JAN 24 2016 | Built for Radical Faith, Part 3

Sea Change Church · "Built for Radical Faith, Part 3" · Adam Stadtmiller · January 24, 2016
Romans 12:3-8
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Phone, turn your phone to Romans 12, 3 through 8. We've been talking about spiritual gifts and started out taking it from a different angle, talking about getting to a place where you're ready to use your giftings, getting to a place where you're no longer discounting yourself based on what you think you can accomplish or should have accomplished at this point, but getting to a place where you're able to serve God in deep joy and peace from a place of congregational unity, if that makes sense, where we as a church come together able to change the four corners of the earth.

I deeply believe that God's calling for this neighborhood church is to change the four corners of the earth. There is no place that this church, that you as individuals, cannot impact for the kingdom of God. And what we want to see is where your spiritual geography, the place that you live, intersects with the kingdom of God. And when you live and you release the gifts of eternity, which are love, joy, hope, peace, worship, the word of God, these things are eternal commodities.

And when you take these things like a bucket of, you know, and you, you pour them out onto the corner, to the corner where you live, to the place where you work, to the places where you go, the establishments that you, you go and dwell and serve, or you buy your coffee or whatever it is, then the kingdom of God is made manifest on earth. That's it. That's the ticket, is to make the kingdom of God manifest on earth and to do it from the beginning of the corner of your heart.

And so as we've been reading through this in the body, today we're going to go a little bit more in depth into what spiritual gifts are and what they are not. We're going to be starting to kind of, kind of pulling them apart. People have said, well, you've been talking about spiritual gifts for two weeks, but you haven't talked about spiritual gifts.

Well, we were setting it up. We're going to get to it. If you have your Bibles, we're going to read, starting with verse three. Now we've been in this piece of scripture, portion of scripture, this pericope, as they would call it when I went to seminary, for this is the third week. Let's read with verse four. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function.

So in Christ, we, though many, form one body. So I like that right there. So it says, circle with verse five, so in Christ, we. It's really important when you think about church and how church works and how you become a part of it. In Christ, we. Christ is a blender for the body of Christ. Christ takes every individual and he puts it into this blender, like the ninja blender.

Just puts us in there and he mixes it all up into this beautiful fragrance. And that fragrance is you living, pouring your life out in the places you live, work, and dwell. Whether it be with surfers, whether it be with teachers, whether it be in the military, whether you're a real estate agent, you have the ability to plaster culture with the love and hope of Christ.

So it says, in Christ, we, though many, form one body and each member belongs to all the others. That's a powerful word. Each member belongs to all the others. Now, you've heard about that in marriage, that your body, you become one literally, physically, spiritually. You become one and we belong to each other. And the husband doesn't belong to himself, but he belongs to the wife and vice versa.

We see this. But this is the first time that scripture ever hit me in a way that spoke about more than just the marital covenant. But it says that we belong to one another. That there is a responsibility to one another in the way that we live our lives. What we do in public and what we do in secret. But there's also a communal blessing that happens with that.

That when we gather together, the blessing that is on your life is available to those that you unite with. Do you see that? Because we are one in Christ. Because all these blessings come, like it says in Ephesians 2, from the eternal riches of God. But that we take these things through the grace and the faith that God has given us and we release them.

And as we do, we edify and we build up one another. It says, verse 6, we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. We're going to talk about prophecy in the next couple weeks as we look about through the different gifts. Talk about what that means, what it meant then, what it means today.

There is a lot of controversy on that. There can be. I don't think there needs to be. And it says we do it in accordance with faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. I love this word then. Then is an action word here. It is saying if you have this thing, then do it. Using your gifts, doing what you are built for.

And that's where I've really been trying to land. I'm trying to get away from the curse of purpose. If you find your purpose, then you will be happy. You know, there's a sense of like, just find what your purpose is. What I found, I have found so many believers that feel like they're never going to find their purpose. They never feel like they can find the perfect imaginary center of God's will.

And they feel lost and in bondage. And I find that the word purpose, not that it's a bad word, but I just find that it has so much baggage these days to really shackle believers in guilt, in fear, in a sense of hopelessness. And what I've been saying is know what you're built for and just do what you're built for. And don't have to put it on a scale of value.

