I WANT YOU

Well, you may have seen the title today's message in Thoreau, okay, a sermon about pastors or maybe about missionaries. This would be a good one to take a nap through. Well, before you get too comfortable, let me say I'm talking to you this morning, and just like Uncle Sam, I want you. We want you, in fact, more importantly, Christ wants you to be a part of the ministry here at Johnson Chapel, and more importantly, more broadly speaking, his ministry around the world. He wants you to be a part of his work. You see, the fact is, all of us are called to be ministers. We're not all called to be pastors or missionaries, but we are all called to be ministers. I love a letterhead I saw. I received one time when I was pastoring in Indiana from a church near us, and the letterheadhead, often letterheads will do, list the names of the pastors and so forth, but at the very top of the letterhead, it said ministers, the congregation, and then pastors, and it listed them. But ministers were the congregation. That's a biblical way to look at the church, and at church ministry. And that's what we want to do this morning. We want to refocus on the purpose of ministry that God has given us. There's no better place to do that, no better place to highlight the focus of ministry than in Ephesians chapter 4. So let's open our Bibles to Ephesians 4. If you don't have your Bible open there, please find that quickly. And then focus on these circles on the screen. We've been using these circles to kind of highlight the five purposes of the church and how they flow together. We have seen that worship is the heartbeat of a church. It is where all the passion and fuel for everything else we do comes from. But loving Christ, being in love with Him and expressing that love and adoration to Him, that purpose is at the heartbeat, the core of what God wants us to do. If we don't start there, nothing else happens. At least not in any kind of passionate life-giving way. So it must begin with worship. We love Christ. But as we love Christ, we also love one another. And so we move from worship to fellowship and fellowship grows out of worship. Our love for Christ leads us to love those who love Him as well. And as we share our lives together in the communion of saints and the fellowship of believers in a church like this, that becomes a biblical communal, if you will, sharing together of life in Christ, sharing what we have in common. We love Christ. We come together with each other with Christ. But that then leads us to the third purpose that we have looked at. And that is the purpose of discipleship. Discipleship growing out of fellowship. We come together not only to draw strength from one another, but to grow deeper in the word of God and in our likeness to Christ becoming more like Him. And that is discipleship. As we are disciples, we don't hold that in. We're never to maintain what we're growing in and what we're learning to ourselves. We must reach out to others in evangelism. And evangelism becomes the outgrowth of these other three. Not only do we love Christ and come together with Christ and grow in Christ, we also go for Christ. And we saw last week that going for Christ, go make disciples of all nations. And all the world and preach the gospel, Jesus said, you are my witnesses, Jesus said, day in and day out, we are to be going wherever we are going for Christ. But along with the going for Christ, we are to and we'll see it this morning in ministry. We are to serve Christ. Now, there's a very real sense in which the heartbeat of worship leads to these two which are interconnected and overlap. As we come together with Christ, we come together not only to share our lives, but to grow deeper together in Christ, fellowship and discipleship. And then as we reach out in evangelism, that also involves ministry. These two go together. There's a lot of overlap. In going for Christ, we serve Christ as well. And so those five purposes all flow out of our relationship with Jesus Christ. If you are a follower of Christ, you are designed for this. And as a church, we are built for this, this kind of outreach and ministry. What I want us to see this morning is that ministry is the capstone of all of those purposes. It is the one which brings it all together. And so let's look at Ephesians chapter 4 and refocus, highlight the purpose of ministry. People describe first of all in this verse, verses 11 and 12, the process of ministry. Here's how it's supposed to work. Three steps in this process of ministry. Look at verse 11. It was he. Now, if you've been reading the verses before, you'd find verse 7. He's talking about Christ. It's Christ who first of all descended to the earth to die for us. He ascended back into heaven. It is he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. The first step in this process of ministry is God gives gifted people. God gives gifted people. Now notice who these people are. Please understand, these people that are mentioned here are not superior to anybody else in the body of Christ. They are not more intelligent than anybody else in the body of Christ. They are not better than anybody else in the body of Christ. That's not the issue. They are not elevated above anybody else in the body of Christ. It's just that God has given the people listed here, four groups of people, special gifts that are specially designed to jumpstart to initiate this process of ministry. Now these four groups of people are listed for us. First of all, apostles. Now apostles were a unique group of people. The Bible says in Mark 3 that Jesus among all of those who were following Him called out twelve men and ordained them to be apostles. Those