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All right. Amen. Well, if you've got your Bible, you can open it to Ephesians 4. We're going to carry on. This is week two of this series, Walk It Out. We've just made this transition out of the first three chapters, which were predominantly theological in nature. So chapters one, two, and three, deal with that. I'm going to go back and listen to those. I've gone back and listened to them. There's so much there. Probably could have spent a whole year just in chapter one, if we were being honest. But chapters four through six are more practical.
What are we going to do with chapters one, two, and three? That's the gist of it. Okay. And so today I want to talk to you out of a section of scripture that's pretty near and dear, I think, to the leadership of this church and something that we believe in. If you saw Courtney talking to me a second ago, she was leaning over to me and she was saying, I remember what it is. It's every member a minister. She had practiced it. It's a saying we say around here. Even Lexi said it a second ago. We're going to deal with that this morning. We try our best to expositionally preach. That just means we go line by line in the scriptures. One of the things that does is it protects us from just being loose cannons about things that happen or things that we think we ought to talk on. It's good in the sense that when we come to it in the scriptures, if we're passionate about it, we get to just say, well, the scriptures took us there. That's just the scripture's fault.
You know what I mean? So you'll have to forgive. I'm going to try to make it through this as passionately restrained as possible. But this is a near and dear to my heart subject. And we're going to be reading verse six all the way through 17. So a lot of scripture today on one particular part. Okay. Ephesians chapter four, starting in verse seven, Paul says, but grace was given to each one of us. You are an us. You are a we. Okay. So Paul is saying to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, and stick with me through this little part right here, because many people have spent too much time on this one little section here in verse seven. Verse eight and verse nine, Paul says, therefore it says, he's quoting a Psalm. When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And he clarifies that Psalm with what he says here in verse nine. In saying he ascended, he's talking about Jesus. What does it mean? But that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all. Things. When he's saying that, you might have thoughts about this. You may have studied this at one particular time.
This is an easy passage. If you just know that Jesus did not come from some miraculous birth in the sense that, oh, well, these two parents got together. If you know he was sent from heaven, then he descended here and then he ascended again into heaven. That's really all this text is talking about. It really does not refer to anything. Then Christ's incarnation and then his ascension back to the right hand of the father. Okay. And so we're not going to spend a ton of time on that. If you want to get into the depths of it later, because you have a different approach, we can totally talk about it, but we're going to land right there for now. Verse 10, he says, going into verse 11, he says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers. We would call that here at Moot Church, a five-fold ministry. We didn't call it a five-fold ministry. We called it a five-fold ministry. We called it a series back in the spring of last year. If you ever wanted to hear a message on what we believe about those things, it's a series called gifts. You go listen to that verse 12 to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Now listen to everything that comes after this.
Our focal point is going to be verse 12. Listen to all the things that happens when the saints are equipped for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until everybody say until, until we all, until we all, until we all, until we all, until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God. That seems like a lofty task to mature manhood or womanhood. This is talking about the nature of us growing up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children. He's not talking about age. He's talking about maturity tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by every human cunning and by craftiness in deceitful, schemes, other things other than the gospel and the truth that comes from Jesus. You won't be blown around by those things. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up, not just mature in every way, but into him who is the head into Christ. There is a metric. There is a measurement and it's Jesus. It is not me. It is not a leader here. It is not a leader in the church. It is not your granddad. It's Christ. From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is, say this next part with me, properly or grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Man, that is a mouthful. We're going to focus in on verse 12 and really the fruit of verse 12. Let's pray before we do that. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that we can trust it. I know that there's a lot of misplaced truth. I know that there's a lot of misplaced amongst the body. It's hard to trust leaders. It's hard to trust politicians. It's hard to trust pastors. It's hard to trust people in our lives. But Father, I ask that you would help us whole heartedly trust your word this morning. Not an opinion, not secondary things. What does your word plainly say? And that we might be nourished from it. May this be a place, real food, that we not only would benefit in the sense that our bellies spiritually would be full, but that we would be people who would be people who would be people who would be people who would be people that can tell others where they can find bread. God, I ask that my words would be pure and that the hearer's ears be able to hear. