Goodness in Me, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Don't just think that if you anoint it with oil and say the right incantation that it's going to go away. You can pray for God to deliver you from all the harassment of Satan, but don't just pray for God to bring you out of the trouble. You should also pray that he puts himself into you through the trouble. Thanks for joining us here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today we're wrapping up our brand new teaching series in Psalm 23 called Goodness in the Middle, picking up where we left off yesterday. In this final sermon, Pastor J.D. has been drawing a parallel to the Apostle Paul, who never asked for his thorn in the flesh. In fact, he repeatedly asked God to take it away. But through this painful situation, Paul learned to lean upon God's goodness because of dependence as our objective, then weakness actually turns out to be an advantage. So is anyone ready to be vulnerable, to be weak so that God can be strong?

Today's teaching just might help us get there. So open your Bibles one final time to Psalm 23 and let's get back to it. Hey, believer, you ever wonder why God lets you struggle with certain sinful temptations, even after you've asked him to take them away? I mean, if there were ever a prayer that God should want to answer, it should be that, right? God, take this temptation away from me. I want to be holy here. Why does God not always take the temptation away? To keep you from becoming conceited. I love how C.S.

Lewis used to say it. God sometimes lets us struggle with lesser sins to keep us from the greatest sin of all, pride. Listen, I don't know about y'all, but if I walked around victorious over all my temptations, I for sure, my sinful heart would conclude that I was really awesome at this obeying Jesus thing. I ain't never been a Christian like me, which would fill me with pride, which ironically would make me more like Satan than ever. So God lets me struggle with certain temptations so that I'm going to say with Paul, oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death. I'm convinced that is in me, that is in my flesh.

There is nothing good. The only way for Jesus to save me was to crucify my flesh and to put his resurrection inside of me. I'm crucified by Christ.

I got no pride. Nevertheless, I live, but this life I'm living, I'm not even living by my own strength as like a new redeemed version of me. It's Christ who lives through me.

That's what he wants me to say. So in my library, I've got this old book that contains a bunch of letters by John Newton. And one of my favorites in that book is a letter that he wrote when he was in his 80s to a friend where he confesses to that friend. He said, he said, I'm a little bit discouraged because I always thought that by this point in my life, after walking with God for 50 or 60 years, I would have gotten complete victory over my temptations. He said, but here I am 50 or 60 years into my walk with Jesus, memorized all kinds of scripture, preached all kinds of sermons, wrote an amazing song, but these temptations feel stronger than ever.

He said at first it made me really depressed, wondering if something was fundamentally wrong with me spiritually. But in this letter, he tells his friend, he said, now I realize that God lets me struggle with some of these sinful temptations and probably will until my final breath so that he could keep me from the worst of all sins. And that is pride or a sense that I don't really need his grace. True growth in grace does not mean getting to a place where you no longer feel like you need God's grace. True growth in grace means getting to a place where you're aware of just how desperate for God's grace you really are. So see believer, God may let you struggle with certain sins so that you will stay closely tethered to his grace.

That does not mean you ever stop praying for victory. I'm just saying that God is up to something good even if he delays the answer. You ask, well, why does God sometimes let me struggle in my career? To keep you from becoming conceited, pride leads to feelings of independence from God and independence from God is always the path towards Satan and a bazillion other sins. So God lets you fail at something, even something good, even something worthy so that he can teach you not to boast in your flesh.

We always assume that blessing in life or blessing in ministry or blessing in marriage means being successful at all those things and having lots of kids and just whatever it is that's a metric of success, we assume that blessing is that success. And sometimes it is, but failure can also be because the worst thing that God can do for you is to let you succeed in a way that untethers you from him. So it's like John Stott says, pride is your greatest enemy. Humility is your greatest friend. So in order to keep you where God needs you, sometimes he lets you struggle with lesser things to keep you from the worst thing. So to keep me from becoming conceited, Paul says, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me and to keep me from becoming conceited.

Write this down. If dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage because your weaknesses are those places you're more likely to lean in on God. Have you not found this true in your life? When I'm weak, I go to God.

When I'm strong, I'm fine being apart from him. Maybe you've heard of the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi was a way of making pottery, but at the very end, these Japanese would do something that nobody else would do. They would take that perfectly formed, beautiful pot and they would shatter it on the ground. And then they would take the pieces of that pot and they would put them back together with melted gold.

Now in the creases, holding the pot together so that the value of the pot having been broken and putting back together was more than the pot was before it was broken in the first place. So that's what God is doing in your life through your brokenness because he fills those spots of brokenness with himself so that your value, your beauty after being broken is far greater than it was before you were. So friend, where is God doing that with you?

Can you get your mind around this? He's not doing that to punish you. He's doing that to teach you to depend on him. God wants you to learn the four words that can absolutely transform your life. Four words that will transform you as a parent.

