Eagerly Desire the Best Gifts

All right, I think I got myself back together. It's very moving to see, and it's really special to have such a wonderful congregation to be a part of. My wife and I have been blessed to be here for now, coming up 23 years this year, and we still feel like newcomers compared to most of you here. We just participated in this beautiful ceremony of the setting apart of elders, deacons, and deaconesses.

It's on occasions like this that we come to understand that we are united, not just physically as a congregation that gets together in a place, but spiritually through God's Spirit working within us. It aligns us to something greater, some larger objectives. We see this written in Scripture in 1 Corinthians 12, and I'd like you to turn there with me. Paul, talking about the church in Corinth. Somehow, I just think that in the kingdom we're going to have a lot to talk about.

It was definitely a blue state, if there were blue states back then. It was definitely a liberal place, and it was a rich place, a sophisticated place. In San Francisco, we have our challenges here, about what it means to live here. Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 28, he says, in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27, he says, God is calling us as individuals into a community.

We're called as individuals. We're not called as a group. I got an email from somebody yesterday saying they want to start a church in Paris, and they've got 14 people, and they're going to do this.

We don't do it that way. We don't have a mass of people to come in and say, oh, there you go, that's how it works. There's an individual calling that each of us, as I look out in the faces in this audience, each of you has a story. Each of you has an experience and a connection to God the Father and Jesus Christ and what Christ did in your life and how you came to baptism and how you came to understand where your life was going and where you wanted it to go.

And so we're called individually, but we're called to be part of something bigger, this larger community which Paul calls a body. And not just anybody, any body, but the body of Christ. That is, we take Christ's body into us and pass over, and he dwells in us, and then we dwell in him. And that's what we are. We are this body of believers. And as part of this community, we have roles. And these roles are next described here in verse 28, and God has appointed these in the church. First apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.

And what ends up happening is sometimes when we read that, we get all hung up on why does it say first, and why does it say second, and are there only aid, and are there more, and what are my gifts, and we all tend to get into all those details, and we miss the larger sort of meta point here, which is that there are individual gifts and roles, which we each have, and we contribute to that body.

And it's almost as if Paul knew kind of how his audience was going to react the same way we do, which is, well, am I an apostle? And he says in verse 29, are all apostles? No, of course not. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? The point is not just that he's named a few here. The point is that everybody has something. Do we all have gifts of tongues? Do we all speak with tongues? Do we all interpret? And then he gets really to the point of my message today in verse 31, which is, but earnestly desire the best gifts.

But earnestly desire the best gifts. And that but is kind of important because it's like, yes, I've given you a few, and yeah, not everybody's an apostle or a teacher or a helper or a translator, or what it might be, but earnestly desire the best gifts. The NIV says the greatest gifts. The English Standard Version says the higher gifts. The New Living Translation says the most helpful gifts, but earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. In other words, we desire to serve in our community with the best gifts that God has given us.

And it's almost like a smart goal, you know? Desire the best gifts. You could just put it down, kind of like, desire the best gifts, and now the next goal I'm going to have for this year, and now the next goal, and so forth. Today we're going to talk about this command because that's what it is.

It's a command. Desire the best gifts. And that's the title for the message today. Desire the best gifts. It's a command. We're going to talk about that command and how we are to fulfill God's direction to follow this command. Every single one of us is commanded to desire the best gifts, to be helpful to the body. And we're going to talk about gifts, and we're going to talk about roles, and I think when we get done we're going to start realizing there's a lot to those words, almost like a Venn diagram, you know?

There's gifts and roles that are the same, and there's roles, and so forth. Specifically, we're going to discuss how we utilize a spiritual gift in terms of serving others in some way. We're going to find that these gifts and these roles are all about service. And then we're going to talk about how the ultimate measurement, remember I said these are almost like smart goals, so they've got to be specific and measurable and actionable and relevant and timely and so forth. The ultimate measure of our gift is love.

Now that sounds kind of like, oh, I thought you were going to say something interesting there. We're going to talk about love here, because if you see, we're pretty close to this famous chapter called 1 Corinthians 13.

