And we'll put like, you know, palm tree pictures on the walls and stuff. And everyone would come just to see how ridiculous that looks, wouldn't they? Well, yes, didn't I thought that was a good idea. Apparently not. baptistry Yeah, if you're the holiest person can sit on a float in the bow industry. Why preach? No. It might make the daily near might. I bet we get some letters or some other churches if they start if we did that. Oh my gosh. I know a lot of folks, anyone going out out of town this week? For spring break. Few of y'all are just gonna work, Steve. Yeah. We got some folks on Zoom today. Over there, Kyle. Yeah. Awesome. All righty. When you get the chance, if you pull up my first slide, that would be fantastic. There we go. Okay, so last week, we talked a little bit about and I mentioned for this next several weeks, we'll see how long this goes. We're gonna be talking about the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. And I showed this picture last week, and I just want to show it again. Because so often, we don't recognize how important the two are together, right? Like, well, focus may be on the fruit and not really recognize how important the gifts of the Spirit gives us. On the flip side, I've been places where the gifts of the Spirit are very prevalent, and yet we forget Hey, the fruit, gentleness, self control, right, these types of things, patients. And so seeing those things together, that's, that is who God is. That's his spirit of Spirit gives us the gifts and he gives us the fruit character who he is. So if you go to the next slide, the first thing we're gonna talk about today, Lord mentioned is joy. That was That was weak sauce, man. Jeez, all right, well, good. Well, I'm about to bring it now. Talking about. Alright, so joy, I'm going to split, I'm going to talk about two fruits of the Spirit. And then three gifts. I'm going to finish up the gifts in Ephesians chapter four. Today, I'm gonna put the fruits at the beginning at the end, and the guests will be the meat in the middle of the sandwich. How about that? Does that sound good? Do the fruit and actually probably the thing I will talk about the most today though, is joy. All right, because I started looking at joy and I started my study of joy. Anyone ever done a study on Joy in the Bible? A few of you see, most of the time, we've had someone just tell us well, this is what this is what joy is. And I started, you know, and instead of actually looking at what the Word says, and I think sometimes not that it's wrong. But I think we often get this incomplete version of what joy is. And oftentimes it goes like this, who's heard this. There's happiness and happiness is based on our circumstances. And joy is not based on our circumstances. And we just always have joy, right? We've anyone ever heard that? Like 1000 times? No? All right. That's not entirely wrong. But I think it's an incomplete version of what the Bible has of what true biblical joy is. And what's so important is, this is a fruit of the Spirit. This cool thing happened this week. Doesn't happen all the time. But I was having a worked out. Get my pump on you know. And me to varous Seth and Ethan this guy went Oh, margaritas over there. You know where margaritas is a Mexican restaurant. By the way, if you didn't realize I have a 699 All you can eat lunch. Now that's just like tacos and salsa like 10 items on that bad boy. It's the deal and Murfreesboro. I'm serious. You have to find on the page. But 699 Netcom. Anyways, I'm getting hungry. I'm getting hungry. But we walked in the door. And there's a guy that just kind of sitting there kind of behind the the cat the counter. And we walk in and he goes, Man, what's the deal with you guys? You guys are so full of like joy, and your pappy and all these things. And we're like, I don't know. Like I don't think we weren't doing anything like crazy or anything. We weren't like hey, what's going on? Or like acting super excited. He said what did y'all do win the lottery. And then my friend had the line even had the line he said we won the lottery 2000 years ago. I thought that's pretty good. A little cheesy, but pretty good.
