I'm gonna do I'm gonna do a slideshow with only emojis and stuff one time for the kids. They don't what do they do now?
Yeah
I could do an ironic slide said
know I've been there a lot, you know, geez. Matt said watching a man turn old before eyes if you didn't hear that on Zoom. I know what's happening to me. Sometimes look myself in the mirror and I go, good Lord, what's going on? I know some of y'all know what that's like. Wow, no one laughed. Everyone's like, dang. Hill the low blows? We can't We can't laugh at ourselves with that. Have you ever look in the mirror? Dad says he does. He says, Man, I look in the mirror. And I don't even know who's staring back at me sometimes. I haven't quite got there. But I do see some I'm getting there sometime? A little bit a little bit out of time. How about that? All right. You all want to turn to Second Timothy? We'll we'll dive into that here in a second. So what are we going to talk about for the next several weeks? Something I'm excited about talking about. I mentioned last week, sorry, let me just unload my pockets and stuff, because that's just gonna get really irritating to me. I mentioned last week that we've been I'm excited about all that God's doing. I think I think a lot of us are. I think it's really cool to see that. We've got folks that have been working in inner city for years. And we have Mitchell Nielsen going on. We have some stuff with Julie. Oh, Julie. Hey, Julie. She was doing the work of the Lord this morning. You know, so I guess, I guess we'll forgive her, you know, showing up a little late. Geez. All right. We have all these things going on. And Greg will share something new that it's not. It's me actually merging Mitchell Nielsen and Julie made a connection with us this last week. So another opportunity for us to serve as Mike was talking about in our community and all that kind of stuff. Really cool stuff. He'll share that after I'm done speaking. What I really felt from the Lord is for us to take some several weeks to examine. I even heard several people mention it. I remember Jerry, you mentioned that a shepherd's meeting us to think about the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us as a body. Sometimes I don't know if I've done that as much as I should, in these church settings to really sit back and go, alright, we're walking with God, believer walking with Him, we believe that we're starting to really kind of go on this new mission that he has for us to go on. Let's take a step back and go, what are our gifts? What are our roles? How can we actually do this as well as possible? Because we all know, and I'm not saying that there's not going to be times when God asks you to do something that's not your gift. But we all know what it's like to be stuck in a spot that's doing I mean, that's not really your gift. And you're like, man, whenever there's someone else here that could probably do a way better job. And it would have been much better if they just if you were operating in your gift. On the flip side. How many of you know what it feels like to really roll with your gift? Anyone been part of something where you're just like, Man, this is going you know, like a basketball team, the Tennessee Vols last last this week, you know, yesterday's bomber, yeah, that we're gonna do pretty good. But you know, we've all lost it like usual. When you've ever played on some type of a team, or like you'd like, Hey, if you're good at shooting, like you don't have to carry all this other burden of doing all this other stuff. You just kind of post up and you just shoot or whatever. And you're like, Man, I'm rolling. The thing that God was talking to me about this week, though, is in order for us to operate in our gifts like that we all have to participate. So if the if the point guard that's dribbling, try not to use sports, like hopefully everyone understands that they're the one that's dribbling and distributing the ball and going Hey, he go Ryan, or he go Bethany and then you know, Bethany, shooting the threes. But if the point guards not operating as a point guard, well, then she can't do that she might have to dribble the ball. And maybe she can't handle it very well, like me. I'm horrible at hate my handles, as the kids would say, I can't do it very well. But we need each other. That's the point. We need each other. So whenever you say Well, I'm gonna bow out and I don't know about my gifts and I don't know if I can use then you're actually hurting the rest of the body or you're someone else's got to pick up your slack that you actually might be really good at which also goes back to the false humility that we Greg and we were talking about to go well, I'm not so I don't know if I'm so good at that, man. If you're good at it, know that you're good at it. Know that God has gifted you and enroll with it. All right. Whew, I'm excited. Glory. I'm gonna do one of those charismatic laps around the building before too long. Then hurt my shoulder again, this one would have to come in for me. I know that stupid, should have taken that thing out years ago after I hit it the first time.
