Living with Purpose, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Thing that you got to remember is whatever gift you have, you've got to interpret it in light of the bigger picture of God's purposes that he stated in the world. And that is, right, Isaiah 52, 15, I'm going to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. So whatever gift you have is part of that central mission because that is what God is doing. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Here's a question we've all asked ourselves many times. What is my calling from God? It's a big concept that many people want to talk about because if we knew what our calling was, then we would be able to make right decisions that fall in line with God's bigger purpose every time. Pastor J.D. sheds some light on this question as he teaches today from Romans chapter 15. He says there's two things we need in order to realize our calling and that understanding our ambition begins with seeing and recognizing what God is doing in the world.

So grab your Bible and a pen and let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in Romans chapter 15. There is one great cause, one great purpose. The Lord is not willing that any should perish. He wants all to come to repentance. That's the most important thing you can do for your fellow human is help them understand the way of salvation. It's like John Piper says, relieving any type of suffering is a good and worthy goal. But can't we understand that the worst kind of suffering, the kind of suffering that deserves our most earnest attention is eternal suffering? Here's what he says, suffering in this world is terrible but it's limited. Suffering in the next world is terrible and eternal and love sees it that way. Love does not shut its eyes to this world or to that world.

Love reckons with the reality of suffering here and the worst reality of suffering there. So of all the causes for you to give yourself to, the alleviation of eternal suffering by helping people escape condemnation through faith in Jesus is the most important. Friends, if the Bible is true, then a life that is not wasted knows how it is contributing to that end. Whatever prosperity, whatever resources, whatever opportunity, you say whatever God gives me, I'm going to use to help to that one great purpose.

How is your life contributing to that global purpose? Number two, Paul says I understand the purposes of God in the world but number two, I also understand, I sense the gifting of the Spirit in me. After considering the overarching purpose of God, Paul sought direction from the Spirit of God regarding his specific role in it. That's why he talks in such personal terms, my purpose, my ministry, my offering to God, my aim.

Like I explained, listen, I'll say it again. Paul's calling, his purpose was not the same as everybody's. Paul arrived at his knowledge of his by sensing what the Spirit of God was equipping him to do personally.

His life, he thought of it as basically what Christ had empowered him to do. That's why he talks about that in verse 19. Verse 20 talks about what the Spirit of God was going to do through him. We often say around the summit church, not everything that comes from heaven has your name on it but something does. There is something that the Spirit of God, if you're a believer, is going to stir in you and it's going to begin to move you and there's going to be something that you get really passionate about and that you care about. A huge thing for Paul throughout all of his letters is learning your spiritual gift because your spiritual gift corresponds to the role that God has given you to play in ministry. Some of you are given the desire and the responsibility like Paul to take Christ to places where people have never heard about him. God still calls people like that. Right now, this morning at the summit church, there are 260 plus of our members who are not here this morning.

They're somewhere overseas on one of our church planting teams, many of them in places like Paul is talking about where Christ is yet to be named. For some of you, his purpose is for you to win people to Christ here. He's put you in a profession. He's given you a vision for how you can use that to bring Christ to people. Some of you are called to build up the church. Some of you have been given abilities to serve the needs of members, meeting the needs of people inside the church as well as letting it spill out into the community where you meet the needs of the oppressed and the broken and you're the hands and the feet of Jesus to the abuse. Some of you have been given the gift of generosity. Some of you have been given the gift of encouragement. Some of you have the gift of faith, the gift of prayer where God just moves in you and you know how to get a hold of God and he puts burdens into you. Some of you, God is gonna give you supernatural gifts of insight and warning that you're supposed to give to others. We saw this when we studied chapter 12, but having a spiritual gift doesn't release you from all the other responsibilities that God gives to us. A spiritual gift is simply a specialization in a duty that is given, an assignment given to all believers.

But that spiritual gift is a special way that God wants to use you and figuring out what your spiritual gift is is essential because apart from that, you will never experience the kind of spirit power and movement that the early church experienced. We just read the book of Acts and you're like, this is amazing. It's not supposed to end in Acts 28. It's supposed to be the introduction to what God does in every generation. We're supposed to read the book of Acts and be like, well, that's not that big of a deal.

