SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Central.
SPEAKER_00: Morning to all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's Labor Day.
SPEAKER_00: You can wake up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You can talk to me this message.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: My name is DJ.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Glendale uh campus pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to all of you, all of our different campuses.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you are online, uh, man.
SPEAKER_00: So thankful that you are joining us and you we are all together in the church, uh, which is a beautiful place.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I just gotta say, I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about what we're gonna do um next weekend.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the idea that we are gonna bless um so many kids in Mohi and we get to continue our partnership um with them, man.
SPEAKER_00: We're really, really excited about so I love that.
SPEAKER_00: And I also love what we've been going through of this uh this series, our value series, um, understanding that we are to keep Jesus first in alive, that we are a church that is about a people always.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're gonna talk about today is the understanding, or how do we understand that we are made for more, that we are we are made for more.
SPEAKER_00: So, what you're gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Uh you're gonna turn to your Bibles in Ephesians 2.
SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians 2, we're gonna be eight, um, eight through 10.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the verses that we're gonna be working with uh this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, we're gonna just we're gonna dive right in.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get there, I'm gonna share, I'm gonna share a story with you.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I want you to imagine um this is you.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna put you um in this story, uh, you are the center.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine uh you got um two tickets uh to the Phoenix Symphony.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you got two uh uh two tickets to the Phoenix uh symphony, and it was to their Christmas show.
SPEAKER_00: So you're super excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna, you know, you're gonna take your best friend.
SPEAKER_00: So you got these two tickets and you are man, you you're getting ready.
SPEAKER_00: So now it's time for you to go.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting ready, you dressed up, your hair looking good, your nails are dead.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you are dressed up tonight.
SPEAKER_00: You are ready to have an amazing time uh singing some of your uh favorite Christmas carols um at the Phoenix Symphony, which you are masterful of musicians.
SPEAKER_00: And so you guys get ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you're all ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: You start to drive down to downtown Phoenix, and then you get to the place where it's time for you to park, and you realize there's not really any like parking attendance or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: So you're kind of confused, or you're like, all right, okay, um, we're just gonna park over here.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, we don't get a ticket, um, and we'll we're gonna go in.
SPEAKER_00: And so you guys get out the car and you start walking towards the front entrance, and then you notice there's a really long line um in in the, you know, to get in.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, man, that's that's kind of weird.
SPEAKER_00: And they have all these doors that are aren't being used.
SPEAKER_00: Why can't we use that?
SPEAKER_00: And then you realize um that there's only one person scanning in tickets.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And so you just go through.
SPEAKER_00: Line doesn't take that long, it's not that bad.
SPEAKER_00: You get inside and you're like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a soda, I want to get some snacks before we hit our head to our amazing seats, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, to your amazing seats.
SPEAKER_00: And so you go to the concession stand, and then you go up to the counter and you realize there's no one there.
SPEAKER_00: You can't even get a snack, you can't get a drink.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're like, forget it, let's just go to our seats.
SPEAKER_00: Show's about to start at this point, and you go sit down, you kind of you find your way to your seat.
SPEAKER_00: There's not really anyone there to point you to your seat, but you find your way up to the balcony, which is the you know, the best seats in the house.
SPEAKER_00: And so you go, you sit down, curtain goes up, and the show begins.
SPEAKER_00: While you're listening uh to some of your favorite tunes, uh you start to realize you know, something is a little off.
SPEAKER_00: And you take a you take a further look, like, man, what is going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Because the songs don't sound like you're not a musician, but the songs don't sound right.
SPEAKER_00: And so you take a closer look at the musicians and you realize there's a lot of chairs that are empty.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of chairs that are empty.
SPEAKER_00: Instruments that are on the ground have not been picked up by anyone.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, man, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're looking at your friend.
SPEAKER_00: You take a and you look at them and say, hey, do you see what I see?
SPEAKER_00: Did y'all catch the Christmas reference?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're or we gotta wake up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, come on, let's get there.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you're like, hey, do you like are you catching this?
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, yeah, this is super weird.
