SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, Church. I am Mackie McQuan, and this is my wife Rachel. And uh we have a little story to share with you all this morning. I'm gonna let my wife share before I do the reading.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

So um public speaking is probably like one of my biggest fears. So if I say I'm a lot, just forgive me. Um we are current currently living here in the Austin area, down in Kyle, but for the last five years, we lived in India. Um, for three of those years, we lived in a tiny little town up in the jungles called Zilligari, kind of close to the tea gardens, and where my husband grew up as a child. And then for the last two years, in a bigger city in Calcutta. And how we got there is a crazy wild story, but in a nutshell, God called Mackie, I said no way, and God said yes way, and we stepped out on faith. And really, that's our story in a nutshell is just taking one foot in front of the other, not really knowing, being scared out of our minds, and feeling kind of crazy, really crazy for doing this, and just trusting that God would be there for us. Um, before we left, we went through some cultural assimilation training, and something they taught us there had stuck with me the whole time. And I say it to myself all the time when I'm feeling really nervous and anxious, or feeling like, what are we doing, or what have we gotten ourselves into? And it's three simple things God is God, God is good, God is faithful. And so He's not gonna call you to do something that he's not gonna equip you to do. And it can be like out of something crazy, like crossing the ocean, but for other people, it can be just crossing the street and talking to that cranky neighbor who you're afraid of. I mean, it's really that simple to just take one foot in front of the other and do what God's calling you to do. A wise man once told me it's better to be inside God's will for your life and feeling completely uncomfortable than standing on the outside feeling comfortable. So my encouragement to you is to use the gift that God has given you, and yes, every single one of you have been gifted in some way, and maybe you just haven't discovered it yet. But use your gifting, step out in faith, and obey what God is calling you to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

So that's the that's from my wife's perspective. I always get a kick to hear her uh say stuff. Um currently I work with an organization uh from Brainerd, Minnesota, uh called Ministry Developers Network, and I work in India and I travel quite a bit now. Um I we lived there, we moved here, but I'm still continuing to do work, and I focus on doing businesses and missions where we teach people how to start businesses to help church sustainability in India. Uh we help them start their businesses, and then for a longer period of time we uh consult and train them as well. So that's a little bit about ourselves and this is the word from this morning. Ephesians 4 7 through 16. Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measures of the Messiah's gift, for it says, When he ascended on high, he took prisoners into captivity, he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean except that he descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended in is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he personally gave some of to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the training of the saints in the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. Until we are until we all reach unity in faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a matter uh growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Then he will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceits. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head of Christ. From him the whole body fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Thank you, guys. So encouraging. If you are new to Point, just want to say uh we're glad that you uh chose to join us this morning. Uh my name's Nick, and I'm one of the elders here, and uh really consider that a privilege and an honor. And I just want to say to you guys on the front end of this uh conversation, is this uh message this morning, um man, I I love the church. I I I love the people of God. Uh I love what I see God doing uh in his people, and it's just been so encouraging as we've continued to grow and having people in this body share their stories, talk about what God's personally calling them to do and how they're obeying and how they're working through that and how he's ministering to them and ministering through them. Um it's just been such an uh encouragement to my own heart and a reminder of the ways that God is working in his people. Um and so I just want to say, you know, I I love this church and I love people and I love the way that God's working. Um it's not always fun, it's not always pretty, it's not always easy, uh, it's messy, it's hard, uh we sin, um, but thankfully God is working in all of our lives. Uh I want to remind you uh as we wrap up today our series called We Are Church, that we've been taking questions from you guys throughout this series. Uh and so there's a text message. Uh you can text in questions you have in regards to today's message uh to this number, 512-982-9580. And we will actually not be addressing these questions from today's message at the end of this mess this sermon. Uh, we'll be addressing them tomorrow night, because tomorrow evening we're gonna get together uh as a church family for anybody that can join us, and we're going to talk about some of the practical applications of things that we're discussing today, as well as we're gonna take some time to pray for our church and for our city as we enter into what we've called Serve the City Week. Um hopefully we don't just serve the city one week out of the year, um, but we are being intentional this this week. Um, in fact, we started yesterday, we had our one of our small groups, the small group that I participate in, downtown working with the homeless community and worshiping with people off the streets there in downtown Austin. Uh, but we want to serve our city, want