FEB 2 2016 | Built for God, Part 4: Calling All Shepherds

Sea Change Church · "Built for God, Part 4: Calling All Shepherds" · Adam Stadtmiller · February 2, 2016
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I mean, take your, take your Bible, turn them to Exodus chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3. I can't wait to get to church on Sunday. It's good. The enthusiasm meter between Carol and I is just through the roof. Get on that train. It's fun. Moses and the burning bush. I really wanted the spiritual gifts to come home. I wanted them to not just be a teaching, like we're doing arithmetic and math.

Well, if you have gifts A, B, and C equals, you know, D, on and on. But what I wanted to do is I want to make these giftings personal because spiritual gifts, and there's a lot of baggage with the term spiritual gifts, they became really popular in the 1980s, especially with a class that was happening up with John Wimber and Peter Wagner up in, at Fuller Seminary.

There was a bit of a little theological and also a manifested revival that happened up there in a class called MC501. Has anybody heard of that class? Anybody raise your hand? Anyone has not heard of that? Yeah, okay, one person. Okay, so it made a huge impact. It was very impactful. And so John Wimber was teaching a class, and he started talking about spiritual gifts and signs and wonders, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit started working in this class. And it was pretty powerful. If you can Google that, check it out.

But in the midst of that, they started talking about spiritual gifts. And I think spiritual gifts, while they can seem a bit, I guess, a bit rote when you think about it, are actually your opportunity to walk step and step with Jesus. It's your opportunity to, as I told junior highers back in the day when I was a junior high pastor, to put on a Jesus suit, to get to go out and manifest the kingdom of God on earth.

I mean, that's what you're, you get that. Imagine if you're taking dice and you're throwing dice on the ground. You've seen some of those old movies where they throw dice. In the same way, we cast, we cast our gifts out. And our gifts are an essence of who we are. Oftentimes, a spiritual gift is something that you already had, something that was innately inherent to you as an individual.

It's the way God made you. Sometimes spiritual gifts are just given to you separate from who you are. Perhaps you have a person who was very shy, and they never liked speaking to people, but then all of a sudden, God gives them a gift of evangelism. And they become incredible at being able to share the love of Christ with people, but they weren't built that way at first.

But God just gives that, and it's like an extra thing in their tool belt. Other times, you have people that perhaps, you know, they were very gregarious, and God takes that, and he gives them a teaching gift. And they were good at teaching and explaining. But then he gives another layer of spiritual helping, so to speak. Imagine Thanksgiving. Another helping, another portion to take what was already theirs and take it to the next level.

Now, I have found oftentimes, not always, is that when you were built for something, and then God puts another layer on top of that, you end up in some of the highest realms of that gifting. And I think giftings can be measured. There are people that have really strong giftings. I would say that I have a pastoral gifting, but not the same pastoral gifting that Pastor Jim has, or that Clem has.

That's two mentions in a row, Clem, in two weeks. So, you know, I would say that I have that pastoral gift, but not as strong as Pastor Jim. And it's one that I pray for on a regular basis. I really desire to be a really, I desire to be the best pastor that I can be. I want to be a really good shepherd. But I tend to have to strive at that gift, not strive, to work towards that.

And it's something I prayed for. It's something that God has given. So with that said, when you walk in your giftings, and you can ask for giftings, because as we saw a couple weeks ago, they're not static. You can ask God for more, or as you step out in things, to whom has been given little and they're faithful, what will be given? More will be given.

So if you're an evangelist, you start evangelizing. The scriptural principle is where you cast seeds, you will harvest. And so understanding what you're built for, and getting away from this word of purpose and calling, but just knowing what you're built for. And what God has given you, and then it allows you to take your life like loose change and throw it into a crowd of impoverished people.

Imagine if you did that with impoverished people. Imagine in one of these third world countries, and you take gold coins, and you throw them into the street. People are going to go after those. They're going to gobble them up. And in the same way, that's what you do when you get into your gifting. As the worship team led today, as they began to lead.

See, worship, there is a gift that it talks about in a couple spots in the Old Testament where worship is seen as a gift. And some people do put worship as a gift. But I would say that it's also more to do with leading. Are you able to lead people to a transcendent place? And so some of the best worship leaders have the ability not only to be great musicians, but to lead.

