Together We Serve

- All right, well good morning celebration shirts. I understand what Pastor Joe is saying now about the music on that little bumper right there. That's really cool. Hey, why don't you join me in welcoming everyone who's watching online, as well as all of those in our correctional facilities today. (applause) We're honored that you're joining us here today. Now I want to give a special shout out to Thomas and to Anthony, I'm always praying for you, always thinking about you and what God is doing in your life and your ministry behind bars. I do look forward to the day where we can worship together on this side of the wall. But until then, I pray for peace and passion that God continues to use you to expand his kingdom. Pastor Joe is not here today, evidently, but he will be back next Sunday to conclude our Together series. But he's not here for a very special reason. I don't know if you've heard what's going on at our Leander Liberty Hill location, but we're bursting at the scenes. We're literally having to pull out chairs every single Sunday because people are coming by the droves, which now puts us in the predicament. Yeah, come on. (applause) It's an awesome problem to have,

but it's still a problem because we need to make room for people to be able to worship and engage with the living God. And so we're doing that. We've already purchased property out in that area to be able to put a church home there. And now we're taking the steps and taking direction to begin that process. And that's why Pastor Joe is there to encourage our congregation in that direction. So we're excited about what God is doing there and excited to have him back here at Georgetown next Sunday. We're gonna continue today with the series called Together. And I wanna focus particularly on this aspect and that together we serve. Somebody say serve. If you have your Bibles today, let's open up to the Gospel of Mark chapter 10. You ought to know where this is because we spent all summer in it. But let's go to Mark chapter 10. If you don't have your Bibles with you, we'll have it on the screen here available for you. We're gonna read one particular verse out of this that is going to be the summary of what we're gonna discuss here today in the message. Beginning in verse 45, this is Jesus speaking. He says, "For even the Son of Man," the Son of Man referring to himself, Jesus, "did not come to be served but to serve

"and to give his life as a ransom for many." Lord, I just pray that your word would minister to us God that it will illuminate inside of us, Lord, not for the sake of information, God, but for the sake of revelation. So that we can apply it in life, that it will motivate us God to act. It'll motivate us to serve. It'll motivate us to engage the kingdom of darkness, God, and win souls to the kingdom of light as we partner with you to expand your kingdom as you build your church. Speak to us today in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. At Celebration Church, we have the Core Seven. The Core Seven are simply our core values of Celebration Church, and one of those values is that people are our heart. Another one of those values is that service is our privilege. We love to serve here at Celebration Church. We have what we call the dream team. For those of you who might be new here, our dream team is our volunteer base of teams that helps us to be able to put on services like this, to create environments for people to engage with the living God. Like we love, our dream team loves to serve you. Our church loves to serve our community. We go out into the community every week

and we're serving in various capacities. We love to serve in the educational system. You can see here that we love to serve in correctional facilities. Wherever God gives us an opportunity to serve, we want to serve, but I want you to understand that as important as serving is to our church, our motivation is not service. Service is simply the byproduct of what our true motivation is. What our true motivation is is found in our first core value and that's that Jesus is our pursuit. Our motivation is Jesus. Our motivation is to draw closer to Jesus. Our motivation is to teach others and show others Jesus who He is and who He is in their life, who we can be if they would become one with Him. And it's because of that motivation to Jesus. What Jesus does is He does something kind of crazy in our world is that the closer that we draw to Him, all of a sudden our hearts begin to turn away from ourselves and turn towards others. Jesus Himself, He models it right here in this text is that He, I didn't come to be served. If anybody deserved to be served, it's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. But He says, no, I didn't come for that. I actually came to serve, which means that the closer we draw to Jesus,

The more we're now motivated from Jesus to serve other people. And God is like this because God loves community. How do I know that? Because God is very existence. It exists within the context of community. The Bible teaches us in many different ways that we serve a triune God. We have one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the what. These three persons of the Godhead are all serving each other, all loving each other, all honoring each other like God exists within the context of community. And so that's why when he creates man, he says it's not good that man is alone. He's like man needs companionship, a man needs partnership, man needs relationship because he's never going to be able to accomplish what it is I've called him to accomplish on his own. God exists within the context of community. And so he calls us into community. God's vision for the church is community. And we have to understand because our church celebration, we have a vision for our church, okay? And that's not a bad thing. It helps us to make sure that we language things well. There's particular things that we're engaged with in the community that sometimes other churches don't have the ability to be engaged with.

