Well, thank you for all the brothers who shared about our time at the Ranch. I invite our whole church to start praying about what, what is the next steps. So should we. At the very least, we want to bless them materially, at the very least. So we’re going to start using that cork board. We’re going to have a supply list because they have regular things that they need, toilet paper, toothpaste, things of that nature, and then just a blank space. So when you go to Costco, just get an extra pair of what you’re buying for yourself.
And then we’ll have a space here to store it. And then when Ron runs out of stuff, he can go to a supply room. And that’s one way we can bless them.
So let’s ask the Lord for the next steps, how we can help them. Jim already threw out some good ideas. I think that’s true. We have a lot to a lot of different things we can offer besides spiritual things. Computer skills, job skills, how to, you know, if they can find their way, their vocation, that’ll be more than just handing them a material good.
So let’s start praying for next steps. The Lord, when I was there, the Lord, he gave me the word potential possibility. I already have ideas, but I want to be slower. I want to slow down.
I think it’s a great place just to think that Jim, with his skills, opened this opportunity up with a non-Christian, uber-wealthy businessman who bought this land for something not a godly purpose. And then God now is using it to set people free. It’s just only God can do something like this.
And to see the body of Christ come together, it’s like even if we wanted to do it ourselves, we just can’t. The land is too vast, the amount of work is too much. So really this should be the Lord’s property. Anyone who’s connected to us, who has a heart for people, heart for God, they should be able to use this property free of charge with donations. So if you need a place to go for, you know, there’s a men’s home because they’re detoxing for drugs or alcohol in their system.
But we have our own issues, and so we need to detox and put down our phone and just go away in nature and spend the night there or just spend the day there without being distracted, so that we can also benefit just spiritually.
We want to be a blessing to the men. So let’s keep praying for the Ranch.
I also had a busy week. Timothy also invited me last minute to UC Santa Barbara. KCM had an event, and it was the first time for me to be back on a college campus.
I was saved on a college campus. So, like, say with Ron, like, he was saved from the gutter, from that kind of a life. And so obviously he has a heart for people who are in that same exact situation.
For me, I got saved on a college campus. So I have a heart for the college campus. It’s been many years since I’ve been on a college campus, but there it’s like, unscripted. Like, especially the last prayer. I did not know what came out, but Jackie said you prayed for like, seven minutes straight.
And I think it was not me. It was the Lord’s heart for. For the next generation that I just witnessed. So I think there’s some college ministry in our future as well. We don’t know where or when or who, but God is definitely stirring us to do things. Okay, well, let’s read two verses and then we’ll start. Ephesians, chapter four. We’re continuing our study. Ephesians four. I’m going to read verse seven and verse 11.
7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (Ephesians 4:7, ESV)
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (Ephesians 4:11, ESV)
Father, we come seeking your presence. Jesus, you came to this earth and you baptized your church into existence. And to this day, you are the baptizer in the Holy Spirit. So, Lord, we ask that you would gift every one of us in this church with the Holy Spirit and all the gifts that are ordained by you.
We pray that the gifts that we have, that we can discover them or rediscover them, that we can fan into flame dormant gifts that you would gift us even more, that you would empower us with boldness to exercise the gifts that we know deep down that we have, that we’ve put on the shelf.
So, Lord, we ask that you fill us with the Holy Spirit, empower us with your presence. Gift every brother and sister in the church here with boldness and with a specific gift or a combination of gifts so that we can be effective in reaching the loss for Jesus. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
So what is the Church? Obviously, one is we are members of one Body.And we’re going to be reading 1 Corinthians 12. It’s a companion text to Ephesians 4.
And there we’re going to look into a little bit more of how we can honor one another and care for one another, especially the weaker or the less visible parts. How we should view them, how we should, like, go out of our way to honor them and care for one another.
Obviously, we have, in this text, we have leadership offices. And the gifts are tied to an office, and then there the members and the leadership’s job is to equip all the saints for the work of the ministry.