But it was funny because he said he was like man, he's like I've been watching people coming here all day and most people are got their heads down or they're looking at their phone or they're doing this and like there was just something different about you guys when you walked in with with joy together and like I just noticed it on you. And I thought about that I thought you know, that's been one of my one of the Holy Spirit's best evangelistic tools for me personally. Like if I look at like the lives that have been impacted. Many of them saw a group of people just enjoying each other and going, what's the deal with that? Right? Joy? Joy is super, super exciting. So the Greek word here is Cara or Cara, which is in the same family as charisma, which is one of the terms that Paul uses for gifts of the Spirit. Isn't that interesting? So while we should actually be joyful of the gifts of the Spirit, and there's this joy that we have, in that, some of the definitions of it whenever you look and I went back and I went through and looked at the Hebrew and gladness, pleasure, exultation, merriment delight, I think we forget, we just don't focus on the fact. Lauren is right, oftentimes with joy, as mentioned, it's what singing and it's what dancing, it's with being in the presence of God and being in the presence of people and actually having a good time. Seriously, like, it's not just this state of being where I'm just always at joy, I'm at peace. I mean, that's, it's good that we have this constant joy we can in the Lord. And it's because of the Lord that we can have joy. But let's just go the next slide, I decided to pull up the first four mentions of joy in the entire Bible. That way, I'm not picking and choosing, I'm just gonna just pick it up, pull up. Next slide. Someone's spinning around, is that Jonah? Jonah, you got this? All right, Genesis 31. This is whenever Jacob and Leah and Rachel are running away from labor and because labor has done changes wages a bunch of times, and they're like I'm done with this lady and catches up and says, Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn't you tell me so I could send you away with joy and singing and to the music of timbrels and harps. So the very first mentioned, the Bible has to do with this idea of celebration, harps singing all these things. In Leviticus nine has to do with the sacrifice, David mentioned sacrifice for sin for the priests and for the people of God. Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all people saw it, they shouted for joy. We can shout. One out happened to our shouters. You know, we used to have shouters, you know, we would think some of those songs in your womb. We don't have as many shouters anymore. It's okay. I know everyone expresses their joy differently. And that's true. But here they shouted for joy also fell facedown. So there was like this reverence for the Lord mixed with this. In addition to this shouting for joy, but you see this expressive thing, this joy of the Lord, and Deuteronomy 16. It's just talking about the festival of booths be joyful at your festival. So there's just like festive thing about joy. I don't know why we don't talk about this enough. You, your sons, your daughters, your male and female servants, and Levi's, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows. This is a party for everyone. Have fun, enjoy it. This is the festival and it's for all this love that love it. The fourth one, God gets real serious here, because this is the next slide, son. The next one has to do with whenever blessings and curses are being given to the Israelites, you're gonna be blessed for this curse for that. Next slide, son. Just like at home, ah, if it was home, I'd be laying the smackdown now that I don't told you twice. It's his birthday this week. So I'll have to be a little bit nicer to him. Just kidding. I'm not going to read all this this. But I'm gonna just kind of start here in the middle. But this is actually in the midst of these, the the curses. He said, Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully. And gladly in the time of prosperity therefore, and hunger and thirst and nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve your enemies, all these things. So part of this in the midst of talking about curses, he says, you all I want to do not to just serve me, but to serve me with joy, and to serve me with gladness. And he was frustrated with them, I guess, say the least. Because they didn't they were having times of prosperity and they were just Oh, God wants us to serve him joyfully. He wants us to serve Him in gladness. Right? That doesn't mean that there are not times that are hard right at all. In fact, what's the next slide? Next slide please. What are you doing back there? Jonah? Yeah, but you're like moving around. A lot of you like playing some game or something while you're trying to do the slides. Okay, I just want to make sure
