Serving in the Church

I'd like to welcome all of you to the Bible study tonight. As I told the group just a few minutes ago, I only plan on speaking for about an hour, starting from this point. And then we'll have either a Q&A or we'll open it up for some discussion as to what you're doing in your areas or what you'd like to see happen in your areas in terms of service.

We're calling this a Young Adult Study. We've got some who are maybe just a tad older than young adult here, and that's great because we need a lot of servants in God's Church. As you are painfully aware, as I am painfully aware, this last year has not been an easy year for the Church of God culture. On the other hand, because of that, there are tremendous opportunities, especially for you young adults in God's Church.

We want to discuss that to some degree. Now, before I get into my prepared comments, I thought maybe it'd be good for you to know who's talking to you today. My name is Randy Delisandro. I pastor a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and also Detroit, Michigan. I came into the church as a 15-year-old. My parents were not called. Nobody I knew was being called. I was called. I was still in high school.

I was on high school football team, high school basketball team. But when God calls you, and when He wants to work a miracle in your life, He works a miracle in your life. So at age 15, I walked in. I told the basketball coach, the football coach, I could no longer play. I was a letterman. I wasn't a benchwarmer. I had earned my letters in both. But the seat I wanted to be on, the team I wanted to be on, was God's team.

My parents would not allow me to come to church. I had to keep the Sabbath and the Holy Days at home until I was 18. Then I was accepted for Ambassador College. And even with my acceptance to Ambassador College in 1970, I had a very unusual acceptance letter on the bottom that says, you can only come to college if your mom and dad say you can't. In my case, my dad said, you're not going. And so we had a long talk. We went out, and he said, well, okay, I'll tell you what. It takes a big man to show you to know when he's wrong. You go out there to California, you go to Ambassador College, and in a couple of weeks, I'm going to give you a phone call, and I hope, Randy, you're man enough to say you were wrong for going to that church. He called me three weeks later, and he said, well, how wrong are you? And I said, dad, I love it here. And that was the start of my career in the church. When I was accepted, back in those days, the ministry had come over and interviewed you. I had never been to church. The two ministers who interviewed me said, Randy, you should go to church at least one time before you go to college. So sure enough, I went to church. It was the last Sabbath in August of 1970. On the Sabbath, the next day, I was in California. Graduated from Ambassador College. Had no desire to be in the ministry. No desire whatsoever. But I did have a large desire to want to serve God and His people. So for ten years, I went back to my home area in Detroit, Michigan. And I was a young adult. I was 22 years of age. And I served. And I served. Five years after I had gotten there, I was ordained as an elder, not an employee of the church. So I know what it is to be a young adult in your early twenties or so and wanting to serve. The first jobs I had as a young adult was to scrape gum off the bottom of chairs. Whatever needed to be done. I'm not saying that's what we're going to talk about you doing. But I just simply, whatever needed to be done, I wanted to do. So that's the fellow who's now before you. After ten years of serving in the local area, I was hired by the church in 1984.

From that point, I've served in North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. And now I'm back pastoring my home area of Detroit, Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

So let's get down to what I'd like to cover with you today. As I said before, this is a material that we're calling a young adult study. And it is a young adult study, but it's for everybody at all times. We're going to talk about service. We're going to talk about what principles are involved in serving.

Then we're going to go through some discussion about the gifts that God has given each and every one of you.

You are a gifted group of people.

What are the spiritual gifts or gifts that God has given to you? Well, we're going to analyze that a little bit today. We're going to talk about some of the things you might be able to do in a local congregation.

Ladies and gentlemen, serving is an expression of our commitment to God and God's people.

So you might want to keep that in your mind, maybe a theme of tonight. Serving is an expression of our commitment to God and His people.

Let's take a look at why we serve.

Why do we serve? Let's take a look at Ephesians 2 for a moment. This is a Bible study. We want to look into God's Word.

You know, that book that you've got sitting in front of you is a tremendous book. It's called The Holy Scriptures.

I'll be talking a little bit more about this tomorrow during the morning sermon. Incidentally, I ask that you pray for me. I do have the morning sermon tomorrow. I always use some extra prayers.

But this is the Holy Bible. It's sacred. It is unique. It is the very mind of God in print. Now, God is limitless. This is limited. So it's a portion of the mind of God. But the counsel we get here is unlike any other counsel in the world. These are the very thoughts of God.

