Word & Deed: We are Gifted

radiantvisalia.com
Word & Deed: We are Gifted
with Travis Aicklen

This sermon explores the importance of spiritual gifts in the life of the church and encourages believers to identify and use their own gifts. The message emphasizes that spiritual gifts are given by the grace of God and are meant to be used for the building up of the body of Christ.

The sermon focuses on the "design gifts" listed in Romans 12, which describe the unique ways God has wired individuals to serve and contribute to the church. The speaker uses a parable of a dropped dessert at a dinner party to illustrate how different gifts might respond to a situation, highlighting the motivations and tendencies associated with each gift.

The Design Gifts:

• Prophecy (Insight): Perceiving and speaking the will of God, often with directness and conviction.
• Serving: Meeting practical needs and rendering assistance with joy and stamina.
• Teaching: Imparting knowledge and leading others into revealed truth with clarity and accuracy.
• Exhortation (Encouragement): Calling others to press on and grow spiritually, offering hope and practical steps of action.
• Giving: Generously supplying the needs of others with a cheerful and open heart.
• Leadership: Providing direction, rule, and vision with strength and inspiration.
• Mercy: Identifying with and comforting those in need, offering kindness and care.

The sermon also addresses the potential "dark side" of each gift, highlighting the importance of using gifts in a healthy and balanced way, guided by love and humility. The speaker encourages listeners to move forward in faith, using their gifts and allowing God to lead them into greater understanding and effectiveness.

The message concludes with a call to present oneself as a living sacrifice to God, offering one's gifts and life for His glory and the service of others. The invitation is extended to receive prayer and to respond to God's grace through communion.

Transcript

Hey, good morning. We are in a series. We set aside the month of January to talk about our spiritual gifts. And our church, our stance as a church is that we're continuationists, which is a fancy way of saying that we believe that the gifts of the Spirit should mark the life of the church today and should be practiced within the limitations that the scriptures set out for us. So we believe that even the miraculous gifts that we read about in Scripture are meant to mark the life of the church today. So the apostle Paul, he was talking to a church in the first century in Corinth and he said, now brothers and sisters, I don't want you to be ignorant. 

I don't want you to be unaware concerning spiritual gifts. And my experience is that many of us are unaware. I won't say ignorant. The Bible says ignorant. I'll use the word unaware. We're unaware of the spiritual gifts we've been given. And we might have an inkling of the way God's designed us, but we definitely don't know how that fits, the difference that it makes, the impact that it has here in the body. So our hope in this series is that you would come to recognize the gifts that God's given you and you would start to actually operate in it. 

So not just know it, not just say it, those are big steps, but to actually begin to walk in it and operate in it. Many of us, potentially many of us, I think this was correct based on the show of hands a couple weeks ago, but many of us grew up in gifts, grew up in churches where the gifts weren't talked about. It can be somewhat of a controversial subject. So sometimes pastors avoid it because it gets messy. And so sometimes they just weren't spoken about. Some of us grew up in churches where they were spoken about. 

And in fact, you would say they've been abused or maybe misused. And so you don't want anything to do with somebody saying, God told me. And so when people say, God said, you say, nah, probably not. I've been manipulated by that. I've been hurt by that and abuse has led me away from that. 

That might be where you're coming from. It might be a position or a stance of fear because of hurt that's been caused. Some of you attended churches that maybe talked and said, spoke and what's the word I'm looking for? Opposed these gifts. Actually said that these gifts, miraculous gifts, revelatory gifts, they aren't to mark the life of the church today. 

And in fact, they're dangerous and should be, you know, we shouldn't do those things. So some of you have come and you're like, this is my first church. And I don't know why you're talking about all this. And you're coming with a blank canvas. And so no matter where you're coming from, we just want at the end of this for people to know what these gifts are, how they operate, how they build up the church, because we're interested and you participating in the life of this body in that way. So we wrote a little booklet that very briefly describes each gift. But in reading it, and hopefully you received it as you walked in and reading it, we'd love for you to go, God, how have you wired me and what gifts have you placed in my life? 

And to begin to explore the idea that God has given you at least one spiritual gift. So the whole trinity is involved in giving gifts. So God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit all involved in gifting the church. We see this captured in just one verse in 1 Corinthians 12, where it says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord referenced to Jesus. And there's a variety, there's a, there are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all in any, in everyone, referring to the Father. So the gifts of the Holy Spirit are listed in 1 Corinthians 12. 