Probably don't support any of the weight or anything, does it? Anyway. So we're going to be talking about that. But we're going to be talking about the gifts if you want to go to the next slide, alongside the fruit of the Spirit, because I think oftentimes, we talk about them kind of separate. I didn't love some of this. So I blurted out the tail, I didn't like the way the person had it on there, if you wonder what's going on down there, that was just, that was me, it looks kind of funny. I don't, and this is these are not the only gifts that we're going to talk about. So this wasn't the best picture. But it was I didn't want to create one myself. So I got the best I could and just blurt out what I didn't like, and all that kind of stuff. Because these are not the only gifts of the Spirit. But I saw this image one time, and it really did hit home to go, okay, the gifts of the Spirit, alongside of the fruit of the Spirit, which is the character of God in us, right the character that we're to have. Because I've seen the gifts of the Spirit operated without the fruit of the Spirit, and it's an ugly thing. And it usually brings destruction, it really hurts the body. I'm so and so and I'm apostle this and I am prophet that and I'm this and that and, and it becomes lording over people rather than as we're going to see today, what it means to serve and build up the body. I've also seen talked about the fruit of the Spirit with ignoring that the Holy Spirit actually has given us gifts to operate in the church to operate in. So I want to kind of talk about these things alongside each other. So with that said, you know, the next slide and go to Second Timothy, one, I'm going to start in verse one real quick, there's a couple of interesting things I want to point out. But I'm primarily want to look at verse six. I titled the message the gift of God within you, or I could say within us, but we have to ask ourselves, there is some internal self reflection in this as well. But What part are we in this awesome Body of Christ? Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by whose will God's will, for the sake of the promise of life in Christ Jesus talks about false humility. Paul is not afraid to say like, Hey, I've have this apostolic gift and it comes from God. It's okay. Does Paul go around flaunting it all the time? No. Does he use it when he needs to? Yeah, I mean, he does. But I say that to say I think that that's interesting that it's not again about lording over people or whatever, but it's okay. It's okay to say this. God has gifted me in this area, and I know it. And you could even tell people about it. Humbly, Matt's chocolate. Let's see what Matt's got the gift of giving brother and you're gonna give me a lot of it. I think that was a bad joke. All right, let's just move on. For this, the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, My dearly love, son, Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, in Jesus Christ our Lord. I love hear that Paul, Paul's writing to this young man, Timothy and I love that he calls him his dearly loved son. So he could use that apostolic gift as hey, look at who I am. And yet, he's using this gift and he has people like Timothy who he like, is in deep relationship with. So part of the idea of the gifts. Part of God's dream, I believe, of our gifts is that we are an intimate community and deep relationship with one another, to where we are saying brothers and sisters, we are saying sons, I mean, Paul says, and to the Corinthians though, you might have 10,000 guardians or 10,000. Teachers in Christ, you don't have many fathers. You have a lot of people that would get on YouTube and teach or get on a podcast and teach but very few people that will actually get into your lives and actually care about you. Deeply. Right? That's big time. And I love how I love how Paul does that in policy and you might dearly love sun. In fact, when we were singing was whenever song was it, see when I you know whenever you're thinking of a song, but the melody of another song is in your head and it's screwing up the song that you actually God is love. God is love. That's what we're singing it talks about. He does not love does not know God. That's a strong word, isn't it? Well, you know that John, in that same passage says if you don't love your brother or sister then you're a liar. If you say you love God. You know why God has given me helping me to understand this revelation like, we are his body. Like we're his body. This is Christ's body on Earth right now. Through his spirit. It's us. Do you want to serve Jesus go serve his body. How can I say I don't I hate Jerry. But I love Jesus. That's that doesn't make sense.
Some of us are harder to love than others. But it doesn't exempt us from that. If we could get honest Lord, give us a deep revelation of For us as your body, a deep revelation, Lord, to where we recognize law that when we give a cup of cold water to one of us or we wash each other's feet or we listen to somebody on the phone who's going through a hard time that we are loving you in that we are serving you, man, thank you, Lord. Thank You, Lord. God's been wrecking me without a lot lately. We want to wake up in the morning, go, how can I serve Jesus, that Jesus, Jesus, his body is right here. There's opportunities. Day in and day out, we have so much opportunity to serve his body and to love his body. If we didn't, man, that's just the victim. Okay. Verse three says, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience as my ancestors did when I constantly remember you in my prayers day and night in that awesome, Paul's got this beloved son, who we consistently praise for who we consistently praise for it. And I love that about Paul, because I don't know if Paul is probably going, Oh, I guess I need to pray for Timothy this