Releasing the Power of Life

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Faith is believing God as he calls into existence things that don't exist yet and what he has declared over you is you are fully righteous in his sight and you've got the power of the resurrection in you and you are dead to sin and that power of the resurrection is your future and as you believe that it becomes true. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. Okay, at some point every follower of Jesus will no doubt ask themselves, if Jesus is really Lord of my life then why do I keep sinning? I know I've asked that question many times to myself and today Pastor J.D. shows us how believing in our righteous identity in Christ actually releases power that allows us to live up to that identity. If we want the power to change then we need to start by changing how we see ourselves from dead in sin to alive in Christ.

What better place to start? If you'd like to follow along with the transcript of today's message you can always find them free of charge at jdgreer.com. Pastor J.D. titled today's teaching Releasing the Power of Life. Are you ready?

Let's jump in. Romans chapter 6, in this chapter he's going to ask a question that every sincere follower of Jesus asks at some point. If the power of the resurrection actually came into my heart, if it is there in my heart, why do I still struggle so much with saying no to sin? And why do I still seem to love some of the wrong things? And why is it that I can't develop the courage to follow my conviction sometimes? And why don't I love God more?

Why am I not more naturally generous? And why do I, you know, my mind wander in the midst of prayer? And why do I have trouble paying attention in the midst of sermons? Like what's wrong with me?

And how can I change? I want you to be clear that Paul in this chapter is addressing sincere Christians. Okay, look at it real quick. Verse 17, Paul describes these people as those who obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching they received. That means the gospel. These are not like, you know, fringe people who are not really that committed. These are the real deal. They are not JV Christians. They are full on Christians.

They're not fake. Y'all, I will tell you, I find these chapters so encouraging, some of the most encouraging maybe in the whole Bible, right? If you're a follower of Jesus, if you're a sincere follower of Jesus, don't you find yourself frustrated a lot at how little progress you seem to have made in the Christian life?

Don't you find yourself kind of overwhelmed sometimes? Like why am I still attracted to that? Why is it that I still feel so weak? Why can't I make myself do the right thing? Why don't I love God more? Why am I so stingy all the time?

Why am I not just more naturally generous? You ever wonder that about yourself? I mean, I wonder that about you.

No, no, I'm kidding. I wonder that about me. I wonder that about me a lot too. Chapter six and seven are Paul at his most vulnerable. What Paul reveals about himself in these chapters may surprise you. It will definitely encourage you. These chapters, y'all, are crucial in understanding what the Christian life is like. In fact, they are so crucial that my dad paid each of my kids $100 if they would memorize Romans chapter six.

Now some of y'all are like, well, that's a memorization program I can get down with. In chapter six, Paul's going to lay out his theology for how he says we change, how the power of change actually comes into us. He says it begins by embracing in your core the new identity that God has given to you. In preaching on this chapter, Tony Evans, who was one of my favorite preachers, he tells the story of a guy who went to see his therapist. And he goes into his therapist.

The therapist says, what seems to be the problem? He goes, when I go to the supermarket to buy food, I just have this incredible urge to go to the dog food aisle. And I just, his voice inside me saying, go to the dog food aisle. So I go to the dog food aisle. When I get there, he says, I always start looking at the pictures of the little dogs on the dog food bag.

And I think, man, it just looks so much fun. Like I could just be there frolicking around with the dogs without a care in the world. And he says, then just almost without being able to control myself, I rip open the dog food bag and I scoop out a big thing. And I just gobble up a bunch of dog food right there in the supermarket aisle. And he says, sometimes I get so happy, I yelp and I bark and I will even lay down on my back and ask total strangers to scratch my belly as they're walking by. And the therapist said, well, that really does seem like it's a problem.

How long have you been like this? And the man says, well, ever since I've been a puppy. So y'all when Tony Evans told it, it was so much funnier.

And I've been working on it and I just, I'm gonna hang it up. But the point is, Tony Evans says, he says what Paul is saying is something similar to what this therapist is about to say to this man. And that is some things are more, are deeper than behavior modification. Some things go back to the core of how you see yourself.

