GIFTED // The EQUIPPING gifts (part one) // Pastor Richie Fike

Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to

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Good morning, everybody. It's our first Broncos Sunday, and we

know who the real Christians are, don't we? That's right.

Come on. Welcome to church. Glad to see you guys here. Hey,

I showed up after my Tigers got embarrassed last night

on national television. I'm still here. I love Jesus. Come on,

it's good to see y'all this morning. Welcome to the

Movement Church. We're in a series called Gifted, where we

are talking about your spiritual gifts. Why are they there?

What are they for? And we have talked a lot

about this. We've only got two more weeks of this,

this week and next week. And last week at the

end of the service, I told you that Paul sort

of prioritized one of the spiritual gifts above them all,

and that was prophecy. He talked about The value of

prophecy and the reason why is because it builds up

the church. I want you to hold on to that

thought because we're going to get to prophecy in a

little bit. Our core text in this series have been

basically 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 and Romans 12, 1

through 8. But today we're going to expand and look

at spiritual gifts through a little bit of a different lens.

There's this fascinating chapter of the Bible called Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And Ephesians 4 gives us just a different spin on

the idea of spiritual gifts. Remember our construct as we

talk about these gifts is that God is the one

who chooses your gift. None of us get to say,

I want to have that gift. God is the one

who chooses. Everybody gets a gift. By the way, some

of you, you'll find out next week that you may

have more than one spiritual gift, more than one way

that the Lord manifests himself through you. Your gift is

not for you and you are needed and you are needy.

And that is the value of these spiritual gifts. So

with all that in mind, I want us to read

Ephesians chapter four, starting at verse seven. So if you've

got a Bible, open it up. If you've got a device,

fire it up. If you've got eyeballs, just look at

the screen. Here we go. It says this, now grace

was given to each one of us according to the

measure of Christ's gift. So right off the bat, what

we're seeing here is these spiritual gifts that he's going

to describe are gifts directly from Jesus. He says this,

for it says, when he ascended on high, he took

the captives captive, and he gave gifts to people. What

were those gifts? Look at verse 11. And he himself, Jesus,

gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to

build up the body of Christ until we all reach

unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son,

growing into maturity with a stature measured, not by what

we think mature is, but by Christ's fullness. Verse 14,

then we will no longer be little children tossed by

the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching,

by human cunning with cleverness and the techniques of deceit.

So what I want you to see as we talk

today is Paul's making a really fascinating distinction as he

talked about these gifts that are given to and through

the church. Earlier, as we talk about gifts, we talk

about discernment or faith or mercy or hospitality. These are

ways that when we see you operate in your gifts,

it helps us to see God manifest through your life.

But here, what Paul's telling us Is that these people,

these five people, apostles, pastors, the whole APAS, we're going

to talk about that. These people are the gifts that

God gives. We've learned that this is what spiritual gifts

are about. It's when who you are yields to whose

you are. Then you help the rest of us to

see God. And what Paul's saying is that these people,

these people help us to see God. Serving God. In

these ministries, they are themselves from the Lord. He says

there are apostles, there are prophets, there are evangelists, there

are shepherds, and there are teachers. And these people were

sent from God to the church as a gift. You're welcome.

All right. So actually, I didn't send me. God sent me.

So tell him you're welcome. Or send your complaints up

to him if you'd like. But look at it again.

He says he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets,

some evangelists, and all of these people, they have a

job to do. What I will be held accountable for

in heaven as your pastor is how well I lived

out verse 12 in this teaching. Here's a job, to

equip the saints for the work. Everybody say work. For

the work of ministry. How many of you know that

ministry is work? Do you know that? for the work

of ministry to build up the body of Christ. These people,

these apests, if you will, these folks are gifts to

the church and they have a job to do and

they will be held accountable for it. They won't be evaluated.

I won't be evaluated for my skillset, for my personality,

for my winsomeness. I will be evaluated and all of

these people will be evaluated by what we produce. It

says that we're supposed to produce a church community that's

growing in unity, knowledge, maturity, discernment, and interdependence. Until when?

Until we reach the measure of Christ's fullness. How many

of you know we haven't gotten there yet? Do you

know that? We're not there yet. I want to tell

you something, and it might freak you out. There are

people in the room right now that are in this category.

People that maybe you have never embraced the title or

the concept or the idea that you are a pastor,

an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a teacher. There are

people in the room that this is your gift. Tell

the person next to you, he must be talking about

you because he's not talking about me. Come on. I

really might be talking about you, though. This, what you're

going to hear today, really might be about you. But listen,

whoever you are today as we discuss these gifts and

these people, this passage has something to say to you.

Some of us need to take responsibility for equipping others.

You've been sitting on the bench for too long, and

the church needs you to step up. But all of

us need to be equipped. Amen? All of us need

to be equipped. So with all that said, we're going

to just cover three of these today, and we're going

to cover the last two next week. And just for fun,

I'll tell you, next week we're going to kind of

have kind of a workshop together where you will be

able to assess your own spiritual gifts. And you'll be

at tables and you'll be able to kind of talk

about it. You'll take a little test. It'll be fabulous.

