Multiplication Requires Participation

And we say, "Lord, I am not you. I continue to mess up. I continue to fumble and stumble. I continue to have moments in my life where I'm offkilter. I have moments in my life where I'm not walking in step with your spirit. And Lord, I need your strength.

You because of what you've accomplished at the cross and because of what you've done in your life in living a perfect life. I need your righteousness given to me and I need your forgiveness for everything that is imperfect in me." And that's a daily basis for us. So don't just come in on Sunday and hope that that happens in a moment. That's a daily repentance for us. Sundays instead are helping us come together as a church body to equip the saints for the work of ministry on Monday.

That's why we're gathering. That's why we're gathering. It's not the only reason why we're gathering, but it's one of the main reasons why we're gathering. And so again, this is not a place for fans to come in and sit. It's a place for disciples to serve, to be equipped and to serve. And so if you just want to sit, not that we need to create space, but this is not the place for you.

If you just want to part like if you just want to passively participate as a Christian by not actually engaging in service, there are lots of churches around India that are going to have a very low bar for what they require of those who gather. And that's just not going to be what we are about. And I actually say that right now. It sounds like I'm like, you know, yelling at you guys, but I say that in the most loving way. We want more for you. We want more for you than just sitting through Christianity.

We want you playing. We want you in the game. We want you serving because of the joy that comes out of that. I love that again like and we'll get to it here in a moment, but the Apostle Paul, one of the things he says is that he pours himself out as a drink offering. And the reason why he uses that language is because he's looking at the example of Jesus on the cross literally emptying himself. And he sees it as an honor to be able to pour himself out in a similar way for the sake of others to come to know this Jesus who did that for him.

And and I think sometimes when it comes to Christianity, at least in a western world where we want to preach comfort over um conviction, is we want to create an environment that makes you feel like you're being full all the time. And what I want to say in regards to that is if the fullness that you feel in Christianity is just because you walk into a church and and and and again here this is going to sound countercultural to what we also teach all the time, but if your fullness is because someone had a nice conversation with you or it was easy to find parking or the coffee was hot or the songs were in the the melody that's easy for you to sing or that they were all of the songs that you uh enjoy and agree with. Like if that's what we are receiving that fills us up, you're missing it. You're missing it. Jesus is the only thing that actually satisfies the soul. Amen.

The longing of the soul that we have. And so then when it comes to all of those other things, when we are full and satisfied in Jesus, we are then able to pour ourselves out, to empty ourselves, to exhaust ourselves for the sake of his mission and purposes. And so I remember one time there was this guy that I went on a mission trip with in Tennessee and uh we were leaving Tennessee. there was this big ice storm that that went through Oklahoma and so just tons of trees were down and and we were going out there and and and I had this kind of weird thing with mission trips when I was in high school where it's like you would go and you would work hard for like one or two days and then there would be like a fun day or a tourist sightseeing type of day and then you'd go back and you'd maybe do something else and and I just remember thinking I was like why are we doing these like tourist fun kind of days and I love this guy he He basically came in and and he went to one of our pastors and he said, "Hey, when we go out here, can we not schedule one of those days?"

He was like, "Well, you know, we were going to try to catch this like minor league baseball game." And he's like, "I don't even know who they are. Don't even care if they win or lose." He's like, "Can we use this week as a week in which we're literally crawling back to Tennessee because we've exhausted ourselves? We spent ourselves while we're there." He's like, "Yeah, absolutely.

Let's do that. And I'll tell you this, I came back from that week physically probably more exhausted than I've ever been because it was prim like it was cutting down trees. And I just happened to be the guy that they were like, "Climb the tree to the top." I'm like, "Look, I've read the Zakia story. Just because I'm short doesn't mean that I automatically qualify for this job." But I came back filled more than I've ever been on a mission trip.

We just need to change a little bit of how we are measuring what we experience in church and then what we get out of serving within the body. And so let's look at this Acts chapter 5. I want you to see here um where I get this idea of serving and and really I think our church is is moving in such a beautiful way right now, a beautiful direction in everybody participating, everybody engaging, everybody seeing needs and desire like having a desire to fill these needs. But I want to give you some some some anchor in order to hold to why we want you to serve, why we want you to give, why we want you to engage in all that is being accomplished, because there's beauty that comes from this. And so, Acts 5:42, what I want you to see is that gospel faithfulness ultimately produces gospel growth. And so, here's where we're at.

