Leverage: Gifts

This message continues our ‘Leverage: A Life Without Regret’ series, exploring how God has uniquely gifted each of us—and what it looks like to steward those gifts well. Drawing from 1 Peter 4, we unpack how to discover, develop, and deploy what God has placed in our hands, not for ourselves, but to serve others and glorify Jesus. The end is near—so don’t waste your life. Leverage it.

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Transcript

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Today I would love to read the word of the Lord. And we're gonna be reading out of 1 Peter 4, 7 through 11. You'll turn in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, we do have some at our next steps. Connect desk. Alright. So it says in verse 7, the end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind, so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to use to serve others, sorry, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength that God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Here's Blake.

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Good morning, everybody. How are we doing? Let's go. What a great day. Man, one of my favorite things about planting a new church and starting and starting new work is that is that all the people that one, you're dependent on, that like literally people, like ministry requires people. One, it's for people, but two, it requires people in order to operate. But but two, the beautiful thing is like all the people that you see doing all the things around our church, all of them are just volunteers who tomorrow are gonna wake up and gonna go work a normal job, just like every single one of you. But but God has gripped their heart and brought them into something that they want to be part of and they choose to serve in a way. Conquer fears, people are up here with their legs shaken because they because they're grabbing a mic and talking to a room full of people. That's not something they they do a lot of times. So they're conquering fears and and stirring up gifts they didn't know they had. So can we just like honor and thank people who serve in our church and just like it's amazing, amazing. Um, if we haven't met, my name is Blake Auders. My my wife is is serving in Kingdom City Kids today. But but a few months ago, about seven months ago, we launched this. Uh we launched this church with this amazing team of people, and and it's been such a gift to see what God has done. We celebrated our first Easter a couple weeks ago, and it was beautiful to see God move in such special ways there. And then we launched into a new series last week called Leverage, A Life Without Regret. So this is week number two. And and the heart behind this, behind this series is simple, is we all know that God has given us one life, that God has given us only one life. And and none of us want to get to the end of our lives filled with regret. Absolutely none of us. Nobody has that dream in their in their heart or in their life. No one has that vision of, like, man, I'd really love to get to get to the end of my life, sit down on a chair, and just like the painting we showed last week by Vincent Van Gogh, sit at Eternity's Gate and weep, filled with regret for the life that I lived. No, we want to get to the end of our lives filled with joy, filled with pride that we got to live the life that we lived and to have joy as a result of the way that we stewarded our lives. But many of us, many of us, even though we long for this, many of us don't actually know how to live life in this way. In a way that doesn't inevitably lead to regret. But we want to, we want to have the tools, we want to know how to live our lives, we want to know how to leverage them in a way that that gets us to become the person that we long to be and live the life that we long to live. Uh, if you're a Christian, then you then you long to live your life in a way that where you can confidently stand before Jesus in the end and hear, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. We all want to hear that if we're followers of Jesus. We want to stand before God with confidence, knowing that we are in him, that we love him, that we've leveraged our lives for him, and that we can see and experience his joy. But the world encourages us to use our lives in ways that don't lead us where we most deep where we most deeply long to go or help us become who we most deeply long to be. Uh Gary Brashears once said that our that our strongest desires are not necessarily our deepest desires. The things that we feel most according to our bodies and our flesh, the thing that the thing that we feel often most passionate about, if we if we drill down deeper, there's a longing, a core longing that's deep down beneath that. But there's so many of us we actually fail to drill down deep enough into our hearts to figure out what is that God-given longing that we actually have, and we end up settling for lives that we never wanted to live, that never actually fulfill the longings that we most deeply have. And no one wants that. We don't want to waste our lives. We don't want to misuse our lives. And so what's our other option? Well, we want to leverage our lives. What does it mean to leverage something? Well, leverage means to use something to maximum advantage. We want to use our lives to the maximum advantage. We want to, we want to max out our lives and live them to the fullest so that they're spent on the things that matter most and last the longest. Uh, over these next several weeks, we're going to be looking at the New Testament and in the life of Jesus Himself to learn how we can leverage what God has placed in our hands to maximum advantage so that we can live the lives that both Jesus and we can be proud of and take joy in. And we'll be looking at how to leverage our gifts, our time, our prayers, our love, as well as our money and resources, all things that we are called to steward well, yet so often go wasted or misused simply because we have no vision or direction on how to steward them. Throughout the New Testament, there's a phrase that gets used. I don't want you to be uninformed. Paul, Paul starts out so many letters this way. Hey, I don't want you to be uninformed. I don't want you to be uninformed. I want you to know what God has to say about this. Well, friends, we don't want you to be uninformed. Like that's what this, that's what this series is all about, is there's so many of us that have been given things by God that we poorly steward. And yet the invitation from God is to learn from him, learn how to do life his way so that we can leverage our lives well. We don't want you to be uninformed. We want to teach you on these things. You know, Jesus lived the most extraordinary life in human history. There are people who don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, don't believe that he raised from the dead, and yet when they read his biography, they're compelled by his life because he lived the most extraordinary life in human history. And Christians themselves can occasionally be guilty of making Jesus into something he never intended to be. And one of the mistakes that we can make is that we can actually focus too much on the fully God aspect of Jesus' identity that we forget about his fully human side. And when we do this, we actually take Jesus out of the context of everyday life and make him something ethereal and unattainable. We kind of distance him from the reality of everyday human existence. But Jesus actually lived in this everyday world and invites everyday men and women to follow him and aspire to live life as he lived it. In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus, looking at a group of people, says, says, I want you to come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light. We talked about this kind of several months ago when we when we talked about when we talked about Jesus being a good shepherd, and we talked about Jesus leading us, is when he talks about being yoked to him, he's literally talking about a yoke that goes over his head and goes over ours and keeps us attached. And what what we're what's required when