My Role in the Mission

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer addresses a common concern. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor and Teacher J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. In a recent survey, 96% of teenagers said, when asked about their hopes for the future, that they want to make a difference in the world. We all crave a greater purpose and desire for our lives to leave an impact.

But how do we make that happen? How do we find our calling? Pastor J.D. addresses those questions today on Summit Life as he continues our survey of the Bible called The Whole Story.

So let's jump on in. He titled today's message, My Role in the Mission. How do you know specifically what God wants from you? How do you know specifically what God's divine purpose and calling is on your life? What his will is for your life? We'll see Paul in the book of Romans, Romans 15, said he had found just that for his life.

He found this kind of specific purpose. And while Paul's calling is not going to be identical to yours, you hear that very clearly, Paul's calling is not going to be identical to yours. He lays out the path for how you can discover yours.

So the path that he goes down is the exact path you've got to go down if you want to figure out what yours is. So if you've got your Bibles, open them to Romans 15. Let's go to verse 14. I myself, Paul says, am satisfied about you, talking to the Romans, my brothers, that you yourselves are a full of goodness filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. By the way, that's Paul's kind of definition of what a mature church is.

So he continues. But on some points I've written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given to me by God. Now at this point, what Paul does is he starts to talk about his specific role in the mission. So he starts to use very personal phrases like grace given to me by God. This is the role that I have. God made Paul to be a writer and a speaker and a leader and an apostle. And he's like, that's the way that I fulfill the role.

And that's why I wrote to you. So verse 16 now. To be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles and the priests of service of the gospel of God so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He sees his work here among the Gentiles as like a personal offering that he makes to God. Like an offering he's like, God, this is what I'm giving to you. This is my gift to you. His offering. Keep going. In Christ Jesus, then I have reason to be proud of my work for God.

Again, very personal. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and by deed. Verse 19. By the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.

Stop. Is Paul trying to say that everybody from Jerusalem to Illyricum knows the gospel and has gotten saved? Then how is he saying he's fulfilled the gospel ministry of the gospel of Christ there? He's fulfilled his role in it.

That's what he means. He's not saying everything's done. He's saying I did my part. I had a very specific assignment from God and I did it. And so I can say I have fulfilled it.

All right. Keep going. Verse 20. Thus I make it my ambition. What I want to do is preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been met. I've got a very specific place I want to preach the gospel.

Not to everybody, but to these people. Lest I build on somebody else's foundation because it is written, verse 21, those who have never been told of him will see and those who have never heard will understand. Now, y'all, there are so, so many things we can focus on in that passage.

But here's what I want to highlight. Did you notice all the really personal phrases that Paul used to talk about his ministry? Verse 15, grace given to me by God for ministry. Verse 16, my offering. Verse 17, my work for God. Verse 18, what Christ accomplished in me. Verse 19, my ministry.

Verse 29, my ambition. Paul seems really, really clear about what his divine purpose is. And that is for him to personally take the gospel to people who had never heard it.

Now, hear me. His particular assignment, his role to take Christ where he'd never been named, was not the same assignment given to everybody. Peter was a man of God. Peter was filled with the Spirit.

Peter was called to stay in Jerusalem. Not because he was less than Paul, but because he had a different assignment. Apollos. Apollos was a guy that Paul refers to very favorably in his, the letter of 1 Corinthians.

And Apollos was a guy that seems to be a build on other people's foundation kind of guy. Furthermore, if you look at Paul's life, you'll notice that he didn't have this ministry focus at the beginning of his ministry. Paul started out like debating Jews in the synagogues. And then he would like minister to church leaders. And then he would deliver food and clothes to poor Christians in Jerusalem. But as Paul got older, you saw the focus of his ministry narrowing. He got more and more specific about those few things, those one or two things that God had called him to do specifically.

In fact, verses 22 and 23, Paul explains that it kind of became a ministry grid or a decision grid for him to figure out what decisions to make. This is the reason I so often mean, Henry, for coming to you. What is this? My calling. I wanted to come see you guys. I always wanted to go to Rome. I wanted to go to the Colosseum.

