Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Lukewarm Christians look the same as everybody else. They watch the same movies as everybody else. They listen to the same music as everybody else. They use the same filthy language. They raise their kids like everybody else does.

They spend their money on what everybody around them spends their money on. We're not that distinctive. We live comfortably and self-sufficiently, indistinct in our passion and in our morality and in our sacrificial way of living. Welcome back to Summit Life for our final program of 2023.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch, and I'm so glad that you're choosing to close out the year with us today. Did you know that the biggest cause of atheism is seeing people who claim to follow Jesus but are in no way distinct from the world? Jesus said this kind of complacency in the church makes him sick, and it tells the world a lie about him. Yet in his love and compassion, he still stands at the door and knocks and waits for us to answer. Today, Pastor J.D. Greer continues to point us toward the full-hearted devotion to Christ. We're moving away from lukewarm Christianity and opening the door to rich fellowship with Jesus.

Let's join Pastor J.D. as he closes our series with a message he titled, Stand at the Door and Knock. I stumbled onto something that somebody commented on this passage I wasn't expecting, but it was just the thought it was amazing. It was from Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham jail.

Listen to this. He says, he's talking about Revelation 3. There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was in a time when the early Christians rejoiced at just being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion. In those early days, the church was a thermostat that transformed society. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be numerically intimidated. By their effort and example, they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and the gladiator games.

All the things are different now. And if today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it's going to lose its authenticity. It'll forfeit the loyalty of millions.

It'll be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. That is what's happening right now in the church in the United States is that we have got a church that is not that distinct from the world around it. And it is causing more people to walk away from God than you would say, even it is causing people to walk toward God. The irony is we keep telling ourselves, hey, we keep telling ourselves if we become more like the world, if we have as good a music as the world, and then if we are not as offensive in the morals that we preach, if we're like everybody else, they'll want to come in and be a part of us. But the more we become like the world, the less relevant and useful we become to anybody.

It was supposed to be a community that was totally distinct. And they said, I don't understand your passion and I don't understand your morality, but Jesus is inside this church and Jesus is somebody that I want to know. So let's just ask, what's a lukewarm Christian look like today? This is just a list that I would put out there for you and just say, here's what I think describes a lukewarm Christian. Number one, lukewarm Christians crave acceptance by people more than God.

Lukewarm Christians are much more concerned about people's acceptance than they are God's acceptance. So that's why when you put up a selfie immediately, every three minutes, you're checking to see how many likes you get. And if you get a lot of likes, well, then the rest of your day is awesome.

And if you don't get a lot of likes, then your self-esteem, you've got to scrape up with a spatula. Or it's why when you're thinking about morality, you take your cues from the culture and not the scriptures, because you just don't want to be that different. When you think about your life, when you make your decisions, it's not that you have no thought of God.

It's that your primary thought is what is everybody else going to think about me? And God's opinion of you does not weigh nearly as much in your decision-making matrix as what other people think about you. You give weight to their opinion and you barely think about God's. That's a sign of a lukewarm Christian, because you're more obsessed with what other people think than you are what God thinks. Notice, I didn't say you rejected God. You just don't think about him that much.

You think about others, not him. Number two, lukewarm Christians rarely share their faith in Christ. They consider themselves Christians, sure, but they don't want to make people uncomfortable by talking about religion.

It makes them feel awkward. So they rarely bring it up. I mean, the first thing you've got to say to these people, to us, is do you actually believe the gospel is true? How could you believe that what Jesus said about eternity is true, that there's a heaven and a hell, and that those who come to faith in Christ will have their sins forgiven and go to heaven, and those who don't will spend eternity apart from God in hell? How could you believe that and not speak about it to people that you say that you love? Reminds me of that famous atheist out in Las Vegas, Penn Jillette.

