A Disciple Serves One Another

all right good morning everybody you guys made it the tough ones you know some used snow as an excuse but you all showed up so good to see everybody um as we get into worship here um i'm going to talk a little bit about the immutability of god one thing about life is that change is inevitable people change work changes obviously this morning we see the seasons change we enjoy the spring in the summer and all those activities like golf swimming i don't do a lot of laying out but some of you might um we will for a short moment forget about the blistering colds

but the reality is that change is inevitable but this is not so for god he does not change and because of this truth we can have hope and joy that unlike what we experience in this life when it comes to change we have a constant unchanging god who is the same yesterday today and forever hear what james says in james 1 16-17 do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change then james 1 james reminds us that even in the

midst of a changing world filled with highs and lows we can trust god to remain good and we can trust that god has always had our good in mind and will act always in accordance with his goodness so let's stand up and please join us in worship [Music] come are you thirsty [Music] come find his mercy come to the table he will satisfy the taste of his goodness find what you're looking for forgot to love but god so loved the world that he gave [Music] us all your failures bring your addictions come lay them down at the foot of the cross jesus [Music] is [Music]

so love god [Music] praise god [Music] is [Music] the power of hell [Music] forgot [Music] whoever believes in you will live forever the power of hell forever defeated now it [Music] the is jesus [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] me [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] guys [Music] first [Music] is [Music] hey guys so we're going to be doing something different the next uh couple months throughout the year what we're going to try to do is have member led prayer um on different topics uh that uh we've looked at through each month highlighted in each month so if i could

have dana portillo come up here she's gonna be leading us this morning in a time of prayer for those of us for those of us or those of you guys who don't know this weekend is the 49th anniversary of roe v wade which made it possible for abortion to be legal in this country and so as believers we feel that it is important to do two things first to shine the light of the gospel in dark places this is what ephesians 5 tells us to do as well as care for and pursue and to protect those who are marginalized as well as who are unprotected

and we feel as believers that babies in the womb are one of if not the highest place of uh someone who needs to be protected or have that protection and so what we want to do as a church is not only highlight topics like this but also pray for them and then encourage you guys as the church to step into these dark places whether it's working at hope pregnancy centers or it's looking into laws voting for whoever may help protect these innocent and children that need protection so we want to pray for these things and we want to stir our hearts for these things and

so i've asked dana to lead us in prayer and then again in the next coming months we'll also have different topics like this as well for uh our city for different pastors and churches in in this city we'll be praying for um a lot of different things so be not only on the lookout for some of these things that we can and will be praying for but also if your heart is stirred for specific topics come see me and we'll uh we'll take a look at that and see if that is something that we can bring before the church so dana's going to lead us

this morning and then we'll continue to worship good morning i want to read a couple of verses for you first ephesians 2 says for it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves it is the gift of god not by work so that no one can boast for we are god's handiwork created in christ jesus to do good works which god prepared in advance for us to do i think a lot of times when we frame something like abortion and like these good works that god has prepared in advance for us to do we feel ill-equipped to tackle

them especially knowing that it's a multifaceted issue that takes more than politics or radical acts against abortion clinics it affects believers and non-believers alike but thankfully it doesn't have to be as complicated as we make it so let's take a look at how jesus designed these good works as he prepared them in matthew where he feeds the five thousand you may recall a large crowd had gathered near jesus and as the day grew late the disciples wanted to dismiss them so they could go and eat jesus replied they didn't do not need to go away you give them something to eat this is something i've

missed before they replied we only have five loaves of bread and two fish bring them here to me he said and he directed the people to sit down on the grass taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke the loaves then he gave the loaves to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the people so notice what jesus said first you feed them i kind of love this glimpse at jesus sense of humor because he knows that they cannot possibly feed 5 000 people in their families this is an impossible feat so they may have

been incredulous we don't know but what we do know is that they were obedient they brought with very little they had and gave it to jesus and jesus multiplied it before giving it back to the disciples so that they could feed the crowd jesus was the star of the show but he didn't actually hand out the food his miraculous work was done in order to equip the disciples to do the work that he assigned them to do we need very little to do god's work he won't leave us alone with an impossible task whether internal or external because we know all things are possible with

god all we really need is a trusting heart and an obedient spirit so let's pray god we come to you as our father and as the father of all creation born and unborn we know this is a broken world that produces more brokenness but ultimately you are able to redeem anything and everything no matter how broken thank you for being the author of redemption where we see brokenness help us to see the opportunity for you to heal where we see death help us see the opportunity to speak life where we see hurting help us to see the opportunity for hope where we see the lost

help us to remember how we were once lost and still fall short of grace yet you chase us down again and again bringing us back to you and that same relentless love is available to all break up any infertile ground of our hearts so that we have ears to hear and eyes to see how we can bring life to a world that does not value your creation help us to see the opportunity to speak your truth and life into the women and men who could face are currently facing or have already made the difficult decision to end a pregnancy expose and tear down the lies

