Joining the Story - 8/30/2026

We give this time to you in your name we pray.

Amen.

My name's Jack.

I am still one of the pastors here.

I've been on sabbatical for the last nine weeks.

And so if you're new, so glad to get to meet you.

And uh for those of you who are here, so glad to be back.

I'm glad I had a great summer with my family and missed you all.

Uh this morning we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter four.

Go ahead and turn your Bibles there if you would.

And while you turn there, I want to take us back almost 25 years ago to a BO-infused middle school uh youth group room.

Okay.

This is when I was in middle school.

I was 13 years old, and it was a ministry in Southern California.

We had no air conditioning, it was hot, and John Stevens is our youth pastor.

It was called Stoked Ministries because we were stoked to be there, and it was an acronym too, because we were Baptists, and that's what we do.

But here's the thing is I was learning how to play the guitar at that time.

And as a middle schooler, you kind of crossed the threshold where you realize, oh, girls are cute, and girls at the time they like guitar players.

And so I go to John, our youth pastor, and he's the cool guy.

He's he speaks, he plays the guitar, everyone thinks he's awesome.

And I go to him, I said, Hey, uh, can I join you and play the guitar with you during youth group?

I can't really sing, I can't do any of that stuff, but can I just stand up there and awkwardly play?

And he said, sure.

He was kind enough.

He gave me the opportunity, and I was horrible, like awful.

Like he's probably having to coach me mid-set on, like, don't do this.

No, this chord, okay.

And like, I'm probably ruining the set, but he was patient with me and he stuck with me.

And we worked together for a few months.

And then there was a Wednesday night, and I remember he said two words in front of the entire group that changed my life.

And I'm not being dramatic when I say that these two words, if they're not said to me, then I'm probably not here.

I might not be married.

It means my children aren't bored.

Like these two words, and he didn't realize it, set the trajectory of so much of my life.

On that Wednesday night, John stood in front of everyone.

He said, I'm actually leaving the middle school group to take over the college group.

And me not thinking two steps ahead of anything in front of everyone.

Nothing's planned.

I raised my hand and I asked John, who's gonna do the music when you're gone?

And he looks at me.

This was not planned out.

He says, You are the whole room, like just all at once, just looks at me, locked in on me, and like, you're doing this.

I'm like, Yeah, totally, totally.

It was nice, been nice to get a heads up.

But in that moment, John saying, You are was an invitation for me to step in and to grow into all that God wants me to be.

And because I said yes in that moment, because he extended an invitation, and I said yes, I began to lead.

I actually saw his predecessor not that long ago.

His name is Nate.

And I asked Nate when I took over for John and leading worship, how bad was it?

And he's like, You have no idea how terrible it was.

It really was bad.

And but everyone, they're so patient, and that eventually led to the point where I actually was starting to get more comfortable and began to learn the purpose of leading worship.

Shocker, it's not to impress girls.

I had to learn that as a middle schooler, but you have to learn at some point.

And so I learned that, and that began to open the door for me to be leading in high school, and that led from that led to me getting internships, and that led to me getting the opportunity to lead worship.

And that's actually what originally brought me here to Alderwood, where I was your worship pastor for five years until the Lord opened the door for me to step in and be discipleship pastor now.

But all of this happens because 25 years ago, John Stevens, maybe as a joke, in front of a room full of middle schoolers, says, You are the person who's going to step up.

And to me, church, that's when we're at our best.

We're at our best, not when pastors and people who stand on stages like this are trying to build an empire around their personality or get book sales, or where they're trying to get more social media followers or anything like that.

I'm not against that necessarily, but that's not the purpose.

In that moment, whether John realized it or not, he as a leader was walking in his ultimate calling and what it means to lead God's family, the people of God.

And he was equipping me and empowering me and calling me to step up and to lead.

And that invitation changed my life.

This last week, Pastor Wyatt, he shared with us that uh at Alderwood, we follow Jesus together.

And we have three values as a church.

We connect, we grow, and we go.

