One Simple Question

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. Tell me if this is you. As you go through your day, you might notice the needs and interests of other people around you, and sometimes you're even empathetic to those things.

But at the end of the day, those interests of others are almost always secondary to your own. So what do we do with this reality? Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. shows us just how important the interests of those we truly love are. We're studying Chapter 5 of the Book of Ephesians. As always, if you miss any of our programs or if you're in search of our featured monthly resource, you can find it all online at jdgreer.com or by calling us at 866-335-5220.

Now here's Pastor J.D. continuing our series with a message titled One Simple Question. First, we talk about the fact that there are no married people issues. There are only single people issues that get worse in marriage. Marriage does not usually create problems.

Marriage simply reveals problems that are already there. How many of you, a few weeks ago, saw the Louisville Duke game where the guy broke his leg? Raise your hands, okay? Probably one of the nastiest sports injuries I have ever seen in my life. A guy goes up to block a shot. It's not anything he didn't land on. And wrong. He just came down and when he did, his shin bone snapped in half, tore through the skin.

It was disgusting. And as you're watching the replay, you just can't figure out how it happened. Because, I mean, he didn't land awkwardly. And they're saying that kind of pressure should never have caused that kind of injury. And so they concluded, I was reading this article, that there's something that had to be wrong with the bone before that.

Right? I mean, you know, it had some kind of disease or maybe a hairline fracture of some kind. Because the pressure of the jump did not create the problem in his leg. It simply revealed it. When the same way, the point of that illustration is not make your kids drink milk, although that's a good application also. But the point of that is marriage does not create problems in our heart. The pressures of marriage, all it does is reveal problems that are already there. And I know that some of you don't want to admit that because it's very convenient for you to blame your spouse or to blame your marriage for your unhappiness.

Or any of your other problems. But I'm telling you, if you're honest with yourself, you're probably going to have to admit that marriage is just unearthing the existing problems that are already in your heart. Your marriage did not create selfishness in you. Your marriage simply revealed that desire that you have for control. Marriage reveals your impatience. Marriage reveals your propensity to anger and to rage.

Those problems are problems in your heart. And then your marriage only reveals them. This is what Paul calls the divine mystery of marriage.

And when you unlock this mystery, I'm telling you, it's going to yield for you so much understanding. So much understanding about what God is doing in your marriage. And why your marriage is the way that it is. And why you feel the way you do in your marriage. He's even going to reveal to you what he's doing in those seasons in your life when you're not married.

And you really want to be. Both of those points are going to be really important today. Because the Apostle Paul is going to teach us a principle that should undergird all of our relationships. And people say to me, they're like, you know, why are you doing a series on marriage or related to marriage when you've got so many people in your congregation that are single? And I told you last week, 65% of the adults listening to me right now are single. It's like, why in the world would you do a series related to marriage when you've got so many people that are single? The reason is because the focus of our study is just on the human heart. Marriage or singleness reveals about the human heart.

That's why. And because there's very few things that just show you shine a light on the heart, the way that singleness and marriage do. Second reason is, I want some of you who are single to know what you're getting into when you get married. And I want you to go into it with your eyes wide open so that you can be prepared as you as you go in. Ask this question in your relationships.

It would transform all of them, all of them. I'm gonna explain to you it's one of the unknown secrets to happiness. It'll probably do more to replace strife with peace in your heart and in your home than anything else that you could do.

And not just in marriage, in all of your relationships. One question that would just be the game changer for you. All right, now, I'm not gonna give you that question until about halfway through the message.

All right, so you type A people and that's gonna drive you crazy. But I wanna let the Apostle Paul build for you the reasoning behind the question. Because I'm warning you, this is so counterintuitive. It's gonna go against everything you have thought, everything you have been trained by, the assumptions you've grown up with. It is so counterintuitive.

I gotta take time to actually build the logic for it. So we're gonna let the Apostle Paul do that from Ephesians 5. Let's begin in verse 21.

Here we go. Paul is literally in mid-sentence. In mid-sentence. The English translation has verse 21 as a standalone sentence. It is a wrong translation.

