Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Discovering Your Unique D.E.S.I.G.N. | Part 3

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.

Good morning, Awakening.

Good to be with you.

If you're new, my name's Ryan and absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

As we continue in our series Gifts of the Holy Spirit, let's just begin right here.

You were made to count.

You were made for significance.

You were made for meaning and purpose.

It's hardwired into your very nature.

In fact, it's interesting, George Bernard Shaw, who's not wouldn't be called a believer in any way, in his play Man and Superman, he wrote this line.

I came across it this last week on a podcast I was listening to.

This is the true joy in life, he writes.

Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die.

For the harder I work, the more I live.

I rejoice in life, for it is for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me.

It is the sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Hardwire and to the fabric of who you are is you were created and you are designed for meaning and purpose and significance.

The question is, how in the world do we live a life that counts?

As we've been in this series, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we began with week one, the gift of the Holy Spirit himself.

And we said this you have everything you need to be exactly who God made you to be.

Right now, you have everything.

You're not lacking in any way.

You don't need a better education, you don't need different friends, you don't need a new spouse or a new set of circumstances.

You don't need to be thinner or smarter or more beautiful or more in your bank accounts.

You have everything you need to be exactly who God created you to be.

In fact, the Apostle Peter said it this way: his divine power.

Not your power, not your strength, his power has given us everything you need for a godly life through the true knowledge of him who called you by his own glory and goodness.

That the same spirit, think about this, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives and dwells inside every single follower of Jesus.

How do you live a life that counts?

Well, first you have everything you need.

Last week we looked at this and it was really looking at the design of the church, God's design for the church.

And remember, the church isn't a place.

We think of it as this place, this structure, this organization, and certainly we have to be organized, but the church is the spirit-filled people of God.

We are the church.

We don't go to the church, but the church does gather together.

And here's what we said last week: is that you are uniquely gifted by Christ to bring about a supernatural good.

Like you, not the, well, yes, the person next to you too, I guess that's true.

You are gifted specifically, uniquely, intentionally by Jesus.

Can you just let that blow you away for a second?

To bring about a supernatural good.

In fact, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, the Apostle Paul would say it this way: for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of yourself.

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Your salvation is a hundred percent grace, a gift from God.

And then he goes on.

Your workmanship.

You are God's piece of art.

Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

See, you're not saved by good deeds.

You can do nothing to earn your salvation, but friends, you have been saved for a good work.

There is a good work that you are placed on this planet to do.

You have meaning and you have purpose and you matter.

And by the way, you matter greatly to God.

You have everything you need to be exactly who God made you to be, and you have been uniquely gifted by Christ to bring about and do a supernatural good.

And so the question today, as we journey in this series, The Gifts of the Spirit, is how do you do that?

How do you live that out?

How do you live a life that counts?

How do I discover the good that was put here to do?

And we want to talk about for the next several moments together is discovering your unique design, the unique way that God has knit you together, formed you, your His handiwork so that you can live in and out of the good that He's made for you to do.

And so if you got your Bibles, would you open up to Romans chapter 12?

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Last week we were in Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Uh, Ephesians chapter 4 is all about God's design for the church, and we talked about that last week.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Now we're gonna be in Romans chapter 12, and here's what's incredible: God has uniquely gifted and supernaturally gifted every single believer to belong and to build up his church.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Think about that.

He's uniquely gifted you to belong.

You have a place.

We all long for a place.

You have a place and you have a purpose to build up his church.

So let's open up and let's look at Romans chapter 12 together and dive in.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Here's what the Apostle Paul says.

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, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Why?

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ, we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us.

If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith.

If it's serving, then serve.

If teaching, then teach.

If it's encouraged, then give encouragement.

If it's giving, then give generously.

If it's to lead, do it diligently.

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

God has uniquely and supernaturally gifted you to belong and to build up his church.

I just want to go back and if you'll go back to the very beginning, for by the grace given to me, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.

Okay?

But rather with sober judgment.

Why is that so important?

Because if you don't have a sober, uh sober, yeah.

What does it mean to be sober?

Help me, help me out.

This is come on.

Thank you.

You're in church.

You're like, can we even talk about that?

I don't know.

Ryan, I've never ever drank anything ever before.

To think clearly, to have an accurate estimation.

Imagine he just gave us the picture that we're the body.

This is the reason we need to have a sober self-assessment, a sober judgment, to think accurately about ourselves.

Now, kind of get out your hands, if you would, with me.

Okay?

Kind of wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes.

We're almost started a children's song right there.

