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Fantastic Four – Find Your Forte

August 11, 2015 by Leave a Comment

GodOnFilm

 

God on Film:  Fantastic Four – Find Your Forte
Sycamore Creek Church
August 9/10, 2015
Tom Arthur

 

 

Peace friends!

Today we’re continuing in this series, God on Film.  Each week we’re looking at a summer blockbuster and exploring something that movie evokes and what the Bible has to say about it.  Today we’re looking at the movie, Fantastic Four.

So how many are there in the Fantastic Four?  Yep.  Four.  Each one of the four have “unique physical capabilities.”  The Thing has indestructible strength.  Mister Fantastic has the unique physical capability of rubber stretch.  The Human Torch has fire, and the Invisible Woman can turn, well, invisible as well as having the ability to project force fields.

If you got to choose one of those super powers, which one would you pick?  How would you decide?  How did each of the Fantastic Four decide?  They didn’t.  In the original storyline they are hit by cosmic rays in outer space.  In this remake something happens during inter-dimensional travel.  They don’t get to choose what special ability they have.  It just happens to them.

You don’t decide either what special unique capabilities you have.  You just have them.  What are your unique capabilities?  What about your unique spiritual capabilities?  Today I’d like to take a look at the unique spiritual capabilities that each of us are given called spiritual gifts.  Let’s begin with a definition:

Spiritual gifts are God-given natural or supernatural talents every Christian has that God uses to accomplish God’s purposes in and through the church.

That’s a thick definition so let’s unpack it.

God-given = These gifts are by God’s grace freely given.  The Greek word behind the word “gift” is charism which you make recognize in the word “charismatic.” “Charism” means “gift.”  Spiritual gifts are natural or supernatural talents.  Sometimes they are very natural in appearance like knowledge or teaching.  Other times they have a supernatural twist like healing.  Either way they’re what we’re able to do, and what we’re good at doing.  Every Christian has one or more spiritual gifts.  Every person plays a part.  But a part in what?  A part in God’s purposes.  Spiritual gifts are for accomplishing God’s rescue mission to the world.  And God’s rescue mission happens primarily in and through the Church.  Spiritual gifts are for equipping one another and reaching out into the world.  So let’s hear that definition again:

Spiritual gifts are God-given natural or supernatural talents every Christian has that God uses to accomplish God’s purposes in and through the church.

Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible, says:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.
~1 Corinthians 12:1 NRSV

Paul wants us to know about spiritual gifts so we’re not uninformed or ignorant of our own and God’s purposes for spiritual gifts.  One book that has been helpful to me over the last couple of months is a book by Peter Wagner called Discover Your Spiritual Gifts.  Wagner writes:

“You need to know about your spiritual gifts if

  1. You are a Christian believer
  2. You believe that Jesus is your Lord and you want to love Him, please Him and follow Him in the best way possible; and
  3. You want your church to be a healthy, attractive growing group of people showing forth God’s love in your community.”

I think I want all three of those things.  I suspect that you do too.  So let’s go back to Paul and see what he teaches about Spiritual gifts.  Paul writes about spiritual gifts in several different places but today we’re going to focus on his letter to the Christians who are in Rome.  Here’s what he says:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him…
~Paul (Romans 12:1 NLT)

Have you ever considered that what you do with your bodies is worship.  Worship isn’t just coming together on Sunday to sing and pray and hear teaching about the Bible.  It’s also about how you use your body every day of the week.  How your body interacts with other bodies around you is an act of worship.

Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.
~Paul (Romans 12:3 NLT)

Paul encourages us to have an honest humble appraisal of ourselves.  You’re good at some things and other things you’re not so good at.  Do you know what they are?  Humility is having an accurate and true self-understanding.  Paul is about to help us have that honest and true and humble self-understanding.

