Working Together

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We're gonna be starting or continuing our sermon on Ephesians four, our sermon series on Ephesians four called Together. But first I wanna tell you about twins. I have twins. These twins are amazing twins. I gotta picture those twins. There they are, there they are. Look how cute, oh my gosh. Sorry, I can't dote in public a lot, but here I am. On the left you have cash, on the right you have canon. They are twins, they are seniors in high school this year. And because they are twins, they are very similar. There's a lot of ways that they are the same. They both love board games. They are both very good at running a sound board and lights in the tech program at school. And they both really enjoy working at ACE Hardware on Helen Street. So if you're ever at ACE Hardware on Helen Street, you can look, those two cuties with the red vest on, it's gonna be amazing. Okay, at the same time though, at the same time,

they are similar, they are also very different from each other. Canon is detailed, thoughtful, deliberate. Canon's gonna give you the best birthday present that you didn't even know that you wanted. Like, because she'd sensed you thought about it three years ago, okay? Like that's, right? Cash is carefree. Cash is peaceable and cash will wrestle spontaneously. Okay, if you wanna wrestle right now, okay? You just ask, you'd be like, Cash, can we wrestle? I mean, odds are he'd do it. That's how they're very, very, very different from one another. Last week, we started this series on together and we talked about how God has a plan for us collectively, right? So that sometimes when we talk about God's plan for us, we talk about God's plan for us personally, okay? So God has a plan for your life, still true, but there's more. God has a plan for people generally, right?

God created us, he created people to work a certain way. For example, like he created people to rest on the Sabbath, okay? To take a Sabbath. When you take a Sabbath, you are agreeing with how you were created, okay? So that's God's plan for kind of people generally. I'm not talking about either one of those exactly. In this sermon series, we were talking about God's plan for us collectively. God has a plan for our church specifically, for churches specifically, to be one body. For us each to play an integral role in being the body collectively as a local church, as Christians. And to emphasize this one body, if you look at Ephesians four, verses four through six, and they're not gonna be up there, but it says that there is one, one many times, it says one body, one spirit, one hope to which you have been called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

It uses the same word, one, several times. And it does that specifically to drive the point home. We are one body. We have a singular focus. We are pointed in exactly one direction, okay? Here in verse seven, we switch from the ways that we are similar to the ways that we are dissimilar. Look at verse seven, Ephesians four, verse seven. It's right after all the ones. It says, but grace was given to each one, each one of us according to the measure of Christ gift. It's a different word in the Greek. It's a different understanding. It's a left turn. It's a hard break. In verse seven, we are talking about something very different, that our one body, life, is actually made up of very diverse gifts. These gifts are not even close to the same thing. To understand those gifts, we need to understand the fact that we are one body. We talked about that last week. And if you were not here last week,

you can look it up on Spotify. You can look it up on our website, our sermon from last week. But today, as we look at Ephesians four, seven through 12, we're gonna see that these gifts are super important. There's a plan behind these gifts. God has a plan kind of baked into these gifts. We're gonna look at these gifts and to understand how they all interlock. And we're also gonna look at these gifts and there's a genius to them. So there's a genius to them, the gifts all interlock, and there's a big plan behind them. As we do, as we see all of that, we're gonna stumble upon something pretty important, this real important truth, that our church, and I really, I want you to catch this. Our church, using its gifts, is of the utmost importance. In fact, it's a matter of life and death.

Our church, using our gifts, is of the utmost importance. In fact, it's a matter of life and death. I wanna show you how that's true. So let's begin again in verse seven and go into verse eight. Ephesians four, seven and eight says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

So we talk about how it's each one, but now it's each one according to the measure of Christ's gift. So in other words, Jesus is handing out these gifts as he sees fit. And to show that, to illustrate that, it starts to quote the Old Testament. In fact, it is quoting Psalm 68:18. And 6818 says this, it says, you ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men. It's kinda strange because whenever we read the quote in Ephesians four, eight, it didn't say receiving, it said gave. It says he gave gifts to men. In fact, go back and look at verse seven and eight right there, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And now look at Psalm 68:18 again. It says that he led a host of captives, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men. Why change receiving to gave?

Are we misquoting Psalm 68:18? No. Is it just written wrong? Do we have an error in scripture? No. There's actually a little bit of debate about what's happening here. The solution comes whenever you go all the way to the end of Psalm 68. Look at the last verse, Psalm 68, 6835, it says awesome is God from his sanctuary, the God of Israel, he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.