morning. But there's such a love. For Timothy, there's such a love for God and His kingdom that like I guarantee you that like the idea that he's praying for Timothy is just as a father's love as we would pray for our kids because he cares. He cares. And Timothy is not his physical son is someone as a spiritual son is someone who he dearly loves. He loves him that much. He's constantly praying for him, remembering your tears along to see you so that I might be filled with joy. Not only is he praying for him, he's longing he can't wait to have that joy of seeing Timothy together. And I really liked this next verse. I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother, Eunice. And now I'm convinced is in you also. There's a generational faith that's being passed down. Like we've talked about that recently, like our kids are watching us, our grandkids are watching us, or grandkids? Seeing the love the sincere faith this all out faith in Jesus? And are they sparked by that, you know, are our kids seeing that for those of us who aren't grandparents yet. But like, you see this generational thing being passed down. And Timothy, Paul sees that in Timothy's like I saw it in your grandmother, I saw it in your mother, there's a sense of your faith that you have. And then he says, Therefore, it's why one of the reasons I read all that. So we wouldn't just start on that. Therefore, I remind you to rekindle some translations slayed a fan into flame, the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands, For God has not given us a spirit of fear. But one of power. Love is sound judgment. So don't be ashamed of me of the testimony about our Lord or of me as prisoner. Instead share and suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God. And I could just keep going and going to go in but then we'll never get to the, to the point. Timothy had a gift that was given to him. And we'll read actually, we're going to go back a little bit that one of the persons that laid hands on him was Paul, this father. And when Paul laid hands on him, and the elders will get there, when they laid hands on him. A gift from the spirit or multiple gifts from the Spirit maybe came upon him. But there's a particular one that he's talking here, talking about here. And yet, though he has a gift, and that is really felt like God wanted me to share this start here. Because I think there'll be people that will relate to this. You relate to the fact that you have a gift, but somewhat, but we haven't really been finding that thing into flame. Like maybe it's a spark, maybe it's something that we did in the past. I mean, I'm guilty of this all day long, like, and I'm operating in the gift and then I've just kind of ignored it and ran around with life and did my life thing. And then look back and go when God gifted me in that How am I? How am I using that to build up the body? How am I using that? And guess what? Timothy had the same issue. There's no reason for Paul to tell him to rekindle the flame if the famous burned. Full Blaze full glory. I don't know. I don't even know what I was gonna say. Timothy also is a little afraid. Why? Because he encourages him. God has not given us a spirit of fear. So Timothy has been gifted a gift from the spirit. Like we all have been given gifts, I promise you this if you have the Spirit inside of you, God's given you giftings. And yet what's happened is he hasn't really stewarded that as well as you should. And there's some fear there in him, which I can personally I don't know about y'all. Probably all of us can relate to that. There's some fear like man, I don't know, am I really gifted in that area? I'm not sure how to use that gift. And I did I started using it one time and I kind of screwed it up. Anyone done that? And maybe I hurt somebody. So now I'm afraid to start using that gift again. But he says God hasn't I love that God hasn't given us a spirit of fear. If you have a spirit of fear. It's not from God.
It's from the enemy. But what does God given us? He's given us one of power. in love and of sound judgment, love is one of the fruits of the Spirit. And we'll talk about that God has given you a spirit of power, love and of sound judgment. There must also be the reality there, I read a little bit further that maybe he was afraid of the suffering that he might go through. Because right here, right after that, he says, Don't be ashamed about the testimony of God or have me as prisoner, but share in suffering. He knows that Paul's in prison, maybe there's a little bit of, oh, my gosh, if I get really serious about this gift, what if I find myself in prison like Paul did? Right? Like it might be hard. So some of that fear may be that this is, and I think that we can relate to this in our present circumstances, right? Like, when we start serving our community more, it will be hard sometimes, it will be inconvenient sometimes. And maybe there's a fear that we start to operate that because man, I don't know. Or man, I got sucked into something one time, and it just took all my time. Listen, if we're working in this together as body, and if we really love each other, we ought to be willing to say, hey, I need help with this. I can't run with this. You know, I think we've been afraid to do that sometimes. And it's caused us to not to get bitter about a gift or something that we've been operating in. If you go the next slide, we're going to move back, just a hair to First Timothy four. There we go. Because this isn't the first time Paul's had to encourage Timothy about his gift. This is the second letter that we have that Paul wrote Timothy, this is actually a reoccurring theme with Timothy that he has his gift, and he's got to be encouraged in it. So if anyone needs multiple encouragement to Timothy, seriously, don't be all down on yourself, beat yourself up.