So let's turn to Ephesians 2. I've not gotten there yet. I'm too busy talking here.

Ephesians 2. Notice what it says over here in verse 10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before, and that we should walk in them.

I ask the question, why do we serve? We serve young people because you were created to serve.

God has a special niche for you carved out where you can serve. Where is that? What is your niche? Where is it that you can be most effective in dealing with people? And we're not necessarily always talking about working with people in church.

Service is where you find it.

A number of years ago, I walked into a fast food restaurant. It was at an off hour. And the young lady who greeted me, I had compassion on her because growing up, I had a very bad complexion. She had a very bad complexion. But she had a beautiful smile. And I remember going up to her, and no one was aroused. She and I, she was catching my order out. She said, you've got such a lovely smile. And afterwards, when I finished my lunch, went out to the car, I noticed she went out to her car because she had finished her shift. And she looked into her mirror and smiled.

That's service. That's what you and I were created to do. Wherever we find it, whenever we find it. It may not be because your name is on a list someplace, but you ask God to give you the sensitivity. You ask God to give you the opportunity, and you will find so many ways to serve. So many ways. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus said this, I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to my fellow creatures, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Now, an example I just gave you, any one of us could have done that. It's a matter of us just looking for the opportunity, for us being willing to serve, willing to think about the other guy, the other girl, the other woman, and do something about it. 1 Timothy 6 Starting here in verse 17, God says, you take what you have and you give what you have. Ladies and gentlemen, what is it that you have to give? What unique thing is it? What unique situation, what place in life are you?

Maybe you're going to school, maybe you're in your community, maybe with your relatives. There are some things you can do, some things you can say, some little actions that really will touch somebody. It says we should be rich in good works. So why do we serve? We serve because we were created to serve.

The second reason why we serve is because serving helps you and I fulfill our purpose in life. I look at you as a group of young people and I see such promise. Your life is ahead of you. There's so much that you can be doing. How many of you in the past have seen Robin Williams' The Dead Poet Society movie? Pretty good movie, wasn't it? Robin Williams was some sort of an English teacher or a literature teacher. He was in an all-boys school and he was very unorthodox. One day he told all the men to get out into the hallway. We got them all into the hallway. He showed them a picture of past graduates of that school. He said, now gather around the case here. Take a look at these faces. They're young, they're vibrant in those pictures. But he said, they are all now dead. He said, get closer and listen. So they all began inching closer to the glass cases that had all the glass pictures in them. He said, listen. They started putting their ears toward the glass. He said, what do you hear? And the phrase was, Carpe diem. Seize the day. Seize the time. You were created for this time, for this purpose, for the situation you now find yourself in. Fulfill your purpose in life. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 12. Verse 4. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. There are diversities of activities, but it's the same God who works all in all. One of the nice things about all of us here is that there are no two of us alike. And God designed it that way. You fill a very special role in life. Verse 7. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. For the one who is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit. And you've got all this listing of all these various helps and fruits, gifts. You drop down to verse 11. But one and the same spirit works all these things. It's driven to each one individually as He wills. Think on that for a moment. God has willed to give you certain gifts. And because of that, with each of those gifts He has given you, He has will to give you opportunity. Where you can use those gifts. Think in your mind's eye right now, where you are in your station of life. Think about what it is you have to give. Maybe you are very intelligent. Maybe you're very musical. You could be very technically oriented.

Somewhere, God wants you to use that skill for those around you to enhance their lives. As you enhance their lives, your own life will be enhanced. Ephesians 4 Ephesians 4 Verse 7 But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. To each one of you, the grace of God is working. Each one of you. There may be some of us in the room who are not even baptized. Does that mean God can't use you? Of course God can use you. God's Spirit is working with you if you're not baptized at this point. If you are baptized, God's Spirit is working in you at this point. You can still be a very powerful tool in the hand of God. All you've got to do is sign off on it and allow God to use you. Verse 13 So we all come to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. You hear people like myself get up every Sabbath day and give sermons. I would tell you if I were to reduce the Bible down to one verse, this would be the verse I would reduce it down to. To me, this is the SPS. This is one of the purpose statements, the great purpose statements of the Bible. So we all come to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. It doesn't get any better than that. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So why do we serve? We serve because we were created to serve, and because as you and I serve, we fulfill our life's mission. I want to give you a little bit of an action list. Things you can think about, things you can ask others about. You can go to God in your prayers and ask God to increase your usefulness. Ask Him to allow your nerve endings to be raw, so that as you meet people and you greet people, you have a sense for what they're going through in life.

