Beyond Sunday Ep 13 (How Can I Help? Understanding Your Spiritual Gift)

Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching

ministry of LEMC. I'm Pastor Jonah Chitty, joined

here by Pastor Jake Ends and Pastor Joe Pinner.

How are you guys doing today? Doing all right.

Good, good. It's really nice weather.

Like somebody said, it seems like it's Florida outside, but

yeah, it's really nice. I can still wear my flip flops,

which is great. No snow yet.

What What is the cut off for you in flip flops?

Is it like a certain amount of snow?

I guess you don't really know yet.

This will be your first winter. If I'm not working outside, I'm

probably going to wear flip flops from the car to the office

and from my house to the car. It's fine.

I'm just going to wear them year round.

People are going to make fun of me and that's fine.

But yeah, I'm a flip flop guy. So, Joe, you preached a sermon.

I don't remember the title. I did.

I didn't even reference I. Think you made one up right?

I did I, I sort of just made a title because I had to.

I didn't really reference it in my sermon, but it was how can I

help understanding your spiritual gift, which maybe some

people felt like, well, I didn't really understand it anymore

after the sermon. Then I maybe it's good I.

Didn't put the title on the screen that time.

So your text was First Corinthians chapter 12, verses

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

1:00 to 11:00, right? Yeah.

So why don't you give us an overview of the sermon and then

we can kind of go from there. Yeah, so again, I, I, I joke

about, you know, maybe people didn't understand it anymore

before than after. And I did sort of feel slightly

guilty about that because I, I know that this is an area where

people really struggle and they struggle to know their gift.

But at the same time, like I, I can't tell you what it is, I, I

can't help you find out what it is.

And, and so I, I thought there were principles in the text that

we really needed to understand before we really got into the

spiritual gifts. But I do feel a burden to, to

help people to know their gifts the best that we can.

And so. I think that I'm going to

interrupt you. 1st just a second.

That's fine. And maybe we can get into it

later because you're doing your overview.

But like, I think we we may not be able to tell them explicitly

what their gifts are. But like, like you do help me

understand mine, right, by confirming things for me like as

we talk and as and JQ do too, like, you know, we we like

that's part of sharpening each other, I think is helping people

determine what their gifts are. We can't explicitly say, yeah,

you have the gift of prophecy. Well, we don't know that for

sure, but if we see it, we can point out that you have

tendencies towards that. Right.

So I didn't mean to interrupt you there.

I just, I didn't want us to, like, make that distinction

right away. Yeah, no.

And it, and it is helpful, right.

And, and I guess like we know each other well, right?

And so, and so we're not, we're not obviously going to know

everybody that well that closely.

And, and I guess quite honestly, I, I don't know how much we

think about serving each other and serving in church in terms

of spiritual gifts, right. We usually just look at like,

here's a need in the church or here's an opportunity for

someone to serve. Who do we think would best fit

in that role? And so it's sort of like we're,

we're talking about spiritual gifts, but not really talking

about spiritual gifts. We're just looking for the

people that God is gifted to serve in those roles.

The best. And so the principles that I

brought out in my sermon were I had three main points.

The first one was if you have the Spirit, you have a master.

And so I think that's Paul's starting point where he's

talking about, you know, if you have the Holy Spirit, then you

recognize Jesus is your Lord. And so you're no longer of this

world and you're no longer your own.

And so you would use that spiritual gift now to honor your

master and in service of your master.

And that's sort of the starting point.

And if you have this spirit, you have power was the second point.

But we need to recognize that that power is from God and it is

for others. And so we do nothing about what

gift we get, what gift we receive.

It's from God. We don't take any credit for it

and it's not for us. It's not so that I can exalt

myself, but it's for the purpose of serving others.

It's for the common good. Paul says that it's to build up

the church. And so and then the Third Point

was, if you have a gift, have the Spirit, you have a gift.

And so Paul does mention gifts, but I sort of brought up that

it's the Spirit who gets the glory and the Spirit gets to

choose. And so the Spirit is the one who

gives the gifts as he wills. And so he gets the glory for

those gifts. We don't get to take any credit

for them. We don't get to boast in and of

ourselves. They're they're for the church.

And so, but the Spirit is getting the glory because the

Spirit is choosing. And then I spoke, spoke briefly

on each gift that Paul mentions here.

And, and, and really ended like with a with a story of a

conclude or a made-up thing at the end with Austin Matthews,

right. And I really just wanted to get

this at this idea that like in our world, you know, I used

Austin Matthews getting paid $16.7 million a year just to sit

on the bench. You know, that's ridiculous,

right? Like no hockey team would ever

do that. No business would hire an

employee and pay him 50 thousand $60,000 a year to just do

nothing. Like, that's ridiculous, you

know, And in the same way, the Spirit doesn't come into your

heart to give you power and to give you a gift for you just to

do nothing, to just sit on the bench, you know, the purpose of

that gift is to edify and strengthen the church and to

help it grow. And until we're all doing that

and all working together, the church will not be built up as

it should be. Yes, it was, it was really that

illustration at the end was very impactful to think about.

And, and when you think about like, OK, I mean, even if you

don't know what your gift is there, you, you, you should

realize that you're supposed to be doing something right.

We're not just meant to, to come and to to to take.

They're supposed to be some, some form of, of action on our

part to go out. I think it was a really helpful

illustration. I would have used a football

illustration or, or a baseball one.

I thought about like the entire payroll of the Detroit or not

Detroit Lions. Detroit Tigers, Yeah, that one

baseball team that doesn't exist.

Yeah. Anyway, that was less than,

almost, almost less than what Austin Matthews makes in like

one season, which is insane to me.

So, yeah, I would. But the idea on that, that

illustration is really good. Yeah.

And then you went to John, the end of John.

And I was thinking about that, too.

John and the disciples are just fishing.

So, So. OK, So Jesus came and spent

three years of his life with you, disciple you one-on-one,

and then you're just going to be out fishing.

You're going to go back to the exact same thing that you were

doing before. And it's almost the same

illustration, right? He's, he's empowered them with,

with these gifts like they, they now have, I don't know, maybe

they didn't have the spirit just now.

He's, he's going to give it to them, right?

This is before the ascension. So but they're sitting around,

they've they've experienced the Lord Jesus and they're they go

back to what they were doing before he came and found them.

And he says, no, you're going to follow me.

You know, I thought it was such a good.

We're not meant to go back to do what we were doing before.

Maybe maybe your maybe your job. Yeah, but there's something

different about you now. There's something that you have

to do, right? That's that's that you're

compelled to do by the Spirit living inside you.

So it was really good. I thought it was a good

illustration. Your purpose for existence

changes. Yeah, that's a good way to put

it. Yeah.