I don't know about you, but I tend to have this sense, like I've written, you know, I'm a writer. And I have this sense, and I get my little, every quarter, I get a little thing on how many books you've sold. And I just know that there's a number that when I, there's a certain number in my head, right? Like if I get to that number, all of a sudden I'm going to feel like, yes, okay, I've done it.

This book had value. You know what? I'm so far from that number, it's not even close. It's like, a few people read it, you know? But I find myself regularly saying like, oh God, what's, what's the, oh, it hasn't, and I, who made the number up? Me. God could be just going, working rampant miracles throughout the world, through the little thing that he encouraged me to scribble down on paper or write on a computer.

But unless it meets the imaginary number that I have set up, it is of no value. Matter of fact, I might not even sleep well at night because the thing that I think it should be, it has not reached that level yet. Does anybody else do that? You feel like you should be here, you should be doing this, as opposed to this. God has called me to write.

And when I write, I experience the joy and the pleasure of God. You've heard that statement about the runner, was it Eric Little? Eric Little. And he says, God has made me fast, I think he said. And when I run, I do what? I feel his pleasure. God doesn't always call you to win. You know, hashtag winning. We live in this society that says you have to win.

And usually winning is set up on the cultural's understanding of what winning means or what you understand it. And I've got to say that what God has built you for is not even on that grid. It's not even on that grid. God has a sense. And what if his purpose was just to bring you joy through writing because he just wanted to bless you? But yet you set up this idea that if I don't do this or if I don't have these sales or our mission doesn't go to this point or our church numbers don't go to that point, whatever, we all have it, right?

We all have our thing. Then we take that red pen out and we put a little price tag on ourselves and it says whatever number and we slash it down and we cut the price on ourselves and we devalue ourselves on a regular basis. You put yourself on discount. Do you do that? Put yourself on discount because you haven't got to that place. Oh my gosh, I'm 26.

I'm not married. You know what I mean? Like I'm 35, you know, and all of a sudden God never wants us to discount ourselves because of what we're built for. And so this word then is this action word. It says if you have something you love that you're built for, then do it. And I got to say that generally the gifts that you have will be something you enjoy doing.

That's their gifts. Rarely is an evangelist going to hate evangelism. Rarely is someone who teaches the word going to hate teaching the word. Rarely is someone who has a gift of hospitality not going to enjoy having people over at their home. You know, we have spiritual gifts tests now. We're going to be handing them out to you in the next few weeks.

You can check and if you haven't taken one for a while, you can find it out. They're a tool. I got to say that there's not one at the back of the Bible. Like Paul didn't make a spiritual gift test and like add it to the concordance in the back of the Bible. And now we all got to figure this out, okay? Because when you figure out your gifting, you're going to be able to be in the center of God's will.

When you're in the center of God's will, you'll find your purpose. When you find your purpose, you're happy. And you say, I've been around long enough. I'm only 46. I've been around long enough to see a lot of people find their purpose and be incredibly miserable. You see, it's not about your purpose. It's about the purpose. And God is the purpose.

And even in the scripture, it says he will work according to his will and his what? Purpose. To accomplish in you the things that he has foreordained. That's a paraphrase. It's God's purpose. Nothing can stop it. It's funny. This thing was like this surf thing that happened out. It's just God doing his thing. In 2004, I was in Australia and we were deciding we weren't going to stay and I was miserable.

It was this amazing thing and I wanted it to happen so bad and it wasn't happening. And I was discounting myself and maybe I didn't hear from God and yada, yada, yada. And I was in that dark place and now I got to go home and I don't have a job. We had $2,000 left in our bank account. We moved into a studio apartment that my mom owns. My daughter was living in the closet.

We had $2,000 and no health insurance. That's where I was in 2004. Dark. Wife did not like me as much then. Not because of that. But she said to me when we were in Australia and I put it in the book so it's common knowledge that God was, he took us there because he wanted to fix our marriage. Which I think he's done really well. And he took us there and she said to me, she says, this is great and everything, but I'm going to go home and I'm going to take Lily with me and if you want to come, you can come.

That's hardcore. And I had just started and the ministry was blowing up. We had the largest surf movie. We had 1,000 people come to a surf movie. We had 50 of them get saved at this. It was just amazing. Everything was, it was amazing. And my wife was saying, I want to go home. And you can join me if you want. And the next day I called the guy and I said, I'm going home.

I didn't fight for it. I didn't fight to stay. I didn't try to use my manipulation tools. There's a look that a woman can get in her eyes. I'm serious. And it looks dead. Like when they're fighting, it's good. Right? Like they're yelling, they're screaming. At least there's something happening. But when it goes blank, guys, change something. You're in trouble.