Four words, parents, you need to teach to your kids. God is always faithful. Or these five words that David uses, the Lord is my shepherd, therefore I got no needs.

And sometimes friend, you're never gonna see that truth until you got nowhere else to turn. It's like I've heard it said, you can't really know he's all you need until he's all you have. So he takes away a relationship. He destroys you financially. He makes you fail. He gives you a problem you cannot control. He lets things go wrong in a marriage.

He lets things go wrong in your family. That's God teaching you to lean on him. Scripture tells us to beware our strengths, not our weaknesses, because it is our strengths. Those are the places where we're most likely to forget God.

A.W. Tozer even said it this way, kind of famously, it is doubtful whether God can bless a man or woman greatly until he has first hurt him very deeply. Maybe like Paul, God has allowed you to experience brokenness or hurt.

He's given you a thorn in the flesh, so to speak, just so you can lean more fully into him. Y'all, I look back from this place in my life right now, early 40s, and I recognize that two of the most growing seasons in my life happened when I failed, when I felt like I was at the end, when I felt like I was insufficient for the task, when I didn't know what else to do, when I was wounded, when I was limping, when I was embarrassed. It was there that I learned to depend on God.

Those were two of the greatest seasons of my life. It's like Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary to China used to say, God wants to give you something far better than riches or gold or a great marriage or a successful ministry or personal charisma or talent. What God wants to give you, the greatest gift he could give you is helpless dependence upon him.

If dependence is the objective, a weakness becomes an advantage. Now to be clear, okay, there's nothing wrong with asking God to take away your thorn. Do not wear your reformed spiritual pants so tight you don't ask God to take the thorn away.

I mean, Paul did. He's like, three times I pleaded that God would take this away. And by the way, that's not a reference to three specific times, like two Fridays ago during my quiet time and then once before dinner last Thursday.

And then once again, a small group three times. No, he's saying three extended seasons, seasons where he prayed intentionally, seasons where he got other people to pray for him, seasons where he fasted. And each of those seasons, Paul was hopeful that God would remove the thorn because removing the thorn would make Paul more able for ministry. And he was like, God, I want you to let me see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. God, I believe it.

God, I know that you want to give this to me. But the point is when God said no to Paul, Paul knew that God was not ignoring him or putting them off, that God just had a greater purpose in the trouble. So when you go through that trial, even when you're sure it's from Satan, don't just think that if you anointed with oil and say the right incantation, that it's going to go away. You can pray for God to deliver you from all the harassment of Satan, but don't just pray for God to bring you out of the trouble. You should also pray that he puts himself into you through the trouble. We always pray against thorns, brothers and sisters, with the awareness that we're praying to a great and faithful shepherd who knows our needs even better than we do.

To quote my friend H.B. Charles again, in the time of wilderness, when you're being harassed by Satan and you ask for deliverance, if the request is wrong, God says no. Not saying that despite the fact he loves you, he's saying that because he loves you. If the time is wrong, the request is right, but the time is wrong, then God says slow. If you ain't ready, God says grow first. If the request is right, the time is right, and you're right, then God says go. The point is when God says no or slow or grow instead of go, I can trust him.

Because sometimes, as we've learned here at Summit, sometimes God gives you what you would have asked for if you knew what he knew. He's the shepherd, and I can trust my shepherd because I know what my shepherd is, and I know who he is, and I know how he feels. And in that moment, when I don't know what to pray for myself, guess what?

I got even better news. I can be assured that that shepherd through the Spirit is actually praying for me. He's always watching.

He's always taking care of needs before you even know to ask them. Sheep don't get to where sheep need to go because they're smart enough to ask the shepherd what they need. Half the time, the shepherd is providing things for them that they need that they don't even know to ask for. That's why Paul in Romans 8 says a great little promise Christians often overlook. He says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Now, what's this? We don't even know what to pray for. So the Spirit himself intercedes on behalf of us with groanings too deep for words, which means you're out there trying to pray, and it sounds like a train wreck, and all the angels are offended at what you're asking, but the Spirit of God is like, no, no, no, I got this.

And he's praying for you. Now, I know you're like, well, what does it mean that he groans in us with words? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know if I'd disappoint you.

I have no idea. But there's two things I know it has to mean. Groaning definitely implies emotion. And what that means is that the Spirit in that moment feels my pain with me. He feels that disappointment. One of the most moving scenes to me in Jesus's life is John 11 when Jesus is at the tomb of Lazarus, and he starts weeping. Jesus wept. And you read that, and you're like, why is he weeping?

