Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 24, 2025 | Onward - Space Walk

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August 24, 2025 | Onward - Space Walk · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:02
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask for a show of hands.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: How many of you um watched on July 20th, 1969, uh Neil Armstrong Walk on the Moon?
0:12
SPEAKER_00: I oh, I was saying I won't ask for hands, but if you want to volunteer your hands, that is perfectly fine with me.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Nobody in the first service raised their hands.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: So everybody was.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: They said, if I did remember it, I don't remember it well, right?
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So um I was too young.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: If you did happen to watch it live, um what we seemed to understand about the broadcast back then is that you were joined with one out of every five people on planet Earth.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Um Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon were not only was it a momentous occasion of a marvel of human engineering, ingenuity, bravery, tenacity, all of those things.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Um it was us beating the Russians.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: It was a whole lot of wonderful things.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but what a lot of people watching didn't recognize was that there were about 400,000 people that helped Neil take those steps.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: It was not to say it was a group effort, kind of undermines how Apollo 11 was a massive undertaking for hundreds of thousands of people.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them operating a critical, necessary role that only they could do.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And that same sort of image, right, of this multitude coming together for the sake of this one mission is the same way that God describes the church.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that a little bit last week, that we are unified in this gospel mission that we are on, and that we all play a role in that.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: But this morning we're gonna kind of look under the hood and say, well, what does it mean for us to all play a role in this gospel mission?
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Because we certainly all don't play the exact same role.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: In fact, part of the design, as we'll find out later, um, of God creating and constructing the church was that he intentionally chose not to have any one person get all the different gifts.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: He chose the inefficient, slow process of making a whole group of people coming together, utilizing the gifts that the Spirit had given them to carry out this gospel mission.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when that happened, it would go farther, faster, and deeper than you could ever imagine beforehand.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Corinthians 12, which is where we'll be this morning, the Apostle Paul is talking about spiritual gifts.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual gifts are something that we don't often talk about in the church, or maybe we just do sort of in passing glance because it's often not at the front of our minds, right?
3:00
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for God to have specifically given every person who has trusted in Christ an ability, at least one, for them to use for his kingdom?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: But for Paul, it goes one step further in chapter 12 because what he is looking at is not just how we have been individually gifted, but what does it mean for all of us to recognize, see that gift, recognize it, grow it, develop it, and contribute it to God's kingdom?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: What would happen then?
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, what are some of the problems and opportunities that arise when we take that on?
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Apollo 11 was not just Neil walking on the moon.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: It was two other astronauts that went on the journey with him, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about them in a second.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And for us, the journey of the church is not just one person and is not just a select few, but it is every single person who contributes to bear fruit in God's kingdom.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and begin our text, 1 Corinthians 12, chapter, or chapter 12, verse 4, excuse me.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: There are different ministries, but the same Lord, and there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So you've probably noticed there, like the repeating of the language that there are different things and same things, right?
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And God's point here, Paul, speaking through the Apostle Paul, is that every single person has received some kind of gift in the Spirit, but it comes from the same Spirit.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And so here's where we need to take just one step back and say, what does that even mean to be in the Spirit?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: When we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, if you believe that He died on the cross for your sins, he reconciled you to God, you are now saved because you are covered by the blood of Christ, your sins are forgiven, you are sanctified, you are made holy, you are declared righteous by God because of your faith in Jesus.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: This wonderfully special thing happens, which is that God himself dwells within you.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: There is this moment when we trust in Christ, that God sends himself as the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is not a feeling, okay?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: It is not God's special assistant, it is not some motivational force.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is God who comes and dwells within every single believer.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the reason why earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul made this big point about how certain types of sins that affect the body, the physical body, are so destructive because the spirit is dwelling within us.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, now we get a positive example, an important and beautiful thing that happens, which is this spirit works within every single person in a unique and different way.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: It says a manifestation of the Spirit is given, and so that's like Christ, who has all of these gifts, right, and is human, it's like he is divided up into all these parts, and you get a part of Jesus, and you get a part of Jesus, and you get a part of him, and none of us all have the exact same parts, but when you bring them together, this beautiful expression of the Spirit, of God's gospel message is seen in the local church.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And so we are a group of people united in Christ, dedicated to the gospel mission, and God's Spirit gives to each individual person one of these gifts.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the Apollo 11 mission, it was Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Neil Armstrong was the commander of the mission.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: He was the one who ultimately got to walk on the moon first.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: But what a lot of people don't realize is that even though Neil was chosen to be the first man on the moon for some specific reasons, right?
