Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris Carr, how you doing? Pretty good. How about you? I'm doing well. A little sniffy today, so don't mind me. Yeah. Yeah, congratulations on the grandkid. That's exciting.

[00:01:53:23 - 00:01:57:14]
Speaker 1
 Super exciting. Really thankful, healthy guy.

[00:01:58:21 - 00:02:01:02]
Speaker 1
 Yeah, looking forward to what the Lord has for him.

[00:02:01:02 - 00:02:08:18]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Yeah, that's great. It's always an exciting time of life, and you're starting to collect them, so

[00:02:08:18 - 00:02:11:18]
Speaker 1
 good work. Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

[00:02:11:18 - 00:02:15:16]
Speaker 2
 OK, so hopping into the content from Sunday,

[00:02:16:19 - 00:03:22:19]
Speaker 2
 one thing that I'm still kind of working through is actually something we discussed last episode. And it's the issue of whether spiritual gifts that are talked about in the New Testament are natural abilities enhanced by the Spirit, or if they are new gifts given to us when the Spirit indwells us, or maybe it's an overlap of both of those, or maybe it's just a semantic difference that doesn't really matter. So you gave the example from Chronicles of Narnia, where the kids received gifts that they didn't possess before, but then you had also brought up things like serving on Sunday in music, technology, security. And these would be examples of learned skills. So I think I'm just looking for some clarity on this. Is every spot that we can serve in in a local church a spiritual gift? Like, for example, I played drums. Would you consider that a spiritual gift, or is that a use of another spiritual gift? Does that make sense?

[00:03:24:05 - 00:03:24:18]
Speaker 1
 Kind of.

[00:03:25:22 - 00:03:46:22]
Speaker 1
 I think we've just got to accept from the beginning that there's probably going to be some things we're going to have to struggle with to understand, and that there may not be any one clear absolute answer for what you're posing here.

[00:03:48:14 - 00:04:05:23]
Speaker 1
 I would begin by just reiterating again the first Corinthians 12, 7, where Paul says, "To each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." So the gift is ultimately the Holy Spirit.

[00:04:07:11 - 00:04:28:02]
Speaker 1
 OK. OK? They're spiritual gifts. And so they're empowered by, enabled through, whatever they may be, the Holy Spirit. And they are the Holy Spirit using them to build up the church for the common good. Ephesians 4, we saw, to build up the body of Christ

[00:04:30:03 - 00:04:32:11]
Speaker 1
 so that, as we saw in 1 Peter 4,

[00:04:34:10 - 00:04:35:16]
Speaker 1
 Jesus is glorified.

[00:04:37:01 - 00:04:40:17]
Speaker 1
 And so I think that there may be an--

[00:04:41:20 - 00:04:50:16]
Speaker 1
 maybe the answer to what you're asking is all of the above, or it could be all of the above. I do believe that, in many cases, they are natural abilities.

[00:04:52:02 - 00:05:09:12]
Speaker 1
 And oftentimes, the learned skills that we have are from our natural abilities. I don't think, in most cases, we learn a skill that we don't have some adeptness at. So I think that there's a synchrony there.

[00:05:11:06 - 00:05:36:10]
Speaker 1
 And so natural abilities and then skills that we build up. I do think that there are times, because not only think we see this in the New Testament, where the Holy Spirit comes upon believers. We actually see it in the Old Testament, too, where the Holy Spirit comes on people for a moment, temporary time, and gives them a supernatural kind of gifting.

[00:05:37:19 - 00:05:47:08]
Speaker 1
 And sometimes those would be seemingly for a lifetime. But oftentimes, it's a temporary thing that occurs.

[00:05:48:14 - 00:05:51:17]
Speaker 1
 Again, I think the thing to stress here is,

[00:05:52:18 - 00:06:05:08]
Speaker 1
 are they being used in a way that builds up the body? And if I am using a skill, a gift, an ability, or even if I'm just serving, I'm just-- like,

[00:06:06:09 - 00:06:09:19]
Speaker 1
 I see a need. I'm going to step in there. I may not be particularly good at it.