Use my favorite four-letter prayer, help. I was in the midst of that and then all of a sudden now I'm here. And God has taken everything I wanted to do there, but he did it in La Jolla. And I'm near my mom and we're not away from our grandparents. And I still love Australia. I can't wait to go back in May. And we've gone all the time. You see how he does stuff?

But back then I had this big red pen. I was just discounting myself. No. You're never going to be that. You're never going to be a leader. You're always going to be the associate pastor. You know what? I don't mind being a pastor. I could be the janitor at this church and be happy at this point. You know what? I never became happy as a pastor until I didn't have to be one anymore.

And so I didn't have to be a head pastor. I don't have to be an author. I mean, there's days where I'm like, gosh, I really want to sell, you know, more books and be, you know, and have that whole thing. But then I'm like, I don't need to do that. And when you get to that place, you can start being happy, being, living according to the purpose, the purpose, the purpose.

God's the purpose. So as we keep moving into this, doing what you're built for, what I will say is there's no spiritual gift test in the Bible, but find out what you'd like to do. Then do it. That's how they figured out spiritual gifts in the past. He said, if you're generous, if you like giving, give. If you like serving, figure out what you'd like to do and get it off the grid of Western culture, like valuing it and do it.

And if you're called to write, just write. If you're called to run, run. If you're called to teach, teach. You know, a lot of us, you know, in the pastoral game, if you're not the lead pastor or you're not the teaching pastor, it's like, oh man, I'm kind of low down on the totem pole. Got to move back up. Well, God would say it's, you know, stuff that.

Do what I've called and enjoy me in the midst of doing it. That is so difficult to do until you've broken a few limbs on, you know, on the obstacle course of purpose. And I just have no more. I just can't, I can't run that course anymore. I can't. But it's brought me so much more peace. So we see, let's just look here at what spiritual gifts are not.

Spiritual gifts are not rocket science. Okay? Yeah, we have some tests and there's some great tools. Let me tell you what your spiritual gifts are. It's what you enjoy doing. That's it. Find what you love to do and do it. It's not a ranking system of ecclesiastical or church importance. Although we make it that. There's certain things in the church that are valued more than others.

Let me say, Carol was not here this week. She has the flu. She prayed for her. She's had the flu. She's been sick for like nine or a long time. But she missed all week. So many processes fell apart this week because she wasn't here. I mean, I was running around. We're trying to make things happen. She is such an integral part of what we're doing in the office, gym, different people's gifts.

But I can't do, I ended up doing all these things. I wasn't able to do all these other things that I needed to do this week. Why? Because that part of the body went down. I say, every part is equal. When you get to the heaven, God isn't going to call up all the people. Hey, let's get all the guys that are on TV. Let's get them. Hey, everybody in heaven, just wait up.

We got Jesus. We'll applaud him in a moment. Dude, this guy's ratings were amazing. And this woman over here, you should have seen it. She just blew it up. She was on 27 channels, 105 cable channels. Let's just sing. That's not it. He doesn't care. There's a woman in Montana that's been there 30 years licking stamps in the church office that the angels of heaven are applauding right now.

Singing and dancing and applauding. And she's probably not worried about her purpose. Probably just enjoys doing it. You ever met anybody that just enjoys doing their life? Do your life. Live life. God wants you to have life in heaven. How is John 10, 10 says? Abundantly. With super abundance. How do you do that? You step into it. You be yourself in the midst of it.

Maybe you're not going to be the person who's on the lead base or whatever it is. But in the midst of it, you can still be you for the glory of God. That's it. You've got to switch over to that track. You've got to switch over to that rail. And if you don't, you're going to be miserable in the Christian life. You have to be something. It's not a ranking system.

What are spiritual gifts? Look at the definition here. In Christianity, spiritual gifts are endowments which may be given by the Holy Spirit, which may be given by the Holy Spirit. These are supernatural graces, circle supernatural graces, which individual Christians need. Why? To fulfill the mission of the church. I want to first of all look at who gives spiritual gifts.

Now, the Trinity has different roles. When you're in spiritual gifts, you are in Holy Spirit territory. I like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's fun. Holy Spirit, he wants to give gifts. He wants to empower you. And not only that, he's supernatural because he's God. He lives so far beyond the natural. And what spiritual gifts are is they're different than natural abilities and talents.