So the leaders are not the ones doing all the work, and then everybody else sits on the sideline and watches. But we’re supposed to. The gifts that God has given the offices, and the leaders in those offices, is supposed to be mobilized for the building up of the church and the equipping of the saints.
And what is the church? It is also a place not only to equip the saints, but to awaken dormant spiritual gifts and to fan those into flame. Ephesians 4:7.
7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (Ephesians 4:7, ESV)
And grace is charis. And each one of us has a gift of grace. Did you know that? That when God saved you along the way, he gifted you. And some of you know it, and you’re exercising it.
Clearly, we have a lot of teachers here, a lot of preachers here, obviously, Brother Ed, Brother Jim, Brother Ron. We just have many, many teachers, just people who can communicate well.
Maybe you’re not the preacher on a Sunday, but you can communicate something, even a worldly trade, worldly wisdom.
We have teachers here. Leo was a professor. So we have many, many teachers, many teachers. But there are many different gifts, many different offices. If we only are good at teaching and there’s no evangelist, then we’re going to be just teaching to ourselves and not grow.
And the teaching might be sound and solid, but you need the prophet, you need the apostle, you need the evangelist to bring someone in.
You need someone with a shepherd’s heart, a pastor’s heart to care for them. You need all the gifts, you need all the offices. You need to equip the saints.
1 Corinthians 12:4. Now there are varieties of gifts. And so Ephesians 4:7 is grace, is charis. And then now varieties of gifts is charisma. So the same root word, it’s all grace. So now there are varieties of gifts or charisma, but the same spirit.
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7, ESV)
And we witnessed that yesterday. We had, we had Scattering Seeds Church, Hill Community Church, we had Curbside Community Church. All with different gifts, different locations coming together just to see what God is doing.
And here it’s charis and charisma. And obviously you think right away, okay, this is referring to the Charismatics, the Pentecostals.
And depending on what side you’re on, you’re either all for this or you’re saying, that’s dangerous. I’m not for this, I’m against this. I’m in a different camp. But we are all Charismatics. If you believe in the Spirit, if you believe in the filling of the Spirit, if you believe in the empowerment of the Spirit, if you believe in the gifts of the Spirit, whether you have the label or not, we’re all Charismatics. If you say, I’m not a Charismatic, I’m not for that, you’re saying I’m anti Holy Spirit.
You’re saying, I don’t need a gift, I can operate in my flesh, in my talents. No, we’re not like that. We need our Charismatic brothers and sisters. We need the gifts, the grace gifts that the Holy Spirit births in us and Christ baptizes us with.
So you know, when you got baptized in water, you were dripping wet when you came out. And Holy Spirit, he doesn’t just breathe on you, he doesn’t just sprinkle something on you. We need power from on high. Like we can’t reach even the next door neighbor well without power from on high.
And so we should ask regularly for the filling of the Holy Spirit, for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So it’s not just we’re like a little bit moist on the surface, one area of your body with the Holy Spirit, but your whole being is drenched in the Holy Spirit and you’re operating in the gifts of the Spirit.
And we have different gifts in the body of Christ. And it’s together, we’re bringing it all to the table for the common good. And I just want to reiterate again that we all have a gift.
Do you know your gift? If you know your gift, are you exercising your gift? When’s the last time you put it to use? If you haven’t put it to use, it’s like you have your body, and if you don’t go to the gym, what happens is things atrophy.
When I was a college student, I only worked on the upper body, so I had chicken bone legs. So we don’t want to be that kind of a body of Christ where we have certain sections, like teaching, gift is really built up.
Like your bicep is really big on one side, but the other arm is like skinny, and your legs are scrawny, and you have a big tummy. That’s not the body of Christ that can be effective and can serve the common good well.
And so we have to know our gift. In our church, we want to start equipping the saints to recognize your gift or gifts and put them into practice. So if you’re a teacher, let’s find ways for you to teach. It doesn’t have to be preaching if you have a shepherd’s heart.