But one of Paul's favorite pictures when talking about the church is the picture of the body.

Now you gotta imagine and understand when he's talking about the body and he's talking to these believers, he's talking to people that are in vastly different socioeconomic eras, different ethnicities, that are completely alienated in the ancient world.

Jews, Gentiles, slaves, freemen, I mean, all across the border, and he's saying, You're one.

It's a powerful and profound picture where he's saying you all have something distinct and unique, and you play a role, and you have a hand, and you have a foot, and you have eyes and you have ears.

And if we don't think accurately and understand who we are, we won't know the part we play in the body.

And what happens, isn't it true?

What happens is we think and look at some person and we go, oh, I wish I had their gift.

I wish I looked like them.

I wish I was able to do what they do, and then you don't actually do what you're called to do.

Or we try to mimic sometimes.

We try to be like somebody.

Oh, I really admire or respect them.

And so we we just kind of try to follow their way, like, oh, I like them and I want to do like them.

Like, no, have a sober self-assessment of who God has made you to be.

Why?

Look around this room, and what you see is brothers and sisters in Christ.

See, you I don't see a group of individuals, that's not the biblical picture.

I see a group of people who are all very different, but we form one picture, one body.

And some of you, God's gifted to be a mouth.

Okay.

Some of you, God's gifted to be ears, hands of service, feet of action, heart of mercy.

And none of us would ever say we don't need a part, well, okay, um, I had my appendix taken out, and we don't need that.

There are no appendixes in this room, okay?

But right, none of us would ever say we don't need that part.

Even down to like, I got ten fingers, maybe I could do without one of them.

They're like, no.

You play an integral, important role in the kingdom of God.

And then he says, I've given you different gifts for a reason.

We're different by design.

You're different on purpose.

You can't be good at everything.

In fact, that's what my wife says to me a lot.

It's like, well, Ryan, you can't be good at everything.

And I said, Well, at least could I be good at something?

Just tell me one thing that I'm actually because you're telling me I can't be good at everything.

But it's true, we want to be good at everything, but no, we're gifted at something specifically.

And in that specificity in the body and community, it makes up one beautiful, incredible picture where we together present Jesus to a hurting and broken world.

Don't you want to be a part of something like that?

That is the church.

And so, what I want to do with our time is help you to discover your design of how God has fit you together in the body of Christ.

And to do that, I want to use an acrostic called design.

If you're part of our intro, you've ever gone through that, we use that there.

If you're a part of my men's morning group in the spring, we used it there.

It's actually from a pastor and teacher and writer named Wayne Cordero.

It's a great little help.

And here's what I want to do.

I want to get real practical today.

I want to get real practical with you to help you discover how God has made you.

And so let's dive into discovering your unique design.

The crosstic begins with the letter D, and the letter D stands for desires.

Write in desires.

And here we're asking the question: what am I passionate about?

What am I passionate about?

Maybe right next to that you can write, what excites my heart?

What do you love to do?

Like, what do you you're passionate?

Oh, I love to do this.

When I do this, I just lose track of time.

Might even write, and what breaks my heart?

What are things that, oh man, I just long to see this happen or see this change or I see this area.

You know, uh Frederick Bruckner, he's an incredible theologian, passed away uh just recently when he was talking about calling and vocation, wrote uh this line that's actually been retweeted like a billion times.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meets.

Like the good that God has for you is the place of your deep gladness, what you're passionate about, and the world's deep hunger meets.

And I think sometimes in church world, especially if you grew up in and around this, if you're enjoying it, if you love to do it, it couldn't possibly be God's will.

Right?

Like you like to really be living out God's will, you have to be miserable.

Like, no.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet, desire.

What are you passionate about?

You know, I'll give you two quick stories.

One is uh with a guy, his name's Reed Burke, and he's actually running our live stream right now.

But what you don't know is like probably seven or eight years ago when live stream first uh started, uh we were one of the first churches to ever have live stream in the country.

Well, we're in the heart of Silicon Valley, he's an engineer, he loves technology, he's got a gift at it.

And he saw this and said, Man, we could extend the message of what God's doing both here and around the country and around the world.

That would be great.

And so he literally, friends, he literally, we he literally built the program to run and do live stream.

And then other churches were asking, how do you do that?

And the only things out on the market were really, really too expensive for churches.

And so he began to just give it away for free for other churches.

It's what he's passionate about, it's what he loves to do.

And it was a deep need that furthered the ministry of God.

What excites your heart, or maybe what breaks your heart?