7:02
SPEAKER_00: He's pretty calm, he has a great voice for PR, he was going to be in front of the microphone a lot, and they needed somebody who was, you know, could really present themselves well to be an ambassador for the space program.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Neil's a good guy for that.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: But what people don't recognize, and you just kind of have to go deep on the wiki page for Apollo 11 to see this, but which somebody was doing, but is that there's an entire there was a shuffling of all of the astronauts around the Apollo program.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not that they said way out in advance, okay, it's these three guys.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: It had the reason these three were chosen for this particular mission is in part because of what happened before with other people.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it was not that these three guys were the best, the brightest in the entire world.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: They were fantastic, they were bright, they were chosen, but so were other people.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: The greater point here and what these three represented is that they were individually chosen because when they came together, they formed a cohesive whole.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Each one had a specific skill set and ability that they contributed to the mission.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Neil Armstrong, he was going to be focused on piloting the lunar module down to the moon's surface.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Michael Collins, he was actually, not everybody recognizes this, he was in the command module, which stayed in orbit around the moon, and he was up there preserving the way home.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: It was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who took the lunar module down.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And Buzz, the second man on the moon, he had a doctorate in orbital mechanics, okay?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm losing you.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: My point here is that when they come together, they formed a whole.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Every person was needed.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: So the first point this morning is that every gift is given with a mission in mind.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: The choice of these astronauts was not, hey, we want you to be popular.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: We want you to have a plaque named after you.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: We want a ship named after you.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: We want all of these things.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: It was, hey, you've got a skill set, and you're gonna come here and we're gonna do this thing together that none of us can do separately.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And so by divine design, and I'm gonna say that again, by divine design, our gifts are different from one another.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:14
SPEAKER_00: That is part of the purpose that God has in mind.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Our gifts are different, but they all come to us from heaven above.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And it says in the text, if you look back to it, that they come together for the common good.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: That Greek word there that translates into common good is related to the English word for symphony.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Symphony being this beautiful thing that happens with all of these different instruments, right, tuned correctly, come together to perform a piece that they cannot do on their own.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: This is the image that God has for the local church as he says, every different person coming together to share the gospel message and push it further to bring greater glory to him through the church.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: But as you might imagine, though, right, as we're on this divine purpose and we're talking about spiritual gifts, if this concept is new to you, you're going, what is spiritual gift?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: How do I even know if I have one?
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know that you have one if you've trusted in Christ as your Savior.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Every person is given a manifestation of the Spirit.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: But what is it?
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul begins to go further in chapter 12, and he says, basically, there's a list.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: To one is given a, and just in our section is kind of the text in white: message of wisdom, message of knowledge, faith, healing, uh, performing of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: And then in other places, um, Paul gives other lists, none of which are exactly the same.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Service, teaching, uh, kind of exhorting, which could be encouraging, leadership, giving, administration, a merciful heart, evangelism, and more.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you what he's trying to do with this list, which is give an example of the ways in which God's spirit might be manifesting in the church.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: It is not an exhaustive list, though.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure there's some people at TBC with the spiritual gift of spreadsheets and fixing elevators, okay?
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It's particular skills that I do not have, right?
11:20
SPEAKER_00: And yet what we see here is that Paul is speaking in individual context.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: So to the church in Corinth, the text in white, if you will, those are the ones that Paul sees, that's the way the spirit is being manifested in their body in that time, in that moment, right?
