GIFTED // The FUNCTIONAL Gifts // Pastor Richie Fike

Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to

know that God is for you and so are we.

You're about to hear a sermon from one of our

weekend services in the tri-lakes of Southern Colorado. God is

not a monument. He's a movement. So we're praying that

this message will move you in a meaningful way. Listen

closely after the message for ways to get connected with us.

God bless you. Thanks for tuning in.

We're in a series called Gifted. And the point of

this series is to alert you to the fact that

you are gifted. Have you figured that out yet? You

are gifted. You're gifted by the God who loves you

so much that he sent his one and only son,

and that if you would believe in him, that you

could be reunited with the Father in heaven. He loves

you that much. And the God who loves me so

much that he sent you to this church so that

you could share the very unique way that the Lord

manifests himself through you. Your gift is not for you.

It's for me, and I really appreciate that. We've learned

four things about spiritual gifts so far. I'm just going

to remind you. Here they are. Number one, God is

the one who chooses your gift. We don't get to go, God,

I want this gift. God chooses your gift. Everybody gets

a gift. Nobody goes without. Your gift is not for you.

And last week we talked about the idea that all

of us are built to be both needed and needy

and that there is nothing wrong. In fact, there's everything

right about the body of Christ interdependent upon one another.

We've answered questions about who gives us the gift and

why it's given. And finally today, We're going to start

working through the list. Are you ready to work through

the list and kind of figure out what your gift is?

Anybody here excited about that? Okay, cool. Now listen, there's

about 20 of these spiritual gifts. So we're going to

spend the next five weeks really deep diving into these gifts.

You can find them mostly from two passages of scripture,

1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. That's where you find

this list of gifts. We're gonna do it sort of structurally.

This is the way we're gonna cover it. We're gonna

do the functional gifts, the faith and power gifts, the

equipping gifts, and the prophecy in tongues. We're gonna spend

one week just talking about that because that's controversial and

confusing enough biblically that we really need to take a

deep dive on that issue. But today we're gonna deal

with functional gifts. You guys put the fun in functional

and we're gonna talk about that. And this is how

we're gonna do it. For each gift that I talk

about today, you're gonna see kind of a series of ideas.

The strength of that gift, what's beautiful about them, how

we see these gifts manifest in the Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that if you've seen the Son, you've

seen the Father. So we're gonna talk about how these

gifts that manifest in us were evident in Christ in

the Gospels. And then we're gonna look at the shadow

side of your gift. And then we're gonna look at

some people who tell the story of these gifts. Some

people that are sitting right around you today. You're going

to hear some stories, and then we're going to talk

about how you can use that gift to serve the

body of Christ, this community of faith. Our theme verse

in this series is 1 Corinthians 12, 7, which says this,

A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person

for the common good. This word manifestation is a fun word.

It means bringing something that's invisible into the light. It

means making something invisible visible. And that's what your gift does.

You make God visible to the people around you when

the Holy Spirit manifests himself uniquely through you. That's the

idea of spiritual gifts. Now, I want to give two

caveats before we get into this list today. Number one,

the concept or the topic of spiritual gifts is not

a topic about your personality. This is not a new Myers-Briggs, okay?

This is not a replacement for the Enneagram. In fact,

the Enneagram is a replacement for spiritual gifts. But this

isn't about your personality. This is about what happens when

the Holy Spirit manifests himself through you. This is spiritual.

This is beautiful. You know, if you've done a personality test,

you've probably figured out some of the things that motivate you,

some of the things that irritate you, right? Some of

the things that make you you. But what we're talking

about with spiritual gifts is this. It's this spiritual... alchemy.

It's this chemistry that happens when who you are gives

way to whose you are. You with me? So this

thing that happens when you decide to put the Lord

at the highest throne in your heart, whatever happens next,

that's your spiritual gift. That's what it looks like. So

that's caveat number one. And caveat number two is this.

Spiritual gifts are meant for Christians really within the context

of the So within the context of your community of faith,

that doesn't mean that your spiritual guests can't manifest themselves

outside the walls of a church community, but their purpose

is for us to see God through you, for the

church to see God uniquely through you. Okay, so with

those caveats, are you ready for the list? Everybody ready?

I got to blow through this stuff. We got six

of them to cover today. And I hope that many

of you hear about yourself today and you go, oh,

That's me. I never had words for that, okay? That's

the idea. Here's the first one. The spiritual gift of mercy.

We find this in Romans 12, 8. The spiritual gift

of mercy. What is it? It is the spiritual capacity

to feel and express, I love this phrase, unusual compassion, empathy,

and sympathy for those in difficult or crisis situations and

provide them with the necessary help and support to see

them through tough times. These are compassionate people. These are

incredible people. When people find themselves at the end of

their rope, mercy gifters give them a knot to hold

on to. That's what a mercy gifter is. We've all

had moments, seasons, days, weeks, years, where we were just

going through it, right? Jesus said, in this world, you

will have trouble. And so for those of us that

have walked through a hard season, we really needed a

mercy gifter to come along and see us and notice

us with this uncommon, unusual compassion. For a lot of us,

when we walk through the doors of a church, you

know that question that we ask, how you doing, man?

And you're expecting the person to say, good, and you, right?

And that's what we want. That's really all we want.

