Hello, good morning everyone. Happy Sunday. You survived your late saving time, congratulations. Yeah, hi, my name is Dennis.
I'm the operations director here at ENCS. I just want to say welcome. We're so glad that you come together with us today. We're going to take some time now to worship through music and song.
So I invite you to stand and I'm going to hand it back over to the team. Good morning, everyone. All right, it's worship time. Let me invite you to stand up on your feet and use your natural instruments.
So it'll be nice to have some flapping today. So we're just saying and worship the Lord, who is none like other. All right. Onto our God.
Onto our God. Mashes, endless. Love on restraint. This is our God.
Every tribe say, raise it. Glory on the rent's ring. Onto our God. Onto our God.
Mashes, endless. Love on restraint. This is our God. Every tribe say, aye, aye, aye, aye.
He's a chat. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Let's see, clap his fingers. No one.
There is no one like that. When the kungtae do la videos. When the kungtae do la videos. No jagak kung squaik mattias.
No jag Take kung bucks Adio Fragnan. No one like the guys. No one like the guys There is no one like the guys. There is no one like a crazy.
Glory On the rent's ring. Onto our God. Onto our God. Mashes, endless.
Love on restraint. This is our God. Every tribe say Your grace that glory On the rent's ring. Onto our God Onto our God, this is our God.
Mashes, endless. Love on restraint. This is our God. Every Christ, say, Hey, oh, we owe you why.
We owe you why. We say, Oh, we say, oh, Chancellor, there is no one like the God. There's no one. There is no one like the God, like the God.
There is no one like the God. Let's give him grace. We're worshiping a once true God who's none like other. God is holy.
A God who's at the beginning. The God who's at the end. The one we power needs to. The God of creation, our God.
The God we were singing about earlier is the same God of this church. You should imagine, the God of the universe, God of creation, where we worship you. God, we're here to serve you and serve your people. We believe you're here.
You needn't everyone of us. You're present, evident. This is a house of words. This is a place of grace.
Where every demon trembled. Where we proclaim your name. This is a house of healing. This is a house of healing.
Our hearts are full of faith. You have a full of tension. You have the final say. So come alive in the name of Jesus.
Come alive in the name of Jesus. This is a house of miracles. Being everything to the feet of Jesus. Everything in the name of Jesus.
This is resurrection power. All the runs through our veins. Fucking and triumphs over. Even the coldest grave.
Come alive. Come alive in the name of Jesus. Come alive in the name of Jesus. Then also miracle.
We bring everything to the feet of Jesus. Everything in the name of Jesus. This is a house of miracles. I believe.
I still believe you're moving. I still believe you're speaking. God, I believe you're working. I think for God.
I think my eyes on heaven. God, I receive your vision. God, I believe you're working. I think for God.
I still believe you're moving. I still believe you're speaking. God, I believe you're working. I think for God.
I can give my eyes on heaven. I believe you're working. So come alive in the name of Jesus, come alive. In the name of Jesus.
This is a house of miracles. Enjoy everything to the feet of Jesus. Everything in the name of Jesus. This is a house of miracles.
Come alive. So come alive in the name of Jesus. Come alive in the name of Jesus. The house of miracles Singing everything to the feet of Jesus Everything in the name of Jesus This is the house of miracles This world In this season of Lent, we are joining all our churches in Seattle to pray over Seattle And today we are praying for media and the payment My name is Franklin and...
At time And we care about media because we believe it's an important place to share the gospel And today as we want you to be reminded of that There are also memory verses to help us The first one is Psalm 19 verse 14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart Be pleasing in your sight, Lord my rock and my Redeemer And the second verse is from Philippians chapter 4 verse 8 Finally brothers and sisters What advice true? What advice noble? What advice right? What advice pure?