SPEAKER_00: And then you look down from your balcony and you're looking down in the crowd and you're trying to see, is anyone else noticing what I'm noticing?
SPEAKER_00: And uh then you see in the crowd, there's a group of people that are wearing the same Christmas outfits that the people our stage are wearing, and they're sitting with their arms folded and they're watching the performance.
SPEAKER_00: And then you take a closer look and you're like, oh, there's a wait, that person like they're wearing like a parking attendant outfit on, and that person looks like they are like like they will be an usher or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: Like, why is this happening?
SPEAKER_00: And so then you continue to watch the show, obviously disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: Show ends.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was good, but it obviously wasn't wasn't what you were expecting.
SPEAKER_00: So you go to the manager and you're like, hey, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: And they're sincerely apologetic, like, like, so sorry, like this was not our best, this is not what we wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And then they say to you, hey, what happened tonight was we failed our mission.
SPEAKER_00: See, our mission was to go out and to give an amazing performance, to bring people into the Christmas spirit and experience, man, the beauty of music.
SPEAKER_00: We failed that today.
SPEAKER_00: And if I can take a peek and this take a focus on this word mission, because it's something that we understand.
SPEAKER_00: It denotes that, man, you are going after a goal.
SPEAKER_00: There is something specific that you are on the road to do, and you go to seek to accomplish that goal.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like in a team.
SPEAKER_00: You could think about your workplaces.
SPEAKER_00: You can think about your workplaces and uh the goal that you have to maybe uh sell something or to build something or to fix something.
SPEAKER_00: Like you have a specific mission that you're going after, or maybe you're younger and you're in a sports team, like your mission is to try to win games, and then you have to do a specific set of things to go accomplish that mission.
SPEAKER_00: And when we think about the church, the church also has a mission that we're going after.
SPEAKER_00: Sean talked about it last week.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at this verse in Matthew 28, where Jesus gives what we call the Great Commission to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's trying to get his disciples to understand is that, man, there is something that I need you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in the time of his life where he is, of his ministry, where he is going back up to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He raised from the dead, he's doing some work with his disciples, and he's going back up into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna leave his disciples with a specific mission that they need to go after.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really simple.
SPEAKER_00: He's telling his disciples, hey, what I want you to do is I want you to start from here, and I want you to go throughout all of the world, and I want you to tell people about me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to tell everyone that this good news has happened, that I died for their sins, and that they can have true life inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: This is their mission.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can look at any, probably any church that you can kind of go to, uh, if you look at their mission statement, it stems from the mission statement that Jesus provided to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Central Christian church is no different.
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you our mission statement if you've never heard it before.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very simple.
SPEAKER_00: What we want to do here is to lead people to discover and fully own their faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So we want people to get to know who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: We want people to uh follow Jesus, we want people to surrender their life all the way to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus first, right?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus isn't isn't just a part of our life, he is our life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we want people to understand.
SPEAKER_00: We have our mission that stems from the mission of the great commission that Jesus has provided to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And we as a church are trying to live that um each and every day as we gather together in the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
SPEAKER_00: You can do you can be louder as well on the screen as well.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, come with me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive into our scripture today.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 8 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: This is written by uh the apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul's writing to the church um at Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: So here's here's what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.
SPEAKER_00: For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at the first few words of Paul here, where Paul says, Man, you have been saved by grace.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that you did to deserve it, there's nothing that you can do to earn it.
SPEAKER_00: It is freely given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then also, man, you are God's handiwork.
SPEAKER_00: You are designed by God.
SPEAKER_00: You are his prize, his prize creation was human life.
SPEAKER_00: You are God's handiwork, and he loves you dearly.
SPEAKER_00: That he has created you to do work that he has for you.
SPEAKER_00: He has given you gifts for you to use those gifts.
SPEAKER_00: But God, man, he just loves you so dearly.
SPEAKER_00: You is his handiwork.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe for some of you, that is the sermon that you need to hear this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Is that you are God's handiwork.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you, he desires relationships, relationship with you, he cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants you to know that he calls you beloved.
SPEAKER_00: And as I take a deeper look into this verse, I just thought some questions start to come up in my like in my soul of just like, okay, like what is this work that God talks about?