How many times have some people... You know, you all probably love music, correct? We had a family dance on Sunday. I saw most of you there having a great time.

When you think about music, there are songs that have affected your life. The song may only be a couple minutes long, but that song has affected your life. You don't forget that song. It resonates with you. It's a simple song, but it has something meaningful to say to you.

We don't tend to think of ourselves as being people who are, you know, great, wise people with all sorts of wise sayings. But when the grace of God is working in your heart and mind, and you become a tool in His hand, and you're serving Him, and you turn yourself over to Him, you can do tremendous things.

Tremendous things. So ask God to increase your usefulness. Seek opportunities to serve. Go back to your local church areas. Go back to your pastors. Ask your pastor, what is it that you can do in your local church area?

Watch how other people serve. When you're serving, ask people, how am I doing? What can I do differently? How can I be better? And when they tell you what you can be doing better, make those changes and move forward.

Dante Elegari said this, and he lived back in the 1200s. Dante Elegari said, He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused to help at all.

If you see the need and you do nothing, it's an unkindness. And I really believe that's true. Okay, so we've talked a couple of points here as to why we serve. Let's take a look at some characteristics of a great servant.

Some characteristics of a great servant. A great servant is humble. A great servant is humble. There once was a lion who was very proud of his mastery over the rest of the animal kingdom. One day he decided to make sure that the other animals knew that he was the king of the jungle. So he was so sure of himself that he passed by the smaller animals and went right to the bear. Who is king of the jungle? the lion asked. Well, of course you are, replied the bear. The lion then found the tiger and asked him, Who is king of the jungle? The tiger quickly responded, Why everyone knows you are. Next on the lion's list was the elephant. Who is the king of the jungle? the lion demanded. The elephant immediately grabbed the lion of the trunk, spun him around a few times, threw him to the ground, stomped on him a few times, picked him up, dragged him into the water, then threw him against a tree. The lion, who was beaten, bruised, battered, struggled to his feet and replied, Look, just because you don't know the answer, there's no reason to get upset. What was the lion's problem?

Vanity. Vanity. Pride. He was blinded by thoughts of himself. God can do tremendous things through people who don't care who gets the credit. People who don't care who gets the credit. Philippians 2. Philippians 2. And in verse 3, it says, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition. Now, if we want God to use us, if we want to be a tool in his hands, we can have selfish motivations. We're not serving so that we get. We're serving because we want to extend something to somebody else. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. I'd hate to think that after this Bible study, some might go back to their local areas with the concept, Hey, I've arrived. Let the healing begin. We don't want that sort of an attitude. We want to be very humble and allow the grace of God to flow through us to help our brothers and sisters. Verse 4, let each of you look not only for his own interest, but look out for the interests of the others. One of the secrets in dealing with people is looking for how we can help others. What is there? How do we meet them at their point of need? Think for a moment about people you love. You know what? Your age group, for many of you, your friends, in some cases, are more valuable to you than some of your blood relatives. I've got children your age. I understand that. The idea of friends, your comrades, that's everything to you. What do some of your friends need? What can you do to advance in a positive way, in a godly way? What can you do to advance what's best for them? And how can you do that? How can you do that? You say you love your friends, and I'm sure you really do. And one of the best things you can do for your friends is what you're doing right here tonight. Here we are in Hawaii, a garden spot. We've got the loveliest beaches. We've got so many activities. There's so much to do. You're young, you're vibrant, you're a good-looking group. And here you are with a Bible study. And bless your hearts. I'm glad you've come. But, you know, there are things that you can do for your friends. And you're doing the right thing by coming here and looking into the Word of God and asking those kinds of questions. Not only is a great servant humble, but a great servant is faithful. A great servant is faithful. We're looking at some principles. Now we're going to get to some, as I said in the announcement, we're going to look at some specifics in just a little bit. A great servant is faithful. James Freeman Clark said this, If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. Every one of us in this room could do small things in a great way. Saying to somebody they've got a lovely smile. Doesn't take a whole lot. Just noticing. Being courageous enough to say something. Or something else. Not buttering people up. Not flattering. People don't want to be flattered.

