I am a church member // We serve together // Ephesians 4:1-12 // Pastor Josh Evans

Hey listen, if you serve a way-making God, can you say amen today? And let me just say to you, I don't know what you have going on in your life here today, what you've came in carrying, but he is a way maker.

And even if you don't feel like he's working, even if you don't see the work being done, he is working in your life through that unseen hand of our almighty God. Hey listen, you can have a seat here today. It is so good to see you in the house of God. If you're excited to be here, say hallelujah.

All right, good. Hey listen, it is good to see you. 11 o'clock, we had a great A30 service, and we are looking forward to all that God wants to do here today. I am so glad that you are here because we have got sickness galore going through our ministry right now.

And so if you're here, that means you're either faking it and you really are sick right now, or you're doing fairly well and you haven't caught the crud that's around or you're getting over it. But we've had quite a bit of that around our Christian school as well as our church, but we are excited that you're here and doing well, and we are looking forward to our service here today. I do want to echo a couple things that Pastor Bailey said earlier. First of all, I'm reminded every week we have guests that enter, and we are so glad that you are here. If this was maybe your first time ever or the first time in a good while, thank you for being a part of the service. Make sure before you leave, and you might have done this on your way in, take one of those New Here cards that's in the seat back directly in front of you and fill that out, and we would love to get a gift in your hands just as our way of saying thank you for being a part of our service.

If you're wondering where you'd take that after you fill it out, you can take that right outside that door. That's our welcome center, and we'll have a volunteer there after the service that would love to connect you, get you a free gift just as our way of saying thank you for being here today. And then also, for some of you that might be somewhat newer to the church, or you maybe have been attending for any length of time, it could have been a few weeks, it could be a few months, a few years, whatever, and you're kind of interested in taking that step with Union Grove towards membership, kind of looking and being like, man, I would love to know a little bit more about the church, connect with the staff a little bit more, maybe know how you could get plugged in, how you can get involved in what God is doing here. So we have what we call here at Union Grove Starting Point. That would be your first step to be a part of that. In fact, if you want to serve, if you want to join a Bible Fellowship class or become a member, all those things, Starting Point is your first step to be a part of those things, and so we would love to invite you. It's tonight at 5.30.

Dinner and childcare is provided. I'm excited. We have about nine or ten families coming to that, so we are looking forward to all that God wants to do, and if you would like to come to that, please see Pastor Bailey or myself, and we would love to get you plugged in for tonight. Well, listen, if you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, you can go to Ephesians Chapter Number 4. If you left your Bible or you need the screens, they're going to be there to help you out today, and so everything we read will be up there, but Ephesians Chapter Number 4. We are in a series that we started at the beginning of 2025 entitled, I Am a Church Member. I am a church member. Now, let me just say this, that if you're a guest or you're new, you've been coming for the last little bit, you've never joined our church, you've never become a member. I know if I was in your shoes, I would probably look at this, and I would immediately think, this series is not for me. This is not for us. I guess we can just check out, you know, and that kind of thing for the rest of the time that we have together. Let me say this. This is actually a really good day for you to be involved, to be here, and for you to attend because this series is actually a time that you can learn a little bit more about who we are as a church, why the local church exists, and how you can be potentially plugged into the life of our church.

I think it'll be helpful for you. But during this series, this is week number four, we've been looking specifically at the mission of the local church. In other words, why does local churches, why do they exist? And we've been looking at the mission of the local church and how each one of us as the church can be deeply connected to the mission of the local church. Well, here in Ephesians chapter 4, the apostle Paul is writing to the church and writing to Christians, and he actually equates church and being connected to the mission of the church with serving and with growing up, if you would.

And he actually says in Ephesians 4 verse 15, it says this, but speaking the truth in love may, what's the next two words, let's all say it out loud, grow up. In fact, look to your neighbor right now and just say grow up, you got to grow up, right? Listen, when we talk about the idea of growing up, the apostle Paul is talking specifically about us as the church being deeply connected to the mission requires some growing up.

It requires some maturing. Now, the phrase grow up is not anything new for us, right? How many of you are parents?

And here, raise your hand, okay? So we have two children. I have a 13-year-old, I have a 10-year-old, I had to be very careful with what I said in the first service because my 13-year-old was in the room, and so I had to be very careful. But here's what I'll tell you, as parents, we are constantly, if you've got your kids with you today next to you, I'm sorry, because they're going to probably like, you're going to nudge them, it's going to be a little awkward, uncomfortable, whatever. But I don't know if you're like us, but I'm constantly looking at my kids saying it's time for you to grow up, right?

It's time for you to grow up, you need to grow up. Like specifically, my son, I love my son to death, and I don't know if this is a boy thing, I don't know if it's the second child thing or whatever, but my son is 10 years old, and I feel like he needs us for everything. How many of you have a kid like that, okay?

And how many of you, your kid is around you right now, that kid that's like that, okay? So my son needs me for everything, and so, I mean, he asked me, I'm serious, for every little thing. Like, needs a bowl of cereal? Dad, can you make me a bowl of cereal?

