We Prioritize the Gospel Above All

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Lots of organizations can work for good business and poverty relief and can help marriages and morality and social change. But the gospel, the gospel you see, it's given to the church. The gospel is the most important message. God gave it to us, the church, to preach, the local church. Anything and everything else that we could do has to take a distant backseat to that gospel proclamation. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor and teacher J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Today is a special day here on the program as we begin a new teaching series that is at the very heart of everything we do here at Summit Life. You've heard us say it before, but it is essential that we say it again and again. The gospel alone transforms us, empowers us, unites us, and propels us. That's why the apostle Paul puts the gospel message in a special class all by itself because a church without the gospel at the center is a church without God's power. I know that's a strong statement, but it is so important in today's climate of manmade religious experiences and subjective truth. God's church is his plan, so it's critical that we get this understanding settled in our hearts. Today, Pastor J.D. begins a deep dive into the mission and values of the local church with value number one, we prioritize the gospel above all. So grab your Bible and a pen and let's get started.

Be the movement. Our mission is shaped by four values that I'm going to preach through. Each one of those values is deeply anchored in the teachings of Jesus.

Here are the four values. At the Summit Church, we say that, number one, we prioritize the gospel above all. We prioritize the gospel above all. Number two, that we do whatever it takes to reach all people. Number three, we say that we aim to make disciples, not converts.

And number four, we believe every member is to be sent, or we say send every member. This week, I want to discuss gospel above all. 1 Corinthians 15, if you got your Bible, and I hope that you brought your Bible today, I want to show you how in his letter to the Corinthians, as in all of his letters, Paul prioritizes the gospel above everything. For Paul, the gospel is going to be in a special class all by itself. All right, so 1 Corinthians 15, 3 is where I want you to to look first. Paul says, for I delivered unto you as of first importance what I also received. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised in the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. First importance, by the way, that's the key word there, implies that other things were important to Paul also, but these other things were not of first importance.

First importance means it's in a class all by itself. In fact, earlier in Paul's letter here to the Corinthians, he had made a statement that many scholars think had to be an exaggeration. 1 Corinthians 2, 2, Paul says, I decided to know nothing among you except for Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Here's why they think that that has to be an exaggeration, right? Have you read the letter of 1 Corinthians? It's about a lot of other things besides just, you know, Jesus dead and buried. So why would Paul say, like, I only wanted to know and teach one thing among you, and that was Jesus Christ and him crucified?

Here's why. Because everything else Paul is going to deal with in Corinthians, whether we're talking about relationship problems or doctrinal problems or people not getting along, ultimately, he's going to say it connects back to how you understand and live out of what you know about Jesus and him crucified. The Gospel, Paul says, is really my only agenda. It's my priority. It's my authority.

It's my blueprint for action. You see, the church at Corinth was an absolute mess. There was just tense situations, doctrinal confusion. There was ethnic strife, political tensions. There were really suckers for a cult of personality and just all kinds of problems.

Lots of, lots of immaturity. Paul said, my answer to all that, all that is simply Jesus Christ and him crucified. The solution for all those things, he says, is really grasping Christ, understanding what it meant for him to die for you, what that gives to you, and then putting that as the center of everything that you do and all that you think about. All right, so later, chapter later, chapter three, verse 10. All right, here's what Paul says. He says, according to the grace, listen to this, given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and somebody else is building on it.

Each, let each one take care how he builds on that foundation. You're like, well, okay, sounds like this foundation is really important. What foundation are you talking about, Paul? For nobody can lay any other foundation, he says, other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. There can be no foundation for anything in the church other than the message of Christ and him crucified. Everything else, he says, is built on that, and anybody who builds on that, whether that's a teacher like me or whether that is a disciple maker or a parent with a child or anybody, you can't, if you're gonna build on that foundation, you gotta take care that what you're building is consistent with that message and is really an outgrowth of it. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul goes on, he explains that he is personally willing to change anything about his life if it gets him a better hearing for the Gospel. He will set aside his preferences, he will set aside, get this, even his ethnicity, he will put aside his culture, he will put aside his politics, he'll put aside anything if it means being able to reach more people with the Gospel. Verse 22, he says, I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel. For necessity is laid on me. He says, woe to me if I don't preach the Gospel. In other words, I can't let anything get in the way of me doing this one thing that is of first importance. So the point that I'm trying to show you is all throughout this letter, from the very beginning of the letter, right, to the very end of the letter, Paul shows you that the Gospel is prioritized above all for him.

So it begs the question, right, why? Why does the Gospel play such an important role for Paul, and why is the Gospel of first importance in our mission as a church? Now, real quick, before we answer that, let's just make sure we all understand what we mean when we say Gospel. The Gospel, the Gospel is the message that because you and I are condemned in our sin, Christ came to earth to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He lived the perfect life and died in our place so that we could be forgiven. But we always say that he lived the life that we could not live, the perfect life, and then died the death we were condemned to die in our place. The key word in the Gospel, I hope you know this, the key word is substitution.

