Supplying Good pt. 1 | Jake Vayda

This week in our Created for This series, we explored the purpose of Supplying Good through Exodus 18. We looked at Moses trying to carry everything himself and discovered a powerful truth: when only a few people use their gifts, many people go without. But when everyone contributes what God has given them, no one lacks.

We were reminded that serving isn't just about filling a need—it's about becoming the person God created us to be. What can feel like an interruption or delay is often God's shortcut to purpose, growth, and deeper connection.

The invitation is simple: don't let your gifts stay buried. Whether it's your time, talent, encouragement, leadership, generosity, or compassion, God has given you something that can make a difference in the lives of others.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

It's 2 a.m. And we hear a loud bang. My wife leans over. What was that? What was that? Go check it out. Go check it out. So, like any manly man, I say yes. No, I'm like stressed out. I'm like, I don't know what that was. I don't know. You go check it out. Just kidding. I was like, okay, I'll do this. I'll go, I'll go check out what this loud bang is at 2 a.m. in the morning. Uh and you know, I don't know what this could be. So I I got a knife that someone gifted me. So I'm like looking for this knife somewhere in my house. I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. Could I use it? I don't know. We'll see. I get the knife. And something you need to know about me is I dress pretty liberally sleeping. Uh I'm half dressed. So I'm walking down the hallway with a knife I probably won't use and don't know really what I'm gonna do with. Half dressed at 2 a.m. in the morning, the song This is how I fight my battles. This is not how I want to fight my battle. You know what I mean? Like this, I am not in the dress for success here. Um, anyways, I'm coming up to this door because I know it's in the guest bedroom. So uh with all the boldness I can come up with, I open the door and just like a horror movie. All right, it opens. Pitch dark, you know? But no one's in there. Like, oh, thank God. I look under the bed just in case. There's one place I haven't checked yet, though. The one place I haven't checked is the large closet that we have. So I look over the large closet, no one's there, but what is there is a gigantic hole the size of a human. Like, how is this hole here? I never I never saw this hole. What I realized is the previous person actually drywalled that entire area so we wouldn't know that it was a gigantic hole that was never fixed. And at 2 a.m., and of course, like the worst time, you know, when you're sleeping, just the loudest noise of drywall coming down and this gigantic hole right in front of me. This was a great example of what it looks like to not do your due diligence when you're moving into a new home. I was like stressed, right? All the paperwork, you just try to move in. That's what your goal, you know. And I missed this gigantic hole that was covered up with drywall. It seemed like the shortcut was to not do my due diligence because it gave me more time, but ultimately it laid uh ended up with a pretty big delay of us being stressed out at 2 a.m. in the morning. For you, what is it that felt like a shortcut but ended up being a delay in your life? Was it excited about that new job that you're taking only to realize that the culture is terrible and the boss micromanages and you have to leave ASAP? Or for you, is it jumping into a relationship and you're just excited to not be single anymore, but of course you end up realizing this is probably not the one for me? When was the last time that it felt like a shortcut in the beginning, but ultimately ended up being a delay? The opposite can be true as well. Sometimes what feels like a delay actually ends up being a shortcut. Like setting up that retirement account when you're 23 and you're like, I don't want to, you know, it feels like wasting $100 a month, but then all of a sudden you actually have enough money to retire after several, several years. I mean, that seems like a delay, but ultimately a shortcut. Teaching your kid how to tie their shoes before you leave, all of a sudden that saved you like five minutes every time you leave. What felt like a delay, but ultimately was a shortcut. So you have two realities here. I'm gonna give you two words, and I want you to immediately, what do you feel? This two words, what category? Serving others. Serving others. Now we're at church, so obviously you're gonna be like, oh, it's a blessing. But in reality, let's be honest, serving others can often feel like a delay, right? I mean, look at my Google Calendar. I don't have time for this. Like, I don't have time. Laundry, I'm a father, right? I'm a husband, I have a full-time job. The last thing it is it's like a delay. Serving somebody else, taking time out of my schedule for something that literally does not benefit me at all, absolutely feels like a delay. Today, I want to pose the question this. If you're actually taking notes, you can see it in your notes, and it's this what if serving isn't a delay, but a shortcut for the life that you want to live? What if? Everyone say what if? What if serving isn't a delay, but actually a shortcut for the life that you want to live? We're in a series called Created for This, where we're looking at the life that God has allowed us to live and the five specific gifts that He wants to give every single person in this room. In fact, we know that they're gifts because we find the Israelites. These are people who are free from slavery in Egypt, and now they're wandering in the desert. God desires to transform them into the greatest movement the world has ever seen. So they go from this group of refugees who don't even have