Summit Life with J.D. Greear

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Summit Life Heart Talk with JD. Greer.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
There's something in your heart that is wrong. There's something
in your heart that is dead. There's something in your
heart that is dissatisfied. And what you need is not
changed as to your circumstances. What you need is a
renewal of your heart. So you have to devote yourself
to the Apostles teaching because that word has got to
get in your heart. That is the only way that
a dead heart becomes alive. It's the only way that
a heart that doesn't understand what God wants from it

(00:24):
begins to have wisdom.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome back to Summit Life, the Gospel centered Bible teaching
ministry of JD. Greer, Pastor of the Summit Church in
Raleigh Durham, North Carolina. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitdevich.
Today we're continuing in the Book of Acts and we
see the church at its very inception. We're learning what
it takes to be a follower of Christ and what
it looks like to be fully committed to His mission.

(00:58):
And somewhere along the way, this beautiful place we called
the church came into existence. Remember, you can catch up
on anything you ever miss here on the program by
visiting Jdgreer dot com. Today's message is titled the Coming
of the Spirit and the Birth of the Church. Here's
Pastor JD.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
A couple of weeks ago, I explained to you that
the church started as a movement, but over the years
we have degraded it into primarily a building and a
place where you would go for a service. Explain that
you can see that on the very word we use
for church. Our English word church comes from the German
word kirkha, which in German met literally a place that

(01:39):
you went for a religious observance. But the original Greek
word for church was the word ecclesia, which meant an
assembly that was called out around a particular idea or
around the mission. The early church was a movement around
a mission. It was a body of people who were
moving together as not a building. Our small group's pastor,
Pastor Spence, with our group leaders a couple of weeks ago,

(02:01):
did that thing. If you went in Sunday school, you
remember this, remember this whole deal. This is the church
and this is the Seafool opened the door and there's
all the right and he said, that's a cute little heresy,
A cute little heresy because this is a building, and
this is a you know, kind of outdated cultural symbol,
and this is the church right here. One day I

(02:23):
told him I'm going to write a book called Heresies
I learned in Sunday School, and this will be one
of the chapters. The church, essentially, at its core, is
a movement that has gathered around a mission. In fact,
here's your Bible trivia for the for the weekend. What
came first in the Book of Acts the mission or
the church? The mission? That's right, Acts one eight is
where the mission is given. The church wouldn't show up
till I had the end of Acts two. I've heard
it said this way. God doesn't have a mission for

(02:44):
his church. God formed a church for his mission. That
was the pointy. God wasn't look at the group of
people in the church, like now I needs something to do. Oh,
I know, here's a mission. No, He formed the church
for the purpose of the mission, which means that a
church that is not on mission is not really a church,
and who are not on mission are not really part
of the church movements move And if you're not moving,

(03:06):
you're not part of the movement. So I showed you
acts one that there were two things that propelled this
early movement. One is they were captured by the message,
and then number two, they were yielded to the spirit.
Those are two things I asked you to consider about yourself,
and two things to which I will return over and
over and over throughout this series. Have you been captured

(03:26):
by the message of the Gospel? Not? Do you assent
to it? I know that most of you assent to it.
It's the reason you're here. But have you been captured
by it? Are you consumed by it? Have you been
ravished by it? And are you yielded to the spirit?
Do you know what it means to walk in the
power of the Spirit? Even know what that phrase means?
Do you know what it means to be moved by

(03:47):
the Spirit, to move in his power, to fellowship with him?
Is Christianity for you? Listen, be honest about this. Is
Christianity for you primarily a set of beliefs that you
adhere to and a lifestyle you informed too? Or is
it a dynamic relationship with a living God who lives
insides you that you live in, Move in, walk in,
speak under, live in his authority and fellowship with him.

(04:12):
One of my prayers summit and one of my deepest
hosts for this series, and one of the reasons I
believe that the Holy Spirit of God gave this to
me for us to study over the next several months
is that we during this series might become more of
a spirit filled church. And you guys know, I mean,
you know, I mean, well, you know, I don't mean
a bunch of crazy stuff all that. We're not gonna
get vans with flames painted down the side, you know,

(04:34):
and change our name to the Holy Ghost Annointter Revival,
the Third Way, Pentecostal Holiness, Movement of the Apostles, or
something like that. I'm not going to get a you know,
a charismullet haircut. We're not going to rename Veronica the
first lady bishop at pastor you know, Veronica. We're not
gonna build running lanes around the auditoriums give out tambourines
with ribbons attached to them. We're not doing that. But