to engage in serving our city, and hopefully hopefully it'll even be a catalyst for us to grow in serving others who live around us and pointing them to Jesus. Um, and so tomorrow night we're going to be praying for those things together and talking about some of the specific ways that we want to apply the truth of God's word to this church body, this local church family, and how can we obey Jesus better? How can we follow his instruction for what it means to be the church? And so, if you've been with us, you know we've been working through a series called We Are Church because we wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page of what does it even mean to be church? What does it even mean to participate in church? And a lot of times people ask the question, what is the church? And what we've said is that that's actually not the right question. It's not what is the church, it's who is the church. Because the church isn't the structure, the building, the programs, uh the things that are the religious practices that we typically identify the church as. It's actually the people of God saved by the power of God for the purposes of God. And that's been kind of the sticky statement throughout this series is that we are the people, called-out ones, the ones who Jesus has called to himself to be his sons, his daughters, part of his family, as Alex just mentioned earlier, uh, to now be uh saved and then to then go out on a mission with a purpose. Uh and so that is who we are as the church. And we said that that in order to be uh the church that Christ has intended us to be, um, worship is at the core of that. That we are exalting, we are worshiping, we are praising, we are living for, we are obeying Jesus. And if we aren't doing that, then we're actually not the church. Um that is one of the defining characteristics is that Jesus Christ is lifted up, that he is the centerpiece of everything we say, everything we do. And we're gonna come back to that again in a little bit. We also said that we minister to one another as the church, that as God's family, as God's people, as his sons and daughters, connected to this supernatural spiritual family, uh we minister to one another, we serve one another, we we love one another, we care for one another, um, and we help each other grow. And again, we'll talk more about that further in a minute as well. And finally, we witness to the world. We take the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, this amazing message that humanity can be reconciled to God through the person work of Jesus. We take that message to the world around us. We don't keep it to ourselves. This is not a holy huddle, this is not a secret club, this is not a group where we all come together and kind of, oh, I'm glad you're saved, I'm glad we're saved. Let's stay here and let's just wait till Jesus comes back. No, it's like we take this message to all the world. And it is just interesting that as I was preparing to teach this message and wrap up this series, that yesterday, some of you may have seen it, on my news feed, a Fox opinion article was written by a game guy named Chris Sungsten. And uh, Chris is a pastor, and he wrote a book recently called Quit Church. And below uh the the title Quit Church, his subtitle was Because you'd be better if you did. Your life would be better if you did. And I was like, what is he trying to say? And it was funny because a couple of my friends texted to me and said, Hey, did you see this article? And I pulled up the article and I began to read it. And what Chris was trying to say to the people in America who are part of the established modern American church is that what we call church isn't actually the biblical church. That many times what we participate in and what we say is church isn't actually consistent with what Scripture says is church. In fact, he says that did you know over the last three years, as they've been doing research, that only 39% of people who show up to Sunday church gatherings call themselves church members, actually believe that the Bible is God's word and that it's without error, right? Another statistic that he gave from their research is that less than 20% of people who sit in church and call themselves church members actually give regularly and faithful to the local church and to its ministry financially. He said that 50% of the church members attend once per month or less. We're not talking about like just people who are kind of regularly around, but just we're talking about people who call themselves church members as part of the church. And he said, this is the craziest stat to me, that 5% or less, I can't really get an accurate number, but around 5% of people who call themselves Christians and go to local churches have actually shared the gospel with someone. So that means 95% of Christians have never actually told anyone else about Jesus. So do you see why he's saying quit church? Because what we experience many times in the United States in church doesn't reflect the church that we read about in the book of Acts. It doesn't look like the change, transformed people of God who've been rescued, adopted into a supernatural family, have the Spirit of God or gifted to take the message of Christ to the world. In fact, it looks very different. In fact, you might even say that many of the people who go to church, call themselves parts of church, a part of the church, don't really look any different than their neighbors who don't. Now, I'm not a believer that manipulation or that coercion or that extrinsic behavior modification tactics is really what changes the way that this works. I'm a believer that when we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice, who laid down his life so that we could live, that when we believe that and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the church starts to reflect that beauty. I don't believe that we can change this by simply like guilting people and shaming people into trying to be something that we don't really even care about. See, I think that when the love of God fills our hearts, the love of God will now overflow into the lives of others around us. We will actually be the church when we