[00:06:10:19 - 00:06:26:01]
Speaker 1
 It might not be something that I even necessarily have a natural affinity for, which is one of the downsides to the affinity comment. The thing that I was talking about on Sunday is, if you think, I've got to like it for me to do it, that's absolutely not the case at all. No, I've got to be willing to do it.

[00:06:27:08 - 00:06:35:02]
Speaker 1
 And is the Holy Spirit going to use that to help build people up? So I just would use your example of playing the drums.

[00:06:36:13 - 00:06:43:00]
Speaker 1
 You were obviously born with some type of ability to be able to play the drums.

[00:06:44:15 - 00:06:57:18]
Speaker 1
 But you also fine-tuned that. It's a learned skill as well as-- it's built off of some natural base. So like, it's kind of interesting, bringing this up, is watching this thing with Chris Hemsworth,

[00:06:58:23 - 00:07:41:19]
Speaker 1
 National Geographic the other day, where he actually is-- it's all about the brain, but can your brain grow and expand? And how does it do it? And it wraps around, he's trying all of these new things, because he's working with this neuroscientist, this brain scientist, about how learning new things can help your brain to grow and continue to be strong over a lifetime. So his first thing that he did was learn to play the drums. So he's 40-some years old. And he had three months to get ready to play with Ed Sheeran in one of his concerts, like his most well-known song, which I don't know.

[00:07:43:04 - 00:07:46:03]
Speaker 1
 Come on, you've got to mind your playlist, right?

[00:07:47:06 - 00:07:51:22]
Speaker 1
 But anyway, it was amazing what he did.

[00:07:53:08 - 00:08:03:19]
Speaker 1
 There's no way I could not do it, because your hands have to be-- two hands have to be doing something different while your feet are doing something different.

[00:08:05:03 - 00:08:12:00]
Speaker 1
 He obviously has some natural ability. Anyway, sorry, that's a little bit of a-- but I think it is important.

[00:08:14:05 - 00:08:23:19]
Speaker 1
 And then the Holy Spirit is using that, because as you're playing the drums, people are singing, and it's helping to build up-- that's a part of building up the church.

[00:08:25:01 - 00:08:26:21]
Speaker 1
 And so I don't think--

[00:08:28:15 - 00:08:48:15]
Speaker 1
 I mean, the Holy Spirit could, like this week, we have a need on Sunday morning for a drummer, because somebody gets sick, and all of a sudden I'm like, hey, well, I see a need, so I'm going to step in there. And Holy Spirit could. He has the ability to give me that-- to be able to play.

[00:08:49:15 - 00:08:53:23]
Speaker 1
 I don't think that's going to happen, and that's not the norm.

[00:08:53:23 - 00:09:00:23]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Yeah, and I think that would be a weird thing to see show up in the New Testament in the list of gifts, right?

[00:09:02:02 - 00:09:03:16]
Speaker 2
 Drumming. Make mercy and encouragement.

[00:09:03:16 - 00:09:08:20]
Speaker 1
 Drums. Right, right. No, but I-- so I think it is--

[00:09:12:08 - 00:09:42:22]
Speaker 1
 again, it's not even the ability-- is a spiritual gift, is the Holy Spirit using it to build up. So the question really is, is the body being built up? And in a sense, I think that pretty much anything that we do in which that's actually happening can be considered a spiritual gift if we understand that the gift is a spirit, ultimately.

[00:09:42:22 - 00:09:43:17]
Speaker 2
 Yeah.

[00:09:44:23 - 00:09:56:23]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, and maybe-- I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking this to some extent. I think-- would you say then that some of these gifts were originally given to us before we were--

[00:09:58:09 - 00:10:07:15]
Speaker 2
 maybe that's what my hold up is, that if it is a natural ability, it seems like it would have been given to us before we were indwelled with the spirit,

[00:10:08:17 - 00:10:17:09]
Speaker 2
 right? So maybe to some extent that natural ability is-- yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking this in general.