Verse 42 says, "Every day," this gives you the context of what's going on before you get to the deacon passage of chapter 6. Verse 42 says, "Every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus." That's important because what I don't want us to see is last week we talked about the sermon at Pentecost and that in verse 41 of chapter 2 we see that 3,000 people get saved and then ushers in the context of verses 42-47 where they devote themselves to the apostle teaching and to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to the prayers and so they're starting to group together and they're in homes and they're meeting with one another and they're growing in the gospel and they're having these wonderful Bible studies. Yes. But it still flowed out of the context of the preaching of the word and the prayers, the gathering of that. And what you see here, even in the the the moving into the role of deacons and serving within the church, it still is flowing out of the same context, the preaching of the word of God.

And they were walking into two contexts in order to make sure that that continued to happen. The temple and from house to house. Now the temple, this is referring to the temple in Jerusalem. This is referring to the Solomon's temple. This is referring to the temple that when Jesus died, the veil tore. This temple was literally the centerpiece of their way of life.

This is where they would gather in a courtroom. This is where they would gather for a marketplace. This is where they would gather for the annual sacrifices in order to absolve them of their sins for that year. This is where they would gather in order to have Bible studies regarding the Old Testament. This is where if there was any new ideology coming into the city, this is where they would gather in order to test it. I mean, everything was going on on the temple courts.

And so, this was a very strategic place for them to enter into and to literally do as they say, teaching and preaching, which are two different things, teaching and preaching. And what we meant by teaching is didasco in the Greek, which is to instruct or instill doctrine into another. It's to tether them to the truth. That's the role of teaching. And here's the thing, church. You don't have to go to seminary and become an ordained pastor in order to teach someone the doctrine of scripture.

Actually, every single one of you are commanded, if you're a Christian, a born again, baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are commanded to did. You are commanded to teach others the truth about Jesus Christ. Why can I say that? Because Matthew 28 is given us that charge. Not just go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and son and the holy spirit, but teaching them. didasco teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded and at the same time teaching and preaching.

And so preaching is the bringing of the good news and inviting others to respond and receive the gospel. And so teaching is showing them how Jesus points to everything the Bible is is commanding. That's how we formulate doctrine. Doctrine is just when you look at a topic over all of the scriptures and formulate one specific truth. That's called a doctrine. So we have doctrines of Jesus.

We have doctrines of the Trinity. We have doctrines of the scriptures. What does the Bible say the scriptures are? That forms a doctrine. We have a doctrine of the church. What does all of the Bible say the church is?

So you you you look at all of the different themes and you formulate that and then you begin to teach that to everyone else because guess what the world's not going to do? It's not going to teach them that. It's not going to show them what truth is. And so God's means by which he wants truth to be revealed to those who don't know truth is through you and me. You and me. So part of that charge is you got to know the truth in order to be able to teach the truth.

And again, that's one of the main reasons why last week we showed that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to the preaching of the word. They devoted themselves to the study of the scriptures. And that devotion was not just like um the the the language for it in the original is steadfast continually. Like I didn't know steadfast could be more but it's steadfast don't stop. It's devotion that is unending unceasing.

And so that means we can and that's why again our one more for our vision 31 more. The one more part of it is uh when you read a chapter of scripture you're not doing this because you're trying to earn God's favor. You're trying to earn God's righteousness. You're you're reading it because you already have God's favor. You already have God's righteousness and you want to know more about it. You want to know more about this Jesus who loved you so much that he came to this world and died for you in your place and then gave you his righteousness and then resurrected you from death to life and then is now giving you a mission and a purpose in order to live your life for the fulfillment of all of the church coming to know Jesus Christ and then at the same time be fully satisfied in him alone and nothing this world has to offer.

Meaning you're the most free person this world will ever see. Like that's what he's come to do for you. And so therefore, you can't get enough of this person. You can't get enough of this king. You can't get enough of this God because everything else was false and he is true. And you want more of him.

