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SPEAKER_00 19:23

Probably some good principles and maybe some truthful things. What do you think? Stupid shit. Stupid shit. Give back to God what God has given them. And then I kind of went even behind that and thought, or underneath, and thought, you wouldn't want to be a steward if at first you're not a disciple. If you're not a disciple of Jesus, this is kind of going to go in one ear and out the other. Because it doesn't matter. But if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, meaning you've placed your faith in him for the free gift of everlasting life, you have it. Now you have the chance to live for him. You want to be a disciple of him, then stewardship should matter. Because it's not just what God says, it's you doing what God says. And so as we talk about stewardship, we're going to have to figure out what he says? What are we going to do? It can kind of be easy at times, I think, to slip into the stands and to cheer on Team Jesus from the stands and be like, man, they're doing awesome. Good for them. They're doing awesome down there in the stands playing the game, and we're up here with our friends. Do you know that's not how God created this to work? Did you know that you're not supposed to stay in the stands? He didn't just save you so you become a fan in the bleachers. He wants you to get into the field. He wants you to play the game. And he called you onto the field because discipleship is not a spectator sport. It literally means you're going to follow Jesus. Now let's look at this in Matthew chapter 4. Now, for a lot of us, this may be kind of like a fun story. I remember and I've heard many times, but I remember when I was a kid, they taught me this in my kids' children's church back in the day. But some of you, this may be new, but I even think if this is new to you, you would still remember or hear about what we're going to share. This is a cool story. This is, I think, one of the best discipleship stories in the Bible. It's Matthew 4, verses 18 and following. This is Jesus. This is what it says. Matthew 4, 18. And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother. They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then he, being Jesus, said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. They immediately left their nets and followed him. Now, a couple of things here. They were fishermen. This was their sustenance. This was their life. This was their career occupation. This was everything to them. And so, one, they either really hated being a fisherman, or two, Jesus was a great sales guy because they dropped those nets real fast. And they followed him. Now, here's the deal. Jesus does all the initiating. Even right now, can I tell you in your life, Jesus is doing all the initiating? Do you notice what Jesus said? Not what Michael says, but what Jesus says to them. He says this this is a red letter. Follow me. I'm coming to you, so you follow me. Why? I will make. Not you will make, I will make. I'm doing the work. I'm coming to you. You get the chance to follow me, and I will make what, you fishers of men. I'm giving you roles, responsibilities, something to do, something to steward, but I'm initiating it. So right now he's one for one on this, but look at what happens, verse 21 and 22. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother. They were in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him. Same thing happening. But now you got to wonder, poor Zebedee. He's like, I needed my young boys to do all the work. And you took away all the work, Jesus. But maybe the spirit was over him and he understood there's a bigger thing going on here. By definition, in this story, a disciple is a follower of Jesus. Now, can there be ranges of that? Sure, you can choose to not follow every day or not. What I love about this story is they don't just follow him. I love that Matthew puts in here that they immediately followed him. Man, that is a disciple. Someone who feels the prompting of the Holy Spirit, has uh something come up in their life, they go to God's word, they see what God tells them to do, immediately they do it. You know, there's this blessing in the first century, and it was a blessing bestowed on a disciple when him and a rabbi agreed to have that kind of relationship. It's called the Talmuddin. This is the blessing. This is beautiful. This is to the disciple, disciple, may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi. The whole idea is you're so close to that rabbi that you're moving the way he moves, you're taking the steps that he's taking, you're doing the things he does so much so that when the dust of his sandal comes up off the ground before it touches the ground again, it's touching you. You're that intimate and you're that close. That's the goal of a disciple. May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi. Because a disciple doesn't just know about Jesus. Disciple is going to follow him, imitate him, live like him, do what he says to do. And can we be people who are following so closely that the dust of Jesus' teaching is on us? So this is what a disciple does, and this is where stewardship comes in. Because stewardship is not a chore now. Okay, I'll be a disciple, check, sign