You see where I'm going. Let me say that your life is gold, and God wants you to throw and cast it out like coins into the world. So that people will be nourished and will experience Jesus in the giving of your gifts. We're going to be talking about five different categories of gifts. And then we're going to be going back to the book of Acts when we're done here.

Because I'm excited to see what happens to Paul and his buddies in the book of Acts. Turn to the back of your notes. We're going to list five categories of spiritual gifts. And we're going to be talking about the first one today. First one is the shepherding gifts. Shepherding gifts are the ones that lead to the care and direction of God's people.

They are administration. Apostle. We'll talk about that today. Teaching, leadership, pastor, shepherd. Two, the serving gifts. Serving gifts are those that allow us to pour our lives out for the giving of our time, talent, and treasure. Giving helps. Giving is one of those. Helps is one of those. Serving hospitality. Now, Adam Bogey, new to the congregation and his family, yesterday we had a pipe break.

I don't know if you saw the side of the building with all the mud on the side of the building and everything. Had a pipe break. And I thought, I need to go look at what's going on and kind of take care of that. And Dave Peterson and Adam called me and said, hey, we've got that. We're going to be there. They let me stay home on Saturday. And he came down at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday.

And Dave was here, as well as many other people in the church. And they just came and served. I mean, that's it. That's the serving gift. They showed up. They poured their lives out in that way. One of the best ways of evangelism. And I will say that all the gifts can lead towards people knowing Christ. Let me say that again. Every gift. There is no gift that does not act as a bridge to other people knowing who Jesus is in a salvific manner.

Salvific meaning that they spend eternity with him. I know the buzz on the street. And it's not a new buzz because it's been around for about 2,000 years. And it's a heresy that no one goes to hell. That no one can ever be separated from Christ. I believe that that is a heresy. And we see it today. But I believe that Jesus died on the cross for a reason.

Because there is a consequence. And we will be saved. We can get into that. But your gifts can be the thing in the bridge that lead people to Christ. The next would be the compassion gifts. Love these. I want more of these. This is something I've had to pray for that wasn't natural to my family dynamic. We had certain emotions that were not allowed in the family growing up.

Part of that had to do with the alcoholism that was in our family before my mom got sober. Courageously got sober in 1979. But empathy was not. We weren't allowed to have it. There was never tears. I don't think I ever saw my parents cry. Ever. So there was sadness. You just march on. I mean, do you understand what I mean? Are there certain emotions in your family that just weren't allowed?

Maybe joy. You have certain families that are just really stern or something. And so compassion is this beautiful gift. I love all the gifts. But I think compassion is one of the most beautiful. It's just compassion. Mother Teresa. Just beautiful. Compassion gifts. It says the compassion gifts are give concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others.

They are encouragement, healing, and mercy. The gifts of understanding. These are gifts that have a heavenly understanding or perspective to a past, current, or future happening. I like that. Basically, let's just destigmatize the gifts of understanding. It's just God wanting to talk to us. He's wanting to tell us what something meant, what something meant yesterday, what his perspective is on it today, and what it is perhaps in the future that he wants to share with us what's going on.

We'll talk about those. And then the gifts of salvation. Salvific gifts are those that aid in leading people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. These are faith, miracles, tongues, missions. There's 23 gifts listed here. That's what I've categorized. People, I've seen as many as 28. I've seen as low as nine, I think. You can decide, you know, because spiritual gifts, we're not going to, I don't think I'm going to divide the church over how many spiritual gifts there are.

And if one isn't for you, I wrote a book on spiritual gifts. And I said in the book, look, if one of these isn't for you, that's fine. That's totally cool. Let's just have unity. But you need to understand what other people think because we want to have unity in all things. So these are the gifts. Now back to Moses in chapter 3. Moses was a shepherd, a powerful shepherd.

And we were speaking about shepherds. I want to say this, the shepherding gift. Think about, I don't know if you've ever been to a country like Greece or Ireland. We were in Ireland and we were in Scotland last summer as a family. And we would see one shepherd with a couple under shepherds in the form of dogs running around and taking, you know, these, you know, 100, 200 sheep across the street.