SPEAKER_00: We are God's handiwork, therefore, we are to do the good works that He has designed and made for us in advance for us to do, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does that kind of work look like?
SPEAKER_00: And I think what we need to do is look at the person of Jesus and the words of Jesus to see the framing of what that type of work looks like.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of goes right into the anchor verse for our whole series, Luke 9 23.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us the frame of what this work looks like.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read together.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: We are created to do the work that God has prepared for us.
SPEAKER_00: It will, man, it will look like that.
SPEAKER_00: It will look like man sacrificing yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't miss the link between what Paul is saying and what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: These things are linked together, where manna, you have been saved by grace, you've been put aside, you are God's handiwork, and he has given you gifts so that you can use for the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, man, what that work looks like, it looks like, it looks like what Jesus has done for us in our own life.
SPEAKER_00: That we are to man sacrifice some of our life and follow him, pick up our cross and carry him every single day of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are supposed to combat, we're supposed to run from, we're supposed to push away things that are natural to our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Things like maybe it's like promiscuity.
SPEAKER_00: It could be things like anger.
SPEAKER_00: You have a vengeful spirit in your heart of to someone that's done something wrong to you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, maybe it's pride and selfishness, or maybe you are suffering from self-loathing, or you are actually taking part in, man, kind of beating up God's handiwork, beating up his design, beating up his creation.
SPEAKER_00: You're just beating yourself up.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are in part of that all that.
SPEAKER_00: And what we are saying is that, man, we are gonna push all those things away so that we can follow Jesus, that we can keep him first in our life.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are made, man, we are made.
SPEAKER_00: We are made in his design to do good in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So as we look at this passage of scripture, I think there's a second way for us to look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we read scripture in our American Western eyes, what we do is a lot of times we individualize the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And when we look at the epistle, the letter that Paul is writing to the church that is at Ephesus, then he's not thinking of the individuals, though he knows them.
SPEAKER_00: He started this church, he was a part of this church, like he knows the people.
SPEAKER_00: But the people would have been reading this letter out loud in a setting just like kind of like what we do today.
SPEAKER_00: They would have been listening to the words of Paul as he's been coaching them, as he's been caring for them, as he supports them, as he's inspiring them to do what God has called them to do to accomplish the mission that he set before the church.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is what Paul is doing for the for the church.
SPEAKER_00: So he's not so at many times we don't, then we're not really supposed to read, though we can, and though that's good, read as only from an individualistic perspective.
SPEAKER_00: It comes in a group perspective as we're reading the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do, I want to take us through um this uh passage scriptures again, is gonna be on the screen, and I'm gonna read it as if Paul has put in some words uh for the church.
SPEAKER_00: Because literally, in the Greek translation, the word a you isn't like you individually, it's a y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to my Texans in the room.
SPEAKER_00: You guys get it.
SPEAKER_00: It's y'all, it's a group uh uh type of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's read this again, as Paul, as I believe Paul would say.
SPEAKER_00: For it is by grace this church has been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not from anything the church has done, it is the gift of God, and not by works of that, no one in the church can boast.
SPEAKER_00: For we, the church, are God's handy, we're crap created together in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us, his people to do.
SPEAKER_00: So, man, there's two ways to interpret this scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the first one is that man, God saved you and he made you for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: The second way, these things are are both together.
SPEAKER_00: The second way is God saved us and he made us the church for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: It can be summed up like this you were not saved to sit, you were made to serve and move Jesus' mission forward through his church.
SPEAKER_00: You were not made to sit, you were made, you were made to serve.
SPEAKER_00: So as we think about belonging to this church community, like the people of the church of Ephesus were a part of a church community.
SPEAKER_00: Now we got to think about what does it mean to belong to a community?
SPEAKER_00: Because belonging to the church community does not mean you sit, listen, consume, and then you go home.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not to think about it again, but you just come, sit, and listen and leave.
SPEAKER_00: Come, sit and listen and leave.