I can check on him right. Okay, let's go to Nehemiah chapter eight real quick. Because we just saying the joy of the Lord is my strength. Do you know where they get that from? Nehemiah chapter eight. And Nehemiah chapter eight is during circumstances that ain't the best. The ain't that are not the best. This is where the Israelites in Nehemiah get released from Babylonian captivity. Come back to Jerusalem and see this city is in ruins like it's in the walls are jacked up like in like think about how that would feel right. Your people have been in captivity. You're finally released from it. You bet. Go back to your hometown the place where God's presence should be dwell and it's just in ruins. The walls are messed up and it's just like, What are you what's happening here? And so what happened is Ezra begins brings out the book of the law and begins to read the book of the law to the people. I'm gonna start in verse nine. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra, the priest, and a scribe and the Levites, who taught the people said to all the people, this day is holy, to the Lord your God, do not mourn or weep. Isn't that interesting? Just stop for a second. Because I think sometimes we get in our mind that things holy, to the Lord is a time of always, always has to be a time of repentance and weeping and mourning. Sometimes it is right. I'm not like there are times there are times for those things. But here, Nehemiah saying, Listen is today, holy stop, you're weeping. And they should, I mean, there's a reason to weep. They're weeping because the city is destroyed. And now they're reading the law, and they're going, Oh, my gosh, I realized why we've been in captivity for so long, we've been disobeying God. But the law says up, stop, stop that. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law, so that was it. They're sitting there here in this going, we've messed it up, oh, my gosh. And they're broken because of that. Verse 10, says, Then he said to them, Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those who have nothing prepared, were nothing for him, nothing is prepared for this day is wholly to our Lord. And do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. He say it again, this is a holy day. So drink wine and eat and go give it away to those who can't. That's Oh, no, but I can get down with that Bible. I'm pretty excited about that. He has to tell them in verse 11, it says, so the Levites still the people said, be quiet for this day is holy, do not be grieved again, basically Calm down everyone. There's just weeping, everyone's mourning, calm down. This is a holy day, God wants and they're celebrating here, the festival of booths, which is exactly the last thing that I was the second to last thing that we are sharing in Deuteronomy, where God called his people there were times when God said, celebrate, come before me, eat, drink, have fun. The joy of the Lord. So in that context, we're saying, that's the joy of the Lord. Yes, there are times and the Lord was speaking to me this morning about that for myself, even personally, recognizing that man, there's just times whenever I go through tough stuff. And there are times to weep. There are times to grieve. There are also times in the midst of that to go. Maybe I should ask the Lord for some joy in the midst of this, like, maybe I should just celebrate God, even though God My heart hurts, but I'm still gonna celebrate you, I'm still gonna rejoice in you. And these contexts are all with other people. Like, I think that's what I think, man, we just we, if I can go into a Mexican restaurant with four guys, and let's do nothing special in someone say, wow, there's something real special about you. Where are we gone? I'm just saying, Oh, our society, we have just we've got our joy sucked out of us. And we're not.
We're isolated. We're all these things, man. If we're with the people of God, and we're full of joy, it will make a difference. Go to the next slide will be the last thing I believe I talked about God on it, you were on at that time, where to go. Jesus in John chapters 1516 and 17. Chuck, I know you love those chapters. I love those too. And he has his great prayer, this intimate prayer for the that he prays to the Father. And in that he says that he wants his disciples joy to be made full multiple times more than this. He wants to complete our joy. And I just pulled out several of the things, these main things that he was praying for. Jesus Himself wants our joy to be full. He wants us to have joy. He says remain in the same context. He says in chapter 15, I believe, yes, remain in my love. And he says how to do that by keeping His commandments. And in the midst of that same thing. He says, I want you to ask whatever you wish, so that my joy can be complete in you. So us looking, setting our eyes on Jesus and resting in his love in obeying what He tells us to do, than asking what he wished. Why is he saying to ask because he wants to give because he's a giver. Why so that we can have full joy in fact, and 16? He says, basically ask whatever you want in my name. Why so that your joy may be full? Like he's saying, I want you to ask me until now you've not asked anything in my name is what he says, asking you receive, that your joy may be full. So