A conversation my wife and I have had, and one of the things that breaks her heart because of uh just what's on her heart is the area of uh those who are in the foster care system.

And so we've really been wrestling, like, how do we play a part in that?

And as a church, we've partnered with, you know, foster the city and these areas, and it's like this breaks my heart, and God, I want to be a part of that.

And then we're looking at, okay, what have you given us and how can we be a part of it?

All right, so discovering a unique design first is desire.

What am I passionate about?

Second is experiences.

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

Milan and Kay Yerkovich, they're both uh psychologists.

They wrote an incredible book called How We Love.

I encourage you, it's thick, but it's really great.

Uh great one to dive into this uh on a more deep, uh more deeply, rather.

They write this in their book, our experiences growing up, good and bad, left a lasting imprint in our souls that determine our beliefs and expectations about how to give love and receive love.

Later on, they go on to write, the past defines nearly everything about our emotions, beliefs, desires, and preferences.

We are the sum of our history.

To ignore it is to be blind to the currents that sweep us along through life.

And let's be honest, isn't it true?

Most of us with our past, we just want to sweep it behind and ignore it.

And yet, who you are is profoundly shaped by your past.

And what are your past experiences, both good and bad, that are shaping who you are, and it begins to shape those desires in you and what God is going to use you to do.

In fact, I would love for you this week to do this practice.

Dry, draw a line on your notes.

And if you're in your like 20s or maybe even early 30s, do this by fives and not tens, okay?

But that's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, 70 years after that, it's gravy.

Um, and you you get to make all the rules, okay?

And we just sit at your feet and humbly learn.

But would you take each decade of your life or half decade and just begin to go in that decade?

What were my experiences, both good and bad, that have shaped me?

Zero to ten.

What were the experiences in my teenage years that shaped me, both good and bad?

In fact, you can do this, you can write the good on the top, and you can write the bad underneath, and just begin to see.

And are there themes about who you are and what you're doing today and the things that are on your heart you'll begin to notice?

Oh, that's how I'm made.

That's why I'm passionate about this.

You know, one of the reasons we're passionate, Jenny and I, for reaching this generation is because of one of our experiences in our college years of how God got a hold of our lives.

So we've been passionate about college students for the rest of our life.

It's just a past experience that God has used.

And it shapes who we are.

Desires, experiences, the S is spiritual gifts.

What is my primary spiritual gift?

And some of you are going, Ryan, you read through that list way too fast and you didn't tell me what it meant.

Okay, I got you.

I got your back.

We're gonna dive into it, okay?

Spiritual gifts.

What is my primary spiritual gifts?

In fact, if you want to dive even deeper on this, my dad does a great study called Your Divine Design.

And this is where I get this uh language, motivational gifts.

That I believe in Romans chapter um 12, we get what is the motivational gifts, that every single follower of Jesus has one of these seven gifts.

And you have one of these that is a driver behind, and it may work itself out or manifest in different areas or different ways, but you have one of these gifts.

And by review from last week, we said every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift.

You have one of these seven, at very least, you did nothing to earn it.

It's a gift.

Spiritual gifts are a sign of Christ's victory over sin, death, and Satan, but they need to be developed.

They don't come in fully developed form, and they're developed in community.

And so, would you begin to ask, what is my primary spiritual gift?

Or what is my motivational spiritual gift?

And what I want to do is read through these definitions, and as I do that, would you take time and go highlight one or two of, like, oh, that one, that one sounds like me.

Oh, I really resonated with that.

Ooh.

Now, if you highlight all of them, um good luck.

Right?

But would you highlight these?

And here's what's amazing about these gifts that Paul outlined.

All of us are called to do all of these.

So we're gonna look at these, and you're gonna go, well, that's not my gift, so I don't have to do it.

Serving.

It's not my gift.

Hello.

Umaging, not my gift.

I don't have to encourage you.

No, no, no.

All of us are called to do all of these, and yet you are uniquely gifted in one of these in such a way that it not only brings you great joy, it produces supernatural good around you.

All right, diving in.

Prophecy.

We covered this last week as well.

It's the divine enablement to proclaim God's truth with power and clarity in a timely and culturally sensitive fashion for correction, repentance, or edification.

It's the ability to reveal God's word accurately.

These definitions are from my dad's Divine Design series.

People with this gift ask, what went wrong?

What caused this?

Maybe you have the gift of prophecy, and you had no idea that you really have this inner sense of truth.