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe a couple months later you come sit, listen, and leave.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it means to belong to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if we if we think about going back to early church history, let's go back to the church at Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to uh the uh the church in Rome or the church in Corinth or uh the church in um uh Galatia, like all these different churches that Paul was writing to, man, they were in hostile environment environments.
SPEAKER_00: So the church wasn't just, man, it wasn't just a place just to go and just kind of hang out and kind of go about your day.
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a lifeline for the church.
SPEAKER_00: Like they they needed one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're following Jesus and proclaiming that there was only one God.
SPEAKER_00: There are no other gods.
SPEAKER_00: There's just only one proclaiming that was not a safe thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: So they needed to be with one another.
SPEAKER_00: And what we have done in our culture, uh we have taken church and we haven't turned it into a lifeline, we haven't kept it that way.
SPEAKER_00: What we've done, we've turned it into a luxury if we're honest.
SPEAKER_00: If we're being honest, it's just a luxury for us.
SPEAKER_00: Think about man, I'm really busy this week.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I need some extra time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go to church today.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what things maybe happen to be uh a little bit hard in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go to church today.
SPEAKER_00: I forgot to pack for a vacation.
SPEAKER_00: I got some extra hours, not gonna go to church today.
SPEAKER_00: Church has become a luxury in our life when man, that wasn't the movement that Jesus started with his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a luxury, it was a necessity in a part of people's life.
SPEAKER_00: We see um research that's being done, uh, one of which being by the Barner Group.
SPEAKER_00: Barn Group is a really a big group, which they do a lot of research on churches and church trends and church attendance and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And recently they came out with a study, and one of their key findings was that churchgoers who used to attend weekly now often attend around one to two times a month.
SPEAKER_00: Used to attend weekly, now it's one to two times a month.
SPEAKER_00: Man, when we think about the church being a lifeline and to belonging to something, from being honest, that's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to disconnect yourself from the community that God has placed right in your midst that we have together, that God has and Jesus has this designed us.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not here, don't hear what I'm not saying.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying to lack boundaries and to be here 24-7 and to sell your house and just give everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying at all.
SPEAKER_00: But there are many of us in this room.
SPEAKER_00: There's many of us, I mean, on all of our campuses, even online.
SPEAKER_00: There's many of us that have our Christmas outfit on and we're sitting in the crowd with our arms folded and we're watching the performance.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe I say you have your Christian outfit on, watching the performance.
SPEAKER_00: And God is saying, No, I have designed you for work.
SPEAKER_00: I've designed you for work that is for the church, that to push my mission forward.
SPEAKER_00: It's what I designed you for.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to call you out.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't hear me, don't hear me that way.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm here, I'm trying to call the church up, to call us into what God has for us, the way that He's designed us.
SPEAKER_00: Because if He designed you for good works, and He designed this place for good works, that means this place has more in it than we have right now.
SPEAKER_00: We are made for more, we're made for more.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't pretend that these two things are disconnected, that they are not connected.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, your personal man, your personal design and design in the church, if you are the people of the church, man, these things, these two things are connected.
SPEAKER_00: And I truly believe, like I truly believe if we lean into that, like if we lean into this understanding that we are not saved to sit, that we were made to serve, if we lean into that, I truly believe that we will see some amazing blessings in in our life, like in your life, blessings of maybe of purpose, of fulfillment, of seeing lives changed and transformed in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean blessings of like monetary and financial.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about, man, really soul eternal blessings that we get to see in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And as a church, we get to see baptisms, people's lives transformed.
SPEAKER_00: We get to see marriages that are reconciled and are thriving, and kids that are growing up to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's what it looks like when we lean into this, to the mission that God has put in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that for some of you, what I'm talking about right now is stirring up a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_00: It could be a little scary.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're like, how I don't even have enough time for myself.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I can even give more margin and more minutes to my own life, let alone to something else, let alone to the church.
SPEAKER_00: Then maybe this is God tapping you on the shoulder and telling, like, listen, your schedule is so packed full of things that I never even called you to.
SPEAKER_00: Like you have so much going on in your life that I never even designed you for.
