Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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The Wheel: Fellowship Part III

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

A Life Group Testimony

Before we actually get into the Word, David and Heather Kesser are going to come up and share a little testimony about life group, so why don’t we welcome them? Would you like a music stand, or do you want to use the pulpit, or what are you going to do? You can go up there. It’s a dangerous place, but you can go up there. I’m just letting you know. I’m just letting you know. It’s a dangerous place. Well, good morning. See, he doesn’t want to stand behind it. Do you see that? There you go. All right. Doesn’t he look good there? Doesn’t he look good there? Yeah.

A couple weeks ago, Tom asked if we would be willing to give a testimony of just some of our experiences at life groups. Heather and I have been here at Liberty for, I guess, close to nine years, and most of that time we have been involved in a life group. And so I was just thinking about some of the key things that life groups have meant to me, and I was going to share those, and then Heather was going to add some also. So what has life groups meant to [audio unclear] are just kind of physically amazing, is God healed Heather of a chronic [audio unclear] like she was before, and it was just an amazing time, amazing opportunity to build our faith and to show us that God cares about us and cares about the little things.

Life group has also been an incredible time of learning. So in the past we’ve done books of the Bible, we’ve gone through books of the Bible and studied them. We’ve gone through topical studies, or several studies on parenting, which has taught us a lot. We struggle to practice it, but at least the knowledge is there and we appreciate that. And then now I like the way that life groups are just giving us the opportunity to take the incredible, awesome teaching that we’re receiving here in service and say, how [audio unclear] together as a group and share our ideas and share the application in our individual lives, and along with that to pray for each other where those areas are lacking. In my own, in the discussion at life group several months ago, I was just sharing my struggle to be consistent in the Word, and found out that other people in my life group had the same struggle. And then as I go through my week and I think of that, then I can pray for them. I can lift them up and say, God, please be with him and help him to be diligent, to be faithful, to be disciplined, to read Your Word even as I am trying to do the same.

And then the third thing is food. Food is awesome. Yeah, if you guys know Heather and I, you know we love food. But there’s also, I think, something culturally significant about eating together in our society. That’s what families do, and it’s a declaration that you are my brothers and sisters when we come together and we enjoy food together, and it’s an opportunity to build community, which is kind of the overall goal. And kind of the last part is, because of life groups I know Mike and Wendy McDonough more than I ever would have otherwise, because they’re in a different place in life and our paths wouldn’t even cross if we didn’t have that opportunity. So I have an opportunity to get to know people while we’re sitting down eating, while we’re enjoying dessert, while we [audio unclear] what their struggles are, [audio unclear] blessed to be part of a life group and to get to know people in the church better.

But beyond that, I think just taking what we’ve learned from Pastor Vaughan recently and seeing how in community, and how our lives with Christ are reflected through our lives with one another. I just—if any of you are—I believe everyone in church has been assigned to a life group. Is that correct? No, they’ve been invited. Okay, everybody in church has been invited to a life group. And if you’re not attending, I just would really strongly encourage you to do that, because it’s really easy for me to read the Bible and, you know, passages like, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you,” and look at that in light of some ambiguous people group, instead of saying, how am I being kind to my husband? How am I being kind to my kids? How am I being kind to the people in [audio unclear] the beautiful part about community. And Christ knew when He called us to community that He was putting us in community with imperfect people, that He was putting imperfect people like me in an imperfect people group like my life group. And He wanted His gospel to shine forth through those relationships that I have with those people.

And so just thinking, you know, there have been opportunities for, like, the healing, healing with the migraines, and I just wanted to kind of expound on that. I had had a migraine. It was so bad that like one day I didn’t think I was going to make it home driving. I got home. I’m crawling, literally, like the kids go inside and I had them turn out all the lights. I crawled from the front door to the bath, rummaged around inside our medicine cabinet trying to find drugs I can take, and then I went in and I buried my head in my already dark house under pillows and just cried and cried and cried. I felt like I was going to throw up, and I really just wanted somebody to take a hammer right into my head. And my migraines had been getting really, really bad, and I had been experiencing a lot more. And I’m sure some of you out there have experienced that. You know what it’s like. It’s horrible. And so when we got to the place where it was just desperate enough, and was, you know, asking, or mentioning that. And it was actually in Mike Bond’s home, probably, gosh, how many years, a long time ago. And he brought in a folding chair and sat in the middle of the room, and everybody gathered around and prayed. I get headaches still occasionally, but since then I have never had anything like that. So I just want to praise God because He is the great physician, but He has chosen to use His people. And I think that’s the significant part about life groups, is that we can read Scripture and read Scripture and He can use different things to teach us, but He has chosen, He has required of us to be in community, and He wants to change us through His body.