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now, I want to take just a second, if you have your notes open, there's really only two parts of this in notes wise, but I'm going to take just a small amount of time to maybe talk about beef if you can. I don't want to be opinionated here. I just, I want to see if I can bring clarity to the fact that this is a very difficult thing, what we're talking about today. We use the phrase, every member a minister. The reason we use that phrase is because of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 12. That there are gifts that Jesus has given to the church that is supposed to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And this is difficult because the church is supposed to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. The church today does not know what that looks like. The American church specifically knows what it's like to have a minister who does ministry that you receive once a week. Okay? I don't want to be ugly. I don't want to sound like a know-it-all because I'm not, but I have been around the church long enough to see this right here not be the case. I've been in the church long enough to know that the majority of the church rests heavily on one person knowing mostly everything so that they can say something on Sundays worthwhile to where we can go about. And it's an, it's an addition to our lives being a part of the church. And for many people, Christianity is an additive to their life. It is, Christ is not their life. It is something you add to your very, very, very life. It is something you add to your very, very, very life. Busy life. There was a story of a missionary who one time went and was evangelizing a group of people. And the people were so excited to hear about this Jesus. And when they heard, they received, they trusted. They were like, oh my gosh, yes. And he went into the home of one of the people that had just recently been converted. And he had taken a little piece of wood and whittled on it the name of Jesus and put it on their mantle amongst all the other carvings they had for all the other. They were excited about Jesus because the message sounds good, but he was eventually just put on the mantle with all the other things that have this person's life. And I really think that is the nature of Christianity for most.
I get actually really discouraged by it often. Again, I'm not trying to promote that there's a perfection you can obtain on this side, but it just seems like the church, and I'm not just talking about the church, I'm talking about the church, but the I have plenty of friendships, plenty of people that I know and I love and I care about and I hear stories. And I'll just be honest with you, you don't have to take my word for it. Nominal Christianity exists outright in most spaces. Most spaces, there is a Christianity that exists that says what we want is something that can be added to our life that enhances our life, but certainly not a belief that says in order to have this life, you have to first lose it. That Christianity is hard to find today. A Christianity where people are willing literally to say Christ is all I need is very difficult to find. So that's problem number one. Problem number one is it's difficult to find Christianity where people believe that. They believe that Jesus quite literally purchased them. That he, they believe that Jesus purchased them. They believe that Jesus purchased them. They did not take on Jesus to add them to their life, but Jesus brought them into, brought them from death to life. It's hard to find that. Then the second thing is the church is long that it's propagated a system that makes people in you that type of Christianity, which again, this isn't, we do this perfectly. In fact, that's why I'm bothered by scriptures like this. It's hard to be a part of the church and grow up. It's hard to be a part of the church and grow up. It's hard to be a part of the church and grow up. It's hard to be a part of the church and be built up and then be one who builds up, to be one who gives their life for others, to be someone who would be so aware that their life is not the center of the universe, but humbly gives of themselves to others. We live in a world where this is very hard and we live in a church culture where this is very hard. The church culture today is telling you week in and week out, we're going to be a part of the church. We're going to be a part of the church. Come in here, this air-conditioned building, sing a few songs, listen to a pep talk, TED talk, and then go about your merry way. And I want to be very frank with you. I don't give a rip about that type of strategy. I don't like it. I hate it. I feel like the old worm on SpongeBob when they're talking to her about chocolate, she's like, chocolate. I always hate it. That's how I feel. I've got like two SpongeBob fans in here that got that reference. The rest of y'all are like, quit watching SpongeBob. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate you. I hate it. I hate how the church culture is not making disciples. It's making consumers who are quite happy getting to heaven and caring about nothing else on the way. I don't want to be a part of that.
