Six Defining Characteristics of the Successful Life, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. In the last speech that Paul gives to these people, the last thing he says and the last speech he gives is about generosity. Because Paul knows, listen, that what it really means to follow Jesus is to have a life that is defined by generosity. Because that's what defines Jesus' life.

Does that quality define your life? Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. For the past two months, we've been in a teaching series called The Whole Story, an overview of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And we're discovering how every page from beginning to end is pointing to Jesus and revealing the gospel. Today we're in the New Testament looking at the life of the Apostle Paul, a great example of how the gospel transforms our priorities and our definition of success.

So let's jump back into a message that we began yesterday on the program. Pastor J.D. titled today's teaching Six Defining Characteristics of the Successful Life. In Acts chapter 20, Paul is giving us a farewell speech in which he summarizes what I think are the six values that Paul has built his life around. Acts chapter 20, let's begin in verse 20 here, and I'll give you the first of these six statements. I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Here is number one value for Paul.

I made sure that my generation, I made sure that my community knew the truth. And for Paul, this was very serious business, which is why he says in verse 26, I am innocent of the blood of all. Paul is likely here thinking about a passage in the Old Testament where the prophet Ezekiel said it this way. Ezekiel 33, eight, God speaking through Ezekiel, when I say to the wicked, you wicked person, you will surely die. And you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways. That wicked person will die for their sin. They're gonna die because of their iniquity, but I'm actually gonna hold you responsible for it.

Why? Because I had a message to give to them and you never gave it to them. Here's your question. Does your community, does your generation know the truth? Have you made it clear to them? Does your family, does your school, does your community, did they know the truth?

Have they felt its weightiness? Paul says, number two, I directed people's attention towards Jesus, not toward me. Notice verse 19, what Paul says, I served the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials. Now, that's not typically how great leaders describe themselves, is it? Leaders like to talk about their victories.

They wanna talk about their accomplishments, their strengths. In fact, that word humility right there in verse 19, that word is a word in Greek that was usually used as an insult. It meant low, defeated, weak. Yet in the Bible, it's used 200 different times and it's almost presented not as an insult, but as a virtue.

Now, why? Here's why, it's the counter cultural gospel message. Christian ministry at its core is not about extraordinary men and women of great power that you should emulate. At its core, Christianity is about a great savior who can save and then use the weakest and most broken and most guilty of sinners. Paul does not wanna leave these people with an example to admire.

He wants to leave them with a savior to trust in. And weaknesses and trials and tears are how God demonstrates the sufficiency of that savior. The gospel is not about how awesome I am or how awesome you can be. The gospel is about how awesome Jesus is. Paul said, number three, I invested deeply in God's community, the church. In verse 28, Paul, talking to the Ephesian elders, the leaders of the church, he says, verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves. And to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, watch this, which he purchased with his own blood. Paul says, if Jesus Christ shed his blood for the church, I'm going to give my life to the church. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, I understand your role is not the same as the apostle Paul's, but I will tell you without any question or hesitation that the church, if Jesus poured out his blood for the church, the church ought to be the center of your life. The church, Paul tells us, is Christ's body.

It is the means by which Jesus does his work on earth, which means if you separate yourself from the body, you separate yourself from Jesus, right? That analogy, Paul says, is how God works in the world. When God wants to work in your life, rarely does he just answer with a zap from heaven.

That's what you want. You don't just zap it down and God's like, that's not the way I work. It's a body, which means if I got something to say to you, I probably won't say it to you whispering in your heart. I'll probably use somebody in the church to do it. God has a body.

God has a body and that is the locus, the central point of what he does on earth. And if you and I understand that, like Paul, we'll figure out our role in it and we'll be deeply committed to it. Number four, Paul says, I've been faithful to do all that Jesus told me to do.

Look at verse 24. Paul said, I don't count my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. Paul was very personal about his ministry assignment. My course, the ministry I received. Paul felt like he had been given a personal assignment from God. God does not give the same assignment to everybody.

But listen to me, follower of Jesus, listen to me. God has given you a particular assignment and the mission of God and the body of Christ. And at the end of the day, you're gonna answer to him for what you did with what he gave you. The point is not, you know, you don't really control what assignments you get. The point is, are you faithful with what you've been assigned? Where's he called you to be faithful? There's number five, Paul says, I finish strong.