Please don't say anything other than that. If you're a

mercy gifter, What you want is the person to say,

I'm not doing well at all. You're like, ha ha ha,

here I come, right? That's the idea. For most of us,

when someone says, I'm not doing well at all, we're like,

good luck with that, right? That's kind of how we roll. Like,

I hope that works out for you. What about our Savior?

What did Jesus do? He taught about this. There's a

very famous passage called the Good Samaritan. Great story. A

guy is going through a really hard moment, a really

hard season in his life And some really good people

walk by him and go, good luck with that. I

hope that all works out for you. But this one

guy shows up and enters in to this guy's troubles

and says, I'm going to help you. I'm going to

get in this pit with you. We're going to work

this out together. That's the spiritual gift of mercy. Now,

if you're a teenager in the room, or if you've

been in vacation Bible school in years and years ago,

and you have like PTSD from it, um, Everybody's favorite

memory verse in the whole Bible. Anybody know what it is?

It's two words. What is it? Jesus wept. Isn't that

the greatest memory verse of all time? Because it's really

easy to remember, right? What's the context of this moment, though?

Lazarus has died. And all of his friends are hurting.

They're struggling. They're mourning. And Jesus walks in, experiences pain.

what they're walking through and enters into it with them.

And he wept. Now then he does a miracle, but

first he showed unusual compassion for his friends. Jesus was merciful.

Aren't you glad that Jesus is a merciful God? You

don't want the God of justice. You want the God

of mercy, amen? Like God is merciful to us. In fact,

the primary emotion that the gospel writers attribute to Jesus

is compassionate. Jesus was compassionate towards the sick, towards the hurting,

towards women and children, which was unusual, towards crowds and

towards individuals. Very often people were pressing into him and

he saw the one person that was hurting. If you

know Jesus, you know compassion, you know mercy. Mercy gifters

help us to see God. So mercy is when someone

encounters your pain before they evaluate your performance. They just go, look,

we don't need to talk about what led to this.

I'm just here for you. Oh, isn't it good to

have a friend like that? Isn't it beautiful when we

see God in the face of someone who lives like that?

People with the gift of mercy rush into the mess.

They don't cross-examine. They don't make you earn their compassion.

I just want to show you I'm here. I'm love you.

It's not always about fixing it. Come on, husbands in

the room, anybody, right? Sometimes your wife tells you what's

going on. It's either this person at work said this,

and then another person said this, and it was terrible,

and you want to rush in and fix it. Mercy

gifters know sometimes it's not about fixing it. It's just

about hearing it. It's just about entering into it. And

all the ladies said, that's right. Okay, so let's talk

about the shadow side of mercy. What is the shadow

side of a mercy gifter? Guys, if you have this gift,

you need to make sure that your compassion and your

empathy does its homework before you start sort of cosigning

on somebody else's dysfunction. You need to be a little

discerning about this. Proverbs says this, the first to state

his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

If you have multiple kids, you know how this works.

The first kid that walks up to you and says, Daddy,

he did this, is usually the criminal. They're the one

that's guilty, right? And then you find the whole story

out later. So you need to have mercy gifters discernment.

Because mercy gifters naturally empathize with the person who confides

in them their compassion and can unintentionally reinforce dysfunction when

that person's perspective is incomplete or mistaken or self-deceived. Merciful

people are great at entering into the pain of others,

but they're not always intentional about helping people to interrogate

what led to this. Is there something we can do

to prevent this kind of pain in the future, right?

So be aware of the ways in which your mercy

can enable dysfunction. Now, I happen to live with a

person who is a mercy gifter, the wonderful, fabulous Dana Fike.

And I'm telling you, it is the secret to the

success of our marriage because she has forgiven me over

and I have given her such opportunities to use her

mercy gift. I mean, I just want to help her.

I want her to get strong in her gift, you know?

And so for all of these years, I've given her

very many opportunities to use this mercy gift. Every time

we do a feast with the Fikes, do you know

what happens? People fall in love with Dana Fike. Is

there anybody here that would say that you did a

feast with the Fikes and you fell in love with

Dana Fike? Okay, that's right. Why? Because she has this

ability to enter into your life, to your world, and

just throw herself aside and enter into whatever it is

you're passionate about, whatever it is you're confused about. She

just wants to make that connection. It's powerful. So listen,

mercy gifters, your gift is not for you. It's for us.

We need your gift. Amen, everybody? We need your gift,

especially the merciless people in the room today. You need

mercy in your life. Every church, every church, not just ours,

every church has hurting people. You know that, right? If

you're going through a hard season in your life right now,

you're not doing it wrong. It's life. Everybody needs mercy

in their life. Everybody, every church has marriages that are struggling.

People who got bad news from the doctor. People whose

kids are making terrible decisions. Like last night, my son

kept grabbing the microphone and yelling out, Feliz Navidad. We

don't know why. We don't know why. And don't do

it now, son. People whose kids are making terrible decisions.

People who walk into church smiling while everything in their

life has fallen apart. And here's the thing. A lot

of us in the room don't notice those people But

you do. If you have this gift of mercy, you

notice something's off with her. Something's wrong with him. So

here's the deal. Don't do nothing about it. Do something

about it. Walk across the room. Send the text. Make

the phone call. Bring the meal. Sit in the hospital room.