And this Sunday we see it right here on part of the story side, it's grow Sunday.

And we're gonna talk about this idea of growth and how this plays itself out in our life.

As a church, we define growth as becoming like Jesus.

We grow together by becoming like Jesus, no pressure, but our purpose for you is to become like the perfect, sinless son of God.

Okay, so we're all on the same page with that.

And that could seem like a really big ask and almost unreasonable, except for this is what scripture calls for us to.

We're in Ephesians 4 today.

And verse 15, at the very end of this passage, at the very end of this thought that Paul has, his he compels us to grow in every way into him who is the head Christ.

This is Paul's way of saying, let us grow together to become more and more like Jesus.

Pastor Wyatt last week, as he was sharing the vision for the church, he said that God's writing an amazing story of redemption.

He wants you and he wants me, God does, to be a part of it.

So, how do we do that?

That's what we're gonna see today.

That we become more like Jesus.

We fulfill the mission of growing when we are equipped to be a part of God's story.

And this key word that we're gonna focus on today is equipped.

We need to be equipped, we need to be shown what it looks like and how we do this so that we can enter into God's story and become more and more like Jesus.

So we're gonna be in verses 11 and 12.

This might be the shortest passage I've ever taught in my entire life, and we're going to dissect this thing word for word.

So I hope you're ready.

So we're gonna see that there is a lot packed in these two verses that Paul has for the church to recognize the role of pastors and people who stand on stages like this, and how we are to equip you and what that looks like.

And to give you a little bit of a background of this passage, in verses 7 through 10, Paul tells us that Jesus, he came down, conquered Satan, sin, and death.

And in doing so, unlike the kings of those days, when they defeated a foe, they would keep the plunder for themselves.

Jesus instead takes the plunder, and Paul says that he gives gifts to his people.

He gives gifts to his people.

And Paul begins to share what some of those gifts are for the church.

It says that Jesus gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

Let's just stop there real quickly.

For those of you who maybe have been in church for a while, these are kind of familiar titles.

If you're new to church, you're like, I don't know what any of this stuff means, or I've heard about this vaguely.

I want us to make sure we're on the same page with what Paul is talking about when he's giving us, when Jesus is giving us these roles within the church.

The first one is apostle.

And this one, there's some debate around this.

The concept of a capital A, a lowercase A apostle.

When I talk about a capital A apostle, that person is someone that was original founder of the church.

This is like Peter, James, John, Paul, these individuals who saw the who saw the resurrection of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago and were personally commissioned to go and begin the movement of Jesus.

And I just want to say here very clearly, Capital A apostles are no more in the world.

Okay.

We have all the teaching that we need from them.

There's no more Capital A apostles.

I've had people come to me and say, I'm a Capital A apostle and you need to do this.

And I'm like, no, you're not.

That's not true.

You're are you 2,000 years old?

Are you a vampire?

Like, no, you're not.

And so that office does not exist.

But I do believe lowercase A apostle exists.

And here's what I mean: apostle literally means sent one, someone who is sent into the world.

And think about this.

When I hear about that, I think about missionaries, I think about church planners, people who start movements of God in places where the gospel is either hardest to be reached or has never been reached before.

Those are what I refer to as lowercase A apostles.

And I do believe that that gift in that sense does exist.

Is it exist if you're someone who is planning churches and the Spirit of God is empowering you to lead a movement for Christ.

But secondly, we also see that some are also prophets.

Now, a prophet is not just someone who predicts the future.

That's actually a very small percentage of the job.

And in fact, many prophets probably have never predicted the future.

But what prophets actually do in the fullest sense is they speak the truth, even when it is hard to hear, even when it is not popular.

A prophet is someone who is willing to say the hard things, and they're willing to say it because God has said this.

I want to obey him.

My heart is to obey Christ before anyone else.

The third one is an evangelist.

These are people that cannot help but share the good news of Jesus.

And they have to tell people.

It just can't contain it.

Like for most people, it's hard to share their faith.

Your your palms get sweaty, you don't know what to say.