[00:10:17:09 - 00:10:23:02]
Speaker 1
 Well, let's go to-- I don't know. Did you start playing the drums before you were a believer? Yeah. OK.

[00:10:24:23 - 00:10:28:23]
Speaker 1
 So you didn't get the ability to play drums before you were a believer?

[00:10:30:03 - 00:10:51:01]
Speaker 2
 Well, no. Yeah. But maybe-- what I'm saying, though, is that maybe that's a separate category from what we're talking about in 1 Corinthians 12, 11, where it says that the spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills seems to be at the indwelling, right?

[00:10:52:06 - 00:10:58:23]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. So-- Yeah, and how I would understand that is largely being is now he's going to apportion himself

[00:11:00:03 - 00:11:17:16]
Speaker 1
 in a way that he's taking that gift and using it to build up the body for the glory of Jesus Christ. So the spirit-- we're going to see this in John 13 through 16 that the spirit's job is to point people to Christ,

[00:11:19:00 - 00:11:26:09]
Speaker 1
 to glorify Christ. And so how does he glorify Christ? He glorifies Christ by working in and through people.

[00:11:27:16 - 00:11:49:16]
Speaker 1
 And again, I'm not saying I got this all right, but I think that different people do have different measures of the spirit working in them. And let me be careful. We all have-- all believers have the same measure of the spirit, the same amount of the spirit, but the spirit works through people in different measures.

[00:11:50:16 - 00:11:59:01]
Speaker 1
 And so Paul had, in some ways, a unique gifting. And what's really interesting-- so let's talk about Paul.

[00:12:00:13 - 00:12:22:01]
Speaker 1
 Like, if I'm reading what Paul says, right, like he didn't have a great oratory. He wasn't a great speaker, but he was a powerful preacher. Well, where did that power come from? It wasn't a natural ability. It was the Holy Spirit. And he made that really, really clear.

[00:12:23:17 - 00:12:38:01]
Speaker 1
 And even in contrasting himself with a guy named Apollos, who was well known for his preaching, but Paul is the one-- I think I'd work through Apollos, but he's really working through Paul.

[00:12:39:16 - 00:12:51:12]
Speaker 2
 No, yeah, that's a good example. I think that is an example we see of Paul saying, I'm not coming with eloquent words, I'm coming and boasting in the spirit, right? And so yeah, OK.

[00:12:53:01 - 00:13:08:19]
Speaker 2
 I guess just a follow-up to that. How would you encourage someone who feels like they don't have much to offer in the way of abilities, right? So like, they're just everyday abilities. They're not seeing room for that to serve the church. How would you encourage that person?

[00:13:08:19 - 00:13:21:16]
Speaker 1
 Well, I'd encourage them first to recognize that what they may see or believe is contrary to what the Word of God says.

[00:13:24:03 - 00:13:34:12]
Speaker 1
 And second, as I tried to point out, some days it's not so much our ability as our availability.

[00:13:36:18 - 00:13:55:22]
Speaker 1
 Am I willing to be used by God? Am I willing to put myself there and say, you can be used me as you will? And so it says that we have abilities. It says that we've been gifted by the Spirit.

[00:13:57:09 - 00:14:49:10]
Speaker 1
 And we might look at it and say, well, I don't have very much. I don't have much compared to that person. Or we can make all the excuses, quite honestly, that we want in the world. And yet, if it goes back to it's really not about our gift, but it's about the Spirit. Like even those with seemingly to us or to the person have not a whole lot of gifting, God can still use it because what matters is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can do incredible things. And we talk about Corinthians. Paul starts out and he says, hey, you Corinthians, when we first started out this, not many of them were wise. Not many of us were wise. Not many of us were influential. Like essentially, we compared to the world didn't seem like, but God chose what is foolish in the world to confound the wise.