One of our dear friends, her name's Bethany, and she has the gift of prophecy, and she's so rooted into God's word.

And sometimes we think, oh, the gift of prophecy has to be a pastor.

No, it doesn't at all.

She is so rooted in God's word and has this just unction in her.

And you know you're gonna get the truth.

And if there's anything in there that is like error or whatever, she calls it out and she does it with grace and gentleness and mercy, but she's gifted with the gift of prophecy.

Maybe you have the gift of prophecy.

How about service?

The divine enablement to attach spiritual value to the accomplishment of physical tasks within the body of Christ.

Ability to demonstrate love by meeting practical needs that releases other Christians for direct spiritual ministry.

People with this gift ask, What can I do to help?

I think of uh Nick D'Angelo here on staff.

You know, he started attending awakening when he was in college over a decade ago.

And then we've got to watch him grow through our protege program, and then he stepped on staff in a season of need to be able to serve our setup and teardown.

He's been doing that for almost like six years now.

Yeah.

And he he has the spiritual gift of service.

And spirit, people with the spiritual gift of service often get asked a lot of other people to serve.

Because why?

They're happy to do so.

They love it, they just seem to always be in the right place at the right time.

Like, yeah, of course I can help you, of course I can drive you here, of course I can do this.

And we see these, you know, chairs set up and these curtains set and the all the cafe and the kids' room, and there's an incredible team that does all that.

And it's led by someone who has this heart.

How can I help?

How can I help?

Maybe you have the gift of service.

What about the gift of teaching?

The divine enablement to understand and give detailed explanation of biblical truth and the ability to search out and validate truth which has been presented.

People with this question ask, what is truth?

Where did you get that?

Why?

You ever started asking that question?

And you're like, but I don't have the gift of teaching.

Maybe you do, but maybe it's not developed.

Maybe you do.

And a lot of these you're like, oh, that seems like I asked those questions.

Oh, that's an area that you might want to start to develop.

If you have the gift of teaching, you want to start getting into like the Bible project videos and studying and training and learning.

As you learn and begin to share that with others, you'll begin to grow in that gift.

What about the gift of exhortation or encouragement?

Divine enablement to come alongside another in need of encouragement to reassure, strengthen, affirm, and challenge those who are discouraged or wavering in their faith.

Ability to stimulate the faith of others.

People with this gift ask, what must be done to fix this, or how can we move to wholeness?

You know, um, we just bought a house which is crazy amazing and so excited.

And my friend Andre and Judy, they one of their gifts is just the gift of encouragement.

And they just stopped by and minced their busy day and what they had going on.

We're doing demo with some friends.

Thank you, friends, for showing up.

Um we filled an entire dumpster.

I mean, the it was in one afternoon.

It was amazing.

And they showed up with a little gift with coffee from Verve, and this the um the name of the coffee is called Sermon.

I'm like, that's amazing.

Um and two mugs and then a French press.

Like they just do that, and here's the thing: that's not a one-time event.

They're just so good at that, and they do that for so many people that they show up and they bring exhortation.

Sometimes that's a a godly challenge or a call-out or encouragement, speaking life, and they just have the gift encouragement of exhortation.

Maybe you have that gift as well.

What about the gift of giving?

The divine enablement to earn money, manage it well, and wisely contribute to the work of the Lord with cheerfulness and liberality, ability to entrust personal assets to others for the furtherance of their ministry.

People with this gift ask, what can I give to meet the need?

You know, um, people who have the gift of giving often have the gift of making.

They're able to make large sums of money, and they are then entrusted to steward that.

God's entrusted them to be generous.

I've told my kids this growing up all the time is God has given us a lot so that we can give a lot.

God's given you a lot, and by the way, we've all been given a lot, so that we can give a lot, so we can steward it.

And again, the gift of giving is not like, hey, that's not my gift.

All of us are called to give and be a part of that and to be generous, and generosity releases greed's grip on our heart.

And yet some of you are gifted at this.

I've known a few people that have had the gift of giving that made it their ambition and goal to reverse tithe and have gotten there.

Where instead of giving 10% away and living off of 90, they've gotten to where they give 90% away and live off of 10.

In fact, one friend who didn't need to work any longer told me, said, Ryan, do you know why I still take on clients?

I'm like, no, I don't.

You don't need to do any of this.

You could like, he's like, the more clients I have, the more I make to give away.

He's like, see how that flipped his work?

And he realizes, man, I get to steward all that I have and I get to give it away.

And so even though it's like, yeah, from my own personality, I don't need to make anymore, but I get to give it, I get to give it away.