like God literally saying, I want to fill you with gladness. And he's given us a part to play. You need to ask me and asked me in my name as the Father in my name because He wants our joy to be full and 17 He tells he's praying to the Father says Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one even as we are one and in that same context, he says that their joy may be full. So him saying that the father, he's praying that the Father would protect us, and that we would come so united, that it would fill our job, it would bring us joy. Because joy again, if you read through this is so connected with our relationship with God, the only reason we can have it and each and each other, and each other, that we would be one that we would have we that to have the fullness of God's joy, we got to be one with one another. It's exciting, huh? All right, Joy. We're gonna have some joy this morning. Let's go. Come on. Father, fill us with your joy. Lord. Let us ask that right now, Lord, I just asked Father that you would fill us with their joy even when circumstances are difficult, even when they're trying, Lord, I'm not asking that we would ignore the circumstances or lie about them. But Lord, that in the midst of even challenging times, that we would be able to celebrate you to rejoice in you to recognize father that no matter what happens in this life, that Lord that forever will get to dwell on your kingdom. That, Lord, that you are with us that you have asked the father to protect us that you've asked the father to make us one that you've asked us to ask you, you asked us to ask you things, so you can fulfill those requests. And I just I thank you for that Father in Jesus name. Amen. Who? I'm excited about joy. I'm telling you, I was just getting, I hope I could actually probably, I feel like I didn't do justice to it. I could probably preach for several sermons on this, I hope at least today, I just whet your appetite a little bit to go start studying because I think it the Bible mentions joy over 400 times if I'm not like it's just all over it. Rejoice, rejoice, joyful, glad, and all this good stuff. Huh? All right. So next slide. Here we go. I'm going to flip back over to Ephesians chapter one, I told you how we're going to share, talk about the fruit of Ephesians chapter four. Talks about the fruit of the Spirit in conjunction with the gifts of the Spirit. And I think that that is so important, because man, we need some joy. With the gifts of the Spirit. I've seen some people have some gifts, and they're just like, man, goodness gracious, sounds like it looks like that gift is a curse. I don't look too exciting. Ephesians chapter four, I'm going to remind us that in the midst of this, that Paul is telling us that Jesus ascended and when He ascended, he took captivity itself captive, and boom, he distributes gifts to us. And in this passage, he's going to mention five gifts that he's given to the church. Last week, we talked about apostles, and we talked about prophets. This week, we're going to do the other three evangelist, pastors, teachers. And why is this? Why did he give them to equip the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to unity of faith, and have knowledge of the Son of God to maturity,
to the measure of full stature of Christ, so the gifts of the Spirit are not given so that I can say, well, I am Pastor John, everyone, you better listen to me. The gifts the spirit are given as gifts to us. And if for the gifts that we have are used to build up the church so that we become Christ. So that we reach the fullness of the measure of Christ, so that the world sees us together. And they literally see Christ, His Spirit dwelling in us and us working together. That's why we have the gifts. So when you say I've got that gift is not for you, it's for the body, if you're part of the body, but so that you can build up other people, so that you can encourage other people so that you can use your gift so that the body of Christ becomes fullness, fully mature in Christ. That's exciting. And that's a lot different than the way we talked about the gifts I was thinking about this this morning is oftentimes some of us have traditions that we've grown up, and we've been afraid to talk about the gifts anybody ever know. Like, it's kind of one of those things, were unsure about them. It's kinda like the book of Revelation, or we don't talk about it much, because I don't really know what's going on over there. Sometimes that's been like that with the gifts of the Spirit. On the flip side, some of us and myself included, I've grown up hearing all about the gifts of the Spirit almost every single Sunday, you know, we're talking about it, and it's good. There's some really good stuff with it. But also I've experienced seeing kinds of abuses and people making them things that they're not and when I started studying the word I started going, where do you get that? You know, like is that really the way the gifts supposed to be used are some head scratchers that really kind of frustrated me honestly, in my young 20s I was like, what's going on? They weren't