What's happening in Psalm 68? Well, we do the same thing in English. Let me show you. If you're talking about a car, sometimes you just call it wheels. That might be an old term, okay? But some of you might remember that back that far, okay? You just say, yeah, it's a set of wheels, right? Well, it's a whole car, but we talk about it in terms of a set of wheels. If we're talking about an army, soldiers, we talk about boots on the ground, okay? So in English, this is something called synecdoche, okay? Which is a dumb name, because it's hard to say. But synecdoche just means that it's a small thing that's representing a big thing. So boots represent soldiers, wheels represent car, small represent something greater going on. Here he is quoting part of Psalm 68 to reference all of Psalm 68. So he changes, he does it kind of economically, he changes just that last part to understand

all of Psalm 68. In other words, what he is saying here by quoting Psalm 68, 18 in Ephesians 4, verse 8, he is saying cleverly by quoting all of Psalm 68, he is saying that Jesus fulfills all of Psalm 68, that Jesus Christ is the victorious king. And instead of receiving gifts, as is his right, if you were a victorious king, and you're coming on, you got your captives in your train, right? It's a victorious march, it's a parade. It is his right as king to receive gifts, to be showered with gifts. That's normal, that's right, that's good. What's happening here is instead of receiving them, he's giving them. Verses nine and 10, we see why Jesus is giving these gifts. How is he the fulfillment of Psalm 68? Nine and 10, Ephesians 4, it says, in saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth, he who descended is the one

who also ascended far above all the heavens, and here's why, catch it. That he might fill all things. Jesus is the victorious king, he goes up high, I'm sorry, he, excuse me, he comes down into the earth, he ascends on high, he's the victorious king, that he might fill all things. This is the big plan behind Jesus's one-body emphasis. Jesus plans to fill all things by giving gifts to his church. And this idea of filling all things, it sounds super vague, it's actually all over the book of Ephesians, in Ephesians 1:10 it says that there is a plan to unite all things in Christ, that there is a plan of reconciliation to bring all things kind of under Jesus, that he's bringing people together to reconcile them to God. We see in chapter one, verse 23, that the church is Christ's body, the church is Christ's body, and the church is the fullness of him who fills all,

that the church is being filled by Jesus, that the way that Jesus wants to reconcile all people to himself is specifically through his church. And it's not just there, it's a couple other places. But Jesus is singling out the church specifically to do this, to bring people to himself. And in fact, in chapter two, Ephesians 2:22, we talk about the church being built together into a temple, the church is being built together to become a dwelling place for God. And we see in 3.9 that the plan for the church is to display God's wisdom to the whole world. So Jesus has a big plan to display this reconciliation that he's bringing about through his church. Let's put this all together with Psalm 68. Let me just help you understand this, that Jesus came down and ascended victorious so that, specifically so that he could give gifts to his church as a part of his larger plan

of redeeming creation and of displaying his goodness. Let me say that one more time. Jesus came down and ascended as victorious king so that he could give gifts to his church as part of a plan of redeeming everybody. The reason that we have these gifts here is not a small thing, and this is what I mean whenever I said it's a matter of life and death is because you and I, our church, every church actually, needs to learn their gifting and work in that gifting because people are lost and dying apart from God.

If that were not so, you and I, learning our gifts and being one body would be no big deal. It would be an exercise in feel good and let's all kind of be a family and enjoy each other, and that's fine as far as it goes. But Jesus is saying it goes much further. It doesn't just stop there. It's not just about you feeling like you have a family. It's not just you feeling like I've got a good vibe in this place. It's not about that. It's about more than that. It's about us being a part of a plan of redemption

that is going to infiltrate and help decide everybody's life that has ever existed, life or death. So let's learn our gifts. And they're listed for us in Ephesians chapter four, verses 11 and 12. Now I need to say this before I read this, any time you encounter a list of gifts, I will tell you, no two are the same. Okay? This is not, they're in Romans 12, First Corinthians 12, Ephesians four, there are a couple other places, but this is not like the other two gifts lists and the other two lists aren't like this. And so we'll talk about this in particular, but what I don't want you to do is look at this gift list and go, okay, this is just like Romans 12 and you start superimposing upon that and it's not what it's about. Okay. Now that I've confused you thoroughly, let's read a list, okay? Sorry. It says, and he gave, these are the gifts, and he gave the apostles, the prophets,