were men who served Christ and walked with Him and lived with Him and ministered for Him during His ministry, and then God was training them. Christ was training them to found the church, to start the church in the book of Acts. It's a special group of men. We have no apostles today. Those twelve apostles, and there were a few others called apostles in the New Testament, but those people were foundational in planting the church, getting the church off the ground in the book of Acts. Then you have prophets in verse 11. Prophets were men who received direct messages from God and then delivered them. If you study the word prophet or prophecy throughout the Bible, you'll find it has both of those components to receive direct information from God's special revelation from God for God's people and then deliver it to God's people. Speak it forth. These also were foundational men in the early church. In fact, if you look back at chapter 2, verse 20, he's talking about the church in verse 19 where God's people, members of God's household, in verse 20 of chapter 2 says, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. So apostles and prophets are men in New Testament times, first century, who received direct revelation from God, direct commission from God, to start the church, to get it up and running in the book of Acts. Then you have this third group of people, evangelists. Now in the New Testament, an evangelist is not a guy who runs around from church to church preaching revival meetings or evangelistic meetings. Nothing wrong with that. That's a wonderful ministry, but that's not what the word meant in New Testament times. In New Testament times, the word evangelist was a person who took the gospel into new regions, took it into new areas and preached the gospel where the gospel was not yet known. The closest person we would have to that today would be a missionary. So what we're looking at here is apostles and prophets who started the church, founded the church in the book of Acts, then you've got missionaries who take the gospel to new regions of the world where Christ is not known, and then you have a fourth group mentioned in verse 11. That is pastors and teachers. By the way, that's one group. It's not like there's some who are pastors and some who are teachers. Literally, it is pastor teachers. They're the same group. Now these are people who stay in one place. After the church is started in the book of Acts by the apostles and prophets, then you have missionaries spreading the gospel so that new churches are planted throughout the world. As a new church is planted, someone else comes in behind the missionary and stays in that place and becomes a pastor teacher, one who pastors or shepherds the flock and one who teaches them the word of God. Now it is those people that God has given to the church the process of initiating ministry begins with these people who laid the foundation of the church, spread the gospel to new areas, and then stay to teach and preach and shepherd God's people. That's who those people are. And first step is God gives gifted people. Second step is this in verse 12, they prepare God's people for ministry. They, those people who are gifted by God in those ways to initiate this process of ministry, they prepare God's people for ministry. Now you may have a translation that translates verse 12 this way. For the perfecting of the saints, comma, for the work of the ministry, comma, for the edifying of the body of Christ. That well known and noble translation for many years has confused people on this verse. The way that translation reads, it reads as a threefold job description for pastors and teachers in verse 11. It is the pastor and teachers job, according to that understanding, to do three things, to perfect the saints, to do the work of ministry, and to edify the body of Christ or build up the body of Christ. That is a misunderstanding of this verse. And this, when this passage was originally written by Paul in the Greek language, there were no commas. That was inserted later to try to help understand and it really confuses the issue here. No punctuation marks in this verse, in the original. What Paul was saying, I think is very well reflected in the NIV, the translation I'm reading. And that is, it is the job of those apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor teachers to prepare God's people for works of service. It's not two different things. It is to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. It's not that God designed the church to be certain people who are involved in vocational ministry, pastors, missionaries, their vocational ministers, and then the most of people enabled them to do that and watch them do it. It's not a biblical concept of church ministry. What Paul is saying is that in our day, missionaries and pastor teachers are to equip, to give you the tools, to train and prepare you to do the works of ministry. That is our ministry. That's our part of ministry. And then together we all do the ministry. It is God's design that everybody in the church be involved in ministry. It's not just kind of professional ministers that do the work of ministry. Our job as pastor teachers is to equip you to do the work of ministry so that together we're all involved in the ministry. We are all ministers. That's what verse 12 is teaching. So step number one, God gives gifted people, step number two, they prepare God's people for ministry, step number three in this process of ministry. The result is the body is built up. Notice, verse 12 says to prepare God's people who works of service so that the result so that the body of Christ may be built up. What he's saying is that