Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

This week, Pastor J.D. answers the question “Were men like King David really great men of faith?” Show Notes: You know, one of the things you realize are some of the great men and women of faith in the Bible had some pretty significant flaws. David’s were legendary. There’s the situation with Bathsheba, which was, at best, an abuse of power. Then you have multiple places of compromise and he seems to be a pretty terrible father. And at the very end of his life, he commits a sin that grieves God so bad that 70,000 Israelites die. So why do we talk about David as a hero of the faith? I recently was teaching through the story of David at our church, and at the end of David’s life there’s a verse that the author of Samuel uses to summarize David’s life. 2 Samuel 22:21-25, ” The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he rewarded me, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God, for all his rules were before me and from his statutes, I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my likeness in his sight.” We read this and we’re like, ah, David. Blameless is not the word that I would use to describe your life. How could any of us reading the story of David say, “Oh, yeah, David was blameless and clean.” Why would David say that? And why would the editor include this at the end of David’s life? I see three options as to why the author would say that about David as a great man of faith: Option number one is what we call hagiography. Hagiography is just a fancy word that means that you tell the most polished version of a person’s life and you leave out all the bad parts. Basically, you turn them into a hero. I remember when I was a kid reading this biography of George Washington and the biography is basically said George Washington did no wrong. He walked five miles in the snow to repay a penny somebody had overpaid him. He could tell no lies, and when he chopped down the cherry tree. He was dauntless fearless, a man with no flaws. And that’s why that’s why America is awesome. To be clear, George Washington was a great man. But we know that he liked like a lot of great men had some some pretty significant inconsistencies, some grievous ones. So is the author trying to whitewash David’s past? Well, I mean, no, I mean, the same author that put this here also recorded all of the bad stuff in the preceding chapters and the author is not trying to pretend that what he just recorded didn’t actually happen. The sin that David committed was real, and the pain he caused was real. The Bible has been clear about that. Option number two is what we call positional righteousness. And that is where you say, well, these statements are declarations about David’s positional righteousness in Christ. Because after all, that’s what the gospel is about is how God trades our unrighteousness for Christ’s righteousness. When we trust Christ, we receive His righteousness. But I would say there are several things in this text that don’t quite fit with that explanation. Several things that indicate that positional righteousness is not the not the best answer to this dilemma we find. Look again at what David says in verse 21, “according to the cleanness of my hands, I have kept the ways of the Lord according to my righteousness. I did not turn aside.” I think it’s pretty clear here that David is referring to good things that he himself did, and not good things that Jesus did in his place. This leads me to the third option, which I believe is the correct one, and that is what I would call new creation righteousness. What that means is that this final statement about David demonstrates the reality and the power of God to restore the believer. In fact, let me point you to a couple of the things David said that I think really illustrates this. In Psalms 103, David says, “The Lord does not deal with us according to our sins.” God doesn’t remember our wicked deeds, but he does remember our righteous ones. And that means that because of Jesus, our lives can be defined by by the good that we do, not the sins that we committed. I mean, it’s very possible that somebody’s listening to me right now you sin grievously in your past. And listen, I’m not trying to minimize that or whitewash what you did. That pain that you caused was real. In many cases, it needs restitution. In some cases, it leaves lasting earthly consequences. There are certain kinds of abuse that mean you’ll never be able to reengage in certain relationships. But the good news of the gospel is that even with the reality of those sins, your life can be defined the summation of your life will not be the bad that you did. The final verdict on David’s life, the label that Scripture gives him, is not abuser, compromiser, negligent father, or murderer — even though all those things are true — the label that God puts on David in the Scripture is humble man of faith, blameless one, gracious man of God, man of courage. You see, because of your past, you might label yourself a cheater, thief, adulterer, absent father, abuser, criminal, compromiser, coward, alcoholic, failure, but see, just like with David, God has a new label for you and from this point forward your life can be defined not by the sins you committed, but by the by the works of faith and the love that you’re going to do. It’s time for some of you to get on with that. Stop wallowing in the shame of your past and get on with the good that God has for you. Say with David, “God can restore me so that what I’m defined by are the works of faith and not the sin I committed.” Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers a question from Justin, who asked, “Why Does the Bible Say Women Must Be Silent In the Church?” Show Notes: There’s some things in Scripture that even Peter said were often hard to understand. So if Peter had a hard time understanding, it doesn’t surprise me that there’s some things in our New Testament that we’re not sure what they mean.  In 1 Corinthians 14:33-35, it says, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” (ESV) Paul is clearly not saying that women should never speak in church. How do I know that? Well, for one thing, just three chapters before this in chapter 11, Paul gave instructions for how women were to speak and pray and prophesy in church. He said women were to do so “with their heads covered” which communicated that they weren’t elders. The point is, Paul’s not going to give an instruction about how women should speak in church, and then turn around and give a verse that means they should never speak in church, because that wouldn’t make any sense. The biblical rule of interpretation is that you interpret hard verses by easy ones because the Bible doesn’t ever contradict itself. The easy verse here is that women are given instructions about how to speak in church. Clearly, this can’t mean women don’t speak in church because it would would contradict him own words, so what does it mean? Well, you can see from this chapter that there was a particular problem that Paul was addressing:  In 1 Corinthians 11 and 14,  you see that in their worship services there were different groups in Corinth who were apparently interrupting each other with with some kind of agenda that they were bringing to the surface. Some are speaking in tongues in the middle of a church service and others were disputing those words or disputing the tongue that was given. So Paul gives instructions to three different groups in chapter 14. In verse 28, he says don’t just yell out in the tongue if there’s no interpreter. In verse 30, he says don’t interrupt somebody else who was given a prophecy with a better one that you think you have. And now verse 33, to the women of Corinth, he says, “Don’t be disputing prophecies that are given by others and evaluating publicly whether they’re from God because that’s something reserved for the office of the elder.” Paul refers to 1 Corinthians 11 to say that the the official evaluation and disputation of prophecy, the authoritative teaching on what is really from God and what’s not, is the  function of an elder, and a woman is not to play that role in the church. So that’s the kind of speaking he is referring to in the authoritative capacity of an elder. Now, here’s one objection that I’ve heard. Sometimes people will ask, “Maybe Paul’s instruction here is only for a particularly boisterous group of women in Corinth.” But here’s why I don’t think that’s a good explanation. If that were true, why would Paul say it this way? In verse 33, he says, “as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.” In other words, he said: this is not just about Corinth, it’s about all churches of saints everywhere. So I think the better interpretation is what we’ve talked about and is consistent with what Paul says everywhere. Women have access to all the spiritual gifts and they should use them in the church and use them publicly and privately. They should use them from the stage and one on one. But they should just not do so in the capacity of an elder. We want more women speaking in church and we want more women using their spiritual gifts in church, which often involves speaking. We can encourage and bless that, while respecting the order that God established since God’s church is a reflection of his image. And God’s plan is always best, which is the doctrine we call complementarianism. The New Testament is clear. From start to finish, women play a crucial part of Christ’s body, and they have access to all the same spiritual gifts that men do. Their insight is valuable. The church needs to hear from them, and our body is much worse off without them. Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers a question from one of our listeners, James: “Is It OK for Christians to Use IVF?” Show Notes: I do want to be sensitive here, because I know that there are probably people listening right now who are going through this. I know that this is an incredibly emotional decision to make. Most of the time that decision has been preceded by a very emotional journey of trying to conceive and not being able to get pregnant. I know there are others who might be listening who actually were conceived via IVF, and and I’ll address that here later on as well. So I’ll just start here, I see a potential problem that IVF can bring about that runs contrary to a biblical perspective on life, namely, that life begins at conception. All human life, at whatever stage, is sacred. Many times the procedure is carried out in a way where they take multiple eggs, because they’re trying to make the process as efficient as possible. Sometimes an implanted embryo won’t actually develop into a child or there’ll be a miscarriage, so they’ll actually fertilize multiple embryos at one time, and then the ones that they don’t use, they either freeze those additional embryos, or in some places, they’ll actually discard them. And that’s where there we find an ethical problem. Because if life does begin at conception, then we’re dealing with human beings now made in the image of God. And that means we’re creating a number of individual people in the image of God who have a soul. We create them with the knowledge that we’re likely going to be destroying a number of them intentionally. Listen, I don’t claim to have the last word on this ever changing world of reproductive technologies. In fact, I would refer our listeners to the work of somebody by the name of Jennifer Lahl at the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Her work actually raises a lot of these questions and helps you think through them biblically. But I do want to say as clearly as I can, that the idea that we would create babies in embryonic form as a fertilized egg, and intentionally discard them, that runs entirely contrary to a true pro life position. While that is agreed on generally by evangelical theologians, there are some trusted evangelical theologians that have injected some nuance into this discussion that I think we ought to be aware of: For example, Wayne Grudem, who is a very influential evangelical theologian has a very trusted voice and has been a consistently reliable voice in these kinds of things for years. He has an article with the Gospel Coalition called “How IVF Can Be Morally Right.” Not that it is always morally right, but how it can be morally right. It’s well researched and helpful if you’re considering this. What he concludes is that IVF is a morally good action in some circumstances. He says, and I quote, “If IVF is used by a married couple, and if care is taken to prevent the intentional destruction of embryos, then it is a morally good action that pleases God because it violates no scriptural guidelines, achieves the moral good of overcoming infertility, and brings the blessing of children to yet another family.” Dr. Grudem also says he says choosing to fertilize only one egg or two at a time and using those with the hope that they will survive is far different than the common practice of IVF, where several eggs are fertilized and then most are intentionally destroyed. In that case, he says there is a willful and intentional destruction of human lives, which we would say is unethical because it violates the commandment, thou shalt not murder. And let me also say this, if you are a married couple who is considering this, I would encourage you to make sure you’re thinking about all the different options you have in starting a family. I know that not being able to conceive is incredibly painful. But there’s an incredible beauty and adoption and there’s such a need for it. There are also Christian leaders who advocate for the adoption of unused, frozen IVF embryos that are out there. I’ve know some families that are very committed to life and say, well, that’s where we’re going to start. That’s where we’re gonna adopt because these are babies made in the image of God. Lastly, if you’ve already used IVF, let me just speak as a pastor for a minute: My goal in answering this question is not to heap shame on you. God is sovereign. And he used that procedure to bring about life. That doesn’t license everything that we do, but it does recognize that that there was a sovereignty of God. As you wrestle through the rightness, or wrongness, of certain decisions, you can always rejoice in the child that God gave you. Maybe you’re listening right now and you were conceived through IVF, and you’re saying, “Wait a minute, was I conceived through an immoral means?” One of the beauties of God’s sovereignty is that he creates some of his best work through the mess of our choices. Think about the cross: There was so much chaos, so much mess, but out of that God brought our salvation. He brought the resurrection—the most beautiful thing in history. Your life is precious, and God has a plan for you. You are not an accident. God knit you together in the womb, just like he did any of us. That’s what Psalm 39 promises all of us. Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers a question in his recent sermon: “Does charismatic worship go too far?” Show Notes: Let me give you twin worship principles to hold in tension: Different cultures (and different personalities) have different ways of expressing emotion. Different cultures and different traditions have distinct ways of expressing emotion and reverence and worship, and that’s ok. I’ve learned this most as we’ve tried to make strides in becoming a multi-ethnic church. As you know, pursuing ethnic unity is much bigger than just worship style. But worship is one area where our church has learned a ton from various cultures being involved. For example, we have a lot of traditional Southern Baptists in our church. When they are really into it in church, they tend to sing with a lot of gusto. There’s not a lot of movement in their worship, and many of them can’t even clap on beat, but there’s plenty of volume, especially when we bring out those old hymns. If they get totally into it, they may even lift one arm for a moment like they are trying to ask a question. And if they are experiencing full-on revival, they’ll sway back and forth with both arms bent 90 degrees at the elbows, as if they’re carrying a giant, invisible microwave oven. And when I preach, they’ll let out punctuated, staccato “Amens” when I say something they think is powerful, especially if I alliterate it. Mixed in among them is a sizable number of people who grew up in churches that were a bit more loquacious with their sermon feedback. During worship, a lot of former Pentecostals add in some rhythmic clapping, shouting, and jumping that I don’t typically see from our members who grew up at First Baptist. Our Latino members combine this sanctified enthusiasm with what can only be called a supernatural endurance. For them, anything less than two hours of singing cannot legitimately be called “worship.” I’m serious: the first time I attended a service at our Summit en Español campus, I missed lunch with my family. And I think dinner, too. So here’s the question: Which of these is the correct, biblical way to worship? Amen. What is wrong is when we elevate our preferences and make them normative. Remember what God told Samuel earlier in 1 Samuel? Don’t judge the outside, Samuel “Man looks on the outside, but I look on the heart.” I grew up in a church with some of the godliest people I’ve ever known—many lived the most sacrificial lives; they were people of integrity; they were people of deep prayer, people who brought others to Jesus consistently—they were just quieter and less expressive. But I know people who would look at them self righteously and say, “They are not filled with the Spirit.” Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart. Here’s the other worship principle: All worship should have elements of passion and self-forgetfulness. Remember, “undignified” is the word David used in 2 Samuel 6:22. He said to Michal, “And I will make myself even more undignified than this when I worship…!” The word here implies self-forgetfulness. What David said is, ‘When I worship, I’m not going to think about what people are thinking about me; I’m going to think about what they are thinking about God.” It is true we all do things differently, but the corresponding truth is that all worship should contain elements of passion and self-forgetful expressiveness. More than 20x in Scripture we are encouraged, even commanded, to raise our hands in worship. Here’s just a few examples: Psalm 88:9, “I call for you every day, O Lord; I spread out my hands like a child toward you.” Psalm 143:6, “I spread out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like a man in a parched land.” Psalm 28:2, “Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help; as I lift my hands…” Psalm 134:2, “Lift your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord.” You say, “But isn’t it hypocritical to do something I don’t feel in my heart?” No. Here’s how obedience works: sometimes as you are obeying, when you don’t feel like it, God changes your heart to desire what you are doing. In some ways, your obedience is like a cry to God to change your heart. In fact, here’s a little secret: the posture of our bodies actually guides the emotions of your heart. That’s how God designed us. Psychologists tell us that we are psychosomatic creatures, which means our souls and bodies are intertwined. So, when I get into a posture of surrender, I feel emotions of surrender. When I adopt a posture of reverence, it helps guide my heart to feel reverence. A lot of times we think that the posture of our body is a reflection of our heart; but often the posture of our body serves as the guide, the catalyst for our heart. I want fellow believers to see my worship, who know when I’m going through a hard time, and they see my hands raised and joy on my face and tears in my eyes, when they know everything is going wrong in my life, and they say, “Now, this must be a God worth trusting! This God must be so amazing that he gives you joy even when everything is not going your way!” Listen, I’m not trying to contradict what I said earlier about different cultures and different personalities having different ways of expressing emotion, no one necessarily better than the others. I’m just saying that in all worship we ought to see expressiveness and passion and, sometimes, we ought to look undignified.  We go forward with these twin, complementary truths: Different cultures (and different personalities) have different ways of expressing emotion. (and you’re not the judge of anybody else). All (gospel-based) worship should have elements of passion and self-forgetfulness. Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers a question that has been submitted by several listeners: “Should I get a divorce if I’m miserable in my marriage?” Show Notes: My heart goes out to people that are in these types of situations. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than being in a relationship that supposed to bring life and joy than when it ends up feeling like misery. That’s why at multiple points the Bible will advocate caution as you approach marriage because you are about to tie yourself to someone for the rest of your life. It’s not a covenant to enter lightly. We have done a podcast before here on Ask Me Anything, which is linked here, that walks through the biblical reasons on whether or not divorce is OK. But I do want to acknowledge, like I stated on the previous podcast, that there are some reasons where the Bible teaches that divorce is justifiable. This can be remembered by the three A’s: adultery, abandonment (1 Corinthians 7), and abuse. But the specific question wasn’t if adultery, abandonment, and abuse were present should I get a divorce but if I am just miserable, can I get a divorce, and the Bible is pretty clear that in that case, you don’t have a justifiable reason to leave. Divorce has never been about you and your happiness. It’s about a covenant that reflects God’s unconditional love and sometimes you show that by being with somebody that at the time is not giving you warm fuzzies or meeting all of your needs. Jesus didn’t stay with us because we made him happy. It was that love that ultimately showed his greatest glory. So somebody might hear that and say, “Well then does God want me to be miserable?” Of course not. God does not want you to be miserable at all but here’s the thing, the way to happiness in the Bible is never through a change of circumstances. The way to happiness in the Bible is the way to holiness. What this might mean is that you stay married even if you feel unfulfilled. Let me be clear, I’m not talking about the situations where there is abuse. I’m only talking about the situations where you feel unhappy. Russell Moore said, “Remaining faithful to a wife that you wish you had not married might seem miserable to you but taking up a cross and following Jesus is miserable in the short run at least. That’s why the book of Hebrews presents the life of faith in terms as sometimes not receiving what was promised (Hebrews 11:39) but seeing it and embracing it from afar.” Sometimes the happiness that you’re embracing in the midst of a difficult marriage is the happiness that’s not now in the present but a happiness that is there in the future. So how do you stay in a difficult marriage? Reject the “Right Person” myth. We talked a lot about this in our relationship series, but the “right person” myth says that there’s a right person out there for you and that a good marriage—and therefore your happiness—is determined by finding that person. If you aren’t happy in marriage, you probably aren’t with the right person. Press reset and try again. But here’s the thing: You always marry the wrong person. How do I know that? You’re both sinners who will disappoint and fail one another! Plus, you’ll both change over time.  Do it for Jesus. The covenant you made in marriage was first and foremost to him. Even if you weren’t a Christian when you got married, marriage was  still God’s creation, and you did it in his name. You may not feel, in the moment, that the person standing in front of you is worthy of forgiveness or your continued faithfulness. But Jesus always is. Soak yourself in God’s grace. What precedes Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Matthew 19 is his teaching on forgiveness. That’s no accident. Ultimately, what kills a marriage isn’t a specific infraction; it’s hardened hearts that’s unable to forgive and live in grace. It’s not the fights or the frustrations or the lack of fulfillment. It’s a posture of the soul. The good news is that Jesus can soften your heart through the gospel and his Holy Spirit. So lean into that. In the cross, we find forgiveness for the sins done by us and healing for the ones done to us. Do it for others. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul urges that a spouse stuck in an unfulfilling marriage to an unbeliever lift their eyes beyond themselves to the positive effect that remaining in the marriage will have on others, particularly their kids. Sociology has borne this out today: Except in cases of abuse, dissatisfied spouses who choose to remain together lead to much better outcomes for their children than children of those who separate. Get some counseling. Me and Veronica have at several points… But make sure you go to a godly counselor that you trust. I can’t tell you the number of people that have ended their marriage because some counselor told them they might as well go ahead and do it since they don’t get along. When we consider leaving or divorcing, we, as believers, must consider what that communicates to those around us about the love of God. When we walk away from a marriage because we are unhappy, we implicitly tell others that God’s love is conditional, that when we annoy him or disappoint him or make him unhappy, he leaves us. The world desperately needs to know a different kind of love—the patient, steadfast, never-giving up love of God. Let’s show them. Don’t give up hope.  