You'll really enjoy next week. So make sure you come

for that. But this week we're just going to cover

the first three of these eight paths. So let's talk

about apostles and apostleship. Apostles and apostleship. Anybody here ever

met an apostle? Anybody here met somebody that called themselves, hi,

I'm the apostle Richie Fike. Anybody ever had that before, right?

Like it's a little weird. And just, I want to

say to you that there's kind of two categories to

this word. There's kind of capital A apostle, and then

there's kind of lowercase a apostle. Capital A apostleship is

about this, the apostolic age, which is basically the whole

first generation of Christianity. The leaders of that movement are

known as the apostles, capital A apostles. Why? Because they

were formative. They were helping to shape doctrine and they

were helping to discipline the church. They were helping to

put up guardrails and to really articulate what they had

learned from Jesus. And specifically, 12 of them, the first apostles,

were picked and appointed by Jesus himself. You know the story, right,

of the gospels. These young guys, they're not accredited, they're

not famous, They don't have any, you know, pedigree. And

Jesus says, you, you're going to be with me and

I'm going to make you an apostle. And it was

pretty amazing, pretty radical to think about. One of the apostles, Judas,

of course, betrays Jesus and then he kills himself. And

so then the guys get together and they cast lots

based on some of the guys that had been with them,

with Jesus the whole time. And they pick a guy

named Matthias. And those 12 guys are were the eyewitnesses

to the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And they're

commemorated in the book of Revelation. This is so cool.

At the end of all of creation in Revelation, we

read this. The city wall, this new city, this new Jerusalem,

had 12 foundations. And the 12 names of the 12,

this really should be a capital A, apostles of the Lamb,

were on the foundations. So at the end of it all,

When we're all looking at Jesus, there's this moment where

these guys who were crucially formative for our faith and

our belief system will be commemorated. It's really cool. By

the way, Paul fits into this, the apostle Paul, and

he makes sure to tell us that he fits into this.

He says in 1 Corinthians 9, he had seen the

risen Jesus. He says, am I not an apostle? Have

I not seen Jesus, our Lord? And then he says

in Galatians 1, when he introduces himself, Paul an apostle,

not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ

and God the Father. He had personally been appointed by

Jesus to be an apostle. So he fits into that.

Let's talk about this word, apostle. I'm not big on,

in the Greek it means this, but what's fascinating is

Jesus took a word that nobody else was using at

the time. There were rabbis and there were disciples, but

what is an apostle? Where did he get this? It's

a Greek word and it basically means a commissioned representative,

a person who was commissioned by someone else to bring

a message, to deliver a message, to carry out somebody

else's business. This is what an apostle is. And so

whoever sent the person carried a weight of responsibility, both

to the person that sent him and to the message

or the mission that he was on. And so that's

what an apostle is. Some would argue that apostleship ended

after the first generation of Christianity. But the Bible tells

us that there were all sorts of folks that were

still declared apostles all throughout the New Testament. Biblical apostleship continued.

Like for example, Barnabas was an apostle. He's a second generation. James,

the brother of Jesus, was an apostle. And then there's

multiple other apostles all throughout the New Testament. So here's

a way to think about it. There were a finite

amount of capital A Apostles. personally appointed by Jesus. And

the Holy Spirit continues to manifest himself through the apostolic gift.

And there are people, maybe even in this room, there

are people gifted for apostleship until the church reaches full maturity. Okay.

And so how do you recognize a little a apostle?

How do you recognize it in yourself? Let me tell

you about apostles. Apostles are pioneers. They lay the groundwork

for meaningful ministry that doesn't yet exist. You might see

an empty field and they see a movement of God.

They are starters. They are initiators. They are entrepreneurial by nature.

They raise up leaders. They build systems and structures for multiplication.

Apostles persevere through costly, unglamorous service. They possess a keen

sense of For cross-cultural ministry, these people are natural-born anthropologists,

students of culture and students of climate, students of history.

They love to see Christians unified for the sake of

the gospel, the advancement of the gospel, not just the

understanding of it, but the advancement of the gospel. They

demonstrate a passion to launch initiatives and to prepare the

leaders of those initiatives for long-term impact. And I love this.

Apostles love pastoring pastors. Think about Paul and Timothy, Paul

and Titus. Everywhere Paul went, he would raise up a church,

raise up leaders, and then bless them to lead on

their own. Paul was an apostle. And apostles love pastoring pastors,

leading leaders, shepherding shepherds. They have uncommonly deep compassion for

ministry leaders and for their families. A pastor, my job

is to look out for the flock. But who's going

to look out for me? Apostles love to look out

for pastors. What about Jesus? What about the Savior? Where

do we see Jesus in all this? Listen to what

Hebrews says. This is really cool. Hebrews 3.1 says, Therefore,

holy brothers and sisters who share in a heavenly calling,

consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession.