the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Okay? These gifts are more like tools, they are tool gifts, right? They are more like gear and they are not positions. Okay? They are more like gear and they are not positions, like official capital P positions. That's actually pretty important. It sounds like a small detail, it is not, it's a huge distinction. They are like tools, they are gear, okay? They are tools because they are gifts for lots of people. Verse seven, verse seven, remember, Ephesians 4-7, it said, to each one, meaning all of us, to each one, that God has given these gifts out, all of us, okay? The prophecy in Joel says, I'm gonna put out my spirit on all flesh. In other words, Jesus is not equipping the church through a select few, he's equipping the church through all of us.

That's a really important distinction. In verse eight it says, he gave gifts to men, and this is allusion, again, to Psalm 68, where the victorious king is just handing out things to everybody, not to a select few, not to his homecoming court, not to specific people to everybody that is there. And the reasons that they are not positioned specifically is because if that were true, then we would have a select few kind of set of people, like in a church our size, it'd be like, there's only six people that are going to equip the rest of you, and that's not, in fact, that is the exact opposite of what he's talking about here. Jesus came down and ascended so that we could all share in this work, and that is very important because how you and I read that is going to determine what we think our place should be, what we think our responsibility should be. And if we think it's just a select few people,

then if you believe that, then you think my job is to do church stuff and your job is to attend it. No, sir. Drew's shaking his head over here, Drew's got my back on this, no. No, that's not it. That's not it. I don't do it, Pastor Daniel doesn't do church stuff, and then you guys just all kind of come and like check it out, like, oh, cool, church things. Right? No, man, no. We all equip for ministry and we all do it together. Okay, we all share in that work. And I want you to see, that's that big plan. And I also want to show you these gifts, and I want to show you how they interlock, how they kind of work together to equip the saints

and to build up the body. To do that, I'm going to need to define them. And to define them, I need to not get lost in the weeds here, okay, because the first two tend to need a larger explanation and more context than the last three. Okay, because when you say apostle, there's some things that you can mean, and there's some things that you cannot mean. And when you say prophet, again, there are some things you can mean and some things you cannot mean. So, apostle, it's helpful, it's helpful for apostle and prophet both to think about them in terms of a timeline. Okay, a timeline. So here's the apostle timeline, okay. The apostle timeline starts in Acts two, okay. In Acts two, Jesus has ascended, and the Holy Spirit has come upon people, and the church is birthed, it's a brand new thing. And now you have what are called apostles, capital A apostles, right. These people, these men are people

that have first-hand knowledge. And immediately after Jesus ascends, this is very helpful because these first-hand knowledge guys, these people that hung out with Jesus all the time, they have high, they have, excuse me, eye witness authority. And so these capital A apostles in Acts two, they are writing Bible and they are teaching authoritatively. Okay, they are writing Bible, so they're writing much of the New Testament. So the book of Ephesians we're reading was written by the apostle Paul, okay. You have other books that are written by the apostle John, the apostle Peter, okay. You have these guys, these capital A apostles, it is a title and it means something. And it meant something in Acts two. But by the time you get to Acts 14, it starts to mean something a little bit different. It's about halfway through the book. And it's not uppercase, it's not lowercase,

it's about middle uppercase, okay. It just kinda depends on the context you're in, okay. I know there's no such thing, all right. You English teachers are just, you're just rolling your eyes right now, okay. Middle uppercase, of course. In Acts 14, you have Barnabas call that apostle, but we know Barnabas didn't have first hand eyewitness account. We know that Barnabas was not one of the originals. We know that. And so how was he an apostle? Well, that word apostle can also mean somebody who is sent, a sent one. The verb apostilon means to be sent, okay. So quite literally, the word apostle means sent one. People who were sent. And about halfway through the book of Acts, that's starting to happen, okay. By the time you get to Acts 16 and the later church letters, so this is like 2 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians, just the later church letters, it is full on a lowercase apostle

because after Acts 16, the word apostle's not even used. Again, at all. It's exiting from the church vocabulary. In 2 Corinthians 8, 23, that word is translated as messengers, ones who are sent, okay. So by Ephesians 4, we have to determine where on the timeline is Ephesians 4. And it's a good solid, maybe it could be, okay. There's no way to kind of, you know, like nail it down.