Sometimes, have you ever been driving your car in Europe or something and the street gets completely blocked? And you ain't moving that car until that shepherd does his job. Shepherds move the sheep. Shepherds organize the sheep. Shepherds tend the sheep. If you want to read a great book about being a shepherd, it's called A Shepherd's Look at the 23rd Psalm.

When I say we are in dire need, especially at this church, for shepherds, we need more shepherds. You can see we have an influx of people. Let me assure you that more people are coming than we currently have the administrative and pastoral staff to care for. So we need shepherds. And at the end of this, what I'm hoping is that the shepherds in the group right now, as I speak and preach, that you identify yourself.

This is a time of self-identification. You say, hey, I feel like I want to be a shepherd. I care for people. The things that the pastor is speaking about, those are the things that are closest to my heart. If that is you, we want to give you an opportunity at the end of the service, Joe Brandy is going to be organizing the shepherds. Every week during this five-part category series that we're going to go through over the next five weeks, someone who has that gifting will be in the back and you can join their team.

So Joe Brandy, Joe, stand up real quick, would you, buddy? That's Joe B, Joe Brandy. Thank you. He's really good at calling people and helping people and shepherding them and organizing them. He's going to be in the back. So if you say that's me, you want to be on the shepherding team here, we have needs for shepherding young couples. We have all these young couples now.

We didn't have that a year and a half ago. Now we do. This week I was getting emails from Bev, hey, we've got to get that young couples thing together. I honestly, with all, we've got a pipe break, all these things, I just didn't have the time to do it. It's so important I couldn't do it. You know what we need? We need shepherds. We need under shepherds that can just work and make those things happen.

If you're a shepherd, listen to this. We see Moses in three, one of the greatest leaders of all time, but he started tending sheep, much like a great king of Israel who was David, just tending sheep. And we tend to learn the gifts that we need in the midst of the muck and the mire of life. If God has you being a shepherd right now, but you think you're called to be king, I would say dive into being a great shepherd.

Because everything they needed to know for leadership, they learned with the sheep. Verse 1. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. I love that. I don't think he knew he was there, but there he was. Sometimes when we just do what we're supposed to do, we end up standing at the foot of the mountain of God.

We say, do what you're built for. Just do it. If you're not doing it, do it. And you might end up at the mountain of God. There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. And Moses saw that through the bush, though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight.

Why doesn't the bush burn up? When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look. I love that. The Lord was watching. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look. He had an interest. He had a curiosity. Something plucked his soul. Something said, that might be God. Let me challenge you. When you're trying to follow God, which is very difficult, but at the same time very easy, because he tends to be in charge of the following and the leading and where he directs our path.

Psalm 16, Proverbs 16, both say the same thing. That our curiosity, just going and checking something out, that might be God. Or if you're driving by somewhere and you get this thought, hey, I want you to go in there. Ah, God doesn't speak to me that way. He doesn't talk that way. God, why would he talk to me? He's, you know, he's got, you know, Syrian refugees to deal with.

Why would he tell me to go into a coffee house? But maybe it's a little burning bush. Maybe there's a little burning bush in your life where the Lord's just like, how sensitive to my spirit that can they be? Not asking you to go OCD on God's will, which you, I've met people that tend to do that. Like every little thing of what did God say? What did he not say?

What did he say? But every so often, maybe this week, God will give you a little burning bush. Hey, say this, ask this person if you can pray for them, whatever it is, and go over. And it says, when the Lord saw it, because the Lord's eye is always upon you, but he tends to see, will they hear my voice? Will they obey my voice? And so this was with Moses.

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And I love Moses' answer because it's a great answer. And you see it in other places in the Bible. And Moses said, let's say it. Here I am. Here I am. That's it. That's all he's asking. That's all God's asking to start. It's all he's asking. He tends to lead us where we don't want to go.

That happened to Peter. That happened to Moses. But he says, here I am. What's that curious thing right now? Maybe it is. Some of you have become curious about being a leader in the high school group. And we've had interest in there. And those are answered prayers. And we're putting those prayers into the answered prayer basket in the back. There's a little something curious in their heart.