I'm like, dude, you're 10 years old, bro. Like, no, we're done with that. Hey, Dad, I need a glass of apple juice, can you do that? No, I cannot anymore, no, it's over. And I'm constantly like, hey, Dad, can you help me put my clothes away?

No, no, like, we're to this point, you got to get that. He tries to use us for everything. Dad, help me clean my room, help me everything. And he needs me for everything, and I'm constantly saying this phrase, Cameron, you need to grow up, right? And here's why we say that as adults, as parents, here's why we tell our kids to grow up. Because nobody likes an adult that acts like a kid, right? Okay, I like that, thank you. Nobody likes an adult that acts like a child.

Nobody likes that. The plan is, the progression is for our kids, while they're in our house, to grow up so that one day, when you send them on their way, right, when they become an adult and they move out of your house, that they can, you know, act like an adult and that they have grown up and things like that. That's why when you're 15, you should be able to do more things than when you were five, right? Because of this progression of growing up.

So for us, we understand that in life and in our physical lives, we get it. But here's the thing, is Paul is going to give us a blueprint here in Ephesians chapter 4 about being connected to the mission of the church and how in order to do so, it's going to require you to grow up. It's going to require you to mature and to grow in your spiritual life. Because just like we don't like adults that act like kids, we don't need churches with a bunch of people that have been saved for a long time, but still act like babes in Christ. And so a lot of times for us in churches, we think, wow, I'm mature in my faith, because I've been saved for 30 years. And let me just say this, just to be completely honest with you, is as a pastor, I've seen a lot of people that have been saved for 30 years that act like babes in Christ. And so age doesn't matter, that's not what spiritual maturity is. You can be saved for a year and be more spiritually mature than somebody that's been saved for 30 years.

And so age doesn't matter, but I am going to challenge you today to grow up in your faith, to grow up in your relationship with Jesus. And that's what Paul's talking about here in Ephesians 4 with the church. He talks about this idea of growing up and being involved in the church. Now, in order to understand Ephesians 4, there's a key component of the letter to the church at Ephesus here that you need to know. And I did a series on this a couple of years ago on this book, and so if you forgot this, Ephesians 1-3 is all about the gospel.

In fact, we have some of the most quoted passages of Scripture about who we were before Jesus in those chapters. And so it's all about the gospel and about mercy and grace and how bad we were before Jesus, and then Jesus loved us in spite of how bad we were and things like that. So it's all about the gospel. And then in chapter 4, which is where we're going to be today, there's actually a transition here in chapter 4 to where now, from 4 to the end of his letter, it's all about how the gospel changes you and how it looks when it's lived out. So in other words, what he's doing in his letter is gospel first, transformation second.

Or let's put it into our series. Gospel first, connected to the mission second. And there's something deeply connected between spiritual maturity and being connected and plugged in to the mission of the local church.

And so the big idea that I want you to see today is this, very simple. We must grow up spiritually. We must grow up spiritually.

We got to mature and grow up. And so let's look at what spiritual growth looks like. Paul says, first thing he says is this, the attitudes. He gives us some attitudes of what spiritual growth looks like. Look at verse number 1 of Ephesians 4. He says, I therefore, now any time we see the word therefore, you got to ask, why is it therefore?

It's there because of the first three chapters, right? All about the gospel. Because of that, I now therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body, one Spirit, even as ye are called and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. Here in these six verses, when we talk about spiritual growth in the life of a Christian and what that looks like, he starts with this by saying first, let's look at the attitudes behind what spiritual growth and spiritual maturity looks like. Here's the first attitude that he mentions is humility. Humility.

He mentions it in verse 2 with the words lowliness and meekness. And here's the point, he says, for us, and if you're wondering if you're spiritually mature, here in this place, here's what I would tell you, and here would be a good indicator, are you seeing humility in your life? Because the point is, is this, Paul is saying that as you mature in Jesus, mature in your understanding of the gospel and what Jesus has done for you, the more you realize that you don't deserve what you have. And the gospel, that's why the gospel only produces humility in our life, right? Because you realize the deeper I understand the gospel, the more that I realize that I'm not deserving of the gospel. And so it produces humility in my life. And by the way, I've been in church my whole life and here's what I'll tell you, is this, I'm grateful for longevity and things like that, but here's the deal, is I don't care how long you've been here, none of us deserve to be here.

None of us deserve to be here. And so the first attitude you see is humility. The second one is patience.

And verse number two, he mentions the word long suffering. And here's the point, I'm not talking specifically about patience, which so many of us lack, right? We lack patience in a drive-through, right? We lack patience with your computers when the little circle of death is spinning and you can't get to what you were trying to do, right? We lack patience in traffic jams and stuff like that.

I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is patience and being long suffering in our relationships. And what he's saying is this, is as you grow spiritually, what you find is that as you realize how patient Jesus has been with you, it now produces patience in your relationships with other people. In other words, in church, you realize that you are going to be patient and be gentle with other people that are on different stages of their journey with Jesus than you. The third attitude is unity, found in verse number three.