understand who he has made us into. When he has when we see the transformation that comes through the person and work of Christ and through his spirit. And I want us to start this morning with this truth from the passage that Mackie read to us that all through the New Testament, and even in this passage, we see the supremacy of Jesus. We see the fact that Jesus is in charge. That Jesus is the king, that Jesus has the authority, the ultimate authority over all things. And maybe one of the reasons why the church struggles to be the church is because we don't actually acknowledge that Jesus is in charge of the church. That we don't actually acknowledge that it's Jesus who is calling the shots. Should be. That it's Jesus whose commands we obey. It's not a man-made religion. Church is not a man-made construct. It is Jesus initiated, Jesus established, Jesus and Holy Spirit birthed. God established this thing. And in fact, I want to just read some scriptures that are good for my heart this morning and are hopefully good for yours from the New Testament that speak to Jesus and his authority and his supremacy. But did you notice in the passage, even from the beginning, he says that in verse 8, when he ascended on high, he took prisoners into captivity, he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean except that he descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things. What is Paul trying to say to the people at Ephesus? The same thing God is trying to say to us today, that Jesus, he came down as a human being, he wore this ugly flesh, he was tempted in every way, but yet was without sin. He suffered and died in our place as a substitute. He took the wrath of God upon himself, right? But then he was victorious because when he was crucified on the cross, he didn't stay dead. He actually came out of that grave. He is resurrected, he is supreme, he is over all. In fact, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 56 says it this way For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God he gives victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's an amen verse right there for Christians. Sin and death have been defeated in the person of Jesus. Jesus is in charge. In Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came nearest to his disciples before he left them, and he said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And then he charged them with the commission. Jesus is in charge. All authority has been given to Jesus Christ. He is the King of kings, he is the Lord of Lords. Philippians 2, 9 through 11 says, For this reason God highly exalted him, Jesus, giving that and gave him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Every celebrity on this planet, every World Cup soccer player that everybody's screaming their name right now will bow down before the Maker Jesus Christ. They will declare that He is Lord, that He is King of Kings. Whether they want to or not, that day will happen. He is in charge. He is in charge of you, He is in charge of me. He's in charge of our family, He's in charge of our churches, He's in charge of our country. He is in charge. Jesus is the authority. Colossians 1, 16 through 18. For everything was created by Him in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the head, everyone else's body. Only Jesus Christ is the head. He is supreme. He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. You know why we sin? Because he doesn't have first place in everything. The reason we sin is exactly what Martin Luther said about the Ten Commandments. The first two commandments, thou shalt not have no other gods before you, and you should not make any graven images. When you break those two commandments, the rest of them are up for debate. When you keep those two commandments, the rest of them will follow suit. You see, because our hearts are naturally bent towards worshiping other gods. But Jesus Christ is supreme. He is the King. And if you don't believe that this morning, if you don't believe that God's word is truth in that this morning, then you have to wrestle with are you truly a Christian? Are you truly saved? And if you do believe that, you're gonna wrestle with your flesh. You're gonna wrestle with moments where it's hard. You're gonna wrestle with moments to surrender and to submit, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can learn to increasingly submit and in that find the joy and the freedom that Christ wants to bring into your life. Jesus is in charge. And that means we as a church, we as people, we as family, get to listen to what he has to say about it. We are all individually, first and foremost, accountable to him. Not just accountable to some leadership structure in this church body, as we'll talk about in a minute, not just accountable to the elders, not just accountable to some staff people. We are accountable, each one of us, to the person of Jesus Christ. Will we submit and surrender to his authority? And here's the beauty Jesus is not a tyrant leader. He is not this mean, angry leader. He is a suffering servant leader. And in fact, he graciously gifted the church salvation and spiritual responsibility. Do you understand that salvation is a gift of grace? Do you understand, church, this morning, that you could not earn your salvation? You can't earn or work your way into heaven. Jesus gifted that to you. He gifted that to me. It was very, very costly to him. It cost his very life, his physical life while he was on this earth. Praise God that he did that. In fact, Ephesians 2, which we read a few weeks back, says that we are saved by grace through faith. We are saved by his grace. But here's the beautiful thing. We're not just saved from something, we're saved for something. Another act of his grace is not just that we were saved from our sin and eternal separation from God, but we were actually saved for good works that he prepared before you were even born to do. So that we could point people to Jesus, so that we could worship Jesus, so that more people could worship Jesus. He wants us to worship Jesus, and he wants other people to worship Jesus because when we worship him, that's where our real joy is going to be