Today on Summit Life, a message of power from J.D.
Greer. You and I are people that are made completely alive, but we still live in a body of death. That means that simultaneously we are more wicked and more depraved and dead than we probably ever realized. But we are also more alive and more accepted and have more power flowing through us than we ever drink or hope. You've got a spirit of resurrection life clothed in a body of depraved death. Thanks for joining us today for another week of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.
Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. You know, the Bible makes a lot of fascinating claims throughout its pages, but the one that will resonate with us today on the program is this. Even though our hearts are beating physically, you and I and every other person on this planet are actually spiritually dead in our sins on our own.
But thankfully, God stepped in and because of the cross, we don't have to stay that way. Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. reveals how we can be made alive in Christ despite our natural bent towards spiritual death and disaster. It's part of our teaching series called Mystery and Clarity. Remember, if you missed any of the previous messages, you can find them at J.D.
Greer dot com. Now here's Pastor J.D. with the conclusion of our message we started last week in Ephesians chapter two called But God.
Verse four begins with the largest conjunction in the universe. But God. But God.
Would you stop and just let that sink, the force of that sink in for just a minute. You are helpless, yes. But you are not hopeless. But God. Being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he has loved us. Many theologians and Christians talk about salvation so coldly and doctrinally as if it was some kind of ritual or rite of passage. Our salvation is bathed in tender love. The reason that worship has not exploded in some of your heart is because you have no concept of how much mercy God has shown to you. You were objects of God's wrath and God loved you anyway.
He absorbed hell into himself to save us. And every page of this book drips with love and mercy. And you've got to learn to start reading your Bible that way.
And until you start seeing the Bible that way, you're never going to get it. One of our members here was telling me about recently he's had a chance to share Christ with a 91 year old history professor at Duke. And he's now meeting with him every week and he's this guy's never believed in God, never been a Christian. He says this guy up to approach the Bible as a history professor, just so kind of matter of factly, he's got all these problems that are going on in this with the Bible. One of the things about this history professor is he's written 13 books, actually he's writing his 13th one right now. His wife has Alzheimer's. This 13th book is about he and his wife's relationship and it's their memoirs. It's the copies of their letter that have gone back and forth and he's putting that together at the end of their life, showing 70 years of love for each other. And our member says to him, he says, I bet this book is different, isn't it?
Isn't it different than writing about the Gallic Wars or the strife on the Peloponnesian Peninsula? Isn't that different? The guy says, yeah, he says, that's how you got to start reading the Bible. You got to read it as the letters of a God deeply and passionately in love with you. Because until you start reading the Bible that way, you're never going to get it. The reason some of you don't worship with passion is that you have no concept of the depths of depravity from which you have been saved or the glorious love that God used to accomplish it. You live in this squishy kind of blase boring middle category where you're not that bad and God's not that loving. And you think actually you're doing God a favor by not talking about his wrath. All you're doing is dwarfing and minimizing his love because we don't ever understand the love of God until we see how far God went to save us. Until I see that Jesus Christ in his body absorbed all the wrath of God that I had deserved, that the way that hell, the hell that was designed for me entered into his body and tore him to pieces. That's when I see the love of God. Verse five, when we were dead in our sins, he made us alive together with Christ.
Guys, notice this is in the past tense. He made us alive, past tense. It's a reference to the work of Jesus. You see, this is the gospel. Jesus came to earth and lived the life that I was supposed to have lived. He lived perfectly. But then he died the death that I had been condemned to die in my place. He absorbed in his perfect life the curse of my death. The curse, there was a curse on sin that justice demanded had to be carried out.
God had said in Genesis 2 17 that the one who sinned had to die and God cannot lie or break his word. Christ died. He satisfied the curse.
Justice was served. But because he was an innocent man who died a cursed death, I can be released from my curse. Because he shared in my death, I can share in his resurrection. Because he died for me, I can live in him. Verse 6, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.
Notice again, past tense, not will seat, but has seated. In God's eyes, I'm already seated with Christ at the place of honor around God's throne. I could not possibly be in a higher place in heaven, closer to God. I am already sitting in God's sight in Jesus' seat. In other words, salvation is already accomplished.
It's already mine. And Paul is saying that as long as Christ is seated at the right hand of God, you can be secure in your salvation. Verse 5, Paul interjects that little phrase, by grace you have been saved. Notice he uses the word saved. I've told you before my frustration with that word.
