Mission, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. It's like Martin Luther used to say, it doesn't matter how many times Christ died on the cross, if nobody ever heard about it, it wouldn't do anybody any good because salvation is a gift that has to be received and to receive it has to be heard about.

You see, in this sense, the salvation act, God's salvation act is not complete until we preach it to the person so that they can hear it. Welcome back to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. You know, a lot of people think of pastors and missionaries as super Christians who've been given this extra dose of faith to do the work that they do, and then the rest of us are just the ordinary believers, right? But today, Pastor J.D. explains that every Christian is called to be on the mission field, whether it's across the ocean or across the street. And it's part of our teaching series called Gospel. And if you've missed any of the previous messages, it's time to catch up online at J.D.

Greer.com. Now let's get started with today's message. Pastor J.D.

titled it Mission. Today we're going to look at how abiding in the gospel produces a fervency and boldness and mission. Those who believe the gospel become fervent in their commitment to take it to others. So we're going to look at John 15, 16. Actually, we'll back up, start at verse 13, get a little bit of the context. Jesus says, Greater love has no one than this. Then someone lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. Verse 16, You did not choose me, but I chose you and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit so that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you. There are three things that Jesus teaches us in this verse that if you really believe them, if they intimately captivate your heart, will produce a fervency and mission. Three things that I see, I give them to you all front and walk them one at a time. Number one, God's plan. Number two, God's promise. Number three, God's love. God's plan, God's promise, God's love.

Let's start with number one, God's plan. Verse 16 says, He chose us for a purpose. He had a plan for us. And this was a big part of it, mission, that we were to go and bear fruit in the world. This is not something for a few of us.

This is for all of us. If you are chosen, then one of his major purposes was that you would go and bear fruit and that that fruit would take root in others and that you would be successful in mission. We are God's plan for accomplishing His mission of reconciling others to Himself. I've often pointed out to you that Paul in Ephesians 4-11 says that God gave pastors and teachers for the, for what?

Equipping, right? The equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. According to that verse, who does the ministry? The saints, that's right. Who are the saints? You are, that's right. You are the saints.

I'm not the saints. It happens through you. He shows us God's plan. Number two, He gives us God's promise. That's number two, God's promise. When Jesus says, I chose you to bring forth fruit, that's an implicit promise, isn't it? I will bring forth fruit in you.

I love that because that gives me such confidence. You see, God's command for us to go is shrouded in promise. The reason that many of you have never been bold or consistent in your witness and your involvement in mission is because you've never believed that promise. Jesus said, I chose you. I put you in that place to believe Me on behalf of an unbelieving group and by believing, release My power into the situation. Does that not fill you with a sense of power that would give you the ability to speak even when they are completely closed to what you have to say? Do you understand that? I hear people say sometimes like, oh, well, you know, people 100 years ago were so much more open to the Gospel.

No, they were not. People apart from Christ are spiritually dead. Anytime somebody believes in Christ, it takes a miracle of resurrection, right? God always has to use resurrection power and He is no less willing and able to do that today than He was 100 years ago.

You see, the gap is not in His compassion or power, the gap is in the fact that there's just nobody here to believe Him. What do you do? What if that was your role, where you are? Wouldn't that give you a sense of confidence? Think about Peter walking on the water. Imagine if that had been Peter's idea.

So Peter, you know, oh, there's Jesus. I bet He'll help me walk on the water. So he hops out of the boat, starts taking two or three steps, and then he has this thought. What if Jesus didn't want me to do this? What if this was like, you know, a little egotistical, then all of a sudden He starts to doubt and He sinks. But the fact that Jesus was the one who told him, get out of the boat and walk to me, should have sustained Him in the moment of doubt by saying, you know what, if Jesus chose me to be out here, Jesus will give me the power to stand up. What if you understood that Jesus had placed you in a situation and chosen you to be in that situation, so when you're in that situation, you're like, I'm not here because this was my idea. He chose me and put me here to speak in His name and to pray in His name, and He would not have put me here if He did not have the intention of holding me up and blessing me.

