Love Local: Loving the Local Church | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

All right, good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be what with you.

If you're new, my name's Ryan.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

Um, well, uh, the elections happened, huh?

Yeah, we're that that that that that was the thing.

Um, you know, depending on where you're at, maybe how you voted, you're probably feeling maybe one of three ways after the elections.

Uh maybe you're grieving, uh, maybe you're joy-filled, or maybe you're just indifferent.

And we're here as we're wrestling with this, I think a bigger thing for us as we step back from this last week and go on, like, okay, how do we discern what's happening with all that's going on?

Um, I think it's one of those where we have to, this like post-election, just go, okay, now what?

Now what?

Um, every election, every candidate, every campaign, they promise change, don't they?

It's the same every single election cycle.

They promise change, and here's the reality: every candidate and every campaign never really fulfills the change they promised.

I think an important question for us as the church to ask is simply this how do we see meaningful change in our world?

How do we actually see that accomplished?

Who we vote for is important.

But what is far more important is who we are as followers of Jesus.

Jesus said this.

This is his word to you today.

If he was right now showing up, looking you in the eyeballs, this is what he wants to say to you.

You are the light of the world.

Not a presidential campaign or a country.

You are.

You are the light of the world.

Like Jesus looks at you, and what he would say to you is he would speak such a vision into you, a calling greater than you even think.

I know we walk around with a bit of imposter syndrome, and what do I have to offer?

And lulling me, and he's gonna look at this group right here and go, you are the light of the world.

Not one day, not could be present tense.

Goes on, a town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp, uh, but put it or put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, and how do we let our light shine?

By our actions, not our intentions.

Let your light shine the way we let our light shine, he says, is by the good deeds, by the things that we lean into in how we live is how we shine.

It's interesting, the early church had no concept of trying to reform the Roman government.

That wasn't even in their thinking.

No, they lived in the shadow of the Roman Empire and they let their light shine brightly for Jesus in the midst of it.

And in doing so, this ragtag group of followers, of this obscure rabbi who was executed on a Roman cross changed the world as we know it.

How?

How do you see meaningful change in our world?

I would suggest that we need to get back to the ways of Jesus to being the light of the world as the church in our day.

Said another way, loving locally lights up our world.

Today we're kicking off a series that I think is exactly timely for us as the church.

It's called Love Local.

It's what does it look like to be the light of the world?

We're gonna look today at the local church.

What does it look like to love the local church?

Next week, uh, we're gonna look at how do we love our local community.

Then the third week, right before Thanksgiving, you're needing this sermon, trust me.

It's loving the locals.

It's just the people in your life.

You're gonna be hanging out with some people potentially that you might need some help loving.

And so, how do we love uh one another?

And in fact, today is less of a sermon, more of a lecture lab.

I want us to kind of roll up our sleeves and not be motivated by a sermon, but be moved to action.

My prayer is that you would walk away knowing more of who you are, knowing more about who God's church is to be, and together we would say we're in, and beginning to live this out as his church.

And so today we're talking about the local church.

Well, what is the church?

The church is God's supernaturally empowered community that has experienced the love of God and expresses his love to a broken and hurting world.

The church is God's supernaturally empowered community.

There's three primary pictures in the New Testament for the church.

Uh, one is of the bride, that the church is the bride of Christ.

That the church is to be set apart, to be holy, that's special only unto Christ.

The second is that the church is the body.

We're gonna talk about that a little bit more.

That you that we are the body of Christ.

The church isn't a building, and we get that because we don't have one.

The church is a people.

Uh literally, the Greek word for church is ekklesia, it means called out ones.

That we are the body of Christ, his representation, his hands and feet to a hurting and broken world.

The third picture is the church's family.

That you have been invited in, you've been called out, you've been placed into the family of God.

You're sitting next to brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of how you voted this last week.

And that is far more unifying than any other thing.

So the church is his supernaturally empowered community that has experienced the love of God and then expresses his love to a broken and hurting world.

This is the way we say it at awakening.

We exist to awaken this generation to new life in Christ.

Like our purpose, the reason there's a team that set up yesterday and got up early this morning to set up, and there's those that are serving with our kids and made coffee and greeted, is we long that you would have a life-changing encounter with God, that you would experience his love deeply and profoundly, and then you would express his love to a hurting and broken world.

Uh, the way we go about this is what we call our discipleship pathway.

This is the process by which we want to see this vision uh come to life.

And it begins this way: that you would come to know Jesus.

