The Love Gifts

There are times life just hits you right out of nowhere.

I mean, it really sneaks up on you, and things go south fast.

You get to the right place only to realize that all the seats are taken.

Yeah, buddy, we've all been there.

Well, the good news is there's one place you don't have to worry about that anymore.

And that's at church on Sundays.

So, when life hits out of nowhere, there's no need to worry.

We're adding service times so that you can rest assured there will always be seats available for you.

So come join us and lay down your heavy burdens.

Thanks so much for joining us today, and we're excited about you getting to hear this message from the series called Gifted.

I hope that God speaks to you.

Please let us know how we can help you take your next steps in your spiritual journey.

We want to help you any way we can.

We believe that everybody should be connected in a local church.

So let us know how we can help you wherever you live.

Um I'm praying that God would richly bless you as you hear the word of God talk to you today.

Well, good morning, Church at the Grove.

Hopefully you've had a fantastic week.

My name is Nathan.

I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove, and I'm so honored to be joining you this morning online, but then also at our social circle campus this morning.

I'm a little bummed that I'm not there physically in person at our social circle campus, which is where I'm typically at.

Um, but we have a team, a part of our team is going to a conference this week, and so we're traveling to go to learn how we can reach people far from God and lead them to become followers of Jesus.

And so this week we're traveling around a little bit, and so I hate that I'm not with you in uh person, but I'm so glad for technology and just the ability to be able to be with you on video this morning.

And I'm so excited about our church and where God is currently having us and all that He's doing in our midst.

We've got some exciting things that are happening next week.

I'll be back with you in person next week.

Um, but next week we uh go to a different service account.

So we've got uh three services at our Walnut Grove campus, 815, 945, and 1115.

And then at Social Circle, we're at 915, 11, and then online we'll stay the same.

So it'll still be 10 a.m.

and then we'll rebroadcast that at 5 p.m.

And it's gonna be a great, great opportunity for us to reach more people for Jesus.

Uh adding multiple services at Walnut Grove at Social Circle is not easy.

It's a sacrifice, not just from our staff level, from so many different volunteers.

And so it's a sacrifice, but it's also an incredible honor because we're creating opportunities for people that don't know Jesus to potentially come and to connect and experience Jesus in a new and in a relevant way.

And so we're so excited about this potential.

And so here's what this means for you not only do you have to pick a service to attend, but we also want you to be praying and inviting people to join you next week.

And this is a great opportunity because this is a great season and time of the year when school is now back in session for a few weeks.

We're after Labor Day, people are getting into new rhythms, and so it's an excellent opportunity for you to invite your friends and family to join you next Sunday as we go to two services at Social Circle, three at Walnut Grove, and then online as well.

Um and we're also kicking off a brand new series next week called You Asked For It.

And so You Asked For It is a series all about the questions that you guys have.

And so over the last month or so, we've asked you questions or we've asked for questions from you, and we've kind of tallied those up and we've seen the things that were most popular, the most that were asked, and we're gonna answer as best as we can those questions.

And it's gonna be a phenomenal series that you do not want to miss.

It's still not too late to submit questions, by the way.

And you can do that through our Church at the Grove app.

You can do that through church at the Grove.com forward slash ask A S K.

And we would love to have some more questions come in as we kind of formulate this series.

And I'm excited about it, but I'm also really, really nervous about it because uh there's some very, very difficult, challenging questions that we're gonna be wrestling with, and you don't want to miss that.

And if you are watching online, just so you know, we won't be streaming that series online.

We'll kind of have the greatest hits that we'll rebroadcast for you, but that series will only be for in-person attendees.

And so we would love for you to come and be a part of that series and just hear the answers to some of the questions that are out there.

So this morning, though, we're beginning a brand new, or we're we're continuing and finishing a series called Gifted.

And this series is all about spiritual gifts, and it's been a phenomenal series.

I think we've gotten probably more feedback and more questions about this series in particular than any other series that we probably have ever done here at Church at the Grove.

And so it's been great hearing your questions and the comments that have been made, and we're excited to finish that off this morning.

Now, when I think about gifts, I think of some of the times in my life where I was probably showered with the most gifts.

There was our wedding shower, there was our baby shower.

Now, our baby shower, I remember in particular because we had several of them.

Me and my wife, we had struggled to get pregnant for six or seven years of our marriage.