Maybe you have the gift of giving.

What if you have the gift of leadership?

It's then divine enablement to see what needs to be done, set goals, and attract and lead and motivate people to accomplish the work of the ministry.

Uh, ability to coordinate activities of others for the achievement of a common goal.

People with this gift ask, where's the goal?

What can I do?

There's a gal in our church named Melissa who I see the gift of leadership in her.

And she's she takes this on and she sees goals and she speaks what could be and should be, and she gets after it and gets a team, and sometimes it's with her small group, sometimes it's with the connection team, other times it's been with projects that we've had around here.

She just got the gift of leadership.

Perhaps you have the gift of leadership, or maybe in the final one, seven is the gift of mercy, the divine enablement to minister cheerfully and appropriately to people who are suffering or undeserving and to spare them from punishment or consequences justly deserved.

Ability to identify with and comfort those who are in distress.

People with this gift ask, how can I make them feel better?

How can I bring comfort and hope?

In fact, we have a care ministry, and people, many people on this serve have that heart of mercy to come alongside those.

In fact, mercy can play out in so many different ways, by the way, because it's not just like going to the hospital.

Many on our prayer team have the gift of mercy.

In fact, there's uh you need the gift of mercy all across the board in every team.

We need all of these gifts to show up to be the body of Christ.

What's your primary spiritual gift?

What's your motivational spiritual gift?

Would you take time and wrestle with these with a friend and begin to test and discover?

Oh, is that my gift?

I'm gonna begin to serve and work on these different areas.

Discovering your design, desire, experiences, spiritual gifts.

The I stands for individual style.

Who am I really?

Who am I really?

Um, and this isn't to just go into some philosophic, you know, um spiral.

Who am I?

It's to really like know who you are.

Uh helpful tests are like the Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, the Disc, um, strength finders.

These are all personality profiles, but ask questions like how do I interact with people?

What brings me energy?

Am I introverted or extroverted?

What drains me?

How do I generally deal with problems?

How do I go about making decisions?

How do I respond to change?

Am I task-oriented or people-oriented?

Am I structured, organized, or adaptable, as we might say.

By the way, there is no right personality.

And we need each other.

So the unstructured, un I'm not a planner, by the way, is not bad.

See, it is to some of you organized people, I get it, and drive you nuts.

But where we can look and go, we're uniquely made, and when we understand that our differences make us better together, and our personalities are a part of that, and who you are and how you're designed, it all fits, all fits together to make one picture of you, and that picture of you fits to make the picture of the body of Christ.

Isn't that amazing?

And then we begin to celebrate and see in others and go, wow, I'm so glad God made you that way because I'm not.

And we're needed.

Wouldn't that be incredible if we just started to do that as a church and speak that to one another and just call that out?

Because we are beginning to have a sober self-assessment of what we're good at, what we're not, and begin to see what others are and how helpful that is.

Individual style, who am I really?

The G stands for growth phase.

Where am I at in life?

How am I doing spiritually?

Uh up here I have a chart.

It's from Dr.

Robert Clinton's book, The Making of a Leader.

And what he did was he studied the different people throughout scripture, their lives, different leaders.

Then he studied uh different people throughout church history who made a significant impact, and he began to see common themes of their growth phases, and something that's so helpful is to begin to identify where am I at?

And especially, isn't it like you go through life and you go, you know, kindergarten and then junior high, and well, maybe you had something in between there, uh, and then high school and then college, and then it's like, shoo, you're off.

And you're like, where am I at in life?

What am I supposed to be doing?

How do I know I'm tracking?

And this is so helpful to begin to see, and I'll put some ages, but it's just kind of rough.

So you can go, like, maybe I'm in that stage.

The stage one he calls sovereign foundation.

That's your past experiences, especially your growing up years, your family of origin and different experiences you had that have shaped who you are today.

That God is going to graciously use the good and the bad to bring about incredible good for others around you.

Uh, stage two has to do with inner life growth.

Often this happens in your like mid-20s, even thirties, of it's a character formation and learning to no longer trust on yourself, but have a God dependence.

And it's that process of integrity being developed within you.

That's that inner life growth.

Stage three is ministry maturity, and stage two and three really can have overlaps on this, but think about 20s and 30s of ministry maturity.

This is exactly what we're talking about right now.

You're discovering your spiritual gift.

You're going, like, maybe I have the gift of leadership.

I've never stepped out, but I always want to make change.

So I'm gonna step out and do that.

Or maybe I have the gift of teaching.