found, because that's what we were made to do. That's what you and I were created for. For his glory, not for our own. And so, 1 Corinthians, we find that we have these gifts that are listed, and I'll read some of those to you in a minute. But do you understand that we have spiritual responsibility, we have spiritual opportunities, we have ways that God wants us to serve his people and serve the creation, that the people who are around us, the created people who do not know him yet. The church is designed to be an every member ministry. One of the things that came out in the article that I mentioned to you guys at the beginning was the 80-20 rule, the rule where 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Now I praise God that when I look across this room and I think about Point Community Church, I see way more than 20% of the people invested and involved in doing ministry. But many places that's the case. 20% of the people, and maybe it's less, because we have bought this attitude, this mindset that the leadership are the ones who do the real ministry and everybody else is just along for the ride. That's not biblical. Every Christ follower has a part to play in helping the body mature and accomplishing the work that Jesus has given us. And it's a grace gift that He gave that. In fact, did you notice that verse 7? Now, grace was given to each one according to the measure of the Messiah's gift. You have work to do. If you're one of God's children, you have work to do, and it's a gift that you have that work to do. It's not a burden, it's an honor, it's a blessing. And this ministry that we've been given, it comes with real authority and the resources to actually get it done. It comes with real authority and the resources to actually do it. Jesus says something very interesting when he is commissioning his disciples before he leaves. I've already mentioned it once that he said, All authority has been given to me. In another account in the Gospels, he literally says to his disciples, and as you go, you can forgive those who need to be forgiven and they will be forgiven. And those who are in sin, you can basically, you can say, uh, you can tell those that you're not forgiven if they are not putting their trust in Jesus. The way I understand this text, it's a very interesting text because it sounds like he's telling them you can forgive sin and you can tell people who's in and who's out. Why can we do that? Because the good news of Jesus tells us how people are saved and how our sin is dealt with. We have authority because we have the authoritative message of Jesus. Are you with me? We have the authoritative message of Jesus that says no one comes to God except through the Father. No one comes to God except through the person and work of Jesus. You in this room, as a child of God, if you are a child of God, and not everybody in this room is, I'm guessing, but for many of you that are, you have real authority in the person of Jesus to declare the good news about Christ and to call people to follow him, to put their trust in him. And not only that, but you're gifted to do it. As Rachel said so well in her summary up here a while ago, every single one of you in this room has spiritual gifts, spiritual abilities, spiritual capacities to actually participate in this work that God's given us to do. In 1 Corinthians 12, which I mentioned earlier, it says this in verse 4. Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. There are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial. Beneficial for what? Beneficial for building up the body and building up the kingdom. To one is given a message, he's going to give a list of some of the things. I don't think this list is exhaustive, by the way. This is just some of the gifts that God gives to his people. To one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit, to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of languages, to another interpretation of languages. Now, when I read that list, I'm like, are these in the church? Where are these gifts? Some of them I've seen in action, some of them I haven't. At least not on a regular basis. But here's what we know the Spirit does give gifts to his people to accomplish his work, and they're miraculous, they're supernatural. And every single one of you sitting here have spiritual gifts. Did you notice what it said in Ephesians 4, going back to our original passage? It says in verse 11, and he personally gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers for the training of the saints in the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. Now he lists five functions or five roles there. Some people call those gifts, but I would simply say that those five roles are the equipping, influencing roles in the local church to help every one of you actually participate in the work of the kingdom. Now, I think it's important for me to say this because some people have the mindset, maybe because you were discipled in the local church in America, that what we mean is that God has given these leadership gifts so that you can make sure we have a Sunday service put together. That we have a building to show up to, that people get greeted, that we have classrooms for kids, that we have the ability to pull off a Sunday gathering. I don't want to belittle that at all. It's actually one of the ways we can minister is the corporate gathering, just to be in this room together on a weekly basis, singing songs about Jesus, hearing testimonies about how God's changing our lives, hearing the word taught. Praise God for all those things. But did you know that ministry is much bigger than what we do on Sunday for a couple hours? That every one of us in this room are gifted to do ministry in so many different ways, outside of just pulling off the Sunday gathering. In fact, when you have a neighbor into your home and you serve them a meal and you show the hospitality that Christ has shown us, that's a way you can minister effectively to others. Or for that matter, when you host your small group, or when you lead a small group, or when you are involved in caring for someone who's sick, or someone who's struggling with job loss. Those are ways we can