Basics | Week 9 | Sermon

supernaturally spirit empowered gift that's not for you. It's for someone else. It's for the other people in this room. And that's where we start really living out like Jesus.

But before I dive in as I go to address, there's three types there's three types of people in this room right now. Those who can count and those who can't.

I just wanted to get the dad joke out of the way. No. There's three types of people. One, there's some of you that that don't

you don't you don't even know Jesus. You haven't surrendered your life to him. You might have been coming to church and maybe you've been approaching church like this whole series if you've been here. It's the checklist. I have to do this and then God love me. And you think it's all about you proving yourself to God. Or maybe you're new this whole church thing or you've just always had this issue God is

I just wanna tell you right now as we talk about gifts, if you don't know Christ, you don't have one yet.

But I would love for you to listen to what the gospel means in this story and about the love. That's what you I would love for you to listen to. The second group is those of you that know what I'm talking about. You understand the idea that as Christians we serve and we've been given gifts, but you just choose not to do it.

You all, I need to say this, please please please don't what you do what you normally do, which is half checkout. And and and and and what you do is you kinda check out and hide behind whatever the reason is why you think you don't either won't do it or can't do it.

Because what I hope you would just please listen is listen to God's word and listen to the Holy Spirit. Because this is not a guilt trip to try to get people to sign up to serve. This is not something from you, it's something for you. If we really want to have the peace, the contentment,

to really be a mature, fully engaged follower of Christ, we need this. The church needs this. But the reality is the thing you're struggling with is a lot of you in this room that don't serve that are Christians, you are either listening to a lie that says you can't,

listening to a lie that says you're not important, you're not needed, or you're listening to a distorted truth that says

I won't do this because maybe a hurt, a habit, a hang up, something in your past, some church hurt, some issue, or some real real issue in your life that has happened to you or is causing you great pain or frustration or anger or something is keeping you from being able to do this.

And what God wants from what I'm saying is, if nothing else, I'm not saying if that's you, go sign up right away. What I am saying is listen to the Holy Spirit and deal with the lie, the deception, the distraction, or the hurt, or the habit, or the hang up that is holding you back. Because God wants you to be healthy.

God wants you to be free. And when you're not free and you're enslaved and chained to something else, hearing I should give my money, hearing I should give my time, hearing I should find my gift and use it for others sounds like enslavement,

and it sounds like just one more thing being piled on. And maybe God wants this to pile on because he says, this isn't the problem. It's everything else under that on the pile that's the problem. So please just listen.

The last group before we get into this is those of you that are already doing this. I've learned every time I talk about this, a lot of you that serve faithfully, especially if you have the gift of service for some reason,

you tend to feel like what I'm saying right now is, you need to serve more. You're not doing enough. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not talking to you in this message. If anything, what I'm saying you in this message is, thank you. You should be encouraged. And God sees

that even if you feel like you you're in a a place no one sees you, no one cares, you know what this, and you're just doing your ministry, it makes a difference. It really does.

Because what we're gonna see in this message in next few minutes is is the reason why God has given us the power and the ability to have over 4,000 people come to Christ just this year in this church. Yeah.

And it's it's it's because of all of us.

And because all of us letting the Holy Spirit work through us is what it is. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at this idea of what does it mean? Well, how do we look at this this concept of where where God gives us gifts for gift giving? And we're gonna be in first Corinthians chapter 12,

and what's happening in this church in Corinth, this interesting church, they were kind of this baby church, but they were exploding. It was a church that was looked very spiritually impressive. It looked good on the outside. It's they had lots of gifted people. It had passionate gatherings. It had exciting

experiences going on. A lot of people it would be that church that was like, dude, you gotta go there, man. The Lord is doing the spirit's moving there. That's what it would was like. It was booming. It was growing. It had all that going on. But the problem is under the surface,

they were competing, they were comparing, and they were dividing. They thought they were spiritually mature, but they weren't. They thought just having gifts meant they were spiritually mature.

They had a struggle with some people felt they're too important. They felt their gifts were more important. They didn't need any others. Some people didn't serve and didn't use their gifts because they thought I'm too important to be bothered with serving.

Others were the other extreme. They felt like they weren't important at all. And so they felt like they're being ignored, or they wouldn't serve because they felt like, well, I'm not that important.