Like there's importance to having a vision, but I need us to understand that in the greater context of the vision that I've heard it said this way, is that God's church doesn't have a vision. God's vision has a church. That every church that is making a difference in the kingdom of God is a church that's aligned within the vision framework that God has given us. And so because God loves community and his vision for the church is built upon community, that means that we are a part of the body of Christ. You and me, we're all family. I might be Mexican, you might be white, you might be black, you might be Asian, but we're related in the kingdom of God. We are all connected, we're all community. We are all family and God loves community. So that means for us that we were never meant to do life alone or to do ministry alone. And our service matters, our service matters to people. Some of you here today, you would say that people serving matter, that you're only here today because you're sitting next to someone who served. You're sitting next to someone who served in a context that created an environment for you to engage and meet Jesus. They serve so that your children could be in an environment where they could be equipped from middle school and high school and college. Where your kids are being held and meeting their friends

and learning Bible scripture so they can go to school, confident in who Jesus is. Like we all benefit from serving, but when I think about serving, I think especially of people like Cynthia. Cynthia is a woman who's been impacted tremendously by our dream team going and serving her and meeting her where she was and their servant heart literally shifted the trajectory of Cynthia's life. And now she is able to be a light in a dark world. For the next six and a half minutes, we're gonna see Cynthia's story and she's gonna preach a good chunk of my message, but I hope that you'll understand that stories like Cynthia don't happen without people who are willing to serve. Let's take a look. (soft music) - Hi, my name is Cynthia and I've been a part of Celebration Church since 2019. So I was a business woman, entrepreneur, had a real estate business for about 17 years. My career dreams were to be an entrepreneur and help people, you know, people that couldn't buy houses to buy houses. As I was doing business, you know, the last year of business made some wrong choices, did business with the wrong people. And I ended up in a correctional facility. I was incarcerated at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

- First of all, it's a mandate of the Lord to remember those who are in prison, Jesus themselves said to remember. And those who are incarcerated feel forgotten, they feel defeated. They're in these cells, they're in these concrete walls and no one sees them, but God sees them. And that's why Jesus wanted us to remember them. - He didn't say why they were in prison or what did they do to get in prison. He just said, I was in prison. There are people that are finding Christ every day in prison. And I think they find Christ 'cause we're going to the prison. I always used to say, because I was so proud, that I was never gonna let anybody see me in prison. So I would rather take my life than go to prison. And so I started looking at ways at how I was gonna take my life. But the Lord didn't allow that to happen. He put a fear in me and I didn't, I couldn't even do it myself. And so when I did go to prison, it was challenging and it was very difficult for me because I wasn't, I was around so many people that I was never accustomed to be around, but we were all equal when we got there. I knew who God was, but I didn't have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so because I didn't have a relationship

with Jesus Christ, I wasn't making Him the center of all my decisions. I didn't want to disappoint God anymore. It's like I had already fallen to the lowest of my lowest and I wanted to turn my life around and I wanted to figure out how did I get here because when they gave me a 10 year sentence, I thought my life was over, but I didn't know what God was gonna do. I started attending Celebration Church. They would come once a week and then other services that we had, but then one day I heard about a radiant conference and I didn't know what that was. I was working as a servant, putting chairs up and helping as a chaplain assistant and I saw these people come in. They were happy. They were treating me like I was a normal person, a human being. I saw love. I saw women cheering you on when you walked in. The worship was amazing. And it was just like a big Jesus party. They treated me like I was somebody important, that I wasn't, I didn't feel rejected when the ladies from radiant wind and from when Celebration Church went there. And that gave me a lot of hope. It gave me a lot of hope and it gave me a lot of purpose.