you yoke yourself to something is that you move at their pace. You stay in alignment with them. And so what Jesus is saying is literally place a yoke on you that attaches you to me so that you can do life my way. Come to me, attach yourself to me, learn from me, do life my way. And what does this promise? You'll find rest for your souls. Have any of you that that opening there and Jesus says, Hey, are you weary? Are you burdened? How many of you sitting here right now are going, Yeah, I'm weary. I'm burdened. My soul is tired. Some of you, your body is tired. You literally feel like you're holding on by a thread because you're trying to figure out how to do life your own way, and it's not paying out the way that you hoped it would. Maybe the way that other people promised you that it would. And Jesus is promising you rest. How? Why? Because you're living life as it's meant to be lived. You know, the same God who designed and created all things, formed you into his image and had a vision and intention for how you're meant to live. That same God stepped into the human story and called you to follow him and learn from him. Life his way, rested soul, easy yoke, light burden. Life your way, the world's way, weary soul, difficult yoke, heavy burden. And Jesus wants to teach you, wants to teach me, wants to teach us how to live well. The question is, will we let him? Will we let Jesus teach us how to live? Today, we're going to be specifically talking about gifts. The the text that we just read is from a disciple by the name of Peter, who was one of Jesus' closest friends and closest followers throughout his life and ministry. And in this context, Jesus is actually old and kind of towards the end of his life, and he's writing, this letter would actually circulate around the churches throughout throughout Asia Minor and Turkey and Europe, as far as the gospel was going to uh to the Greeks, to the Gentiles, and even to the Jews, this letter was circulating from Peter, who was seen as kind of the leader of the church in that moment. And so he's writing to a group of persecuted Christians, because all over the world at that time, anyone who followed Jesus and was faithful to him endured all kinds of persecution and ridicule and suffering. And what Peter's trying to do in this letter is to keep everyone focused. And one of the things you notice that's a theme in these letters is that he tries to keep them focused on eternal things. And so the very first line that Peter says in this text is the end of all things is near. The end of all things is near. And he says, Therefore, be alert and of sober mind. Be alert and of sober mind. So what's he saying? He's saying, man, the end of all things is near. Be focused. Like focus your life. Be intentional. Know what you're longing for and what you're hungry for. Know what life is for and what it's about. Stay focused. Have you noticed that one of the biggest things that the world tries to do is distract you from your life? Have you noticed that one of the things that you most easily fall into is allowing the world to distract you from your life? One of the reasons that makes phones and makes screens so difficult and so addictive is because of what? It's just a distraction. It just distracts you from your life. It just drifts you away. It just pulls you into another world. And before you know it, you've been distracted out of a life. I remember one time I heard somebody preaching to specifically a group of young men, and and and video games was a big thing. And maybe you're in the room and you're a grown man who plays video games, and there's no judgment. I love you, Jesus loves you. But Ben Stewart, this is the guy, this is Ben Stewart said this, not me. So if you had somebody that you want to be mad at, it's Ben Stewart, okay? But Ben Stewart said this line, he said, Man, there's so many of us who are who are wasting so much of our lives trying to save imaginary worlds when the real one's burning down around us. And he was saying, Man, what God wants you to want God what God wants to do is actually call you into a story and use you to save the real world, not an imaginary one. And there's so many of us who pass up that opportunity because we're distracted. We just allow our lives to kind of to kind of like sand, kind of fall through, fall through the cracks. And before we know it, we're going, oh my gosh, what happened? And specifically in this text, he Peter gives a list of a few different things, a few different ways that he wants us to be alert and how and how he wants us to steward our lives. But I want to focus on one part of this passage, and it specifically has to do with gifts. And Peter says this each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. And he closes out. He says, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. And so what we're gonna do is we're literally gonna take this scripture apart and we're gonna talk about what Peter means when he says this. So the first thing that I want you to notice when you look at this text is this, that what Peter's assuming is that you have gifts. That you have gifts. That every single one of us, you, me, all of us, you have gifts. And one of the things I wanted to do is I was kind of thinking through this passage, is Peter's obviously making making an illustration specifically and making a point towards spiritual gifts. But but I love the phrase that's used here. He says, whatever gift, whatever gift that you've been given, whatever gift that you have. And so I was kind of thinking through this as I was preparing, and I and I kind of created a triad that was helpful for me. And I think that there's really three kinds of gifts that that all of us, that all of us who are Christians have to offer, and at least two that everyone has to offer, regardless of, regardless of their faith. And that's and that's natural, vocational, and spiritual. And so every everyone, everyone in the world has has both natural and vocational gifts to offer. And Christians in particular also have spiritual gifts to offer. What do I mean when I talk about natural gifting? You can actually go to the next one, Jeff. When we talk about natural gifting, these are the things that God has created in you. That every single one of us, that you have gifts, you have aspects of how God has made you and created you that can be offered to the world as a gift. God has created you in a particular kind of way. You're created in his image and in his likeness. And the way he made you is and was intentional. Are we marred and broken by sin? Yes. Has God's good creation been tainted? Yes. Do we have disordered love and disordered desires? Yes. Are we still image bearers of God, love, desired, and pursued by him? Yes. Like you've been made in the image of God, and there are aspects of his character that are stamped on you simply because you're made in his image. Obviously, we know people who do not know Jesus, do not follow Jesus, and yet have extraordinary giftings in their life, right? Because God has made them in his image. God is creative, and so people can be creative. God is a builder, so people can be builders. God is a mathematician, a perfect mathematician and scientist. So what other people can also be mathematicians and scientists. The reason that people can discover things about the universe is because that God has made the universe orderly so that it can be discoverable. And so there are aspects of the way that God has made people in general. Ephesians says that we are God's workmanship. We've been created by him. Now, when we are saved, cleansed, and filled by the Spirit, we're born again and created in Christ Jesus for God's purposes. But we were already his workmanship. And so even if you're not in Christ, if you're not a follower of Jesus, if you haven't received the Holy Spirit, you're still God's workmanship, made in his image, loved and desired by him. He knit you and formed you in your mother's womb, Psalm 139 says. He was involved in who you are, not just who you're becoming. And God has always loved you. And he longs to redeem you, to transform you into what you were always meant to be. And so even people far from God can bear