Sounds like something NASCAR fans say. I got saved. And I've told you, I wish we had another word for it. But there's just no other word to describe what happened to us. In light of what God has done, you can't say I got improved or enhanced or rebooted. I got saved. It was by grace, you see.
Which means I didn't earn any part of it and I really had nothing to do with it. We were dead. Dead people don't do things.
They don't decide things. I'll say one day, I'm tired of being dead. I think I'm going to get up and live a few more years. You were dead. You didn't decide you wanted to know God or that you wanted to live spiritually.
You couldn't decide that. You were dead. God makes alive. The new birth is like your first birth. I had nothing to do with my first birth. God and my parents made all that happen with no help from me at all.
Same thing with my second birth. God did it all from start to finish. Again, Americans prefer to see sin as an action rather than as a condition because if sin is an action, we feel like we can cure it with a checklist of good actions.
We're the can-do people, but you can't do anything for yourself. You're spiritually dead and only a God who makes alive can save us. This is the most important and most offensive truth to grasp about salvation is it is something you cannot in any way do or even contribute to.
God had to do it all from start to finish. Verse 7. So that in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. I love this verse. The church is God's eternal demonstration community.
The church is like God's trophy case. In the ages to come, you see that phrase? For all of eternity, we will be the people who get to demonstrate how glorious and loving and graceful God is. God created millions of other beings besides us. We know at least one kind, angels. I don't think there's any reason to suppose in a universe this big that it may only be angels.
There may be whole other races or aliens, and I'm not trying to launch you into some... I'm just telling you there's a lot of beings that God created besides humans, but only human beings have the Son of God come and die for them. Only human beings in heaven are the ones who can demonstrate the grace and the love of God and forever. That is our job, is to put on display how gracious God is.
That is my responsibility. That's why the Bible tells me in heaven, the book of Revelation, it says that we will wear His name on our forehead, Jesus' name, the Lamb of God. That's significant because in heaven, what I'm going to be known for, that's the idea that it's written on my head, is not that I was a great pastor, not that I was a great dad, not that I was a great husband, not that I did my quiet time for 19 years in a row and never missed a day.
None of those things are going to be written on my head. What I'll be known for and the reason I'll be there is not because I was a great dad or a great husband, and the reason I'll be there is because Jesus Christ died in my soul to save, and I will put His grace and not my worthiness on display for all of eternity. And the reason we're going through all this is because some of you really need to understand this. It's one of the reasons I want you to learn to love the truth about your depravity, because only then can you celebrate and be overwhelmed by the depths of God's glorious grace and His love for you, because only those, Jesus said, who realize they are forgiven of much, only they will love much. Verse 8, the summary of all this, Paul says, You see, it is by grace you've been saved through faith.
And this is not of your own doing. It's the gift of God. These verses summarizes the four crucial things about salvation Paul has been trying to teach now for two chapters.
Let me give them to you really quickly. This summarizes Paul's approach. Number one, the cause of salvation is grace. It is by grace you have been saved, and that's not from yourself, it's the gift of God. That word this in Greek, for those of you that have your Greek New Testament, that word this is written in a way that it points back, watch this, not to either grace or faith, it points back to both words.
I can explain to you why that's true in Greek, but I'm not going to. It points back to both words, grace and faith, which what he is saying is all of it, the grace and even the faith to believe it, it's all a gift of God. God did it all. If you're saved, it's because God woke you up. God restored you to your senses. God even gave you the ability to have faith. Number two, the means of salvation. The cause of salvation is grace. The means of salvation is faith. By grace you have been saved through faith. Faith is the means by which God's salvation comes to us. So this is a really important question, what does it mean to have faith?
Listen, get this because our culture doesn't get this. Faith is not some religious feeling, it is not a virtue, it is simply the belief that Christ has accomplished it all already. God has declared that Jesus is Lord, and God has completely and forever satisfied the curse on our sin. He tells us Christ is already seated at His right hand. When you believe that and you trust it, His salvation suddenly, all at once, flows into you. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Before we continue with today's teaching, it's an exciting day here on the program because it's the first day that we're offering our new featured resource for this month. It's the second book in our Gospel Flipbook series, and it's designed to guide you through the four epistles of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians in a unique and interactive way. You might remember we offered the first flipbook a while back.