We were looking into adoption, we were looking into foster care, and then finally the Lord allowed us to have our first son, Sam.

He's now seven years old, and I can remember when we had our first, uh, when we got found out we were pregnant, we had all of these showers from our church family, our friends, our family members, uh, people from other churches that were throwing us showers.

I mean, it was crazy the amount of gifts that we got, and we were so thankful for all the gifts.

But here's what's so funny: when it comes to being a first-time parent, there are gifts that you think that you need.

There are uh items, or there's little gadgets, and there's things that you feel like you need as a first-time parent that you really don't need when you look back.

And now having two more kids, so three total, we recognize that there's a lot of things that we had with our first one that we definitely didn't have with our third and that we didn't need.

Here are some items that we kind of registered for or received from our that we just didn't need.

Here's baby shoes.

Um, baby shoes, they're cute, they look awesome on the kids for sure, um, but there's no purpose in them, right?

They're just glorified socks.

They're not walking around, they're not using their shoes in any way.

There's a cotton bottom, they get wet and all of that stuff.

And so you don't really need baby shoes, but people still give and register for baby shoes.

Um, I love this item right here.

This is a wipe warmer.

So this is to warm uh the wipes before you actually use them on your baby's hiney.

Like that's that's what this is all about.

And we don't want our baby to be uncomfortable in any way, and so we have a wipe warmer.

With the third child, this was not even a thought, it's not even a consideration, but the first child, this is definitely something that we wanted.

There's baby knee pads.

Um, I feel like this is a little crazy, but baby knee pads where if your child's starting to crawl around and they're starting to move around the house some, you don't want their knees to get bruised up, you don't want their knees to get scratched up, and so you got baby knee pads, something totally not needed, especially after you get past the first child.

Uh pacifier wipes.

Um, we got a lot of pacifier wipes, and with Sam, we probably use pacifier wipes a time or two.

Um, but when you get to your second and your third child, we're just lucky to find a pacifier.

We're crawling under the couch trying to find past these and we're pulling them out, and we're just kind of wiping them off on our jeans and then giving it to our daughter, and she's hopefully stronger for it.

But they're just not needed on the multiple children.

Uh uh, they're just not needed, not necessary.

This is my favorite, though.

We had somebody that gave us, we registered for this bedding set for our child.

And uh we thought it was so cute, we thought it was great for the nursery, we decorated the nursery around it, and uh it we put all the cribs together, we put the bumpers on, we put the blanket in, we did all the stuff, and then finally, after months of our son sleeping in our room, and he finally is going to use his bed, I go to put Sam in the crib, and my wife goes, You can't do that.

You gotta take all the bedding stuff out.

He can't have bumpers, he can't have a blanket in his bed because there's known risk that could potentially cause him to suffocate while he was sleeping.

And so I'm thinking to myself, we spent, or we had somebody that spent$100 or more on this bedding set that we can't even use, and not only that we can't use, but we actually find out it's a death trap.

It's it's actually going to potentially kill our children, but we still registered for it and we still received this gift.

Now, this is true when it comes to gifts.

Anytime you receive a gift, there are some gifts that you feel like are important, and there's some gifts that you feel like aren't important.

And when it comes to spiritual gifts, sadly, people can think the same thing.

You might think that your spiritual gift that God has given you with maybe isn't as important as someone else's gift.

So maybe you look at somebody that's teaching on a stage or the gift of prophecy or somebody that has a gift where they're up in front of people, and you might look at them and think that their gift is more important because their gift is seen by more people, but all the gifts are equally important, and all the gifts have purposes in the body of Christ, in the church, in the community.

They all serve a purpose and they're all equally beneficial.

We need all the gifts.

Now, just so we're all on the same page, we said this: we said that spiritual gifts are divine abilities.

They're not natural talents, they're not skills that you've acquired over the years, but they're divine abilities that enable us to do ministry.

That's what a spiritual gift is.

A spiritual gift is given by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit resides within us, and we've been empowered now to do the works of ministry.

And these gifts have been given to each and every one of us.

Each follower of Jesus has given at least one gift to benefit the church and to build the kingdom of God.

This is what we're called to do.

You use these spiritual gifts to follow Jesus.

Now, the reality though is that some of us can think that our gift isn't as important as someone else's gift.