And so they had this struggle. And then when they were serving, they were having fights. And and the church was actually had a lot of people come in. The spirit was moving, but it wasn't healthy because people weren't using their gifts, and especially out of love, the ones that were.

And that's why chapter 12 and chapter 13 go together. Chapter 12, the answer is he gives us illustration we're gonna look at is you have to understand that a church isn't a place you go, it's a body you belong to. And then he goes into 13 and says, and that won't even work if you don't do it through love.

So chapter 13 verses one through seven, which I bet many of you had read at your wedding, or you've heard it read at a wedding, you think of it as that wedding poem. Love is patient, love is kind. You know, how many how many know that? How many said, oh, we use that at our wedding.

I hate to tell you, has nothing to do with marriage. Great. I don't have to love like that. No. You do because you married someone and they're part of your life. It's broader than just marriage. Here we have this goal. Like, oh, I hope my marriage can be like that. That's the love

we are supposed to have for one another in a church.

That's what we're so yeah. Amen. That's what we're supposed to be.

And and and that's how powerful this is. So with that in mind, let me just read. I wanna read verse seven because it says here kind of verse seven in chapter 12 is like the heart of what he's saying, and then verse 12 through 27 lands the why. Why why do we need to do this? So verse seven says this, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. Now it's interesting. That word help in the Greek means

to benefit, to strengthen, to carry forward together. So we're supposed to do this together, and then he goes, but why? Why do you give each of us a gift that we need to help each other with? Well, verse 12. He uses this body illustration. He says, the human body has many parts,

but the many parts make up the whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some are Jews, some are Gentiles, unfortunately, some are even Seahawks fans. I'm just being feisty because my team finally won a game. Some are slaves and some are free,

but we'll all have been baptized into one body by one spirit and we all share the same spirit. Yes. The body has many different parts,

not just one part. If the foot says I'm not a part of the body because I'm not a hand, that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says I'm not a part of the body because I'm not an eye, would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. That just where he wants it is the Greek word for intentional. That's why we say go live intentionally.

He says, how strange a body would be if it had only one part. Yes, there are many parts, but the only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, I don't need you. The head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.

And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen.

While the more honorable parts do not require the special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members so that all the members care for each other.

If one part suffers, all parts suffer with it, And if one parts is honored, all parts are are glad. All of you together are Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it. So there you go. So he says we need to help one another. And why? Because we're a body, we're not an organization.

We we don't just go to a building, we're a part we belong to a body. And when here, I think there's three things if you break this out. What what he said in here, a why. What is why does that why do we need to help one another? Why is it this way? It's because it's the way God built us.

He's saying, here's how I built you. And we fight the world, we fight sin, we fight we always wanna do kind of the opposite of what we're built for. So it sounds counterintuitive in many ways, because our sinful nature is counterintuitive to the spirit.

So what are these three things? The first thing it says, we are built to belong. That's when he says we're we're meant to help each other. We are built to belong together.

That means we need to use our gifts. We need to connect and help each other be connected. Don't just be sitting next to each other, but but be involved. And I find it funny that with that counterintuitive thing, there's something weird about the counterintuitiveness of our world and even our own sinful part of our lives,

is that the flesh, it's called it, the flesh. Why do we as people like watching people do stuff more than we do it? Have you noticed that? Sports ball. You know, a lot more people watch sports than play sports. A lot more people do that. A lot more people will watch a cooking show while eating Uber Eats.

A lot more people will scroll on show social media eating chips and salsa as they look at their favorite fitness influencers and go, that's a good idea. Ain't gonna do it. What's another good idea I'm gonna ignore? We we we just don't we do that? We tend to like watching people.

I mean, that is the only thing I like about being in an airport. It's just to sit and try to come up with a backstory of the crazy people that walk by me. And and we just watch. That's that sinful nature. Because you know where the worst place that people like to just watch? Church. Many of us think that our spiritual growth

is just watching. And what happens is and there is parts we need to watch. There's parts we need to listen to. What we do here, you're doing that right now. That's part of it, but that's not all of it. And I think that's where a lot of us get stuck.

And then and the problem is when we only sit and soak, sometimes we gotta sit and soak. But if you just only sit and soak, sit and soak. And you think spiritual growth, spiritual maturity,

being a Christian is all about just sitting and soaking, and wanting to soak in more and more and more. You sit, you soak, you sit, you soak. You don't do anything with that. If you only sit and soak, eventually it'll sour.