It produces unity. So as you grow spiritually, you are going to fight for unity and you're going to desire to keep us unified and not have conflict with one another. So before the apostle Paul talks about what it means to grow in the church and to serve in the church and what that looks like, he says before any of that, you have to have the attitude of a spiritually mature Christian. You've got to be humble, right? You've got to be patient.

You've got to be long suffering in these things. Then he talks about the source of spiritual growth. Where does it come from in verses seven through ten?

Look at what he says. But unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ, wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts unto men, now that he ascended, what is it, but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. Verse 11. He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Here's the point. You say, where does spiritual growth come from?

Where does it originate from? He gives us very specific meaning here, and I want you to understand this, is what he's trying to say is that the purpose... Don't miss this, okay? The purpose of salvation was not just to bring you to heaven.

It was to fill you with himself. You know what sometimes I feel like when we think of salvation? Is we think salvation is just a get out of hell free card, right? It's like, hey, we're good.

We did it. That's all it is for us. For a lot of people, it's like, hey, what's salvation mean to you? I don't have to go to hell one day. Amen. By the way, I don't want to downplay that.

I'm glad too. I don't want to spend eternity there, right? That's a benefit of it, but here's the thing. That's not it in its entirety. There's so much more to salvation than just not having to spend eternity in that place. There's so much more than that. The purpose of salvation, it's much more than just you not having to spend eternity in hell.

It's so that he can fill you with himself. Here. Like, if not going to hell was the only reason why Jesus came and why he saved you, then right at the moment that you trusted in Jesus, he would have just caught us on up. It's over. Hey, good.

They did it. Good. He's coming on up, you know, or she's coming on up and stuff. But no, we get saved and then he leaves us here.

Why? It's because he's trying to fill you with himself. For a purpose. You know, that mission that he left the apostles to, he's basically wanting now to do his work through you. He wants to use you, Christian, to accomplish great and mighty things. And so he gives us some things. The first thing we see is he gave us grace.

Verse 7. By the way, everything he gives you is an act of grace. He's given us grace. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Grace is love that seeks us out when we were unlovable.

And he is the standard of grace. And so he's given us grace, but then he gave us, number 2, he gave us gifts. He gave us gifts. And in verse number 11, you know, we see some of those and you can read there's other list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians. And we're going to talk about gifting here in a second.

But he gave us gifts. And I want you to think of it this way. I love sports. I like sports, illustrations and stuff like that. And my favorite sport is basketball. Anybody favorite sport? Basketball.

Raise your hand, okay. And so a few of you. I love basketball. It's my favorite sport. And so I played it growing up.

Wasn't great at it, but I loved it. Now I watch it. You know, just kind of crazy.

I'm like obsessed with it. And here's what I'll tell you as a basketball fan. And I'm not going to tell you who I pull for because some of you won't listen to anything else I'm going to say if I say that out loud. And so but here's the point.

Beyond that, here's what I'll tell you. I like to watch good basketball. So like there can be two teams on that I could care less about on ESPN and I can find enjoyment watching it most of the time. I love basketball. And so here's what I hate. As a basketball fan, here's what I hate. When I go to a game or when I watch a game, I hate to see a one man show in basketball where there's one person on the court that's having to do everything. Right. And here's why I don't like that is because that's not the way basketball was designed to be played, is it not? It's a it's a team sport.

Right. It's not an individual sport. It's a team sport. And so that's why as a fan of basketball, I love to watch a game where all five people are engaged and involved and a part of what is happening on the court. Because I believe that's the way that basketball is supposed to be played.

Right. And many of you that like basketball, you would agree with that. So it's got to be a a team sport. And here's the point of why I want you to see that see it that way is because that's what church is supposed to be like. But what Paul's saying is as we mature, as we grow up, we realize that church is not a one man show.

Church is actually a team effort where every single one of us participate and we are involved in what is happening here. Now, for some of you, how many of you are not sports people? OK, raise your hand. You're just not a big sports person.

OK, so I could tell when I was talking about basketball, you're kind of not that you're not resonating a whole lot. And so I get it. Let me speak to a few of you that aren't. And we're in a Baptist church, so hopefully this will resonate. Here's how you need to think of church. When you come to church, it is not a catered event. This is a potluck event. OK, you ever been to a potluck? Right. Like, you know, potlucks.

What does that mean? You got to bring something like potlucks. You don't come without anything because you miss out. You miss the memo because a potluck is you got to bring something.

By the way, I'm a picky eater, so I'm not a diehard fan of potlucks. Right. I'm always a little nervous, you know, what's in all these things, who made it. Right. And so you never know. And so potlucks always kind of give me the, you know, the heebie jeebies. Can I say that?

I don't know. That sounds like a Pastor Bailey phrase. And so but but like it just said I'm not a diehard fan. But here's the point is church is more of a a potluck event where where every single one of us every single week, we are to bring what God is doing in our life and we are to bring it into the life of the church. Remember, I told you last week, we're Jesus carriers. You are to bring through your gift. Right. What Jesus has done in your heart and you're supposed to dump that on someone else. Because somebody needs what Jesus is doing in your life. And that's the point.