off for that. Okay, now I gotta be a steward too. It shouldn't be a chore, it's a natural part of being a disciple. So the question is, what does God say about stewardship? Now let me warn you up front, maybe this week, the next couple weeks, um, there's gonna be some things shared about what God says about certain things pertaining to your life concerning stewardship that may be different than what you do. He may talk about your gifts, your talents, your abilities, your money. And if you're gonna be a disciple and you're gonna steer what God's given you, then we don't need to just know what God says immediately, we need to do it. That's how he wants us to live this thing out. So today we're gonna talk specifically about stewardship of spiritual gifts, stewardship of spiritual gifts. But to understand even the principle of stewardship, I want to go Old Testament just for a second. I want to look at a principle of stewardship from King David. Now, I say King David intentionally because this is not a part of David when he was uh, you know, with a sling and he's getting ready to hit Goliath. This isn't Shepherd Boy David taking down lions and bears. This is King David at the height of his power. 1 Chronicles 29. He's at the height of his power. All is well in Israel because Israel is secure. David is victorious, he's respected, uh, he is wealthy himself. And in this moment, they're getting ready to build the temple of God where God's people are going to come together to worship Yahweh. And David looks around and he cannot believe how generous people are being. He cannot believe all the ways they are giving sacrificially to this project. Now, this message is not the message on stewarding your finances. That's coming in a couple weeks when Lindsay Sherer, one of our elders, comes and presents that uh preaches that message. And I'm honestly excited to hear it. And I want to do what God says to do there. But we get a principle of it here. Okay, so David is at this moment where he can't believe what's happening, and he all of a sudden goes to God in a thankful prayer. And in 1 Chronicles 29, 14, this is David's prayer. But who am I and who are my people that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us. David understands something pretty foundational about stewardship. Here it is, he's not the owner. No one is. He and everyone else are just stewards. So everything he has, meaning his authority, uh, his gifts accountable, the breath in his lungs, his vocation, all of it's given to him by God to be used for God and his kingdom purposes. And when he uses it for that, he's just returning back what God has given him. So here's the principle, I think, of stewardship. This is not the definition. I think this would help build a definition, but let me give you the principle I believe of stewardship, biblically speaking. Stewardship is not generosity, it's recognition of ownership. Because once the ownership is settled, the responsibility becomes clear. I mean, once you know who owns it, once you know where it came from, the responsibility becomes clear. I mean, let's just bring it to our day. If you are the CEO, this doesn't apply to you. But if you're anyone under the CEO, you know what you need to do based on what the CEO who owns everything, the company you work for, wants you to do, and all the managing people underneath. You're not the owner of this. So if we can get right on the fact that stewardship is recognizing who the owner is, well, then responsibility comes pretty clear. Again, something that you would want to do if you want a steward or be a disciple, he's called you to be. And this is all through the Bible. Genesis to Revelation, scripture reminds us that everything belongs to God, all of it. So whatever he places in your hands or gives you in your life, it's not meant to be possessed and held on to. It's meant to be freely stewarded back to him. And when you get to the New Testament, it's so cool because God doesn't just give resources like you see throughout the Old Testament, he gives himself. He gives himself, yes, in the person of Jesus. But even Jesus says to his disciples, hey guys, this may be a little shocking to you. It's gonna be better for you if I leave and the next one comes. And they're like, uh, come again. You're the promised Messiah. I don't know how that made any sense. Uh, what do you mean it's better for us if you leave? You're Jesus the Messiah, the prophesied one. And he says, because there's a helper coming. And the good news about the Holy Spirit is it's not just one person traveling the world like Jesus was, it's available to all people. God's spirit can be in everybody, not just Jesus walking around now. So it is better that one man, Jesus, though he's the Messiah, goes and the Holy Spirit now shows up. And so we get to the New Testament and his spirit shows up. And if you place your faith in Jesus for the free gift of everlasting life, you have the spirit. In that moment, the Holy Spirit supernaturally enters into your life. Seals that decision, by the way. Hey, you're in the family whether you like it or not. All right. And you know every family, you don't really like everyone in the family, but we love Jesus, okay? So we're sealed, we're in that family. But he doesn't just seal you and