And so when you have this idea and this mindset, this understanding and receiving of good news, you want more. And so when you read a chapter of scripture, you read another chapter of scripture. When you're praying to him for 10 minutes, you pray to him for 15 minutes because you want more and more and more. And so that's what they were doing was they're coming to teach this and to preach this good news good news in order for them to receive. They weren't just doing it in the temple. They were also doing it house to house.

Now that doesn't mean that we're just going to send you out and start going knocking on doors door to door. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we do that which often times people will be like, "Man, that seems so traditional. That's what they did back in the 1950s." And I say, "No, that's what they did back in the first century." All right.

If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us. I'd rather get to heaven. And God say, "Man, why did you do that whole door to door thing? Like, don't you know that in the 21st century that's outdated?" And I'm just saying, "Look, Lord, I was looking at your scriptures and I was seeing how successful it was and we're just trying to do our best. Just trying to do our best.

If that meant going door to door and having conversations, I mean, Tyler and I, we went down just this street here and we ended up having a long conversation, almost 30 minutes with a guy. That would have never happened if we didn't go door to door. Is it the best strategy out there? I don't know. But I also know that other strategies don't work either. We've put out ads on Facebook.

It doesn't necessarily translate into people coming and hearing the word of God preached. So all I'm saying is when it comes to this idea of whether it's in the temple or house to house, I think it gives freedom for us to look at everything in between of that and see what helps us teach others and preach the good news of Jesus Christ. So if you've got ideas, I'd love to hear them. Love to hear them because we'll take any idea we can to get the word of God to as many people as possible. One of the strategies that I currently use in regards to that is I do not have an office in this building. Partly that's because I don't have an office in this building.

And so it's not because um I have one and don't use it. It's just it's not our building and so I don't have an office here. But because of that, for the last 10 years, it's forced me to work in coffee shops. And I am not joking at a coffee shop on Friday, which I've been sometimes I try to choose coffee shops that I don't know as many people, especially when it's a moment that I need to write a lot. Um, but for whatever reason, this is the way that I'm wired that any coffee shop I get into, I end up getting to know a lot of people because I just talk to people. I am not joking.

This is what happened. I needed this sermon to get finished on Friday at a specific time. And so I went to a coffee shop that I thought would give me some freedom to be able to do that. I had a conversation with a Catholic woman on on what she refers to as inspirational writing. That conversation went on for about 45 minutes. Then because of that conversation, a single dad came over and said, "Could I ask you some questions?"

I said, "Sure, absolutely. What what what questions do you have?" And he said, "Hey, I was just kind of overhearing some of your conversation." and he said, "I was actually trying to uh enter into serving in a spec specific position at this church. I'm not going to name the church, but he wanted to be on their response team." And they had some issues with him being on the response team because he's a single dad because he's had some issues in his life.

And he's like, "I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm repenting. I'm not living that lifestyle anymore." He's like, "What would be your advice?" And I'm like, "I don't know you. I don't barely know your church."

I said, "But let's have a conversation. Let's work through some of this. That conversation went for another hour. Then from there, one of the baristas, hey, I overheard your conversation with said single dad. I wanted to know what you think about um how Jesus helps someone who has a history of addiction. She has a history of addiction.

So then as going back and forth through uh lattes being made and then also conversation with me, I didn't work on the sermon, but it was an opportunity in which I didn't have to Facebook ad that and I didn't have to go doortodoor. I sat and made myself available. Are we making ourselves available wherever we are in our context in order to engage people with the word of God and to be able to teach and preach good news and because the word was centered in their ministry and and here's what I want to specifically say in regards to that. What were they doing in the teaching and preaching? I think Luke 24:27 best sums up what our job is in teaching and preaching. And this is Jesus giving an example.

He says, "Beginning, this is on the road to Emmas after he's resurrected before he goes on to his ascension." He says, "Beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." That's all we got to do, guys. You're like, "Well, that's a lot." Okay, just start with one story. Study the story of Noah's arc and say, "How does Jesus fulfill this story?