That's what he's saying. That's the source of where spiritual growth come from and spiritual maturity comes from. It's from him giving us the gifts so that we can go out, which brings us to number three. What's the goal of spiritual growth? So if we see the attitudes behind spiritual growth, right, we see where spiritual growth comes from.

It's him working in you and gifting you certain things. And now what's the goal of it? What's the goal of maturing?

What's the goal of growing up? If you would, he mentions a few things here in verse number 12. First, for the perfecting of the saints. For the perfecting of the saints. Look at what he says here. The word perfecting, he says for the perfecting of the saints. That word perfecting, it means equipping or maturing.

In other words, here's what I'll tell you. A sign of a healthy church is when all of us are working together. When all of us are using our spiritual giftedness. A sign of an unhealthy church is when the pastor does everything. A sign of an unhealthy church is when you've got one man doing all the work. That's a one man show and that's not a New Testament church. A New Testament church is when everyone, the saints of God, remember, Paul's not writing just to pastors.

You know who he's writing to? The church. That's you.

That's me. So I still have a part in this, but all of us do, right? We all do have a part in what is happening here and what he's saying here is that a mature, growing, perfecting, maturing church is when all of us are using our gifts. For the perfecting of the saints, the second thing he says is for the work of the ministry. For the work of the ministry. Says it right there in verse 12.

Listen, I said this a second ago. Church is not supposed to be run by pastors. I don't know what your church upbringing was, but for me it was like, you know, pastor does everything.

It's kind of what I saw growing up, you know? You got an idea, go to the pastor and make sure he executes it. Make sure he plans for it.

Make sure that he figures it all out and does all the work for it and stuff. And listen, I want you to know, I know some of you are thinking, wow, he just doesn't want to do anything during the week, right? No, here's the point, is that for me, here's how I look at this. Ephesians chapter 4 is that when I was called to be a pastor, this is true, this is how I believe this. When I was called to be a pastor, in some ways I left the ministry. Now some of you are like, what in the world does that mean?

I want to explain it to you. You know what my role is as pastor now? My role is to equip the saints, that's you, to do the work of the ministry.

That's what we see here. That's the pattern of a New Testament local church. You appoint a pastor, he gets called, and now here's his main role, to shepherd, and while shepherding, I'm supposed to equip every single one of you to do the work of the ministry.

You're supposed to do the work of the ministry, not just the person standing up here. Now this is a part of it, don't get me wrong, but you're supposed to be using your gifts to edify, which brings us to number 3, to edify the body of Christ to perfect and mature the saints and to see the work of the ministry happening, which brings us to number 3 for the edifying of the body of Christ. Gifts are given to encourage and lift up the body of Christ.

That's what gifts are given for. So the reason why you were given a spiritual gift is to build up somebody else. So it begs the question, who is being built up by your gift? Who's being built up by your gift? If you don't have an answer, then you're probably not executing the gift that God's given you.

You're probably not using the gift that God's given you. You're probably not serving and really seeing that gift come to fruition because the reason he's given gifts is he's given gifts to every single follower of Christ. He's gifted you uniquely so that you could be his carrier to somebody else who's being built up because of your gift. And then the fourth goal of spiritual growth is for the unity of the body of Christ.

He talks about that in verse number 13, the unity of the body of Christ. So here's all I'm trying to say is this, is that what he's saying is this, is those who use their gift, those who know their gifts, those who use their gifts, here's what I'll tell you. That is a better indicator of what spiritual maturity looks like than about any other thing. It's using your gifts. It's finding what your gift is and where God has gifted you and realizing that the only reason you have a gift is because of his grace, amen to that, right? He gifts us out of his grace so that we can carry what he's blessed us with and give it to somebody else because somebody needs what Jesus has given you. Somebody needs what Jesus has given you. And so if you don't use it, someone's missing out on something that God wants to use you to do through them. Does that make sense?

Kind of nod your head if you're with me, okay? So we got to know what our giftedness is. So I would summarize, Ephesians chapter 4, here's what I would summarize, is we got to grow up.

We got to grow up. An immature Christian is this, someone who slips in right as the service begins, sitting, leaving right as it ends, and not using their gifts. That's not the design.

That's not the design of this. And if you're in here and you say, hey, that is my church experience, then listen, I want you to know, I don't want you to feel bad for being here. We are so ecstatic that you're here.

I'm pumped that you are here. My point is this, there's something way more for you. Like attending and leaving, like this is just a small slice in the pie of what God wants to do in your life. Like I love coming to church services, and I know I'm in a little bit of a different seat, so I stand and kind of deliver the message usually. But I love being at church every single week, but here's what I've learned, is that that's just a small part to what God wants to do in your life. And there's so much more that you're missing out on if you don't take a step deeper into connection into the church and grow and use your gifts because now you're going to be able to bless others, and here's what's awesome, you will receive a blessing from somebody else too.

That's what he's saying. So the note is this, it's really to grow up. And here's what I'll tell you today, seriously, is this, I get it.

