Basics | Week 9 | Sermon

The big idea

God gives every Christian at least one spiritual gift, and that gift was never meant to be kept — it's meant to be given away for the sake of others.

God has handed every believer a supernatural, Spirit-empowered gift, but like a birthday present bought for someone else, it isn't meant to stay in our own hands. We are built to belong to one another, not just sit in the same room, and it's only when we live intentionally with our gifts, out of love, that we start living like Jesus and the church becomes healthy.

Point 1 of 7

Pastor Bill opens with a childhood story about picking out birthday presents for classmates and always choosing candy he liked, only to be told the gift wasn't for him to keep even though his mom bought it. He uses this to introduce the idea that God gives believers gifts that are not for their own use but for other people.

Point 2 of 7

He reviews the church's know-grow-go discipleship path, explaining that knowing Jesus starts with His love, not a checklist, and that growth happens in public worship, private practice, and biblical community. He says all of that is meant to lead to living intentionally — using our story, time, treasure, and talent to point people to Jesus.

Point 3 of 7

Pastor Bill names three groups: those who don't know Christ yet and so don't have a gift, those who know they should serve but are held back by a lie, a distortion, or a hurt/habit/hang-up, and those already faithfully serving who need to hear thank you rather than more pressure. He stresses this isn't a guilt trip to fill volunteer slots but an invitation to freedom and health.

Point 4 of 7

He describes the church in Corinth as spiritually flashy and growing but full of competing, comparing, and dividing, because some felt too important to serve and others felt too unimportant to matter. He points out that 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 work together: chapter 12 says the church is a body you belong to, and chapter 13 says none of it works without love.

Point 5 of 7

Working through the body illustration in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, he shows that every part of the body is necessary and intentionally placed by God, using the Greek words behind help and need to argue real interdependence, not mere preference. He illustrates unhealthy churches with a Mister Potato Head bit (all eyes, all ears, all arms, all mouths, or scattered parts like a crime scene) to show what happens when people only watch, only listen, only do without listening, or only demand without serving.

Point 6 of 7

He tells his own story of a high school ankle injury that was never properly stabilized, which led over the years to knee damage, back injury, shoulder pain, and finally a pinched nerve in his neck, joking that he is basically the Corinthian church: impressive outside, structurally broken inside. He applies this to the church: neglected gifts and unused parts eventually hurt the whole body.

Point 7 of 7

Reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, he explains that agape is not a feeling but self-giving, other-first love that acts, and that we can only love this way because we have first received God's love. He shares his own story of being pushed by his youth pastor, Lynn Winters, to share his testimony at 16, leading 29 classmates to Christ, and says nothing replaces the feeling of letting God use you through the gift He gave you.

Take it into your week

Pastor Bill frames the ask as finding your part in the body so the church can be Mr. Potato Church, not a crime scene.