Yeah, really good. Yeah.

So now you you go. Maybe you go back to that same

job you were doing before, but now you're looking for

opportunities to to give glory to Christ by sharing the gospel.

Or I've commented on this before and different people.

That one guy went and told me that when he started out in

ministry, it was basically church.

Always got in the way of everything, he said.

But then eventually he said it changed.

Now everything gets in the way of church.

It can't feel that way when you're not going, when you're

not doing things with the right attitude, when you have your

priorities out of alignment. And often, I mean, I think we

can all fall prey to that trap, right?

Like we feel, oh, I just wish I could have a, a minute to

myself, you know, we could fall. I think we all can fall prey to

that. So.

Yeah, I think there's also another element.

When Jesus talks to Peter, Jesus does warn him.

There'll come a day when others will lead you and somebody else

will do this and that for you. And, and it was not necessarily

OK, you're going to have this gift.

You're going to, you're going to feed my sheep and all the wine

and roses that was not there. And so the, the living out of

the gift is not an easy task. It's not an easy, easy journey.

Yeah, I think when I was listening to your sermon, the,

the idea that that the, that the Spirit is who gives the gifts,

right? They're from God.

And then like, and then the reason for the gifts that

they're for, they're for the edification of the church.

But then and then also Paul doesn't explicitly mention it

though, but like, but because he keeps saying this, this gift of

the Spirit, it's also to to glorify the sun, right.

So I think it's like I just wrote, I I drew a picture in my

mind or on my paper so I could remember this.

So they come to us like the spirit gives us gifts for us to

give them away, like to give our our to use our gifts to help it

build up the church. And then and then what does that

do? Well, it points back to Jesus,

right. And so because we can't take the

credit, you know, it's they're from the spirit.

We don't get to choose all that stuff.

It's just a really helpful, just just a helpful dissection of the

passage. You did a really good job.

I think like the breaking the passage into different pieces so

that we can understand the gifts are from God for God, right?

Ultimately, they're for him. So, yeah, and I and I think that

that ties into like, like our vision, like we talk about that

as pastors that, you know, we want every ministry of this

church to point to Christ. You know, we would never want

anyone to leave church service or a Wednesday night study or

anything that we do here as a church feeling like we were that

it's it's self help or it's just picking up, picking yourself up

by your bootstraps. Like no, we want the gospel to

saturate everything that we do that everything is empowered and

fueled by Christ. Everything is for the purpose of

glorifying Christ and, and everything should point to him

so that people leave here feeling like they need to draw

closer to Christ. Not to us as pastors, not to us

as a church, but everything that we do is pushing people to

Jesus. Yeah.

Yeah, and that use the Ephesians passage there.

I think you're right to show like our what did you call it?

You said I forget exactly how you said it, but it's the equip

the Saints for the work of the Church.

Yeah, but I think that would be our purpose statement, right.

Like if if we had to pick something that was like just a

verse, I think that would be like we would all agree that

that that is what we're here to do.

We're not, we're not here to like to take on all the work for

the church and to do all the work for the church.

We're here to like to empower other people to use their

God-given gift. I think there's a challenge

there for us to to consider. I remember years ago at a

meeting, we were debating in the service, not this church, but in

a different church. We're talking about what we need

so and so or such and such to do this and this and this ministry.

All of a sudden one of our leaders got up and he said if we

want, if it was a youth pastor in particular, he said if we

want a youth pastor or a different another pastor just so

we can do less than we want him for the wrong reason.

I thought that was so deep and so profound, it never left me.

So the point is not to get this and that kind of help so that

someone who can sit on the bench.

Right. Yeah.

And I, I remember hearing a pastor share a story like that

years ago where he said, you know, people will come up to me

and they have a burden on their heart for a specific ministry.

And they go, we ought to be doing this.

And then he's like, oh, great, when are you starting?

You know, because I think there is this perception that it's

like, yeah, it would be great if the church did that.

It's like, it's like, it's like I remove my burden and I just

hate the church needs to do this.

It's like, well, first of all, no, you are the church.

And so you, if you have a burden, you ought to be doing

it. But it's like, it's so sort of

that idea that like if you're burdened by it, why would you

put delegate it to the church? Because the church is not going

to do as good a job. Someone in the church is not

going to do as good of a job trying to stir up the passion

and emotion that you already. Have.

To do this ministry, it's like you need to be the one to do it

because you're the one that's going to do it with energy and

excitement and you're passionate.

You're fueled by that. And so that's what we would say

as a church. We want to empower people to to

use their gifts to serve. And then if it has happened in

my case where I've talked to an individual, somebody talked to

me, we should be doing XYZ. And then if I kind of push it on

them a little bit, we quickly find out how serious or how

genuine it really is. Yep.

Yeah, right. Because if the fire goes out and

you say OK, take it. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that.

Wow, this is an interesting thing.

So what are you thinking about? What?

What would you be doing? So when can you what you talk

about when to start? How can we do this and kind of

make it their job, right. All of a sudden some and some

are doing very well. They have, I have this thought,

I have this plan. And then you just roll with it

and you just affirm them and you just support them others.

No, no, I wasn't thinking about myself so much.

I think the church. Should.

Yeah, I've had that too. Right.

Yeah. And then you know it's not going

to go. Anywhere.

Yeah, exactly. Joe, you also taught us a new

word. Simony Yeah, yeah.

I. Thought it was really good.

I I I I learned that this week. I'd I'd never knew that.

That was interesting. It was really cool.

I think I've heard it before, but I have not for years.

Just something right Again, yeah.

Using religion as a means of gain.

We had a question that didn't come in from to be on Sunday,

but I found it on a child's notes as we were as I was

cleaning up. They wanted to know like what

works? So there for those of you don't

know, like if your kids are in the service, we're putting out

these like little sheets for taking notes for the kids.

They're on the in the foyer for you to grab.

And on there it's got a little section for a word that you that

you found that you don't, you don't understand.

And then like a question that you have from the sermon.

So this one had like, what is a Pagan?

Can you explain what a Pagan is Joe?

What is a Pagan? Pagan is is my least for my

research. Basically someone like who

worships like idols. Anybody other than God.

Yeah, there's not necessarily like the one true God.

It's like sort of like a plurality of of gods that they

worship sort of thing. And then this one's a little

more serious, but it came from the same paper.

And it also was one that I that I had.

And maybe it ties into your title a little bit is, you know,

how do we, how do we assess? Are there things that we can use

not tools. I know that you you had a, a

harsh thing to say about all these like tools that we use or

that you can find on the interwebs for finding your

spiritual gift, but like, what would you recommend as like a

starting point? Yeah, that's a really, that's a

good question. I and and if I came across harsh

against those two, no. You didn't.