Or maybe we aren't faithful in using the gift that we have been called to use.

Maybe we don't know our gifts, or maybe we know our gifts, but we're just maybe lazy or we're we're kind of set back in our ways and we don't really want to get out of our comfort zone.

And as a result, we don't use our gift to the full benefit.

Jesus tells a story about this in Matthew chapter 25 that I love, that I think is so applicable when we have a conversation about spiritual gifts.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

In Matthew 25, Jesus is telling a story of a man who leaves, and as he leaves, he gives several of his servants, three of his servants each, different talents.

Now, talents was the money, the currency of the day, but he gives them each different amounts of currency.

And so to one man he gives five talents, to the next he gives two, and to the next he gives one.

And upon his return, he wants the uh servants to be able to have stewarded the money well and to have made a profit, to multiply their profit.

And so this is what he says to the first two, the one that received five and the one that received two, and what they ultimately, what their blessing is.

And so the master comes back, he talks to the two servants, and he says, Well done, my good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities.

Let's celebrate together.

So we see here the master is coming back, and because they were faithful, because they were faithful with what the Lord had given them, the master wants to give them more, many more responsibilities.

And so there's blessing that comes when we're faithful with the gifts that we have been given.

Now there's the guy that got one talent, and he does not, he is not faithful with the in stewarding the resources.

And so as a result, he buries the money, he's scared of the master, and what the master might come at him with.

And so this is the response that the master gives upon his return.

But the master replied to the wicked servant, he says, You wicked and lazy servant, then he ordered, take the money from the servant and give it to the one that has ten bags of silver.

To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who do nothing, even what little they w they have will be taken away.

Now throw this useless servant into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And so there's there's this curse that's really put on the person that's not faithful with the gift that they had been received.

Not only is the one that is faithful given and trusted with more, but the one that is not faithful, it says to take it away.

He's done nothing with it, so even what little he has will be taken away.

And so when we don't exercise our gifts, when we don't use our gifts the way that God has called us to use our gifts, then we're missing out on the blessing that God has for our lives.

Not only personally, but as a corporate church.

If we're not all coming together and using our gifts, then we're missing out on the blessing of God and the responsibility, the extra weight that the Lord wants to put on our shoulders as we push the kingdom forward and move forward.

And so spiritual gifts and us following Jesus and taking responsibility for the gifts that we have given are so important.

Now, we said that there were three different types of gifts, three categories of gifts.

There was the power gifts, which we talked about the third week of this series, and the power gifts were all about the supernatural ability to display the power of God, to prove that God is both alive and still active and working in our world today.

Then there were the word gifts that we talked about last week, and the word gifts were all for people that had this ability to teach and to train, and these were people that could explain the character and the nature of God.

They're students of the word and being able to describe who God is in word form to encourage and to build up the church.

And then this morning, what we're going to talk about is the love gifts.

Now, the love gifts are so important when it comes to the church, when it comes to the local church.

There will be some people that have power gifts, and there'll be some people that have word gifts, but there will be more people in a local church that have love gifts than any of these other categories.

Because love gifts are really the basis and the foundation of everything we talk about when it comes to spiritual gifts.

And Jonah and Dylan hit on this the second week of this series, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we read all about love.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Paul's addressing spiritual gifts here, and he gets to chapter 13.

He says in verse 1, if I could speak all the languages of earth and angels, but I didn't love others, I would be a noisy gong or a clinging symbol.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but I didn't love others, I would be nothing.

I if I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it.

But if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

So without love, which we're all called to love, but without love, there's no gain.

There's no purpose, there's no value in using or in exercising our gifts.

We're called to use the love that we have, the love that we have been given through Christ.

That's the foundation of using our gifts to build up the church and to build the kingdom.

And this is ultimately the nature.

This is who God is.

In 1 John chapter 4, we read that.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

In verse 7, it says, Dear friends, let us continue to love one another.

For love comes from God, and anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

And this is the theme all throughout Scripture: that God is a God of love, that He has a steadfast love that endures forever, that God is love.

And it's so important in our world and our culture today, in the society in which we live in, where people, when they think of God, they don't think of God as being a God of love, but instead they think of God as being a vindictive person, that he's irrelevant in their life, that he's not important, that he has no basis on their daily lives.