his image and display good gifts. This is just the imprint of his nature. Just the imprint of God's nature stamped on them that they can actually display God's goodness in the world. This is why people, regardless of where they're at, what they believe, that they can display good aspects of God's nature. Everyone has gifts that were innately given to them by their creator for this for the purpose, for their purpose and calling. The second thing is vocational. Now these these vocational gifts are developed by you, are acquired or developed by you. And so all of us, we've, we've, we've, we've been, we've we've developed these vocational gifts that have been that have been acquired, developed, or stirred up over the course of your lifetime. You have you have taken the raw materials that God has given you and the opportunities He's placed in front of you to grow, to train and develop so that now you have gifts and skills at your disposal that you didn't have before. How many of you have ever taken a college class? Let's start there. I don't want to I don't want to start. I've taken a lot of college classes, okay? Taken so many of them. I'm not gonna ask who's like past college or has a degree or that stuff. That's not that's not safe. But but there are a lot of us who have taken classes, right? And and the reason that we were encouraged to go to college is why? So that you can learn and develop skills so that you can implement them and use them, so you can have a career, right? For the for the purpose of developing gifts and skills. Some people have served in the armed forces and and they went into the armed forces for the sake of purpose, of calling, of work, of a job. And then while they were there, there was all of these gifts and these abilities that were stirred up in them and focused for the sake of a mission and a calling. And all of us have experienced this, regardless of what your faith is. That we have developed skills throughout our lives, that God created us and then he placed us, and then we had opportunities put in front of us, and we have developed certain things in our lives so that now you're in a place and in a space where you know things and have things that you're now offer, that you're now able to offer to others, because it's a gift that you have that you've developed. Others of you have been have been coached or trained to develop or hone certain skills that you didn't have before. But people can acquire gifts through hard work and dedication over the course of their lives. People can develop gifts given to them at creation and make them more effective. There are aspects of your personality that God has just made in you. And then you take that personality and you put it in a life, and there's opportunities put in front of that person, and they can choose to take advantage of those opportunities and develop themselves. And when you do that, it it images in such a beautiful way that God the way that God has wired human beings to grow and develop and shift and change and mature. That that's what it means to be human. And those are things that are unique to us. When when an animal is born and placed in the animal kingdom, right, they are what they are. Like, are they gonna grow and get strong? Yes, but their purpose is never gonna shift or change. It's not gonna, it's not gonna grow or develop or widen or broaden. Their purpose is their purpose, and it is what it is. But you, you, you were created by God in such a beautifully complex way that you can learn things, discover things, develop things that no one else, no one else in all of creation can do. That is unique to the fact that God has made you in his image and given you the ability to learn and grow and develop. What an amazing, amazing reality. And then the third thing for for Christians is is is you have spiritual gifts. And these are gifts that have been imparted to you. Imparted to you. The scriptures say that the Holy Spirit imparts, imparts, he gives of himself, gives gifts to followers of Jesus when they receive the Holy Spirit. I heard Susie Silk once define spiritual gifts as spiritual abilities sovereignly given to the Christian community for the benefit of the church, that they may build up the body of Christ and work together to expand God's kingdom in the world. Timothy Keller, when talking about spiritual gifts, he said that every Christian receives a spiritual receives spiritual gifts or a spiritual gift. A spiritual gift is an ability that comes to you freely for the purpose of ministering to needs so as to build up Christian community in size and depth. Every believer has an almost unique gift matrix. We have different gifts and different constellations. We have different gifts for different ministry venues and objects. We have different levels of ability. On top of this, there are different seasons in our lives when the context we live in calls the gifts out in us in different ways. Put these variables together, and each person's ministry may be as unique as a thumbprint. By implication, there are some deeds in life that only you can do. There are some people to reach whom only you can reach. Spiritual gifts fit you for your mission in life, based on Ephesians 2.8. And so there are all of us in this room. You're creating the image of God and you have gifts that are intrinsic to the way God's made you. He has made you like no one else. And some of you, some of you in here, you just need to hear that. That there's a God who made you in his image, he loves you, he cares about you, and he's made you unique. And he loves you. Some of you, some of you, you've you've taken opportunities in your life and you developed, you've developed other gifts, knowledge that other people don't have, expertise that other people don't have, strengths that other people don't have, and you're able to now offer those to others or offer those to the world. And then some of us, if we put our faith and trust in Jesus, you've received the Holy Spirit. And there are spiritual gifts at your disposal. Susie Silk in a talk she gave on spiritual gifts, she said she identified seven E's that are unique to spiritual gifts. I'm just going to blaze through these really quick because I'm just trying to kind of do an overview when it comes to this part. But she says, when it comes to spiritual gifts, there are seven E's. One, everyone in Christ is given a spiritual gift. She says, Everyone in Christ is given a spiritual gift. So maybe you're here, you're a follower of Jesus, you've received the Holy Spirit, you put your faith and trust in Jesus. I want you to know you have spiritual gifts. Do you know what they are? Maybe not. Have you utilized them or walked in them? Maybe not. Do you have them? Absolutely. The Spirit of God lives within you and has gifts at your disposal. The second thing is that all these gifts are equal in value to God. I'm going to put up a list here in just a second so you can see kind of the different gifts that are that are mentioned in Scripture. And God views them equally. God views them equally. One of the things that Paul writes to in the church in Corinth is and he begins to rebuke is because the church begins to prop certain people up over others. And we still do this, right? We still do this. If someone holds a microphone and does something, whether it's singing or speaking or whatever else, that's a special that people people go, that's a special kind of gift. And yet what you notice is that even with young people as they connect into the church, have you noticed that we have so many people who are gifted to do about three things, and all of them are the are are the most special gifts that the world points out. And yet, very rarely do people go, oh, I have the spiritual gift of mercy and helps. I'm a servant and I love to be administrative. Like a lot of people don't necessarily go in because we we begin to to rank and tier gifts in the church. And yet God looks at them and he says, All of these are beautiful and necessary. All of them. And so he doesn't look at anyone as more special or more important or more important or more essential than the other one. They're equal in the view and in the eyes of God, whether