Truth That Changes Lives

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Galatians. Let's listen in as JP gives part two of "What Is Your Story?"

JP Jones: Colossians 2:6 and 7 says, "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, being firmly rooted and being established and overflowing in your life in Him." Every follower of Jesus Christ is to be growing in that relationship with Jesus Christ. There is to be an increasing measure where the fruit of the Spirit is demonstrated in our life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This is evidence that God's life is within us and we're going to be growing and experiencing more and more of this life. In 1 John chapter 2, John is writing to his audience and he says, "I write to you children, you are strong and you've overcome the evil one. I write to you young men because the word of God abides in you. I write to you fathers because you have resisted the evil one." He says again, "I write to you children, I write to you young men, I write to you fathers."

John is telling us there's a paradigm of growth. We start off as children, we grow to be young men, and then we become fathers. We spiritually reproduce ourselves. Every new person in Christ is a child. They grow to be a young adult and then they are to become a father, a reproducer. That is a pattern that God has for every Christian. Crossing the line is the first step, and then there's a whole lot of steps that follow that.

Crossing the line is the first phase of becoming a world changer. It's experiencing grace and God's call on your life, and then you're to grow and mature in that. That is a phase in the process that God has in making you the person He wants you to be for His kingdom purposes.

Here's a third phase. Galatians chapter 2, Paul says, "Fourteen years later." There was a period of time when he first came to Christ. That was followed by a couple of weeks and a three-year period, and then he says, "Now, fourteen years later, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.

"But I did this privately to those who seem to be leaders for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some of the false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you."

Paul now is talking about a very important visit that he makes to Jerusalem. It's recorded for us in Acts chapter 15, and what took place there is what's known as the Jerusalem Council. Here's a little background of this passage from the book of Acts that then comes together in Galatians chapter 2 to help us understand this next phase. Paul in Acts chapter 9 is on the road to Damascus. He's going to persecute Christians. He's a zealot. That's his past.

He meets Jesus Christ, has an encounter with Christ. Grace is infused into his life. He comes to believe in Jesus. He's saved and he's called to ministry. He goes up for that first little visit, then he's off in the desert for a while. He's experiencing what God's doing in his life. He's in that second phase of growth and discipleship. Barnabas, who joined the apostolic band, was sent off to Antioch because some Gentiles heard the gospel and were coming to faith.

All of a sudden this great movement takes place in Antioch and all these people are believing and exciting things are happening. Barnabas says, "I'm kind of in over my head here. I'm an encourager, I love people, but I'm not a real Bible teacher. I need somebody who can come and give people the meat." He remembers Paul. This guy was awesome and this guy was born running. He goes and finds Paul, and Paul joins him and they've got a co-pastor situation at the church at Antioch.

Now, what happens? Acts chapter 13. In Acts 13, there's a group of leaders who are praying, they're fasting, they're seeking God. The Holy Spirit says, "Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work I have for them." Barnabas and Paul get called out to be missionaries. Acts 13 and 14, they are on their first missionary journey. They go as they'd kind of been trained, what they'd experienced, what was comfortable for them. They first went to the Jews.

They told them about Jesus. A lot of them believed in Jesus as their Messiah, but it seemed like they got more response from Gentiles. So they told them about grace and they saw all these miraculous things happen: life change, people believing in Jesus as their Messiah and experiencing changed life. Now Acts chapter 15 rolls around and the church gets together and says, "We need a big meeting to decide what's going on here."

At first, this was just a bunch of Jewish people believing in Yeshua, their Messiah. Now we've got all these Gentiles who are believing in Jesus. We've got to figure something out. Do you first have to become a Jew before you can become a Christian? Is that the message that we've got to tell the Gentiles? First you've got to convert to Judaism and then you become a Christ follower as your Messiah.

Paul goes up there and says, "No way, Jose! It is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. There's no religious rule-keeping, there's no law-keeping, there's no good works. There's nothing else you add to the equation. It's not grace plus faith plus Jewish law; it's grace plus faith, period." You get the feeling here in Galatians 2, when you read this passage we looked at and the next passage, there was a little energy behind the scenes in some of these discussions.

It wasn't like, "Oh, we're all just Christian leaders here, so we have no friction among ourselves. We just all get along. Isn't it beautiful?" No, they were arguing about this stuff because apparently some of these legalistic people said, "You've got to become Jews. You've got to keep these rules. You've got to follow the law." It was actually putting pressure on some of the church leaders in Jerusalem to say, "Let's just not make waves. Let's just make it easy. Let's not have to get out of our comfort zone."

Paul said, "No, I'm willing to fight you on this one, because it is by grace through faith, period." After a lot of discussion, you read in Acts 15 and Galatians 2, they settled: that's it, it's just by grace through faith. Paul's telling us here what transpired between Acts 11 to Acts 15, such that he could go in Acts 15 and stand with the apostles and say, "I think you guys are starting to waffle on something you shouldn't waffle on. This is what we need to believe and this is it."

