Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

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.

This week, Pastor J.D. continues our Ask Me Anything series based on his new book, “Essential Christianity.” The fourth question is, “Can anyone actually know they will go to heaven?” Show Notes: I’ve talked about this before, but if there were a Guinness World Record for the amount of times someone asked Jesus to save them, I’m pretty sure I’d hold it. By the time I was 19, I’d “become a Christian” about 5,000 times. Every time my church gave an invitation to pray a prayer to “accept Jesus,” I did it right away. One year my church had a goal of 300 conversions and I think I fulfilled that goal all by myself. I know that sounds neurotic, but I just wanted to be sure that I was saved. I was plagued with questions like “Last time I prayed that, did I feel sorry enough about my sins?” and “Since praying the prayer, have I followed Jesus closely enough?” I knew the Bible said that we were “saved [by] faith,” (Ephesians 2:8) but I wanted to know: what was the faith that saves, and how could I be sure I had it? I’ve since found that a lot of Christians have these same questions. Ask 20 different people what “faith” is, and you’ll likely get as many different answers. Some think of it as a general sense that God is real. Others think it means sincerity in religion. They say, “I’m getting more serious about my faith.” Some think having faith just means adopting a positive, hopeful outlook on life. Others think it just means that at some point you prayed the infamous “sinner’s prayer,” asking Jesus into your heart. So here’s the question we want to consider: what is the faith that saves, and how can we know that we have it? In the book, I used the example of Abraham. How was Abraham saved? He was saved by faith. And his faith was credited to him as righteousness. The faith that saves is believing God’s promise and resting on it. The only difference between our faith and Abraham’s is that Abraham looked forward, believing God’s promise to send salvation; you and I look backward, believing he has sent it. Christians trust God to keep his promise to them just as Abraham trusted God to keep his promise to him. If we believe that God has forgiven our sins in Jesus, just as he promised (v 25), then, like Abraham, our faith is credited to us as righteousness. That’s the faith that saves. We know that faith doesn’t exclude effort, but it does exclude earning. In other words, we’ll never earn our salvation – but saving faith shows evidence (fruit) in the life of the believer. As Martin Luther said, “The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘Believe in this,’ and everything is already done.” You know, preachers often ask people the question: “If you died tonight and God were to say, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ what would you say?” The question has become a cliché, but it’s actually a good one to consider. What would you say? Many say, “Well, because I was a good person.” Or “Because I tried my best.” “Because I was a sincere Christian and always tried to live out what I believed.” But faith that saves always starts its answer with “Because Jesus…” It would never start with “Because I…” Why? Because any answer that starts with me is going to reveal faith in my work, not faith in his. The faith that saves is the faith that leans all its hope for heaven, and for life, on Jesus Christ. How you answer that question, then, is how you can know whether you have the faith that saves. This is how the younger, sinner’s-prayer-praying, baptism-junkie J.D. could have stopped worrying about whether he’d prayed some prayer well enough or felt sorry deeply enough or gotten committed to Jesus strongly enough to be saved. I could have rested in the fact that he did what he said he did. This is how you can live with a confidence undiminished by unchosen circumstances or unsuccessful Christian living, free of anxiety about how this life will go and what will happen to you in the next one. Why should God let you into heaven? “Because Jesus died and rose to take my sins and give me his righteousness.” This is my answer. What’s yours? 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 third question is, “If God is real, why doesn’t everybody believe in him?” Show Notes: Like we talked about in our last episode, there is abundant evidence for the existence of God. So then, why doesn’t everyone believe in him? The truth, Paul says, is that we suppress it because we think we want a world, a life, without God. This means that the question, “Is there even a God?” is one that we answer more with our hearts than our heads. The problem is not that the evidence is not there; it’s that our hearts don’t want to see it. The philosopher William James, who many regard as a forerunner to 20th-century postmodernism, said that in determining what we believe, more important than evidence is (to use the title of his most famous lecture) “The Will to Believe.” What we believe, James explained, is less determined by the evidence itself than by what we want to believe. Postmodern philosophy patted itself on the back for this great discovery. And it was a great discovery. But Paul got there two millennia earlier: “For though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21). Or Rom. 1:18… we suppress the truth with unrighteousness. In other words, our heads are controlled by our hearts. It wasn’t that we couldn’t figure out the truth about God; we didn’t want to figure it out because we didn’t really want to know it. The flaw was not in the evidence but in the hearts considering that evidence. So in a sense, we know, but we don’t know, because we don’t want to know. We suppress the truth that is evident to us because we don’t want it to be true. We want to be the center of our story, making the rules… We’re the point. Our comfort is the priority. We know best. Our way is better. Our will is supreme. Humanity’s suppression of truth, Paul explains, manifests itself in two forms: an irreligious form of suppression and a religious one. Irreligious suppression: Atheism (or agnosticism) Listen, I’m not saying there are not people genuinely convinced that they are atheists. I’m saying that according to Romans 1 that atheism is driven by a subconscious desire not to know. We know but we don’t know because we don’t want to know. Everybody in their heart knows the truth, but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves so some of us convinced ourselves there is no God. We don’t like the thought of an all-powerful, ruling God, so we suppress the truth. Which is why a lot of the great atheist-intellects of the last 100 years who have become Christians—people like T.S. Elliot, W.H. Auden, C.E.M. Joad, C.S. Lewis, A. N. Wilson (by the way, ever notice all the really smart people go by their initials)—have all said, “What brought me to faith was not some new argument or evidence. I just admitted to myself that I always knew there was a God.” When I am sharing Christ with someone, I often will ask, “If you come to see these things are true, are you willing to change your life in response? “Because a willingness to follow the truth is a prerequisite to knowing the truth.” Religious suppression: Idolatry When we suppress the truth of who God is through religion, we change the object of our worship into something we can control. The false gods humanity has worshipped all have one thing in common—they exist to serve us. We worshipped, but our main question was how to get God into orbit around our lives. But the most basic truth of creation is that we were created for God and his glory—he is at the center. But we wanted a God who would serve us, be our divine butler, and so we reimagined God in that form. Anthropologists have noted that all peoples in all place worship… even if you’re not religious. We can no more turn off worship by not being religious than we could turn off our sex drive by not getting married. When you say, “What about those that have never heard?” the truth is that everybody’s heard. God showed it to us and revealed it in us. But we suppress that knowledge of an all-ruling, all-sovereign God because we don’t want it to be true. And for that reason we all stand condemned. So our denial of God’s existence, according to Paul, is not the faulty conclusion of a genuinely confused mind but the subconscious desire of a heart that is resistant to God. Denial is not the only fruit, however. Some of us willingly acknowledge God’s existence, but we then distort him into “images” that cater to our sinful hearts. This is Paul’s explanation for the multiplicity of religions in the world. We took glory from the real God and assigned it to new versions of him that we preferred over him. Furthermore, we manifest our resistance to God’s glory through disobedience—we do what we want instead of what God wants even when we know what he wants. We’ll get into that more

This week, Pastor J.D. continues our Ask Me Anything series based on his new book, Essential Christianity. The second question is, “How do we even know there’s a God?” Show Notes: This new book, Exploring Christianity, looks at 10 key words in the book of Romans to help us explore the truth behind Christianity. In Romans 1:19-20, Paul makes it clear that God has made himself and his existence undeniable. He says, “What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.” Now (like a lot of the book of Romans), there’s a lot of meat there, but Paul’s basic claim is that God has made the basic truths about himself known to every person who’s ever lived. He’s left his fingerprints in various places, if we have eyes to see them. Philosophers helpfully grouped these fingerprints into four primary categories, and then unhelpfully gave them complicated names. I’m going to use those complicated names, but don’t let them trip you up. The concepts are pretty simple. I figure if we can memorize the name of our $14, 16-ingredient drink at Starbucks, we can learn these. And, if you happen to find yourself in a philosophical discussion about the nature of God at the Waffle House late one afternoon and drop in one of these multisyllabic masterpieces, it’s sure to increase your standing in the debate. These are four ways that the apostle says God reveals himself in creation: The Cosmological Fingerprint This one goes back all the way to Aristotle. It’s the question of why there is something rather than nothing, and where did the original something come from? If the world began 14 billion years ago with a Big Bang, where did the materials that caused the Big Bang come from? You can’t keep going back in infinite regress into nothingness. Eventually something has to come from somewhere. “Nothingness” can’t just explode. In his book God Delusion, Richard Dawkins admits this is a problem. He says, “Darwin’s theory works for biology, but not for cosmology (or, ultimate origins).” And, “Cosmology is waiting on its Darwin.” In other words, he thinks that while they have explained how life took shape on the earth, he admits they still have no idea where life itself, or the materials that produced life, came from. We need a theory, he says, as to why anything exists, because it is self-evident that nothing x nobody can’t equal everything. But don’t worry,” he says in the book, one day we’ll find it. (Which is a textbook example of a blind, hopeful leap of faith.) The Teleological Fingerprint Not only do we have the question of why there is something rather than nothing, but our creation appears to be very finely tuned. The more we learn about this, the more amazing it becomes. Scientists say that life on earth depends on multiple factors that are so precise that if they were off by even a hair, life could not exist. They call it the Goldilocks principle: things are “just right” for human life. The makeup of the atmosphere is very exact, yet it’s the difference between life and death. If some of those levels were even slightly off—for example, if the level of oxygen dropped by 6% we would all suffocate; if it rose by 4%, our planet would erupt into a giant fireball. And we’d all die. Or, if the CO2 were just a little higher or a just little bit lower (say, 0.01%), then the earth would either become an oven or have no atmosphere at all. And we’d all die. Or this: The water molecule is the only molecule whose solid form (ice) is less dense than its liquid form. Which means that when it freezes it floats. If ice did not float, it would sink to the bottom and the whole ocean would eventually freeze from the bottom up and… we would all die. Or the distance of the earth from the sun: If we were 2% closer to the sun, the planet would be too hot for water to exist. And we’d all die. And then there’s tilt of the earth, which is set at an ideal 23.5 degrees, which we’ve learned is perfect for temperatures and tides and such. You’ve probably never thought about it, but if it was was not tilted, temperatures would be extreme and we’d all die. At least the humans. One more for fun: We’ve learned that if Jupiter wasn’t the size and in the orbit it is, astronomers predict that there would be 10,000x the number of asteroid strikes right here on earth, and we’d probably all die. Jupiter is like the Luke Maye of planets, setting picks on asteroids so the earth can get open for the 3-pointer of life. Without it, our planet would be pummeled with asteroids and life could never exist. Then we put up our telescopes and pull out our microscopes and we find the same complexity in the cell and atomic structure: Even the most basic DNA strands are incredibly complex, enough so that Francis Collins, head of the human genome project, says “How could