seal that decision and put you in the family forever based on your belief in him. He also gives you great graces. And one of them is a spiritual gift. And as we get to 1 Peter chapter 4, we're gonna see how Peter tells us we should handle spiritual gifts, how we should steward them. If you have a Bible, turn into a New Testament. Go to 1 Peter chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible, you lucked out because we're gonna have it on the screen. But I'd encourage you to bring a Bible. This is what it says in 1 Peter 4, verse 10. Peter writes, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Look at this first phrase. Each one has received a gift. I love this. I love this. This is what God says. He doesn't say, um, oh, just a few of y'all lucked out and got the gift. He doesn't say, oh, you're gonna be an elder now? Okay, we'll give you a gift. Oh, you're a deacon. Uh we'll give it a year trial run and then see if you can prove yourself, and then you'll get it year two. Each one, when you are in Christ, you're not just a new creation, though you are, but you've also been given the opportunity now to live for him. And one of the ways God has gifted you to do that is through a spiritual gift he has given you. And it's in you to be used, to steward back to him. There are no spectators in the church, only stewards. That's what we're gonna see. And he says, each one has received. I love this. He didn't say you will, you might, there's a chance. It's past tense. Each one has received, meaning it's not something you earn, not something you unlock later on based on good behavior. God has actually, this is crazy, actually entrusted you with something of his. It's a wild thought. That he's entrusted to you, not based on you proving that you deserve it, but he's entrusted to you something of his. So are you gonna steward it? And we see here that it is a gift. This is what Peter says. And this word gift is the word charisma. Now, it's not the same definition as our modern meaning of charisma. So it might be some overlap, but but it's not quite the same. What Peter's trying to get at is the root word of charisma, which is the word charis. And I don't know if Jill and Brendan Collins are here today, but if they are, they name their daughter, one of their daughters Charis. And it's such a beautiful name for a girl because it actually means grace. What Peter is trying to get us to understand is that God has lavished so much grace on us, and this spiritual gift itself is an act of God's grace. It's not something you get through obedience, as we've already seen, we've already received it, but it's something that through obedience you can use it. You exercise this gift, this grace through obedience. You steward it. This is Peter's point. Now, I don't know how many of y'all, probably a lot of y'all, you know about it, maybe not all watched it, but the chosen series, the the guy who started at Dallas Willard, he has this, uh he said this phrase in an interview, and it has always stuck with me. He says this grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning. And I love that delineation. Hey, look, we've been given this gift amongst all kinds of other things, and we should put effort in using them to the best of our ability for the glory of God, the building up of his church. But we don't earn anything with it. We're not earning thing here and now with it. The kingdom come, rewards, yes, not here and now. So we're not doing this to earn. We're doing this, we're putting effort in because it's been given to us. What a great grace and gift that is. All right, so here's what he's saying. Each one's received a gift, God has entrusted it to you, and Peter makes it clear. It's not optional to use it. He looks at what he says, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. A steward doesn't own what he's been given, he doesn't own it. But a good steward will carry out the will of the owner. Again, like David in 1 Chronicles, stewardship's not just generosity, though you need to have a generous spirit, and that's an aspect of it. But the underlying principle is stewardship is more about recognition of ownership. And when you understand who owns it, then your responsibility becomes clear. Peter is talking about this. But he ends up widening the lens right here, and this is beautiful. He he says this he talks about the manifold grace of God, that you are to be a good steward of this manifold grace of God. This is such a beautiful phrase. The word manifold, this idea that he's painting here is that it is beautiful, multifaceted, multicolored, multi-layered, richly textured grace of God. And God's grace shows up in all kinds of ways. For salvation, yes. What about for strength for day-to-day life as a disciple? Yes. Thank you for that grace. What about grace for mercy or grace for wisdom or grace for discernment or grace to just be able to go before the throne and pray? Grace shows up in all kinds of ways. But here is what he wants us to understand. Spiritual gifts weren't meant to be held on to. This grace, they were meant to be received and given back, to be utilized, to be employed. But God's grace is beautiful. You know, I lived in Africa for a time, and my first day in Africa, they were trying to keep me up because I had