And you'll either get bored. You'd like, alright. I was in that for a while. But now in, you start getting a little flaky. You don't come as often.

Or you'll start eating soured on what's happening at the church. You'll start to say, you know what? Bill's already talked about giving before. He's already talked about serving. He's like, I wanna say, we need the word. I'm not you'll you'll say stuff like this. I don't feel like I'm being fed anymore.

If you only come to a weekend service at a church, that's what you think is being involved in a church, and you say you're not being fed, congratulations.

You grew to a point that you've soaked in enough now. You need to do what's next, not just sit here. But if you think that this is the end all and be all, you're gonna say I'm not feeding you. Here's the problem. You think you're mature when you say I'm not feeding you, but there is only one being on this planet that cries feed me.

And that's a baby. If you really are mature, you know to know public worship, yes, I feed. Yes, we talk at least. Yes, it's inspirational. Yes, there's something special about what the Holy Spirit does.

But if you're like, this is all I do and I'm not being fed, then I know you're probably not doing the private practices consistently. Because you we are supposed to grow to the point that the more personal, powerful, intense study you're gonna get is when you open your word on your own.

But if we think sit and soak mentality wants a sit and soak church, every program needs to be more sit and soak.

Alright. You sat and soaked in here. Hey, where's the one where we don't have the music and none of that? I can sit and soak, and you can teach me more Greek words. I'm not saying those are all bad. I'm just saying if that's your mentality of growth,

you're always gonna sit and soak and you're gonna sour at one moment. You're gonna sour. And and the truth is it's the problem is it's because you didn't grow in community and you didn't go live intentionally.

And so we get stuck because we didn't understand that we're built to belong to one another, not just be in the same room with one another. And so we struggle with that. We all do. That's just nature. Because faith that is only observational can't be transformational. Why? We're built to belong,

but we're also built to need each other. This is why God built us this way. It fights our natural tendency to to either feel insecure or prideful. Insecurity says, they don't need me. Pride says, I don't need you. And we wanna think that we can be Rambo Christians.

And and I don't know if you watched Rambo, but it doesn't end well. It's it's it's it's when he says this, the eye can never say to the hand, don't need you. That word there for need is this this word in Greek that that means something very specific.

See we say we need a lot of things. Right? To different We could say lots of things we need. Like I need oxygen to live. True. I do. But I can also say the Cardinals need a new quarterback. That could be true. But do I really need that for life? No.

I just need that so the Seahawks fans will stop having more of you guys in jerseys than our people with Cardinals jerseys on the weekend. But I don't need that for my life. I it would be nice. A lot of things we say we need are just things that would be nice. They'd make life nicer.

But real need is you can't survive. And the word here for need that we we need each other means this, necessary for survival, essential to function. A church cannot function healthy and exist if all of the people that know Christ that says their church are not living intentionally,

and they don't understand that they're given gifts to be gift givers.

We need each other. And and and here's how I explain it, especially for you guys at the maturity level in this room right now. Obviously, we're gonna use mister potato head. Actually, is so I can understand it.

This is what the church is supposed to be. You know, mister potato head is funny. Could just pop all the things off. And the weird thing when you're playing was like, oh, let's give him this. So let's do this. But this is really what he's supposed to be. Like, this is him put together properly. This is a healthy mister potato head. Right? So let's say mister potato heads out for a walk. And let's say

he comes across a random foot, an ear over here, and then even a mustache just sitting on the ground. If he comes over and he sees that, does he see a healthy body? No. You know what he sees? Magnum p I just got whacked. Everybody old understands it, and I love it that young people don't have a clue.

No. That's not that's not a living body. That's a crime scene. And and and and so a lot of us, this is what you do. If we don't understand this last point of attention, a lot of us sitting in here is, you're a foot that's sitting in your chair. Over here, we got an ear.

And, this guy actually has a mustache. There you go. And we're all sitting next to each other, random body parts, and we're thinking this is a healthy church. It's not. And that's when we get stuck in in in in in here's the lie. The twist that people believe is, well,

you know, churches are kinda dumb or you've been church hurt or something. And you're like, so I'm religious. I'm spiritual. I just don't buy into organized religion. You want disorganized religion?

