Jamison Creel | Missionary Partner to Greece
Jamison Creel | Missionary Partner to Greece
Sermon Summary
Pastor Creel opened with a warm word of honor for the Gateway congregation, framing his missionary work as one part of the larger body of Christ. He explained that the church's faithful giving — including a generous offering back in 2021 — provided the seed money that launched his ministry on the Greek island of Samos, located just one kilometer off the Turkish coast. From that vantage point, he and his team meet Muslim refugees fleeing Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran with the gospel as soon as they cross out of the Muslim world. He shared images of a new ministry facility, shipping-container classrooms set up on rented farmland near the refugee camp, and packed gatherings of women and children. The fruit, he noted, has been remarkable: where his earlier work in Israel might see one or two Muslims baptized in a year, his ministry now sees that many in a month, sometimes ten or eleven.
From there, Pastor Creel moved into his central biblical message, an ambitious sweep from Genesis to Revelation. He began with God declaring creation "very good" — pointing out that the Hebrew doubling of the word indicates purest goodness — and observed that this harmony between Creator and creation lasted only briefly before sin shattered it. From that moment forward, God enacted a long redemptive plan: a man (Abraham), a family, a nation, a Messiah, and ultimately a people sent into all the world.
He then spent significant time on what life under the Old Covenant actually looked like. For 1,400 years, approaching God's presence required ritual cleanliness, sacrificial offerings, and a tiered system of access in the temple — courtyard, then Jews only, then men, then priests, then the high priest alone, once a year. Encountering God was difficult, layered, and tightly regulated.
Everything changed at the cross. When the temple veil tore from top to bottom, God symbolically vacated the building and inaugurated a new contract. The blood once applied to temple furniture is now applied to believers themselves. Quoting Paul, Pastor Creel emphasized that Christians have become God's temple — mobile dwelling places of the Holy Spirit. He marveled that believers can now cry "Abba, Father" and approach God casually, in any moment of need, without ritual or priest.
He challenged the congregation, however, not to take this access for granted. Drawing on Revelation 3 and Christ's rebuke of the Laodicean church, he explained the geography behind the famous "lukewarm" image — Hierapolis with its useful hot springs to the north, Colossae with its useful cold springs to the south, and Laodicea's tepid, mineral-laden water in between. The call, he urged, is to be useful: to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission rather than coasting in comfortable self-sufficiency.
Pastor Creel closed on Revelation 3:20, lamenting how often believers leave Jesus standing on the porch — pushed aside by sin, busyness, or distraction. Relationship with Christ, he reminded the congregation, is built simply: time spent, words exchanged, and shared participation in His kingdom work.