What advice lovely? What advice admirable? If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things Let's bow our heads in prayer Lord, thank you for today Lord, may you bless how we consume and make media May we the things we treasure in our heart Just be full of goodness and full of things that would honor you So Lord, please help us to honor you And what we consume daily and what we make And may build up our church May build up our lives instead of breaking things down Amen So we'll also be praying as a congregation We have some prompts on the screen So when I say amen, feel free to pick one or two of the prompts And we encourage you to pray out loud But if you don't want to pray out loud, then you can still pray So let's go, amen We're coming with us to pray during the season of Lent Lord, thank you for today Thank you for the media that we can have That you gave us such a mind that we can create things That are beautiful, that are honoring And that are beautiful So Lord, may everything that we take into our minds, into our souls May we find them worthy and may whatever comes out of it Be honored to you for what we love you And all these things praying in Jesus' name So we're transitioning to worship again Thank you for praying I would just pray about media and other things that are going to happen in the future Current events But before we sing this next song, I want to encourage people That in this church, in this place, the Holy Spirit is present And he is the power that makes us infected with this So before we sing this song, let's remember that power That gift, that power is a person and he is with us We thank you, Holy Spirit Fonest of the two Staring in your sons and daughters Earth be feeding heavens wonders Spirit cup, Spirit cup You spoke it's now one for me All your children shall be holy All your children shall be holy Dreams awaken in this moment Spirit cup, Spirit Obed out, run over I refilled this house Obed out, run over Even now, refilled this house And now the world awaits your present And this power bears within us Your acts of your witness We will rise to be your witness Spirit cup, Spirit cup Pour it out, let it over Let it over, fill this house Pour it out, let it over, no more Let it over, fill this house It's also fussyfucking of the sun One is the, the world is the light This will take Or a king is soon return As we hold to their shesions You love me, dear Lord Jesus, we invite You, we invite your Spirit Into our hearts today Into our gathering today God, we thank You That You live in us, that You work through us That You aren't just here on a Sunday When You come to church But You're present with us throughout the week So God, I thank You That we get to choose to belong to You Just thank You for that honor And for that privilege The way that we remember The weight of that And how amazing that is Thank You For who You are Who You call us to be Jesus Amen All right, thank You guys Thank You worship Him Yeah, You guys can be seated Kids can be dismissed Have a good class, children Have a good class teachers All right, all right Well thank you guys all for gathering with us today Thank you for worshiping My name is Janice If you didn't get to hear earlier I'm the Operations Director here at EMCS And we're super glad that you're here So glad you come to gather and worship with us today So now is the moment in our gathering Where we get to fellowship and connect at tables And we're going to take some time to do that If you're new, that might be something different for you But being in circles at tables Is a small reflection of What happens in C groups throughout the week So we enjoy getting to show a bit of that on Sundays And connecting that way So we're going to take some time now to do that And making sure there are no children in the room Because donuts are open And I will open them But yeah, have fun at your tables And then we will continue with the rest of our gathering In a few minutes And I will not be afraid I will be okay And you'll never fuck I want to feel your heartbeat heartbeat When my faith is fading The lowest healing grace will I know that I can make I can make When my faith is fading The lowest healing grace I know that I can make I can make You'll win me when I walk you fight Even when I face the dream In the darkest with the light The devil that he's alive And even when I'm in the way And all of my broken place Let me fade for a ride in the face And I will not be afraid I will be okay I will be okay Alright, every nation Good morning, good morning Let me bring you back from your tables Incredible conversation Welcome to every nation, Church Seattle For your new self-sulls in new faces This morning, my name's Perry And the lead pastor here And it is a joy To gather with God's people And worship on a Sunday The Lord's Day, first day of the week Isn't good to be together Man, it's so good to be with God's people And just celebrate who Jesus is So we're going to get in God's word In just a moment But first, I hope you got a good time Sharing something fun you like to do Or highlight of the week God, I'm not done in a while I'll share mine with you I got to get my wife took me on a date last night Tellin' you what, yeah she took me out last night And treated me to, I don't know if you've ever been There's been a candlelight concert In Seattle First time ever going to though Just seeing my avatars with their own tear And now it's worth the money It's beautiful What they do is they gather local artists They tap local artists to play certain sets And so I got to hear beautiful string instruments Last night, Coldplay and Imagine Dragons So, I mean, you can't get any better than that In a great date now Anyway, so it's something fun I like to do I wouldn't do more of So there you go, anyway Super fun, so that's a cue All spouses keep dating each other Loving each other Fight for that, get the kids taken care of Do what you gotta do And we're here to support you So tap shoulders if you need child care To go on dates, anyway, okay That has nothing to do with what I'm preaching Well, actually It might have something to do with what I'm sharing today Super fun One other thing about before we get into God's word Is in the season of Lent I mean, many of you are Fasting things, doing things preparing for Eastern Resurrection We're gonna celebrate One of the things we're doing Is we started something about a week ago I began sharing called Forward Together In the season, we're talking about belonging And God's people And what that means And we're gonna preach about that today But I shared last week That we have found a space Another physical space And we're gonna be sharing a space That we are looking at And seriously considering for our church And our future Which is super cool And we began praying for that last week And I wanna let you know That the good news is the owners Like the fact that a church could be in that space And they are hoping to do a deal with us And we believe this space with me A lot of our needs It is double the size of this So it's a step forward for that It would give us more room for kids And families And welcoming And worshiping And just expanding And we could plan our feet there For a long time in the U District So I just want you to know that And in order to prepare For even a future move Now we're praying that's gonna work out So the first thing we're asking you all to do Over the next several weeks We're asking number one to begin to pray That God would open a door For that space And or a space If this isn't the right one If this not, let God close it down We're asking you just pray That God will give us favor And open a door for better and bigger space And we're just simply asking you Set your alarms on your phone To 320 every day And pray Just take one minute Stop in the middle of your day And pray that God will open the door for us And we're trying to unite all of our fate together Because we need everybody praying That God will open that door And make a way And we believe it has better space for us Can I get a name in? Yeah we're running out of room And we don't have room for kids We don't have room for a lot of things And so we believe God wants to grow this church He wants to add new people to our family And so that's why we're praying for that Super excited about that Number two is we're asking In order for us to make a move To a new space Any future space We want to know who's with us Who would go who's going with us?