And it starts with a recognition of your identity. That's what Paul is saying in verse 11, chapter six, that's where he turns. Look at verse 11.

Likewise, you also, he says, you believers, you should reckon yourselves to be dead and dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now that word reckon is the Greek word logizomai. And it is a word that you have seen before.

It's a word that Paul uses in chapter four. Some translations will write that as count. Some will write it as consider. I prefer the word reckon. Now this is not reckon like Southerners using it sometimes like, well, I reckon it's gonna rain later.

Not that reckon. This reckon means to count or to consider one thing as if it were another thing. It's an accounting term. I've heard it described like a wild card in poker. In poker, you can take a wild card and say, okay, this joker from this point on is no longer the joker. It's now the ace of spades. And no, of course I don't play poker. The only card games I play are Bible charades or the left behind version of Uno.

So you don't have to send me the email on that. But it's a wild card. It means you look at one thing and consider it to be something else. That's what Paul is saying here with this word reckon. He says, when you claim Jesus as your sin bearer, then you put your faith in him. God reckons your faith to be righteousness. When you trust Jesus as the one who died in your place for your sins and you claim him as your own, then God reckons that faith to be righteousness.

It's not that it is righteousness. It's that God gives you Christ's righteousness because you're trusting in Jesus. Well, in the same way, now Paul in Romans 6, he flips it and says, now it's your turn to do the reckoning, right? God reckoned your faith to be righteous. Now you, when you reckon yourself as dead to sin, in other words, you believe that God did what he said he did when he saved you.

When you do that, God will use that reckoning of yours to infuse the power of new life into you. In other words, just as faith is the means by which you receive justification in the Christian life, so continued faith is the means by which you access the power for sanctification. Most of you thought, okay, well, I received Christ by faith, but after that growing in Christ, that's on me.

That's a lot of effort, okay? And Paul says, nope, just like it was faith by which you were reckoned righteous in God's sight. Now it's continued faith that you use to release the power of sanctification in you.

Here's how it works, okay? Just to be clear, when you put faith in Christ as a substitute for our sin, God reckons your faith as righteousness, okay? Here's the second part. As you reckon yourself dead to sin, you believe that God did what he said he did, God infuses into you the power of new life.

If you're writing stuff down, this third one is the key here. In other words, just as we believed our way into justification, so we believe our way into the power of sanctification. Believing in the Christian life is the way of releasing power. How do you release power in your Christian life?

It doesn't come through effort. It comes through believing what God says is true, and believing what God says is true is the means by which he releases the power of resurrection in you. Now some of you are like, okay, well, I've done that though, and I didn't feel the power of the resurrection to me. I didn't get little tingly feelings.

My hair didn't stand up. I don't feel dead to sin suddenly. In fact, sin and wrong desires felt very much alive in me.

Right, I get that. But as you continue to believe it, God uses the faith in Christ's finished work to transform you. Remember from chapter four, Abraham was the example Paul keeps bringing up. He's like, hey, you remember at 90 years old, in fact, 99 years old, after a lifetime of infertility, God declared to Abraham that he was gonna have a son.

Not just any son, by the way, a son that was gonna father a great nation. Now you go back and read that in Genesis 12, and there's nothing in that chapter that indicates that when God said that to Abraham, Abraham was like, you know, now that you say that, I have been feeling unusually frisky the last few weeks, and so I believe what you had just said. No, Romans says that Abraham believed what God said, even when he didn't feel it. And as Abraham believed that, Romans 4 said, he received strength to be able to conceive Isaac. So Paul says, you will also receive the strength to walk in righteousness as you continue to believe that God has made you dead to sin, just like he said.

Y'all listen, this is not some kind of mental trick I'm throwing at you, where you, like the power of positive thinking, where you say, I'm brave enough, I'm brave enough, I'm brave enough, and you say it so many times that you suddenly become brave enough, or you know, I'm good looking and I'm smart and doggone it, people like me, and then you start to believe that. This is not that kind of garbage, this is actual power that God infuses into you when you believe that God has done what God said he did. You see, faith, Paul said in Romans 4, is believing God when he calls into existence things that do not yet exist, like entire nations out of an infertile old man. When you believe something like that and you believe, I don't feel righteous, but I believe that God has made me righteous, at that point, God releases the power to be righteous in you.