I'm up here all the time and I'm challenging you to serve and to join a Bible fellowship, whatever. And we're constantly, you know, you hear from me, and sometimes it's like parenting again, right? You say the same thing over and over, and then this coach comes along and says the same thing to your kids, and they come home and they're like, you'll never believe what he told me. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

I've said that a bazillion times, right? And then you try to hire the coach to come live in your house, but that doesn't work. But the point is this, it's like sometimes you need to hear it from somebody else. So what I did this week was, just for fun, I was just curious if I could get some responses, I put on social media, I just said, hey, let me know, Union Grover's, why you serve. I would love to hear a little bit about why you serve and why you show up. How do you choose one Sunday a month where you're not in here and you're serving in the nursery or kids' ministry? Like, why on earth would you miss this for that?

Why would you do that? Or why do you greet? Why do you do the worship team and choir and get here really early?

Or the production when nobody ever notices you until something up here goes wrong? Like, why would you ever do that? And so I wanted to hear from them because I thought that would help us more than anything else. And listen, I got a ton of responses and so I can't read all these, but I wanted to read a few of them to you. And I hope this will help you. So if you're not serving and you're not kind of taking that step, maybe this will help you. Someone said this.

I'm not a spotlight person. I'm more of a behind the scenes type of person. And so being a mom of small children myself, I understand the need for childcare and thought it would be a good way to get to know and connect with other parents with small children. And then she goes on to say, serving God by serving others was my main desire.

Someone else said this. I serve because it helps me be a part of the church instead of just attending the church. Someone else said, I love kids and I've always felt called to work with kids. Another said, every good thing we have is ours only by God's grace and intended to be used for his purpose. To be a good steward of the gifts God has given us, we should purposely want to serve or look for opportunities to serve.

Someone else said, this is one of my favorite ones because this just reminds me, if you're sitting here and you're not serving or being a part of things, this one right here will kind of blow you away because all of us can do something. Someone messaged me and they're shut in in our church. So they physically, that means they physically can't come here because of their health. They're kind of stuck at their house.

And this person, I won't tell you who it is. They came to us and they said, hey, listen, we're burdened about serving. I mean, they're on oxygen. They can't do a whole lot and they can't get out.

Right. And and here's what they came to me wanting to do something. And I'm like, listen, you've done enough in your lifetime. You probably just need to chill, enjoy church from home. They're like, no, we're not.

What can we do? So we work this out. And here's what they wrote in. They said, as a shut in myself, I thought if I had a list of other Union Grove family members who were mostly shut inside like I am, I could spend some of my free time during the week calling them and sending them all cards. She goes on to say, it's turned out to be such a blessing for me.

I love hearing their voice light up when I identify myself as being with their Union Grove family. I've made some great connections and always feel full of the Holy Spirit after just an hour or two of my week reaching out. Someone else wrote in, said I'm not the best singer in the world, but I enjoy serving the Lord and using my talent to sing for him.

I love glorifying and singing praises to him. Someone else said serving the Lord is the best thing I can do in my life. Another said I serve at the Welcome Center and what a privilege and honor to open the door to welcome people into the house of the Lord with a smile.

Knowing God has chosen me to show love and kindness to everyone who enters. Another said I'm blessed each week with the opportunity to hear God's word through these incredible kids as they recite Bible verses and share their Christian service accomplishments. This is from one of our Wednesday night kids workers. Listen to this.

Even when I've had some of the most challenging days at work, these sweet kids never fail to brighten my mood and make me smile. Here's another one. Listen to this one. This is a sermon in a nutshell. I serve first because God gave his son to save me and he commanded me to go and tell others about that salvation. Second, I serve because I love my church family and want to help grow and help that family in any way and area that there is a need. Last, I want to use the gifts God has given me to bring honor and glory to him in whatever way I can.

Last one. And there's a bunch more that I could read. God doesn't need us, but what an awesome thought that the all powerful, eternal God chooses to use us. I get to serve him. Listen, here's what I'll tell you. That'll preach probably better than anything I just said to you. That's the reason why serving is important. That's the reason why we serve. That's the reason why we invite you and why Jesus.

Remember, when Jesus ascended back up into heaven, you read about that in Acts and as he's going up, he commissions the church, Christians, followers of Jesus, to go and to serve and to be a part and he gives us through the Holy Spirit of God in different areas. And by the way, we're all gifted differently and that's okay. He's gifted us in different areas so that we can use our gifts.

You got to think of gifts this way. It's like Paul, he talks about the church like a body. You got your head and you got your arms and your legs and everything.

And he talks about the body of Christ. And here's what I want you to really see this. If you just say, man, I'm just too busy. I got too much going on. I'm cool with just attending, sitting, whatever. Here's what Union Grove feels like.

We're doing life without the arm. When you do that. And then if another person in here says, hey, I just don't feel I just I've got a lot going on. My kids are busy. Sunday's my day off. Last thing I want to do is is really get here early or stay longer than I need to.

I just want to come and relax and chill. Here's what that does to Union Grove. And so now you know what Union Grove has to do a lot of times because we have people that do that is this. We have to start telling the ones who are showing up the legs and stuff. We have to start saying, hey, leg, I'm sorry, the arms aren't working. So you're going to have to start doing all the things that the arm can do. And here's what we know, and this is true of church, is the legs, your physical body, the legs can't do everything the arm can do, can they?