a home to the greatest movement. How does this even happen? God gives them five gifts. We see this with Jesus. He gives us five gifts. The early church got five. I want to know what these five gifts are so I can live my best life. So today we're talking about the fourth gift that God gave the Israelites in the desert, and it's this supplying good. If you're taking notes, it's how we make and how we spend. Supplying good. How we make and how we spend. Our time, your talent, treasure. What do we do with the resources that we have? God wants to gift us with our design, supplying good. So we see these Israelites wandering in the desert. God keeps giving them gifts to form them into the best versions of themselves, which ultimately will end up working. And we see Moses. He was the man leading the charge. He was the marvel superhero who spread the Red Seas and called down plagues and said, Let my people go. This is Moses. And he's leading, and then his father-in-law comes to visit. Now, that's a little nerve-wracking, right? You're a big deal, but then your father-in-law comes. And the first thing we know about his father-in-law, Jethro, is that he loves his son. He loves his daughter. In fact, he worships and celebrates how they are free from slavery. He's like, great job, son. I mean, you're allowing God to use you in amazing ways. And let me just stay the night. I want to kind of see how you lead throughout the day. You know? So Moses gets up and Jethro's there. By the way, all the spiritual gifts of a father-in-law come out when they want to see how their son-in-law does it. We call it quality control. That's really uh that's why my father-in-law comes to create church. He probably loves Jesus, but he's also saying, Hey, how's my son-in-law really doing here? This is Jethro. Wakes up, Moses wakes up. Here's what Jethro notices Moses gets up, makes his pour over coffee, and then he heads over to a seat and he sits down. And then a line starts. One person at 7 a.m. And then two people, and then three. By 9 a.m., there's hundreds of people lined up to talk to Moses. And then what did Moses do? Well, this pour over coffee. He started making decisions, right? Hey, husband, you shouldn't do that to your wife. Uh, hey, manage your money better, do this. Uh, hey, here's uh maybe a thought when it comes to your mental health. Uh, hey, here's a way when it comes to your career for a better purpose. So he's he's giving all the advice one by one. The issue is that the coffee he made in his pour over is empty, and the line is still way long by the end of the day. People leave with their needs unmet. There's one person and thousands of people. Jethro notices this. The father-in-law notices this and then gives the awkward conversation with his son-in-law. It actually says this. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, What is this that you're doing? Why do you sit alone? And all the people stand around you from morning till evening. Moses' father-in-law said to him, What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out. This thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. In fact, you can write this next fill-in down when only a few unleash their gifts, many lack. When only a few unleash their gifts, many lack. In the 1800s, a man named Ferdinand De La Sepe was a legend. He helped complete the Suez Canal, which was a canal that connected Africa and Europe. Now, canals were big because we didn't have planes, trains, and automobiles, right? The only thing we had is shipping it across the ocean via boat. So a canal was a big deal because they had to go all the way around Africa in order to get gifts to Europe and supplies and food. So instead, they carved through land a canal where these ships could go through Europe and Africa and cut right through. It was a big deal. A Frenchman, Ferdinand, he he he made this happen. And then he said, We should do the same thing in America. I mean, you have you have North America and South America, and people have to go all the way in South America. What if we created a canal? Anyone know what that's called? That canal. Yes, that canal is called I'm gonna say it right now, paint on my canal. The issue is that he didn't realize there's a jungle and mosquitoes that carry diseases. In fact, years of work, they couldn't do it. What ultimately happened was 20,000 people estimated died. 20,000 people died working for Ferdinand, creating this Panama Canal. He ultimately went bankrupt, and his reputation was ruined forever. It was one man trying to do all of it. He didn't have an engineering degree, he just did one of these amazing canals, and he thought he could do it again by himself, a lone hero. And I'm wondering if Moses kept going, would this have been him? Dozens of needs unmet to the point where the Israelites just die in the desert because they don't have the direction that they need. I'm grateful for Jethro, but the reality is Moses, that probably would have felt like a delay, right? It's way easier waking up in the morning, making your pearl over coffee and getting to work. It's way harder training people, building other people up, delegating. I mean, I might as well just do it myself. It's a shortcut. This is probably how Moses felt. And Jethro said, no, no, this is not a shortcut, this is a delay. The way that you're doing it, justice was delayed, problems lingered, and real needs were left unresolved. Now you might be saying, Jake, this is this is great, this sounds good. You're now gonna say we need more people to serve with Moses, and then people's needs are met. Totally true. I think that's one of the biggest things about this passage. I also wonder if Jethro knew something, even something maybe even deeper, a bigger problem. What was happening? Only one person had the opportunity to unleash their gifts. Only one person. So