Some of you have seen this little video. He's like, you know, some of my atheist friends are like, I'm mad when Christians try to convince me to be a Christian. He says, I'm mad when they don't. He said, how much would you have to hate somebody to believe that Jesus was the only way that they could go into heaven and not tell them about it? So you'd have to say, well, they don't actually believe what they believe about heaven and hell, either that or they're just ashamed of it. And Jesus said, if you're ashamed of me before men, I'll be ashamed of you before my father.

If you confess me before men, I'll confess you before my father. I also think a lot of reasons that lukewarm Christians don't tell anybody about Jesus is they believe the gospel, but they'd never felt it's transforming power in their own lives. So they're not that convinced that can make a difference in somebody else's life. So they're just not that compelled to share it.

They're lukewarm. Number three, lukewarm Christians rationalize their sin. Lukewarm Christians don't really hate sin. They just don't want to be thought of as bad people. So they're always asking this, watch this. They're always asking, how close can I get to sin without it actually making me a bad person? What's the line and how close can I get to it? When you ask that, that shows you that you're not being motivated by love.

Let me prove that. I love my wife, right? If I love my wife, when I take her out on a date, I'm not usually asking, what is the minimum amount that I can put into this and get away with the evening? What is the cheapest possible meal I can buy this woman? What is the minimum amount of conversation I need to have with her?

Right? I never say, what is the maximum I can flirt with the waitress and not get in trouble with my wife? If I am motivated by love, I want to draw close to her. I want to please her.

I want to delight her. When I am motivated by love for Jesus, I want to draw close to him. I'm not asking how close to sin can I get and get away with it. How close to sin can I get and avoid the curse? What I'm asking is what can I do that delights and pleases Jesus?

I just want to make him happy. I've heard it said this way, Francis Chan, lukewarm Christians don't really want to be saved from sin. They just want to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They're not interested in developing a hatred towards sin. They love what the world loves. They don't want to go to hell.

They don't want to be cursed. So they're like, Jesus, you can help save me from the penalty of the sin, but I don't know if I really want you to save me from sin. I want you to give me a fire escape out of hell and then show me how close to sin I can get and just not go to there. Number four, lukewarm Christians think more about life on earth than eternity in heaven. The apostle Paul said, Philippians 1 21, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Live is Christ means I love life. I mean, Jesus is awesome. When I walk with Jesus, love Jesus, serve Jesus, enjoy Jesus, tell the people about Jesus.

But you know what? If I die, man, that's an upgrade. Now, what is the attitude toward death in Americas, even in American churches? I don't want to die. I'd rather live to 105 and be in diapers than I would think about dying.

I'm going to prolong youth as long as I possibly can. I'm going to make a bucket list and I'm going to try to cram everything into my life that I can and not talk about death because I'm not really that convinced eternity is going to be that awesome. That's not how a real sold out Christian thinks.

They think, yes, I want to enjoy life. No, I don't want to die, but you know when I do, it's going to be an upgrade and I'm going to be with Jesus forever. Real Christians live as if eternity is just around the corner and they're not obsessed with bucket lists because they know they'll get everything that's on their bucket list times a bazillion in eternity. It's like I told you a few weeks ago, real Christians are not thinking YOLO, you only live once. Real Christians are thinking YALF, right? You actually live forever. Not you only live once, you actually live forever.

So patent pending, okay? So number five, lukewarm Christians only turn to God when they need something. Man, some need brings you back to God. Hey, that's okay.

That's fine. Man, you got a marriage that falls apart, joblessness, divorce, some problem with your kids, some major health scare, and you come back and you get on fire for him and that's okay. It's all right when a need brings you back to God, but the point is that you're just trying to use God temporarily to fix something or do you realize that God is life and that the whole point of your life is just living for him. Lukewarm Christians only turn to God when they need something from him or when they feel like they're in trouble. I've heard it described before, it's like most lukewarm Christians want to keep God in timeout. You know, like when you put your kid in timeout to discipline your kid, it's like they're over in the corner and they got to stay away from everybody else. And then you let them out of timeout. And this is what God is.

It's like, so we're here. We got God in timeout. He's still in the house. We don't want him gone, but then you need something.