So they're having to kind of, you know, pick up the slack and and things like that. What Paul's saying is a mature church is when every body, every instrument in our church is all using their gift. For the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, and for the maturing, the growing up of the saints of God.

That is what a healthy church looked like. And so last week, last week we gave you a spiritual gifts assessment on your way out. And here's the thing, we gave you this assessment and this assessment, and this is going to sound a little like class, but don't take away from the sermon. We're still kind of in the sermon learning kind of aspect.

We gave a spiritual assessment, gifts assessment, and here's why. We want you to be in areas where you're gifted, right? Have you ever seen somebody serve in an area where they're not gifted? Or let me say this, have you ever seen somebody who greets you that doesn't have the gift of hospitality, right? You're kind of like, wow, that's a really cranky person, right? And so like the point is, is we don't have any of those here.

I'm talking about other places, right? And so the reason why we give out a spiritual gifts assessment is because we want to place you in areas where your giftedness can be best effectively used. And hopefully you found some time and took that seriously so that you could know. If not, we have some here today in the welcome center that you can give. But things like this, and I want to help you real quick and then we'll get to the card that you had here today. But I wanted to give you, because many of you did your gift, you're like, man, I know what my gift is now. That was a great exercise.

How in the world do I use it? What does that look like in the local church? And so some of you might have gotten this gift, the gift of administration. Some of you just have that gift.

And as you took that test, that might have been the one that you had seen. And here's what I'll tell you. The gift of administration, the way we would define that is the divine strength or ability to organize multiple tasks and groups of people to accomplish these tasks. Here's good ways, if you're looking at this next steps card that you were given on your way in, how can I use my gift of administration? Some good ways would be what we call the A-team here.

You say, what is that? We're working on really improving the way that we follow up with our guests and we connect with new people in the church. We feel that that's a missing thing here. We need to do a better job with that. So we've created the A-team that will help with that, that will organize around that. You might be interested in that.

Kids check-in out here, very detailed, administration, organization, production team, events, all those kind of things. Apostleship. Now you say, what exactly is that? And there's nothing charismatic about it.

Here's what this is. We would define it, the divine strength or ability to pioneer new churches or ministries and things like that. In other words, if that's what you came up with, perhaps God is leading you to start a new Bible fellowship class. Or to start a small group Bible study in your home.

Or to help with our prayer team or something. Discernment. The gift of discernment.

The divine strength or ability to identify falsehood spiritually and to distinguish between right and wrong motives and situations. If that's your gift, you're probably like, how in the world am I going to use that in the local church? Some great ways would be our prayer team.

You might not even know this. We have prayer teams meeting during the morning that need to be more attended than they do. Perhaps if your gift was discernment, God could lead you to start a new Bible fellowship class or to start a new small group or to help with that. Evangelism. The divine strength or ability to help unbelievers take the necessary steps to become Christ followers.

A good team for you, obviously. Outreach. Help us try to reach our community both locally and globally with the gospel. Grove students.

Grove kids. Our prayer team. Praying for that to happen. Those are ways that if that was your gift that you could serve and that you could start using that gift so that we could as a church grow in the future. Many of you got the gift of exhortation. That's just encouragement.

And here's what I'll tell you. That gift, we need encouragement in every single area. And that you could literally be a part of every team on this list here today if that's you. Faith. That's the divine strength or ability to believe in God for unseen supernatural results in every area of your life. Listen, if that's where you are here today, you can serve on probably any one of these areas that we see here in our local church and you can use that gift in the way of serving. Giving. You know, if that's your gift and you came out of there and you realized that you were generous and that's a gift God has given you, then here's the thing. You need to help others through your generosity to become generous givers. To become generous givers. Helps. Service. That just is the divine strength or ability to work in a supportive role to accomplish tasks in Christian ministry.

That could be at any of these teams. If you're just one of these that are like, man, I just want to help wherever is needed. We need help with the A-Team, outreach, our safety, security, medical, welcome center.

Any of these things. Production. We have tons of needs for you. The gift of hospitality. You probably need to help us with baptism and help us with being a greeter. And tonight we're building a team to help us with starting points.

So it's not just staff run, but that it's actually saints run and things like that. That's an opportunity for you if that's your gift. Knowledge.

The divine strength or ability to understand and bring clarity to situations and circumstances. You say, what am I going to do with that gift? Or whatever. Do I just run around and tell everybody what I know, right?

No. Jump in. Lead a small group. Lead a Bible Fellowship class. Teach. Do something.

Like, don't just sit with your gift in a seat and not try to use it. The gift of leadership. The divine strength and ability to influence people at their level. All teams.

We need leaders at every single team. So wherever you would like to use that gift, it can be used everywhere. The gift of mercy. If this was yours, this is not my gift.

I'll tell you right now. I wish it was. Don't you love merciful people?