of the enemy that tell us we are alone that the worship of self is necessary and good that children are an inconvenience that tell us some lives are valued more than others that we can go places and do things that are beyond your forgiveness kindle a fire within us that shines a light into this darkness we bring you very little knowing that you can multiply it beyond what we need to fill us as paul says in ephesians 3 now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us to him be

the glory in the church and christ jesus through all generations forever and ever amen thank you dana for praying for that check there i am all right that was my bad three and five year olds y'all can head out to your class uh for everyone else in here if you've got your bibles go ahead and grab them we're gonna be in first peter today first peter four and uh we'll be looking at a couple of verses and we've got a lot to cover so we're just going to jump into it i'm going to briefly explain kind of where we're at in our current epiphany series

as we were walking through this we've got just two weeks left in it uh we are now looking at kind of how christ has revealed himself through the body of christ and so how how christ is making himself known to our world primarily through the body of christ and what we looked at the first week was how the body of christ worships god and primarily how he worships god through uh the the loving god and loving others all right and so it's getting your right vertical relationship with god and then also having your horizontal relationships right with god as well and that kind of flows

itself out in those two great commandments love god with all your heart while your soul with all your mind and then also love uh your neighbor as yourself that then also flowed in the last week kind of the functionality of that is then how we belong to one another how we uh do not neglect to meet together as is the habit of psalm as we see in hebrews and so we what do we do when we meet together so there are the gatherings like this they're the the meeting togethers in our community groups and then there's also the deeper discipleship of meeting with two to

three people in order to be held accountable to what god has called us to in being disciples of jesus and so that's what we looked at last week and today what we're going to look into is this idea of serving how christ is making himself known through the serving of one another as we are at least as i was kind of brought up in in church we're the hands and feet of jesus so what does it look like to be the hands and feet of jesus what does it look like to serve with the way which christ has served us and so as christ even

himself says when he came i came not to be served but to serve and so he's modeling this example of what service looks like and so we are going to be looking at this idea of okay if christ came not to be served but to serve and we are the body of christ so the body of christ exists not to be served but to serve what does it then look like for us to serve and so i want to answer that question the why and the how to serving so that primarily the more you understand the why the more you will have the success of

glorifying god by serving others i think that's the the primary reason that drive serving is the understanding that it is glorifying god first and foremost and that that's what fuels our serving secondarily i think because the more you understand the why the less you will have the experience of burning out being in ministry now for over 15 years being in church now for over 20 years i i think that's probably one of the biggest um biggest excuses that we find amongst people in the body of christ who choose not to serve is because they've hit a season of burnout they've hit a season of burnout

and and what i want to do today my hope today is to help you see biblically why when you're exercising your gift of serving burnout's not an option now is there time for rest and renewal 100 absolutely but when you're exercising the gift god has given you and you're serving in that gift and you're serving with the strength that god supplies you will not burn out you will not burn out will you be weary at times yes and i actually believe you should be weary almost at all times when you're literally spending yourself your resources your time your energy to serve the lord you're going

to be weary if you're walking around saying like i'm i just feel good i'm energized i'm 100 then you're probably not serving you're not expending yourself in any way whatsoever when it comes to that and so we want to look at these kind of two things and break it down for us but first timothy or first peter four this is our passage and it's a short little passage that we're going to look at but but we're really going to break down this passage as best as we can so first peter 4 starting in verse 10 as each has received a gift use it to serve

one another as good stewards of god's varied grace whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of god whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that god supplies in order that in everything god may be glorified through jesus christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever amen so i'm going to try to condense a whole large subject in this one sermon we are we are one to maintain again like i said a holy relationship with god two we maintain the loving relationship with others and then that flows into a life of service simply that that's kind of if you were to break

down the christian lifestyle in one maintaining a holy relationship with god loving and serving one another that's that's how we operate in the simplicity of christianity so how then is this service to be rendered and so we're going to simplify it as we break this down as each has received a special gift really is a better way to interpret that a special gift use or employ it to serve one another so that's where we start peter says you're to be busy serving one another you're to be busy serving one another all right so it's anything that we boil down to learning from god having a

right relationship with god as it flows into our relationships with others loving and engaging with one that's all going to boil itself into serving serving so if you have a right relationship with god that leads into a right relationship with other the overflow of those relationships is going to be serving one another and and honestly if you were to have uh if you were to serve one another without a right relationship with god or you were to serve one another without love for one another and love for the lord then we call that legalism we call that um we call that hypocrisy at the end

of the day it's it's serving others out of personal gain rather than serving them out of the overflow of the love for the lord and a love for one another and that's what we don't want to see here so let's look at these two verses that tell us about spiritual service and breaking them down and the question really is is how do we do this when you break down serving the the word for serving is diacion which is where we get the term deacon from in the original greek deacon literally just means to wait on tables it's to wait on tables to serve one another