Jesus was absolutely and is absolutely an apostle. He was

sent to commissioned by God the Father to launch the

greatest movement that the world has ever seen, the kingdom

of God. He says, I will build my church. Jesus

plants his church. He says, I will build my church.

He's the cornerstone to the church. He is the apostle. Amen?

Jesus is the apostle. Okay, well, that's all the positives.

What's the negatives of an apostle? What's the shadow side

of an apostle? Well, as you read through the New Testament,

You will find all throughout Paul's writings warnings about false apostles.

False apostles. You've got to remember, anything that God creates,

the enemy imitates. Anything God initiates, the enemy imitates. And

then he distorts it to make it serve his purposes.

False prophets do that. False prophets contradict the word of God.

They add to it or they take away from it.

And that's a no-no. We're not supposed to do that.

In fact, in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul really goes hard

on some false apostles. He says that they're preaching a

different Jesus, a different gospel, and they're operating from a

different spirit. He's saying that they're imitators and that God

hasn't initiated their movement. Okay, that's one. Here's the other one.

What do we know about self-starters and entrepreneurial people? Sometimes,

risk is good, that's a good one, but sometimes they

can be a little wayward. Because once they start something,

they're like, okay, what's next? Right? And so if you

have an apostle spirit, a self-starter spirit, a make-something-from-nothing spirit,

once you've made the something from nothing, you're ready to

make something else. And so people can feel that about you.

They can feel that you're present, but you're not present.

You know, that you're here, but you're not really here.

That's what happens in the heart of some apostles. This

is why apostles make for really bad pastors. Because pastors

are supposed to stick with their people. They're supposed to

stay as permanent as possible. Apostles are like, I'm going

to start this, raise up a pastor, and deuce out

of here. That's the idea. Now, I've known two really

strong leaders that I would put in the category of apostle.

And both of these guys have a relationship with me

and a relationship with the movement church. Some of you

know Alan Briggs. Some of you know Brian Poppy. Both

of these guys have played a part in the movement church,

and they've played a major part in Richie Fike. These

guys have been apostles to me, for me, in my life.

They are both really, really good. You know what they're

good at? They're good at getting down to my eyeline,

you know, and then helping lift my head to see

above the fray. They're helping me to see the forest

for the trees. They help me to prioritize my family.

They help me to make sense of the weight that's

upon me as a pastor. These are good And if

you don't know him, you should get to know him.

Both of them will be here in the next year

preaching on a Sunday. So make sure you don't miss

those Sundays. If you're an apostle, where can you serve?

Can I tell you something? If you have this gift

and you feel like everything that I have just said,

I'm talking about you. Can I just tell you selfishly?

I need you in my life. I need you to

help me see clearly. I need you to help me prioritize.

I need you to help me care for the people

I'm responsible for really well. If this is your gift,

can I just say selfishly, maybe nobody else here does,

but I desperately need you. Pastors need apostles in their lives. Apostles,

your mission is clear. Equip the saints for the work

of ministry and build up the body of Christ. That's

how you'll be evaluated. Your gift is not for you.

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

don't keep it for me, jerk, okay? I need you

if you have it, all right? Let's talk about this

next category, Paul's favorite category. Prophets and prophecy. Prophets and prophecy.

Anybody ever had a prophetic experience? Anybody here, show of hands?

You've had someone speak something in your life, and maybe

they spoke a prophecy that came true later in your life.

Anybody here? I'll tell you about a story of mine

in a little bit. But let's talk about these prophets.

First of all, you have these Old Testament prophets. And

they have a really unique distinction, again, kind of an

apostolic distinction. And here's why. Like a mailman who does

not write or edit the mail, but collects and delivers it,

the prophetic calling combines two ministries. First, prophets received specific

revelation directly from God. Second, They spoke that revealed word

to people with the expectation, this is crucial, the expectation

of an obedient response to God. Hey, in the Old Testament,

these guys were willing to say with no ego, with

no pride, thus saith the Lord. Why? Because he spoke

directly to them. They had the fiber link Wi-Fi. I mean,

they were connected directly to the mouth, to the sound

of God's voice. And they heard it. and they spoke it.

And they would say, thus saith the Lord, so that

you wouldn't get mad at them for saying what the

Lord needed to say. This isn't my opinion. This isn't

what I think about you. This is what he thinks

and told me to tell you about you. And in

all of that process, people are writing these things down,

and it's becoming the Bible. We're getting to know the

heart and the character of God through these prophets. Now, today,

we experience prophecy in the application of biblical text in

specific context. Why? Because the canon of scripture is closed.

If someone walks up to you and says, I've got

a new book of the Bible. No, you don't. You

do not have a what he felt was important to say.

We know everything we need to know about God's heart,

about his character, about who he is, what he's like.