What if they ask a question?

I don't know.

And it gets really, really nerve-wracking.

For evangelists, they're like, I got this.

This is Ryan Raber.

If you know Ryan and Natalie, Ryan is someone that he's just like, I went for a run the other day and I just stopped.

I saw this person and I had to tell them about Jesus.

And I'm like, what planet are you from?

Like, that's incredible.

Like, I wish I could do that.

And that is the gift of evangelists.

We're all called to share the gospel.

We're all called to preach.

We can't just pass it over to evangelists.

But there are some people that is just so second nature and the Spirit of God uses them in this way.

And Jesus has given us evangelists.

He's also given us pastors.

The pastor is not just the title on discipleship pastor, but it's actually a gifting here that Paul is referring to: the gifting of being a shepherd, of someone who tends to the hearts and souls of the people in a very deep and personal and loving way.

Every one of our pastors at Alderwood has this gift, but I have to admit, there is one pastor that we all on staff would recognize has this gift more than anyone else.

And it's Pastor Steve.

Pastor Steve, if you've ever had the privilege to sit down with him and be able to share your heart with him, there is a love of Christ that is exuded.

And honestly, for me, I'm still a younger pastor.

And I'm sitting here thinking, that's my mark.

That is what I'm aiming for.

Like speaking on stage, that's cool.

But the reality is, is if my life could be marked by being someone who can be present with people and love people when they are especially in their most vulnerable and their greatest need and show them the love of Christ, that's a life well lived.

And that's the gift of pastor.

And lastly, is the gift of teacher is someone like Pastor Wyatt who opens God's word, who helps us understand the scriptures to be able to see what is it that God is trying to say and how do I live in light of it?

But it's not just pastors that are on stage like this, it's also any person in your life that has opened the scriptures to help you understand what it means and how we can walk in obedience to them.

These are all roles that Jesus has given to the church.

In the previous verse, it says that these are gifts.

And for me, as I'm sitting here and I've been thinking about this this week, the amount of people that God has brought in my life that have functioned within these roles to help me grow and become more and more a man that pursues after God's heart, it leads me to so much gratitude.

The people who've planted churches that have been meaningful to me, the people who've spoken hard truths to me even when I didn't want to hear it, the people that shared the gospel with me before I was following Jesus, the people who cried with me and were there to walk me through the hardest seasons of life, and the people who've opened God's word and helped me understand what it is saying and what it means for me.

These are profound gifts given to us by Jesus.

And man, that's an exercise.

I want to encourage you this week.

If you just take time this week and just meditate on this verse and think about actual people, not just people who stand on stages like this, but who've walked with you in day-to-day life, and just take time to thank God for those people.

It's a profound gift.

Here's the thing is the temptation with these roles, though, is that they tend to be more leadership oriented, more public oriented.

And it can be easy to think that, oh, these are like the superhero gifts.

Like these are the really, really, really important ones.

Every other gift doesn't really matter.

But that's just not true.

You see, Paul says that he's given some.

Not every single person has this gift.

And most people shouldn't even pursue these gifts.

Now, if God has gifted you and them, for sure, pursue it.

But just because there's a stage or a platform or influence or whatever that comes with it, that does not inherently make it a better gift.

In fact, and we'll come back to this chart a little bit later this morning.

But there's this this is a chart that shows all the spiritual gifts that are shown to us in the New Testament.

All the gifts that the Spirit of God has given.

These are all vital for the body of Christ to function in the way that it was designed.

And not every person is going to have these gifts, and that's okay.

In our TikTok culture, where it's all about gaining a platform and gaining influence and gaining notoriety, Paul is saying, No, you know what?

Operate within the gifting that God has given you and be grateful for that.

That's where joy is found.

Not trying to make a name for yourself because that's what society says the good life is.

This these are gifts that God has given to us, and not every single one of us necessarily has them.

Now, what do these people do?

Okay, have you ever thought about like what do pastors do?

Like, Pastor Jack, what do you do during the week?