This one will be similar. This spiral-bound resource includes key passages to focus on from each book of the Bible, guided prayer prompts to help you pray through what you're reading, and a reading plan to take you through all four epistles. Whether you are looking to grow in your faith or simply want to learn more from the Apostle Paul about how to live this Christian life, this resource is sure to be a valuable tool for you. We would love to send you your copy when you support this ministry with your gift today. So call us at 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgreer.com and ask for your copy of this brand-new Gospel Flipbook. Now let's get back to today's teaching here on Summit Life.
Once again, here's Pastor J.D. I'll give you one of my favorite analogies for salvation. Think of it in terms of this little chair-looking thing or stool or whatever it is. Let this chair, let this stool represent the fact that Christ died for you and paid for all your sin. It's true whether you believe it or not. What it means to put faith in Christ, what it means to have faith, is that you sit down in that chair.
You just acknowledge that it's true. Now, the reason I share this is because a lot of people, like me, have a real hard time getting their minds around when they were saved, and that makes them doubt if they're saved, because they can't remember that moment that they had this big glorious experience, and if they didn't have that moment, they kind of doubted. They're like, whoa, what about, did I pray right, did I understand enough?
That was me. When I was 16 years old is when I began this process, and between 16 and 18, I'm telling you, no exaggeration, I prayed the sinner's prayer like 3,000 times. I was always like, because I didn't want to get it wrong. I'm like, what if I didn't say it right? What if I wasn't sorry enough for my sin? What if I didn't understand the Trinity enough? Maybe I thought Jesus was sort of a lesser God and that's blasphemy, so maybe I better do this again. All these kind of things.
It was terrible. Until one day, I realized this. I was reading Martin Luther's commentary on Romans, Romans chapter 4, where it's kind of like the chair that you are sitting in right now. At some point when you came in here, you made a decision to sit down in that chair. You probably didn't think about it like real clearly, like I'm going to sit down because I judge that chair, it can probably hold the weight of my body. You didn't think through all that, but you saw it and you sat down in it. How do you know that you made a decision to sit down in that chair? Because you're seated there right now, right?
You've got a West Club in your pew over there. You made a decision to sit in that pew. If you doubt whether or not you made that decision, you don't go back and try to relive the decision, you just acknowledge the fact that you're seated there right now. Right now, you are either trusting that what Christ has done is enough and that what God has said about him is true, or you are standing on your own. If I ask you right now that question, if you died right now and God said, why should I let you into heaven, what would your response be?
If you say, well, it's because I'm this and I've done this, X, Y, and Z, you're standing on your own. But if your answer is, it is because I know that God has already done it all, it's finished 2,000 years ago, and that's all I'm trusting, then if never before you were saved right at that moment. Because salvation is trust in what Christ has done. God has declared that Jesus is Lord. God has declared that your salvation is done.
Christ is seated at the right hand, it's over. And the moment you trust that, God's salvation suddenly flows into you. I love how John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, talked about this.
It's got a little old English in it, but it's good, you can follow it. Listen to this. One day, Bunyan said, I was walking through a field, and this sentence fell upon my soul, thy righteousness is in heaven. It was from Ephesians chapter 2. And with the eyes of my soul, I saw Jesus Christ seated at God's right hand. There, I say, was my righteousness. So that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he lacks my righteousness.
For that was right there in front of him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse. For my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loose from my afflictions and irons.
My temptations also fled away. So that from time to time, those dreadful scriptures of God left off from troubling me, and now I also went home rejoicing for the grace and the love of God. You see, to be saved means that you simply recognize God has already finished it all.
It's done, and you rest in it. It is by grace that you are saved through faith, and faith is simply believing that what God has done is sufficient. Number three, the effects of salvation.
Good works. The effects of salvation, good works. Again, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Salvation is by faith, but it produces, get this, always good works. Sometimes people really have trouble with this, because they say, well, if we're saved by faith, it doesn't matter what we do, we can do whatever we want. As long as we believe that Jesus did it all for us, we're saved by faith and not by works. But the Bible teaches that if you're saved, the result is always you will have good works. When you are saved, you see, God, you see this verse, recreates you as his workmanship, which means he puts his heart and his desires into you. If those are not in you, you are not saved.
In fact, let's say it like this. We're not saved by good works. We're validated by good works. We're saved by faith. The effect is good works. So if you don't have good works with your faith this morning, what do you do?
Well, the answer is not to just go out here and start doing them. That wouldn't help you any more than hanging pieces of fruit on a dead tree would suddenly make it alive. You need God to give you a new nature.