We know everything that we need to know from the Bible.

Is there more about God that we don't know? Absolutely.

Could we contain everything about who God is in a Bible?

Absolutely not. That's how infinite he is. But we know

everything we need to know and the canon is closed.

And so now prophecy happens through the application of biblical

text in specific context. Basically what I mean is this,

taking the timeless word of God and applying it in

a timely way. I experience this all the time. Like

right now in our move groups, we're reading through Leviticus.

I mean, just sexy reading, just really, really exciting, like fantastic.

Like I can't wait to open my Bible to Leviticus

chapter eight. You know what I mean? It's that kind

of world. You're with me? Anybody excited about the Bible?

Just me? Okay. Anyway, but what I find is I'm

reading this text and I go, whew, okay, I did it.

I ate my vegetables, you know. And then at lunch,

I'm sitting with someone and out of nowhere, that thing

I read that morning perfectly applies to the conversation I'm

having with them. Anybody ever had this experience? That's what

the Bible can do. That's how that gift expresses itself.

And that's what's amazing about the word of God. We

also experience special revelation regarding the future. Do you know

that God knows and rules the future? Do you know

that God knows and rules your future? And what's amazing

is that occasionally the God who knows and rules the

future will reveal it to his people to prepare us

for what's coming. Every now and then, the Lord will say, hey,

I just want to share something. Here's what's coming your way.

And he does it through prophets. These folks bring a

lot to the table. In 1 Corinthians 14, this is

what Paul says. He says, on the other hand, the

person who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement,

and consolation. I think these are incredible barriers for us

to think about prophecy through. These are guard posts. If

a prophecy doesn't strengthen, encourage, or console you, then it

probably isn't a prophecy. This is powerful to think about.

People with a prophetic gifting quickly identify compromise, sin, and error.

They have this innate in-tuneness to the disgust that God

feels about our sin. We can be kind of inured

to it. We can get used to the sin of

our lives. Prophetic people can smell it like coming from

a mile away. And it's powerful because they haven't become

desensitized to sin. Their instinct is to move towards immediate

change and action for Christ. They tend to be bold,

sensitive to sin, and place a high value on biblical

behavior and telling the truth no matter the cost. Do

you know anybody like this? Like, I'm going to tell

you the truth no matter how much you like it

or don't like it, right? That's a prophet. These people

say what needs to be said no matter what. They

abhor deception. They love truth, and they hate sin. You

need someone like this in your life. to help you

see what's going on in your life. Prophets feel deep

urgency every day of their life. It matters. Everything matters

because God has spoken. Powerful. What about Jesus? Was Jesus

a prophet? Of course he was. Jesus absolutely prophesied. We're still,

by the way, expecting some of the things that he

prophesied to come to pass. By the way, Jesus was

the fulfillment of hundreds of of messianic prophecies it talked

about this unique man who would do all of these

unique things and how is it all going to fit

together and then jesus showed us powerful jesus is the

fulfillment of prophecy what's the shadow side of a prophet

well let's talk about it first of all if you

know a prophet who has this deep sense of urgency

and sin is really gross to them sometimes they can

say things that are a little bit on the spectrum

you feel me They can say things that you go, whoa,

can you warn me before you go there this morning

at coffee, right? So prophets, don't just be truthful. Include

some love and some grace. We need some love and

some grace. Like, for example, when your wife, husbands ask you,

how do I look in this? That is a moment

where your prophecy will be tested. Are you going to

just bring nothing but truth? Or is there going to

be some love and some grace? Wise husbands have learned

about love and grace over the years. Now, by the way,

truth matters because if you show up at the party

and your wife looks bad and it's your fault because

you didn't tell her, you're going to get a mouthful

on the way home, right? And so we've got to

speak the truth, but we've got to do it in

love and in grace. Here's another one. Prophets can have

a very short fuse when it comes to obedience. Is

this you? Do you get upset when you notice that

people aren't obeying God? God said to do it. Why

aren't you doing it? It's clear. Look, it's right here

in the Bible. It says don't, and you said do.

You're wrong, right? This kind of short fuse attitude makes

for a tough relationship sometimes. Of course, the worst shadow

side is the idea of a false prophet. False prophets

are all throughout the Bible. People that are speaking on

behalf of God against his will. against his heart, against

his desires. And it's, you know, last week I told

you about the guy that used social media to sort

of fish for information so that he could fool a

bunch of people that he had a prophetic gift. He

is not the first and he won't be the last

to abuse God's people with this prophetic fakeness, this imitation

of prophecy. I want to give you this morning four

prophetic guardrails. I deeply believe in prophecy, deeply believe that

the Lord still speaks through people to people, 100%. But

how do you know? How do you know it wasn't

just bad pizza, right? How do you know that this

guy just is like, you know, he came off the

street and we don't know this guy at all? So

I'm going to give you four kind of guardrails for

how to measure when someone speaks to you and says,

I think the Lord's saying this. Here's the first one.