They want to be fed to the lions there, but I wanted to come. But I couldn't. Even though I wanted to, I couldn't because I was constrained by my calling. There was all these good ideas out there, but I had to say no to a lot of good ideas because of the yes, I said to the God idea. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to be able to look at all the good ideas in your life and say a lot of good ideas, but I'm saying yes to the God idea and saying no to the good ideas because of the God idea.

That's what we all want. Paul found it. So how did Paul find that narrow calling that he fulfilled and that gave him a grid through which to make decisions? There are two things you're going to see in Romans 15 there and I'll show them. This is the two-part path of discovery that all of us have got to go down if you want to understand the will of God.

Number one, you got to understand the purpose of God in the world. Notice how Paul grounds his understanding of his purpose and what God had declared to be his own purpose, God's purpose in scripture. You see verse 20, Paul says, I make it my ambition to preach Christ where he's never been named. And when Paul says, here's why I'm doing that. He goes verse 21, because it was written, those people had never told him we'll see and those who never heard will understand. Honestly, y'all at this point, I would have expected Paul, I've been Paul, I would have said, you know why I'm preaching Christ where he's never been named?

Because Gabriel or Jesus, excuse me, knocked me off my horse on the Damascus road and told me that's what I was going to do. Paul doesn't use that. Paul instead goes back to scripture.

Why does Paul ground what he's doing in scripture? Here's why, listen to this. This is for you because not all of you have been knocked off a horse on your way to Damascus. Anybody?

No? But all of you got the same Bible in your hand that Paul has. Paul says God's purposes in scripture are the foundation for my purposes in life. God's purposes in scripture are the foundation for Paul's purpose in life. I start here because we got a lot of people in this church trying to figure out the will of God for their life who've never stopped to ask what God's purpose is in the world. And so you got all this question about, oh, what's God called me to do? You're like, hey, what's God doing in the world? Because you're never going to understand your personal purpose and ambition until you understand God's bigger purpose.

Y'all, God is doing something on earth that he has told us very clearly about in scripture. And our understanding of our personal ambition has to begin with his stated mission. We talk about, oh, I got to find God's will.

It's not lost. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And if your life is not part of that grander purpose, if your ambition is not part of that mission, then from God's perspective, you are living a purposeless life, a wasted life, even if you make a lot of money and do a lot of good things with your life. You see, Paul recognized that with the discovery, shall we say, of the gospel comes the responsibility to be a part of spreading the gospel. Here's how Paul laid the foundation of his life. It's back in Romans 1. You stay there, Romans 15.

I'll take you back there. Romans 1, here's how Paul describes it. He says, I'm under obligation both to the Greeks and the barbarians, to the wise and to the foolish.

Now, barbarians is anybody who's not a Jew or a Greek. The word he uses under obligation is a word that you would use when you were under pretty severe debt with somebody else. For example, say you owed half a million dollars to the mafia. If you got an extra $50,000 in your paycheck, you got a bonus or you inherited some money, hey, bad news. You don't get to do with that $50,000, whatever you want to do, right? The mafia has the first claim on that $50,000.

You can't take a nice vacation. They're going to take the majority of that. They get your first and your best because you are under obligation. You are a debtor to them. Paul said, I am a debtor. I'm under obligation to the Greeks and the barbarians. So you say, well, what did Paul owe to them?

And Paul's answer would be nothing specifically, but see, here's the thing. Jesus saved me. And I wasn't any more worthy of salvation than the Greeks and the barbarians. It wasn't like God looked at me and said, he's more worthy.

That's why I gave it to him. And because I've been selected for grace, that with that comes a responsibility to spread that grace in the people who are no less worthy to receive it than I was. With the gospel comes the responsibility to spread the gospel. You are not sitting here because you are more righteous and worthy than somebody else. It is grace that you are sitting here and that you understand the gospel.