Okay.

This next verse hopefully is gonna help us understand a little bit more of what we do.

But in order to understand it, we actually have to stop for a second and think about the power of a comma.

Okay, commas can be deadly.

And I'm gonna be honest with you.

Here's an example.

Okay, I'm gonna say a sentence to you, a three-worded sentence twice.

Okay, here it is.

Let's eat grandma, or let's eat grandma.

That comma is gonna save grandma's life.

We need that comma.

Grandma's like, please put in the comma.

That comma changes everything right there because one is a crime and it's disgusting, horrible, and the other is a loving invitation to gain time with your grandma.

Go in me out with your grandma.

Okay, that's a good thing to do.

But a comma changes everything here, and this actually is so important because in the early English, earliest English translations of the Bible, in the next verse, there was a comma that was added that has actually, I believe, ruined many ministries because of a lie that many pastors and many churches have believed.

And we put the whole passage up here on top of each other, one with the comma and one without it.

Okay.

So you see this top one here.

I don't know if you see this comma right here.

Okay.

Oh, we're gonna go back here.

There's the comma right there.

Okay.

And that comma changes the meaning of the role of these pastors.

Because for a long time in the church, this top one was the framework of what pastors are supposed to do.

And I'll explain it this way: that pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets, apostles, these people exist to do here two things to equip the saints, and they also exist to do the work of ministry.

And there's a big distinction between those two things.

It could sound, oh my goodness, it's just semantics.

No, there's a huge difference because for many years, many churches have operated that pastors' roles and people who are on staff at churches, their job is to equip the body, but then they are also called to do the work of ministry themselves and not equip the body to do that.

Now I'm thankful that later translations have all come to the consensus that you know what, there is no comma there.

There is no comma.

The ministry role is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

And I talk about the idea of commas being deadly and ruining ministries, and that could sound dramatic, but to Eugene Peterson, who was a pastor in the 20th century, he would say, No, that's actually very true.

He tells a story in his biography back in 1966 that he was having dinner with his family, and his daughter said, Can we play?

I want to play with you.

And he said, I'm so sorry, sweetie.

I got an elder meeting tonight.

I've got to go.

And she looked at him and she said, That's 27 nights in a row.

And that he was she was counting.

And as a dad, that just cuts me to the heart.

And that moment, he recognized, I can't keep doing this.

And he went to his elders and said, We have to change how we're doing things.

Because Eugene, along with many pastors and many churches and many people, their thought process was, Yes, you teach on Sunday and you give us spiritual food to eat, but then you have to be at every hospital visit, you have to do every wedding, you have to do every funeral, you have to do every counseling session, every elder meeting, you have to do all of these things, all the budgetary meetings and business meetings as a pastor, that's what you have to do.

And it has burned out so many pastors.

And it's a wonder why so many pastors' kids grow up with resentment because their belief is that Jesus, is he really that loving?

He took dad away from me.

And that's the tragedy of so many in ministry that if you add that comma, the expectation is if you're gifted this way, then sorry, you have no life outside of what's going on in the church.

You equip the church and you do the work of ministry.

I'm so grateful that that comma is not there.

Because my role as a pastor, yes, I'm gonna do all of those things within my capacity, but at the same time, my job is to equip you and empower you to be able to go and do the work that God has called you to.

That's my role as a pastor.

I can't carry the weight.

Pastor White can't carry the weight.

Pastor Steve, we cannot carry the weight of all of the needs that are within the church.

We are called to equip you so that we can partner together in doing that.

But what does this equipping look like?

So, what does it mean then for you to equip the body of Christ?

It's the Greek word keratismos, and this is a very interesting word.

Maybe for us to understand the depth of it.

I want to take you back to February 14th, 2025, in my family.

Uh, this is Valentine's Day, and my wife and daughters are in the front of the house, and they're uh blasting defying gravity from the wicked soundtrack.

My daughters love that song.

I'm in the back, I'm a good pastor, I'm praying, and uh no, I'm just kidding.