I would say that in this context right here, it is middle, uppercase. Just kidding. It is a lowercase a. That it is not apostle capital A. It doesn't say here in Ephesians 4 that one of the gifts that is given to the church to equip the saints who were working ministry and to build up the body of Christ are capital A apostles, okay. Let me just tell you, according to many other things, that is not still happening. If somebody says to you, I'm a capital A apostle and I'm writing Bible, shake their hand, tell them have a good day and end the conversation, okay, as tactful as possible. Don't follow that, that's not good. There are no more capital A apostles, okay. Now they might mean something specific by that. You can ask them a question about it, that's fine. But man, that's, if somebody's saying like, I'm authoritatively speaking the word of God, like I'm writing new words of God.

No, prophet. Prophet. Old Testament prophets, New Testament, this is much more straight line, the prophet timeline, upper case P prophets. These are people that are speaking directly for God to the people. So this is Isaiah, this is Hosea, this is Ezekiel, this is Daniel, okay, these are guys with books in the Old Testament, these are Old Testament prophets. And we confuse this with fortune telling, right, because much of what they were saying to people was what was going to happen in the future, okay. So being a prophet doesn't mean you're a fortune teller, doesn't mean you tell a future for a living, it just means specifically in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it means specifically that you speak God's words to people, right. That you speak God's word to people. So in the New Testament we have something different. Because of the Holy Spirit we have people

that are prophets kind of in the New Testament, so you have Agabus who's a prophet, he's in Acts 6. You have the four daughters of Philip in Acts 21 that are prophetesses, okay, capital P, like their call that's kind of a title for them. But a New Testament prophet is different than an Old Testament prophet, because a New Testament prophet, because we all have the Holy Spirit, it is somebody giving a word, it is somebody speaking God's word to you, but it's not something that has to like come true or they're a false prophet, okay, that's not the idea, that's not what's going on. That's Old Testament prophet. Old Testament prophet saying this is definitely gonna come to pass and then the Old Testament law says that didn't come to pass, that prophet would be put to death, okay. We are not in the Old Testament anymore, okay. We are in the New Testament. And so God has given prophets to our church,

he's given apostles to our church, right. But we need to understand very specifically these are lower case apostles and prophets. It still means something, it's so important, it's still life and death. But let's not confuse them with lower case and upper case, okay. So let me show you how they interlock, okay. We're gonna like quickly define all five, very quickly define all five and then I'm gonna give you some examples, okay. So these are tools that interlock, excuse me. The apostles are going to network and create, they're gonna bridge build, okay. They're gonna go down new ministry avenues. Prophets are going to discern and correct. They're going to distinguish between something that is honoring to God or something that maybe is questionable, okay. Prophets tend to be very black white kind of people. Evangelists, they're going to speak and they're going to persuade.

They're gonna communicate the gospel effectively and they're gonna do it inside of a particular context. Evangelists are gonna understand to whom they are speaking, just have a knack for that more than most. Shepherds are going to care and counsel. They're gonna build kind of this infrastructure of support. Teachers are going to instruct and align, okay. I want you to see two things. I want you to see that these gifts are very different from each other and I want you to see how all of these gifts interlock. The best way I know to show you how they interlock, okay, is I want to go back to scripture. Look at Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 again.

Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, it says then he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers to do two, yeah, to do two things, to equip for two things, to equip the saints, that's us, for the work of ministry and to equip the saints for building up the body of Christ. Those are two different things. So they interlock on both, I want to show you both, okay, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The best way I know how to do that is to give you some examples. Now I'm gonna talk really fast. If you're taking notes, that's excellent. This might not be a good note-taking moment, okay. This might be a good listen moment. If you need to take notes because you have to take notes, okay, that's fine, you're not out of line or anything. I'm just trying to help you here, okay. Because I'm just gonna kinda speak as an example and it's gonna be pretty flowy, okay.

So just understand, okay. I'm gonna give you three different examples of how these gifts interlock and in each one, it's gonna be very different in how they move. The reason I'm doing that is so that you can get a broad sense of the fact that these gifts interlock, okay. Example one, and this is just local to our church, we're just kinda saying that, okay. So you have a group of people, you have some apostles within our church that are finding open doors with schools, parents, school board.