In fact, the church is the only organization that exists for those who are not here yet.

That we would look up and go, there's tons of people who have no idea about the hope and life found in Jesus.

And our hope and prayer is every single Sunday that you would come to know Jesus at a deeper level.

Secondly, then grow as a disciple of Jesus.

What our world doesn't need is more decisions for Jesus.

We need more disciples of Jesus.

People who go, you know what?

I'm gonna pattern my life after Jesus.

I'm gonna follow in his ways.

Small groups is the environment upon which we uh see life change happening best, where we're in smaller communities centered around God's word, growing together, doing life together, helping each other grow and follow Jesus.

The third area, and we're gonna talk more about this today, is serve in the name of Jesus.

Whereas I come to know Jesus, I'm growing as a disciple, and then I begin to serve in the name of Jesus.

I take my time, my talents, and my treasures, and I begin to say, you know what?

All that I have is yours, Jesus.

Use them as you will.

In fact, if I'm following Jesus, Jesus said, I came not to be served, but to what?

Serve.

Here's what's interesting.

The church in America, we won't pick on us too much yet.

But the church in America comes to be served, not to serve.

We have a consumeristic mindset coming, well, you know what?

I don't really like the music or the coffee or the preaching.

And we we consume.

We're spectators.

Entertain me.

That is not the design of the church.

In fact, I know a number of people who were floating at awakening and like, oh, you know, it's just not meeting my needs.

I don't know.

And someone lovingly challenged them.

Well, are you serving in any way?

No.

Are you in a small group?

No.

But it's just not meeting my needs.

I don't really know anyone.

Obviously.

And the minute they got lovingly challenged to dive into a group and to serve, all of a sudden it's like it clicked.

And then finally, share the love of Jesus.

I'm concerned, far more concerned, with our seating or our sending capacity than our seating capacity.

That you who walk out these doors, see, church doesn't stop the minute we uh stop services.

Church is just on the move.

And wherever you go, church is happening because the Spirit of the living God lives and dwells inside of every single one of you.

We gather together to be encouraged and equipped, and then we are sent out to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting and broken world and share his love with those around us.

And so that's our discipleship pathway.

Here's the good news: God has supernaturally gifted every single believer to belong and to build up his church.

God has supernaturally gifted you to belong, to be a part of the family of God.

We all deeply have this longing to belong.

Where's my place?

Where's my fit?

Who are my people?

God says, welcome to the family.

And he's given you a purpose, a calling.

Like you have a role to play, and it's significant to build up his church.

This is the way the apostle Paul says it.

He says, For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.

Um, I don't know if you've been around someone that's um not sober.

You know, you're talking to them, Ron, I just love you, man.

You're the best, you know, you ever have.

I've had a few of those conversations.

I'm like, I'm not really sure you love me that much, but um maybe.

Sober judgment is you're thinking clearly and accurately, right?

What the church desperately needs is not people that think too high or too low, but that you're really clear, this is what I'm gifted at, this is how God has made me, this is what I'm not gifted at, and this is where I fit in the body of Christ.

We want to take time and help you discover your design during our time together.

Then he goes on, it says, in accordance with the faith that God has distributed to each of you, um, just as each of us has one body with many members, okay, do this for me.

Just look down at your body.

This is the picture Paul's given us.

Just take inventory, okay?

It's all there, good.

Yeah, that's a fantastic.

I got fingers, I got toes, I I, you know, eyes and arms, okay?

Just as one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function.

They don't all play the same role.

I'm talking with my mouth, my ears can't talk.

So in Christ, though many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

The picture of your body is the picture of the body for Christ.

How different would it be if we really understood that we belong to one another?

I mean, if you're missing a member, if you're missing a hand, you notice it.

If your back hurts, you really notice it.

And yet we miss out and don't understand that the church often is limping.

Because so many are missing.

The body is not represented.

In fact, let me give you a picture of the body.

If you, like I said, this is a lecture lab, we're gonna do this today.

Go ahead and stand up with me.

And I I want you to do this.

I want everyone in this room to be connected.

If you're not comfortable grabbing, holding someone's hand, uh, you can do an elbow, but I want everyone to be connected and I want every section to be connected.

So go ahead and maybe introduce yourself before you grab their hand.

Um good, good, good, good.

Grab a hand.

But we got to connect the back to the front, the sides, and we gotta be interconnected where it's just one.

Connect to the cross, connect to are we see we got this?

Is this great.

You see this?

We got denominations happening.

We have the back denomination and the front denomination.