It's just not mine. And so the gift of mercy is the divine strength or ability to feel empathy and care for those who are hurting in any way. If that's your gift, and some people are just so good at this, right? You can just tell that they have that gift. That it's just for them.

Here's what I'll tell you. Outreach. Our safety and security teams. Being a small group leader.

Helping with areas like that, right? The gift of prophecy. Now you say, what is that?

The cannon's closed, so we're not saying that we're adding to anything like that. There's nothing charismatic about this. The gift of prophecy is literally this. The divine strength or ability to speak and bring clarity to scriptural and doctrinal truth in a bold manner.

So in other words, if that's what you came up with and you're looking, here's what it is. You're good at taking the Bible and bringing clarity to scriptural and doctrinal truth. Maybe you need to step up and start teaching and using that gift in our church. Shepherding.

The gift of shepherding is the divine strength or ability to care for the personal needs of others by nurturing and mending life issues. If that's where you landed, outreach. Student ministry. Our starting point help team. Grove Kids, small group leader.

Usher. All of those things can be used. Two more. Teaching. If that was you, the divine strength or ability to study and learn from the scriptures to bring understanding and spiritual growth to other Christians. If that's you, then that's a clear next step.

You need to figure out a pathway to get you involved with stuff like Bible fellowship and being a small group leader in your house and different things like that. The last one. Wisdom. The gift of wisdom. The divine strength or ability to apply the truths of scripture practically producing a fruitful outcome and the character of Jesus Christ.

You say, where can I use that? Outreach. Worship. Prayer. Small group leader.

Usher. Whatever. So listen, you probably had one or two of those that stuck out in your spiritual gifts assessment this week. And you're just like, man, there it is. Listen, we just gave you clear next steps for how you can take what God has gifted you. By the way, the only reason you have that gift is by the grace of God.

That's what he said in verse seven. The grace of God has come into your life. And because of that, he's gifted you. And the reason he's gifted you is so that God can use your gift to do something miraculous than somebody else.

So somebody is missing out when you don't use your gift. Well, listen, today, on your way in today, you were given a next steps card. And what I'd love for you to do, I want you to take that card. Everybody should have received one of those today. And hopefully you got one. If you didn't, we can get you one after the service. But everyone got one.

Can you kind of wave it in the air and stuff? I gave mine out to somebody, so I wanted to have that in my hand when I did that. So everybody got one. And here's what I want.

There's three boxes there. Very simple. And I need everybody to fill it out. Everybody can fill it out.

If you're not a member and you're a guest, you are not in that everyone category. Don't feel any pressure to do this. I know this is a little Union Grover.

It's a little bit internal, if you would. And this is going to fill for just a moment, a little bit like class, you know, like you're going back to school for a moment. Because we're going to take those up here in a second. But here's why I'm doing this. It's because I truly believe God wants to do something through you in somebody else. And I want to help you. I want to give you the clearest next step so that you can know exactly how you can use the way God gifted you in the life of our church. And so there's three boxes.

Number one, first box is this. It says, I'm already a part of a serve team. I'm already a part of a serve team.

Thank you. And so this one just says, hey, I'm part of a serve team and everything's great and I love it and I'm using my gift already. We want to know that. OK. We want to know that. That you're being fulfilled and that God. Your gifts can change and evolve just a little bit.

Perhaps you took this 25 years ago or something similar to this and. That to be the reason I'm just filling this out to get pasture off my back, right? Here's the thing, I don't want you to do that. Here's what I want you to know.

God has so. He wants you to step out of your comfort zone to be used by him. It usually is uncomfortable, but when you do that, here's what I'm going to tell you, the church is going to be built up. Listen there, I'll just kind of briefly go through these.

We're calling this the 18. This is one thing we're trying to improve as a church is just like guest. Church and so we're identifying that. So we're helping with with that greeter. That one's pretty self-explanatory. We have greeters.

Many of you when you. The nursery workers are kind of like my heroes. My heroes.

I love it. But here's what I'll tell you. I want you to realize that right now.

Just let me be real blunt. I'm sure you were loving watching church when you were changing diapers as well. People having to serve about every single week down there and missing out on what's happening in here because we run 415 people here.

You know what? There is people that come in our church. They have little ones. We want them to be in here so that they can grow and I'm willing to take a step and do that.

It is so awesome. Perhaps that's you and you need to say, hey, I'm busy, but I'm going to give up of some of my time so that I can be used by God. Our student ministry, that's 7th through 12th grade. Pastor David does a great job. They have classes in the morning on Sunday morning, but then on Wednesday night, they get together and do a whole service in there. They have small group leaders that invest and spend time with their kids.

It's amazing. Listen, that's something that you might be passionate about. Kids ministry check-in.

You say, what is that? Many of you, if you don't have kids, you might not know, over here in our breezeway, which is right behind me, here every single week we check kids in. They wear a tag and stuff like that. Here's why we do that. We started that a couple of years ago, I guess.

The reason why we did that is because of safety and security. Just to be honest with you, we want the kid to go home with the same person that dropped them off. Isn't that normally a success rate if you're in kids ministry? And so we started checking kids in. Well, we need a whole team for that. People to help new guests enter their information into a system that they've never used and stuff like that.