that means there were thousands of people whose gifts were left dormant in the basement of their lives and never used. I think Jethro, what he really realized is the bigger problem is participation. That people don't have an opportunity to unleash their gifts. Here's my strong belief. Every single person sitting here, all of you deserve an opportunity to unleash your gifts to help the people that you love the most. That's what I believe. Every single one of you deserve an opportunity to unleash your gifts. And Moses was doing it all by himself. Yeah, we need more people to help. But really what's happening is there were people who had all these gifts that God's gifted them with, and they never got to use them, not even once. That's the bigger problem that Jethro realized. I'm convinced, and you might not be, but I'm convinced you have several gifts that God has actually given you. They're called gifts because you didn't earn them, you don't deserve them, they're just innate to your DNA. This is how God has designed you with at least three specific gifts. In fact, the Bible talks about 15 different gifts. I want to actually put it on the screen, these different gifts. I'm going to give you a little challenge here as we put on the five groups of gifts. Out of these gifts, what are your top three? Out of these gifts, what are your top three? You know it's a gift if you come alive doing it. You love it. You know it's a gift if you're actually good at it. Some people think that they're good at something, but are you actually good at something? And then third, are you actually helping people with that gift? You come alive, you're good at it, and you're helping people. So without discerning factors, what three gifts would you say that you have? In fact, here's what I want you to do with your fill-ins. Uh hey, this could be something you could study over and think through. Maybe you talk to your spouse, your friend, your co-workers about it. Uh, because everyone deserves to at least know your own gifting. Uh so the phrase that I want to go back to all the time is this it's a question, it's the bottom line. What could happen if I fully unleash my gifts? What could happen? In fact, could you write down your top three gifts right now in those three fill-ins, on your fill-in right now? What could happen if I fully unleash my gifts of what? Discernment, hospitality, teaching? I believe if you write this in your fill-ins, and if you pray over this or even look at it throughout the week, I think this could be one thing that could actually unlock your life in ways you never thought it could. What could happen? What could happen if you actually unleashed the full giftings God has given you? What if, I know this is crazy, what if God has given you your gifts, not only for you, but for the people that you love the most? Now let me be a little bit more bold. What if our job is to steward our gifts and actually use it to help someone else? What if right now there's people suffering in your orbit that could be helped through your gift? What's at stake with not utilizing your gifts? What's at stake with not unleashing your gifts right now? So Jethro, he continues. So now he gives the talk. He says, Okay, obey my voice, son. Obey my voice. I will give you advice and God be with you. You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. In other words, dude, keep doing to you, bro. Like you're gifted, keep doing it, and look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy, who hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you. But any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. Today we'd say, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, whatever country you come from, all of us have an opportunity right now to unleash our gifts. In fact, here's the next fill-in. When all the people unleash their gifts, no one lacks. Well, that's kind of exciting. When all the people unleash their gifts, no one lacks. So the French man Ferdinand, he ultimately ends up going back to France, failed, and this is his legacy. 150 years later, we're talking about this being his legacy. He refused to allow other people to unleash their own gifts. And then America bought Panama Canal and decided to take a team approach. And they had dozens of leaders making all different types of decisions. And what ultimately happened is they made the impossible possible. Miles of land carved out of mountains, and they built the canal, which some people call one of the wonders of the world. We actually have a picture of one of the first boats that went through the canal. We'll see if we can have the picture up here. This is in 1914. This is what Jeffre was trying to get Moses to understand. I want to do a little thought experiment here. One-word response. What is the role of a pastor? What do you think the role? Maybe you're a first-time guest, you're like, I don't know what a pastor is. Uh what do you think a role of a pastor like me is? You can literally answer. Give me like a one-word response. I heard preach, great, check, say it again. To guide, to lead, to teach. Okay, these are these are really good. These are and true. In fact, Jethro called Moses to keep doing those things. Um very specific definition of a pastor. And this might rub you the wrong way because you probably didn't grow up hearing this if you grew up in the church. Or if you're new, let me hopefully get you started on the right definition of what a pastor is. Someone in my position. It says this in Ephesians. It's a little crazy. It says Jesus Himself gave pastors and teachers to equip his people for the works of service. Wait, this can't be right. The pastor, he goes to all the hospital visits. The pastor should be meeting with everyone, the pastor should be making every decision, the pastor should be teaching 52 Sundays out