Like if we were to move from here and go where So during this month we're just asking everybody If you've been around for a while We're asking you just simply to pray And about making every nation church your church If you haven't already Then now's a great time to begin praying about Saying hey, is this my church? I'm going to go with you Wherever we go And just so you know the place we're praying about Is on 45th right around the corner The old pet co building Those of you may know and be familiar with that We're just asking you to pray about that Now listen if you're new around here Please don't feel pressure to do that We're not asking you to jump in And say oh this is my church You're not ready for that So total cool We're just glad you're here and we say come along for the ride But I know some of you may be been here for a while And we just want to ask you to let us know that That you're in and pray about that The last thing we're asking you to pray about Just over the next few weeks before Easter Is about taking a step with us financially In order for us to make a move Our elder team needs to be able to plan a budget Based on real numbers And so we're asking everyone if this is your church home This is your church family That you would pray about If you're not already becoming a monthly partner with us And giving Tizen offerings to the local church Because what that's going to help us know Is where do we stand financially looking at a future What step of fate will God call us to make And what that will look like So what we're asking you to do On March the 29th over the next several weeks On March 29th it's the last week before Easter We're going to give everybody a moment to indicate that To let us know Hey we're with you This is our church home We believe we're supposed to step with you And we're going to ask you guys to just indicate What you plan to give in Tizen offerings this year Just like you make a budget for your home You have to look at what your income is So we want to be good stewards of the finances God's given us And we want to know where we are And we want to pray about that Third thing And then we're going to give you an opportunity on March the 29th And even after that To let us know And so we're going to give everybody a Digitaly and a form to be able to say Hey we're in Here's what we plan on giving The only people that are going to see that is our elder team Just so you know that That's private information But we're actually going to pray those things Because we need to be able to move forward Together Into the season that God will have us for the future So we can know that Some good Amen, forward together And I just want to thank you guys for praying Thank you for believing with us Because we believe he has better space for us So let's prepare for that I'm going to pray for us And then we're going to get ready Father God we thank you for your love for us I know that many of us here have longed for New space or better space for us And Lord I thank you for the patience you've given Our family here Lord we trust you that you would go before us to open the door The right one Lord if this one around the corner is the right one first We just pray you go before us and smooth that way Lord we pray over this this season That you prepare all of our hearts And speak to us as a church family I pray you to unify us in faith And unify us in love To move forward together Lord bless us with incredible unity Lord as we look to our future In Jesus name Everybody say Amen Amen Amen Amen All right We uh Now we have been in a study over the last three weeks called along And we've been talking about what does it mean to belong in Jesus's church And I'm going to recap a couple things we've been saying And then we're going to get into this message for today So a couple things we've been saying is the fact that Jesus number one Is the one building his church has gathered people His local assemblies around the world He's not building an earthly government Can I get an amen? He's not building a political party He's not building a social club That's not what he's doing And he told us in Matthew He said I'm building my church My gathered people throughout the world in local places Localists and we've called the church And we said that whenever God's people gather God's doing something specifically Amongst us as a people always And there's three things he's doing He's always working to form us into a holy temple that loves God He's also forming us into a spiritual family that loves one another And thirdly he is forming us into a body of Christ that loves the world That we take who we are our gifts our talents our treasure we are To love and serve those around us in the world And last week we began with this question Of then how does Jesus go about forming of people that love? How does he do it?
He calls us into these local places called churches But how does he go about forming us into a people that love God one another And the world and lastly we began to explore the idea that The way Jesus forms us He actually calls lovingly calls us to embrace spiritual habits That shape us or form us Or by say habits Habits We saw last week that habits have the power Like spiritual habits healthy ones Have the power to rewire our brains through repetition They have power to reshape our identity Our sense of who we are And who are meant to be in the world But they also transform our desires our loves In other words what you habitually do or repeatedly do spiritually in any way In other words it's actually forming us into a certain kind of people And it shapes what we love and who we love About what we do with our bodies what we do with our minds All of what we do these habits shape us And we covered two spiritual habits last week Which were devotion walking with God daily Working on the habits that actually train us daily And we talked about fellowship Walking with God's people weekly Just basic spiritual habits that form you And it's just those commitments to those little habits along the way That are actually shaping you into a person it loves Today I'm going to give you spiritual habit number three So welcome to training Yay, here we go We're going to put on the training wheels I'm going to talk today about habit number three Which is not new to many of you But it's going to be reminded as serving Serving Using your gifts Using your talent, your treasure Who you are to serve Others as a spiritual habit that God calls us to As a lifestyle I'm going to go open this up this morning But I want you to know these are not checklists I want to remind us Anytime you hear spiritual habits I know so many of you think disciplines These are that word everybody's like That sounds rigid Whatever I want you to know these are not checklists for legalistic duties I want you to know some of us need to be transformed The way we think of habits We really do They're not duties to perform to earn love They're pathways to be formed into a person that loves They're pathways that shape us To receiving God's love and others and giving it back I like to say they're pathways And I use the image last week of a toddler On one of those little practice mics Have you seen this image before? Have you ever seen the toddler in one of these? Yeah brilliant stuff I love it If you've ever seen kids on these mics This is the way habits tend to work In the sense of they're like training A training bike To learn how to love And develop the love of God that's in your heart And so You might not be great at it to start with But over time as you begin to Kind of get on a bike and push And walk with it Over time kids begin to develop That sense of balance Where their confidence begins to grow What was hard to start with Over time begins to become natural Become second nature Before actually you're just pushing off My kids were raised and learning how to ride like that And it was just fun to see my kids just develop That habit and before you know that man they're cruising You can put him on a bike with pedals And they're like pew pew pew They're gone right Some of us may feel like toddlers And some of the habits I'm talking about That's why God puts us in a church family So that we can learn To put on the training wheels And learn to pedal begin to learn To get on that bike And become proficient at some of those habits Such that over time These things we do repeatedly become second nature Right? You with me?