He knows in less than 10 minutes Lazarus is going to be walking around, and everybody's going to be happy. So why would he weep if he knows he's about to fix the situation? And the answer is Jesus wanted us to see that in our moment of pain, he weeps with us. That when you go through that moment of pain, he's not quoting Bible verses at you. He's saying, I feel what you feel. And that Spirit is groaning inside of you with deep emotion because he loves you.

And when you love somebody like Jesus loved Mary and Martha, he weeps with them when they weep because he feels their pain as if it is his own. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer, and we'll return to today's teaching shortly. But first, I want to highlight something special that we have for our gospel partners and supporters this month. It's called It's called Goodness in the Middle, and it's an eight-part, in-depth Bible study of Psalm 23 that perfectly complements and builds upon the series that we're wrapping up today. If you're hungry for more of this cherished Psalm and want to experience God's goodness right in the middle of your life, then this study is for you. Goodness in the Middle invites you to a more intimate walk with our Good Shepherd. The goal is for us to see what God has done in the past, to have a hope for all that he's going to do in the future, but to actually also see him at work now in the midst of everything we're facing today. We'd love to send this study your way with your generous gift of $35 or more, or when you join our community of gospel partners.

Call us at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgrier.com now to give. Thank you for your support that makes this ministry possible. Now let's get back to the final moments of our teaching series. And once again, here's Pastor J.D.

Groaning too deep for words. Again, I don't know what that means, but I know that that implies that what he's praying, he is praying with wisdom far beyond my comprehension and ability to understand. Paul says the Spirit prays for us according to the will of God. He prays God's will into our lives even when we don't know how to ask for it. Isn't that a comfort? Listen, struggling believer in that moment when you don't know what to say, be encouraged when you can't even express the words yourself, when your physical pain or psychological trauma is so great.

You don't even know how to form the words. The Spirit of God says, I got this. And he prays for you. Friend, maybe this weekend you were discouraged about an unanswered prayer. You're discouraged because of a struggle you can't shake. And you're like, God, I've done everything you've asked. I did it right.

I did it right. Why am I struggling? Why is my marriage like this? Why am I in financial difficulty? Why is my career so bad? Why is my family suffering?

Why are my kids having these problems? Friend, be assured the Lord is still your shepherd and he is up to something good. Here's how I know. Friend, you're in the care of a shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep, and your shepherd would not lay down his life for the sheep just to ignore you for the rest of your life. You see, I know that if my shepherd laid down his life for me when I was his enemy, then I know that he is going to take care of me now that I am his child. And I also know that when he laid down his life, he actually came out of the grave, which means that he has resurrection power that is available to me. And it means that he is really, really good at bringing life out of death, which means he can probably handle my situation.

And it means that there is literally no power that is not under his control. There's nothing that can resist him. No weapon for me is going to prosper. All those who rise up against me will fall. I don't care what Satan is harassing me with. God has a greater plan. He has no rivals.

He has no equals. Now and forever, he reigns in my life. With my shepherd and with your shepherd, we have the absolute assurance of absolute care. And we've got the assurance of overwhelming force on our side, the spirit of God in us, praying the will of God into our life. And friend, as long as that is true, that should change my attitude in any struggle.

I don't have to be that discouraged. I heard Hubert Davis say something the other day. Hubert Davis is a coach of a little basketball team, local basketball team here.

I've known Hubert for years. And so I was just telling him, we were talking, I said, hey, just want you to know, I was praying for you during the season. I was praying that God would establish you. You know how unforgiving UNC fans can be. And I was like, you know, I wanted to have you a good season that you would be established.

And I was like, man, I felt like God answered that prayer in spades. I mean, winning your last two games there against Duke at Cameron and the final four. I mean, you know, and then taking them all the way to the national championship.

I felt like that solidifies you for the next 10 years at UNC. And I said, you know, then we lost the national championship. And I was like, well, I guess God was like, it was just too much too soon.

You got to hold off something, you know, save that for later. Hubert goes, no, you should have kept praying because God wanted us to win the national championship. I said, all right, all right, I'll concede. He said, you know, the most interesting thing happened.

He said, and he gave me permission to share this. He said, the game, I think it was in the sweet 16, where they played Baylor and, you know, they were up by like 25 over the number one seat in that bracket at halftime. They went to halftime and Manic, who is like one of their star players, big tall guy.

She was a lot of three-pointers. He gets a really controversial call, what they call flagrant sue, which meant that not only was it foul, but he got thrown out of the game. So he gets thrown out of the game. The whole momentum changed. Baylor came back, tied it, and they go into halftime. And then in overtime, UNC like squeaked out the most like narrow victory you've ever seen.

So they squeak it out and they survive in advance. I go back into the locker room and Hubert says he was doing his whole halftime, I mean, his whole end of game speech, trying to get them ready for the next game. He said about 30 seconds into my speech, I noticed that they're just all like, I mean, they're all dejected.