11:36
SPEAKER_00: In their church.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And in other places, Paul brings out other things.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Peter as well contributes to this list.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And the greater point behind it is not that it's exhaustive, but rather that there's this multitude of ways that the Spirit can be administering through you.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: You as a temple of the Holy Spirit, God dwelling within you, is manifesting his spirit in a lot of different ways.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, right, the very first guy, Bezalel, who we see gets uh, if you will, a gifting of the Holy Spirit, um, he was the guy who was constructing the tabernacle.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And God made him a divine blacksmith and weaver, okay?
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about how many of you feel like you have the spiritual gift of working with gold and silver, all right?
12:22
SPEAKER_00: But that was how God manifested it in his life, and he used it to build this thing which is a reflection of the heavenly realms.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Pretty big task.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: God's spirit was with him.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the age of the church, God is working in a different way, but it is no less important, all right?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: The point here is that you have a gift if you've trusted in Christ.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And it is ultimately up to you, listening to the Spirit, seeing how God has uniquely created you and gifted you to find that out.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: But there are some questions that you can ask yourself, right?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is my gift?
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, has anybody ever come up to you and said, Man, you're just a real and great encourager.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're so kind and sweet.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Or, man, in times of difficulty, you are somebody who just has a great faith that seems to last through the difficulties.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Man, you're a great teacher.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
13:19
SPEAKER_00: You make speaking as somebody who got a meal train when our first kid was born, you make a great egg casserole, okay?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And we got seven of them.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And there were some people where I say, man, this one, this is top tier, right?
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I think it might be a spiritual gift.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: One and the same spirit is active in all of these, distributing to each person as he wills.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you the difficult thing about this, because it's fun to think about spiritual gifts.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: How has God gifted us uniquely in a way that we didn't have before Christ?
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Fun topic.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: But it's as he wills, not as we will.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't declare spiritual gifts.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: We don't administer them to ourselves.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: It is a working of God in our lives.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: When we go back to the Apollo 11 guys, and we think about the roles that they played on that mission, their roles were not interchangeable, and in fact, they were declared by NASA ahead of time.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: This ended up being a point of controversy, especially later on, because Buzz did not love the idea that he was the second man on the moon.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: He felt uh NASA broke, I don't want to say broke protocol, but they changed their practice by making the commander of the mission, Neil, also the pilot and the first one out.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: That typically beforehand would have been Buzz's job.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole d m number of reasons why they uh might have chosen Neil for this role, but the greater point is that Neil didn't choose it himself.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Nor did Buzz choose to be the second in command, nor did Michael Collins choose to be the one orbiting Columbia around the moon to make sure everybody got home safely and maintaining contact with mission control in Houston.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: It was a job given to them.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: They all had to do their jobs, and if any one of them stopped doing their jobs, the mission was going to be a failure.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: So we don't pick the gifts that we have, but every single one of us has the opportunity to lean into those gifts, to develop them, to use them further, and to do it with gladness and joy, knowing that God has chosen to give them to us.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Every gift is chosen by the Spirit, and you need to keep that in mind as you are learning and discovering the ways in which, which I think is an ongoing process of how God has uniquely gifted us to serve in his kingdom on this side of heaven, right, as you uncover what that means in your life and as you develop those things, there can be temptations, which we'll get into in just a moment, to compare and contrast with others.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: But if every gift is given by the Spirit, who are we to say that one is better than the other?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: As you might imagine, God has crafted the church in this way.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Everybody with a portion, a piece of the pie, if you will, needing to come together to make a complete picture, that God intends for us to cooperate and work together, and that when we do that, when we cooperate, when we work together, when all of us use those gifts and push it into God's kingdom and use them the way he intended, we accomplish something bigger than any one of us could accomplish on our own.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Speaking in the last couple years, if you have ever thought that it would be difficult to have Republicans and Democrats come together in the body of Christ, I can tell you there are no greater divisions than those between Jews and Greeks and slaves and free people.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And yet God brings them together in his church under equal footing.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I give all of you the exact same spirit.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: All of you trust in Christ, the same Christ.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: All of you have received the same salvation because all of you have fallen short of the glory of God.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at the church, we should not be surprised that God sees the gifting of the Spirit in the exact same way.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: What he's Paul is beginning to do here is he's building this picture and he's starting to use a human body as the example for what the church should look like.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And when he speaks of the body of Christ, he is using it, it's sort of a euphemism for the church, right?