Y'all listen, here's the big hang up we have with the Christian life. We always wanna feel first and then believe second. And God says, nope, usually you're gonna believe first and then you'll feel later. You don't feel your way into your beliefs, you're gonna believe your way into your feelings. In the Christian life, power comes through believing. Believing in the righteous identity God has declared over you, releases the power to live up to that identity in you.

Faith is the means by which God releases the power. Does that make sense? That's why Satan began each of his temptations of Jesus in the wilderness with an odd little phrase. Remember this? Have you seen this before?

It's really strange. Matthew four, every temptation begins with, if you are the son of God. Why would he start a temptation that way?

Well, if you read the previous chapter, God had declared over Jesus at the baptism, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Before Satan brings out the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and the hunger of his body, what Satan does is he tries to get Jesus to question his identity because he knows that once he rattles Jesus at his core in his identity, he's gonna be much more open to the lust of the flesh. And so he begins each temptation by saying, hey, if you really are the son of God, that is a pattern for how he tempts you. Listen, Satan will do whatever he's gotta do to take your eyes off the new identity God has given you. And before he brings out the small guns of alcohol and pornography or sex or some kind of compromise, what he's going to do is bring out the big gun of, are you really who God says you are? And so he's gonna do that by bringing up past sins and present struggles and making you feel just like you just, by the way, all the stuff he's gonna bring up is true. He's gonna be like, hey, remember how badly you messed up that relationship? Remember that? Hey, and remember, how could you call yourself a beloved son or daughter of God and still struggle that much with that sin?

Really? There's just no way. Maybe he'll kind of dangle a carrot out there in front of you. He'd be like, maybe you'll get there soon, but right now there's no way that you can think that God is approving of you, that God accepts you, that you're a beloved son or daughter, not somebody with all that messed up stuff in your life. And so just try a little harder, try maybe another week or two, and then you'll get there. And y'all, the moment you start believing that he's already got you because he is now taking your eyes off of what God has done in you and what God has promised for you.

And he's put them back on what you can do. And that's gonna lead you to despair every time. The power of the Christian life begins by believing what God has declared, even when it feels impossible, because faith is believing God as he calls into existence things that don't exist yet. And what he has declared over you is you are fully righteous in his sight and you've got the power of the resurrection in you and you are dead to sin. And that power of the resurrection is your future.

And as you believe that it becomes true. He releases in you the power of the new life. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life. We'll get back to today's teaching in just a moment.

But first, I wanted to tell you about our brand new premium resource this month. It's a Bible study through the first half of the book of Romans called The Gift of God, written by the late Tim Keller. Pastor Tim was one of JD's biggest ministry influences, and we're honored to be providing this study to you. This study is a great way to get an even better perspective and understanding of one of the Bible's richest books.

And it would make an incredible study to do with a friend or a whole group. Each of the book's seven studies walks you through passages of Romans, along with application questions and prayer prompts. You'll see Paul teaching about the gift of being right with God and what being righteous means for your future.

To get a hold of your copy, just give us a call at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor JD right here on Summit Life. You say, well, Pastor, I don't have a righteous record. If you knew me, you wouldn't say that.

And I don't feel very righteous. That's not what God bases the declaration on. He doesn't base it on you. He doesn't base it on your potential. He doesn't base it on your past. He bases it on Jesus's finished work. And so he looks at you and says, this is who you are in my sight.

This is what he declares. One of the best illustrations I've ever heard of this came from my second daughter when she was eight years old. I've told this story before, but it's so good. I got to repeat it. We were doing our devotions one night and around the same time, we were watching The Voice as a family. And you know, The Voice, if you've ever watched that show, they had this, basically the blind auditions where the singers are singing and you got the four judges and they got their chairs turned where they can't see you. And if they like what they hear, then they hit that button that spins around and says, I want you.