SPEAKER_00: You have so much going on in your life that you need to take a serious look at and say, God, is this something that you want us as a family to be doing?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's yes.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a different version of it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's no.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe God is trying to share everything.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, like, you need to keep your eyes focused on the mission and design that I've called on you in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense, right?
SPEAKER_00: It makes sense that the devil, our enemy, wants to create barriers for you in your life to keep you away from the thing that God designed.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Like if he was designing a plan, he would have you have a bunch of these barriers so that you don't get to the thing that he designed, he created the church.
SPEAKER_00: Keep them away from that.
SPEAKER_00: Because if they start using their gifts for the church, then people are gonna be impacted.
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep them away.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep them thinking that man, this whole thing about the church is just about them.
SPEAKER_00: And they only read the Bible for themselves and they only think about themselves, and they only keep their faith kind of separate away from all parts of their life where Jesus is only a part of their life, not all of their life.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep them in that box so they don't experience the blessing that God has for them.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to um, I was talking to someone several weeks ago um at church, and we were having a conversation about you know, jumping in, like maybe getting into serving, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And this person was super excited.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I love coming here, I've been coming here for so long, but yeah, I feel like God is calling me into some new things, and like I love, I I just I just want to be a part.
SPEAKER_00: And then towards the end of our conversation, this person turns to me and they and they look at me and they're like, but you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Sundays are hard.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart kind of broke a little bit because I'm like, yeah, of course it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's hard to get here.
SPEAKER_00: It makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: But if you can think about in your own life, like what do you have that is worth having that wasn't hard to get?
SPEAKER_00: Think about the degree.
SPEAKER_00: That you have to walk through?
SPEAKER_00: Think about all the job interviews and the training that you have to go through, the kids that you have that you're trying to raise, that's not an easy thing at all.
SPEAKER_00: Like anything that's worth having in your life is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: The easy things are just that.
SPEAKER_00: They're just easy.
SPEAKER_00: But they don't have the return on investment that means the things that God are calling us to that may cause sacrifice in our life, man, they don't have the same return.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I believe that we have to really lean into the words of Jesus to have faith that he's got us, because he does.
SPEAKER_00: And he says that he got us when we commit to him and we pursue his mission.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke 9, 23, he says, may carry your cross daily, which means I mean, go do what I did.
SPEAKER_00: Go sacrifice your life for others, go use your gifts for others.
SPEAKER_00: But in Luke 9.24, he says, I got you though, if you do that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For whoever wants to save their life will lose it.
SPEAKER_00: But whoever loses their life for me will save it.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's counterintuitive.
SPEAKER_00: That when we give some stuff out of our hearts into others, and we feel like we're losing something, but Jesus is like, No, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: I got something for you that you would never even imagine that I had for you.
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not even in this life, it may be in the next.
SPEAKER_00: And the good works that God is calling you to may cost you something, but Jesus, man, he says, Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, just follow me, anyways.
SPEAKER_00: You were not made to sit, you were not saved to sit.
SPEAKER_00: You were made to serve and to move Jesus' mission forward through his church.
SPEAKER_00: So think about one of Jesus' uh disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He um really was really wrestling with this same kind of deal, you know, with the people that he that's listening to his words to kind of use their gifts for God.
SPEAKER_00: And we read one of his letters, and he man, he's trying to encourage and inspires people to move.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we can learn from it today, where we read in 1 Peter 4, 10, 11.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at it on the screen, Peter says this each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace, grace in its various forms.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And as people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I agree, amen, that his name will be glorified through our works and our deeds and our design that he's created us for.
SPEAKER_00: So what are we called to do, Central?
SPEAKER_00: Man, what are we called to do?
SPEAKER_00: Serve.
SPEAKER_00: You can say it at your other campuses, serve.
SPEAKER_00: Use the gifts that God has given you to serve his mission and watch him do amazing things.
SPEAKER_00: So for some of you, you're like, okay, what are some what are some places that that are missing?
SPEAKER_00: Like, are we missing volunteers places and like what what's what's real what's really going on?
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you some some numbers for those of you who like the numbers piece of it.
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to the engineers and all the people like that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me kind of break break some things down for you.