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
~Paul (Romans 12:4-5 NLT)

Each of your body parts has a special function.  In the same way, each of you has a special function in the church and the world.  Each of you has a special function in God’s rescue mission to the world.  And just like a human body, the individual body parts belong to each other.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.
~Paul (Romans 12:6 NLT)

These gifts and playing this role in the body is a God-given gift.  It’s not something you earn.  You just have it.  Some things you do well, but not all things.  That’s where the honesty and humility come in.  What do you do well, and what do you not do so well?

So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.  If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well.  If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
~Paul (Romans 12:6-8 NLT)

Some of us have the gift of prophesy.  Prophesy isn’t so much about telling the future, although it may be about that.  The prophet in the Bible speaks from God’s perspective about when God’s people are in or out of the will of God.  The rest of the gifts Paul mentions are more natural and obvious gifts: serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, showing kindness.  These all are spiritual gifts that God gives each one of us to accomplish God’s purposes in and through the church.

God’s General & Specific Call
Many people often come to me and want to know what God has called them to do in this world.  Here’s the answer.  God has a general call on each person’s life.  That general call is basically the same for everyone: use your spiritual gifts.  God gave you special talents, and God calls you to use those gifts.  That’s God’s general call.

Then there’s God specific call.  God’s specific call has to do with the specific ministry or area or location that you use those gifts.  Some of you are called to use your gifts working with children.  Others are called to the specific area of youth.  Others are called to use their gifts in worship ministry.  Others are called to use their gifts specifically with preaching or outreach or missions.  In any case, God does not call someone to a ministry that God does not equip that person for doing.  While the specific call may change (where you use your gifts in ministry), the general call does not (that you use your gifts).

Martin Luther, the 16th century Protestant reformer, taught “the priesthood of all believers.”  It’s not that there’s a special profession called “pastor” or “priest” that does all the ministry.  Rather, all who follow Jesus, all who are part of the body of Christ are pastors and priests.  Each one of you has a role to play, not just some “professional Christian” we call the pastor.

How Many Spiritual Gifts are There?
Paul gives us three different lists of spiritual gifts in three different books of the Bible.  Those lists are all different.  I don’t think Paul was trying to be exhaustive when he wrote those lists.  Then there are other places in the Bible where special gifts are listed.  So I don’t think there is any one set list or number of gifts.  One online tool we use at Sycamore Creek Church lists twenty-four gifts.  Peter Wagner’s book lists twenty-eight.  I don’t know what the exact number is, and I’m somewhat skeptical of any attempt to nail down an exact number.  But this morning I want to talk about three of those gifts.

Singleness
The gift of singleness is the gift “to remain single and enjoy it and not suffer undue sexual temptation” (Wagner).  Paul teaches it this way:

But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another.
~1 Corinthians 7:7 NLT

It may seem odd to start our conversation with the gift of singleness.  But I am beginning here because the largest group of people in the neighborhood right around our church is a group called “singles and starters.”  Now let’s get very clear about the gift of singleness because sometimes we tell single people something like: “You must have the gift of singleness because you’re single.”  That’s not true.  Being single doesn’t mean you have the gift of singleness.  It may just mean you haven’t yet met your spouse and life-partner.  If you want to get married, you probably don’t have this gift.  If you want to have sex, you probably don’t have this gift.  If you are quite alright being single, then you may have this gift.

The gift of singleness does not stand alone.  Yes, I said that.  Singleness does not stand alone.  We’re not talking about spinsters.  Singleness is a gift that allows a deeper and fuller use of your other gifts that God uses to accomplish God’s purposes in and through the church.  If you are single you have more time and more energy to focus less on your own family and more on the community around you.  Let’s look at one person who had the gift of singleness: Georges Lemaître.