And they're just saying, hey, we have all these schools that wanna work with our church or that wanna work with the Christian organization or that wanna work, and they're networking, they're out there so they see it, right. The apostles kinda feel that, so they share that information. They say, hey, church leadership, there's this, something's happening and we're just building all these connections. So church leadership begins to pray and they bring the prophets in, okay. So they're saying, okay, look, you got prophecy going on. I need you to begin to check this against God's word. I need you to begin looking about this, praying about this, discerning, okay. So church leadership is gonna be kinda leaning on those prophets for verifiability, okay. Like, is this really good? Is this really important? Should we pursue this? And so they all begin determining that the Holy Spirit wants to do something

and so they attempt an after-school program. Church leadership, these apostles, these prophets, everybody's kinda, it's kinda gaining steam, okay. So they attempt an after-school program. So evangelists begin finding ways to share the gospel within that afternoon, excuse me, after-school context. They begin to look for ways to do that. How do we weave that in? Shepherds begin developing ways within that after-school program to identify needs within the kids that are coming and involved and the families that are involved in that program. And teachers jump right in and begin to tutor kids and they find ways to explain the gospel in the midst of it. They're working with the evangelists, they're working with the shepherds. There's kind of ways to identify needs. But I want you to see all that's interacting, all that's coming together in what we would call just an afternoon, excuse me, an after-school program,

but it's just a ministry. And all those are working together. Let me give you another example. This time we start with the evangelists. They start making unexpected headway into baseball teams, okay, we're right next to Chisenhall Fields, okay. And there's a ton of baseball teams there and we have some evangelists who are parents on a baseball team, we have some evangelists that are going out and they're just being like, man, there's all these people that are interested in knowing more about the gospel. We're sharing the gospel with people, with friends, with friends of friends and there's all these people coming to faith, kids, parents, coaches, even umpires, even umpires are coming to faith, okay. And you have these apostles that are saying, oh, okay, if this is happening, the apostles then reach out to the baseball association and they say, hey, how can we coordinate them with that?

How can we help? So they make a way to have Bible studies mid-practice right there on Chisenhall Fields, okay. They do that. Well, the teachers, and not paid teachers, not the school teachers, but teachers in our body with that teacher gift, that tool, the teachers jump all over that, okay. And they begin kind of putting together this little, like just a quick curriculum or identifying curriculum that's kind of instructing on the basics of faith. The shepherds then step in and they help those new Christians plug into a church family somewhere. It doesn't all have to be about us, right. It's kingdom and so you got some people like with maybe a loose connection with the church over here and they get them plugged in over here. These shepherds, they start kind of mobilize and go into action. And then prophets begin to look, they look at this whole thing and they sense

that God wants to develop this into something but they aren't sure so they keep discerning, looking, praying. Okay, second example. Here's the third example. Shepherds, we're gonna start with shepherds this time. Shepherds begin to see an influx of people that are going through grief and addiction. Grief and addiction, these are heavy things. And they see that people in our neighborhood are having trouble dealing with it. Trouble understanding what's going on, trouble making next steps, they're just kind of running their lives into the ground.

These shepherds, they just keep seeing this, they keep sensing this, they keep hearing about this. And so they bring it to church leadership, church leadership, they bring in the prophets. The prophets begin talking with people in the neighborhood, begin trying to discern, they're praying with people and they say, listen, we need to prepare for something. We've got to do something, the Lord's kind of helping us understand, we got to figure something out that makes sense in helping these people. So the teachers start putting together a curriculum for grief and addiction. They start training home group leaders on how to handle this. They start training evangelists on how to speak the gospel into this.

In the evangelists, they start meeting with people in their homes, they start meeting with people for coffee. They start beginning to walk with those people from grief to gospel, from addiction to gospel. And the apostles begin to meet with other local church leaders, not just ours, looking to link arms with a way to help people walk through grief and addiction.

I gave you those three examples so that you would understand that these gifts interlock. They're supposed to work together. And they're supposed to work together to see Jesus' big plan for reconciliation and redemption to happen all over our area. And look, I can spin a yarn. I can talk about how great that would be. But it's not gonna happen unless you understand, number one, how you're gifted, and number two, that you more than have permission to start acting in that gift. You don't need some official green flag from me or Pastor Daniel, you don't need us to put together a program for that to happen. If you are in the community and you begin kind of seeing something happening, you're sharing your testimony and people are really resonating with it. And you begin to see something happening. Man, share that. Tell somebody about that. Tell your home group about that.