SPEAKER_00: So if in kids' ministry, just to be at the bare minimum across all of our campuses, man, we need about 60 people to step up and say, I want to go serve kids.
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I don't want to have to go and uh a new parent or a parent goes to drop off their kids, and at one of our uh campuses, they have to be told, no, we cannot open the room today because we don't have enough people who are serving.
SPEAKER_00: Like that, that is unacceptable.
SPEAKER_00: That is us failing our mission.
SPEAKER_00: Or in our student ministries.
SPEAKER_00: You know, where it's over 15 of our people who say they have stories, probably more than that.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the bare minimum.
SPEAKER_00: They have stories in their lives that they can help reach our students.
SPEAKER_00: We can look at our guest experience, the parking lot, the new year tent, man, people opening the doors, greeting people, ushering people to seats and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's the number, that's a big one.
SPEAKER_00: 203 people that need to say, yes, I'll I'll jump in.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be a part of it.
SPEAKER_00: And even for those who like technology, our production teams need about 60 people.
SPEAKER_00: Those are some of the tangible numbers, numbers, and that's just that's some bare minimum stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But those are things that we are missing currently right now.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, it's because I would imagine there's some of you that are just watching the performance.
SPEAKER_00: Everything looks okay, but that's not what God is calling you to.
SPEAKER_00: I want you, I want you to imagine, all of our campuses, I want you online, imagine this.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take this to the extreme.
SPEAKER_00: So if has anyone ever invited someone to church and they said yes and you brought them to church?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have, maybe some of you haven't.
SPEAKER_00: If you have not experienced this, it is a very different way to go to church.
SPEAKER_00: Your eyes change.
SPEAKER_00: You walk into the parking lot like, man, I hope there's someone at the new here at 10.
SPEAKER_00: My friends rough around the edges.
SPEAKER_00: They've never been to church before.
SPEAKER_00: I hope, I hope they, man, I hope they're kind to them.
SPEAKER_00: You start to think, man, I hope someone's at at the at the coffee station serving coffee.
SPEAKER_00: I hope it's really, really good today.
SPEAKER_00: You say, man, you you're in service, man.
SPEAKER_00: I hope the band is singing the best songs that they got.
SPEAKER_00: You start to say, man, Sean, you better bring it today because my friend needs Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Sean, I need you to preach today.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, come on.
SPEAKER_00: But imagine if none of that was there.
SPEAKER_00: Sean's mic doesn't work great, slides are not there, banish has to be stripped down.
SPEAKER_00: No one's there to usher you into your seats or to greet you in the lobby.
SPEAKER_00: Coffee is trash because someone you someone like me is making coffee, doesn't know how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: No one's that's new here, tenth degree.
SPEAKER_00: Like that, that is a place where it's like, man, we have failed our mission.
SPEAKER_00: And that stuff is easy, easily solved.
SPEAKER_00: That would not, that would not be okay.
SPEAKER_00: So let me kind of go from the philosophical to the practical.
SPEAKER_00: Because in our in all those numbers and all that kind of stuff, like, man, that doesn't mean that you are called to do all the things.
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you are God's handiwork, there's probably something specific or a few things that are specific that you can do.
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: Probably a bad example.
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I love kids.
SPEAKER_00: I worked with kids for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a I'm a part of kids.
SPEAKER_00: But if you put me in the toddler room, I will start to die.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I don't like those people.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: They're crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been around a toddler?
SPEAKER_00: All of you have, and you were one yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't make any sense, the life that they live.
SPEAKER_00: I can't be back there.
SPEAKER_00: But if I think about the man, some people on my campus in Glendale, like Angie and Lena and Ashley and Marion, who's been holding babies that are probably older than me now, you know, as as adults.
SPEAKER_00: She's been doing that for years.
SPEAKER_00: Man, those people get fulfilled when they are doing the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: And they're seeing a toddler say half of a Bible verse or sing half of a song.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever else they they got going on, that fulfills them for some reason.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows why?