You need to have him recreate your desires. Let me use an analogy. It's a little gross, but it communicates. If there were a big pile of dog vomit up here on the stage, I know it's gross, but dog vomit. You would not have to look at me and tell me, do not lick up that dog vomit. I wouldn't be like, oh, you and your rules, always trying to control me.
I wouldn't wait till you turned your back so I could lick it up a little bit and see what I could get away with. No, it's just not my nature. I don't desire that. He's saying, if you don't desire good works, it's because you've got a bad nature. And you've got to come to God and say, God, I am dead. I need to be made alive.
I need you to work in me. You need to come and embrace his overwhelming love and love given to you in Christ and let that change your heart. Fourth thing, last thing, the promise of salvation. The promise of salvation.
What God started, he'll finish. You see, this passage ends by giving you a secret to releasing the incredible power of salvation in your life. It tells you you're a work of God, literally in Greek, a poema, from where we get our word poem. You are a work that God is composing into something that glorifies him. And it tells you that God has already predetermined the end of that work, that you will be complete and perfect and beautiful.
For all eternity, you're going to be beautiful to others that are watching. That truth gives me such encouragement. Guys, because there are so many things in my life I am so discouraged about. I've been discouraged recently about just some of my own personal sharing Christ with other people. I had a situation recently where God clearly opened up an opportunity for me to begin a relationship to share Christ, and I was just way too lazy about it. And finally, God woke me up, and I'm like, I've wasted six months. I'm not talking about sitting on the airplane and not sharing Jesus with the guy next to me.
I'm talking about a major place I dropped the ball. And I get so discouraged about that. I'm like, God, how am I ever going to fix this? It's just the same pattern repeated over and over again, and then I remember this verse. God has already pre-appointed victory for me in that area, and each day I get up. God has already determined successful encounters, and he's already promised the power to be able to live successfully in those, and I get up, and I just go discovering what he has already laid out for me. Sometimes I think about our dreams for this church, those five areas that God has given us, the homeless, the orphans, the prisoners, the unwed mothers, and the high school dropouts. I think about the thousand churches we're supposed to plant, and I'm like, I don't know what we're supposed to do. God has already pre-appointed those things for us. And we don't have to come up with them.
We just have to go discover them. Some of you have a desire to grow and change your life. You want to be more disciplined, a better father, a better husband, more generous, pray more consistently. God has pre-ordained that you should walk in those good works. You say, but I feel so dirty and defeated and weak.
Well, put this whole chapter together. You and I are people that are made completely alive, but we still live in a body of death. That means that simultaneously we are more wicked and more depraved and dead than we probably ever realized. But we are also more alive and more accepted and have more power flowing through us than we ever drink or hope. You've got a spirit of resurrection life clothed in a body of depraved death.
So what do you do? Paul tells us in Romans 6, you have to reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. That means you believe the gospel. My sinful body has been killed in Christ, and my spirit is now, past tense, alive in Jesus.
Here's a secret. When you do that, when you believe that God has recreated you in Christ, God releases that resurrection power inside of you to live victoriously. The way to begin to live like God wants you to live, guys, is not to buckle up and get self-disciplined and memorize a bunch of verses and get involved in an accountability group. Those things all may be great, but the way that you begin to live victorious is you simply believe the gospel, that God has put your old man to death and that He's made the new you alive, and that power is already coursing through your veins, and when you believe it, you release it. Have you ever accepted Christ as your personal savior?
If not, today could be your day. Marinate in the truths of what you've heard today on the program, and if you have questions, reach out to us. You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian, J.D.
Greer. I wanted to take a second to talk a little bit more about our latest premium resource that I mentioned earlier. It's our second installment in the Gospel Flipbook series. We really wanted to create something that would help our listeners grow in their love for scripture, which is why this new flip book features a reading plan through the books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.
It also has details about the books and to whom they were written, key truths gleaned from each epistle, and some reflection questions and memory verses to help you apply each book's message to your life. We'd love to get you a copy today, and when you give $35 or more, we'll send you this Gospel Flipbook as our way of saying thanks for your generous support. And if you missed the first Gospel Flipbook from last year covering the four gospels, we'd love to send that to you with an additional donation. Give us a call today at 866-335-5220. That number again is 866-335-5220, or you can give and request the book online at jegreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us Tuesday when Pastor J.D.
helps us understand our true identity and mission in life. That's Tuesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