when we are all involved in ministry, doing what God has equipped us to do and gifted and built us to do, when we're all doing that, the church grows. The church is built up. The body is built. It's not just talking about growing numerically. That may be included. But there are lots of other ways that churches grow. We grow deeper as we get to know Christ better, become more like Him. We grow broader as we minister in more effective and a greater variety of ways. There are lots of ways in which we grow. We grow warmer as we learn to fellowship better together and share our lives together. So lots of ways we grow. But the body is built as we do this process of ministry. Churches that are weak and dying are churches that are full of just people sitting in pews that don't do anything for Christ and just expect, well, the pastors missionaries are supposed to do that. No, no. We all have a place. We all have a part in ministry. We're all called to be ministers. And it is my job and the other pastors jobs to equip you, train you, give you the tools to be prepared to do the work of ministry. We have a special calling by God to do that vocationally. We are certainly aware that you don't do that vocationally. But you do have some opportunity and ability and giftedness to give to Christ in His work. And as we all do that, as we minister together, that people get saved and people grow. And the church is built. That's the way Christ builds His church. Look again at the circles. And here's how it's supposed to end up. This is the way I believe God is picturing this in Ephesians 4. From the passion and heartbeat of our love for Christ, we then come together and share our lives with others in Christ in fellowship. And then we grow deeper in Christ as we learn more about Him and become more like Him to study His Word and as we learn together, then we grow or we go for Christ in evangelism as we serve Him, then this happens out here. You see, we're moving outward. The church is never to grow inward. The church is always to go outward to be serving others, ministry, oriented. And ministry is the capstone of that where we reach out to other people. And as we do that, these little divine, Holy Spirit explosions are taken place out here. And what that signifies is those who are coming to know Christ because we, out of a passion for Christ and because we've been built up through learning more about Him and growing together, we now reach out to go for Him and serve Him as we're doing that. People are being saved and people are coming to know Christ. And then as they come to know Christ, guess what happens? They are fed right back into this worship of Christ coming together with the people of God growing in Him, going themselves as we serve Christ and witness for Him. And so the whole process happens over and over again. It is this whole cycle that Paul is talking about here. And ministry is the capstone of it. And ministry is what makes this happen to bring people back to Christ to worship Him and start the whole process again. That's what Paul's talking about here. The process of ministry is, God gives gifted people, they prepare God's people for ministry. The result as we all minister is that the body is built up. Now that is the process. And I want you to see what the product is because Paul goes on to describe what will happen if this process is being done effectively. There are five products, five things that will happen if this process is being carried out. Verse 13, until. In other words, this process I've just described in verses 11 and 12 is to happen until, this is what's going to happen when this process is taking place until we all reach unity in the faith. The first product of ministry is unity. There in verse 13. And this is talking about oneness. Unity is oneness. It's a sharing of common goals. It's being of one heart and one mind having one aim, one purpose in this work of God. It's an emphasis on what we share in common. Unity means that we share in common a purpose and a passion to love Christ and to come together with Christ and to grow in Christ and to go for Christ and to serve Christ. And when that's happening and when ministry is capping all of that off, then we have this oneness of goal and purpose and aim. It's a love and family spirit that we share together in this. Now watch this. This is fellowship. What we're talking about here, this oneness, common, the sharing together of our lives. This unity is fellowship. So ministry fuels, produces fellowship in a very practical way. As I indicated when we talked about fellowship, if you get involved in a ministry of the church, you will get to know people and begin to share your lives together much better than if you remain isolated. So ministry does fuel this unity, oneness, commonness, sharing of our lives together. It does fuel fellowship. But secondly, there's a second product. Oh, and by the way, notice this unity is to be in the faith. The unity has always, has boundaries set around it. It's always bounded by the faith, the truth of God's word. Any kind of unity that violates the word of God is just a false unity. It's just some kind of man-made unity. True unity is unity in the faith. We all believe what the Bible teaches and thus we can love Christ together and serve Him together and so forth. We all have a product of unity. Notice the second product of ministry, and that is knowledge of Christ, verse 13, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. We're to have not only a unity of faith knowing what we believe, we're also to have a unity of knowing Christ, growing and reaching a fuller knowledge of who He is. Standing better, who Christ is, and what we're to