Where is Jesus in this story?" Go to Moses and the Exodus coming through the Red Sea. How is Jesus in this story where he is helping a people go from bondage and slavery through the waters in order to get to freedom? Where's Jesus at in that story? So, you just start reading through the different stories and you start asking the questions, where is Jesus in this story? What's pointing to Jesus?

What's Jesus fulfilling in this? And you just start walking through it. And then you start telling people about it. You start telling people about it. Teaching informs truth. Preaching calls for a response.

And again, faithfulness of us doing those two things produces fruit. And so I want you to see this now as they continued to increase. Look at verse uh or chapter 6 verse 1. In these days when the disciples were increasing in number, how were they increasing in number? Based on everything we just looked at in verse 42. That's how they increased in number.

When we look at that increasing in number is not something that we just sit back and we're just like, I just hope it happens. I just hope it happens. After I had all those conversations with those people in that coffee shop and actually thought I had about a little about an hour worth of time, two pastors that I know really well walked in and then it's like, "All right, there's the rest of my time." But we started talking and we I asked like, "Hey, how are you guys doing? How are your churches doing?" And and it came down to one thing.

They're like, "Man, we we feel like our people are awesome. We feel like there's unity. We're just trying to feel figure out how do we grow as a church? I said I think that's the number one question every church is asking regardless if you're 30,000 people or you're 30 people. How do we grow as a church? And because I at least had the first part of the sermon done, I said Acts 5:42.

Man, they were teaching and preaching and going from the temple to house to house. They were going to where the people were and they just kept the main thing the main thing. In verse one in chapter six in that context it says they were increasing in number. Now you're like okay are we going to talk about serving at some point? When a church grows, it creates, and I'm going to use the word problems, uh, but it's not in a necessarily in a negative way, but it reveals cracks. It reveals areas that need attention when it grows.

And that's exactly what happened in their church in the first century. In these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenist arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Now I don't have a ton of time to walk into the difference between Hellenist and Hebrews. But the thing you need to know in regards to that is the Helenists were Jews in the diaspora, which is kind of the ones who were dispersed in exile. They were not living in Israel, but they were living in other foreign countries. And because they grew up in foreign countries, they adopted foreign culture.

And so they weren't speaking Hebrew, they were speaking Greek. And they were primarily practicing a culture of life that was not Hebrew, but instead foreign or gentile, if you will. So the way I like to say it is the Hebrew Jews looked at the Henistic Jews as redneck. All right? They just saw him as redneck. Same people, same covenant, different culture, different culture.

And so because of that, as the church is growing and as they were all contributing, as we saw in Acts 242-47, as they were all contributing to the needs of the saints, what they then would do is distribute the needs to the saints. And what was happening is that there was uh preference being done to the Hebrew Jews over the hellistic Jews. And again, I don't think it was intentional. I think it was just um oversight revealing a crack in the system. Oversight revealing a crack in the system. And the reason why I don't think it was intentional is because if it was intentional, the apostles would not have responded in the way that they responded in this moment.

So they saw that there was a problem and a need and they move towards it rather than just saying, "Well, yeah, you're right. We don't want the Henistic Jews, their widows receiving the distribution because they're Henistic Jews. We see them as less than. We don't see them as good as the Hebrew Jews have become Christians. And it's saying, "No, no, no, that's not what we're talking about." Now, non-Christian Hebrew Jews versus Henistic Jews do see a difference in equality.

But when it comes to church and Hebrew Jews becoming Christian and Henistic Jews becoming Christian, there is an equality there. Even though some of that um unintentional bias crept into it, the problem arose and they answered the problem and corrected it. And so that's what I want you to see here in verse um two. This is what they do. The 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching and the word of God to serve tables." Now, don't hear them saying, "Well, that's a less than thing for us to do."

They're saying, "You got to remember why we exist in the first place. It's the preaching of the word of God that actually sustains us as a church, as a mission, as the purposes of God. And so, we need to make sure that that doesn't get neglected. Doesn't mean that the neglecting that is happening isn't serious, but they're just saying, let's not trade one problem for another problem. So, we need to make sure that we continue doing the main thing while addressing this other problem that we have. Therefore, here's how they're going to solve that problem.

Brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty while or but we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. And so, here's when we when it comes to serving in the church, there's two ways that that sort of create what our ministries look like. One is going to be what ministries are the word and prayer. And we're going to usually any church that gets started, they start there. Why? Because that's what grows the church.

So, we need to make sure that there's preaching and teaching, that there's gathering people around the word of God and prayer. We need to make sure those things happen. What usually comes next is realizing, hey, we're dropping the ball in some areas. So then you start having other ministries come up like administration, hospitality, children's ministry where it starts filling in some of those cracks. And that's what happens in this moment. A church will die if the way in which these problems are addressed is not godly.

And I'll say that because we've experienced it in different levels over the 20 years of my experience in ministry at this point. And so here's what I want you to see. the comp the word for complaint that was used because I've seen I've seen some progressive Christians take this story and use it as a here's how the church can rise up and pick it against or protest against the church in order to get their way at our society when complaints arise And and and again, it's not saying that protests are bad, but there's a right way to protest. There's a right way to bring up a complaint that actually produces the result you want that doesn't bring destruction. This is the way it should be done. The word for complaint when you actually look at it in its original language is actually a humble restraint.

In other way, you know how sometimes you come up to someone and you say, "Hey, I I kind of want to talk about something and it's really hard to talk about." That's kind of what it's talking about here. It's almost like saying they came to the apostles and saying, "We know how busy you are and we hate to even have to bring this up, but this is something that is necessary to bring up and we want to talk about it. We want to address the issue." That's the language used for complaint in this passage. And so the fourth way, the four ways, I'm going to give you four C's because every once in a while I help the type A people out.

Four C's for church problems. Here's what they do. They gave an ear to hear the problem. So they consider it. They take into consideration what the people of the church have to say to the leadership of the church in regards to the problem. And what I love about this is a good sign of a good leader is whether or not they're willing to listen to the problem.

Are they willing to consider it? Or do they just dismiss it and say, "Well, that's your problem." Or, "That's not our problem. We're not going to deal with that." Or, "That's not something that we're going to address." Are they considering what you have to say?

Are they approachable in that way? The second thing that they do is that they accept that there was a problem. The apostles confirm it. Again, this is why you're able to see that they're not viewing the Henistic Jews and the widows as less than the Hebrew Jews who have become Christians. They're seeing equal here. They're saying, "You're right.

They should be getting the distribution just like the rest." And so, we need to solve this problem. So, they're confirming it. They're they're considering it and then they're confirming the situation. And then what I love is they include the church in the problem. So there's collaboration here.

There's collaboration. It says they didn't just gather the Hebrew Jews and say, "Hey, you're not going to believe what the hellistic Jews are talking about." But we got to deal with it. They also didn't just gather the apostles together and say, "Hey guys, the church is infighting because you know the the hellistic Jews over here are not getting the distribution like the Hebrew Jews are. Can you believe this? We're going to have a church split."

They said, "You want to know what will help us the most? Let's get them all in a room and let's talk about it together. Let's make sure that unity matters. Let's make sure that there's understanding of the situation at on all sides so that there's no this he said she said yada yada. So they include all of the church. They they the the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples.

I love that. And then they collectively sought a solution to solve the problem. There was correction. There was correction. Consideration. confirmation, collaboration, correction.

That's how you create a ministry within a church that solves a problem as the church is increasing and continuing to grow. In other words, here's what we don't want to do. the way the world acts or the way secular culture acts. When they see a problem, they create an activist group that condemns another group and then it just leads to destruction which is always going to give way to death. The better way to do it is we need to take action that is constructive action that leads to correction that produces life. And that's exactly what we see accomplished in this moment.

So what do godly leaders do when growth reveals problems that are not all bad problems? Again, the four C's. And then look how the church responded. Look how they responded to this. Verse five. And what they said, it pleased the whole gathering.

That's amazing. In all honesty, like that that's probably one of the things that I pray for the most is because I've also been in situations. I've been in seasons where the whole gathering was not pleased. Was not pleased. I've been in seasons where there have been complaints arise and there's not been a constructive way in which we gather together and solve the solution. What we need to pray for often is that we keep the main thing the main thing and that what we agree on pleases all of us in a unified way.