I don't care about how the church is doing. I don't want to be a part of that. I don't care it makes me feel when I can't do the things I see other people doing it. You know, if we can be honest and just use this word, it really sucks to be a part of the kind of Christianity where God continually ask you to die. Because the Christianity that I was sort of formed in says, you only have to suffer a little bit of pain, but God will bless you. And so when you don't get to heaven, you don't have to suffer a little bit of pain, but God will bless you. When you don't get the blessing, when you don't get the feeling, when you don't get the thing, then your Christianity just kind of is like, it's nominal. It's nominal. You could do all the things. We could try to get that kind of Christianity out of you by yelling at you and condemning you and shaming you. But how many of you know that doesn't work? No one condemned me into sacrificing for my spouse. That has to be motivated from somewhere different. You don't do hard things. Just because someone made you feel bad for it. So on the other spectrum of a lot of Christianity right now, we have people that get up on Sundays and they just literally berate their congregations for not doing it good enough. And so we've got a subsection of Christians who don't even believe they're really the children of God. They don't believe they're the righteousness of God in Christ. They don't believe that God really loves them. They spend their entire life condemned and ashamed of God. Of who they are. You've proverbially, proverbially have two sons, like the prodigal son and the elder son. One goes off and lives their life however they want, feeling like they're justified in that. And the other one sits at home, works really hard for dad and is bitter about it. And I'll be honest with you.
That's what I think the majority of the church is today. People who belong to God, but live however they want or people who stick with God, but are pretty ticked off that they have to. So from my vantage point for just a second, if you could just see that with me for just a minute and then read that text again. You can do this again later, okay? Because I don't have time to do it all right now.
This, this all sounds so good. But for the last 20 years, I have been infinitely frustrated, not with individuals. I'm not frustrated with you. I'm frustrated with the culture. Because if we are going to do something, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. Like every member of this body. I'm not to listen. If you are, I'm like trace. If you're a guest here today, I'm not putting anything on you. You can check out the worship music. You can listen to the sermon and you can check out and go do whatever. But if you are committing to being a part of the body and you're a member, then it's kind of like, I want to talk to you today about something that I think is so counter-cultural that this will literally be the hardest thing that we do. We live in a culture where you can talk to people about Jesus and say you believe in Jesus and you are not going to catch any flack for that. You're not. We have Christian businesses out here in these streets. You know what I mean? Like Hebrews coffee. I mean like, you're not going to get persecuted outside the church for loving Jesus. You're not. At least not for another 20 years. Who knows that might change. But you know what you will encounter issue with?
The idea that every person that is a member of the body of Christ is called into full-time ministry. Why do I believe that? Because you have heard someone say, I'm feeling a call into ministry. Well, I need to let you know something. Every one of you is called into ministry. So I don't know about that, Jonathan. I barely have read through the whole Bible. I don't care. That might actually be a good thing for you. Because some people run off and get taught to read the Bible and they get taught how to read it wrong. Okay. So what am I saying? I'm saying you don't qualify yourself based on what you're able to do or what you've done to this point.
Because if you did that, you couldn't be saved. So you're not saved by your work and you're not sent by it either. You're not sanctified by the work that you do. You're sanctified by Christ. And so this is one of the hardest things I think I've ever said yes to is how do we promote people understanding and loving Jesus Christ? And living out. He is a dad to me. Jerry Vaughn and I were talking the other day. He said, Jonathan, I think your church is in the middle of walking through the difference between revelation, which is you need it. If you're going to do something different, you have to think different first. The church is about to be going through a phase where things turn from revelation to transformation, meaning you don't just know it, you do it. I want to sit around and talk about hypotheticals. That's why I want to do things. I'm like the joker in the dark night. I just want to do things. I don't want to know about Jesus. I want to live like Jesus. And if you want a formal education only, you may be like the Pharisees who Jesus told in John 7, you searched for me in the scriptures and you have missed me. Because to only know him intellectually is to miss the purpose of the church. We are the body of Christ and he is the head. My hope today would be is that maybe I can motivate you. I'm not good at motivating. I feel like every time I come and preach, some of y'all are starting to think, should I even be a Christian anymore based on how I've been preaching lately? I'm motivated, but I'm frustrated. Have you ever been there? Parents, you know what I'm talking about? You're motivated, but you're frustrated. I want to see the members of this church be who God has called you to be. I don't want to hear the excuses. I don't, because I know I've got a list of reasons why this guy shouldn't be doing half the things he should be doing.