look like. And so we grow closer in fellowship with Him. We draw nearer to Him, and we express that to Him. Now watch it. This is worship. When we come to know Christ better, understand who He is, grow in our knowledge of Him. How can we help but fall more in love with Him? Understand better who He is. You will follow His feet in amazement and adoration of Him. This is worship. And so ministry, the capstone of these purposes, also fuels our worship. Third product of ministry, in verse 13, is Christ likeness. See it there, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature. The word meaning fully developed. We become mature, and here's how it's described, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Now think about those words for a moment. Attaining unto means that we're growing. We're becoming something that we weren't a year ago or five years ago. We're growing. We're attaining something. But the standard that we're attaining, what we're reaching for, is the fullness of Christ. It's everything that He is. And I love the way verse 15 describes the same thing. Verse 15 says instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him, who is the head that is Christ. Think of that word picture for a moment. Grow up into Him. He is the mold. He is the measure. He's the standard. And as we grow in Christ, we are growing up till we fill out what He looks like, who He is. It's like when you ladies make a jello thing. And you have this mold, it's kind of a pot. It's not a pot. It's a pan of some kind. And you pour the liquid jello. I think I've got this process right. I don't do this every day. But you pour this liquid jello in there and it hardens. And what it does is a liquid, it fills in every little shape. Maybe you're making a reindeer or something like that out of this jello. And it fills in every little piece of that mold, fills it up. And that's what it becomes. You're like you guys when you're pouring concrete. What do you do first? You first kind of clear out the ground and then you put your forms in, don't you? Out of pieces of lumber, you form up the way you want your sidewalk to look, how steep the steps are, how long they are, so forth. And then you pour the concrete in those forms and the concrete settles into, grows into those forms. Now that's what this is talking about. That we grow into Christ. He's the form. The pan, if you will. And we grow into him. We take on his shape. We become like him. But this is more than jello and concrete. This is a real living dynamic thing. I like to think of it more in terms of a little child who likes to walk around in mommy or daddy's shoes. Most kids do that. At some point, little girl will put on mommy's shoes and traips through the house, clump, clump, big old shoes in those little feet in those big old shoes. And a little guy does it with daddy's boots. But next year, those feet will have grown a little bit more and filled in a little bit more of those boots. We've got Ruben with us now, who's two years old. And if he walks around in my shoes in these next couple of weeks, his feet will barely be able to move them. I mean, he's got little feet. We also got a 12-year-old grandson, Daniel, who is just hitting growth spurt. He's taller than his mother now. Just about to reach his daddy. He's got a little bit to go to reach his grandfather in not only this way, but other dimensions as well. But he's going to get there. He's going to be a big boy. His feet are already bigger than mine. He's 12 years old. Okay, he's grown. He's filled out already. My shoes have gone beyond that. You see, this is what growth in Christ is. This is a product. One of the products of ministry is this Christlikeness where we are growing up to fill out what Christ looks like. We're becoming Christlik. We're becoming more like Him. And watch this. This is discipleship. You see, becoming more like Christ, becoming more a follower of Him, being made in His image, if you will, that growth process is the process of discipleship becoming more like Christ. And so ministry fuels discipleship. This capstone fuels discipleship. Fourth purpose or product of ministry is verse 14. Doctrinal stability. Doctrinal stability being stable, knowing what we believe, not being easily moved, doctrinal, and notice how Paul describes it in verse 14, really with three negative expressions. Then, okay, catch these words. Now they're important. If this process is taking place like it should and pastor teachers are equipping, training, discipling, helping it understand the word of God better, if that's taking place and if we're all doing what we should be doing ministry wise, then we will no longer be infants. We say, we will not be undeserving, an infant cannot discern what's right, what's wrong, what's true, what's false, an infant can't discern that. But we will no longer be infants, doctrinally, spiritually, He's talking about here. He expresses it in a second way. We will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves. We will no longer be unstable. We will no longer be undeserving and we will no longer be unstable. And then look at the third way he describes it. And blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming, there are people who will try to sell you all kinds of false teaching. And what Paul says here is that if this process of ministry is taking place as it should, it will help us to have doctrinal stability so that we will not be undeserving, we will know the truth from error, we will not be unstable, always shifting back and forth and we will not be deceived by false teachers. That's part of the product of ministry. And then notice if you will the fifth one, oh, by the way, let me