Substitution. We say, we always say here at the Summit Church that you can summarize the Gospel in four words, right? You know what they are?

You know what they are? Jesus in my place. A friend of mine says it like this. He says, the Gospel is the good news telling us that the determining factor in our relationship with God is Jesus' work for us, not our work for Him. His commitment to us, not our commitment to Him, His obedience for us, not our obedience to Him, is what determines where we stand with God. And this substitutionary work has given birth to a new creation and a new radical way of living, a life committed to kindness and to justice, a new unity as brothers and sisters in Christ, a new family. This Gospel message, this Gospel message, Jesus said, is the only message by which we can be saved. To be saved means that somebody has to hear that message, they have to believe it, they have to repent of their sins and accept Jesus' offer to save them, which leads us to the first, the first reason why the Gospel is of first importance on our mission.

Just write this down as number one. Number one, without the Gospel, without the Gospel, people are lost. Without the Gospel, people are lost. Listen, it doesn't matter what good we do in the world if we don't preach the Gospel. Apart from the Gospel, apart from believing the Gospel, people are lost for eternity. Apart from Christ, whatever earthly things we engage in, no matter how good they are, right, they simply will not last. Poverty relief, social activism, good business, kindness toward our neighbors or the immigrant or the oppressed, standing for marriage and morality, raising healthy families, every single one of those things are good, right? Right, they show love for our neighbor and they glorify God and we should be engaged in all of them, but see, apart from the Gospel message, ultimately, people are lost.

And that's most important, right? I mean, we say that we care about alleviating suffering here, and we do, but the worst kind of suffering would have to be eternal suffering, right? I've heard it said that Jesus spoke about hell more often and more vividly than he did about anything else. In fact, Jesus, the author of love, described hell in the most blood-curdling of terms. Jesus!

Again, the author of love, the one that was known for his compassion and his kindness, that was so tender that children liked to just be around him and felt safe around him, right? He spoke in such terms about hell that it would just, it would curdle your blood, and if that's true, it's got to be a crucial truth and we got to pay attention to it. The preaching of the Gospel is the one thing given, see, exclusively to the Church. Lots of organizations, lots of organizations can work for good business and poverty relief and can help marriages and morality and social change, but the Gospel, the Gospel, you see, it's given to the Church. The Gospel is the most important message.

God gave it to us, the Church, to preach, the local Church, and that means that anything and everything else that we could do has to take a distant back seat to that Gospel proclamation. In fact, let me just say to you, apart from Christ, apart from you believing and receiving the Gospel, you were lost. Even if you get everything else you've ever wanted in life, right?

A great marriage, great job, great family, right? You retire wealthy, you will lose it all without Jesus. What does it profit a man, Jesus said, if he were to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

The question is, have you received Christ? That's the first reason that it's above all. It's the only message by which people can be saved and it's given exclusively to us, the Church, to proclaim.

Here is the second reason that it's above all here. Number two, without the Gospel, there is no power in Christianity. All right, go back to 1 Corinthians 15.

I hope you're still there. Notice what Paul says in the opening verses of that chapter. He says, Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand.

All right, so where do you stand? Right, so in the Gospel, and by which, watch this, you are being saved, if you hold fast to the Word I preached to you. Are being. That is what we call progressive language, ongoing salvation. It's not just that you were saved once by believing the Gospel, you were also being saved by believing the Gospel.

That's active, present tense. Now don't get confused here, okay? There, you see, there's two dimensions of salvation, right? There's what we call positional salvation, where you accept Christ and in that instant your sins are forgiven, all of them, right? You are given in that instant the righteousness of Christ.

You are in that instant made complete in Him. You are permanently adopted into God's family, once and for all. It's kind of like when you adopt a child.

Legally, there's not a gradual process. In one instant, right, legally the child goes from being in one family to being in another. That's what happens when you accept Christ. It's what we call positional salvation, and that is not what Paul is referring to here. What Paul is talking about here, when he says you are being saved, is what we call progressive salvation. He's referring to what happens after you're positionally saved. He says you grow progressively in Christ's likeness for the rest of your life.

You mature. And how does that happen, right? Where is the power for that ongoing growth? Well, see, Paul says it's in the same place that your initial salvation came from, believing the Gospel. You see verse 2, chapter 15, verse 2, holding fast to the word of the Gospel. We always say you grow in Christ the same way you began in Christ. How did you, you begin in Christ? You began in Christ by believing the Gospel.