Do you see how that would give you a sense of confidence? I preached at a middle school camp, and I remember one of the messages one night was about something about, like, being a champion for God, David and Goliath, and they'd be a champion for God. Well, this girl that was at the student camp somehow gets my address, and she sends me this letter, and it basically, it comes back, and she sends me this letter that tells me that she's going to go be a champion for God. She's going to share Christ with some of the kids in her neighborhood, so I write her back a little note of encouragement, four lines long. You know, I was like, hey, just want you to know I'm praying for you, proud of you, God wants to use you as a champion for God, blah, blah, send her this little letter. I get back this letter right here, five lines long. Let me read it to you.

Dear JD, I really don't think I'm going to be a champion for God. I told the kids in my neighborhood about Christ, and they just didn't believe me. They laughed at me, and I felt like a jerk, a fool, and a stupid coward. I didn't know what to do. What really made me look like an idiot was when I cried, got on my bike, and left, and every time I think about the situation, I feel so bad, and I don't ever want to do that again. When you wrote back to me, I felt like all of this was going to go okay.

It didn't. Your friend, and then she signed her name. Okay, so, you know, I jot her back a little note, a little handwritten note as I wrote back, says, hey, and I remember saying some stuff in it about like, hey, you know, be encouraged. God is the one who does this. Your responsibility is just to be faithful. You know, I went back to the David and Goliath thing. I was like, keep tossing the rocks at Goliath, and when God wants to knock the giant down, God will do it. That's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to be faithful, and I gave her some verses to think about.

I get this note back. Dear JD, I read the scriptures that you said in your letter, and First Samuel was talking about David and Goliath. David defeated Goliath with no armor because he knew he was protected by God. Well, when I went up to those people, I didn't feel that. Before I went up there, I wanted God to help me. I prayed to God. I wanted God to give me the strength, the courage, and the power to witness to these people, and I felt it. I felt in my body that God was working inside of me. But JD, I went up there, and I lost it. I mean, I lost all of that feeling inside of me. I was scared.

I freaked out. I'd given her 1 Corinthians 1, 26 to 31. I also read 1 Corinthians 1, 26 to 31.

What does that mean? When you said keep tossing the rocks and let the giant fall when God chooses, never give up, are you telling me to go back up to those people again? I don't think so, JD. I mean, if I try to go to another person to witness, I'd probably just mess that up too. The lesson that was in your letter, we go and people laugh, but we don't care because the power comes from God. JD, like I said, I didn't feel it, and I don't think I will witness to anyone ever again. I'm sorry, JD.

I'm a loser. That's how she ends that letter, seventh grader. I had every intention of writing her back, but like four days later, I get this final letter. Let me read this to you. Dear JD, all caps, it is a miracle.

You will not, underlined all caps, believe what just happened to me. JD, I don't know what just happened to me 30 minutes ago, but I know God had to do something to do with it. JD, the people that I witnessed to came to me, and I didn't even know why they were at my house, but one of them said something like, Laura Beth, I want to tell you first that I'm sorry that I laughed at you because you were talking to us about your God, but when you got into that part about hell and stuff, it kind of freaked me out.

So I kind of want to know about this God. So I said great, and I ran upstairs to get my Bible, and I showed them Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And I explained that once you accept Christ as your personal savior, he'll never kick you out of heaven. If you steal drugs, kill, any of that stuff that is bad and wrong, but you ask him for forgiveness, he will forgive you. But you can just do whatever you want that is bad, like the examples I've given you, and then say, I'm sorry God, forgive me, amen, and then do the same thing the next day. Let's say you just lied to someone and don't confess. When you're in heaven, you're going to come before God, and he's going to say, why did you do that?