17:59
SPEAKER_00: What we have here at TBC is the body of Christ.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Another church in another location is the body of Christ.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says it's all these different pieces coming together because just like a human body is not one individual thing, but rather it is a combination of all these parts, and then you say it is one body, so it is with the church, so it is with the gifts.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: There are parts of our church body that are unified and where we have similar experiences and similar callings.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
18:33
SPEAKER_00: There are things that all of us, in the name of Christ, being alight into the nations, are supposed to be doing.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And then there are certain things on that mission that we would do separate from one another, contributing to the whole.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: This picture here is of Michael Collins, who I've said before is sort of this unheralded figure.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: He didn't walk on the moon in Apollo 11, but he kept Columbia, the command module, flying around the moon and made sure that the others were able to get back off the moon.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: When Michael was training for this mission, there were a lot of things that he had to do that were similar to the other guys.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Geology, spacecraft systems, engineering, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_00: He had to work out what it meant to go through a crisis as they're flying, you know, through the Earth's atmosphere into the vacuum of space.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: They all had to work together on troubleshooting and problem solving.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: But once they were assigned their mission, it became Michael's job to know everything he possibly could about the command module.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Not the lunar module, which is what you see in the photos of actually landing on the moon.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: That was Buzz and Neil's thing.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Michael needed to focus on this part of it because it was his job to make sure that he was an expert in this category.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: If he wasn't, he was letting the others down and ultimately their mission could be jeopardized.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Every gift strengthens the mission.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Every single gift is good for the purpose of carrying out the mission.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And to say it a different way, nobody can do it all.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has all the gifts.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is filled with only strengths.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has weaknesses that need to be covered by others.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And so if nobody can do it all, then we have to understand that we're on a mission that requires all.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't require one person, it doesn't require, in fact, even a select few, but everybody moving towards this thing together.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: And so to say that one other way, there are certain parts of the gospel message and mission, excuse me, that we're all driving towards, right?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Like we're to love our neighbor, to encourage one another, to give to the church.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: We are all called to um connect and to be here and be present and give ourselves to this thing.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: It's like the geology and spacecraft systems that everybody's trained in.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: There are certain parts that we all share.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And then there are other parts that we do individually.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And the question for you is whether you are developing and utilizing your gift in the way God has called you and intended for you to use it.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: If he has individually crafted you in a particular way to use your gift in special circumstances, right, to bring something to the body that other people can't bring, are you bringing it to the body?
21:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a good question to ask.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: That they really idolized.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Some people who had some more of the public facing gifts, they began to really hang around them, cling on to them.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, that's not the point of gifts, is that you begin to think that some are better than others, that some are more important than others, workings.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Rather, this image of the body is Paul's corrective measure for them sort of making figureheads.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, no, no, no.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of the church as this thing that is made up of different parts, and when all the parts work together, that is when beauty is found.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: He goes, It's not beautiful when you've just got a few people who you're impressed by.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And then the body parts start talking.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: If the foot should say, Because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body, it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And if the ear should say, Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body, hear this, just as he wanted.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: And if they were all the same body part, where would the body be?
23:16
SPEAKER_00: As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Notice the first half there, Paul has a refrain.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: He says, It is not for that reason any less a part of the body.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: The kind of implicit question here is, well, if there's no difference in terms of value in what somebody is bringing as their gift is given into the church, if there's no different difference in value, then what would it mean for somebody to be less a part of the body?