in that regard of whatever it is that they need we keep coming to supply that need we keep waiting on them in order to serve them that's the most foundational term for to serve is to wait on one another and supply whatever their need is as each one has received a special gift so the first thing i want to talk about here is i want to talk about the extent of these spiritual gifts who has them who has these spiritual gifts that we use to deacon one another that we used to serve one another well it says each as each has received each christian has

a spiritual or special gift everyone does you do i do we each have one every christian has one also and and here's what we're going to do we're going to be playing flip flop back and forth all right so i want you to also kind of keep the thumbnail there in first peter 4 but i also want you to flip over to first corinthians 12 and i want you to see this in first corinthians 12 as well to reinforce this point by showing you explicitly what the spirit of god is telling us with regard to the gifts first first corinthians 12 talks about the same

subject it talks about spiritual gifts verse 1 says now concerning spiritual gifts and then he jumps to verse 4 and says there are varieties of gifts but verse 7 then says to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good it's used for the common good it's used to serve one another but it's given to each verse 11 but one in the same spirit holy spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually just as he wills and then notice also in verse 12 for even as the body the body of christ like a physical body is one yet as

many members and all the members of the body through or though they are many are one body so also as christ the point is this as you have a body and every member has a certain function so in the body of christ every member has a certain function so it is with the church he's basically saying the church is using this analogy to a body you have a hand and you have an eye and you have feed and you have all these individual members and each of those members have a specific function they have a specific gift and so what he's talking to us here

is is is that we exist with this idea that every spiritual christian every spiritual person every every person who belongs to the body of christ has a function has a gift all right and and it's being distributed out so this is both universal and individual universal and individual and that these gifts are also unique to one another every person has one that is unique to them the best way to describe that and it's beautiful in the sense of what has happened this morning is that every christian is like a spiritual snowflake alright if you didn't know every snowflake is unique there are no two snowflakes

that are exactly the same there are no christians possessing spiritual gifts that are represented in that individual that are like another individual every christian is unique in the way in which they have received a gift so everyone has received a gift and yet everyone individually also receives gifts and you say well now wait a minute if i read in first corinthians 12 i read that there are just a few gifts listed there specific ones it talks about for example the words of wisdom the word of knowledge faith gifts of healing working of miracles prophecy distinguishing of spirits various kinds of tongues interpretation and then if

you were to also look at romans 12 you have another list of gifts and those gifts are like prophecy service exhortation giving leading showing mercy and you say if you were to put those together it really is only just a few dozen of gifts that are within the bible how do you take those gifts maybe you know a few dozen to then divide them up so that every person has a unique gift if there's really not that many that are listed within scripture the fact that they are different shows more of kind of the latitude there in the definition it shows more of the generality

of the gifts that are presented and one of the ways i like to see this john macarthur uses this explanation and he used this when i was two years old so it was back in 89 he used the idea of taking the gifts that god uses or has described here in these texts as kind of like a palette of paint where he is just dipping each of the brushes into the gifts that are listed here and then as he is painting you each of those gifts might land on you in a different way or provides a different color a unique color that is to you

because there also might be a little bit of dipping into teaching dipping into hospitality dipping into acts of mercy and as you dip into those and then create this new creation in this new person it's going to be represented differently and uniquely for that individual person for that individual person so we are all like i said like spiritual snowflakes when it comes to these gifts that have been given to each one of us and then there's more than that ephesians 4 7 says the measure of christ's gifts he uses that phrase the measure of christ's gift he measures out that gift in different ways so

like if you bake you know and you're throwing in flour you're throwing in sugar and you're measuring out each of those quantities the same thing is happening to us with the gifts they are measured out as christ is giving them to us not only that we also see in romans 12 3 paul says when god gives the gift he also gives the measure of faith in order to then operate that gift so he's measuring out the gifts that he gives to us he's also measuring out the faith that he gives to us to then operate those gifts and so you have your gift measured out

measured of grace measured of faith is linked with measured gift for effective use and so you are you own unique christian cocktail if you will you're your own mixed up baked cake of a christian when it comes to how you are uniquely wired and designed by god to exercise your only gift and you'll see kind of how that operates itself here in a minute as we look more at the body of christ so while all of us have gifts the lord is making us very unique that passage in first corinthians 12 emphasizes that same point from another vantage point he says there are varieties of

gifts but the same spirit varieties of ministries in which those gifts are used but the same lord and there are varieties of effects that result from those those gifts being used and so as you have these varieties what you really have there is the trinity being exercised in the gifts that are given to each one of us the gifts that are given to each one of us they're literally flowing from the trinity to us and so oftentimes people ask the question then what is my spiritual gift or people will ask me what's your spiritual gift and i really can't label it and just say preaching