I was just. Well, yeah.

And that was interesting to me. Like I had learned that this

week. I had never thought of that

before, right? Because I've, I've often thought

about these, these tools and these assessments and, but this

guy had sort of mentioned like, they're not, they're sort of

based on personality assessments.

And so that really doesn't distinguish between necessarily

a spiritual gift. It's distinguishing more between

personality and character traits.

And so I, I guess maybe there's a survey out there or maybe

there's an assessment out there that doesn't focus on those

sorts of traits, but focuses on Scripture in the Bible.

But again, you and I were chatting about this yesterday,

Jonah, and we were just saying that I think, I think it needs

it needs to be something that you do, but you have to bring

somebody else in to that conversation.

Because if I go, hey, you know what, I think I have the gift of

leadership and then I just begin pursuing leadership.

And then someone else is like, you don't have the gift of

leadership. Like someone else needs to

affirm that in you, right? Because you may be misguided and

you may be because we all know people who, who think they're

good at something and it's like, well, maybe, maybe they're not

though. And so I think it's one thing

where it's like you're maybe prayerfully discerning.

I think just I, I, I think I mentioned this, I wasn't very, I

wasn't in my notes 100% of the time on Sunday.

And so I may have said something.

I know I said it in one of the services, but I may not have

said it in the other one, but it was in the recording, which I

listened back to yesterday. And I had said that find an area

that you think you might be that you might want to serve in, in

the church or maybe in a ministry And you sense like,

Hey, I feel like I have a good personality for this.

I feel like I'd be really gifted in it.

And then try try serving in that area and maybe you immediately

recognize like, yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking at and

I'm gifted in it. And then someone else sees you

doing, oh, wow, you're actually really good at that.

Like then, you know, right. Or maybe you do it for a while

and you're like, no, I hate this actually.

And, and I don't like this, I don't feel like I'm gifted in

it. Well, then move on from that and

try something else until you find an area that you feel

empowered in it. So it might just be trial by

error until you find something you feel empowered by.

And I guess that's what I wanted to emphasize that once you find

an area that you are spiritually gifted in, you will like it

because you've been gifted to do it.

And so it won't be a burden. It won't be something that you

feel annoyed at doing. You will be excited and willing

to sacrifice for it. Like you said, Jake, this person

that now it's like now I, I can't get enough of church,

right? Like everything else in life is

getting in the way of me getting to church and serving.

That's exactly what it will be in service that like now, I I

don't mind sacrificing my time to do this thing because I, I

enjoy it. Yeah.

I had an experience some years ago, a gentleman who really

believed he had the gift of preaching, and I think only he

believed it. I don't know if anybody else

did. And I felt sad for him because

he was a dear St. and he was a great man of God in every other

way except that he wanted, he wanted the microphone.

And my comment to him was, if God is calling you to do that,

he will affirm it through the body.

It will come out. And he was teaching and I'm not

saying it was bad or anything, but nobody else really thought

that he was a strong teacher or even a preacher at all.

And so it, it just, it never went anywhere.

And he was a good man otherwise. But so my, I did have a

question. How do you help a person

sincerely believes they have a particular gift, but no one else

believes it. How do you help to navigate

that? Wow, that's tough.

Well, I think, I think it would be that, that honest way, right?

Like if someone I, I in no way, I mean, it would depend on the,

the area of service, right? Like there, there may be areas

of service where like it's not that they're less important, but

they, they don't require as much.

But let's say we're like ushering like that doesn't

require a whole lot of background training and a

background, all these different things.

You don't need a whole lot of, of training to do that.

So that may be a job where it's like we could fill a position

and it's filling, it's meeting a need here at the church and you

get like, well, let's put you there and see how you do.

And then after a while, you know, the head usher comes up

and says, this guy's just horrible.

I can't depend on nothing. He doesn't know what he's doing.

And then maybe you would go, OK, well, maybe you don't have,

maybe maybe that's not an area of service for you.

And so I think it would be like working with that person, being

patient with them, maybe trying to ask questions of like, well,

why do you feel you have that gift?

Has anybody else affirmed that gift in you?

It has there, has there been anything in your life where you

felt like, let's say it was leadership, let's say, do you

have any stories or, or things that have come up in your life

of, of opportunities that you had to lead, where somewhere

where you led a situation and, and you helped someone?

And so maybe try helping them. And again, if it's like, well,

if there's no fruit of leadership ability in your life,

well, maybe they're just not old enough and maybe they need to

cultivate it more and maybe it needs to be hashed out.

But also maybe they don't have that gift.

I think also sometimes a a person who is very gifted and

doing a great job sometimes just needs affirmation because they

get tired. I think of Moses in the desert.

He'll actually accused God. What did I ever do to deserve

this? God hand picked him and chose

him and and delegated this job to him.

And he was a great leader. He was, he was excellent.

But he did get tired. Yeah, it might be helpful.

I'm just listening to you guys talk about it.

It might be helpful to distinguish the gifts, the

spiritual gifts, from areas of service.

That's that's. True, because, because like like

just let's just, let's just take one example.

Like what would what gift? Spiritual gift would be

beneficial for someone on our welcome team to have.

Like friendliness. Like a spiritual gift.

Spiritual gift, not a talent, not something like that.

Let's what is a like a spiritual gift that it would be good for

them to have. I think like.

I would like one would be encouragement.

Encouragement, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you, you, you.

And then the other one, I think would be another one that would,

could, could help would be discernment, being able to

discern is this person having a hard day, a compassionate heart,

someone who has the gift of hospitality, right?

Someone who's like a, a welcoming person already.

So like the gift of those gifts, all of them are different,

right? We would say they're all

different. They're all manifestations of

the spirit, but they're all being utilized in one area of

service. So like, for instance, for your

man, for your man who, who's thought, thought he was a great

preacher, well, if he didn't have the gift of knowledge or of

wisdom, then he's probably not going to be a good, good

preacher. Someone who has the gift of

knowledge or wisdom can, can convey truth from the, from the

scriptures and then and then like apply them to someone's

life. Not everybody has that gift.

They may be the best teacher like as far as like teaching

normal things, but they can't explain scripture at all.

That's that's not something that has to gift the spiritual gift

of teaching. Yeah.

That's just a talent, right? Yeah, well, and that's that's

probably a good opportunity to talk about those differences

between spiritual gifts and natural talents you.

Actually had a question come in about that.

So what are the like? Can talent become a spiritual

gift? Here's I'll just give you one of

the hypotheticals. You use this one in your sermon.

So if someone has a talent to bake or cook and they love

hosting, is that more of a talent at this point or is it a

spiritual gift? Yeah.