Uh but I was in the back, and all of a sudden I hear a scream like something I never wanted to hear.

And Allie, she says, Get up here, Jack, hurry, hurry.

And I'm running.

And if you've ever been in that situation as a parent, you're just thinking, what am I gonna see as I turn the corner?

And I turned the corner, and what had happened is one of my daughters, she thought, she's very little, she thought she could defy gravity.

And she learned that gravity's laws apply to all of us.

And she was on a chair and she wanted to jump and fly.

And she jumped, she didn't see the armrest, and she tripped on it and she fell on her arm.

And what I saw was her arm contorted in a direction that didn't make any logical sense.

And I'm not a biology major, but I just know that that was a problem.

So I pick her up, we take her to the hospital, and that next day they say, okay, she's a broken arm, obviously.

And so we have to have surgery.

And in the surgery, what we're gonna do, the doctor's telling us, is we have to put the bones back in alignment, put a pin in it so that it can heal, and ultimately so that her bones and her body and her arm can grow naturally in the way that it was designed.

That concept is catartismos.

That is what it is.

Bringing separated parts together so that they could be in alignment with one another and they can grow and become a healthy entity.

That's what we exist to do as the body of Christ.

Every single one of us, some people are our hand, some people are a mouth, some people are an eye.

And God, through the Spirit of God, He has given us these body parts and these roles exist to help bring the body into alignment so they can grow and function as a healthy body of Christ, so that we can do what verse 15 says, that we can grow together in every way into Him who is the head, Christ.

And so as a pastor, I am looking at our church and I'm looking at people and I'm looking at what God is doing in people's lives.

And I'm asking myself consistently the question: how can I lead this person to partner with what Jesus is doing so that they're operating within their gifts and what God is doing in our church?

And I have to regularly be asking that question.

That is what equipping looks like.

But to understand it really at a practical level, we need to understand what Paul is talking about with the last few words, last four words, the work of ministry.

Like, what is ministry?

What is Paul talking about?

What does this look like in our day-to-day lives?

And there's a hundred ways.

I can do probably just a hundred messages of what the work of ministry looks like.

But this morning I want to focus on two in particular.

Because if we're doing the internal work of growing in our love for Jesus internally in obedience to the Spirit of God and the Word of God, there needs to be practical ways that this plays itself out in our lives.

And I want to show you the two ways that I think are most practical.

The first is using our gifts to bless others.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 4 10, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

He says, Every single one of us has received grace.

And every single one of us has gifts that God has given to us.

And because of this, we need to use these gifts in the same way that God has blessed us with this grace.

We need to use our gifts to be a blessing to other people.

People will often ask, how do I know what my spiritual gift is?

The Bible talks about this idea of spirit-gifted gifts.

Like, how do I know what my gifts are?

Do I take an inventory test?

Do I meet with a spiritual spiritual counselor?

Do I go on a hike somewhere and like fast or whatever?

Like those things are all great, but it's actually a lot easier to figure out.

Here's the chart that we were looking at earlier to figure out what your spiritual gift is.

And often it comes down to what are you good at?

What are you naturally good at?

The people who know you best, they say you are gifted in this.

We can over-spiritualize and over-complicate this so much.

But I think just being uh being who God has called us to be and saying, God, you've given me this gift.

I want to use this gift to be a blessing to others.

My wife Allie has the gift of hospitality.

She loves hosting.

We we bought a home two years ago.

And one of the things that she encouraged me with, I'm a little bit more introverted, I'm a little bit more of a homebody.

And one of the things that she challenged me with, she said, Jack, as we move into this home, we are going to have people come and stay with us, and we're going to invite people over for meals.

And I realized in that moment that that is her gifting, that the Spirit of God is compelling her to operate within.

Who am I to stop that?

And so in that moment, recognizing that her gift of hospitality is helping me grow in my hospitality.

And I'm so grateful for that.

Every one of us has a gift.

Every one of us have things that God has placed on our heart that we have to walk in obedience to.

