Community: Community Service

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For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantParquay.org.

Lord, we sing for what you've done for us.

We want to listen for what you've done for us.

And so, God, we've invited you here.

We know you're here because your presence is in believers.

And so when we invite you here, God, what we're really saying is that we just need to understand you a little bit better.

We need to experience you a little bit more full.

And that's our fault, not yours.

Because we've pulled back throughout the week, or maybe maybe even this morning.

And we just ask God that you just give us the courage to just kind of press back into you, knowing that we just may be jolted and jarred by what we find, and yet maybe forever changed.

And so, God, give us the courage to just draw near to you as you've drawn near to us.

And as we open up your word, we want to be changed.

We don't want to just have a mental exercise of better understanding.

We want to have an experience with you.

And more than that, God, we want to have a life that's representative of your presence within us.

We are part of a great church.

We are part of a strategic church.

And as the church, we are what you have called for all of us the hope and the light of the world.

There's no greater privilege than that, Lord, and we don't want to uh we don't want to take that for granted.

Both in our listening, both in our activities throughout the week, and whatever we're called to do as a result of what we hear today, we want to be um fully engaged with you as you've been with us.

So it's now, God, that we open up your word.

I pray that you change us with it.

And by your spirit, would you just continue to mold us into the people that you're calling us to become?

We love you.

And we're thankful, God, for your presence in our lives.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Uh did we lose an hour of sleep last night or something?

Because y'all are all here at 10.

Uh my goodness.

Uh, my name is Lance Williams, and uh I'm a spiritual formation pastor here at Grand Parkway, as Neil said, Um, and as we prayed over the Morrisseys, um, it's been my privilege uh to really walk through the month of July and just kind of understand what the Bible says about community as we focus on our core values this summer.

We've done the gospel in June.

We're now doing community in July, and we'll end today, and then we'll jump into mission uh next week when Neil comes and preaches a word on mission.

Um, but as we have done that, and let me just kind of recap for everybody that's new here or our guests with us, um, that first week in July, we looked at what really is community.

Um, and it's very simple.

Uh that Jesus, our God and King, he made things very simple for us to understand.

It's where two or more are gathered for the name and the purposes of glorifying the name of Jesus.

That second week of community, we looked at what is it really that what are we?

We are a growing community.

How do we become the people that God's called us to become as a whole?

We encourage one another to put the things of God over the things of man.

And then last week we looked at what does it look like for us to develop and cultivate spiritual friendships?

And if you haven't, uh, I won't go into all the four points because then I'll start preaching that sermon again.

But but I would encourage you, if you didn't get a chance to listen to that, go and listen to it online on our website.

Um truly, I think there's a lot of good things for us to know and to really dig into as we relate to one another.

Today, as we kind of bring community to it to its culmination, we're gonna talk about community service.

What is it that sets us apart from the world in such a way that they can't duplicate it?

We can build as many buildings in the world, but we will never be outdone in one thing, and it is love.

How we love and serve and care for one another.

When Jesus left the earth, he said, Just as I have loved you, so now you should love one another.

It was the new command, and it's reiterated in different words all throughout the scriptures.

And so where we're gonna be today, um, we're gonna jump off of Galatians chapter 5, verse 13 and 14.

Galatians 5:13

We'll start there, and then we'll run all over the place and kind of end a little early, and then I'll get you up to the ministry fair which is going on upstairs and around the building today.

So, Galatians chapter 5, verse 13.

Galatians 5:13

If you don't have your Bible, there's one at the end of your row.

And uh we are on page 975 of that Bible.

Uh we've been a little bit inward here talking about community, we're rightfully so, but starting today, we're gonna start moving outward, outward to one another, and then outward next week to the world.

And so uh as this it's all been intentional as we've kind of uh really dug in throughout the summer.

So if you've got your Bible, that's where we'll be uh in Galatians.

Um now that you're there, let me read those two verses to jump off from.

Here we go.

For you are called, you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters.

If there's one thing you're called to, it is freedom.

And then he says this as a warning: only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

But through love serve one another.

For the whole law, all six hundred and thirteen Old Testament laws, and whatever laws you want to add in there, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So it seemed to me that Paul is commanding all of us to serve one another, to love one another, and the only thing that we are not freed from in Christ is this one thing.