[00:14:51:08 - 00:15:28:23]
Speaker 1
 And all throughout the Bible, we just have example after example of God, he doesn't generally choose the wealthiest or the smartest or the most influential or the well positioned, he chooses the people that might seem like they don't have the most offer, but they respond and they make themselves available and just go over and over again. And we talk about the 12 disciples, like not the most impressive 12 guys that Jesus could have chosen.

[00:15:30:18 - 00:15:35:01]
Speaker 1
 And yet what were they? They were willing.

[00:15:36:11 - 00:15:46:05]
Speaker 1
 And even though they had lots of issues and they faltered at times, they stuck with it. Or when they didn't, they came back and God used them to change the world.

[00:15:48:14 - 00:15:49:14]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Okay.

[00:15:51:18 - 00:16:09:01]
Speaker 2
 You brought this up just a little bit ago, but with your Venn diagram that you showed, you presented as just a helpful tool for us to think about where our gifts are. And you talked about ability, affinity and affirmation.

[00:16:10:12 - 00:16:31:21]
Speaker 2
 What would you say if someone looked at that and said, well, I have two of those three. So maybe like they enjoy it, they're good at it, but they're not being affirmed in it. Like it's a time to just move on from that gift or like how should we, I assume like this isn't just like a hard and fast rule for you. No. It's more just kind of a framework to think about it.

[00:16:33:03 - 00:16:38:06]
Speaker 1
 Yeah. So we talked about the ability, let me just hit on the affinity and the affirmation.

[00:16:39:07 - 00:16:52:00]
Speaker 1
 Affinity is God has given you a wiring, a natural wiring. And so if you're passionate about something, it's very likely because, and it's a good thing, to that qualification,

[00:16:53:08 - 00:16:58:09]
Speaker 1
 it's probably because that's the way that God has made you and created you.

[00:16:59:17 - 00:17:29:15]
Speaker 1
 And so that should definitely be under consideration, but affirmation is important. And we see this in the New Testament that, so really what we're talking about here is calling. And there can be an internal call and an external call. And what I mean by that is an internal call is like what we feel, what we believe we should be doing or giving ourselves to. But the external call is where you have other brothers and sisters in the church.

[00:17:31:01 - 00:17:57:13]
Speaker 1
 And this is oftentimes where the leaders of the church have a special role is to affirm like what we maybe would feel inside. So just because we feel it and believe it, like that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. And that's why we, sometimes we need other people to see it in us and to affirm it, but other times we need people to say, no, or not, or not now.

[00:17:59:08 - 00:18:28:04]
Speaker 1
 And I think oftentimes with the affirmation, what's missing for people is that it's not just an affirmation, especially in the church, it's not just an affirmation of ability, it's affirmation of character. And are we at a place where we should be, we should be serving in that way. And this is particularly true when it comes to things like teaching, leadership,

[00:18:30:08 - 00:18:53:04]
Speaker 1
 and where other people are going to be like looking at us and as maybe a role models or examples to follow, those character qualifications, the New Testament makes very clear is important. And so if we're not being affirmed by other people, we maybe need to step back and say, and maybe we even need to ask why,

[00:18:54:04 - 00:18:58:02]
Speaker 1
 and what would it take for me to get to the place where I do have that affirmation?

[00:19:00:16 - 00:19:03:13]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, so needs to be some humility involved here too.

[00:19:03:13 - 00:19:15:13]
Speaker 1
 Well, yeah, it's like, and that's where it's like, is it about you or is it about serving the Lord in his church?

[00:19:17:11 - 00:19:17:22]
Speaker 1
 It's hard.

[00:19:19:11 - 00:19:21:20]
Speaker 1
 That's really, really hard.

[00:19:21:20 - 00:19:27:08]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, yeah, I think we'll get into that a little bit later. So I'll leave it there for now.

[00:19:28:12 - 00:19:39:10]
Speaker 2
 Okay, so let's kind of look at the other side of serving. So like if our job in the church is to build up the body, it would follow that we also need to be willing to be built up by the body.