And with that comes the responsibility to take it to people around the world who have never heard it. Hey, where would you be without Jesus? Where would you be without Jesus? You'd be lost. Where would you be without Jesus?

You'd be at exactly the same place that millions of people in the world are without you. Because y'all see, it wouldn't matter if Jesus died a thousand times if nobody ever heard about it. And the way that God extends the message of the gospel, Paul understands, is by the sacrifices of his people. It's like our friend David Platt says, every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every unsaved person this side of hell. You're no longer free to do with your life what you want because you are under obligation to Jesus to take the gospel to give with grace the way that you've been given grace.

Do you understand that? Let me be really candid with you guys for a minute. I used to think the gospel was really unfair, just to be totally honest. I thought it was unfair because it was almost like God was holding people responsible for something they never had the opportunity to hear. I had this vision of like, you know, like God showing up at people's bedside and saying, ah, you didn't believe in Jesus. And they're like, Jesus who? He's like, it's too late now. And their souls go tumbling down into hell. Jesus who?

You know, and he's like, says tough cookies in Latin or something as they go. And I was like, this just doesn't seem fair. Sounds like God is holding them accountable for something they had no chance to experience. But see, Paul explains in the book of Romans that people, listen to this, people will only be judged according to the light they had access to. People will be judged only according to the light they had access to. You say, well, okay, then they're not responsible to receive Jesus since they've never heard about him.

Well, see, here's the thing. Paul explains in Romans 1 that every human being that has ever lived in the world has heard about him because they're created in the image of God and from their conscience and from creation, God has testified about his glory and his authority. In Romans 1 18, every person who has ever lived has suppressed the truth about God's glory and his authority that they do know. Romans 1 18 through 23 says every human being knows about God from creation and their conscience and our hearts have rejected his authority and his glory and we've stolen it for ourselves. We are not condemned for not hearing about Jesus.

We are condemned because we rejected the authority and the glory of God that we proceed with our hearts and would rather have used on ourselves. The gospel is an undeserved second chance. You see, if the only people who are responsible to receive Jesus are those who have never heard about him or those who have heard about him, then you might say to Paul, Paul, back it down there, pal. Maybe you shouldn't go be telling all these people about Jesus because maybe it's better if we leave them in ignorance and hope God has mercy on them. Because when you go tell them about Jesus, they're going to become responsible to receive him and you're going to put them under jeopardy.

So maybe it's better to just leave them ignorant. Romans 1 is Paul's answer to that. All these people, he says, are already without excuse. They're not condemned because they hadn't heard about Jesus. They're condemned because they've rejected the authority of God in their heart.

Romans 1 is written about those nations who've never heard showing that they are already under condemnation for rejecting the light that they did have. Here at this summit church, there is only one hope for every person in the world hearing and preaching and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when I first understood this, I was late in college and shortly after college and I had a crisis of faith because I realized that I only had three options, three options.

Number one, this was the most attractive option to me. I could deny parts of it and take the path that we call liberalism, which means that you get to choose what parts of Jesus you like and leave what parts you don't. Jesus is the great divine buffet where you just pick the parts and leave the parts.

But I knew y'all, I knew that wasn't intellectually consistent. It's either the word of God or it's not. Jesus didn't come to give suggestions. He's either Lord or he isn't. And if you're the kind of person who feels like you can take what you like from Jesus and leave what you don't, I don't think you get the concept of Lordship. So I knew that it wasn't intellectually consistent to deny different parts of the truth. And I wanted to go down that path.

I saw several of my friends go down that path, but I knew I couldn't, which led me to option number two, to ignore the truth. This was appealing because I felt like 98.4% of the church lived this way. Like, oh yeah, this is of course what we believe, but let's just go on play in church. Let's get in and sing our God songs and do our nice little comfortable groups. And let's talk about how Jesus is the completion of our lives and our Christian radio stations. And let's just pretend the world's not dying and going to hell. Let's just pretend that's not true. That seemed worse to me than denying because at least with denying you were, it was some kind of like emotional consistency with what you believe.