You don’t have to be a pastor and have that title, but just, you just connect with people. You want to open up your home, you have hospitality, you want to disciple one on one.
It’s different teaching, different ways that we can bring all of our gifts together. And it says in 1 Corinthians 12:8.
8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. (1 Corinthians 12:8-11, ESV)
So it’s not up to you. You can’t say, well, I want this gift. It’s not up to you, it’s not up to me. the Spirit apportions it, distributes it however he sees fit. Like Jesus is the baptizer.
He came to baptize his church, to immerse and to drench the church with the gifts of the Spirit. And so one person might not have it all. One local church might not have it all, but the universal church, we have it all. We have it all.
And so if we partner with the right people, we can, we can, we can work, we can flow in the gifts much better. And what we accomplish together is going to be. It’s going to seem like mountains are moving because the gifts are coming together in operation together.
And nobody’s saying, well, you’re not part of my church, so I don’t fellowship with you. your theology is a little different from me. I don’t fellowship with you. We don’t. We throw away that mindset and we say, okay, are you a brother? Are you a sister? Do you have the Spirit of God in you? Do you lift up the Name of Jesus? Let’s work together. Let’s work together.
And these are supernatural in nature. And then we’re going to get to some later in this same chapter that are less supernatural in nature.
So the utterance of wisdom. Some people just have an extra deposit of wisdom in human dealings, in spiritual revelation. It’s just they have something that other people don’t. It is a gift.
And some of these gifts, like if you have more than one and you bring them together, like you. If you are an evangelist and you have a gift of a word of knowledge, like you go to a stranger on the street and God deposits the word and says, oh, that person is struggling with this and this and this. Why don’t you pray for them?
And when they hear that prayer, it’s like, how you don’t know me. How did you pray exactly what I needed to hear? That’s a word of knowledge. It’s supernatural. Some people just have it. And if they’re an evangelist and they have it, think of how effective their evangelism is.
They might not come to the church, but you just save somebody. And we all need faith. But did you know there’s a gift of faith that’s a little strange? Like, we all are people of faith. We all need faith.
But some people, it’s a supernatural amount of faith. It doesn’t matter what they face. They’re not shaken; they’re rock solid, no matter what they face. It is a gift of faith. Nothing is impossible with God. God can move a mountain. That’s somebody with a gift of faith.
The gift of healing. I wish I had it. On occasion, when I pray for someone’s sickness, there’s a confidence that comes in, and it feels almost like a gift. Like, I can’t prove it, but I know deep down something changed.
And that person I prayed for is going to get well. Like, I can’t explain it. It’s just a gift. You just know you just prayed for someone with cancer, and then this.
When you pray, it’s not just, oh, Lord, can you be with this person? I hope we can, that through medicine or through whatever means, this person’s cancer can be healed. But, like, as you’re praying in the moment, there’s just a surge of confidence, and you command cancer cells to bow the knee to Jesus. And that just doesn’t happen every time you pray for healing.
But in a moment, it’s like a deposit came in and you got confident and you believe this is going to get healed. And I think people with a healing gift, they must feel this regularly. Oh, this thing is going to get healed. The working of miracles. There’s. There’s a theology that says there are no more miracles. Only the apostles, the eyewitnesses do the miracles. Nobody else since the first century can do a miracle, but it’s right here. It’s a spiritual gift.
Some people just have the ability to pray, and then a miracle happens before our eyes. It’s a gift. I wish I had that. That’d be great to have, like a superpower like that. But maybe I don’t have it because God knows that if I were to have that, I’d get proud. So he knows exactly the gifts that should be given to the right person.
To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. The ability to distinguish between spirits, I think I have that one because when I observe something, people think, oh, like, that was great. There’s something in me that says something is not quite right, there’s something else present. And it’s just a gift.