Show up at the funeral. Invite that lonely person that

you notice to lunch. Now, there's some pretty clear applications

to this gift for you guys. If you have this

gift of mercy, the most obvious is our care ministry team,

which is led by Karen Murphy, who does an incredible

job with this team. Why does the care ministry exist?

Because Jesus said this, they, the world, people who don't

know Jesus, will know that you guys belong to me

because of the way that you love each other, the

way you show love to one another. That's how we're

going to know that you belong to me. So we

absolutely as a church want to be the kind of

church that shows love and consideration and care when you're

going through a hard season. And if you have this

gift of mercy, this is the team for you. Also,

I would say another great team is our prayer ministry

team led by Steve White. Because we do this text

to pray thing where people can text in their prayer

requests and they can be as confidential or as forthright

as they want to be. And sometimes when they're really forthright,

what they're begging for is for somebody to enter into

their pain with them. And so you can do more

than just pray with them. You can actually spend time

and communicate with them. And so if you have this

heart and you're looking for a place to serve, both

of these teams are what you're looking for. Your gift

is not for you. It's for us. So don't keep

it to yourself. Let's give it up for the mercy

gifters in the room. You guys are awesome. Okay, next one, hospitality. Hospitality.

Now this one's interesting because hospitality isn't actually included on

any of the lists. but it's included at the end

of all the lists. Paul says this at Romans 12, 13,

share with the saints in their needs for to hospitality.

Peter says this in 1 Peter 4, he says, be

hospitable to one another without complaining, just as each one

has received a gift, use it to serve others as

good stewards of the varied grace of God. So this

is not just a talent or a preference or a skill.

This is a gift. And if you've met people that

are incredibly hospitable, you go, I don't have that, right?

You go, that's incredible. Here's what it is. It's the

capacity to create welcoming spaces for strangers, guests, and outsiders.

Opening your home and your life in ways that help

people move. I love this. From stranger to friend. Isn't

that beautiful? That that's the gift of someone who has

this gift of hospitality. You love to cook. You love

event planning. You love interior design. You love thinking about,

you know, everything that's going to happen, throwing the party,

making the memories, taking group photos, connecting people with each other.

This is your gift. And this shows up a lot

when you're home shopping. What I mean is when you're

shopping for a home. Most of us normal people, when

we go shopping for a home, we look for a

house that's going to serve our family, right? Not you,

You're thinking about how to serve every family that ever lived.

You want to make sure you have the biggest living room.

You want to make sure there's outdoor space. You want

to make sure that when the kids come over for

growth group, they've got somewhere to be. Like you're thinking

about everything when you're home shopping. Not me. I'm thinking

about I need a basement. I need an office. That's

all I need. And if people never come over, fine

with me. Like that's how I roll. I don't have

the gift of hospitality. I love you. Just don't come over.

people with this gift they love company and it's not

about being introverted or being extroverted this is a spiritual

manifestation of making room and space for people you guys

are special this is awesome what about Jesus Jesus absolutely

was this way he had meals with his disciples often

we see one of the things we see Jesus doing

the most was eating with his friends with his disciples

with sinners with sinners In fact, they said of Jesus,

he's a drunkard. He hangs out with the worst crowd.

Who is this guy? Jesus loved making space for people.

And by the way, if you're looking for a big

theme of the Bible, the big theme of the Bible

is that heaven is a picture of hospitality. It's God

opening up his home for you and me. That's who

God is. That's who Jesus was. What's the shadow side?

What's the shadow side? Dana, stop inviting people over to

our house. That's the shadow side. Now, here it is. Guys,

if you have this gift, use discernment. You really don't

want everybody in your home. There are some people who

want to do you harm. And so you've got to

be careful to not just throw the doors open to everybody, right?

Use discernment. Get a discerning person in your life. Another

shadow side might be letting hospitality become performative, right? It's

easy for this gift to mutate from, I want you

to feel welcome to, I want you to be impressed.

That's the shadow side. And now the house and the

food and the party and everything has to be perfect.

Like your Christmas morning has to look like the cover

of William Sonoma, right? This is how you live. And ironically,

the pursuit of perfect hospitality can make people feel less comfortable.

You ever been to somebody's house that's pristine and perfect?

And you're like, where do I sit? right? I don't

want to break anything, right? So you can make people

feel a little less. Now, we have someone in our

church who I think has an extraordinary gift of hospitality.

Ladies and gentlemen, how many of you know Miss Sue Cressman?

Anybody here know Sue Cressman? Come on, give it up

for Sue Cressman. This woman has an extraordinary gift for hospitality.

If you've ever been to to her home, you feel

like this is now your home when you walk into

her house. She makes you feel so warm, so comfortable.

She's really good at this. In fact, I'm still salty

about this. A few years ago, when we kicked off

growth groups, we had a bunch of growth groups, and

Steve White, He said to me, Pastor, I'm going to

visit all of the growth groups. I'm going to go

check them all out, and then I'll decide which growth

group to come to. He went to my growth group,

other growth groups, and then he went to Sue Cressman's

growth group. And he came back to me on a Sunday,

and he said, I need to share something with you.

I'm not going to be joining your growth group. Why not?

He goes, I'm getting involved with Sue Cressman's growth group.

Why is that? Best food of any of the growth groups. Yeah,

still salty. Still salty about it. But this is Sue Cressman.

Sue is the architect and the owner of our pancake ministry.