Who was Georges Lemaître?  Georges Lemaître was a brilliant catholic priest in the 20th century.  In 1920 he got his first PhD.  Yes, I said “first.”  It was titled “Approximation of functions of several real variables.”  I have no idea what that means other than that Georges Lemaître was very smart.  He got his PhD in 1920 and then was ordained a priest in 1923.  In 1927 he went head to head with Einstein when he proposed the Expansion Theory of the Universe.  Einstein said, “Your calculations are correct, but your physics is atrocious.”  Georges Lemaître became the founder of the Big Bang Theory.  Yes, a Christian priest came up with the Big Bang Theory.  Turns out that while Einstein is more famous, Lemaître was right.  Then in 1931 Lemaître got his second PhD which was titled, “The gravitational field in a fluid sphere of uniform invariant density according to the theory of relativity.”  I don’t understand that any more than I understood the first!

OK, let’s unpack all this just for a moment.  A married man with kids barely has time to finish one PhD let alone two.  A married man with kids doesn’t go head to head with Einstein and win.  A married man with kids doesn’t become a Catholic priest.  Lemaître’s singleness allowed him to focus his time and energy (no pun intended) on advancing humanity’s understanding of the universe’s origins.  His singleness was a gift that allowed him to use his other gifts on a deeper and fuller level.  He enriched others with his gift of singleness.  That’s the gift of singleness.  Singleness allows you to use your other gifts in deeper and fuller ways for the benefit of God’s purposes in and through the church.

Hospitality
Wagner defines hospitality as the ability “to provide an open house and warm welcome for those in need of lodging.”  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends taught:

Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.
~1 Peter 4:9 NLT

The person with the gift of hospitality is able to make people feel truly at home whether in their own home or elsewhere.  They also are able to share their home for extended periods of time.  This means be able to share the “mess” without apologizing.  You don’t have to be a Martha Stewart.

Sarah and I have the gift of hospitality.  For most of our married life we have had people living with us.  We’re not alone.  A couple of months ago we invited over for dinner everyone in our church that we know who is sharing their house with someone.  It was good to sit around the table and share stories together.  There are many in our church who have the gift of hospitality.

Of course, one of the ways we are using the gift of hospitality in our church together is through the remodeling of our Connection Café.  Here we hope to make people feel at home and to have a place to build friendships.  Many in our church share their gift of hospitality through our Connection Café.  There will be many more opportunities in the future if we are to open up our Connection Café to the community throughout the week.

One last area of hospitality that takes place together is our shared task of cleaning the building.  While the gift of hospitality as it is played out in our homes may be about sharing the “mess” of our homes with folks, the gift of hospitality as it is played out together in this building is through keeping the building clean.  A clean building removes obstacles from a guest encountering God when they join us for an event in our building.

Pastor
The last gift I want to explore today in details is the gift of pastor.  The gift of pastor “assumes a long-term personal responsibility for the spiritual welfare of a group of believers.”  Again, Peter describes it this way:

Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly
~1 Peter 5:2 NLT

God’s sense of humor is such that I, your pastor, do not have the gift of pastor.  What?  Yes, I don’t have the gift of pastor.  My top gifts tend to be leadership, administration, teaching, and giving.  Peter Wagner says, “Very few senior ministers of large, growing churches do have the biblical gift of pastor.”  This may seem confusing to you until you understand that there is a difference between the role of pastor that we tend to hire for a leader in our church and the spiritual gift of pastor.  I am hired as your pastor to lead this church, and many of you have the gift of pastor to help care for one another.  “As soon as we understand that the gift of pastor is not necessarily what your senior minister has or needs, a vast and exciting possibility is opened for laypeople to begin to exercise the gift of pastor” (Peter Wagner).  Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church, says, “For the church to grow, the pastor must give up the ministry and the people must give up the leadership.”  As our church grows more and more of you will begin to exercise your gift of pastor.  I will begin to live more and more into my gift of leadership.

Two examples of where this is already taking place is with Tom Fox and Mary Ziegler.  Tom is a retired United Methodist pastor who is a partner in our church.  He is also a part-time chaplain at Sparrow.  He has been working to develop a hospital visitation team.  This means that when you’re in the hospital, I may not be the person visiting you.  Tom and one of his team members may be that person.  Mary Ziegler is a recently retired partner in our church who has been developing a caring and listening ministry with many of you.  Mary and her team will soon begin offering prayer partners after worship each week.  These are people who will be available to pray with you each week.  Mary, Tom, and their teams are exercising their gift of pastor, and this pastor who does not have the gift of pastor is grateful for them.