Maybe you heard of that chapter before. It's called the love chapter. We're going to find the incredible connection between spiritual gifts and this famous chapter. And finally, we're going to talk about being resilient in service, resilient in using our gifts. Because a lot of times, we come discouraged, and we don't want to be in front of people, or we don't want to not be in front of people, or we don't want to do what we were doing because we got hurt, or offended, or tired, or discouraged in some way.

So we need to be resilient. So let's talk about utilizing a spiritual gift and how that's tied to service. So I read the very end of 1 Corinthians 12. But let's go to the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 12. And let's get the context of what's being described. Point number one is utilizing a spiritual gift means serving. Utilizing a spiritual gift means serving. 1 Corinthians 12 verse 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.

This is what he's talking about. I'm going to now tell you. He says, I'm going to now tell you something about spiritual gifts. This is what he is here to talk about. This is the subject of his discussion. Now if we go down to verse 4, he says, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Lord. And there are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

Now did you read that? There are differences. We have differences. If we can have differences in how we want to serve, believe me, we'll have differences in other things too. We have differences. And we have differences, and yet we are unified by God's Spirit. That's what it says. Even though we have differences, we're unified by God's Spirit. And for who we work for, the head of the church, Jesus Christ. And we're all one in our Heavenly Father who brings it all together according to his purpose. And what is that purpose? Verse 7.

First Corinthians 12 verse 7 says something very powerful. It says, They're not for our profit, they're for the profit of the community that we're in. That's why we're given these gifts. Our gifts are for the purpose of service to a community of believers. Which means that we can't fulfill our spiritual gifts unless we're in a community. We have to be in a community to be able to serve and have others profit from our spiritual gifts. We cannot fulfill the commandment to desire the greatest gifts unless we're in a community. That is very important to understand. If we attend here regularly and we don't know how we are personally serving this community, then we're not fulfilling Paul's commands. Each of us has to have a very clear picture in our mind of how we are serving this community. Now, if we don't attend here regularly, maybe we're just visiting, and you don't have to be here to serve, but you have to have a place where you're serving. A lot of times it comes down to making a commitment. Commitment is tough, especially in this way. We like to keep our options open, right? But we have to make a commitment. Now, a lot of that time, it means we have to have a plan. So we haven't made a commitment. We need to have a plan for how we're going to make a commitment. Now, even in worldly wisdom, I worked in Silicon Valley for many years, what we learned was that you fail fast. What that means is that if you take forever to make a decision, you're making a decision by not making a decision. So if you're like, I want to keep my options open, I'm not going to make a decision, well, you've made your decision. That's your decision. And a lot of times what it is better to do is to come up with a plan and say, okay, I'm going to commit to this option. And then you figure out whether it works, and if it doesn't work, well, then you failed fast and you stepped back from that and you committed again. But it's better to commit to a course of action and let that action play out and let God show you whether that's the right commitment to make or not than it is to just step back. Because at that point, what you're saying is, you know, I'm just scared. I'm worried. Or I'm lazy. Pick your metaphor there, or your description. W. Von Braun said, research is what we do when we don't know what we're doing. A lot of times I need to do more research on that. You need to have a plan, and then you can do the research, right? But we tend to find reasons why we can't take action. We need all to make, each of us needs to make a decision. Are we in or are we out? Are we in or are we out? Are we in this community or are we not in this community? If we're in this community, then how are we serving this community? What are we doing? How are we proactively contributing? Now, if we're dealing with some serious personal relational issues, sometimes we may be asked to focus on that before we're able to serve. There's a reason sometimes we're not ready to serve. I've met some widows who hardly get out of bed and they're ready to serve. So some people, like, I want to get going. It's like, well, no, actually you need to do something else right now. So if we have some personal issues that are inhibiting our ability to serve in the way we'd like, we need to be patient with ourselves. Or maybe we're going through some personal challenges and there's reasons why we shouldn't be serving in the way that we like to serve right now. We have to have balance in these things. Now notice how Paul expands this discussion in verse 8 of these different gifts.

See, that's so interesting. It distributes to each one individually. And again, we don't need to get hung up on this list. And like, well, you know, I can't fit my name into verses 8 to 11. I don't know how that works for me. This isn't his point. His point is that we individually have something.

I know there are people in this congregation that are busy doing all sorts of service that most of us never, ever hear about. There are people who give rides. There are people who write cards. There are people who visit the sick. There are people who check in with people with a phone call.