And so someone may say, well, you can never call anybody a false teacher because we’re not to judge anyone. And maybe we have skeletons in our closet, and how can we be so confident? It’s just an insight. It’s a spiritual gift that some people have, and it should be exercised with care.
Like, we don’t want to broadcast every time we sense a spiritual situation being a little bit off. You don’t want to broadcast that and say it every time you feel something a little off. You just want to keep it to yourself, pray for the situation. Maybe God will give an opportunity at a later time to speak into it or to distance yourself from it. But these are gifts that should be exercised with care to another.
Various kinds of tongues. There was a season in our church some years ago that we were very much into the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
And we used to go after certain speakers to try to receive prayer. And we just thought just being in the presence of gifted people, more spiritual gifts could be released. And we went through that. And the Lord, he gently, over time, just kind of reeled us back and said, okay, that’s enough now. You know it’s real, but don’t go crazy. Because the whole book of Corinthians is the church went crazy with the gifts. And people. People said, well, my leader is more gifted than your leader.
And they started dividing over that, and so the Lord, he just kind of brought us back. But we saw enough to know it’s real. And there’s a lot of mixture, a lot of also unclean spirits mixed in there. And so we just need a little bit more discernment, but it is real.
And I remember when I was preaching this. I think this is back when we were meeting in Old Town, Pasadena, and I was preaching on Acts 2.
And a sister, through an invitation of a friend, came for the first time, and she could speak in tongues. After the message, she came up to me and said, you’re talking about Pentecost. Why didn’t you pray for the gift of tongues for every single person as you close the service?
It was clear I knew where that question is coming from. She’s basically saying, the biggest sign that you have the Holy Spirit, because we all need the Holy Spirit to be saved.
So the biggest sign that you are saved is the gift of tongues. And so why are you not more aggressively seeking after that gift? Because without it, you have no assurance of salvation.
And so I just gently showed her this text, and I said, okay, there are different gifts, and I can’t fully explain it, but obviously the Holy Spirit decided that you needed this gift. And I’ve asked for this same gift, but I have not received this gift. And God must have his reasons, but he’s given me other gifts.
Maybe it’s not as impressive or supernatural in flavor, but I have different gifts. And I just tried to point her in that direction, and she just didn’t want to hear it. And that was the last time I saw her. And it’s listed there. So I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. Yes, speaking in tongues. It’s a real thing. Some people maybe just make the sounds, and you just can’t tell is it real. It’s just the repeating the same sound over and over. Someone told them or trained them to do that, and you just.
I don’t know if that’s real. Other times you hear it and it sounds like a language, like a foreign language, a heavenly language, a heavenly tongue. I’m not sure.
But in the book of Acts 2:1, at Pentecost, it was an actual language. And it was a miracle of God that these foreigners could hear the praises of God in their native tongue. There’s no way these fishermen could have known that foreign language.
But it’s like if I just busted out in Russian, which I’ve never studied, and I was praising God in that language, that would be a miracle.
And think of what witness it would be to a non-believer who walked into this congregation who’s Russian. It says you never learn Russian and you just started praising God in Russian. How is that possible?
And think of that person might accept Christ on that Sunday if he witnessed the tongues being exercised.
But sometimes there’s an interpretation of tongue that’s needed because maybe it’s a heavenly language, but somebody has a gift. Oh, I know what you said. I have that same tongue. God has given me insight into what that means.
Here’s what I think the Lord is saying, and we weigh it and we say, is that, is that really from the Lord? And we just kind of lean into it. And we don’t presume, yes, it is from the Lord. We kind of just accept that and let’s pray through it.
And these are all supernatural gifts, but they are all from the same spirit. And verse 11 says, we are empowered by the one same Spirit.
So whatever gift you have, and we’re going to go into some, some more, whatever gift you have, we need power behind it.
If you’re an evangelist, but you are fearful, you’re lacking power. If you’re apostolic and you don’t like going and building on somebody else’s foundation, we’ll cover that. I’ll explain what I mean by this, that you want to build on fresh ground and you have that apostolic kind of a gifting.