I really want to go before chapter 411. But then I'll get on a bunny trail. All right, read that some time by yourself, commanded teach these things. And that's why I don't That's why I want to read before it. But again, I'll go into buddy Joe, don't let anyone despise you for your youth. So first of all, we can surmise that he was a young man. And that being a young man, I understand what that's like, I think that's all probably have been, we've helping young men and women at some point in time. And if we have something to share, and it's to someone who's older, like it can be intimidating, right. And maybe it should be a little bit because they have more wisdom than we do, probably, but not to the point to where we don't share. We don't operate in that. Maybe we also need to learn how to listen to the younger people, as well as maybe this full circle, maybe not old man and lords telling me there's some young men and women you need to listen to. And I'm ignoring it. But he tells he encouraged him, don't let anyone despise you for your youth. And he gives him something to do, but set an example for the believers. And so here's what he tells him to do in speech. So set an example in what you say, and how you act and conduct and how you love in your faith. And I love this an impurity impurity. So he's saying to them, don't let anyone look down on you. And he doesn't say as you don't say, Jen, right. So get back at him. If they don't, if they're looking down on you. He doesn't say that. He says, live this life in Christ. Where you're loving what you're conducting yourself, like Christ, where you're living and faith in God, you're being pure. You're not going around, sleeping with a bunch of people and doing different things like that. Set them an example, show them, model for them what life in Christ looks like. And then in verse 13, he says, until I come give your attention to the public reading. exhortation in in teaching, or public reading of Scripture is exploitation into teaching, then he's going to encourage him to not neglect the gift. A lot of people surmise because of this, that his gift was teaching. And that he was not he was a little afraid in his gift of teaching potentially. Don't know that for a fact. But he encourages him in the public reading of scriptures into exhortation to teaching then he says, Don't neglect the gift that is in you. It was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. So not only did Paul lay his hands on Timothy, but also the elders laid their hands on Timothy as well. And as they lay their hands on Timothy, the Spirit gave him a gift, possibly teaching. But Timothy is neglecting it like a little bit. There's no doubt about it. Like if Paul has to tell him, You don't tell someone to not neglect something if they're not neglecting it to you? I don't think so. So there's an issue here where he's probably timid. A little bit about his age. Not sure. Should he be teaching Am I allowed to teach these people I don't know they're older than me. You They're not because of that it's caused that gift to kind of go to the wayside a little bit. And Paul saying, Don't neglect it. In verse 15, it says, practice these things be committed to them so that your progress may be evidence all play, pay close attention to your life, you're teaching, persevere in these things for In so doing, you will save both yourself and your hairs. But then he does encourage them in chapter five, don't rebuke an older man, but exhort him as father. So in this issue, like he's like, Yeah, but don't be a jerk to the older man. Because they're, you're easily or your father, right. But what I really like about this is so there's this picture of Paul er, and the elders are at the same time, whatever. laying hands on this Timothy being gifted, but Timothy is kind of timid, not really super operating in the gift like he should be. And what is Paul's encouragement for someone like that. So if we have believed that we've received gifted by the way during this, if someone wants to shepherds or lay hands and pray that they would receive gifts, like I'm, we're good with that. Like, seriously, we should make that an opportunity. But what I've seen in the past, sometimes I've seen this happen, I've seen someone be like, Man, they had this powerful encounter with God. And in wuth, everything's good man, I've got this gift, and then two or three weeks later, it's just like a Sherman's we're not even kind of forgot about it. Anyone ever experienced that? What do we do? We lay hands on it again. Oh, God, let the fire comb you know, or something. That's my background. Some of y'all are like, I don't know what you're talking about. Because fire does not sound good to me. Totally different backgrounds, different strokes for different folks. And then they get all glory. And they, you know, it might shake a little bit and you know, and then two or three weeks later, kind of forgotten they need to they need the elders to lay their hands on him again.
Listen, Paul doesn't say you need more prayer, Timothy, you need me to lay hands on you again. Paul says you need to practice what you've been given. That's what he says. And that's what he says, practice these things, and be committed to them. Right? Be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident. Also, if you feel a little Timothy, and you feel like I don't know what to do, start using those gifts begin to put that gift or those gifts back into practice. Looking for opportunity. We're going to actually talk about a ton of the gifts over the next several weeks. Okay. And we're talking about couple of them today. analogy if I'm a pretty good shooter, but I've got a little rusty, how do I get better by reading books about it or talking about it with everybody know, if I read it might help me a little bit understand I'm doing something wrong, but I have to actually take the dang basketball and shoot it to get better. Sorry for saying Dang, I don't know. Some people might not like that. Put them into practice it. Let's let's get the rust off. And let's begin to look at how to use those gifts for the body. So let's go to Ephesians chapter four
wanted to go here because I want us to see what the purpose of some of these. And then I figured since the apostolic gift and prophetic gift are pretty controversial. Let's just start with those two, right. I would say those two and speaking in tongues would be about the most three most controversial gifts. So let's but I won't talk about that one today. We'll get there. The next slide? Yeah, the There you go. So let's, let's start talking about some of these gifts. And again, looking at why what's the purpose behind them? Therefore I the prisoner in the Lord there was Paul in prison again. He found himself in prison quite a bit, hmm. urge you to live away, hold on. Let me go back to verse 20. In chapter three, because it's really cool. Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. I love that verse. Especially in light of the rest of what he's talking about. But I just love that it says that he's able to do far more than we actually think that's incredible, isn't it? Because I can think pretty big. But to go like God actually wants it more like he wants. He wants to see us making a difference in the city even more than we want to makes me go. I love you so much, god, you're so incredible. Okay, therefore I therefore i The prisoner, the Lord urge you to live worthy of the calling that you have received. That I would love to just meditate and go there for a long time, but I'm just gonna read it slowly again in us think about this, to live worthy of the calling that you have received. with all humility, gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Some of these are even and fruits of the Spirit that we're actually seeing right here, as he talks about gifts of the Spirit, and things that we absolutely must have in order to operate in unity as the body of Christ, we have to have humility, we have to be gentle, we have to have patience, and bear with one another in love. And let me tell you something, the gifts of the Spirit are a divisive subject, in the body of Christ in general, maybe not here so much. But man, all you got to do is get a couple of different nominations together, he started talking about gifts of the Spirit, and all hell break loose. I mean, I'm just being real. Well, I don't know, man, you know, you don't even think you're a believer, I don't think that man, you need to get saved again, you know, like, and I thought to myself, if I was the enemy, that's exactly what I would do. If God gave gifts to the church to build the body up and to encourage the body, I just wreaked havoc on talking about it. So let's let me just say this, let's just breathe, about the gifts of the Spirit. And if you disagree with me, that's okay. Because you know what the but you know what this says right here, in verse three, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit. So before and that's big time, like, Oh, I hope that's an encouragement for all of us. Whenever, wherever we get mad at the preacher, or we get mad at sister so and so. Or we get mad at Brother Bob, I want to ask you before you split, have you made every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit? I'll ask you that? Or have you decided? Well, I don't, I just don't think they'll I don't think they'll change? Have you made any effort? I wish the body of Christ would like if we could grab hold of that. And guess what, I'm probably going to have to eat those words one day, right? The Holy Spirit's gonna say, Well, John, are you leaving right now? Yeah, did I said that one time didn't know? Have you made every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit? Have you just gotten frustrated other churches around this area, and you don't want to have unity with them? Because you're mad? Because you believe in some of these gifts and they don't want or whatever it may be? That's powerful, though, isn't it make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace? We are called to do that. And then Paul goes into this oneness of the body. There is one body, one spirit, just as you were called to, if I can fumble through this, one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in all.
There's not multiple faiths, there's not multiple, baptisms and callings and different things like that. Like he's saying, Listen, you all are one, there is one spirit who leads these things. We are together in this so so whether we have a stones river Church of Christ on our front, or a Nazarene church or whatever we are one if we're in Christ, we are not many, and even stones River as we think about how we operate in the gifts, we can even take a bigger step back and go what is our gift in the broader Body of Christ? Like what are some of our gifts in the broader Murfreesboro Body of Christ, right and the regional body of Christ to think through those types of things? In that we are called to make those efforts to maintain unity. In verse seven, it says, Now, grace was given to each one of us. So for those of us here that were in Christ, I'm gonna guess everyone. God has given you a grace and the grace doesn't just mean he forgave you had grace on you. Grace means empowerment. You have been empowered you've been given. Now, grace was given to each one of us to all of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. For it says when He ascended on high, he took the captive captives captive, he gave gifts to people. We'll keep going for a second here, and I'll back up. But what does He ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth, the one who descended is above the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things. That's a little confusing sounding, isn't it? Well, he ascended to descend. And then if he didn't ascend it, then he had to have decent and then it sounds kind of like a comic routine to me a little bit. Paul's quoting Psalm 68, if you want to know what he's quoting, and he's quoting it, maybe a little different than it actually says. Paul does that sometimes. The picture that he's given the picture in Psalm, Psalm 68, is the king going up to Mount Sinai and the king when as the king goes, The King is this picture of this, you go and they plunder, and they have gifts. What happens whenever you plunder, you get gifts. And he's applying that to Jesus in Jesus's death, his resurrection, His ascension, in saying that as Jesus ascended into heaven, ascended into the heavenly realm. Holmes, part of the beauty of that ascension was that he plundered the enemy and gave gifts to men. That's, that's my interpretation of this is that when he says he took the captive captors, he actually took these gifts away from the enemy that we hand it to the enemy. Go study it yourself. You may disagree with that. But that when we as Eve handed over and Adam the rebellion, that there was things that were handed over. And if that's the case, I always ask myself, are we using the gifts the way the Lord would have us to or the way the enemy would have us to? Because we've used it the way the enemy would have us to an awful lot of times. But it says like he takes he took, kept, kept captivity captive or took the captives captive. He takes those things and then he goes power, he distributes it. It's such a mind blowing, beautiful picture. There's this picture of a king ascending, a king distributing gifts and the kingdom brain freedom, a king bring freedom. Sorry. Isn't that isn't that awesome? So this idea that God has given us the gifts is hugely important. It's huge. God has given he has he has given gifts to us, y'all. It is not something that we should take lightly. It's something that we should take very, very seriously. I mean, if Jesus showed up right here and handed you a gift, you probably take it pretty seriously, wouldn't you? Or laid his hands and said, have this gift, you'd probably take it pretty seriously. This is what he did. This is part of that resurrection. This is part of the power of His ascension. In verse 11, says, He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith. And the knowledge of God's Son growing into maturity, with a stature measured by Christ's fullness then goes on to say things like we won't be tossed to and fro. I want to focus on that end part here for just one second. Because God has been asking me this for like the last several weeks, and it just you know, when he just has something on your, your heart, and it's just wrecking you a little bit in a good way. And he's been asking me, John, who are you becoming? And like, like not What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you becoming? Because right here in this passage, it's saying that these giftings that the spirit has distributed, are so that we would become what the fullness of Christ stature, we are the body of Christ on earth.