I finish strong. Again, verse 23 and 24, Paul in verse 23 is gonna explain, all these bad things are gonna happen to him. It's not encouraging. I'm gonna be beaten, I'm gonna be stoned and then people are gonna hate me. And then he says, verse 24, none of these things move me.

None of these things move me. If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. I wanna finish. In another place, Paul is gonna say, you know, if you're racing somebody, it doesn't matter how well you start the race.

It matters why you finish the race. A lot of people start well in the Christian life. You know, and this breaks my heart because I see it happen so many times in our church. They just don't persevere on to the finish. They're like the one hit Christian wonders, the Mark Ronson or Carly Rae Jepsen of Christians or Milli Vanilli for those of you whom the last time you were current with pop culture was the 1990s.

All right, there's one hit Christian wonders. Then it really breaks my heart because they come, they get super excited, they join a small group. They usually sit in one of the first five rows here. No offense to y'all, but they sit there in the first five rows, make sure I see them every week.

Their hands are up in worship and they're just like super Christian. And then it just fades away and it fizzles out. I've noticed it usually happens for one of a handful of reasons. Sometimes it's just the pain of obedience. Making the decision felt awesome, didn't it? I was so good.

Remember, it's just like you cry and it's so cathartic and my life is awesome. And I remember when I made like one of these, you know, one of the moments where I made this big decision that I was gonna give it all to Jesus. It was with a bunch of college students. It was in an outdoor service. They had a big bonfire built. The speaker got up, we sang a bunch of songs, made everybody feel emotional, and then it given us all a stick.

And we're supposed to walk forward at the end and throw our stick in the fire to show that we're giving everything for Jesus. It felt awesome. I was with a bunch of college students and our arms around each other and we're throwing sticks in the fire.

We're singing, yeah, I've decided to follow Jesus and kumbaya, you know, whatever. And it just, it was a magical evening. And then we went out to pizza afterwards and I'm like, that was an awesome time. What was not awesome was when I actually had to live out what that commitment symbolized. When you're giving your life away and saying, I'm just gonna, that doesn't feel awesome.

I'll just go ahead and tell you. And Paul called it this in Romans 12, one. Paul said, I'm a living sacrifice.

You ever think about the oxymoron living? Sacrifices are supposed to be dead. And it's good thing sacrifices are dead because when the flame starts to burn, the sacrifice is dead and the sacrifice doesn't move. The dilemma of a living sacrifice is that the sacrifice wants to keep getting up off the altar. If I'm a living sacrifice, then when the flame gets hot, the sacrifice gets up and walks away. Paul said, I've got to live out this sacrifice. It's not in a moment of an emotional commitment that feels awesome.

It is daily living out, dying to myself and giving myself away. And sometimes people just aren't ready for that. They like the emotional catharsis. They don't, they're not ready to follow Jesus. For others, it's just that they never really considered the cost. I mean, they love what Jesus had to offer. But what inevitably happens, I've told you, is that at some point, at some point, obedience to Jesus is gonna take you 180 degrees opposite of where you wanna go. And in that moment, you're gonna have to decide how valuable is Jesus to me? Because see what you wanted is you wanted Jesus and comfort.

And you thought Jesus would actually help you get more comfortable. You wanted Jesus and your viewpoint on a particular thing, Jesus and this relationship, Jesus and your hopes of what your life would be. And at some point you're gonna have to choose when it's not Jesus and those things, it's Jesus or those things.

You're gonna have to choose which is more valuable to you. Sometimes people give up just from fatigue and just don't see the payoff for all their sacrifice. Like, I'm not seeing the fruit, I don't feel the multiplication. Paul felt like that. In fact, you know, for being a hand chosen instrument preacher of God, Paul got some weird reactions to his sermons. I mean, often his sermons ended with people trying to stone him. One time it ended with a guy getting so bored in his sermon that he fell asleep in a window sill, dropped three stories and died. And I've had a lot of weird reactions to my sermons, I've never had that happen.

Fall asleep, yes, fall off your chair and die, no, not yet. And Paul said, yeah, I know what it's like to labor and not see results. I know what it's like to follow Jesus and experience pain and suffering, but none of that stuff moves me. What does move me is when I look up the track and I see the one standing at the end, and I see the Lord Jesus and I see that at some point I'm gonna stand face to face with him. I wanna hear from him, well done, good and faithful servant.