And so the way that the way that I would distinguish talents and

and spiritual gifts is like, I guess the purpose of a spiritual

gift in my mind would be to strengthen someone's faith or to

strengthen someone's understanding or to grow somehow

grow them in Christ, right. And so does eating a pie

strengthen my faith in Christ. Sometimes if it's, if it's like

a mince pie, yeah, it restores your faith for sure.

It encourages you. No.

And I, and it's so like that's where I would distinguish it.

It's like, well, no, a pie doesn't strengthen my faith.

Food doesn't strengthen my faith.

Like even like the ability to play a guitar or musical

ability, it doesn't necessarily strengthen my faith at all.

But can that gift, can that natural talent rather be used in

tandem with your spiritual gift to strengthen someone's faith?

Yes, absolutely. So if I'm an excellent at baking

pie, which I'm not, then I might use I might bake a really great

pie. And I'm good at making cake

pops. I I do.

I've tried my hand at cake pops and they're pretty good

actually. But yeah, I could now make cake

pops invite some people over and we would have an edifying

conversation talking about our faith, talking about what God's

been teaching us in his word. And so the cake pops aren't

strengthening someone faith, but the conversation that we're

having around that talent that I have that does.

And so how do we use our talents?

And so the same thing with the musical ability, right?

Like the Holy Spirit doesn't gift somebody with acoustic

ability. You know, you don't wake up one

day. Like after I receive the Holy

Spirit, it's like now all of a sudden I can play acoustic

guitar. Amazingly.

No, that's not what he does. That's a natural talent that you

can develop, which you can use to facilitate strengthening

someone in the Lord. And so that's the distinction

that I would make. That's helpful.

Yeah, I hope so. And it's helpful for me too,

right. Like I, I, I've been encouraged

by other teachers who have sort of helped to clarify those

different things, but I would say the spiritual gift is a

specific way for you to strengthen someone's faith.

And in my mind, just a practical way that we do that because I

also want to be careful of like maybe we've unhelpfully yoked

together spiritual gifts with service of the church.

I. Think so, yeah.

And I. Don't think that that's a direct

correlation. Can you use your spiritual gift

to serve the church? Yes.

I think so it's true. I think that's true because the

way that the conversation started, right?

Like we, we just naturally, all of us, even in this room, like

we naturally gravitated to, Oh, well, you'd use, you know, we

always all of a sudden start talking about like areas of

service, which which I mean, but I think that's like that's the

danger, right, of us thinking like to maybe too broadly or

maybe too narrowly, I don't know, that we're just thinking

in the wrong way. So go ahead.

I didn't mean to cut you off, but we're guilty of it too.

We are. And, you know, well,

conveniently, spiritual gifts is coming up at the season where

we're nominating volunteers for ministries, right?

And so, you know, we really could have pushed for that and

obviously we would encourage people to serve.

I think that's sort of a distinction a brother on Sunday

helped me to see to see that. I mean, I, I recognize the

distinction, but he helped me to see that distinction even more

clearly in the text that it says there's a variety of gifts.

There's a varieties of service, there's a varieties of

activities. And so maybe those are all three

separate areas, right? Maybe there's specific gifts

that I can use. And so that gift that I have,

whether it's mercy or knowledge or wisdom, I can use to build

someone else up in the Lord. But then there's also activities

in service. And maybe that's where we would

say, here's ways for you to be serving in the church to just

practically help us. You know, when we get together

on a Sunday, there's a lot of practical things that need to

happen. We need ushers in the parking

lot to help park cars. We need greeters in the

sanctuary to help people find their seats and to welcome

people. We, we need Sunday school

teachers and Sunday school helpers to help facilitate those

things. Like there's a practical reality

to those things that are also needed, right?

And so usually your spiritual gift may work in tandem with

that, but also there may just be like a sacrifice involved in

like in giving to the church. But yeah, I, I sort of saw that

like maybe maybe we unhelpfully yoke those things together and

it's not always true. Because I think probably we all

would agree that the greatest way that you should be using

your spiritual gift is not like, oh, well, I was, I did, I did.

I was in Usher on Sunday. And so now my service is done.

No, no, no, no, that's, that's a misunderstanding of what your

spiritual gift is. I think probably the most

practical direction that we're headed as a church is

discipleship groups. Everybody has a responsibility

to strengthen others in their faith.

And so if you're a part of a group of men or women and you're

holding each other accountable to read, you're holding each

other, you're praying for each other, you're memorizing God's

word in those conversations that you're having on a weekly basis.

You're going to strengthen my faith in a way that like, wow,

like you, the way you, God showed that to you and the way

that you saw that, like I would have never noticed that, right,

right. And we can strengthen and edify

each other by sharing what God is doing in US, in and through

us, through His Word, right? And it will also help you find

out what your gifts are, right? Because you're, you're using

them in a group like, and you're being like, like you mentioned

earlier when I said that like very beginning when I was saying

just just distinguishing. We can't help each other find

out, right? But then you said, but we know

each other really well. Well, that's part of it.

Like, like you're not going to be able to show up on a Sunday

and me know you for three days and say, Oh yeah, your spiritual

gift is prophecy, Jake, or you must have the gift of

apostleship. You know, it's like you're not

going to find that stuff out unless you've spent lots of time

with someone and you've seen how God uses and gifts them, you

know, and that way you can clearly point out, yeah, you do

have the gift of teaching or, or discernment even like

discernment is, is something that that we talk about it a

lot, like our wives probably have greater discernment than we

do. A lot of times they can, they

can just like a conversation after a conversation, right?

You've had a conversation with someone, both of you were there

and you get a decent read on them.

And then your, your wife says that person is creepy or

something like that. You know, you just sort of like

they, they have a bet sometimes they have a better way.

And I know that that's true in my in my family.

And I'm glad. Oh, oh man, I'm glad.

And if I had just, I need to have the gift of being able to

listen to my wife at times about that stuff.

So, yeah, but that comes with just knowing people, right?

Like, like you don't know that about your wife on the first

date. Yeah, that's helpful.

I think like talents. Talents are used are ways that

you express your gift maybe. Well, and I and I would.

I was that you can get to it. Yeah.

And, and I will add to that that like, I mean, let's just, let's

just say if someone has a natural ability, let's let's say

for like having like a, like an outgoing personality or like

public speaking, let's say, for instance, like now if the Spirit

gives you with leadership or wisdom or knowledge or the

ability to preach and teach, it's like, well, your natural

gift is going to tie in very well with that, that gift that

he's given you to lead, right? Well, I mean, now I just think

of like, but that this is a good, good differentiation, like

between like being able to do something well and then being

able to do something well as a Christian.