jet lag. And so we're in Kempala, the capital city of Uganda, a million people. And I was staying up as we're driving through downtown because I never experienced driving like that before. We almost died, I feel like every turn. Hey, by the time, by the time I left Africa, I was the one almost killing people. I think I was driving like crap. I loved it. I loved it. But that first day, it was a wake-up call. And so we're going to a place that we served at, and it was a sewing shop essentially. And what we did is we took these ladies who were prostitutes in the worst part of Uganda, and we uh got them to our sewing shop. We taught them how to sew so they can make clothes for themselves, for the families, their kids, and to go to the market and sell. It's a sweet thing, pulling these ladies out of the most horrific um lifestyle and living quarters you can imagine. Okay, so when I walk in though, they open the door, and the first thing I see on the wall behind me are like 30 or 40 spools of thread. And it's Africa, so they're all bright colors, you know, they're all beautiful. And the door opens up, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. And it was cool looking at each spool of thread. But let me tell you, when the door shut and I looked at this wall, what I saw on this wall was a beautiful tapestry of all different kinds of colors of thread from that spool. And I thought, this is the manifold grace of God. That each spool is beautiful. It matters. Each grace he brings you matters. You yourself are on that. You're one of those spools of thread, but you don't look at the beauty of the tapestry by focusing on one thread. You look at the beauty of the tapestry by seeing the whole thing. And I think this is what Peter's trying to get at. Man, the grace of God is so beautiful and so full, and there's so much there that if you could see it all, it's unbelievable. Even you, though, you play a part in that beauty. Because that grace was given to you to give back. So you play a part. Your thread matters in the tapestry of faith. And so we should allow this grace to flow through us to serve others. And so, whatever form the grace takes in your life, can I tell you, it's not supposed to stop with you. Can I tell you that? It's supposed to flow through you. You receive, you give back. You receive, you give back. There should be no stop sign to you. It should just keep going. It's a roundabout here. It should just come through you and back out. Now, anybody here watch the college football playoffs? Just admit it, guys. Okay. Okay, four of us. All right. Well, I was watching, I think it was Friday night when um when Indiana played Oregon. Or actually, I don't even know if Oregon showed up. But okay, how come more of y'all are laughing? There's more of y'all that watched it. Come on, guys. This is a I would. To talk back, ask a question, everyone's scared. Look, okay, so we all watched it or know about it. Yes, Oregon didn't really show up. But here's what I wanted to get at. I'm watching this game Friday night, I think it was, and I'm thinking about all the stands, which were mostly uh all the fans in the stands, which are mostly Indiana people. And I thought there are 80,000, 90,000, I don't know, whatever, people in this area in the stands watching. And they're watching 11 that they support on the field. And the experience for the 11 on the field is drastically different than the 80,000 in the stands. And while the 80,000 in the stands are probably feeling all the emotions and their, you know, momentum swings and they're sad and they're glad or whatever, it's still a different experience of emotions than those on the field. And can I also tell you, though, it was probably really tiring for Oregon people? It was even more tiring for those on the field than those in the stands. What I want us to know is if the church ever becomes a place where there's more people in the stands than on the field, something's broken. That's not how it's supposed to be. Now, let me just say, that's not quite how it is here at Coppel Bible. We have faithful people who do serve. But I also don't want to be naive. I think we got a lot of newer people coming to our church. And we want you to know that this church is not in the event business. We are in the disciple-making business. This is what we're called to do. And if we're not doing that, we're not a church. And so we may put on events. We've had some great events: Holly Jolly Christmas, the praise and potluck, all these great things. But all of them need to point to this, to making disciples. And if they don't, we don't need to do them. But luckily, I think they do. So we're not in the event-making business. We're in the in the business of making disciples and getting people off the uh out of the stands and onto the field. And we do that by letting this grace come through us and we use it. This was being a steward, this is being a disciple. This is being so close to Jesus that the dust of him is now on you. This is the way it works. And the apostle Paul tells us that the church isn't designed like a stadium, it's designed like a body. And when every single part of the body plays the role it was created to play, then the body functions properly. This is what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12. The