Discover Your Spiritual Gifts
There’s only one last question to ask: How do you discover your spiritual gifts?  I want to give you four tips for discovering your spiritual gifts.  First, use TOOLS.  We offer an online inventory that you can take.  Visit www.assessme.org/2364.aspx and you’ll find four inventories: a spiritual gifts inventory, a personality inventory, a leadership inventory, and a skills inventory.  If you paid for this yourself, it would cost you $15, but if you do it through us, it’s FREE!  Once you’ve taken all four you’ll be given a customized report with suggestions for how to use your gifts.  You’ll also be added to a searchable database that the leadership of our church can use to help you find the right place to use your spiritual gifts.  This is a helpful tool, but let’s remember, it’s just a tool.  It isn’t perfect.  That’s why you need these other three tips.

Second, TRY different ministries.  Don’t feel like you have to get stuck in one area of volunteering.  Try one out for a couple of months and then try another.  You don’t have to stick with just one.  We offer a Serve Interest Inventory and many “first-serve opportunities” when big events happen at SCC.  These are ways you can try different ministries on for size.

Third, TALK to people who know you.  Take your assessme.org results and talk to a trusted Christian friend.  What seems right?  What seems off?  What is missing or confusing?  Talk to more than one person.  Test what you know about yourself with what others know about you.

Lastly, TAKE it to God.  Spend time in prayer asking God to show you what your gifts are and to help you find the right place to use those gifts.  God is the giver of the gifts.  God has a vested interest in you knowing what those gifts are and using them.

When You Know and Use Your Spiritual Gifts
Three things happens when you know your spiritual gifts.  First, you grow.  You have a healthy self-esteem.  Your picture of yourself is accurate and humble.  You begin to take initiative rather than waiting to be asked.  Your thankfulness for God’s work in and through you grows.  And your confidence grows as God’s ever growing specific calling grows in responsibility and scope.

Second, when you know and use your spiritual gifts, the church grows.  Other Christians’ gifts are supported by your gift.  There is health in the full body.  All the systems are working together to accomplish God’s purposes.  Non-Christians are attracted by the health they see and experience in our church.

Third, God is glorified.  When you know and use your spiritual gifts, you offer your bodies as an act of worship.  And now we’re back to where we began.

“This is truly the way to worship God.”
~Paul (Romans 12:1 NLT)

God help us to know and use our gifts so that we each grow, our church grows, and you are glorified.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What’s My Position?

November 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

coach

 

 

 

 

Put Me In Coach – What’s My Position?
Sycamore Creek Church
November 16/17, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

We’re continuing in the third week of this series: Put Me In Coach.  So far we’ve explored some fundamental questions of the game we’re playing here at Sycamore Creek Church:

What’s the game?
Who’s my team?
Next week: Who’s my coach?

Today: What’s my position?

There’s a key thought throughout this whole series:

There are too many fans of the game and not enough players in the game.

Take football for example.  In football there are 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest and 22,000 people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.  I don’t want to be the kind of church that has 22,000 people in the stands watching 22 people play the game.  I want to get those 22,000 people in the game.  This series is about that: getting in the game.  It’s about serving.  It’s about volunteering.

When it comes to getting in the game there are different distances people have from getting in the game.  Farthest from the game are those who simply aren’t fans.  They don’t even want to watch the game.  Then there are those who are fans.  They watch the game from a comfortable place.  Next closest to the game are the fanatics, the season ticket holders.  The next step into the game is the farm team.  These are the people who are working on playing the game and getting better at the game.  Then there’s the first string players.  These are the ones who are all in.  They’ve committed everything they’ve got.  Where are you at?  I’m guessing if you’re reading this then you’re at least a fan?  Are you a fanatic but not yet in the game?  Are you on the farm team or are you a first string player?  But if you’re a player, what kind of player are you?  What position do you play?  That’s the question I want to explore today.