There are people with long and detailed prayer lists. There are people who fast, often, more often than others, for other people in the congregation. There are people who spend months thinking about a 12-minute sermon at months, with a lot of pain and suffering around what that means. There are people who make special donations and spend money on themselves.

There are people who keep us organized. There are people who are scared to death to get up in front of people for special music, but do it anyway. I could keep going. I could spend the rest of this message just giving you that list of service. But the point is that it shows. It shows in this congregation.

That's why it's so exciting to be here, because it shows because all of you are contributing. The more we all contribute, the more we all edify the body of believers that we are in. Paul describes how powerful that is. We begin to make a difference. We're not just spectators watching, like, this is a nice place.

I like to come here. No, we're participants. Our society is a consumer society. It's not a producer society. But the Church of God is not a consumer society. It's a producer society. We all come here to produce something. We're producing godly character. We're taking the inputs of God's spirit, and we're taking the activities of whatever we're doing, whether in or out of church, whether physical or spiritual, and we're producing something from that. Continue in verse 12.

Whereas the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also in Christ. We're not perfect. None of this is perfect service. We're going to make mistakes. And that's okay. The point is, it's authentic, right? It's who we really are. A lot of times people are, I'm not good enough to serve. I'm going to make a mistake.

But you are going to make a mistake. You're going to make mistakes. You're not going to do it right. And when you're not doing it right, you're going to apologize for not doing it right. And people are going to be faithful to forgive you, and you're going to learn from your mistakes, and you're going to do better the next time. And that's how you're going to get to serve over time. Look in verse 13. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves were free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit.

We have Americans here of South Asian, East Asian descent. We have those of Mexican heritage. We have those of French heritage. We have those of English heritage, of Central American heritage, South American heritage. We have this amazing, diverse group of God's children here that we all bring perspectives with us in terms of what is positive and what is good.

I mean, I could just go around the room and think, oh yeah, it's so great when this person brings this, or when this person does that, or this person really values this. All of this diversity comes in and it makes us a really wonderful place to be. A safe place to be. An encouraging place to be. A positive place to be. Again, that doesn't mean we're not going to have little spats here and there that come up.

We're human. That's normal. But overall, it's a place that's safer than most places that you'll find any place else. So Paul is describing the fact that we take these gifts, whatever they may be, individually to profit the body, and that we take wherever we are, slave or free or Greek or Jew, as it described at that time, and we all come together as one body.

Now, one of the greatest writings of Western literature is on this page in front of me. Maybe it's on the page in front of you. And it brings me to point number two, which is that the ultimate measure of our service using these spiritual gifts is love. That's the ultimate measure of how we measure our service. And I'm looking here at 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. You know, I remember very well, maybe you do too, when Princess Diana died tragically in a car crash in 1997.

It's amazing. It's been more than 20 years now. One-third of the population of this planet watched her funeral. More than 2 billion people watched her funeral. And Prime Minister Tony Blair got up in Westminster Abbey, and he read 1 Corinthians 13.

That's just the kind of power that we're talking about in the scripture. Why are we one of the most famous pieces of Western literature at this point? And what is 1 Corinthians 13 all about? Well, what's interesting about 1 Corinthians 13 is that it doesn't start with 1 Corinthians 13. It starts with 1 Corinthians 12, verse 31.

And if you have a Bible, sometimes Bibles will actually start this passage in the second half of 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 31. When it says, and yet I show you a more excellent way. I show you a more excellent way. So, I've told you about these gifts. I've told you that you have these gifts. I've told you that you are a body of believers.

I've told you that you use these gifts to serve others. And I've told you that everybody's got to contribute. And now I'm going to tell you a more excellent way to serve with these spiritual gifts. And then he continues the same discussion with spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1.

Why does he start with the gifts of tongues? Because tongues was one of the gifts that he was talking about in 1 Corinthians 12. Verse 2, And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, why is he talking about prophecy? Because prophesying, or being a prophet, was one of the gifts described in 1 Corinthians 12. And so he's just gone through tongues and now he's going to talk about prophesying. And he's going to say, hey, you've got this gift and you can prophesy. Now, sometimes prophesying can be just simply inspired speaking. I'm up here and I'm prophesying. Or it can have some sort of predictive element. We tend to think about prophecy in terms of predictions, right? Some sort of forecast of the future. It can be either of those. But his point is, hey, you've got this gift. You're ready to serve the community with this gift. If you, you could do all this, but if you don't have love, that gift is worthless.