So like God come out of timeout for a little bit. Will you fix this? Okay. God, they help.

Okay. You can go back in timeout now. And the next time you need him, you go back and get him. Or the time that God gets a get out of time out free card on his own is when you sin. And then God's like, ah, now I got him.

I'm coming after you. And I'm going to, you know, and you're like, oh no, I sinned and God's good. I got to deal with God. And you, what do I got to do to pay God off? And you're like, I read my Bible and I pray and I go to church and you know, God forgive me for my sins. I think that's enough.

Right. And then you flash those cross sign at God and God's like, oh, he goes back over in timeout. That's how you relate to God, because you're not really interested in a relationship with God. You want to use God to get something else or you just want to avoid the curse. That's a lukewarm Christian.

There's no fire or passion for Jesus. Number six, lukewarm Christians give only when it's convenient. They'll give if it makes them look good.

They'll give if it makes them feel good, but they're like, don't push me. This is my stuff. I get mad when you talk about this stuff. I don't like you talking about this stuff.

Talk about something else. When you give God, you give God the leftovers, not your first and your best. Again, let me quote Francis Chan, lukewarm Christians love their luxuries and rarely give to the poor in a truly sacrificial way.

You'd like to, but not if it comes at the expense of your luxuries. Lukewarm Christians are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Jesus. Men, you love to hear me talk about it, yet you rarely, if ever, do radical things yourself.

We've seen the problem with this. God says, if it doesn't represent your first and your best, I don't want it. Malachi, book in the Old Testament, talks about a bunch of priests who gave an offering to God, but they kept the best animals, the spotless animals, the really healthy, robust animals. They kept those for themselves and gave God the runts, the less desirable ones. They assumed that God was pleased because, hey, they'd at least given something. Yet God, Malachi 1.8, describes their giving as evil.

Not merely inadequate, but from God's point of view, evil. Because if your giving does not represent your first and your best, it's evil to God. So stop calling your complacency a busy schedule. Stop calling it bills. Stop calling it demands on your time.

Stop calling it forgetfulness and call it what it is, evil. Basically saying, God didn't want you to throw your lunch money in the offering plate as some kind of penance offering. Saying that if it doesn't represent your first and your best, it's lukewarm and it makes him want to vomit. Number seven, last one, lukewarm Christians are not that much different than the rest of the world.

This is kind of the linchpin of all of them. Remember the water in Laodicea was either hot like the springs in the south or cold like the rivers from the north. It was room temperature, indistinct. Lukewarm Christians are like that in relation to the world around them. They look the same as everybody else. They watch the same movies as everybody else. They listen to the same music as everybody else does.

They use the same filthy language, everybody else does. They possess the same morals as everybody else. They raise their kids like everybody else does. They prioritize what everybody around them prioritizes. They spend their money on what everybody around them spends their money on. They use their homes like everybody else around them uses theirs.

They plan their their retirements like everybody else does. If we've got difficulty in our marriages, we turn to divorce just as often as everybody else does. I'm not saying, by the way, that's not a complex question and I'm not trying to give a blanket judgment. Just saying that we're not that distinctive. We end up feeling more like them than we do him because we live comfortably and self sufficiently in distinct in our passion and in our morality and in our sacrificial way of living. These are the kinds of people Jesus calls lukewarm and he says, makes me want to vomit. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. We'll return to our teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to quickly invite you to consider a few ways that you can strategically partner with us in the coming year. First, you can join in multiplying the gospel in your neighborhood and across the world by sharing our daily devotionals with your friends and family who want to go deeper with God. Or maybe it's by starting a Bible study in your home using some of the monthly resources created by Summit Life or even listening to our free teaching library together.

Or maybe it's by giving a one-time donation or becoming a monthly gospel partner. However you choose to spread the story of the gospel this season, we want you to visit jdgreer.com to be equipped, to give or to let us know what you're up to. And this month, receive the 2024 Summit Life Day Planner with your generous gift to the ministry. Only a few days left in 2023, so make your generous year-end gift count for eternity.