No more excuses. You say, I don't know enough. You never will. It's the same people going, I don't know if I'm ready to get married. I don't know if I'm ready to have kids. You will never be ready. Kids throw you curve balls all the time. They're crazy. Kingston says he's not crazy, okay? You're never ready until you get there. And then even when you get there, you realize the only way I'm going to be able to do anything in my life is if God helps me to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Let me give you a vocab list. Equip. It means to fully furnish, to make, as the Bible says, I put it in quotations in your notes, perfect or complete. If you'll remember the story of the young rich ruler, he comes to Jesus and he says, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus tells him, you need to do the commandments. And he says, well, I've done all the commandments since I was young. I've done every one of these commandments. And Jesus says, well, if you want to be perfect, he's not talking about a moral perfection. What he's saying is if you want to complete this, if you want this to be then you need to go sell all your possessions and give them to the poor, okay? So perfect here does not mean morally excellent, even though I'm not saying you shouldn't have moral excellence. See, I think you should. Maybe some of y'all need to work on that, okay? Like you need to turn up the moral switch a little bit, respond to God and do some better with your life. But he's not saying be morally perfect. He's saying it's to make you whole. And we've got too many Christians who aren't whole out there. W-H-O-L. Not whole. They're partial. Some of you, you're teetering on the edge with God. Not in a bad way, but you just haven't quite gone.
You've even thought, there's no way I could be like that. Part of this experience in the church is that being a part of the church, there are gifts that are able to help you become whole in Christ. Not a partial believer. You know, we have all these things. Not a Sunday only believer. Not a Sunday only believer. Not a Sunday only believer. Not a Sunday only believer. But, you know, those things really do work because there's so many people who they're, they just, you know, and again, I'm not trying to condemn you. I'm not trying to squeeze spirituality out of you. But what I am saying is be challenged by the word of God. Do you see yourself as whole in Christ? And if you didn't, what would you do? You all, including myself, will stand before God one day and you will, listen, your judgment is not going to be on God. You will stand before God one day and you will, listen, your judgment is not going to be on God. Whether or not you are going to go to heaven or hell, that judgment has been solidified for you. God rules in your favor. If you've trusted Jesus, you have the righteous record of Jesus. Okay?
So if I got believers in here that are still worried about going to hell, stop it. Let's, can we, can we put these elementary things to bed? If you've trusted in Christ's record, it's good for you. But this other judgment that's going to come is, what did you do with my son? Not how much Bible did you know? Not how many services did you go to? Not how many tears you shed during that awesome worship song? What did you do with my son, Jesus? And if you are not whole, he will leak out of you and you'll come up every week. You'll be upset. That's why me and many others gave our life to Jesus every other weekend because we weren't whole in Christ. We didn't believe that Jesus' record really was ours. We didn't believe that Jesus' record really was ours. We didn't believe that Jesus' record was ours. We thought our salvation was dependent on our behavior. No, I'm whole in Christ before you, not because of my moral perfection, but because of Christ's perfection on my behalf. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus and you're saying, I'm not good enough to come to Jesus, you got step one down. You aren't. And that's why you can't.
Jesus comes to you and he offers you the deal of a lifetime. All of your wickedness and your wrongdoing and your sin for his righteous record on the cross. And if you trust in that, you're saved. Your judgment of heaven and hell is over with. But there is another judgment, a judgment of what did you do? What did you do? And maybe we've done wrong in some ways, maybe even as Move Church, because we talk a lot about being with Jesus over just doing stuff for Jesus. But maybe we need to, maybe we need to stoke the fire again in the doing for Jesus, because there's no way you could be with the son of God in prayer or in worship. Or in the word and not be motivated to do something unless you're not whole saints. In the Catholic Church, it's reserved for particular people, people who have confirmed miracles, at least two. Anybody done that? We use that phrase a lot. Somebody does something for us that was really got us out of a pickle. We'll say you're a saint. It's, it's, it's, it's bad wording. A saint is someone who is a member of the family or the household of God. You may not like it, but you, if you've trusted Jesus, become a part of the body of Christ. And that means you are a saint. Remember that old song? Oh, when the saints go marching in. You know that song? I thought that was just like an army, a song about an army. When I was a kid, I was like, that's, that's about some other group. No, no. When the saints go marching in, it's us, his people. How do you equip a saint if a person doesn't believe they are what God has made them to be? We can have all the we can say all the things. I can passionately yell my guts out, but it will never convince you of something that only God can convince you of by way of the cross. The only way you can become a part of the body of Christ is to come to Christ and say, what do I do with my sin? And when Jesus takes it, he then gives to you, not only his righteous record, but he engrafts you in to his body. You're a member of the household.