they're equal in the view of people in the church or whether they're equal or in view in the world, they're equal to God. And so it comes back to who are we trying to please? Man or God? God says man, give me all equal to me. Third, we're to eagerly desire the gifts. Eagerly desire the gifts. But you're meant to, you're meant to desire, desire gifts and tools so that you can be effective for the kingdom. We're meant to desire these things and be eager to desire them. Literally meant to pray for them and ask for them. That there are gifts that that everyone has at least everyone who's in Christ has at least one, but we're meant to pray for and desire many more. That we can actually ask God and say, God, I want to be gifted in this way. Sometimes that's situationally, and sometimes that's because we actually long to be useful to the body in a consistent way. So we ask for them. All the gifts are empowered by the Holy Spirit, not your own flesh. This is why it's important to realize that just because you have things that are in that are innate to your personality doesn't make that a spiritual gift. Some of you are wired by God to be administrative and detail oriented. That does not mean that the administration is your spiritual gift, but the Spirit Himself is unique. Gifting you in a way that's different than the way God has intrinsically gifted you or the way that your vocation has gifted you. That you and the Holy Spirit have an intimate personal relationship where He's gifting you in a specific way for the context that He's placed you in. We're meant to excel and grow in our gifts. Our gifts should be energizing and life-giving to us. And then lastly, our gifts are not to be an excuse for disobedience, meaning that there are some people who are gifted in evangelism. All of us, despite whether or not we're introverted or gifted in evangelism, we're called to share our faith with other people. Some of us may be gifted in service or mercy or helps. You're still called to be a servant as a follower of Jesus. And so just because it's not a gift that you have doesn't mean you're able to, you're you're meant to use that as an excuse for disobedience to blatant commands. All right. Peter breaks them down into two categories in this text. He specifically says, speaking and serving. If you're called to speak, speak. If you're called to serve, serve. And within these two categories are about 20 different gifts listed in the scripture. And if you're a follower of Jesus, according to the scriptures, you have at least one of these gifts imparted to you by the Holy Spirit. A lot of people have multiple. And here's just an overview of the gifts. And you can find these in the text listed below. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4. Now, some if if you if you research gifts, some people somehow put a list of a hundred gifts on a piece of paper. But these are the ones specifically mentioned in the scriptures that I kind of want to just put in front of you. And it's just to put in front of you so that you can see what is available to you according to the scriptures. That when we talk about eagerly desiring the gifts, praying for the gifts, that man, maybe there's someone in your life or there's a way that you want to be used by God right now, and you go, man, God, I would really love that gift so that I can be used by you in that way. To eagerly desire them, to to put them out in front of you and to and to see them, to see what the scriptures actually say is available to you as a gift of the Spirit. Alright, so to review this part, you have natural gifts that have been created in you. You have vocational gifts that have been developed by you, and you have spiritual gifts that have been imparted to you if you're in Christ. So now what do we do with them? What do we do with these things? What do we do with the way God's created us? What do we do with the things that we developed and accrue kind of over our lives? And what do we do with the spiritual gifts that have been given to us? Well, the beauty of this of this series, you're meant to leverage them. You're meant to leverage them. That you have gifts that you are meant to leverage. Peter actually goes on in this passage and he says, use them. He says, you have gifts, use them. What is the definition of leverage? To use things to their maximum advantage, right? He says, use them. Use them as faithful stewards of God's grace. The definition of stewardship is the responsible planning, management, and care of resources. And so God is saying, man, gifts are one of these resources that are placed in your hand, and you're meant to steward them. You're meant to plan. You're meant to manage. You're meant to care for these, develop these, that these are resources that He's placed in your hands. Unfortunately, rather than using them, rather than leveraging them, we tend to do a couple of different things. First is we tend to waste them. We tend to waste them. But there are some people in this room love you, but you're wasting your gifts that God has given you. You're wasting them. How do we do this? Well, well, maybe you're ignorant of your gifts. Maybe you just don't know. Maybe no one has ever called something out in you. Man, some of us, some of us were privileged to grow up in homes where we where there were parents who said, Man, I see this in you and it's beautiful and it's amazing. And your parents were constantly encouraging you and calling stuff out of you. Others of us, we didn't have that. We didn't have that. You didn't have someone who was looking for gifts in your life and was and was pointing out things that were beautiful about you or that were awesome about you. You didn't have that. No one coached that up. No one saw that in you. Maybe for some of us, has anyone man, when you became an adult, someone, the first person, maybe it was a boss, maybe it was a maybe it was a teacher, maybe it was somebody, but you remember the first person that saw something in you and pointed it out. Do you remember that? I bet you could name that person. I bet you could name those people because they saw something in you and you're going, that's in me? That's in me? And so maybe you're ignorant of your gifts because no one has called them out in you. Or maybe you've never taken the time to figure out what they are. Maybe, maybe you're wasting your gifts because you just refuse to operate in them. You refuse to operate in them. Maybe because you don't like them. Like maybe you've been gifted by the Spirit and you wish you had something else, and you don't like the way that He's gifted you. And so you refuse to operate in them. Or maybe you don't see how they add any value. Maybe you're sitting in the seats and maybe you've been coming here since September. And you just go, man, you guys have a pretty good team. Looks like you kind of got things figured out. And I don't really know that I have a whole lot of value to add. So I'm just gonna keep leaning in. And maybe you just refuse to operate in them because you just don't see yourself or see your gifts as valuable. Or maybe, maybe you're you're living in disobedience in your life. You're not walking with Jesus, you're not in step with the Holy Spirit. So you're allowing your gifts to lay dormant rather than maximizing them and using them in the ways that He's called you to, created you to. Can I tell you something? The enemy wants nothing more than for you to waste your gifts. Nothing more than for you to waste your potential. I mean, there are some of you in this room, you have so much God-given potential. And the Holy Spirit is has now filled some of you, and there's now gifts at your disposal, and the Holy Spirit's want to stir something up in you and develop something, develop something in you, and you're just you're just not utilizing them. Or maybe I think some of you, maybe you were hurt. Maybe you were hurt by the church. Maybe you had gifts that were poorly stewarded by the church. Maybe you had people, maybe maybe you had something that you were growing in confidence in. You were given an opportunity, you failed, and now you're just you're crushed as a result of failure. And man, the Spirit of God wants