They aren't thinking about a God that loves, but they're thinking about a God that's that's angry with them, perhaps, or that there's no God at all.

And so when it comes to love, man, we need the church to be a church of love.

And we need people with the love gifts to be exercising those gifts to show the character and the nature of God to the world around us.

And that's really the foundation of and the greatest commands that we have been given all throughout Scripture.

In fact, in Mark, we read in verse chapter 12, verse 30, uh a man is asking what the greatest commandment is, and he says, This, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength.

The second command is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

No other commandment is greater than these.

And so this is what our lives are to be about.

Our lives are to be about love.

Loving God, loving others.

And if we say that we love God and we don't love others, then man, we really don't love God according to 1 John.

And so we're called to love.

Now that's for all of us.

We're all called to love.

And this was so true, not just in Scripture, but it was true in the early church.

In fact, uh Tim Keller writes about six distinct features of the early church.

And out of those six distinct features, there were three that all revolved around love.

This is what he says.

He says the marks of the early church, that they were multiracial and multi-ethnic.

Um, so in a in a society where people were all about their race and sticking together and segregated societies, man, Tim Keller says that the early church was multiracial and multi-ethnic, that they broke out of their cultural norms and they were able to accept people with loving arms open wide.

The early church was also committed to the poor and the marginalized.

So we read even that there was so uh much generosity and love that was going around that there were no poor people among them, that no one had needs.

So that they were so intentional about being committed to the poor and to the marginalized that people took notice.

There was love that was overflowing with to the people that no one else would love.

And that's what the early church went after.

They went after the poor and the marginalized.

They also were a non-retaliatory people.

They were marked by forgiveness.

And so even when somebody did something wrong against them, they weren't vindictive, they weren't trying to avenge themselves from the wrongdoing that had been done against them, but instead they would forgive.

They would forgive.

They were marked by forgiveness.

They weren't retaliatory in nature.

This is all marks of love, and this is what we have been called to.

You and I have been called to love.

And so, what are love gifts again?

Love gifts manifest the love of God in a practical way.

So everybody is called to love.

Everyone in the church is called to love, but there are certain people that are gifted with these love gifts that are to carry them out to manifest in practical ways who God is.

Now I love this because where you talk about word gifts, word gifts explain who God is.

They show and tell about the love of God.

But when it comes to love gifts, they're actually showing the love of God in a practical way.

It's the good deed, it's the kind-hearted service towards others, it's the kind word, it's the encouragement thought.

This is what it means to have the love gifts.

And so, with that said, let's look at just a few of the love gifts that we would find in this category when it comes to spiritual gifts.

And again, I would say a majority of the people in our church today, people that are sitting right here in social circle or watching online today, that you would have these love gifts.

A majority of people are going to be in the love category, probably more than any other category.

And so let's look at the gift of administration.

This is the special ability to serve and strengthen the body of Christ by organizing resources and people in order to effectively reach ministry goals.

Now that seems kind of scientific and it seems kind of cold-hearted, but without the gift of administration, nothing gets done.

There's a lot of great people that have great ideas and great visions of what they want to see in the future, but they have a hard time actually carrying out those visions.

And so it's so important for the people that have the gift of administration to step forward and to actually have the ability to organize the resources efficiently so that they can reach the ministry goals that we have.

And so if we say that we want to have all these great initiatives of baptizing a hundred or plus people over the next year and a half, or if we want to start so many community groups or house churches, or if we want to start a church in good hope, all of these kind of ministry goals that we've set for our church, man, we need people with the gift of administration that can actually come behind our leadership and they can actually put these things into practice.

This also plays itself out in community groups with people organizing around people's needs.

And so there might be a meal train that it needs to be set up.

This is the gift of administration.

Those people are typically going to handle those tasks, and it's so important in the life of the church.

We see this in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter six.

Um, there's some widows that are actually aren't being taken care of, their needs aren't being met, they're not getting fed.

And the apostles, they're out preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus and how the good news of the kingdom, and they said, we can't really pull back from teaching.

That's our priority, that's what we need to be about.

And so as a result, they designated what they would call deacons, and they were servants.

And a lot of them were gifted with the gift of administration because they were taking care of needs.

They were having this food distribution happening, and they were making sure that everybody was provided for.

That took organization, that took administration.

So there's the gift of administration.

There's the gift of helps or the gift of serving.