And then he says, and though I have faith so that I could remove mountains, but not love, I am nothing. See, faith was one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. So you've got this incredible faith, but if you don't have love, what does it matter? So you can, you can prophesy. You can speak in a tongue, right? You can speak a foreign language. My wife and I work in foreign language, right? I give, I prepare a French sermon every week. I prepared mine this week on Tuesday.

I send it out. I record it. I send it out. I work with tongues, right? So you can do that. You can stand up and give sermonettes. You can have all the faith in the world, but if you don't have love, that gift is worthless. That's what Paul is describing here. And though I bestow all my goods, verse 3, to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing.

So now he's going beyond like, hey, you know, I don't have to start naming the gifts anymore, right? You know, he's, like Corinthians, I hope you get the point now. No matter what you are, no matter what you would do, if you do it and you don't have love, it just profits nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Is not puffed up. Does not behave rudely. Does not seek its own.

Is not provoked. Thinks no evil. Does not rejoice in iniquity. But rejoices in the truth. Bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. Love never fails. See, this is the thing is that we can get so wrapped up in the academics, in the step one, two, three of service.

And if we lose track that really at the end of the day, it's about love for the body, love for brethren. If somebody doesn't want to be served that way, well, then, you know, they have that right because it's about love. It's about what people need. Maybe they don't need that right now. Maybe they need something else. And then he goes back. Whether there be prophecies, they will fail. Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge.

Remember knowledge? That was one of the gifts of the Spirit. There is knowledge. It will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. You see, the context is clear. Our service, our gifts, are offered in love. Not because we feel compelled. So if we serve out of compulsion, we're just here in the middle of 1 Corinthians 13.

It profits nothing. And it's given to lead us to perfection. Verse 10. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. Whatever weaknesses we have as we try our best to serve, God is going to work with us to lead us to perfection.

And when that time comes, we'll see the things, oh yeah, I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done that. But God is merciful. As long as we are doing our part, He's going to lead us to perfection. It's given to lead us to perfection. And it's not to be used with a judgmental immaturity. Verse 11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child.

I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. See, it's time to put away all those things of emotional immaturity or sensitivity or offense. I'm offended, right? All these things which are childish in nature, we put them away because love is much greater than all that. Love leads us to completion. It leads us to perfection. Love is overflowing with outward concern. If it's outward concern, then who cares whether we're offended? It's about outward concern. Who cares if we're hurt? It's not about us. It's about the other person.

It's about the community. It's about the body. It's not bottled up and worried about all the people who are going to think about us. It must not be used to make us look good or aggrandize ourselves. It's about the body. Sometimes serving is about training a younger person to do a job that we've been doing for a long time in order to help them develop their young gift and help them feel part of things.

I gave this sermon a while back about Alan Bean, who was the fourth man to walk on the moon. He said, anybody can fly a space shuttle. Really? I don't think this room can fly a space shuttle. Anybody can do that. But I can paint what I have seen in space. I can share a vision of what it's like out there. I'll let somebody else fly the space shuttle. That's what we need to do in this congregation. Let somebody else fly the space shuttle for a while.

Teach them how to do those things. Go and do the best gifts. The greatest gifts. The highest-use gifts. That's what desiring the best gifts means. You can do that, but you can do something better. Let somebody else do that for a while. This is an enormous impact on younger members when you pass the baton. When you say, you know what, I'm going to step out of the way. I'm going to let somebody else do that job.

We continue here. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

It's confusing, isn't it? I'm serving. I'm using my gifts. And I'm not exactly sure how all this is making a difference. Sometimes we can feel that way. We work. We work. And for a while, I go, how is this making a difference? I don't get it. We see through a mirror dimly. Verse 13, but now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Now look what he says. 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1, pursue love. Okay, I got it.