Does that surprise you at all? Why? Because she cares

that you connect. Not that you just show up and

sit in rows, but that you sit back there and

meet people and interact with people. So she loves this.

This is who she is. Hospitality Gifters, your gift is

not for you. It's for us. We need your gift.

We see God through you. And the way that you

use your gift is powerful. Think of this. One of

the most intimidating things that anybody could ever do is

walk through the doors of a church for the very

first time. Right? Can you remember the last time that

you walked through a church for the very first time

and how weird it was? One thing we forget about

as Christians, especially once we get really plugged into a church,

is how weird it is to go to church. Like

we just forget. It's like, oh, it's normal now. But

that first time, it's really weird because people don't know

where anything is. They don't know what they're supposed to do.

And they don't know the songs or anybody in the room.

So for some people, just walking through the door took

a lot of courage. If you're here today and it's

your first time, way to go. We're proud of you

for your courage. And we're sorry if it was weird.

But this gift, this hospitality gift can help people go from,

I don't know anybody here to, I think I might

belong here. Have you had that experience at the Movement Church?

Come on, a lot of you have. What I hear

from you about our church is how warm everybody is.

I love that. Keep doing that. This is a superpower.

It's supernatural. And so if you have this gift, I

just want to encourage you. Every Sunday, I want you

to just look around and ask yourself, who's new? Who

don't I know? And just go talk to them. Go

introduce yourself. Sit with somebody. Introduce them to somebody else.

Invite them to lunch. Invite them to your growth group.

Just not Suze. Theirs is full. They don't have any

more space. Come to my growth group and invite them

into your life. If you have this gift, you should

serve on the greeting team. You should serve on the

hospitality team. And yeah, you should serve in a growth group.

You should invite people to your home. This is what

you're gifted for. Any environment where somebody needs to walk

in as a stranger and leave feeling like a friend.

You with me? So hospitality gifters, your gift is not

for you. It's for us. Don't keep it to yourself.

Let's give it up for the hospitality folks in the room.

We love you guys. Okay. Here's the next one. Exhortation. Exhortation.

That's a big word. What does it mean? It means this.

Often called the gift of encouragement, the Spirit-given capacity to strengthen, comfort, encourage,

and urge people, this is important, toward faithful action. It's

not just about, you look good today. It's about pushing

people to live out their faith. The Greek word, perikyleo,

carries the idea of calling someone alongside, appealing, encouraging, comforting,

urging them. I love this description. This is my favorite

definition of this. Exhortation is the spiritual gift of transferring

faith for the purpose of forward motion. Transferring faith for

the purpose of forward motion. Exhorters regard trials as opportunities.

They go, oh, man, this is going to be so

good for you. This hard thing that you're going through, oh,

this is so good. God's going to do something so

great in your life, you know? And you're like, thanks,

you know? I saw this reel this week where these

two people were talking to one another. One guy's complaining

about his life. And the other guy goes, you know what, Bob?

I think from now on, every time you use the

word problem, you should replace it with the word opportunity.

And Bob says, you know what? You're right. I have

a drinking opportunity. I love that. It's not about just

being chipper. It's not just about being positive. Seeing the

glass is half full. It's not blind optimism. It's genuine

faith transferred from one heart to another. Do you know

someone like this? Do you know someone whose faith is

so real that it's just contagious, infectious? Thank you. Amen. Amen.

Exhorters hold a deep conviction about the sovereignty of God.

They don't see any trouble that you're walking through as

a reason not to trust in God. They see it

as a reason to lean in. This is so powerful.

What about Jesus? How do we see him doing this?

Jesus was famous for this. He didn't just preach the truth.

He called people to respond, didn't he? Think about this.

He says, come and follow me. He says, get up

and walk. He says, go and sin no more. He says,

fear not, only believe. And he says, take heart. All

of these are Jesus transferring his faith that he has

in the Father and saying, believe in God, trust in God.

Jesus moved people from where they were to where God

called them. That's who he was. Okay, what about the

shadow side? Here's the shadow side. And I say this

with love. If you are an exhorter in the room,

I say this with love. you're wearing us out. Okay.

I mean, you are just wearing us out. Sometimes we

don't need a motivational speech and a three point action

step plan for how to get ourselves out of this ditch.

Sometimes we don't need you to tell us what God

is teaching us through this moment. Sometimes we just need

to be sad for a minute. Anybody agree with that? Sometimes. Okay.

That's fine. Okay. That's my girl. Um, This is where,

by the way, exhorters should make friends with mercy gifters, right?

Because they can balance each other out. Mercy walks into

the hospital room and says, I'm so sorry. I'm here.

I'm not going anywhere. An exhorter walks in five minutes

later and says, all right, what are we learning from this?

I have cancer. Like, I don't want to talk about

that right now. But listen, this is the point. Your

gift isn't pressure. It's courage. encourage. That's the idea. Use

your gift this way. So exhorters, read the room. Sometimes challenge,

sometimes encourage, sometimes comfort, sometimes push, sometimes just sit still

and stay quiet. If there's one thing I've learned in

these three years as your senior pastor, it's that I

don't always need to have the perfect thing to say.

I just need to be with you. When you're going

through something hard, I just need to listen. I don't

need to have the perfect answer from God in this moment.