to breathe new hope and new energy into your heart and into your life to stir back up those gifts so that he can utilize you and use you again. In Colossians 1:8, Christ is called the head of his body, and his body is called the church. And so when we look at the church, the beautiful diversity of the church, the diversity in this room, every person here has different stories, different abilities, different gifts, different things that are at their disposal. And the Lord looks at it and says, Man, this is my body. It's beautiful and it's diverse. He's like, Man, we got hands, we got feet, we got legs, we got shoulders, we got necks, we got ears, we got all kinds of people in here. He's in the diversity of my body. And and scripture says he's the head of the body. And now, what is the head's responsibility when it comes to your body? To tell you how to use it, right? Your head is constantly talking to your body to say, do this, do that, whether you even notice it or not. But the head is telling the body how to operate and what to do, how to respond to what's going on around it. And the sign of an unhealthy body is when it isn't doing what the head is telling it to do. That they're literally diagnosed diseases, right? Where someone's mind can still be sharp and they're trying to tell their body to do something, and their body won't respond to what their mind's trying to do. That's a sign of a disease, a sign of unhealthiness. And so if the church is the body of Christ and Christ is the head, that means he has vision, he has plans, he has purposes. Man, he's redeeming the world that he has created and placed and called you to partner with him as he does it. That man, that he wants to use you. And yet a dysfunctional body refuses to do what the head tells it to do. Members and parts of a body that refuse to do what the brain tells it to do, that's that's an unhealthy body. And so if Christ is trying to is trying to call you to do something, call you to a certain kind of life, to utilize you and maximize you and send you and work through you, and yet you refuse to cooperate, that's a sign of unhealthiness. And when the body does that, you have an unhealthy body. It doesn't matter how many people are attending it, what it looks like, what Instagram, what Instagram looks like, if the people are not activated and utilized in the body, that's an unhealthy body. And you have to remember that wasting your gift looks like refusing to operate in the way that Jesus longs to see you operate with him. We're not partnering with Jesus or doing what he's called us to do for the sake of his redemptive purposes. And you have to remember that what you have is not for you. It's been given to you by God for you to steward it. And the proper way for you to steward your gift is to discover it, develop it, use it, and operate in it. The Lord has a part for you to play. Some of you have been refusing to play it, and it's time for you to get in the game. The second way, the second thing that we often do is we misuse our gifts. There's actually a passage in the New Testament in Acts chapter, in Acts chapter 8, someone by the name of Simon the Magician. And Simon has these natural qualities as a magician. He starts to activate the dark magic and dark spirits that were available to him in the Greek culture. And and using these things, he begins to operate magician, and and and even darkness has power. And so he begins to leverage the darkness for the sake of power, and he begins to build a name for himself. Well, then he has an encounter, he has an encounter with the gospel, and Simon becomes a Christian. He's baptized and he begins to be used by God. But then Simon the magician sees certain apostles operating in supernatural gifts and he gets jealous. He gets envious of these gifts. And he begins to say, I want your gift, I want to use your gift. And the whole heart behind the way that he wants to use their gift and receive their gift is for his own selfish ambition. Is that Simon wants to leverage the power of God for his own agenda so that he can build up a name for himself. And this is the primary way that we misuse gifts. Is that God has given us things because he wants to use us. And yet so often we leverage the things that God has given us for the sake of our own agenda. In Acts chapter 1, the scriptures tell us that he will fill us with the Spirit. And the reason he fills us with the Spirit is that he may use us as his witnesses in the world. That we're meant to point back to him, to witness to Jesus, to witness to his kingdom. And yet, so many of us were filled with the Spirit, we're gifted by the Spirit, and then we use, we leverage that gift to make a name for ourselves pursuing our own agenda. And we never point back to Jesus or give him what's his. You know, the essence of sin throughout scripture is taking what belongs to God and using it for your own agenda. And so many of us we do that. The breath that God has given you. How do we use it? The body that God has given you, how do you use it? The mind that God has given you, how do you use it? The life that God has given you, how do you use it? The gifts that God has given you, how do you use it? The essence of sin is ultimately poor stewardship of what God has given us that rightfully belongs to him, that he's entrusted to us. So sometimes we misuse out of selfish ambition. I think other times we misuse out of fear. Just afraid. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells the story of the parable of the of the talents or talents. And and he entrusts these different people with different with different levels of talents. One he gives five, one he gives two or three, the other one he gives one. And he calls them. He says, Man, I'm entrusting this to you. What are you gonna do with it? The one who had five went and multiplied it and got him five more. The one who had two or three went and multiplied it, got him two or three more. And the one who had one went and buried it. And when the master comes back to see what has been done with what's been entrusted to them, he he receives the he receives the the double portion. That one servant got him. He says, Man, you've been faithful over a little. I'm gonna put you over much. Welcome into the joy of your master. Well done, good and faithful servant. So the next one who had two or three, who multiplied it, he said, Man, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a little, I'll put you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And then the third one who only had one, he said, Look, I was scared, so I went and buried it. I buried, I buried what you gave me. But look, here it is, here's what you gave me. And he says that he literally buries this gift out of fear. And his master rebukes him. And what's interesting is the master actually calls him wicked and slothful. Because he buried his gift out of fear. You know, some of us you don't exercise your gift out of fear of man, you're afraid of people. God has given you something, He's given you a dream, He's given you a vision, He's given you a burden, and you refuse to walk in it because you're afraid of what people might say. And sometimes we struggle to say it, but Jesus actually calls this wicked. He doesn't call this sad. He doesn't say, oh man, you're scared. I'm sorry. He says that's wicked. That you fear them, and as a result of fear, you bury your gift. That it's actually wicked for you to be burying your calling because of fear. Man. So what do we do? We leverage our gifts. We leverage them. We utilize what God has given us the natural things, the vocational things, and the spiritual things that God has given us, and we leverage them. I think there's three things that ultimately sum up this leverage. I know that today is more teaching than preaching, okay? I know it. It's a lot of content coming at us, but I want to give us an overview of what we're talking about. And so, uh, how do we leverage our gifts? I think there's three things. First and foremost, you gotta discover your gifts. You gotta discover them. You gotta figure out what they are. Man, what are you good at? What do people call out in you? One of the reasons we asked that