This week, Pastor J.D. begins a new Ask Me Anything series based on his new book, Essential Christianity. First up: “What Is Christianity, In a Sentence?” Show Notes: I get asked questions like this a lot because there’s so much misunderstanding about what Christianity is or isn’t. So, I’m going to give you a sentence that I think defines Christianity in a sentence, but first, let’s talk about why so many are confused about it, and why there even seems to be a growing animosity towards Christianity. This new book, Exploring Christianity, works through 10 key words in the book of Romans to help us explore the truth behind Christianity. And we start off with the gospel announcement that Paul makes very clear in chapter 1. Now, this book is not a commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans. Instead, it uses the major talking points of Paul’s letter to construct a framework of Christian essentials. I’m asking, “If Paul were writing the book of Romans today, to people living in a 21st-century Western post-Christian culture rather than people living in a 1st-century Roman and Jewish culture, how would he write it?” So, what is the gospel announcement that Paul starts the book with? He says the gospel is good news about: who Jesus is what he’s done what he brings Based on that, here’s a workable definition we can use, then, from this point forward: God, in an act of grace, sent his Son, Jesus, to earth as a man so that through his life, death, and resurrection he could rescue us, reign as King, and lead us into the eternal, full life we were created to enjoy. That’s the one sentence I’d say we can sum up Christianity with. Let’s break that down: God… The gospel begins with God. God exists, and he’s been moving and speaking throughout history. That’s already a big claim, and we’re only one word in! How can we know he’s there? What is he like? How do we know when he’s speaking to us? I don’t want to “tease” too hard, but we do get into that more in the book. …in an act of grace,… That word “grace” means “undeserved kindness.” Grace, properly understood, is what makes Christianity different from every other spiritual approach. Grace is the entire basis of the gospel: the melody line around which all other Christian truths are played. …sent his Son, Jesus,… Or, as the apostle John explains it, God himself became a man and dwelt among us (John 1:14). More on the what and why of this later. …so he could rescue us… The most important thing about Jesus is not what he taught but what he did. Paul’s letter to the Romans, in fact, speaks very little about what Jesus taught and a whole lot about what he did. It’s not what he taught that saved us, but what he did. The symbol of Christianity is not a lectern but a cross. Christianity is, in its essence, a rescue religion. Which, of course, raises the questions: Why do we need rescuing? And how can a man who lived 2,000 years ago have done something then that can rescue me today? Those are great questions, and we get into them in the book. …reign as King, and lead us into the eternal, full life we were created to enjoy. The gospel is not just about what Jesus came to rescue you from, but what he came to rescue you for: the full, eternal life that we were created to enjoy. As Paul explains, the gospel restores us to the life we were made for all along (the subject of chapters 7 to 10). This is what a lot of Christians, as well as non-believers, forget, but it pulsates through almost every chapter of Paul’s great letter. 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. answers the question, “Should Christians watch Game of Thrones? (or anything with nudity?)” Show Notes: This is similar to our questions on music, but I do think it’s more specific. I’ll talk about nudity specifically, but let’s expand it a little bit to shows that have various kinds of sinful things in it. First of all, we’ve got to realize that we are in the world. God knows that, and we are supposed to have an awareness of the culture that we’re in, and where it has needs and where the culture is making mistakes. Paul said to be “simple” when it comes to what is evil, but even he demonstrated a familiarity with the culture—like the poets, for instance—even though sin was laced through their work. Another thing to realize is that God created art and entertainment for his glory, as a way of relaxing. Comedy, entertainment, drama and suspense that I can read, watch and listen to may not be specifically about the Great Commission, but it’s serving a God-glorifying purpose because God created us to enjoy art and to participate in his creation. The enjoyment of art is not by itself a sinful or wasted enterprise. Sometimes, there is a place in the arts for the fact of sin because it’s part of an overall redemptive thing that I’m trying to teach. But when it comes to acting and those types of things, like John Piper says, there’s a difference between depicting sin as an act and actually sinning in doing the depicting. But revealing nudity (or taking God’s name in vain, I believe) creates a situation where the actor is not only depicting sin but is themselves sinning while doing the depicting. Their body is actually being exposed, or God’s name would actually be blasphemed. Jesus said that to fantasize about having sex with someone makes you guilty (in God’s eyes) of the sin, and Hollywood skin and sex are meant to arouse. I read an article a little while ago by John Piper, specifically about Game of Thrones. He said that first of all, Jesus died to purify, and the Bible from beginning to end makes a radical call for holiness. Jesus talked in the most extreme terms about pursuing good. Some would say that watching these things will help them be more relevant to lost people, but at what cost? That relevance is never worth more than your personal holiness. Piper says that nudity is not make-believe. If you’re going to value the modesty and self-control of women, you’re not going to do something that celebrates and puts that kind of thing on display. It’s hard to say, “I weep with repentance at Jesus’ death,” while laughing (or intentionally enjoying) the kinds of things that put him on the cross. Piper says prolonged exposure to these things affects us. Lastly, he says there’s no great film that needs nudity to add to its greatness. So, how much is too much? What’s the right balance? Well, there’s no way I could give something that just applies to everyone. I will say, there’s a difference when something has sinful stuff in it and when its central focus is to celebrate and affirm sin. Like Kevin DeYoung says, yes, people are wired differently—but those who say that these things don’t phase them at all may not really know themselves as well as they think they do. And if looking upon what God has forbidden has no affect on you, I’m not sure that’s a good thing after all. VidAngel is a service that my family uses from time to time, with some options that will cut some of this out for you. Overall, if your conscience is troubled, that’s a sign that you should just not watch something. If in doubt, it’s probably safer to not watch something. If you feel like none of this bothers you—just take a week to really pray about some of this, and ask God if it’s really OK, and if it really helps you enjoy more fullness in your relationship with 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, listen into one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons as he answers the question, “What Does It Mean Practically to Follow Jesus?” Show Notes: What does it mean to become a Christian? According to the gospels, very simply, it means to follow Jesus. It doesn’t mean to start being perfect; it’s not to know every answer to every theological question, it’s just to follow Jesus. Jesus invites people everywhere and anywhere to follow him. Now, I want to acknowledge that a lot of people don’t know exactly what that means. Back in biblical times, it was pretty straightforward. You literally just followed him—he went that way, you went that way. But today, he’s not physically here anymore, he’s invisible, so what does it mean to follow him? Great question. Back in those days, when you wanted to follow a Rabbi, you would go and sit at his feet and he would examine you with questions and put you through a series of tests to see if you were worthy to be their disciple. If you passed, they’d invite you to follow them, at which point you’d literally go everywhere with them, listening to everything they taught, watching all the ways they’d interact, and trying to imitate their every move. Ray Vander Laan, a historian who specializes in 1st century Israel, said that in those days the greatest praise you could give to a talmid (which is the Hebrew word for disciple) was “the dust of your rabbi is all over you.” That didn’t mean “Dude, you’re dirty! Go take a shower!” It meant, “You have followed your rabbi so closely that you’ve heard everything he said, seen everything he’s done, and everything he’s stepped in has splashed up on you.” All of that should give you a picture of what it means to follow Jesus. Here’s Ray Vander Laan’s definition: “A talmid (disciple) is someone who seeks not only to know what his master knows, but also to do what his master does.” There are two elements there: The first: Learning. You want to know what your master knows. Listen, if you want to be a disciple, there’s no shortcut to this—there’s a lot of learning involved. If you are serious about being a disciple, your life will be filled with a lot of learning, listening to messages, being regularly in church, reading books, participating in small groups and leadership cohorts seeking to grow in your knowledge. You say, “But I’m not really an academic kind of person.” Look, you don’t have to be. I’m just saying if you’re in love with somebody, you’re going to learn all about them—and that’s a big part of the Christian life. But that’s just half of the discipleship formula… The other half is doing. A disciple doesn’t want to merely know what his master knows; he or she also wants to do what his master does. How did he live? What were his priorities? Following Jesus means seeking to know what he knows, and do what he does. Around the Summit, you’ll hear us simplify that into the 5 identities of the disciple: You become a worshiper, family member, servant, steward, and witness. That’s what he was. 45 Philip (went and) found (a friend named) Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael said, “Can anything good come outta there?” Totally snobby. But Philip doesn’t answer it; he just says, “Come see for yourself.” Some of you have a friend you want to tell about Jesus, but you don’t, because you are afraid of how they are going to react. Follow this example of Philip. Jesus doesn’t need your help converting them; he’ll do that. Just tell them your story like Philip did, and when they ask you an antagonistic question, you say, “Come and see for yourself… Come to church with me. Let’s read the Bible together.” Jesus does all the converting; we just need to extend the invitation. Think of it like if you were asked to defend a caged lion—you don’t need to defend the lion, just open the gate, and let the lion do his own defending. 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 into one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons on the life of King David as he answers the question, “How can I know where God is moving?” Show Notes: David doesn’t figure out what he wants to do and ask God to bless it; he asks God what God wants to do and seeks to follow him. We see countless examples of this, like the question that opens chapter 2: “After this, David inquired of the Lord, ‘Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?’ And the Lord said to him, ‘Go up.’ David said, ‘To which shall I go up?’ And he said, ‘To Hebron.’ 2 So David went up there…” One of the phrases we have started using around the Summit Church is that success in our ministry means joining God in what he is doing around us. Success is not attempting great things for God and asking him to bless us; success is discerning where God is at work and joining him in that. A lot of us go through life backwards. We assume that God has put us into the world to figure stuff out and fix everything, so our general attitude is; “God, this is what I think needs to be done; help me in it.” But in every epoch of Scripture, God is the primary actor. God is the one bringing salvation and blessing to the earth. Our job is to discern where he is at work and join him. Jesus explained in John 5 that this was his whole ministry philosophy. He said, “My Father is always at work around me, and my job is to figure out what he is doing and join him in it.” A person after God’s own heart seeks to join God in what he is doing. You say, “But what does that mean exactly?” How do you discern where God is at work? Great question! Sometimes it can take the form of a divine call that comes to you through an opportunity the Spirit invites you into. Think of Paul who got the vision of the man from Macedonia saying, “Come and help us.” Paul discerned that God was calling him to go over and be a part of what he was doing in Macedonia. Now, you may not get an actual vision, but God might let you sense some opportunity where you are positioned and gifted to help, and you sense the Spirit saying, “Come and join me in what I’m doing.” Or maybe it’s in a conversation that you sense God has been at work in someone’s heart and he’s put you in a place to participate. That’s what Jesus did with the woman at the well in John 4. He sensed the Father had created a sense of dissatisfaction in her and put him there to point out where she could find living water. All my sharing Jesus on an airplane or in a coffee shop are like that. I ask questions, and get a sense that God is at work in someone’s life, and I join him in that. Sometimes you discern where he is at work by experiencing unusual success in something. As a church, we have been involved in lots of different initiatives, but we’ve never experienced the success like we have in missions and church planting—it’s like there is a divine wind blowing behind us. We’ve sent out close to 1600 of our members on church planting teams. Other pastors ask, “How do you do this? What leadership strategies?” It’s not my leadership. I know that because a lot of other good ideas I’ve tried here have failed.” This is just an area where God is at work, and we’ve sought to join him. One of my prayers for 2023 is that God would open up my ears to hear the sound of his marching so that I can join him. For most of my life, I’ve done the opposite. I’ve assumed it’s my responsibility to fix everything, and seek his help. No, that’s his job. My job is to join him in what he’s doing. At the end of the day, your greatest Strategy for Success = Submission. Good news: this year, I’m not responsible to win my neighbors or friends to Christ. The Holy Spirit does that. I’m not responsible to grow this church—numerically or spiritually. He does that. He invites me to join in what he’s doing—which means that more important than great ideas I might have for God are ears to hear what he’s saying and eyes to see what he’s doing, so I can join him. The first quality that makes David, a man after God’s own heart is a posture of submission. Is that your attitude toward your life? Toward your dating life? Your career? Your retirement? God, open my eyes so I can join you in what you are 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, listen into one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons on the life of King David and his friendship with Jonathan and discover what makes the best friendship. Show Notes: Here’s what David’s friendship with Jonathan did: 1. It shielded David. Jonathan alerted David to danger that he was unaware of. He saw things that David could not see. The central point is that together is better. And that’s partially because our friends see danger in our lives before we do. The definition of a blind spot is something you can’t see because you are blind to it. If you knew about it, it wouldn’t be a blind spot. You can’t see it, but quite often your friends can. Often that blind spot is in our own hearts: Proverbs 18:1, “An isolated man seeks his own desire and rages against all sound judgment.” When you get isolated, selfish heart deformities begin to grow unchecked. Are people close enough to you to speak into your life? Be honest. Here’s the second thing this friendship did: 2. It strengthened David. Jonathan spoke courage into David’s life when David was ready to give up. He reminded David that God had great plans for his life even when David’s world seemed to be collapsing around him. True friends multiply your strength. God designed our hearts to work that way. God made us so that our strength multiplies when we pull together with a friend. Have you experienced that? Close friendships sustain and strengthen us: I was re-reading something Tim Keller said the other day about marriage. He said in times of distress, it’s not the romantic part of the marriage relationship that helps, but the friendship part. He talked about going through one of the most difficult seasons of his life, and says in the middle of it that it dawned on him: His wife helped sustain him but not because she was his wife—but because she was his friend. What I needed, he said, wasn’t sex, or a roommate, or someone I shared my bank account with. It was a true soul friend. And so he says to married people, or those looking to get married: “You must do everything possible, you must pay any price, to be best friends with your spouse.” Good marriages, he says, are not basically romance garnished with friendship. They are friendships garnished with romance. And for those of you not married, it means that the most sustaining parts of marriage are available to you. It’s not sex or sharing a bed—it’s friendship. So, this friendship shielded David, and strengthened him, and lastly: 3. It shaped David. Later on we’ll see David show extreme generosity and selflessness with others. After tragedy had struck Saul and Jonathan’s house, David asked if there was any of Jonathan’s descendants he could show kindness to. And David found Jonathan had one living relative, a boy named Mephibosheth, but he was crippled. David said, “Bring him to my table. He’ll never lack anything,” and for the rest of his life David treated him like a son. That’s a generosity of spirit he learned, at least in part, from Jonathan. Jonathan’s character shaped David’s character. That’s what Proverbs says will happen: Proverbs 13:20, “He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of fools shall be destroyed.” I’ve heard Pastor Craig Groeschel say that this verse means there is one place in your lives I can look right now to accurately predict our future. It’s not your New Year’s resolutions. It’s who your close friends are. Craig says you become the average of your five closest friends. You say, “That’s depressing.” The good news in that is that if you want to change your future and are not sure where to start, you have a very actionable step: change your close friendships. I often say it’s not the dreams you dream that determine your destiny; it’s the small decisions you make. One of those important decisions is who you do life with; who you walk closely with. Pastor Groeschel says, “We all have something we’d like to become… a better parent. A better student/worker. A more solid Christian. What if the decision to become that was really a decision about what friends you chose?” Friendships are important because they shield us, strengthen us, and shape us. That’s how God designed 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, listen into one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons where he explained a question based on Matthew, Chapter 7: “Can you be active in church and still go to hell?” Show Notes: On that final day there will be a lot of people, Jesus says, to whom he says, “You were active in my church; you were super religious; but you never really repented; so I never knew you.” Are you going to be in that number? Part of my own story of coming to Christ came after a Sunday School teacher confronted me with that in middle school. It was a Friday night and my whole small group had gone over to his house so we could go bowling. But before we went, he wanted to do a short Bible study, because that’s what you do in student ministry: you bait kids with things like bowling and then hit ‘em with Bible study. And I remember him reading this passage from Matthew 7, “Many will say to me…” And then he looked at us and said, “Boys, a bunch of y’all are going to be in that number.” And that was about all he said. I knew in my heart it was going to be me. I was super religious. Been in church all my life. And at my church, you had to go 3x a week for it to count: 3 to thrive! I always said that the only drug problem I had growing up was getting drug to church. So, I was plenty religious, but I had never repented and surrendered to Jesus as King. Here’s how you can know if you’ve substituted religion for repentance: A. Rationalization You rationalize your sin. That’s what Saul did. Look at all the good things I’ve done! You never think about your sin in terms of rebellion against God; only how you compare to others. I’m not having an affair, it’s just pornography. I may not be fully committed in my relationship with Jesus, but I’m a good person and go to church. B. Unchanged behavior Your mouth says that Jesus is King, but your life says something different. There are 2 ways to tell what you believe: what your mouth says and what your life says. If what your mouth says differs from what your life says, God accepts the testimony of your life. With Saul’s mouth he said God was King. But his life said that he was. Write this down: A repentance that does not change you in life won’t save you in death, either. Jesus’ half-brother, James talks about this when he says, “You say you believe in God? Good. Even the demons believe and tremble… They believe so much that they tremble at the thought of God.” But demon’s aren’t saved. Why? Because their belief doesn’t lead to repentance. It’s not what your mouth says that God takes as the indicator of what you believe. It’s what your life says. C. Worldly sorrow not godly sorrow Several times in his life, Saul wept over his sin. He did it there in 1 Samuel 28. A lot of people confuse worldly sorrow over repentance. Paul talks about it in 2 Corinthians 7:10. He says, “For godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation… whereas worldly sorrow produces death.” There are two types of sorrow over sin. There is worldly sorrow–worldly sorrow arises for all kinds of reasons. The embarrassment of being caught. Self-pity. Self-condemnation. Fear. None of those things equal repentance. Confessing your sin is not repentance. You may have just been trying to relieve your guilt or get something off your chest. Repentance is the Greek word “meta-noia”, which means a change of mind. To repent means you change your mind about the Kingship of Jesus and adjust your life around that new reality. No change, no Jesus. D. Partial compliance This is a big one. You start obeying God in one area but not all. Repentance is one of those things that has to be total or it is meaningless. Let’s say that there was a man who was an adulterer. He had multiple affairs, a different one on every day of the week. His wife confronts him and says, “OK… I’ll quit sleeping with Tuesday girl and Friday girl but Thursday girl and I are going to keep going for a while.” That’s not repentance. Marital faithfulness is one of those things that has to be total for it to be meaningful. A man can’t be “mostly faithful” to his wife. She’s either the only 1 or she’s not. The same thing is true of Lordship. You are either surrendered to him or you’re not. Or, as we say, he’s either Lord of all or not Lord at all. And I always want to be clear when I say this: I’m not talking about achieving sinless perfection. We all struggle with sin and lapses of faith for the rest of our lives. That happens to me. But Jesus is the King of my life, and standing here before you right now, there’s no area I am willfully holding back from him. Think of it like this: A man who gets married doesn’t suddenly become a perfect husband who loves his wife purely and completely at every moment. Every man struggles to be a loving husband. Sometimes you even have stray thoughts. But a man who is serious about his marriage is still, even in the midst of all that, a one-woman man. If you say you are married, and are still intentionally seeing other people on the