The giftings that we have been given, are to build up the body so that we can become the fullness of Christ to our neighbors, the fullness of Christ and Michel Nilsen the fullness of Christ everywhere that we go to the inner city, kids, that we would become the fullness of Christ. And I hope that I can articulate this because it's just been I've been meditating so much. So let me give you an example. One of the gifts that we'll talk about eventually, hopefully, one of the gifts that we'll be talking about eventually is generosity, giving. If I read that, in the past, I've read that and I've said, Oh, man, you know what, I think maybe that's a gift of mine. I think I need to give more, how can I give more, which isn't bad? I think the Lord honors i Well, I'm glad I'm glad lursa. You want to give more that's really cool. But God has challenged me to go, but are you becoming a giver? Like are you allowing my giving nature to be in everything that you do not just let me see if I can give a little more money here or there. Like every time I'm with anyone in all that I am. That gift that gift is of giving is just in me, it's who I am. And I believe that if we can, as we talk about these gifts become that together, as you know, and we're operating in these gifts, and we're operating to build up one another. And it's just who we are. It's big time. That's that's the that's the goal was that we become the fullness of Christ to me as the body that we become a unity and that we are expressing we are allowing Jesus, His character all who he is to be released, wherever we're at. And a big part of that is us being together while we do it. I said this last week, I said it last week, I can't show everyone the fullness of Christ because I'm just part of the body. So without everyone showing their gifts, then the world is not seeing the fullness of Christ's body. Another reason why we have to do this together. It's vital. It's vital that we do it together. Verse 12, I'm just going to say it one more time. These gifts have not been given so that I can wear a badge that says I'm Apostle John, Prophet, Susan. I Mr. Evangelist, you know, you ever, ever gone to one of those places where you will have those, I can take you to some places. The point that you have the gift that you have these gifts is so that you can equip, equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. So there's work for us to do. There's work for us to do, it's not just going to church, there's work for us to do, and the Saints need to be equipped. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do a series on this so that I can hopefully, hopefully, this is super practical as we talk about these gifts so that we can be equipped and better equipped. And it goes much more beyond just, you know, Sunday morning and us talking about it. I'll put a plug in for Greg's Wednesday debrief. That if you all that has been going on at Taylor place over there, it's a great place to process what's been going on process how we can maybe you can better use your gifts pray together. And I'll say this now I advocate for going every week. But if you can't go every week, it doesn't mean don't go. I haven't been able to go every week. It just is what it is. But it can go every other week or something. It's still it's helpful. It's very, very helpful. Because it helps us to think through how to like if you want to be part of like, Hey, we're talking about Bill Nelson. Well, what do we need to do? Go there and start talking. Use your gifts. I'll talk about two gifts today and then we'll be done. And go the next slide. If you want to know if you want to please go the next slide. That was my polite Murphy polite Tennessee and me if I mean if you want to thanks Jonah you waving at me? What's wrong? You just saying hi? Or is there something wrong? I have a boat or something all right, I'm gonna talk about two very, I would say in the body of Christ that will be done like controversial gifts. A lot of people will say that this gift apostolic gift. First of all, there's a lot to go here and I don't know how much I should Holy Spirit help me I don't want to get into the weeds of a bunch of stuff. Let's just go okay. Um
some people will say these five gifts are like offices in the church meaning I am apostle this I am Prophet this I am this. It doesn't say that. It says these are gifts. Okay, like we've made things bigger deal, I think than they are so to speak, that just says this is like this is what's so different is like, instead of saying I this is an office, this is just a gift to build up the church. It's that simple. And then whenever we get to start thinking like that, then maybe we can kind of just, you know, loosen our pantalones a little bit, you know, and start getting started getting our undies in a little bit of a lot about some of this stuff. I mean, just being real. If you saw this as some of these things are just gifts, do you have these gifts that you can help build up the body? Yeah, or No? Or I see it in someone else. Oh, man, it would make us relax. Just a little bit about it. Okay. All some would say that there are 12 apostles and that died out when the apostles died. I would say there's a lot more than 12 apostles in the New Testament, if you start reading it, there definitely is up to 20 something actually, depending on the way things are worded. It's really interesting. You don't know that. Go right. Go through and read it. And it's pretty interesting. Okay, so what does it mean? And I think this is one of those big ones to where everyone goes, well, there's no way I've got that any kind of gifting there. Right? It just sound that's, that's pretty serious right there. John. Paul does call himself an apostle. Let me just ask you to have an open mind as I talk about this and think through it doesn't mean so here's the thing about the gifts of spirit. Number one, it doesn't mean because you don't have the gift of generosity that you don't give. That's bogus, okay? It doesn't mean that you don't have the gift of teaching. Well, guess you can't teach your kids nuttin. That's dumb. I mean, I'm just, I'm just being real. This is just it's as simple as saying, Wow, Ben is a really gifted teacher. God gave him that gift. It's that simple. Like, again, let's get her on. He's out of a lot. And let's just say, hey, this person is this. So one of the difficult things about some of the gifts of the Spirit, though, is there's not definitions. Like it's not like, here's, this is Apollo's I mean, Apollo's apostle