[00:19:40:20 - 00:19:49:16]
Speaker 2
 I think it's common for some of us to want to do the work to serve others, but then feel like we're an inconvenience if the body serves us.

[00:19:51:20 - 00:19:58:22]
Speaker 2
 First of all, like why do you think so many of us like struggle to let others serve us?

[00:20:00:07 - 00:20:01:13]
Speaker 1
 That is a great question.

[00:20:04:07 - 00:20:07:14]
Speaker 1
 And I wanna affirm you in that. Thank you.

[00:20:07:14 - 00:20:08:14]
 (Laughing)

[00:20:11:01 - 00:20:21:12]
Speaker 1
 I think that there's two primary reasons. The first would be that we don't want to be seen or feel like we're needy.

[00:20:22:23 - 00:20:23:03]
Speaker 3
 Yeah.

[00:20:25:14 - 00:21:10:11]
Speaker 1
 And the second is related to it, and that is a shame-based kind of feeling in terms of it. Like if there's something wrong with me and or I'm not worthy of it, I'm not worthy of you spending time with me, I'm not worthy of you ministering to me. And so those two things are really kind of related, being needy and feeling shame or not worthy of it. And then the second is that we're not worthy of it. And yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna kind of go,

[00:21:11:12 - 00:21:21:06]
Speaker 1
 already go to where maybe you're leading next. I think the antidote to that is first of all, to recognize again, what does the Bible actually say is that we are needy.

[00:21:22:09 - 00:21:27:16]
Speaker 1
 Like we do have a need for other people to minister to us.

[00:21:28:20 - 00:21:31:04]
Speaker 1
 And the Bible could not be clear about that.

[00:21:32:05 - 00:21:41:01]
Speaker 1
 And so, I mean, the other side of serve one another means that I need to be one of the anothers that somebody is serving.

[00:21:42:06 - 00:22:04:13]
Speaker 1
 So it's not just a one-way street here, let's as you pointed out. And so by necessity, like there are these 50 plus one anothers in the New Testament. We've talked about those before, serve one another is first and foremost maybe, but teach one another, manage one another, encourage one another on and on and on. Well, you are one of the others.

[00:22:06:09 - 00:22:33:17]
Speaker 1
 And so sometimes it's just humbling ourselves. And sometimes it means like, yeah, I need my mind to be renewed in the fact that I am worthy of being served because I am a member of the body of Christ. And that means among other reasons that I have value and worth and I'm worthy of people pouring into me.

[00:22:33:17 - 00:22:56:07]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, well, I think maybe it's easy to kind of look at things in a hierarchy view too, or the pastors or whatever the leadership is handing out all the help. And could be easy to view you guys as not needing help, right, but like you need built up just as much as anyone else.

[00:22:57:12 - 00:23:00:14]
Speaker 1
 Sometimes even more, believe it or not. But yeah.

[00:23:02:03 - 00:23:12:01]
Speaker 1
 Well, in this week, to jump ahead to this week, like Jesus is gonna wash his disciples feet and Peter's gonna go never Lord.

[00:23:13:09 - 00:23:22:01]
Speaker 1
 And that's kind of like just prototypical of like, we Jesus, you do need to be served.

[00:23:23:02 - 00:23:33:01]
Speaker 1
 But we're like, no, we don't, no, no, no, no, no. And yet that is, unless we are actually served by Christ, we can't be saved.

[00:23:35:14 - 00:23:42:02]
Speaker 1
 And that really is what it means to be saved is that he has served us, he's washed us, he's made us clean.

[00:23:43:14 - 00:23:45:05]
Speaker 1
 And so that's kind of sets the,

[00:23:46:11 - 00:23:48:15]
Speaker 1
 set the direction for the Christian life.

[00:23:48:15 - 00:24:05:00]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, I guess maybe just to reinforce this, someone that might struggle with being served, how can we like encourage them that, receiving help from others when we need it is actually glorifying God and strengthening the body?