This week we wrap up our marriage and family series. Pastor J.D. jumps from talking about traditional marriage and family to answer a controversial family question. Show Notes: Two perspectives to this: 1. Is it biblically permissible? 2. Even if it isn’t, is this one of those ‘live and let live’ areas? Not everything Christians believe about morality do we believe should be put into laws others who don’t share our beliefs should live by. NOTE: Please listen to the full length episode for full context. Do not rely solely on these show notes as they do not paint the full picture of what Pastor J.D. is communicating. Part 1: Six biblical passages–every mention is negative, either prohibiting or condemning such behavior and all very clear. 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, for instance, refers to “men who have sex with men” as a vice that would prevent a person from entering the kingdom of God. The two Greek terms he used, malakoi and arsenokoitai, were the common terms of the day to refer to a broad range of homosexual relationships. Common objections: “Jesus never spoke about homosexuality.” This is a claim that is true only in the most technical and unhelpful sense. No, Jesus never uttered the word “homosexual.” He also never mentioned (by name) rape, child abuse, fraud, or idolatry. But his stance on each of those issues is, nevertheless, quite clear. There are two ways that Jesus could have established what was right and wrong in regards to sexuality. He could have talked about every possible variation of the wrong, condemning each aberration one by one. Or he could put forward a vision for what is right. Think of it like this: if five women were standing side by side, and one of them was my wife, I could identify her in two ways: I could say that each of the other four were not my wife; or I could say, “That wonderful woman there…she’s my wife.” Jesus repeatedly affirmed the Mosaic understanding of the sanctity of sex within heterosexual marriage, and by doing that he disallowed all deviations. Furthermore, saying “Jesus never talked about it” pits the words of Jesus against the rest of the Scriptures. But Jesus himself said that all of the Scriptures were inspired, which means that the black letters in our Bible have as much divine authority as the red ones. “What Paul had in mind was not the same as homosexuality as we know it today.” He was, they argue, thinking of male prostitution, rape, or pedophilia. Committed same-sex relationships didn’t exist in Paul’s day, so Paul’s words don’t apply. This is, simply put, not true. Historian Thomas Hubbard (not a Christian), wrote an exhaustive (and exhaustively long, nearly 600 pages) work on homosexuality in the ancient world, entitled Homosexuality in Greece and Rome. He demonstrates that homosexuality existed in a wide variety of forms, much like today. And that included committed, lifelong, same-sex partners. Had Paul wanted to distinguish between valid and invalid forms of homosexuality, he could have done so. Or consider Romans 1, in which Paul talks about humanity’s rejection of God’s authority. Because we rejected God’s authority, “God gave them [that is, us] up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:26–27). As Richard Hays says concerning this passage, Paul depicts gay and lesbian activity as an outward epitome of the inward posture of sin—rejection of the Creator’s design. Part 2: But can’t we believe that it is wrong and still allow marriage? Christians don’t think every wrong thing should be illegal. J Budizewski says, “The New Testament contains literally hundreds of precepts.” Unlike Islam, we don’t think the government should enforce the vast majority of them. “Christianity is not a legislative religion.” In Mosaic Law, Moses believed divorce was wrong but made an allowance for it. Should we apply that to gay marriage? No, marriage is such a building block. Between genders; the place of pro-creation and the harmony of the genders in the home where love is demonstrated among differences. A man and a man or a woman and a woman do not bring to the table what a man and a woman bring. A man cannot be a mother and a woman cannot be a father, each brings something unique to the family that children miss out on when one of them is not present. Who is unnecessary? The Mother or Father? Homosexuality in the home also distorts a child’s understanding of his/her sexuality. When this breaks down, or its centrality is compromised–whether through same-sex marriages or polygamy or whatever, society is weakened–the family breaks down, society breaks down Slippery slope: “Love is the basis of marriage. You can’t declare who someone can love.” Why exclusive? Permanent? Why only two persons? Brother and sister? Man and two women? Multiple marriages? “I don’t want to go

The presents may all be unwrapped, but how much is too much? It may be too late for this Christmas, but perhaps in the new year this is a question you’d like to wrestle with in your family. Show Notes: Christmas is about gifts, mostly the extravagant gift of Jesus. Jesus calls us to follow him–how did he leverage his resources. Certainly, it’s wise to understand the times we are in, that we are in the richest country in the world, and that comes with responsibility. 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (ESV). Our gift giving should glorify the gospel It’s lavish generosity: your gift ought to make me thank God for his generosity. When I see it cost you and you care about me. How we do it in our house: Something you want, need, wear, read Biggest gift at Christmas goes to Jesus! John Piper: Why do we give Christmas gifts? Gift giving is biblical God’s gifts to us: God gives us His Son (John 3:16) 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” The very essence of Christmas includes a divine overflow of generosity, kindness, grace, giving–doing for us, giving to us, what we could never do for ourselves or get on our own. Our gifts to God: We have a responsibility to give to Christ. It’s dangerous in one sense to speak of giving to Christ because our giving to Christ dare not be seen as a paying him back, as if the transaction were done because he needs to get our services. Our giving to Christ is an overflow of affection and thankfulness for our forgiveness. Part of worship is finding ways to show how much we admire and reverence and trust and value Jesus. Our gifts to others: The giving of God to us and our joyful readiness to show affection in giving to him overflow in our giving to others. Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” 2 Corinthians 8:2, “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed.” The giving of God to us and our joyful readiness to show affection in giving to him overflow in our giving to others. Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” 2 Corinthians 8:2, “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed.” Our gift giving should lead others to: Rejoice in God as the great and first giver of the greatest gift. Seek the mindset that offers back to Christ the gift of trust, hope, admiration, joy, and affection. Seek the mindset that overflows with joy in giving to others. 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, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. discusses how many kids Christians should consider having. Show Notes: Proverbs 24:27: Establish your work in the field, afterward build your house. Doesn’t mean you have to wait a long time or that you need to be rich. But you probably don’t want to be on the rocks. In general, we are waiting too long to have kids and not having enough. Not high enough value on childbearing. Genesis 1: Be fruitful and multiply. Many would-be-prophets are currently telling us: too many kids causes poverty, global warming. We are headed for an apocalypse because of too many people. Countries that have low birth rates are the one economically struggling so that argument doesn’t hold up. Psalm 127: no magic number. But what about taking time to get to know each other? I get it, honeymoon phase. But I got to know my wife so much better after we had kids; I didn’t get less of her when we had kids, I got more. Have a parenting strategy: Contrary to Beatles, love is not ALL you need. Parenting catches you so off guard. 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, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. gives us the second half of his 10 stages of grace-saturated, gospel-centered fighting. He’s joined by his wife, Veronica, for another episode. Show Notes: If you missed the first half of this episode, take a look now. 10 Stages in Grace-Saturated, Gospel-Centered Fighting: 6. Believe in God’s purpose for your marriage We knew that God had obviously appointed us to be together even though we felt like we married the wrong person sometimes, and that God had a plan for our difficulties and was making something beautiful out of them! There is one factor that, if we could introduce it into your marriage, would do more to strengthen it than anything else, and that is hope. And that hope comes from knowing that God has a plan for your marriage, even the difficult parts of it. He knew whom you were marrying, he knew the consternation they would cause you, and he’s got a plan to make something beautiful out of you and maybe your marriage in it. Same thing is true for single people. God has a purpose for all things, even the difficult relationship.   7. Speak grace-saturated words If you are speaking words that build up, not tear down: For every one statement about what is wrong, there will be five describing what is right and that paint a vision of the beautiful person God is making them. You’ll never demean with “you” statements. Calling names: Names make you feel good, quickest way to alienate an enemy… Say, “You did this,” not “You are this” You’ll avoid saying ‘never’ and ‘always.’ You’re always this way or that way. Don’t escalate it beyond the problem. “Never” and “always” basically tell the person that “you are this” and “you stink” rather than “you have done this” and “I expect more from you.” You’ll avoid being sarcastic (Sarcasm usually functions like a knife. And it’s the quickest way to turn somebody off: Remember: smarty had a party and no one came). Avoid being condescending (to condescend means to talk down to). And women, avoid confronting your husband publicly: There’s nothing that shuts a man down like having his wife tear him down to someone else.   8. Don’t give up until there is no longer a chance of reconciliation We know divorce is a larger topic, but to just touch on it quickly: we know that God hates it. So do some of you. In most cases, he sees it as adultery. There are exceptions: Adultery; 1 Corinthians 7 Paul says if you have an unbelieving spouse who leaves you, if you wonder if you fit into that category, see us. Abuse: We’ve covered this more at-length on Ask Me Anything, but of course you should never stay in an abusive situation and you should reach out and get some help immediately. But the point is that you should give grace a chance. Before you give up on your marriage, give the power of grace a chance.   9. Truly forgive Remember: Forgiveness is a choice not to remember or bring up the offense any longer! Ken Sande: True forgiveness says: I will not think about this incident. I will not bring it up again or use it against you. I will not talk to others about it. I will not allow it to stand between us or hinder our relationship You have to think of past flaws like they are ammunition already spent. Never get “historical” in an argument. “My wife gets mad and goes historical.” Forgiveness should never be conditional upon their repentance. “Well, I’d forgive them if they’d ask for it.” Don’t confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two people: the person who sinned has to repent and you have to forgive. But forgiveness only takes one person. You can forgive without reconciling. Don’t wait on the person to repent before you forgive. The only alternative to forgiveness is bitterness, which is like trying to punish the other person by drinking poison yourself.   10. Remember what Jesus did for you The only way to do all of this is for the cross to grow LARGE in your life. That’s why some people lack the ability to do this – the cross is so small. If you do things as an act of service for your spouse, you will lose motivation. You have to do it for Jesus. Your spouse may not be worth it. Jesus always is. Maybe you say, “Oh, Pastor J.D., I really wish my spouse were here to hear this but it’s just me…” What can I do? They won’t respond to any of this! Do it for Jesus. Maybe this is how you will demonstrate the glory of Christ to your neighbors: by serving Christ even when there is no pay-off in your marriage, simply because he’s worthy of it!   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, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. answers a question about marital conflict. He’s joined by his wife, Veronica, for another episode. Show Notes: Let me dispel a myth right from the beginning: good couples are not couples who never fight; good couples are couples who have learned to fight fairly; to fight Christianly. If you’re one of those starry-eyed engaged couples who feel like, “We never fight…” Veronica and I were like that, too. How blissful it is to be young! You just can’t get close to another sinner without there being conflict. 10 Stages in Grace-Saturated, Gospel-Centered Fighting: 1. Examine YOUR heart. Even if you’ve been wronged, what does your anger say about your heart? Has malice, wrath, anger, and bitterness snuck in? Mind the smoke detectors! Rage, malice, wrath, and bitterness always indicate idolatry, which is a bigger problem in your heart than whatever your spouse is doing to you. And this is why you need outside counsel in your life. 2. Overlook whatever you can. You don’t have to comment on every little infraction. Choose your battles. Proverbs 19:11 It is to a man’s glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 12:16 The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. This would not apply to things that do lasting damage to your relationship with each other or them. Or any kind of abuse. Sometimes, we don’t want to bring up their sin against us because we don’t want to disturb the peace. Guys are especially bad at this. You just want to maintain the peace. A few times in our relationship (I’m being really transparent…) I’ve had to speak up. There are times you need to speak up and confront; and there are times just to let it go, and there’s a real art to knowing the difference. 3. Be practical in how you fight. Proverbs 12:18: “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” “Rash words.” Words not thought out, spoken in anger, or not given at a good time. Veronica and I have found it helpful to boundarize conflict within times, zones, and moods: For example, allowing an argument to begin if we are both physically tired. We have set certain rooms, certain times, off limits. We will invoke what I call the “24 hour rule.” “I promise to come back to this.” Now, men, you have to keep your word, otherwise you lose credibility. You say, “What about, ‘Don’t let sun go down on your wrath?’ Doesn’t that mean we have to deal with our anger before we go to bed? It can’t mean literally before the sun goes down because that would mean some people in Sweden could nurse their grievances for three months in the summer but in the winter they’d only have about two hours… The main point of that verse is that we need to deal with our wrath and vengeance and get it out of our hearts. Sometimes 24 hrs helps us to separate unrighteous, selfish irritation from righteous, loving, others-centered anger. 4. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. Proverbs 18:13: “He who gives an answer before he hears, it is a folly and a shame.” This is exactly what some of you do, especially you men. Brad Hambrick, our pastoral counselor: “The vast majority of communication problems are not expression problems, but listening problems.” Let me offer you some remedial help on listening (and I need these two, because I am so bad at these things): First of all, be a servant listener: Seek first to understand, and only secondly to be understood! Think of their thoughts through the lens of Philippians 2: Consider their thoughts and needs “more important” than your own. Isn’t that the opposite of the way we come into most discussions? OK, next, if you believe that… Don’t interrupt. Interrupting says ‘my thoughts are more important than your thoughts.’ If you don’t know what to say, ask questions. If you still don’t know what to say, ask more questions. If you still don’t know what to say after that, just repeat what the other person said back to them. Because that at least lets them know you’ve heard them! Sometimes that is just what they want, and a lot of time, it takes care of 90% of the issue! Part of this: Don’t give premature advice. Because, one, you will probably misread the situation. Secondly (men especially): she is not a problem to be solved; she’s a person to be heard. A lot of times she’s looking for a companion in her pain, not a solution to her problem. So don’t interrupt her and explain away her pain with Aristotilean logic: A=b, b=c, ergo a=c… ergo it’s really illogical that you feel hurt. When you do that, I can promise you she won’t go, “Huh. Thank you. I’m so stupid sometimes. I could have sworn I was offended, but now I see, by clear force of your logic, that I am not really hurt after all! I’m so glad you’re my husband.” The majority of communication problems are not expression problems, but listening problems. “Listening is a skill that is most necessary when it is most difficult.” Much more to say on