They're looking down, just not paying attention to me. He said, finally, I had to stop. I said, guys, what is the matter with you? He's like, I know it was a close game, but you just won and we're going to go to the elite eight.

It's this isn't, we should be happy. This is one of the point guards looked up at me and he said, yeah, but coach without Manic in the next game, there's no way that we can win. All these guys, what Hubert said he realized was all these players, because they weren't, they didn't get to hear the ESPN commentary that you and I hear. They had just assumed and talked among themselves that Manic was not just out for that game. He was gonna be out for that game and the next game. And they were like, what good is going into the next game without our star player? And Hubert said, I looked back at them and said, no, no, no, no. It was only this game he got thrown out for.

He will be back with us the next game. He said, I've never seen anything like it. He said, this guy started to jump up and down and hug each other. He said, he's like, they won the national championship. He said, suddenly they realized the next game was going to be okay because they again had overwhelming force on their side. See, friend, I got good news for you in this next chapter you're about to go into. And that is, you don't have to be discouraged. You've got overwhelming force on your side. It's more than just a star player.

It's more than somebody that can hit three pointers in a clutch moment. You've got a God who went into the grave when you were at your lowest and he brought resurrection out of it. And that means in your most discouraged moment, he's still working for good. Some of you are discouraged. I understand that. For others of you, you've gone beyond discouragement though.

That unanswered prayer is shaking your faith pretty badly. And again, you're sitting here right now and you may not want to verbalize this, so I'll verbalize it for you. You're like, God, I kept up my end of the deal.

And this feels like a violation of the contract. I did what was right. God, I worked hard.

I worked harder than anybody else. I parented correctly. I dated only Christian guys.

I saved sex till marriage. And this is what you gave me. I know. I've been there. What I'm trying to show you is that all the saints have been there. And get this, so has Jesus. If there was ever anybody who kept up his end of the deal, it was Jesus. And Jesus died unjustly, even on the cross, praying what he felt at that moment. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And yet now we know that God used his death for the salvation of the world. The good news, friend, is that if you are one of Jesus' sheep, what he did with Jesus is what he's doing with you. God is up to something good in your life.

If your faith is teetering right now, let me just tell you, I know there are two things God is doing in you right now at this moment. First of all, he is testing you. He's testing you to see what you actually believe. I've always loved the illustration that Martin Luther used of the one, the dad who wants to give his kid something. And so the kid reaches up to take it out of his hand, but the dad just kind of holds onto it playfully, just to test the kid's resolve, see how bad the kid wants it. And Martin Luther said, that's what God sometimes does to us in prayer.

He just holds onto it for just a minute to say, hey, are you going to turn away and go to somebody else for this? How much do you believe? Do you believe enough that I'm good to stay and say I'm not going anywhere else? That's what God is asking some of you this morning in this trial. You're going to go somewhere else? Are you seeking me because I'm a means to this? Or are you seeking me because you know that you got nowhere else to go but me and I am everything to you? You're going to give up on God? These are tests to see whether or not you actually trust in his goodness. Don't give up. The second thing that I know that God is doing, listen, is he's trying to completely rebuild your soul.

C.S. Lewis said that a lot of times you think about Jesus, like allowing Jesus to come into the house of our heart. And at first, y'all, we're just delighted that he's there because Jesus is so good at renovations. He's going to put a fresh coat of paint over here. He's going to add some flowers, and it's going to be amazing. But then, Lewis says, in the middle of this renovation project, he pulls out a sledgehammer and starts tearing down a wall.

And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. I just wanted you here to beautify and clean up and renovate. And Lewis said, no, no, he does that because he's not trying to renovate your double-wide of heart. He's preparing a palace for a king. And so you got to be aware that he is tearing down all the foundations of your soul. He is breaking up all the ground, all the things you've trusted in all your life, because he wants you to be able to say with David, the Lord is my shepherd, therefore I shall not want. And that's why he makes me lie down in a green pasture. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I don't have to be afraid of evil because you are with me. Your rod and your staff, always there to comfort me. You're preparing a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows, surely. Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And I know that because I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And that concludes our brand new teaching series in Psalm 23 called Goodness in the Middle.

It's such an incredible reminder to think about how God really is good to us in the here and now. Goodness in the Middle, the teaching series might be wrapping up today, but our eight-part devotional study through Psalm 23 is still available to all of our financial supporters. And of course, we've been sending them to our gospel partners automatically. You can get a hold of your copy of this study with your gift of $35 or more. Or better yet, if you've been blessed by these broadcasts, why not consider joining our team of gospel partners who give a regular gift automatically each and every month to make this ministry possible. To support Summit Life, give us a call now at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich. Thanks so much for joining us today. You're not going to want to miss our next teaching series all about the man who had it all. Think you know who we're talking about? Find out for sure Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.