And that's what moves me, not all these other things. In another place, he tells a group of really tired Christians, 1 Corinthians 15. They're tired, they're tired of the sacrifice, they're tired of the fruitlessness, they're tired of the suffering. He says to them, he says, you really gotta decide in your heart of hearts, you gotta decide if you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead. He said, because if Jesus, he said, first of all, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, he said, first of all, we apostles are liars.

We're not good religious teachers, we're not nice men, we're a bunch of phonies and frauds. Secondly, if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, you're still in your sins. Because the resurrection was the proof that God had accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and he didn't rise from the dead, then you're really no better off than being saved was just an illusion. He said, thirdly, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, all the people that have followed God throughout history, Abraham and Moses, they all wasted their lives and they're no better off than if they hadn't. He said, lastly, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then all these sacrifices we're making, they're absolutely worthless and it's useless.

We are of all men most to be pitied. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, it's all wasted. But if he did rise from the dead, then that changes everything. If Jesus really rose from the dead, then he really is sovereign over everything. Not a cup of cold water is gonna be wasted in his name and he's gonna turn all your death and suffering into resurrection. So what you really gotta decide, he tells them, is you gotta decide whether or not you actually believe that.

Paul says, ask for me, 1 Corinthians 15, three, I actually believe it. He goes, he was beaten and he's tortured and just to make sure that he was dead, then they shoved a Roman spear through his heart and then they put him in a grave and they covered him up and they put a Roman garrison in front of him and three days later, he came out, moved the stone and walked around and we saw him. By the way, how freaky, how unnerving would that be? Let me just think, I'm just gonna get out of the Bible mode for a minute, just think about that. You go to a funeral last week and at the funeral, you see the guy that you knew him, you look at the viewing, you watch the funeral, you watch him put him in the ground, you throw dirt on the coffin, you watch him get covered up.

Then next week at Starbucks, he comes up to you, he's like, hey man, how you doing? That is unnerving. Paul said it is unnerving and it changed everything about how I saw life. I really believe that Jesus rose from the dead and because of that, everything is different. Some of you, listen to those who are struggling with finishing strong, he said, you gotta decide if you believe that and you gotta renew that vision in you because the problem, listen, with a lot of us is that we've never actually come to that conviction in the core of our hearts. You've never really kind of wrestled, do I actually believe that?

And if I do, what does that mean? You're just kind of going along because it's the thing to do. There's a story I tell to our staff that goes like, it's not a true story, I don't think, but it still illustrates. You got a grandfather and a grandson sitting on the grandfather's porch just out in the middle of the country and the granddad's got like 10 dogs and the dogs are under the porch and all of a sudden, one of the dogs kind of perks out, lets out a little bark and takes out across the field. And then all other nine dogs, they all kind of hop up, they give out a bark and they take off after it. And the grandfather says to the grandsons, let me tell you what's about to happen. In just about 10 minutes, one by one, all those last nine dogs are gonna come back one by one with the tails out and the tail between the legs or their tongues out and the tails between their legs and they're gonna come back and they're gonna take their spot back here to the porch and they're gonna go back to sleep.

In about 10 minutes, they'll all be back. He says in about 45 minutes, the first dog will come back and he's gonna have the rabbit in his mouth. He said, you wanna know the difference between the first dog and the nine dogs? He said, the first dog is the only one that actually saw the rabbit. All the others are just barking and yapping and running because somebody is excited. The church in some ways is exactly like that.

There are a bunch of people who are here and they're a part of the movement because they're like, oh, everybody's excited. Let me bark and yap along with everybody else. But you never actually make it because you've never seen the rabbit. The rabbit in this analogy is the conviction that Jesus actually rose from the dead. And when you see that rabbit, not even hell itself will get you to back away because you'll look forward and you'll see him at the end of the finish line and you'll say, if God turned Jesus's death into a resurrection, he's gonna turn my sacrifices, he's gonna turn my pain into resurrection victory also. So I'm in for the long haul and I'll keep going. So what that means is some of you, listen, you've started to follow Jesus, all right? Awesome, you started well in faith, now finish strong. Some of you men, you've gotten bored in leading your family and bored in serving in your job. Do not be, man, listen, please, don't be one of these ridiculous guys who gets bored in his life in his 50s, buys a sports car, unbuttons his shirt down to his navel, which makes us all wanna vomit by the way.