This week, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. answers another question about how to parent teenagers. This time he’s joined by his wife, Veronica. Show Notes: A wandering child does not mean failure: God played the parent role for two humans and they both rebelled. Cain and Abel were parented exactly the same. One became a man of God, the other a murderer. Key resource: Feeding the Mouth that Bites You, by Ken Wilgus, Ph.D. and the Feeding the Mouth that Bites You podcast. When a kid is in rebellion, you can’t be prophet and dad at the same time. Think more like a farmer than a mechanic. Worst thing to do is dig up seed! You give rain and sun. In the analogy, rain and sun are the quality of the relationship not quantity of devotion. Wait on God: All the defining moments in my life came from somewhere else. Psalm 136: Israel’s history with “steadfast love of Lord endures forever.” I did this an exercise with our staff team. We wrote out key moments where the Lord worked in our lives, and I had this realization: my mom and dad wrote none of the key moments in my life. Psalm 127 Psalm 37:39-40 The role of prayer: Abraham prays for Lot and angels grab his hand. Man lowered through roof: their faith. your faith subs for the man in the stretcher. 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, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. answers a question about how to parent teenagers. Show Notes: First, let me say how underprepared and unqualified I am for this one. I’m certainly not the expert! One of my mentors said the teenage years are like the scene in Apollo 13 where they’re coming back into the earth’s atmosphere, and they’re going to lose radio contact for a while. It’s the climax of the movie, and everybody’s watching on the other end to see how they’ll end up—but it’s not clear if they’ll be burned up or if they’ll be fine. They just have to kind of wait and see! That’s how parenting a teenager can feel sometimes. Every kid is different. I heard a Christian counselor say that kids are often either compliant or defiant. The strategies for working with each child and their differences could not be more different. Scripture even seems to allude to that. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child according to his way.” In Hebrew, that literally means “according to his bent.” A good archer adjusts his aim based on the shape of the arrow. Understand the shift from disciplining for control to empowering for responsibility. In his book Biting the Hand That Feeds You, Dr. Kenneth Wilgus talks about a “planned emancipation.” You’re gradually shifting your control over your child (which is in full swing through the elementary years) to your child. It doesn’t happen all at once; it’s a gradual emancipation. If you don’t grant them that independence, they may eventually rip it away from you in rebellion. John Ortberg, the Christian author and pastor, says you go from being responsible for your kids to being responsible to them. Andy Stanley said you have to stop thinking of yourself as a mechanic and instead think of yourself as a farmer. A mechanic wants to diagnose and fix everything, whereas a farmer puts down the seed, takes care of it, and leaves the results to the Lord. But the worst thing to do is dig up the seed and interfere with this process! You can’t play the role of the Holy Spirit, as much you want to. The control you think you have is an illusion, meaning that you can’t control every aspect of your child’s life forever. Jesus talked about this in his parable of the soils. Only God can truly cultivate soil. For the non-producing soil, the farmer doesn’t just go out and throw the seed down harder! Instead, he recognizes that not all soil is prepared, and that our job is to put down good soil and let the Holy Spirit prepare their hearts. Veronica and I identified four guiding principles we wanted to follow if our kids ever decided to do things differently than we’d like them to: Tell them the truth Keep our kids from detonating “nuclear bombs” (actions with life-altering consequences) Protect other kids Keep the relationship open One of my mentors said: I won’t play detective in my child’s life; I’ll trust God to reveal and to guide. Don’t trade control for influence. In one sense, the quality of my relationship with my kids is more important than the content of my teaching. In the seed analogy I mentioned earlier, “rain and sun” that helps the seed to grow is the quality of the relationship not quantity of instruction that you give. 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, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. shares the second half of his answer to the question: “What counsel would you give young Christians about dating?” Show Notes: 4. Resolve to seek God first and your significant other second. When you reject the “marriage completes me” myth, you can put your eyes on Jesus and let him supply your needs. The best marriages are like two people running down the road as hard as they can after God, where you look over to see someone running about the same speed and direction that you are, and you say, “Hey, where you going? Wanna go together?” Andy Stanley said it this way: “Become the person that the person you are looking for … is looking for.” That way, if God has marriage in your future, great—you’ll be better prepared. And if not, you still haven’t wasted a decade of your life. 5. Resolve to date “only in the Lord.” If marriage is about having a lifelong companion, then why unite yourself to someone who doesn’t share the most important part of you? Scripture is very clear on this: Talking about a single woman in the church, 1 Corinthians 7:39 says, “… she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord,” (NASB). And, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? …” (2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV). A yoke was a harness put on two animals to keep them pulling in the same direction. If your partner doesn’t share your faith in Christ, you will be pulling different directions when it comes to just about everything—your time, your money, raising your future kids. We need to see that what Scripture says here is less of a restrictive rule and more of a loving guideline because to be unequally yoked to an unbeliever means you will never be able to share the deepest parts of yourself with them. 6. Resolve to date only in the context of community. You need godly and wise counsel more in the dating stage of life than perhaps any other. If there were no other practical reason to be involved in the church, this would be it. Sometimes it’s obvious to people you trust that there are problems with the person you’re dating or your relationship that you can’t see. This could include lust or flirtation problems, a failure to keep their word (which shows they are not trustworthy), or manipulative and controlling behavior. You won’t have those godly people in your life if you are not connected to the church. God has already given you all the counsel you need. You just need to ask older, wise believers to speak truth into your relationships. Again, these resolutions are countercultural, but they are not impossible. Dating is a time of testing. Are you going to be faithful in this? If you use this time to show that you can wait on God’s good plan, you won’t believe the ways he’ll bless you in your marriage and—most importantly—as a disciple. 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, as we continue our marriage & family series, Pastor J.D. shares the first half of his answer to the question: “What Counsel Would You Give Young Christians About Dating?” Show Notes: You’ve probably noticed this by now, but our culture isn’t doing awesome with the whole dating and marriage thing. Our culture yearns for good, fulfilling, lifelong marriages but obviously doesn’t know how to get there. I want to give you six biblical resolutions for dating. These are uncommon, and certainly counter-cultural, but if you want something nobody else has, you have to be willing to do what nobody else does. And the goal is that these will lead to the kind of marriage you long for, the kind of marriage Jesus wants for you. 1. Resolve to prioritize character over chemistry. The truth is there are different kinds of beauty and they carry different weight. The Apostle Peter says there are two kinds of beauty that can be applied to both men and women: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3:3–4 NIV). Let me tell you: When your kid gets sick and you are on the way to the emergency room at 3 a.m., it doesn’t matter what kind of six-pack he has. All that is going to matter to you is if he’s the kind of guy you know will petition God in prayer, if he’s a spiritual rock that you can lean on. When you lose your job, it’s not going to matter how white her teeth are. What’s going to matter is if she’s the kind of partner you know will stand by you and not go anywhere. You are preparing to tie yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually to someone else for life. Because marriage is companionship and because it is permanent, character matters most of all. 2. Resolve to date for clarity, not intimacy. If the purpose of dating is to choose someone to marry (and it is), and that means character matters most of all, then physical intimacy is something that, for the most part, you should keep to a minimum in dating. Physical intimacy works like a drug; it intoxicates you. That’s not always bad: When you are in pain and you pop a codeine pill, the drug deceives you into feeling awesome. At times, you need that. But if you took codeine and then decided to go for a 10-mile run, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. The same is true for relationships: When the drug of physical intimacy keeps you from seeing who the other person really is, you’re creating problems for yourself. When the physical excitement of sex fades—which it will—all you are left with is a sick relationship. 3. Resolve to reject the “marriage completes me” myth. In a sense, you always marry the wrong person. Why? Because your spouse is a sinner—and so are you. They will inevitably let you down. They will disappoint you. That’s not to say the choice doesn’t matter. But if we think the “perfect person” is going to make marriage a breeze, we are sorely mistaken. What if you gave up the myth that there is a “perfect person” out there for you and instead understood that’s not what marriage is about anyway? What if you saw that God’s main purpose in life is preparing you for himself, and that marriage is one way (though certainly not the only way) he can do that? If we approached singleness this way, rather than being on a rabid, obsessive search for the right person who was the key to a happy life, we could put our eyes on Jesus and focus on following out him, letting him supply our needs. 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, we continue our marriage & family series with part two of last week’s episode: “What Are the Biggest Obstacles Christians Face in Marriage?” Show Notes: Myth 3: Everyone else is doing better than we are. Everyone thinks they are unique in their struggle. Truth: 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you…” Social Media has turned this common lie of Satan’s into a forest fire of destruction today. It always amazes me how people seem to be sure from the curated feeds they follow that they stink at marriage (or parenting or whatever else) and everyone else is a superstar. Satan can use social media to cherry-pick what you see, and lie to you about your marriage. He is a liar. God has not forgotten you. He has a purpose for your marriage. He’ll give grace for you to glorify him. I’ve thought often of the story of manna in the Bible. As much as they wanted it, manna was not given all at once… we want it all up front in the marriage in pre-marital counseling. There are needs in the marriage God won’t reveal until year 5. And he’ll be ready with manna. Myth 4: I’m primarily “sinned against,” only secondarily “sinner.” Early on in our marriage we were both mad at each other. Disappointed. “You didn’t keep up your end of the bargain,” we both thought. Truth: With Jesus, I’m always first sinner, and only secondly “sinned against.” That came from a counselor, and it changed my life. I think about how much I’ve sinned against God…nothing she ever does to me compares to what I’ve done to him. Submersing myself in grace is what gives me the ability to forgive her. 1 John 4:19 First, I want to caveat this by saying that I am not talking about abusive situations, just average joe-selfish sinners. If you are in an abusive relationship, Christ is not telling you to stay in it. You should get to safety immediately and reach out for help. So we’re not talking about abusive relationships, just normal selfish ones. With that said, the question is: What is the “ticker tape” in your head playing? It should be regularly playing your sins, not their’s. Or playing their best moments. Can you remember the last time you repented of something with your spouse? Jesus told a story that I think might be the most important one for marriage, at least mine: 10,000 talents. So if you don’t naturally forgive your spouse, you must have forgotten how much Jesus has forgiven you. What you need is not “10 steps to a better marriage,” but to embrace the 10,000 steps. What you need is Christ as the foundation and center. In no marriage is it always one person’s fault… but with the church and Jesus, it’s always the church’s fault. Yet Jesus never stops forgiving. Conclusion: Keep your eyes on Jesus. His grace gives you the ability to forgive. He has a purpose for your marriage, and he will give you abundant grace in it. 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, we kick off a brand new series on marriage, family, and relationships. First up, we’ll look at the first part of Pastor J.D.’s answer to the question: “What Are the Biggest Obstacles Christians Face in Marriage?” Show Notes: When I got married, our mentor looked at us and said: To be happy in marriage, J.D., you guys need to remember one thing: Women are a lot like cats; and men are a lot like dogs…Surely there’s more to it than that. And there was. Now, as we launch into a series on marriage and family, I want to make clear that I’m not a marriage expert or a parenting expert. But, I do want to cover 4 big “myths” of marriage that Veronica and I have encountered, and that I see all the time as a pastor. We’ll cover two this week and two on next week’s podcast. Myth 1: I married the wrong person Our dating was fantastic. We thought we’d found the perfect person. We were like, “We have the same perspective on everything. We never fight, we never argue!” We more than made up for that the first three years of our marriage. The truth, of course: is that you always marry the wrong person. First of all, you always marry a sinner, and sinners always disappoint. One of God’s other purposes in marriage is to teach you to love like he loves—and your love is most Christlike when the person you love is the least worthy. One other truth, which Tim Keller has pointed out, is that we are actually married to several different people in our lives! So, even if you did marry the perfect person, they change, and so do you! The root of this lie comes from the weight on marriage in this culture. Maybe you went into marriage thinking that this person would make you happy and complete—to feel important and loved and worthwhile—the one person you could always depend on, who would always understand you, who would always affirm you, and the truth is you’ve been looking for something in somebody that can only be found in God. The truth is that if you are looking to your spouse to fulfill the role that only God can fill, they will always be the wrong person. Now, I think we should give a few caveats: Do Veronica make each other happy? Yes, of course, but only when we don’t depend on each other for happiness. Good selection is important. Myth 2: It’s never going to get better. The truth is God is doing something in your marriage. You and your spouse are both being sanctified. Looking back, I realize that even though I wouldn’t have said it, I didn’t actually think I needed to be sanctified, nor did I want it. This is why 1 Corinthians says that love always hopes. You have a reason to! The Holy Spirit is leading, guiding and working in believers. You can hope even when the devil whispers lies. In the meantime, marriage is a kind of crucible where you learn to wait on God — where you obey God because that’s all you can do and trust him with the results. I want you to know, for those of you frustrated in marriage, God is doing something good in you. Gen 50:20 Ps 84:11 If it’s any encouragement, the Psalms are written by people disappointed in relationships, waiting—but they were confident that if they remained in a posture of obedience, waiting on God, they would eventually see God’s goodness in the land of the living (Ps. 27:13). 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.