In any sport, while there are specialized positions, there are some positions or some plays that everyone on the team plays.  The same is true of the game we play here at SCC.  There are some positions that we all play.  We all play the position of praying.  Are you praying for your church?  We all play the position of inviting.  Are you inviting by sharing our events on Facebook?  Are you inviting when we do a big buzz series or a big day?  Are you considering how you can invite by joining the “launch team” of our new venue?  We’re buying a building to be our Sunday morning venue.  It’s like we’re launching a new church.  So we should have a launch team.  Launching is about inviting.  Are you inviting?  Every player on this team invites.  Every player on this team also plays welcoming.  We’re all on the hospitality team.  When someone invites a friend to worship with us, they’re depending on you to be welcoming.  We welcome by running the 5-10-Link play.  FIVE minutes before the service and FIVE minutes after you cover a zone TEN feet around you and you meet the people you don’t know.  Then you LINK them to other people you do know.  Are you welcoming in this way?  We all play welcoming by engaging the meet and greet question at the end of worship.  It’s designed to prime the pump of conversation with those around you that you don’t know.  Are you playing welcoming?  We all also play the position of giving.  God has given each of us a certain amount of resources.  How are you doing being a steward of God’s resources?  How are you doing giving 10% back to God?  We all play the position of giving.  We all play the position of praying.  We all play the position of inviting.  We all play the position of welcoming.  But we all then specialize in one or more other positions too.  These positions are called spiritual gifts.

Throughout this series we’ve been exploring Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Paul was the first missionary of the church and he wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus.  The letter is in the Bible and is six chapters long.  Go home today and read all six chapters.  It will take you about thirty minutes.  We’re really drilling down on chapter four in this series.  Paul tells the Ephesians:

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
~Paul (Ephesians 4:11 NLT)

You’ll see here that Paul is listing some very specialized positions in the church.  The Bible contains several different letters Paul wrote to different churches, and in two of those other letters Paul lists some other specialized positions.  They can be found in chapter 12 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and chapter 12 in the letter to the Romans.  Throughout this series we’ve been exploring fundamentals of the game.  Today is no different.  Today with Paul’s help, I want to explore three fundamentals of playing a position in the church (I’m indebted to Bruce Bugbee’s book, What You Do Best in the Body of Christ, for giving me the framework for these three fundamentals).

1.     Be Aware of Your Spiritual Gifts

The first fundamental of playing a position is that we are expected to be aware of the spiritual gifts that we have.  Paul says:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 12:1 NRSV)

So what are spiritual gifts?  What gifts does God give to us?  The first gift of God is God’s very own self.  God’s presence with us is the Holy Spirit.  We must remember that God doesn’t give us unique abilities independent of giving us God’s very presence.  James A. Stewart, a 20th century preacher in the Church of Scotland said, “Many want the Spirit’s power but not the Spirit’s purity.  The Holy Spirit does not rent out His attributes.  His power is never separated from His glorious Self.” If we expect God to use us to the fullest, we must be aware of how God is present in us purifying us and calling us to be ready for what God is going to do in us.  It’s out of the relationship with God, the source of all power, that the Holy Spirit works through us and gives us special gifts.  Hudson Taylor, a 19th century missionary to China, said, “I used to ask God to help me.  Then I asked God if I might help Him.  I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me.”  God gives us God’s very own self and when God is present with us, then God works through us.  This happens in one of two ways.