This just seemed like utter hypocrisy. I remember sharing Christ one time with a girl from New England who was born in America, but she literally never heard the gospel. And after talking with her for an hour, she looked back at me. She's very intelligent. She said, she said, do you actually believe this? And I said, well, yeah, I believe this is what the Bible says. She said, cause you don't act like you believe it. She goes, you're very passionate about what you believe. You're a good debater.

You're trying to show me that you're right and I'm wrong. She said, but I don't really hear a lot of compassion in you toward me. She said, if I believe what you say, you believe I would go on my hands and knees to every person I knew. And I would say, you got to listen to this and you act like this as an argument to be one.

And it just doesn't match up. I knew she was right. You see, there's a lot of us who say, I believe this, but functionally speaking we live as if it's not true. And that seems worse than denying it, which led me to the third and really the only option, which was to embrace this, to say, God, I'm going to use my life as best I can to make a difference. With the knowledge of the gospel comes the responsibility to take it to those around the world who've never heard it. You see, I started out thinking the gospel was unfair. Paul explains to you, no, the gospel is fair. In fact, it's a whole lot more than fair. It's grace that you don't deserve.

What is not fair, Paul says, what is not fair is that those of you who have received the grace of the gospel not be doing everything you can to extend the grace of the gospel to people who haven't heard it. So here's my question for you. Have you examined the priorities of your life through that lens? Have you looked at your life as one under obligation and made choices about your career and your future and your resources based on that obligation?

Again, I'm not just talking to college students here, but let me talk specifically to you for a minute. Some of you guys are very sensitive to the world's needs and that's good. You want to make a difference. The greatest need in the world is for people to hear about Jesus. You want to relieve suffering.

That's good. Eternal suffering is the worst kind of suffering and that suffering is prevented by hearing about Jesus Christ. You got a specific part in this mission. It may not be identical to Paul's mission or his ambition. You may not be gifted to write and to preach like he was, or you may not be called to go personally to live in an unreached people group. By the way, you might be.

And probably a lot more of you are than are actually thinking about that now. And that's why we got teams going out all the time to places with no gospel witness. It might be for you to stay here and reach your neighbors and coworkers with Jesus and be a big part of the Summit Church's mission of reaching, discipling and sending from the triangle and for you to get engaged financially and otherwise.

It might be for you to help reach an underserved part of our city like the homeless, the orphan, the prisoner, the unwed mother or the high school dropout. It might be for you to engage in that way. I'm not sure what your part is specifically, but what I know is that each of you have a part.

Which leads me to number two. How do you discover that part? Number two, sensing the gifting of the Spirit in you. What you see in Romans 15 is that after Paul recognized the overarching purpose of God, spelled out in scripture, he began to learn from the Spirit of God, his specific role.

So we talked about his ambition, his calling, his ministry, his offering. What Paul developed, listen, was an ability to hear from the Spirit of God. I've told you before that most Christians in churches like ours aren't exactly sure what to do with the Spirit of God.

You know, they fall generally into two camps, right? You've got Christians you know that are obsessed with the Holy Spirit. Everything is a Spirit thing to them.

But then you've got probably a larger group of us that are like, I believe in the Holy Spirit, but I've always said that you relate to him like I relate to my pituitary gland. I know that it's in there somewhere. I'm not sure exactly where to point, but I know it's in there somewhere. I know that it's really necessary for something. I don't want to be without it. You can't have it.

But I don't really relate to my pituitary gland. That's how most Christians are about the Holy Spirit. I know it's in there.

I know it's bouncing around. I know it's in there for something, but I don't really relate to him. You know, our Trinity at churches like this one are usually God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible. That's how we think about it. The Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Trinity. But what you see from Paul and the early churches, that is not how they depended on the Holy Spirit.

They depended on the Holy Spirit to show them the specific part of the ministry that God had for them. You know, in the book of Acts, I've explained this. In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit shows up 59 times.