And so there were just a couple passages that I wanted to read, and I know at the risk of being gratuitous, just bear with me, because I know a lot of these you probably are familiar with, but it’s just good encouragement. Psalm 133 says:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, even Aaron’s beard, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing—life forevermore.

(Psalm 133:1–3)

So just like we have to have unity in the body, and that’s going to come through community. Ephesians—I didn’t write it down. I think it was in this one. Ephesians 4:12, he’s talking about to pastors and evangelists and teachers, and talking to them about equipping the saints. And then in 13 he says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” And just seeing how Pastor Vaughan is encouraging and exhorting and teaching us, and then we have the opportunity to gather together in our life groups so that we can become the mature man and woman that God wants us to be. And Colossians 3:14 says, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” And just as we’re striving with one another, when we think about 1 Corinthians and what is—and there are going to be those ugly and imperfect things that we are going to have to choose to love in spite of that. And I know for certain that the more you get to know me in my life group, the more you’re going to see things that are ugly and imperfect. And I’m so grateful to be in a group that I know that I can share things and they’re still going to love me, and that’s okay. And it’s a beautiful thing.

And then Hebrews, this is a passage that has just really struck David and I for a long time as we’ve been in Liberty and kind of growing in this idea of community. Part of it, if you know me or know any of my history, like I’ve come from a family where accountability and authority were not things that were valued in anything outside of the immediate family, and so God has really had to do a huge work, and I’m just really grateful to be in a church where these things are taught. And so this passage for me especially, it’s just been, I think, instructional in my walk with the Lord. Hebrews 3, sorry, 7 through 15:

Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways’; as I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.

(Hebrews 3:7–14)

I think that’s going to happen in community. We can encourage one another while it’s still today, that we need to hold fast to what He’s taught us. I just want to close with saying that the beauty of having the accountability, the beauty of holding fast to these things, the beauty of seeing my ugliness and my sin as my husband is faithful to tell me when I’m sinning and is faithful to risk my wrath to show me when I am wrong, the faithfulness of just you all to do the same for each other. The beauty of that is to tell us where we are. He has promised us that He is going to perfect us until the day of His return. And I have seen so many people who have isolated themselves, who will not listen to their husbands, or the people that love them, and they are in a very, very sad and dangerous place. I don’t want to be there. I want us to be in a community where we are encouraging one another, where we know Christ is going to change us, so that we do hold fast until the end, because of the riches of His glory in Christ. And so I just encourage all of you in your community groups: first, if you’re not there, be there, and [audio unclear]

Now you get another sermon. Amen. Two for the price of one. It’s a lucky day, right?

Ministry According to Our Gifts

Romans 12. Since we had a good exhortation regarding community, we’re going to continue our discussion of that, looking at Romans 12. Romans 12. We all there?

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

(Romans 12:1–2)

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble.

(Romans 12:9–16)

The first is a call to dedication in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Then in verses 3 through 8, we have a call to ministry, according to one’s gifts. And then in verses 9 through 16, we have a call to ministry to the body as a reflection of love. The ministry in verses 3 through 8 is a specific calling, if you will. In other words, according to one’s gifts, one is to minister. In verses 9 through 16, all Christians are to minister to one another in the ways that are listed. [audio unclear] This is why in The Wheel that we looked at earlier I changed the fellowship spoke and I called it the work spoke, because real fellowship and a real community is hard work. Part of that work is that in order to have genuine fellowship and community, we must exercise our gifts and find our calling in the body of Christ.