It's probably not always going to please everyone in an individual way, but we see that the greater mission is being served and that we're staying on track in regards to what needs to be accomplished. And so from there, they chose Stephen and and and the seven I'm not going to read them because I'm terrible at reading these kinds of names. And these they set before the apostles and they prayed and they laid their hands on them. And the result, look at verse seven. I love this. When they solved a problem that pulled their attention, it then allowed for the word of God to continue to increase.

So if we create a ministry that does not allow for the word of God to continue to increase, then we scrap whatever that ministry was. That's why I joke all the time like we want everybody participating. But if you come to me and to our leaders and you say, "Hey, um, I think a Friday night underwater basket weaving ministry would really grow this church." Amen. I'm going to consider it, but it's probably going to stop at confirmation. I'm going to say that sounds like a wonderful hobby that I would actually show up for to just watch, but it might not be the best way to propel the mission of our church forward.

So, do that in your own time and get as many people to come to it as you want in your own time. If anything, prove me wrong. But if someone comes to us and you fill in the blank whatever the type of ministry is and it propels the mission forward and it's something we're not doing then it's something that we as a team we say hey let's gather people from our church and let's say get Stephen get so forth get so forth let's get them together and let's have them start running this ministry have them start serving this ministry as long as it is producing the word of God continuing contining to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. What I love about the way Luke writes this account because again if you don't know it's Dr. Luke, he's written the book of Luke, which is to Theophilles to give all the accounts of the life and purpose and mission of Jesus.

And then he's showing in the book of Acts, how all of that is then applied to the apostles taking all that Jesus accomplished and did and then sharing it with the world around them. And you see the acts of what happens in regards to that. And so, he's recording all of this in order for you to understand what happens when the word of God is preached and taught. And what I love here is where he shows that when it gets beyond just the apostles or the leaders and the people are now engaging in serving the ministry. This is the first time he uses the word multiplied. For the first six chapters it was they added to the number daily.

The number increased. They added to the number daily. So when it comes to every member participating is the first time that disciplehip actually has the opportunity to multiply to multiply. In other words, it would be like if I'm the only one doing anything, one person giving 40 hours a week to the mission and purposes of God. If we have 40 people giving two hours a week to the mission and purposes of God, I can only do 40, but that actually then multiplies out to be over 80 hours for the week. That's what we're talking about here.

We're talking about what it looks like for us to actually grow and multiply as a church. And so the question isn't if I serve, where do I serve? What do I do? What am I called to? And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that the church is the body of Christ and every member matters. Not some, not the platformed, all.

The I can't say to the hand, I don't need you. And the hand can't say um I don't belong. God intentionally arranges the body giving different gifts, different roles, different functions, but the same spirit and the same mission. And so part of the job of the church is to discover where you fit within the body of Christ in order for it to stop limping and start running. Start running. And so one of the things that we're we're working on right now is um there's hundreds of these kind of like spiritual gift inventories.

Um and and really I'm just trying to land on one that isn't so um me focused if that makes sense but is Christ focused church focused uh because again we you are uniquely wired and gifted but at the same time like we don't want it to be about you. All right. So, like, you know, we don't want someone coming up and saying, "Well, you know, I took that spiritual gift inventory and I don't know what to tell you, but I'm the best singer in this church." Like, probably not the route we're going, you know? Um, and that's also subjective. So, we're trying to keep it a bit objective when it comes to these types of inventories.

But the reality is is we want to help you figure out how God has uniquely wired you to serve at this moment of time, at this day and age, at this level of spirituality that you are in. All of those things coming together to figure out how do you help the word of God continuing to increase? How do we help make more disciples? How do we get people from death to life? That's the questions we're asking. And so some of those questions might sound like um what needs do I notice within the church that others overlook?

Like if you're thinking about, hey, I think there's a problem here, it might be worthwhile to also consider whether or not Jesus is asking you to serve to help figure out what that problem is. I mean, we used to that was that's like uh seminary 101 when it comes to developing leaders. If you have someone in your church come to you and say, "We should pray more. You should then have that person lead a prayer ministry now with some development and accountability and absolutely but God put it on their heart. They need to be thinking about it. They need to be doing it.