[00:24:05:00 - 00:24:06:20]
Speaker 1
 Well, I mean,

[00:24:08:10 - 00:24:12:06]
Speaker 1
 for one reason, you are allowing someone else to use their gift,

[00:24:13:15 - 00:24:20:11]
Speaker 1
 right? So that someone serving and simply really,

[00:24:21:14 - 00:24:33:23]
Speaker 1
 in obedience to Jesus and in following his example, that's bringing glory to God by them doing it. And so we're giving somebody the opportunity. It's a blessing, like it's,

[00:24:35:00 - 00:24:41:03]
Speaker 1
 I don't know, I'm sure you've had this experience many times too, but it's a blessing to be able to serve.

[00:24:42:18 - 00:24:48:14]
Speaker 1
 So you actually rob people of the blessing if you don't allow them to do it.

[00:24:49:19 - 00:24:54:08]
Speaker 1
 And so, I mean,

[00:24:55:09 - 00:25:15:06]
Speaker 1
 being served and being loved are in many ways one and the same. And so probably maybe even a more fundamental reason than the pride and the shame is the, and again, related to these things, is that being loved is uncomfortable for us.

[00:25:19:12 - 00:25:36:02]
Speaker 1
 Someone showing us love is just makes a lot of us, and I would be one of those, that people, it just is uncomfortable. We want it in the deepest part of us, and we definitely need it, but it's really, it's really, really hard.

[00:25:37:16 - 00:26:01:03]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, well, there's a big aspect of humility here too. I think it's pretty common for people around Midwest that are, I'll just take care of it myself. I don't want to inconvenience anyone, but showing humility of like, okay, yeah, I actually do need help with this, I think is, can be hard to do for sure.

[00:26:03:10 - 00:26:03:16]
Speaker 2
 Okay,

[00:26:04:16 - 00:26:10:02]
Speaker 2
 one issue that's common to churches is burnout.

[00:26:11:12 - 00:26:14:18]
Speaker 1
 Know nothing about this topic, so move on.

[00:26:14:18 - 00:26:15:21]
 (Laughing)

[00:26:15:21 - 00:26:18:04]
Speaker 2
 Like you have anything to do here, Chris.

[00:26:19:17 - 00:26:28:09]
Speaker 2
 It can be easy to get involved with many different ministries and take on too much, and this can even be true for our lay volunteers,

[00:26:29:18 - 00:26:36:14]
Speaker 2
 even to the point where we start neglecting our own spiritual formation. And so looking at verse 11 in 1 Peter 4,

[00:26:37:15 - 00:26:41:12]
Speaker 2
 says, "Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies,

[00:26:42:13 - 00:26:48:11]
Speaker 2
 how can we not rely on our own strength, but rather rely on God's strength?" Like he's saying here.

[00:26:50:13 - 00:26:50:18]
Speaker 1
 Yeah,

[00:26:52:12 - 00:27:07:02]
Speaker 1
 this might be taking it a little bit different than you thought that I would, but it might seem like I'm not answering the question, but I promise I am. Sometimes it's simply not taking on too much.

[00:27:07:02 - 00:27:07:20]
Speaker 3
 Yeah.

[00:27:10:05 - 00:28:12:23]
Speaker 1
 And so we just say yes, yes, yes, yes. And sometimes that's because we think it's wrong to say no, but it's not wrong to say no, because if you're always saying yes, you are saying no to something. Every yes is a no to something else. So I think, like for me, it's been part of relying on God for strength is just recognizing that I need to learn to live within some limits, that I have limits. And that doesn't mean that God can't give me, help me through those times where, and he has many, many times where I overextend myself or just life brings things to me. But I think we gotta be really honest about like, are we actually recognizing that we have limitations to how much we can do,

[00:28:14:03 - 00:28:34:07]
Speaker 1
 even as we rely on God's strength. And then how do we rely on God's strength is, I mean, a big part of this is we just slow down and take time to recognize like that we need him and we need him to work.

