Stop Negotiating

Today on Summit Life with Jiddy Greer. Faith is a declaration that you don't have virtue. Faith is a declaration that if you are going to be saved, it is going to be because of God's grace and not because of your worthiness. Faith is when you and I say to God, God, I have to trust you because I don't have anything else to offer. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian, Jiddy Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Today we're diving into a new study called Phantom Faith. Pastor Jiddy explains the difference between those who have true saving faith and those who are just going through the motions.

Some of us might be living a shadow of the true Christian life without even knowing it, but it's time to wake up because there is so much more in store. If you'd like to follow along with the transcript of each message, you can find them all free of charge at jdgreer.com. So let's get started. Pastor J.D.

Greer titled today's message, Stop Negotiating. By show of hands, how many of you, let's have a moment of honesty here. How many of you by show of hands are into zombie shows? Just go ahead and put your hand up. Own it. I won't judge you. I promise that my hand is up.

Your neighbor might judge you, but I won't judge you. It seems like zombies are definitely the horror genre of choice these days. Here's one little statistical piece of proof. More than twice as many people watched the opening season of The Walking Dead as watched the final season of Mad Men, which is kind of like a zombie show in its own way, in my opinion. But I read a great article in the New York Times recently by one of my favorite social commentators, a guy named Chuck Klosterman, who suggested that the reason that zombie shows appeal to so many of us is because sort of subconsciously they correlate with how we feel in our day-to-day lives.

A seemingly endless onslaught by mindless emails and advertisements and pop-up ads and tweets and voicemails that you have to eliminate one by one or else be consumed by them. The good news, Klosterman says, is that by now we're all pretty prepared for the zombie apocalypse. If you awake from a coma and you don't immediately see a member of the hospital staff, you should assume that a zombie takeover has transpired during your incapacitation. Do not let zombies spit on you. If you knock one down, make sure that you pump a second bullet into its brain stem to make sure that it's dead. And by the way, if you've never seen an episode of The Walking Dead, here's the basic plot line of each episode.

Every episode, this is it. There's something that we really need over there where the zombies are. That's basically how everyone unfolds. Zombies are basically moving bodies without souls. Zombies are bodies that mimic the actions of being alive, but they are not in fact alive. I want to use that image over the next three weeks to explain a concept that we're going to call phantom faith. Having phantom faith means that you go through the motions of Christianity, but you do so without the soul. And by that, I don't mean that you're an out-and-out hypocrite, just that there are certain core things about the Christian faith that you don't quite get yet. And so you end up mimicking the motions of Christianity, but there's something missing in your relationship with God. And maybe you know that. There's a joy that you lack.

There's a confidence that you lack. So I'm going to use this series to identify three concepts that a lot of sincere people miss and cause them to live this way without the soul of Christianity. And by that, I don't just mean newbies to Christianity. Sometimes these people that I'm going to describe have been in church for years, and they've still never quite grasped these things that we're going to talk about. If you're not a Christian, I'm going to explain some of the things that make what Jesus taught absolutely distinctive from every other religion in the world. Sometimes people that are alike what I'm going to describe are people that are trying to get back into church. We have a lot of people in this church that have gone through some life event.

They got divorced, or maybe they had a baby or something, and they're just like, I got to get back in church. These are the concepts that they seem to stumble over. In fact, this message series came from me having conversations one-on-one with, I just felt like we were always talking about the same things.

And I was like, I got to quit talking about these one-on-one, and I just need to do a series on them. So here we are. The first concept that we're going to talk about in Phantom Fate is from Romans 4. So if you have your Bible, I'd invite you to take it out and begin to open it to Romans 4. Romans is the sixth book in the New Testament.

If you need help finding it, you just open the table of contents. If the person next to you judges you, raise your hand. I'll have them thrown out.

You can do that. Romans 4, it concerns how you know for sure that you belong to God, or why you think it is that you are going to go to heaven. Let me ask you this way, if you were to die today and God were to say to you, why should I let you into heaven, what would your response be? And I know that sounds like a cliche question. If you grew up in the south, you grew up in the church, I feel like that's, Billy Graham, I think, made that question famous. If you die tonight, do you know, and Christians, we always assume you're going to die at night.