People don't want to be a project. Or some sort of a sound bite or a photo op or anything like that. They're flesh and blood people. And they certainly like the fact that you have come into their lives. Let's take a look at 2 Kings for a moment. Let's take a look at a person who is very faithful to God. 2 Kings 6. His name was Elisha. Elijah the prophet, his ministry was coming to a close. A new prophet is now going to be entering the scene. Taking over for Elijah. His name was Elisha. And there's some testing that's going on here. There's some testing. God is certainly going to be testing you as well. 2 Kings 6.1. And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, See now the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. Please let us go to the Jordan. Let every man take a beam from there. Let us take a place where we might dwell. So he answered, Go. No, I'm in a wrong place. Excuse me. Let me go to the right place. You know, it's always helpful when you're doing a Bible study. You go to the right place and start reading. 2 Kings 2.1.

When it came to pass when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by whirlwind, Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. Then Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. Now, this seems rather straightforward, but what's happening here is Elijah wants to see how committed, how faithful Elisha is. He's giving away out of the ministry. He's giving away out of serving. Is he going to take it?

And Elisha says, No, I'm going to stay with you. This is what God has called me to do. This is what I'm going to do. Verse 3. Now, the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came down to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today? He said, Yes, I know. Keep silent. He says, Please, let's not talk about that. I really don't want to think about it. I love the man. I want him to keep on ministering.

Let's not talk about that. Let's leave that issue alone. Then Elijah said to him, Elisha, stay here. Please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho. But he said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. So a second time, Elijah is saying, You want out? We're going to give you a chance to go out. A chance to just sit by the wayside, stop serving. Elisha says, No, we're going to continue on. Verse 5. Now, the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said, Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?

He answered, Yes, I know. Keep silent. Then Elijah said, Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Dejordan. But he said, As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on. So three separate times, God is testing Elisha to see how faithful he's going to be. And Elisha passed the test. In your young lives, how many times has God already tested you? You're here at the Feast of Tabernacles. You didn't necessarily have to be here at the Feast of Tabernacles.

There perhaps were other doors you could have taken. You perhaps could have stayed home. You could have perhaps been doing something else. But you decided you wanted to be here. You continued on. Even though Satan may have been whispering in your ear, well, you know, there's other things in life that are more important.

No, you wanted to be here at the Feast of Tabernacles. And so you have been faithful, just as Elisha was. In addition to being faithful and being humble, this is the last thing I want to cover with you before we get into some specifics. A great servant must be compassionate. We must be humble. We must be faithful. We must be compassionate. Compassionate. That's something the world doesn't have a whole lot of. Because young people are very zealous, you know, as an age group, very zealous. You tend to be a loving group of people.

Because the world has not had time enough to beat you down to be so cynical, like perhaps people of my age. Don't allow the world to do that to you. Don't allow yourself to be beaten down so much that you become so cynical, that you become hardened of heart. Take the greatness that you have in terms of the compassion you have and use that.

Let's go back to the book of Mark. Mark chapter 8. Here's a tremendous example of compassion. Now, the disciples, who at this point, the Day of Pentecost, did not come in terms of God giving a spirit like we see in Acts chapter 2, God was working with these men, but not fully in them as of yet. So they didn't have all the understanding that they should have had. They didn't have all the compassion that they would have down the road.

Here in Mark chapter 8, verse 1, In those days the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called the disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the multitude because they now have continued with me three days and have nothing to eat. Jesus was a compassionate individual. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way, for some of them have come from afar.

I think you can appreciate that. Anybody in this room ever fasted for three days? I have. It's not the most pleasant thing in the world. Go 72 hours plus without food. But notice here, verse 4, Then his disciples answered him, How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness? So a lack of compassion on their part. They are forgetting who their master is. Jesus of Nazareth. Compassion, as we've already seen, you look at verse 2 and 3 here, Jesus Christ sees a group of people.

They've been following him for days. They're hungry. They're tired. What does that mean? It means that Jesus Christ sees their need. You're being a servant. You're helping in the church or in the community. It begins with you seeing the need first. You can't address any. You can't go to a person at their point of need until you see it first.

Christ saw their need. The disciples in verse 4 said, We don't have the resources. Verse 5, He asked them, How many loaves do you have? And they said, Seven. So here we see that Jesus Christ is going to take all the resources he has, as puny as they look. What resources do you have in your life? What resources do you have in your hearts, in your minds, in your pocketbook? You may think you have very, very meager resources. Feeding thousands of people here, feeding a multitude of people here, with just a little bit of food, seems very meager. But that wasn't the point. The point is, God wants us to take a look and analyze our resources. Each of you have resources.