(04:55):
I do believe that we are supposed to be a
spirit filled church much more than we are right now now,
where we are filled with people who are filled with
the spirit, who are living and moving in the power
of the Spirit. I've told you we like to call
ourselves here charismatics with a seat belt. That's us, charismatics
with a seat belt, which means, when you come to
this church, I want you to have a wild roller
coaster ride experience with the Holy Spirit. But I want

(05:18):
you also to do things decently in order and to
keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Okay,
So we're charismatics with a seat belt today. And what
I'm gonna try to show you from Acts chapter two
is what the coming of the Spirit was like. What
the coming of the Spirit was like, and then number two,
what the believer's response was to the coming of the spirit.
So what it was like when he came, and then
what their response to him was. Acts two, Verse one.

(05:42):
Now in the day of Pentecost arrived Pentecost. By the way,
it was a Jewish holiday, Pentecost. It was a derivative
of the number fifty. You see, it's fifty days after Passover.
Jesus died around Passover. He ascended on the fortieth day
after Passover after his death, and then so Pentecosta is
in their ten days after that suddenly there came from
heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. Now, to

(06:04):
be honest, I don't think the English there translates what
the author is trying to say. Well, it really means
a tornado, a loud, disturbing, terrifying sense that something powerful
was moving in the room. Have you ever been close
to or in an area where a tornado came through it?
When I was in the tenth grade, it was one
that came through Winston Salem where I lived, and I

(06:25):
remember how terrifying it was. I don't know exactly how
close they got to where we were, but I know
that a friend of mine went outside to try to
get something back in the house that he thought was
going to blow away. And I remember him trying to
get back up on the porch as we were literally
pulling him in as he was walking through cement to
try to get him back in the house. It was terrifying.

(06:46):
That was something like the experience that they had there.
Is this mighty rushing wind came into this room and
it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and
then divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and
rested on each one of them. Now, that's an amazing
picture because you see in the Old Testament, anytime the
presence of God showed up, it was almost always in fire. Right,

(07:06):
And so God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
He led the children of Israel to the wilderness with
a pillar of fire. When he descended on Mount Sinai
to give the Ten Commandments, he consumed the mountain in fire.
When he descended his presence on the Holy of Holies
in the Temple, it was in fire. The fire was terrifying,
and it was often fatal. You couldn't look at it,
you couldn't touch it, You really couldn't be in its presence.

(07:28):
And now now it's on the heads of every believer.
Every believer, every believer is a burning bush with the
presence of God inside of them, and instead of dying,
they're coming alive. You ever stopped to think about what
it means that the spirit of God lives in you?
I don't think we think about that much. This is

(07:50):
something that would have boggled the believers in the boggle
the minds of believers in the Old Testament, because this
was the presence of a God they couldn't get in
the presence of him because it would kill and now
he lives inside of the believer. It's something, Peter says.
Angels long to look into something they wished they had
the experience of, but they don't. The Holy Spirit of God,

(08:11):
the one who spoke the world's into existence, if you
were a believer, has fused himself with your soul. Paul
would look at the Corinthians, who thought that they didn't
have much ability in ministry and didn't think much of themselves,
and don't you understand the value of the treasure that
you possess in an earthen vessel? When they treated sin casually,
he would say, do you do not understand that you

(08:32):
are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God
lives in you? Do not understand that the fire of
His presence has now begun to dwell in you. Verse four.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They begin
to speak in other tongues as a spirit gave them utterance,
and they said, well, what does that mean? Great question?
That's so, he explains verse five. Now they were dwelling
in Jerusalem. You see Jews, devout man from every nation

(08:55):
under heaven, and at this sound, the multitude came together,
and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them
speak in his own language. That's an important phrase. And
they were amazed and astonished, saying or not these who
are speaking all these different languages are not all Galileans?
Aren't these you know, all people from the same place
are not world travelers. They've all in this so backwards

(09:17):
part of Israel. Right, How is it that we hear
each of us in his own native language. We hear
them telling in our own tongues, the megalaila, the Megalala,
which translated the Mighty Works of God, in other words,
the gospel. Now you say, okay, speaking in tongues that
means Pentecostalism, yes, but but no, these tongues were other

(09:40):
human languages. They were unknown to the speaker. But what
was happening as a speaker was saying things he did
not understand somebody else from another part of the world, Like, Hey,
I understand what you're saying. You're speaking without an accent.
You're speaking fluently in the tongue that I was raised in,
and you were telling me about Jesus. Listen to the