At some point, we all deal with criticism of some kind. In this episode of Ask Me Anything, Pastor J.D. talks about how to deal with criticism when it comes your way. Show Notes: We’ve talked before about how to lead through criticism, but I’d like to tackle this more generally, because we all receive criticism. So, how do you deal with it? Get over your idolatry of others’ approval. Kabod , one of theHebrew words the Bible uses for idolatry, literally means weight. So you’re giving something glory — you’re worshipping it — when you give it an undue amount of weight. The fear of man means that you depend on people—their opinions, their approval, their presence — as a source of life and happiness. (Ed Welch: When People Are Big and God Is Small) Don’t get super callous. Tim Keller said that for some people, totally ignoring criticism can be a sign of pride. A lot of people are immune to criticism because they so confident they are right and because they feel that others are so far beneath them. Learn from criticism. In 2 Samuel 16, there’s a story about a man named Shimei who criticized King David. David’s men said, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head.” But David wouldn’t do it, because he thought perhaps God had appointed this man to keep him humble or teach him something. I have learned some really valuable lessons from critics — many of whom probably approached me with bad motives… but they were right. And upon reflection, I realized there was something good in that for me. That doesn’t mean what they did was justified or they did it in the right way, but I still want to be able to learn from it. Consider the source. People often assume the worst about your motives or the intelligence you use in your decisions. An accomplished historian once told me, “To understand someone is to forgive them.” Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, said to always keep the mentality that, “My co-workers are smart and have good intentions.” I have a handful of people whose opinions I trust and I know see my motives, and criticism from them means more than it does from anyone else. God is greater than my heart. The opinion of God is always more important than what others say. Like Paul said, if we sought to please men only, we wouldn’t really be servants of Christ. Maybe you’re your own worst critic, but know that God is greater than your heart. In him, you are his, you are forgiven, you have a purpose, he’s appointed you for good works, he’s anointed you to become fruitful and be useful in his kingdom… he’s made all kinds of promises about how he sees you once you’re in Christ, and the incredibly useful, gifted, beautiful, talented person he’s making you into. When your heart tells you you can’t do anything right, trust God’s opinion instead.   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.

In this episode, Pastor J.D. answers the question, “What do I do if there’s a sin I can’t shake?” and gives some practical ways to fight sin. Show Notes: If we’re honest, we all ask this question at some point because we all have seasons of suffering with sin. Now, let me say: for some people, the sins they can’t shake would fall into the addiction category, in which case you’d need additional resources to help fight that. We’ll talk more about that later. But even when dealing with addictions, some of the core things I’m saying would still apply. The Bible tells us that we’ll be locked in a struggle between our spirit when it’s been renewed in Christ and our flesh for our entire lives. Even the Apostle Paul was very honest about his struggles with sin—and that’s after doing so many amazing things for Christ! My advice would probably be three things: First, just never, ever give up the fight. The worst thing to do is to say, “I’ll never overcome this, so I’ll stop fighting it.” Tim Keller talks about how the Christian life feels like a battle we can never win, when in reality, it’s a battle we can never lose. When you re-believe the gospel and you preach it to yourself, that actually infuses the power of new life into you. Second, it’s important to realize that fighting sin is about learning grace. C.S. Lewis talked about this: God sometimes lets us struggle with lesser sins to keep us from the greatest one: PRIDE. So, God may let you struggle with certain sins so that you will stay closely tethered to his grace. That doesn’t mean you ever stop praying for victory, just that God is up to something good even in delaying the answer.In my library I have this book of letters by John Newton, the writer of the famous hymn Amazing Grace, and one of my favorites is one he wrote in his 80’s to a friend where he confessed that by this point in his life he had always assumed that after walking with God for 50 to 60 years he’d have gotten complete victory over his temptations. He said that some of those temptations, however, felt stronger than ever. And at first that made him depressed, wondering if something was fundamentally wrong with him spiritually–maybe not saved. But in this letter he told his friend that now he realized that God let him struggle with some of these sinful temptations and probably would until the day he died to keep him from the worst sin: pride. “True growth in grace, he said, this side of the resurrection, (listen to this) doesn’t mean getting to a place where you no longer feel like you need God’s grace, but growing in your awareness of just how desperate for God’s grace that you really are.” John Newton You learn to lean on God in failure, not in success. It’s like John Stott says, “Pride is your greatest enemy, humility is your greatest friend.” Finally, a great way to fight sin is to institute new spiritual disciplines. You might not be utilizing spiritual weaponry… you read the Bible and confess your sins, but it’s like using a water gun to put out a house fire. Fasting is essentially you starving the flesh in order to feed and grow the spirit. Radical accountability Scripture memorization Counter talking Be killing sin or it will be killing you. Books: Letters of Newton On the Mortification of Sin – John Owen Jerry Bridges: The Pursuit of Holiness; Discipline of Godliness Because We Love Him – Clyde Cranford Habits of Grace – David Mathis Saints, Sufferers & Sinners – Michael R. Emlet bradhambrick.com 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.

In this episode, Pastor J.D. continues through our series on Psalm 23. This week, he answers, “What if God is using your pain to bring you closer to him?” Show Notes: God uses your pain to bring you to him Here’s the question Naaman’s story should make you ask: What if God was trying to send you a message in your pain? I’m not saying this is true for all the pain we go through, but it’s a question some of you should at least ask? You see, up until the moment that Naaman discovered this spot on him, he had felt on top of the world. The story says he was “on the kings’ arm,” which means he was the king’s right hand man. It says he was “highly regarded,” which meant he was “a celebrity.” Everybody in Syria loved him. He was a national hero, trending on Twitter. And all that was taken away in a moment, by one small spot. One small spot brought the mighty Naaman crashing to the ground. One small spot showed him how fragile everything was. What if God was doing something similar in your pain? Again I’m not saying for sure that is what is happening, but… What if that “problem” had been put there by God to wake you up to a bigger problem—the problem that you’re not right with God and don’t know him? I know a lot of athletes that point to a debilitating injury as the thing that finally woke them up to the really important things in life. I once met a professional athlete who had just signed a multi-million-dollar contract to play in the pro’s, but then got into an accident doing something dumb that totally destroyed his future career. This guy didn’t know God; his career was his god. He told me with tears in his eyes, “I lay there on the ground, my legs broken, saying to myself, ‘I can’t believe I threw away my entire career for a few foolish seconds of fun.’” I said to him, “Respectfully, I think God may have been up to something bigger in your life. I think I might have been trying to say to you, ‘You are throwing away your entire eternity for a few seconds of glory in an athletic arena.’” To make a long story short, God ended up using this to bring him to Christ. What if God, in your pain, had something for you beyond—better than—even the cure that you seek? And what if this thing he had for you was so valuable that after you found him, like Naaman, you find yourself failing to mention the healing–so great is the treasure you have in God? So, again, I ask: Has God revealed a spot in your life that tells you that you’re not as together as you have thought? Maybe the ‘spot’ is a wrinkle in your marriage—your marriage is falling apart and you can’t do anything about it; Maybe it’s a problem with your kids and you feel helpless. That’s maybe where I see this most. You are worried about them, or maybe they are wandering. Or maybe you have no more relationship with them and you keep asking, “How did we get here?” Maybe it’s a habit you can’t break (alcoholism, pornography, a bad temper) Maybe it’s a personal failure you’re humiliated by Maybe it is a dull, aching unhappiness you just can’t get rid of. Maybe it’s the inability to figure something out. You feel paralyzed, unsure of which way to go. A health scare. In a sense, all of us have this same spot–it’s our mortality. We are all going to die. Your body has an expiration date on it. It’s like you walk around with a stick of dynamite in your hand with no idea how long the fuse it. It could be a week or it could be 70 years, but at some point you will die. Even with all our advances in modern medicine, the death rate is holding steady at 100%. These spots can all wake you up to a bigger problem–that is, where you stand with the God who created all of us. You see, leprosy, throughout the Bible, you see, symbolizes sin. Like leprosy, sin deadens. It grows in you and corrupts you over time. Because of it, you slowly lose feeling in your life—parts of you die. Your innocence; your joy; your optimism; your compassion for others. You become grotesque. Scripture says, “the wages of sin is death.” Our souls have a spot of sin on them that is corroding us from the inside out. And sometimes these lesser spots–the problems in our lives–can wake us up to the ultimate spot we should be worried about. Not that every leper who heads out to the Jordan River will find healing for his skin disease; the point is to show us that God sometimes uses suffering to open up your eyes to your need of him. Again, I’m not saying that is the case with you–as we saw with Job and Joseph, a lot of our suffering doesn’t have a root cause in our lives. But, sometimes God is trying to get our attention. As the writer of Psalm 119 says, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I obey your word” (Ps 119:67) (God used affliction to bring me back to himself.) So, our first point is that God often uses our pain to bring us back to him. And Naaman shows us that all we need to respond to God, if he’s doing that in our lives, is humility and faith. Humilit

This week, we continue our series taken from a recent sermon series Pastor J.D. did at The Summit Church on Psalm 23 where he answers: “What does waiting on God actually look like?” Show Notes: When the Duke of Wellington fought Napoleon at Waterloo, the fate of Europe hung in the balance, and everybody knew that. So everyone in England waited anxiously for the news of the battle. Of course, there were no cell phones or TV or telegrams. The quickest way news would get back to England would be by ship. And so, on the day of the battle, a large mass of people stood on the shore waiting on news. Many were parents or loved ones of English soldiers fighting in the battle. Well, a ship came into view and began to signal by semaphore (where you spell out letters by flashing lanterns). It was a foggy day, however, and the message received on land was “Wellington defeated.” The people began to wail in despair, and weep, because they had lost. but after almost an hour, the fog cleared and they saw the rest of the message, “Wellington defeated… THE ENEMY.” When Jesus died, the demons screamed out “Jesus defeated,” but when the fog lifted on that bright Sunday morning, we got the rest of the message. Jesus defeated… THE ENEMY. When your loved one dies, when you’ve been betrayed by the friend or let down by the spouse or you are languishing in prison like Joseph, the demons scream into your heart, “You are defeated…” When your kid is wandering, when your body is sick, when you don’t make the team or get passed over, “You are defeated…” But there is a day coming when the fog lifts and you see that NOT ONE THING was out of God’s control and not one thing was wasted and that Christ was victorious over all of it. God is always good, but the arc of God’s goodness is longer than we typically think. That’s how it has always been. We should wait confidently. Think about all the things Joseph’s story demonstrates God’s sovereignty over: The jealousy of Joseph’s brothers led to Joseph’s being sold into slavery–God was sovereign over their jealousy; the fact that Joseph just so happened to be bought by Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s army, set him up to be held in the prison for royal prisoners, where he would meet the butler–God was sovereign over that; the fact that the butler had a poor memory led to Joseph being right where they would know to find him when Pharaoh had his dream 2 years later. God was sovereign over the butler’s poor memory. Even what appeared just to be bad luck was under the control of God’s providence: Think about it (let me have a little artistic license here): When Potiphar’s wife grabbed Joseph’s coat, I ask, what if he had worn his nicer coat that day–the one that was double stitched and wouldn’t have ripped so easily? Without the evidence, Potiphar may not have believed her, which means Joseph would never have gone to prison, and thus never met the butler and thus never met Pharaoh and thus never been in a position to save Israel. That means that in a way, Israel’s entire future hinged on a piece of cheap Egyptian fabric. God was sovereign over that. Scripture presents God as in control of everything: The wind, the rain, lightning, earthquakes, tsunamis, the flight of a sparrow, the blooming of a lily, the hairs on your head, good kings, wicked kings, every roll of every dice, the outcome of battles, the placement of every one of the billions and billions and billions of stars, your thoughts, my thoughts, angels, demons, even Satan himself. All of it is under the providence of God. (This doesn’t mean God is the one acting in those things or that he is behind evil, just that he is orchestrating all of them for the accomplishment of his purposes.) Now, I know what some of you might say, “Well, what about the ways I have messed things up?” If you have committed your way to God, he uses even those things, providentially, as part of his good work in your life. I have to think that in that first stint in prison, Joseph said to himself, “Why did I have to be so braggy about my dreams? What if I’d been more humble, more discreet?” But Joseph came to the same realization that David did in Psalm 23. It’s not just goodness that follows me, but mercy. Steadfast mercy, Joseph says. Mercy means that even when we mess up, God responds with never-stopping, never giving up, love. Which covers even our mistakes. And so, we wait not only patiently, but confidently, too… We should wait intimately. The theme running through Joseph and David’s life is that even in the worst of times, they communed with God. They feasted upon God. Which is what this sponge is about. It’s to show you how Joseph was able to respond with confidence and kindness and forgiveness even in the worst situations. In the prisons, Joseph, like David, kept embracing that God was with him. God prepared a table before him in the presence of his enemies, and he feasted on God (dip sponge)… He got sold by his brothers&#8