Each of you have got something to call upon. Verse 6, So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground, and He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples, and set them before them, and they sent them before the multitude. A number of things there in verse 6. Compassion doesn't say we throw logic out the door. You look at a situation, you use your God-given mind. What can I do?

God's given me resources. They seem puny to me, but in God's hand, they can be quite great. So we use our mind, what do we have to give? In this case, they had people sitting down in an orderly fashion. Compassion also involves giving everything, all that resource, the puny of the resource, you take that puny resource, and you give it your all. Everything. Don't care how puny you think it is, how little you think it is, how little you think you are. You take what you have, what God has given you, and you give it your all.

You give it your best shot. And then God will take that, and He will multiply that. He will open doors. You know, I had the privilege of overseeing the family. How many of you are at the family dance? I think it was relatively successful, looking at you. I think most of you had a pretty good time. Several months ago, when I found out that my wife Mary and I would be here at the feast, I contacted Mr.

Tuck and said, Well, Jim, what can I do to help at the feast? He said, Randy, why don't you run the dance? I'm thinking, oh, wow! Nuts. You know, I've got like two left feet. I have no idea how to run a dance.

And so that started a real prayer campaign. And they asked God, you know, I need a lot of help here. Give me some resources. And over the course of the months, God began to assemble the things that took place last Sunday that gave you a dance I think you really enjoyed. My wife put together a very nice pattern of decorations on just a miniscule budget.

We had $400 to put that thing together with. You want to put together a dance in Hawaii for $400? It's tough. So we put, you know, we used every penny we could for the decorations, the eats. That's why I eventually had to say, please bring some eats. I had no idea whether we'd have 25 people at a dance or 250 people at a dance. I think we had about 200. We had some really good folks. The Hansons came. The Weckerleys came to set up before you folks got there.

We had a gentleman sitting right over here, Jeff, who came and put the sound together for us. He can't have a dance if he can't hear anything. And then probably one of the great strokes that we had is Scott Delimator contacted Mr. Tux. He said, hey, I've run some dances at other fee sites. Can I be of use in Hawaii? I said, oh, yeah. And I said, what kind of tunes do you have? He began saying, well, I've used it over at this site, this site, this site. I said, oh, great. He's got holy music. Because when you have a dance, you've got young people like your age, you want something you can dance to. You don't want all Mozart and stuff like that. You want some good music. And he had some really good music. So the bottom line is, starting with something I was really afraid of, through prayer, God assembled a cast who was able to put together something that served you. Didn't have anything to do with me. God was willing to put it all together. Now, if that's something God can do for me, He can do for you. He's no respecter of persons. What is it in your life right now? What kind of a cast do you need to assemble in your life right now? What thing is it that you need to assemble in your life right now to really serve some other folks? You're thinking about those things. They can happen. They can happen with you. So here we see in Mark 8 all the things that happened here, and these people were out of some very puny resources they were taken care of. So you never want to overlook something like that. Okay, so, so far here in the study, we've asked the question, why do we serve? We said we serve for a couple of reasons. We were created to serve, number one. Number two, we serve because it helps us to fulfill our life's purpose. We've taken a look at three characteristics of a great servant. A great servant is humble, faithful, and compassionate. Now, for those of you who are taking notes, in the Bible there are three sections of Scripture that show where God gives gifts. I want to just go through this fairly briefly. You might want to take some time and do some study on your own. These are not complete lists of gifts that God gives to people. We don't think in a church we've never thought that these are, you know, closed listings. But these are some of the gifts that God gives. In Romans 12, I'm not going to even turn there. But Romans 12, verses 3-8, you've got one list of gifts. Let me just read, and again, you can read this later on. I don't want to take the time to go through this. We do want to have some Q&A, and don't want to take all of your evening. But in Romans 12, verses 3-8, we see the gift of prophecy. We see the gift of service. Again, don't necessarily even try to write all this down. The gift of teaching. The gift of encouraging. The gift of giving. The gift of leading. The gift of showing. And the gift of mercy. Now, somewhere in there, maybe some of you found some gifts that you have. Now, there's a second list. There's three lists I'm going to talk about. The second list is in 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 8-10, and also verses 28-30. Let me take a break here and get a little something to drink. I need the gift of water.