ever meant to be like that. I think I'm titling this sermon, fruits, fruit and demystifying the gifts of the Spirit. And when I say demystify, that doesn't mean taking the spiritual out. That just means making something complex or simplifying, like make it simple to understand. Because last week after I got done speaking, I thought y'all were kind of sleepy last week. But I had more people talking to me about how good they thought the message was. And it's been in a long time. So I guess I was having not a really good spirit of discernment or something. I guess that's not one of my gifts. Just kidding. joke, but I had several people come up to me and said, You made it seem simplified it to where it's easy for, for me to understand, maybe I've been afraid of the subject. And so let's, let's just simplify what this is. And I think the church a lot of the church has made it way overly complex, made it so complex that people are scared to death, to say, well, maybe I have an evangelistic gift. Because you know what evangelists means It means bringer of good news. You know, we hear that and we picture like Billy Graham out of pulpit preaching to 40,000 people, right? That's great. I love Billy. But that's not the only way to use the gift of evangelism. Like Have we ever used I want to, I want us to think through because I want us to ask ourselves, do we maybe do we potentially have these gifts that maybe we haven't even recognized in ourselves? Are you like one of those persons that whenever you get into something, you just gotta tell everyone about it? Any of you? What are you laughing about it? Because you know, I am. She's laughing. I can't get anything. I got new shampoo. That's awesome. I gotta tell everyone about how great my shampoo is. It's she's rolling her eyes, because it's annoying to her. And I probably understand that. Does anybody else do that? Or no, no, yeah, like a new app, you download and you're like, Brandi, you got to try this out, bro. This, this app is sweet. I was gonna say sick. But that's like, the kids terms, you know, that apps that sick row, it was sweet. If you are that type of person, you might have this gift. Because that's, you know, people say that like, man, you're just, you're just a Viet. You're just like an evangelist for that product or something like that, right. But evangelists does have to do with bringing the good news of the kingdom. So it is possible to that maybe you're good at sharing other things. But maybe you're good at some of the other things because God has gifted you here and you just need to put it as Paul told Timothy last week into practice. See, whenever I talk about evangelism, I, whenever you speak in front of people. So that's something that you get to learn. No matter how many times you say something, people sometimes just hear what they want to hear. You ever heard that before you ever done that? You're like, no, that's not what I'm saying. I promise you this, what I'm saying. And I've recognized that oftentimes not, excuse me, it got a frog in my throat there, that oftentimes no matter in small groups or large group setting, when I talk about evangelism, people keep picturing that whenever I talk about it means I have to go up to people and just start preaching the Gospel to everyone I meet. I do not do that. Okay, if the Holy Spirit tells me to Sure, I will do that. Right. And I don't think I'm particularly gifted in evangelism, I would say, like, Seth is much more gifted in it than I am. But what does he do? Like?
If I, if I don't know you, all right, you've experienced this you ever just been sitting around and someone comes up to you and tries to talk to you about a product or something like that? And you don't know them? And you're first you're immediately turned off? Yes, no, I am. I'm like, What do you want? What, you know, what are you trying to do to me? You know, what, what's the what's the bait and switch? Right? You're always thinking those things. And that's that. And so sometimes we treat, we've seen people treat the gospel like that. And because of that we get afraid of evangelism like we're scared. It just means that you bring good news to people. And what Seth will do oftentimes is he just be friends, people, and because he loves the Lord, the Lord comes up, right? It's like in a conversation, sometimes it's not until two or three times after he meets him that the Lord just comes up somehow, you know, they ask him about something. And he's like, Well, this. And then in a very organic and natural way, he shares the good news of what Christ has done for him. He shares his testimony or whatever it may be right. So ask yourself, do you do you have that? Do you have that gift? And maybe you've been using it, and maybe the Lord wants to like it, maybe you've been using it for products or whatever, but God wants you to begin to begin to walk in more practice of using it for him and for His Kingdom. All right, evangelist, you bring good news to people. That's it. All right. You know, Vangelis has only mentioned one person that's Philip the evangelist and New Testament. And Paul tells Timothy to do the work of the evangelist, but it's not really spoke about a whole whole lot just means you bring good news. Next slide. The next thing that he brings up after evangelist