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that question is that they remove themselves or amputate themselves from the body.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: That the only way for a spiritual gift to not be valued and appreciated as it should be, certainly at least from the Father.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: We struggle, which will be his final point in a moment, that we struggle to recognize one another, but just from a heavenly perspective, God recognizes all of these gifts, and he says all of them are important equally.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is picked last for the dodgeball team, okay?
24:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not like you are the best athletes and then you're sort of the straggler on, I guess you can join our team.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: God says everybody has a role to play.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is doing something that's important.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: The only way that you are less a part of the body is if you kind of take yourself out of the game.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: You are less a part of the body if you choose not to use that gift.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, this is the tragedy that Paul points towards.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: He says the problem is not so much that there are lesser and greater gifts, but rather that we need all of them to come together in order for this thing to work well.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Did you know walking in here this morning, it took 200 muscles for you to just pass over the threshold of the church?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: 200 muscles firing at the right time, at the right moment, activated unconsciously for you to walk.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's not doing any of the other stuff.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Takes a few less muscles to sit, but nevertheless, there are so many parts of our church that often go unrecognized and unheralded.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's point here is that every gift is critical to the mission.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: I want you to focus on that line earlier in the passage when he said that God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: You might not like the gifting, you might not like the way that it's distributed, you might not like how the sort of the dice has fallen in your perspective and the way that God has chosen to gift you.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: But can I tell you God did it the way that he wanted to?
25:57
SPEAKER_00: God has gifted you how he wanted to.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: The gifting that you possess uniquely by the Spirit that dwells within you is because God said, I want to give that to you.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Not I have to, or I guess we need somebody, but I want to.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to feel a sense of empowerment because of that.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're special, not because I'm special, but because you were not an accident.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: You are not a culmination of just experiences.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Even if you feel that a way that you are gifted is something that is innate and you felt for a long time, it is a key is turned and it is activated specially when you begin to use it within the church.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Every gift is critical to the mission.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you've heard of Neil Armstrong, but have you heard of Margaret Hamilton, Catherine Johnson, or Gene Kranz?
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Margaret Hamilton was the lead software engineer for the Apollo Guidance Computer System.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: She developed the onboard software that literally guided the lunar module to the moon.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Catherine Johnson, if you've seen the movie Hidden Figures, she's one of them.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: She was the NASA mathematician.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: She was called the human computer, and she calculated by hand, remember?
27:13
SPEAKER_00: By hand, the trajectories, launch windows, and return paths for Apollo 11.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I got out of math class as fast as I could.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Gene Kranz, he was the flight director for mission control in Houston.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: He coordinated the entire mission from the ground, making split-second decisions during landing and liftoff.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: He and his team managed communications, engine burns, and problem solving in real time.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what these three mean for you.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: You can't say the church doesn't need me.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: You can't say that my gift is insignificant.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: You can't say that other people are doing it.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: You can't say that I am not a part of this mission because you are.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: By virtue of being in the church, which I hope you would say that you are, by virtue of being a part of the church, you are already kind of on the bus, right?
28:01
SPEAKER_00: The question is, are you helping it move forward?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: The church doesn't need me.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Other people do it better.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants me to do that.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: That is a lie from the enemy that is keeping you distant from the greatest purpose that you have for your gifting, which is using it for God's kingdom.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And so as we bring all these things together, into our final point that Paul is going to make, when everything works well and goes as it should, God says that every single person is going to share in the honor and the success and victory of kingdom work.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: When everything is happening as it should, the church is going to grow stronger, we are going to find fulfillment, and God will be glorified because of the way we are using our gifts.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: The eye cannot say to the hand, the body parts are talking again, right?
29:00
SPEAKER_00: The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Or again, the head can't say to the feet, I don't need you.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, we should be, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Within the Apollo missions, they understood the importance of a team and the need to recognize everybody who is involved, right?