Like Apostle Paul, he was an apostle to the Gentiles. The Gentiles had not been reached, so you needed a new apostle to break that ground up and to start preaching.
You might have that church planter kind of a heart or a missionary kind of a heart, but if there’s no power behind it, it’s no use. It’s dormant.
So we need the Holy Spirit not only to gift us with the gift itself, but behind the gift power so that now we can exercise it without being nervous or afraid. There’s some power, there’s some force, unction behind the same words, the same service, but it’s different because it has power.
1 Corinthians 12:12.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. (1 Corinthians 12:12-18, ESV)
You might say, well, I’m a foot. I’m an ear. I have nothing to offer. I’m not that important. God is saying, no, you are a member. you’re a part of the body of Christ. And God has arranged us perfectly as he sees fit.
Like, we’re not hiring for an office. We’re not hiring for a need. I believe God is going to supply in this place, either the people in this room or someone who’s going to walk into this room. God is going to supply every gift that we need to be effective in the ministry that God has called us to do.
And we need to go out of our way to say, okay, there are parts of the body that seem more impressive or more public in nature. But just because you’re not serving in that way, you’re not diminished. you’re just as valuable. You have something to offer, you have a gift.
Let’s figure out what that is and let’s put it into practice. And here gets into how we treat people with different gifts. Verse 19.
19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthians 12:19-26, ESV)
And so you might think, I have no gift, I have nothing to offer. And deep down, there’s a sense that I’m this weak part. Like, whether I show up or not, it doesn’t matter. And God says, no, you are indispensable.
We need to, as a body of Christ, really know how to elevate these members of the Body of Christ. Because I’m just, by the nature of my office and role in this church, I’m already receiving honor enough. I don’t need extra honor. I’m already on the stage. I don’t need extra people saying things to thank me or whatever. It’s like, I don’t need that.
But there are other parts of the Body of Christ who are serving in different ways, and we need to honor them.
Like, we need to balance it out. Like, if we only honored the leadership. And we always talked about how great the leaders are and the apostles, the prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And we just talked about how much we need them, how much we’re so thankful to God for them.
That’s fine to be thankful, but how do we balance it? How do we really honor the brother who just quietly serves in the background, the sister who nobody notices but they’re doing things like, how do we honor that person? That person needs honor because they’re a part of the body that is not visible. And they might feel, well, do I even need to show up? Does it even matter if I’m here? And it doesn’t make a difference if I show up or not. But if the praise leader is not here or the preacher is not here, everybody notices. But we need to balance it out.
Like, we need to honor the people who are serving in different ways. We need to figure out those gifts and exercise those gifts.
And so the first thing is, how do we, like, honor is linked, I think, to how we care for one another. Like, when you express, I need you, brother, I’m so thankful that you’re here. Don’t feel you’re dispensable. Don’t feel like you’re invisible. Don’t feel like you’re weaker. Don’t feel like you have nothing to offer.
No, we need to go out of our way to honor them. We’re showing our care for the Body of Christ. We’re saying each person is critical. Do you see God’s heart behind this? He arranged it this way so that every part of the Body of Christ is honored equally. And the ones that are less honored, we need to go out of our way to fill up honor for them.
So if we just want to do a holy huddle every Sunday, maybe we can pull it off with just a few people who do all the work.
But if we want to reach 8 or 9 billion people for Jesus, then we have to change our mindset. This is not enough here. We need to change our mindset.
If our goal is the salvation of the world, why can’t we have that as our mission statement? Salvation of every man, woman, and child in the world.
So maybe we can’t physically go to them, but you know, YouTube can reach everybody practically in the world, except in countries where it’s blocked.
Think of just the fact that we have a video camera and we have technology, we have resources to post it on the Internet. We have the potential to reach most of the world for Christ.