If that's you and you would love that, hey, that's an opportunity. Our outreach team. Pastor David's really passionate about improving our outreach in the community.

He leads that team. And we need to do more. We want to do more food truck Friday things to get people here. We want to think of ways that we can go into our neighborhoods and invite.

If that's you, boom. Prayer. You don't know this, but Jim Marshall, every single week we have prayer times available in the mornings. And that might be, hey, come 20 minutes before a service and gather and pray and influence others to go with you so that we can pray. Because I'm telling you, this is that things in here will really start to happen when we get on our knees and pray for it. Prayer team, our parking team. I was told by Scott Baker, who leads our parking team, that we're short in the parking team.

So a lot of times they have to serve multiple times a month for some of us. We can get out there. I know it's cold. Bundle up.

I don't know what to tell you. But listen, here's the point. It's like we can do that.

And here's what I believe. We have guests coming every single week and they're coming checking out our church to see if this could be a place for their family to grow. And what I want is for them to be welcomed from the street to the seat.

Like right when they come out there, I want them to see us serving with smiles on our faces from out there until the minute that they get into these chairs. That's what we have to see happen. But we need all of us collectively in these areas so that we can understand the impact and influence that that causes. Our production team, we don't talk enough about them. You say, what is that? That's all the screens you see. That's the sound that you hear. That's the times that when you're not here and you're sick or if you're out of town and you turn on Facebook, YouTube or our website or whatever and you watch the service.

How awesome is that? We've all benefited, right? The only reason that you get that privilege is because people show up and do this every week. And let me say this. We normally don't recognize them until something goes wrong, don't we? It's like we don't even hardly know that they're there because they're behind the scenes. And here's the thing. When something goes wrong, here's what all of us do. Like we look up like, what are they doing up there?

Here's the thing. That many of them serve every single week. Say, why is that every week? You know what time they get here? Around 7.30. And they leave when I'm done.

It's about 12, right now it's 12.13. You see what I'm saying? They do that every week.

Why? It's because we don't have enough to run it up there with them being on a rotation. They need to be able to sometimes sit like you are with their families. But instead, they're making sure everything's good and stuff like that. Here's the point.

They need help. And if your gift is behind the scenes and IT and details and stuff like that, this would be a great opportunity. And this is not hard. You can do it.

I promise you. And so that's one thing. Safety and security team.

I hate that in 2025 we have to focus on security, but we do. And every family that comes, especially with children, they need to know that this is a safe and secure place. So we have security people all over in our service around the premises and stuff like that.

That might be you. Our Starting Point host. That's just a team of people that's helping us with Starting Point. We've got 10 families coming tonight, which is awesome. And we want a team of people that can help be hospitable and help us with events like that so we can help guests connect to the life of our church. Our ushers. They help people find seats. They pass out the offering. They're going to collect these cards here in a moment.

That might be where you are. And then last, but certainly not least, is our worship team. We have a praise team. We have instruments. We have a choir.

Here's what I'll tell you. For some of you, you're like, man, I don't play an instrument. I'm also not a great up-front singer, like a soloist and stuff like that. But I love to sing and I feel like God's given me this gift. Then join our choir.

You say, what's the demand? Listen, you might have to come to practice some on Sunday evenings every now and then. But listen, here's what I'll tell you. When you stand up here and you use your gift to project and to praise his name, here's what I'm going to tell you.

Someone out there is going to be built up because your willingness to be here. But you know what some of us do? We're like, man, I don't want to go to practice. That's too much time.

I'm so busy. And what you essentially do is by you not being in the place God has designed for you to be, here's what happens. Somebody's not going to be built up the way that God intends for them to be built up. Does that make sense? And so if that's you, perhaps you play an instrument. I mean, listen, we got guitars, keyboard, all that kind of stuff. And here's what I want you to know is this. It's like, we're not just like, this is not all the instruments we ever want. If you play an instrument and God has given you this gift, come tell us so that we can incorporate you and we can serve the church because somebody wants to be built up because of what God has done in your life.

Does that make sense? And so on this card, real quick, I'm going to ask our ushers. I want you to fill it out right now in this service, like right here. Like we're going to do this right now together and stuff. And I'm going to ask our ushers, they're going to come. You say, wow, he's really putting the pressure on. I'm just gonna be honest.

I kind of am because I really believe God wants to do something great in your life. You can pass those to the center aisles. And listen, we're going to follow up. We would love to help you take a step toward deeper connection into the life of our church. I'm going to invite Miss Becky to come at this time. I know that this doesn't feel like a traditional invitation and I get it.

It's a little bit different. But I'd love for you as you pass those to the center. I'd love for you to bow your heads for just a moment. And I know we're a little long. We're out of time here today.

But here's what I want you to think. Who's being built up? Who's growing up because of your gift? Who is growing up and being built up because you decided I'm going to I'm going to give a little bit of my time. And out of the grace that God has given me, which I don't deserve, and he's gifted me, I'm going to take a step and I'm going to start doing something in the local church so that other people could be built up because of my gift.