You can't believe in disorganized religion because a foot by itself cannot live. And if you think you can, you're prideful. Or some of you say, well, I'm just an ear. It doesn't matter. It does. It does.

Because otherwise, what if we just it says, well, what if everybody wanted to be this? Everybody wanted to be that? There's a couple different views that people have of a church other than a crime scene. Some think that this is what the church should look like. Just the potato head.

This is the idea that it's the pastor or at a big church, the staff. They do it all, and we just come. And it's we come and watch. We observe, and we evaluate. And you rank this like, hey, that was a good show today.

And what why? Why was it a good show? You could say that was a great church service. If what? Did the Holy Spirit challenge you? Did you feel convicted? Did you love praising God together? Did you feel moved to actually trust Jesus more in your life? That's good. If you just heard a song that made you, oh, I really love that song, you know. Or or or he used mister potato head and I laughed. That's okay.

But it's it's not the end all. If it doesn't take you somewhere, then what what is it? But if we sit there and think it's it's it's it's my job or the staff's job to do the ministry, that's not right. Matter of fact, the Bible says very clearly what my job is because I'm I'm a mouth and a head. I'm a leader and and my job,

it says to is to prepare the saints for the work of the ministry. Our staff doesn't do the ministry. We have an actual strategy statement that comes you know, it's from that passage of scripture. Anybody we pay is because it takes that much time to organize the volunteers. Because what they do is they develop teams of leaders

that create purposeful environments. So there's teams that makes the know environment happen. There's teams that help with the grow environment. And then there's the go environments. And and and that's really what it is.

A staff person does that to organize. I mean, you guys already tell you. Our staff does less than 1% of the man hours it takes to do our ministry in this church. Less than 1%. You know why? Because they're lazy.

No. They're working their tails off. And when people go, well why didn't this happen? Why did that happen? Why did it fall back? Why don't we have this ministry? Why don't we do that? Or what's going on? Or if you judge the pace or whatever we do, you're really judging yourselves.

See, if you have, if if this is a potato head church only, and you expect me and the staff to do that, you know what happens when you have this church? All that happens is the potato head, the potato gets baked. That's it. I turn into a baked potato. It's it's no good. It's no good.

But what are some of the other ways we'd I already talked about this one. What if we were all eyes? Creepy. It's like some spider creature monster. Well, we can really watch things. Can't do anything else. All we do is watch.

Or what if we were just all ears? You know that phrase, I'm all ears. I mean, I'm listening to you. You know what happens when you're all ears? That's when you get if you're all ears, that's when you have a church with lots of people or maybe you're an all ears person is like, you're sitting here going, hey,

I'm tracking with what he's saying. He is so right. That's so true. I'm not serving and I'm still not going to, but wow. That's good stuff. That's all ears.

The Bible says, you can listen all you want, but if you don't do, Jesus said, if you love me, you'll do what I said. Now here's where people get messed up. You think that's a threat, like God's gonna gonna gonna threaten us in in that. He didn't say, if you do what I say, I'll love you.

He already loved us. What he's saying is, in John, it says, we can love him and love others

because he first loved us. The only way we can love God and have that first Corinthians love for for for God back and for other people, that's God's love. That that's a Jesus love. That's a love we cannot do unless we have it. So he says, because I've given you my love, you now have the power to love back. And he says, so if you're gonna love me back, if you say, hey, I love you, Neil. You know right. I love you too, Jesus. I have now given you the power. I've given you love. So if you say you love me, then do what I say.

It's not about I won't love you. It's saying you don't really love Jesus if you ignore what he says. That's all it's saying. And that's what we can be with our eyes or if we're just all ears.

But what's the other extreme? What if we say, I just do do do do do, but I don't actually observe. I don't listen. I don't have it. What if we're just this? This is the church that just doing all kinds of events and activities, but they're not really sure what they're about.

This is a church that's like, well, we do everything. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. But where are we going with it? What are we doing? If you come from a church like this, you probably say, what's a big church? Why don't we have this ministry and that ministry? You know why? Because we have ministries that help us know, grow, and go. And if what we're currently doing isn't working as well, we'll change it.

But if you come from a church, you're like, I want this ministry too. I want that. I go, that's doing the same thing as this. I don't wanna do it that way. I wanna do it this way. All arms. What does the world think when you come running at them like this? It's confusing.