question today, what do the people who are closest to you say that you're the best at? Man, what what do you have that that is unique to you? What are people constantly saying, man, you're really good at that? I don't know if you know this, but you're really good at that. What do people call out in you? Another question is, man, where do you get energy in life? Like it's it's amazing. It's amazing to me. People people make fun of me often. If I have three meetings, honestly, in a week, I'm like fried that I had three meetings with people during a week. Yeah, last Sunday we had like a 13-hour day, and I taught three different things, and I was energized at the end of the day. Why? Because there's some things God has gifted me for and wired me for, and there's other things he hasn't. And and and and some things energize me and other things, other things bog me down. Does it mean I don't care about them or find them important? No. It's just that when you're operating in your gift, you get energy, you get life from it when you do it. Even even despite fear, even despite stage fright, even despite intimidation, that when you operate in it, you get a life and an energy from it because you felt that you were used by God in a way that in a way that fit you, in a way that was made for you. Where do you see fruitfulness? Like, like, man, where when you when you partner with God and you do things and you exercise your gifts, where do you begin to see fruit start to happen? Like, how do you see your life impacting other people? Where do you see things begin to operate, get healthy, get better because of your role that you played? Man, look for fruitfulness in your life. And then lastly, man, how does God use you to bless other people? How do you how do you tend to see God use you in the lives of other people? I want to give, I want to give a quick word on on specifically something like spiritual gifts tests. Maybe some of us in this room, you've like you're here and you go, man, I want to I want to discover my gifts. And so, you know, you may Google how to discover your spiritual gifts, and and spiritual gift tests and assessments may pop up. And I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a hater of assessments or tests. I I take a lot of them and uh and I really enjoy them. But a word of caution when it comes to things like this. When the spirit talks about gifting you, the way that you're meant to discover your gifting is in the context of service, ministry, and community. Like God, like the best way for you to discover the way that God uses you is for you to actually get in the game and begin to do things with your life, begin to operate out of things. I think I might be good at that. Let me try. Oh, I wasn't that good at that. Let me try something else. Let me go. And you start to see the way that God's used you and developed you. Um you ask people, man, what do you see in me? And you hear people say, Man, I see this in you. But but but the thing about the the thing about some of these things is is like, for instance, for some of us, you may take an assessment that says, man, you're you're you're a gifted teacher and you've never taught anything. Or they say, Man, you're gifted in leadership and no one's ever followed you anywhere. Or man, you're getting and so it's taking some of it's taking the the answers to the questions that you have in your personality, and it's kind of giving you these gifts and these things. You know, the most beautiful thing to do is to get active in the ministry of God in the world. Get active. And you go, I don't know where to start. Just start. Just start. Start low and climb higher. Get involved in different things. And then as God begins to expose and reveal different things and use you in different ways, different ways, begin to specialize in certain areas that fit you and make sense to you. But there's a lot of us we're we're trying to we're trying, we're waiting and we're waiting and we're waiting, trying to find the right thing, the right thing, the right thing. And when we don't feel it, we just we just allow ourselves to sit on the sideline and not do anything. And man, I just want to encourage you, start ministering. Just start ministering to people. Start getting active. Start trying to reach and engage your neighbors, start doing stuff and see how God uses you. And you begin to see these gifts pop out and be exposed in your life. The same thing is develop them. Man, develop your giftings. Develop these, these, these aspects, these gifts that God's given you. Develop them, stir them up, grow in your knowledge, read books, learn things, get training, put them into practice, go to your neighbor, try to share the gospel. If it terrifies you, okay. Maybe that's maybe that's not your maybe you're not gifted in that way, but you're still called to participate with God in that way. I have a friend of mine named Dakota who I love dearly, but when we're but when we're together, I hate a little bit. And uh what I mean by that is Dakota's the most introverted, the most extroverted person I've ever been around in my life. And he has gotten me into so many conversations with people that honestly, I love people. They're made in the image of God, they're amazing, you're beautiful, they're beautiful, awesome. But I've been forced into conversations with so many people that I never wanted to meet. Never wanted to meet them. This happens to my this happens with me and my wife all the time. There are some people in this room that you're here because Katie went to a park and got in a conversation with you, and now you're at church and you're like, what happened? I just want to take my kid to the playground and now I'm out of church. And there's so many times that we'll be together, family fun day on Saturday morning, we're out in the community, and all of a sudden I'm like, we're talking to people, we inviting them to dinner at our house. What's happening? And it's because God has gifted Katie in a way that is unique to her and is very different than me. And I hate it. I'm just kidding. But it gets me out of my comfort zone. It does something it does something to me. It's like, ah, this. But what's beautiful in this, and this is why the body is the body, is that you're better together. You're better together. The most beautiful thing, like when I when I would go to when I would go to places with Dakota, Dakota's phenomenal at getting into conversations that I desperately don't want to get into. But then once he gets into them, he's able to start this conversation and spark up in things. But then people may start to shift the conversation towards things that requires maybe a little bit more of an apologetic bent. I love that stuff. And so maybe I'm able to kind of answer some questions or maybe ask some things in a way that that isn't natural to Dakota, but is really natural to me. Katie's phenomenal at getting in conversations with people. If I went up, if I went up to if I was at the park with my kid and you know, there was a sweet family over here, and I was like, oh my god, I love what you did with your hair. It'd be weird. It's weird. Katie's able to go to people and just compliment them, and they're like, oh my god, I love you. I love you, my best friend. And then all of a sudden, we have like all these people in our lives because God has wired and gifted my wife in a way that is unique to her, that is different than me. And that's all across this church. It's all across this room. That some of you you go, man, my gift doesn't feel that important or that essential. But when you lock arms with the person next to you, it becomes beautiful. And it becomes absolutely essential. And it becomes something where where that person desperately needs you and you desperately need them. And we desperately need each other. Which brings us to the third thing. You gotta deploy your gifts. Frederick Biegner says the place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. Where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. That there are pain points in the world today that God has gifted and burdened you to be an answer to.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