Um, and I love the people that have the gifts of help or serving because they have the special ability to aid others in practical ways, typically in one on one relationships.

And I would think that a large majority of our church probably has the gift of helps and the gift of serving.

And these are the people that.

Aren't ever going to stand on a stage like this.

They're never going to be in the spotlight.

And they're perfectly all right with that.

They just want to serve behind the scenes.

They're the people that are going to stay late and they're going to take out the trash when the trash needs to be taken out.

I've heard stories of people in our church where there's been elderly women or elderly couples in our church where trees have fallen or they can't make their grass, they can't cut their grass because their lawnmower's broken.

And men in our church have loaded up their chainsaws and loaded up their lawnmowers and they've gone over and they've helped somebody that was in need.

This is the gift of helps.

This is the gift of serving.

These are also the people that tend to be the first ones to volunteer.

So when we talk about uh the needs that we're going to have as we move to multiple services and the volunteer positions that are open, man, these are typically the people that are going to jump in first because they see a need and they're just wanting to jump in.

They're not asking questions.

They're just saying, hey, I'm here.

I want to help.

I want to serve in any way that I possibly can.

That's the gift of helps, the gift of serving.

And this is so vital in the life of our church.

You might never know the names of the individuals that have this gift, but if these gifts don't happen, man, not a whole lot of ministry ever happens.

It's the gifts of love.

There's the gift of mercy.

This is the special ability to serve and strengthen the body of Christ by ministering to those who suffer physically, emotionally, spiritually, or relationally.

Now, I love the people that have the gift of mercy because I don't.

If I was taking a spiritual gift assessment, there would be some of my gifts that would be really high on the scale.

But mercy is always one of the ones that's on the very low end.

And it's not that I don't love people, it's not that I don't have compassion towards people.

It's just not my gift.

It's just not something I'm super strong in.

I still try to do hospital visits, I still uh try to minister to people in a loving and a practical way.

It's just not something that I get a whole lot of joy out of.

But the people that have the gift of mercy, man, they love that.

If there's a hospital visit and they get the opportunity to just lovingly go into a hospital room and catch up with somebody and pray for somebody, man, that that's right up their alley.

If they know that there's somebody that's physically in need or emotionally in need, they're there for the individual.

We have people all across our church that have the gift of mercy.

I heard a story uh just a couple weeks ago of uh one of our groups that was meeting in Walnut Grove last semester.

It's a group of ladies that was meeting on Wednesdays, and uh there was a lady in our walnut grove area, and uh she had a has had a very difficult life.

She's lost both of her kids uh and her father.

She's pretty much all alone.

And son of one of her neighbors actually called and uh wanted a sheriff's officer to come by and just do a well check.

And so he went by and then eventually got him connected or got the lady connected with Pat and Pat and Joy went over there, and then they invited her to come to the Wednesday night women's group or Wednesday morning women's group, and she came and she was immediately accepted.

And here's this woman that's had a hard and a difficult life and was just really at the bottom of the barrel and just felt like there was not a whole lot of hope for her.

And there were people in that group that just wrapped their arms around her.

They recognized that there were emotional needs and spiritual needs and relational needs and physical needs that she had.

And they just came alongside of her and loved on her.

And man, her whole life was changed as a result.

That they would go over and just visit.

They would go and take her to the store.

If they had doctors' appointments that needed to be taken her, to be taken to, they would load up the car and they would take her to the doctor's appointment.

This is the gift of mercy.

It's the ability to minister to those that are struggling in life and suffering, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or relationally.

The last gift we're gonna look at is the gift of giving.

And this is the special ability to serve and strengthen the body by joyfully supporting and funding various kingdom initiatives through material contributions beyond the tithe.

And so uh the the Bible would teach, and we would teach here at Church at the Grove, that we're all called to be generous, just like we're all called to love, we're all called to be generous.

And so the tithe is what that that word literally means tenth, and that word is just to say that we kind of at a bare minimum should strive to be people that that give 10% of our income to the local church, to people that are in need.

We don't give to the church, we give through the church, and so we want to be generous people, and we've encouraged all the people of Church at the Grove to continually be more and more generous than they were the year before.

But the people with the gift of giving have this special ability.

Giving for them is not a sacrifice, it's not something that they have to do.

Giving is something that they get to do.