1 Corinthians 12, you've got the gift of wisdom. Don't think because you're relatively young. That can't be you. Think about a young man by the name of Daniel.

A young man by the name of Daniel, who was the counselor to kings. Some of the greatest empires this world has ever seen. And he was a young man. The gift of wisdom. The gift of knowledge. The gift of faith. This is all in 1 Corinthians 12. The gift of healing. The gift of miracles. The gift of prophecy. The gift of discernment of spirits. Tongues. Interpretation of tongues. Teaching. Service. Administration. Then you've got Ephesians 4. You've got the gift of evangelism. I had to chuckle when Mr. Tuck was talking about how when he got first started calling him, he would try to convert everybody in his household. I really appreciate that. I try to do the same thing.

I don't know if any of you have ever tried to do that. Tried to convert relatives or what have you. It doesn't work too well. It doesn't work too well. But in Ephesians 4 you've got the gift of evangelism, the gift of being pastors, and the gift of being teachers.

Because scriptures do not give us a definitive list, they give us these three lists, and neither one of these three overlap all that much. It is thought that these are just a sampling. There's nothing here that says the gift of being able to use iPads. There was a young man in services yesterday that was showing me his iPad. I thought, man, that's wonderful. I want to get one of those things in several applications. That can be a tremendous help in a church. At this point, though, I want to go through some things that maybe will help stir some thought in your mind as to what God may be using in your life. I've chosen these. These are some of the gifts in those three chapters that maybe affect you and maybe give you a little food for thought.

I'm not asking for a show of hands here, but in your own mind, as I ask the rhetorical question, do any of you have the gift of administration? The gift of administration. Let me tell you what the gift of administration is. An individual who has the gift of administration will be able to organize information, organize things, to work effectively in the body of Christ. In other words, are you an organized person?

You think, well, what good is that? How big a deal is that? I remember when I was first hired by the church, my first assignment was to move down to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I worked under a gentleman that I became very close friends to. After a few years, they moved him to Buffalo, New York. I kept in touch with him, and I said, well, Mike, how are things going there in Buffalo? He said, well, we had an organizational meeting. It was really wild. I said, well, what do you mean? It was wild. He said, we have 12 deacons in this church.

There's like 500 people in that church. This is back in the worldwide days. I said, well, what was so wild about your 12 deacons? He said, well, I asked, who sets up the hall? He said, all 12 raise their hand. Now, it doesn't take all 12 deacons to organize splitting up chairs in a hall. So obviously, the former pastor wasn't as organized as some other...maybe your pastor is not as organized as you would liken to me.

Maybe if I had some of my people sitting here, they'd say, Mr. D, you're organized enough to know when the Sabbath comes along, but maybe that's about as well as that goes. If administration is one of your gifts, you'll be most effective when organizing information, materials, and people for a particular task. That probably speaks to somebody in this room. That... speaks to the bug in the room. So perhaps that might affect one of you here.

I remember in that same Raleigh congregation, we had a man who was very gifted organizationally. Sometimes these things...sometimes our gifts can get the better of us at times. Because we had a social...it was a...what do you call it? A international dinner. We decided we were going to have four different cuisines. There was going to be Americans, since it was down in Raleigh, and the people liked their Southern fried. So it was going to be the American. We were going to have Spanish.

We were going to have Italian. And I forget what the fourth one was. Maybe it was Chinese. Four different fruit groups, four different corners of the room we were having, the social...we had... the Raleigh Church at that point was about 400 people. And we asked this gentleman to organize everything, and he had everybody organized. I mean, if you were a server, you had a little blue tag.

If you brought food to a table, you had a little pink tag. I mean, everybody...every one of the people who were there, 300 people plus strong, each had a little tag on. You know, it was like...kind of like the military. Now, that's a bit of an extreme example. But that's somebody who has the gift of organization. How about the gift of exhortation? That's a gift in the Bible, the gift of exhortation. What is that gift? Again, maybe that speaks to one of you here, or more of the one of you here. It's the gift where you can comfort somebody.

Are you good at comforting? It's the gift of being able to encourage somebody. That's one side of it. On the other side, the flip side of that coin is a person who can exhort can be somebody who can properly confront. Sometimes there's a need to confront our friends. Sometimes there's a need to confront situations. Again, God's got to help us. They have the wisdom to pick the proper time, place. Are we the proper person to do it?