It's not like, it's like, well, it is like, it's like steroids for the gifts that he gives you. He's able to make you do what you cannot do on your own. And when you do that, you live in the supernatural. Let me tell you what this means. If you have a gift of hospitality and you walk in somewhere, my mom has a gift of hospitality. I mentioned her before.

When she walks into somewhere and she talks to somebody, they have this sense that they're the most important person in the world. Like there's just a sense. Now, she had that to begin with. But there's a supernatural way in which she does it. It actually takes it beyond that. It takes it to a level that you cannot do on your own. Whether it be serving.

So if you're out there and you're serving and you're painting. Like we had people come and paint the church this week and start doing all kinds of stuff. As you're doing that, you can do that in a spirit. And there's an anointing over that that actually takes you out of mortality. It takes you into the eternal. It takes you into a place that's supernatural.

And oftentimes, we see miracles like you see in the Bible. It's the only time we're in supernatural. The supernatural is in play. Let me say, whenever you find your gift, it's that thing that you love to do and you see God when you do it begin to have results. You get godly results. Does that make sense? That that thing that you do, when you do it, you see results.

And oftentimes, I've seen people that feel like they have a gift of teaching. But whenever they teach, like the results they get are people sleeping, you know. And so, obviously, sometimes you want to make sure that you see a result happening. One of the things I know with people of hospitality, whether it be, you know, Friendly, Molly, I've mentioned some of them on the greeting team, others that are here.

When they talk to you, when, you know, somebody mentioned Clem as well in the back. When they talk to you, there's a sense beyond they're just nice. There's just a sense you get that is deeper. I've got to tell you, that's supernatural. And so, what I would say is, with your gifting, find that thing that you like to do and invite God into it. Find the thing that you love to do and then invite God into it and see what happens.

It takes you beyond and it lives in the supernatural. What are the characteristics of spiritual gifts? First of all, they're uniquely tied to the ministry and the mission of the Holy Spirit. I said that. 1 Corinthians 12.4. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. They are supernatural, meaning that they allow a mortal to live and minister beyond the confines of normative and natural abilities.

Every believer has at least one dominant spiritual gift. You'll find that in 1 Corinthians 12.7. Now, to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit. Now, this is, I love that. Now, the Spirit is manifesting itself. It's almost like you have a balloon that you're filling with water and all of a sudden it gets so much pressure that it just blows the balloon up.

And there's an overflow. Like Jesus talks about a well that overflows. You can be, as he talks to the woman at the well, you can have an abundance of living water. When you are working in your gifts, it says that the Spirit himself is being manifested. You're the balloon. And that balloon, if not dedicated to God and your gifts being used for God, will maintain capacity.

But when you begin to say, God, like let's say you're a soccer coach or a baseball coach or a music teacher. Let's say a music teacher. And you have this gift of teaching. And before you go into that, a student comes and you spend just two minutes and say, God, I just want to pray over, you know, Sally. She's coming today. I invite you to be here.

Use my gifts. Increase my gifts. I give them to you. Go beyond anything that I could ever do. Give me results. Quantify the results. And that's one of the things is when the Holy Spirit is involved in what you do, it quantifies your results beyond anything you could ever do. It also takes faith because you're trusting something outside of yourself to give you results.

And so when you do that as a teacher, when you do that as a surf coach, when you do that in whatever you do, we have a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I want to say value that and treat it with care and change your mindset as opposed to, hey, I'm just serving, showing up to the church to paint some walls. Everything that you do can become eternal if you invite God.

Commit the things of your heart to the Lord and he will cause them what? To succeed or to prosper. This is the secret sauce of Christianity, spiritual gifts, God's grace, God's anointing that is harvested through faith. It says earlier in this passage in Romans 12 that grace is given to you, but it is harvested through the tool of faith. Faith, believing that what you are doing is important, believing that what you are doing has the ability to matter.

And that's one of the lies of the enemy. He wants to take your gifts and turn them into your sorrow. Tweet that. The enemy wants to take your gifts and turn them into your sorrow. And he's got numerous ways to do it. With your worth, with valuing it, with causing you to be frustrated within it. He wants to take your gifts and he wants to turn them into the sorrow.