I just need you to know that you're not alone, right? Exhorters,

chill out a few times, okay? Now, I have a

great friend named Jordan Merritt. And if you don't know

Jordan Merritt, can I just encourage you, this is a

free plug, go download all of his music. It's all

over everywhere. He is incredible. Jordan is a world-class Navy

SEAL level exhorter. Every time I'm around this guy, I

feel like I'm seven feet taller. I feel like I've

got faith that I didn't even know could possibly happen.

This guy, just by walking in the room, he just

exudes exhortation. That's who he is. A few years back,

I went out to Knoxville where he lives. He lives

on this farm in the middle of nowhere in these

rolling hills in Knoxville, beautiful. And so we went out,

me and Travis and a bunch of other guys, we

went out and spent a week writing songs. with Jordan

for a record he was working on. And one night

he played for us his soon to be released album.

And it was wild. I've never heard Christian music sound

like this. It was so distinctly Jordan in a way

that just made me, I was just amazed by what

he was doing. I was like, this is incredible. Now listen, it's,

you know, your taste may vary whether you like it

or not, But the point is, Jordan is so brave

in just being who he is that I'm sitting there

and I'm thinking about the fact that during COVID, I

bought for myself a home studio. And I taught myself

how to produce music. And within three or four days

of learning the ropes of logic and learning how to

do stuff, I started immediately making rap songs. Because I

don't know if you know this or not, I'm only

white on the outside, okay? Okay? That's how I roll.

I just started making rap song after rap song after

rap song because I love rap music. Shari, that's who

your pastor is. And so I just started writing this

music and a lot of it's terrible. Some of it's okay.

But when I was sitting there that night listening to

his music, I just felt such a courage, such a

boldness to go, you know, I'm going to release some

of these songs. And so that next summer we released

five new songs that we put out that year in

2024 and They're like pop and hip-hop, and you probably

won't love them. But I love them, and I needed

to release them. And if it wasn't for Jordan, I

don't think I'd be here. would have. So exhorters, your

gift is not for you. It's for us. We need

your gift. We need people who can notice people at

their breaking point and say, don't quit yet. Don't you

need that from time to time? You need people who

can remind us what's true when our circumstances have made

us forget. We need people who can see potential in

us before we can see it in ourselves. So exhorters,

if you're looking for a place to serve, basically anywhere

that there are people that need encouragement, serve there, okay?

But here's a list, growth groups, move groups, children's ministry,

prayer ministry, care ministry, and I specifically want to call

out student ministry because we in our leadership team are

noticing that we really need to lock in and kind

of rethink the way that we're approaching middle school and

high school student ministry. We have a lot of littles

that are growing bigger and taller, And we need to

have a ministry that's ready for them. So if you're

an exhorter and you love students, come and talk to me.

Let's get this thing rolling, okay? Your gift is not

for you. It's for us. So don't keep it to yourself.

Let's give it up for the exhorters in the room.

All right.

I got to go fast. We got three more. Here's

the next one. Service and helps. Service and helps. This

is the ability, a person with the ability to joyfully

work alongside others. And if you're looking for a word

that best describes this whole paragraph, it's the word joy. joyfully, okay?

The ability to joyfully work alongside others, often behind the scenes,

relieving their burdens and helping accomplish the task God has

given them with humility, sacrifice, and an instinct for noticing

what needs to be done. You either help through serving

or you serve through helping. This is who you are.

If you have this gift, you find yourself saying things like,

what do you need me to do? I'm just here

to help. do you need my help? What can I

help you with? If you don't have this gift, you've

never asked that question before. You just think people are

here to help me and I really appreciate it. But

if you have this gift, you're looking for ways to serve.

It's just the way the Lord manifests himself through you.

This is how you know if you have this gift.

You ready? This is the ultimate litmus test. When someone

is doing a job poorly, okay, Is your first thought

to criticize or to help? To criticize or to help?

Do you find yourself saying, they stink at that. We

need to tell them. Don't ever do that again. Do

you find yourself doing that? Or they're struggling with that.

They need help. Let's go help them. If you have

helps and service, your instinct is to step into it

with them and help them. If you don't, you're just

going to criticize like I do. Okay, so what about

our Savior? Jesus' whole ministry was service, wasn't it? Everything

he did was to serve others. In fact, he said

this about himself. I didn't come to be served. The

King of kings, the Lord of lords. There is no

throne higher than his. He didn't come to be served.

He came to serve. This is amazing. And one of

the most beautiful moments, one of the most paradigm-shifting moments

in all of Scripture is It was this moment when

Jesus got on his knees and washed the feet of

his disciples, their dirty, nasty, stinky feet, including the one

who would betray him. He showed us what leadership really is.

It's servanthood. If you want to be a leader in

the kingdom of God, you've got to be a servant. Beautiful, powerful, countercultural. Okay,

but what's the shadow side? What's the shadow side? Okay,

listen to me. If you feel like you have the

gift of service and helps, I just want to tell

you about a word I don't think you know about.

It's a small little word that you all need to learn.

Do you know what it is? That's right. The word

is no. No. No, I can't extend myself any further. No,

I've done enough. No, someone else should step in. The

Bible says this. Let your yes be yes and your

no be no. You know what it doesn't say? Always

say yes. That's not in the Bible. Let your yes

be yes and your no be no. Your yes is

meaningful and so is your no because you know what

your no communicates? It communicates that wherever your priorities are,

that you are committed to your priorities. I'm committed to

my husband. I'm committed to my wife. I'm committed to

my kids. I'm committed to my job. And as much

extra space as I have beyond that, I'm going to

serve because it's who I am. But I can't do

much more than what I can do. You with me?