[00:28:35:08 - 00:28:52:16]
Speaker 1
 And that means, praying and spending time with him, which sometimes can sound like counterintuitive or seem counterintuitive, like, I've got a lot to do, so I'm gonna take time to spend time with the Lord. How does that work?

[00:28:54:13 - 00:29:09:13]
Speaker 1
 And yet he can do more in a second than we can do in a hundred years. So, and you might have to actually have to learn that experientially a few times.

[00:29:10:23 - 00:29:33:09]
Speaker 1
 But I think if we're not spending, there's no way that you can rely on God's strength if you are not taking time to center yourself in his word and spend time with him in prayer. So if you wanna, you know, if you want to rely on God's strength, that's where it has to be a key part of that.

[00:29:35:04 - 00:29:47:05]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, what is that Luther quote? He was asked how he can spend so much time in prayer if he has that much to do. And he said, "I have so much to do that the only thing I can do is spend time at hours in prayer."

[00:29:47:05 - 00:29:58:22]
Speaker 1
 It's a great quote, but it's really- I don't think I did it justice there. Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, no, he's, it's true. And he's right, boy.

[00:30:00:07 - 00:30:06:03]
Speaker 1
 I hope that I can get somewhere close to that before I die.

[00:30:06:03 - 00:30:06:16]
Speaker 2
 For sure.

[00:30:07:19 - 00:30:23:06]
Speaker 2
 Okay, so how can we think about, you know, I appreciate that you bring up, like we need to be realistic about our capacity and say no if we need to. How can we kind of walk that line between under serving and over serving?

[00:30:23:06 - 00:30:25:15]
 (Laughing)

[00:30:28:11 - 00:30:36:00]
Speaker 1
 It's a good question. It's much more difficult to come up with a good answer to this.

[00:30:37:18 - 00:30:45:06]
Speaker 1
 I don't know that I can give a just, you know, a clear overarching answer to it.

[00:30:47:04 - 00:30:56:06]
Speaker 1
 But this is where, again, I think we have to be seeking the Lord and letting him direct us. I think that we have to guard against

[00:30:58:06 - 00:31:32:08]
Speaker 1
 kind of the fear of man, the just saying yes to please people. I feel like we are always saying yes, yes, yes. And on the one hand, and then on the other hand to this, what I would call spiritual laziness where we might even use the excuse of, you know, I need to learn to live within limits to not really be involved at all. And we do have a calling to pour out our lives in service for the Lord.

[00:31:34:00 - 00:32:03:10]
Speaker 1
 And so in general, I think that we should be like giving our all and using our gifts. But on the other hand, we've also gotta be realistic about the limits. And at some point, and this has been true for me too often, is like you serve too much and then your service isn't really all that good. It could be, you know,

[00:32:04:12 - 00:32:15:17]
Speaker 1
 you have to rest, you know, if you're actually going to serve in the long run and to serve in a healthy way. So it's a balance that's really hard to find.

[00:32:15:17 - 00:32:19:05]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, well, and this is another example where

[00:32:21:01 - 00:32:34:09]
Speaker 2
 I think the body can help you with that. I think there's people that you can talk to kind of examine what your life looks like. And if you have the, actually have the capacity to take on something else, or if you need to back out, I know we've been,

[00:32:35:23 - 00:32:45:13]
Speaker 2
 Nikki and I have been in that place before where it's, you know, like we'd say yes to a lot and then realize, hey, this isn't healthy for us. Let's back up a little bit and reevaluate where we're at.

[00:32:47:16 - 00:32:51:16]
Speaker 1
 And there are different, recognizing there are also different seasons where like,

[00:32:52:18 - 00:33:01:07]
Speaker 1
 you can go 110% for a while. But if it's 100% all the time,

[00:33:02:13 - 00:33:03:00]
Speaker 1
 okay.