59 times. He's the main character in Acts. In 36 of the 59, you know what he's doing? He's speaking. He's talking.

Now, here's the frustrating thing for me, and probably for you. Not one time does it ever really clearly tell us how he speaks. Acts 13, 2, the Holy Spirit said to Barnabas and said to the church, separate Barnabas and Paul from ministry. And I'm like, how did he tell them? He doesn't tell us. And I'm like, why?

God, why didn't you tell? It has to be intentional, the ambiguity. Here's why I think it's intentional, because more havoc has been wreaked in the church and on the world following the words, God just told me, than probably any other phrase in history. So I think God wants us to have some ambiguity about what we think he is saying, unless it's spelled out in scripture. But what is also clear is that while there may be ambiguity to how he speaks, he speaks. You cannot convince me that the only book ever written about what it looks like to walk with the Spirit of God is filled with a bunch of stories of people whose experiences have nothing in common with us. With the way that he spoke to the way that he speaks to us today. And so yes, there might be some ambiguity in it, but they depended on the Spirit of God to reveal to them their specific role in the mission of God. You say, well, how do we hear that?

Now, I hate doing this, but actually I wrote an entire book on this question. It's called Jesus Continue. And I'm not trying to promote the book, but the reason that I wrote it was trying to get in and really unpack this question of how do we hear the Spirit of God speak to us?

How do we hear? Because what I know is that I'll never know my role in the mission of God until I understand the gifts of the Spirit of God. I'll never know what he wants from me until I look at what he has put in me. How you know what God wants from you is by understanding what he has put in you. Do you understand that calling? You've got to begin the discussion of finding the will of God for your life the way that Paul did. I understand his purposes from scripture. And then I begin to sense the Spirit of God where he has specifically gifted me and how he wants me to play a role in what he is doing. My role in the mission. That's our subject today from Pastor JD Greer. If you missed any part of this message, or if you'd like to catch up on the rest of our series called The Whole Story, you can listen online at jdgreer.com. You know, JD, one of my favorite things about this series is how you're challenging us to take a fresh look at these familiar Bible stories. Yeah.

Okay. So, you know, you know this about me, Molly, but I grew up in church. Like my parents were saved the year that I was born and they didn't just get saved. They got like really saved, like became full on three to thrive Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

I always say the only drug problem I had growing up was getting drug to church multiple times every week. So I've heard every Bible story multiple times and I sat through myriad boring Bible sermons. And one of the things I felt like I've just made a resolution when I got called into ministry is like, God, if you'll give me grace to be able to preach and teach these stories in an engaging way, that's certainly entertaining and engaging, but really kind of shows you what it means for you. I hope that this, as we preach through The Whole Story and we work our way through the Bible, you'll see these stories in a different way. It's not just David and Goliath.

It's not just stories about heroes. It's how these things point you to know and love Jesus. It's how that experience with Jesus and hoping in Him will change how you see the battles that you're facing. So I know that of the series that we've done, the one that, one of the ones that caused the most reflection and made the biggest difference in me was working our way through the Bible for a whole year in The Whole Story. You as a listener have an advantage. You can actually go through this teaching with a Bible that will help you in your personal reading time, sharing it with your family and friends.

So reach out to us, jdgrier.com, get a copy of this. I can promise you, even if you already, like I already have a Bible, you will not regret having this one that will take you deeper in the teaching of scripture as we go through this. This custom Bible is our way of saying thanks for your financial partnership with this ministry. When you give a gift of $25 or more, you're helping more people learn and grow through these gospel centered programs, as well as make our free resources available online.

When someone writes in to thank us for this program, their thanks really belongs to you. Give a one time gift today or join the team of monthly supporters called Gospel Partners. And remember to request the Custom Summit Life Bible as your gift for supporting us this month. You can ask for it when you give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or again, you can request the new Bible when you sign up to be a Gospel Partner online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us again next time when Pastor JD describes the true heart behind biblical generosity. It's another message from our series called The Whole Story, Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer.