Serve In Sincerity // Let's Get Moving (Melissa Janish)

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 Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

engage the Word of God. Stay tuned. That's the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in, Thanks

for being with us today. I have the distinct honor of welcoming one of

my very favorite people on the whole planet, a lady who if you know

her, if you've ever had coffee with her or lunch with her, you

have been forever impacted by this crazy person. Her name is Melissa Janish.

Can we give it up for Melissa? Come on over, Melissa, you're

good. So this Let's Get Moving series is a sermon where we're preaching through

our core values, and one of our core values is serve in sincerity.

This woman serves in sincerity. Melissa Janes. Give it up, everybody,

Thank you everybody. I am always excited and blessed to be up here and

get the opportunity to do this. Yeah, do you want to fix it?

Okay, we'll try. I just want to start by saying, fight

that my birthday is on Tuesday. You guys, I'm gonna be twenty five.

I'm really excited. Yep, twenty five here I come. Thank you

for not laughing at that. That is I appreciate that, because when you

laugh, you're like, yeah, you look like you're gonna be twenty five.

Okay, So today we're talking about serving in sincerity and just right off

the bat, I want to start us with a scripture and then we'll get

into this. Joshua twenty four fourteen says, now, therefore, fear the

Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that

your father served before the river in Egypt, and serve the Lord. So

I want to talk to you a little bit about how me and my family

serve the Lord. This is my family up here in the front row.

They're not going to stand up because that's not them. Just give a little

wave. Give a little wave, family, Yep, that's them. We

have my husband John, he is also twenty five, My daughter Miley is

thirteen, My son Jonah is nineteen. My other daughter Mattie is ten.

This is my daughter Julie who's seventeen and her awesome boyfriend that we really actually

do love. And he is eighteen, right, Is that right? He's

seventeen two. So I want to tell you a little bit about how we

serve in our family. John is a member of our elder's board. He

is actually the chair elder. They drew straws and he lost. That's a

true story. But he serves this church very faithfully. John is the chief

operating officer of an engineering firm in Colorado Springs. He does not have a

lot of free time on his hands, but he will drop everything for this

group of people, for this town. He serves very faithfully. I serve

as a member of the teaching team. Sometimes I do what John Wilson did,

and I welcome you while here. I've served on our hospitality team.

We believe heartily that when you are a part of something, you serve as

a part of that thing. And I'm going to talk about that a little

bit more. Before I get into that, I want to talk about how

hard this sermon was for me to write. This is the third sermon I've

written. The third sermon I've preached, and the first two really came to

me pretty easily. I kind of knew what I wanted to say. I

prayed about it. I asked, God, is this what you want me

to say? I started writing, God, you know, pulled me down

this path, and it just sort of unfolded. And I assumed that this

would be the same way, because I feel like talking about service is an

easy thing. It's not a subject that gets people riled up. I'm not

asking you to give us money. I'm just asking you to help out right.

But I could not start this sermon. I would sit down and I

would open my computer and I would have a full blown anxiety attack, like

I would get tunnel vision. My hands would start shaking, I would start

kind of hyperventilating. A couple times, I just sat there and cried,

looking at my computer screen. And finally I texted Fike. It was I

think New Year's Day or the day before New Year's Day, WI should be

New Year's Eve, And I said, Fike, I think I can't do

this. I think I'm not the right person to give this message. I

don't understand why, but I cannot write this sermon. I think we're going

to have to find somebody else, and of course, Fiight being Fike,

said I want to come over, let's talk about it. Let's see if

we can figure out what is going on here. And so I, you

know, joined him in his home and immediately burst into tears because I could

not get to the root of why I was having such a hard time with

this. So we kind of went back in my past and talked about my

history and the way I grew up and the things that matter to me,

and my introduction into the Christian Church and all of those things. And I

started to realize that what I was suffering from was impostor syndrome, and imposter

syndrome looks like this. This is the imposter syndrome cycle. So if you've

never had imposter syndrome, good on you. I mean that means that you

are secure and confident and you know you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.

I would bet that there are more people in here that have felt this

than that feel the other way, if I were to take a guess.

So this is the way imposter syndrome works. You have a new project or

a task e g. Giving a sermon, your anxiety ramps up. You

either procrastinate or you over prepare. I magically do both. It's possible.