You know what the problem with this one is? You can make a lot of tacos, but you can't eat them. That's the problem with that one. One more. In a lot of these, especially the sit and soak ones, the ears and the eyes, if you sit too long with that, you end up with a church full of mouths.

Everybody has a need. Nobody can fulfill it. Everyone's hollering at the church. Why is my need not being met? Why are people not doing this? What's going on? Because it's a bunch of people that aren't doing anything but popping off because nobody is doing anything. This is what Paul was saying.

There's a lot of people popping off and nobody's showing up. We don't wanna be that because we're not built for this. We're not built for this. We're not built for this. We're not built for this. We're not built for this. You don't want it to be this because I'm horrible at most everything. So

look at this. I have to use Mr. Potato Head to explain things to myself. But this is what we need to be. Yeah. We're goofy. We're Christians. Yeah. The world's gonna think, yeah. You got it together, but you're still a little bit weird. But this guy can love.

He could take your hand. He can help. He can see where you're at. He can speak truth into you. He can walk where he needs to go to point people to Jesus. We need to be Mr. Potato Church.

The right one, not the messed up version, not the scary Toy Story version. You see, the reason God gives us gifts for gift giving is because we're built to belong. We need each other. And just because your gift isn't seen doesn't mean it is insignificant. There's no spare parts in the body of Christ.

We have so many ministries that that could use help. I mean, our children's ministry can use help and you don't even have to be near kids. There's all kinds of things that we're we're trying to accomplish. And you know what? Every one of them is significant. I'll start children's ministry, man.

The 4,000 people you know how many thousands of people we've had come to Christ because of our children's ministry? If you work in children's ministry, well done. You're not just babysitting.

You've actually helped kids grow in Christ. You've helped them come. I've watched it with my own grandkids. I can't believe how much they know and love the Lord from going there. They can't wait to get there.

And so many other kids, like like, what we've had story after story of a kid will come love it so much he invites his friend from school, then he wants to go, well guess, your kid. Guess who has to bring them? The parents. And then they come, and then they've come to Christ. Some of you in here are probably that, your kid dragged you to church.

And and and now here you are, stuck listening to me. And you're like, wow, you're still getting children's ministry. I'm using Mr. Potato Head. I bet the kids don't even use stuff that fun.

But we have so our facilities team. That's a team you hardly ever see. People come here and go, well, this place is beautiful.

We'll give people churches tours, and they're like, how do you it looks so nice. How do you keep it like this? I go, because our people are so perfect. They clean up after themselves. They're awesome. No. Y'all are slobs, and it's like a Harkins movie theater in here after you leave.

You leave everything. It's not your wallets. Leave that. That's at least useful.

No. There's a team that comes in. They make a look at it. You know what? That makes a difference. If you're on the facilities team, it makes a difference.

Just ask any mom that brings a baby and they go into this area. If there's mold on the wall or something gross, they're like, you won't even clean. I'm not gonna trust you with my little potato head baby.

Our youth ministry reaches. We have a ministry to the school across the street. Men's, women's, small groups, admin, safety and security. They do more than just stand guard. They do a ministry.

You know our our safety and security team has walked out because it looked like there's a problem out there. They ended up stepping into the middle of fights with some of y'all because y'all like to fight right when you get out of your car at the church. And and they've actually done kind of counseling and got these people in to help.

They talked one person once, more than once, out of unlocking a car door because they were about to kill themselves in the car.

Every body part matters.

Because if we don't, and we're missing parts, or we have parts that are sitting here doing nothing, we look like Igor from Frankenstein. Right. You know, you get this foot that's not working. You got this lump that's doing nothing.

And you're like, and how does that look to the world? Or even if you come to this church, and you're like, what's wrong with this church? I gotta go find another church.

We need to be healthy. That's what's happened. This church had a lot of growth, and growth causes more need. The reason I'm talking about this is and challenging us is we've had a lot of people that are just coming to Christ not too long ago, so we need

need to step up. We don't want to be that. We don't want be all messed up.

Because one little part, it says you can one part bad can hurt everybody, goes well, it could help everybody. When I was in high school I blew out my ankle. Had to have it in a cast. Ankle got healed, it was unstable. And ever since then, my left foot, when I stand on it, it just leans, caves in more,

which causes more internal stress on this part of the knee. So three years later, as a senior in high school, because I kept playing sports, kept doing stuff, they said a big part of what I did was all that internal stress, it finally I blew my knee out.