didn't hear me at all right. Next slide. Oh, he'd laid it on Nathan. He does. He does. Adam and Eve Nathan, right then is the woman that you gave me. I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like, that's real, though. I mean, like, Hey, man, that's inside us. We don't blame other people all the time. There we go. I think while evangelism or evangelist can be very misunderstood, because it's like, well, I'm the evangelist and I have to preach in front of this many people and all this stuff. No. I think pastor is really misunderstood in the at least American church. Because what's happened with the gift of pastor? I think I think that the way to go, Kyle, Kyle just kicked. Get Oh calvarial took over. All right. Let me compose myself again. Um, so I'm actually yeah. Okay. Pastore. What have we done with with the term pastor, you know, what Pastor means? Shepherd, it's super simple was a shepherd who takes care of the sheep, leads the sheep to steal waters, right? That's what we have made pasture, the CEO, the marketing director, the CFO, the everything for a church. Basically, what we've done is said, We're gonna pay you to do our job. And you do it great. I know, in the pastor said, Well, sure, I'll take the money. I mean, that's just it, there's no I'm not saying there's anything wrong with with paying leaders to do some of these things. Paul talks about those things. But I'm saying is we have made it something that's not y'all. And what's happened is, is there are people that have the gift that aren't expressing it, because you haven't called him that, because we've we've like, you have to have a position in a church as this. Do you care about people a lot and take care of them? Has God given you that gift? See, there are some people that are on the evangelistic? And I'll tell you, my evangelistic gifted friends are usually on to the next thing kind of people like I this, okay, okay, then I'll have to get on to them. Because I'm like, did you talk to that person are you making disciples are you just, you know, spit and seed and forgetting to bring people along. And they're on to the next person or on the next person. And if you work in conduct in conjunction with Pastor types, that's great. Some of y'all are gonna man that evangelists like, that's tough. But man, if you give me some people to just take care of, I love that. Right? I love taking care of sheep. I love teaching, I love seeing people grow, that you might have, you might have this gift, and I know the shepherds here, are not going to say, Well, if you're not called a shepherd, then you better not do that. I know their hearts, they would. They'd be like, men and take care of each other. That's what we're called to do. I think there's actually a lot of people with that gift here, I really do. Because I think there's a lot of caring in this church, and caring to see the sheep grow and excel in and be who God has called them to be. So I just want to encourage you with that, like, I want you to ask yourself, Do I have that in my heart? Do I have this desire to take care of people to lead people to see them grow? To protect them? There's a protective nature to shepherds, do you have that inside of your heart, like, oh, they better not do that to my folks. Alright, some of you know exactly what that feels like, you know exactly what that feels like. And that may be a gift of the Holy Spirit wants to continue to grow. And some of you in these gifts, you're, you're operating in great, you're working, you're doing it, some of us are getting to just need to get that flame kind of rekindled or were fired. And maybe just kind of simplifying things makes you go wow, okay, I do have that gift. I hadn't really thought about that much. So Shepherd, Pastor, the last gift we'll talk about today is teacher and in the Greek pastor teacher could be kind of one thing here. I know that John King believes that, and we've had some really good conversations about that. So they absolutely could be. But teacher just means instructor. But when we hear the word teacher, what do we think I got to stand up in front of a bunch of people, I've got to share, that's not what he's talking about. I got to share in front of, you know, 50 people, 40 people, we think about school teachers and how they have 20 or 30 students, and that's, but you're like, but yeah, you know, I don't know. But I like to teach. And I feel like I'm gifted there. But man standing in front of people makes me nervous. There is no prerequisite that you got to stand in front of a big group, to be a good teacher. To be an instructor. I know some mazing teachers that are teachers with 123 people, and they just excel in a small group setting. And they build up those people extremely, extremely well. On the flip side, I know some people and I've, I've seen this happen. I've been a part of a church where they were very talented about how they had a lot of knowledge.