And so doing the work of ministry is allowing these roles that exist to empower you and equip you to serve in the areas that God has gifted you.

But the second one is also using our resources to advance Jesus' kingdom.

Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 9.

He says, the person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

And the person who sows generously will also reap generously.

Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.

God has given us grace and he has given us resources.

And for us at Alderwood, it's not about a percentage of what you give.

We're not checking that.

We're not interested in that.

We are interested in your heart in participating through giving of resources to what God is doing here at the church.

We're asking you to ask God to spend time with him to pray about this and ask God, what does it look like for me to be generous?

For a single parent, it's going to look different than an empty nester who's a Fortune 500 CEO.

Like it's going to look different, and that's generous no matter what.

There's no singular picture of what generosity looks like, but we're all called to it in some way, shape, or form.

And generosity is also not just about money, it's looking at holistically all of the resources God has given to us and asking how I can use these to bless others and participate in what Jesus is doing.

There's a family at the last church I worked at.

The dad was a VP at T-Mobile.

And honestly, they were like the perfect family.

Okay.

They were beautiful and smart and kind and godly.

And I'm just sitting like it was annoying.

Okay.

And it's like, is there anything wrong with them?

And they had a house that overlooked downtown Bellevue, and they would host church events all the time.

They really were a wonderful family, some of my favorite people.

And one thing that they decided to do was they completely decked out their basement.

They made it into a beautiful Airbnb type place for people to stay.

And they gave to the church financially, but they came to the church as well and they said, we don't want to just give financially.

We've just remodeled this whole space.

Whenever there's a missionary in town, let them know that they never have to worry about where they're going to stay because we would love to host them.

We would love to have them stay with us.

Their door was always open.

Like that is radical generosity right there.

It's not just about how much money do I give, but they looked at their life and they saw all that Jesus has given.

They said, Lord, you have given us so much we want to give back.

And this is what your spirit is compelling us to do.

And they chose to partner in that way.

That's partnering in the work of ministry.

By allowing the teaching of God's word, by allowing the gospel penetrating our heart, by allowing the conviction of the Spirit of God to lead us to a place where it says, Lord, I want to use my life as a way to partner in what you are doing in the world.

And so we look at the passage holistically again.

Jesus gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

And the heart in all of it is that we would grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ.

This is why we desire as a church to grow together by becoming more and more like Jesus.

When you are equipped, that is one of the most foundational ways to grow and become more like Jesus.

When we recognize our giftings and our resources and asking, how can I use these things to partner with what God is doing?

And so as we finish up, I want to just share a few tangible ways that this can look like.

Like, where does growth happen here at Alderwood?

What does it look like to grow?

The first one is here, in this room.

Spiritual growth happens here.

It can be in vogue to downplay what the Spirit of God does in larger rooms like this.

But Hebrews says, don't forsake the corporate gathering of the church body.

Like we need this time together to hear the word of God, to worship together, to take communion, to celebrate baptisms.

This time together is vital for our spiritual formation.

But I think for us, it can be easy to make this the whole of our church experience.

And while it is vital, if that's where you're at right now, praise God.

My prayer is that maybe you lean just a little bit more, that the Spirit would lead you to recognize what it looks like to lean a little bit more in what God is doing here in the church, because it's so much more than just Sunday mornings.

We also have gatherings and groups that meet all over the city and all over the region in life groups, that meet in homes, that pray with one another, that love one another, that walk through the hardest seasons of life together.

And maybe going into a stranger's home is a little intimidating for you.

I understand that.

That's why we've also created our Wednesday night uh midweek ministry that meets in here.

We have an adult Bible study that meets in here with circle tables all over the room.

And we go through books of the Bible.

This year we're going through the book of Revelation, which is gonna be pretty exciting to go through, and we're going through that, but it's not just about learning the content of a book of the Bible.

It's actually an emphasis that we've placed on growing connected together in our relationships.

And what's amazing is that the deeper we grow in relationship with one another, there is also fruit that comes from that.