We connect the back to the front.

Come on, guys, there's the back section.

How do you guys connect to the front?

Figure it out.

There we go.

And this is the picture of the body.

And part of it is it required you to move.

Get out of your seat.

Part of it is it moved past like this uncomfortableness of reaching out.

The uncomfortableness of Ryan's still talking, I'm still holding their hand.

I want to do something real quick.

Just first look around, because this is Paul's picture.

We're all to be connected, we all belong to one another.

But the picture often of the church in America, and this group, why don't you just sit down?

You can let go of hands.

And this group, why don't you sit down?

You can let go of hands.

Middle stay standing.

This group back there in the back, why don't you go ahead and sit down?

There you go.

I know.

You're like, why did I sit in the middle today?

Why did I do it?

Doing rough math.

The middle section, go ahead and sit down.

Do you know just at awakening, we we only 54% of those who attend serve in no way at all.

It's like this.

Go ahead, you can all let go of hands.

Oh, good grief.

Because you weren't gonna listen to anything else I was gonna say.

You're like, my hands are getting sweaty, now I'm getting embarrassed, I don't know what to do.

The picture Paul has is that you play an integral part of the body of Christ.

That you're needed, that you're gifted.

And without you, you're missed.

Without you, the church is not what we're supposed to be.

I don't know who can pick up their phone or not, but that would be great.

That's right.

Oh, there we go.

Thanks.

And without you, there's this ringing that okay.

He goes on, he says, we have different gifts.

And so you're different by design.

It's actually on purpose.

We need a church that has different gifts.

If we're all the same, it's not a good thing.

According to the grace given to each of us, then he's going to tell us some gifts in the church.

If you have the gift of prophecy, that's speaking a specific word of God to a specific person or people or time, then prophesy in accordance with your faith.

If it's serving, then serve.

Some people have this gift to come alongside and help a vision become a reality, to support, serve.

It's often behind the scenes.

I think of Dave Grazian was in the first service.

He's got the gift of service.

And I've watched him for a couple decades now.

And he serves with our setup and teardown team, and it brings him such great joy.

And here's what the interesting part about a spiritual gift.

When you use it, it brings you great joy and it brings others great good.

What about the gift of giving?

Or give if it's encouraging, or saying, oh, let's go back.

Serving, if it's teaching, this is the ability to communicate God's word in a clear, understandable, applicable way, then teach.

There's many with the gift of teaching that are with our kids right now.

If it's to encourage, then give encouragement.

Encouragement is sees those who need lifting up and brings life through words and actions.

There's a couple, Saye and Shadi.

They are a powerhouse couple.

They are a couple of encouragers.

You can't help but be around them and be encouraged.

If it's giving, then give generously.

Did you know there's the spiritual gift of giving?

All of us, all of these we're called to do in some way.

And yet some are uniquely gifted to do that.

The spiritual gift of giving is the ability to earn money, manage it well, wisely contribute to the work of the Lord with cheerfulness and liberality.

Like those with the gift of generosity, they actually don't try to go, they try to figure out how much they can give.

Some do even a reverse tithe where they give 90% away and live off 10%.

If it's the gift, some if it's to lead, do it diligently.

Leadership is to see what needs to be done, to be able to set goals, motivate people to accomplish the work of ministry.

If it's to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Mercy this reflects God's compassionate nature, embodying his love in ways that bring comfort, hope, healing to those in need.

See Carrie right there.

She started our Mills ministry.

Sorry, Carrie.

She has, I would think, the gift of mercy.

She saw a need, and through action, meeting people in areas walking through difficult times.

Every single follower of Jesus has an integral role to play in the body of Christ.

You're needed.

You're needed.

The problem is that many of us don't know our design or gifting.

And so we don't know where we fit.

And so it's, I don't think so much in our church that we want to stay on the sidelines or that we want to, you know, just not participate.

It's just like one, we don't know we're needed and we don't know our design or our fit.

So with the remainder of our time, I want to unpack an acrostic called design to help you understand how God has made you.

And we're gonna kind of, you know, do a few things like you're gonna take a spiritual gift survey in a little bit.

We're gonna do it in service because if I ask you to do it later, you'll forget.

Uh you'll get busy.

We're all busy.

So let's dive in.

Your unique design.

The first, uh, the letter D stands for desire.

The question here is, what am I passionate about?

What gets me excited?

You know, like what you're passionate about, what you're excited about?

Like God can really use.

I love uh Frederick Bon Bachner.