How do you grow in Christ? By holding fast to the Gospel, by re-believing it, if you will, by meditating on it, holding fast to it. You see, I grew up thinking that the Gospel was only the entry right into Christianity. It was like the ABCs of Christianity, the door through which you entered, the diving board, off of which you jump into the pool of Christianity. And thus, right, I just assumed that the Gospel was primarily a message for unbelievers.

And then once you had received it, well, then you kind of move on from that into, into the deep stuff, into maturity. But that is not all the Gospel is for Paul. The Gospel for Paul, you can see in verse, chapter 15, verse 2, the Gospel is not just the diving board off of which we jump into the pool.

It's the place we stand. In other words, the Gospel is the pool itself, right? Not just the ABCs of Christianity, the A through Z. We grow in Christ, not by going beyond the Gospel, but by pressing deeper into it. That's why Paul says, that's why Paul says he is determined to know nothing except for Jesus Christ and Him crucified, right? Because that's what it means to grow is to, to go deeper into that message. So for whatever Paul is talking about, he's going to come back to Jesus Christ and Him crucified for clarity in what he should do and in the power to do that.

Okay, write this down, write this down. The fire to do in the Christian life comes only from being soaked in the fuel of what has been done. The fire to do in the Christian life comes only, come only from being soaked in the fuel of what has been done.

Only when we realize that we can do nothing to impress God are we motivated from the heart to do everything to please Him, right? That's the second reason why our Gospel has to be above all, because a church without the Gospel at the center is a church without power. Let me show you real quick one more place in Corinthians where Paul teaches this.

2 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul says, watch this, beholding the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. How are we transformed into glory? By beholding the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. How do we grow, in other words, in our love for God?

We see more of Jesus. We learn more about His love for us. How do we grow in obedience?

How do we grow in self-control? How do we grow in the fruits of the Spirit, right? We are transformed in all these things by seeing Jesus more clearly. So what should I be doing every time I stand up here and open the Bible for you, right?

I should be helping you see Jesus. See, many contemporary teachers of God's word approach the Bible primarily like it's a book of practical advice. You know, look at what it says about leadership and look what it says about parenting and happiness and money and relationships and etc. But the Bible has lots of that, okay? But the Bible is not primarily any of those things. The Bible is about Jesus.

It's not a collection of heroes for you to emulate. It is the story of a Savior, right, that you're supposed to hope in and adore. The hero of the Bible is not me or you or Daniel or David or Ruth or Barnabas.

The hero of the Bible is Jesus. See, if we want to be a church that fulfills our mission, the Gospel has to be at the center. If we want to be a church with any kind of power, any kind of spiritual power, the Gospel has to be at the center. That's why Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer, that's why he always said, the Gospel is the doctrine on which the church rises or falls, okay? So let's ask, all right, what could go wrong at the Summit Church with this? Let's just talk about things that could compete with the Gospel above all here at the Summit Church.

I'll give you just a quick handful of them. Number one, it could go wrong by putting a greater emphasis on do rather than done. In many churches, the emphasis starts to get put on what Christians should do instead of what on what Jesus has done. Many churches in the old south, where I grew up, were focused on what Christians should wear, right? How we should talk, the movies we should go to and not go to, the music we should listen to and not listen to, dress standards. In many churches today, the focus is all on what social activism is appropriate for Christians and what that looks like, what kind of politics that you should have, right?

Hear me. These are all that I just mentioned. They're all good things, but they're not the message of the Gospel. The Gospel is not the message about anything that you should do. The Gospel is the message about what Christ has done. And Paul says in holding fast to that message, that's where the power is. Holding fast to the message is what enables you to do the good works of mercy and justice and compassion, not because you have to, but because you desire to. The emphasis of our message here should never be on what Christians do. It should be primarily on what Jesus has done.

That's the first one. That's one way we could get away from the Gospel above all. Number two, and we could get away from it by just taking conversion for granted. Churches can lose their Gospel focus by taking the conversion of its members for granted. People who grew up in the church, right, they usually adopt their community's morals, right? They believe in God. They participate in church activities. They obey the laws.

You know, they're generally good people. But Jesus said that is not enough. If you were going to enter the kingdom of God, he said, John 3-3, right, you must be born again, right? Jesus said that the born-again heart starts to love different things and desire different things. It starts to want to seek God. It starts to find sin repulsive. It's not that you become perfect, but you develop a distaste, a disdain for sin.

Friend, let me just ask, has that change happened to you? Have you had that moment where you humbled yourself and received Christ and gave yourself fully to him? Have you been born again?

Have you? Now that's the second thing is we could just stop putting the emphasis on that moment of being born again. The third thing that competes at our church with the Gospel above all is prioritizing preference over mission. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul said that he would put aside all of his preferences for the sake of the Gospel to reach more people for Jesus, right? He'd become, he said, a Jew to the Jew, a Gentile to the Gentile, right? He'd do whatever it took, he said, to make the Gospel accessible to people.