And what God wants to do is he wants to turn them into your joy. That you begin to serve and invite God. And if you are not running in the places that you love, I want to encourage you to get back onto that track. Do the things that you're called to do. Things can become so dormant in our lives. Serve. Serve here within the church. Serve outside of the walls.

Volunteer somewhere. You know? And invite God to be in it. And you will begin to see your life quantified. You'll begin to see an exponential supernatural power. You know, it's not rocket science. It's just inviting God into the things you love. It's that easy. And doing it with a smile on your face. And then beginning to see the results of that. Another thing it says here that every believer, it says after, in your notes, that your spiritual gifts are not static.

And I fully believe this. Meaning that they can increase or decrease in power according to God's desire or perhaps our faith in their implementation. In Matthew 25, it talks about these servants, which you are, that have talents. And each of them are given their talents. And one takes their talent and just buries their talent. Because they don't want to break it.

They don't want to waste it. They don't want to go the wrong direction. And that's another thing that stops us. I'm so fearful of making a wrong decision. I make no decision. I want to say, whatever you do in the name of the Lord, it says commit your plans to the Lord. And he will cause them to succeed. What he wants to do is make a decision and run into it.

And invite him into the process. The reason he gives you spiritual gifts, obviously, is for the manifestation of Christ on earth. And as you share your gifts, you become a fragrant offering. You become a reflection of Jesus Christ on earth. You get that. You see, the Holy Spirit has to give us more than mortality can do in order to really emphasize who Christ is.

And so when you use your gifts, you become a model. You become Christ on earth. Scripture says you become a representation of Christ on earth. And that you can do that. And so many people, they want to, because of one reason or another, they will bury their talent. And oftentimes it's for fear of failure. I want to say, if you have fear of failure, it's such a mountain to climb.

I would say, be willing to fail boldly and cast yourself out. It's a sacrifice. Let me say that again. If you're afraid of failure or making the wrong decision, it will take faith to do something. Maybe you're paralyzed with fear. Maybe there's something that's paralyzing you. I will say, it is a sacrifice of worship to say, God, I am terrified that I'm going to make a wrong decision here.

But I'm going to sacrifice my entire life to walk forward in this. And to step one step at a time. I want to say, if you've been held back, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that. I would say, God, this is the best I can do. I don't know anything beyond this. I'm going to do it in your name. Would you bless it? And step forward to it and sacrifice yourself as an offering of worship.

I say, don't bury your talents. The enemy wants you to take your talents. He wants you to bury them. Because he knows the more talents that are buried, the less representations we will see of Christ on earth. The less results we will see, kingdom results on earth. Step out. How many gifts are available today? There's a lot of disagreement on that.

I've seen anywhere from nine to 28 gifts. And people argue, well, are these gifts available today? These are. These aren't. There's certain charismatic gifts, tongues, healing, these different things. I'll tell you one thing I don't want gifts. The gifts aren't supposed to do. They're not supposed to cause division. And they're not supposed to separate the church.

And what I would say for you is use your gifts. You don't have to answer the question if there's nine or six or 28 or 16 or five. Find what you love to do and spend your life doing it. And when I say spend, I mean like spend. I heard someone once say that I feel like I'm just change in God's pocket. Loose change that God can spend as he wish. Take your life like change, like gold coins, and throw it out into the streets.

Just take your life. Show up. Show up and give your life away in a powerful example of who Christ is. We see that over and over again. So we see that there's different amounts of gifts. But I would say is we are going to have a spiritual gift test. But basically find what you love to do. We do have a doctrine which this church doesn't follow. It's called cessationism.

Maybe you've heard about it. But cessationism in Christianity is the doctrine that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing ceased with the original 12 apostles. I do not come from that camp. But I also don't want to become drunk with spiritual gifts in that camp where they run the church over and we have excess. Finding balance in anything in life is super difficult.

We come from a church of a long tradition that believes in prophecy. We believe in tongues. We believe in healing. We believe in these things. But at the same time, we want to do so in a way that represents God's dignity in church. So with that said, we're going to move in. I'll be speaking more about that. I just personally, this is just my personal thought, I don't know why God would take away some of the most important gifts when you need them the most.

That's just been my thought. I mean, that's just a reasonable thought that comes from me. Plus, I've experienced every single gift, I think, except seeing someone raised from the dead. Although my friend had a lung transplant this week or last week, and he's doing really well for you that prayed. And he was basically raised from the dead. I've experienced.