So this morning, I want to help you understand what your calling is in the body of Christ, not your general calling. We’ll get to that later, because we’re all called to do certain things. But I mean your function, as it says here in verse 4, “members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function.” In other words, you have a specific function to fulfill in the body of Christ according to your gifts. The question then becomes, how do I know what my ministry is? How do I know what God has called me to do? That’s the question I want to help you answer today, because you must answer that question if you’re going to fulfill your calling. You must know what God is calling you to do. So I’m going to mention several things to help you prayerfully discern what God’s calling is for you in your ministry to the church.

Transform Your Mind and Pray for Wisdom

The first thing we need to do to understand our calling in terms of ministry, the first thing we need to do is we need to transform our mind. As I said earlier, the order of this passage is not happenstance, it’s important. And when you look at the texts that talk about body life—Heather referred to Colossians, there’s Ephesians, there’s Philippians—they all have the same pattern, where there is a call to the individual to surrender to God, to put away sin in his or her life, and then we’re told to minister to one another. Well, the logic of it is patent, in the sense that if you’re a carnal Christian, you’re not going to be ministering to other Christians. If you’re worldly, you can’t help other Christians be not worldly, right? It doesn’t work that way. So the beginning of our ministry begins at home. It begins with our own heart. And [audio unclear] to pray for spiritual wisdom, to pray for spiritual wisdom.

We’re going to come back to Romans in just a moment, but in Colossians 1, if you want to look at that passage with me, Paul says this, in Colossians 1, he says in verse 9:

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

(Colossians 1:9–10)

But notice that the wisdom is for a purpose. Verse 10, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in or by the knowledge of God. So the wisdom and knowledge is unto, for the purpose of, living in a certain way. As we seek to find God’s will in terms of our ministry, we say to God, God, I’m willing to serve however You want to use me. That’s the surrender part. I ask God then to instruct me regarding what He wants me to do. Now as part of this point, I would also say you should ask others to pray for you also. Because in this matter of calling and giftedness, we’re very prone to self-deception, which I’ll talk more about later. So it’s very important that not only you pray, but that you ask other people to pray for you so that you would know God’s calling on your life.

Identify and Develop Your Gifts

The third thing you need to do, go back to Romans 12, the third thing is to identify your spiritual gifts. Identify your spiritual gifts. So again, Paul says surrender to God so you can discern His will, and then he talks about the believers here in verses 3 through 8 are given various gifts. I want to say a few words about the gifts before we go on. First is this. Every Christian is gifted. Every Christian. There is no Christian who doesn’t have gifts from God. Now there may be many Christians who don’t use their gifts. There may be many that don’t know their gifts, but no Christian is ungifted. Because once you receive the Holy Spirit, which you receive when you’re born of God, that Spirit is the source of the gifts that are with you. You are gifted. It says in 1 Corinthians 12:7 that God has bestowed gifts to each one, meaning each member of the body has gifts.

Second point I want to make about gifts. Gifts are sovereignly bestowed. Well, we better go to 1 Corinthians 12. Just so you know I’m not making this up. 1 Corinthians 12. Y’all there? Almost. 12:11. Now this whole passage is about spiritual gifts. It says in verse 11, it’s talking about the different kinds of gifts, “but one and the same Spirit works all of these,” meaning in all these different gifts, “distributing to each one”—notice each one, not to some, not to the elite, not to the anointed—“to each one individually as He wills.” You may desire to have a gift, you may desire to have a certain kind of ministry, but gifts and ministries are sovereignly bestowed. That means God gives them to whom He wills to give them. Now certain gifts you can fake for a while anyway. But either you have the gift or you don’t, and because they’re sovereignly bestowed you can’t control that. God determines what your gifts are, and therefore God determines your role and your ministry.

Third point about gifts. Gifts must be developed and exercised. They must be developed and exercised. Paul said in Timothy, and in the Bible in several places, “Do not neglect the gift of God which is in you.” In another passage he says, fan the gift which is in you. Stir it up. “Stir up the gift of God which is in you.” In other words, you have a gift. Stir it up. Fan it. Use it, to develop it. A latent gift is of no value. It must be used and developed. And that leads to my—well, let me quote from Bridges, a writing on the topic of fellowship and gifts. He says, in order to effectively exercise our spiritual gifts, even though they’re sovereignly and graciously bestowed, we must develop and use them. The effective use of our gifts does not occur without diligent effort on our part. That’s why—well, let me go on. Timothy already had the gift of teaching, yet Paul did not hesitate to urge him to be diligent to present himself to God, a workman who could correctly handle the word of truth. And in 1 Timothy, after exhorting Timothy not to neglect his gift, Paul said, be diligent in these matters. Give yourself completely to them. Timothy’s use of his gift was not a matter of indifference. He was accountable to a sovereign God for his development and use of it. I love that. Hard work. The person with the gift of teaching, zealously, must then labor diligently to communicate it in a clear and inspiring way. The person with the gift of service must try to be proficient in an area of service in order to ensure that the results of his labors reflect the standard of excellence that glorifies God. I love that.