You Eventually you get through it, you complete the project. You have a

brief sense of relief, relief and accomplishment. I'm gonna walk out of here

today and I'm gonna be like I did it. I mean, I don't

know how, by the grace of God, I did it. And they

say, you rationalize, I was lucky, somebody else would have done a

better job. I don't think that's rationalizing. I think that's the enemy coming

to speak into your mind because you are living out a calling on your life,

and the enemy does not want that. He wants to stop you in

your tracks and say, don't ever do that again. That was a disaster.

I want to tell you right now, when you start hearing those thoughts,

you shut that down. You say, in the name of Jesus,

I'm doing what I'm called to do. Amen. So anyways, you really

you'd go through that rationalization that increases your self doubt, your anxiety, that

feeling of being a fraud. And then guess what someone says, Hey,

Melissa, will you preach again in two weeks, and the cycle starts all

over again. And I think that it's a very real thing to feel like

the things that we're asked to do when we're called to serve, that we're

not worthy of those callings. And that is really what I am going to

address today. So in thinking about this, I'm gonna warn you guys right

now, we're going to take a meandering path to serving in sincerity. So

stay on the path with me. Enjoy the hike. It's going to be

a pretty one might be a little rough. I am who here is familiar

with the enneagram. Just raise your hand if you're familiar with the anagram.

So the enneagram has become really popular, particularly in the last I don't know

ten years ish Rick Anderson is that accurate. Rick is one of my best

friends, and he teaches seminars on enneagram. So on the enneagram, I

am a four. Before I say anything about that, I want to redo

the description of how a fore operates and see if you like me anymore.

Fours are self aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest,

creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self conscious withholding themselves

from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective. They can also feel disdainful and

exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self

indulgence, and self pity. At their best, they are inspired and highly

creative. They are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences. Now,

I don't know about you, but that makes me say I don't like fours.

And when I found out I was a four, I objected passionately because

I don't want to identify with that person. But the problem is is that

I do. We had Billie Eilish. Old people don't worry about it.

We had Bob Dylan. Young people don't worry about it. I had Stevie

Nicks. You should all know. If you don't know, shame on you

and talk to your parents. We had Kurt Cobain, we had Amy wine

House, and we had Sylvia Plath, who is an author and a poet.

Those last three people, Kurt Cobain, Amy wine House, and Sylvia

Plath all took their own lives. And this is the real struggle of the

four is that we want to be unique, and we want to be authentic,

and we want to be true all the time. WHOA we have a

sad show Yep, they're there. That's perfect. This struggle for the four

with the four, it's so real and so intense, and in an unhealthy

four it can end in tragedy. And that's where I'm coming from today,

you guys. I believe that every person in this room was created uniquely and

authentically, and I believe that you should serve God that way from that place,

and that's how we are going to approach today. Okay, so the

struggle with individuality is real, but God doesn't want our rugged individualism. I'm

going to come back to this phrase, rugged individualism. I'm going to leave

it there. I'm going to tell you that this phrase stopped me in my

tracks and kept me from writing for a solid three days because I was so

bothered by it. I'm going to come back to it. So I know

what you guys are thinking. You guys are thinking. I thought we were

talking about serving today, serving in sincerity. I thought I was going to

come today and you were going to tell me that they need and childcare.

Right, Danish, I'm gonna get to that. You're gonna tell me that

I have to come to two Sundays a month and I have to control the

toddlers, quiet the babies, teach a lesson. I'm not gonna tell you

that today. In fact, I'm not going to tell you that you have

to serve anywhere at the Movement Church today. I know that Fike has a

one of those big hooks, like those vaudeville hooks, and he wants to

pull me off the stage right now for saying that. But I am not

going to ask you to serve anywhere in our church today. Again, We're

gonna come to that at the end of our sermon. When I was a

very young mom, I was a new believer, and I was at a

church. I had only been there for a few weeks, and I had

at the time, I had two kids under the age of three, actually

two kids under the age of two, and John at the time was traveling

on average ten months out of the year, so I was effectively a single

mom most of the time. So the sweet lady who ran the childcare at

this church approached me one day and she said, so, you've been here

for three weeks now, or four weeks, however long it was, so

now I can ask you to work in our child care. And she sort

of implied to me that if I chose not to serve in the childcare,

I would not be allowed to put my own kids in childcare. Now,

when you're a young mom with a husband who travels full time and little little

kids, you need the childcare. You want the childcare. So guess what

I agreed to do. I agreed to serve in the childcare. I didn't

feel called to be there. I didn't feel like God wanted me to be

there. I felt like it was the punishment. And I read this verse.