That is our bondage to one another, our bondage to love and serve one another.

It's the only thing that we're continuing to be enslaved to is to make sure we put one another above ourselves, and as we do that, we put God's things above man's things, and we become a people that maybe we don't see right now, but God sees us becoming.

And so that's kind of where we're jumping off from.

You and I were called to freedom.

And the call there is to not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

How do we do that?

By only thinking of ourselves.

See, our freedom gets taken captive by our flesh when all we think about is our preferences, when all we think about is our schedules, when all we think about when we come to church is what we need, when all we think about is, oh, I just need this.

That's when all of a sudden the flesh takes over and takes advantage of the freedom that was bought and purchased by a man named Jesus and then rose again.

And so as you see that now, the question becomes, okay, good.

You just kind of remember you talked about last week how you be honest with each other, you don't want to punch each other in the face, you gotta kiss one another.

Okay, now that I've punched you in the face, why don't we do that?

Why don't we prioritize this more than we really do?

Why don't we love and serve one another?

Because statistically speaking, 80% of the church's work is done by 20% of its members.

80% done by 20%.

What does that do?

Man, that taxes the system big time, doesn't it?

So statistically speaking, 80% of the people in this room, if you've got 10 people on your row, I know you're not one of them, so you can count yourself as the one, two, and your spouse.

The rest of the people on your row are not doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Right?

Okay?

So that's just kind of statistically where we are.

But why don't we?

There's probably a lot of different reasons.

Let me just put four before you.

Number one, maybe it's just ignorance.

Maybe you just don't really know what God says about how we are to really prioritize the serving of one another.

It's all over the Bible.

John 13, I already quoted.

Philippians 2, put another's interest over your own.

Serve.

Become like the one who left the glories of heaven and came down to earth and served us.

Maybe we don't know.

Well, now you do.

You can't claim that one anymore.

Maybe you uh just have bad priorities.

Maybe soccer has really taken over this summer.

Maybe softball, maybe T-ball.

Uh and I played baseball, and I can guarantee you right now, if I was a kid, you couldn't pull me from the baseball field for anything.

Maybe it's that.

Uh, maybe it's just, maybe it's just you're busy or you've just busied yourself up and you need to kind of carve some things out of our priority.

And let me just say right now, as we kind of start to sink in our chairs a little bit so that I don't notice you, um, I'm not here to guilt or manipulate anybody.

That's not what I'm saying.

I just want to kind of present to us what's going on and the spiritual battle that's kind of happening inside of one of inside of each of us so that we can become who God wants us to become.

Maybe the third thing is uh we just we don't know how we can serve.

We don't know what the needs are.

Or maybe we don't know who we are in Christ.

And that's why, again, the two things that are happening today ministry fair and free spiritual gift assessments.

Um the ministry fair is upstairs, and if you want to do a spiritual gift test, if you don't know how you're gifted by God, and there are specific ways that God's gifted you and kind of just put things inside of you for you to give to other people, we can do that upstairs in room two thirteen.

Tommy Hammer, who is one of our uh he was an elder here for a long time and now teaches uh Bible community every week faithfully, he has a heart to get you involved.

He has a heart for you to understand how you were created.

He's upstairs in room 2 or 13, and he'd love to have you.

I can tell you this it was a full room last hour.

So if you want to get up there, either get up there fast or wait a little bit.

Maybe go check out some other things.

It takes about 15, 20 minutes to take that.

But it's available and it's here for you to take advantage of.

It's free to you today.

We'd love for you to do that.

And then maybe the last thing, maybe there's the things that kind of keep us from loving and serving one another.

Maybe it's just fear.

Maybe you're afraid to fail.

Maybe you're afraid that you're not really as competent as you think you are, and someone else might see that.

Whatever it is, maybe you're afraid.

Maybe that's you right now.

And God's calling you to do something, but you just kind of put that gift in your pocket and you're going, I don't know if that exists.

Put it in a junk drawer and go, I'll I'll think about it later.

Whatever it is, we've got to get to the point where we get beyond all of those things and get to the things that I want to talk about today.

We talk about becoming a community that serves one another.

The first thing is this.

If we're gonna ever become that, the first thing we've got to understand is you and I have a unique design.