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And this passage, you could sort of break it up into a first and a second half, one where Paul is speaking about the natural human desire to break things out and compare and push people away and to, you know, make sure that we're riding on top of somebody else.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: He says, this is what we see when we walk away from the kingdom, when we take God's gifts and we begin to place positions of importance on them.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, you know what?
30:18
SPEAKER_00: The people who have some of these public-facing roles, like in Corinth, he goes, the people who have these gifts that you're so impressed by, he's like, they're getting enough honor already.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: They've got enough people saying they're cool, okay?
30:30
SPEAKER_00: He says, What I'm concerned about is that we're not reflecting closely enough the work of Christ in his body by recognizing the unrecognizable parts, by giving honor to what we often think of as the unhonorable parts or the less honorable parts.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Paul draws this clear distinction here.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know what?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: God has a purpose in mind for administering gifts like this.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Can we be honest with each other and say that it would be more efficient for God to just have Jesus do this whole thing?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Not rely on us, rely, use us, bring us into his mission.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: It would be way faster if God did appoint certain people who had all the gifts.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: It would be way, it would take less time, most likely.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: It would probably be smoother, it would take less effort, right?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: It would be easier for us.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not what the Father chose to do.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the Father chose this inefficient, slow process of everybody coming together and doing this thing.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And that when that thing comes together, it's not for the sake of being inefficient, but rather God says, I'm working something out that is even greater than you can imagine, that wouldn't be the case if you did have these superheroes.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: He says, Look, I am doing this so that there would be no division in the body.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I need you to recognize that you need other people.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I need you to see that you have a critical role to play, but so does somebody else.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And that when you begin to recognize that, you draw closer together in unity because you need someone else to carry out this mission the way that God intended.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: But also he says that the members would have the same concern for each other.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: He goes, one of the other byproducts of having a goal that cannot be completed on your own is that you begin to appreciate everybody else who helped you push that goal forward.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Say that another way.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that well.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: That when we begin to recognize how we all come together for something that is greater and is bigger than the individual work of our own spiritual gifts, when we recognize that and see that in practice in the church, it not just doesn't just bring us together, but it increases our love and affection for one another, our appreciation, our desire to encourage other people, because this gospel mission is more effective when we can help other people join the mission also.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: This is the point that I was going to make.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Caught it right.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Every servant shares the honor.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Every servant shares in the mission that God is carrying out here.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: There's not one person that gets the glory.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Every servant shares in the honor, and this is the Apollo 11 mission patch.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what's unique about it, other than an eagle on the moon, okay, get past that.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: What's unique about this is that it does not bear the names Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And that was a specific decision made by those three astronauts, because unlike many other patches since, and it's not bad that it recognizes the astronauts who flew on them, they do risk the most for sure.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, what is going on here is the Apollo 11 astronauts, they said we couldn't have gotten to the moon if it weren't for the 400,000 people who helped us get there.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And so, even if you were in mission control, even if you were one of the seamstresses that was sewing the like 20 different layers into the astronaut's suit, even if you were an engineer or a welder, you were part of the launch crew, whatever it was, you got the same patch that Neil Armstrong got.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: You got the same recognition, at least from within NASA, that even the most special astronaut received.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you look at the world, then they began to assign value to what everybody was doing.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: But listen, when you heard Neil at his press conference after landing on the moon, or excuse me, after, yeah, landing on back on Earth, when they asked him, they said, Hey Neil, you just changed history.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You're the first guy that walked on the moon.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how special does that feel?
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I feel very privileged to have been involved in a project that has included so many hundreds of people who contributed in so many ways to make this possible.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: The only problem with this statement is that he undercounted just a little bit.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: That picture, by the way, is taken from inside the lunar module right after he got finished with his first spacewalk.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for him to go through these kinds of experiences, receive all the adulation, recognition from the outside world, and go, you know what?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: We're all sharing in this.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: We've all got the same patch.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Might we all remember that this is a team effort and each of us plays a unique role?