He said this the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

I was thinking about my wife ever since she was a little girl.

She's loved design, she's loved architecture.

Um, and you know, she's a real estate agent.

That fits great with her profession.

And yet she's used design.

She loves to create spaces where people come in and it's beautiful and it's engaging, and it just makes you feel like, ah, this is such a great place to be.

Well, she's done that in the church for so long.

Maybe you love design, you're passionate about that.

I think of a guy named Reed who, when he was 19, he moved from Illinois to Silicon Valley to work at Yahoo.

Yes, he is the original tech Kobe Bryant.

Like he got hired out of high school.

This guy is insanely smart.

He loves tech.

And oftentimes when we talk, I'm not really sure what he's saying.

Because I don't know the technical stuff.

But you know what he did?

He's so passionate about it.

We have a website because of Reed.

He built that.

We were one of the first churches in the country to be live streaming our services because he built the actual platform for us to live stream and then began to share it with other churches around the country.

Like it's amazing.

It's just what he's passionate about.

What are you passionate about?

What like gets your heart excited?

God would want to use that in you to bring about great good.

D stands for desire, E stands for experience.

The diagnostic question here is what are my past experiences, both good and bad, that have shaped who I am today?

In fact, what I would like you to do with this is I'd love for you later today or this week just to draw a timeline of your life.

And begin to just know, you know, the good and the hard or the painful experiences of life.

And just begin to do this timeline.

Your past experiences, God wants to use those areas, and it may be the very ministry he's called you to is coming from some of the areas of some of the hardest things you've gone through.

Bishop T.D.

Jakes says this.

He says, When you're born, you're like a key with no cuts in it.

As you go through life, each wound, failure, hurt cuts into that strip of metal, and one day there's a clear click.

Your pain has formed the key that slips into the lock that opens your future.

Would you take time?

What are my past experiences, both good and bad, that have shaped who I am?

How might God want to use that in his body today?

I think of one just recently, a gal in our church, Jerry, who came and she her, one of her experiences was just simply the connection team loved her so well, she felt so welcomed.

So I want to join the connection team.

Because I want other people to feel the way I felt when I first came.

It's amazing, it's powerful.

So the E stands for your experiences, S stands for spiritual gifts.

The question is, what are my spiritual gifts?

We just covered a few of those in Romans.

Many people, most of us have done some personality profile.

You've done the disc profile, you've done Myers Briggs, Strength Finders.

There's a uh but here's the interesting part.

More Christians know their Enneagram than their spiritual gifts.

We need to know our spiritual gifts.

God has supernaturally given you a gift.

The word spiritual gift is from the Greek, it's uh charismatat.

It's a grace gift.

Like God has given you a gift that when you use it, it brings you great joy and it brings others great good.

Every follower of Jesus has been given at least one spiritual gift.

Because it's a gift, you've done nothing to earn it.

But spiritual gifts are discovered and developed in community.

Now, the thing with spiritual gifts is they don't come in fully developed form.

When my son graduated eighth grade, we got him a guitar.

It's a gift.

Now he could have the choice of having that guitar just sit in his room, or he could spend time working and playing on it.

He spent time working on playing on it.

He's a fantastic guitarist.

Your spiritual gifts do not come in fully developed form.

You have to take time to develop them and grow them.

You have the gifts and you have to develop it.

So here's what I want you to do.

You have this card on your seat.

I want you to take the QR code.

We're literally gonna take seven minutes, scan it.

You're gonna come to our love local uh page, and you're gonna scroll down just a little bit and take the spiritual gifts test.

And maybe you're like, well, I've already taken one.

Fantastic.

Take it again.

Um and you'll notice on the card that there's a space for your top three.

It's gonna give you your top five.

Test only takes seven minutes, but we're gonna pause.

I'm gonna let the production team in the back play some music and take time and let's discover our spiritual gifts.

As you're finishing up, take your top three, write them on this little card here.

We want to help you, and you can finish up as I'm talking, uh, but we want to help you not only discover, but begin to develop those gifts in community.

We need you, God has designed us to be the body, to represent him.

How do we see change in our world?

It begins with us going, you know what?

You are supernaturally gifted by God to belong and build up his church.

Uh the D stands for desire, the E for experience, S for spiritual gifts, the I stands for individual style.

Asking questions like this: who am I really?

How do I interact with people?

What brings me energy?

What drains me?

That extroversion, introversion.

How do I generally deal with problems?

How do I go about making decisions?

How do I respond to change?