minister to one another. And some of you are naturally, spiritually more gifted at that than others. But the fact of the matter is that these apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher roles, functions are supposed to be helping you be better, more effective at actually doing what God's called you to do. Now, I I could talk a lot about the apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. That'll have to be for another time, different place. Maybe we can have that discussion because I've been studying this quite a bit when I think about the way that the church is intended to be mature. These apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher uh roles, functions, he actually talks to them as people, not just a gift, but as a people. Um they've always been around in humanity. We see how that the apostles are those ones who are the starters, the establishers, they're the ones who push, they're the tip of the spear. We see prophets being the truth-tellers, the ones who bring the truth and make sure that we stay uh sound in what we teach, and it's black and white for them. We see the evangelists being those who promote the gospel and the good news of Jesus and naturally market uh the body of Christ to the world around us. We see those who are shepherds, who are really caring, and who are naturally loving and who nurture people and who make sure people feel connected and loved and cared for. We see how that the teacher is the one who instructs the body and how makes sure that we have really good teaching and we have gifts that are used in that. And again, those are very super uh quick, high level of each one of those. But here's what I can say those gifts or those people don't have to be elders. Those people don't have to be paid staff. Those people are in this body. Those those training opportunities are within this body, those influences are in this body, that we can be part of that. And I would say that all the gifts really fall under those five things. In fact, I would even say that Jesus Himself was the fullness of those things. He was completeness of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, and that now he gives his church those things so that we can be equipped so that we can actually go and do what he's asked us to do. For some of you in this room, that might not make a lot of sense or might feel like I don't really know what that has to do with me. But I would say to you this morning, we want to be the kind of church that reflects this kind of instruction, and we believe that the Holy Spirit, as we submit to him, as we surrender to him, as we ask him to do his work, these things are going to come forward and you are going to be more fully equipped so that we can be more fully mature in his mission, in God's mission. That means that every one of us who are part of the church, we don't show up just to partake, but to participate. We don't show up to church gatherings just to hear and to be instructed and to walk out the door and say, man, that was good. I'm glad they did a good job today. As if this is a restaurant. But you actually show up ready to be involved, to minister, to serve, to bless, to participate in the kingdom work. Every member of the body of Christ has a ministry. Every member has gifts to do that ministry. I'm repeating that several times because I want that point to be really hit home today. And I would say that as Eugene Peterson, these are his words in regards to this. He says, within the Christian community, there are a few words that are more disabling than layperson or laity. The words convey the impression, an impression that quickly solidifies into a lie, that there is a two-level hierarchy among the men and women who follow Jesus. There are those who are trained, sometimes referred to as the called, the professionals who are paid to preach, teach, and provide guidance in the Christian way, occupying the upper level. The lower level is made up of everyone else. Those whom God assigned jobs as storekeepers, lawyers, journalists, parents, computer programmers, etc. You hear what he's saying? We have an unbiblical truth that is, unbiblical lie that has actually gained traction in the people that are called the church today. And that is that you have like this super Christian group of people up here, the paid staff and the pastors and the professional leaders and those who are trained, and everybody else is down here. Let me just tell you that's not true. That we all are the body of Christ who've been called to work out the ways that God has called us to work out his mission through spiritual gifts and capacities. I wanted to say it as bluntly as I can. I am no more important than any of you in this room to the kingdom of God just because I stand on a stage on Sunday morning and preach the word. I'm not. This is my role, this is my responsibility. I'd be disobedient not to do it. But you are just as important. You loving your neighbor, you sharing the gospel with the person who works with you is just as important as what I do here in this place. People can say, well, you know, well, maybe your influence is bigger. That's fine, but the value of the kingdom, we all have value in this in this kingdom, in the ministry, and we are not called to determine how big the platform gets. What we are called to do is to be faithful and obedient in every way to our Savior Jesus Christ, to what he has called us to do. The New Testament is not resting on this clergy-laity disparity or this gap, this distinction. But for centuries, the church has functioned as if there's like some people who do real ministry and everybody else just kind of does sort of the fake ministry. I don't know what you call it. And the fact of the matter is, is that all of you in this room have real ministry to do, kingdom ministry to do. Just recently, I've been reminded at how God's working in this body because some of you have heard people stand up on this stage, this platform on Sunday morning and share some of the things God's putting in their hearts to do. And our elder team have been meeting with some of these people. And we are seeing things like a lady in this body named Shelly who has felt called by God