I'll be telling more about those as we get into these different gifts. I'm going to run down just the five categories of giftings I see. I think I have about 23 gifts that I've talked about. And let me start with the first one, the shepherding gifts. Shepherding gifts are those ones that lead to care and direction of God's people and beyond. I would say you can shepherd people that aren't in your flock.

So I would say and beyond. Those would be administration, like I talked about Carol. Apostle. I talked about that with Roy. It's somebody that has leadership on a really large level. You need to be careful with apostle because sometimes when people have been deemed to be apostles, these large leadership gifts, they're given too much earthly authority in regard to people's, what they think about them, as opposed to being servants.

But apostles are leaders. You have teachers is a shepherding gift. It teaches people how to live. Leadership. And then pastor and shepherd. So all these gifts, these shepherding gifts, imagine a flock. If one of those rang the bell, circle ones right now. If you have your pen and your notes there, circle one that sounds interesting to you. Just circle it.

Probably a gift. If you circle, it's probably a gift or at least a minor gift that can be increased. I do believe that the gifts are not static. And because we serve an eternal God, God has given me gifts as I've asked for them. I've asked for a gift of evangelism where I didn't have one. And I've seen that increase, although I'm not a natural evangelist.

I'm more of a leader, teacher, apostle, disciple, disciple maker. But I love evangelism. I'm just, I haven't seen, like I have a friend, Ryan Pfeiffer, who comes here. He tells me about Jesus. My mom tells someone about Jesus. Others of you tell people about Jesus. Chris Peterson. Immediately, they're like, they just always tell me they led someone to Christ.

I try really hard to do that. But I just, it doesn't happen all the time for me. But if you love it, circle it. See what's on there. And explore. That's the other thing. Explore. Explore these different gifts. Try it. Okay, the second would be the serving gifts. Serving gifts are those that allow us to pour our lives out in the giving of our time, our talent, and our treasure.

Giving helps is another one. Serving and hospitality. One of the things I would say is, just because you don't have the gift doesn't mean that we don't act in this gift. I don't have the gift of evangelism, so I don't tell everybody about Jesus, you know what I mean. Or I don't have the gift of giving, so I'm never going to support any ministry.

We're all called to these things. No one gets a free pass on evangelism, myself included. But there's others there that just have a knack for it. They just have an ability to do it. What I have found is that when we step into something, when we step into something, God will increase it or decrease it, oftentimes according to our faith, according to the measure that he's given to us.

When he gives us a measure, it means he can give another measure. To whom little is given, and the person who is faithful with little will be given what? More. When I was in England, I've shared this story once before, so bear with me. I was in England, and we were on this missions trip, and they had 25 things that you could do. And there was weeding a lawn and helping a lady paint her house, and we were there.

And then the bottom one said crosswalking. Crosswalking. I had a feeling I knew what that meant. Taking a cross and carrying it around town on your shoulder and walking around town. I've seen guys do it before. I do not want to do crosswalking. So I'm thinking I'm going to paint that lady's house. I'm going to paint. And the Lord said, you're going to do crosswalking.

I'm like, no, Lord, I'm not going to do crosswalking. And I just kept something in my spirit. None of my kids. And they said, well, the leader said, well, we're going to let, Adam, would you like your group to go first? And you can sign up. And when enough people are there, if we get four people for painting, then, you know, if there's whatever's left, you're going to have to take it.

Your group can go first because you're our guest here in England. And my kids were begging me, please let us go first. We don't want to do crosswalking. Although I did have two kids that did. They wanted to go crosswalking. And I was like, okay. And the Lord said, let the English group go first. I was like, oh, no. And I just, I don't know if the Lord said, but I just get a thought.

And it feels like God because I didn't want to do it. Usually when I don't want to do it, it's God. It's true, right? And so I let him go first. And then I let all the kids, my kids go first. And they're running up there. And I get to the board. And there's one spot left. Yeah. Crosswalking. Okay. So I go out. And there's this guy named Malcolm. And he's got a, like a giant briefcase.

It's huge. And he pulls this thing out. And it's a cross. And he's assembling it. And it's got wheels on it. Because I didn't know if Jesus had that assembly, that thing. Maybe there's an extra feature you can get on eBay. So it had wheels on it. That was kind of funny. And it's laying there. And he's got it out. And he says, and we're in this little courtyard of this church.