and this is what it is, or this is evangelism. And this is what that gift is, like, once you kind of have to do is read through the scriptures and see what these people did. Like that's, that's the easiest way for me to grab hold of what this gift actually is. In the Greek it means like a messenger, a delegate in their sent on mission, kind of like a kingdom, like an Ambassador says, Listen, you're gonna go, I've got you on a mission, go speak for my kingdom. And I have you to go give a message to and do that. All right. So here you all helped me what do you see the apostles doing? What do you see Paul doing? What do you see? Peter doing? What do you see? Barnabas? What do you see some of these people doing? Anybody? Okay, traveling Absolutely. Okay, what else? He didn't always be participatory this morning, did you? As a Spirit sent them? That's a very good point, the Holy Spirit. Spirit Center. All right, what else? sharing the message? They absolutely did. So they would go and they would share a message. Great encouragers Paul's writing an encouraging letter to Timothy, I would hope that we've read through part of it here. Praying. Absolutely. Right. What else? Healing. Yeah, absolutely. This. There was definitely were signs and wonders that accompanied the word that they were preaching 100%. Breaking into new territory? Yeah, absolutely. church planning. Yeah. I mean, they would go in Paul, you see it multiple times, we'd go in, we'll start making disciples, and then the church would begin to start forming. And eventually, sometimes a little bit later, he would appoint elders and stuff is pretty interesting, right?
Those who have apostolic giftings, if you think about these are these are part of like all of that together, like thinking about the people that have this gifting. But I think through and I was thinking through the Scripture that says, it's talking about Jew and Gentile coming together. But it also talks about the the temple being built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And part of that has to do with the prophetic of old and the apostles new and there's different things like that. But it really struck me because apostle does do that helps to lay the foundation. So going into these new territories, that's what they would do, or even some of them stayed for a time, like Peter stayed, but there needed to be a foundation in Jerusalem that was set, but then they would be scattered. But the apostles are going into areas and they are kind of laying a foundation through having leadership skills. I mean, they do they lead. They have vision from God, they're the Holy Spirit is leading them into go into different places. They're preaching, they're teaching, they're doing these things, okay. And as they're doing these things, generally speaking, a lot of these times like Paul would up and leave, and then the other people, there'd be other people there that would keep the work going. Okay, it doesn't mean that that's, that happened like that. Exactly like that every single time. But that happened. Okay. So maybe some of you don't realize that. I wouldn't say that I'm incredibly apostolic. But at one point, I stepped back and I went, my whole sales career has been about pioneering new territories and going into new places and saying, the foundation and I felt like God was like, You got a little bit more than you realize, you know what I mean, like and so I say that the business men and women and the teachers and the whomever here, that maybe you are someone that knows how to see something, you see a house and it's all you know, tore down or it looks like garbage, but you can help you can see what the new house would look like, if you actually got in there. Some people struggle with that right to see things, but there's others who might naturally come to you. The people naturally follow you other you have a title and you're the pastor of a church or the people naturally do that. So I'll just think through some of that stuff. Because if you aren't like that would be great to see on Wednesday night. Put another plug in because those are the kind of things that we're talking about you know let's go to the next one. Let's go to profits. Okay. Profits This is that's like the Greeks I don't think I misspell the word profits under some people will be like, he doesn't misspelled it. So when it comes to a prophetic gift, I mean, the really the the reality is, is kind of in the baseline, as you were speaking God's heart or God's will to the people of God. That's really it. Sometimes whenever we hear the word prophet, we think it's maybe like fortune telling, all telling of the future. It's not but that was there. Like Agabus does it for the church to help the church says there was a famine, there was a famine, they get to know ahead of time, also says, Paul, you're going to be bound to Paul's like, I don't really care. I don't know what the how good of a prophetic word was. But if you look back, and especially the Old Testament, oftentimes the prophets were even calling the church to the people of God to repentance, like, Hey, you're screwing up. God has called me to come here and and tell you that, right? You might have a prophetic gifting if, if you have, if you have this kind of fire in your gut, where like you feel like God is, is saying something to the church, and it doesn't have to be a it doesn't have to be thus saith the Lord. It can just be like, Man, I don't know. I just really feel like this is the direction we need to go. And if you have that you need to tell people. You don't need to hold that inside of you. You need to tell it to folks. In first Corinthians 14 Whenever it's shows a little glimpse picture into the gathering of some of the believers. It specifically says let the Prophet speak one at a time. You do Know that when we in service and I go, let's just listen to God that I was stealthily getting us into thinking about these things. But it also says that the church does certain whether that's actually were from God or not. That's okay. If we're actually operating in love, we ought to be able to say, I love you, brother or sister, but I think you missed that one. Let's, let's let's, I don't want to crush squelch that gift. But let's see, and let's work together. And that's, that's how the church should be operating in these gifts and encouraging. That's what it means to use our gifts to build one another up. This is what we're talking about growing in these things together, loving each other through these things.