First, God gives us certain God-given talents, passions, or abilities that are to be used in the service of God’s purpose in our lives.  They are at times supernatural talents, but at other times, they are natural talents used to accomplish supernatural results.  Paul says:

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
~Paul (Romans 12:6-8 NRSV)

If you want to know more about your spiritual gifts, we have an online tool that we use that will take you about ten or fifteen minutes to fill out.  You’ll get a report on your personality, leadership style, and spiritual gifts.  It will help you know what specialized position God has you playing.  You can find the tool at www.assessme.org/2364.aspx.  The tool is free to you through us, but if you did it on our own it would cost you $15.  So take some time to learn about your spiritual gifts.  When you take this inventory online, your results will then be available to use to help get you in the game.

The second way that God uses spiritual gifts is to give us the unique gifts in the moment that we need them to accomplish God’s purposes.  This may mean that God supernaturally empowers you in a moment in way that you have no natural aptitude.  But because you have received God’s first gift, God’s very self, God can use you in a way that no one, even yourself, could have imagined.  Thus, the spiritual gift and passion may not come until the purpose is pursued.  This happens because while the world may count you out, God does not look at you in the same way the rest of us do; God sees your heart.  There’s a great modern classic movie about baseball called Moneyball.  It’s about the use of statistics to build a team.  There’s a scene in the movie when the coach goes to recruit a washed up catcher to play a position that he would never have imagined playing, but the statistics say he’ll do well enough at to benefit the team in other ways.  Watch what happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyvu1nWjOlI

This is a real life story.  Scott Hatteberg was the catcher for Boston Red Sox.  He had an elbow injury which meant he couldn’t throw the ball to second base.  This resulted in his inability to play the position of catcher.  But the Oakland A’s saw something in him no one else did and recruited him to play first base.  It was a risky move by most recruiting standards.  But Hatteberg ended up hitting a walk off homerun to help the A’s make an American League 20-game winning streak record.  Sometimes you won’t be able to see what position you can play and how you have the talents to play that position until you say yes to the position.

The first fundamental of playing a position in the game of following Jesus is to be aware of your spiritual gifts.

2.     Expected To Use Your Spiritual Gifts.

Paul gave some advice to a young preacher named Timothy and we have two letters he wrote mentoring Timothy in how to play the game.  Paul said:

Do not neglect the gift that is in you.
~Paul (1 Timothy 4:14 NRSV)

God expects us to use the spiritual gifts that God has given us.  When it comes to using those gifts, we can underuse them or we can overuse them.  We underuse them when we’re ignorant of them.  Or we underuse them when we’re just flat out disobedient.  When our spiritual gifts are underused then it’s like a part of the team or the body becomes dead.  The rest of the body ends up having to overcompensate.  This puts stress on the rest of the team and leads to burnout.

But we can not only underuse our spiritual gifts, we can also overuse them.  This happens when we use our gift to dominate the team.  We don’t allow the rest of the team to develop.  There’s a great scene in the classic basketball movie Hoosiers when the coach intentionally benches a player who is on a scoring streak.  As you watch the scene, ask yourself: “What’s wrong with this guy doing all the scoring?”

 

A team and a church can’t be dependent all on one person.  Pastors and key leaders in a church tend to fall into this trap quite a bit.  Let me give you an example of how I’ve been over using a spiritual gift I have for the last couple of years.  I’m a pretty creative guy.  I love creating new ideas.  Most of the sermon series we do around here have been my ideas.  Most of the big outreach events we do around here are my ideas.  But about a year ago it hit me, we’re being creative but it’s all based on me.  If I’m in a car crash tomorrow or if the bishop appoints me to another church, then there is no creative team to keep this work moving forward in a creative direction.  So I’ve been busy over the last year beginning to build creative systems and teams to provide the creative scaffolding for what we do at SCC.  Two quick examples.

First, instead of planning the preaching calendar by myself for 2015, I pulled together a team.  We met on a Saturday in October.  I was a bit nervous about how this was going to work.  I was giving up something to allow others to help make decisions about what we’d be teaching at SCC from the “pulpit.”  I was nervous about how the creative process would work.  We scheduled the entire day from 9:30AM to 4PM to accomplish as much as we could.  I went in thinking that the day would be successful if we got through half the year.  What were the results?  We had the entire year of 2015 planned by 2:30PM!  This was a serious team effort.  The players came ready to play with really good ideas.  And now if I die tomorrow, there’s a system of creativity that isn’t based on the pastor overusing his creative gifts.