and teaching i can't just label it and say that because there are other gifts that are mixed in that exercise and revealed themselves as i'm interacting in community as i'm continuing to grow in my walk with the lord as i'm maturing and growing as i just continue to do that in my sanctification different gifts are revealed different gifts are exercised different measures of faith and so forth are all worked into it to where i can't just tell you it's just this specific thing but what i can say is my spiritual gift is that which i do to serve christ but it and that might include

preaching and teaching that might include exhortation that might include some acts of leadership that might include some some showing of hospitality it might include some different things but my gift is that which i do to serve christ and that's the way you answer it if someone were to ask you what's your spiritual gift it's it's that which i do to serve christ and they're going to be things that you i mean trial and error your gift trial and error your gift to be able to discover and a lot of this flows itself out and works itself out in community to figure out what has god

uniquely designed and wired you to exercise with the measure of faith that he's given it the measure of grace that he's given it in order for it to really flow out and serve the body that's why i love even what it says in timid with timothy who he did so many things he preached and he taught he did works of an evangelist he counseled and exhorted he demonstrated leadership again and again in his life but in first timothy 4 14 what paul is telling him is do not neglect the gift that was given to you the gift so all of the different you know this

kind of goes back to the palette all the different dips into the paints of all of the gifts that are around that god has used to uniquely paint you as he has made you a new creation that's what we're discovering what are all of the the flavors that are worked into maybe there is a gift of teaching so let me explore that maybe there is a gift of hospitality so let me explore that maybe there is a gift of giving and generosity and so let me explore that to continue to see how he has uniquely wired you and has distributed a gift to each one

of you every single one of you have the gift you have a spiritual gift why because the scriptures as he is distributed to each christian use it that's the extent of spiritual gifts everyone has them everyone uses them number two secondly what about the source of spiritual gifts where do they come from what about this well we've already certainly hinted at it look at it again in first peter 4 2 as each one has received a spiritual gift you've received it you've received it somebody gave it to you you didn't earn it you didn't pray for it you didn't plead for it you didn't work

for it you didn't generate it you did you received the gift that you possess and again in ephesians 4 7 christ calls it this gift he uses this language here of charisma which is grace that's the word from which we get grace and it is the gift of grace you didn't earn it you couldn't earn it and then also in ephesians 4 7 when it talks about christ's gift it uses the word drea in the original language which is freeness of the gift so you have received a gift a gift of grace that christ freely gave to you so again you don't have to pay

for it you don't have to train for it we'll get to that here in a minute you freely receive it by grace sometimes spiritual gifts are also originated from the original language pneumaticos which means spiritual so not only is it free not only is it a grace that god gives to you but it's a spiritual thing it's a supernatural thing that god uploads to your identity when you become a christian and you become a believer so again this is not something that you can earn it's not something that you can pursue and i want to i want you to see this again back in first

corinthians 12 verse 4 there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit there are varieties of ministries in the same lord there are varieties of effects but the same god who works all things in all persons and again this says it's the spirit that gives the gift the lord that gives the ministry and the god that works the effects of these things they're all flowing from him that's that trinitarian language that i just mentioned a few moments ago it's all coming from god being exercised and spent through us as we are served in the body of christ verse 7 says to each one is given

the manifestation of the spirit verse 11 as we read it before the the same spirit works all these things and he distributes to each one individually just as he wills it even goes on down into verse 18 he's placed the members each one of them in the body just as he desired i mean this i've used this language before god has rigged christianity by doing exactly what he wants to do with it through whom he wants to do with it with the results that he wants at the end of it so you're not in this room by an accident you've not received the gift by

accident you don't have the gift of teaching because of some talent that you were brought up with or because you have the ability to publicly speak in front of other people none of that matters what matters is is knowing at the end of the day that that god gives freely by his grace to each one of us a gift a spiritual gift that we cannot earn nor can we pursue nor can we attain in some way or another but as he wills and as he is desired as he wills and as he is desired which makes you again unique unique now somebody someone might say

if you were to continue reading at the end of first corinthians 12 it says in verse 31 it says there to earnestly desire the greater gifts that goes against what you just said you can't earn it you can't pursue it you can't seek out for it and i'll be honest that verse has been confused a lot when it says here in the greater context there's a couple of ways that you can interpret this but in the context of what we're looking at here we're looking at the gathered body of christ operating under the guise of of of worship collective corporate worship and at the end

of the at the end of this body of christ coming together to serve one another with the different gifts that they have he's calling for the body to earnestly desire the greater gifts so then the question would be what is the greater gifts first corinthians 14 1 puts it this way pursue love desire earnestly spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy especially that you may prophesy what we're looking at at the end of the day here is there there have come into christianity this desire for the gifts of kind of miraculous signs and wonders and speaking in tongues like as if those are the elevated

greater gifts of god and and honestly what we've seen work itself throughout in the last probably 20 30 years of christianity is a lot of confusion that's come from that a lot of confusion that's come from that a lot of people who say well i don't speak in tongues and so i i guess i'm not as spiritual or i don't have the gift of interpreting tongues and so maybe i'm not as wise or i've not received the holy spirit yet to confirm my life and being able to do these things because because i can't do those things and what he's saying here what we see