Okay. And my daughter says, she says, she, as I was going through something about the gospel, she said, dad, it's like, it's like the gospel is like God hit the button and turned around the chair and said, I want you before we even started singing. And I was like, that is a pretty good illustration of what the gospel is. God did not wait to hear how good or bad your voice was.

He didn't think, oh, that's somebody that's got potential. I can use that person on my team. He just, by an act of his choice, he hit that thing and said, I choose you. And you're like, but I got a terrible voice. And he's like, I don't care because I am going to make you in my image and I'm going to use my power to do it.

I don't need your talent. I don't need your pass because my declaration got Jesus out of the grave and my declaration can change your life. And Paul says, you start, you start by reckoning yourself dead to sin, like God said you are, even if you don't feel it.

All right. That's the first command. Second command, Paul builds this whole chapter around two commands. Here's your second one verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Don't present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but you present, there's your one word command, present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. That's his command.

Now you got to present. He explains why in the next verse, verse 14. For sin will not rule over you anymore because you are not under the law, but you are under grace. What that means is now that Christ is at the center of your heart, sin can't control you anymore because Christ is there.

It's there at the middle. Now that wasn't true of you before you were a Christian. Before Christ came in, follow this, you couldn't not sin.

That's what Romans one said. We were totally given over to sin. We could no more stop sinning than a drowning man could refuse a gasp of air if you pulled the man up out of the water right before he suffocated. You had to sin, you crave sin. That's not true anymore because Christ has come to take the center place of your heart. But he says, don't you know that if you offer yourself to somebody as obedient slaves, you're going to be slaves of that one you obey. Either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. Even though Jesus is at the center, you're still in this sinful body and sin is always going to be working for mastery in your life. And if you let sin go and you don't pay attention to it, it's going to slowly and incrementally try to regain control over you.

Here's the way I think about all this, if this is helpful. When the allied troops marched into Berlin and they conquered Berlin in World War II, at that point, the Axis powers were broken. Nazi-ism was officially crushed. But even after the allied forces had taken over Berlin, there were still pockets of German soldiers throughout the countryside and down through France and a lot of them kept fighting on. Even though the Nazi war machine had been broken, even though they were out of ammunition, there was no more, the seat of power and the communication was destroyed. The allied forces were there.

These German forces kept fighting and they kept harrying and harassing a lot of the citizens and the allied forces as well. Paul says, this is what's happened in your Christian life. Jesus is at the seat of power now, but sin is still present there in your body and it's always going to be working to get back in control. So you gotta be fighting it because it is constantly on the move in your life.

Listen to me, sin is a predator and it is always on the move. And there's a bunch of you that think, oh, it's not, you know, I got some areas of compromise. I'm not doing what God wants here. This is probably not the best, but it's okay. It's not a big deal. It's just a small area of compromise. It's just a little itty bitty tiny thing. And it's not going to be a big deal. It's not going to be a big deal because it's not affecting anything.

You understand that sin is a predator and it is always on the move and it is dangerous and it is always trying to get in so that it can just grow and it will always lead you to slavery and captivity. Always. It kind of reminds me of when you read one of those headlines. I read one this week, in fact, Florida man mauled by pet Cougar, right? And so, you know, I got to read that. So I read in the article and you find that there's some dude down in Florida who's got a pet Cougar named Fluffy and Fluffy snapped one day and ripped his face off.

And the articles, if you notice, they're always the same. They're like all these interviews and people are like, well, I just couldn't see that coming because, you know, Fluffy was so gentle and Fluffy was, you know, just such a, and I'm reading this and I'm like, Fluffy is a Cougar. Fluffy is a predator. I know that you think you've domesticated Fluffy for a little while, but, but first of all, Fluffy's a cat. You can't trust cats. Second of all, second of all, second of all, Fluffy in Fluffy's DNA for years of breeding. Fluffy is a predator and you might get him to act like something for a while, but that inner nature of who he is, it's going to come out. And if you keep Fluffy as a pet, Fluffy's going to rip your face off someday.

Okay. That's what Paul is saying about sin. You cannot tolerate compromise. You can't tolerate small sins in your life because they may feel like small sins, but they're simply small Cougars that are going to grow up.