This is uh Jesus speaking to the Pharisees. He says, whoe to

you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs,

which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all

uncleanliness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are

full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Now the reason I am sharing this is because

when I served in insincerity in the childcare, I felt full of dead people's

bones. And that's not a joke. It sucked the life out of me,

and it made me not want to go to church, and it made

me question as a new believer, what is this like? This is what

believing in God is. I start have to start doing things that I feel

are like like not something that God has a plan for that's not part of

my plan. And it it was hard. It bothered me. So we're

going to talk today about I've built it this way. Sincerity comes from sincere

thought. Sincerity comes from sincere words. Sincerity comes from sincere actions. Or

if you look at my slide, one leads to the next, leads to

the next. There's a Catholic saint who said this, and I think this

is really great. The life of the Christian has three distinguishing aspects, deeds,

words, and thought. Thought comes first, then words, since our

words express openly the interior conclusions of the mind. Finally, after thoughts and

words comes action, for our deeds carry out what the mind has conceived.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa Nissa said that, and that's sort of where we're going

to take our path today. The message says this beautifully. This is Philippians

four eight and nine, eight through nine. I'd say you'll do best by

filling your minds and meditation on things not the worst, the beautiful, not

the ugly. Things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice

what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do

that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you in

to his most excellent harmonies. Who here does not want to be a part

of God's most excellent harmony. We can become a part of God's most excellent

harmonies by checking that our thoughts are sincere, our words are sincere, our

actions are sincere. Again, in Joshua twenty four or fourteen, we are

told to serve God in sincerity and in faithfulness. So this word sincerity,

what does it mean? We're going to unpack that. But here's where I

landed when I did my research. Biblical sincerity means to think, speak,

or act from a place of whole, complete truth. The Hebrew to English

translation suggests that we should serve God entirely in accord with truth and fact,

with truth and fact, and truth and fact or the opposite. Lies and

falsehoods start here in our heads. This is where they're born. So we're

going to start with how do I serve God with sincere thoughts? Now,

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this point, because in

May as some of you may know, is Mental Health Awareness Month, and

so we as a church are going to take advantage of that to talk about

how mental health is relevant among this group of people. Mental health health is

a big deal to me. I have struggled with clinical depression and anxiety my

whole entire life. It's a genetic I get it from my mom's side,

I get it from my dad's side. It's a real thing. And we're

gonna get into that, and I can't wait. So I can't tell you

what's going on in your head. The only head I can interrogate is my

own. I can only know what's going on in my head. That's not

entirely true. Actually, there's one person who I know exactly what's going on

in their head. That's my husband, John Janish. Here's what's going on

in his head. Golf, golf, golf cart, hitting a golf ball,

all the things about golf, playing golf, golf. If he's hungry,

spaghetti. I have just reduced my husband to golf in spaghetti. And

I'm gonna hear about it later. But seriously, we have to be accountable.

We have to take stock of what's going on in our own heads.

When I was writing this sermon, especially before I started, my thoughts were

everywhere. I could not get them in order, and it was like,

I don't know if you guys remember, I don't even know if they do

this anymore. They used to have those like quarter machines in the entryway of

grocery stores, and you would like beg your parents on the way in,

all through the store and on the way out to give you a quarter to

put in the machine. Well, every time, me and my stepbrother and

my stepsister would end up getting these bouncy balls right, so we would take

them home, much to the dismay of my stepmom, and we would all

the same at one time, throw him as hard as we could against the

kitchen floor, and they would just like take out a lamp, you know,

hit the coboard, take out a dish. We would hit each other

in the heads with them. That is what my brain felt like before I

wrote this sermon. When I stop, when I ask the Holy Spirit to

come in, he does. He quiets me down, because honestly, I

felt unworthy to speak this message. I really did, And I think it's

because we all have sin, right, and most of this sin that we

have happens in our head. We do our most wicked deeds in our minds.