They're excited about giving.

When they see a need, they want to jump in immediately and they want to meet that need.

And I can tell you story after story of people in our church, in our congregation that have the gift of giving and have blessed the socks off of people that have been struggling financially.

I actually heard a story this past weekend.

I was at uh Labor Day weekend, I was up at my uncle's late cabin, and we're sitting by the fire uh on Saturday night, and we're talking, and he begins to tell me the story of their youngest son, my cousin, and he was two months premature.

And uh he was, they were all their whole family, there were uh two kids at the time, and then his wife was pregnant, and they're at the beach, he was two months early, they didn't think he was coming, and all of a sudden, wife goes into labor, taken to the hospital, he's born, immediately put in the NICU, and then they they actually transport him by helicopter to another hospital that can actually deal with and and appropriately uh kind of give him the medical attention that he needs.

And so my my uncle is retelling this story, and what was so interesting to me is that they they finally get the other two kids back to Atlanta and they're down in the uh the beach down in the Pensacola area, and he was telling me about all the people that blessed them that had the gift of giving while they were down there.

And so he tells the story of of how they got a call from somebody that was going to their church that had this gift, and they said, Hey, we have a condo down in Pensacola, and um, we want you to just have it for as long as you need.

And so they stayed in that condo.

They were at a red roof inn and they couldn't afford to really make the payments at the hotel for a month.

And so somebody just said, Here's my house, here's the keys, take it as long as you need.

For a whole month, they stayed there.

Then there was another guy that called from the church, an elder of the church that had the gift of giving, and he was somebody that said, I hey, I really feel compelled by the Lord.

I have a check for$5,000.

This is, you know, back in the early 80s, so that's a lot of money.

It's still a lot of money today, but especially back in the 80s.

And he said, I want to send it to you, and I need y'all can use it for whatever you need to, medical expenses, food, gas, whatever you need, groceries.

It's just, I want to be a blessing.

And my uncle, who is, you know, this ex-college football player, he played a little bit in the NFL, and he said, Um, you know, I was proud, and I just said, I don't, I don't want um to take your money.

That's not necessary.

And the guy said, Listen, son, um, you're much younger than I am, and I want you to know that there's a gift of giving and there's a gift of receiving.

And in no way are you going to reject the blessing that I received through giving by not receiving the gift that you have given.

And this is 40 years ago.

And my uncle has tears rolling down his face as he is telling this story.

And he said that the man on the phone said, Listen, the best blessing will be when you and your wife and your family come through the doors of the church with that little boy, and he's in the nursery for the first time, and I get to say, I played a role in that.

That I got to be a part in blessing that family when they were struggling.

That's the gift of giving.

It's that people that want to be generous above and beyond the tithe to help support and fund kingdom initiatives and people that are hurting.

These are the love gifts.

And the love gifts are so vital because they show the character and the nature of God in practical ways.

There really is no church without the love gifts.

But there's also really no church without the power gifts, and there's no church without the word gifts.

All three of these things are vital in the life of our church.

And what we've said all along in this series is that we wanted to be a church that was equally represented, that we understood, that we were empowered, that we we were given the Spirit, that the Spirit had given us gifts, and as a result, that we were to pour those gifts out for ministry, that we were to build up the church to reach the community around us.

And we wanted to challenge our church to be about that.

Sadly, ministry has rested on the shoulders of a select few, but really ministry should be all of our responsibilities.

It's something that we all hold on to.

We all have something to contribute.

Whether you feel like your gift is insignificant or not, you have something to offer.

You have something to give, you have something that you can bless and be used by God to further the kingdom and to build up the local church.

And so we've said all along, you can take an assessment, and the assessment is good.

One of the best ways that you can find your spiritual gift is just to jump in and serve.

And you maybe don't know what areas you can jump in and serve.

Man, we've got opportunities.

You can go to the boxwood wall out in the lobby.

Um, you can go online and you can find opportunities in areas where you can jump in and serve here on the local church.

But one of the other great ways that you can get connected and the ways that you can begin to utilize your spiritual gift is just getting connected in community.

You know, so often the love gifts are not used and not uh uh put into full operation because people don't know what the needs of the people around them are.

We live so disconnected, and unless somebody posts it on Facebook, you don't even know how and when someone is struggling or when there is a financial need unless you're living in community with one another.