Like, like, I don't know, I don't, I don't know if this

person's a Christian or not, but like take like Jordan Peterson,

a fantastic communicator, communicates a lot of truth, but

I don't know if I, I can't tell if he's a Christian, but like

probably not. Like I don't know.

I mean, but, but like then you take, if you, if he were to

become a Christian and like to be expounding truth from the

scriptures, from the pulpit, it would be like you would be using

a talent that he gave that he was given and, and as a gift to

the church, right. So that like, that's the thing,

you know, I don't know, maybe I'll get maybe I'll find out I

was wrong. And I hope I am, I hope, I hope

he does get safe. You know, I was thinking

another, another one that's famous of Malcolm Gladwell, a

famous podcaster, another Canadian.

He's a fantastic communicator, but he would say probably that

he's not a believer. You know, he grew up in a

Christian home, but not a believer.

But these these, these people have extraordinary talent to be

able to convey stories and all these things.

But it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that they're that they're

that that's their spiritual gift.

It is a talent, spiritual gift would be you're using it for the

for the edification of the church.

Yeah. So I don't know, that's good.

Yeah, that is helpful. I, I, I hope it's helpful to see

that distinction. It they may also tie together

when I mentioned this, this story of Simon the Sorcerer,

like I, I have in this mind like so here's a guy who who was

famous. He was very well known for his

public, his public ministry of magic, right?

And here it almost seems like like Peter seems to call out

like this desire in his heart to to continue.

Now in his, you know, it says that he believed.

We don't know if that meant that he was truly converted or not,

but he believed and wanted to be a part of the ministry.

And now it seems like he wants that same fame and that same

glory. But now through the laying on of

hands. And I sort of get this picture

in my mind. I have no idea what happened and

I have no idea if this is true or not.

But maybe God in his sovereignty would have Simon the sorcerer in

a very private area of ministry. If he if he truly became a

Christian, maybe sort of as a as a play on his life in ministry.

Now he was going to serve in some less well known way, but he

was very content to do that because like we think of you,

Jake, you mentioned Paul many, many times over the years where

it's like here he has this, this great ministry, but then after

he Christ calls him, he's like, I'm going to show him how much

he has to suffer. There's like a there's like a

direct correlation to like what you the way you lived before

Christ and a total contradiction to the way you're going to live

after Christ. That's really helpful.

And so maybe God in his wisdom would would make it the opposite

of your talent. You know, maybe he would go.

Well, you were famous for that before, and now it's now you're

not. And if it's real, as it wasn't

Paul's, like he didn't mind the hardship and the pain and the

suffering. He took it as a service for

Christ. Yeah.

Yeah. So another question we had,

we'll shift gears a little bit. Yeah, in your sermon you

mentioned you sort of like outed yourself as a a nuanced

cessationist. Cessation is like, like you

think some of the gifts may have ceased or like, for instance,

apostleship. I think like, like, I don't know

where Jake stands on this, but like I, I would think that

apostleship is one that is gone. My definition of apostleship

would be someone who was trained, discipled by the Lord

Jesus directly. And so like so.

They were an eyewitness. Eyewitness.

Yeah. Like in the book of Acts when

they had to replace Judas, it was like, OK, it has to be an

eyewitness. It has to be someone who was

with us from the beginning. So like there are very few of

those people, right? Like those were people who were.

So I think that that's so that's my definition of that.

I think some others might define apostleship like, like someone

who wants to be frontline ministries, so like church

planting in unreached places of the world, they might say they

have the gift of apostleship. I think it's like maybe like in

the, the theme of Apostolic ministry, like frontline work.

But but I think that that gift has ceased.

I don't, I don't think we have, we don't, I don't think we see

those anymore. So that's like that.

Maybe, I mean, that's for a broader conversation, if anyone

wants to have a conversation with us happy.

But in Eastman, you mentioned specifically you use the gift

that of healing. That was in the text here.

And so we had one question come in about that.

They just, they just asked for you to elaborate on what you

said about the no one having the gift of healing.

I don't know exactly what you said because of the certain time

or the season that we live in. And then they they referenced

James 14 to 16 and they said it sounds like God wants to heal

people all the time. Just wanted to hear your

thoughts about it more. So could you elaborate on that a

little bit? Yeah, well, and so I'm, I'm, I,

I've read over the question a number of times and was thinking

through it. And I sometimes, sometimes it's

hard to get at like the root of a question.

Like you're trying to, I analyze words very carefully.

And so you're trying like for a living.

What are, what are, what are they, what are they trying to

get at? Because I don't, I don't want to

misunderstand the question, right?

I, I don't want to assume things.

I don't want to misunderstand. I think what they're asking is

it seems like it, it seems like when you read this text and when

he seems, when you read James's text, which, yeah, Tony, you can

maybe pull it up and read it for us.

This person is saying that it, it seems like healing is, is a

part, is supposed to be a part of the life of the church always

like that, that God will still heal, that healing hasn't

ceased. And so it needs to be a part of.

Yeah, church ministry or this seems like it's supposed to be

normative in church ministry even today.

Yeah. All right, So I'm actually going

to start at 13 because I think it's helpful for context.

Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray.

Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.

Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of

the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil

in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save

the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up.

If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

So there's the text. Yeah.

And so I mean, there's, there's a lot there, right?

I was sort of sort of thinking through that text.

And I guess I'll start at the beginning.

OK, So cessationism, like you said, is this idea that there

are some gifts that were for a season there.

They're called sign gifts, which is that they were, they were a

sign of the coming of the Messiah.

And so some people believe that those gifts have ceased.

There's there's no longer a need for them because the purpose of

the sign gifts like healing and miracles were to validate Jesus

ministry. And so the, the need for those

gifts has has ceased. And prophecy would be another

one, right? Like, like we would say there

there's prophesying in the sense of like speaking forth God's

word. And then there's prophesying,

which is like foretelling God's word.

And we would say that there, there's a sense in which

there's, there's no, like, there's no longer a need for

prophecy. Like, like we have the full, we

have God's full word. Jesus was the final prophet.

He's come and, and we don't need any prophetic word because we

have God's word. It's, it's useful for every

area, right? Timothy.

And so with, with cessationism, it's not to say that healing and

miracles have ceased. That's not what it's saying.

And so I, I, I did say that in my sermon.

I, I hope I communicated that faithfully.

I do believe God works miracles. I do believe God works healing.

IA 100% believe that I I had a number of stories shared with me

this week and in the past and and I've heard them.

I've witnessed them even in my own life.

And it's like I know God does miracles.

I know God does healing. And I guess maybe I even it to

my own perspective. As I, as I thought about it this

week, I thought maybe I was thinking a little bit too

narrowly when it comes to like this gift of healing.