And now my knee had to get up, but now it only bends a little past 90 degrees. That affected my flexibility and my mechanics and how I played sports, but I kept going. And with all that effect, three years later, I blew out two discs in my back.

I finally went to see a chiropractor and a doctor about all that, and he says, yeah, the ankle led to the knee, the knees led to the back. And he goes, if you keep going, he'd pop my your shoulder's acting weird, that's gonna be next. And if you'd kept playing baseball, you'd blow an elbow out.

I was like, whatever. So I just kept going. And guess what happened a few years later? Shoulders were killing me. And then a few years after that, I I went in and and and I was I got the kink of all kinks in my neck.

And I went in and found out I have a pinched nerve in my neck that was related to what was happening to my shoulders, was relate came because of my back, which happened because of my knee, which all started with my ankle.

Basically, I'm the Corinthian church. I look impressive on the outside, but structurally I got issues. It makes me sad everyone laughs when I say I look impressive on the outside. Sad. I'll just cry about it later by myself. You see, we're built to belong. We do need each other.

And what that means is we're built to give ourselves away ultimately. We're ultimately built to give ourselves away. That's what he's saying there. He's like, we need to all be willing to give ourselves away with this love. This is how we give ourselves away. If we don't do it with this, then yeah. We're just

I just got recruited. I got voluntold. I just jumped in. It's give the gift you've been given away. And what we're really giving away when we're empowered by Jesus with us when we find our spiritual gift and find our place, We're pointing people to Jesus because we're giving Jesus away, and that's where it's at.

But we have to understand this first and foremost, we can only give ourselves away if we understand real love. It says in chapter 13, I'm gonna read them the wedding poem now. Some of you are gonna reminisce.

If I could speak all the languages of the earth and of the angels but I don't didn't love others I would only be a noisy gong or a clinging symbol.

If I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrifice my body, I could boast about it. But if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable and it keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

That is what we need.

Because that love is what helps us, makes us belong. It makes us realize we need each other. And that is how we give ourselves away.

Is we're doing it for love. And I'm just telling you, when you figure out that word for love there is this Greek word agape. It doesn't mean like a lot. It's not even a feeling. I just don't love it. Agape means self giving other first love that acts. That's what it means.

That's the love we need and agape is the love that God has. I can only have that love if I've embraced the love of God. And then He will promise that He will work it through you. You don't just rally yourself up for it, you surrender to it. You don't force it, you just let it flow.

I learned this. I've told you my story how I came to be a Christian. Well, after that, by keeping on Christ, I was knowing,

you know, doing that stuff. I grew. I got into community with others, and then I just started going. I I just said, okay. If this is right, I'm gonna start serving, and I just showed up at my youth group. I just started setting up chairs and doing whatever. I go, whatever you need, I'll do. That's where I started. I said, don't know

who I'm supposed to. I just know that I need to be a part of this. So what's the greatest need right now? And that's where I jumped in. And as I was jumping in and doing that,

I I ended up the youth pastor at the time. He was looking at me. His name is Lynn Winters. You might he's from a church down the street. I I knew this knucklehead for forty one years now. And this it's his fault that we're standing here, so you can either hate him or love him. But he

he we're he invited me and goes, hey, you've been doing this? He goes, come to a meeting. We're gonna plan this outreach event to the to the high school I went to for my classmates to point them to Jesus. So I went, I was part of the meeting. We planned this thing. Was really cool. And then he said at the end, goes, you know what? I think what we need to do for the gospel presentation is we need a student to share their story.

And I go, that's crazy. Who's gonna do that? And he goes, you are. And he pointed at me. I'm like, you're crazy. You guys know my story. I've told you this a million times.

I my mom wanted me to take a a speech class, which I had taken. I listened to her, but I didn't trust her. She says, why would I do that? She goes, because everybody needs to know how to talk in front of people. And I go, I don't need to know how to talk in front of people because as God is my witness, that is one thing I will never do my entire life. I didn't always have the mouth I have. I well, I might have had. I just didn't know.

I I just didn't wanna do it. So he's pointing at me, and I'm like, don't wanna do that. That sounds like the lamest thing in the world. He's like, no. Believe me, that's where community comes in. People will see into you things you don't even see yourself, bad and good. And he goes, no. I've been watching you, Bill. I think you should do this. You have a good I think you should tell your story.