And desire spiritual gifts. See, he says it again. It's a bookend. He said it in 1 Corinthians 12.31 when he introduced this famous love chapter. And he says it in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1 when he concludes this famous love chapter. This is about service with our gifts in a community. That's what this is about. This is how we desire spiritual gifts. And then now he's going to expand on that a little bit more about the gift of prophecies and what he's been doing and so forth.

How we understand these larger purposes. We serve in weakness. We serve only in part knowing why we're serving, but we serve nonetheless. And we step out of our comfort zones and we do what we need to do, whether that's, as I said, giving rides or keeping us organized, doing special music, contributing financially, whatever it might be.

We desire those spiritual gifts. The message is clear. Love is not an academic concept here. Love is not just to be admired or spoken of or written about. Love is what we do when we serve. And it's not about us. We are to pursue love as we desire these spiritual gifts. The final point I want to make today is that we must be resilient in service. We have to be resilient in service. Let's look over in Ephesians 4.

This is the parallel account here. We say parallel. I mean, one was written to the church in Corinth and one was written to the church in Ephesus. But Paul follows a similar theme. Ephesians 4 verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to have a walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Now, we've talked about this before. This metaphor that's being used here is that of a scale. The word worthy, when it says walk worthy, is the Greek word axios. You probably recognize that word, right? It's an axis. It's this thing that sits here as the scale goes up and down like this.

It's axios, and it literally means to bring up the other beam of the scales. Worthy means to bring up the other beam of the scales. As the Expositor's Bible commentary says about this verse, there should be balance between profession, that is, we profess our faith.

I am a Christian. I am a believer. I am a member of the Church of God. I am a called out one. That's a profession of faith. We profess it, we say it. And our practice. Our practice of faith. There's no words. It's just action. And those two have to be in alignment. You can't profess without practicing. Verse 2, and this is how we practice. With all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another surprise in love. Sounds familiar?

This is hard. This is messy. This is complicated. Because what we would rather do is avoid. That person's in a bad mood. Or, I must have done something to defend them. Whatever it might be. But we have to bear one another in love with one another. We have to be long suffering. We have to be gentle, patient, having lowliness of mind.

For what purpose? Verse 3. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. This is again what unifies us. We read this in 1 Corinthians 12. It's a similar theme. It's how we are unified. It's how we have a place to recharge. It's how we have a place to reconnect. It's how we have a place to be safe.

To share our fears. To share our doubts. To share our worries. There is one body, physically existing. Like our bodies physically exist with hands and eyes and mouth and so forth. This is what 1 Corinthians 12 talks about. And they all have a role. The hand can't say to the eye, you know, what are you doing? Private parts. I mean, everybody has a role in the body.

There's an old joke about the famous morning breakfast of a dish of bacon and eggs. Maybe you've heard it. The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed. Have you heard that joke? Now it would be turkey bacon. The turkey was committed for us.

It's not just about being involved. It's about being committed. And this analogy of the body, I mean, we're committed. We're part of this thing. You're just kind of like, I don't want to be part of that body anymore. Are you committed or not to this body? What is your level of commitment?

In the January-February 2019 issue of Outside Magazine, I find Outside Magazine an interesting magazine, there's an interview with a former Navy SEAL, an ultra endurance athlete, David Goggins. He's a former Navy SEAL, and he's an ultra endurance athlete. You know what ultra endurance means? That means you go run 230 miles. I'm going to go run 230 miles now, in the desert, in the summer. That's what ultra endurance athletes do. These are crazy people. These are insane people. This is what he wrote. You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.

Motivation is nothing, I'm so quoting, because once you're in an extreme situation, motivation goes away. Right now, and he's describing a situation, it's 69 degrees outside, it's sunny with a little bit of wind, and I've got a nice TV in front of me. If you were to watch a motivational video in this environment, boy, you'd feel like you were something.

You're motivated, right? But what happens when you get out of this nice environment? Life has to be near perfect for you to be motivated all the time. But if you're driven, I guarantee that you will find a way. And so he makes a difference between being motivated and being driven.

What David Gargins is talking about is, from a purely physical standpoint, the difference between commitment and just being motivated, which he dismisses. Motivation, yeah, I'm motivated. Yeah, I feel very motivated to do that today. Well, maybe you won't feel motivated tomorrow to do that. Motivation kind of comes and goes depending on your mood. But being driven means that you are driven, whether it's good or bad or easy or hard, you are driven. And what I'm talking about here is being driven to desire the best spiritual gifts to serve. Being committed to a community of believers. It's the kind of commitment to a cause like being a Navy SEAL.