It made me feel like even though the world didn't want me or rejected me, God still had a plan and a purpose for me. I'm sorry. - 'Cause he does. - He does, he does. - I was serious about my life being transformed. I was serious about a new beginning. I was serious about walking the walk and not just talking the talk. When Pastor Celeste just took me underneath the water, I knew that that old person had died, totally dead and that God was raising up a new creation. And so that was an amazing experience for me. After that day, my life started changing even more. - And she actually got saved and baptized there and discipled and went through a connection point and all of that stuff behind the bars. - And so now I'm just so happy to say that she's working full time in prison ministry and she's based in Houston. She's going in, now free, now whole, administering to women. - Because of what I saw the women go through in prison and what I went through, I can understand them more because I've been there with them. I live with them, I ate with them, I talked to them, I cried with them. And so that was what gave me that hunger and thirst to become a chaplain and to be able to minister to women and go back and tell them that God is a redeemer,

that God is a restorer and that everything that I was praying for when I was in prison, that the Lord is fulfilling his word and now. And to give them hope, so I wanna be a part of what celebration has done for me. And so maybe one day I'll be able to go to a correctional facility to go to a radiant conference and be there to let others know that radiant came and visited me when I was in prison. - Cynthia's in the house, Cynthia, would you stand? We just wanna take a moment and honor you and who you are and what God's doing over your life. Come on, radiant conference. - Come on, isn't it beautiful to sing? A story of a life change. But it didn't happen by accident. It was quite deliberate, in fact. and some time and some energy and some treasure to go into a correctional facility and see someone not only saved, but set on mission for the kingdom of God who is now reproducing the work in correctional facilities. It's a beautiful thing to be able to see. In fact, our team just yesterday had radiant conference in the same Coleman facility that we just saw where Cynthia got saved. There were 35 team members that went 214 attendees and 24 salivations and 30 recommitments to the Lord. Come on, can we thank God for that? Jesus said, "I was in prison and you didn't visit me." That's not the story of celebration church. We're going to go wherever it is that God would give us influence to be alive, but it takes us going together.

It takes us being a team. It takes us willing to serve, and Jesus is our model for serving. We saw it here in this text and think about it. Jesus needs nobody. Jesus doesn't need any of us, but he desires relationship with us, and that's a critical thing we need to understand. He doesn't need us yet. As soon as he gets baptized, the first thing he concerns himself with is finding his team, is finding his 12 disciples. These are 12 ordinary men that Jesus uses to flip the world upside down. If Jesus who needs nobody still built a team, then what does that mean for you and I? You've got to understand that kingdom greatness is not measured by status. Kingdom greatness is measured by humility. Jesus chose us this in John 13 because the very same night that he is going to be arrested and tortured ultimately unto death. He is not praying to God to send an army of angels to destroy the Roman army. He's not praying for fire to rain from heaven to destroy Israel, but the Bible says instead he has a towel wrapped around his waist and his knees, and he is washing the feet of his disciples. I can tell you a thousand other things I'd be concerned with if I was about to be arrested and tortured unto death, but I'm not Jesus. This instead is wanting to make sure that he models something for us in that he is serving the disciples and he is washing their feet, and if greatness to Jesus looks like a towel and a bucket, then greatness to us can certainly look like a parking lot, or look like a nursery, or look like a sound booth with Joe back there, or look like us stacking chairs or resetting a room at a particular location here. It can certainly look like serving on a prayer team and taking time to intercede for others. I love that there are people in our church who pray for all of us as pastors. We need it. Like serving can look like a lot of different things.