(10:00):
The first time the gospel was preached, it was preached
in all languages simultaneously. The first time the Gospel was preached,
it was preached in all languages simultaneously. Do you realize
the significance of that? You realize the significance of that.
Let me try to explain to you. Listening to Tim

(10:21):
Keller teaching this passage, and he quoted from Lamin Sanae,
who is an African professor at Yale University, and Sanae
said that Muslims, and Snae used to himself be a Muslim.
He said, the Muslims will quickly tell you that the
Koran cannot be translated because the words of God are
only in Arabic, and so when you translate it, you
are changing it out of the word of God. It's

(10:42):
almost like a commentary. As far as Muslims are concerned,
God speaks Arabic. So if you want to hear God's word,
you got to learn Arabic. And when Islam comes into
a place, it slowly replaces the culture with its own culture,
and so places that become ISLAMI become very quickly Arabic.
When the Gospel was first preached, however, the first time

(11:05):
it was preached, it was preaching all languages at once,
showing that no culture was the right one, no culture
was the dominant one. And thus when the Gospel goes
into a place, it doesn't erase the culture. It redeems
the culture. It doesn't suppress the culture. It exalts and
lifts up and brings out the culture, the true version

(11:26):
of the culture. Sun ed this, Yale professor said that
no other religion really does that. Other religions tend to
erase the cultures. He said, listen to this. As a
professor at Yale University, I see that it's not just
other religions that do that. Secularism does it too. Listen.
For all of their talk of diversity, Harvard and Yale
are interested in producing only different colored European liberals, he said.

(11:50):
They think of diversity in terms of food and dress,
like oh, in that cute the way you dress and
the whole food thing. We want diversity, Why don't you
do that? He said, But as far as the mindset
the world you go is, you've got to convert to
their worldview. For example, he said, the average Africans, he's
a very spiritual side to the world. But when the
African goes to Yale, he is told that the world
has no spirits and miracles, and Yale guts him of

(12:12):
his africanness. Christianity, he says, helps Africans become renewed Africans,
not remade Europeans. Christianity accepts the reality of the spirit world,
but removes he said. The tendency in African culture is
towards superstition and violence because it shows Christ as the
victor over all evil spirits, and he overcame through love

(12:33):
and service, not violence and manipulation. He said. So whereas
other things would have suppress the culture, Christianity redeems it. Yes,
it purifies it, but it exalts it as something that
God created different to bring glory to him. That's what
Pentecost meant is that no culture was the writer or
the dominant one.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J. D. Greer,
and we'll get right back to today's teaching in just a moment,
But first I wanted to take a second to shadow
of a very special group of people. Are Gospel Partners,
the team that gives so generously to this ministry each
and every month. It's not an exaggeration to say that
they are the financial fuel behind everything we do, including

(13:13):
broadcasting Summit Life every weekday. We call them Gospel partners
because that's exactly what they do. They are actually partnering
with us to help make the Gospel known around the globe.
And this month we are sending each of our faithful
givers a copy of Pastor JD's newest book, Twelve Truths
and a Lie along with a helpful discussion guide. This

(13:33):
book tackles some of life's biggest questions and encourages us
to always be ready with answers for the hope that's
within us. Summit Life couldn't exist without our faithful Gospel partners,
and it's always a privilege to say thank you with
our specially curated featured resource each month, To give a
one time gift or to join us as a monthly
Gospel partner, as well as get your copy of Twelve

(13:56):
Truths and a Lie and the accompanying discussion guide, call
us right away. The number is eight six six three
three five fifty two twenty or you can visit us
online at Jdgreer dot com. Now let's get back to today's
teaching once again. Here's Pastor JD on summit life.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
You know, in the culture that I grew up in,
if you want to show devotion to God, then you
put a suit on on Sunday, because that was giving
God your Sunday best. The none wrong with that. I mean,
that's a very valid expression. And your preacher would stand
up and for fifty minutes he would expound to you
the nuances of Greek words, because if you really want
to know the words of God, got to get down
into the minutia of it. That's a perfectly valid way
to show devotion to God. But you know what, it's

(14:37):
wrong when you start thinking that is the way that
every culture is supposed to show devotion to God. And
if they're devoted to God, they're going to listen to
sermons like that too. God made other cultures differently, gave
him different personalities. Some of them are much more emotional
and expressive, and so we have to understand that when
God chose to redeem the world, he did so not
through one culture or one personality. He did it through
a multiplicity of him. And if we're a spear filled church,