Measure the messenger or consider the source, right? measure the

messenger do they love the lord do they have the

fruit of the spirit do they obey god are they

themselves godly do they evoke the character of christ are

they living in open sin or in wanton rebellion like

when you measure the messenger it helps you to make

sense of the message that's not the only way here's

another one measure the message I just told you that

we're not supposed to add to or take away from

the Bible. So if someone tells you something that is

in direct contradiction to Holy Scripture, guess what? It ain't

from God. You with me? Amen? So does their message

coalesce with Scripture or does it contradict? And by the way,

if they say something's going to happen, does it come

to pass? Right? How many times can you hear someone

say this is going to happen before you and I

turn into George W. Bush? there's an old saying in

tennessee i know it's in texas probably in tennessee that

says fool me once shame on shame on you it

fooled me we can't get fooled again again i like

never ever get tired of that clip and i look

for ways to add it into a sermon can't get

fooled again i love it right it's so matter of

fact it's beautiful The point is, somebody says, this is

what the Lord says is going to happen, and it

doesn't happen. What are you going to think about the

next time the person says, this is what the Lord

says is going to happen? Can't get fooled again, right?

I mean, so measure the message. Here's number three. Measure

the motive. Measure the motive. Being a prophet can be profitable,

and it can make you popular. Do you know why?

Because if you come along and you say, hey, you

know that thing that God said he's against, well, guess what?

Let me tell you why God's okay with it now.

He's evolved. God has evolved. And now you get to

do whatever you want to do. Guess what that's going

to do? That's going to make you very profitable and

very powerful and very popular. False prophets speak on behalf

of God, against God, making them popular and profitable. What's

their motive for doing it? Probably the profit. Probably the popularity.

Probably the power that comes with it. And lastly, here's

our last little guardrail. Measure the metrics. I said earlier,

Paul said earlier, strengthening, encouraging, and consoling. Here it is

right here. So if someone speaks a word to you,

they say, I think the Lord's speaking to me and

I'm supposed to tell you about it. And it doesn't

fit into these metrics. We're out of luck, right? That's not,

by the way, to say that when someone speaks a

harsh word or a hard word to you, that it

doesn't fit in that category. I'm not saying that every

message of prophecy needs to be, you're just awesome. God

wants to tell you that you're the best. Sometimes God

needs to encourage you. And sometimes a pat on the

back is just a few vertebrae removed from a kick

in the pants. And they're both encouragement. Come on, parents

of teenagers, right? Right? We got to encourage, get a job, right?

I want to encourage you. That's the idea. The Lord

has spoken to me through you. Anyway, God instructs us

to repent, for example. Repent. Does that sound encouraging? Hey, repent. Repent.

Turn away from your sin. That doesn't encourage me, Lord. Well,

can I encourage you? You're walking towards destruction. You're walking

towards sin. You're walking towards eternal separation. I want you

with me, repent. See how it's different? Not everything that

the Lord speaks is gonna sound flowery and beautiful. Sometimes

he does speak a hard word and we need to

receive it. I'll tell you my story. So when I

was 22 years old, Dana and I were leading worship

at this little church in Shreveport, Texas. And after it

was over, this lady came up to me and she

had tears in her eyes and she said, I don't

know what to tell you. The whole time that you

guys were leading worship, the Lord was speaking two words

to me, and I think I'm supposed to tell you

what they are. And I was like, oh, what is it?

And she said, I think the Lord said, go west.

And I was like, young man? Like, you want me

to listen to Michael W. Smith? Is that what the

Lord is saying? No, no, go west. Two weeks later,

we got invited to be interns at Grace Community Church

in Tyler, Texas, which was, this way is west for y'all, right?

which was west of Louisiana, right? And then two years

after that, we got called to work at a church

in Colorado Springs, which was west of that. So my

question is, was go west a prophetic word? All I

can tell you is I was going through a season

where I had more questions than answers. And I bet

when you were in your 20s, you can remember that

season where you're going, what is my true north? Where

am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to

be doing? And it meant so much to me that

the Lord was thinking about me, that he would speak

these two random words to this lady and say, go west.

I didn't really know what it meant. Like right now,

you want me to start walking west? Is that what

you mean? I don't think that's what it meant. I

think it just mean pay attention to the signs that

point you to the west. And it really encouraged, strengthened,

and consoled me in that season. That's a beautiful moment.

Let's talk about service. If you have this gift, and

there are people in this room who have this gift,

If you have this gift, the Lord is very likely

speaking to you because he wants to speak through you.

Pay attention to that. I would imagine that in the

early stages, I don't have this gift, but I would

imagine that in the early stages of learning how to

make sense of a prophetic gift, that it gets a

little clunky and weird, a little left-footed to try to

figure out, is that the Lord? Was that the Lord

speaking to me? Am I supposed to go say this

to this person? So here's what I would say. Start

out by praying, Lord, I'm feeling like you're saying this

thing to me that I'm supposed to go say to

her or to him. This feels weird. I don't know

what to do. So start by praying and pray with people.