Nobody knows why, but whatever. It's a cliche question, but it's still a good one. Why do you think that God's going to let you into heaven? You say, J.D., I'm not even sure that there is a heaven. Okay, if you suppose there is a heaven, then what is the criteria for who gets in and who doesn't? And are you sure that you will be one of the ones who gets in?

I have taught with you before about my own struggle with this question for many years when I was in high school and also in college, just not being able to know for sure and really wanting to know. Told you that if there were a Guinness Book of World Records for how many times somebody could say the sinner's prayer, I know that I would hold that world record because it was like, just every single service, I would like, I want to make sure that I'd ask Jesus into my heart the right way. That's how my church always talked about it. The ones who go to heaven are those who have accepted Christ. The ones who go to hell are those that haven't.

I'm like, well, I've got to make sure I have. And so I'd pray, but every time I'd be like, was I sorry enough for my sin? Did I understand enough? Did my life change enough as a result?

Maybe not. I better do it again. And then in my church, we were the kind of church where you walk forward if you raised your hand.

And so I don't want to invalidate the prayer by not going forward. So it was like a space of three years, y'all, that I walked forward. It felt like every single week. It was embarrassing. My dad was like, you got to cut that out, son.

You got to get over this. I've told you, I had my own locker in the baptismal changing area because I just was that frequent. And because I got baptized four times during that season.

I don't know if that's like your struggle. Most people, if you ask them, why do you think God will let you into heaven? They feel like it has something to do with their behavior. If you're good enough, you're sincere enough as a Christian, if you believe enough, you go to church enough, you give enough. People from other religions, by the way, use the same criteria.

They just switch out some of the specifics. Instead of going to church, it's going to mosque or synagogue or temple or something like that. It's like we are always trying to make a deal with God. God, there's a, you know, if I do this, if I do this, this many times, or I am good enough, then I expect you to give me heaven.

Now we do that a lot in our lives. Don't we make deals with God? God, give me this job. And I'll start to be generous.

God, let her say yes to going out with me. And I will start reading my Bible. In fact, just so we're honest with each other, raise your hand. If you've ever made a deal with God, just say, raise your, go ahead and put it on all campuses. If your hand is not up, you are a liar. Okay.

You really are. We make, it's just kind of what we do. It's why we think God works. I made one when I was freshman year of high school, before I became a Christian, I, it was on the soccer team and I wasn't that good. And it was one to one and it was like three minutes left in the game. And I was like, Lord, if you will let me score the final goal, I will, I will, I will stop cussing. Cause I knew the cheerleaders were watching and I was like, let me score. And it was like 20 seconds later, it was total freak. I, I, I scored the goal. I think I cussed at the moment when I, when I, when I made the call, but it was, I just, you make deals with God and you think like, Oh, God in heaven's like, Oh, you won't cuss. Oh, thank you. You know, like I got to get in on that action. You know, tell me how to, what do I do?

How can I refuse? Well, we think of going to heaven, like a deal that we make with God, we give God obedience and God rewards us with heaven. But here's what the apostle Paul says. What does scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was about 90 years old. And God told him that he was going to have a son and Abraham had never had any children.

He evidently was infertile. And so God says, you're going to have a son. And against all logic, against all evidence, against all hope, Abraham said, well, I believe it. And God saw his faith in God's promise and God credited to him as righteousness. Verse five, to the one who does not work. You see, as an illustration with Abraham, but trust God instead, who justifies the ungodly their faith is credited as righteousness. I had a seminary professor who said that this is the most important verse in the Bible.

I'm inclined to agree with him. He said, and it all hinges around this one word here. If you understand this one word, then you understand the gospel. If you don't understand this word, you don't understand the gospel.

The word credited, it is the Greek word logizomai, logizomai, and it is an accounting term. And it means to count one thing as if it were another thing. That's literally what it means. In fact, maybe it is easiest for me to explain it to you by telling you first what it does not mean. What that word does not mean is that Abraham's faith actually made him act righteously from that point onward.