Why? Because there's a lot of different people in this room, and God has gifted you with things to use to expand his kingdom, and maybe you haven't realized that. I hope that you realize it by the end of today's sermon that God has given you a gift. He's given you a gift, and he's given you an assignment, and it's up to you whether to engage it or not. How do I know that? Because Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12, verse 4, he said, "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to grace that is given to us, let us use them. If we have a gift, we should put it to practice. Let's use it for the kingdom of God. Some of you have gifts that you're more than willing to use Monday through Friday, but you haven't really taken an opportunity to use them in the house of God on Sunday, or to use them at some of our midweek opportunities. But he says, "Let us use them. If prophecy let us prophesy and proportion to our faith, or ministry let us use it in our ministry." He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation. He who gives, give with liberality, with generosity, he who leads, lead with diligence. And he who shows mercy, show it with cheerfulness. Some of you have a gift of serving. Some of you have a gift of leadership. Some of you have a gift of giving. Some of you have a gift of encouragement. I love to be around you because you always make me feel like a million bucks. Like I love your gift of encouragement. If you have a gift of encouragement, let's be friends. For each and every one of us have a gift, but here's the thing, God has not given you

that gift for you to use on yourself. Every gift that God has given to you is for the expressed use of blessing someone else. You can have a gift of giving, but what good is it to give to yourself if you already got it? [BLANK_AUDIO] maybe you can encourage yourself all day, but you're not gonna find fulfillment until you encourage somebody else. God has given you a gift to use, which means that no act of service is insignificant to God. Every act of service is significant and God doesn't grade service by how visible it is. God grades service by how obedient the servant is. Here's a reality in order to serve in the kingdom of God, you don't have to be adequate. You just have to be obedient. You just have to be willing to say yes, because the thing about God is He compensates for all of your liabilities. That whatever it is, wherever it is you feel weak, the Bible shows us that God says, "I'm strong." So you don't have to rely on your own strength and you don't have to have confidence in yourself. You just have to give me your yes. And I can take people like you and I can flip the world on its head. This is what God does for us. And our church becomes healthy, and our church becomes effective when every person in the body of Christ is playing their part

and finds a place in the family of God. And so with that said, I wanna take us to a story that's gonna illustrate this for us. And it's one of my favorite stories it's found in the book of Exodus, chapter 17. It's a story of Moses, Moses is a great place for you to go to find some leadership principles. There's so much that is there, but let's go to Exodus. If I can get there, I have a big Bible because I can't see as well these days. But the page is a little heavy sometimes. Let's go to verse eight. We're gonna read this entire passage. I want you to follow along with me. We'll have it on the screens for you. If you don't have your Bible today. But it says, "Now Amalek came and he fought with Israel "in refeed him. "And Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose us some men "and go out and fight with Amalek.'" Notice that God says, pick your team. Find your team and go out and fight Amalek. He says, "Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill "with the rod of God in my hand." And so Joshua did, as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek and Moses, Aaron and her, went up to the top of the hill. And so it was that when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed. And when Moses let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

But Moses's hands became heavy. Somebody say heavy. So they took a stone and they put it under him and he sat on it. And Aaron and her supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other side. And his hands there were steady until the going down of the sun. And so Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua. Why did he want it recounted in the hearing of Joshua? Because Joshua might've thought that he won the war. So the Lord is saying, Moses, I want you to write this down. I want you to make sure Joshua hears it so he knows it. I have the victory. And so Moses does so. He says, God says, I will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar there and he called its name, the Lord is my banner. I want to talk to you about a principle today that I believe that is going to help you, especially as you approach serving, as you approach leadership, both here in the context of the church and in your personal life, maybe in your business. And it's simply this, hands up,

hands under and hands on. Say it with me, hands up, hands under and hands on. Come on, a little louder. Hands up, hands under and hands on. The reality is, is that this war was not won by any individual alone. It took a team of people, it took people playing their part, playing their role for them to have victory, everybody doing their job. Moses is the one who has his hands up. Moses, he is the visionary. He's on the mountain. He's at a high altitude. He has a view of things, a view of what's going on that Joshua does not have in the valley. Moses is a leader of a corporation. Moses is a principal of a high school. Moses is a parent of the household. Moses is someone who has a team, who has an organization, who has a structure underneath him. Someone that he is governing. Governing, in our context of the church, our senior pastor, pastor, Joe Champion, that would be a reflection of this position. He would be the one with his hands up and he has vision for what God is doing in and through our church. Not just physically and practically, but spiritually that God is speaking to him and he sees things from a day to day.