This week, we dive into a short series taken from a recent sermon series Pastor J.D. did at The Summit Church on Psalm 23. First, Pastor J.D. answers: “What does faith look like in a season of suffering?” Show Notes: “The faith of desperation.” Job expresses this faith in Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” God, I know you’re good. And I can’t understand what you’re doing but I know you’re working a good plan. And so even though everything around me is falling apart, I’m still going to trust that you are good. “Even though you slay me, yet will I trust you.” Many people never make it to this stage. They live on the faith of propriety. And it makes them judgmental. When something goes wrong in someone else’s life, they think, “Well, I wonder what they did wrong?” Their marriage isn’t going well, and you think, “Well, they’re different behind closed doors than what we see of them.” Or their finances are a mess and you think, “Well, they must not be very good money managers,” or, “They must not be putting God first.” One of their kids starts to wander and you think, “I wonder what they did wrong in their parenting? Unlike me over here who is just killing it as a parent, which is why my kids are doing so well.” You think that way because you only know the faith of propriety. But then God sends you through a Job chapter. And some people fall away, sadly. But others go on to develop the faith of desperation. It strips you of your judgmentalism and you say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” Is this where you are? Have you ever been forced to develop this kind of faith? Dallas Willard says, “Often God allows us to reach the point of desperation so we can learn how to trust. It is a hard lesson, but an essential one. The “life without lack” is known by those who have learned how to trust God in the moment of their need. In the moment of their need. Not before the moment of need, not after the moment of need when the storm has passed, but in the moment of need. For it is in that moment, when everything else is gone, that you know the reality of God.” Is that where you are? Ah, but, believe it or not, there was still another level of faith for Job–it’s the faith of Psalm 23, and Dallas Willard calls it “The faith of sufficiency.” I used to think that the faith of desperation was the ultimate expression of faith, but Dallas Willard showed me there was a 3rd kind of faith, an even higher type, and it appears right at the end of the book of Job. It’s the faith that rejoices, sits silently and calmly, in the presence of the Shepherd. You see, throughout the book of Job, Job has been protesting his situation before God. “God, I did it all right! I obeyed you! I put you first in my marriage, my parenting, my finances, and look what happened! When are you going to come through for me?” Throughout the book of Job, Job keeps saying, “I want to appear before God. I want to see God and talk to him face to face.” And so, at the end of the book of Job, God grants him that audience. Job sees God. He stands in his presence. And when that happens, Job says, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer you? “Vile” here doesn’t mean what we think it means. It doesn’t mean “nasty” or “evil.” A better translation of the word “qalal” there would be “insignificant” or “unworthy.” Because I am so insignificant, “I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:4–5). Job says, “Seeing you, I see how utterly small-minded and unwise I am and how utterly sovereign and good you are.” Job continues: “(Before this) I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear (IOW, I knew the doctrines about you–I knew how to answer the theological questions–you are powerful and good), but now my eye sees you (beholds you); therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Surely I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Job 42:5–6 And at that point in the book, Job stopped pressing his case. He rested. He saw with his eyes the goodness of God and knew he could trust him in all things. In fact, did you see where he said the word “repent”? “I repent in dust and ashes.” What was he repenting of? You see, the writer of the book of Job says repeatedly that throughout this whole ordeal Job had not sinned with his lips, so what is he repenting of? He’s repenting of not feasting upon and resting in the goodness of the Shepherd. But now, you see–now–Job’s vision of God was so full and so satisfying that what happens to him from this point on doesn’t matter. He can trust in the goodness of God; content just to be in the presence of the Shepherd where goodness and mercy surround him and follow him and satisfy him all the days of his life. This is called the faith of sufficiency. A lot of us are where Job was. We’ve heard about all these things with the hearing of our ears,

This week, Pastor J.D. talks about whether or not Christians should listen to secular music. Show Notes: While I know it’ll frustrate the listeners, I’m going to have to give a “yes and no” answer. First of all, songs like the national anthem are secular songs — there’s really no way to avoid them. But let’s start with reasons why Christians might want to be very cautious or even want to mostly avoid secular music: The wrong kind of music leads to the wrong thought patterns. I heard someone a long time ago say that music affects us even more deeply than we realize, because it’s tied into our thought patterns. Proverbs (23:7) says that “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” John Mark Comer, in his book Live No Lies, writes: “If you sow a thought, you reap an action; if you reap an action, you reap another action; sow several actions, you reap a character; sow a character, you reap a destiny — either in slavery to the flesh or freedom of the spirit.” I listened to a fairly compelling YouTube video about this a few years ago, where this guy named Alan Parr was arguing that Christians generally should not listen to secular music. He said to ask yourself a few questions: Does the music I’m listening to promote an ungodly message? Am I being a light to others if I look just like them? Is this music hindering or helping my spiritual growth? But on the other hand, if you gave a “hard no” to this, you’d have to cut a lot of other things out as well: TV, movies, etc. Jesus tells us to be “in the world but not of the world.” Paul, in 1 Cor. 5, says that it’s impossible to totally separate yourself from all immorality in the world. That doesn’t mean you should participate in it, but that it’s impossible to separate yourself from all contact with it. That’s why I think it’s important to make a distinction between “non-Christian” music and “un-Christian” music. In other words, it’s one thing to say nobody should ever listen to a song that illicitly promotes sex, violence, etc. It’s another to say nobody should ever listen to Faithfully by Journey, or any Taylor Swift songs at all, etc. John Piper says: “There is such a thing as worldly music. One of the marks of worldly music is the exultation in a worldly view of life. A worldly view of life is a life that leaves Christ out and approves of what he disapproves. That is worldly. Worldly isn’t a sound; worldly is leaving Christ out. That is why it is called worldly and not Christly. And it approves of what he disapproves. It is called worldly because it treasures the world above the one who made the world. It revels in the very self-centeredness that gives rise to the miseries of the world.” I think about this similarly to how I think about the question: “Should you go to a party hosted by unbelievers?” It depends on what kind of party. At some parties, the whole point is to sin — I’d apply that to music and movies also. If the whole point is the glorification of sin, I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing our Savior delights in. After all, how could you love somebody and then delight in what led to their murder? What mood is the music you’re listening to putting you in? I don’t know about you, but the mood I need to dominate my heart is one that glorifies God and promotes goodness, truth, love and beauty, and that’s what I want to saturate myself with. 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 about whether or not we should give out our own pronouns when asked. Show Notes: We have actually talked about this topic a couple of years ago from another angle, and this may be a good time to revisit that. The podcast from several years ago got a lot of attention and a lot of people asked questions about it. I think it’s good to bring that back up, both to continue the conversation and also to clarify some things I said. I’d actually like to start by discussing that previous question (“Should we use someone’s preferred pronouns when asked?”). The conversation in our culture has shifted even since then. Also, I’ll be candid: as I’ve wrestled with this, some of my own thinking on this has crystalized and, I’d even say, matured. There are several dynamics at play when we think about a question like this. One of those is is truth. Our job as witnesses is to stand uncompromisingly on the truth, to rebuke our society, to stand against untruth and darkness. Another dynamic are the relational aspects of knowing someone and maintaining a relationship with them. We’re not just called to defend truth but to win people. So, if someone has transitioned and wants to be called different pronouns, should you consent to that? Let me first use a phrase I first heard from Andrew T. Walker: “The answer to that question begins and ends with no.” The reason I say that is because I think, as believers, we have to be crystal clear on the truth. I did make this point on our previous episode, talking about the necessity of being crystal clear on truth, but I think I should have been more clear and I want to do that now: there can be no ambiguity in our testimony to the world. This is not ambiguous in Scripture, it’s not unclear, and part of our calling is to speak to culture when culture does not align with what God has said. I understand there’s a lot of brokenness, dysphoria, and complexity to this for a lot of people, but we have to be honest about what the Bible says. After that has been made clear, some of these other relational dynamics kick in. In that previous episode, I was hypothesizing about a situation where I’m sitting in my office with a dad and his transgender child, coming to me for clarity and so I make clear to them what the Bible says. But, if in the course of conversation I used the child’s self-referential pronoun as I talk with and about them, just to keep them in the conversation, I don’t think that would represent a capitulation or compromise of truth if someone chose to do that, assuming they’d been clear about the truth on the front end and the back end. That should never be done in a way that implies acceptance or affirmation, even for a second. The easiest thing, honestly, is to use their name, even if that forces you to word things awkwardly. Again, we’re trying to balance two things: clearly testify to the truth, and doing our best to keep our relationship with the other person in order to engage with them at the heart level. Let me add a third thing we’re balancing: to fight the battle at the right location. Being clear and truthful about gender is a battle we have to fight, no matter how unpopular. But that doesn’t mean that I fire shots or draw battle lines in every other sentence when I’m trying to get the conversation focused on what we need to get it focused on. Our goal is to engage the issue in a way that engages the heart, and to speak truthful about God’s design without apology. So that’s why I say the answer to the question begins and ends with no. Now, back to whether or not you list your own pronouns when asked (like on a name-tag at work, for example). Different dynamics are at play here. On the one hand, saying that my pronouns are he/him is a true statement. I’m not telling or affirming a lie. But, what obviously is being done here is an attempt to normalize the idea that pronouns are a choice. And for me to clarify what my pronouns are, I’m normalizing the question and we believe that’s not even a valid question. So, when I point out my pronouns, in one way, I’m making a true statement but in another way I’m normalizing a question that should not be normalized. For that reason, I would resist giving my pronouns wherever I could because I don’t want to normalize the gender confusion or recognize this as legitimate question. If a job requires this, or the government requires it one day on our ID, should we refuse that even if it means losing our job or going to jail? I’m not sure I’d want to give one answer that would just be applicable at all times and all places. I think you’d have to discern what is best for witness and truth and your calling to be somewhere. Lastly, while we’re talking about things you said in the past, we’ve gotten a numbe

This week, listen into one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons where he explained a question based on John 20:23: “Did Jesus give Peter the ability to forgive sins?” Show Notes: John 20:23 sounds startling at first: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” This can be a difficult verse because it almost makes it sound like Jesus is giving us the authority to forgive sins. But that can’t be true. I’ve said before that you always interpret hard verses in the Bible by easy ones? Well, multiple verses in the Bible say that only God can forgive sins. Think about it this way: If anybody in history would ever have had the authority to forgive sins, it would have been Peter (who Jesus said this to). He was standing in that original group that heard these words and he was recognized as one of the main leaders of the church. And some today do indeed claim that Peter and his successors have the authority to forgive sins. But not one time in the Bible do you ever find Peter taking upon himself the authority to grant forgiveness. Not once. In fact, in Acts 10, when Peter preaches the gospel to a group of Gentiles, he says to them–notice this– Acts 10:43, “To him (Jesus) all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Peter didn’t say, “I forgive your sins,” he said, “The Bible says if you believe in Jesus you will receive forgiveness of sins and I’m just here to tell you about it.” So, if this phrase doesn’t mean that we have the authority to forgive sins, what does it mean? Well… this is a little nerdy, so hang with me for a minute: (v. 23) the expression “if you forgive someone’s sins, they are forgiven” is in the perfect-tense verbs in Greek, which means you could translate that phrase as: “they have already been forgiven.” You could really read that statement as, “If you forgive any one’s sins they have (already) been forgiven.” In other words, Jesus was saying that Peter and the Apostles were given the ability to recognize when God had saved someone, and the authority to validate their acceptance of it, assuring those new Gentile believers, when they believed, that they were indeed fully included in the family of God. The Apostles could recognize when someone’s sins were forgiven, and make it official. Even more importantly, it was through the apostles’ preaching that others heard the message and believed. God will forgive the sins of anyone who believes, but, it’s like Paul said, “How can they believe on him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear unless we preach to them?” We hold in our hands the power to share the only message by which people can be forgiven. Jesus died to forgive the sins of everybody, but that death doesn’t do any good unless they hear about it. It’s like Martin Luther said, “It wouldn’t matter if Jesus died 1000x if nobody ever heard about it!” Or the theologian Carl F. H. Henry: “The gospel means ‘good news,’ but it is only good news for somebody if it gets to them in time.” Jesus purchase of their forgiveness doesn’t do them good if they never hear about it, and we are the only ones they can hear about it from. So, SENT people recognize God’s role and their role in the Great Commission. 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.

Recently, Pastor J.D. got to host a special “Live AMA” with college students from Hardin Baptist Church in Hardin, KY. Listen in as Pastor J.D. answers questions submitted by the audience, including, “Should Churches Sacrifice Doctrine to Appeal to More People?” Show Notes: Should Churches Sacrifice Doctrine to Appeal to More People? I don’t see any way other than to say, yes, you should be critical of these churches. Now, does that mean you should become a social media warrior? Probably not. That’s mostly unhelpful. But I will say, sometimes, not everything is as it seems with other churches. Sometimes, there are genuine reasons behind things other churches do that are admirable and laudable. However, you don’t ever do anyone any favors by backing down from the truth. Just like there’s a time to know when not to speak, there’s a time to be really clear. If I’m Called to Ministry — Now What? Let’s just acknowledge one thing: everyone is called in some way. Every Christian is called to leverage whatever God gave them for the Great Commission. The question is no longer if you are called, but where and how. We always challenge all of our college graduates to spend 2 years on church planting teams… a lot of times, they’re beginning their careers over there! Another phrase we use: To follow Jesus means to figure out what you’re good at, and then do it well to the glory of God, somewhere strategic for the mission of God. Our Summit College team encourages students to do this, but our North American Mission Board does this, also: go to Go2Years.net to get in on this. How Do You Counsel Someone Called Overseas? Well, just go. Check out either a short-term trip through your local church, or even something like the International Mission Board’s Journeyman program. Those are great ways to find out if this really is what God has for you. 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.

Recently, Pastor J.D. got to be a part of a special “Live AMA” with college students from Hardin Baptist Church in Hardin, KY. Listen in as Pastor J.D. answers questions submitted by the audience, including, “How much should you dwell on your sin?” Show Notes: How much should you dwell on your sin? From a pastoral perspective, most of us don’t hate sins enough. One of the main things to do is to pray for God to give us a hatred for sin. Having said that, the Puritans used to say, “For every one look at yourself, you should take 10 looks at Jesus Christ.” In fact, where you learn to hate sin is by looking at the purity of Christ. The Bible says that the righteous man falls seven times and gets back up — can you imagine walking behind somebody who fell seven times? The point is, even the righteous man falls all the time. But he shows his righteousness not by never falling, but by looking to Christ when he falls. Growth in grace is not growing in how much you actually need grace, growth in grace is growing in your awareness of how much you actually need it. How do you go about addressing friends who are clearly in sin? Practically speaking, you have to say something. Some of us struggle with not wanting to confront anyone. Some of us struggle with wanting to say too much. Ultimately, you have to say that you can’t see the fruits of the gospel in their lives. And I’ve seen God use conversations like that in people’s lives before. But some of you will want to say that too many times. And the key is to find balance in speaking the truth into someone’s life while not trying to force them to change. You have to let the Holy Spirit do that. 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.