throughout the scriptures and paul echoes this multiple times is it's better for us to speak five words that have come from the lord than it is to reiterate syllables a thousand times that nobody understands and what he's getting at the greater gifts are being able to teach the word of god what he's really getting down to at the end of the day is when the church gathers what the church collectively should earnestly desire are the gifts that come from the members that are teaching and proclaiming the word of god period the word of god that's why when we come up here we're not like hey

you know the the elders gathered this week and we were just kind of shooting the breeze and and we were discussing what do we think would be really good for our church to grow in and you know what and i'm gonna i'm gonna offend some people with this but it's okay we think we should do a series on the enneagram and we should teach why we believe that enneagram helps you to discover your personality type helps you discover your communication type helps you discover how you operate out of stress that helps you discover how you can be resourceful towards others and so what we want

to do is we want to take a nine week series and we want to walk through the enneagram to help you discover yourself and i'll tell you this right now if we do that you as members have the ability to vote us out of as elders and i would hope you would do that i would hope you would do that because even though the enneagram is a great secular tool to help you categorize personality types and how people can communicate with one another it does not define who you are in your identity with jesus christ it does not it does not excuse your sin and

allow you to continue operating as a jerk because you're innate i can say that because there was a season where i was an eight and i'm not not an eight anymore because you know what the enneagram doesn't own me all right i'm a seven which means i'm very unproductive and a lot of other things when it comes to just say let's go play golf but anyways that's beside the point the word of god is what you need most in your life to understand who you are to understand who christ is to be able to glorify god whether you're eating and drinking or whatever you're doing

in your entire life the word of god informs that nothing else in your life the word of god informs that so when we come together that's what first corinthians 4 or 12 31 is saying when we come together earnestly desire the greater gifts of prophecy which are uttering the words of god and teaching them to one another that's what we desire collectively as we gather third thing the nature of the gifts the nature of your spiritual gift is indicated back in first peter four by the fact that it is a gift and again i know we've hinted at this it touched on it with charisma

as far as it being grace that it's drea that it is a free gift for you that it is pneumaticos that it is spiritual in its nature and sense which means it is not something that you can go and buy off a shelf right it's not some lesson that you can take in order to go 12 weeks through a process where i can now be generous with my tithes and offerings i've learned how to do that it is spiritual god grants it to you as a free gift in that nature that is what it is it's a graciously freely given mode of ministry energized by

the holy spirit that he has granted to you that you are then to use and operate and that comes into the fourth thing not only the extent of it and the source of it and the inherent nature of it but let me talk about the obligation of it and you're like i don't like that i don't like that word obligation you're telling me i'm obligated to serve yes yes all right you're obligated to use your gift to serve the body of christ all right and if you don't like the term obligation then think of a better one and then work it out in your own

soul but use it i want you to go back to first corinthians 12 for a moment and let me show you this first corinthians 12 12 he's comparing you and your spiritual gifts in the body of christ with the human body as an analogy and all the members of the body though they were they are many are one body so also as christ he says look at your human body you've got one body but a lot of functions a lot of members and he says this in verse 15 if the foot should say because i'm not a hand i am not part of the body

is it not for this reason any less a part of the body your feet can't go around saying well because i'm not a hand i'm i'm not going to serve or because i'm not an i i'm not going to serve or because i you know i don't have the you know gifts of prophecy so i'm not going to to teach or do this or that like we don't have that luxury to say because i'm not this i'm not going to serve but rather we again through community through prayer and the holy spirit working itself out in our lives we identify our gifts and we do

those things to serve christ and to glorify and honor him as we serve the body together first corinthians 12 23-25 puts it this way and and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we we bestow the greater honor and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty which our more presentable parts do not require but god has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it that there may be no division in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another what he's saying there is oftentimes in churches certain gifts are elevated

and highlighted and respected more than others and and just kind of putting it out there on the table what they typically mean is people with microphones are are viewed with higher respect value worth than those who who might be serving in a hospitality type of way who are never seen who are never honored who who are never uh viewed as a person of respect because they're doing the work of deacon they're waiting tables if you will and what paul is really getting at here is is those that are unseen they regard with greater value or with greater honor maybe not necessarily value but honor that

they understand because this is a body and that we need every member functioning that absolutely the ones that are unseen we might need to give more attention to in order to make sure that they're functioning properly so that the body can walk and pick up and and serve and see and hear and do all of the things necessary in order for the body of christ to function and this is what we do with it we we honor those in that regard furthermore would you notice again in first peter 4 10 that he adds a little strengthening word for us at the end of it we

are to use it as good stewards there we see the word or coinamos where it is a managing of our gift just like we we've said in the past when we've talked about money we've talked about resources how you steward not your money and resources but you're stewarding the lord's money and resources that he's bestowed to you like that that's what a steward is in its actual function is a person who stewards or manages an estate of someone else so they're paying the bills they're managing the finances they're helping with the family they're stewarding this the grounds the house all of those things they're stewarding