You can read those on the screen. The gifts given by God the Son are found in Ephesians four. And the gifts given by the Father are found in Romans 12. And that's where we're going to be today. So if you brought your Bible, would you open it to Romans chapter 12? 

If you didn't bring a Bible, we'll put the verses on the screen. We also realize that now after four weeks of talking about the gifts, we're just not going to get to everything. Even if we write little books and power through information like we're going to today, we're not going to get to it all. And so I would love you to ask questions, to make sure that we're answering the questions that people actually have. And so you can, we'll put a QR code up on the screen. We'll put together like a podcast where we attempt to answer the questions that come in. But if you're here, you've got a nagging question, we'd love to give it a go. So feel free to ask those and we'll respond. Romans chapter 12, starting in verse 1, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Last week I had lunch with Doug Capra. Doug Capra I found out is from Queens. And Doug Capra rides up Harley. 

And I didn't know that until I arrived at lunch with Doug Capra. And of course I asked, let me sit on that thing. And I've only ever ridden a dirt bike, you know. So I planted my butt in the seat of this Harley and it's something like it goes straight to your head. And then I went ahead and started again, this thing's, you know, Doug has spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this bike. So then I start to tip it off of the kickstand and just feel the sheer weight of this Harley. 

And I'm really intimidated at this point. Then Doug says, you can go ahead and take it for a ride. And then my wife said, no, you can't take it for a ride. 

And so I didn't take it for a ride. But what Doug said to me is he assured me that once I got going, once I got some momentum, this thing would be easy to handle. That it's actually easy to steer once it gets going. And I thought, you know what, he's probably right because I've experienced that on a bicycle. That when you're stopped on a bike and you have no momentum, you have no speed, it's actually really difficult to keep your balance. But with some speed, it's much easier to steer your bicycle. So I thought maybe that's the case with this Harley. And I bring this up because this is how the will of God works for me. And I think it actually works the same way for you. 

A lot of people are sitting, camped, they've parked their butt square in the seat and they're asking for the will of God. Should I marry this person? Should I go to this school? Should I change career? 

Should I buy another house? We come to God in these moments of transition and we come to God seeking his will when there's tragedy. When we see fires like the fires in LA, we start asking questions about the will of God. And what I've discovered about the will of God is there is the standard will of God and the specific will of God. 

Now, neither of those terms are in the scriptures, but here's what I mean by that. We know, we know that it's the will of God that we pray continually. We know that it's the will of God that we evangelize. We know that it's the will of God that we make disciples. We know it's the will of God that people be saved. We know that it's the will of God that we can forgive. 

And when we begin to do those things, step out, get momentum, start to move forward in the standard will of God, I find that God can naturally and easily lead us into the specific will of God. Should I move house? Should I change jobs? Who in order to touch his specific will for our lives, we have to be moving in the standard will of God. Is that making any sense? The reason I bring this up is because I think gifts work the same way. That we can't sit camped and say, God, where have you gifted us? And until you speak to us about our gifting, we're not going to go forward. But in fact, the invitation is to start to move forward knowing that every one of us has been called to pray. Now, some of us are going to be gifted in the place of prayer. All of us are called to serve. 

And the only way to find out is if you're gifted in serving is to begin to serve and find out, actually, there's no grace on this in my life. We're all called to give. And some of us are going to have the gift of generosity. 

But the only way to discover that is to begin to give and to be faithful in what he's called us to do. So we continue to move forward. We're all going to teach. Some of us are going to have the gift of teaching on our lives, but you won't know that until you begin to move forward in that. 

Does that make sense? So what I want to invite you into right now is not the world of assessments where we camp out paralyzed by the question of, is this God's will for my life? But we begin to move forward, pick up momentum. And with that momentum, I think God can naturally and easily steer us. As we're making disciples and praying and doing the things he's called us to do, I think he can lead us very easily. 

Same goes with the gifts we've been given. Please don't sit back and wait for an assessment. Please move forward and give it a go. There's only one way to know if you've got that gift, and that's to risk. Give it a go and say, I tried to teach and everyone fell asleep. 