It's ministry maturity where you're starting to learn and discover your spiritual gifts and put them into practice.

Here's what's fascinating stage one, two, and three is less about what you produce and more about what God produces in you.

And we so often, especially in our driven Silicon Valley world, in our American mindset, is it's all about what I can accomplish.

And who you are becoming is of principal importance to God.

And these first stages, especially, has far do, far more to do with what God's doing in you than what he's doing through you.

Stage four, and honestly, I think this is probably where I'm at right now.

It's life maturity.

Uh, it really happens in your 40s, maybe early 50s here.

As you're beginning to see and go, like, okay, what I'm supposed to be doing, how to leverage my gifts, what I'm not supposed to be doing, which is just as important.

You have enough life behind you.

You know, I have teenagers, a senior in high school, I've led a church for a decade, some of those sort of things of like, okay, there's this life behind you that God is beginning to shape, where you're beginning to see those giftings and character come to fruition.

Stage five is convergence, where your ministry maturity, your life maturity begin to overlap, and you just see a season of fruitfulness.

Friends, historically, that convergence happens like in your 50s, 60s, and even 70s.

We have a young church.

What if it is God working in you right now, those who are young?

And you go, I'm in process with God.

Have your way in me, do whatever's necessary.

Because I want to serve you for a lifetime, not just a time in my life.

And friends, in our world where we often old is obsolete, and as you get older, especially in the work world, you almost get pushed out, don't you?

In the kingdom of God, you're more valuable than ever.

And we need you.

And it's been said, but it'll be said again, if you're not dead, that God's not done with you yet, and your best years aren't behind you, they're ahead of you.

Stage six is the afterglow, Dr.

Quentin says.

It's one where we really don't get a C all too often.

But it's that life well lived that then is in their 70s, 80s, 90s, that is able then to impart and impact the next generation, and they're the sages of our society of growing deeper.

Where are you at in life?

This is your growth phase.

Would you ask that?

Would you wrestle with that?

Begin to look at that area.

And finally, natural ability.

What am I naturally good at?

What am I naturally good at?

Notice I didn't say, what do you enjoy doing?

Those are different.

Some of you enjoy to sing.

You're not naturally good at it.

And somebody had to tell you.

I mean, isn't that the case of like just because we enjoy it doesn't make it naturally good, it doesn't make it wrong.

But all those like singing competitions online, eventually you see someone that believes with all their heart they're a great singer.

And their mama never told them the truth.

Honey.

Sing in the car and the shower.

But nowhere else.

But what are you naturally good at?

What are the things that come so easy you barely notice that it's something at all?

What are those things that come to you and you begin to go, hey, I enjoy this and I'm good at this?

It might be recruiting, it might be researching, it might be design and the arts, it might be writing or uh, you know, landscaping or composing something.

It might be teaching or counseling or managing.

There's so many things, but begin to look at what you're naturally good at.

See, God has supernaturally gifted you to belong the body of Christ and to build up His church.

Would you take time this week?

At the bottom of your notes is an application.

Take an hour this week.

Keep your notes and walk through this and begin to evaluate.

Okay, I want to process my design and discover and really think about who I am made to be.

Would you grab coffee or lunch with a friend, your spouse, a mentor, and begin to kick this around and talk with them?

Hey, I'm wrestling with my primary spiritual gift.

Ryan was talking about this.

I think it might be this.

Uh, what do you think?

Take time, lean in.

God has supernaturally gifted you to belong and to build up this church.

As we close, I'm going to invite the band up.

I just want to close.

I've been reading this book, They Found the Secret: 20 Transformed Lies That Reveal a Touch of Eternity.

It's been a great little book of people of old who've impacted the world.

And would you stand up with me?

I just want to read this over you a little bit as a prayer.

I was reading about Andrew Murray.

He was a famous South African um minister and missionary.

And in his book, The Secret of Adoration, he writes this.

And so breathe in.

Breathe out.

Take time.

Give God time to reveal himself to you.

Give yourself time to be silent and quiet before him.

Waiting to receive through the Spirit the assurance of his presence.

His power working in you.

Take time to read his word as in his presence.

That from it you may know what he asks of you and what he promises you.

Let the word create around you, create within you a holy atmosphere, a holy heavenly light, in which your soul will be refreshed and strengthened for your daily work.

So now we just want to take time recognizing the presence of the Spirit of God to be strengthened by his word.

How you've made them to be with meaning and purpose and significance.

Would you make us that kind of people and that kind of church?

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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