But if you have some of those times, and I know people that have that man, and they just remain silent, or they come talk to me about it. And I'm like other people need to know, I think that is from God. So the church can discern so we can discern, right? So we see people that have those apostolic giftings. See, I think the people that have that gifting in the prophetic gifting are often those who get kind of kicked out of churches regularly, because churches just don't know what to do with them. Because they, because oftentimes, those people come with change, like things are gonna change, because God's sending them to the church to shake things up a little bit. And oftentimes, I've seen it in almost every church I've been in, we just go loud, I dislike things the way they are. We kind of Israel them, right? That's Israel did to the prophets. Like, we probably don't need to do that. I don't really like that word of repentance. I think we're doing okay. And so my encouragement for us is that we wouldn't do that. When people come in with some vision, maybe some apostolic vision people come in with just God, I feel like God's saying this, that we don't squelch that we discern. Is this from God, God did the did God send these people to us? And if we might have these gifts, you all let's, let's start having those places like Wednesday or wherever to begin to say, like, it's okay to say, I'm not sure. If I have this, I think maybe I do. I hear this from God, could you be praying about it? As a as a church? Let's like That's it, man. I think that that is when we begin to excel when we all begin to do those types of things, right. Is that good? Can we do that? You know, okay, I just I love that there's so many more gifts that we're going to talk about. I'm going to end on the Galatians 522. You know, I had to go there for talking about fruits of the Spirit and I'm gonna be very fast here. Oops, I didn't mark this one in my Bible. Oh, yeah. Did the reason that's when I talked about the very first fruit? Actually, I'll read verse 19. First because I like this. So you get some context and other works of the flesh are obvious. Kind of like what Jen was talking about today. Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I'm warning you about these things, as I warned you before that those who practice these will not inherit the kingdom of God. So those are things that are not part of God's kingdom. That's just God's not going to allow them to them to inherit the kingdom because God has none of that in his kingdom, But the fruit of the Spirit. So what is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things, there's no law. Paul, in First Corinthians 13, that we've probably all read many times I've heard a million times at weddings, is literally talking about the gift of love. I mean, the fruit of love in the midst of talking about the most of us know this, right? The gifts of the Spirit. And that's kind of that love is what binds all of this together in love is what I think allows us to, to see the things coming together, like Jen said, allows us to forgive allows us to build one another up, allows us to grow together. And that if we begin, Paul would say, if you go to Michel Nielsen, and you read them books, but you have love, you are wasting your time. If you bring those inner city kids and boss him over, but you don't have love, well, then that's just a waste. And it's easy to hear that and be like, well, I got love, but really do we? Do we have love? Do we have love for the community? Do we? And if we don't like asking God to help us in that, I just want to end with that father. What would I ask right now that you would develop in us if we don't have it and where we have it that you would help it to grow more and more and more and more and more, Lord, love for you and for our community here? That God that there wouldn't be anything that we do. That wouldn't come from a place of love, or even when it's maybe saying something hard or difficult that it all comes from that place of love and the reason that we do it is because of love Father. Lord, I pray that talking about these gifts would bring no divisions. I'm youngest at all. In fact, I just pray that it would be opposite that it would bring unity among us like we've never had even greater than we've ever had before. Here stones River. All right, ask Father that You would help us to know how to honor each other's giftings how to stir one another up and that you would teach us how to use the gifts that you've given us to build up your church and not just stones River, build up the church of Murfreesboro, but the church of this region, that Lord that we would operate in that operate in those things so wonderfully and so beautifully. And the only reason that we can
and that the only reason that we can love is because you first loved us and I just thank you that you're loving God and I thank you that your God who Grace
what was given and distribute those to the people in your kingdom god I just I'm blown away by that. If there's anyone that's timid about their gift, or needs to fan into flame all of us and others areas where I'm like that in my life, gotta ask that You would help just to rekindle that fire. Help us to try again. Help us to actually begin to practice as Paul said, these gifts so that we can grow in them in Jesus name, Amen.