I've seen that happen in my life in our ministry. Bible scholars say the book of Acts, which is the story of Paul and the apostles and the first Christians, they say that it's wrongly named. The guy that wrote Acts, Luke did not give it a name. The early church didn't give the book of Acts its name until late in the third century. And late in the third century, they called it the Acts of the Apostles. And here's why Bible scholars think that's the wrong name, because it's not really about the Acts of the Apostles.

I'll explain that. Acts 1, 1, very first verse says, Luke, the author who wrote it said, this is the second book I've written to you. The first book, the Gospel of Luke, listen to this, was about all that Jesus began to do and to teach. Began to do and teach implies that the second book is about what Jesus continues to do and teach. So in the Gospel of Luke, we have what Jesus is doing and teaching in his physical body. In the book of Acts, we've got what Jesus is doing and teaching through his earthly body, the church. But Jesus is just as much an actor in the second one as he is in the first one.

The book of Acts is not about the exploits of apostles or other great leaders. It's about ordinary Christians who submit themselves to the Acts of the Holy Spirit. I have lamented to you often, most Christians are not quite sure what to do with the Holy Spirit. I've told you, most Christians in churches like ours relate to the Holy Spirit like I relate to my pituitary gland. I've told you, I know it's in there somewhere. I don't exactly know where to point, but I know it's back there somewhere. I know it's essential.

If you ask me, you want to lose your pituitary gland, the answer is no. But I don't exactly know what it does, and I don't relate to it, and that's how most Christians feel about the Holy Spirit. I know he's in there. I know he's essential for the spiritual life, but I don't really interact with the Holy Spirit. But that's not what you see in the book of Acts.

The early church depended on his guidance. The Holy Spirit shows up 59 times in the book of Acts, more than any other person. In 36 of the 59, he is speaking, which means they were listening and hearing from him. Do you listen to and hear from the Holy Spirit? Now, I've told you, I've admitted, the frustrating thing for me is it doesn't tell us all the time how he speaks.

In fact, not once. There's like this ambiguity. It just says, for example, Acts 13, too, the Holy Spirit said to the church, separate Barnabas and Paul for a mission trip. And my question when I read that is, how did he say that? Everybody think the same thought at once?

Like text message, group text message, a little text bubble appear above their head with a thumbs up. Is that how God separated them from ministry? It doesn't tell us. And I'm like, well, that's kind of frustrating. And I've told you, though, that I think that ambiguity is intentional.

In fact, I know it is for a couple of reasons. One, God never wants us to be super confident what we think we're hearing from the Holy Spirit. He wants us to submit that to other brothers and sisters who can help guide us because more havoc has been wreaked in the world following the words God just told me than probably any other phrase.

Right? The other reason is he never wants us to give what we think we're hearing from the Holy Spirit the same way to Scripture. So I think there is ambiguity, intentional ambiguity, about hearing from the Spirit. But while there is ambiguity in how we hear from the Spirit, there is no ambiguity in that we must. We have to hear from the Holy Spirit if we're going to experience that kind of power. And to know your specific calling, you've got to depend on Him to show you.

A couple weeks ago, we talked through this in Romans 12, I gave you some tools to help you begin to discover what that is. Here's one of the ones we looked at. I showed you this Venn diagram.

Remember this? Right? So we have ability, affinity, and affirmation. Ability is what you're good at. Just what you're naturally kind of good at. Affinity is what you're passionate about. What starts to move you?

What makes your heart beat faster? Or when you see a need or you see something, you're just like, I just want to go after that. Or affirmation is where other people in the church tell you that God is using you. That's how I discovered, by the way, the calling I had to preach. So I had this natural ability.

I had this passion for it. And other people were like, God uses you when you do that. And I discovered that's a spiritual gift. And that's how I shaped my life, which is a second tool.

This one comes from Rick Warren. He says that your shape is determined by your spiritual gifts. It's determined by your heart, which means the things that are your passions.