Get close enough to know what they're carrying. Listen to

their life. There may be someone sitting right next to

you that needs to hear from the Lord through you.

That's what this gift is about. And when you do,

please walk up to them and say something humble like this.

I sense the Lord. may be bringing this to mind.

Will you help me discern it? Please do not walk

up to them and say, thus saith the Lord. That's

not it. You can and should be humble and bold. Amen?

Be willing to speak and be willing to be corrected.

Remember the three prophetic metrics, strengthening, encouraging, and consoling. The

Movement Church needs people who will help us to hear

and to take seriously and to respond to God's word faithfully.

And listen to me. What Paul is saying is that

if you have this gift, if you are this gift,

then your mission is clear. Your job is to equip

the saints for the work of the ministry and to

build up the body of Christ. Your gift is not

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

All right, last category. Some of my favorite people in

the world, and I bet a lot of you are

scared to death of these people. Evangelists and people who

have this gift of evangelism. Do you know anybody like this?

Someone who has the ability and desire to boldly and

clearly communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ so that non-Christians

can become Christians. It is binary for these people. They

have a laser focus. The job of my life is

to share the gospel with any and everybody I get

a chance to so that they can come to know

the grace of Jesus like I've come to know it.

These are beautiful, powerful people. Evangelists feel compassion for the

lost and seek to earnestly understand their questions and their

doubts so that they can provide a compelling answer. An

evangelist often prefers being with non-Christians in the culture rather

than hanging out with Christians in the church. Very often

evangelists aren't even at church because they want to bring

church to the lost. That's their attitude about it. They

know that most people, and this is true, I don't

know if you know this or not, most people who

don't know the Lord will likely never darken the door

of a church. They'll never walk through the doors of

the movement church. So they know that their responsibility is

to take what they experience in a place like this

and bring it to the world. They have this inherent

sense for evangelism. Evangelists love being around non-Christians. By the way,

some Christians don't. You know that, right? Some of you

are like, yeah, that's me. Some Christians don't like being

around non-Christians. Why? Because they cuss. Because they disagree with you.

Because they value things that you don't. And you go, oh,

I don't like this tension. I don't like what it

feels like. But listen, you can learn from evangelists because

they don't feel that tension. They are bringing who they

are to the party. Evangelists experience immense joy when they

witness conversion. We're going to have baptisms in two weeks

at our anniversary service uh this will be the evangelists

in the room this will be the highlight of their

year they will this is their super bowl they're going

to be so excited to hear these stories of these

people whose lives have been changed this is a big

day for them and so by the way if you're

getting baptized you're going to make an evangelist day congratulations

thank you for doing that um evangelists aren't just useful

for non-christians they're infectious for the rest of us that's

why they fit in this category Evangelists like helping other

Christians get bolder about sharing their faith. They've studied all

the popular arguments. They know the apologetics. They know why

Islamic people disagree. They know why atheists think that science rules.

They have all of these things figured out, and they

love to have this conversation. I remember Robert Michaels once

told me that he learned German just enough that he

could share the gospel. It's beautiful because he was living

in Germany. So he learned enough German to share the gospel.

That's an evangelist. That's an evangelist's heart. They're not afraid

of rejection. In fact, they kind of expect it. But

that's not going to stop them because they're on a mission.

And they can pivot most interactions into a conversation about salvation. Skillfully, artfully, instinctively.

You know that moment on the airplane? Do you know

the one I'm talking about? Where there's an opportunity to

either talk about Jesus or not. Say less. They are waiting.

They can't wait. They're chomping at the bit for that moment. Oh,

please let there be an opening. If there's not an opening,

I'll make an opening because I got to tell you

about Jesus, right? This is who these people are. They

cultivate a sensitivity to evangelical opportunity. People matter to these people.

You can see that they're a gift to us. So

what about Jesus? Was Jesus an evangelist? Come on. Jesus

was the evangelist. He was, you know, he came from

heaven to earth to seek and save the lost. In fact,

Jesus received criticism about his desire to hang out with

just the worst of the worst people, sinners, drunkards, gluttons,

tax collectors. Jesus loved hanging out with the people that

nobody else thought he should hang out with. He said

this in Matthew 9. He said, it is not those

who are well who need a doctor, but those who

are sick. Go and learn what this means. I desire

mercy and not sacrifice, for I didn't come to call

the righteous, but sinners. Jesus said, I'm not here for

the religious people. You guys are cool. Have fun. But

I came for the people that don't know the truth.

I came to share it with them. That's who Jesus was.