And they said, I'm a very gifted teacher, and I remember putting them in the role of a small group and that small group went because they weren't a gifted teacher. They were gifted, they talked a lot. But that's not the gift of teaching. Like a teacher puts their student in the forefront and I know you have teachers here that that you'd all you care about is your students and what are you trying to do watch them grow? You want them to grow? You want them to exceed you want to to succeed and exceed expectations. You want them to do it are using things because there that's them. That's, that's what you care about. And so if you have that that gift in these circumstances in these situations usually has to do with teaching the word teaching about the Kingdom of God. But let me tell you something, teaching about the kingdom of God has a lot of aspects to it. It has teaching what the Scriptures say it has teaching our sons and daughters how to have good jobs, and all that kind of stuff matters in the kingdom, we always narrow it down to like, it has to be this, this Bible was full of all kinds of practical instruction for life. And I actually think that stones River, this is one of the most prominent gifts, if not probably the most prominent gift that we have here, that we have a lot of people that excel in the gift of teaching. So how do all these kind of come together? I was thinking about just like, very practically, I'll just kind of bring up what we talked about last week, and even maybe in kind of our circumstances. Now, folks that have that apostolic gift, like we talked about last week, kind of go and lay the foundation in New Territories. And it doesn't always have to be geography. It can be people groups, it could be a real heart for the Kurdish population. And they know how they go in and they are just gifted again. Because you may not feel like you're super gifted when these areas doesn't say that doesn't mean that you just go well, I never have to do that. Okay, this is just let's not, let's demystify, this just means you're just more gifted in this area, right? They're the ones that go in to kind of lay the foundation and kind of have vision and have leadership that come in, if people like, Alright, cool, let's do this in the foundations laid. And that's usually done with prophetic people. The prophetic people are usually throughout the whole process. They're usually saying, God is calling us as I feel God saying this, I really feel strong. It doesn't have to be thus saith the Lord, it can just be man, as I don't know, I feel this in my heart. I feel like this is the direction that we're headed this direction to go. And I know what some of the stuff that we're doing right now, I've heard several people say that to me, like I just feel in my gut. This is it. We're on the right path. And I think that that's the God speaking to us. The evangelists are often on the front row, they're the ones that are going out, and they're meeting new people, and they're getting to share the Good News and, and that's terrifying to some of us. And that's exciting for others. But when we put all the pieces together, they need pastoral and teacher roles to be right there with them, or they do not the kingdom does not grow. They scatter a bunch of seed, no one waters a seed. And God doesn't give growth because no one's watering it because they're just, they're just scattering seed everywhere. So we need people like Apollo's to come in when Paul goes in first. And he says what Paul, Paul planted Apollo's watered, he needed pastors, we need the teachers to water. And as they're watering, then God gives the growth when all the parts begin to work together. So there's more gifts that we're going to talk about y'all. But I just want us to think about those. And I want to think about those with you know, inner city and with Mitchell, Nelson, and all these things that we have going on. We did our first helping family with. With Latoya, it was giving some mattresses. And if you're not on the Text group, you can let Greg know Greg's not here. But if you don't have Greg's phone number I do, you can just get to me. But it's as simple as I think we have like maybe 13 or 14 people on that. But the way you said the number one law, this family needs some air mattresses because the kids don't have anything to sleep on, if anyone wants to help, help. Cool, like, and we were able to do that. And it was I just sat back and watched it and not sweet, I'd have to do anything. And we'll get credit though. I'm just kidding. That's my goal is just to say I'm in the group, and I'll have to actually do anything. It's like, it's like changing your Facebook profile for a cause. And we'll click a button, but I don't really want to do that. Alright, sorry. I just goof around on that. But let's ask ourselves, because these are not just like this is not just like good, like it's good and teaching good information. We need everyone to be operating in their gifts to really excel here. Right? There are people who have initiated contact with Latoya there are people here, right? There are people who have laid kind of a foundation, with Michelle Nelson, there's folks that have said, Man, I feel like this is strong. And there are folks now that are serving and and as we get to know these people, hopefully there'll be opportunities to bring to teach, there'll be opportunities to pasture and shepherd these folks and to care for them. Right. I want to end on the sandwich. Last sandwich been of today of peace, love, joy, peace.