Like, what would it look like if I invested my life into, you know, young men or into young women and started to care for them? I have a friend here in the service today named Rondi who got an idea that she wanted to talk about identity and purpose and purity with young girls. And so she started a conference called the Invailing Conference. I think she had 300 to 500 girls, maybe even more, come to the first one.

And it was powerful. You know, how much do teenage girls need that today? Now she's developing a curriculum. I went and shot footage for that this week. And the Holy Spirit just descended in our time. First take. Sat down. Last time it took me forever. Sat down. The Holy Spirit just spoke about this idea we've been talking about, about not, you know, discounting yourselves.

And I said to those girls that are going to see this curriculum, don't take that red pen out and discount yourself. You know, somebody, Rondi saw that and she said, you know what, God, what is that over there? I think I'll go over to look. And she said, here I am. And there she is. Where are you going? What's that curious thing? I want to say, go to it.

Walk over to it. You might end up at the mountain of God. And that's what spiritual gifts do. They get you into the story. But you don't even have to have the gift. If you're interested in it, just go over there. You might find it on the way. Like what you're interested in, just go and show up. It's about relationship. It's about God caring for you.

So we see Moses. Moses is one of the Bible's greatest examples of a spiritual shepherd. But let's not forget this. First of all, Moses was a murderer. You guys know that? Moses killed an Egyptian. He was a murderer. He should not have been qualified to lead God's people out of Egypt and into the promised land. And we know that he did offend God and didn't end up in the promised land.

And many people say, they get so upset. Why didn't Moses end up in the promised land? Why didn't he end up there? Well, if you read a little bit further on the story, when Jesus goes up to the Mount of Transfiguration within the promised land, who's with him? He made it. He didn't make it on his own time schedule. And God tends to move us like that and to get us where we're going if we go in that right direction.

Moses wasn't qualified. Let me just assure you, you're not qualified. We are not qualified, no matter how gifted, to serve in the army of the Lord. But God is rising up an army nonetheless that is covered in the blood of Jesus, his son. And he's calling us to go out and to throw our lives like gold coins into an impoverished world. I want to say this world is hungry.

They might tell you that they're not hungry for it, but they are hungry for authentic compassion, authentic shepherding, authentic generosity. They're looking for it everywhere they go. Moses started by leading sheep. We've already hit that. Moses had a disability. He couldn't speak. He had a stutter. What's your disability? What's your thing? What's that thing?

Maybe you've dealt with it your whole life or it's an issue. Or maybe, you know, my wife in high school. It's funny because she's not shy. She's quiet, but she's not shy. And in high school, at San Clemente High School, she got voted most shy. Okay? What's so, here's the thing that's the most, and at first it didn't bother her, but now she looks back and she says, you know, it's a bit of a curse because I'm not shy.

What was so funny, she was on ASB and in drama. If you're the most shy, you're not going to get voted most shy because no one will know who you are, right? Right? It's a ridiculous, it's ridiculous. Just that we were having dinner and I came up with that. She says, no, you're right. You're right. I had a friend, I had a girlfriend, and we were at a party and she would get, she would hide behind the, there would be a palm tree.

And I looked over and he looked at her one day and he goes, what are you behind the tree for? We're at a party. She's hiding behind the tree. She was shy. She wouldn't have been voted that. But Carrie, it was this thing that she felt like it was spoken over her as a curse. And what she's done is begin to value her sensitivity. It began to value her quiet.

Moses did not want to do it. That's the other thing. He is trying to talk God out of, because God says to him, I'm going to send you to be a liberator of Israel. We are going to take them out of Egypt and you are going to be victorious. And he lays this thing out and he says, no, no, no. And he starts arguing with God to the point. And look, we can talk about this on another time, but it says God wants to kill him.

Like God wants to take him out. Like, I don't understand that. And I know because of the blood of Christ, it's a different model than where we are today. But that's what happened. He was getting really annoying to God. He said, I cannot help you. I said, Aaron, I said my friend. God's like, oh, pap. He's going to knock you out. Pardon your servant, Lord.