Learn the word no. Here's another one. You may not

want the spotlight. I know a lot of you don't.

But that doesn't mean that you don't want to be appreciated.

Watch this. Be careful that service doesn't quietly turn into

resentment when nobody notices what you did. You did it

for the right reasons. And now you kind of want

to be Affirmed. And nobody's affirming you. And you go,

never doing it again. Resentment. Don't let that happen. If

you're serving for recognition, if you're serving so that one

day someone will notice you, eventually you're going to get

angry when it doesn't happen. Anybody experienced that before? Yeah. Pastor,

you went from preaching to meddling. I know. That's what

I'm here for. There are several people in the room

with this gift. Now, there's an old adage that you

hear about churches a lot. This is what it says.

that in most churches, 10% of the people do 90%

of the work. I think we're doing better than that.

I think we're like 25-75, okay? I think that's kind

of where we're living, and I'm proud of us for that.

We have some incredible service and helps gifted people in

this church. I sent out a picture yesterday with our

text of these folks. Let me just tell you who

they are. Candy Rudder, who is amazing. Beth Slough, Wes Slough,

Maya and Leah Apeniru, Andrew Casebolt, Barry Patterson, Kelly and

Donna Rice. Doug and Karen King. And this guy is

Dave Tinkle. That's the best picture I could find of

him online. I mean, I just, that was all I

could find. These folks are service and helps people. There

was a party thrown for my birthday last night and

a lot of these folks were there. And after the

party was over, you know who stuck around to clean

up the party? These folks. I looked around the room

and I saw these folks serving joyfully, happy to do it.

Anything I can do to help, This is amazing. This

is beautiful. So listen, service and help gifters. Your gift

is not for you. It's for us, and we need it.

You know why? I've learned this about church. Everything that

somebody experiences publicly was made possible by someone serving privately.

Have you noticed that? When you came into church this morning,

there were pancakes. Somebody cooked them. When you came in

this morning and dropped your kids off, at the kids' room.

Somebody set that room up. You're sitting in chairs. Somebody

put those chairs out here today. Microphones and speakers and,

you know, lyrics on the screen. Somebody put all that

work together. Did you know that? Someone did that very

privately so that you could experience it very publicly. There

was coffee. Somebody made the coffee, right? And you know what?

After all of us leave today, somebody's going to stay

and clean all this stuff up and put it all

away for next week. Not the coffee. The coffee will

be new next week, okay? The coffee is like God's mercy.

It's new every morning. That's what we need. Most people

never know who does all this stuff. Most people don't

know about Doug King. Most people don't know about Candy Rudder.

Most people don't know about Kelly Rice. Most people don't

know the work that goes into setting up a Sunday service.

Can we thank these people this morning? Come on. And listen.

I want you to know how spiritual everything I just

said is. It's spiritual. It's not just, well, I'm just

doing my part.

No, no.

You are manifesting the Holy Spirit. We are seeing God

when you joyfully serve. Thank you for that. Thank you. See,

there's this strange kind of dichotomy that happens in churches

where people tend to think that what happens up here

on this platform with a guy with a microphone, a

guy singing, a guy playing guitar, that that's the spiritual stuff.

But what Paul is saying, he's saying that the microphone

is not more spiritual than the mop. The microphone is

not more spiritual than the mop. In fact, if you're

an aspiring leader and one day you want to lead,

if you can't pick up a mop, you got no

business with a microphone, right? The microphone is not more

spiritual than a mop. So listen, if you're not serving already,

which a lot of you are because you don't know

the word no, here's some places where you can serve.

Set up and tear down, hospitality, kids and students, sound

and production, and events. Like we just had our summer

showdown event, great opportunity for service and gifts. We're about

to have our anniversary service, great opportunity for service and helps. Okay,

two more. Administration. Administration. Who feels like administration is the sexiest,

most exciting of all the spiritual gifts? Anybody here today? Okay,

all right, praise God. All right. I love these people

because I am not these people. Listen to this. This

is what administration is. It's the spirit-given capacity to organize people, resources, information,

and processes in a way, I love this, that turns

mission into coordinated action. These big ideas that we have.

Someone says, we should have a church picnic. Everybody gets excited.

You church picnic. Let's do it. The administrator has some questions.

When are we going to do this? What's the budget?

Where are we doing it? Who's bringing tables? How many people?

What's the weather plan? Who's responsible for cleanup? Do we

need a permit? These are all the questions that an administrator,

a person with this gift, immediately thinks. And then all

the rest of us say, You are ruining the church picnic. No,

they're not ruining it. They're the reason why it's going

to happen. They're the reason why it's going to be awesome. See,

when things are chaotic and disorganized, they love to jump

in and bring structure to it. They enjoy fixing problematic

and disorganized situations. By the way, welcome to the Movement Church.

We are a problematic and disorganized situation. You are welcome here.

We need you here. Administrated gifters create order that helps

other people accomplish a mission. So can you see how

useful that is? How spiritual that is? What about Jesus?