They need to be engaging others in it. Why not have them help with that instead of uh what happens often times is people see a need. They come to leadership and then they hand it over to them and say now do your job. And that's where the apostles came back and they said, "If we were to do that, we are going to start neglecting the job that God's actually given us." And so, we're trying to make sure that the whole body is engaging in the job that God has given you in order to serve the ministry. At the same time, we don't want it to just be internal, subjective.

Where do people already look to me for help? Maybe someone's coming to you constantly and say I mean this was this was true for me like when I was growing up um when I was in my high school years and and I was new to Christianity and I remember asking questions like hey I I I don't know what it looks like to put a sermon together or or to study the scriptures and because people saw that David Thompson was so good at putting this type of stuff together they said go spend some time with David Thompson or hey what does prayer look like? Well, I knew that there was a man by the name of Steve Escu who showed up to church every Wednesday morning and would pray for three hours because I already see what he is doing. I want to go and look and learn from him. And so there might be something that you're doing that people already recognize and then we just want to formalize that in serving the actual body of Christ.

What strengths have others consistently affirmed in me? Where has God already used me? Like you might already being used in a specific way and we just want to amplify that. What is something the church is not doing that you think you could serve in this way to help execute the mission and vision of God? It's a great question. See, I can't answer that question for everybody.

And often times ministries are actually formulated from members seeing a need that the pastor could not see and then bringing it to their attention and then the pastor saying, "Yeah, that's rocket." Like that's obvious. Let's do that and then formulate it and put some resources behind it and then launch it. I mean, that's literally how the the role of deacon came about in the early church. The apostles didn't show up one Sunday and say, "Hey, um, we're going to teach you about the idea of being a deacon and then we're going to create this ministry and we're going to roll this out. We hope all of you become one."

No, it was literally birthed out of the people coming in saying, "Hey, there's a problem. People aren't being served and we need to make sure this happens." And then they created the role of deacon. If you don't know what a deacon means, it literally just means to serve. To serve. Not to rule, to serve.

You don't need a title to lead. You just need a faithful heart to serve. Awesome. My iPad just went berserk. All right, cool. Um, go to Philippians chapter 2 with me.

I at least knew this is where I was going to close. I was going to close with the idea of what type of character we need to serve because I think I think this is one place within church life where the enemy, the devil wants to slowly creep in in order to drive a wedge between the members between the members and leadership of the church because again, pride is such an issue with everybody. With everybody, pride is such an issue. And so, it's so easy for us to say, well, you know, we're not getting recognized. We're not getting, you know, we're not getting resources. We're not getting trained.

We're this isn't happening, whatever it is. And oftentimes again, it just is focusing on what I think or what I approve or what I want or what I see or or and then seeing the faults in another person and saying, "Well, well, you know, because they're not doing blah blah blah. That's why this church is awful. That's why we need to go somewhere else, yada yada." And I just want to pull this in. Because it would have been easy for Jesus to look at the church that he's going to create and say, "Why would I create this?"

I mean, all they do is argue with one another. All they do is is is come and worship me half the time. They barely get the mission out to the ends of the earth like they're supposed to. like it'd be easy for him to just sit back and say, "This is just a wasted effort. Why should we do this? Let me go find a different church."

I want to make sure that we are anchored to the same type of Christ centeredness when it comes to serving Christ and serving his church and ultimately the community at large. So, what I'm going to do in closing is I'm literally just going to read Philippians 2 1-18. So that you can see the type of service Jesus came to do for us because again we first John tells us we we love because he first loved us. Well the same thing the same thing is true in service. We serve because he first served us. So just receive this truth this morning and let it shape you as you engage and think about how to serve within the body of Christ.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it's God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. What I love about this passage is Christ is king and that is obvious.

But he is not a king who just stays on his throne. But is one who leaves his throne and comes to become the only thing we deserve to ever ascend to, which is a cross. That's a hard truth. But there's nothing we deserve more than just dying for our sins. There's nothing we deserve more than dying for our sins. And that's a truth that the world has to hear.