That wouldn't mean to like shame or anything.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Man, it's it's amazing. Like when we get into our communities and people are and people are in communities in certain areas of our city or certain neighborhoods, and people in those communities begin to notice certain problems or certain burdens within a neighborhood, and that community bands together to start to solve those problems and meet those needs. That's a beautiful way of the body of Christ mobilizing itself and meeting needs. Why? Because the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. Where's the world hunger hungry?

SPEAKER_02 41:31

I feel like this is receiving the thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

The need of your neighbor and the gifts at your disposal, the need of the church and the burden God has given you, the need of the mission of Jesus and the passion of your heart. Where do those things unite? And man, I want to make clear that serving the local church is a way, not the way, to deploy your gifts. I think a lot of times the church can be unintentionally maybe manipulative to where they they to where they they tell people that man, the way for you to be faithful with your gifts to Jesus is for you to serve on a team.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

I did bow. That's not what we're saying.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Serving on a team is a great way to start. It's a great way to discover, it's a great way to help develop. But man, there's there's so many ways that God can use you in the city and in the world that's unique to you. And that's the that that's that's the exact same thing as God using you on his mission and using you to stir up other things in the body of Christ. And so I want to say two things. One, we need you. The body of Christ, the church needs you. I'm not just talking about kingdom city shirt, I'm talking about the church needs you and needs your gifts. According to the New Testament, we're going to be fueled or limited. Uh, that God's mission is gonna be fueled or limited by the partnership of his people. He has placed you here in this city, in this moment, in this specific local body. Why? To serve in it and through it for the good of others in the expansion of God's kingdom. And and and I'm also gonna say God needs you. And I want you to pause for a second. Because yes, God is self-sustaining and autonomous, he's God, he doesn't need anything. However, God himself has always chosen to limit himself in a way to the partnership of his people. When you look at the garden, God limits himself in a way to the faithfulness and the obedience of his people. When you look at the at the kingdom of Israel, what's God consistently saying? Who he is to the nations and in the world is dependent upon the cooperation and the partnership of his people in the local church. God's reputation in the world is dependent upon what? The partnership and the obedience of his people. And so, in a very real way, God has made you and crafted you and called you. Why? Because he needs you. Because he's calling you to be his image in the world, to work with him and through him. God works through people. Billy Graham once said that some people have a warped idea of living a Christian life. Seeing talented, successful Christians, they attempt to imitate them. But when they discover that their own gifts are different or their contributions are more modest or even invisible, they collapse in discouragement and overlook genuine opportunities that are open to them. And they have forgotten that they're here to serve Christ, not themselves. That there are opportunities in front of them. The question is, will we step into them? The third thing that Peter says here is that these gifts are meant to serve others. Glorify Jesus. He says that they're meant to do this to serve others, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. Why do your gifts exist? Why has God given you breath? Why has he created you with certain traits and abilities? Why has he given you the opportunities to acquire and develop certain skills? Why has he saved you, filled you, and imparted spiritual gifts to you? To serve others, make much of Jesus and expand his kingdom in the world. To serve others, make much of Jesus and expand his kingdom in the world. So a question you might have is, man, how do I leverage my spiritual gifts or leverage my gifts for maximum contribution to the kingdom and to the glory of Christ Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

And what's amazing is in this passage, as well as passages as other passages talking about spiritual gifts, it's always rooted in one word. Love.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I don't know about yours. Love. We have like a lot.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Your gifts are rooted in love. They're given to you because God loves you and because God loves the world and because God loves people. And the motivation of utilizing your gift is love. Love. And Paul's rebuke to the church in Corinth. He begins to rebuke the way that they're competing with all of these gifts. And he's saying, you know what? You know what's greater than all of these gifts? Love. He's saying you guys have you guys have let gifts trump love, and you've you've you no longer love each other out of a sense of competition and comparison. He says, but the greatest thing is love. And so you can come back to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We're meant to love God, meant to love one another, and we're meant to love the world. We meant to love God, love one another. We're meant to love the world.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

And then you grow hard like is that the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

You know, when when you were saved, you became part of the family of God and part of the mission of Jesus. And the mission of Jesus is going out into the world to redeem the lost and broken aspects of it, to take light to darkness for the sake of rescuing and redeeming all of creation. You know, the word love, the definition biblically is seeking the good of the other at cost to yourself. Or maintaining a radical commitment to someone else's good despite great cost to yourself. This is the idea of love.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

I can't remember how degrading it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

It's not this, it's not this shallow idea of just doing stuff together, feeling certain things. It's maintaining commitment to the good of others, even at great cost to yourself. When's the last time your love cost you something? You know, a great image of this is uh we're currently raising a two almost three-year-old who I like most days. And and man, I'll tell you this like parenting is just one of those things, it's at great cost to yourself. Great cost to yourself, and you maintain a radical commitment to the good of that kid. I'm radically committed to the good of my son. Radically committed. I do hard things day in and day out because I'm radically committed to the good of Asa James. Radically committed, and it costs a lot. It costs my wife a lot. But that's love.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

That's love.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

And we do it, we do it in parenting because God has hardwired us and it flows out of our heart. But the calling for us is to do it, is to do it unto the Lord for one another and for the world.

unknown 47:10

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

When's the last time the mission of Jesus has cost you something? When's the last time loving one another? Who God calls brother and sister in the local church has cost you something.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Anyways, he um I heard that. When's the last time loving God, your worship has cost you something? So he's like yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

John, in one of his final writings he says that we love because he first loved because he first loved us. He didn't love us, he loved us. He showed us his love for us by sending his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. And he sent his son as an atoning sacrifice. He says that our love finds its origin in his love. And the reality is, is if you find your heart shallow, hardened, lacking love, it's probably rooted in the fact that you have forgotten the love of God for you in Christ Jesus. So that you that you that you've lost sight of the cross and who Jesus is and what he's done for you. You've lost sight of his atoning sacrifice. And we've gotten our eyes down into ourselves and into our emotions and into our lives and into our busyness and into all the responsibilities that come with life. Which is it's okay, that happens. I think the calling of God is to say, what is it like for us to lift our eyes to see Jesus so that he can stir up love and that love can then leverage our lives for the sake of the good of his mission and the good of one another. We're able to lay our lives down in service to God, in service to one another, and in service to the world because Jesus laid his life down in service to God in service to us and in service to the world. And we follow his example. And then the last thing as we close is is Peter says something really interesting. The first phrase of this text is the motivation for the rest of it. And it's this phrase, the end is near.