And he says, we're going to go walk around the streets of London with this cross. And he says, who'd like to go first? And somebody says, you. And I was like, oh, no. Not me. No. I'll go first. So then I went, now I'm number one. Okay. I'm numero uno. Okay. And I got it. And I take the cross. And I pick it up. And I'm really embarrassed. And I'm like, well, maybe.

I got this thought. Maybe they'll think, like, I work for a theater company. And I'm just carrying it to, like, because we're going to do a play. You know, even though it's no time near Easter, you know. So I grab it like this to be as casual as possible. And I felt something in my heart say, put that on your shoulder. I'm like, no. Not on my shoulder.

And as I'm carrying it, the guy says, oh, we don't usually carry it like that. We put it on our shoulder. I'm like, no. Oh. Ah. Put the cross on my shoulder. And there's, like, a walkway here. And the two gates. And we're all surrounded by big, tall walls, which is great because no one can see me with my cross on. And there's, like, two of my other kids are with me.

And there's, like, eight or nine kids that went. And they signed up for it, these kids. I was really stoked on it. And I put it. And I stepped over the threshold. And I looked up. And there was a cross on a church across the street. And I got another thought in my head. And it said, they don't see that one anymore. And I stepped across. And right when I stepped across, a presence of God that was more tangible than almost any time I've experienced it before fell on me in that moment.

And a boldness came over me. Like you could fight a lion. I can't even. And I can't. I just. The second I heard that in my heart and I stepped across. And all of a sudden, I was empowered. And I couldn't wait to walk that cross. We walked that thing for, like, two hours around. We wouldn't say anything. There was no yelling or anything. We would just set it up and sit there.

We had some witches come up to us. I've got to say, for two and a half years after that, I had such a gift of evangelism that I think eventually faded because I didn't keep stepping back into it. But I probably had two and a half years where I had a boldness and a courage and actually had results leading people to Christ. It just fell on me. I've got to say, sometimes when you're faithful like that, that's what I've experienced through that experience.

That all of a sudden, God had, boom, it was there. Now I feel like it's kind of, I don't know, backed off or what it is. I think I just need to step back out of it again. It makes sense? What's your thing? Do it. Step into it. Let me just close here. Compassion gifts. Compassion gifts. These compassionate gifts give concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others.

These are beautiful gifts. These are the gifts that bandage the wounds of Jesus. Beautiful gifts. Beautiful gifts. Meekness. They are encouragement, healing, and mercy. You know you can ask for any gift you want. You might not get it. I had a kid that asked for tongues for four years. He got so discouraged. Everyone got tongues in our group. I was at a vineyard church.

All these kids were getting the gift of tongues. He didn't get it. He's one of the kids that carried the cross, though. African-American kid. Amazing, amazing guy, Derek. Encouragement, healing, and mercy. I got to say, these are gifts you ask for them. We want that. You want to have a church. You know what? You know how much mercy the world has? You couldn't hold it in your hand.

Go look at the newsstands. Shame. Doubt. Fear. Pray for that. Ask for those. Circle those ones. If you don't have those, ask for that in your arsenal. Gifts of understanding. These are gifts that give a heavenly understanding of a perspective to a past, current, or future happening. Love that definition. These are gifts that give a heavenly understanding.

It just means God's perspective. That's all it is. Not some spooky, weird thing. I give a word of prophecy. I see that how people do it a lot. But I think a better way to say it, and I saw this even at churches that didn't believe in prophecy, which is telling what God's going to do in the future. I was at denominations that didn't believe in those things at all.

But someone would come up to me and they'd say, hey, I was thinking about you the other day, and I just had this thought. I was reading the scripture, and I just kind of thought that maybe God would do that. They had no idea that they were doing the exact same thing that I experienced later on in the vineyard, that God was prophesying or telling a godly perspective, and that's what it is.

God's just giving a godly perspective. A heavenly understanding perspective of a past, current, future happening, and then coming in for a landing. Gifts of salvation. Salvific gifts. Those are those that aid in leading people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Faith, miracles, tongues, missions. We'll talk about more of those. Gifts that lead people to Christ.

That's the goal. That they come to a salvific understanding that they end up in eternity with God. The enemy doesn't care how many conversations you have about God that don't lead people to make a decision. Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart? Do you want to be a Christ follower? Do you, however you want to say it, that's where we want to get to.

Leading people to that. That might take 20 years. We want to get them to that place. But all of them for the building up of the body. Please stand. We'll have our worship band come forward.