Keep being faithful and praying. Sometimes God really will change the person. Give God’s grace space to work. When you consider leaving your spouse, consider what it communicates about the love of God. That really is what is God’s primary purpose in marriage. It was a gift to us but it’s also about him—he’s teaching us about himself through marriage. So when we walk away from a marriage because it’s not fulfilling or because we feel miserable, we implicitly or sometimes explicitly tell us others that God’s love is conditional. We tell them that we annoy God or disappoint God, we can expect him to walk away from us, too.  Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers the question, “How do you handle it when a Christian leader falls?” Show Notes: Unfortunately, I think we can all think of a Christian leader that we’ve looked up to and respected who has fallen—either morally, disqualifying themselves from ministry, or denouncing the faith altogether.  There are few things quite as devastating as when you look to someone as your spiritual hero and they fall. Sometimes it’s someone you’ve seen from a distance whose teaching had a big impact on you and sometimes it’s someone who is up close—maybe not everyone has heard of them but they’ve had a big impact on you. This raises questions like, “Were they always a hypocrite or was this a moment of weakness they got in? Is everything they ever taught a lie?” Sadly I can name several men that I’ve looked up to in ministry who have disqualified themselves from ministry.  There was a book that was written by Paul Trip called Dangerous Calling, which is about the danger of being called into ministry and the irony is if you open up the cover and see the names of the men who endorsed the book, they were all really good friends of mine and all of them except for one have fallen. So I asked Paul Trip about this and he said, “There are two things—number one they lose peer community. By peer community, I mean the kind of people that look into your life and call stuff out. They don’t work for you. They’re not impressed with you. They can speak truth to you. Most of those people community around them but not peer community. The second problem is something that compounds the first—they forget the power of indwelling sin. They think that somehow their success in ministry or how much they know moves them beyond that initial call to follow Jesus and die to yourself.” I can tell you that even after being in ministry for over 25 years, the fight between the flesh and the spirit never goes away. It never gets easier. The raging of my flesh against God is as real as it ever was. So when that happens and it effects you personally and you’re dealing with that disappointment, there’s a few things I try to remind people. At their very best, they were still very flawed and they were never designed to be your savior. They were only to point to Christ. Now, hopefully they will point consistently to Christ by their life, but there are just a lot of figures in the Bible who started that way and then disappointed. Ultimately, the Christian leaders you look up to you are not there to be the object of your faith. They’re just a means to point you to put your faith in him.    Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. answers a question from one of our listeners, Brennan: “Should evangelicals participate in Lent?” Show Notes: This one is going to be one of the classic, “yes, no and it’s up to you” kind of answers. First of all, if you’re not familiar, Lent is the practice that some denominations observe by setting aside the 40 days leading up to Easter (actually, it technically ends on Holy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter) to devote themselves to prayer and fasting. Traditionally, Lent is started on Ash Wednesday, which is where participants signify the start of lent by drawing the cross on their foreheads with ashes. People usually fast from something during during this time… “giving ____ up for lent.” Let me start by saying that I do not really observe lent, and lent is not part of our Baptist “calendar.” However, there is certainly not any harm that necessarily comes from observing lent—and in fact, I strongly believe that more Christians should set aside periods of time in their lives where they devote themselves to fasting and prayer. Part of the resistance to this is that there is a certain stream that teaches that these rituals earn merit with God and only in doing these are you filling yourself with grace—a sacramental approach where participating in these rituals fills you with grace. And the counter to that is our righteousness has been gifted to us through Christ and there’s nothing we can do to add to it—this is not directly