It didn't work out for me. There's only one way to know and that's to go. And so that's what I'm trying to say. You're not going to find your gifts sitting on Doug Capra's Harley. I don't even know if that made sense. 

I'm pretty sure it did. Moving on. For by the grace given to me, Paul writes in verse three, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. I want to double click on these two words before we talk about gifts, sober judgment, and each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Sober judgment. We rarely see ourselves clearly or rightly. 

That's why God's called us to be in community, right? We tend to either ignore and overlook certain things or exaggerate and magnify our strengths and weaknesses. We either think too highly or too lowly of ourselves. 

We rarely see ourselves rightly, right? We're either saying like, oh no, that's no big deal. And the people around us are like, yeah, it is. It's like a really big deal. Or we're saying this is a huge deal. And the people around us are saying like, yeah, maybe not as big a deal as you're making it. And so we need the people around us in order to have a sober assessment of ourselves. 

And so as you read your booklet, as you hear about the gifts of the spirit, what I want to invite you into is to noticing the gifts in others and blessing those because we need a corporate echo. It doesn't matter what an assessment says. It matters what the people who know us say. And so would you be quick to notice and bless the gifts inside of others? Because I think that's the best way to activate the gifts in this body. To say, I see this at work in you. When you do this, it's not just good for you, but it's good for all of us. That's the way I want to see us activated as a church. 

So we need a sober assessment, not too high, not too low. And we usually need others in order to get that, right? Okay, the second thing I want to double click on is the measure of faith. It says here that we should operate in our gifts, but we should do so according to our faith. So right alongside of this gift is a measure of faith to operate in that gift. 

And this is really important. Because some of us have been given a leadership gift and you're called to lead dozens. That's the measure of faith. And some of you have been given a leadership gift and you're called to lead hundreds. And some of you have been given a leadership gift and you've been called to lead thousands. There's a measure of faith that's connected to your gift. And Romans tells us exercise your gift in accordance with the faith that you have, the faith that God gives you. 

The reason this is so important is because we can't compare. You can't be going, well, I don't have the gift of exhortation because that person, they have the gift of exhortation. Oh, I'm not a leader because I don't lead thousands. 

Yeah, but you're called to lead dozens. There's a measure of faith that's connected to this gift and you should operate in your gift in accordance with faith. We see this operating in the life of David, David the shepherd boy, right? He slays Goliath. 

But before he slays Goliath, he slays a bear, slays a lion. And there's this kind of like, oh, I've got a measure of faith for this. I've got a measure of faith for this. And now there's this giant mocking my God and he's thinking, I don't know, I've seen some big things fall. 

And so he's faithful with the little God continues to give him more. And that's the way that often this works. This is probably not the first place you're going to operate in your gifts. There's going to be a measure of faith. You're going to step out. You're not going to teach from the pulpit the first time you teach. You're probably going to take someone out to coffee and say, this is what I'm seeing. 

And you're going to help others unlock the truth of God's word. Does that make sense? All right. 

So don't compare. For as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let's use them. So gifts are gifts. They're gifts of God's grace. We don't earn them through being super spiritual. These are gifts that God gives through his grace, but we also have a role in responsibility. 

Do you see it there in that text? Use them. Get going. Start peddling. Start moving. Use the gifts that God's given you. That's our role in responsibility. 

We think of Adam and Eve, right? Dropped right in the middle of a garden. And then God says, cultivate it. Partner with me. 

And that's this process. We partner with him. So we speak, but we speak as those who speak the very words of God and we serve, but we serve according to the strength that he provides. 

It's this beautiful partnership, right? We see that even in the scriptures. Who wrote the book of Luke? Luke. 

You can see his touch on everything. Who really wrote the book of Luke? It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. So who wrote it? 

The Spirit or Luke? Yeah. We're all right with that. Okay. Now to the gifts. 

If you have the gift of prophecy, use it in proportion to your faith. If serving in our serving, the one who teaches and is teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. These are referred to as the design gifts. These are given by the Father. And I think some of the easier ones to recognize in our lives. 

And that's why I wanted to start with them. These gifts describe tendencies that characterize you. And I believe that you were created with a mix of gifts, probably not one of these, but I want you to try to find yourself as we work through these different gifts. I want you to try to identify what motivates your decisions. 