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And so the two ways to emphasize that would just be simply those who feel, whether by a product of comparison or the words of the enemy, or maybe somebody uh hurtfully dismissing you beforehand, you go, I don't have anything to contribute.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Or this gets a little bit more into our difficult nature and following God's will.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: We just don't want to do it.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: We just like not having the responsibility.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: We just want to use the gift for our own purposes, what have you.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: There's this opportunity that we're given, right?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: There's this amazing ability that we have, all of us, to get a patch, to be somebody who is contributing to the gospel mission, to be somebody who is recognized and seen as contributing to the work of the kingdom.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: On the other side of that, if you are somebody who has a more public-facing role, right, you receive more of the recognition.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind the perspective of Neil here.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody has all of the gifts.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: You might be recognized more often than others, but you are no more special than any other person who is on the mission, even if the world gives you that crown.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Throw it away.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: So, when all things come together for the good of the kingdom, it means that everybody is utilizing the gifts of the Spirit for the kingdom.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in doing that, here are some ways we can carry this out in our lives.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Number one, recognize that God has uniquely gifted you and ask God to reveal his gifting for you in the church.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, this is a step that you've already taken, but for others, this is where we need to begin.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: You need to recognize that you were chosen, you've been called by God.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians says he has prepared good works in advance for you to do, and that he has gifted you to do them.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there are things that the Father has planned for you in the future that he has enabled you to do in the present, so that you can carry out that will to the best of your ability.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: It's neat that God works in that way.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And God has done that with great intention and specificity down to the individual level.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: There is not a single thing that he has gifted you with that he has not intended for you to use.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: And so ask him, make this a part of your prayer this week, your prayers.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: God, where have you gifted me?
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Reveal these things to me.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Show me how you want me to serve you.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Number two, is get involved in the gospel mission.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: You might know your spiritual gift or gifts, but are you using them?
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Pursue ways to support the church's mission, whether formal or informal.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, there are a lot of ways to be involved in the gospel mission of the church.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: It is not simply having a title next to your name.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I, there's so many ways to divide this, but I say, just don't get wrapped up in what it means to have a formal role.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you, one of the roles that I appreciate the most is those who are dedicated in prayer to our church.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon, the great pastor in the 19th century in London of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he used to have a space beneath the pulpit in the basement that he called the boiler room.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And this one of the greatest pastors, preachers in all of history, they would often ask him, How are you so effective?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I have people praying throughout my entire sermon in the boiler room.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, You ask me, why am I so effective?
39:22
SPEAKER_00: It is because they are praying for the words that I'm speaking.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to pursue ways to support the church's mission.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: It can be specific, it can be general, but it has to be something that we are giving of ourselves towards.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Like it is, we are giving our bodies over as a living sacrifice to the Lord, and what we are doing is pushing this ministry forward.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: So get involved.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: If we don't get involved, we are just squandering the gifts that God has given us.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Number three, appreciate your role in the gospel mission and stop comparing your gifting to others.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I won't belabor this point, but simply keep in mind that Paul says numerous times, God chose to do it this way.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: He chose to do it this way.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: No accidents, right?
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Only purposeful movements.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: God chose to do it this way.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't appreciate your role in the gospel mission enough, perhaps it means that we need to grow in our appreciation for how God has created by design these roles that we often see as being unremarkable.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: In God's eyes, there's no such category.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Number four out of five.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Celebrate the diversity of spiritual gifts in our church.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank someone this week for how they serve, especially those who work behind the scenes.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you something?
40:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't need you to tell me that you liked my sermon.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that because I'm uh trying to push things away, right?