Please send someone else. I've been there. Probably if you chase your gifting, you're going to get to a point where you say send someone else. I've known many people, myself included, that have gotten to the place they wanted to go and then said, please, can you send in reinforcements? Send someone else. I know when I got here, the first year I was here, I was like, God, someone else, please?

Please? Please. Finally got to the place I wanted to be all my life and then realized I wanted to be here, but it was scary. Terrifying. Incredibly terrifying. Finally feel like I'm in the saddle now. But that first year of anything new, maybe you've done that as well. You've gotten to that place. Our marriage. Let's use that. It's a better example.

I want to be married. I want to be married. First year, I do not want to be married. Ultimately, Moses liberated people from bondage. That's the purpose of the gifts. That's the purpose of the gifts. To liberate people from bondage. Whether you're administrating, whatever you're doing, liberating people from bondage. Look at the first one. First is administration.

You might have that. If you think you have the gift of administration, raise your hand. All right. All right. Yeah. Good. Now, we have a camera that just took pictures of all that. The ability to manage, plan. I love these definitions. The ability to manage and plan. Well, we get that. I get that. Manage and plan, of course. Those are the administrators.

But why? And execute God's purposes upon the earth. We have a database here that my assistant, Jen Ryan, that oversees. I said, one of the things that we have on the staff is one of our mottos and values is innovation is everyone's job. Everyone on staff has to innovate. I mean, everyone is called to innovate. It can't just be all up to the pastor or, you know, the chief executive to figure things out.

And so she said, I found this database that is phenomenal. It's called Church App, and it has all these features and functions. But basically, it allows us to really care for you better, to know who you are, to know your face, to know what you're about. We can categorize who the shepherds are, which we're going to do. We can put people on tags.

If people sign up to be shepherds, we can start a shepherd's ministry. It'll send an email, on and on. Okay? But ultimately, even though it would look boring of like she's just doing data entry, she's not. She's executing the plans of God upon the earth. Administrators, what a great calling. And if you're an administrator, we need you. Carol needs you.

Jen needs you. We need all kinds of people to help gather people. Because the shepherd knows the condition of his flock. Scripture says that. And administration helps the shepherds. It's in the pastoring, but if you can get an email out or a call, whatever, and you get the information or the name, makes it to the shepherd, then the shepherd can care for the flock.

Administrators. Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, is a biblical example of this. And we see those. And you'll see all the different verses here. You guys can take this home and look up these yourself. And so Moses was overwhelmed. He couldn't do all the things that he was called to do. And he had, I think they said about six million people at one point he was leading.

And he was trying to judge every case. And so Jethro comes. He says, you need to put people in charge. And he gives this whole system, figures it out. And all of a sudden, Moses is released to do what he is called to do. I don't mind coming over here with a shovel and cleaning up the front of the church. I'll tell you what, I do not mind doing that.

It's actually something I enjoy serving like that. I enjoy working and doing things like that. I have to force myself not to do those things. It's not my job. It's just not my job. And if I'm going to do my job well, what I'm supposed to do and be within my gifting, you don't want me cleaning the side of the church. Now, right now, there's mud all over the side of the church.

We had a pipe blow up on Friday. And I got a call. And it's crazy. And you'll go look on the other side. Plus, you'll see the playground that we're putting in, the fence. And it's going to be awesome and new grass. And the first time ever in 100 years on this corner where the kids are going to have a safe place to play. Yay. Thank you for giving and all that.

But nonetheless, you don't want me, even though I'm willing to do it, cleaning the mud off the building. But there are people here with a service gift that are like, I can't wait to get there with my pressure hose. Like, I'm into that. Maybe that's you. Give us a call. I'm not a gifted administrator, but I like structure. So what about you? Do you have that gifting?

Next one would be this. It would be apostle. Apostle. The term apostle, Greek, means apostolos. It simply means a sent one. An apostle is a messenger or an ambassador. Now, many of you who come from certain denominations will never have heard of this gift before. But if you come from an African-American church or a charismatic church or a Pentecostal church, you're going to hear this word apostle a lot.