Because I think there's a unique design that God's placed on your life, and it's meant to bless others. The most helpful thing I've ever discovered in helping people discover their gifts is this little parable where you're at a dinner party. You're at a dinner party and the hostess is serving you. And the hostess is serving you and the other six design gifts we just referred to. And she brings a dessert from the dining room to the kitchen. And in the process of bringing it in, she drops the dessert. And how you respond to this situation, I think determines or potentially shows us a glimpse of how God's designed you and wired you. 

So the dessert gets dropped and the Perceiver Prophet says, that's what happens when you're not careful. There's a motivation to correct, right, and wrong. The server says, let me help you clean it up. 

The motivation is to render practical, helpful service. The teacher says, the reason you dropped the dessert is because it was too heavy on one side of the tray. There's a motivation to discover and then kind of research what happened. 

The exhorter says, hey, next time let's serve dessert with the meal. The motivation is to find success by correcting a future of failure. Give hope. The Giver says, the next dessert's on me. I'm happy to buy another dessert. The motivation is to give to a tangible need. And then the leader says, Jim, you get the mat, Sue, you pick up the tray, marry, fix a new dessert. 

And the motivation for them is for efficiency and organization. The Mercy person goes, that could have happened to any one of us. Any one of us could have dropped that dessert. And the motivation is to empathize and to be aware of someone's feelings. Where would you find yourself? What's your response? Your first response? 

Not the one you think you're supposed to have. Well, in church, my response would be, some of you are like, depends on how much I want to eat that dessert. So the gift of prophecy, again, you can read more about this in your pamphlet, but I'm going to motor through these. 

Is that okay? The gift of prophecy would be better termed the gift of insight. In the Old Testament, prophets were called seers. And people who have this gift perceive things that the rest of us miss. And not only are they called to see, but they're called upon by God to speak what they see. And they have a very direct intuitive sense about where things really are. So everyone's like, oh, here's where we are. 

And then they're like, no, this is where we really are. So the rest of the body counts on prophetic gifts to accurately identify and then to proclaim the will of God. This is what God sees. 

This is what God wants. So Paul often uses the human body as a metaphor for the church, which is the body of Christ. And those with the gift of prophecy would be the eyes of the body. They see things that people just seem to miss, and that's really helpful. I think that we in the life of Peter get a glimpse of this gift of prophecy because Peter had a tendency to make quick judgments in situations, and he spoke up quickly. 

Peter spoke first more than any of the other disciples. He had an amazing ability to sense when someone or something was not what it appeared to be. In Acts 5, he knows that two people are immediately lying. 

He has a tendency to be painfully direct to and correcting friends. Peter, as you remember, rebuked Jesus for taking a course of action that Peter did not think was the right one to take. And Peter had an ability to be very persuasive in defining what is right and wrong. God used Peter to bring conviction to thousands as he preached. You have taken Jesus and by wicked hands you've crucified and slain him. That's a heck of a thing to say to a horde of people. 

There's a dark side to all of these gifts, which probably will be the easier way to identify the gift that God's given you. Number one, jumping to conclusions about words, actions, and motives. I know why they did what they did. Judging and exposing someone rather than restoring them, dwelling on the negative rather than the positive, lacking cautiousness and tactfulness and expressing opinions, and then demanding a positive response to a harsh rebuke. Those can be some of the dark sides. The gift of serving, this is motivated by a desire to meet practical needs and render assistance. So servers, they minister through their deeds rather than their words. And they would best be described as the hands of the body. So they're equipped, this is a huge thing. They're equipped with incredible stamina and a disregard for weariness and boundaries. How many of you know someone like that? 

You should text them and be like, your disregard for boundaries is a huge blessing to me. I think we see this gift in the life of Timothy. Timothy served Paul so that Paul could carry out his mission and ministry. And those who have the gift, they serve with joy when it frees others. They see others being freed up to do what God designed them to do and that blesses them. Timothy had a tendency to disregard personal health and comfort to serve others. So Timothy's ailments are fairly known to us all and known to Paul. 

Timothy, this is interesting. He often felt unqualified for spiritual leadership. And so many of us who have the gift of service often need to be reminded of your importance because you think it's no big deal and it's a huge deal. The dark side of having this gift in your life is you can accept too many jobs at one time. You can be governed by needs and feel responsible for every concern. You can be too persistent in giving unrequested help. And you can become hurt by the ungratefulness of those who were helped. 