Do we have the proper way of doing it? Are we all ready to do that? But if all those things are there, then perhaps that's what God wants us to do. An exhorter has the ability to motivate people to grow by identifying their needs and guiding them in Biblical truths toward meaningful maturity. I hope that's me. I hope that's every one of us in the ministry. I hope every one of us in the ministry can guide people toward meaningful maturity. Common traits that describe the person with this gift include being perceptive in people who have empathy.

You can walk a mile in the other guy's shoes. You feel their pain. He or she seeks to stimulate the growth of others. If exhortation is one of your gifts, you'll find it fulfilling to guide an individual or a small group through difficult personal problems. So hopefully that's maybe somebody here in this room. I was talking to somebody earlier today. I had not seen this person in 22 years.

Somebody from the Raleigh congregation, Raleigh, North Carolina. But I remember so well his mother. I remember so well how she encouraged people. And it was something that was really quite simple. She would go to the store and she would buy construction paper. She would buy different colored construction paper. It might be purple, it might be blue, it might be orange, it might be red.

She would cut that into shapes the sizes of postcards. She would address it, put a stamp on it. And on the other side where the message would be, she would simply write three or four sentences where maybe that Sabbath she had talked with me or talked with somebody else and saw we were down, we were blue, maybe there was a big trial in our life or something was coming down the road.

And she would put down maybe a scripture or a couple of thoughts and she would stick that in the mail. And in that church area, when your mail came, you looked for that colored paper.

You looked for two or three sentences from a woman who cared enough to say something to you. The gift of encouragement. Don't have to be real profound. Just have to take the time to put a few sentences down or maybe a scripture. Or, as one case, this happened in another church area where somebody was going through some real trials and one lady walked up to another lady and said, I will fast for you.

I know what you're going through. I will fast for you. We can do that. We can do that. And we can encourage other people as we do that. Perhaps you have the gift of faith. The gift of faith. The gift of faith is the ability to confidently believe God for changes and spiritual growth that will enhance the purposes of God.

How many times do people come to those of us in the ministry and say, do I have enough faith? You know, faith is a multifaceted thing. Most people who are baptized have rock-solid, 100% faith that Jesus Christ is their Savior. That their sins have been forgiven them. They don't doubt that one bit. Their faith is 100% sure. But does that same person have faith for healing? Or faith that God will provide? Or faith that God will protect? Those are all different other areas where faith comes. In some areas you might have 50%. In other areas, 70%. In other areas, 100%. That's something that we need to be thinking about. But a person who has a gift of faith is quick to believe God for the things that may never be seen. The person with a gift of faith have the traits of optimism, perseverance, and a tendency to be future and change-oriented. You know, if you're the kind of person who sees the glass half full, if you're the person who's optimistic, you are dogged, you keep on moving forward, you may have that gift of faith, and we need that gift of faith. Maybe you have the gift of giving. The gift of giving. The gift of giving is the ability to determine the physical needs of people and provide physical resources to help meet those needs. We saw that in Mark, didn't we? What is it you have to give other people? Maybe are you really good at that? Really good at the person with the gift of giving may not possess the resources that meet the need, but he or she is motivated to pray and see that those needs are met. You know, you see a person, you see their need, you see their point of need, and you say, well, you know, I personally can't really do something about that, but I'm going to ask God to provide that person with what their need is. I'm going to make it a point to go before God every day and ask God to supply what I don't have to make it. I don't have to meet that person's need. I think of a gentleman that we had in the Ann Arbor congregation who was a wonderful example. He was an older gentleman. I forget how old Mr. Elmer would be, but probably a 70's, maybe 80's, I don't know, somewhere in there. But I mean, when it came to computers, you know, if you had one, he would learn about it. He wasn't some old stick in the mud. He would be somebody who would really want to know the latest things, to be as up as he possibly could. He would tell you about, you know, show people his GPS and how to work that and so on and so forth. But he was a giving man. How many people in the Ann Arbor congregation, if they were down in their luck, would find something tucked in their Bible and they'd go home? Some money. Or some sort of something that would help them during the coming week. He wasn't made of money. He wasn't rich. But he gave. He gave what he had. He was sensitive. He was discerning. And he never, ever wanted credit. The only time he ever found out what was happening is if you just happened to kind of see him sneaking around, doing his little good deeds. It was a wonderful thing. Just a few more will be done for the evening. I told you to go about an hour. We've only got a few more minutes to go for the hours up. Then we'll do a little Q&A, if you would like Q&A, or maybe do a little network talking. Or just simply dismiss and let you enjoy the rest of the evening. But you've got the gift of helps, found there in 1 Corinthians 12.