unknown 49:02

I know.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

The end is near. He says, the end is near, therefore. And then he lists these things out, and one of them being your gifts, leveraging your gifts. But it's all rooted in, he says, the end is near, therefore, he says, be alert, be of sober mind, be focused with your life. And one of the ways he says to steward that focus and to be sober sober minded is to leverage your gifts for the sake of others and for the sake of the glory of Jesus. You know, I have this I have this image that I kind of put together. There's that one's good. There's a chart. Yeah, that one. So this is statistically, this is the time of your life. Right now, according to modern statistics. 33% of it is gonna go to sleep. Not me, because I don't sleep that much. Some of y'all are like 45. 33% is gonna go to sleep. Third of your life? About 20% goes to work. 25% statistically, right now, goes to looking at a screen. And then there's this little sliver, 22%. That is available. And the reality of all of us is that we're gonna stand. Our lives are gonna end one day. I'm really sorry if you just found that out. But all of our lives are gonna end one day. And we are gonna stand before Jesus. And man, what the world wants to do is just kind of allow your life to drift. No one looks at that and goes, yeah, I would love to spend 25% of my life distracting myself on a screen.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

And yet we do it. We do it.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Because we just drift. We get distracted, we get pulled away. And man, you want to stand at the end of your life and you want to hear. Man, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with little, I'm gonna put you over much, enter into the joy of the master. And you wanna and you want to feel that and experience that. And when you specifically when Peter says the end is near, he's he's he's talking about this as well. There's the story of humanity four parts.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

We got it. We got it. Next one. Next one. Next one.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Alright, I'll talk about it in a second. But essentially, there's four parts in the Christian story. There's creation, there's fall, there's redemption, there's restoration.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Three of those things have already happened.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Creation, God created all things, the fall of humanity, we fell into sin. Everything. Christ died to usher in, hope of redemption. And then one day Christ is gonna come, he's gonna restore and renew all things. He's gonna make all things new. And we are in between. And the next thing to happen is the end. So this is what I think Peter's trying to get us to understand. He's like, look, where you are in the chapter of the story is either this. You're gonna stand before Jesus sooner than you think, sooner than you realize. Whether it's by the the vapor of this life coming to an end, or by Jesus coming back. And he's going, man, don't you want to stand before him knowing you leveraged every bit of it? That you really lived it. That you didn't waste it. You didn't waste your gifts. You didn't waste your time. You didn't waste your life. You took advantage of every single opportunity. Second Corinthians 5, it says that God in Christ is reconciling you to himself and he has given you the ministry of reconciliation. This is why you're alive. This is why you've been saved, filled, and gifted. You know, today, in just a few minutes, we're actually going to celebrate a baptism after our gathering in the courtyard. Why? Because Jesus has saved someone. He's put his spirit in her, he is a calling on her life, and he's gifted her for it. And for the one who isn't a follower of Jesus yet, this is why he's pursuing you. It's to reconcile you to himself and bring you in to the story he's telling and what he's doing in the world. He wants to use you to reconcile others to him and advance his redemptive and restorative kingdom throughout the world. And this is what you and I are being invited into today to leverage your life for the sake of Jesus, others in the world. So that you don't waste it. You don't misuse it and you don't mismanage it. But that you leverage it. You use it to maximum advantage for the glory of God, the building up of his church, and the expansion of his kingdom. Let's pray. As we move into a time of response, our prayer team is going to come forward. We do this every single week. We just try to create space. As God is maybe doing some things in your own heart, doing things among us, that we respond to him. And I think there's some of us, there's some of us in this room that as you're here in this, the first thing, honestly, the first step that you have is you need to ask God for the gift of his spirit. That some of you are not in a relationship with Jesus. You have not you've not been filled with the Holy Spirit because you're not in Christ. And some of you need to respond to Jesus. Some of you have been here week after week after week. We've had conversation that you you've not yet responded to Jesus. And it's just time for you to respond to Jesus, to surrender your life to Him. To be forgiven, to be freed, to be filled with the Spirit. And you can pray and just ask for God to save you, to fill you with the Spirit, to rescue you, to redeem you, and to begin to involve you in what He's doing in the world. I think others of us in the room, you're here and you need to repent for wasting or misusing your gift. Some of you here and you've just you've sat on the sideline or you've leveraged what God's given you for the sake of your own selfish ambition. And you and today's just kind of been an opportunity to kind of orient you. And you just need to go, man, I've wasted so much. And I just want to repent. I just want to say, God, I don't want to waste it anymore. I want to be surrendered to you and I want to use my gifts for the reason you've given them to me. And so you just need to come and maybe confess to the Lord you've wasted or misused, and you want to receive prayer. You can do that in your seat and come forward, and people would love to just pray over you. Maybe you've just settled. And you've not eagerly desired more from God. And God actually invites you to say, ask for more. Ask for more. And you go, I'm good, kind of playing this role over here, and God's going, yeah, but you've stopped desiring more. And maybe you're here and you need to pray in the name of God, you need to stop more. And if you want to entrust more to your people for the sake of using them more, God, I want my life to be Holy Spirit to use me for the sake of your glory, for the good of the people that you place around me. Just say, God, would you give this person more? Because they're hard to say. So, Jesus, we invite you to just continue to move in this place. Holy Spirit, we invite you to ask you to continue to stir up something in your people. God, that there are people here who have gifts that have been laid dormant for a little bit too long that need to be activated. You need to remind them who you are and what you think of them, that they have a calling on their life. Not just because you've created them, because you've saved them, you've rescued them, you've filled them with your spirit that you want to activate them. To respond. There are other people here, God, who they've not yet surrendered their life to you in this time. It's just time. So they can be filled with your spirit and they can get asked for reasons you've created them. There's just more on the table for them. They settle for less than your best. There's more than you want to do. And God, I just pray that they would ask you for more. Jesus, may we not settle for less. They would respond to all that you've done with all that we have. Come and move in this place in Jesus' name. Amen.