But this same Moses in this context, this Moses who saw the 10 plagues, this Moses who said the Pharaoh, let my people go. This Moses who spoke to God through a burning bush, this same Moses who said, I want to see your glory, and God picked him up, put him in the cleft of the rock, and God walked past him and said, you can look at my back. He takes a peek at the back of God. This Moses who spends time in the presence of God so much so that when he would come down from the mountain, he would be radiating with light. He would be glowing because of the presence of God. This same Moses that we read about, his miracles, and the provision, the supernatural provision that God gives, this Moses, the Bible says, he gets tired, and his hands get heavy. And few people understand the burden of a God-given vision. Because if you did, you wouldn't try to take a God-given vision and do it on your own. You'll find that you'll get weary. You'll find that you'll fail over the course of time. And the burden of senior leadership can be really, really challenging. The burden of a pastor, our pastor, Pastor Joe, I'm a pastor here at the church, responsible for the congregation. Pastor Jim, this pastor here at the church, Pastor Mark, I can go around this room of people who have responsibility to lead the flock,

the burden of a pastor can get heavy. And you might think, well, how heavy is it? All y'all do is preach on Sunday. You may think that the burden of a pastor is preaching on Sunday, and that's not nothing. That's vitally important. We are called to make sure that we teach you properly from the Word of God. We want to equip you, and we want to do our best to decipher this critically important for us as leaders and as pastors in the church. But I would submit to you that the burden of a pastor is the couple who served each other divorce papers. The burden of the pastor is their children that he prays for and begs that God would hold the children uprightly, and they wouldn't grow bitter and resentful towards their family and towards the house of God and towards God himself. But they would stay on the path of the righteous, on the narrow road. The burden of a pastor is a note that's tapped to our pursuit cross that simply says on it, "I want to end it all." And we don't know the name, and we don't have content information, we have no way of getting ahold of the person, all we can do is bombard heaven with prayer and pray that by his Holy Spirit he'll touch that person and bring life to that situation. The burden of a pastor is hospital visits. The burden of a pastor is being at the deathbed

of those who are going to heaven. The burden of a pastor is inconvenient counseling sessions. The burden of a pastor is random prayer meetings in the middle of an HEB, or two AM phone calls and text messages of someone who just got admitted into the ER, or someone who just got into an accident like Pastor Lori and Pastor Kendall did just a few Sundays ago. The burden of a pastor is a heavy burden, and it's constant, it's always happening, there's always something going on, and leaders know what this feels like. Parents, you know what this feels like. When your student, when your young person doesn't show up by curfew time, and you're messaging them, and you're texting them, and they're not responding, and they're not responding 'cause they know they're gonna get in trouble, and you don't care about them getting in trouble, you just wanna know that they're safe, you just wanna know that they're okay, there's a burden that comes with this. It's a burden of a first born in the house because you're like another half a parent, you gotta help take care of the brother and the sister. It's a burden of a young adult who has a career and has a team that is now under them when they've really never let a team before, and now they've got these salaries and these families that they're now responsible for to lead well,

like leaders understand what this burden is, and this burden can feel heavy. This is why we need a team. This is why we need people around us who can encourage us in our fight. Those that have their hands up. And then we have Erin and her. Erin and her have their hands under Moses. They're not fighting down in the valley, and they're not up on the mountaintop casting vision, but they are paying attention. They have a unique perspective on what's going on. And the Bible says that in this story, they begin to notice that when Moses has his hands up, Israel begins to gain victory over the Amalekites. And then they see that when Moses's hands begin to come down, all of a sudden the Amalekites begin to prevail in the battle. These are people who can see a need. They can see a gap and they feel that need. They feel that void that is there. And so they go, and the Bible says that they find a stone. They find a stone. You see what they do is they find a structure. They find something that Moses can put his confidence in, that Moses can depend on. They find a system that can handle the weight of the vision. And the Bible says that Moses, he sits down and his arms are now being studied with Aaron on one side and her on the other side, lifting it up all the way until the going down of the sun

