Mission, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. I know your mouth says you believe the Gospel but does does your priorities, does your lifestyle, does your giving show that you believe it? Summit, the urgency of this mission demands that we not just huddle up in a conclave and sing God's songs and just watch the world go to hell around us. Jesus shed his blood and offered us the power of his Spirit so that we can make a difference. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. You're joining us today as we've just begun a new teaching series called All In. We're going to be studying five Old Testament characters who give us a picture of what it really means to be all in, that is fully committed to God's mission. This series was originally preached to Pastor J.D. 's home congregation, The Summit Church in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina, but the principles apply to every believer in every local church wherever you are. So let's jump into Genesis chapter six for part two of a message that Pastor J.D. titled Mission. Are you all in on the mission of God with your life? Not just are you committed to the church on the weekend.

I'm going to want to know are you all in the mission of God with the biggest parts of your life? Think of it like this. If you have a breakfast of bacon and eggs, both the pig and the chicken contributed to your breakfast but in different ways.

The chicken made a contribution but the pig was all in, right? So which of those two metaphors better describes you and your relationship to the kingdom of God? Here's the first story we're going to consider. It's in the first book of the Bible so it should be easy to find. Genesis chapter six, it is the story of Noah. Here we go, Genesis chapter six verse five. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said I will blot out man whom I've created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am truly sorry that I even made them. Now if you know your Bible at all you know that he did this through a worldwide flood. By the way, it has always been amazing to me that Kiv's books usually pick up this story as their favorite one to feature for three-year-olds. You know with the little bunnies and the furry animals and in came the animals two by two, the hippopotamus and the kangaroo and that's that's like the kid's favorite but this is a terrifying story of God's judgment. Massive destruction, dead bodies everywhere.

You know so make sure you have this thing in the right category as we go into it. Verse eight, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now real quick, people encounter stories of judgment in the Bible like this and one of the first questions that modern people ask is like well was this really really necessary? I don't really like this picture of of God. I prefer the precious moments Jesus who you know likes to pat little children on the head and and that kind of of God.

So is this really necessary? Well see verse five diagnoses the problem for you. It says that God saw that every intention of the human heart was only evil continually.

There's an interesting word play that goes on in Hebrew. The word used to describe human wickedness in verses 12 and 13 if you jump down there. The word used to describe human wickedness is the same word used to describe what God does to the wicked on the earth. The word is mashit and what it means is destruction. Sinful humans are destroying God's good creation so God is going to mashit the mashiters.

He's going to destroy the destroyers. That's what God is doing is that there is a cancer that is destroying his creation and creating disharmony and creating all kinds of destruction. So a holy God of perfect love cleansed the earth of sin but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Grace undeserved kindness and God preserved Noah and his family as a representative of the human race and through Noah he would repopulate the earth. Now you say well was this solution effective? Well look around. The short answer is no. Go down to 821 which is after the ark.

You can just note that in your margin. The author repeats that the intentions of the human heart were still only evil continually which tells you that a greater kind of salvation would be necessary than destroying the world through a flood and giving a wooden ark for people to get into. We need a salvation that would go to the core of the human heart which is the real meaning of the story which we'll get to in a minute but first let me draw up four points about Noah that I want you to see that are I think very relevant for us. Number one, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What was special about Noah?

Nothing. Nothing special indicated in these verses. He simply heard the voice of God and he responded. Number two, Noah was chosen to be a channel of salvation to others. Noah was not only selected for personal salvation, he was chosen to build an ark that would be a vehicle for salvation to whoever would listen. Number three, Noah had to dramatically rearrange his priorities in light of God's grace toward him.

After this announcement he could not go on with life as usual, make a few tweaks to his life, pray an extra 10 minutes in the morning during his quiet time and give a little, you know, wherever he went to worship. Number four, Noah was grateful. If you fast forward the story to the end, after God sent the flood and God saved Noah and his family, Noah exits the ark and the first thing that Noah does is he offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. God, why did you choose me to show grace to? God, why did you save my family?

You chose, why? I don't know, but I'm just going to respond with gratefulness. What was special about Noah? Nothing. He just listened to God and did what God said. What is special about us?

Nothing. We've just believed God and taken him at his word. We believe that Jesus was serious when he said through Peter's mouth that he wasn't willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. We believed him when he said that if you would call on my name and you would ask me, I would do great things through you that you probably could not even describe to somebody. We just believed it. We're like Noah.

We just believed that God was serious. Number two, we've been given a very clear mission. We've been given a very clear mission. Like Noah, we've been given a very clear description of what we should be doing. Jesus summarized our mission.