Right? I mean, there's things that just, again, make your heart beat faster than anybody else's. Your abilities, your abilities, your personality, and then your experiences. By the way, this experience is one. That's really important because some of you, God has allowed you to walk through some, in some cases, terrible things. But he did that so that you could learn a side, a healing, a comfort from him that you could share with others. Maybe that's a broken marriage. Maybe that's the loss of a child. Maybe it was the tragedy of something like an abortion.

Maybe it was a series of mistakes that you made. But you understand now how to minister to somebody out of those things. And that shape is what God puts in your heart. It's how he moves in you.

By the way, let me go back to this one for a minute. Nehemiah 2 12. Nehemiah talks about how God just gave him a passion to see the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt.

Never says God spoke Damascus road kind of thing. He just gave him this passion for it. You need to pay attention to those passions. There's something I get up here and talk about, something you see in the church and your heart's just like, that's gotta be fixed.

That's gotta be done. That is God's spirit moving inside of you because he is giving you that vision. You will never know your specific role in the mission until you understand the unique ways that God has shaped you and the distinctive gifts he's given you for the mission. The thing that you got to remember is whatever gifts you have, you've got to interpret it in light of the bigger picture of God's purposes that he stated in the world. And that is my Isaiah 52 15. I'm going to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. So whatever gift you have is part of that central mission because that is what God is doing. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer.

If you don't know much about us, be sure to visit jdgreer.com for more information. We're very excited to be in the third and final part of our teaching series through the book of Romans. And we'll get back to it in a minute. But first I wanted to make sure that you knew about this month's featured resource. It's the second volume of Pastor Tim Keller's devotional study through the book of Romans called In View of God's Mercy. It'll take you through the second half of Romans, highlighting chapters 8 through 16. And it features seven studies that are perfect for either your own Bible study or for use in a small group or discipleship setting. So don't miss this second part of Pastor Tim's Roman study. And if you did miss part one, just let us know and we can get that out to you as well. We'll send it your way with a gift of $35 or more to this ministry.

To give, call us now at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com today. Now let's jump back into Romans chapter 15 here on Summit Life. I did an illustration. I did a thing a few years ago here to illustrate this and I brought it up to a few of our pastors and literally none of them remembered it.

But I figured if they didn't remember it, most of us definitely won't. Okay. So I brought some of you up on stage.

I'm going to do it again, but I'm going to use some of our kids because kids are awesome, right? So I think they should be somewhere lurking in the back. Here they come. Put your hands together if you would and welcome brothers and sisters up here. Daniel, you hang out here for a minute. All right. Awesome. Okay. All right. So we're going to, I'm going to give you guys some different jobs. Have any of you ever been a fireman?

Like a legit fireman. Okay. Okay. So you're going to be our fire crew, or you know what a fireman is, right? Okay.

All right. So we're going to make you the company officer. You're going to be in charge, right? So you're going to, this is our fire truck.

There are five, at least as I understand it, I'm not a professional firefighter, but there are five major positions on a fire truck. Okay. So tell everybody your name. Caroline. Caroline, you are going to be the company officer, which means two things. One, you're in charge. Okay. And you got to be the first one that goes into the fire.

And the company officer is the one who breaks down the door and it's a pretty scary job. You think you can do that? Okay. So, so company officer, you got it, Caroline. Okay. All right. Wait, come on up here.

You're going to be the, tell her about your name. Whit. Whit. Good. You're going to be the, you're going to be the engineer.

The engineer gets to drive. You excited about that? Yep. Yeah. You ever driven a go-kart? Yep.

They say fire trucks are just like go-karts, so you should be fine. Okay. So, so, so Caroline, you're, you're right here in the passenger seat and Whit, you're in the front seat here.

We're going to stand you right there because you're the engineer and you drive. You got it. Okay. What's your name? Paige.

Paige. Okay. You are going to be the nozzle woman. Okay. All right. So the nozzle woman, we're going to put you right here. They stand on the side of the truck and they're the ones who aims the hose at where the fire is. Okay.

So I want you to kind of pretend like you're aiming the hose. Okay. I got it. So that's the congregation. There's fire right here.

Why don't we point it right there at that fire coming out of the, see the sign there, living with purpose. There you go. Okay.