Like they didn't respond the way I hoped they would. The gift of teaching. This is the ability to impart knowledge sort of the mind of the body. The tendency is to want to distribute the facts and lead the body into revealed truth. Usually intelligent. 

They want to know the basis for everything and enjoy searching out the facts to validate the truth. The gift of teaching looks like it's at work in Luke's life. Luke's self-proclaimed purpose in writing was for people to know a certainty. So he's like, I don't just want you to know. That's what Matthew, Mark, and John wanted. 

I want you to know with certainty. So Luke presents truth in a very systematic fashion with a chronological approach to the story of Jesus and to the early church. And his delight is in researching and reporting as many facts as possible. 

So Luke's gospel is the longest gospel and he emphasizes the completeness of his own work. This is the dark side of the gift. If you have this gift, you can become proud of your knowledge. You can depend on human reasoning rather than the Holy Spirit. You can bore people with the details of your research. You can retreat into a world of books because books are easier than people. 

And you can give information that lacks a practical application. Do you have this gift? Like when you teach, do people like get it? 

Does the light bulb go off? When you talk to people? When you see someone confused in their understanding, do you feel responsible to fix it? Like when someone prays out and you're like, I don't think that's correct. Do you feel like, oh man, I can't correct their prayers. They're talking to God. 

I can't tell them how to talk to God, but your party is like, that wasn't the right way to talk to God. The gift of encouragement, exhortation, it literally means to call someone aside and like make an appeal. Specifically when people are down in the dumps. Like when your team's losing it half. 

It's that gift that erupts, presents a future and a hope. This is who God is. This is what he does and he does it at the 11th hour. He's done it before. He's going to do it again. 

You can see it's starting to come out, right? So a gift of exhortation is operating in the life of Paul. Paul's goal was to present every man mature in Christ. He's quite the coach and he was continually urging people to press on towards the goal, towards Christ. 

He had an ability to discern where a person is and his or her spiritual growth and speak to them right where they're at, right? So Paul saw the Corinthian church, knew they were babes in Christ, knew what was needed. Paul had a desire to give people precise and practical steps of action. Paul's writings are filled with practical wisdom. 

He had also, this is important, he had an ability to welcome personal tribulation as a motivation for spiritual growth. I know some of these guys, they're usually found in crossfit gyms across our city. We're like the worst it gets. There's something in them that's like sick and is like, yeah, let's do that, you know. 

It's not just a marathon, it's a 100 mile race and it's like, yeah, we'll just run till our feet bleed. That kind of thing is usually in those who have a gift of exhortation. The dark side of the gift is they can treat people as projects rather than persons trying to like just fix it. They can exaggerate in order to motivate. They're overly optimistic at times and unable to rest. And they can take family time to counsel and be with others because they're actually drawn towards trouble and drama. So do people find you when they're discouraged? 

They're like, no. Do you enjoy walking with someone through difficulties? Like you're like, when someone's doing bad and everybody else is running away, do you run towards the trouble? You might have this gift. The gift of giving, givers, they're motivated to supply others and they give out of a spirit of generosity. They actually don't wait for the pastor to say, we need you to give. 

They actually have eyes and they're looking for opportunities to bless and to give to others. I think we see this potentially in the life of Matthew. He had a desire to give quietly without public notice. He's the only gospel writer to record Jesus' teaching about the need to give secretly so that God could reward openly. Matthew had wealth and he had wealthy friends and he left that to follow Jesus and he was content with the necessities of life. He had the ability to see financial needs that others overlooked. 

Matthew records Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees for not supporting their aged parents and he also detailed the fairness of paying the laborers all the same wage. He's got an eye for this. The dark side of this gift of generosity is you can judge those who misuse funds rather than advising them. You can try to control ministries and ministers with your gifts. You can try to control people with your giving. And you can corrupt people by giving too much and giving too quickly. The gift of leadership, are we all right? Trying to break this up with a joke every now and then. 