Yeah So let's dive into this one today Habit number three Serving God by serving others If you want to live a meaningful life Seriously Meaningful purposeful life If any of us do Then it comes to this very habit The power of serving God through serving others And as members of God's family I want you to know each of us have been given gifts God has given each of us Who are in Christ gifts And grace gifts to serve others And Ephesians 3D Apostle Paul writes to them A network of churches Of house churches And he says to them Each but each one of us Grace has been given As Christ apportioned Everybody say each one Each one Every single one of us In Christ He says have been given grace As Christ apportioned And he goes on in verse 8 and says This is why it says when he ascended Meaning Christ When he ascended on high After his resurrection says he took many captives And he gave gifts to his people This is speaking of Christ's victory over the powers When he rose from the dead When he ascended it says that Christ now All those who are incorporated into him He gives these grace gifts Acknowledging that And these gifts he gives to each one of us He goes on to name some of those gifts In the next few verses and Ephesians 4 He says it was he who gave some to be apostles Some to be prophets Some to be evangelists Some to be pastors and teachers To prepare God's people For works of service or ministry So that the body of Christ may be built up until we become mature By say mature Mature Yeah Paul goes on to say there's some people that have been given certain gifts In the body, in the church And so that every local church has some of these And he lists them out, right? He says apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers He gives to every local church And what I love is he clarifies these gifted people Actually have a job to do Those jobs with those offices, those gifts, are the equipers They're the ones who come alongside And actually equip and teach and build up the local body Of Christ But for purpose Notice he says why? Go back to that verse please Open up so we can see it I love it He says to prepare God's people for what? Works of service Another way to say that is ministry What that says is that in every local church God gives gifted people to equip you All of us for doing the works of Jesus For actually ministering to other people So much so that you could say There are those that are the equipers I'm one of them, but there's others amongst us But you guys, those who maybe aren't the equipers Are actually the ministers And so when we look at a local body at a church I look out, I see a bunch of ministers sitting here Some of you may not think of yourself that way I remember there was a time I was sitting in the chair And somebody was telling me this And I'm like, I don't see myself as a minister What are you talking about?
I'm just a Christian Paul says no, no, no, no You don't understand You're being a Christ follower Being a Christian Why God put you in a local body in local churches He's like I want to help equip you and build you up So that you can minister So that you are able to minister to other people around you Some of the equipers, some are ministers Some of you have some of these gifts That I just mentioned here Some of you in here are evangelists Some of you have apostolic gift Able to start new things And move into space Some of you have prophetic gifting in our body Right? And you're using those gifts in the space And we'll talk more about that in a few minutes But I just want to lay that foundation there Paul says we all are given the grace gifts Some are this way But it's for the maturing and ministering in the body And I will tell you this One of the secrets in this passage I've seen over the years is that the way you mature Is actually by doing works of ministry We got it wrong in the Western world I'm going to be honest with you We're all If you're university trained We're trained in the Greek way of thinking The Greek way of being Which has more to do with listening Learning more knowledge More knowledge more content Where the Judaic way or the Jewish way What Paul comes from Was actually you know you apprentice In other words you're actually getting involved in using your gifts Serving others is the way you actually mature It's by doing the things that God's called you to do Not just hearing I hope you catch that in the passage If you want to mature You want to grow up in the fullness of who Jesus is He says Hey let's get you on the training bike And begin to use your gifts To serve other people Alright number two He says Each of us have been given gifts But each of us have different gifts That we must use to serve other people Paul writes to the Roman network Of house churches And he declares that every Christ Father has different gifts Different gift package And he lists some of them in Romans chapter 12 Now this list is not exhaustive In other words there's a lot more gifts And the Old Testament There's gifts for like like woodworking And metalworking And making tapestry and art And so throughout the whole plethora of the scriptures You see gift Giftedness in many areas of life But he lists some of these And I think he probably lists them These were some of the ones he saw at work In the churches And heard that we're working these churches So he calls them out Let's listen to a couple of those He says we have different gifts According to the what? Grace Then prophesy In accordance with your faith If it's serving Then serve If it's teaching And teach If it's to encourage Then give encouragement If it's giving Then give generously If it's to lead Do it diligently If it's to show mercy Do it cheerfully Beautiful list of gifts Do some of you see some of your gifting in there? I'm serious Then any of you see some of your gifting in there?
Yeah Yeah And many of you are using these In our body right now And it's beautiful to see them being put to use But each of us have different ones Right? We're not like the other Isn't it funny how God likes to put us together In a group of people who just aren't like us Right? Um I used to joke Years ago when I first started ministry In campus ministry I remember we would We'd run into problems from time to time And pulling off where it's in a small group Or anything like that And you always can tell the gifts Whenever something goes wrong Because I mean I remember Like one night we had something If someone went wrong with the meal Someone broke down And didn't work All of a sudden What was already in God's people Begin to just show up And so you've got one person showing up Who's got the gift of help and service And they immediately go into action And they're going to fix things and do that Well you've got the teachers They're standing back Well I think what we need to do is this Really we need to do this right? It's super funny right?