This is the guy who was the persecutor of the church. Grace got revealed to him. He was growing. Then he entered into a third season or a third phase, and this third phase is this: service, leadership development, and testing. What took place between Acts 11 and Acts 15 was that the apostle Paul not only was continuing to grow spiritually, but he was discovering his spiritual gifts. He was stepping out of his comfort zone and serving God.

He was seeing God produce fruit, and he was assuming roles of leadership. He was getting pushback, and he was getting tested. He had some successes and he had some failures, and he was growing through all of it, becoming the leader that God had planned for him to be. That's a very necessary phase that God has for every Christ follower. God wants us to become world changers. Jesus said it this way in Matthew chapter 9, saw the harvest out there and He says, "The harvest really is bad. It's a bad harvest. So any old person can get out there and try to make it better."

Obviously He didn't say that. He said, "The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest." Do you realize Jesus said there's nothing wrong with the harvest? The problem is workers. We need more workers. We need more servant leaders who will join God's kingdom plan and get out there and use the gifts that God has given them to serve Him as God has called us to serve. That's the point.

God has a plan for our lives. The first phase is saved and called to ministry. The second phase is discipleship and growth. The third phase is this phase of serving and leadership development and testing. It's in this phase that we discover that the gifts that God has given to us are stewardship gifts. In other words, everything we have has been given to us by God. James 1 says every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shifting shadow.

Every relationship, every material blessing, every financial blessing, every spiritual endowment, every spiritual gift is something that God has given to you. 1 Peter 4 says He's given it to us as a stewardship of grace. He's given it to us to give away to others. He's given it to us to use for His glory. 1 Peter 4 says that as everyone has been gifted by God because of His grace, he is to use his gifts as an administration or stewardship of grace to the glory of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak the very words of God. If anyone serves, let him serve with all the power that God gives so that in all things, God may be glorified. It's at this phase that we really come to understand life is not about me; it is about God. I'm not just growing spiritually for my own self-actualization so that I can have a happy life. It's about service. It's about giving it away. It's about paying forward. It's about leaving a legacy.

It's about doing something that'll count for eternity. It's about loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving my neighbor as I love myself. That's what it's all about. We step more and more into the niche that God has for us in that. Paul's telling us his story and his story has become God's story. God has a story for every one of us. Here's the fourth and final phase in becoming a world changer.

Galatians 2:6 to 10: "As for those who seem to be important, whatever they were makes no difference to me. God does not judge by external appearance. Those men added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles.

"James, Peter, and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." Paul reveals now to us the fourth and final phase that God has in developing a person. It's called the apostolic vision.

Remember, this is the guy who said there was a time when I was zealous in the Jewish religion. I persecuted the church of God. In fact, Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 1, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost, because I persecuted the church of the living God. Paul never forgot where he came from. He understood the grace that God was extending to him in Christ.

He came out of that and then he began to grow and follow Christ and mature. Then he began to discover how God had given him gifts. He began to use those gifts and he realized he'd been called to be a witness for Christ. He began to share his faith and God started doing things through his life. Then he realized, "I need to make a difference with my life. I've been called to be a differ-maker. I need to stand up for this message of grace through faith."

Then he realized, "I need to own this because this is what God's called me to do, and I can't do anything else but do this. I have to do what God's called me to do with my life." At that point, he had the apostolic vision. The word "apostle" is a Greek word that means "to be sent with a message," to have a sense of being sent with a message. There were the unique apostles, those whom Christ appointed, but that doesn't mean they're the only apostles.

We have an apostolic vision when we sense God has given us a call on our life and we have to do it because God's called us to do it. We have to do it. There's no other option. There's no Plan B. We have to do this. It's like when Cortez came to Mexico and all his men got off the ships. What did he do? Burn the ships. No going back, gang; we're moving forward.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul says, "If I preach the gospel voluntarily, I get a reward. But even if I don't feel like doing it, I need to do it because it's a stewardship that has been given to me by God. In fact, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." The apostolic vision is when we come to a place in our life that we sense God's called us to do something and we have that "woe is me if I don't do it." Woe is me if I don't do it.

Now, what that is is unique to you because it's God's call on you, and it's unique to me because it's God's call on me. But God wants to take every person from being a lost person—whether they're a worldly pagan, a good moral person, or religious zealot—wants to take them out of that darkness into light in salvation and then call them into a process of spiritual growth and discipleship, of gift discovery and leadership development, into the phase of being an apostle with a vision, someone who knows where they're going and can persuade others to go along with them.