Because the word apostle has to do with this separate group of people who shepherd on a mega level. They are people that deal with cities and they have vision. Miles McPherson would be a, people would consider him an apostle. He works with the nations. He works in San Diego, does a ton of stuff bringing San Diego together. Billy Graham would be an apostle.

One of the things we need to be careful with, though, is because in the New Testament, the apostles, those 12 original men that hung out with Jesus, it was 13 with Matthias after Judas, we lost Judas. Those ones are in a different category than apostle today. And I think where we run in trouble, just to give a little biblical teaching here, where we get in trouble is when we elevate the apostle higher than the administrator.

Because I think that all the gifts are on a level playing field. And apostles need administrators and will not be able to do the work of an apostle, like we see in Acts chapter 7 with the waiting of tables with the deacons, unless they have the others. We need to be careful not to elevate apostles to this certain level where they have their own parking spot, where they're just treated a little bit different.

I mean, I just, I never want to be that guy. Sometimes, I want to be careful, but I just feel like the goal of the modern pastor is to get your church to the size where you don't need to pastor people anymore. Sneak out the back, never have to see them. We need shepherds and we need apostles on a macro level. But how do we maintain that availability?

Apostles are those that are called to cities. I will say that I have a gift of apostleship. I want to see La Jolla. I want to see San Diego. I want to see California. I want to see the United States really be changed for Jesus. But they also are on micro community levels. So let's say you're in PB and you're working with a school system in PB. I would say that would be an apostle.

Now, I'm not going to put you in the category of the apostles that were with Jesus. These guys had a spiritual street cred that God said, hey, they actually write scripture. They were creating the original doctrines of the church. Sometimes you'll see, like with Joseph Smith in Mormonism, saw himself as an apostle that came and actually changed things that some of the original apostles are added things to it.

And that's where I feel like we get out of line on occasion. We need to be careful in Protestant denominations as well not to do that. But that's what an apostle is. Do you feel called to change things on a macro level with communities? Maybe it be a school system. Maybe it be a club system. It could be an apostle. You could even be in business working throughout the United States in a high-end business and trying to change those businesses for the presence of Christ.

You can be a sent one as an apostle. Does that make sense? Now, a shepherd is different than an apostle, even though they're in the shepherding gifts, because a shepherd seems to work a little bit more on a smaller scale. It's a little bit more individual sheep shepherding as opposed to the apostle. If you think that you're interested in things on a macro level, that you might be called to that apostleship gift as an ambassador of Christ in that way, whether it be in the school system, whether it be in government, whatever it is, raise your hand.

Anyone? One, two, three. Yeah, and I would say that I haven't four. I've seen just a few. And by the way, it's not arrogant to raise your hand on these. It's just what you feel called to. There is a tendency to think, oh, I better not say that I'm a teacher because I don't want anybody to think I'm being arrogant. I mean, it's just understanding who we are and being who we are.

And I will say that then there's fewer numbers of apostles than there are shepherds. Let's keep going. Teaching. Teaching is spiritual gift of teaching is the ability to pass on knowledge and concepts to others in a way that they can easily grasp and understand. In the way they can easily grasp and understand. So you're teaching. You're sharing.

Have you ever had that teacher that just, I remember in fifth grade, Mr. Palmer was doing static electricity. He was one of my favorite teachers. He was a Christian, by the way. And he used to wear this yellow outfit. In the 1970s, he'd ride up a hill because he rode past my home on the way home. And I think it said, did it say, yeah, God loves you or something on the back of his backpack.

I remember, and I mean, we were going to Catholic church, but I really didn't have, I really wasn't pursuing that much as an elementary school student. But I remember he had this thing with a smiley face. You know, like in the 70s, lots of smiley faces. And like the Forrest Gump one. And it said, God loves you. And I remember in class one time, he took a balloon and he took it on his head.

And he messed up his hair and he rubbed the balloon on top of his head for static electricity. And he put it up on the wall and showed it. I mean, that was one of probably 20 different things that he did that I remember them all. I mean, how many things from fifth grade do you remember? But I have all these ones. Why? Because he was able to teach something in a way that I could grasp it.