You've got the encourages We're like don't worry everybody I'm making check and making sure everybody's all right right? As soon as you run into a problem Think about it You'll see it You'll see it in any situation in church And I just remember standing back one time Is learning to lead And I remember just watching when disasters would happen I just stand back and you just saw the gifting Just show up and it was super cool To see everybody trying to solve it From how God had designed and made them And what the gifts that He had given them I think that's God's love and matrix To give us that different gifted matrix So we actually can solve things Could you? I'll get into that in just more in a minute I'll get ahead of myself But we all got different gifts We celebrate different giftedness I love it Some of you may wonder what are my gifts Some of you may be new here And coming around and you're like I don't know what mine are I think I might have this thing in this Well the good news is this There's a beautiful way to discover what your gifts are And the way you do that is actually by being deeper in community I'll tell you now Being in a community group in our church family Here one of the greatest ways To discover your gifts Is meet with a regular group of people Eating meals Studying scripture Praying together Hanging out together Having fun together And guess what happens You begin to discern and see Oh I think I can see this in your life and your gifting It takes others To be able to point out to you and tell you What's inside of you and what's really there I discovered that early on People when I get in groups of people And begin I guess just being who I was How God had made me And people would start pointing out to me And saying Man I think you've got to get for leadership I think you've got to get for this whatever And I was like really? You know Most honest I just didn't really think that highly of myself And I didn't think I was like Ah maybe You know I'm just trying to learn here I'm stumbling on my life Christian wise Whatever I got a lot of work to do And I was very aware of the work I needed to do But it took others Coming alongside me to encourage me and say No no no no I know you're trying to get your Christian life back together Listen you've got a gift You need to use that right now Because that's what's going to mature you That's what's going to get you out of yourself And get you out of your head Man Employee That gift I thank God for the early people who When I just showed up to set up chairs in the church It's where I started Just showing up chairs on a Sunday morning Faithfully Joining a team I remember people come alongside And they begin to we begin to talk and hang out They point out my gifts And they call that encouragement in me They say you're a son of encouragement And I noticed you're always trying to encourage people I was like oh okay cool It's in the body In the family where you get to be seen And your gifts come out Isn't that powerful?
Now one of the things we see is that Jesus expects Every Christ follower To discover and use them Listen to what the apostle Peter said He said each one should use Whatever gift He or she has received Obviously by Christ to serve others Faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms Man listen to that last phrase This might blow your mind But he says hey You should use whatever gift you have To serve others Which tells you Your gifts are not for you They're not the gifts are not for us To just enjoy and feel really good about ourselves What makes us feel really good about ourselves Is when we use those gifts to serve other people Our gifts are for others It's the minister and I love the way he says it That you're administering God's grace to people By serving them with your gifts Have you ever thought That your gifts are you using I mean whatever's smaller that's Prophecy you're teaching your encouragement Or giving or serving That's the most we just read Have you ever thought That actually gives grace to people? Like it lifts them up It gives them a sense of love And God's favor When you do it That's true whether it's in the body of Christ It's true whether it's in your household Whether it's to your spouse Or your children You are giving grace When you serve others with your gifts It's amazing It's like you're administrating something You're carrying it out And you're sure that it goes somewhere What that tells you is you're very valuable And you're more powerful than you think You're much more powerful Some of you look at your gifts And I don't think they're that great I'm maybe they're not that great I want to tell you yes they are Because when you use them They lift others up It's powerful We're meant to use this Not only in the church but also in the world But use our gifts And what happens when you begin to use them Is what happens is When you begin to give grace to others And start using it What happens is God uses that act of serving To begin to develop faithfulness in you Consistency Said fast as where people can rely on you Right? Super cool So God says hey come use your gifts I'm going to develop you along the way How you do it Paul we've heard Peter let's listen to Jesus now He says in Matthew 25 verse 40 Whatever you did For one of the least of these brothers And sisters of mine You did for who? Me Oh man Mother Teresa said that this was her She would claim this as her gospel And she would always remind herself When she was going into the streets of Calcutta And she was serving the poor and the marginalized And she was lifting the mother Sick and the needy When it was hard and difficult to serve In that way God called her to Because we all know that right You start using your gifts And you start faking using your fates And you start faking using your time Man God could call you in some tough situations In tough spaces Some of you are in that Here in our church body Helping others is not easy And so Jesus reminded all of us And Mother Teresa would take this As soon as she would say Man This might be difficult This might be challenging This might be growing my character But she knew she would say Whenever I do for the least of these I'm actually doing to Jesus himself How I treat others is actually the way I'm treating Jesus And so it's a beautiful picture Oh my God Oh Jesus is present amongst me Yeah look in the eye of your brother and sister Yeah You did it to me And so she would remind herself all the time She would do it on her finger You did it unto me You did it unto me Serve one another What a beautiful picture This says your service every time is never in vain Never in vain No matter who you're serving or when you serve Whenever we serve someone No matter how big or small Jesus takes it As if you did it for him Alright let's get to this last one Each of us have gifts given by Christ Each