And I said, fine. I don't know. And he goes, well, here, to make it easier, when it gets to the actual asking people to close their eyes and raise their hand if they want Jesus and praying with them, I'll do that part. You just tell your story. Okay. That makes it a little bit easier. I'm not quite as terrified.

So I get up there, and I'm I'm talking I'm talking in front of several 100 of my classmates. And back then people didn't move all the time. These are several 100 people that I've known since kindergarten. You wanna talk about terrifying,

and I'm gonna get up there. And I was the quiet one. They're like, who's Bill Bush? You know? And and and so I got up there and I just started talking to him. And as it went, something I started to feel something in me. It's like the Holy Spirit was working. I literally felt that thing that you want, that passion

that I'm making a difference, that my life matters, I felt it was the pleasure of God I felt. I was just doing it and I was like, wow, this isn't as terrible as I thought it would be. And as I went and went and went, I got to the point where I was supposed to let Lynn come up and finish,

and he started to stand up and I went waved him off like a pitcher waving, no, I don't want that pitch. No. No. No. No. That's the pitch I want.

Because I just felt like God wanted me to do it. Just go for it. I felt that it was the Holy Spirit taking it was him working through me. He gave me the gift. I was just willing to use it, and once I was using it, he took over.

And I went for it. I had my own friends that I've known since kindergarten. I challenged them to close their eyes. And I said, if you've never put your faith in Christ, if you've tried to figure out life, you've ran your own way, the the the Bible calls this sin. And sin is this thing where you just go the the you you just don't go at what God wants for you. You you try to let make it work on your own. It's never gonna work. And we're far from God.

God didn't run away from us or kick us out. We run away from him. And he said, but what Jesus came is God became a man, dove into our mess, lived a life we could never live, that perfect life, died on the cross in our place, and took a death we could never come back from, resurrected and ate our sin for breakfast.

And then now we are made right with him through that alone. And what we need to do is turn from ourselves, confess that we're sinners, profess that he is Lord, and embrace his love, and say, I need your love and your grace, and then I need you to take my hand.

Take my sin out of my hand, and take my hand, and walk me through life from your love, not for it. That's the gospel.

I wasn't a pro. I was 16 years old. I'd only been a Christian for a year, year and a half. I was clueless. I just told my story. I didn't wanna tell it. I didn't think it was I I know when you don't wanna serve and find your gift, when you don't know your gift, it sounds terrifying. It sounds horrible. We're distracted by so many things. But when I did that, 29 of my classmates

gave their life to Jesus that time. And I was hooked. What I'm saying is not a sales speech to motivate, to recruit.

What I'm telling you is I want everyone in this room to have that feeling I had that I continue to have, that I kept preaching, I kept doing this. It's hard. This hasn't been easy. A lot of times I am the baked potato, and and you have that. But guess what? There is nothing, nothing, nothing that replaces

the feeling of when you let God use you, when you use the gift he gave you to be a gift giver. And when you do that, that's the thing that you found that your job won't give you, your life won't give you, your kids won't give you, none of those things. Even good things, they're not all bad. Everything. Even the good things, nothing

will give you that. And that's the reason God says do this. And if you don't wanna believe me, listen to Jimmy here right now before we close.

I'm Jimmy Calabrese. I volunteer in the marketing department. And before I met Jesus, I was in a horror rock band with my brothers. I thought I making sacrifices for my dream, but I realized I was really sacrificing my family because I'd give up weekends and birthday parties and holidays

just for this this dream that I thought would fulfill me. And then my dad got a stroke, and that rocked my world because my dad was was my foundation, and he was just who he was was gone.

My brothers and I took took care of him. It was my turn to take a break. He was in hospice pretty much at his house. And I was sitting in his backyard listening to, you know, doom metal music, drinking bourbon right from the bottle, just sitting back there, and I I felt like death was right behind me. And then I felt

the Lord reach out to me with his hand. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but I just knew that I was not alone, and there was was a way out. There was a way out of death. And that started my search to find God. One of the places that led me was at a tattoo shop with my friend Tabitha. She would tell me about Jesus,