He'd lay aside any preference. He'd be more muted about certain political opinions and cultural perspectives and preferences if it meant getting a greater hearing for the Gospel. We've often said here at the Summit Church that the way that you can know you're in a really Gospel-centered church is that at some point you feel culturally uncomfortable because we might be doing something in that moment to reach somebody else that's not really designed for you. People come up like, well, I don't really like that.

I'm like, it's not really for you, right? We're doing this because we're trying to reach people in our community. If you want to be in a place, in a church, where everybody around you shares your preferences and mirrors your politics identically, what you want is a Christian country club, not a church.

And I can point you to several all over the South where you can, you can find that. But here, here we're going to put the Gospel above all for the sake of reaching people, even when at times it makes us uncomfortable, okay? All right, last thing that threatens the Gospel above all here at the Summit Church.

Number four, prioritizing uniformity in secondary things. Again, for Paul to say that the Gospel was of first importance means that there were other important things to him, but the Gospel alone was of first importance. And Paul wouldn't let any of those secondarily important things get in the way of the, of the first important thing, right?

That included not only his, his preferences, but also his perspective, his opinion, his agenda on any secondary matter that he thought got in the way of preaching the Gospel. We see this, by the way, not just in Paul and his letters, but we see it pretty clearly in the life of Jesus. Several times, one of the clearest to me is, occurs in Luke chapter 12, about halfway through the chapter, there's a younger of two brothers comes to Jesus and he accuses his older brother of leveraging the older brother privilege of, or the older brother position to cheat the younger brother out of his inheritance. Now, if you've read the Old Testament at all, you know immediately that justice is close to God's heart and so Jesus cares deeply about issues of injustice. Yet, instead of giving this brother a specific, you might even say political answer to this dispute, we see Jesus pull back from adjudicating it.

In fact, what he says is, man who made me a judge over you, so that instead of doing that, he could warn both of them, younger and older brother, about the idolatry of money and preach the Gospel to them both because in light of eternity, that's ultimately the much more pressing question. Again, it's not that Jesus didn't care about speaking to justice issues or he didn't care about those issues. He did, just that to get involved in that one specifically would hinder him from his one first importance mission, which is preaching the Gospel to all people. Now, to be clear, this is not to say that Christians don't speak to justice or political issues. Individual Christians must.

Individual Christians should get involved at all levels seeking justice and shalom is a Hebrew word, meaning peace for the society. It's just for us, the church as an institution, we focus our platform on the one thing of first importance and that is the preaching of the Gospel and if that means that we as a church, right, as we preach the Gospel and as we proclaim God's standards of justice, if we pull back from offering political solutions or individual applications or interpreting situations and circumstances, that's what we got to do. I've often heard it said there's, it's helpful to think of the church as organization and organism. As an organization, a local church like us, as an organization, we have a pretty narrow focus when it comes to proclaiming the Gospel and just what the Bible says, right? But as an organism, individual members, you guys are out in the community and you're taking the message that you learn and things and you're applying them in the community.

That means in business and politics and education, right? That's not all the church's organization. That's not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to teach and inspire you so we limit our platform to what the Bible directly says and the Gospel and then you as the organism out in society, you're the ones that are in politics and things like that, taking the way you understand it. It's just helpful to keep that distinction. Organization and organism. As an organization, we're very limited in what we define ourselves by.

As an organism, we are kind of involved in everything. Gospel see above all. All the other values that we're going to go over the next few weeks are going to come off of this one.

We have to get this one right. Gospel above all is what unites us and what defines our success in this season, right? When we say be the movement, we mean be a Gospel movement, a Gospel above all movement. Have you given yourself to the Gospel message and mission?

Who in your life needs to hear it or experience it? That was the first message in our new teaching series titled Be the Movement. Reach, disciple, and send. This is what God called the earliest disciples to do. And it's what He's called us to do too. And that's what this new teaching series and our latest resource are all about, God's movement. It's time for us to prioritize the Gospel above all in our individual lives so that we do whatever it takes to reach people around us. Our newest resource, the Be the Movement Study Guide, lays out a plan that's bigger than any one of us, but each one of us has to do our part.

Ask for your copy of the new study when you get in touch today. It comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry. Your gift of $25 or more helps us stay on your station and expand onto new stations so that we can reach more people with the Gospel message.

Join the team that makes Summit Life possible when you give today by calling 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgrier.com. And if you haven't yet signed up for our email list, be sure to do that today. It is the best way to stay up to date with the ministry. You'll get Pastor JD's latest blog posts and podcasts, and we'll make sure that you never miss a new resource or series. Sign up today at jdgrier.com. Be sure to tune in Thursday as Pastor JD Greer challenges us to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Tomorrow on Summit Life. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.