of us have different gifts That are meant to serve one another And the last thing Each of us must recognize Here we go And resist the spiritual challenges To our sense of belonging And using our gifts Everybody must recognize and resist Let me say this guys There are challenges There are spiritual powers I talk about this a lot Spiritual powers that are at work I think to keep people All from us from The greater sense of belonging You want to have in the church And I think it's directly tied To our serving others There's powers that work in the narratives And the stories we tell ourselves in our head Each of us have stories going on in our head All the time Where we're trying to interpret Data The situation we're in The people I'm around The moment I'm stepping into All of us have these stories going off And what you don't realize sometimes And I like to call things out Pulling the curtain back And let me reveal you where the enemy works Because if you can see where he's at work Man your eyes will be open You'll be like oh that's not just my thoughts That's not just me having a bad day That's not just me being a selfish person Not all the time No actually there might be something else at work Trying to stop me From you seeing my gifts And using my gifts to serve other people Because when we use our gifts to serve others What happens is Your roots go deeper in love for people And your sense of belonging grows That actually these are my people I'm with them And I belong in that space Is directly tied to your contributing Not just consuming It's contribution that anchors you In a sense of belonging in any place You're in So the apostle Paul, I really appreciate him In 1 Corinthians 12 he opens up and says Let me warn you of a couple narratives Stories, the enemy is working in your mind That is going to hinder you from Serving others the way God met you too And having this deeper sense of belonging Let's get into these I call these two ditches That we can fall into He says in verse 27 chapter 12 Where he lists a whole bunch of other spiritual gifts I'm not getting into today The more supernatural ones He says in verse 27 Now you are the body of Christ Writing the Corinthian Christians Who are also in house churches And spread across the city He says you all You are the body of Christ And each one of you is a part of it However, we will be tempted by spiritual powers Paul says to see things and feel and sense things And then think in ways that undermine the sense of belonging The first challenge he calls out is comparison We must recognize and resist comparison Listen to what he says He says, he's using body image I'm going to point this out He's using body image And he's going to talk about the eye and the foot And this idea that we all have different gifts Some of us might be on eye and ear A foot and a hand but he says But the truth is We first have to accept the reality That we belong To a local body of people Called the church We're part of it Right?
We have different gifts But we're part That was the way he said No, the truth is you belong Now let's talk about what undermines that sense And the first one is comparison He says now If the foot This is a funny conversation He's having in his head If the foot should say Well Because I'm not a hand Well I don't belong To the body I'm not a hand I'm in the church There's a lot of hands Right? Some of you go in church A lot of hands There's a lot of people serving Right? They're just active You may come in and go Well I'm really an inner I'm really a prayer person There's a lot of doing around here Right? Well because I'm not a hand I don't know that this I don't know about belong He said Well It would not for that reason Stop being a part of the body Just because you're not a hand Doesn't mean you stop Belonging Well if the ear should say Our ear hearing people This could be prophetic people Who hear the Lord and listen to him Right?
He says Well because I'm not an eye I don't really see I don't have a visionary in that I don't belong To the body Right? It would not for that reason Stop being a part of the body What does Paul point out? He's acknowledging that There can be this narrative in our minds Well I'm not like them I'm not like them I'm not like them So therefore I'm not I'm not Belong I'm comparing myself And I'm looking around me I'm looking at these things But I'm looking for Here's what he's following We look into feeling like Well who's like me? I'm looking for what's like me Not what's different from me And what that can do Sometimes it's undermine our sense of belonging And that narrative is that working the background I'm looking for those Who are just like me Well they're all different I'm like no Do you understand Jesus says The body is different parts We're not all the same part And it doesn't work that way The only way a body works is if I have a hand And an eye and an ear Working together Right?
If a church were all hands Man we'd be in trouble All eyes are all ears No gods is all I want to put you In a diversity of gifting Is how you grow in love As you use those gifts to serve one another But comparison will always lead us to think More highly of others I'm not a hand The hand is really the thing in this church The eyes are really the thing It'll lead us to think more highly of others And their gifts and think too lowly of our gifts That's what comparison does I'll think too lowly of mine Where the true sense of belonging Has to do with being secure in our gifts And accepting that our gifts are important and needed Your gift is important You are important You're valuable And he's he's he's he's undercutting this This sense of the spirit The enemy would say Well I'm not very valuable Because I'm not like them Just because we're not like somebody else Doesn't mean we don't belong So beware of that voice in your head Beware of it It is not your father talking When you hear that voice in your head Beware of the narratives Because this is how the enemy undermines the longing Comparison I'm not like them So I'm going to put them on a pedestal Think highly of that gift Right And I'm going to think lowly of mine I'm going to tell you every gift is needed in the body for the body to function well I need every bit of this for this body to work That's how Jesus wants you to think of the local church Listen to what he says If the whole body were an eye Where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear Where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body Every one of them just as he wanted it to be If they were all one part Where would the body be? As it is there are many parts but one body Every member is a minister in Christ's body Every member has a different functioning gifts And every member's ministry is important You matter to God in her value Let's talk about the second one What's the second challenge?