Verse 22, it says, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. So when Alfonso comes from the ranch and other people come from the ranch, how do we show them honor? They might feel like I’m a nobody, I messed up my life.
They might feel any number of emotions and they walk into a place, everybody has a nice car, everybody has a nice job, a nice home. They’re going to feel like there’s a gap. So how do we bestow upon the Alfonso’s of the world extra care?
I want us to start praying this way because you have to be mentally and spiritually prepared to know how to interact with that brother. That means when we give supplies, are we going to give like lower quality supplies, used supplies, like it’s all worn out.
Like we wouldn’t take that vitamin for ourselves, but we’ll give it to give it to the ranch. It’s like that’s not honor, right? Like if you were on the ranch, you want the best. You want the best for your health, you want the best for you to feel proud when you put on some clothing. You don’t want to hand me down. Some hand me downs are a fine, but it’s like our mentality needs to shift because deliberately we’re trying to show honor and care like you are. We’re so happy that you’re here.
You’re part of us. you’re not like a side ministry, you’re not like a side thing. And we will just go out once a month. No, we’re in this together. We’re going to figure this out together. And so every time you show up, we want to show you honor. We need each other. Like I’m a jack of all trades, but I’m really a master of none. I’m kind of well rounded. I’m not excellent in any one thing. I can figure it out.
I can do the website. I can work with Jackie to do a flyer. You know, we can kind of just get by. But there’s some people here who have like a talent, a gift, and you could do it way better than I could do it or Jackie could do it. And you could put a little bit more attention to it because, if you just take something off my plate, I’m thankful. I don’t have to worry about that.
Oh, you can take care of that. I trust you. I’ll work with you. But you’re going to really drive this thing. It’s such a load off if I can do that. We need each other. And so I’m saying I need you. I don’t want to pressure you. And I’m not going to like keep on saying I need help with X, Y and Z. All I ask is to have this mindset that we’re one Body and we’re in this together.
And so, if you have a little bit of bandwidth and you have a heart, and on top of it, you have a gift, a spiritual gift, bring it to the table and just start asking, how can I help? Rather than me saying, I need help in this, let’s turn the table. You can just volunteer. Ask, how can I help?
We need technology help, we need web help, we need singing, we need musicians, we need people with hospitality to open up homes. We need teaching. We need a people with heart to disciple men and women and children. We need people to lead small groups. We need a lot of things just to do what we’re doing at a small scale.
On top of that, I think God wants us to elevate and say, well, our goal is not 50 or 100. Our goal is the world. Why not? We don’t know what God can do. Look at how God used Billy Graham. One man. He never thought he could reach millions. With the internet, think of the possibilities.
Billy Graham was not a part of the internet age. So Franklin Graham, his son. So his father, reached millions. His son can reach billions. We can reach billions with the internet.
1 Corinthians 12:27.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? (1 Corinthians 12:27-30, ESV)
31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. (1 Corinthians 12:31, ESV)
We’ll save for next week.
Now we’re starting to see not just the supernatural gifts, but the more mundane gifts which are not any less valuable. And one is helping. You just want to help.
Like my boys as they grew up, some of them just notice, oh, mom and dad are carrying all the groceries from the car. It’s a gift to even notice and want to pick up, pick that up. There are people here who just want to help. They have that servant’s heart, which I believe every Christian should have as we mature. Because Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28, ESV)
But there’s somebody with a special spiritual gift of helping. They just know before you even ask. It’s like you need a bottle of water. Even before you ask, the water shows up. It’s somebody with that kind of eye and sense. And they just really want to lighten somebody else’s load.
There’s a lot of people here with that gift of wanting to be of service, of wanting to help. I know it. And don’t think that’s any less valuable than administrating.
We have some good administrators here, so we might have an idea for the ranch or even on a small scale to supply room for the ranch. Somebody has to organize the clothing. Somebody has to go to the Ranch. Like every time we go and have a spiritual event or retreat, somebody with an administrative gift must go there or go to the supply room and say, let’s organize this. And we can’t do it all in one shot, but every time we go to the Ranch, we’ll take one little corner, one little room, and we’ll beautify it.