And then plays golf all the time. Finish in faith what you started in faith. Mother, some of you are tired raising your kids, you gave up your career, you feel like to spend more time with them in this chapter is hard and it's unrewarding. Finish what you started in faith, nothing he says will be wasted. Paul ends 1 Corinthians 15 by saying, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because your labor is not in vain because Jesus sits on the throne.

It's not how you start the race, it's how you finish. Number six, Paul says here at the end, I gave more than I took, I gave more than I took. Look at verse 33, I coveted, no one silver or gold or apparel. No, I worked hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

I want you to think with me for a minute. A man's last words are probably the thing that are most significant to him, fair? It's what's most on his mind, the last thing he says. And the last speech that Paul gives to these people, the last thing he says and the last speech he gives is about generosity. Because Paul knows, listen, that what it really means to follow Jesus is to have a life that is defined by generosity, because that's what defines Jesus' life. Everywhere you look in Jesus' life, you're gonna see someone who is giving, not receiving. Even one of the best examples to me is what happened on the night before Jesus died. Well, what did Jesus do on the night before he died? He washed his disciples feet.

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys, let's just get this clear right now. If God tells me I gotta die for you tomorrow, if God says tomorrow, you're gonna die for the people of the summit church, then the night before that, I'm gonna be like, you know what, this is some me time, okay? I'm gonna focus a little bit on me tonight because tomorrow's about you. But Jesus in the night before he died said, no, it's still not about me. It's I'm gonna wash my disciples feet because it is more blessed.

Blessed is the word, makarios, which means happy. It's just happier to live in a way where you're focused more on giving than you are receiving. Does that quality define your life? Let me start with your most basic relationships in your marriage. Is your marriage more about giving than receiving? Do you prioritize the preferences and comforts and dreams of your spouse more than you prioritize your own and your friendships? Are they more characterized by giving than receiving?

And in your relationship with your parents, is that more characterized by giving than receiving? How about in your career? And one of the things that we frequently ask at this church is your career. Is your career basically a tool that you use to get all you can or have you asked how your career might be used in a way that gives to the mission of God? Because to follow Jesus in your career doesn't mean you become a pastor necessarily.

It just means you ask how, what has my career been given to me for as a way of giving in multiplication? In my little backstage area, I have two of my most favorite prized possessions have been given to me over the years. They're two pages of old Bibles. When I say old, I mean like, well, one of them is from the 14th century. It was from a Bible in England. It was called the Chained Bible because it's in Latin. It was chained to the pulpit in the churches in England because church leaders didn't want normal people reading the Bible, never know where that leads.

So they chained it there. And so I have a, it's called the Chained Bible and I have it framed back there. Right beside that, I have a copy of a page out of the first English translation of the Bible by William Tyndale who put it into the vernacular.

And it's an amazing story. William Tyndale was this priest who reads the Bible, basically gets saved, says everybody needs to know this. So he starts translating the Bible in English. Church leaders didn't like it, said no, we chained the Bible for a reason. And so they bring him up in court and William Tyndale says, they said, you better stop.

And he says, one will tell you, when I'm done, by God's grace, the plow boy in England is gonna know more about the Bible than you corrupt priests do. Well, they didn't like that. So they strangled him and burned him at the stake. Not one or the other, they had to do both. So they strangled him and burned him at the stake.

His last words that he gives as he's dying is Lord open the King of England's eyes. Now that's the part of the story I knew. I learned that one in seminary. What I didn't know was something I read in the book a while back that made the story even better. There's a missing component in that story. And the missing component is a guy named Humphrey Monmouth.

Tough name, great guy. Humphrey Monmouth was a merchant, a very wealthy merchant who owned a fleet of ships. And what Monmouth did is he had been led to Christ by Tyndale and he said, you know what? Not only can I finance the translation of this Bible and the publishing of it, I can use this fleet of merchant ships to get this Bible into all the corners of the English empire. Because he did that, when they burned William Tyndale at the stake, they were not able to destroy the Bible that he had translated. It was already out. And because of that, you got a copy of it sitting right in your hands.