I'll explain that later and why that's important. Verse 21. Submitting, Paul says to one another, out of reverence for Christ.

If you underline stuff in your Bible, and you should, underline out of reverence for Christ. Verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Okay. This is probably the most unpopular verse in the New Testament. If you're ever watching someone on TV trying to diss the Bible, this is almost always the passage that they go to. They'll quote this in some way.

Why would you possibly believe it? And sadly, this verse has sometimes been used as a justification for the subjugation of women. But that is because this verse has been misunderstood and lifted out of its context and twisted.

Let me give you two quick observations here to show you that. First of all, what is the first word in verse 22? Look at your Bible. What is the first word in verse 22? Wives.

That's right. Who's he talking to in this verse? Wives. He's talking to husbands.

He's talking to wives. Now you husbands, you're going to get your own verse in a minute. This verse was not written for you, however. It wasn't written for you to give you a tool to wield against your wife.

If God intended for you to use this verse that way, he would have addressed the verse to you. So you stay out of your wife's verse. All right. You don't like her messing in your stuff, you stay out of her verse.

All right. Second, do not forget the verse right before verse 22. Begin verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Now, do you see a qualifier in front of that one?

Nope. That's written to every follower of Jesus. We are all to be submitting ourselves to each other. Wives to husbands, husbands to wives. Wives submit to your husbands is a specific application of a principle that is given to every follower of Jesus. It is given in an overall context of an entirely new way of looking at relationships and you can never separate this verse from its context. See, Paul continues, verse 25. The wife.

The wife submits herself to the husband by submitting herself to her husband. And this was done, Paul said, to teach us the mystery of our relationship to God. It was there to teach us what it means to love like God loves and what it means to experience God's love for ourselves.

Let's explore this further. And he fleshes it out a little bit. Philippians 2, verse 3. Do nothing, Paul says, from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Verse 4. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Underline that. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

I have a question specifically for you women. Was Jesus fully equal to God? Yes, of course he was.

He was God. But he voluntarily submitted himself to the Father. This was not an assault on his dignity. And did not imply any inferiority on his part. He was fully equal to God. If it was not an assault on his dignity to do that, it is not an assault on yours either.

Quite the contrary. It makes you more like him. Because you were doing what Jesus did. If it was not below him to voluntarily submit to another to whom he was equal, it is not below you either. It is his glory. He laid aside his comfort.

He leveraged his power, not for his own benefit, but for ours. There are two phrases in that passage that are so absolutely counterintuitive that if they don't arrest you and kind of shock you, then you just didn't read it right. Verse three, count others and their interests as more significant than your own interests. You know, when I walk around each day, I am vaguely aware that other people have interests.

Sometimes when I am in a good mood, I am empathetic to their interests. But always my interests rank higher in my heart than their interests do. So if my interests come into conflict with your interests, I am glad you have got your interests. I will try to make way so you can have some of your interests. But your interests in my view come second to mine. I get the parking spot, you park at the back. Right? If I get there first, at least this is my interest, this is not. Right?

We are all like that. Okay, verse seven, watch. He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Well, what do I do with it? I leverage it for me. When I got the money, when I have the position, I use it to serve myself.

That is what we do. If I know that I am in the right, that is a kind of power. If I know that I am in the right, how do I press those rights? I demand them. I demand them for me. I am in the right. I have a position of power. You are going to recognize my rights. You are going to give me what is due to me. But Jesus had these things and what did he do?

He emptied himself and he took the form of a servant. We'll get back to our teaching in just a moment. But first, let me tell you about our latest resource created exclusively for our Summit Life listeners. It's a 15-day devotional on relationships, faith, and rest called Devotions for the Distracted Family. As with all of our resources, this is exclusive to our Summit Life family, so you'll want to contact us right away. These messages and accompanying conversation cards are perfect for using with friends and family, helping you know one another more intimately and pointing you all to Jesus in the process. Reserve your copy today by calling 866-335-5220 or visit us online at JDGrier.com. Thanks for being with us today. Now let's return to today's message.

Here's Pastor JD. And you recognize that they have some. And so what you do if you've got a roommate is you kind of compromise and you work it out where they have some of their interests. You can have some of yours.