Comparison man That's a dangerous one but here's the other one Self-reliance Alright Seattle buckle up There's Paul points out that there's a self-reliance Where it would lead us to sense and feel and think To highly of ourselves The comparison ditch Put you in the ditch where you're thinking too highly of others And too low of yourself This one flips Where you think too highly of yourself And you look down on others And they're gifts We may not realize that any of us can fall into that trap Anytime sensing feeling thinking That we're okay by ourselves This is the water we swim in in Seattle Is this sense of self-reliance Sometimes we call it radical self-reliance And what can happen is we fall into this narrative Perhaps that our gifts are all we need And it can lead us to think that we're better More important maybe and we don't realize it's happening therefore But what it leads us into Sometimes you wouldn't think it leads us to self-sufficiency And where I don't need other people But listen to the puzzle, he says that I cannot say to the hand I don't need you My goodness And the head cannot say to the feet I don't need you Do you see what he's getting at? There's something that can get in our heads We're like, you know what? I don't need you I don't need you I'm fine by myself I don't need someone else serving me or helping me I'm just gonna do it on my own I don't need a body is what it's saying Now if your body would get up in the morning And all of a sudden your hand and your right start talking Like if my eye goes, you know hands, I really don't need you today Just take the day off You're cool Yeah, I'm gonna walk around like this And I'm not gonna get anything done Not anything done But I can see really well It's great But I can't open the door and I can't brush my teeth And I can't make my omelette I can't make my coffee in the morning Great I don't need you Cool We're not gonna get much done Silly, isn't it? I love how Paul uses this analogy Because you can play off of it in so many ways He says on the contrary Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker Are indispensable You may not think you need that big toe Or that little toe Man, wait till you tweak it or break it You start walking and guess what?
You feel it through your whole body You can't run Can't exercise real well All because one little part just He says no, no, it's the weaker parts That are indispensable It's the small things I injured my finger I cut it earlier this week Just a small cut Out of my finger And I had to wash dishes Because my dishwasher broke And that was fun Still broken You know, and I'm down in there And I didn't know that Everything I went to do I had no idea how much I used this little knuckle right here But everything I did it would rub against my bag Rub against this, rub against this And I might just get bleeding and bleeding I'd show up in meetings I'm sitting there and I'm just bleeding from my finger I'm not joking Right? And I hurt And I'm in pain And I'm like this little thing Just totally messing me up And hurting me and I couldn't do things And I just was thinking this past and I'm like oh yeah I need you Little knuckle To help me get through The weaker parts That maybe we The smaller whatever gifts there may be He says man they're indispensable So some of us may can fall on that ditch again He's pointing out the weaker parts You may not fall on the ditch and think Ah, I'm not that important He's like no no no You're way important What he wants to happen in the body Is the consciousness that everybody Is looking at one another and going You're important You matter You're gifts matter We need you We need you We need you We need you I can't say to you I don't need you Right? What's powerful when you're able to look at somebody You actually really need you You look at your spouse and I really need you I need your gifts You're different than me I'm so grateful for you The older I get the more grateful I am for the different The differences in my wife and myself I see the differences of how they compliment me And they help me in so many ways The older I get the more like I'll think I need you Every bit of it The idea that we don't need one another Is nothing to be further from the truth Because the only way we grow in love Is not just by using our gifts to serve others But here it is Being able to receive love from others Being able to acknowledge I need your help One of the best ways you could show love to others around you Is actually to acknowledge I need you Rather than going to chat GPT Actually brother and sister I'm serious So this could be like quick text Hey what do you think about this? In order to really belong in the family of God Here it is If you want your sense of belonging To really deepen and grow Paul, Jesus, Peter told us all today Take your gifts and use it to serve Specific people That he's put you in your church In your local body That's where it's meant to begin to happen And we take it out To serve the world But each of us recognize and resist Comparison and self-reliance Comparison and self-reliance Comparison and self-reliance When you walk into spaces Be aware of the narratives that are in your head You may have to take thoughts Captive you to rebuke those things And say no, I do belong I have gifts and they do matter No matter if it's a hand and eye and ear It doesn't matter I'm going to show up fullness of who I am And I'm going to offer myself And I'm also going to let it be known That I need the other in my life That you matter, could you help me with this?