Surely you guys remember the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

Amazing miracle, right? There's 5,000 hungry people and Jesus, you know,

hands out. Basically all he has is like a little,

you know, Captain D's, you know, meal. And he's like,

all right, we'll try to figure this thing out, right?

Look at what Mark says about this moment. In the

book of Mark, chapter 6, it says, Jesus instructed them

Mark 6 · chapter mention

to have all the people first sit down, order, in groups, order,

on the green grass, order, so that they sat down

in groups of hundreds and fifties. Isn't this incredible? Jesus

is thinking administratively. Jesus cares about the miracle and about

the way that the miracle is distributed. It's who he is.

The miracle was supernatural, but the distribution had a system.

Sit in these groups. Sit in this place. Separate so

we can count how many people are here. God loves order.

He took chaos. In the book of Genesis, the earth

is without form. It's void and without form. And God

turns it into this beautiful, ordered, fruitful planet. Amazing. The

apostle Paul corrects the Corinthians about their disorderly worship. God

loves order. Order for the sake of mission. Now, what's

the shadow side? of you administrators in the room. The

tendency of an administrator gift is to be risk averse,

is to look for ways to mitigate any and all risk. Now,

when you're working with other people in the body of Christ,

sometimes there can be a tension that arises specifically between

administrator gifts and leadership gifts. And here's why. Because at

its best, it can be dynamic because both perspectives are astute.

And at its worst, it can be destructive. Because both

perspectives can feel unheard. You're not listening to me. I've

got a big vision. You're not listening to me. We

ain't got no money. Right? Leadership tends to ask, what

could happen? Administrators tend to ask, what could go wrong?

Leaders tend to see the opportunity inside the risk. Administrators

tend to see the risk inside the opportunity. Both are needed.

You with me? Both are needed. Order and control are

not the same thing. So this is another shadow side.

Administrators naturally want to bring order to chaos, but it's

a really short mental step to go from this. I

can bring order and structure to the plan to, I

need to be in control. I need to be in

control of everything. It's an easy, easy step to make.

And you know what? If you've ever been a part

of a church, you know that ministry is messy. You

know why? Because people are messy. I heard one amen.

The rest of you are all liars. Tell the person

next to you, you are messy. That's right. Ministry is

messy because people are messy. So you got to know this, administrators.

Systems and structures must remain servants and not masters. We

make the plans. God controls the outcome. You with me? Okay,

I got to tell you about somebody in our church

who is extraordinarily gifted at this. You know her husband

well because he stands up here and preaches from time

to time, but you don't know Christine Wilson like I

know Christine Wilson. This woman is extraordinarily gifted in this way.

About a year, year and a half ago, we gave

Christine the reins to the accounting of our church. And

can I tell you, she has done an amazing job

of leading us, especially the wisdom table, through the process,

not just of looking at numbers, But reading the narratives

within the numbers, she's extraordinarily gifted at that. She has

blessed our church because of it. You may never see

Christine standing on this stage preaching a sermon. You want

to preach, Christine? You interested? That's what I thought. But

Paul puts your administrative gift on the same spiritual gifts

list as prophets and teachers and pastors. You're just as needed.

which means that this manifestation of God's grace is a

magnificent gift. Your gift is not for you. It's for us.

And I'm telling you, I need your gift. And you

know that. You should say a loud amen to that, Christine.

I need your gift. Churches have no shortage of big ideas.

Richie Fike has no shortage of big ideas. And all

the staff said, right, that's too loud. I'm a visionary leader.

I see things when they're not. But I don't see

all the problems with the things I see when they're not.

And I need administrators in my life to go, hey,

love your heart, love your attitude. Let's talk about how

we're going to pay for this, right? Awesome. You guys

look at a mess and instinctively say, there's got to

be a better way to do this. And that is useful.

That's powerful. So don't stand back. I know some of you,

if you have this administrator gift, the temptation is to go,

they don't know what they're doing. And I'm busy. can

just tell you, if you think that we don't know

what we're doing or you see disorder and chaos, step

into it. I promise you, our leaders at this church

are looking for people who have this gift, okay? People

who say, this is unnecessarily complicated. Let me help to

organize it. If you've ever had that thought, this is

you and your gift is not for you, it's for us. Okay,

last one. Are you with me? Everybody still with me?

I know I'm going long. Okay, this is the last one.

The spiritual gift of giving. Open up your wallets if

you would. Totally kidding. The spiritual gift of giving. Let

me talk about it and then we'll look into this

a little deeper. A spirit-given capacity to joyfully, generously, and

often sacrificially release resources to meet needs, advance God's mission,

and bless others. Now, before I get into this, it's

important that I communicate to you as your pastor that

that you may say, you may read that and go, yeah,

that's not me. I guess I don't have to give.

Praise God. No, that's not what I'm saying. All of

us have read plenty of scripture that communicate that everything

that you have in your life was given to you

by God. Okay, and so the Lord wants you to

experience the process of sacrificially giving back to him. You

don't have to give it to the movement church, but

give it to God, okay? That's the idea. That's what

the whole idea of the New Testament is. is we

get to practice generosity. He wants that not from us,

but for us, okay? So if you don't feel like

you have this spiritual gift, you're not exempt from giving. Sorry. Okay,

so giving gifters see a financial need and they run

to it. They run to it. They see it as

a ministry opportunity. They don't think, well, how much do

I have? They think, what could this gift accomplish? They

see things like that family that needs help, the missionary

that needs support, the ministry that could happen, the kid

that could go to camp, the church that could get planted,

the need that could disappear. They think to themselves, I

could do something about that. I have the means to

do something about that. And it brings them joy. And

it brings us humility to watch it in action. It's

not about the money, by the way. It's about the

opportunity to participate in what God's doing. That's what fires

them up. They see God at work and they want

to join in it. That's the idea. What about our Savior?