[00:33:04:14 - 00:33:46:18]
Speaker 1
 If you're running red line all the time, then you're going to break down. Maybe you need to go there for a short period of time, given what the circumstances are on. But you also realize, I think for a lot of people, one of the reasons they get so overwhelmed and serving in the church is because that's just in life. They've got so many other things. It's not so much even the church involvement. It's just like, they're so busy with all different types of other things that they have little margin or a little room to actually be serving in the church. So that's a factor too. Yeah, okay.

[00:33:46:18 - 00:34:06:00]
Speaker 2
 Well, I guess I kind of want to end with this. You had spent some time in your sermon about it, but maybe I'll just give you some time to preach here. So, you know, in our passage, it clearly shows that the ultimate goal of our gifts is to bring glory to the Lord. So firstly, like how is God glorified through our serving?

[00:34:09:00 - 00:34:27:15]
Speaker 1
 Well, in one way, He's glorified because we're obeying Him and we are honoring Him by doing what He's called us to do. But in a, I think a much deeper way, as we serve

[00:34:28:22 - 00:35:10:18]
Speaker 1
 and the Holy Spirit uses our gifts to build up the body of Christ, which means to see that other people are growing in their faith, which means they're becoming more like Jesus and their lives are being transformed and changed. And that brings a lot of glory to God because it gives a testament to the power of the gospel and to the supremacy of Jesus Christ and does so not only to other believers, but to a lost and dying world. So, you know, Jesus says in the sermon of the Mount,

[00:35:13:12 - 00:35:20:09]
Speaker 1
 to let our light shine for others that they may see our good works and glorify God who is in heaven.

[00:35:21:12 - 00:35:51:08]
Speaker 1
 So they may see our good works. What are our good works? Well, they include us giving ourselves the things that minister to other people. And that is bringing glory to God as those people are built up in the faith. And the picture that Paul gives in Ephesians chapter four is like the church doing this together. And we looked a little bit at Ephesians four, but that chapter begins where Paul telling the Ephesians that they are to pursue unity.

[00:35:52:19 - 00:36:11:11]
Speaker 1
 They're to walk worthy of the manner of their calling. And they are to do that by pursuing or living, really not pursuing unity, we have unity, living out this unity that Christ has brought us. And how do we do that? We do that by using our gifts to serve one another.

[00:36:12:13 - 00:36:44:01]
Speaker 1
 And the end result of serving one another is that each part is doing his work, he uses the body there. And so the body itself grows and builds itself up in love. And so the church becomes a place where people are serving one another and loving one another and caring for one another and are unified in that. And boy, oh boy, that's such a different picture, especially in the world we live in today, of what we see in the world. And like the church is to be,

[00:36:45:10 - 00:36:57:05]
Speaker 1
 I think of the church, no, here we're getting into ecclesiology and all that kind of things, which I know I always have a way of going somewhere else than we were planned, but the church is an outpost of the kingdom of God.

[00:36:59:08 - 00:37:06:01]
Speaker 1
 In other words, we're supposed to give a picture of what the kingdom of God looks like.

[00:37:07:16 - 00:37:36:05]
Speaker 1
 And so how does that happen? Well, we're all serving one another and loving one another and we're working through our issues and maintaining unity and the bond of peace, is what Paul talks about. And when we do that, like we're given a testimony and a witness to the greatness of the King and to his coming, his already, but it's still his coming kingdom. And that's where God, I believe, is supremely glorified through our serving.

[00:37:36:05 - 00:37:41:18]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, good. All right, well, we'll wrap there, appreciate it.

[00:37:41:18 - 00:37:45:13]
Speaker 1
 Yeah, John 13 this week. So it's gonna be great.

[00:37:45:13 - 00:37:53:14]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, get on the reading plan. If you have any questions, ask at furtherpodcast.com. Appreciate you listening and we'll talk to you next week.

[00:37:53:14 - 00:37:59:07]
 (Upbeat Music)