and Israel prevails in battle. Nobody gives credit to Aaron and her for the victory. Joshua gets credit. Joshua is fighting on the front lines and verse 13 gets credited with victory. But I would submit to you that there would be no verse 13 without Aaron and her. There would be no verse 13 without people who are willing to come under the vision and bring support to the vision. And these are people that will notice what the vision needs and they'll get under it and become the fulfillment of it. These are people that are not content to walk into a room and need a miracle. They walk into a room and they become a miracle. These are people that see a need. Maybe it's a funding need and says, I'm willing to fund it. I'm willing to make this happen. Or they notice a leadership gap and they're like, hey, I've got experience in this area. I'm willing to step in. Or they're people who see that there's not enough team members and they say, hey, I've got a truckload of family members I'll bring over right now. We'll knock this thing out. This is people and right here in this room, it's filled with people. There's some of you that are leaders, you're leaders of organizations or you're leaders of dream teams here at the church

and you're people who have your hands up. But there are many of you that are people that need to have your hands under. And here's the thing about people like you is oftentimes you will be the ones who are like, I don't know how my gift fits in the church. Like I homeschool my students, you know, I'm a stay at home mom and I coordinate X, Y, and Z, but I don't understand how that's applicable in the house of God. Let me tell you, we need you in the house of God. We need your administrative gift. We need your gift of leadership in the house of God. We need it on the creative team. This creative team's filled with creative people. They don't show up on time all the time. We need a homeschool mom to say, hey, you better be there by 6.30 a.m. in the morning. Right, Patrick? We need them to be here, right? No, we have a great team and they always show up on time. I do know that, right, right? They're looking at me like, they're going to be on time next Sunday. It's going to be great. It's going to be awesome. Revival is going to happen next Sunday. It's going to be amazing. You don't want to miss it. Make sure you're here.

We need people, we need their gifts. You might be asking here in the room today, you know, I just don't even know where to start. Well, have I got the perfect opportunity for you? In fact, right after service, you're going to notice when you walk out those doors that there are a bunch of tables set out there with opportunities to serve on our dream team. And you may not know where the best place is for you to serve. That's cool. We have a team that's going to help you identify a place to serve. And it might not be the place that you're serving out a year from now, but it's a step into the process. It's a step onto the team so that you can discover where it is that God has called you to serve. There are people that maybe have started by serving as a musician that now are leading teams in kids because this was the way into ministry, but they realize their passion was in building up the next generation. There are people that may have served in an outreach opportunity. And over time, they grew in leadership and now they're leading in wave students. Where you start is not going to be where you end, but I'm encouraging that you need to start to know where it's going to end to be able to find where God wants you, takes us stepping out in faith. I think about Pastor Tanner over here

who's going to be launching a church here before long. He has to step out in faith. And you would say you posted the other day that you don't find clarity until you step out. It takes us every step towards God makes the vision more clear in your life. So be willing to step out. Be willing to talk to a team member. We'll get you plugged in. We'll get you connected. And you'll find some great people to serve with and you'll feel fulfilled in serving in the house of God. I encourage you to do it. But I can actually, if you're wondering where it is you can start, I could probably help you right now. Like just consider any random Sunday here at Celebration Church like today. Or maybe think over the last three months any random Sunday at Celebration Church where you have come to church. What is the thing that has consistently frustrated you about your Sunday experience at Celebration? Just think about the one thing, it creeps up more often than not and it just frustrates you about your Sunday experience. Because your ministry is made So look at your misery, and your misery will give you a clue

as to what your ministry is. But let's take that a little bit deeper, because you might come into places like this, and it's the thing that you cannot stand. Well, I encourage you that that thing that you cannot stand is the thing that you're called to fix. Somebody ought to do something about that. Well, you know why? Here's the thing. It's the thing that's causing you ministry. God may be a misery. God may be using for ministry. Daniel, the song lyrics on the screen for those past three Sundays, they've had typos in them. Fix it. Fix it. Don't complain to me about it. Fix it. Oh, Daniel, it took too long to get in from the parking lot because of the lot. Fix it. I don't understand why this checkout line is so long. You have a gift of administration. Fix it. Do something. Daniel, I don't understand why we gotta have a giving campaign to build a building. We could just rally up some people to give right now and knock it out.