So yes, I made my daughter take this picture of me just for

this sermon. Here's what's going on in my head. Here's the sin that's

happening in my head. Doubting God that is a sin, doubting truth that

is a sin. Having ugly thoughts toward other people. This lady here,

she has given this guy the side eye because he's crowding her in the grocery

store line. I think murderous thoughts when people crowd me in the grocery store

line. It's not it's not Christian at all. And finally, this last

one, Uh, if you know, you know, I spend a lot

of time wondering if I could get away with it. If you know,

you know, If you know you know, If you don't know, ask

Dana. She knows. But there's good news. There's biblical good news about

this. Psalm one thirty nine twenty three says, search me, oh God,

and know my heart, Try me and know my thoughts. We can

ask the Holy Spirit to come in to invade us, to live in us

and tell us whether the things that we're thinking in our head are true or

false. When I walk out of here today and I'm driving home and I'm

like, oh, that was horrible. My technology didn't work. I made

jokes that no one laughed at. No one believed that I was twenty five.

When I start having those thoughts, I can say, Holy Spirit,

come speak truth to me. And you know what. The Holy Spirit might

say, Yeah, you could work on this, or you could strengthen this,

but the Holy Spirit, it will only tell you true things about yourself.

The Spirit of the Lord lives in us and tells us that our words

and actions will be preceded by our thoughts. When we ask God to search

us and examine our thoughts and more importantly, our intent, we are inviting

the Holy Spirit to direct us to our true path. How do I serve

God with sincere thought? Ask God? I asked the Holy Spirit to search

my thoughts and pray for those thoughts to guide my words. How do I

serve God with sincere words? You ask? I'm so glad you asked.

We're going to talk about that. I want to introduce you to this guy.

This is Apollos. We think maybe could be. They didn't have much

many cameras around back then, So I honestly don't know where they come up

with these drawings sometimes. But this Apollos. Apollos was an Alexandrian Jew.

He was a protege of Paul's. He admired what Paul did. He wanted

to be like Paul. Apollos was a passionate teacher and a passionate leader.

You know those people in your life that have a magnetic personality, like you

just want to be around them, You just want to hear what they have

to say. And Apollos was this guy. The problem was is that Apollos

didn't have the full truth of the Gospel. He had only been taught the

first part. So he knew that John Wood's baptizing people. He knew that,

he knew that there was a Messiah coming and that the Messiah would do

something majestic, but he didn't know the entirety of it. So he was

going around teaching people, and he was teaching people the wrong thing. But

God knew where Apollos's heart was, so he sent these people. Aquila and

Priscilla. I got this from their Facebook page. This is a married couple.

They had a deep knowledge of the Gospel and of the plan that God

had for humanity, and they were also friends with Paul. Well, God

took Priscilla and Aquilla. I don't know if I'm saying those names right,

I might not be, It's okay, and he brought them to Apollos.

They happened to be sitting in a sermon that Apoulos was giving, and they

were like, oh no, this isn't actually the right thing, this isn't

true, and so they pulled him aside and they were like, dude,

you're missing like a really important part. Like Jesus is here. He's like

he's been born. He's gonna save everybody from their sin. Like there's a

plan in action. It's happening right now as we speak. You have to

have a baptism that is in the steps footsteps of Jesus. I mean,

Apollos had it so wrong that he was teaching the baptism of John. So

people were saying, like, I don't know what the holy spirit is.

I've never heard of it because Apolos didn't know about it. The Book of

Acts tells us that Apollos was fervent in spirit. One Bible commentary says this

his heart warm and conscious, probably of his gifts and attainments. He burned

to impart to others the truth he himself had received. He was speaking with

sincerity. He wanted people to know the truth, and God knew that about

Apollos. Now, I want to take a little sidestep here and just say

that you can speak words sincerely that are wrong. For example, our Pastor

Fike thinks that It's a Wonderful Life is the best Christmas movie ever made.

Not only does he think it, he says it. He called me out

on it at a Christmas party. I sincerely believe that Pastor Fike is wrong.

Okay, but I'm not just gonna throw him under the bus and throw

myself under the bus too. I fervently believe that I should be a member.

This is our worship team. This is Dina, this is Jeff Rutterer.

Maya happy narrows in the back there. I believe that I should be

a part of the worship team. Dang, the slide cracked me up so

bad when I made it. Oh there, good Fike will tell anyone who

listens that that is never going to happen. Here's the deal. Our God

is all knowing, all sovereign, before one day was he knew them all

to be. God in his infinite wisdom, knew that Apollo was sincerely seeking

the heart of the Lord and wanted to share that heart with others. So

God made sure Apollo's sincere words were true. Before I get up here today,

the week's leading up to today, when Fike assigned me this sermon,

I that I would not say anything that isn't true, that God would wipe

it from my head, and if I do say it, that he'll wipe

it from yours. Because I only want to speak true things. And here's

what Jesus says about saying things that aren't true, that aren't sincere. These

people he's talking about the Pharisees again. These people make a big show of

saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it. They act like

they're worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as

a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy. The Pharisees' words were empty because

their hearts were not even close to the right place. And moreover, their

actions were useless because they were insincere. I could stand up here, Fight

could stand up here. John Wilson could stand up here, Jeff Runner could

stand up here, and we could say every exact, exactly perfect true thing.