to start a recovery ministry for addicts. And she feels like God has put that in her heart to help people who are struggling with addiction to all types of things. And what when we ask the question, like, why do you want to do this, Shelly? She said, Because I know that I was an addict, and Christ has changed my life, and I want other people's people's lives to be changed in the way he's changed my life. That I understand my identity as a child of God now that I didn't used to understand, and I want to help others do that. We had a couple, two different couples step up and help uh put on a picnic here at the church not long ago. It was a spiritual ministry. We had lots of great conversations because they stepped up and helped organize and lead that out. We've had people step up and do ministries to those that are hurting in our community around us. We've had people help with the Crisis Pregnancy Center that's just up the road here. Uh some of you heard the Smith family stand up here on the stage not long ago before they went to Costa Rica to work with transvestites and transgender and uh and people who are hurting down in Costa Rica. And you heard them talk about the story of going down and trying to help these girls that are in sex trafficking and help them be pulled out and rescued. God put that in their heart. They didn't say, Nick, what should we go do? They prayed about it. God showed them what to do, and they went and did it. And we praise God for that. Thank God for the McQuans and what they just shared this morning. About how God used them in India and how he's using them now. Not every single one of you in this room needs to start a new ministry, but God is putting things in your heart if you'll listen. And he wants you to participate. I think most Christians are just bored out of their minds with their Christian faith. I think why a lot of men leave the church is because they're bored. It's because they think, well, if all it is is going and sitting and listening to somebody talk for 45 minutes on a Sunday, sing some songs. If that's the Christian faith, I'm out. It's not. And maybe what you've been sold, but that's not that's not the truth. You're called to a mission, you're called into a war, to a battle to help people know Jesus Christ. I'm called into that. We are to be participating in this kingdom work. Is that making making sense? Here's the thing the church is to be filled by Christ and then to display Christ to the world. Did you notice in verse 10, chapter 4, going back there? Verse 10, he says, The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things, fill all things. Note that. Then verse 13 he says, Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. What God wants for his church is to be full of him. Filled with him by his spirit, to be full of him, so that we could then demonstrate, declare, display him to the world around us, the fullness of Christ. When we are filled by God's Spirit individually, and we are filled by God's Spirit collectively, we make Christ known. It's a byproduct, it's a natural byproduct, it's an overflow. The fruit of the Spirit. Those are the characteristics of Christ. And when we are filled with the Spirit, the fruit of the characteristics of Christ are displayed to the community around us. You and I cannot display Christ to the world as an individual. But in community, we can come together and see the gifts, and we can see the abilities, and we can see the love displayed and magnified so that people can see Christ more clearly and actually come to know him. As we live out the gospel we preach together, the world hears the good news about Jesus. And it's awesome. I pray that God continues to fill his church here. I pray that God continues to fill your life. Christianity is not just a set of rules that you follow, it's not a behavior modification process. It's increasingly being filled with the person of Jesus, his spirit, and participating again in his work, bringing him glory. Now, before we close today, I want to take just a minute to talk about some church leadership. One of the things that's come through this series, and we haven't taken any time at all through this entire series to this point to talk about church leadership. And so just to bring some clarity, because even in this passage, we get these gifts of apostle and prophet and evangelist and pastor and teacher, but we really haven't talked about church leadership. How's the local church supposed to be run? So maybe this is more just personal instruction for the body to encourage you guys to understand how Point Community Church is led. I think it's important because as a member of this body, we want you to know how we decide how God is working in terms of leading us forward. And tomorrow night, as I mentioned already at 6 30 in this room, we're going to talk more about this specifically. But what I should say is that every church that calls himself a Christian church should be looking to the Bible as our instruction on how to actually be the church. And in the New Testament, the last 27 books of the Bible, particularly the back half of that, after you get past the gospels, we see instruction on how the local church is to be established. Because when Paul, who was a missionary, went out to start establishing churches, he would share the gospel in cities and regions, and as he would do that, he would look for people that he could then call into to leadership, because that's what God led him to do. And they were called elders, they were called overseers or called shepherds of the flock. And so we as a church body here, we have what we call elders. We have leaders, but the point is that every church, every New Testament church, every Christ-honoring church should be led by a group of spiritually mature men. Now, the church should be guided by a group of spiritually mature men at the not the top layer or level of leadership, but at the place where those who are taking responsibility for the body that are appointed by the Spirit. And as I said, I've already used several different words there because in the passage from Ephesians 4 it says pastors, but that's the only place in the entire New Testament that the word pastor