It took him three attempts to pass the exam. We say exam, they call it Hell Week. To pass the course is required to be a Navy SEAL. On his first attempt, he contracted pneumonia because you go into like 52 degree water and then you sleep on a beach all wet. The second time, he broke his kneecap. And he went two more weeks with a broken kneecap. Running, lifting logs, until he just, you know, medically, you know. There's one story about a Navy SEAL who, they basically tie your hands and they tie your feet and they put you in 12 feet of water. And then they make you bob to the bottom, touch the bottom, and then push off and come back up. And you do that at basically until you can't do it anymore. And they literally will have people die in the pool and they will resuscitate them. One guy was resuscitated and he said, did I pass?

That's all he cared about! He was just, you know, he's just going up and down, up and down. That's being driven. That's commitment. That's what we're talking about when we talk about spiritual gifts. It isn't about our mood that day. Spiritually, we might hear about service, we might hear about love, we might hear about spiritual gifts, we might hear about commitment.

But, you know, we go home tonight and, you know, our boss is upset with us or our wife's upset with us. So we don't sleep very well tonight and we wake up tomorrow morning, we're kind of cranky, and, you know, we're out of milk and, you know, all these things, right? And so we then become, ugh, and we lose sight of this. See, when you're driven, that doesn't matter. That stuff doesn't matter because you're driven to do something. You don't care about the milk, you don't care about your boss, right? I do that. I work because I have to work, right? I eat because I have to eat. I'm driven to do something here. That's what I'm part of. I'm part of something bigger. And this is what matters to me, not this other stuff. That's what being driven is. We need to be driven to desire spiritual gifts, like we are driven for food and water after a fast. You know how that feels after a fast, 24 hours? You're driven to eat. I want to eat. That's all you think about. You're driven after a fast to eat. It's got to be part of our DNA. We are perfecting our character by going beyond ourselves, and what we want is to serve others. And that means we need to have others to serve, in our families, in our communities. And most significantly, what I'm describing here is in the body of Christ, this community of believers. If we want our service to be impactful in the life of others, we need to be resilient in the face of challenges. Service is not convenient. Service is often frustrating. Others will fail us, and we will become discouraged when others fail us. But we don't let that get us down. We are spiritually resilient. There is not a perfect person speaking to you today. I am not perfect. There was not a perfect person ordained to the ministry or as a deacon or deaconess today. None of us are perfect. All of us have fallen short. That's why Jesus Christ died for us, that we might be able to serve Him. So we need to get over that. Jesus loves us. I know I've talked about how that's a hackney for you, but He does. And we, if we're committed to Him, will be faithful to forgive us. So we need to move beyond that and start serving wherever we can, in whatever weak capacity we can serve. Look at Ephesians 4. But to each one of us, grace has been given according to the measure of Christ's gifts. Now, this grace that's being described here is certainly grace of Jesus Christ dying for us and gave us unmerited pardon. But what's really being described here is grace in terms of mercy to give us gifts. And He backs this up in verse 8, saying, So now He's talking about gifts. And then in verse 11, He says, He's talking about roles, not ranks. He's talking about gifts, not hierarchy. He's talking about how we serve one another. And He's using just these examples here of apostles and prophets. Where does the prophet get his instruction? From God, not from the apostle. This is not a hierarchy. And He's just using this as an example. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about lots of other gifts. He's just using this as an example. And we ordained two men to the role of teacher or pastor today. They're not physically pastors in that sense, but they are serving in the role of a teacher or a pastor in certain capacities. And then we see here, verse 14, But speaking the truth in love, here we go again, And now here's how we all come back together again when He talks about the body and gifts. Verse 16.

That's me, that's you. You are what every joint supplies. You are the joints.

According to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. That's what we're here to do. It's time to step up. It's time to be counted. It's time to be driven. It's time to serve. It's time to serve in love and to make a commitment to where our spiritual home is. It's time for us to desire spiritual gifts as the command says in 1 Corinthians 12, 31. Let's take to heart that each of us has a role to play as we make our journey towards the Kingdom of God.