say this before we move on. There are two sides to discipleship. This is also discipleship. There are two sides to discipleship, clearly in the Bible. The word itself has two meanings and these two verses illustrate both meanings. Discipleship is not only becoming a better follower of Christ so that you live out the life of Christ better, you grow up into Him. Discipleship is also understanding His word better so that we are no longer undeserving or unstable or deceived. That's also discipleship. There is a lifestyle component to discipleship. There is an understanding concept and part of discipleship, clearly throughout the word of God that balance is always there. It's well expressed in Peter's declaration of what it means to grow in Christ in 2 Peter 3 and verse 18. Look at this verse. But grow, notice the two ways, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Growing in the grace of Christ means growing in His character, the graces of the character of Christ. Growing in the knowledge of Christ is better understanding who He is and that only comes through the word of God. As we better understand what His word teaches, we understand who He is, what He wants us to be. So there's the two components. Discipleship involves Christ's likeness. It also involves doctrinal stability and both of those parts of discipleship are fueled by ministry. Paul says if this process of ministry is taking place as it should, one of the products will be doctrinal stability. Then the fifth product is this, sharing truth, sharing truth in verse 15. Instead of this being deceived by false teachers and being unstable and all of that, instead speaking the truth in love, we will then all things grow up into Him who is the head that is Christ. I'm interested for our purposes right now in that phrase, speaking the truth in love. One of the products of this process of ministry working right where pastor teachers are equipping the saints of God to do works of ministry and we're all involved as we should be in ministry. One of the products of that will be sharing truth. Now obviously we share truth with other believers but I think He's also talking about sharing truth with unbelievers. And so watch it. This is evangelism. We share the truth of God. Jesus says I am the way the truth in the life. We share Christ. We share the truth with other people. That's evangelism. Do you see how ministry fuels all the other purposes? Like ministry is happening like it should. All the other purposes flourish. Speaking the truth in love. Now what does it mean to speak the truth in love? Well it means that we have a love for the truth. It means that we have a passion to share it with others. It means also that we do so in a spirit and attitude of love. That we share with other people acts of servanthood and love ministry in a sense. That demonstrates the love of Christ. That's how we share Christ. Not only with our lips, certainly that's included but we also share him in acts of service and love. Some of you will know the name Doug Nichols. Doug Nichols is the president of Action International, a very fine mission organization. Two of our missionaries, David and Donna Jenkins, serve with Action International and in fact, do one of their daughters married Doug Nichols sons, one of his sons. And so if you get into connections here, connections are important at Johnson Chapel. If you haven't found out already, Donna Jenkins is John and John and Lois Robinson's daughter. So John and Lois are related to Doug Nichols about six times out. But if you've got that in your notes, we can move on. Doug Nichols is a great missionary with Action International. Now the president of that organization, he tells this story about his early missionary experiences in India. He says while serving with Operation Mobilization in India in 1967, tuberculosis forced me into a sanitarium for several months. I did not yet speak the language but I tried to give Christian literature written in their language to the patients, doctors and nurses. Everyone politely refused. I sensed many weren't happy about a rich American to them. All Americans were rich, being in a free government-run sanitarium. They didn't know I was just as broke as they were, he says. The first few nights, I woke around 2 a.m. coughing. One morning during my coughing spell, I noticed one of the older and sicker patients across the room trying to get out of bed. He would sit up on the edge of his bed and try to stand but in weakness would fall back into bed. I didn't understand what he was trying to do. He finally would fall back onto the bed exhausted and I would hear him crying softly. The next morning I realized what the man had been trying to do. He had been trying to get up and walk to the bathroom. The stench in our ward was awful. Other patients yelled insults at the man. Angry nurses moved him roughly from side to side as they cleaned up the mess. One nurse even slapped him. The old man curled into a ball and wept. The next night I again woke up coughing. I noticed the man across the room sit up and again try to stand like the night before. He fell back into bed whimpering. I don't like bad smells and I didn't want to become involved but I got out of my bed and went over to him. When I touched his shoulder his eyes opened wide with fear. I smiled, put my arms under him and picked him up. He was very light due to old age and advanced TB. I carried him to the washroom which was just a filthy small room with a hole in the floor. I stood behind him with my arms under his armpits as he took care of himself. After he finished I picked him up and carried him back to his bed. As I laid him down he kissed me on the cheek, smiled