And remind ourselves that I want us to continue and the reason I've done this is I want us to continue to think about the gifts with the fruit, the gifts with the fruit. You're thinking about, you know, the apostolic gift or we're talking about the gift of teaching or we're talking about the gift of pastoring do I have that gift mi exhibiting joy in my gift? Am I exhibiting love as we said last week, remember because Paul says I can I can sell everything I got but if I didn't do it love that was an absolute waste of time. Am I exhibiting peace, God's characteristic of peace? Why I'm in this why I'm doing this gift, why I'm expressing this gift? Not just one, I'm expressing the gift in my whole lifestyle. And I wrote Shalom on here because that's not the Greek. That's the Hebrew. But I know when Paul wrote this, he's thinking of shalom. There's no doubt about it. He's a Jew. You go to Israel today, what are people gonna say Shalom, shalom, shalom. They've been saying it for years and years and years and years and years and years. I'm also really think that it's interesting that Jesus, when I hear the word peace, says, Blessed are the what? peacemakers for what they will become children of God. So like literally saying, the children of God are those who are going to bring peace are people who are instead of bringing the enemy brings destruction, he brings dissension. We've talked about unity this whole time. That's what he wants to break things up. But God said, Blessed are those who actually take things that are fights that people are having and frustrations that are people having, but there are people bless it, are you and you actually bring peace to those situations. And I thought about this a lot today, too, because sometimes I think we, we create false peace by just kind of sweeping things under the rug. Anyone done that? Even with your kids, right? Like, that's gonna defuse the situation. But I don't think that that's real peace, because then what happens, how we've done it with our spouses don't even play. Y'all know that you had a you had a knock down, drag out. Me and my wife have never done that. That's why. Yeah, I mean, the kids need to know, right? Like, the pastor argues with his wife, sometimes. They're just like, Oh, don't talk about that. I'm just kidding. She doesn't care. Do you care? Probably should ask you ahead of time. Nope, she doesn't care. But you do that. And then you just kind of ignore it, and you don't get to the root of the issue. And then what happens two weeks later, here we go again, right. Or maybe it's a month or two later, and it's really been festering for a while, and then it really, it really blows up. So I want to I want to make mention that because I felt like the Lord kind of put that on my heart that that piece, that part of peacemaking is kind of getting to the root of the issues and bringing those sides, you know, together. The idea of Shalom has to do with complete wholeness. That's, and we know that I think many people have shared that here, stones river, but its wholeness and body, soul and spirit. Its physical health, its spiritual health. It's all those things that this idea of shalom financial, it really is. Like, that's, that is what it means. That's what whenever people say, shalom, they're talking about this complete wholeness. And so God actually desires us to be whole. I'm not preaching the prosperity gospel, I'm just saying, he proved he wants us to be whole. And that's part of the fruit of the Spirit, that we would be at peace, that we would be unified with one another, and that we would be whole isn't I love the fruit of the Spirit, man. I'm excited about the guests. But I'm having just as much fun with the fruit of the Spirit, I think as as I am with the gifts of the Spirit. So let's let's just pray, Father, Father, I thank you for thank you for you the gifts or Jesus or Thank you, that you ascended on high to sit at the, at the right hand of the Father, in that as you ascended, you gave gifts to us. That And Lord, I ask forgiveness for any time and every time in my life where I haven't taking seriously the gifts that you've given father, and I asked, you would forgive me for any time and every time I've used them for myself, and others have others and you haven't been the center because I know, Lord, that that's what you're saying that the whole idea of these gifts is that others are at the center. If Father, I ask that for all of us here, Holy Spirit that you would bring, like just that revelation reveal the gifts that you have given us. Because you weren't says that you have that maybe if there's something that we haven't realized that as as I've been speaking Father, that someone's going, man, maybe I have that gift. Father, I pray that we wouldn't just have the revelation of it. But we would do what Paul told Timothy last week, and that is to put them into practice. Even when we're unsure,
that we will begin to operate in those and that Lord that we as stones river would have grace and mercy. That when someone begins to walk in a gift, if they stumble at our little, that we would have grace with those people, Lord, because I pray they would have they would have grace with me. And I thank you for that in Jesus name, Amen. As they're singing, as always, I do want to leave it open to at the end of the this. This part of singing that if someone feels like they have something from the Lord, that we share that with everybody so Did anybody see this song coming?