But if we are doing it with a heart of insincerity. If I

was up here because I wanted you guys to like give me accolade and think

I'm cool, God's gonna rip the carpet rat right out from under that.

We are here to learn the truth, to hear the truth because we love

each other as a body and we want to be living out the truth of

God's Gospel. How do I serve God with sincere words? I ask God

to search my heart and words and pray that both bring forth sincere actions.

Well, how do I serve God with sincere actions? You ask? So

the whole time I was writing this sermon, I kept thinking about Chick fil

A. I was hungry. That's not why some of you think I'm talking

about Chick fil A to get on Fike's good side. That ship is sailed.

No, I was thinking about Chick fil A because who here has been

to Chick fil A? Raise your hand? Yeah, everybody? Oh flinches.

Come on now, when you ask for something at Chick fil A and

they bring it to you, you say thank you? Right? What do

they say back, yes, my pleasure. That is what sincere service like.

I probably could have wrapped this entire sermon up into this slide. That

is what sincere service looks like. It should be your pleasure, because why

whose pleasure is it actually for? It's for his pleasure. We serve for

his pleasure. I want to go back to a scripture that FIGHT shared with

us a couple of weeks ago. This is Romans twelve sixth through eight.

This is the English standard version. Having gifts that differ according to grace given

to us, let us use them, if prophecy and proportion to our faith.

If service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching,

the one who exhorts in his exhortation, one who contributes in generosity, the

one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

I put the message version up here too, because I think sometimes it's

really interesting to see how you can kind of glean different things from different translations.

This is what the message says. If you preach, just preach God's

message, nothing else. If you help, just help, don't take over.

If you teach, stick to your teaching. If you give encouraging guidance.

Be careful that you don't get bossy. If you're put in charge,

don't manipulate. If you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep

your eyes open and be quick to respond. If you work with the disadvantage,

don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a

smile on your face. This made me think of a sermon that I heard

when I was kind of in the throes of parenting young kids. These are

the four of them. This was taken a few years ago. Are they

you? They're so cute? But I, you know, as a parent

and as a four was always doubting myself, always doubting if I was making

the right choices, always wondering if I was serving my kids well. And

I remember this pastor said, when it comes to parenting, just do what

you do. Just do what you do. And I think that Paul was

saying the same thing here. I think he's saying, don't overthink it,

take the gift you have, and just do what you do. Keep it

at that. I want to back up Romans twelve five. This is the

verse immediately before the one we just read this is from the message, and

I love this. So since we find ourselves fashion to all these excellently formed

and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what

we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other,

or trying to be something we aren't. A couple of weeks ago,

John and I were on a date night with our besties Beck and Lisa Anderson.

They're here. I would make them stand up, but Lisa would murder

me in my slave. We were out to Arlene's beans and I looked to

you know, we were in line. I looked at my side and I

saw Ed and Lou Ed and Mary Lou Gonzalez sitting there, and I was

like, oh my gosh, we have to go say hi. Ed and

Mary Lou have been a part of this church since the beginning, and we've

known them. I've known actually Mary Lou. She was my mentor mom and

mops when my kids were a little little, so I have a really special

relationship with her. But we were talking about how these past few months with

with our transition to the Movement Church have been so hard but also so wonderful

and majestic and marvelous the things that have happened. And Ed shared with me

that the first night that the Elder Team and the Wisdom Table sat down,

we had decided we were going to do this thing. He said, we

sat down to make this plan. And he said, I couldn't believe it.