Because what I was thinking in terms of healing is like, well,

if I look at someone who has the gift of preaching and teaching,

they use that gift all the time, right?

Whenever they have an opportunity, they'll use that

gift. And so when I was thinking of

the gift of healing, I'm thinking like, OK, well, maybe

someone, maybe at that time, someone had the gift of healing

and they could just walk around and heal people at will.

And so maybe I was thinking a little bit too narrowly in the

terms of what healing is. Maybe, maybe there's someone who

has healing and, and, and a strong faith and just when they

feel prompted by God, they can pray for a person and they've

seen fruit from that, right? And so I'm open to that.

And, and I guess my point was, if the spirit is the one who

gives a gift and someone had the gift of healing, I would think

that we would see that in our church and we would know of it,

right? We would know that that if I'm

going to go pray for someone, I'm bringing this person along

because they have the gift of healing.

And if God's going to heal them, this is the person who has that

gift. In the same way that I would go,

well, if I need this sermon preached, I know Jonah and Jake

are excellent preachers. And so I'm going to have them

preach it because I know they have the gift of preaching and

teaching. And so God does work miracles.

I hope that's clear. I am not a guy who lacks faith.

You know, it's interesting to me even in that text of James, it

doesn't say if someone's sick, call the person in the church

who has the gift of healing. It says call the elders and the

elders will pray and the prayer of faith heals them.

Not the person who has the gift of healing, not the person who

has a spiritual gift. It's the prayer of faith.

And so I agree that. God does work miracles and

that's why we need to pray because we believe in a

supernatural God who does go beyond normal means.

And so we need to pray and we need to have faith that God can

and does heal. But we also need to acknowledge

that we do live in a fallen world and our faith in God is

not dependent on healing or miracles.

It's God is not God just when he heals and maybe you guys want to

add to that. I do want to share a quote, a

reading from from John MacArthur, but maybe OK, I'll do

that right now. This might just be helpful for

for us understanding again, this is just one man's opinion.

That's this is like his his teaching on healing.

He says healing was a temporary sign gift used by Christ, the

apostles, the 70, and a few associates of the apostles such

as Philip. This ability was identified as a

gift belonging to the apostles. Although Christians today do not

have the gift of healings, God certainly still hears and

answers the faithful prayers of his children and he references

James 5/13/16 there. Some people feel that healing

should be common and expected in every area, but this is not the

case. Physical healings are very rare.

Throughout the Old Testament record, only a few are recorded.

There was never a time before the coming of Christ when

healings were common. Only in His lifetime and that of

His apostles was there a veritable explosion of healing.

This was due to the unique need to accredit the Messiah and to

authenticate the first miracles of the Gospel.

Jesus and his apostles temporarily banished disease

from Palestine, but that was the most monumental area of

redemptive history and called for such authentication.

To normalize healing would be to normalize the arrival of the

Savior. This gift belong to the sign

gifts for that era only. The gifts of healings were never

used solely for bringing people physical health.

Paul and so I this was an interesting point that I wanted

to bring up too, that that healings are never just for the

sake of healing, right? That's that's not what the

purpose of what the healings were because and he references

Paul, Paul was sick but never healed himself or asked another

human to heal him. His friend Epaphroditus was near

death and Paul did not heal him. God intervened when Timothy was

sick. Paul did not heal him, but told

him to take some wine. Paul left Trophimus I'll at

Myletus. Healings were not the everyday

norm in Paul's ministry but did occur when he entered a new

region, for example, Malta, where the gospel and its

preacher needed authentication. That healing was the first

mention of healing since the lame man was healed in Lystra,

which was Acts 14, in connection with the arrival of Paul and the

gospel there. Prior to that, the nearest

healing was Peter in Acts Chapter 9 and the resurrection

Acts 9 · chapter mention

of Tabatha in nine as well so that people would believe the

gospel Peter preached. And so he's making the point

that even in the apostles ministry, like it wasn't like

every 5 seconds someone was being healed.

It's like sometimes you go like 14 chapters and there's no

healing. Like it's not.

It was never meant to usher in this season of just constant

miracles and healing. They were meant to authenticate

and validate their ministry as being from Jesus Christ, the Son

of God. Yeah.

It's. A super good point to think

about that because like it's paradigm shifting, honestly,

because if you think about, if you think about the gospels,

like when Jesus did a miracle, like let's start his first

miracle, right, the wedding at Cana.

Well, he didn't turn water into wine for no reason.

He did it to show those who saw that he did that who he was

right? You can see like their eyes were

opened. Who is who is this man?

Well, this man is God. Then all the other miracles that

follow all the things that he did were done for the the for

the express purpose and intent to demonstrate that he was the

fulfillment like he's he's tell us he's complete.

He's telling us that that he has fulfilled all the prophecy and

that the Messiah is here. It was exactly what MacArthur

saying there to prove to them who he was now and then you say,

well, and then he gets to sort of frustrated with the

Pharisees. And then after after he's done

so many signs and they still want more, He's like, you're

hard headed right. You're you're like, yeah, it so,

yeah, you demand a sign. Well, I'm not giving you another

sign. I've already shown you who I am.

So like I've proved who I am. Then you go to that to Acts

where MacArthur like gives out this all that was for, for

people to believe the gospel, right.

So like I would argue that like if there is a miraculous healing

now, like, like that's not something that that that's just

done on its own. It's done for a purpose, like if

God chooses to heal someone and he does and the people who I've

had like the like testimony from that say the Lord healed me.

They don't say, hey, I went this guy healed me.

They say the Lord healed me, right, I was healed by the Lord.

And so it's for the testimony of demonstrating to others.

Maybe it's your you. Maybe it's a testimony to an

unbelieving Doctor Who is who who God is drawing to himself

and and is like wanting to prove that that he's real.

But it it there's always a reason behind it.

The edification of the church, but also to glorify God.

And so if like, healing happens outside of that, then I don't

know. Yeah, go ahead, Jake.

There's a, there's another element here that comes to my

mind as I'm listening to, to you both talk about this.

And I, I, I would, I would agree the, the idea that God still

does miracles is true. And I think it, I think it's

also very specific. And for me now to just say, OK,

we have somebody in the church who can pray that prayer of

healing and just anybody happens.

No, I wouldn't go there. At the same time, I think

there's certain points in time. For instance, I had a missionary

tell me a story one time. It didn't happen to the

missionary himself herself, but to to somebody else.

And they shared the stories were in Latin America and a very.

Poor. Backwards, primitive society.

But they started the church there, and this church, of

course, they had no access to medical care and whatnot.

It was just just very primitive. So they studied the Bible.

They learned the Bible and then one day somebody is sick.

And so the elders of that church, they prayed and they,

this missionary was there. They prayed over the sick person

and then they all left. Later on, the missionary found

out the elders had gone back to pray again.

And the mission asked, why did you go back to pray again over

the sick person after I left? I said, because we knew you

didn't believe. They said we knew you didn't

believe, you didn't have the faith.

And so I don't know what the outcome was of that prayer, but

that was a powerful like rebuke almost to this missionary that

this missionary God doesn't do that or basically, we'll pray,

but nothing's going to happen, kind of that thing, you know,

and I'm not saying that I believe that God does miracles

all over the place just because somebody has the gift of

healing. At the same time, I agree with

you Joe God does miracles still. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And I think again, always going

back to Christ in the in the garden is, is such a wonderful

example because the, the thing that we have to be careful of is

this movement of people who say, like, man, if you just had

enough, yeah, hard enough right then.

And I feel like what a cruel thing to say.

I know someone shared with me on Sunday that they they heard of

that experience that someone went, they would go to a family

and say you just didn't have enough faith.

What a cruel thing to say to a family after their loved one

passes away that like, it's your fault they're dead.

And so that's the thing that we're being cautious of to say

it's like, that's not true. That's not biblical because who

had more faith in Jesus? No one.

No one had more faith in Jesus. Jesus was perfect.

And he prayed that if it was possible for the cup to be

removed. But he is seeking God's will

above all. And it was God's plan and it was

the the triune God's plan to save humanity through his death

and resurrection. And so his suffering was used to

bring life to sinners. And so in the same way for us

that you said it's paradigm shifting to think about about

the way the healings were used, I think that that should shape

our prayers not just for healing, but also for suffering.

How is God using? And we should pray for that.

If someone gets cancer, if someone gets sick or if someone

is healed, our prayer should always be God.

Use this for your glory in death.

Use this to draw sinners to yourself in healing.

Use this to draw sinners to yourself to see your power.

But in everything that like God gets the glory, yeah.

Absolutely. You remind me of that the story,

I think, I think we talked about this yesterday.

You're about using death as a way to draw people to to the

Lord. And like we were talking about

the difference between weddings and funerals for I preached a

wedding or I officiated a wedding over the weekend and we

talked about which ones we like better.

We'd probably say we like funerals better.

And then you're like, what, why? And then, well, this is the

story that one of our professors said.

He said that he he preached a lot of weddings, but he preached

funerals too. And there was this, this one

lady who he preached their funeral and, and he said, like a

decade later, like he would have people come to him and say, I

got saved at so and so's funeral, like I got, and he

would say it was more than one. People were like, so that the

Lord used the death of a St. where he could go and preach the

gospel and, and, and like faithfully preach the gospel and

people are listening. So he used that as a way to

like, to draw someone in to himself and to save them.

And so like, don't we? We shouldn't overlook the fact

that God is doing so many things, you know, and they're

like, if we could get past our own, like, selfish desires and

understand that, yeah, it's, it's horrible to lose a loved

one, but the Lord is doing something right.

He's teaching. He's teaching someone through

it. He may be drawing someone to

himself for salvation through it.

Yeah. We don't want to be guilty of

like, you know, going against the will of the Lord.

So anyway. And well, that's really

important because to, to pray for something.

I, I think we need to pray with faith.

But at the end of the day, I think, I, I don't think it's a

cop out to say, but your will be done.

I, I, I think there's people who say that it is right, like, oh,

that's just a lack of faith. You're, it's sort of your cop

out to go like, well, if God doesn't answer your prayer, We,

we were consumed with God's. No, it's not a cop out.

That's faithful praying. That's that's praying that

acknowledges that. Who am I to get to decide

anything right? Like I am asking because I have

faith that God can do it, but I am not ultimately seeking my

will. But Paul did, he asked three

times in order to remove this thorn from me.

And God says my strength is sufficient, right?

So Paul did not get that prayer answer.

And of course, Paul had lots of faith.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, but we have to be

subject to God's. He's our master.

He's the master. It's just like the kids come to

you and they ask you for something and they can ask, they

can, they can ask and sometimes you'll say yes, but maybe other

times you'll say no. Ultimately the decision's up to

you. And that's that same sovereign

will that God has that we're subject to his plan and his

purpose. We don't know what he's doing.

We don't know how he, his plan is to use something.

And so we have to be subject to his will.

But I guess just to maybe clarify, I, I'm open, I'm

opened. I was going to say this in my

sermon and maybe I should have said it just to clarify to

people. I sort of thought of saying, you

know, if all of a sudden the Holy Spirit gifted someone in

our church and like they healed cancer, broken bones and they,

they healed people. I am totally open to that.

Like I, I wouldn't be like, no, that gift is ceased.

I wouldn't do that. I would be like, praise God, we

have somebody in our church who can heal cancer.

Anybody who has cancer, go over to that person's house and

they'll pray for you. I'll be healed.

I would praise God for that. I'm totally open to that.

I just think, I just tend to think it was, it was for a

season. And I think now God still

answers those prayers at times, although I think it's not

normative, I think death and and disease and suffering are, are

usually the ways that God uses us to draw him to himself.

And our ultimate healing, our, our prayers for healing are

answered. They are the moment we die and

we usher and we're ushered into the presence of our Savior and

we're healed forever more. That's the ultimate healing.

And I would say even before that in this life, our prayers for

healing are ultimately answered in our salvation, spiritual

healing, the spiritual healing, because we're, we once were

dead, but now we're alive in Christ.

And so I, I just don't want anybody to think that like, I

don't believe in healing. I don't believe in, I don't

believe in faith. I, I think God does do those

things. I absolutely do.

And and so I think we should pray, we should have faith, and

we should ask God and we should believe that he can do it.

Amen. Any final thoughts on your

sermon? Oh, Jake.

Joel, sorry. Before we get to final thoughts,

Jake has one more thought. This whole concept of gift, I

think is so fascinating and it's intriguing.

It's it's I think a great topic to discuss and I'm all in on it.

And I think we come with such a wide variety of perspectives and

differences, and it's important that we remain unified as a

church body in this. But there's 11 aspect of this

whole gifting thing that we won't go into too much, but the

whole gift of tongues. And we know what's happened to

the charismatic movement. And somehow it's been this whole

thing has been pulled from the past in today's context and just

hijacked it. And people now have this idea of

speaking in tongues, which may or may not happen.

But Paul talks about this one little short piece I read in the

book called Dangerous Fire. I believe it is, but I think

it's been MacArthur. Yeah, it's been MacArthur.

I just read a short little snippet.

Strange, strange fire. Strange fire.