and said something I couldn't understand. The next morning another patient woke me and handed me a steaming cup of tea. He mentioned with his hands that he wanted a try. As the sun rose other patients approached and indicated they also wanted the booklets. I had tried to distribute before. Throughout the day nurses, interns and doctors asked for literature. Weeks later an evangelist who spoke the language visited me and as he talked to others he discovered that several had put their faith in Christ as Savior as a result of reading the literature. What did it take to reach these people with the gospel? It wasn't health. The ability to speak their language wasn't a persuasive talk that I'd given. I simply took a trip to the bathroom. It's one of the things I love about heaven's scent. Heaven's scent is sending food around the world. Particularly now the project to Haiti but many other places as well. That's ministry in the name of Christ, in the love of Christ that opens incredible doors then to share the gospel because people receive what you say when they know you care and you love them. It's speaking the truth in love with acts of servanthood that reaches out to meet real needs that people have. You see how ministry fuels evangelism? If you look at the chart or the pictures just one more time, the circles one more time. Ministry, the capstone outer circle, not only does it go this direction it also goes back in ministry, fuels worship, fuels fellowship, discipleship and evangelism. And Paul says when ministry is happening as it should in the church, when the church is being what the church ought to be, all of these other things happen, all of these other things are fueled and they come out with passion when ministry is involved, when we are ministering as God would have us to. Ministry produces fuels, the others, the product of ministry is all these other purposes and that's why ministry completes the circle. That's why it is so devastating to the body of Christ when pastor teachers are not equipping the saints and the believers, the saints are not doing anything. That's why we have crippled weak churches especially in the Western world is because it's ministry that fuels all the rest of this and completes the circle. So we've got to be doing what God wants us to do. Now where does the power for this come? Let me quickly share with you the power for ministry in verses 15 and 16. Here's how it comes, here's how it works. Verse 16, from him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work, from him. So the first part of the power to do this is from Christ because Christ is the head. That's where we get our orders from. That's where your body gets its orders from the head, the brain. You cannot operate, you cannot function without your head. Some of you try awful hard. You don't do a very good job, do you? That's where we get our orders from. It's where everything happens. Every nerve ending in our body gets its orders from the brain and the brain says, do this and the body responds. So the power to do ministry comes first of all from Christ, but then notice it comes through the members of the body. From Christ, but through the members of the body, verse 16, from him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. What Paul's talking about is the strategic placement and ministry of every part of the body. Now the Bible teaches this very plainly. We are all placed into the body of Christ by God Himself. It's not pastors who determine where you serve. We might help you be able to figure that out and find the best place you fit. Others may help you do that as well, but it is God who gives us the abilities to serve Him, spiritual gifts, the Bible calls them. Clearly taught in 1 Corinthians 12 where the Bible uses the human body as an illustration. In Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, God places every member, every believer in the body as He desires. And so some of us become the hand, some of us become the foot, some of the ear, some of the eye, some another part of the body, and we all have a part to play. We don't all do the same thing. We are not all gifted by God, equipped by God to do the same thing, but we all do have a strategic place and function in the body. Romans 12 teaches the same thing. In verses 3 through 8 it says, we should all examine ourselves and look to see how God has gifted us and so barely evaluate ourselves. And then if you determine God's giving you the gift of service, then do it. If God's giving you the gift of teaching, teach diligently. If God's giving you the gift of leadership, provide that to the body. And the whole purpose of this is that every part of the body is involved where Christ wants it to be doing what Christ wants it to do. Not looking at other parts of the body, saying, well, why are you doing what I'm doing? I'm the hand. Look at all I do. And the eyes that are just sitting up there, not doing a thing. See, we have this gift projection tendency in the church. A lot of folks are guilty of this because they don't see somebody else doing what they're passionate about. They think that person is not interested, not active in the body. Well, it's just that that person may be the toenail on the little toe. That's still a important part of the body. Rip it off and see sometime. It's pretty important. It may not be the eye or the hand, but still that person has a function in the body. And so we need to quit comparing and criticizing and just focus on what God's given us to do and do it. As each part does its part, then the body grows and builds itself up, verse 16 says. So the power for this comes from Christ through the members of the body. Now, in closing, I