You know, uh I'm fairly introverted myself, and introverts get a bad rap, like they don't like people.

It's not true.

We love people.

It's just that you drain me.

Here's what's interesting though.

You discern as you begin to know who you are, how God's made you.

Like I write sermons, so you know when I do it, I learn from uh a mentor.

Um, I my best time of thinking is early in the morning.

Why?

Because I just spent eight hours by myself, you know, sleeping, and you your tank is filled up.

You gotta begin to understand how has God made you.

I think of McKenna, who's on our one of our proteges, she part of our connection team.

Her per her personality, she's outgoing, enjoys connecting with people.

If you don't enjoy connecting with people, please don't join the connection team, right?

There's other spaces based on how God's made you.

Uh the G stands for growth phase.

Where am I at in life?

How am I doing spiritually?

I mean, let's be honest, really evaluate.

Are you growing?

Do you feel stuck?

Maybe you feel like you're backsliding in some ways.

How are you doing spiritually, emotionally, relationally, mentally, financially?

What stage of life are you in?

Are you in the student stage of life?

Are you in the single stage of life?

The married family or empty nester?

All those things are these growth phases that impact and shape how we go through life and where we serve.

I just think of uh Sherman and Karen Trigg who lead our uh in our marriage mentoring so often, and they're leading a marriage um course that's coming up.

Well, you know what?

They're in the empty nesting grandparent stage of life.

In fact, they have a gaggle of grandkids.

They have so many grandkids.

It's amazing.

And they have a lot of experience through all the stages of marriage and life that now they're pouring in because of that into younger couples.

But what growth phase are you in?

And then finally, your natural ability.

Ask the question here: what am I naturally good at?

Not what do I enjoy doing?

Because what sometimes what you enjoy doing, you're not naturally good at.

Um, there's plenty of people on American Idol that enjoy singing.

They are not naturally good at it.

But what are you naturally good at?

Here's what's interesting: whatever we're naturally good at, we talk about this in our Awakening 101, we tend to dismiss or diminish it.

Like if you're naturally good at organizing, like, oh, someone goes, Oh, thank you so much for organizing this.

And what do you say?

Oh, it was nothing.

It's no big deal.

It was easy.

You're naturally good at designing and creating an atmosphere, you know, maybe it's a stage design.

Oh, that was amazing.

Oh, it was nothing.

It was easy.

You're naturally good at building or spreadsheets or whatever.

We diminish or dismiss it.

I love how my friend Judy says it.

She said it to me.

She's Ryan, never diminish the work of God in you or through you.

It's the reason it's easy for you is you're you're naturally good at it.

And sometimes we don't see it, and so you might need to ask somebody else.

Oh, is this actually helpful?

You know, if you're putting together a spreadsheet, that's really how I can't do that.

It might be easy for you, but it is hard for somebody else.

That's why we need the body.

Um, I think of Janet, who's in our cafe team.

She's naturally good at baking.

Some of you should never step foot in a kitchen.

Let's just be real.

You'll kill somebody.

She's so good.

She worked at Bouchon Bakery, she's done so many things.

She's, it's what she's not only passionate about, but she's naturally good at it.

And like coming up on Christmas Eve at a special event, she's creating some special treats for Christmas Eve.

I love that.

Like she's taking what she's naturally good at.

I think about Jesse, who's um he's naturally good at finances and numbers.

And some of us aren't, you know, and you need help balancing your budget.

Fantastic.

He is a CPA and a financial planner.

Like he's naturally good at this, and he serves as the treasurer for a leadership council for our church.

Like he's taking what he's naturally good at and the mind God's given him and leveraging and stewarding it in an credible way.

And so, what are you naturally good at?

What comes easy?

What do other people go like, oh, thank you so much?

And you go, like, it was nothing.

God might want to use that.

You have an integral role to play in the body of Christ.

So here's what I want us to do.

With the remaining of our time, we're actually going to end a little early, intentionally.

Uh, what I want you to do is first, I want you to start, uh, spend time this week, unpack your design.

If you're like Ryan, I didn't get all those notes, fantastic.

QR code, the whole outline is online.

Would you take time, maybe a journal, maybe with a close friend, and work through these things.

Jesus looked at his body.

He looked at the church and said, You're the light of the world.

You have a role to play, you have a calling to fulfill.

Like the reason, the way that change is gonna take place is when a local body really believes, okay, we're called to be light.

And it starts here and it begins to ripple effect out into the community.

That's what we'll talk about next week.

So, would you spend time unpacking your design?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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