Serve and Guard: A Wealth of Talent

Real Ideas

One of the really beautiful things about the big C Church is that sometimes we are able to set aside our differences and come together towards a common goal. This is most evident in times of deep distress such as we are experiencing across Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. The faith based relief effort in South West Florida has been an inspiring display of what the people of God are capable of. But outside of emergency disaster response, there are lots of other ways that we as the church come together to serve one another and to serve our world.

When I first started working in ministry I attended a conference called Real Ideas. What was evident just at first sight was that this thing was really well put together. From the moment we walked in the door to the time that we left we experienced an incredibly well thought out and planned event. But what was really incredible was the way that each session and workshop at the conference offered a way to utilize the talent of the everyday members of the church in order to accomplish the mission and the vision of the church.

This was both good news and bad news for me. It was good news because it meant that I didn’t have to do this whole ministry thing on my own. It was bad news because it meant that I was going to have to ask people to do stuff, which has never been something that I was particularly comfortable doing. But the reality is that the church is a beautiful representation of the diverse tapestry that God has woven in humanity. We are anchored here under the banner of Jesus Christ, but we are all very different people with different life experiences, different levels of education, and different gifts or talents. That’s what makes the church such a beautiful place to belong. We are a community of people that are gifted with a great diversity of talents, some of which we are really good at harnessing, some of which are untapped and waiting to be unleashed within our community and world.

We are here in our third week of this sermon series about stewardship, called Serve and Guard, where we are exploring God’s call on all of humans to serve and guard this word, and the implications for that reality on how we exist as a church in our community. Last week I talked about how, in order to really move in a direction towards serving and guarding this slice of God’s kingdom we need to focus our energy on Why we would want to do such a thing.

We are called to serve and guard our church and our community so that God’s will can be done in Fort Pierce as it is in heaven.

Grace through Gifts

So if our call is to serve and guard our church in order that God’s will can be done, then that means that we need to properly harness the individual gifts that God has given to each and every one of us. And that starts with recognizing that each person who walks through the doors of this church has been brought here for a reason and has been given the gifts that they have for a reason.

This was a crucially important reality for the early church, because the early church was an organization that stood in the gap between life and death for the people that it served. The early church was made up of outcasts and people who were in a rough spot. Either they were people who had embraced the Gospel of Jesus at the deep expense of social and communal acceptance within the broader Jewish community, or they were people who were already experiencing life on the margins. Widows, orphans, slaves, sick and diseased people were all people who experienced an incredibly difficult life. These people were the people that the early church brought into their community. The church was made up of misfits and outcasts. They relied on the gifts that God had given them in order to look out for the heath of the community as a whole. Those who had money gave it so that those who had the gifts of service could provide for those in need. Those who served gave their time so that those who were charged with preaching and missionary work could focus their time and effort on the spread of the Gospel.

The reason that they were so focused was because they truly embraced their why. Which is easy to understand, their why came directly from the lips of Jesus who told them to love God and love their neighbors and to go make disciples of all nations. Why are you doing this? Well God told us to, and then told us he was coming back… so yeah we got to work.

The apostle Peter was one of the leaders of this new Jesus movement that we now call the church. And Peter was a very bold and gifted leader. Peter mostly lived in an around Jerusalem, which faced quite a bit of political turmoil after Jesus’s death. Rome came down hard on Jewish people, who Jesus’s followers were still considered to belong. By the year 70, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman forces. Essentially, life was not great for these folks. There is a fair amount of suffering within the community and within the church itself.

In the book of 1 Peter, which is a letter from Peter to churches who have been displaced because of the political turmoil within the Roman world, the Apostle Peter encourages these communities and gives them instruction on how to live in a way that glorifies God. This is what he says is Chapter 4

1 Peter 4:7–11 NRSV

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Peter’s words here really help us to focus our understanding of how we are called to use the talents or gifts that God has given to us. Most importantly, the guiding force behind everything that we do as a church and as individuals needs to be love for one another. Every decision that we make, every program that we start, every meeting that we have has got to have the ultimate and highest goal being growing in and maintaining love for one another.

We are then called to be hospitable to one another without complaining. This is a tough one. We live in a consumer society right? The customer is always right. We are used to complaining when things aren’t the way that we want them to be. And listen, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t point out when things could be done better. I don’t think that’s Peter’s concern. I think Peter’s concern is the destructive force that back door complaining about one another, about the Pastor, or about the leadership of a church can have on the love that we are meant to share and display amongst one another. Remember, we don’t come to church because we all think the same way or want the same things all of the time. We come to church in order to experience the risen Christ and to live in community together as the diverse representation of the human community. Complaining is the best way to begin tearing apart the church that God is trying to hold together.