Give us a call at 866-335-5220, or check it all out at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to the conclusion of today's teaching on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Can I tell you why I believe I can tell you with such good accuracy what a lukewarm Christian looks like?

It's because for so many seasons of my life, I have been one. Even after becoming a pastor, even after becoming a pastor, there's a tendency for me to, on a semi-regular basis, to let ministry work replace a relationship with God. So I start reading my Bible to preach. I start reading my Bible to develop things not to love and walk with Jesus. I tell people, oh, I'm praying for you, man. You know, believe in the best about this and bless you, brother, and let's think about what God wants here, but I'm not really thinking about praying about them and I'm not thinking about God in their life. Here's a statement that I heard somebody make one time that really got ahold of me.

Listen to this. You have become a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Jesus. I heard one pastor say it this way. He said, the way I was doing the work of God destroyed the work of God in me.

Maybe that phrase could hit some of you. You become a full-time mom and a part-time follower of Jesus. You're a full-time business person, but you're a part-time follower of Jesus.

You're a full-time student, but you're a part-time follower of Jesus. Y'all, it is not a coincidence that Laodicea was the wealthiest church with the biggest, best resources, the best singers, the best facilities. They probably had the funniest preachers.

They had the biggest budgets. It's no coincidence that they're the ones that are lukewarm because pride and self-sufficiency always breed lukewarm passion. Somebody that is poor and that is desperate, man, they know their need for God and they cling to Him. You can no more separate them from God than you could separate a scuba diver 100 feet under the water from his oxygen tanks. It is those who are accomplished, those who are praised by the world, those who've got it together, those who are financially secure, those who feel like they're generally good people, they're the ones who grow lukewarm. They never outright deny Jesus. They just marginalize Him. They fulfill their religious duties.

They're good people, but their lives are not characterized by sacrifice or great ventures of faith or first generation hearing from God. Some in church, that's why we did first, is to ask ourselves, not because we have financial need, but because we need to ask ourselves, are we listening to Jesus with red hot devotion and surrendered to do what He wants us to do now? Or have we grown comfortable in that? I'll give you another way.

My wife and I are trying to apply it. I heard, I think it was John Piper say this a couple of years ago, and I said, Veronica, we need to start doing that, every January. It says every January, my wife and I say, John Piper says it, my wife and I say, first week of January, God, is this the year that you want us to walk away from our church and go serve on the mission field, go live somewhere in Southeast Asia? He says, for 40 some years now, God has answered every year that question. He said, no, not this year. He said, but we go ahead and ask it every year. I told Veronica, I'm like, this is last year, this is first year. I was like, we need to start doing that. Look, I don't want it to freak you out, but we're gonna do it first week of January. Hey, Jesus, is this a year?

Because you know what? I love Summit Church. I love Raleigh. I love the Triangle. I love my friends. I'm comfortable here.

What I don't want to do is become lukewarm. Is this the year that you want us to leave? Because it's all in the altar. It's right here. I want to be here because you put me here. I want to be here because I'm obeying you by being here.

I don't want to be here because I've just grown comfortable and satisfied. My challenge for you is you got to do the same thing. You got to have first-generation faith. And you got to say, Jesus, I need you. I need your presence. I need to obey you this year. Well, y'all, this passage is jolting as it is.

It ends with good news. I love it, verse 19. Verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. He's not saying this to us because he's angry or because he hates us. He's saying it because he loves us.

So be zealous and repent. See, I stand at the door and I knock. If you hear my voice and you open the door, I'll come in to you. I'll eat with you. That's fellowship. That's intimacy.

You will eat with me. The good news is he wants to come in. He wants to wake you up.

You're going to let him in? You say, well, what is that knocking? What's that sound like? How do you know when it's happening to you? Here's how I think about it. Three C's. The first C is consequences. Man, maybe some of you right now are struggling under the consequences of bad decisions you've made. You're being disciplined by God. When you made a choice, there's a bad spiritual choice, and God is waking you up. He's like, hey, I'm just trying to get your attention.