It's really short and really tight. Matthew 28, 18, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded of you. Here at the church, we've interpreted that primarily in three ways, three kind of ways we focus on making disciples. One is our families. We believe that our families are our first mission field and we are committed to discipling those we went to Jesus. That starts with our families because we want them to grow up strong in God's kingdom.

That is very personal to me. If you've been around here, you've probably heard me share this before, but it's personal to me because in 1975, Lynn and Carol Greer moved to a new city and they just had a son. I was two years old at the time and they thought we need to get back involved in church because people do that a lot when they have kids.

They're like, well, you know, we got to quit messing around. We got to get serious in a church somewhere. So they'd heard about a church that was exciting.

It was growing. They had a pastor who could hold everybody's attention and they went and God saved my mom and dad. But because this church was committed to not just seeing people respond and come and be baptized and putting their name on a list somewhere and reporting them to some agency that counts how many people you baptized and you don't know who that is, but because this church wasn't, they weren't content with that, they were committed to discipling my mom and dad. I had the privilege of growing up at a home where my mom and dad walked with Jesus and loved Jesus and taught me to do the same. Now because of a church that was committed to discipling families, I didn't just get reported or my parents used to get reported on a list somewhere.

My eternity is different and so are my children's eternities now because of the faithfulness of that church to discipling its families. That's what we are committed to. We are committed to discipling the nations. When Jesus says go into all the nations, he used the term ethne, which means it's what we now call an unreached people group that have a language and it's a people group that has no gospel witness.

There are 6,640 unreached people groups in our world today. We are committed to being a church that raises people up and sends them out to take the gospel where the gospel is not known. We say we say our families, we say the nations, we say our neighbors because we know our presence in this city is not incidental. We love our city.

We are committed to this city. We love our college campuses. They provide a lot of challenges for us. You know in ministry I was looking over our attendance records over the last 10 years the other day and there's just like one season where we just exploded in growth. And I was looking at one of our and they're like well that was the season all the college students came.

Our attendance tripled in like three months and our weekly given went up $13.18 on average. So there's a lot of challenges with that but that's our field. These are our workplaces. The Research Triangle Park and all the places here on the triangle, these are our neighborhoods, they're our schools. Especially the broken parks, we consider them to be ours.

That's where Jesus' heart would have been. That's why we identify the homeless, the orphan, the prisoner, the unwelled mother, the at-risk child, the dropout here. Because these, we're responsible for them. We want to take care of them.

This is our city. So that's how we interpret that making disciples. Like Noah, we believe we've been given something to build. Noah was told to build an ark. When Jesus left he said build my church. Now by church I don't mean like you know bricks and mortar and church buildings.

I'm talking about the body of Christ. But see you'll see throughout this series that whenever God wants to do something on earth he gives people something very specific that he wants them to build. He didn't say to Noah, Noah I'm going to send a flood, right. Here's your advance warning.

Now you figure out how you're going to avoid it and then you'll get to work on something. He gave him the description of the ark. He told him how long it was supposed to be, how he was supposed to build it.

He was very specific. The church in the New Testament is the equivalent of the ark in Genesis 6. When Jesus left he said you will build my church.

Now I don't want to overstate this, so please hear me charitably and don't twist what I'm about to say. God left one institution on earth when Jesus went back up to heaven. One. He left a local church. That is the one institution you see running throughout the book of Acts.

He told him to wait. When he gave him the Great Commission he said you wait and the Holy Spirit will come. The first thing the Holy Spirit does when he comes is he builds the local church in Acts chapter 2. You could summarize the entire missiological strategy of the book of Acts in one sentence. The apostles going to strategic cities and planting churches.

Again here don't misinterpret what I'm saying. They didn't start soup kitchens. They didn't go do evangelistic crusades. They planted churches because local churches would do the evangelistic crusades and the soup kitchens in their community and they would do them in a much more healthy holistic way than simply dropping in somewhere and then dropping out. So he said you plant churches. So our strategy here at this church is to plant churches because that's what they did in Acts.

The only thing we can find. Throughout the book of Acts the local church was the center and it was the focal point of ministry and giving. So you see things like Acts 434.

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet and from there it was distributed to anyone as he had need. The focal point of their ministry and their giving throughout the book of Acts was the one institution that Jesus has shed his blood for. The local church. The local church.

Now please do not misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying there's something wrong with giving money elsewhere. I'm not saying there's something wrong with doing ministry elsewhere. My wife and I give aggressively to ministries that are outside the local church. We bless and support those. We've got many that are a part of our congregation right now.

We love them and we support them. We give to them. I'm just saying that in the New Testament the focal point, and that's what Veronica and I, that's our conviction, is the focal point of our ministry and our giving is the local church. In the New Testament the local church is like an aircraft carrier. The battles that an aircraft carrier fights are not on the aircraft carrier. If they are then that's a major problem for the aircraft carrier.