Recently, Pastor J.D. got to be a part of a special “Live AMA” with college students from Hardin Baptist Church in Hardin, KY. Listen in as Pastor J.D. answers questions submitted by the audience, including, “How do you have faith in something that you can’t prove exists?” Show Notes: How do you have faith in something you can’t prove exists? The first thing I would say is that there are a lot of things that we perceive that are not necessarily perceived through our sight or even our five senses. And think, for example, about our perception of love. We all know love is real, even though it’s not something we can taste, touch, see, smell, or hear. We all have an innate sense of the divine — that there is something greater out there — whether we want to acknowledge that or not. It’s like C.S. Lewis said: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” Beyond that, there are several things that the Bible points to that philosophers have called the “arguments for God,” or evidences and fingerprints for God’s existence. The cosmological argument: essentially, the idea that nothing + nobody cannot = everything. And that matter cannot create itself, which is a strong evidence that there is some a Creator. The moral argument: the idea that we all have a sense of right and wrong, and that if we truly are just evolutionary accidents, there’s no such thing as right and wrong. The teleological argument: the idea that we seem to be created for a purpose, with a longing for eternity. The ontological argument: the idea that because it is possible that God exists, then he must exist. And I often just think about the significance of all that has happened since Jesus’ life. None of it is likely, and especially since the original Christians did not gain much from the founding of the faith. How can we share the gospel with grace and truth? The story of Jesus is the greatest of all forms of evangelism. Over time, my evangelism approach has changed from trying to get through whatever method or tool I was using as quickly as I could, to focusing on an invite to study the Bible with that person together. Because I know when we study the story of Jesus together, there’s a beauty there that is more powerful than the logical arguments I might be able to overwhelm you with. Michael Green wrote a book called Evangelism in the First Century. He drew a distinction between missionaries and defenders of orthodoxy. Both are gifts to the body of Christ, both are important, but they are different roles. 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.

Have you ever wondered if Christianity is too good to be true? In this episode, Pastor J.D. answers the question, “Is Christianity Just Wishful Thinking?” Show Notes: Well, I don’t think my answer will take anyone by surprise, considering my occupation: no! But let me try to unpack why. Is Christianity all just a fairy tale to make people feel better about the afterlife? I think you can answer pretty definitely that this is not what Christianity is about. Think about some of the earliest Christians, like Paul. Paul did not want Christianity to be true! Instead, he was confronted with it and knew he had to believe. Some say that the other apostles, especially those who were Jesus’ disciples, convinced themselves that the resurrection happened because of how that would have benefitted their lives. However, N.T. Wright’s book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, explains that the idea of a resurrected Messiah was not part of the Jewish hope. They thought about a Messiah that would come and reign, but not a Messiah who would rise from the dead and would not reign politically. And the disciples were a little bit slow to believe this — all of the gospels read this way. Sometimes, it’s easy to think of people over 2,000 years ago being more gullible and less scientific than us — perhaps more likely to fall for the myth of a resurrection. But that’s an arrogant way of thinking — they knew, of course, that people didn’t raise from the dead. Beyond this, the earliest Christian leaders did not gain any great wealth, following, or social status because of their newly-formed religion… just the opposite! They had to give up everything because of the gospel, and yet they did so willingly. This contrasts to others who have started false religions, because others who have done so have prospered greatly in some way because of their religious lies. Blaise Pascal famously said: “Always believe witnesses who are willing to have their throats cut, and have nothing to gain for it.” I think that’s what you see in the earliest Christians. I’d encourage you to press into N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God for more on this. 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.

In this episode, we listen back to a recent sermon when Pastor J.D. answered the question, “When Should I Not Take Communion?” Show Notes: So, you ask, what exactly does it mean to eat “unworthily”? It can’t mean that we should only take communion when we feel worthy of Christ’s presence. Because that would be ‘never.’ None of us are worthy to take the bread and the cup. That’s why we take of the bread and the cup. None of us are worthy of Christ’s presence. Jesus said that at our best—on your best day, when you’re having the longest righteousness streak you’ve ever had, “18 days without a sin”— you are still unprofitable servants. Even though we’re forgiven, we have more corruption in our hearts than we can possibly comprehend. So it doesn’t mean “only eat when you feel worthy.” So what does it mean? Well, notice that “unworthily” is written as an adverb, which is how it is in Greek. You say, “What difference does that make? “Unworthy” as an adjective would describe you, and like we said, you are always “unworthy” to participate in Christ. But Paul’s focus is on something different: he’s talking about how you approach this table. You can approach this table unworthily. So what does that look like? A Spirit of Self-Righteousness: You don’t realize how dependent you are on Christ’s mercy. You don’t see how your only hope is the body and blood of Jesus. The irony is that you approach this table unworthily when you fail to see how unworthy you are to partake of this table. If you know you are unworthy, then you are approaching this table worthily. If you think you are worthy, you are approaching this table unworthily. Secondly, A Spirit of Defiance: If you partake of this table when you know that you are not submitted to Christ–that is, you are openly and intentionally living in a way that you know displeases him–you are engaging in the very lifestyle that put Jesus on the cross. Think about it: In taking the bread and the cup, you are saying, “Thank God for Jesus and his death, it is my life and my hope” but then with your life you are openly crucifying him.” God? With your mouth you are celebrating his cross while practicing the lifestyle that put him on the cross. You can’t shout “Worship him” and “crucify him” at the same time and not expect God’s anger. Friend, I say this with all humility: Do not touch the elements of this table if you are not surrendered to Christ. I don’t mean if you’re struggling with sin, or overwhelmed by your sin. Jesus came for people like that. His death is healing and help for those who know they are sick! What I mean is don’t touch this if YOU KNOW there’s some area you refuse to submit to him. Don’t add to your condemnation by hypocritically saying, “Thank you Jesus for your death” while stubbornly doing the very things that put him on the cross. Keep your rebellious, treasonous hands off of these elements. It’s dangerous for you. You eat unworthily when you come with self-righteousness, defiance, and lastly: A Spirit of Division This is, I believe, what was most in Paul’s mind when he said, “Don’t come to this table unworthily.” Because that’s the context of this passage, in vs. 33: Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, welcome one another. Don’t come when in your heart you are separated from others by some kind of pride or classism or racism. Don’t come when you harbor resentment or unforgiveness in your heart. Don’t come claiming to cherish the forgiveness of God when you won’t forgive someone else. Don’t come when you are divided from your brothers and sisters over some secondary, non-essential matter–a political perspective or a cultural bias. Some of you should not take of this table because you are more Republican than you are Jesus. Or more Democrat than you are Jesus. And I say that because you can’t stand someone who approaches politics differently than you, even if they love Jesus like you and you agree on all the essentials–the authority of the Bible, what it teaches about morality or being pro-life or whatever. Even though you agree on all these things, because they bring a different perspective or a different set of priorities with them when they come into the polls, you resent them. Truth is, you hate them and you wish they’d just go to another church; and if they don’t, well, you are thinking you probably should. Don’t touch this table if you harbor divisions and resentments unbefitting of the body of Christ. That’s eating in an unworthy manner. Jesus put it this way in the Sermon on the Mount: If you are offering your gift at the altar, and you have division with your brother in Christ, leave your gift before the altar and go reconcile with him. FIRST be reconciled with your brother, and THEN come offer your gift. Paul is saying something similar: First, feel a real sense of unity with your brother and sisters, and let that be reflected in your attitude toward them, and how you behave toward them

In this episode, Pastor J.D. is answering a listener question from Ashley: If you were baptized as a baby, should you be re-baptized as an adult? Show Notes: I want to answer this question in three ways: theologically, practically, and also try to expand the question for those who aren’t sure they were saved when they were baptized. Biblically speaking, baptism is a ceremony — a celebration — that goes along with conversion. In the New Testament, baptism and conversion are tied incredibly close together. Baptism is a confession of faith. So, if you were baptized as a baby, whose faith was that a confession of? It has to be your parents’ — which by the way, is nothing to be ashamed of. At our church, I usually tell people that when you’re re-baptized as an adult, you’re actually fulfilling your parents’ hopes for you when they had you baptized as a baby in the first place. The simple fact is, every baptism we see in the New Testament is in response to a confession of faith. Now, what about if you were baptized already and you’re not sure if you were saved at that time? If you know for certain that you weren’t saved at that time, then yes, you should be re-baptized. But, unless you know for sure, I think it’s better to look at it like that was the beginning of your faith journey (which is when your baptism should happen), and the proof that what was going on inside of you was real is the fact that you’re following Jesus now. Baptism isn’t something you achieve, it’s something you start from. 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.

In this episode, Pastor J.D. is answering a listener question: Can a Christian support abortion? Show Notes: The way I hear the question is, can a Christian consciously support abortion and is this an area where Christians can disagree? My answer to that would be no. What I’m not hearing in this question is, is every person who has ever voted pro-choice or said they were pro-choice automatically not a Christian? That’s a different question. So, to answer your question, I want to talk about the heart of the abortion issue. That is, that all people are instilled with the imago Dei – the image of God. And all those made in God’s image are precious to God and their lives deserve protection. Attacking the unborn is tantamount to attacking God since all life is created in his image and that includes life in the womb. Now, there are always objections to this from the pro-life side. People say, “Well, the baby is a part of a woman’s body, and we need to respect her right to privacy and sovereignty over her body.” And I agree that the right to privacy over our bodies is precious. But here’s the thing: The baby is not part of her body. That baby is intimately attached to her body for a period of time, yes, but it’s not part of her body. Scripture certainly presents the preborn child as its own person: The Psalmist of Psalm 139 says that in the womb God knew me by name, as a person; there I was fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together according to the plan of God with his purpose for me already in mind. Someone says, “But it’s still IN my body.” Yes, but we all know our rights over our bodies are not absolute as far as the law is concerned. Prostitution is illegal in most states, and I don’t know of anywhere in the US can you legally pour drugs into your body just because it’s your body. Your rights to your body stop precisely at that place where they begin to affect someone else’s. And that’s exactly what is happening to the pre-born. Others say,“Well, saying life begins at conception is a matter of opinion, and you shouldn’t force your opinion on others.” But we’re not in the realm of opinion, here; we’re in the realm of biology and Scripture. I would argue that the more helpless a person is, the more vulnerable–the less viable–the more we as a society should do to protect them. Even if you are unclear on this, and are not convinced that personhood begins at conception–shouldn’t you err on the side of life? “If you’re hunting in the woods and hear a rustling in the bushes and you’re uncertain as to whether it’s your friend or a deer, morality and common sense dictate that you don’t pull the trigger, given the potential risk of murder.” I’ve heard people say, “Abortion sometimes help poor women escape crushing financial burdens. Banning abortion would cause overpopulation and massive poverty.” This kind of statement confuses “finding a solution” with “eliminating a problem.” Think of it this way: If the neighbor’s dog keeps pooping in your yard… you go out and shoot the dog. You’ve eliminated a problem, but you haven’t come up with a solution. If poverty is a problem, let’s keep working to find a solution. Again, the point is–the pre-born are people. You can’t justify killing a person because it eliminates a problem. I mean, if you use that reasoning there, where does it stop? Couldn’t you use that same line of reasoning to justify eliminating other financially burdensome groups? Listen: That little human life, that little person, regardless of how they got there, when it’s no bigger than a speck, the size of a period at the end of the sentence, is made in the image of God. That speck has more value than all the planets and stars in the vast cosmos! It has a soul made in the image of God, that Jesus died, that has an eternal future. BONUS: Why does The Summit Church Plant Churches? We believe in the power of multiplying churches — planting churches that plant churches. It’s not about one church, but multiple churches being raised up. So, we measure our church’s success not by seating capacity but by sending capacity. God has really blessed us in this — we’ve planted 59 churches in the United States, and If you are someone who wants to be a part of a church plant or even plant a church, we’d love to have a conversation with you. The goal is to plant churches that plant churches. To facilitate that, we’re trying to raise $1 million. We’d love you to be a part of that, and I can’t think of a greater impact in the kingdom of God. For more information, email Matt Love at [email protected] 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.

In this episode, Pastor J.D. is addressing whether or not a church should be disfellowshipped from the SBC if they have a woman serving in the role of pastor. Show Notes: The SBC is convictionally complementarian — I would say unwaveringly so. So, if you are saying your church does not believe in gender roles, or our lead pastoral team is women, then yes, you are clearly not in line with our statement of faith. But there’s another principle at work: the principle of cooperation vs confessionalism. From Adam Greenway’s article: “Many Southern Baptists would be surprised to learn that a local church is not required to affirm explicitly the BF&M statement to be deemed a cooperating church. Article III of the SBC Constitution, which defines what it means to be a cooperating church, simply states that the church must have “a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.” The linchpin of cooperation in the SBC may well be three words: ‘closely identifies with.’” One of the challenges is how quickly our use of terms and words shifts. So, does a church which has a woman with “pastor” in her title need to be disfellowshipped? Is it a disfellowship-able error? The BF&M states that baptism is a prerequisite for the Lord’s supper — yet many Baptist churches would serve communion to a Presbyterian if they happened to show up at church that day. Technically, that’s a violation of the BF&M. Should a church like that be disfellowshipped? Honestly, it depends — if a church has an otherwise complementarian structure but they seem to misuse labels and titles, no, I don’t believe they should. If they clearly do not hold a complementarian point of view, that would be a different matter. Disfellowshipping a church is a grievous thing. I don’t think the BF&M ever intended to get into these types of issues. 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.

In this episode, taken from one of Pastor J.D.’s recent sermons, we answer the question: what is love? Show Notes: What is love? According to 1 Corinthians 13: Love is patient and kind…. Patience means you expect others not to be perfect. And you’re ok with that. One of the things the Holy Spirit has recently been dealing with me about is how little patience I have for others’ dysfunction and how much patience I expect God, and others, to have for my own. I’ll think about someone else’s weakness or dysfunction and just despise them for it. But I’ve got way more problems in God’s eyes than they do in mine–what if God accepted me like I am accepting them? Love is patient; Love is kind. Kind here really means “considerate.” It means that love considers others’ needs instinctively; it’s not just happy when it’s ok; it’s concerned about you being ok, too. Naturally we consider ourselves; love considers others, also. …love does not envy or boast To not even means that you rejoice in someone else’s blessings even when you aren’t experiencing that blessing and want to. What happens when that person gets the house that you wanted? Or that promotion? Or that boyfriend? When their ministry or business grows and yours doesn’t? Parents, what’s your attitude when someone else’s kids are doing well and yours aren’t? It’s fine to be sad about yours, but are you envious of them? Do you despise their blessing–secretly wishing their kids would struggle, too? Love is not like that. Love rejoices in others’ blessings even when you aren’t experiencing them. How about when someone gets honor or recognition while you are being overlooked? Love delights in the happiness of others even when you are unhappy. … it is not arrogant Arrogant means always thinking of itself preeminently. Always focused on its rights and entitlements. Believing you deserve blessings and irritated that you are not delivering them. …or rude Some scholars translate “rude” as “dishonoring,” and I think that is more of what Paul had in mind. Love doesn’t dishonor a person by treating them like a commodity for the fulfillment of your needs. Evaluating someone by how well they fit into your scheme of what you need in life: emotionally, sexually, or whatever, like cogs in the machine of your happiness. Paul puts these two together–arrogant and rude–because he is saying that a person of love doesn’t approach life as if life is all about them and it is everybody else’s purpose in life to provide happiness for them! …it does not insist on its own way (When you live with self-focus, you see other people as coming into your life to fulfill your needs, so you want to make sure they play their part. And if not, you get angry. Love takes this attitude toward others in your life, too. How many times have you been upset at a friend for not understanding what you needed in the moment and giving that to you? …it is not irritable Irritable means “easily triggered.” Because self-centeredness sees the world primarily through the lens of what it needs and wants, it’s quick to get angry when you don’t fulfill its desires. But love doesn’t think through that filter, so it is more patient when you frustrate or disappoint them. …or resentful That means you “keep no record of wrongs.” In fact, the NIV literally says that, “Love keeps no records of wrongs.” When someone hurts or disappoints you, do you drag up all the previous ways they’ve let you down? Some people, when they get angered, get hysterical; others get historical. “You did this and that connects to that previous time where you did this and then there was that time in 2009 that you said this, and your mom told me that when you were in high school you did this…” I know spouses who actually keep journals of the ways their spouses have disappointed them. Yeah, that’s setting up for a good marriage. Some of us don’t do that because we keep it all up here. Do you see how out of step you are with 1 Cor 13? Love keeps no record of wrongs. Past wrongs are like spent ammunition; bullets that can’t be fired again. …it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love never delights when someone else struggles, and it cares enough to speak up when a friend is doing something that will hurt them. Love bears all things… When you love someone, you patiently endure the wounds of their selfishness and immaturity. Love bears all things. It’s used to feeling under-appreciated. C.S. Lewis asked, “How do you know if your friendship is selfish? (He answered) If you get upset when the gratitude does not come and you give up.” He went on to say, “If you do good things for your friends in the hopes they will see what you do and appreciate it, you’ll be disappointed.” Love bears all things. …(love) believes all things, hopes all things. Let me put these two together: Love never gives up hope for this person; never stops believing in who this person could be; who God c

In this episode, Pastor J.D. answers a question about whether or not we should still have denominations. Show Notes: One of the criticisms of Martin Luther was that there would be as many kinds of churches as there are protestants. But while I would love for the church to be totally united, I think you’ve got to seek truth over seeking unity at times. Did Jesus give authority to the apostles? Sure. But I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where he intended for that same authority to be passed down from one leader to another. Instead, we think that authority was then encoded in the New Testament which outlines for us the rules about heaven and hell and what the church is. The Word of God is always the authority in the church. We’ve got to hold the tension between truth and pursuing unity. 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.

In the second of two parts on the topic, Pastor J.D. addresses whether or not a Christian can be a socialist. Show Notes: Two ways socialism fails as a worldview biblically: Human depravity: all humans in power grow depraved. The US has typically understood that it is better to keep power distributed via checks and balances. Government by its nature has incredible power, and when they are put in charge of everyone’s livelihoods, massive corruption is almost always the result. Best to keep the economy free and let the market keep people fair. If you assume everybody is depraved, the question is how powerful you want any one group depraved people to hold. I’d rather them hold a knife than a gun. So I prefer the way a free market keep’s people’s depravity in check to a group of government bureaucrats with much more expansive power. Second thing: Human dignity: God gave humans the ability to prosper. Government needs to get out of the way. When humans are given freedom and obstacles are removed, they prosper. Governments don’t help people by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves. So, bottom line: Government can help us play fair, but it can’t replace human initiative and should itself be held in check because government leaders are still human, and subject to the same vices they are trying to prevent in others. What does the Bible say? We always need to be careful, because terms like capitalism and socialism are terms developed long after the Bible, but there are certain principles that apply: The Bible encourages human initiative—it certainly commends private property ownership, and it warns us against unchecked depravity. Economically: Time and time again, socialism has destroyed countries that embrace its ideology. A lot of modern socialists cite countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as examples of socialism’s “success.” But those countries don’t really have socialist systems – at least not fully. They’re more like welfare states, with some state-run entities (like health care), but those state-run entities are supported by an underlying market economy. We live in a fallen world… it will never be perfect. Socialism is a utopic vision. The free market is built on the understanding that until Jesus comes back all human structures, including economics, will be depraved, and the best way to keep depravity in check is to keep power distributed across people than concentrated in the hands of a few. 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.

In the first of two parts on the topic, Pastor J.D. addresses whether or not a Christian can be a socialist. Show Notes: This is a great question, and while we don’t usually get into partisan politics on this podcast or in my preaching, this is a little different. If we’re honest, socialism is a worldview that’s also becoming increasingly prevalent in our culture, both explicitly and implicitly. A 2020 poll showed that 40% of Americans had a favorable view of socialism, up from 36% in 2019. I saw a survey that said 47% of millenials and 49% of Generation Z viewed socialism as favorable. So, what is socialism? The World Socialist Party (WSP) of the United States says: “The establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole.” The government becomes the sole authority and controller of the means of production. So, in reality, it’s under control of an oligarchy, not individuals. What is the difference between communism and socialism? Interestingly, the WSP/U.S. says that these terms are synonymous. But, technically socialism usually refers to an economic system in which the state controls most businesses and factories (the “means of production”) while communism usually refers to a system where the state controls not just those things but also owns most of the property. We should at least recognize that socialism definitely arises out of an underlying ideology. Specifically, Marxism, put forth originally, of course, by Karl Marx. Marx was not a good man: He was a misogynistic, racist tyrant. His own son called him a devil. He hated Christianity, which he labeled as a source of oppression. Religion, he wrote, is the “opium of the people,” and for communism to prosper, the church needed to be replaced by the state in the hearts and minds of the people. Marx’s successors – Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, etc.–have all shared that same view. Dr. David Jeremiah has a great little book on this called Socialism: What It Is. What It Means for You. Dr. Jeremiah writes that… Marxism is totalitarian One of the key ideas of Marxism is a total, undying devotion to the state. There is no individual ownership of property, there is no free thinking, there is no free speech–in fact, totalitarianism essentially removes the meaning of truth, and the state attempts to define truth as whatever the state says truth is. Marxism seeks the destruction of the nuclear family. Marxism is divisive It splits people into two categories: the oppressed and the oppressors, pitting them against each other. Marxism is deadly Socialist countries have a staggering death toll resulting from political carnage and state-ordered deaths to political opponents: Latin America: 150,000 Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths Vietnam: 1 million deaths Africa: 1.7 million deaths Cambodia: 2 million deaths N. Korea: 2 million deaths USSR: 20 million deaths China: 65 million deaths Next week, we’ll talk about two ways socialism fails as a worldview from a biblical perspective. 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.

In a special episode of the Ask Me Anything Podcast, Pastor J.D. has recorded a message addressing the recently published report from the Sexual Abuse Task Force of the SBC. Show Notes: One of the questions I’ve gotten a lot since the publication of the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Task Force Report on May 22 has been, what does it mean to be a part of a group of churches that has this deep sin in its past? Are you going to stay in that convention? First, I want to affirm that this is not the time to justify staying in the SBC or defending it. This is a time to lament and repent. But, since I have been asked that question, I do want to take the time to answer it: The actions of those noted in the report do not reflect the will of the body. I’ve always thought of my presidency and work in the convention as trying to keep the messenger’s convention out of the hands of a few who do not reflect the attitude of the SBC and seek to impose their will on the SBC. I believe my role was to stand in that gap and say, “You cannot have the power of the SBC. The people don’t want that.” If there is one note of encouragement in all of this, it’s the fact the messengers themselves called for this report. This report was not imposed from outside or even called for by a leader—it was called for and voted on by the messengers. To note, the SBC has a rather unique structure that allows this. This would not be possible in most denominations. It is a biblical and wise safeguard. I want to be in a convention where the people have the power, because as we see, the leaders go corrupt quicker than the people! We are already seeing the effect of change as new people come onto the Executive Committee. The current Executive Committee staff did not know anything about some of the most egregious systemic failures, and that the current Executive Committee board and staff have already acted swiftly to refute and reverse what they can. The headlines aren’t clear about that, so our people aren’t either. So, what has to change? People: This is a time to repent. Pastors: We need a commitment to raise awareness. Policies: Commitment to transparency Shift of priority from protection of reputation of an institution to protection of victim Shift of benefit of doubt from leaders to victims Not allowing bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and legalese to keep us from doing the right thing 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.

In this week’s episode of the Ask Me Anything Podcast, we listen in as Pastor J.D. talks about communion during a recent sermon. Show Notes: Three words arise out of Paul’s theology of communion that you should remember in every communion service Proclamation Participation Examination Proclamation (verse 26) Normally you think of me, standing here, as the proclaimer, and I am. But Paul says the Lord’s Supper is itself a proclamation—the bread and cup are like visual aids; a sermon prop Jesus gave us to help us better reflect on the gospel. The first thing communion proclaims is that we need to be saved! Second, the bread and cup proclaim that you can be saved! Third, we proclaim that suffering and death are not the end. This table proclaims, “Death is not the end! Poverty is not the end. Jesus rose, and he will return again.” This table proclaims that our hardship, like Jesus’ cross, is part of bringing God’s good plan into the world. Fourth, this table proclaims that this church is first and foremost a community of the forgiven. The Lord’s Supper is a sermon, a proclamation, that destroys all these divisions. 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.

In this week’s episode of the Ask Me Anything Podcast, Pastor J.D. answers a question from one of our listeners, Linda, about whether or not people of other faiths go to Heaven. Show Notes: For a while, the Hebrew “religion” was the only religion God had given—they were God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. The Apostles taught Jesus as the only way to salvation. Jesus’ interaction with Gentiles was very infrequent, and his statement about being “the way, the truth, and the life” was spoken to Jews, in a Jewish context. But that wasn’t a departure from the Jewish religion; instead, Jesus taught that it was a fulfillment of the Jewish religion. The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 4 that Jews in the Old Testament were saved in the same way we’re saved now—they just were saved by looking forward to the Messiah, and we’re saved by looking back at the Messiah. The bigger question asked is about sincere people in every religion. There are five general views on this: Universalism: Believing that God reveals himself to everyone, and so just by merely being human, all of us are saved. Pluralism: Everyone essentially believes in the same God, but has a different name. Inclusivism: Jesus is the only way, but faithful believers of any faith are saved Anonymous Christian Thesis: A person may not claim to be a Christian, but they might see the stars and the moon and all of creation and believe in a creator, and then God counts them as saved because they accept general revelation. Post-Mortem Evangelism: There is a chance to be saved after death… Jesus will witness to a person upon death to those who have not been evangelized. Exclusivism: You must have explicit faith in Christ and the gospel during your life to be saved. That last one is what I believe the Bible teaches. All of this is about bringing God glory (Romans 3: just and the justifier; Romans 9: wonder at his mercy; Isaiah: God would send salvation that his name would be great on the earth and all would know that salvation belongs only to God.) 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.

In this week’s episode of the Ask Me Anything Podcast, Pastor J.D. defines what it means to be a multiplying leader. Show Notes: While a good leader can lead an organization for a time, the world is realizing the value of multiplying leadership that outlasts just one leader. This idea has been making the rounds even in the secular world recently, as businesses and other organizations have started to realize the value of multiplying leadership. Liz Wiseman’s book, Multipliers, is popular in the business world—her principles don’t claim to be rooted in Christianity, but they do show how much the secular world is “leaning in” to these principles. Some of you may think, “I wouldn’t count myself as a church leader, so do these principles really apply to me?” I promise you, they do! The gospel teaches us to be disciple-making disciples. No matter your stage of life, you and I are responsible to be disciple-making disciples. That’s how the Great Commission goes forward! I want to give you five words that help define what it means to be a multiplying leader: Clarity Familiarity Proximity Equity Humility 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.

In this week’s episode of the Ask Me Anything Podcast, Pastor J.D. answers a question from a listener named Caroline who asks what the command to “be fruitful and multiply” means, especially for the single and infertile. Show Notes: Every few years at our church, we try to do a series on dating and relationships. When we do, I am always aware that well over half of the people listening to me are single, whether for a season or for a lifetime. A lot of times we talk about marriage as the “ultimate state” of Christianity, and if you don’t get there, something went wrong. But that’s just not the case at all. Here is the biblical truth, and it’s a little counter-cultural: earthly families are just temporary stand-ins for heavenly realities. Paul said that marriage is really just a picture of Christ and the church. It doesn’t mean it’s not important or that we don’t devote ourselves to it, but it is temporary. There are several examples throughout the Bible and Jesus’ life and teachings in particular that teach this. John Piper says: “Jesus was (in Matt. 19) calling out a new family where single people in Christ, or people not in traditional families, are still full-fledged family members on par with all others, bearing fruit for God and becoming mothers and fathers of the eternal kind. Marriage is temporary, and it will finally give way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church…” So, marriage is not permanent, nor is singleness, nor is physical childlessness. Because of that, I would say that spiritual offspring is even more important — more eternal — than biological offsprings because that is the ultimate fulfillment of being fruitful and multiplying. If you’re single, you can intentionally devote yourself to raising up spiritual sons and daughters in the faith. That is the fulfillment of that command. Now, to be clear: it’s ok to mourn the lack of an earthly marriage, or the lack of the ability to have biological children. That’s a real loss, and I completely understand that. But by God’s grace, even that very real grief can be overshadowed by a joy of having spiritual children and being a part of their lives. 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.