And one day they're going to rip your face off. Right. Metaphorically speaking because sin is always working for mastery. And Paul said, don't, don't you play around with it because it's working for slavery. It's working for mastery in your life. That's why John Owen, the purist and used to say, you got to always be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

There's no neutral sin. You're either killing it or it's working to kill you. And that's what, what Paul is saying there. And let me pause here for a minute. Cause I want to press in on something. I want to press on, on, on how it gains mastery over us. But before I do that, let me just kind of take a moment to address something that's there are people that will have difficulty with this. Cause you're like, well, I don't, I'm really uncomfortable with this slavery analogy because of the history of slavery in our country. And you're like, you know, this seems like a really difficult analogy to get our minds around. I understand that a couple of things that you should know that first of all, when Paul uses slavery here, what he is referring to is something a lot more like indentured servanthood.

That's what we would call it today. It's not the kind of kidnapping and forced labor along ethnic lines that would have characterized our slavery. It still wasn't a great economic system. Let me be clear on that, but it's, it's, he's not referring to, to, to the kind of slavery we're familiar with. Paul makes clear in first Timothy one, that that kind of slavery is categorically wrong. Okay.

Second thing is Paul himself says verse 19. He's like, Hey, I'm using a human analogy cause the weakness of your flesh. In other words, to help you get your mind around this, I'm not endorsing an economic system. I'm not endorsing anything. I'm just using something you're familiar with to illustrate a point. So don't let this analogy throw you. Okay. All right. So back to the text, what are some of those things that Paul says would always work for mastery in our lives?

Because some of you are a little confused. You're like, okay, when I sin, it doesn't feel like I am a slave to anything. It feels like I'm doing what I want to do. Paul says, yes, that's true, but you need to look deeper because behind every choice that you make, whether sinful or not, is a calculation of what you think you need in life to be happy and fulfilled.

And so the motivation behind everything you do is ultimately going to be, is this going to help me achieve that happiness and fulfillment and security that I need? And that's because Paul has explained follow this, a point he made in Romans one, that all of us in our nature are worshipers. Now, when I say that sometimes people who are not religious say, no, no, no, no, not me. I'm not a worshiper.

I don't sing or bow down to anything. I'm like, that's not what worship is. Worship at its core is not singing. It's not going to church. Worship at its core is when you attach, watch this, ultimate value to something.

When it becomes so important to you that you feel like I couldn't live without that thing. Paul says, whatever that is, is going to begin to control your behavior because you're going to be willing to do whatever you need to do to get a hold of that thing. That's why he used the word in verse 16, the word offer.

That's a religious word. You're offering yourself to this ultimate thing as a means of, this is what will make me happy. And so I'm going to do what I do so I can get a hold of and hold onto that thing. What are some of the things that you might have become enslaved to?

Is it finally time to break free? Encouraging teaching here on Summit Life with pastor and author J.D. Greer. J.D., this week we introduced a new collection of resources from Tim Keller. The full resource is a two-part Bible study through Romans, but our listeners can receive their copy of the first volume now, right? Yeah, this Bible study through Romans by Tim Keller is going to be two different books and it will go along with the series, kind of around the same pace that we're going through it. You can get the first book right now when you donate to Summit Life.

Again, these donations don't come in to line our pockets. They go into opening up new radio opportunities for us to be able to go into new places where the gospel needs to be preached. Every study will walk you through not just a passage, but it'll give you about a dozen questions that'll really get you into the meat of it. One of the things I love about it is it's not telling you all the stuff that's there, but it's asking you those leading questions where you'll be able to discern it for yourself with the help of the Holy Spirit. Go to jdgreer.com right now, J-D-G-R-E-E-A-R dot com, and you can reserve yours.

You heard him, folks. This is a premium resource you don't want to miss out on. And as with every resource we select, we chose this study to help you, our incredible listeners, multiply as disciple-making disciples, just like Pastor JD teaches about all the time. We'd love to send you a copy with your financial gift of $35 or more to this ministry. To give, simply call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can always give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Thanks for being with us today, and we'll see you again Thursday as we learn more about the power of the Christian life here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.