And some people are really good at disciple teaching. One-on-one. I can teach you that way. But you get them up in front of a lot of people and it's just not their gig. They don't feel comfortable in that setting. They struggle in it. I would say that I probably enjoy teaching on a macro level more than like eight people around a table where we're going through a book.

I can do it, but I just, I just, I don't feel like I just get released. Does that make sense? Into that. So if you're a teacher or you've been a teacher and you enjoy teaching, you think that that might be your gift? Raise your hand. Right on. See, you have a lot of teachers. See, it's interesting if you look at the percentages of what God equips.

You always don't see a lot of apostles because they're work. You don't need, if you had 50 apostles in one city, how's that going to work? You know what I mean? You just have the, you know, these different layers. But teaching is super important. Let's keep moving. Leadership. This is the ability to discern God's direction. And I love, listen to this, with leadership.

Leadership. The ability to discern God's direction and captivate others into those purposes. By discerning God's direction, this is about as close as I ever get. I'm pretty sure I think maybe God might want me to do that. I mean, that's kind of where I live. You know what I mean? And then I really lean hard on Proverbs 16 where it says, you know, commit your lays unto the Lord.

And, you know, man makes his plans, but God does what? Directs his steps. If I commit my ways unto the Lord, it says in the scripture, he will cause them to succeed. I, you know, there's just different things. One of the things that happened this week is I was, I was, um, uh, working with the worship team and I really felt a tangible presence.

Like I haven't felt in a while. The Holy spirit. I was just by myself here in the office, come upon me. And I felt like I had a prophetic word about our church, meaning God just telling me in my heart, this is what I think you guys are going to do. And one of the things I felt like he said is he's given us incredibly talented musicians and worship leaders.

And that he wants us to write our own songs. Um, and he wants us to the entire congregation from the preschool children or whoever can write to write songs. And I've already, I've already run this by the worship leaders, by the way. So I'm not just throwing it on them without them knowing it first. We're going to have a song campaign. And I feel like God wants to bring songs that we begin to sing our own songs.

I love singing other people's songs that become anthems. But I believe that we're supposed to sing our own songs and that these songs will become healing for our congregation. And that this healing will go on to the far shores of the world. And that God wants us to take the songs that we sing and at least release them. We'll see what he does with them.

It came with this profound sense of like Moses with the burning bush. Like, I think there's a bush burning over there. I better go check that out. Now, let me just say I am incredibly, profoundly, strikingly, almost positively, maybe kind of sure that God told me to do that. I will guarantee you that I am pretty sure God told me to do that. Whenever I give people a word, usually, you know, I feel like God says something.

I shared something with Eric here today. I will leave that between him and I. But when I did, I said, you know, I believe God wants to say this to you. I like taking myself out of the equation. If it's a word from the Lord, I don't need to tell you it's a word from the Lord. I can't say I believe God or like that. But I don't have to do all this grandiose stuff to, like, prove it.

You ever had a word from the Lord? It hits. Like a two-by-four. Remember Walking Tall? I've never seen that in the 70s. I don't even remember it. But a guy had a big two-by-four. I feel like God has a big two-by-four. And if he wants to tell you something, he's going to tell you. The same thing here. That leadership, the ability to discern God's direction as best you can.

And captivate others into those purposes. It's funny. I met with a couple on Friday night. And they said, I just, basically I'm paraphrasing because they're here, so I'll probably mess it up. But they said, I love the story, basically. I love the story that's happening at this church. We love what's happening. I love the diversity. Never seen this kind of diversity in the church.

Whether it be age or different types of people or different, you know, whatever it would be. But they just, they're captivated by the story. And they said, the reason we kept coming and we've continued to come is basically because they're captivated by the message and the story. And I believe that storytelling is, like William Shearer said in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, is the most powerful tool on earth to motivate nations.

You look at Hitler. Hitler told a story. Unfortunately, it was a lie. But it was a propaganda story. And he had the ability to have a brown shirt SS, you know, soldier in 1931 progress that story from them to the point in 1941 that house moms with little children that make bread during the day were standing next to the SS soldier with their arm in the air yelling, Heil Hitler, we must kill the Jews.

