuff, not the prayer stuff, not the song stuff.

He wants it all. And everything that I do in every relationship I have, every sin that I call my own, in every breath that I breathe, I am obeying, living for, and seeking to glorify him. And in everything I do, I'm serving and responding to him. And whatever you do, Paul says, whatever, whatever you do, do it in word or deed. Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through him.

Whatever you do, do it from the heart. It's something done for the Lord and not for somebody else. Jesus told a story in the New Testament where he makes almost the exact same point. A very rich man who goes away in a trip. So he chooses three of his servants and he leaves different amounts of money with them. One, he leaves five talents.

A talent, think of it like $10,000. So he leaves $50,000 to one guy, two talents to the next guy, that's $20,000. And one guy, he gives $10,000. And he says to all of them, I want you to take this and I want you to invest it in my kingdom.

And I want you to multiply this money. And so the first guy goes and does what the master says, takes his five talents, turns it into 10 talents. And now he's got $100,000. Second guy takes his two, turns it into four. The third guy with the one talent, he's scared because he's afraid he's going to lose the money. So he digs a hole and he buries it. So the master comes back and he gets from the first guy the 10 talents and he says, well done, good and faithful servants.

You did with what I want you to do. Says the same thing with the second guy. Comes to the third guy, third guy digs up his stuff, hands it back to him. What Jesus says has always deeply disturbed me. The master looks at this servant and he says, you wicked servant. Here's my question. What wicked thing had he done? All he did was take the money and give it back. The only conclusion that I can have, or you can have, is that there's more than one way to be wicked in the kingdom of God. Listen to this. Way number one is you can be wicked through an egregious violation of the 10 commandments, right?

There's another way to be wicked. And that is you don't use your time, your talent and your treasures for the purposes for which God has given them to you. The primary way that we keep Christ first in our lives is to spend time with him, getting to know him through his word. Well, we have a new devotional book and a scripture guide that will help us know God better as we navigate some of the difficult emotions that we deal with.

It's called Smoke from a Fire. And tomorrow is the last day to reserve your copy. Ask for the 10-day devotional and scripture guide when you give today at the suggested level of $35 or more. It's our way of saying thanks because your financial support makes this ministry possible. So join our team of monthly gospel partners or give a one-time gift today and ask for your copy when you call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can request the new workbook resource online at JDGrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and I'm so glad to have you with us today. Join us tomorrow as Pastor JD concludes our teaching series through the Book of Colossians here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.