I would love for you to do that. Sounds like you got a gift of giving. Fix it. Get involved. Involve your friends. Let's knock it out. Let's build that building immediately. Let's get around what God is doing, and let's utilize the gift that he has inside of us. Each and every one of us God has given a gift to use. Here's what I want you to do. Put your hand on your heart just like this. I want you to say this, I have a gift in me. No, no, no, that's not loud enough. Y'all have had time to wake up. Let's do this a little louder. Say, I have a gift in me. One more time. I have a gift in me. Every single one of us has a gift that is on the inside of us, and it's clawing its way out. That's why we're frustrated with it, is because we know that we need to use it, and it's gonna be a constant source of misery for us until we convert it into ministry. Until we convert our misery into ministry, we're not gonna find the fulfillment, but once we do, we're gonna feel this release. We're gonna feel this fulfillment,

and we're gonna wanna engage with the kingdom of God, each and every person in this room, under the sound of my voice, watching right now online. You have a gift that is on the inside of you that God is calling you to use, and so you need to use it. You need to engage with it. You need to do it with passion, because where passion is, power is. Come on, passion equals power. There's nothing worse in the world than a person who is in a position with no passion. You're in a marriage, but no passion. You have a business and you have employment, but there's no passion. You may even be on a dream team right now, but there's no passion in what you're doing. But here's the thing, each and every one of us have gifts on the inside of us that have gone untouched, and we're not willing to submit ourselves to the process. We're not willing to go to that leader and say, "Hey, I just don't know that I'm finding passion in what I'm doing." That leader's gonna take you and say, "Well, let's plug you in somewhere else where you might have passion. Let's help you find it." This is why it's important for us to join up. This is why it's important for us to be in community

with each other. This is why it's important for you to meet new people and join a team because they're gonna pull the best out of you. They're gonna help you find your gift. Who doesn't wanna be around somebody that pulls the best out of them? Who doesn't wanna be around somebody that says, "You have a gift in this, let's help mine it out." There's treasure that is in you. God wants to use for his glory and you connect with people. You're like, "Oh, he makes me feel pretty. You're no prettier than you were before he met him." But there's something about connecting to the right people. The Bible says it once since 1,000 to flight two sends 10,000 to flight. Now, I'm not the best at math, but by my math too, I'll just send 2,000 to flight. But the Bible says, "No, I will give you exponential increase when you make the right connections. When you join the right team, when you join the house of God and when you have an effect in the kingdom of God, I will take where you are weak and I'll make you strong because God compensates for all of our liabilities." And lastly, hands on. We said, "Hands up, hands under." And Joshua has his hands on. He is in the trenches. He is swinging the sword.

He is gaining ground inch by inch by inch. And he doesn't get the mountaintop view that Moses gets, no, no. He gets the view where he realizes, man, we got some work to do. We've got a battle in front of us and he's going about it, giving it his all. he only wins because somebody on the mountaintop had their hands up. Hands on only works when hands up is being sustained by hands under. This is why it takes all of us playing our part in the Kingdom of God to see victory. And you don't have to be a Moses today. Some of you just need to be a Joshua. You just need to get on the field. You just need to get in the game. And over the course of time you'll grow in leadership. You'll grow and you'll developing. And God will lead you to places of growth and and responsibility. The reality is is that Joshua, he's in the game right now. He's making things happen but just a generation later he is now promoted into leadership of the entire nation. Because of what he learned and his humility and his willingness to serve. Some of you need to be an errand and a herd. You need to bring your gift to support somebody and get under them. Maybe it's a leader that's on a team here today. Maybe it's a structure that you see or something that you're like, "Man, if we made a tweak here or there, man, we'd really crush it in this area. We want you to be a part of what God is doing." We'll never tap into everything that God has for us in isolation. We'll never tap into everything that God has for us by being isolated up on a hill somewhere. We have to be willing to get in the game. Your team affects your dream. Who's your team? If you're not on the team you've been coming to church for five years. What are you doing? What are you doing? It's time to get in the game. We want you to be a part of what God's doing. We want you to be credited with the building of the Kingdom of God by partnering with Jesus as he's building his church. It's time to get involved. It's time to plug in. That's why we don't call it a dream individual. We call it a dream team. Because the