He built relationships first. And I love this. He leveraged

those relationships for kingdom purposes. Do you remember the story

of the woman who was caught in adultery? She's caught

in adultery. By the way, the man is nowhere to

be found, but she's caught in adultery, and she's paraded

in the town square in front of all these righteous

men who have stones in their hand, and they've decided

it's time for us to do what's right and to

stone this woman. Right, Jesus? And then Jesus has this

moment where he bends down and he starts, you know,

drawing in the sand, writing in the sand. Lots and

lots of preachers have done lots and lots of conjecture

about what he was writing. We don't know what he

was writing. Here's what we do know. He said this phrase,

let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

And then he scribbled. And I love that the Bible

says that from oldest to youngest, they began to leave.

The old people were like, I know what he's doing.

I'm all peace out. You can keep this stone. And

the young people, the prideful people that still felt self-righteous,

it took them a little while longer. But eventually, it's

just him and this woman who has been shamed in

the public square. And he's defended her. He's built relational

equity with her. He's built a connection with her. She

watched him defend her in front of all these men.

And she's not getting the punishment that the law says

she deserves because of him. Powerful moment. What does Jesus

say to her at the end of all this? He says,

go and sin no more. That's powerful. Grace and truth

at the same time. That's who evangelists are meant to be.

What's the shadow side? Here's the shadow side. Evangelists can

love non-Christians so much that they neglect the gathering of believers.

I meet a lot of people that are big on

evangelism and kind of small on church community. You know why?

And I hate to tell you this, but here's why.

Because they get around us and they realize that we're

not as passionate about reaching the lost as they are.

And they go, well, what's the point of being a

Christian if you're not going to be evangelical? What's the

point of following Jesus if If when you leave this place,

you're not going to tell people about them. I don't

think I want to be around these people. And there's

a certain degree in which that conviction that they hold

is right. And it's why they're needed in the church.

The shadow side is they get around us who haven't

reached full maturity yet in our faith. And we're not

bold like they are. We don't have this innate ability

to speak and to have the airplane conversation. We need

their help. And they go, you don't have it. I'm out.

That's the shadow side. Another shadow side is sometimes evangelical people, evangelists,

can be very bold, but not very careful with people's hearts.

We use this language here at the movement to describe

our attitude about evangelism, which is we want you to

earn the right to share the gospel by loving and

serving people well. Earn the right. You've heard it a

bunch of different ways, right? Um, I would rather see

a sermon than hear one any day. People don't care

how much you know until they know how much you care, right?

Always preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. You've

heard all of these phrases. It's the same sentiment. Sometimes

people won't hear the message of the gospel because of

the corruption of the messenger, the way that they do it.

A couple of years ago, Dana and I were in

San Diego and we happened to be there during Comic-Con.

You guys know about Comic-Con? Comic-Con is this nerd fest

where people show up, thousands of people show up to

dress as their favorite superhero and fantasize about what it

would be like if they had Wolverine's claws or whatever.

This is what they do. They get together and they party.

And we didn't know that it was Comic-Con. We were

just going to this restaurant and all of a sudden

there's like 400 Deadpools on the street. And I was like,

what is happening? And so we walked around and kind

of people watch I'm talking this is like prime if

you're a people watcher this was prime time people watching

like no she didn't like I mean it was that

kind of a thing so we're walking around and right

in the middle of it all where all of the

action was happening right in front of the biggest uh

hall that people would go to was this guy this

man right here and he was holding a sign and

he was holding a megaphone and he was screaming through

this megaphone angry screaming You're going to go to hell.

You're burning like bacon because you're a pagan. Like yelling

at these people. This generation is cursed. You're idol worshipers.

I mean, and like it was wild. I'm standing there

watching this guy just thinking, what's motivating him to yell

at these people like this? Well, right next to this

man was another person that had a sign that said,

free hugs. It was this guy. No, it wasn't. That's

a joke. She was holding a sign that said, free hugs.

I'm talking about like a foot away from this man

that's yelling through a megaphone. And so what do you

think I did? I walked up and got myself a

free hug. And I talked to her and I said, hey,

can I ask you a question? Are you standing here

with your sign because he's standing there with his megaphone?

And she said, you're effing right. She didn't say effing.

I was like, okay. I said, I just want to

tell you something. I mean, I don't know you. We've hugged,

but I don't know you. I said, most of what

he's saying is biblically true. But I got to tell you,

the tone and the attitude in which he's communicating it

doesn't reflect how I think the Lord thinks about you.

And it absolutely doesn't reflect the way I think about you.

God is for you. And so am I. And so

are his people. Like, God loves you. And the way

that he's articulating this, man, he's given us all kind

of a bad name. And she looked at me and

she just kind of said, I think I'd be willing

to listen to what you have to say if it

weren't for him. I thought, hmm, that's interesting. So then

I walked up to him. And if you know me,

you know I'm interested in the conversations. And I just

asked him a real simple question. I said, hey, can

I ask you, have you led anyone to salvation this week? Like,

is this thing that you're doing, is it working? Maybe

I'm wrong. Is it working? And he said, no. No,

no one has come to Christ confidently. I was like, hmm.