God. So we want to see members of the family or the household of God fully furnished or made complete for what purpose? For the work of the ministry. Work is labor. I like that word. I like working. There's like a generational thing happening, a rift, I feel like, where you'll have a lot of older people who know how to work and that translated over into their Christianity.
Christianity. So if they were going to be a hard worker over here, they're going to be a hard worker in the kingdom of God. The only problem with that was is that sometimes people that have a really good work ethic, that work ethic tends to burn them out. How many times over the last 10 years have you heard about people burning out? It's a word that, can you use the word trigger? I mean, it triggers me. I'm burned out. Burned out from what? I'm going to be ugly for maybe just a second. Burned out from what? Every person that I've ever heard, that talks about being burned out, they do a lot for Jesus, but they're barely with Jesus. Tell me about your prayer life. Man, I haven't prayed in three weeks. Man, you're not burned out. You're doing something from the wrong place. You're not whole. You're a part and you're trying to give out of your part. Y'all see what I'm saying? And so we get this stuff. I mean, the church gets this wrong all the time and then it comes back. I'm going to be real ugly for just one second if y'all let me. Then it comes back on the church leadership. I'm not saying anybody here has ever said this, okay?
But like I said, I got friends who do this and I hear my friends who pastor churches and I'm like, oh, you're on the hook because they're not being with Jesus? And to make up for the guilt of them not being with Jesus, they feel like they've got to do more for Jesus? And that's on you? It makes me not want to promote teams. It makes me not want to promote missions. It makes me want to say, hey guys, let's not do anything that way. Nobody gets burned out. And then if we start saying, let's pray, then people are going to people, I don't have time to pray. Then what the heck do we have time for? We've got time for everything under the sun and we barely have time for the sun. You can write that sticky statement down. You can post it on Facebook later. I want to hear one more person talk about how they're doing too much and the thing they're going to be judged on is not going to come up in heaven. Being wiped out by all the crap you think you need to do is not going to come up before God. He's going to say, what did you do with my son? I didn't have time. I was worried. I was scared. I didn't think I was good enough. He is not going to take your excuse.
And you might say, well, then what's going to happen? Paul says it this way. He says, you'll get to heaven, but you'll be like one who escaped through a fire. Come through the gates of heaven. Y'all talk about it. I'm going to walk on the street to go. This is going to be so good. You're going to look like you got burned up. You'll look like, what's his name from Home Alone when he got his head scorched. You know what I'm talking about? You're going to come through. You're going to have smoke popping off your head. It's imagery. It's metaphor, right? We get it. But what I'm saying is you're going to come through eternity and there is going to be a sign that you didn't quite do what you were supposed to do. Some things got burned up on the edge of the fire. Eternity, because you decided there were other things more pressing than what Christ had burdened you for. And I'll just, I'll be honest with you.
I don't want to perpetuate that type of church. It does. It makes me want to go. Don't do anything. Don't do anything. That's why I've been promoting.
Please pray. Please get with God. God will birth these things in your heart. But when you got, when you got a sense of, well, I can't even pray, how do we get, how do we get equipped? How do we become whole? How do we make something of what God wants to do in our lives? If we're not with him, we're certainly not going to do for him. And if we do for him out of not being with him, it's going to be all for nothing. You see how messed up the kids are hearing me in the back. They're like, please, Jonathan, calm down. Okay. How do we do this? You can see why when I read this scripture, I go sometimes, and me and Trace have talked about it. I'll just be open with you.