devil wants nothing more than to get you into isolation. Because he knows that if you are isolated your hands are going to get heavy and they're going to come down and you're going to lose the victory. Two are better than one. This is a Ecclesiastes 4 because if one falls the other lifts him up. But the person who is alone when they fall there's nobody there to help them. Israel didn't win because Moses was strong. Israel won because people were willing to play their part and willing to serve and willing to be humble. That's where the victory comes from. And it doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter what level of influence. Serving is not beneath any of us. In fact, it's the highest calling that we can have. Some of the most influential people in the Austin Metroplex helped you park your car this morning. Some executives of the C-suite of some of the greatest technological companies that are literally shaping the world right now they shook your hand and asked you how your day was as you walked in today. Serving is not beneath any of us. There are teachers, there are faculties of schools, there are police officers, there are doctors, there are homemakers that have all served with humility today so that we could be provided an opportunity to engage with the living God. And so my question is will you do it? If you're not on a team, will you get involved? Will you get your hands under somebody? Will you get your hands on in the fight? Because Jesus Himself said that I didn't come to be served but I came to serve and He's inviting everybody in this room right now to take the gift that we have and to bring it into the house of God. Join a team, be a part of what God is doing and I promise you you're going to find fulfillment in it. Amen? Amen? Is that good? Good. Let's do it. We have the opportunity. Here's what I'm going to have you do. Let's stand up together just a few moments. I'm just going to pray a prayer of blessing over you. Those of you in this room, maybe you don't know who Jesus is, maybe you've never met Jesus. We're going to have a whole team of elders and our prayer team up here up front, some of our staff. If you want to know who Jesus is, come and talk to them and they're going to teach you who He is. But what I want to do is I want to pray a prayer of blessing over our church. I want to charge you with service in the

ministry. It's our time to get involved. Here's what I want you to do. I want you just to raise your hands as I pray for you. Both hands up in the sky. Maybe you've You never raise your hands in church before, that's okay, that's okay. Get used to it 'cause God's gonna be doing stuff in your life, you're gonna do this a lot. We're worshiping church. So lift your hands up and I'm gonna pray for you. I'm gonna bless you. Lord, I just thank you for this church. I thank you for what you're doing in the lives of these people. God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would commission them to ministry. I pray in the name of Jesus for those who aren't serving or maybe they're between teams and serving and wondering where it is or next season is gonna land. I pray God, give them revelation right now in the name of Jesus. Give them passion to be able to step into an area of ministry or just ask a question. How is it that I can do this? How can I engage God in the name of Jesus? Give them a fire, give them wisdom, give them intelligence and creativity, God that they can be utilized for your namesake in the name of Jesus. Now, let's keep those hands up. Receive it today, God, I just thank you for the privilege and the honor it is for us to be able to serve you, God. What a blessing, Lord.

Annoyance us for the ministry. Annoyance us for your work in the name of Jesus. We want it all, Lord. We want to be led by you, God. There are people in their golden years in this room. Right now, they're like, I can't stand up for two hours in a parking lot. Daniel, I can't stand at a door for an hour and a half shaking hands. You know what I need you to do? I need you to get involved in our prayer team and I need you to pray for us 'cause we need it. As a church, Jesus said, my house is to be a house of prayer. It's a great opportunity for you. I need you to maybe go and rock some grandbabies and pray blessing over them in the name of Jesus. God, we just have our hands up to you. And we receive everything that you have to give us. In the name of Jesus, thank you, God. Are your arms starting to hurt? Mine are too. Every time we're unwilling to fill a gap, we leave our leaders feeling just like this. We need you. We need you to get into game. God, we thank you for your word today. In Jesus name and everybody said, amen. Amen, come on, let's thank the Lord. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)