What's your name? Addin. I knew that because you're my son. Okay. So Addin, you're going to be, you're going to be the backup firefighter. Now the main role, this is an important job. Don't worry about it.

Okay. But the main job of the backup firefighter is to make sure the hose doesn't get cranked. You know, sometimes we watch the car, the hose will get cranked and water comes out. Well, the backup firefighter has to make sure the hose stays.

So I need you to kind of take your arms out cause she's pointing the hose and you're going to kind of stand over here with her and you're going to, you're going to, there you go. That is a, that's a great backup firefighter. Okay. Your name? Chipper. Chipper.

That's a great name for our final job, which is the Tillerman. You know, have you ever seen one of those long fire trucks where they got a steering wheel in the back? You know, you ever seen that? Well, just take my word for it.

They do. Okay. And so it just means when you go around a corner, you got to turn just like the engineer does so that you don't like run over stuff. Okay. All right. So, so again, let's just tell everybody, I want you to tell everybody what your primary job is.

Okay. We'll start with you with engineer engineer. Well, you're in charge though, right? Company officer and you're, there you go. And I'm in charge of the hose. You're in charge of the hose. You're the nozzle woman. Okay. The hose person, the hose person, backup firefighter was the other way we talked about that. And I think I turned the wheel to turn the wheel.

The Tillerman. Okay. All right. Now let me ask you guys a really important question. I just asked you what your primary job was and you told me, but is that your main job? Is that really your main job?

Think about this for a minute. Is that really your primary job? What is your primary job? To stop the fire. To put out fires.

That is exactly right. That is your primary job because you're got an important job and you got an important job, but you're part of a team whose primary job is to put out fires. Does that make sense? Because what you're illustrating teaches the rest of us that God has given us different gifts and different roles, but we're all part of a church that has one mission. And that one mission is to see Jesus preached in every nation on earth. And whatever role we play is a part of that bigger role.

Right? You did a great job teaching that. Can you thank them for the way that they helped out? Thank you guys.

All right. So very simple way, right? Hopefully of, of that is what God has given you and me to do. And it's the easiest thing to forget.

Like I just, I want to know my personality. I want to do this, but I just forget. This is what God has called me to do. So whatever he's made you good at, whatever he's made you good at, it's a part of that grand mission, right?

Everything is aimed at that. We've all got a role in it. Some of us are called to go to the front lines.

We need more of those. Some of us are called to reach people here. Some of us need to help build the church and sin, but everything is aimed at fulfilling verse 21 that those who have not heard will hear.

John Piper, who again, I've quoted a couple of times already says, when it comes to the great commission, when it comes to the great commission, there's only three options. Go send or disobey, go send or disobey. And here's the thing. Those of us who were called to send have to be every bit as committed to the mission as those who were called to go. You hear the stories of our missionaries.

Here's the question you need to ask yourself. Are you as committed to the great commission as they are? William Carey.

And I reference this a lot here. William Carey, the father of the modern missions movement. He told the church that sent him out in 1790. I'm willing to dangle on the end of the rope as your representative in India to take the gospel to a place where Christ is not known. But you got to promise to hold securely to the other end of that rope.

And if they're going to be as committed as they are and dangling out there, and we got to be committed to doing what it takes to get them there. That's where Paul turns in these last few verses. Notice in verses 25 to 27, he takes up an offering. He takes up an offering. He's like, I'm going to take up an offering because while maybe you're not going, you're going to help support those who go. Are you as sacrificial and giving as our missionaries are and going? Verse 30. Paul urges these Roman Christians who were called to say the urgent of the prayer.

Watch this. Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through the love of the spirit to strive together with me in fervent prayers to God on my behalf. Strive together with me. I'm going to be the one that's out there. I'm going to be the one that's proclaiming the gospel, but you got to strive. You got to stand right by my side and you got to pray. You've got to labor as much in prayer as I do in the calling that God has given a few other handles for what you're supposed to do with what I've shared with you. Here's number one. If you want to jot these things down, just a few very quick, applicable action steps.