A unique design by God to do specific things at a specific time in a specific place.

You are not here by an accident.

If you call Grand Parkway your home church, you're not here just to sit and soak.

That's a great idea for a sponge, but eventually the sponge gets all full up and you've got to wring it out.

And you've got to be be used of God to do what you're called to do.

But you and I are have a unique design.

If you had your Bible, you don't have to turn that it'll come up on the screen.

But I'm gonna read from Psalm 139, and it says this in verse 13 for you, for God, formed my inward parts.

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

See how specific God's design is for each one of us.

I praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well.

Do we praise him because of how we're made?

Or do we shy away from it because we just don't have all these other things maybe in line, or we've kind of, you know, I don't know, ignored the obvious for so long.

Do we really praise him by how we live, or is it lip service?

Something tells me that who wrote Psalm 139 uh absolutely praised them with their hearts, with their minds, with their soul, with their strength, with their bodies, and began to give God praise and how they were made.

Uh let me illustrate it by asking you this question.

You ever picked out a dog?

Yeah, some of us?

Okay, there's two dog owners in the room.

All right, me and someone else in the front row.

Perfect.

All right, so if you've picked out a dog, hopefully you did what we did the first time and not what we did the second time.

So hopefully you kind of did some research and you were like, all right, I want I want a dog.

I know I want a dog, but what kind of dog do I want?

Because here's the reality.

Each breed of dog was bred for a specific purpose, right?

So for me, I grew up with boxers.

So I'm I'm going to look for a dog.

I'm like, all right, I'm getting boxer for sure.

Knowing that me and my wife live in a 714 square foot apartment on the second floor in the gallery area, probably not gonna work.

So I began to research what kind of dog am I gonna get?

And all of a sudden it came down to uh my sweet Baxter.

Oh, Baxter, little Boston Terrier, okay?

Great little dog, best dog I ever had, right?

Been around for about 10 years now, still kicking it.

Um, the reality is here's why we bought him.

Yes, he's cute, yes, all these different things, but the reality is why we bought him was because what uh this description said on the AKC website was he'll be happy in a small apartment or in a large field.

Well, I know we have many years of a small apartment in our future, so I'm going to get a Boston Terrier.

Now he ended up being like 30 pounds, and he's only supposed to be 15, but it worked out.

Okay?

Now, some of us, now here's the reality, right?

The the dog world, like there's like marketers for dog who you don't want to get a mutt because you don't really know what you're getting.

But if you kind of research the breed, you know exactly what you're getting.

You can kind of predict what's going to happen with these dogs.

Some of us have been duped by the dog breeding societies or whatever, and they've created cool names for muts.

They're muts, like a beagle and a pug.

What is that called?

Like a puggle?

Some of y'all have a pugle.

I would call that Satan and a dog.

Because those two dogs, they don't belong together.

One digs like crazy, and the other one, I don't know what a pug is for.

I don't know.

But it's there.

Uh but nonetheless, each breed has a specific, they were bred for a specific purpose.

Now it's silly, and it's a duck, excuse me, it's a dog, uh, because the reality is we didn't always do our homework when we got a dog.

Uh there was there was a time in our lives and we thought, all right, we're gonna get we can get Baxter a friend.

And went down to the kennel and we got a German wire-haired pointer.

Um, we didn't know what it was, we just thought it was cute.

Brought it home, and we're like, what is up with this dog?

Cute and cuddly, large, and likes to sniff and hunt a lot.

What is his problem?

Oh, that's right.

He's a hunting dog in an apartment.

He doesn't belong here.

So um, because of my cold and stony heart, I went ahead and took him back to the kennel.

Uh, and there was a lot of sad eyes in the room.

Y'all are looking at me like Sarah McLaughlin looks at y'all in that commercial.

That's what y'all are doing right now.

Let me just tell you, I took that dog back quick, quick.

The next day it was gone.

Uh because why?

Because it had a specific design that we were not going to be able to do.

In the description about German wirehead pointers, it says, we'll keep even the most active family busy.

I am not the most active family.

It was not a good fit.

Each breed has a specific purpose.

You and I have a specific purpose.

You were created, designed in a unique way for a unique time and a unique place to do what only you can do.

I can't do what you can do.

And you can't do what I can do.