Was Jesus a giver or a taker? Come on. What's

the most famous verse in the Bible? The one that

they hold up at football games. What is it? John 3.16.

And it says, For God so loved the world that

he took all of your money. No. No. God so

loved the world that he gave his most precious resource,

his one and only son, that you could have life.

That's who God is. God is not a taker. He's

a giver. Jesus demonstrated this with his nature, with all

of his resources. He gave his time, his attention, his food,

his power, his wisdom. I love this. His dignity to

people everywhere he went. And ultimately, Jesus gave his life

on the cross, didn't he? For you and for me,

for the sin of the world. Paul says this about Jesus,

so powerful. He says, though he was rich, for your

sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you

might become rich. this is who our god is so

what about the shadow side there's no shadow side just

keep giving we appreciate it love you end of sermon

no just kidding there is a shadow side shadow side

forgivers and that is that if you start to think

about what you can get out of giving Danger Will Robinson, right?

The trap is to let your dollars dictate a sense

of control. Don't confuse generosity with control. The best way

to give to anything, to anybody, is open-handedly, no strings attached.

The weirdest way to give is with caveats and conditions.

It makes it awkward. It makes it strange. Like if

you say, I'm happy to give to your church as

long as you lead it my way. We'll write a

check for this amount if you can show us a

return on that investment. This is icky. This is gross.

And it can become poisonous. It's not giving anymore. This

is leverage. You are leveraging what God has given you

for your own gain. The moment your generosity purchases influence, access, recognition, control,

something has gotten corrupted. Amen? Amen. Listen to what Jesus says.

Whenever you give to the poor, don't sound a trumpet

before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and

on the streets to be applauded by people. Don't give

so that people notice you. Don't give so that people

praise you. Just give. Giving gifters understand this. But you

still fight it. Don't let giving ever become an exercise

in feeding your own ego. Don't let your generosity feed

your pride. I wish you guys... could see our church

from my vantage point. I wish you could see the

generosity in this church. You know, many of you know,

that I don't know how much any of you give

and don't want to know. But I know how many

givers there are in this church, and it's a lot

of you. I know how faithful you are in your giving,

and it's a lot of you. And I know that

you don't just give to the movement church. You're looking

for ways to be generous. Every time we take a

benevolence offering, we are blown away by your generosity. We're

going to do that in September, and you're going to

blow us away again because it's who you are. A

couple months back, there was a person in our church

who wrecked their van. And that van was not very

valuable to the insurance company, but it was very valuable

to this person. And you know what many of you did,

you giving gifters? You came to me, unrequited I didn't

ask for this you came to me and you said

I want to write a check so that they can

get a new car I want to help them get

a new car nobody asked you to do that you

just did it and then actually there was a couple

in our church who found out that people did that

and one person got mad at me for not asking

them to give money to this event that's who you

are you are a generous generous church and I'm grateful

for you giving gifters your gift is not for you

it's for us And we need your money. No, we

need your gift. And I don't just mean the church

needs your money. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm

talking about your resources. I'm talking about the best of

who you are. I'm talking about leaning in and going,

you know what? I'm all in on this movement church idea.

I want to see it thrive. I want to see us,

this church, have a massive impact on this community. Anybody

with me? That's what we're doing. The body of Christ

needs people who remind us that resources are tools, not treasures.

You can remind us that money can become ministry, a car,

a vacation home, you know, a meal, a skill. It

can all become ministry. So keep your antennas up, you

giving gifters. Look for opportunities to serve in this way

because your generosity is helping to make it clear to

the people of the tri-lakes that there is a God

who's for them and a people who's right alongside, right?

Your gift is not for you. It's for us. So

don't keep it to yourself. Okay. Take a deep breath.

We did all six. We did it. Come on. We

did it. We did it. All right. So just to

sum it up, if this is you, if you're the

gift of mercy, your most common thought is someone is hurting. Hospitality,

someone's outside. They need to be brought inside. Exhortation, someone's

losing courage. Service, someone is carrying too much. I can help. Administration,

there's got to be a better way. Right? And giving.

I have something that I think could help. If I've

helped you to see yourself today, if you've seen how

the Lord manifests himself through you today, then use your gift.

Help us here at the Movement Church. The whole point

is that we would depend on you. Because when you

operate in your gift, you make the Lord manifest. We

get to see God manifest. Because you placed him on

the highest throne in your heart and he manifests himself

through you. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to

each person for their common good. That's what we're fighting for.

You are gifted. Amen?

So what's God leading you to do next? And how

can we help? Send us an email to info at movementchurch.co

and tell us how we can pray for you. And

help you to take the next step in your spiritual journey.

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry. You

can text the amount you'd like to give to this number.

833-725-0132 That's 833-725-0132 Or just look us up online at movementchurch.co

You can find the Movement Church on all social media platforms.

And we hope that you'll give us a follow. God

bless you. And remember, God is for you and so

are we.