We’ll organize it so everything operates a little bit better. Somebody with an administrative gift. Somebody has to organize. I can do it, but I really don’t want to do it because I know there’s some people here with an administrative gift that far surpasses mine.
So you can organize the supply room. So that we all know what’s lacking, so we’ll just send out an email. Okay, we ran out of toilet paper. We don’t want the men to run out of toilet paper. Let’s send it out.
Let’s make sure somebody volunteers and says, okay, I’m going to Costco, I’ll pick it up. But somebody has to put a process in place.
Ephesians 4:11.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-12, ESV)
Apostles means “one who is sent.” And there’s a lot of theology on what exactly is an apostle, but in a just a simple sense, it’s somebody who is sent.
So somebody who has a heart for missions, I think has this gift. Maybe not the title apostle, but has this gift.
Romans 15:20.
20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, (Romans 15:20, ESV)
Like somebody who wants to go to an unreached neighborhood and says, I want to plant a church there. That takes an apostolic person, a gift.
Someone who wants to be go overseas as a missionary needs an apostolic gift to cross cultural barriers and to go through all of the necessary challenges to do this. So let’s just simplify. You don’t have to. We don’t have to be afraid or say, well, there’s no apostles anymore. No, it’s just a missionary, a church planter, someone who wants to go to an unreached place. There’s no foundation that’s built, but you want to build it from scratch.
That’s somebody with a gift and to do a new work like at the Ranch or whatever ministries that will be birthed in this place, we need somebody with that kind of a gift.
Prophet. We have examples in the book of Acts. Acts 11 – Agabus received advance warning that there’s a famine coming. He warned the church, the church got itself ready for the famine.
And then later in Acts 21, the same prophet warned Paul who was set to go to Jerusalem. Do you know what’s going to face you there? They’re going to bind you up, they’re going to tie you up, and it’s going to be difficult. But that did not deter Paul, but it was helpful. He knew what he was going to face.
That’s the role of a prophet. It’s, thus saith the Lord, it’s God telling His people something in advance.
The office of deacon is described for the first time in Acts 6. Because we talked about the office of leadership. You have the apostles, the prophets, even evangelists, shepherds, slash pastors and teachers.
And then you have the members who need to be equipped for the work of the ministry. The office of deacons, which is literally the servants of the church, deacons and deaconesses, I believe.
This office came about because the the widows at the church, in the Book of Acts, they were being overlooked in the distribution of food. And so there was a breakdown in the process.
The leadership was praying and fasting and planting churches and doing missions. On top of that, had to think about distributing food. And it was just too much for them, too much on their plate. So people were being missed.
And so in order for the leadership to focus more on preaching, praying, fasting, they said, we need help. And the qualifications here, the same thing. They’re just people with grace, full of grace, full of the Holy Spirit. And they performed great signs and wonders. We read Stephen, he was a deacon, and yet he lived like an apostle. So let’s not say only apostles work miracles.
No, the working of miracles is a spiritual gift. Even Stephen, a deacon who was not an apostle, worked miracles because he was filled with the Spirit.
I’m going to end with, how do you know your spiritual gift? I think the way you know is you follow your burden. You follow what burdens you.
So if it burdens you that this church is not filled yet, possibly you have a heart of an evangelist, and we need evangelists to go out there to pass out flyers. And we have the flyers today.
By next week, we’re going to have a map of our surrounding neighborhood and we’re going to say, okay, we passed out flyers here. We prayed for the houses here. It’s covered. Now we’re going to go to the next section and we’re going to just strategically cover this area.
Let’s say you don’t have a heart of an evangelist, and you don’t want to go out in public and knock on a door or meet a stranger and pass out a flyer and pray for them.