We can't we can't sugarcoat that reality. We can't try and make it sound lighter than it is. When Adam sinned in the garden, it fractured all of creation. And through Adam, as they had children and children and children, the seed of his sin passed down to every living being that has ever existed in all of the earth. And Romans 3:23 goes on to say in the doctrine of Paul looking at all of the scripture and coming to this idea says all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Meaning there's not one person who has ever lived in any way in which they are allowed into heaven in God's presence without Jesus coming to interfere in their behalf.

Amen. There's not one person that gets in based on anything that they've done. And so because Romans 6:23 then says the wages of sin, the the the the reward of our sin is death, eternal separation from the goodness and holiness of God. And this passage tells us that Jesus who is sitting on his throne leaves his throne and he empties himself taking the form of a servant and comes to the point of death on a cross so that he substitutes himself in our place takes our punishment for us and then that finally provides an opportunity for us to not be the object of God's wrath anymore but instead the object of God's love and favor. It's the only thing that allows us to go from death to life. And it's because he took the form of a servant to the to the point of serving us by dying for us.

Why do you think once we become Christians, once we become righteous, once we become saints, why do you think we would not have that same commission given to us? that like our king who left his throne and became um a servant to the point of death. Why do you not think that that would not be our same reality that we now get to actually leave the throne of our lives? Praise God for that. and that we then empty ourselves for his service and for his mission and be poured out as a drink offering for the sake of others to come to know Jesus as Lord. That's why I say it all the time like Christianity does make your life better in the sense that you get Jesus but it doesn't mean that it's going to make all your circumstances better.

It actually might mean that people kill you for following Jesus and proclaiming the truth of who he is. And Paul and the apostles, I mean, they go on to say they wear that as a badge of honor. And so where we're at on that spectrum is it's very early on saying, would you just be willing to serve the body of Christ? And it might be in a hospitality. We're not asking you to go to the Middle East and share the gospel. and likely get beheaded in the process.

I do hope we do. That's part of the mission and vision. 31 cent by 2030. And that 31 might not come home. But if it means that others get to go to the true home, praise God. Praise God.

So it's a disciplehip in the way in which we serve. It's growing in that process and it's being anchored to the message and the the the example that Jesus gave us to begin with. And what an image to come to the table as well. What fuels our service is seeing the service that he gave, breaking his body and shedding his blood. I think oftentimes when we get to this place where we're like, man, I'm just burnt out or I just can't do one more thing or I can't come to the question, have you broken your body for it? Have you shed your blood for it?

Have you sweat blood like Jesus did in the garden? Man, if you haven't done those things, I don't know that you know what burnt out means yet. Right? I mean, it's just one of those catchphrases that we like to throw out. And I'm not saying that you don't need rest at times from serving. I think that's one of the main reasons why he created a Sabbath for us on a weekly basis.

And then there's also seasons of Sabbath at the same time. Like those are those are biblical things. But I think a lot of times because we're such an uh weak society that sometimes that bleeds into us not trusting in the strength of Christ to sustain us when we are pouring ourselves out for him. And instead we attach whatever our society is preaching and proclaiming and say, "Yeah, I'm burned out. I can't give anymore. I can't do anymore.

I say, man, just remember Jesus. Come back to Jesus. I know you're not Jesus, but he dwells in you and he's given you his spirit. That is power. That is a dunamos that empowers you to be able to serve whatever he's called you to serve in. And so, if he hasn't called you to quit, then he's going to continue to sustain you in whatever it is.

And so, just press into him and stay anchored to him. Abide in him, and you'll have everything that you need. You'll have everything that you need. And this is a reminder every single week that we get to come back to Jesus and what he's accomplished for us. Amen. Amen.

Let's stand together. If you believe Jesus died for you on the cross, forgiven you of your sins, then I invite you to come down, grab the elements, bring them back to your seats. We'll sing through the song, worship Jesus, thank him, meditate on your life a little bit right now. where what are some areas in which I can serve the body of Christ because I've seen how Jesus has served me so well. So well. Come down, grab the elements.

We'll partake at the end of the song.