commanded in the Bible so why do we need to do this? What I want to say is there is a value in attaching yourself to the historic Christian calendar. Many Christians have approached this with the right spirit for many years. I’m all for more time spent in prayer and fasting, and if doing that with the global church is helpful, then that is great. At the Summit Church we do things a little differently. For the past three years, at the beginning of the calendar year (usually January/February), we have what we call 21 Days of Fasting & Prayer. Each year it’s been an incredibly powerful time both for me personally and for our church. Sometimes when people fast, they don’t really understand why they’re doing it. This happens with Lent, too. People think that because they are hungry, God will listen to them. The gospel would say, “No, God’s attention to you, his love, is not conditioned based on how hungry you are.” Fasting is really about putting yourself in a position to hear from him. It’s less about getting you in a position where God likes you and more tuning your heart to the Father’s.  To make sure we’re clear, the commandment of God is that we pray and fast often, but the exact form of the, the calendar in which that happens, isn’t subscribed.  Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, listen in to Pastor J.D.’s thoughts on revival that he shared at a recent Summit Church staff meeting. Show Notes: There are two ways God sends revival: “All at once” and “over time“ Rick Warren has said that Saddleback has never had a revival, only a ‘vival’ While Saddleback isn’t a perfect church, there’s a lot of evidence of genuine spiritual awakening but it didn’t happen in one service that extended for eight days. It happened through faithful preaching, teaching and disciple making. It’s important to be aware that God is the one who chooses how he sends things. To quote Tim Keller, the definition of revival is, “The intensification of the ordinary operation of the work of the Holy Spirit, occurring mainly through the ordinary ‘instituted means of grace’— preaching, pastoring, worship, prayer.” During these seasons God’s glory gets heavier, sin becomes more real, Jesus’ love and presence become more “felt.” And lots of people get saved. So we get up every day and we do those four things listed out: preach, pastor, worship and pray. My encouragement to you is, don’t force anything, or assume it has to look just like somewhere else. Almost none of Jesus’ miracles happened the same way: Sometimes he speaks, sometimes he spits on the ground—it’s all in different ways. You can not reproduce a miracle. You keep on doing what he has called you to, and God will work. We can long for revival and not assume anything BUT there are a few things that these kind of awakenings always have in common: Prayer—the evidence that God is on the move. I was reminded of this recently in Psalm 71. David, as he got older, saw his main job as “proclaiming your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” I’m not older, but I wanted to share this. I want the next generation of the Summit church (leaders that we’re raising up), to know in the depths of their heart that God is faithful and he answers prayers. The second characteristic is always confession of sin. There’s a greater awareness of your sinfulness. It starts in the church. The few revivals I’ve had a privilege to be a part of always start with the leaderships’ sensitivity to sin. The final characteristic is having an openness to the Spirit. We just join God in what he is doing. Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. finishes the Ask Me Anything series based on his new book, Essential Christianity. The final question is, “What is the difference between being religious and being spiritual?” Show Notes: This is a really important question because the fastest growing category in the United States is “spiritual but not religious,” which I talk about in my book, Essential Christianity. Simultaneous to this growing interest in spirituality, there is also a decrease in trust in religious institutions and historic traditional religious belief systems. Just listen to talk shows, Hollywood, sports starts and you will hear the message of “I have a religious side to me—I really want to commune with the divine, but I’m just not part of organized religion.” So for Christianity, the world’s largest religion, it sounds like it’s pretty bad news… but it might not be. I think there is a good and bad version of the “spiritual but not religious.” The bad version is, “I want religion on my terms. I’m not really interested in God or anybody else in telling me what is right and what is true. I don’t want morality dictated to me by anything. I want to find truth within me.” It’s a toxic, self-actualization way of thinking and it’s everywhere. The good version of it is that a lot of the formal religious structures including ritualism and authority structures are being questioned. Jesus taught something entirely different from those things. Jesus focused not on religion but on a relationship (loving God with all of your heart, loving your neighbor as yourself, the gospel is a gift of grace that you receive). So, detaching from an unhealthy dependance on religion can be a good thing. One of the thing that surprises people when they read through the Bible for the first time is how central a relationship and communion is with all of Christianity. If you look back at the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked with God. God led them out in Exodus and led them with a plow by day and a pillar of fire by night. When Jesus came they called him God, with us, Emmanuel. Now with the Holy Spirit he is God in us.  