Sometimes there are a million other things I'd want to do. And I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to rather do than try to figure out how you get this type of culture fixed. I mean, we're not talking about swimming up a little small stream upstream. We're talking about, this is like going up an Olympic rafting course upstream. The culture you live in, the culture you're around promotes one specialized person doing all of the work and us just chilling out until we get to glory. And it's just not right. I'm not saying that for my sake. I'm saying it for the culture. Labor. Jesus said, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send the laborers into the field, into the field, not to sit and listen to songs and sermons. I like songs and sermons. I can't, I cannot tell y'all how much I like good church services. I like them. I was having myself a good old time over there during those, that last worship song. Love it. If I was sitting down right now, listen to this, I'd be like, please, I would go home. I'm just telling you how I'd be. I would go home. I would go home. I would go home. I would go home. I would go home. I would go home. I listen to Trace preach. I listen to myself preach. I'd go home and I'd be like, how do I get this down in here? I like a good church service. I even like those kinds where you come up later and you're like, oh, you stepped on my toes faster. I love those kinds. I love every bit of it. But if you think the purpose of the church is for us to have these Sunday gatherings and that's it, you are off.
It is so hard not to believe it's anything but that. An undertaking that occupies you. Can I just, you just do a little mental exercise. You don't have to raise your hands. You don't have to say out loud. Don't, please don't say out loud.
What occupies you? What occupies you? What has your attention? Does Jesus have your attention? Or are you like Peter and James and John? And when Jesus comes back to check what you're doing, he says, can you not keep watch with me for an hour? I'm afraid the church is distracted from its purpose. We are not a political bandwagon. Are we to be involved in politics? I think so. But I'm not here to argue with anybody about what's going on with Trump or some Democrat. I don't give a rip. It's hard for me to be a part of politics because I see so many dumb Christians saying dumb stuff about politics. Y'all, I don't care about Iran. I don't care. I have people in my life that can't pray for 10 minutes. I don't care what's happening. Y'all with me? I'm supposed to get passionate about something going on three billion miles that way. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.
And I'm talking to people who are in the midst of the biggest part of their life and they're trying to walk in godliness. I ain't got time for all that. Some of us, we need to get off everything you have. God sent an EMP, but only that messes with our phones and mess with our phones so we can't get on the internet and obsess and be occupied with every wrong thing in the world when your heart is crying out to do what God says. Distracted, spending time and time and money on so much stuff that is so irrelevant. I hear people say, it ain't going with you. You're darn right it's not going with you. So what are you doing? Turn your heart towards Christ. You're occupied by so many things other than Jesus. Your pain has become your Lord. Your job has become your Lord. We can't labor for God because we're laboring for ourselves. Kelly, you picked a good one to come to. We got visitors today. Sorry, visitors. Love y'all. Ministry, service, and help. It's simple. It's not, it's not, there's no Greek trickery in the word here. I say that all the time because sometimes we're like, well, what does the Greek say? The Greek says what it says. Ministry is not a specialized service for only a few. It means help. I can get my eight-year-old back there. He's in move kids right now. I can't get him to do a lot, but every once in a while I can get him to help because you want to know why? Because help is easy to do if you've got one who can instruct. Help is easy to do when it's, it's not made into something that you can't actuate in your life. To equip the saints for the work of the ministry, to fully furnish or make complete the members and the family or the household of God for the labor or the undertaking that occupies them, which is their service and help to the body of Christ.
When you say it like that, maybe it's not so complicated. A gazillion different things I would like to say. I probably spent more time saying what I shouldn't have. And I'll probably have to come up in two weeks because Trace is preaching next week. And I'll have to say, I'm sorry I said all that stuff. I'll repent and I'll try to figure it out. I don't know. I just, y'all have to go with me. Sometimes I'm like, God, what are you doing here? Why do we have to be this way?