I said, well, can I give you a hug? He said, no.

I said, okay. I've heard enough. My point in saying

all that is, I would rather your evangelism to look

more like free hugs than an angry megaphone. And I

think that's the approach that Jesus took. He took the

approach of building relational equity with people so that he

could communicate the gospel. So let's interrogate this for a

moment because I think that we could live here and

earn the right and never get here sharing the gospel.

A lot of people do that. Well, I'm just earning

the right, earning the right, earning the right. Cool. But

when are you going to tell them about Jesus? You've

earned the right. Look for that moment to share the

gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus spent time with sinners for

the purpose of salvation. That's why he did it. It

wasn't just because he liked to hang out with drunk people.

He wanted them to know the love of God, the

truth of God. Earning the right isn't the point. The

gospel is. That's the point. Amen? You with me? So

be careful, evangelists, and all the rest of us too,

with people so that you can be bold with them

when the moment arrives. And it's going to arrive. I

just want to brag on one person in our church,

this young strapping lad named John Cressman. John, that's the

only picture I could find on the internet of you.

And I think it's magnificent. John was once the mayor

of Palmer Lake. And you may know this, that he

is one of the key founders of the movement church.

And John is an evangelist by heart, by nature. You

can't turn it off in him. When we used to

meet as a wisdom table and he was on our team,

we always asked two questions. Number one, where do you

see God at work? And number two, what progress have

you made with your one? That's our sort of internal

language to communicate that there is certainly a person in

your life that you have earned the right with, that

you are in relationship with, that you perceive is far

from God. So what progress have you made? What kind

of kingdom impact have you made to get towards that

conversation about Jesus? What progress have you made with your one?

And John refused to accept the premise of that question

because he would tell us, I've got like 10. What

do you mean one? And he would go on to

tell us about all the different people that he was

in relationship with that were far from God, that he

just believes that one day they're going to come back

to Christ and I'm going to have an opportunity to

share Jesus with them and let's pray. That's who John

Crestman is. His passion for the lost is infectious. It's inspiring.

It's urgent. So if you have this gift, where can

you serve? Some of your most important ministry happens where

you already spend your week. At work, in your neighborhood,

around your dinner table. Some of you are still trying

to lead your children to Christ. Keep going. Keep fighting

for it. But if you're an evangelist, I just would

tell you, man, get involved in the game and help

us to be better evangelists. But remember our passage. Evangelists

are given to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

Your job, evangelists, is not just to reach the lost,

but to help us figure out how to do it too.

You with me? Okay. So, That question, what progress have

you made with your one? That is a question that

all of us need to wrestle with on one level

or another. And evangelists can help us do that. Help

us to experience evangelism through your giftedness. Invite us. You

know what evangelists love to do? They love to invite

people that are far from God to their house and

cook them a meal and and hold them captive so

they can tell them about Jesus, right? That's what they

love to do. So invite us over to be a

part of that with you so we can watch how

you do it, so we can study you and learn

your ways. Evangelists, your mission is clear. Equip the saints

for the work of ministry and build up the body

of Christ. Your gift is not for you. It's for us.

Don't keep it to yourself. So there's this overarching, as

we close, this overarching big idea that the primary call

on our lives is to participate in what God's doing

on the earth, in his church, and in the places

that he's placed us. That's the big idea. And I'm

sure there are a few of you, I believe this,

that there are a few of you here in this

room that never were able to articulate how God wired

you until today. You're like, I think I'm a prophet.

I think I'm an evangelist, whatever it is. And I

bet you that there's a lot of you that go, yeah,

I don't think any of those three sound like me

at all, right? There's a few of you here that go, yep,

not it, no thanks. I get it. That's okay. We're

all gifted differently, but this passage is still for you

because some of us need to take responsibility for equipping

others and all of us need to be equipped, right?

Maybe you need someone to help you take the next

faithful step that you've been putting off. You need an

apostle to push you. Maybe you've been praying for your one.

You didn't have that language, but you know who that

person is. But you have no idea how to start

that conversation. Go ask John Crestman. Go ask Robert. They

will tell you, here's the next faithful step. You don't

have to possess somebody else's gift to benefit from it.

That's why God put us together. Okay, so next Sunday

we're going to cover pastors and teachers. And I didn't

save the best for last. That wasn't the point of it.

It's just the way it all worked out. And so

we're going to talk about what it is to be

a pastor, what it is to be a teacher, and

what that gift looks like, and basically what I am

responsible for as the pastor of this church. And then

We're going to spend some time talking about you and

you're going to have an opportunity to figure out, to

put words to what is it that, what is this

gift that God gave you? So don't miss next week

because your gift is not for you. You are needed

and you are needy and you are not to keep

your gift to yourself because you are gifted. Amen.

So what's God leading you to do next and how

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

and tell us how we can pray for you and

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

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, you

can text the amount you'd like to give to this number, 833-725-0132.

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

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

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

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

are we.