And so, especially with the love gifts, but really all the gifts, we really need to be exercising and using them in the context of community.

And this is what's so great because today is the official kickoff for community groups.

And so here's the challenge, here's what we're asking everybody to do.

Whether you got love gifts, power gifts, or you got word gifts, we're asking everyone to sign up for a group.

We want everybody in our church to be connected in a community group.

When you begin to meet with people and you begin to understand their background and their needs and the frustrations and the struggles that they have, and you begin to have a relationship and live among each other, then you understand how you can exercise and use your gift to be a blessing to others.

And listen, I know for some of you you push back and you go, I've tried a group before, I've been a part of a group, and it just wasn't for me.

I didn't connect, I didn't click with those people.

I totally understand that.

I've been a part of those groups too.

But that doesn't excuse you from living in community, jump into another group, be a part of another community group and see if that's a better fit for you.

But also I would challenge you, instead of being the person that comes with the attitude of, what can I get from this group, when it comes to spiritual gifts and when it comes to group life, what if we said instead, what can I give?

And when you come to a group meeting, when you get connected in a community group, whether that meets on Sunday mornings or Sunday nights or sometime throughout the week or at the church or in people's houses, wherever that is, what if instead of saying, What can I get from this?

you said, What can I come and what can I give to the people that are part of my group?

How can I use the power gifts to be a blessing to my group?

How can I use the word gifts and the gifts of teaching or the gifts of exhortation?

How can I use those gifts to be a blessing towards the people of my group?

How can I use my love gifts and the gifts of uh administration or the gifts of mercy or the gifts of service?

How can I use those to bless my group members?

We're all called to use our gifts, to be faithful to using those gifts.

And so what will you do?

Will you be like the two servants that were good stewards of the talents that they had been given and they were told, well done?

Or will you be someone that sits on your gift, refuses to live in community, and then the curse that comes upon the third one is, you wicked and lazy servant, let's be the ones that God says, well done.

Let's use the gifts we have been given to bless other people.

And so this morning we've got an opportunity for you to sign up.

You can do through our Church at the Grove app.

There's a little button you can push on the app, but you can also go to church at the Grove.com forward slash groups, and you'll have all the information about what groups are available, when they meet, how they meet, who their leaders are.

But we want to make it even easier than that.

And so this morning, um, we are going to end the service a little bit early, and I'm going to ask for all of our group leaders, they should all have a shirt that looks similar to this.

And I want you to just kind of hang out for five or ten minutes after the service.

We've got some frozen treats, some ice cream and stuff for you to just kind of hang out, fellowship among each other, and then look for people that have these shirts on and begin to look and see how you can get connected in their group.

Um, if you have questions, if you don't know when their group is or what their group looks like or where they're gonna study or what uh area of town they might be located in, man, find the shirt, find the individual, go up to them, talk to them, ask them questions, get to know them, and sign up for a group.

If we're gonna be the church that God has called us to be, if we're going to be gifted the way that God has called us to use our gifts, then it starts when we all be for the gifts that we have been given and we live in community serving one another, building up the church and reaching the community around us.

And so with that, I would love to pray for us and then I'll turn it over to Megan this morning.

Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for who you are and for all that you've blessed us with.

Lord, we thank you for your son Jesus who gave himself for us.

And Lord, we thank you for the spirit that we were given as a result of the salvation that we've experienced.

And Lord, I thank you just for this series and just how incredible it has been as we've learned what it looks like to be gifted and to use our spiritual gifts to be a blessing to those that are around us.

And so, Lord, I just pray that the challenge that's upon all of our hearts, that we would be men and we would be women, that would not just recognize that we have been gifted, but that we would use those gifts to build up those that are around us and to reach and extend the kingdom of God into the future.

And so, Lord, I pray for the power gifts, I pray for the word gifts, I pray for the love gifts, that we would use all of them to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ, building each other up, living in community with one another.

Lord, I do pray for just the groups as they kick off this semester.

I thank you for all the group leaders and hosts and all the people that have worked behind the scenes to make these groups happen.

Lord, I thank you for them, but I pray most importantly, Lord, that people today sitting at the sound of my voice would be uh compelled enough to jump in and get connected in a group and to begin to serve those that are a part of the group that they join.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you again for this morning, for your word, for your time, and it's in your name we pray.

Amen.