Number one, you need to ask the question. Ask the question, what has God called me to do? We've never stopped to think about that. By the way, it's never too late to ask this question. When Paul writes this, he's 60. He's 60 years old. He probably had to learn Latin.

He probably, chances are he didn't know it. He's having to do something new, so I don't care if you're 60 years old. You got to ask God, what are you calling me to do? I want my life not to be wasted. Number two, you got to practice the spiritual gifts that you have.

It's interesting. Paul didn't start out with this level of exclusivity, of this narrower of a focus. Paul started out doing a lot of things in the church, and that's how most of us start out. Then as you get involved in different ministries, God begins to narrow it.

I feel like for me, every year that kind of focus gets more narrow, narrower and narrower. If you're 20 years old and you don't know exactly what God's called you to, that's fine. You need to get involved practicing the spiritual gifts you have because God steers moving ships. As you step out in obedience, he's going to give you the clarity that you're looking for. Number three, you got to heed the ministry dreams God's put in your heart. You got to heed them. Those passions are in there for a reason.

Your heart picks up and beats quick. That's the Holy Spirit saying, this is something I want you to pay attention to. You need to heed those ministry dreams. By the way, even if some of them are never fulfilled, God will use your pursuit of them to accomplish his purposes.

Here's why I say that. Paul never made it to Spain, even though that was his dream. Yet the fact that he was planning to go to Spain caused him to write a letter that is now known as the book of Romans that has taught more people about the gospel and moved more people out into mission than anything else written in human history. So yeah, God did not allow Paul to personally fulfill his dream to go to Spain, but God used his pursuit of it to do impossibly more than he could ever imagine. That's always what God does.

So you need to start pursuing that dream that God puts in your heart and let God use it in the way that he wants. Number four, you got to go on mission trips. That's a great way to see what God is doing around the world.

Number five, consider what we call go-to. That's where we say, take your first two years after you graduate and spend it intentionally on one of our church plans, either in the United States or around the world. In fact, we've kind of taken this national and there's a website called gotoyears.net where you can, whether you want to feel like it's going to be international in a city like Detroit or Denver or Fort Lauderdale, or whether it's somewhere overseas, there are ways that you can get connected.

Again, we're doing this all over the nation. By the way, there's a track on there for people that are entering retirement. Why not take the first two years of your retirement and serve somewhere helping on one of these church plans? Sometimes mission teams feel like Lord of the Flies and we need some adults out there that are just there to say, hey, I've lived a life and I want to be here to help steward this movement so there's a place for you. Number six, if you're called to stay, and at least for the time being that's I am, I'm not called to go internationally right now, I need you to take that assignment seriously.

As seriously as the people who are taken, who are out there. When it comes to the Great Commission Friends Summit, there's only three options, go, send, or disobey. And those of us who are called to send have to be every bit as committed to this purpose, this mission, as those who go. Because God has one purpose He is pursuing and that is His name being known by all the nations.

That's the firetruck. We all got different jobs but one major purpose and that is to make Him known. It's never too late to ask the question, what has God called you to?

As you walk in obedience to Him, God will clarify your purpose. You're listening to Pastor JD Greer here on Summit Life. This month's featured resource is part two of Pastor Tim Keller's Romans Bible study. Recently I asked Pastor JD if our listeners can still get part one of that study that we offered earlier this year and here's what he had to say. I mean what we're offering right now is the second part of the study guide and we'll do that when you donate when you go to jdgreer.com.

But if you missed the first part of this we'd love to make sure that you get that as well so just let us know when you donate if you missed that and we'll make sure you get you get both parts. Each of these studies walks you through about a dozen questions that really help you, just you with the Holy Spirit and your Bible get into the meat of the scripture. In addition to giving you some application and some prayer prompts and it's a great study. I think you'll get even more out of Romans if you use it. You can use it as an individual, you can use it with a group, you can listen to the messages I'm preaching and then use the study guide to take you back through the same verses so that you can continue to soak in them.

The second volume is going to cover chapters 8 through 16 of Romans and take us all the way to the end. Visit jdgreer.com today to reserve your copy. To donate simply call us at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com to give your gift online. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us again Wednesday as we begin to wrap up our teaching series through the book of Romans here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.