Sorry. Yeah, anyway, so this idea that,

okay, now somebody have the gift of tongues, you can go to a

foreign country and just start. He doesn't have to take language

training. He just not goes there.

You know, that's foolishness. And so I'm not saying that God,

well, God did that the book of act, but it's the only time we

find it in the Corinthian church too.

We talked about how they the taking this paganism into into

their midst. And I think we have to be

careful when even when we talk about gifts in general, that we

don't start mixing it up with all kinds of other stuff, new

age stuff and all kinds of experiences that are not real.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's very important.

Yeah, with tongues, with just like any other gift, right?

Like, well, I feel like I'm beating the dead horse here.

What would be the purpose for it?

To edify the church and to glorify God, not to bring us

some new revelation, not to. So like, if you're speaking in

tongues, then I would believe that the purpose for that would

be to edify, to build up the church and and.

If it doesn't do that, then. Then it's not a gift of the

Spirit. Yeah.

So it's that's that's an easy one that honestly is an easier 1

to discern than a lot of the others.

If it happens and you're there and and no one interprets it,

that's obviously not an utterance from the Holy Spirit.

Then again, if it's if it's just random and this doesn't build up

to edify the church, then you know it's not.

And I don't think we can conjure them up right.

Right. And I was, I was, I was clear to

mention that too. I think that's sort of the point

that it's like this, this, if it's a spiritual gift, it's not

something you can just do in your flesh, right?

It's something that has to be empowered by the Spirit.

Which would differentiate it from a talent.

Right, go ahead. But I but I would say even like,

I mean, maybe you guys have experienced this.

I know I have. It's like I can preach in the

flesh, but then it bears no spiritual fruit.

The Holy Spirit may use it to, to bear spiritual fruit, but

it's like, but I need to be using my gift in tandem with the

Spirit. It's it's a spiritually

empowered gift. And so, yeah, like you said,

then it would just be a talent if I'm having it in my flesh.

Yeah, that's good. OK, Now Joe, any final words?

I I would just encourage people to to pursue it.

I know again, maybe we've not been super helpful in like

resources to look into. I think maybe let's not

overcomplicate it. I don't think it needs to be the

Super complicated thing like like ask people, pray about it.

Look at look at ways that you can sense that you're gifted in

strengthening and encouraging other people.

So find your gift, find find what area you feel like people

after their, after they talk with you, they feel

strengthened, they feel edified, they feel encouraged.

And then look for activities, look for areas of service.

Again, we have tons of areas of service in the church.

We always need Sunday school teachers.

We always need Sunday school helpers, worship ministry and,

and, and that in there, the music ministry.

I mean, I don't like to call it the worship ministry.

I like all, all, all aspects of our Christian life are

worshiped. And so we call it the music

ministry. But there's lots of areas to

serve there. There's the need for ushers,

welcome team, those sorts of things.

Like there's lots of ways that you can serve your fellow

brothers and sisters in Christ. And so look for opportunities

and you may be getting a text from us.

I can say one one way. You won't be able to, like,

discern it. Like you'll be very hard to

discern your spiritual gift if you're not in the Word.

Yeah. You need to be in the Word every

day. The Lord's not going to gift you

with something if he knows you're not going to use it.

Yeah, so. And you have to.

Function as a part of the body. Function in the body.

Next Sunday we'll talk about that like you have to be one

with the body for it to work. That was an excellent segue,

Pastor Jake, to to what like, you know, give us a like a quick

overview of what you're going to be, you're going to be teaching

from the same chapter. The last part, well, the

starting from verse 13 to the end, and one, it's basically

many members, many gifts, one body.

Yeah, there's all very key parts.

Yeah, foot, lot of big toes. Not a very good foot, is it?

We're different, serving the same God through the same Spirit

with different gifts. Yeah.

And I want to expand on that next Sunday.

That's exciting. Looking forward to that.

Yeah. One final thing, things we like.

Joe, did you have anything that you like that you'd like to

share with the church community via the podcast?

Yes, I do. Compelling community.

There we go. I almost forgot it last week.

I listened to a book, an audio book called Compelling,

Compelling Community by Mark or sorry, Mark Dever.

Mark Dever is one of the editors on it, the other guy.

I'll pull it up in a second, but it was an excellent book on how

the body of Christ is how it is to be a unique body and it's

different from anything in the world.

So it was by Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop, the compelling

community. And so one of the the things

that I appreciated most about the book.

I would recommend it to anybody who wants to see what the

purpose of the church is. But talking about spirit

empowered things, he says a lot of times we gear our church to

to being distinct in the ways that like the world is.

So let's say like, oh, if you're a young 20 something, then we'll

put you with other young 20 somethings.

And if you're a single mother, then we'll put you with other

single mothers. And if you're 55 years old and

in whatever, then we'll put you with other 55 year old people.

And he says the problem is that's not a spirit empowered

gospel community because those distinctions would exist in the

world. We see them everywhere.

The power of the gospel is seen in the fact that you have

Italians in Mennonites coming together and worshiping Jesus.

The fact that you would have older generation and younger

generation coming together and having gospel community.

And I thought, wow, that's so interesting that like a gospel

knit community is people coming together in Christ in ways that

you wouldn't see in the world, right.

And so I, that was just one of the things that really stood out

to me, but it's, it's an excellent book.

You mean you mean to tell me like former Catholics, Baptists

and Mennonites can all be in the same church and have unity?

Praise God. Amen.

That's really cool. So compelling, the compelling

community. I'll put it in the show notes

and then I have one that I like things that I like.

My pastor back in Louisville. Joe and I actually had the same

pastor back in Louisville. He put out a new book.

It's called A Savior is Born from Heaven's Throne to

Bethlehem's Manger, and he goes through the accounts in Matthew

and Luke around Jesus birth just in time for Christmas.

It's like a devotional style. It's not necessarily like you

would see devotions, like daily devotions, but it's written in a

way that that's not super academic.

It's just a way for the church to be strengthened in learning

about our Savior's birth. So it's perfect for Christmas.

So we'll put this in the show notes as well.

All of his resources have been fantastic.

We've been through. We did Victory over the enemy

just recently. As far as a Wednesday night,

then maybe this will be a Wednesday night study before

long. Who knows?

Maybe not this year. But a saviour is born by William

Cook. Yeah.

So that that's what I like. Pastor Jake, you didn't have

anything this week. Not this week.

You don't like anything. It's fine.

Next week you'll come back with something that you like.

I know you had a busy week. You got married off your son.

Yep, he got married and so it's been a very busy week for us,

but other than that it's all good.

Great, great. Well LMC, we are praying for

you. Umm, let us know how we can

serve you and until next time, you guys have a great week.