something that belongs and is owned by someone else our bodies our gift our church is being stewarded by us but it is owned and possessed by the lord so your life is not your life it is the lord's life who has graciously given it to you that you are stewarding and managing and this is every detail of your life so if you're married god has given you a spouse that you are stewarding if you have children god has given you children that you are stewarding if you have money and resources and bank accounts if you have a business if you have a job if you

have a dog if you have plants if you have a house if you have all of those things that that make up your little empire you are stewarding those things for god's glory because he possesses those things he possesses those things and the same thing comes down with this our gifts are his that he has bestowed to us given to us in order to steward them to use them in order to serve the body of christ to serve the body of christ now another thought peter speaks also of the variety of spiritual gifts as you see this in verse 10 he says we are to

be good stewards of god's varied grace and that means that it actually means multicolored it reminds us again of this kind of a palette that we have of all the gifts from first corinthians 12 literally it means distributions god gives these gifts he gives these ministries he gives these effects and all kinds of varieties multi-colored giftedness and i love that word multi-colored because that takes me again back to painting god is these colors and he blends them to plant to paint you a unique color so you and i may both have the gift of teaching i'm not the only one in the church with with

this gift josh has the gift of teaching there are others in this church who have the gift of teaching and one of our jobs in stewarding our gift is to serve the body with the role of teaching but i teach differently than josh teaches because it's unique to me i don't want him to sound like me and i don't want to sound like him i don't want we as we continue to develop and discover the gifts of teaching that are in some of you we don't want you to sound like me we don't want you to sound like josh we don't want you to sound

like ransford we want you to be who god has gifted you with the measure that he's gifted you with the measure of faith that he's gifted you we wanted to exercise out in that regard so there are varieties to it but then he gives two specific categories for these varieties of gifts so this is actually great because if you were to go to the first corinthians 12 and you wrote the romans 12 and you were to try to list out all the different categories and you were to try to do as as i was brought up in like a spiritual gift inventory test and so

i'm gonna like go and honestly all it was was all of the different personality tests wrapped up into spiritual inventory tests and then we think you're wired this way so this is what you are and so and they would just give like one like you are a leader what does that mean how do i exercise that a leader of of kids is it a leader of a categorical ministry like students or men or women or how do i just lead i don't know you got to work that out so it was like i'm i'm not a huge proponent of spiritual inventory tests what i am

a huge proponent of is it landing in one of these two categories because that's what scripture gives us first peter 4 11 says whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of god and whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that god supplies so thank you peter in the simplicity of peter here saying god has given each one of us a gift and and those gifts that he's given you are going to land in one of these two categories you're either going to speak the truth of god or you're going to serve the body they're both serving the body but they are both very

broad right very broad so he then provides a little bit of extra forest whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of god that can literally be translated the utterances of god which again if you're still i don't what are we talking about utterance the words of god who speaks the words of god now peter here is referring to the old testament okay because you got to realize as peter's saying this he's not reading first peter okay he's he's speaking and recording down scripture he's not saying everyone has the gift to do that no not everyone has the gift to go around saying thus says the

lord i'm going to write it down and now we have the you know first and second dwayne and this is what you should do with your lives that that's not what he's saying this is why for those who do have the gift of teaching you need to grow in your knowledge of what god has already said now this is a this is a little bit of a difference of what you're going to kind of hear me say here because earlier i said you can't earn it you can't pursue it you can't attain it you can't purchase it you can't go get it off of a

shelf you can't do that as far as the gift of teaching or the gift of serving those are given to you but you do cultivate those gifts as you grow in the word of god so you may have the gift of teaching but you will not teach if you don't know what the word of god says does that make sense good because that's important that's why we offer classes on how to study your bible because again we're not asking you to teach what you think is great we're asking you to teach what god thinks is great and what jesus has already spoken go and make

disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of father teaching them observe all that jesus has commanded you not what we've commanded you what jesus has commanded you so we need to know what he's commanded we need to know what he's taught we need to know what his heart is all about and that's what the bible is that's what it teaches us so you need to know the bible if you ever even want to realize whether or not you have a gift of teaching when it comes to serving as one who serves by the strength that god supplies and i love what he does

here because again it still shows dependency right it still shows that you can't do this without god you can't teach without god's word you can't serve without god's strength and this is where i think burnout happens this is where i think burnout happens i think when you try to serve without the right vertical relationship with the lord in the right horizontal relationship with others when you try to do it out of your own flesh out of your own energy out of your own i think this is great i think i should do this because it's a good christianly thing to do if you do it

out of that rather than for the glory of the lord you're going to burn out because you're doing it for your own personal gain and you're not going to get any satisfaction out of that when you don't get any satisfaction out of that you get frustrated and when you get frustrated you start pointing fingers and you're saying well it's not because it's because of this it's because of that it's because i don't like serving with this person it's because this person wasn't grateful for what i did for it's not about you it's not about you serving is not about you so we serve by the

strength that god supplies to us which means anytime before we teach or before we serve there better be prayer and dependency on the understanding of what it is that we are actually doing lord i am about to enter into an opportunity to serve the body of christ and i need to make sure that this is operating under the free gracious spiritual gift that you have given to me that i'm also operating it out of the measure of grace you've given and some i mean how to even begin to unpack that for you certain people might lead churches of 2000 certain people might lead churches of