(14:58):
that means there's going to be multiple ways of personalities
and ways that people speak. Then ways that they worship God.
And I think we got to become much more open
to that than we really are. And I think you
got to quit looking at people who don't do it
like you like, what's wrong with them? I gotta you know, well,
you know you were loud today and you were talking
a bunch of it. No, that's just how God. God
gave them that as a way. It's bringing glory. I

(15:18):
don't want to suppress that. I want to rejoice in that,
because that's the glory of God. God said first time,
all languages at once, because there's an internal humility and
a spirit filled Christian because you understand that God shows
the diversity of cultures as a way to bring glory
to himself and the Church, and we need more openness
on that verse twelve, and all were amazed and perplexed,

(15:40):
saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocking,
said they are filled with new wine. But Peter, standing
with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed the
men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let
this be known to you. Give ear to my words.
These people are not drunk as you suppose, since it's
only the third hour of the day wards it's nine
am because they counted it from six. He's like, they're

(16:04):
not drunk yet. Peter probably should have known that doesn't
stop everybody, right, you know who you are, had your
breakfast beer this morning, right, all right? But he says,
they're not drunk. It's nine o'clock for sixteen. But this
is what was uttered through the prophet Joel in the
last days. It shall be. God declares that I will
pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons

(16:24):
and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall
see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. In the
Old Testament, to be a prophet was a big deal.
And what he's saying is that which was reserved for
heroes in the Old Testament has become the standard fair
for every believer in the New. Our sons and our daughters,
and us an old man, all ranges are going to
speak the words of God. Not in the sense that

(16:44):
we're writing the Bible the way that Isaiah did or
Ezekiel did, but it means that the spirit of God
that was on them to speak prophetically is now in
every believer. And every believer is one who speaks in
the power of the spirit the words of God to others. Well,
Peter goes on and from there and he preached a
sermon about who Jesus is, which I'm going to preach
to you next week. But the end of his sermon,
people call out Peter, what should we do? And Peter says,

(17:08):
repent and receive Jesus as your savior and be baptized
as a sign of that, and three thousand people respond,
which had to be a logistical nightmare. Danny Franks, who
heads our baptism team next week, has been complaining faithfully
for the last two weeks about how hard his job is.
And I just open up Acts two and I'm like,
right here, baby. He didn't, Peter not give them any

(17:28):
any advanced warning. He's like, hey, the three thousand people
waiting right there to be baptized, you guys need to
find a pool. And they didn't have black shorts or
black shirts or any of that kind of stuff. Three
thousand people at one time the first sermon. By the way,
the number three thousand is very significant. We see when
the law was given, when the fire of God came
on outside and the law was given, three thousand people
died because they couldn't keep the law. So now when

(17:51):
the spirit of God has given and that fire comes,
three thousand people come alive. Why because Jesus has already
died in their place for the breaking of the law.
Because the fire of God's wrath was absorbed into him.
The fire of God's presence and the fire of God's
love and the fire of a new life now becomes
the ownership of the believer in Christ. There's a whole

(18:12):
new day that God has started. It is a fire
of redemption and the fire of power. All right, jumped
down in verse forty two. So they devoted themselves. They
devoted themselves too, And He's gonna give you four things,
all right. The movement of that spirit. Listen, the movement
of that spirit, that mighty win manifested itself in four
devotions in their lives. Devoted means they gave themselves to

(18:35):
these things in light of the Gospel and the spirits.
These things became obsessions to them. They were devoted to them.
And what I want to try to show you is
that if you've really embraced the Gospel, and if you've
been filled with out of spirit, these will be four
devotions for you. There will be four obsessions for you,
not because I tell you, not because you put them
on a to do list. There's just natural. In fact,

(18:56):
if you are not naturally devoted to these things, I
don't need you to make a list and go start
doing them. They just reflect the fact that you've never
really embraced the gospel and you've never really been filled
by the spirit. Because people who have done those things
naturally become devoted to these things is natural to them
as breathing. If you don't do these things, it's not
a doing problem you got, It's a gospel problem and

(19:18):
a spirit problem. So we got to make sure that
we correct the right thing here. Okay, So four things
that spirit fill people devote themselves to without having to
be told and without hearing sermons. Here we go. Number one.
They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's the first
thing he mentioned. They devoured what was being taught. You see,
Christianity taught that salvation was a gift from Heaven, that

(19:40):
it came from outside of you. That's why the wind
comes from the outside, not from within. The fire comes
from outside of them and dwells on top of them.
It doesn't come from inside of them. So you have
to get the teaching and the words of God that
are coming from the outside, the apostle teaching. You have
to get them in side of you. Now our world