is used. That's just more modern vernacular that we like to call, you know, in churches the leader, the pastor. The idea is that there is a shepherd and that there are more than one shepherd. There's multiple shepherds, that it's a plurality, it's a group of qualified, spiritually mature men who lead. 1 Timothy 3, if you haven't read those lately, or Titus 1, I encourage you to go read those, and it actually gives the qualifications, lists them out of what kind of men should lead in the body of Christ. The other role that we find in the New Testament, aside from elders, is the role of deacon, which is just the word for servant. And we see this first show up in the story in Acts because I told you guys last week, or maybe even the week before last, that it didn't take long, that even though they had this beautiful community of people who kind of emerged that were birthed at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and Peter proclaimed the gospel for the first time, it wasn't very long until they already started having problems in the local church. And in fact, the apostles, who are these incredibly mature men, start getting uh slammed for not taking care of the widows. And so what do they do? They say, Hey, we need you to choose some people among yourselves who are trustworthy that will help us minister to this need. And so there's these seven guys that are picked out to basically be deacons, Stephen being one of them, and they have this role of like caring for the widows and making sure they don't get overlooked in the distribution of food. And in the New Testament, we see this idea of deacon come up. Again, it's listening uh in 1 Timothy of the qualifications you're looking for for the kind of uh people that can be could be involved. And by the way, uh we don't have the title deacon in our body here. Um, but we would say that people who are doing ministry or serving and are in administrating, organizing ministry, that those are basically functioning like deacons, servants. And those can be men and women, and they can help lead and facilitate those ministry areas as men and women, according to the scripture. But what I am saying to you this morning is that we should not get hung up on titles, and we should not let titles become a barrier to actually doing ministry. Um, because Jesus says himself in Matthew chapter 20, as two of Jesus' disciples, their mom uh got involved. Uh I know y'all's moms never got involved in things for you, but but the two of the disciples, their mom got involved with Jesus and said, Hey, Jesus, can you make sure that uh my sons get to sit on your right and left in the kingdom of God? Nobody's ever had a mom do something like that, right? And uh Jesus starts to talk about what his kingdom is all about, and he says, the greatest among you is the servant. And then later in Matthew 23, Jesus is actually rebuking the Pharisees. And you know what he's rebuking? He's rebuking them about a lot of things. Their hypocrisy, the fact that they will look all pretty on the outside, but on the inside they're just rotten, spiritually rotten. But he says something in Matthew 23 at the beginning. He says, you know, you guys are all about wearing your tassels and having your big, you know, your big uh uh robes that you wear so that you can be the leaders and have all this prestige that comes from leaders. You want everybody to call you rabbi, you want them all to respect you, and he says, you need to be very wary against that. In fact, he even tells his disciples, don't let anybody call you rabbi. Why? He says, Because I'm your rabbi. Jesus says, I'm I'm your teacher. What am I saying to you this morning? I'm saying that we need to be really careful about titles. We don't need to worry and get hung up on titles because Jesus says that's not what it's about. It's not about getting prestige or getting uh security or identity or worth from titles. Um and so in a local church, sometimes we just give too much too much um value to a pastor. But the fact is, is as I said earlier, all of us are actually participants in the kingdom of God, regardless of whether we have a role called pastor or not. Church leaders should be the lead servants. Should be the ones who are invested in serving the body well. Church leaders, elders are to serve the body by caring for them, by protecting the teaching, and making sure that it's actually Jesus focused and centered, that's that's actually biblical. It's not just culturally relevant, but it's it's biblical. That it that the elders, uh the overseers are responsible to lead the body to obey Jesus. The elders ought to be those who can say, follow me as I follow Christ. And by the way, there are no perfect elders here. I am far from perfect. I see that in my life. My wife sees that in my life, my kids see that in my life. Many of you who've been around me close enough, you see my sin. But praise God, he's still working, and praise God, he's gracious, and praise God, he qualifies me to be a part of leading this body in spite of my imperfections. Jesus is perfect, and I'm thankful, and I'm looking at him and I'm following him. But I also want to remind you that elders, overseers, that they will give an account to God for how they lead the church. We are an elder-led church because that's what we see in the Bible. We are seeking to be the kind of men that the qualifications are laid out there, but we will ultimately give an account. Let me read this to you from 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5 verse 2 says this shepherd God's flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion, but freely according to God's will, not for money, but eagerly, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. This passage gives me great peace and comfort, but also gives me pause. Because one day Jesus is going to come back and say, How did you shepherd my flock? And so it's a heavy responsibility that Christ has given and entrusted to his leaders. We want to be a people, we want to be a leadership team that's shepherding God's flock. And not doing it out of compulsion, doing it eagerly. Understanding that we are stewards, not owners. Understanding that we should be examples, we