So, whatever the group environment looks like for you, maybe for you, the next step of growth is saying, I'm gonna move church from just Sunday mornings to finding a place to grow in my relationships with others.

And lastly, beyond that, we also have serving, using our gifts and our resources to serve and to give and to bless others.

And there's so much growth that happens in that.

Man, often when I talk to people who are serving, they say yes to serving and they say, you know, I did it because I wanted to meet a need and I wanted to be helpful.

And I didn't realize in serving how helpful it was for me.

One of the most beautiful pictures of serving that's been so powerful for me is Jason Carter.

Jason Carter is the chairman of our elder board and just one of my best friends here, someone I love so much.

But beyond being our uh elder chairman, he's also our CMM.

And our CMM stands for our chief meltdown mitigator, okay?

And I'm not just talking about with Wyatt, okay?

He actually works with our two-year-olds and with our two-year-old ministry.

And a few years back, one of my daughters was just terrified to go into the room.

Like she just would not go into the room.

She was clutching onto our shirts.

I don't want to go.

I'm scared.

I don't know what to do.

I'm so scared, I'm so scared.

Please don't make me.

And for weeks, my wife Allie and I were trying to figure out a way to help her feel comfortable in that space, but she just was so scared.

And then one day, Jason showed up.

And man, I had heard stories about what he does, but it's magic, honestly.

It's incredible.

He got down on one knee.

He said, Hey, my name's Jason.

What's your name?

And she's got the crocodile tears going.

My name is she shares her name.

And he's like, Can I it's okay?

Can I have give you a hug?

Okay.

And she comes in, gives him a hug.

He asks, What okay, if I pick you up?

Okay, that's fine.

And she is picked up.

And finally, after a few moments, he says, Do you want to go into the room with me?

She says, Yes.

And we had no concerns with her at that point.

She all of a sudden realized that room is not scary.

That's actually an incredible place to be.

See, I am thankful for Jason as a chairman of our elder board.

But as a dad, I'm so grateful because he helped my daughter love church.

Like, you can't put a price on that.

That's him using his gift.

As I've talked with him, I've heard so many stories of people who've been blessed by him.

And in talking with him, he's like, Man, the blessing is for me.

And God is teaching me and growing me through it.

I'm so grateful.

Maybe for you, God is calling you to find a place to use your gifts to serve and bless others.

Because we become more like Jesus when we're equipped to be a part of God's story.

So as we close, going back to last week, Pastor White said God's writing an amazing story of redemption.

He's doing incredible things.

He is bringing people to this church who not just have no church experience here at Alderwood, literally have no church experience at all.

And he is leading them to the cross of Jesus Christ.

It's an amazing story of redemption.

And for those who consider Alderwood their church home, my question for you is will you be a part of what God is doing?

Next week, we have our fall launch.

It's a very tangible way for you to take the next step, no matter what it is.

It could look any way.

Maybe for you, it's I want to take my church experience out of just this room.

I want to be a part of a life group, or I want to be a part of Midweek, or Women of the Word, or Tuesdays with Jesus, or Mom Co.

or men's discipleship cohort, these groups that exist to build relationships outside of just this room.

Praise God.

Or maybe for you, you're recognizing I need to be participating and serving and being a part of what God is doing.

There's gonna be opportunities for you next Sunday in our fall launch.

You're gonna see all sorts of tables in the lobby and all sorts of opportunities for you to join in the story of what God is doing here at Alderwood.

Our prayer is that each one of us would ask what the next step looks like.

And this week, that you would ask the Spirit of God to speak to you and make it very clear.

This is what it looks like for you to be a part of Jesus' story of redemption.

Will you join in?

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word.

Thank you for Paul and compelling us and helping us understand the purpose of the ministry exists to equip people to go and live the way that you've called us to live and to use our gifts and resources in a way that advances your kingdom.

Ultimately, they are your gifts, they are your resources.

You have given them to us.

And so now we open our hands and we say, Holy Spirit, direct me in the way that I should go.

Thank you for your word.

We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.