(20:02):
says the opposite, does it not. It says that the
problem with you is you've got too many bad things
on the outside that have conformed you into a certain way,
and you got to get down to the inner beauty
that is you. You got to discover yourself right. You
got to figure out how to manage your problem so
that the inner child, or the inner beautiful part of
you just comes out. I was a New York Times

(20:23):
article recently written by a psychologist who was lamenting how
fewer and fewer people are coming to therapy, at least
certain kinds of therapy, and the psychologist who wrote the
article said this, Listen, fewer and fewer people today come
in saying I need to change. What I see is
more and more people wanting someone or something else to change.

(20:45):
So my pitch went from I treat people with depression
and anxiety to are you having trouble with difficult people
in your life? Maybe I can help? Do you catch
that change? Christianity says, Nope, fundamental problems. You you're the problem. Yeah,
the reason you're unhappy. I know this is gonna offend

(21:06):
some of you, but the reason you're happy has nothing
to do with your marriage or your work situation. Those
might be bad. But the reason you're unhappy has to
do with a problem in your heart. There is something
in your heart that is wrong. There is something in
your heart that is dead. There is something in your
heart that is dissatisfied. And what you need is not
changed as to your circumstances. What you need is a
renewal of your heart. So you have to devote yourself

(21:26):
to the apostles teaching because that word has got to
get in your heart. That is the only way that
a dead heart becomes alive. It's the only way that
a dysfunctional heart becomes normal. It's the only way that
a heart that doesn't understand what God wants from it
begins to have wisdom. Over the years, I've used this example.
It's like that scene in that movie called The Rock,

(21:49):
remember this movie, and so so at the you know,
kind of the high point in the movie, Nicolas Cage
was the hero, as of course he should be takes
one of these green balls of nerve gas and he
shoves it in the mouth of the bad guy, and
he punches him in the face. And he gets up
against this wall and there's nowhere else to go, and
here comes to green gas. And so he reaches in
his backpack and he pulls out this needle, because the

(22:10):
only way that you could survive in the presence of
the green nerve gas was if you took this serum
and got it into your heart immediately. But the needle
that they used to put it in was like that long.
And he takes to the thing and he shoves in
his heart. He shoves the antodode in, and then he's fine.
Basically the movie ends there. Spoiler alert by the way,
in case you haven't seen the movie, but I think

(22:31):
you see the picture we're trying to give you with
that is you're in a world that is filled with death,
and your heart is filled with death, and the only
possible way that you can survive is you devote yourself
to the apostles teaching. You get it on the inside.
You know there is no way around this, There is
no shortcut to this. If you are going to be
a disciple of Christ. You are going to be a learner.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, as Pastor JD just mentioned, if you're going to
follow Christ, you have to be willing to learn. In fact,
that's a large part of why you've joined us today.
So well done. We're thankful to be on this journey
with you. You were listening to Summit Life and a message
titled the Coming of the Spirit and the Birth of
the Church. Pastor j D. It may seem like a
big no no to even ask this question, but since

(23:18):
we're called to be learners, help us out. Is it
okay to have doubts about our faith?

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Molly? I have three words for you. Okay, how dare you?
How dare you even raise the possibility that you could
ever have a question or something unanswered or something difficult.
The majority of our Bibles was written by people who
had unanswered questions, right, And I've found that from my
own life and in my family, and in our church
and from our Summit Life listeners. There are difficult questions,

(23:44):
like prayers that I've prayed faithfully for years that I
feel like are in God's will but I haven't seen
the answer yet. That and several others are what we
tried to just just say these are honest questions. They're
real questions. There questions Bible writers had, and here's how
you navigate through that. My hope is that it will
not only strengthen your faith, but it will enable you

(24:04):
to better interact with a questioning and doubting culture all
around us. So we wanted to make it available to you,
and we've got a discussion guide that helps you navigate
through it that goes along with it. If you'll just
reach out to us at Jdgreer dot com, I would
love to get this in your hands as a help
to you, both in your own faith and for reaching
out to others.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Thanks JD. To give now or join our Gospel partner family.
You can call us at eight six six three three
five fifty two twenty or head to Jdgreer dot com. Today,
I'm Mollie Vitovich. Thanks for being with us, and tomorrow
Pastor Jdgreer will teach us what it means to be
a part of a church family, so you won't want

(24:44):
to miss it. We'll see you again Thursday here on
Summit Light. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.