The aircraft carrier equips planes to be able to go out and fight battles somewhere else. That's how we see our church. How do you see your church by the way? For many people their church is a cruise ship right? It's a place where all your you know religious needs are met. You come and it's just like a Christian country club. That is not this place and never will be this place.

Okay so just let me go ahead and just kind of burst that bubble right now if that's your body. That's just not what we're what we do. A lot of people think about their church as a battleship. A battleship where you kind of you know the church goes and does the ministry.

You know you park it outside of an island you just shell the island. That's not what we do. We're an aircraft carrier and that we equip people to be able to take the kingdom of God into the places where the kingdom is most needed and that is inside of our community and that's your role.

That's what we do. Some in church like Noah we know that God has selected us not simply to save us but to make us a channel of salvation to our community. I told you I found out something earlier this year that was just so meaningful to me. The guy that planted our church 50 years ago is named Sam James. He worked for the core group that was going to plant the Homestead Ice Baptist Mission on North Carver Street in North Durham.

He worked with them for nine months. They officially launched the church in 1962. He said what's ironic is he says I only preached one sermon at the Summit Church or the Homestead Ice Baptist Church which is what our name was before we became Summit Church. He said I only preached one sermon there. It was Isaiah 54 2 and 3.

It says this, enlarge the place of your tent let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out do not hold back lengthen your cords strengthen your stakes for you will spread abroad to the right and the left and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. Now I asked him I said why did you preach that why was that your one sermon by the way he preached that sermon then that afternoon he left and was commissioned as a missionary to Vietnam for the next 40 years. I was like why did you choose that one text he said because I knew 50 years ago that this church was never supposed to be a place where God just blessed the people for themselves. That they were to stretch out to the right and to the left because God had chosen them to bring salvation to the nations and to all the people here in the triangle. That is our legacy. By the way he told me he said what was discouraging he said for 30 40 years I felt like the church completely lost its way.

He said now to see now to see what's going on now to see how many people you're sending out now to see what you're doing in the community he says you are fulfilling an old man's dream because I knew it could happen and I knew it was supposed to happen. That's informed our mission for the past 10 years. That's why we're minimalist on our buildings. I mean look around this is not a you know or any of our campuses they're not beautiful places. We're minimalist. We're not anti-building and we know that God you know we call them facilities because they facilitate the mission of God. Jesus didn't call us to build a huge monument to him in the triangle that was known around the world for how beautiful it was. The beauty of the church is in the people of God not in the architecture.

So we're minimalist we're like well what do we need to be able to get the job done. You know our multi-site strategy is not done because I prefer that. I don't like myself on camera. I don't like the way I look.

No sorry campuses. I don't like not seeing a bunch of people that I don't there's a lot of people at this church that I love that I don't get to see every week because we're in different places around the triangle. But we just came to the conviction that we could better accomplish our mission if that's the the strategy we pursued. And God has given us that. It's it's just it's just who we are. We feel like God is telling us again Isaiah 54 2 and 3. We feel like he's saying stretch out to the right and to the left. Because what I've chosen you for is has nothing it does have to do with you but it's not only to do with you.

It has to do with all these things that I've called you to. Number three this mission requires a radical reorientation of our priorities. Noah's adjustment was not a slight adjustment. Again it was a whole new way of looking at the world.

The mission that Jesus called us to is not a slight adjustment in our lifestyle either. It's a whole new way of looking at our world. For years I've told you this story.

It's a true story and I'll review it for you just we're all on the same page. It was on a guy got a talk show talking about a tragedy that he'd been a part of out in California several years ago where an earthquake shook. He was about 3 a.m. and he's driving outside of Los Angeles and it's a pretty bad earthquake but it only lasted 20-30 seconds and he thought everything was fine. He says so I turn you know to take a left onto one of these bridges these famous bridges out there. He said I'm driving along it's 3 a.m. and the taillights of the car in front of me just they just disappear. He said well I you know obviously you caught my attention so I stopped got out and realized that one of the pieces of the bridge had just fallen out during the earthquake. This is a major highway and he said I turned around here comes some cars down this bridge headed right toward that so he said I started to wave my hands to get him to slow down. Now you're driving along outside of Los Angeles at 3 a.m. and there's some dude out on the side of the road waving his arms you're going to stop?

No this guy said I watched this four different cars went by me at about 70 miles an hour and just plunged over this little precipice and to their death. He said then I saw a bus coming across that bridge and I just made up my mind that that bus is going across that bridge it's going to take me with it. He said I took off I had two shirts on took my outer shirt off and I started to wave it that bus was flashing its light and honking its horn. He said but I wouldn't move I just stood there. He said that bus driver stopped he got out he's cussing at me and I'm like look and he said I showed him he realized what was happening so he parked his bus and between the two cars they cut off all traffic going over that direction. The reason I share that with you and I do so often is because I here's what you consider if you were the first person there when that happened what's your response? Right I mean it requires something different.