Can I be real for a second? Why can't we do it like everybody else does? Why can't we push? Man, I'm going to be super real. Why can't we do the growth model stuff? Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? You want to know why? I'll tell you why for me. You want to know why I'm not interested for real, for real, when you get to the heart of it, of whether or not we grow numerically or not? Because I'm not so quite sure that it would be for the right reasons. Sometimes I wonder if when I get to heaven, if God's going to say, I don't think he's going to say, why didn't you grow the church to 500? I think he's going to say, what did you do with my son with the 80? Now, I think it'd be great if this church grow. Y'all know that. It'd be great if we could get a bill to me. Great if we could do this. It'd be great if we could do that. And I'm not against those things. When I say I don't care, I just mean it doesn't keep me up at night.
Because I'm going to tell you something, this is not growth model material. You don't grow a church by saying every member of minister. The way you grow a church is you get a personality and you get a little bit of money and you get a little persona. You get preachers and sneakers.
You get a persona and you build a ministry off of personality. And my greatest joy would be not that you said, Trace or I, preach good messages or you thought something great of us. It would bless me to my core if you named somebody in this church and you said, they've been pouring out their life for me. That's what ministry is. And that kind of ministry doesn't get accolades. That's why if you think ministry is this, you're wrong. It's not. It can be. Y'all understand what I'm saying. But ministry, real help, real service is when you give your life. Ask your church, because I've been asking our team this, who are you giving your life to? Our great commission is not to have great church services. Our great mission is to go into all the world and make disciples.
And every bit of that labor that I'm talking about in Ephesians, all that labor, did you hear what it equates to? Growing up, being mature, not being tossed around like a child in the middle of a raging ocean. It's all about maturity and growth. And the more ministry equates to more maturity, the more you grow. And the more you grow, the more you grow. And the more maturity equates to more ministry. It's a cycle. And if you come here week in and week out, and all you're hearing is, that was a good sermon. That really helped me. You're missing it. I dare say, I don't care much about what we accomplish. I want us to be fruitful in discipleship. I want to hear about how many of you are doing hard things. Do you know how much it encourages me to hear? Not that I'm happy you're going through something bad, but when I'm watching you be perfected, Trace, can you think of anything more encouraging than when somebody from this church talks about going through something difficult and they didn't give up, or they didn't get blown off their horse, or that, you know, they made it through and you're like, you know what I start thinking? Oh my gosh, this stuff might actually be real. It might actually be something worth giving our life to, to hear somebody say, I'm coming through this. And I'd be doubly blessed to hear, and so-and-so has been encouraging me through it. I just want to give you these few things, and then we'll close. Then how? How do you do that? I really stink at application. I'm really good at hooting and hollering about stuff. I know sometimes I'm not really good about application.
How would you do this? And you're probably going to be like, Jonathan, you just, you didn't think long enough, and you didn't prepare long enough to get this one, so you need to find another one. But this is the way that many of you must start if you really are going to be a minister. Pray. Pray. God doesn't trust people who don't pray. God doesn't work in the life of the prayerless, not in the ways that you might want. You're working so hard to get things right, to do the things you're supposed to do. And I would say, if anything occupies you in the very near future, a labor, a work, let that work and that labor be of prayer. If you're not praying, I don't know, it sounds like we got some beat going down right now. I don't know what that is. If we could maybe switch that off, all completely. Together, that would be awesome. I just was about to start freestyle rapping on y'all. Y'all don't even know. I heard that beat come on and I started like grabbing my shirt like, yeah, okay, what's up now? All right. You got to pray. No, I'm not going to do it. Okay. I really did. I started getting motivated. My heart rate started getting a little, okay. Anyway, settle down, y'all. Settle down. I come back in youth group. Pray. Pray. Who are you? Because here's the consumer Christians, when you hear pray, yeah, I need to get with God. I need to talk about this. I need to talk about, no, no, no, no. Not just about you. Who are you carrying before God? Some of you, you need to pray for people in the church that you're a part of and you don't. Pray. If you need a list of needs, there's stuff going on around here all the time that sure could use your prayers. I watch the power of prayer. You know what it does? It endears me to pray more. The greatest thing you could do from today is go to a place of prayer.