SPEAKER_00: But they are a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: They're a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe for you, maybe for you, God has given you, man, the ability to connect with teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: And you also have a story.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that story has a lot of shame in it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a lot of pain in that story, and God is like, listen, I didn't cause any of that stuff to happen in your life, but now what we're gonna do, we're gonna use all that stuff, that pain, so that you can reach teenagers, that they don't have to fall in the same pitfalls that you did.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna use your story now.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're a person that loves technology and you have a gift for it.
SPEAKER_00: You know how to make distractions go away when it comes to, man, stuff like this.
SPEAKER_00: Putting on something, an event.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're really good at that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God is like, listen, man, don't just make money from that.
SPEAKER_00: Make the church better from that.
SPEAKER_00: Transforms lives because if you're removing distractions.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you are a prayer warrior.
SPEAKER_00: Man, God is saying, hey, listen, I know you love to pray, but come down to the front with our prayer team and start to pray with people as they struggle through life.
SPEAKER_00: Even celebrate with them as they have wins in their life, and even share with them the gospel of Jesus as you pray with them for the very first time, that they can have a relationship with him, that they accept him in his life, that they put him, Jesus, first.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're online and you're in a place you're like, Man, I can't get to church.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in a hospital room.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe, maybe you're in bed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're far away from us.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if I can encourage you, man, God can tap you on the shoulder to pray, to pray that God mobilizes his people to reach the world, to reach their mission.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you have this innate ability to, man, be with people and to uh uh love on people and to care about people.
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, anytime you meet someone, like it could be a random stranger, you they just their shoulders drop, you make them feel at ease, and they start sharing their life story with you.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I don't want to understand why this keeps happening to me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're that type of person.
SPEAKER_00: And God is like, hey, man, you should be a part of that that big number, that 200 plus number, and start showing people, man, that this is a safe place to be in, even if you're super nervous to be around Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Not all of us are nuts, just some of us.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just just some of us.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many there's so many opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: There's so um uh many opportunities for you use to use your design, to use your gifts in order to go after the mission that God has created.
SPEAKER_00: It's because I mean it's really simple.
SPEAKER_00: You are not saved to sit.
SPEAKER_00: You were made to serve and to move Jesus' mission forward through his church, which is what we're going after.
SPEAKER_00: So let me continue to, I'm gonna just continue to call you up for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Do more calling up.
SPEAKER_00: If you are not using your gifts to serve God's mission and to serve his people, you are a thief.
SPEAKER_00: You're a thief.
SPEAKER_00: You're robbing yourself, you're robbing yourself of the blessings that God has for you, and you're robbing other people of the impact that you can have on their life.
SPEAKER_00: Because there are so many people in this world that I cannot reach, that Pastor Sean cannot reach, and God is looking at you and said, I know you can't reach them, I designed them to reach them.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you're robbing yourself of the blessings and the fulfillment of working in God's kingdom, and you're robbing others of the impact that you can have in their own life.
SPEAKER_00: So why not just try it?
SPEAKER_00: Just try it.
SPEAKER_00: Just try putting your hands in in the game, try putting your yourself in the game, into the performance.
SPEAKER_00: Try just picking up an instrument, even if it's not yours yet.
SPEAKER_00: And just see what God is going to do through you and through this place.
SPEAKER_00: I believe He has He has He's He has a calling on this church that is bigger than what we're doing right now.
SPEAKER_00: That we are made for more than what we are doing right now in this in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are, I mean, if you're thinking about, okay, I'm I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: I want more information at the very least, or I'm ready to jump in, you can head to centralAZ.com slash serve.
SPEAKER_00: And one of our pastors or leaders will reach out to you and it will help you figure out, hey, what does it mean for you to jump in into serving?
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are like, well, Pastor, I'm not even really sure what I'm gifted at.
SPEAKER_00: I've never had anyone even tell me that I was gifted at something.
SPEAKER_00: I've never had anyone say that I can be a part of something that's bigger than myself.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: Don't allow the devil to distract you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, maybe you can put yourself on a journey of start to realize, man, who has God designed inside of you?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this person that he created?
SPEAKER_00: Through what that be, man.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have some trauma that you need to go through some counseling to, or maybe you just need to start, man, taking some personality assessments or just try different ministries that we have here in a test drive to try to feel like, okay, God, what are you calling me to?