Jesus went so far to tell his disciples that if they have the choice between having him, Jesus, with them or having the Holy Spirit inside of them, they should choose the Holy Spirit if they really understood what the Holy Spirit could do for them. All of that to say that the experience with the Spirit is supposed to be so incredible that it really defines all of Christianity, which is ironic that a lot of people think that you now choose between spirituality and religion because, at least in the Bible, they really are one in the same. You cannot have a relationship with God and not commune with his Spirit. This leads a lot of people to say, “What does the Holy Spirit do exactly?” In Romans, Paul identifies several things: The Spirit enables us to believe in Jesus. The fact that you are convinced that Jesus is Lord and submit to him is all produced by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit produces the life of Christ in us. Throughout Romans 8, Paul keeps saying the Spirit is life. In Romans 5 Paul says the Spirit sheds abroad Christ’s love in our hearts, which means he gives us a felt sense of God’s presence and his love. Paul says the Spirit prays for us with groanings that can’t be uttered. The main things that the Spirit does is he sheds abroad Christ’s love, communicates Christ’s presence, and he fills us with the spiritual fruits—the love, joy, and peace that characterize life in the Spirit. So if find yourself saying, “I want to be spiritual and not religious” I would actually say that’s not a bad place to start as you turn toward Christianity because Jesus, in many ways, was the opposite of religion. It was religious people who were most against him. The New Testament describes really knowing God as fellowship in the Spirit. For more from Essential Christianity, order your copy today! Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This week, Pastor J.D. continues our Ask Me Anything series based on his new book, Essential Christianity. The fifth question is, “Is downplaying the sinfulness of homosexuality necessary to reach the next generation?” Show Notes: I had one good friend tell me I should leave the topic of homosexuality out of the book, since it can be so hard for some people to swallow. I recognize that sometimes, there are issues that you want to time when you bring them up when you’re sharing the gospel with someone. In the end, I decided to put in a small chapter about what Christians have historically believed on this. First, because that’s a pretty significant part of the book of Romans (which the book is based on), when Paul talks about the evidence of our rebellion against God. If anyone is reading along in the book of Romans as I go through this, they’d have a big, glaring question about this topic. That’s a big reason why I don’t think downplaying homosexuality is something we can do anymore. When trying to reach the next generation, this is one of the top things they come into an evangelical church thinking about. The world says there are only two options: affirmation and alienation. Because of that, they don’t give any moral authority to those who they believe are “alienating,” and because of that, I believe I have to show them that the Bible offers a third option: you don’t affirm the behavior but you do affirm the individual as made in the image of God and worthy of love and respect and protection. Leaving the subject out was going to be counterproductive in my book, and I believe it’s the same situation with our churches: the next generation is coming in with their own narrative about what I believe, so I have to address it head-on. There are also a couple of biblical problems that lead me to believe downplaying this topic is not helpful (which I wrote about in an article posted on The Gospel Coalition). First, removing the offense of the cross will also divest it of its power. Repentance, properly understood, is offensive—but repentance has always been at the center of the gospel message. Second, we know from the Bible that Jesus was full of both grace and truth… not just one or the other. Truth without grace leads to fundamentalism and judgment. Grace without truth leads to acceptance amongst people, but not to repentance before the Father. Jesus was full of both, and the two together are the power of God. For more from Essential Christianity, order your copy today! Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question. As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast! Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.