human body has many parts, but many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. The idea is, hey, we all know this. We got a bunch of different parts in our body, and they all need to work well so our body as a whole works well. He goes on in verse 18. But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He pleased. I love this. Can I tell you? I used to think that my life was an accident. Uh I was adopted, and anyway, I just kind of thought, man, I wasn't supposed to be here. That's not so. Do you know your place in the body is intentional? Gifts, aptitudes, abilities, all of that. It was given to you by God to be used in his body and stewarded for the body. It is a specific place with uh that he has given you. It is a gift given to you through him, and he has placed you on purpose in the body with that gift. He goes on at the end, though, to kind of bring a little shocking statement. He says in verse 26, if one of the members suffer, then all of the members suffer. Let me just say, if my right arm decides to quit functioning, still here, didn't detach, didn't get cut off, it just decides to quit working. My body will adjust and I will suffer. But when believers withhold the gifting God has given them from the church, the church doesn't just suffer, it limps. It's not doing what it was created to do because you're not doing what you were created to do. Which means this: you don't get to sit this one out. This is one you shouldn't want to sit out. You should want to be a part of what God's doing. It's unbelievable to be a part of what God's doing. There are no spectators in the body of Christ, only stewards. Which means if you're waiting for permission to use your gift, there you go. You got it. You now have permission to go out into the world in a cop-help Bible and other places God has you, and use your giftedness for Him to let the grace flow through you and out into the world. Now you may go, hey, I great, okay, quit talking. Just tell me what the gifts are. I'm actually not going to tell you what the gifts are because it would be too long of a sermon. And so what I'm going to do though is tell you how you can find out what those gifts are. But here's what Peter does. I'm just following what Peter does. This is what God says. Peter here doesn't give us all the gifts and specifics. He gives us two broad brushstrokes, though, of what categories the gifts are in. Look at 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 11. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. If anyone speaks, and if anyone ministers, he has speaking gifts and serving gifts. And some of us know, we haven't even taken a test, but we might know what our giftedness is. Some of us, the grace of a spiritual gift comes out in words. Maybe you're teaching, leading, encouraging, exhorting in some way. And that's kind of your natural thing. And that's what God wants for you. Let's go develop that. Let's figure out specifically what it is. Others, it would maybe be through your hands serving and helping and giving and organizing. Here's what I love: nobody does the same thing. Thank you, Lord. That would be boring and vanilla. No one does the same thing. But you know what? Everyone's called to do something because that's how God made it to be. This is how He created the world or the body to work. So everyone's called to do something. And you may be like, oh gosh, but it's nerve-wracking. I hope I don't have the speaking gift. I don't want to get up in front of people and speak. Public speaking? I don't think so. But he tells us how both uh categories of gifts are governed. Look at what he says here. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God, meaning let God flow through you. Do it in his power, in his strength. And then he says, if anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies. Again, God didn't just give you the gift and say, have fun with it. Talk to you in heaven and see how it went. He doesn't do that. Remember, follow me. I will make you a fisher of men. He gave you the gift. He will not leave you. He will be there to guide you. And he wants us to be in that spot. That's the best place to use the gift through his power and not our own. So you have to be willing to steward the gift. Why? Because this purpose clause at the end of verse 11. Look at this. He says that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. That's the point. God gets the glory. No attention here, no applause here needed, nothing like that. God and God alone gets the glory. So are you going to step onto the field and into God's mission here on earth? And you go, well, what mission is that? Are you going to use your gifting in this mission called the Great Commission? And I love this. Think about it. I don't know why I didn't think about this sooner, but you probably thought about this years ago, and it just shows how little I know. This morning I was thinking, co-mission. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, co-mission. That we're in it together, that this is a co-ed thing, that we're in this all together. And not just us, but also Jesus with us. Because he didn't just say, go at the beginning and make disciples, but at the end, he says he'll never leave us. He's going to be with us always, even to the end of this age. That again, he's initiating, he's sustaining. He just wants you to steward this gift and the great mission of God. And so are you going to be someone who steps onto the field? And are you going to be someone who walks with your creator so God can get the glory? I want to say this as plainly as I can. Jesus didn't design his mission for spectators, he designed it for stewards. That's the way he created it to be. And a lot of us play a lot of spectating from the stands. And look, don't feel convicted by like I'm sitting there pointing at you. I've done it throughout my life. Even as a pastor, I can do that. Can I tell you this morning I did that? Let me just be, can I just be up front with you? I'm out in the lobby after I told people I'll be out in the lobby to talk to you. And I'm talking to one person, and the conversation is about to end, and here comes someone, and I know they want to talk. And I didn't talk to them because I turned my back this morning. Sit in the stands. What did God have in that conversation? I'll never know. My fault, my loss. Happened this morning. So we get this thing where we can easily kind of sit in the stands. And God's like, I'm going to always call you down to the field. I'm always going to, because that's the mission you are called to play. And I've gifted you to play in this mission and on this field. So if you want to figure out how uh or how you're wired and what your spiritual gift is, we have this class called Starting Point. And we talk about it at starting points, the first three Sundays of every month. And it will start in February in that behind that wall. Go into the lobby, hang it right right there. First three Sundays of every month, 9 a.m. Now, starting point's cool. It does a couple of things. It'll tell you about our church, but can I be honest? You can find out a lot about our church before you go to starting point. You could go online, you can see our beliefs, our doctrines, you could watch some messages, you can see kind of how we approach God's word. You could even meet our people. And I hope they really tell you some good things about our church. But can I tell you what I think the most important thing a starting point is? You find out about you and how God wired you and how God wants to use that wiring He created when He knit you together in your mother's womb with gifts, talents, abilities, and attributes. And when you professed in Jesus for everlasting life and now have the Holy Spirit and that spiritual gift in how you can use that. So Barkef created a spiritual gifts assessment that is specific for us that we want you to take. We want to see what that is. And it will show you not just the number one gift, but maybe some others that you could lean into a little bit. And then you grow and develop it. You employ it, you find a place to serve, and we'll help do all of that. And so one of the ways you can get signed up for that class is on the back of all the seats, there's this card. It's new. These will always be on the back of the seats, by the way. We're not taking them off after today. And what I'd say to do is just open up your camera and scan this QR code, and it's going to take you to one page. And on this one page, we will always only have these three things. The first is going to be giving. Why? Well, let me tell you, we have a lot of uh younger people starting to come to our church, and they don't even know what a checkbook is. And they probably don't even have cash in their pockets, okay? Because it's all online. And they look at this box here and that box there, and the box in the back says ties and offerings, and they're clueless at what to do with that. They're like, Do I put my phone in there? I don't know what how do I do this. So we just make it easy. All right. If you want to give, you can give on that, you can give there, it'll take you right to the giving link. The second thing is sign up to starting point. And so do that today. Get in February. And the third thing will be announcements. And the reason we put announcements on there, not just to let y'all know what's coming, but you know how awkward it is at the end of the service, and we get up here after worship and we're like, let me tell you what's happening at God, blah, blah, blah. And there's usually three or four things, and it's a lot. So by the time February comes, February 1st, we're not going to do that anymore unless it's like a very important one-off, church under the oaks or something like that. Because we want you to just have the announcements, and we'd rather spend that extra time responding in worship or hanging out with each other. So those will always be there. But I'd encourage you, if you want to know what your spiritual gift is, go there right now. Sign up for starting point in February, and you'll figure out what that gift is, and we'll figure out how to get that, uh, get you employed in that. Can I tell you something that's true about when you decide to step onto the field and when you decide to use your spiritual gift? This is true every time. You're never just filling a role. It may feel like that. You may get tired of doing the same thing. Look, you never know what's literally hanging in the balance on the other side of your yes. Can I tell you