And then when you come back here next week, the people you've prayed for in here, because listen, I'm all about, we're about to say ascending liturgy. I'm all for it. Me and Trace love the idea of us being sent out of here.
But if we can't do it here, I don't know how in the world we're going to do it out there. So that, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You start praying. I want you to pray for somebody. You might not even know that their name, you might be like that, that guy that always wears the hat that is wearing it backwards today. Whatever his name is. He's always got the short shorts on whatever his name is. I'm praying for him. Whoever you're praying for next Sunday, when you come and for goodness sakes, just come back next week. Okay. Come, come to, come to services. That would be a good one too. Come to services. You come next week. I just want you to come to that person. And I just want you to tell And then this is what I want you to do. I want you to tell them. I want you to encourage them. So, oh, no, no, no, Jonathan, you don't understand. I don't, I can't speak. I just get really nervous and all that kind of stuff. Don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I'm asking you to stop with the excuses. You don't have time to pray, find time. Is that good? That'll work. I like that. I'm just going to say it like that. If you say, I don't have time, find time to pray this week. You say next week, because you think you're going to die. And guess what? You're not going to die. And if you do, I'm going to stir up some faith and we're going to resurrect your butt and you're going to be a testimony in this area of the faithfulness of God, okay? Can we just start there? What if we prayed for one another and encouraged one another? Who knows? We might actually grow up into the head who is Christ. We might bear fruit unto God. We might find that there is more in us, the nature of Christ in us, than we could have ever believed. But we've got to start somewhere.
And the labor of prayer, the work of prayer, I think is always a great place to pray. Will y'all do that with me? Let me pray and then we'll leave with the sending liturgy. Father, use my nonsense. Let it not be a burden that can't be shed so that the life of the Spirit wouldn't be able to permeate and lay hold of every person here. I talk so often about what I want and what I don't want. But Father, I just... What do you want? And I see you empowering a group of people to be a representation of Christ. Let it be so. Father, let there be a fruit that would come out of this church. Not because we do it right every time. Not because we don't have issues. We beg you, Lord, that it would be because you have worked in us. I ask you again, as I've asked you this week, put a bird in the... Put a bird of prayer on this church. Burn in every heart with prayer. God, give my brothers and my sisters a sweet time in prayer. We have spent so much time away from you. Would you forgive us, Lord, for ignoring your voice? Would you forgive us for prioritizing things above what you care about? Would you forgive us, Lord, for the things that we idolize, for we have surrendered, Lord, to other things and other people and even to our own minds? Jesus, forgive us. Would you please bring into our hearts a refreshing? As we repent, would you refresh us? Would you fill us again with your Holy Spirit that we might be whole and draw us into your presence and then send us not in disappointment or in anger, but send us joyfully into all that you've put before us. God, I thank you for the ministry that you will bring out of this house. I have to trust you that you're at work. Give me for my lack of faith in your plans and promises. For they are yes and amen. And you have never failed me. You have never failed anyone in this room. You have only been good. Father, out of that goodness, would you please lasso our hearts and bring us into a closer fellowship with you? And with saints, our brothers and sisters, make of this church what you will and not what we will. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, if you would stand to your feet. Sorry, guys, I'm not trying to belabor for my moment. I'm just trying to get myself together here. God cares about his church, cares about you. I just hope nobody leaves out of here thinking of what God did not spare to have you. This is not a task, Master. He is sending you out to do his bidding. Holy Spirit, let the revelation of sonship and adoption fill this room for each one of you. To know it's the Father who sent you, not a master, a father. I just don't think I can do this. So I'm going to give this to Trace. And Trace can say the sending liturgy and we can leave out of here. Thank you. Let's say this together. We're not leaving this place. We are being sent. We are obeying the command of our Lord to go. So send us, Lord, to find us and secret in prayer and devotion, to love and to care for our families, to strengthen and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, to faithfully work as unto the Lord in the marketplace and home, to wisely steward all you have given us, to recognize our place and ability in our community, to witness of your goodness and grace to neighbors and nations. Send us now in your presence, Mr. I was reminded by multiple people, we do have.