of the year. Wait, this says the pastor is given by Jesus to equip the people to do the own work in the community, in the family of God. Why is this true? Why does the Bible say it's not one lone superhero, Marvel, Superman making it all happen? The Bible clearly says this is not the case. In fact, I believe the Bible says that the pastor really should be the hero maker, should be the person that's helping you unleash your gifts. I think for one reason, one reason alone. You become your best self when your gifts are unleashed. I'll say it one more time. I don't know if you believe it. You become your best self when your gifts are unleashed to help somebody else. In fact, when me and my wife, when we started this church, uh, people ask us all the time, why wouldn't you be maybe a campus of another church? Uh nothing bad about that. Why wouldn't you just keep leading in a different area? Because uh a lot of people know the hardest thing you can kind of do in the church world if you are pastor is to start a new church. Because you have to get people and you have to form a community. It's kind of a hard thing to do. And for us, the answer after praying that we kept coming back to is in 10 years from now, I'm gonna be a better lover of people, of my wife, of myself, if I start this church. Here's why. Because I'm gonna be challenged to become the type of person who could handle leadership. That's why. One of the prayers that I pray so often is God, don't loosen my load, broaden my shoulders. I don't want less. I don't want less opportunity to impact. I want to impact my kids more. I want to be able to impact my community more. I want to unleash my gifts more. I want to uh figure out a way to make them better and better. God, don't loosen my load. I want more and give me shoulders that can handle more. I'm my best self when I'm unleashing my gifts and God forms me again and again and again. It's funny, a lot of people uh they'll go on trips all across the world to build houses, to build wells for people who are poor and powerless, and they think they're going to help them. But every time they come back and they say one thing, I thought I was going to help them, but I was helped. I was changed. There's something psychologically weird when you help somebody else. You think it's a delay, and God is saying it's a shortcut for your best life. In fact, in this room right now, if you serve at Create Church in any capacity, would you just raise your hand? If you serve in any capacity, can we just give them a round of applause right now? And do you know what all of them are thinking right now? They're thinking what Chick-fil-A says. No, it's my pleasure. That's what they're thinking. No, it's my pleasure. Because psychologically, dopamine goes up, serotonin goes up, stress levels go down, worry goes down. I don't know how this happens. When you help someone else, it's called the helpers high. Get that. Everyone deserves to have the helpers high. And by the way, make sure to keep the helpers in there. Everyone deserves to have the helpers high any given Sunday. That's what I believe. You deserve to unleash your gifts for the betterment of you and the community. Let's continue. Man, I'm going, I'm going for it. But here's here's a this is what Jethro says. If you do this, if you unleash your gifts of mercy, of hospitality, opening up your home, giving people your warm smile, gifting us with your beautiful voice or the way you play the keys, or your detail orientation with production, or your amazing coffee skills. If you do this, Jethro says, God will direct you and you'll be able to endure. I don't know if I have gifts. What happens if I give my gift and it's not reciprocated? What happens if I put myself on the line and I fail? If you do this, God will direct you and you will endure. And all this people, all these people will go to their place in peace. This is what Jethro says. Peace for your community. Peace for your spouse. Peace for your best friend. If you unleash your gifts, peace is the result for the people that you love the most and your city. Jasmine, the woman up on stage today hosting, uh, she's had a pretty remarkable story when it comes to unleashing her gifts. And I asked her, hey, would you be bold enough if I could actually share a little bit of your story? So she gave me the word-for-word story of what God has done in her in the last six months. She says, I've always had gifts of supporting people, making them feel understood. In fact, I went to school and studied for psychology, and it gave me a framework. But the church gave me a place to unleash my gifts. 1 Peter 4, she says, each of you should do, use whatever gift you have, receive to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in various forms. That's what the verse that she put. So it started as an offer. I was like, hey, I'm just gonna help Jake out with some administrative tasks. I came ready to staple things. It turned into something much bigger. She says, God has other plans. I was invited to support the communication team alongside my role on the greeting team, and through both, I began to see my gifts come alive in the church community. I learned that taking a moment to walk someone to the coffee station, waving with a genuine smile as they drive in, or thoughtfully crafting an email can help people feel safe enough to take a step towards God and towards their own gifts. By the way, if you receive an email, it has Jasmine's DNA on it. Something as simple as the right words at the right moment can change whether someone feels like they belong or they not, or they don't. She says one of the clearest confirmations came the day that I stood beside my sister at her baptism. Just on April 26th of this year, a month ago, she says, in that moment I wasn't just a sibling, I was a witness to something God