And that's not a boast, that's reality.

God has created us with experience and family life and passions and all kinds of things.

He's kind of worked together sovereignly to make you who you are so that you can do what he wants you to do.

And only the way that you can do it.

A very specific and unique thing.

And that's why the psalmist says, Oh my gosh, I praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

You've knit all this together in eternity past.

At least that's what Ephesians 2 would say.

It says, We're his workmanship.

We're the crowning achievement of creation, not in the mountains, not the stars, humanity.

He says, Oh man, we're we're his workmanship.

We we we all of a sudden we've got these works in Christ Jesus to do that were prepared beforehand.

And now all we gotta do is just walk in him.

Ephesians 2.10 says.

So we have a unique design.

If we're gonna become a serving community, know that you have a very unique and intricate design.

The second thing you need to know is this not only are you uniquely designed, but you are you have a priesthood.

You have a priesthood.

Um you and I, if we are followers of Jesus, have a priesthood.

When I think of a priest, what do you think of?

You think of a man with a hat?

You think of a man with a collar?

You think of a woman?

No.

Why?

We should.

Maybe instead of thinking about somebody on a platform, we should start thinking about somebody that's in the mirror.

Because this is what happens when you read the Bible.

Crazy things come out, and they start to redefine who you are, such as fearfully and wonderfully made, such as now you have a priesthood.

And I'm gonna unpack that right now, actually.

First Peter 2 says this come up on the screen.

As you come to him, a living stone.

This is as you come to Jesus, who is a living stone, he was rejected by men, uh, but in the sight of God, oh, what was he?

He was chosen and precious.

See, in the sight of man, we may be, we may be rejected, we may fail, we may do all these different things, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious is Jesus.

And then he says this you, if you if you follow Jesus, you yourselves are like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house.

You and I being built up as a spiritual house of God.

That's the church right there.

And why?

To be holy, a holy priesthood.

You and I are priests of the living God.

What was once reserved for a few in the Old Testament is now given to every believer in Christ.

Every follower of Jesus has a priesthood.

Well, what does a priest do?

Well, it says right there, they offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

What do some of those spiritual sacrifices look like?

Well, a priest does this.

They have access to God, a very special access to God.

If you believe in Jesus, you go through the way to the Father.

You have access to Him in ways that the world doesn't have.

Now all of a sudden you have the ability to represent God in a way that the world can't represent.

And oh, by the way, neither can your fellow believer.

Now you have access to God, now you can represent God on the earth.

And oh, by the way, now you get to perform his priestly duties.

How?

Loving and serving one another.

However that looks, whatever that looks like in your life.

And so we do these things with our mind, with our eyes, with our ears, with our hands, with our feet, with our knees, whatever we are, we are a body.

That's what the Bible says.

And so we've got to use the members of our body for the glory of God as we serve one another.

So if you cook, cook for the glory of God.

Uh one of my favorite movies growing up, and even today, uh, is uh Three Amigos.

Don't act like you don't like it.

Uh Three Amigos, right?

And at the end of it, they're in the village of Santa Poco.

Uh and at the village of Santa Poco, El Guapo is coming.

See?

And El Guapo is on his way, and they and then Chevy Chase looks at the at the village and they go, What can you do well?

And they go, We can sow.

They can sow.

Okay, they can sow.

And they do that, all of a sudden they beat the great enemy.

Now, silly example from three amigos for crying out loud.

Didn't expect that to come out from the sermon, but there it is.

What can you do well?

What is it that you got in your pocket that God's given you to be able to perform priestly duties?

What is it?

There's something in you.

God says He's gifted you in a way, given you a priesthood that's unique, that you now are called to love and serve one another.

Otherwise, we take advantage of the freedom that God's given us.

The final thing in a rapid-fire sermon to get us to this ministry fair and to get us to gather information is not just that we have a unique design, not just that we have a priesthood, but that design is for us.

It's for God's glory, absolutely.

But we don't own it and then just kind of get to do whatever we want with it.

Instead, God wants to put that to use.

Let me um illustrate that by reading a passage of scripture about five verses from Ephesians 4, and it says this.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, all to equip the saints.

That would be every believer for the work of ministry.