20. both are faithful and god sees no difference in the equality and um um reward at the end of the day between the two just because someone might do something and it turns to gold doesn't mean that they're more spiritual than you i mean if you look at isaiah when isaiah took over his ministry he shrunk it down to about 10 of what it was when he took it over in our current day and age corporate america would look at that and say you were not successful measure of grace measure of faith which means i'm going to burn out if i don't have faith in

what i'm doing and i'm trusting and believing in the lord that i'm to do this so lord as i'm operating my gift there are going to be moments where in this i feel or i think or i believe i shouldn't do this i'm not qualified i'm not capable i don't have all the resources i'm not smart enough whatever it is he says don't worry i got that covered here's some faith here's some faith now go i mean how many of the original apostles and disciples would not do what they did if it weren't for the faith that was given to them because they're walking around

we're uneducated i mean for for timothy for paul to have to write to timothy in first timothy 4 12 hey don't let anyone look down on you because you're young but set an example for the believers in life and and faith and purity and and t like what that meant was timothy's going around or at least word somehow got back to paul where timothy's like i don't think i'm old enough for this yet i don't think people are going to respect me i don't think because he was going to be a leader of a church one of the elders in ephesus and he's very young

and paul's having to remind him god's given you faith go and exercise it and do what he's called you to do go serve the church go serve the church how many of the apostles and disciples were again considered uneducated uneducated which meant the only way for them to do what they did had to be again by the free grace spiritual gift that was given to them and then faith to then exercise that gift and live it out in their day-to-day lives i mean serving the church to the point of death you're gonna need some faith all right right you're gonna need some faith like for

us right now in our context we're like hey we're asking you to like give a couple of hours a week like i know that's a lot and in their context it's like yeah you're going to be boiled alive john just you're going to and and here's the thing it's not going to kill you you're going to be born alive it's not going to kill you they're going to think you're a freak and they're going to then send you out to the island of patmos and then you're going to see some crazy things when you get out there write the book of revelation peter you're uneducated

you're a fisherman you're blue collar you're not very smart um but you're gonna lead the first church in jerusalem you're gonna preach thousands of people are gonna get saved it's going to be great you're going to write a book about it but it's not going to be your retirement your retirement is actually going to be going and getting crucified for my sake you're going to need some faith so i'm going to give you that faith in order to do this i mean time and time again like that we need faith to serve the body right so if if you right now you're in one of

those moments where you're like i'm just looking at my life right now i just don't think i have the capacity right now we love the terms bandwidth i just don't have the bandwidth to be able to do it right now i don't know if i you know just life's crazy man you know running a business get kids doing all these kinds of things i think maybe just pray for faith pray for faith for god to give you that to be able to then with through faith see clearly the path in order to serve the body to serve the body to pull it all together finally

we see the the intention behind all of this first peter 4 11. in order that in everything god may be glorified through jesus christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever amen it this is where i land on days where where it's hard to serve where it's hard to serve is i want jesus to be glorified to be worshiped to be honored to be made much of in every single life in this room and if that means exhausting myself to that end that's the goal like take up your cross daily die to yourself so that others might see jesus and come to know

him and that brings glory to him and i'll be the first one to tell you right now that that alone gives you that strength from the spirit to serve another day to serve another day i remember a good friend of mine back in tennessee johnny brown we were going uh we were leaving to go to help um there's a big ice storm that came through missouri and a bunch of homes had trees that kind of fell in on them and at that time we were trained in uh sinned relief which is like the second largest disaster relief organization and i remember we were going to

go out there for a week and just literally chainsaw trees and so if you're like that's my spiritual gift uh just talk to me we'll we'll work that out maybe we can become a church that's a part of we're in send relief by sending resources through our financial ties and offerings but we can also train and actually develop teams within our church to be able to go do stuff like that and so if those were those things where like everything you've said has not landed but that lands i want to give me a chainsaw um talk to me sometime but anyways we were leaving to

go and i remember as we were heading out i was kind of coming off the back of a season of just just like feeling exhausted and feeling tired and feeling weary and and and then going out to do this i knew we were going to be like living in tents it was crazy it was just a weird thing and i was like i just don't i just don't know if i've got it to go and i remember johnny brown kind of pulling me aside and he said look man if we go out there and you cut a tree down for someone and and and somehow