You got me Paul reaffirms this We'll close with this At the beginning of chapter 1, it goes by The grace given me I say to everyone you don't think of yourself More highly than you are But rather think of yourself as sober judgment In accordance with the fate that God has distributed Each of you Think, consider Don't let these attitudes get in our hearts We'll reject and resist those things And then give ourself Each of us has grace given by Jesus Each of us has different gifts We're used to serve others And each of us must recognize and resist The spiritual challenges to our sense of belonging Romans 12, 4, and 5 He says, for just as each of us has one body with many members And these members do not all have the same function So in Christ, though many form of body Each member belongs To all the others We belong We belong To all the others God calls us to belong And one of the powerful ways we do that Is by our contribution Of our gifts to one another So how do we work this out? Super practical to close this One of the primary spaces I think we get to live it out in our church body Is within our group life Group life We're building that up this year Encouraging people to be in the space Is a primary space Where we're actually learning to love one another Where we're learning to develop our gifts And share those Creating a sense that we call Accitude Community That's where it happens And so I encourage you guys Man, if you're not already get connected to a group If you say, hey, I don't know that I have one in my area near me I want help starting a group We'd love to help you start one A group in your area and how to do that So we encourage you That's one of these disciple habits Pay attention to the needs around you In a group You're in here on a gathering Or you're meeting with believers outside of here I encourage you just pay attention to the needs around you Just look around you Where are the needs? Man, I wonder how I could Meet the need of that person In my life And just look for ways to serve others and meet practical needs Not only in the church but in the world You can take this into your workspace Take this into the spaces in which you walk every day See yourself primarily as a servant That is our identity And this whole teaching I'm giving you the undergirds a sense of idea Identity that we're Christ servants in the world We're the body There's meant to love the world As well as the church Man, we could go into spaces looking Rather than thinking of the narrative in my mind Or comparing I'm not this one Rather going in and going man I'm just here to love and serve others You'd be amazed at what could happen Another way that you could practically do this Is we actually have ministry teams on a Sunday That help us gather and do what we do That's tech and sound Or kids God bless all those who serve our kids Man and do what they're screaming babies all that They're amazing people But there are teams It takes teams, frontline teams, serving, grabbing donuts, coffee Man, if you're not serving on a team you're currently That's one of the great ways to step in To just say hey I'd love to be a part of Love to help on a team serve once a month You get to develop relationships and use your gifts And we have a list of those teams on the back of our connection card For super practical And for you to just check a box and say hey you know what I might not be serving right now But I'd love to test drive Take a team for a tester I mean show up on Sunday just watch what they do And just see if this is something for me It doesn't commit you to anything But that's one action step you could take towards that Hallelujah It's serving use our gifts Man, we discover belonging in a deep way Could you imagine what kind of person you would become In the next six months to year If you chose to belong and actively use your gifts to serve others Like really begin to put it to work Could you imagine the kind of person you could become the love That could be formed and developed in you and me Could you imagine what kind of community Not only we are now but we could still become If we said yes to this habit Of using our gifts to serve those around us I'll tell you what We'll become a people who are known by our love And people can be attracted to that And we can invite people into a community man That loves one another well And together we serve the world Let's pray Father God we thank you for my brothers and sisters Thank you Jesus that you called us into these local Church to the local church as the main primary space We're learning how to love others by using our gifts Lord I pray in our congregation that Lord you help us raise the value Of the differences the different giftings that are here Lord I pray that you help us see each other And value each other and encourage one another To see who God you've designed us and gifted us What I pray that would flourish in our community group life And I pray with flourish here in our Sunday gatherings And what I pray is we discover those things and grow in them You give us all a greater deeper sense of belonging Help us contribute Who you've given us to be To the people Who's lodge you've put us around In Jesus name All God's people said Amen Give me a moment just to reflect Just today what's the spirit of God saying to you Let's see highlighting About your giftedness What's one step you could take this week To where this idea this habit of serving others Father help us value one another Help us value our different giftings And Lord help us see the meaningful beautiful purpose and contribution That you've caught us to make And those around us In Jesus name Amen We're gonna invite you guys to turn your tables now and just share what's something you're hearing Word that's encouraging you or even challenging you this morning And then what's the next step and God's calling you to take in that So we're gonna invite you now just to hear your tables take the time to share And then we'll take off some moment to go around and pray for one another before we close out our gathering and have fun at your tables Blessings Let's go Father God we thank you just for the the giftedness that's in this church body Lord. We thank you We are a very gifted people We're so grateful for every gift that's in this space and we say that every person every gift matters Lord would you bless us continue bless us with the spiritual strength and energy Vitality and love God to continue using our gifts To employ them and to value those the others that are around us in Jesus name All God's people said Amen Amen Genesis gonna close up just a second just before we went further I just wanted to say a huge thank you To all of you because so many of you serve God's people behind the scenes And I want to tell you do it well You do it amazingly I hear stories from each of you for this in group life on a sunday or during the week of how you show up for each other And I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart because so many of you are loving people so well behind the scenes It's not seen and known But I just want to just thank you and I want to acknowledge that when you walk out here They want you to know man.
We're get the church and you guys are doing amazing work. You're doing amazing work and uh, yeah Love you. Thanks. I know Thank you, Pastor Perry.
Um, yeah, so I'm going to transition us out and just cover a couple of administrative details So if you would like to get connected or you would like to serve in an area, please A lot of our connect card. That's the best way to let us know that you're interested in something And let us know who you are so we can get in contact with you. If you have any prayer requests, please fill out our prayer request card That's the best way to let us know How we can pray for you and how we can partner with you in that way Um, and then you can drop both of those cards off in the black box over there at the staircase But just to call back to the beginning of a pesterbury sermon as we're in the season that we're calling belong We're asking you guys to keep bringing to the lord prayers throughout the week to Forgot to open the right space for us to pray about what it would make What it would look like to make every nation your home and pray about how you might participate in supporting your church family financially And we do want to say thank you to those of you who do Faithfully give in tithes and offerings you do allow us to be able to make be the church if you're in the city make disciples and Yeah, if you're not currently giving would you just prayerfully consider becoming a monthly partner with us And you can go through the church app or by using an envelope and dropping it off in the black box as well Uh, if you don't already have our church app that's the best way to find out what's coming up and see all the different connection opportunities Um, and yeah as we go I just want to send us with this scripture Um in first peter for 10 it says each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of god's grace in its various forms So I just yeah as we have been given gifts by the lord We get to not just use them but we get to steward them and wisely steward them in different situations in different circumstances So Yeah, as you go from here go out be a good steward of your gift in the world Um, yeah, and know that the peace of christ and the spirit of the lord is with you as you go from here out into big wide Wet world, um, and yeah our gathering here is officially done But we invite you to stay at tables and continue shouting and connecting and praying but thank you for gathering with us