should incarnationally be leading. But the question is, is what can you guys be doing in regards to this? I mean, it's something that I want to ask of you to help us in. And this is just three things as we close that I would ask for you to do with the leadership here at Point. Number one, honor your leaders. Now, in this culture, that's a dangerous thing to say because everybody says that that's a power play. I want to read a verse from Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17, and this is what it says. It says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. Believe me, with all my heart, I'm not saying obey because we're worthy. I'm saying obey because Jesus is worthy. I'm saying honor your leaders because Jesus is worthy and his glory is worthy and his unity is needed. Also, I'm asking this morning for you that you would pray for your leaders. That you would pray for your leaders because your leaders are not perfect human beings. That they are on the front lines taking shots from the enemy, and we need prayers from you guys. We need prayers to hear clearly to have the wisdom that God can give us to lead this body. We need prayers for protection over our families. We need prayers for protection over our hearts and our minds from the enemy and his lies. We need prayers. And so I ask you, I implore you, I beg of you, please pray for your elders. Please pray for your overseers. Please lift them up that we would follow Jesus and obey Jesus so that we won't be ashamed when the chief shepherd returns. And thirdly, hold them accountable, hold us accountable. 1 Timothy 5, verse 19 and 20 says this don't accept an accusation against an elder unless it's supported by two or three witnesses. Publicly rebuke those who sin so that the rest will also be afraid. I want you to understand this morning, I take very seriously the fact that if we are in sin, if elders are in sin, we need to deal with that. And if you see anything in an elder's life that is sinful or wrong, then you need to approach them with two or three witnesses according to the scripture, so that they can be publicly rebuked and that can be dealt with. I ask those three things of you this morning as members of God's family, as priests before a holy God, so that we can be as healthy as we possibly can be. We want to be as approachable as we can be. We want to be as humble as we can be. We want to be as available to you and serving you in every way we can because that's what Jesus has called us to do. We won't do it perfectly. We won't get everything right, we're not supremely wise, but we will commit to continue to follow Jesus and to pray for you and love you and minister to you as the best we can. But I want to say one final word because I said it a couple weeks ago. As you think about leaders, as you think about church, as you think about the call that God has called us to, do you remember what he said that maturity looks like? He says, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's Son, growing into mature man with a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Here's what I ask most of all of you in this room. Obey Jesus. Listen to Jesus and obey him. Look past your flawed leaders. Look past the people and the structure and the parts of look to Jesus. If your eyes are on Jesus, he will lead you to life. If your eyes are on Jesus, he will lead you to truth. If your eyes are on Jesus, God will work in you in supernatural, powerful ways. Now, some of you in this morning, you're sitting here and you've never actually submitted to King Jesus. Some of you that are sitting in this room, you're here by either being drugged to this room by somebody, or maybe you're here just exploring faith. I don't know. Maybe you've been in this room a long time, but you've never actually given your life to Jesus Christ. And my my invitation to you this morning is to come into God's family by putting your trust in Jesus, by laying down your life and taking up his that he offers to you. And then just a minute, I'm going to have Harley come up here on stage and talk to you as a body about ways that you can get involved in participating in God's mission. But I pray that increasingly we would be a church that follows Jesus' example and instead of showing up with a bib on, we show up with a towel. That instead of showing up like an infant who says, feed me, feed me, feed me, take care of me, take care of me, says, I want to serve the body. And I don't say that harshly, rudely. I'm saying that's what we should be as a people. As a body of people who are increasingly looking to serve and to bless and to minister. And asking God to help us take up his tau of servanthood. We serve because Jesus has served us. Let me pray for us. God, I just thank you for this body. And as I said earlier, I love this body, love these people. Thank you for their kindness and mercy towards me as a flawed leader. Thank you for their grace in my failings. Thank you, God, for the ways that you are working in and through this body to take the gospel message to all the earth. Thank you, Jesus, for the ways that you are helping people in Austin come to know Jesus because we're seeing increasing numbers of people who attend this body, who are connected to this body, take ownership for the lostness on their street, in their workplace, in their kids' schools. Who are actually stepping up, God, and embracing the role to be a faithful witness. I pray, God, that you would grow us in our boldness. I pray that you would grow us in our walking out in the Holy Spirit. I pray that you would help us to grow in our using our spiritual gifts. God, I pray that we would get out of the way of one another if we are in the way of that. I pray our leaders would get out of the way so that more people in this body could actually participate in the kingdom work. But I pray, God, that overall, again, we would listen to you, Jesus. We would obey you. We would follow you. We would trust you. We would serve you. And I just thank you so much that you're at work because you're that good. Not because we deserve it, but because you truly are that good. And we just pray all these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.