People said, Oh, I'm good at that. I'll take care of

that. And I know somebody that's involved with that. I'll take care of

that. And that's the strength of mind I can handle that. We put

together a church in seven to ten days time, something that normally takes six

months to a year. And I really think and Ed said this, they

weren't stepping on each other's toes. Nobody was worried about pride or how much

they mattered, or their importance in the church. They just wanted to get

the job done. They just wanted to get the work done. And I

think Paul is telling us, stop thinking about it, put your pride aside,

put your busy life aside, just get the work done. We don't

have a lot of time to do this, and there's a lot of work

to be done. As I was preparing for this sermon, I was reading

through a book called Romans verse by verse, it is riveting. I want

to tell you that right now that was sarcasm, but the author said this,

and this is a long quote. I'm going to ask you to bear

with me because I think that this is going to speak to someone in this

room. Our different gifts are the way we blend into one body, with

each of us playing a critical part. Since in the eyes of God,

no gift is more important than another, there is no place for pride or

for churches that treat certain gifted individuals. By definition, every believer is a

gifted individual above others. The tendency in many churches to make their pastor a

virtual demigod is a serious sin. None of us can function properly in the

church without the other gifts at work blending with ours. Studies have shown that

in the average church, about fifty x teen to twenty percent are active in

giving and serving in the church. If only twenty percent of a person's body

was functioning, they would be virtually a vegetable. Our churches are crippled by

the unwillingness of so many members to use their gifts to minister to each other.

The key is for all of us to recognize we are one body in

Christ and to live as if that were so. Only in unison with Him

and with each other can we gain the humility and the strengths to function and

unity as part of the body of Christ. That's Roman verse by verse.

Grant or Osborne following that quote was where I read God does not want our

rugged individuality. What I was so mad when I read that. It really

was because as a four I'm an individual and now I want you all to

recognize it. Guess what, Everyone in this room is unique. They are

authentic. They are the one and only you. And so this bothered me

so much. I was like, man, what does he mean by this?

I was like, you know what, I'm going to google the word

rugged because maybe there's like a definition definition of it that I don't know that's

going to change how I feel about this. So I typed in the word

rugged, and up pops the phrase rugged individualism. What it was like blowing

my mind. Rugged individualism is a term that indicates that an individual is self

reliant and independent from outside support, usually state or government. Obviously, mister

Osborne was using this to mean independent of the help of a church body.

You guys, I cannot tell you how I celebrated when I read this.

Our individuality is God given. You are unique. You are perfectly and wonderfully

made, and you are going to serve that way. When God says he

doesn't want our rugged individualism, he is saying he doesn't want us to operate

on our own. We're not meant for that. A couple of weeks ago,

Fike said his gift is for us, not him, and our gifts

are for him not us. Whatever gifting I have in speaking or writing or

teaching, that's not for me. That's to share with other people. That

is what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ. So

we're big on strengths surveys around here, especially when it comes to spiritual gifts.

And at the end, I have a Q that I'm gonna put up.

You can scan it with your phone. It's going to allow you to

take a survey that's going to help you understand what your giftings are. And

I would encourage you to go back to that table, fill out a connection

card and join a growth group if you're not in one. Here's one of

the reasons why if you take this survey and you find out, oh,

my strength is, you know, organizing projects, and there's no one there

to hold you accountable to it. Are you gonna do it? But if

you're in a growth group and you're sitting around and you say, oh man,

my strength is organizing projects, it's possible that you know, Beth schla

was gonna say, oh my gosh, I have this thing and I need

help with it, and I can't find anyone, and you would be the

perfect person. We should all burn to use our gifts. If you are

doing something and it feels icky to you, if you're serving and it feels

like this isn't how I should be spending my time, ask the Holy Spirit,

Pray to God say is this what you really want from me? And

God will tell you the truth. And sometimes you're not gonna like it.

Because here's the thing. Somebody in this room is called deservant childcare. Dana

just gave me an amen. I'm not gonna point you out. I'm not

gonna call you out. You know who you are. If you have a

gift, and you do because you are a part of the body of Christ,

you should be using it. So Romans twelve nine doesn't often get included

in the scriptures that I read about serving, but I love this from the

message. It says love from the center of who you are. Good friends

who love deeply practice playing second fiddle. Faith study Bible says this about that

scripture. Love must be without hypocrisy. The New Testament presents love is the

defining ethical standard for Christians. Paul assumes that his audience already shows love to

one another. He calls for their love to be genuine and sincere. How

do I serve God with sincere actions? I use the gifts God has given

me to actively show the people around me genuine and sincere love. So what's

God leading you to do next? And how can we help? Would you

send us an email to info at Movement Church dot co and tell us how

we can pray for you and help you take the next step in your spiritual

journey. If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount

you like to give to the number eight four three two one, or look

us up online at Movement Church dot c. 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