41:00
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate encouragement.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate how you are trying to lift me up when you might say something like that.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: I specifically appreciate when I get to hear how God has used the words from this stage to impact you.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: But there is way too much attention directed to me or other people who have formal roles.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: What I would love to see and what I know would make the Father most pleased is for all of his church to appreciate every single person in the church, no matter what role they're playing.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if we were to turn our gaze, kind of change the orientation of our antenna to see those people that normally don't get that recognition.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for you this week to go to somebody who has probably never had somebody appreciate them and the faithful work they're doing and saying, Hey, I see you.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: You are doing important work for God's kingdom.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: We need you.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Fifth and finally, is live with a team mentality in the church.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: When another part of the body is either hurt or honored, encourage them.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: If God designed it this way to serve a specific purpose, then we need to embrace that purpose so that we can carry out that design.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: And what God wants us to do is kind of like when your body gets hurt, your real body gets hurt, and your body sends white blood vessels to the affected area, right?
42:29
SPEAKER_00: And it looks like swelling and it looks like redness and it's kind of sensitive to the touch, but its attention is being diverted to a new area because of need.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that we should work too.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: That in the positive sense, when God is moving in a direction, when a part of the body is lifted up and praised, that we get behind them and go, yes, that's what we're all about here.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Like that's part of this body that I'm a part of, right?
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Like their victory becomes our victory.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Their success becomes our success, and the fruit that might be attributed to them becomes our fruit as well.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: This is like last Sunday, when by God's grace we're able to baptize 36 people.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: And you go, who is responsible for that?
43:13
SPEAKER_00: One, God.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who called every single one of them.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who died on the cross for them, he is the one who has given them his spirit and drawn them towards this act of obedience.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Two, God is utilizing the church, which involves every single individual, to bring about a situation where people can come, hear the gospel, be fed, lifted up as saints, and come to faith in Christ.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: And so, though we're kind of at the end of that point there, because all glory goes to God, you go, there's a part of this baptism where I am saying, like, thank you, God, for letting me be a part of their journey, even if you didn't know their name, because we're all the same body.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: They have success, they have victory, so do we.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: But then, of course, it cuts the other way.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Where's our body hurting?
44:04
SPEAKER_00: Where does it have greater need?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And what should happen is that the whole body begins to shift and move and point its attention towards this person that is hurting, coming around them, supporting them, lifting them up, and encouraging them in a way that is probably different than when everything was fine.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Live with a team mentality in the church.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: All victory and success that God gives is shared.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets a patch.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: So, in conclusion, right, here's my little mini-mini flow chart for you.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Number one, have you trusted in Christ?
44:41
SPEAKER_00: Have you believed in him as your Savior?
44:43
SPEAKER_00: If you have, you have the Holy Spirit.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Number two, how has the Holy Spirit gifted you individually and uniquely?
44:53
SPEAKER_00: How has God chosen you to serve a purpose in his kingdom?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And then number three, how will you use it for God?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing for his kingdom right now?
45:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something that, you know, goes unseen.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Praise God for that.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: We need that.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we need even more of it.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Because the world is not the group that determines what is valuable in the church.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: It is Christ.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: And to him, everybody is a part of the body, and everybody part is walking forward in this gospel mission.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today and we thank you.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, as Spirit for dwelling within us and gifting us in a special way.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for enabling us to carry out your will and to pursue the good works that you have prepared in advance for us to do.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: What an idea that is.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you that you have drawn us close to you by the Son, redeemed us, choosing us, Lord, glorifying us.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in all of these big words, Lord, what it means is you have just positioned us to do something great for you that makes your name great in your kingdom.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: As we desire to bring more glory to your name, to move the church forward, to share the gospel message, to deepen our connections in this body of believers, to serve your kingdom, Lord.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: As we desire these things, reveal within us how you want us to individually carry out that mission.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: For we are not all the same, and not one person has all the gifts.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God that that is not the case.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: We praise you for the inefficient, slow, and sometimes frustrating process of needing to rely upon one another to do a great thing, like leading people to life in Christ.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Might we appreciate that construction a little bit more?
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Might we draw closer to one another in unity, in fellowship, encouragement, and appreciation all to the glory of your name.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: Love you.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: See you next week.