has been doing in her and in me long before that day. It was the most certain I've ever felt that the gifts He placed in me wasn't just for a career, it was for moments like this. Seeing my sister find her home here at Create and step into the gifts that God has placed in her. Man, the church that I see is a church where all of us have these gifts and they're liberally given for the benefit of the people that we love the most in our own city and our own community. The church I see is us leading the next generation, which by the way, there are people right now that are unleashing their gifts with our children to grow them, including my own son. That's what they're doing. I'm grateful for those people who are pastoring my kids. My hope is that I see dozens of people praying over each other at the end of service. My hope is that maybe some of you who have gifts of discernment, uh, gifts of wisdom and knowledge, you're praying before Sunday says, God, please bring the right people in front of me so I can pray over them. My hope is that every first-time guest has five new friends before they leave because they cannot stop being talked to by people saying, Hey, how are you doing? What's your name? What do you do for a career? My hope is that we have people praying over each other, helping each other feel belong, uh, feel belonging. My hope is that we are a church, that we give our money, that we give our time, so that when people do come, which happens every single week, with needs, they can't have food, they can't make it work, that the church would supply them everything they need. What if we were a church by the people, for the people? And that only happens when you decide to unleash your gifts for the sake of us and for the sake of you. I want to invite the band to come up. This is the question of the week. What could happen if I fully unleashed my gifts? What could happen if I fully unleash my gifts? And my hope is that you wrote down the three gifts that God has given you, or the three gifts that you think you have as you're discerning what it looks like? And here's my invitation. Would you find a way to use those gifts this week? Don't wait until two months because you won't do it. Here's why. Because life is too busy, right? There's too many things going on. Decide this week I'm gonna unleash my gift that God has given me to help somebody I love. Do you know that I look at every task of the church, which by the way, there's hundreds of tasks at Create Church. I don't look at it as tasks, I look at it as a canvas for someone to unleash their gifts. And we have over 100 people who agree. They use their gifts of serving, of teaching, of wisdom, of singing, of leading, of production. They use these gifts and they are better for it. In fact, one of my people who serve, he says, there's something that happens in me when I'm living God's will in God's way. There's just something that he says after Sunday, he feels peace all throughout the day. It's the best he feels emotionally. I don't know why that's true. You gave and you work 40 hours a week, and you're saying the best you feel is Sunday because you're giving. I want you to have the helper is high. I want you to have an opportunity to unleash your gifts. That's what I want for you. That's what God wants for you. That's what Jethro wanted for his son, Moses. And what does it say in the Bible? At the end of the chapter, it says this Moses listened. And he didn't end up like Ferdinand, the French guy with the Panama Canal with 20,000 dead in the desert. That's not how it ended up. In fact, this became the greatest movement the world has ever seen because Moses decided to allow everyone in the congregation to unleash their gifts. And everyone left with peace, it says. Hey, would you be able to stand with me if you can? What could happen if I unleash my gifts? That's the question over the next five minutes. I would ask for you to part uh ponder with the Holy Spirit. What's the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is a guide. It helps you act on the good things that are inside of you. That's what it is, the Holy Spirit. And I believe the Holy Spirit, this guy that God has given us as a gift, wants to speak to you right now about a gift that is laid dormant for too long. About a gift that someone else is suffering that if you unleash it, can help somebody else. I'm wondering right now, over the next five minutes, what God wants to say to you. Moses listened thousands of years ago, and on June 7th of 2026, would you follow in Moses' footsteps and listen? What could it look like if I unleash my gifts? So as we sing this song, I'd ponder, would you listen? In fact, could you actually put out your hands like this? This is a posture of listening. It's a physical posture of saying, I'm here, Lord. Holy Spirit, come be my guide. Teach me what it looks like for me to come fully alive and the gift things that you've given me. Show me a way this week. So, Lord, I thank you. God, I don't deserve the gifts you've given me. I didn't earn them. And God, I thank you in this room of 150 people that there are over 300 gifts that you've given. Dozens. Liberally given. And God, we believe you say that you're the head of the church. This means you know everything this body needs right now. It's actually sitting here in this room. That's what you say. Lord, I pray, a spirit of boldness, God, that you would allow us to discern what it looks like to unleash our gifts this week, not next week, not in the week after, Lord. I pray that you would allow me right now, God, to unleash my gifts for my wife and for my son and for my family and for my church. God, they deserve an opportunity to be a blessed recipient of my gifts, just like all of us. So, Lord, I pray right now, give us a sermon about what it looks like this week to unleash our gifts.