That’s all the set up, basically Peter is saying love each other and quit complaining so that you can use your energy doing something constructive. Peter knows human nature. We are much more likely to use our energy negatively. But if we are going to be good stewards of the energy that God has given to us, then we’ve got to use it differently.

We are to use our energy using the gifts that God has given to us to serve one another. And I don’t think Peter is saying just to serve ourselves within the church. I think he means to serve the world around us. Peter recognizes that each of us is gifted differently. Some of us are gifted with speaking and teaching. Some of us are gifted with hospitality and serving others. Some are gifted musically, some are gifted artistically, etc. Regardless of how we are gifted, Peter is saying to us that it’s our responsibility to use those gifts for the purpose of furthering the mission of God in the world. We are called to use our gifts to glorify God.

Equal Representation

One of the most important things that we have got to understand is that in God’s kingdom there is no hierarchy. All gifts are equal because they are given by God for one purpose. The Apostle Paul put it this way:

1 Corinthians 12:4–11 NRSV

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

What this means is that God doesn’t see us differently based on the gifts that we have been given. All God sees is whether or not we are using our gifts the way that they were intended to be used. And that is how we should view gifts as well. Every person is gifted. And personally, I love that. And I’m not here telling you that you need to be serving in ways that you have not been gifted for. I don’t want anyone to feel pressured into serving in a capacity in which they are not called to serve. That is a waste of energy. There’s plenty of work to be done, and I guarantee you that God has got a place for you to serve in this world and in this church.

When I began my journey of real discipleship it happened because people saw something in me that I could not see in myself. I was perfectly happy to come into the church and sit in the back and mind my own business. But the mistake that I made was that I was attending a church that was composed of a lot of the same kind of folks that made up the early church. Misfits and outcasts were kind of the general population of this little Methodist church in Tampa, Florida. And here’s the thing about misfits and outcasts… they know what it feels like to be that way. And we recognize one another. So it was really hard for me to remain anonymous in that place for very long. I had a pretty low view of myself, and I definitely did not believe that I was qualified to be in service to God’s church.

But I ran into the worship leader of that church out in the community one day. And he recognized me and we got to talking and he could just tell that I was probably weird enough to be a music person. And then somehow the next week I was playing guitar in the band. And I played in that band every Sunday for years. From there I just started saying yes when I was asked to serve in different ways. I was leading Bible studies and small groups, serving in the youth group, and eventually was hired as the youth pastor. All of this happened over just a few short years. I went from being this guy who tried to hide in the back to a person who was put on a track for ordained ministry because people believed in me and because I began to believe that what they saw in me was real.

I say all of this to encourage you. Because you might be sitting here like “God wouldn’t want someone like me to serve his people.” But let me tell you he does. All you’ve got to do is say yes and take a step. Look at the ways that you can easily dip your foot in that are listed on your pledge card under the talent. Where can you begin? Where are do you feel the pull?

Answer the Call

Ministry is not something that is only for professionals. The vast amount of ministry in this world is not done by people with the title “Reverend, Pastor, or Minister.” The vast amount of ministry is done by you all. By the people in the pews. And part of the reason that the church is in such decline in the modern world is because we’ve forgotten this fact. We’ve left the work of ministry for the professionals. But here’s the think. There are no professionals. Yes some of us go to seminary and get an education and we are charged with leading the church. But that doesn’t make us pros. It doesn’t make me a pro. I can’t do this thing on my own. I’m only capable of so much, but all of you and I together can do a lot. I’ve got my gifts and you’ve all got yours. What I’m called to do is help you find and utilize your gifts for the building up of God’s kingdom here on earth, particularly here in the Peacock arts district of Fort Pierce Florida. So What I need you to do is to say yes. Say yes to not only using your gifts, but to using your gifts differently.

There is a training camp scene in the movie Remember the Titans where Coach Boone chants a new ethos over the TC Williams Titans Football Team like a breath prayer – one statement per movement – for the newly integrated football team. Boone says “Everything we gonna do is changing. We are change. We’re gonna change the way we run. We’re gonna change the way we eat. We’re gonna change the way we block. We’re gonna change the way we tackle. We’re gonna change the way we win.”

This year I’m asking you to commit your talents to change. We live in a world that is changing, and while the message of Jesus Christ in unchanging, the way that we tap into that message and unleash it to change the world has got to change. So we’re gonna change the way see ourselves. We’re gonna change our no’s into yeses. We’re gonna change the way we engage in discipleship. We’re gonna change the way our gifts serve our community. We’re gonna change the way we do church. Because the way that we’re going to do church is going to ignite personal and communal change. The way we do church is going to reflect God’s kingdom here. Messy. Diverse. Beautiful.

And that change starts with you taking those talents God has given you and dedicating them back to him. It starts with you giving them back to God and God’s people in a new and challenging way. It starts with you committing yourself to the work of ministry and seeing it through for the Glory of God.