And if you're a good roommate, then you just figured out where the boundaries are and how you can both be happy and get along. Jesus thought entirely differently. He thought not of his interests.

When he had power, he considered our interests more significant than his own. You see what I'm saying? That is so counterintuitive. None of us think like that.

Or at least naturally. Verse 9, watch this. Therefore God has highly exalted him.

Why? Because he did those things and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Because he took the low road, God gave him the high place. Because he took the form of a servant, God gave him the name that is above every name.

That is a crucially important principle if you're gonna do what we're gonna talk about today. Because you gotta trust that if you are going to get the high place with God, you're gonna take the low place. That the way up in Christianity is always the way down. The way that you release God's power and blessing in your life is by taking the role of a servant and by considering the needs and the interests of somebody else as more important than your own.

It is completely counterintuitive. Mark chapter 10. Go back toward the beginning of your New Testament.

Mark 10. James and John, who were two of Jesus' closest disciples. You know there was an entering of disciples, right?

There was three of them. Peter, James and John. So two of those guys, James and John, come to Jesus and they're like, hey Jesus, we got a favor. And Jesus is like, okay, what's your favor? He's like, hey, when you come into your kingdom, when you come into your power, we want to be at your right hand and your left hand. We want to be vice president, secretary of state.

I want to be over Europe and I want to be over Asia. Okay, that's basically what they're saying. And Jesus says, well, why is that? Well, hey, we've stuck with you. We're with you from the beginning. We bought in when the stock was low, so we should benefit when the stock's high. We want to make sure we get your box seats overlooking your part of the field because we've stuck with you the whole way.

We've earned it. Jesus said, that's how people outside of the kingdom of God think. Verse 43, but it shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. Whoever would be first among you should be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

And to give his life as a ransom for many. This was a revolutionary view of power. That somebody would use their power to serve somebody else?

No way. I mean, what good is power if you're not going to use it to benefit yourself? I mean, isn't that why you go after power? Isn't that why you make money?

Isn't that why you go after the position? You go after it so you can have the power as a way of blessing and benefiting yourself. John chapter 13. Go two more books to the right. We'll be in the Gospel of John. This is the last in our stop in our Through the New Testament tour.

We'll go there, and we'll go right back to Ephesians 5. John 13. On the night before Jesus died, his disciples, they'd just eaten their last meal together. Verse 4, Jesus stands up for the meal. He laid aside his outer garments.

It's kind of an important phrase. And taking a towel, he tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash it. Wash the disciples' feet. Now, that would be gross today. In fact, I get a little awkward, just being honest with you, thinking about this, about washing another grown man's foot. That just kind of creeps me out.

I'm not going to lie. But in those days, it was, I mean, because in those days, I mean, you know, they walk with open-toed shoes, and there's animals everywhere, and there's animal poop and pee all over the roads. It was disgusting. I mean, their feet were absolutely and totally and completely disgusting. These were not, you know, nicely manicured feet where you slipped off their Versace Italian slippers and their satin socks and dabbed their feet with a hot lemon fresh towel.

That's not what's happening. This is humiliating. It is disgusting.

It is the work of the lowest kind of servant. Here is the Son of God who deserves all power and glory, who commands the armies of angels, who speaks worlds into existence, laying it all aside and taking the form of a servant and washing dirty, disgusting feet. By the way, and not just dirty feet. You think about these feet. These feet are about to carry the disciples away from Jesus in just a few hours when they abandon Him in the hour He needed them most. These are betraying feet, and Jesus is washing their betraying, disgusting, dirty feet and perhaps giving them, listen, the clearest picture of the cross that He would give them that night, even clearer maybe than the bread and the cup, because in just a few hours, He would take off the garments of His glory.

He would lay aside His power and His right to rule, and He would clothe Himself in the garments of shame so that we could be washed in His blood. He says, verse 12, Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you're right, because so I am. If I then your Lord and your Teacher have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet.