See, so many times we think church is where we go and we sit in a in a in a chair just like you're sitting right now, and you watch the prophets and the apostles and the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers, and they do their work of ministry, and we kind of leave and go and don't do any ministry at all.

But in reality is, when you come, this is an equipping time for believers so that you can do the work of ministry.

And what is that work of ministry for?

It's for the building up of the body until we attain the unity of faith.

The unity, remember, Neil sent that out as far as a prayer request, knowledge of the Son of God, mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

Oh, no by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.

From whom, now listen now, from whom the whole body is joined and held together by every joint which is equipped.

Oh, yes, your joints are equipped.

When each part is working properly, makes this all makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

First Corinthians 12 would say that there's not one part of the body that can say to the other party that you don't need me.

If you have spiritual gifts and all you can say is I have a gift, but I think the gift isn't a mouthpiece, instead it's like a pinky toe.

Let me just say that's part of the body.

If I cut my pinky toe off today, it would hurt.

I would notice, and so would you.

I would be limping around for weeks.

But the reality is every toe that I have on my foot creates balance, creates stability.

Okay?

That's what we all are in Christ.

We create hopefully a balance and a stability in one another as we grow up into maturity.

Now, if we don't use our gifts, this is what the Bible says, we remain immature as a body.

Okay?

So this is what's at stake if we just kind of sit and stay and then go home.

We remain immature as a body, we remain children, we remain we remain ill equipped, and uh we're also vulnerable to the attack of the enemy.

Okay, so let me just illustrate it like this.

So my spiritual gifts happen to have a whole lot to do with my mind.

Mouth.

Okay?

So if you come to church and you don't use your spiritual gifts and you don't use your priesthood, this would be the equivalent of me or maybe Neil or Wade or whoever else is up teaching in front of people doing this.

We're not at a movie.

It really doesn't hurt.

All I said was, how's this going for you?

Is this building you up?

That's all I said.

Now for you in the back, I don't care about if you're getting built up.

Okay, you're out, you know.

Are you being built up if all of a sudden the people that maybe you depend on for your equipping, what if we didn't use ours?

That's what's at stake for you.

That's what's at stake for us.

So we miss out on a lot of things.

We don't all do a little bit of a whole lot.

It's that 80-20 rule that I talked about earlier.

And some of us, and this is the other part, and this is again no guilt manipulation, this is the other part, is remember how it says working properly in Ephesians 4, 16?

It says that we all should be held together when every when each part is working properly.

See, some of us have been working so hard that to properly work, we need a break.

That we've been working so hard in so many different areas of ministry, we just need a break.

And that would be working properly.

And then some of us, we just need to go, you know what?

In order to work properly, I might need to do some things.

Let me help fill the gap a little bit and get involved in a way that God wants to be, wants to use me.

I'll experience him, be you, excuse me, be used of him to magnify his name.

So I'll end with a quote from our 26th president.

Our 26th president was Theodore Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt was known for a lot of different things.

Um he was known for being the guy that helped complete overseeing the completion of the Panama Canal and Teddy Bears.

I don't know how you do both, but apparently teddy bears have their name after Teddy Roosevelt, the completion of the Panama Canal.

He was in charge of overseeing and making sure we have national parks.

Have you ever been out to like a Yellowstone?

He was in charge of overseeing all of that at the turn of the last century.

And he said something profound one day that somebody wrote down, put it on the internet, and I could find.

But he says this about all of us that are maybe sitting on the sideline for whatever reason.

And I just want to read it for you and for me to be reminded of what the call and the cost really is.

He says this quote is called the man in the arena.

It is not the critic who counts.

It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

No.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.

But who does actually strive to do the deeds?

Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spins himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.

So that this place, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.

The man in the arena who would dare to dare greatly, to trust God, to activate their faith in a God who says, I am with you, I'm calling you to impossible things, and yet I am here for you.

Who are we today?

If we're going to call ourselves to ministry, if we're going to call ourselves Christians and following Christ, are we going to be in the arena or are we going to be on the outside and neither tasting victory or defeat?

Would you all stand with me and I'll speak a word of blessing over you and you can get to where you need to be.

Hold your hands out like this.

Find your life inside the arena, battling for the glory of God.

And do so with the favor of God and the equipping of your hands by our good and gracious God.

Do so now in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.