SPEAKER_00: Like, man, you can try a bunch of different things.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't like one, if you get put in a tower room and it doesn't go well, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Guess experience will take you, or production, or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: But you can be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are already serving, I just want to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Deeply thank you for sacrificing your time.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for saying yes to the call that God's put on your life.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: We really do.
SPEAKER_00: I get to work with some of the most amazing people in some in volunteer roles that are just all out for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can clap for that too.
SPEAKER_00: You can clap.
SPEAKER_00: You can clap online, other campuses.
SPEAKER_00: But I also have something to add to your plate as well, volunteers, people who serve.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have a power that I cannot do from here.
SPEAKER_00: I call it the power of the tap.
SPEAKER_00: That you can tap people on the shoulder and say, Hey, I want to invite you into the ministry that I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: That God has put you where you are in your seats today, next to someone that is contemplating and thinking about jumping into serving.
SPEAKER_00: And God has designed you and put you right there to tap that person on the shoulder and say, Hey, why don't you join me?
SPEAKER_00: Come with me.
SPEAKER_00: Because, man, there's nothing better than a personal invitation, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing better than someone looking at you and saying, Hey, come be a part of my life.
SPEAKER_00: That, man, that's happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened to Courtney and myself.
SPEAKER_00: Where, man, we started coming to church.
SPEAKER_00: For those who do not know, we did not come to Central as pastors.
SPEAKER_00: And we were just graduated college and we're just trying to find a church.
SPEAKER_00: And then one of the first things that we did here was to join a group, and then we also got tapped on the shoulder to be middle school leaders, group leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And that was our first entrance into ministry because someone said, Hey, I want to tap you on the shoulder.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for that.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God that someone looked at us and said, Hey, come join, come join the game, come join the game with us.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what I want us to do, church, I want you to pay attention right now.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to dream with me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to dream with me about what this place will look like.
SPEAKER_00: What this place will look like if we all put our hands together and said, Yes, God, put me in the game.
SPEAKER_00: Put me into the into the performance.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, we are gonna answer the call.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what our kids' ministry will look like when it doesn't matter what campus they show up at.
SPEAKER_00: There is no way they're gonna be turned away because we have enough people serving them.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what our student ministry will look like if our students understand that we are gonna put God first in our life because we are with people who showed us how to put God first.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what this church will be as people come and they are in the world and they're experiencing the world that says, Hey, you can have real connection with an AI bot, you can have real connection with people who aren't even real people, and they come here and they experience real people, real souls to show them to a real God.
SPEAKER_00: What would our our cities look like if central Christian church said we're we're going after the mission of God?
SPEAKER_00: That we're our our our cities are coming to us for help, that people are coming to us for help, that fathers and mothers are taking care of when resources are tight.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what we're gonna do next week when we have over 3,000 kids that are ready to be adopted and sponsored, that are gonna be all of our worship centers.
SPEAKER_00: And as church says, No, we actually need more than 3,000 because we're gonna impact the world, we're gonna impact Kenya, we're gonna impact Moe.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be a church that says we are about the mission of Jesus Christ, and we're all putting our hands together and we're saying we all got our instruments.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go play, let's go do what God called us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Church, you are not saved to sit, you are made to serve.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to move Jesus' mission forward, it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And just come with us.
SPEAKER_00: Come allow God to work through you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to stand wherever you are.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to stand together.
SPEAKER_00: Stand.
SPEAKER_00: And we are gonna um we're gonna close our message today with a song.
SPEAKER_00: The song is called Made for More.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna sing this song as a declaration that I know that I'm made for more.
SPEAKER_00: And I know God, you can use me even if I don't know how to yet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go on the journey and figure that out.
SPEAKER_00: So let's sing this together.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, thank you so much for who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for man, each and every person in this room.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you so much for the way that you love us.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, move in, move in our spaces.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, move on our campuses, move online, move inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: That you want a life for us that is truly life.
SPEAKER_00: Allow this church to be the church that is the light for the world.
SPEAKER_00: That we may glorify your name in everything that we do.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.