Tell church leadership about that. But it's not because you can't handle it. It's because all the gifts need to get around it. Let me say that again. If your best friend is starting to deal with a meth addiction, I get it, you're gonna feel like you're in over your head. But mark my words, you are their friend for a reason. You are their friend to pray for them, to talk with them, to listen to them, to work with them, and to get them help. You're their friend for that. You don't just throw your hands up and go like, oh, I didn't go to seminary. I don't know how to do it. No, no, you're gifted. Use your gifts.

We'll get to that in a minute. So I want you to see this, I want you to see these interlocking gifts, but the last thing I want to look at is the real genius in these gifts. There's a real genius in how these gifts interlock, not only in how they work together, but also in how they build the body. If we look at our verses, we're just reminded of our verses again, to equip the saints with the work of ministry, and also to equip the saints for building up the body of Christ, okay? Verse 12 is not two separate things. Verse 12 is tied together. These gifts equip for work, and these gifts equip for building up the body, okay? So this is, again, this is all part of Jesus' big plan. And as our church members are ministering together, just all those examples I just rolled out, as that happens, as those gifts happen, we get healthier.

Our body grows. We get stronger. We get more discerning. We grow more spiritually mature. You are more able to invest in your children. You are more able to share your testimony. You are more able to explain the gospel conversationally. You are more able to listen to somebody who needs you to listen to them. As you and I operate in the gifts, and you don't need to operate in all five, right? Like as you and I are operating in gifts, it's not just that we do ministry together, it's also that we grow together. And there's a way in which we can't grow together if you aren't in your gifts. Do you hear me? If you aren't ministering in your gifts, if you don't understand where you're at, if you don't know how you fit, if you don't understand any of that, then you are going to be stuck. And you're gonna make us stuck. You're gonna render us somewhat ineffective. And I know that puts a lot of pressure on you.

I know that puts a lot of pressure on our church. But I ain't making it up. It's all right there in Ephesians four. It's all right there all over everything. That the way that God wants to bring about his plan of redemption is by Jesus giving our church gifts and our church acting in those gifts. This is helpful, these gifts. This is helpful because, and you can kind of see some of the genius in it. As we are all working in our gifts, it helps us because we, you and I, we don't all need the same thing at the same time. I'll just give an example. Like sometimes when I meet somebody and I say, hey, how's it going spiritually? And they just begin to let so much out. That it's like an overflow of just pain and suffering and confusion and misunderstanding and hurt and all of these things, right? Sometimes you ask somebody, hey, tell me about your previous church experience.

And three hours later, you begin to have an understanding of why they act the way they act because they're operating out of acute pain that has never been dealt with. Not really. They're just mad and they stay mad. And when they go to another church, they're just like, maybe I'll be mad today, I don't know. There's all this pain that comes out. In that case, you need somebody with a shepherding gift. You need somebody who's gonna sit, listen, care.

If you have somebody who's sitting there, I'm not saying prophets can't be caring, okay? But if somebody's in their profiting gift, okay, and you're pouring that out, you know what they're gonna say to you? You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have done that. You're not gonna feel heard, okay? You're just not. It's gonna be a very frustrating experience for you, okay? Some of you prophets out there, you know exactly what I mean, okay?

There's a value whenever a prophet is operating their profit gift because when you have somebody, let's just say you have like a leader who's out of line. Well, who's gonna tell the leader that he's out of line? Prophets, they totally will. They might be a little nervous about it, but they're totally gonna say it, okay? I'm not gonna call you prophets out. You prophets are some of my favorite people because you're just unencumbered by other people's expectations. You just say what you need to say, and I love that.