that I'm literally standing here today because someone stepped in the on the in the field? Someone said yes, obeyed God, and I'm here today. And it's happened a lot of times throughout my life. I think we could all look back and we could see these moments happening where you had nothing to do with it, but God, through God's people, moved in a way that has benefited you. Y'all know I was adopted, but what you may not know is my adopted mom was a prostitute and my adopted dad was a pastor. I think it worked out better for me in the end. Um, but what you may not know is my adoptive parents were still in college when they adopted me. What you may not know is they actually got married young because they were in love. Shortly after marriage, uh getting married, they got pregnant and they had a daughter who was three months premature and weighed a pound and a half. And uh they had to stay in the hospital for like three months just to get her healthy. And they go home. And after going home, after some time, they get a call, anonymous call to say it, would you guys be willing to adopt? Who calls college kids and says this? Would you guys be willing to adopt a boy who's gonna be born in a month? And they said yes. And at five years old, now I was adopted as a hospital, but at five years old, that dad who adopted me, I told him one night when I lived in Charleston, Arkansas, I want to live in heaven with Jesus forever. How do I do that? And then fast forward even to having this job, I wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for Big Steve. Y'all may not know Steve is on staff, Steve Elkins, my father-in-law, he was on staff, and he willingly went to Barkef to say, Hey, I'll step off staff. He can take my job. I'll still use my gifting to teach on Sundays and on Tuesday nights. And anytime y'all want me to teach, I'll do it. And he gave up his role for me. These are people being obedient to the moving of the Spirit using their giftedness. It's an unbelievable thing to be a part of the mission of God and what he's doing when you not just step on the field, but you use the gifts, talents, and abilities he's given you and you steward them back to him. Now I'm not saying I wouldn't uh that God want to use some other means to get me here, but I can tell you he didn't, because he didn't have to. He chose to use the means he did through the people he did who said yes and were obedient to him to get me here. So you never know what's on the other side of you serving, of you letting that grace cycle through you, of you stepping on the field, of you being obedient, of you stewarding. This is how spiritual gifts work. The Holy Spirit supernaturally empowers ordinary people and extraordinary things happen. And when they do, that gives God glory, it builds up his church, and lives are forever changed. That's the mission of God. And he wants you to play your part. And so we're gonna be the disciples he's called us to be, and we're gonna follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Can I tell you, Jesus stewarded his life perfectly? Every word, every act, every moment, all for God's glory and for the good of others. But that obedience led him somewhere painful. It led him to the cross, where he can now make the one final act for the sins of the world that none of us could ever pay for, but his perfect life could be the payment fulfilled. And on the cross, he did just that. Every way we haven't stewarded the way he wants us to, every misuse of what we've been given that we decided to use for ourselves and not for his kingdom or not for his glory, every failure that we've ever done where we don't love God the way he wants us to, or love others the way he calls us to, especially disciples, yet he still gave his life for ours. Romans 5, 8. But God demonstrates his love toward us in this, that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. And they lowered his body off the uh cross and they put him in a tomb. And it was a borrowed tomb, y'all. And I love this because it was borrowed because he wasn't gonna be there long. Three days later, he came out of the out of the tomb victorious. Meaning God accepted the payment on our behalf. No more payment needed. And so now we get the opportunity to serve God, and we don't serve God to earn his love, we serve God because Jesus already secured it. What a joyful thing to do. So may you follow Jesus as the disciple he's called you to be. And let me give you this blessing. May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi, staying close enough to him that his life marks your life. Steward the gift and step onto the field. Jesus, we come before you right now and we say thank you. There's nothing else we can say but thank you. So many graces given to us. The ultimate one is you, the perfect sacrifice, your life for ours. And for that we say thank you. But Lord, we also say thank you for the way that you've gifted us, the things you've given us. Would you help us through your power, the power of the Holy Spirit, to supernaturally use those giftings and the things you've given us for your kingdom, for your glory, and for your church. We're gonna need your help to do that. So, Father God, we ask you to help even as we go out this week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.