And you won't get an award, but if you do get an award, you're going to kneel down and place it at Jesus' feet. And I went on about hell, and I saw that she was crying, and these tears were running down her face, and I knew she needed somebody. So I hugged her. And she said, called her name, I want to be saved. I don't want to go to hell. And I said, God won't send you to hell if you'll accept him as your savior. So we said a prayer, and I made sure that she understood what I just said to her, and she did. J.D., I owe you one, man. If you didn't get me back on track with God, I don't know where I would be right now, and that girl wouldn't be saved today. P.S., thank you, J.D., you are the best friend that I've ever had, and I don't think I could ever ask for a better one.

Isn't that awesome? There is a confidence that you get because you know that you've been chosen. You're not out there because it's your idea. You're overseas serving in an unreached people group.

You're in the unreached people group known as the college dormitory. It's God's idea, and God is able to make the rocks praise him if he wants to. He can work on your roommate's heart. If you'll just obey him and believe him, he delights in taking the people that appear to be the most closed and transforming them into his greatest followers.

He loves to do that. So why don't you get in that place, speak boldly, and ask God for a miracle and watch what he does. We'll return to our teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to take a moment to tell you about our new featured resource this month meant to help you take this gospel Bible study further. You know, it's one thing to know that honey is sweet, but it's quite another thing to let the sweetness of honey burst inside your mouth, right? Well, the gospel is the sweet message of the power of God, not just once at conversion, but always every single day.

We know that in our head, but wouldn't it be better to experience it? Take the time to personalize the teaching that you're hearing here on the program with an eight session video-based Bible study featuring further instruction from Pastor JD. It comes with your generous gift to the ministry right now.

So give us a call at 866-335-5220 or check it out at jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to the conclusion of today's message. Here's Pastor JD. The last thing that Jesus shows us in verse 16 that gives us boldness and fervency and mission. All right, verse 16, look at this. God's love.

God's love. Jesus said, verse 13, you are my friends and I laid down my life for you. You know, we've all heard all these stories from 9-11.

314 firemen who went back into the World Trade Centers at the peril of their lives to save somebody. Jesus didn't go into a burning tower to save us. He stepped between us and God's judgment. He didn't just risk his life.

He gave it up. More than that, at that point that he came to rescue us, we weren't even his friends. We were his enemies. We were the ones who were crucifying him. We weren't looking for him.

That's why I use the word chose. Chose means that we weren't searching for him. We were crucifying him. He came after us and he chose us when we had no interest in him at all.

How could we possibly believe that? And how could we understand what the fate of others is without Christ and do nothing? You see, what it means to be changed by the gospel is that you begin to love others in the same manner and to the same extent that you have been loved.

That's the question I always ask you to consider. Where would you be? Where would you be had Jesus chosen not to die on the cross for you? Answer, you'd be at exactly the same place that people in our world are right now who have not heard about Jesus. Because it's like Martin Luther used to say, it doesn't matter how many times Christ died on the cross, if nobody ever heard about it, it wouldn't do anybody any good. Because salvation is a gift that has to be received and to receive you received it has to be heard about. So Romans 10 14, how are they going to call on the one they've never heard about and how are they going to hear unless we preach to them? You see, in this sense, the salvation act, God's salvation act is not complete until we preach it to the person so that they can hear it in that sense.

How could we understand that? How could we understand what Jesus did for us and understand that there are millions more around us, around the world that are just like we were and do nothing? Church, we are God's plan.

We're the only way they'll ever hear. I know it's very fun to sit around and fantasize about other ways that God might have for preaching the gospel, but I'll just tell you this, you can study it this week. Book of Acts, the only recorded church history volume that we have inspired by God. The Book of Acts, not one time, not once, does anybody preach the gospel in there who's not a human being. God sends angels, God, you know, transmogrifies people by means of the spirit. You know, he does a lot of wild stuff in there, but the one who preaches the gospel is always a human being.

We are the only way that God, the only instrument God uses to preach the gospel to the world. How could we believe that and do nothing? I remember sharing Christ one time with a girl who was a college student who, I mean, she's a total skeptic, and after I shared the gospel, she just looked at me and said, there's no way I can believe that. I said, why? She said, because if I believe that, that would overwhelm me to where I went to my friends on my hands and my knees. We've been saying you have to listen.