through this we're able to speak the word of god to them and they get saved and in that moment as you're cutting this tree down you literally exhaust every last energy you have and you die just on the spot you die but you went out knowing that someone's eternity changed he's like how would you feel about that i was like i don't right now i don't know how i feel about that okay i don't really want to go die he's like no no no think about it how would you really feel about it i said i'd be glad to die this is the same thing

that paul echoed he even went well way step further i don't know if i could go this far that he said he'd be willing to be cut off from christ if it meant his fellow brethren his jewish brethren who do not believe in jesus would believe in jesus there's something to serving that fills you up with the spiritual energy that you need in order to see disciples made and god glorified so if you're worried about exhaustion and stress and anxiety and all those things you just need to bring that to the lord and maybe come down to this one little part and it's at the

end of the day it's not about you it's about his glory it's about his glory and if you land there about his glory i promise you all the energy and strength that you need supply to do what you have been called to do it works itself out it works itself out so that's who we are as the body as we see this in the one and others we wash one another's feet we honor one another above yourselves we have equal concern for each other we serve one another in love we submit to one another out of reverence for christ in humility we consider others better

than ourselves we offer hospitality to one another without grumbling each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others and we clothe ourselves with humility toward one another as we seek to serve one another let's pray father we thank you so much for your goodness to us we thank you that you came not to be served but to serve and we are beneficiaries of your service and you you did you you served us by kind of doing that little illustration i shared about missouri you came and you offered your life that we might have life you died so that we could live and

let that be the foundation for all of our serving god continue to grant us the measure of grace in our gifts the measure of faith that we need in our gifts and continue to help us see that these gifts are freely graciously spiritually bestowed to each one of us for the purpose of serving the body whether that's through speaking and teaching the word of god or that's through serving one another with the strength that only you supply father continue doing that for us it's in jesus name we pray amen remember you go ahead and stand i'm gonna go ahead and invite the band back up

as we come to this time of communion i want you to see i mean exactly what jesus came to do to serve and in one of the things in jesus service literally right before he goes to the cross which we'll get to here in a minute right before he goes to the cross he spends this meal with the disciples with the disciples and he serves them he serves them in such a unique way that we don't have right time right now to unpack but he he washes the disciples feet and one thing that i've always always been just baffled by in jesus washing the disciples

feet was him knowing what he was about to do and who was about to sell him he still chose to wash judas's feet he still chose to wash jesus's feet he still chose to serve his enemy and the one who doesn't love him who who doesn't receive what he's providing who doesn't accept what he's giving but rather is operating out of his flesh and out of his greed and out of a sin and what that's always kind of brought in life to me is we don't get to choose who we serve you just serve so if there's someone in the body of christ who has

like said something behind your back or has not you know said something the way that you thought they should say it or has whatever it looks like you wash their feet you pursue them you serve them serve your best friends serve your enemies but you just serve you serve and then christ ultimately goes to the greatest act of service and he lays his life down at the cross and he breaks his body and he sheds his blood to serve our hearts to serve our souls to serve our identities by taking that sinful identity that deserves death and wrath and he takes it and places it

on himself on the cross and he receives the wrath of god due our sin he receives it and he is crushed in that moment and then he dies and he sheds his blood so that we would be forgiven so that we would be served in that moment and then we as we get resurrected with christ three days later we are now a new creation if you believe in jesus you are a new creation and he has taken and dip that brush into paint and he has painted you with specific gifts and our motto from this point forward is to take up our christ daily just

like jesus did die to ourself and serve serve spend yourself exhaust your life give it all away you have everything you need in christ give it all away serve so if you don't have the elements i want you to go ahead and go back and grab them we'll come back to our seats and we will be filled with the strength that only god supplies as we remember and worship him and bring glory to him and all that he's done and it's great because this comes from first corinthians 11 so it literally precedes the chapter on now concerning spiritual gifts and so he knows this is

what we need to be reminded of as often as we take it we got to remember what he did for us before we ever do anything for anyone else for i received from the lord would i also deliver to you that the lord jesus on the night when he was betrayed he took bread when he had given thanks he broke it and he said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way he also took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it

in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and you drink the cup you are proclaiming the lord's death until he comes so let's proclaim the lord's death together now as we continue on in worship [Music] i cast my mind [Music] his wound [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] where is your stick the angels [Music] forever more foreign [Music] the blazing sun shall pierce [Music] single praise the name [Music] foreign [Music] praise the name [Music] we [Music] just your voices oh [Music] god [Music] sing it one more time [Music] [Music] lord we lift you up this morning god we lift

your name up lord jesus we give you praise god lord everything dwayne talked about this this morning lord we do it for your namesake god we want to serve you for your namesake lord we want you to receive the glory god because you're the one who does it in us lord so we can worship you through our serving lord so we praise you for that god we praise your name this morning god and i pray that we carry this into this week as we worship you in jesus name amen amen you guys can