And here's how we know that. Immediately after Abraham believes God in Genesis 15, in the very next chapter, he doubts God and thinks that God can't really keep his promise. And so he sleeps with his house servant Hagar to try to have a son through her. It was an immoral act. A couple of chapters later, there is what I like to refer to as the sister incident, where Abraham is traveling and he finds out the king thinks his wife is hot. And so Abraham is like, oh, she's not really my wife, she's my sister, thinking that he'll take her to be his wife and that's okay as long as Abraham doesn't get killed. That's not something that was like they just did back then.

I mean, you can imagine the conversation when Sarah got back home, like, what is wrong with you? You know, that he does this. So he's not going to act righteously all the time from this point onward. Nor does the phrase mean that faith is actually righteousness in itself. A lot of people think that's what it means, as if faith were the supreme of all the virtues, the only one that really matters to God. And as long as you have that virtue, it kind of covers up everything else and nothing else matters. Faith is not the supreme virtue. What is the supreme virtue?

Love. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says the greatest virtue above faith is love. Paul said, I could have faith so big that I could move mountains, but if I didn't have love, it would be absolutely worthless. When Jesus summarized all of the law, he doesn't say all the whole law summary is have faith. He said the whole law summary is to love the Lord your God and love your neighbors yourself. So it doesn't mean that faith is so awesome to God that having it makes you righteous and covers up everything else. No, what it means, what faith credited as righteousness means is that God counts our faith in Christ as righteousness, even though it is not.

That righteousness is a gift that God gives to us that we do not possess in ourselves on the basis of something else. We'll get right back to our teaching in just a moment here on Summit Life with JD Greer. You know, one way to be sure you continually see God's word saturating your life is to participate in our daily email devotional from Pastor JD.

Could we all use encouragement first thing in the morning to remind us of God's love? The best part is that it follows along with our teaching here on the program so you can dive deeper into all we're learning and then share it with others. Sign up for this free resource at jdgreer.com slash resources.

That's J-D-G-R-E-E-A-R dot com slash resources. Now let's return for the conclusion of today's message. Once again, here's Pastor JD. The best analogy I could come up with, and I'm sorry for this because it's not a great analogy, but it's like when you're playing cards and you have a wild card. Let's say you're in some version of poker and you want to put down a royal flush and you need the queen of hearts but you got jokers are wild and you know you don't have the queen of hearts so you put the joker in there and it's not the queen of hearts but you put it down and it counts as the queen of hearts even though it is not the queen of hearts. What Paul is saying is that faith is like the wild card that God counts as righteousness even though that is not. I'm not saying that faith in Christ is some arbitrary thing simply that faith, listen to this, faith is not really a virtue per se. Faith is a declaration that you don't have virtue. Faith is a declaration that if you are going to be saved it is going to be because of God's grace and not because of your worthiness.

Faith is when you and I say to God, God I have to trust you because I don't have anything else to offer. According to Romans 4-5, the one who is declared righteous and who goes to heaven has three primary characteristics. Here they are Romans 4-5 again, to the one who does not work trust God who justifies the ungodly.

Their faith is credited as righteousness. Characteristic number one is that you know that you're ungodly. There's an inherent admission in what Paul says here that I am ungodly. I cannot do anything to change that.

It's just admitting what is true. The second characteristic is you do not work which means you don't think there's anything you can do to change that status. There's nothing you can do to earn heaven.

There's nothing you can do to make up for what you did. And then the third characteristic is that you trust God who said that he would take care of it. You trust that he did exactly what he said he would do. And Paul uses Abraham as the best example of this. So he introduces them at the beginning of chapter 4.

He's going to continue it at the end of chapter 4. So if you're there in Romans 4 go down to verse 18 and I'll walk you through this. God declares to Abraham he's going to be a father of a whole nation of people. Abraham's 90. He's got no kids.

Verse 18, so against all hope Abraham in hope believed. I love that little simple very discreet way of saying. I mean when you're 90 years old and you're infertile it ain't happening.