An individual with a gift of helps has a remarkable ability to work alongside another and help that person complete the task God has given them. Now, today we're talking about leadership. We've talked about some principles of leadership. Now we're going through some specifics, how you can use the gifts God has given you to lead. But here we're talking about the gift of helps. The gift of helps, another way of putting this, is where you allow yourself to be a second banana.

You're not in charge. You're okay being second or third or fourth or fifth in charge. You're okay making sure the job gets done, and you don't care that you don't get the credit. But you take great joy in the fact that the job does get done, that the people do get served, that people are helped. If this is one of your gifts, then you tend to demonstrate a servant's attitude. You're loyal. You pay attention to detail. You're responsive to the initiatives of others. You're not a stick in the mud. You're not an anchor. You are a sail.

You're there to help the other guy look better. And you don't care that the other guy looks better. You like that. You have the glory for yourself. You have the gift of helps. Next to the last—there's only two more I want to give you here—the gift of knowledge, found in 1 Corinthians 12. The gift of knowledge is the ability to seek out, remember, and make effective use of a variety of information on a number of diverse subjects. As a pastor, I rely upon people in my congregation to help me with that. I can't know everything about everything, and I certainly always enjoy people come to me with ideas for sermons or Bible studies.

I remember some years ago I had a congregation that only had six people in it. There was a falling away in that particular congregation. At one point, that congregation had 240 people in it. Then the pastor left and took everybody but six. But boy did I have six great people. I had six. When I went to that congregation, I had to be on my toes.

Because the one woman, her husband, ran for the governorship of one of our states. Her husband only graduated from one of our military academies, a second graduation from another very prestigious college in the Midwest. He only started with his bare hands and built three construction companies and was a multi-millionaire.

I just happened to see a news clipping where when he was starting his— now he himself was not in the church. His wife was. But I saw when he started his campaign for the governorship of this one Midwestern state where he just wanted to start his campaign going.

So he just simply wrote a check for three-quarters of a million dollars. Very, very smart people. And in her case, a very spiritual person. In that same congregation of six, I had another lady who was a university professor, owned her own business, and once upon a time— you may have seen her on the TV show Jeopardy. Very smart.

Brilliant. So just because you've got a small group doesn't mean it's not a good group. These people have knowledge, and I tap into their knowledge every chance I get. You might have knowledge as young people that your pastor really needs to listen to. If there are things on your heart and mind that you would like to discuss with your pastor— certainly if you were in my congregation, we'd love for you to give me a phone call.

We'd go to a restaurant someplace, have a cup of coffee or a Coke or something, and you'd tell me what's on your heart and mind. If there are certain types of sermons you think need to be given, or Bible studies, or certain things that you would want me to be thinking more about as a pastor, I certainly would love to hear that.

The gift of knowledge. Maybe you've got a special kind of knowledge. People are funny with their packaging. I have been deceived so many times. I remember when I was living in Tennessee, there was a young man in my congregation. I just thought he was some rough backwoods guy from Tennessee. How stupid I was at that point. Got to find out later that when he took his ACT test—what was it? Was it the top score in that test? 36 or something like that. I think the top score was 36 on that test. He got 34. Way in the world, I'm pulling a 34 on that test. He was brilliant. He was a great kid.

Last thing we want to talk about is the gift of mercy. If you have the gift of mercy, you perceive people's hurts, and you console them without condemning them, and you show love and mercy toward them. It doesn't mean you condone wrongdoing. What it does mean, though, is you realize that people aren't people. Like Mr. Buchanan was talking about a couple of days ago. He gave a wonderful sermon about loving people as God loves people. God doesn't love people's sin, but God deeply loves people.

If you have the ability to perceive people's hurts, to comfort them when they're in pain, to empathize with them, to provide support, that is a tremendous gift that you can use to serve your fellow man. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm basically done with my prepared comments for tonight. I wanted to discuss with you that you've got tremendous gifts. You've got talents to be able to serve God and man with. The first part of the study, we took a look at some Christ-centered servant leadership principles. And then we took a look at some practical examples of gifts that God gives His people so you can serve. Certainly appreciate you coming, and y'all have a good evening.