Story. The gospel is what? Story. It's the good news and it's the true news. And so what we're doing here, everything I do, that's why teaching spiritual gifts is difficult for me. The last few weeks it's been like pulling teeth for me because it's like math. And I felt like the Lord said, turn it back into story. Go find a shepherd. Find Moses. I want to tell a story.

You're Moses. You're the new, you know, we're the new Moses. We're the new Jesus. We're called to be that, to shepherd these people. To lead people in and to captivate them for God's purposes. One of the ways you can know God's purposes is when you start seeing multiple people that you respect beginning to join in to those purposes. Having an elder board that says, hey, I believe in that.

Like I'll say something like, I felt like God said, this is a little church on a corner. And that came in my heart. It just showed up one day. We're a little church on the corner. And when, as I begin to share that story, people have begun to say, yes, yes, yes. It's just a, it's just a story, but it talks about who we are. Not too big for ourselves, but casting a huge stone and wanting to change the world.

Turn to the last one, pastors and shepherds. We'll have the worship band get ready here in a second. Not quite yet. Pastors and shepherds. We're in deep need of pastors and shepherds at this church, especially. Pastors nurture and care and guide people towards progressive spiritual maturity, becoming like Christ. One of the things I love about shepherds is they spend time with the flock.

A lot of time in silence. There's this need to like speak every healing. Like just sitting there on a, sitting there on a, on a hill in God's presence, just letting them graze. Just be silent. Just be a presence. A powerful presence. Shepherds spend time. This is what I think is interesting about shepherds though. Shepherds are not, I know this sounds a little bit funky, but shepherds were not called to be pet owners.

But they do have time for individual sheep. Now I've seen different shepherds before where they have a few, you know, pet, you know, people in their congregation. They get all the attention. They have all the influence and they get all the care. And I feel like sometimes as a shepherd making a decision that's good for the flock, but might be difficult for the sheep is hard to do.

And if you're a shepherd and you don't have the ability to make a difficult decision for one or two or three individual sheep for the sake of the flock, you won't lead far. And knowing what is the healthiest thing for the flock. That's the scary part for a shepherd. Will I take them to the other side of the desert? Moses led them into a desert, it says here.

A desert. That could be a dry and waterless place. A place with no water. Who knows what it was like at the time. Moses is leading these people. I want to say we need shepherds. If God is saying to you that you are a shepherd, if you're not already shepherding somewhere outside of here, we need shepherds here. We need shepherds to continue to care and love God's people.

But have the ability to be concise. You know, when a wolf comes, shepherd better be concise. You see, shepherds isn't, you know, you think of the shepherd, the classic pastoral shepherd model. You're just hanging out for coffee, got your arm around each other, listening to all my problems, praying with me, reading the scripture and encouraging me.

That's all part of shepherding. But do you have the ability, when a wolf comes, to take that wolf out? Or to, as Jesus says, he does what for the sheep? Lays down his life. You see, when you get into being a shepherd, it's a high calling. And if God has called you, and some of you have been shepherds, you're teachers in schools, and there's been a child that's coming out of an abused background, and God is saying, I want you to lay down your life for that sheep.

We want to have a congregation of shepherds here that are willing to die, but at the same time are willing to stand up. That's when you start getting a powerful shepherd. That's how we encourage each other. So my desire here for this church is that with the shepherds, that we begin to gather together now the shepherds of this church. If you feel that you have a shepherding gift, whether it be a high school leader, junior high leader, in the children's ministry, administrate, come and help people organize for callings, to run a Bible study, to care for others, that they become like Christ.

If you want to be on that shepherd team, after the service, Joe is going to be backstage, or back at the connection corner. Just put your name on a list. Maybe it's that burning bush. Maybe you're just willing to say, here I am. And who knows where God will lead. Let's have the worship team come forward. Let's stand if you would. Jesus shepherds, shepherds.

Father, you shepherd us so well. You care for us so well. You're such a good God. You're so kind and loving, worthy of all praise. Father God, I pray that you would rise up an army of shepherds to protect this flock, to lead this flock to other parts of the world, to bandage their wounds, and to bless them in the name of Jesus. And God, we just bless you in Jesus' name.

Amen.