The same thing has been true when it comes to creative elements in worship.  Most of the creative worship elements we’ve used in the past have been developed by me and Jeremy, our worship leader.  But this wasn’t a sustainable team.  We needed to include more.  So now each month we invite people to join us for a two hour brainstorming session of a series that is two months out.  We just met this week with a group of people to help us plan January’s series.  We came up with more ideas and better ideas than we would have had we done it by ourselves.  And we’re making more positions for people to use their gifts rather than Jeremy and I overusing ours.

The second fundamental of playing a position is that you are expected to use your spiritual gifts.

3.     Held Accountable for the Use of Your Spiritual Gifts

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest team members.  Peter wrote a couple of letters that we now have in the Bible.  In one of them he encourages us saying:

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.
~Peter (1 Peter 4:10 NRSV)

We don’t often use the word “manifold” but “mani” means “many” and “manifold” can mean assorted, multiple, or various.  There are assorted, multiple, and various gifts of God’s grace that God gives.  And we are each stewards of those manifold gifts and graces.  A steward is someone who does not own the property he or she is using.  Someone else owns it and the expectation is that they will use it well and return it well.  Some day God will ask: “How did you use the gifts that I gave you?”  How did you play  your position?  Will we be left making excuses?

Perhaps one of the best athletes to play any sport is Michael Jordan.  There’s a great commercial where he’s talking about the game.  But the kicker comes at the end.

 

 

Will you be left standing before God making excuses for why you didn’t play your position?  Will you be left standing before God making excuses why you didn’t get in the game?  Jesus tells a parable about a master handing out talents (Matthew 25)

Parable of the Talents.  To one servant he gives one talent.  To one he gives five.  To another he gives ten.  Then he goes away.  The five-talent servant and the ten-talent servant use their talents to make more talents.  The one-talent servant goes and buries his talent.  When the master comes back, he rewards the five and ten-talent servants and he’s furious with the one-talent servant.  He’s not upset because the servant has only one talent.  He’s upset because he buried it and didn’t even risk trying.

So one day you will be held accountable to how you played your position.  One of the ways you play your position is you volunteer somewhere in the church.  You can explore volunteering by filling out our Service Inventory Sheet.  On it you’ll find all kinds of ways you can serve in our church.  You circle the ones you’re interested in. You’re not signing up for the position, you’re only expressing interest.  When this series is over, someone who leads each area you circled an interest in will be in touch with you to talk further about that position to play.  You can download a Service Inventory Sheet here.

Here’s the three fundamentals of playing a position:

  1. Be aware of your spiritual gifts.
  2. You’re expected to use your spiritual gifts.
  3. You’ll be held accountable to using your spiritual gifts.

Let’s go back to that image I used at the beginning of the message.  How far are you from the game?  Are you not a fan?  Not even watching the game.  Probably not or you wouldn’t be here today.  So you’re at least a fan.  You watch from the stadium.  Or are you a fanatic?  You’re a season ticket holder.  You come all the time.  You cheer.  You cry.  But you’re still not in the game.  Or are you on the farm team?  You’ve made a commitment to serve somewhere.  You’re learning a position.  You’re exploring a position.  You’re learning the game.  Or are you a first string starter?  You’re all in.  You’re playing a position and while you do commit errors or fumbles from time to time, you’re learning from them and you’re in it to win it.

Team, I hope throughout this series you’re saying to yourself:

I don’t want to be watching the game at home.
I don’t want to be tailgating.
I don’t want to be in the stands.
I don’t want to be on the sidelines.
I don’t want to be on the bench.
I want to be in the game.
I want to be on the team.
Put me in coach!

Prayer
Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and praiseworthy service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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