and she actually gave me bible. And then I discovered

K Love on the radio, something I'd always just turn off. And I also discovered when my dad passed away that that Christian music is what got me through the dark nights. I discovered there's a church near my house, and they had music. I was like, I'll go there just to hear the And it was the same songs I heard on Caleb, same songs I listened to through the night. They were playing those songs, it just like tears just coming down. I just feel like the bass, feel the drums. It was like forever since I played music, heard music,

and and this was music

glorifying the lord. I remember after I got baptized, my mom asked me, she's like, okay. Well, what are you gonna do about the band? Day before the music video shoot with my brothers, we had this big blowout because it was always you know, we're brothers. We're always, like, trying to fight for control and whose vision and and whatnot. Sitting at the table at his house, and then all of sudden, I just felt like felt like this peace that came down. I felt like the holy spirit, and it was like,

that's it. You're done.

During this time too, I was also working for a comic book company. We're promoting sex and violence. I'd go into work. I just felt like this tightness in my chest. It just felt like darkness walking through the hallways. And I said, okay, lord. Just

I'll leave it up to you. Put me where you want me to. One of the only callbacks I got, I was putting out hundreds of resumes.

They say, hey, well, I want you to come in to interview for and it was really what it was. It's about being a producer. Once I went to the interview, I realized, okay. Yeah. This is everything. This is my background. This is, like, a little bit of marketing, a little bit of music. You know, everything was, like, this is the perfect fit. The lord provided me with that job.

And so now I'm the producer of the Why It Matters Radio Show, a Christian radio show. We're on 17 markets, and I'm helping building the the podcast. It's a three sixty flip from promoting the darkness to now promoting the kingdom. I didn't just, like, change careers. I changed masters.

So I used to work for the world, and now I work for the king. And so when I came to Rock Point, I I was just sitting in in in service, and I just felt like I should volunteer and do some stuff for marketing to help them. So I looked on the volunteer page, and there's so many different volunteer opportunities

here, and one of them was marketing. I was like, Lord, okay, know this is once again a sign from you. And I heard back, and, now I'm part of the marketing team. When you serve, you're actually putting on the pads and stepping into the field.

And it's a totally different experience, and you get so much more out of it. When you're obedient to the Lord and use your talents that he gives you for his for serving others, for serving the church, it's fulfilling.

By following the Lord, not only am I being helped, but my community, my family, everyone else around me is being helped as well.

Amen. Hey.

Jimmy's whole story is no, girl, go.

I love how he said, I wasn't getting a new career, I was getting a new master. In other words, it's not about who's what career you have, what direction you're going, it's about who's directing it. It's not about the career, about who's the king. It's not about

like so many of us, if you hear this you think, okay, I'm gonna keep going in my direction as director of my life and I'm just gonna add this to the list. And that's why it's so hard. And that's why many of you hold back with your time, your money, the living intentionally,

is because you keep thinking it's I just need to add this onto my list. That's that that that's not and that's why you feel like your your your life, the card of your life is so full and you just add this to the pile. Why God asked us to do this is because it makes you consider what's in your pile to begin with.

It makes you look at it all. What is your direction?

But first and foremost, who's the director? Who's the king? Who's the master? Who's the Lord? Do you want it to be the world? The selfishness? This grind that you will never get what you want from out of it?

Or the one who knows us better than we know ourselves that died, died for us so we could have this. So what I wanna do is I just wanna give some people a chance to join the hundreds and the thousands of people this year that maybe the holdup for you has always been you just haven't started with the love.

So can we just close our eyes? I'm gonna same thing I did all those years ago. I'm gonna give some of you a chance to put your faith in Christ again.

And if you're here and you're like, I don't care if you've in church your whole life. If you've never truly surrendered to the lordship, to the love of Jesus and said, hey, I'm gonna turn for myself and put my faith in Christ as I explained, now's your chance.

And if you wanna pray with me to to just receive that love, to say yes to Jesus, to give him your sin and then take his hand to live from that love in life, just hold your hand up. Just hold your hand up. I see those hands going up all over the room.

With

I'm gonna God,

say,

others need me. And thank you that you've gifted me so I can give myself away. Thank you for that love. But right now, I confess that I haven't known that. I haven't accepted that. I've ran from that or I fought it or I just didn't know.

Past. I've

Thank you for taking the sin out of my hand and then taking my hand to walk with me. Help me to walk with you in this love each and every day moving forward. Thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for joining us online. Be sure to download our new app and follow us on social media to stay connected.