It goes back to William Tyndale's translation. There was a man at a particular time who understood that his career had been given to him by God in order to be able to be used for the mission of God. My question I want all of you to consider is how can your career be used for the mission of God? We put out in front of you things like, hey, maybe you can move in one of our church plants. Maybe you can use your career as a way of being a part of gospel proclamation.

Maybe you can go to one of what we call our global cities initiative, which is where you go to one of these unreached places in the world and you live on your career and you tell people about Jesus who wouldn't otherwise hear. Maybe you've made a lot of money in your career and praise God for that. God doesn't begrudge that at all. He gave you that ability, but maybe, maybe he gave you that ability to make money. Maybe it wasn't just so you could increase your standard of living.

Maybe he gave it to you for the purpose of multiplication. Maybe you ought to say in my career, it's more blessed to give than just to receive. Maybe you're entering retirement right now. Maybe you're entering retirement early, I don't know. Are you the kind of person who are gonna retire and say, finally, I get to make it all about me because the gospel is that if I am financially independent and I have achieved this place, then I'm just freer now to be able to live places where I can share the gospel more strategically in this chapter, I wanna give more than I receive.

What you do with your money in retirement? I talked to a really wealthy guy in our church, older man who said, I thought this was awesome. He said, JD, he said, my goal, my goal is for the last check I write on earth to bounce because I gave it all away. I told that to one of our pastors and one of our pastors was like, huh, I'm way ahead of that guy.

I'm already bouncing right and left right now. It's more blessed to give than to receive. This is the last thing Paul says to them. And it's arguably the most important question because it's the most fun question of discipleship. Do you look at your life as given to you to multiply because that's what it means to follow Jesus.

So there it is. That's Paul's philosophy of life. I'm gonna make sure my generation knows about Jesus. It's a high calling to make sure that our generation knows about Jesus, but it's our only goal today and every day on Summit Life with JD Greer.

While sharing the gospel is the most important thing we can do, it can certainly be intimidating. And that's why understanding who God is and his plans and purposes are so important. So JD, if we wanna know God better, we have to read the Bible, right? It's not like we can just open the Bible blindly, hold it out and point to a verse, right?

Yeah, well, it usually doesn't work like that. I'm not saying God can't do miracles, but I mean, we've all heard this story about the person who's like, oh, you know, God, what do you want me to do? And so he opens up the Bible and points to a verse and the verse his finger lands on is, you know, Judas went and hung himself.

He was like, well, I can't be right. So then he flips a couple of pages and he lands on a verse and the next one says, go thou and do likewise. You're like, okay, that's not how God is speaking to you. And I know a lot of people, while not that extreme, that's how they approach the Bible. It's like Bible lottery, you know? But that's not, I mean, the way that God speaks best to you is when you get the accurate sense of what he is saying, both to the original audience and then what it means for your life. So sometimes there are things in the Bible that are just stories being told. And I'm like, well, this is a warning.

God doesn't want me to do this. So one of our burdens here at Summit Life is not just to unearth random phrases and promises and let you come up with ways to apply these words to your life. It's to help you see what it is in the original context.

We use a method here and we've talked about it here on Summit Life here. H is highlight. That's just where you're taking promises and you're responding. E is examining. That's the aspect of like, how does this fit into the overall biblical picture? What's the history here?

What was going on? A is apply. That's where you bridge the gap to your life.

And then R is respond. This Bible that we're offering, small, compact, take the church, put it in your purse, put it in the backpack, it will help you with the examination and application. It will help fill the gap of those two things so that you can read and understand the Bible better and ultimately help you know God and His will for your life.

Let your time in God's word take you into deeper communion with Him. We'd love to get you a copy of our new custom Summit Life Bible today. And it comes with our thanks when you donate to support this program. Summit Life is kept on the radio and online by listeners like you.

So when you tune in, you've got another listener to thank for the message. Wouldn't you like to extend that gift to someone else by doing your part to keep this program going? Give today and remember to ask for your copy of the Summit Life Bible. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can donate and request this resource online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Be sure to join us again tomorrow as we near the finish line of this teaching series. We're diving into the final book of the Bible, Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.