She said, you talk about this like you're talking about politics. How could you believe that and not do anything about it and not say anything about it? But what if I looked out the window and I saw my daughter playing in the road?

She's got her headphones on and she can't hear anything, and I see a tractor trailer coming at her about to run over her, and am I not going to go outside running and screaming to get her to move? Is our situation any different? Are the people around us in any different situation?

How could we do nothing? Because somebody asked Charles Spurgeon one time, they're like, hey, what about people that have never heard? Can they have a chance to be saved? And Spurgeon's answer back to them was so important. He said, you know, that's a very good question.

We ought to consider it. But a bigger question to me is how can those of us who have heard and do nothing to take him to people who haven't heard, how could we possibly be saved? How could we say the love of Christ is in us and we look around at people who just don't know? We don't even speak a word to them. Parents, do your kids know? Kids, do your parents know? Parents know? Do your roommates know? Your workmates know? Do your teammates know?

How could we say we actually believe the gospel and do nothing? When I was in Indonesia, I was served over there. This was my screensaver on my computer. That was a graveyard about half a mile from my house. Those are Muslim graves. That means every one of those people in those graves died without Christ. Everyone. Kids in my neighborhood lived two or three houses down from me.

I played soccer with them probably three times a week out in the little community soccer field. That's my screensaver to remind me that unless somebody preaches the gospel to them, there's no chance that they won't end up here. Why do we go all over the world? Because you believe that. And where there is no fervency of mission, it just goes back to the fact that you don't really believe it.

You just don't really believe it. Mission is an act of obedience, but it's just an act of love that would happen if you really believed. It's not something, by the way, for a few of you. It's for all of you. It's not something you start doing after you go to seminary.

This is something that God has given to you. You know why many of us don't do it? I'll just be real personal with you. These are the reasons I don't do it sometimes. When you care more about what people think about you than you do about the state of somebody's soul. There are situations that you won't speak into because you are so worried about what people will think about you. And I just ask you, just think about this.

How could you? How could you be so self-centered that you would keep your mouth shut just because you were afraid of what they would think or say? Even more than that, we care more about what people think about us than we do the Jesus that gave his life to die for us. For some of us, the reason we don't is because we don't really believe the gospel. You say that you believe it. You say that you believe it, but how could you?

Your casual apathetic approach to mission speaks much louder than whatever creed you say that you espouse. You wonder the reason that they don't believe that heaven and hell are real? Because we don't act like it's real. They're like, with your mouth, you're saying that this stuff is real, but with your apathetic lifestyle, there's no way I would believe that. The way you preach the gospel preaches louder than the gospel you preach. We don't really believe it.

Here's another reason I put down. Some of us don't know anybody who's unsaved. You live in a Christian bubble. A very simple step for many of you in obedience to what God is saying to us is just to have somebody that's not a believer over for dinner. Expand your circle to include people outside of the church.

Here's what I know. If you know lost people and you know Jesus, you will tell them about Jesus. If you are not telling people about Jesus, one of those two things is broken. Either you just don't know anybody that's unsaved or you don't really believe the gospel. If you have both of them, you will be sharing Christ. If you don't know anybody who's unsaved, I don't know how in the world you could follow a Savior who said he came to seek and save the lost and you not know anybody who's lost.

And if you know somebody who's lost and you believe the gospel, you will tell them about it. Here's another reason people get lack of training. Honestly, I'm just going to tell you this. I don't buy the whole lack of training excuse. I don't buy that for very long because if it's important to you, you'll find a way to get trained. If you knew that one of your kids was trapped in a burning building and nobody else was around, would you use the fact that you're not trained as a fireman, as an excuse to not even try to help them? Would you be okay with that? And honestly, how hard is it anyway?

I mean, let me just switch the analogy. If you were trapped in a burning building and right before you got engulfed in the flames, a man burst through the door, picked you up, carried you down 10 flights of stairs, and set you in safety on the sidewalk, and somebody walks by and says, what just happened? You may not know the man's name. You may not know a lot of stuff about fire safety, but you don't have to know that much to say, I was dying, but you don't have to know that much to say, I was dying, and that guy saved me.

The gospel is simply that Jesus stepped in the way of the wrath that we deserved and suffered the penalty for our sins and he saved our lives. You just don't have to know that much to be able to tell somebody, I was dying, I was condemned to my sin, and he paid the penalty in my place. You know Jesus, you know lost people, you will figure out a way.

Listen, this is why God saved you and put you here. This was his plan. He gave you his promise.

He demonstrated his love. Have you begun to follow him here? This is part of what it means to follow Jesus. Are you all in? Are you all in? Are you just playing a game? Because if the gospel has really transformed you, this will come out of you, and if you're not doing this, I would just ask you to consider whether or not you're really his follower. Are you all in?

Right? You're either following him here or you don't really believe this stuff, because it's impossible to believe it, not do it. By the way, one more thing I'll say to you that are not believers. Some of you come you're like, well this is exactly why I'm not a Christian, because y'all talk like this and I hate this. Why don't y'all just leave Rabbi alone?

How could we believe this and not speak about it? I'm not saying this because I think we're better than you. I'm not saying this because I think we're more righteous and we're judging you and looking down on you.

I'm just, right? We're not. I'm just doing this because we believe what the gospel says and we believe that Jesus saved us when we had nothing.

So now we offer it to others and to say this is what we've seen and heard. We want you to be saved. Why don't you bow your heads with me if you would. Let me pray for you. Would you just think of somebody that you know who's lost? Would you pray? You pray for that person that's on your mind right now. Have you received Christ? You understand that this gets to the heart of what we believe, why we do what we do. Father I pray in Jesus name for all these names, thousands of names that have just went up before you. God give us opportunity this week and give us courage to step into these situations and to speak words of life. God when you open the door help us to go through it. God use us to seek and save the lost. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. How will you respond when the door is open to share your faith? It's a powerful message from Pastor JD Greer here on Summit Life. We're so glad to have you along as we journey deeper into the gospel together. JD, right now we're featuring a second resource that's based on something that we call the gospel prayer.

Can you tell us a little bit about that? You know a lot of churches you hear about the sinner's prayer. That's a prayer where you you know repent of your sin and ask Jesus to come into your life and be your savior and talk about the Lord's prayer where basically Jesus gives us an outline that we're can kind of use to guide our prayer time. The gospel prayer is attempting to take what Paul teaches and Jesus teaches throughout the New Testament of what it means to be in Christ. What does it mean to be centered on the gospel? How does the gospel form your identity? How you see yourself? How you see God?

How you see the world? And then through four phrases it encapsulates that idea of being in Christ. Not only they became so transformed in my life that I had to teach it to the Summit Church and these things resonated so much with the Summit Church that I turned it into a book. One of my first books called Gospel Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary. And then we turned that into a gospel bible study kit to help people be able to saturate themselves in these concepts and also teach them to others. And so now a new tool that we've developed it's a it's a gospel prayer catechism.

It's just a short book of questions and answers to help the truth of the gospel grip your heart. We're going to give a copy to all of our gospel partners this month and we would love to have you. We'd love for you to be one of those and have you join our team of monthly donors.

So take a look at jdgrier.com. Thanks Pastor JD. The gospel prayer catechism book is yours when you generously give to support this minute this ministry today or when you become a monthly gospel partner. Your gifts enable us to stay on your radio station and others just like it all across the country. So thank you for partnering with us today. Give us a call at 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220 or give online and request your copy at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch and I am so glad that you joined us today and be sure to listen tomorrow when we'll be talking about how the resurrection should transform our finances. It's a sensitive but important message Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.