Maybe you just stand on the side of the road and try to show by example right I'm not driving my example is going to help you in order not to drive either. No I mean it requires something a little more drastic than that. The mission that God has given us the mission that God gave to Noah was urgent Paul Romans chapter 9 said he was in anguish every day. Imagine that was true of Noah too every day I can't look at people without knowing you're either going to be saved in this ark you're going to die in that flood every day Paul said I think about people that I know they're either in Jesus or they're outside of him. Do you see the world that way? I know you say you believe the gospel but see here's my question do you really believe it?

Does the urgency that dominates your lifestyle demonstrate that you believe it? I know your mouth says you believe the gospel but does does your priorities does your lifestyle does your giving show that you believe it? Some of the urgency of this mission demands that we not just huddle up in a conclave and sing God's songs and just watch the world go to hell around us. Jesus shed his blood and offered us the power of his spirit so that we can make a difference so that we could reverse the tide so that we could see the salvation of Jesus extend onto our college campuses and into our places of business and into our schools and our neighborhoods and our homes even into the ghettos and the brothels in Raleigh Durham so that there is not a corner of this city where the gospel of Jesus does not brilliantly shine. Number four we do so with a grateful heart.

We do so with a grateful heart. Noah was so grateful when he got this boat he offered that sacrifice. Well I explained to you earlier in this message that the ark for most parts followed me here was a failure which is why the ark as all Old Testament pictures do points beyond itself to something else and of course that something else is Jesus. Jesus was the ark that we were pulled into that kept us safe from the destroying reign of God's wrath. Jesus drowned in the sea of God's wrath so that we could be lifted safely above it.

He shielded us from the reign of God's wrath. So when Noah got out he commenced a new creation right so that all creation he just started to repopulate the earth. When Jesus was resurrected from the dead he began he began a new creation but his new creation was total. It wasn't just new families of people it was new kinds of people. People whose hearts had been transformed by Jesus's resurrection spirit. But here's the question if Noah was grateful for the salvation provided by his ark how much more should we who've been saved from God's wrath by Jesus our ark spontaneously erupting gratitude and sacrifices of thankfulness even more than he did for what God has done for us. Most of you would say you believe the gospel that Jesus is the savior of the world and the only hope for humanity but does your life and your money show that you believe it? What would you have said to Noah if he claimed to believe what God said about the flood but actually made no effort to build the ark or warn people to get onto it?

You're either in or you're out right? These are challenging questions from Pastor J.D. Greer here on Summit Life. Today's message is part of our new teaching series called All In and if you happen to join us late today you can listen again by going to jdgreer.com and you know the online message archive and these daily messages on your station are all available because people like you have given to support Summit Life. I'd like to tell you a little bit more about our latest resource this month. It's a brand new study guide called Be the Movement and if you've been with us this month it follows along with a teaching series that we just concluded earlier this week. It is essentially a four-part study with an introduction and a conclusion book ending it. Each part has a few pages of teaching from Pastor J.D. followed by a handful of questions based in scripture. There's also a prayer section with prompts to help you respond to what you've just spent time studying.

You can work through the book at any pace that you like. We'd suggest doing it about once per week, take about a month to process through the content slowly and carefully and while it totally stands on its own for you to do alone it really is much better for you to work through the scripture and questions with someone else or a small group to sharpen one another in your understanding of God's mission for both you personally and for his church. Ask for your copy of this new study when you get in touch today. It comes with our thanks when you donate to support Summit Life. When a college student tunes in to stay rooted in the gospel on a secular campus or when someone hears the gospel for the very first time, their thanks belongs to you. 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 every day. And it also makes online resources like the Summit Life blog, the sermon archive, and our podcast available without cost getting in the way. Join the team that makes Summit Life possible when you give today by calling 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgreer.com.

That's jdgreer.com. Or you can mail your donation and request for the book. Our address is JD Greer Ministries, P.O.

Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 277-09. And remember to ask for your copy of the book titled Be the Movement. And if you haven't signed up for our daily devotional yet, be sure to do that today.

It is the best way to start your day. You'll get encouragement every weekday from Pastor JD via email. And we'll also make sure that you never miss a new resource or series. Sign up today at jdgreer.com. You also don't want to forget to follow Pastor JD on Facebook and Instagram for more updates and encouraging content. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Thank you for joining us during this busy holiday week. Be sure to join us Monday when we'll continue our new series called All In on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.