want to tie it together with some very practical exhortations to us. In practical terms, this is what we need to do to be involved in ministry. Four steps. So I'm going to give you first of all, identify your gifts and passion. In other words, what you're good at, that's your spiritual gift, what God's enabled you to do. And it may not be a natural ability. In fact, spiritual gift typically isn't a natural ability. It's something God's given you to do that He's given you an ability to do. And you probably won't find out what it is until you get involved in some things that you want to do. And you find, I love that. Others will recognize you are good in that area and you can serve the body of Christ in that area. Identify your gifts and your passion. What you have a heart for, what you have a passion for. Now, we need to do a better job as a church of helping you identify that. No question. And we can do more than what we're doing to help you identify that. We used to have a class called 401 and we didn't do it real well there. But we tried to help people identify their gifts, people who would come into the church, identify their gifts and then places of ministry where they could plug in. We want to do something, we don't do that anymore, but we want to do something similar to that that will enable you to discern what your gifts are. How God has uniquely equipped you and built you to do something for him. And then actually help lead you into places of ministry where that could best be carried out. We want to do a better job of helping you, but you have to have the desire to say, I want to discover what my gifts and my passion are. Second step. Find a place where you fit and plug in. Find a place where you fit a ministry and it doesn't necessarily have to be a ministry in the church, it could be a ministry somewhere else. The church is involved, the church is much bigger than Johnston Chapel. The church is God's people doing God's work in the world. And so it may be a ministry that is not really related to our church, but you find a place where you can plug in. But I'll tell you this, there are lots of places right here where you can plug in and make a difference in the cause of Christ. Find a place of ministry and plug in. Third thing. Be willing to help in areas of need. There will always be areas of need and they may not fit your particular gift and passion, but people with servants' hearts say, okay, here's a need in the church. I want to help out. It may not fit your gift. You may walk across the parking lot and see somebody fall in a snow bank and say, I don't have the gift of mercy, I don't have to help them and walk on. That's not what God wants you to do. There's a need there, you need to help. And sometimes we have needs in the church and you say, well, that's not my particular area of ministry. That's okay, we still have needs. You can help us a servant. Let me give you a few ideas. We've got 13 students, I think, and less some folks in the first service responded from ABC that still need a place to stay next week. You say, well, I don't have the gift of hospitality, that's not my place. We're not talking about spiritual gifts here. We're talking about an opportunity to serve. And to be a blessing to these students and help the church enable this to happen. And all we're asking is that you pick them up. We'll give you the time somewhere around eight o'clock or so, Saturday evening. Provide them a place to sleep. Give them a bed, floor, bath, wherever you want them to sleep. Just provide them a place to sleep. Give them breakfast Sunday morning and get them to church on time. That's all we're asking. We're not asking you to keep them a week or two days. Just that. You can do that. You can do that. So we'd like to have all those places on that sign-up sheet filled out today. We have always have needs for the nursery. And you say, well, I don't have the spiritual gift of changing diapers. Where did you get that from in the Bible? There's no spiritual gift that way. You can change the diaper or you can hand that little messy baby to someone else who can do it. But you can help in the nursery. You can do that. You can serve in that way. Some of you need to go on that PNG mission trip. I know that's a big one. It's going to take some time. It's going to take some expense. But some of you have the uniquely given, God-given abilities to do what needs to be done there. And to help folks who are very dear to our church, Dan and Amy thing, build a church building in a church they've been working with. Some of you can do that. You need to step up to the plate and do it. Now, be careful again that you don't criticize other people for what either they are doing or not doing. The eye cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you. So don't compare. Don't look at other people. Don't say, well, I don't see you doing this. All of us need to be faithful in the areas of ministry, God's given us, and help in places where we can serve. So the fourth suggestion is don't focus on other parts of the body. So easy to focus on what others are doing or not doing. Complaining about that. Get busy doing what God wants you to do and stop looking at other people. Too much energy is wasted by focusing on what some other people are not doing. You just plug in and do what God wants you to do. And if all of us do that, we'll be fine. Now, in the beginning of this message, we saw Uncle Sam saying, I want you. Now, here's what we're really headed toward here at Johnson Chapel. Look at this picture. We want you and most of all, better than this, Christ wants you. Christ wants you to serve Him. Okay? So let's do it. Let's do it. Let's just do it.