Does that mean you can’t participate? No, you can participate. You don’t have to go to them. Half the time, you go to a house, they’re not home. You don’t even have to knock on the door if you don’t feel like it.
But we’ll have a flyer. Just put it in the mailbox. Pray for that house. You don’t know who’s in there. But the Lord knows who’s there. Pray for that house and just drop it into the mailbox. So we can all participate.
The evangelists among us want to be a little bit more forceful, and they will talk to people. You don’t have to be that way. You can just pass it out quietly and pray for the neighborhood.
The last verse I want to read is 2 Timothy 1:6. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control or sound mind.
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:6-7, ESV)
Some of you know your gift, but it’s been dormant. So now we need to fan it into flame. And you fan into flame first, praying for it again, asking for power to be filled and love and a sound mind to empower you so that you can exercise that gift.
For those who don’t know what their gift is yet, that’s okay. Just what are you burdened about? Like, what are you.
What do you feel like? Okay, there’s a need, and I really want to meet that need. Probably there’s a gift behind it because other people don’t have that sense.
You have the evangelists that say, we want to bring everybody off the street here. We have the pastors, people with a heart for discipleship, to say, well, let’s take care of the people that we have. But you need that. Plus, like the newcomer, who’s going to care for them spiritually? Who’s going to disciple them? You need the pastor shepherd, who’s going to teach them.
You need the teacher, but you need the apostle to go out there to break up the ground, to go to a new neighborhood, to pray for that neighborhood.
You need the evangelist also to go out. You need prophets to say, now is not the time to go. We need to focus on something else. Thus saith the Lord, let’s pray for our country. Let’s not. There’s something way more important than evangelism. We need that kind of a spiritual direction.
But all of us, we should be able to discover, uncover, revive the gifts or multiple gifts that you have and fan them as a community. Fan them into flame.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, thank you for teaching us about what Jesus did when he ascended to heaven. He baptized the Church and he gave gifts to men. You didn’t just sprinkle one or two gifts. You baptized the entire Church with every spiritual gift.
And perhaps this is not even an exhaustive list because you’re an infinite God. But Lord, we know that some of us here don’t know their gifts yet.
So we pray that you would help them as they pray to you, as they investigate their own burdens, that you would confirm or reaffirm the gifts that they have.
We pray that the others among us who know our gift but have put it on the shelf, that we would begin fanning into flame that spiritual gift by praying for it, by asking for more deposits of it, for asking for power from on high to fill us with power, love, and a sound mind.
Not fear, but power. We pray for the leadership here that you would fill all the offices as you see fit.
And whatever we’re lacking, help us to partner with other parts of the body of Christ at a different church, to come together, to operate in more of the gifts collaboratively.
Because our goal is not 50 people or 100 people. Our goal is every man, woman and child living on earth. We want to reach as many people as we can for Jesus, because in the end, that’s what matters. What matters is eternity spent with you and not apart from you. Baptize us now. Gift us now.
If we’ve never received a gift, we pray that you gift us now. Baptize us with all the gifts or multiple gifts as you see fit in this place.
We repent, Lord, if we know we have a gift and we haven’t exercised it. We repent for being fearful, for being lazy. Whatever the reason, we want to start exercising it.
Lord, as a church, forgive me for not equipping the saints better. We want to do a better job. All the leaders want to do a better job equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
Lord, we’re going to go out in the next few weeks to let the neighborhood know that Hill Community Church is here. Canaan Church is here. We’re also going to go out with Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas coming up.
So, Lord, you’re giving us multiple opportunities in the next two months to go out, engage the community. And Lord, even online, there’s ways that we can reach a person on the other side of this world. Help us to be excellent, even how we present online the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord.
We pray that you minister to us. Thank you for Your Body that was broken and Your Blood shed. This is what had to happen for the Church to be fully baptized by the Holy Spirit. You had to leave. You said it’s better for you to leave so that we can be baptized with power from on high.
Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