Right? Blue pill or no pill. There ain't nothing that's going to change that. Verse 19, without weakening in his faith he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about 100 and that Sarah's womb was also dead. He knew he wasn't fertile. He understood how things worked. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God even though it was so clear there ain't no way he was going to have a baby. Even in spite of that he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God. He just started to praise God for things that hadn't happened yet as if they were already done. Verse 21, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. But you see those words Paul says, verse 23, it was logizomai to him. It was credited to him. We're not just written for him alone.

They were written for us. To whom God will also logizomai righteousness. For us who believe in him, believe on him, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. You see Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and then he was raised to life because of our justification.

In other words God took our sin debt and he put it on Jesus and he put Jesus in the grave and then God raised him from the dead as a proof that God had accepted Jesus as the payment for our sins. And so when we believe that the resurrection happened and then it believes what God said it meant which meant that the sin debt had been paid in full. When we believe that God credits that to us as if it were righteousness. He literally gives us Christ's righteousness. We don't just get forgiveness of sins.

We also get Christ's perfect record that is credited to our account. It means I become responsible for everything that Jesus did. Jesus as I've explained to you was not just a dying savior. Jesus was also a doing savior and before he died the death that we were condemned to die he lived the life that we were supposed to live. And so when his account has been credited to me God looks at me not only as if I'd never sinned.

He looks at me as if I'd actually lived the life of Jesus himself. It's what we call gift righteousness and it's what separates Christianity from every other religion in the world. God's righteousness.

Jesus's righteousness credited to us as a gift. Not because our faith deserves it. Not because our faith equals it.

But because God has declared that faith in his promise is the instrument through which he will credit righteousness to our account. You see there is no deal. There is no deal that you can make with God ever.

Here's why. I'll walk you through Paul's logic. Here's why you can't make a deal with God. Number one, like Abraham we're dead in our ability to please God. Like Abraham we're just as dead in our ability to please God. That's why this illustration with Abraham and Sarah is so important. Abraham was totally unable to have a kid. I mean he couldn't have one when he was young. Now he's 90 or 100 years old.

He's doubly dead. In the same way we are utterly unable to be righteous. God's measure of goodness is the 10 commandments. Listen, recently I was reading something by Martin Luther who said if you want to stimulate your relationship with God then for a month just every morning go through the 10 commandments in your mind and pray through them. And I thought well Martin Luther recommended it.

I'll try it. It has been absolutely devastating for me in the mornings as a part of what we call our quiet time. I've been going through the 10 commandments because I just realized that there is not a single one of these that I just instinctively and naturally keep. For example, you shall have no other gods before me. I ask myself do I really love and cherish God more than everything else in my life? Is he the most important? Does he occupy my first thoughts? Is he the most valuable to me?

Am I more concerned about his opinion than anybody else's? You shall make no graven images of me. Am I satisfied with God the way that he is?

Or am I constantly wishing I could make God into something else? Am I saying God why don't you do it this way? You know God if you were really good why don't you give me this or why don't you do that? God if I were God this is what I do and I think you should probably do what I think you should do. How about this one?

Skip a few. Honor your parents. I ask myself have I always been submissive to the authorities that God put in my life?

That's part of what that commandment's about. Was I submissive to my parents naturally? Am I submissive always to the police, to my teachers, to a boss?

In fact let me rephrase that. Have I ever been naturally submissive to the authorities God has placed in my life? Thou shalt not steal. How many times do I try to appropriate things that don't really belong to me? And when I say that of course you got the obvious things like cheating in business or you know your taxes or something like that but how often do I take credit that's not mine and not give credit for an idea because I want somebody to think I'm smarter than I actually am. Thou shalt not lie.

How often do I exaggerate the truth to make myself look better or bend the truth to avoid a difficult situation or an awkward encounter? Then I come to thou shalt not commit adultery and I'm like oh I'm feeling pretty good about that one because I've always been faithful to my wife until I see what Jesus said about that one. He said yeah if you've ever looked at somebody who's not your spouse and lusted after them in your heart then it's like you've committed adultery. Then I come to thou shalt not murder. I'm like okay. Finally one I can put in the w column. Then Jesus says in Matthew if I've ever desired to see somebody else harmed and I think about how many times I've rejoiced when somebody I don't like suffered or made me mad and I thought well I can't wait to see what happens to them.