Are we hanging in there? Are you thinking of people? Yeah, make sure to take the time to notice them. Bless the gifts that you see in others. The gift of leadership, I think this probably best described as the shoulders of the body. Like they just carry incredible weight. The weight of what's happening is usually on their shoulders. They provide direction rule. They protect, they champion vision. We can see the gift of leadership at work in Nehemiah's life. He knew what resources were available. Even asking for certain types of wood to reach on a certain timeline. 

I need this delivered and I need it delivered on a certain day. He had an ability to break down major goals into smaller achievable goals. And he accomplished a huge task in just a few weeks by having many groups work on smaller sections. So Nehemiah knew what he should delegate and what he shouldn't delegate. Nehemiah delegated the work of building the walls. Yet the responsibility of dealing with enemies and guarding the walls was his. 

He didn't give that. And he had an ability to inspire and encourage workers with cheerfulness, approval, and praise. So he had a way of enrolling, galvanizing. The dark side of this gift is viewing people as human resources and not as human beings. Of using people to get done what you want to get done. Taking charge of projects in your own strength because leaders feel strong. They often operate in their own strength. And you can also be unresponsive to suggestions and appeals. 

People with the gift of leadership are, have a God given stubbornness. To see something through. Like a dog on a bone. They just won't let go. 

And so sometimes they're unresponsive to suggestions. With a sort of get behind me Satan kind of vibe. The gift of mercy. 

There it was the joke to just keep us moving. The gift of mercy worship team would you guys come? The gift of mercy. The basic motivation is to identify with and bring comfort to and relieve those who are in need. They release God's kindness, care, mercy. And they're able to connect with people who are grieving and walk them through difficult seasons. 

They've got the gift of mercy. We see this I think in John's life. John's writing and his relationships illustrate that his primary focus was love. He uses the word love more than any of the other disciples and even refers to himself. I'm the one that Jesus loves. 

Jesus, confided in John just before he was to be crucified and his deep understanding and acceptance makes it easy to see why others who were in emotional distress sought him out. The dark side of this gift of mercy is you can have a real failure to be firm and decisive when necessary. You can take up offenses for those who have been hurt and you can base decisions on emotions rather than reason. And you can not maintain healthy boundaries and relationships and you can carry things that only God was meant to carry. Would you stand with me? How many of you, how many of you, I'm not, you don't have to own this because I know you're not there yet, but how many of you would say I've got a bent in this direction towards mercy? Like I feel bent in this direction. Not that you have it and have it all worked out, but God's designed you, wired you to work in a certain way. How many of you can see the gift of leadership in your life? 

You know God's called you to shoulder? We only have one? We got like one leader here? Come on. I'm not, you don't, I know you don't have it worked out. Did I just get a shocker from Matt Ainsley? How many of you can recognize the gift of giving in your life? 

Come on. You don't have to have money to have the gift of giving. Like you've never once said split the tab, like you want to take it on. How many of you feel like there's a gift of teaching on your life when you talk to people, people connect the dots, they get it? What about prophecy? How many of you feel gifted to perceive and see? Again, you've not worked it all out, but you know that you know things before other people know things. 

What about serving? How many of you get so excited to release other people and their gifts? So cool. 

We're just taking baby steps towards owning this stuff. And someday in the future you're going to be like, get out of my way. I got the gift of service and the Holy Spirit is upon me. Hey, we're going to come to the table. And I just had this sense that we were to come all the way back to Romans 12, the very first verse that we would offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. Like my life, Lord, however you've wired me is just, it's yours to spend. And maybe you're here and you're directing your gifts towards other things and other purposes besides the glory of God. Maybe you're using your gifts for your own good and your own glory. And maybe actually you're using people and the Lord's inviting you today to use your gifts to serve others and to recognize that you've been wired in a certain way to glorify Him. I just felt like let's present ourselves as an offering, not just sing songs, but say, here's my life. Here's the way you've wired me. 

Work in my life. So as you come, we'll take the cup and remember that it's the blood of Jesus that cleanses us and qualifies us to be even beyond the field. And then we're going to take the bread, which is the broken body of Jesus, broken so that we can be whole, whole as a church and whole as a person. 

And so as you do that, would you then just begin to lift up Jesus and we're going to ask that He just continues to distribute gifts? There'll be people up here willing to pray for you. If you're maybe that person who's like, man, I'm really stuck right now. I'm wanting and needing God to make a way in my life. We'd love to pray for you. Let's worship and respond at the table.

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