That's what God wants to do. That's what it means to be a world changer: to be a person who knows where they're going and can persuade others to go along with you. God's desire is to change this world for His kingdom, and He's looking for people who will join Him in the process. The call of Christ for salvation is a call of ministry. It's a call to spiritual growth and discipleship. It's a call to gift discovery and leadership development, and it's a call to develop an apostolic vision.

That's what God has for us, and that's where God wants to take each one of us. So here are three key questions that are takeaways for us. Number one: what phase am I in right now? What phase am I in right now? For some of us, we may be like Paul at the beginning. We may be living as a religious zealot but separated from God, or living as a good moral person but not in a relationship with God, or living like a worldly pagan but separated from God.

We need to cross the line and become followers of Jesus. We need to open up our hearts to God's grace. We need to make that exchange where it's about me to it being about God. We're in that phase where we need to give our lives fully to Jesus Christ and ask Him to be our Lord and Savior because of His grace. Or maybe we're in the phase where we need to grow deep and become a follower who lives out his discipleship or her discipleship in increasing measure so that we experience more and more of that grace in every area of our life.

We think like Jesus and speak like Jesus and make decisions like Jesus and walk in the steps of Jesus. We're really growing; we're the real deal. Our light's shining before men and others are seeing our good works and it's glorifying our Father in heaven. Others of us might be serving God in some way, discovering the gifts that He's given to us, realizing that life's not just about me, it is about other people. I'm learning to give that away and I'm embracing increasingly a life of service.

I'm stepping more and more into leadership opportunities and witnessing opportunities and actually influencing other people for Christ. Others of us, we know what God has called us to do, and nothing's going to stop us. For the rest of our lives, it's about making the biggest difference we can for Christ. That apostolic vision may be being a parent who imparts to your kids and into your grandkids that may come in the future a love for Christ and a total surrender to Christ, that you have a vision to be a mom or a dad that really makes a difference in your family.

That vision may be that you want to be a coach that influences kids for Christ, uses that platform to build young people who'll follow Christ with their whole life. Maybe that vision is "I want to use all the resources I have to make a difference in the world. I want to give away. I don't want to hoard. I want to support churches and para-churches and missions organizations. I want to give as much money as I possibly can give away in my lifetime to make a difference for the kingdom."

Or maybe it's "I want to live the second half of my life not about being a success, but being significant, doing everything I can to make a difference for eternity in the second half of my life with all the stuff that God's given to me." Maybe, like Paul, it's to go be a missionary. Maybe God's put a desire in your heart that you need to step out of your comfort zone and what's been comfortable for you, go into a whole new vocation and serve Christ full-time.

I don't know what it is, but I believe that God has a plan and purpose for every person. God gives every person spiritual gifts and times and resources. God wants every person to not only follow Him and grow in Him and use their gifts, He wants to give us an apostolic vision for how we're a part of His kingdom plan and we're making a difference for eternity in people's lives. So the first question is, what phase am I in? Second question is, what is God wanting to build in my life right now?

What is God wanting to build into my life right now? And the third question is, what's my next step? What's my next step? Let me tell you: it is out of your comfort zone. If you think your next step is something that doesn't bring any level of fear, it's not the next step. God wants to take us out of our comfort zone to experience the plan that He has for our life. It's a plan to make us, to mold us, to grow us, to use us to become world changers for His kingdom purpose.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, "Facing Goliath." Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. Did you know that every believer has the potential of becoming a world changer for Christ? That's right. God wants to take our lives and change us to make us more like Jesus and to build the very life of Jesus within us, and then He wants to use us to radiate that life and the light of Christ to a lost world. God wants to take your life and use you as a kingdom builder, to use you as a world changer for Christ.

God has a pattern. He takes lost people and brings them to salvation. He takes new believers and grows them up to be disciples. He takes disciples and He empowers them to be servants. He takes servants and He trains them to become reproducing spiritual leaders. It's a pattern of spiritual growth and service that God has for every believer. It's a pattern that was played out in Paul's life as he explains it in the book of Galatians.

It's a pattern that I've seen played out in my life. It's the pattern that I've had the privilege of seeing played out in the lives of many, many believers. You see, God has a kingdom plan, and it's a plan to bring people to salvation and to bring people to a place of maturity and to make people more and more like Christ. In fact, in Romans chapter 8, it says this: "Those whom He foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that they might be the firstborn among many brothers.

"And those that He called, these He also saved. Those He saved, He also justified. Those He justified, He also glorified." From God's perspective, we have not only already come to salvation, we've not only already been sanctified, we've already been glorified. God sees our salvation as a complete package, and that's true not only of us who have already come to Christ; it's true of people who have yet to even be saved. Our sovereign God has a plan to transform us. You can be a part of that transforming plan by today surrendering your life to Christ and to His purposes, today saying yes to His grace. Would you do that? Lord Jesus, thank You for the plan that You have and thank You for Your grace. Change me to be more like Christ. Amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.