I've given you an example that you should do, just as I have done to you. In places, listen, where you are Lord, or Teacher, or Boss, or Head, we are to use that not to be served, but to serve. Husbands, whatever power you have in a marriage, you use it to serve your wife. Wives, whatever power you have, you submit it to your husbands and you serve Him. You say He does not deserve it, or you say She does not deserve it. She is so selfish. Did the disciples deserve for Jesus to wash their feet?

Oh no. You see, remember that phrase back in Ephesians 5, 21, and now we're back there submitting to one another? Out of reverence for whom? Out of reverence for them? Nope, out of reverence for Christ. They don't deserve it, but Jesus does.

Can you imagine being so grateful to somebody that anybody that was connected to that person, you just had to pour out kindness on them? That's what Christianity is. It is being so overwhelmed at the graciousness and the sacrifice of Christ that anybody that is connected to Christ, you have to do something like wash their feet because you are so overwhelmed at the power and the grace that He showed you when He stripped Himself of His garments and He bathed not your feet, but your soul, not with water, but in His blood. And your serving somebody else, including your spouse, becomes a way of saying, I love you and I'm so grateful for what you have done for me that this is one of the ways I can show it by washing the feet of another sinner. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. Were the whole realm of nature mine?

We did not have all the power that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Of course I'll wash the feet of another sinner. That's why Elise Fitzpatrick, one of the ladies that spoke at our church here last year, she said this, quote, the primary point of marriage is to teach you to wash the feet of another sinner. Many of you think the primary point of marriage is to fulfill all your needs and make you happy, which is why you're frustrated in your marriage, because it's not working, is it? You got married thinking this person would need all your romantic, all your emotional needs. You were going to marry that roommate that was just going to be bliss and make everything come true. But God's primary point in marriage is not to make you happy, it's to make you holy, it's to make you like him.

And how do you learn to be like him? By learning to wash the disgusting, betraying, self-centered feet of another sinner, just like Jesus washed yours. So I explained to you last week, many of you feel like you married the wrong person, right? Of course you married the wrong person by God's design. You always marry the wrong person because you always marry a sinner.

But here's what I told you last week. By God's design, the wrong person is the right person for you, because God has a higher agenda for your life than giving you a flawless roommate. And that agenda is to make you more like him. Now let me rephrase that in your, if you were married, I want you to write this statement down. And I want you to say it once a day, because you need to shatter that false paradigm you went into marriage with.

And if you're single, you need to get this in your mind before you get married. By God's design, the wrong person is the right person for me. Because God has a higher agenda for my life than giving me a flawless roommate.

And that agenda is to make me more like him. Now, I'm not saying that you deliberately choose somebody that you hate, okay? I'm not saying like, oh you're the wrong person, being married to you would feel like washing disgusting feet or maybe even being crucified, you're my girl.

I'm not saying that, alright? Because marriage is a blessing, God does. I mean I love being with my wife, she loves being with me.

It's one of the greatest blessings of our life. But what I am trying to tell you is, when you get through the infatuation, which you will, what you're going to find is that person, there was something so wrong, so bad about that person, that Jesus had to die to fix it. If they were so bad that Jesus had to die to fix them, that thing is probably going to cause you some irritation. Right?

Fair? That's why God has designed you. You're never going to marry a flawless, perfect person. You marry somebody you like, yes, but what happens is you conclude you married the wrong person because that sin nature that's really bad starts to come out. And you think, I've got to get out of this marriage and get into a new one. Unless you plan on marrying an angel, which don't exist on earth, then you're not going to marry another sinner and they're going to become the wrong person. Because God's point in marriage, one of his points is to teach you to love like him and to be loved by him.

While we wait until tomorrow to learn what that one simple question is, how's that for a teaser? What a beautiful picture of the gospel that we see through marriage. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor, author and theologian J.D.

Greer. So we have a 15 day resource called Devotions for the Distracted Family. And as I mentioned earlier, it also comes with a set of 20 conversation cards to say thanks for your valued participation in this ministry. We'll send you this brand new set of resources when you give a gift of thirty five dollars or more. Request them both today when you call 866-335-5220 or donate online at J.D.

Greer dot com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Don't miss tomorrow's program when Pastor J.D. gives us that one simple question that will transform all of our relationships.

Do you think you know what it is? Join us Thursday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.