Second C, circumstances. Maybe it's not anything direct you can think of a connection, but things have just kind of started to fall apart in your life. And maybe what you realize this weekend is God is letting that happen.

Like I often say, he's putting you flat on your back so you'll finally look the right direction. Maybe it's a problem with your kids. I'll just tell you this, and I hope this doesn't freak you out either, but it's in praying for this message this week. I just had this sense that there was gonna be somebody that listened to me this weekend. Listen, that your marriage fell apart this week, and God brought you here this weekend to say, yeah, we're gonna deal with your marriage. I'm gonna deal with your marriage, but first I need to deal with you. You need to start walking with me regardless of what your spouse does. You need to get things straight with me. And these consequences, these circumstances are Jesus knocking at your door, a health scare, financial crisis.

Here's your third C, conviction. Maybe everything's just awesome in your life right now, but right now you know Jesus is saying, I'm not where I should be. I'm on the outside of your life. I need to come in. You need to stop being lukewarm, and you need to have that white hot passion of worship, and you need to start caring more about what I think and what everybody else thinks, and I'm just knocking at your door.

Let me have the first and the best place. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. A lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron.

Doesn't make any sense. In light of who Jesus is and what he's done, only two responses, worship or mockery. You gotta choose. And if I could just add this, a lukewarm Christian is also a miserable person. It's like Charles Spurgeon said, the most miserable person in the world is a half-committed Christian because he's just enough into God to be miserable in the world, and he's just enough into the world to be miserable in God. If you're gonna follow Jesus, Spurgeon said, you gotta follow him all the way because the worst thing to do is to follow him halfway because you're not even gonna get the joy that comes from sacrifice and the joy that comes from obedience and faith.

You're not gonna feel the warmth of his pleasure. So if you're gonna be saved, be saved 100%, and if you're not gonna do it, just walk away from it. Told you a couple weeks ago, it's like trying to get in on a boat and keep a foot on the dock. That becomes a really bad decision. You got one foot on the boat, one foot on a dock, you're going to be torn asunder. You might be like, well, it's better to be in the boat.

Yep, but it's better to be on the dock and no part of you in the boat than it is to be half on the boat and half on the docks. You gotta make up your mind. You gotta decide in or out. You gotta decide I belong to Jesus and I'm going all the way with him or I'm not going at all. We serve a savior who is worth more than half-hearted devotion. We serve a savior who shed his blood to clothe us with white raiment. We serve a savior who poured himself out to give us riches. We deserve a savior who deserves the passion of worship. He deserves our first and our best. And when you realize who he is and what he's done, all you can say is what the hymn writer says, we're the whole realm of nature mind.

That would still be a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Will you answer his call? Will you open the door to Jesus? An important question to end this year on as well as start the new year with. There's no greater joy than answering his call. This is Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor J.D.

Greer. Okay, so are you a resolution maker? Have you set spiritual goals for the coming year? If there's one thing that'll transform your walk with the Lord more than anything else, it's spending one-on-one time in God's word.

If you'd like to take that challenge and read more of the Bible than you ever have before, we have a tool to help you do that. We've included a year-long Bible reading plan through key passages in the 2024 Summit Life Planner. It's our gift to you for your support of this ministry. December 31st is the last day to have your gift count for 2023. So if you've never given to support Summit Life, right now is the time to take that step. Every dollar counts, helping more people hear and grow in the gospel through this program and our other free resources. If Summit Life has made a difference in your walk with God, will you give that gift to someone else today by giving a generous year-end gift?

Don't delay, 2023 is almost gone. Ask for the planner when you give a critical year-end gift by calling 866-335-5220. Or you can always give online at jdgrier.com. And if you haven't yet signed up for our email list, be sure to do that today. It's the best way to stay up to date with the ministry. You'll get Pastor JD's latest blog posts and we'll also make sure that you never miss a new resource or series. Sign up today at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, and next time we head to a familiar story in the Old Testament. So start off the new year right by joining us right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.