Sometimes people need a prophet. Sometimes people need a shepherd. Sometimes people need the gospel communicated to them in the exact position that they're in. We all need different things at different times, and so it's a good thing that we have different gifts operating, right? These are how the separate diverse gifts build up the body, not just work together to advance the kingdom. So when it says that Jesus gave us these gifts to equip the saints for the work of ministry so that we could go out and do things, yes, but also we are given these gifts to build one another up. I'm gonna leave you with some big questions. Big question number one, should I quit my current ministry team? Probably not, okay? Answer is probably not. Some of you need to start being on a ministry team. You probably don't need to quit your ministry team. Because different ministry teams use all kinds of gifting

in all kinds of ways, okay? If you're a prophet, you can serve on just about every team. If you're a teacher, just about every team, that's fine, okay? That gifting can fit on a lot of different kinds of ministry teams. I would encourage you, as you're ministering on that team, to discover some of your gifts. Try it out, figure it out. Question number two, big question number two, how I discover my gifting. Okay, this is a big one. No test can tell you what your gifting is. Okay, there's not. This isn't Disney Princess, this isn't Mars Briggs personality type, this isn't none of that, okay?

No test can tell you what your gifting is. When you are actually doing the work, you can see it, and other people can see that in you. So you kinda need the body to be able to tell you, hey, you have a gift, I see this happening. And they might not say you have a gift, but they might say, hey, you're really good at whatever. Hey, you really make people feel welcome. Hey, you really understand what it is to kinda bring scripture and really apply it in that particular situation, okay? So do the work is my encouragement there. How do I discover my gifting? Do the work. Minister, take some chances. People say, oh no, I kinda feel dumb. I don't like to, okay, I get it, right? But we've all gotta look dumb at some point. If you've ever played guitar, any guitar players out there? Anybody? Okay, okay, only David. Only David plays guitar in this entire church. Okay, all right, a few of you.

Okay, I see you, Julian. Okay, all right. When you first start playing a guitar, you look super dumb. You do, you look dumb. You're just like strum, and your fingers are in the wrong place, it sounds terrible. But you know what, you have to look dumb and strum and figure that out so that you can become like the master guitarist David Tribble, okay? You gotta start somewhere, man. When you pick up a guitar for the first time, you're gonna look dumb, but if you never wanna look dumb playing guitar, you're never going to play guitar.

If you never wanna look dumb throwing a baseball, you're never gonna throw a baseball. If you never wanna look dumb at something, that's just an excuse for not trying it. You're going to look dumb. Try to minister in your gifts. Two more questions. Question number three, can I have more than one? Sure. It says that each one is given out according to Christ's measure, so if Jesus feels like double gifting you, who am I to say that's illegal or something? I will say that you have gifts, I would just simply say invest in your gifting. If you feel like you got two, pick one, I don't know. Go for two, you overachievers, man. You go for three, I don't know. I don't know if you can have more than one or not, but who am I to say? Last question, how important is this? What kind of a deal is this? I would only say that every day that people die without Jesus. Every day happens all the time.

And that every day that people die without Jesus is a day that you and I can be working in our gifts. So let's start working in our gifts. And I say, well, okay, what's my practical next step? Look, we have ways that you can serve that are church approved and then just ways that are just serving, just ministering to people. We have ways that you can serve that are really just mowing. We need people to mow, man. We need people to clean. We need people to minister to kids. We need people to do those things. But in a lot like giving your money, it's not because we're so desperate, we need people to, no, man, listen, you need to serve. You need to figure out your gifting.

When it comes to giving money to a church, I think a lot of churches get it backward and they say, hey, we really need your money. And here's how we, here's a promise, we'll do well with it. It'll be so great. We'll just, look, man, listen. God doesn't need your money, man. God needs your heart. And you giving money is a discipline of showing that you love the Lord more than you love your money. When you serve in your gifting, it's you saying that you love the Lord God in heaven more than you love your personal time. You love the Lord God in heaven more than you love your me day.

You love the Lord God in heaven enough to sacrifice time with your family and your hobbies and maybe even take time off work to serve another person in Jesus' name. Man, if our church began to understand that more than just, hey, I need to come on a Sunday and serve in that capacity, if our church began to understand that, it's way past Sunday morning. It's way past the organized religion version of serving. It's way past that. It doesn't include that. We do need to serve in an organized fashion here at our church. But man, it's so much more. Jesus fills you and me for us to fill others and he can fill you now. He can fill you today.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your gifts. Thank you for being such a generous God. Such a generous God. You have every right to demand everything, but you don't. You don't demand those things. You are loving with us. You are patient with us. You are kind with us. You invite us into a scenario where we give out of the gifting that you've given us. Help us understand where we fit. Help us understand what you're calling us to do. And it's your name that we pray. Amen.