I'm getting a meteor or something. In fact there's a German word that I'm trying to teach my kids because it's like the only German word I know. Schadenfreude. You know what that word means? Schadenfreude. It means when you rejoice in somebody else's misfortune. And I'm trying to tell my kids you should not rejoice when your brother or sister gets in trouble.

But actually I look as I'm telling them this saying this is exactly what I do. I rejoice when somebody else goes through pain sometimes because I have a spirit of violence and murder in my heart even if I don't commit the act. Thou shalt not covet. Am I always fully satisfied with the situation that God has me in right now and never craving somebody else's income or privileges or talents or success or family situation? And y'all I'm telling you when I get done with this list I realize that I am owed for 10.

When you're owed for 10 on the final exam you're not going to pass the class. You really feel like you're a good person. Jesus said if so you're just looking at the wrong standard. Unless you're righteous like your father in heaven is righteous you'll never enter heaven. Which brings up another thing some of you don't trouble yourself with the 10 commandments you just come up with your own standard of what it makes for a good person. Then you think well as long as I live up to that standard God's going to let me in. Two problems with that. First of all you made it up. Seriously come on where does that where else does that work in life? Here's the other problem with that. You don't live up to your own standards.

If you were honest you'd give yourself an f half the time at your own standard. The way I've described that to you is if you had a little invisible tape recorder or just some kind of recorder since nobody knows what tape is anymore. If you had an invisible recorder around your neck that only activated when you said the word ought. She ought to do that. He ought to do that. And they ought to do that.

And that's all it recorded. And then at the judgment seat God only judged you by whatever you said somebody else ought to do. There ain't a single one of you in here that would pass that judgment. You see we like Abraham are utterly unable to please God because the problem is not ignorance. The problem is not we need a little religion pill. The problem is we are dead and we are sinful and there's nothing we can do to actually change that. The second reason we can't make a deal with God number two is that we don't really have anything to offer God anyway. Here's how Paul explained that in verse four. The one who works wages are not credited as a gift they're given as an obligation.

Right? If a plumber comes over to my house and works on something and hands me a bill for 80 bucks I don't say man here's your gift. I say here's he's like this is what I he did the work I owe him. And we think of heaven in those terms that God is going to owe us heaven because we paid all this good work. Here are two problems with that. First we don't have anything that God needs.

I alluded to this at the beginning but think how foolish our negotiating sounds. God you want some obedience I'll go to church and God's like oh good you go to church. I love church.

How can I say no to that? You know I can't review of course not we don't have anything by which we can put God in our debt. It's a reality we have to face that we can't negotiate with God.

Goodness in one area doesn't make up for breaking God's laws in another. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer and the first message in our new teaching series called Phantom Faith. If you joined us a little late today you can hear this message again free of charge at jdgreer.com.

J.D. as we're getting started here can you tell us a little bit more about this new teaching series? Phantom faith is the idea that it's not enough to simply go through the motions of Christianity. You've actually got to possess the the new heart that Jesus forms in us. Most people in church know how to act the part but there's no real joy or life in their faith.

Something seems missing. This series is going to show you what that is and then help you trade out that phantom faith for the faith that truly lives the faith that is alive. Our new resource that we're going to provide along with this series is focused on helping you and your closest community dialogue about your faith.

That's one of the ways that it becomes real. You know for whatever reason talking about our faith even with our close relationships our family or our close friends can can feel awkward at times. We got a set of conversation cards that will help you begin that dialogue. You're going to find that not only is your knowledge of the bible enriched but the joy you feel sharing that with those closest to you that's going to deepen as well. I would love to give you a copy of these two things these conversation cards along with a set of 15 devotionals on faith and rest and hope that we would would love to give to you if you would go to jdgreer.com and you can become one of our gospel partners and get this resource and a lot of other things that we would love to to partner with you in. This set of two resources comes with our thanks when you donate today to support this ministry. Give and request devotions for the distracted family and your set of conversation cards when you call 866-335-5220 or you can request them both when you donate online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch.

Tomorrow we're continuing our new study called Phantom Faith, discovering the difference between saving faith and superficial Christianity. Be sure to join us Friday for Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.