So often people serve in the church in a really sloppy way. A lot of sloppy Christians. Think, well, if it’s for God, it doesn’t matter, He’s gracious, right? Heh, you know what I mean? In other words, they do things in a way they would never do at work, they would never consider. [audio unclear] We are to strive, we are to strive for the best that we can do. The very best. In everything. Don’t you want the very best preaching? No? No? Don’t you want the very best children’s ministry? Don’t you want the very best facility? I do, because that glorifies God. That glorifies God. And so we as Christians ought to be excelling in our gifts, not just using them, but excelling. And that means hard work. Because the gift doesn’t eliminate the need for work. That’s not what the gift does. The gift is given, and then it has to be cultivated and used and developed. And that takes work. There’s no place for either shoddy teaching or shoddy service in God’s kingdom. The believer with the gift of mercy must study how to use that gift in a way that best relieves the sufferings and miseries of others. The person who has the gift of leadership must study the principles of leadership in order to use his gift most effectively. And then as Paul said, he must govern diligently. Simply having a spiritual gift does not mean we can automatically fulfill our function in the body without diligent effort. Rather we are responsible to develop and use the gifts God has given us. And the reason is that the purpose of the gifts is to serve and minister and build up the body of Christ. The purpose of the gifts is not to glorify the person that has the gift. So when God gives you a gift, the gift isn’t for you. It’s to you for the body. He gives it to you for the body. So the problem in Corinth is they were exalting certain gifts and people were showing off their gifts, you know, their tongues and their prophecy, because they could do these cool spiritual things. And Paul is saying you don’t understand the point. The point isn’t that you have the gift. The point is that through you and through the gift God has given you, His body is being built up and ministered to. That’s the point. That’s the point of the gifts.

Serve, Desire, and Fruitfulness

So, first, transform your mind. Second, pray for spiritual wisdom. Third, identify your spiritual gifts. Fourthly, seek to serve and to build up the body of Christ. A lot of Christians struggle with the question, what is my gift? And I believe one of the key ways of finding your gift is to serve in the body. Serve anywhere. Serve everywhere. You know, I was actually called by people to teach a Bible study many years ago—or let me say it, a few years. I was asked to lead a Bible study, and I didn’t want to do it. As a matter of fact, I said no. And for a long time, I avoided it because I didn’t want to do it. I did it as an act of service, not because I wanted to be a Bible teacher, not because I wanted to run a ministry. I did it as an act of service. And then through that act of service, which was a long act of service, God began to cultivate in me, and I began to cultivate with Him, the gifts that He had given me. And little did I know that was a part of His unveiling to me of what my calling was. I responded to a call for service. And so when there are opportunities for you to serve, you should respond and serve. Serve in any capacity, serve in every capacity. And through your service you will then discover and discern God’s gifts for you.

Fifthly, identify your desire or motivation. Identify your desire or motivation. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3, he that desires the office of elder or overseer desires a good thing, a good work. Now this is a tricky rule here, desire, isn’t it? Because we are so prone to self-deception. However, God usually gives us a desire for what He’s calling us to do. I say usually. Now that has to be paired with other factors. If you’re not walking in the Spirit, your desires will be contrary to God’s desires. So if you don’t, you may not desire the right thing because the state of your heart is not right. But if your heart is pure, if your desire is pure, if you desire to build up the church, then often your desire or your motivation is a reflection of God’s calling. We should not assume that if we desire something that it’s not God’s will. And I actually know some people that think that way. Well, certainly it can’t be God because I want it. Because if God wants to give us what we don’t want. What does the Word say? “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

Sixth point, evaluate fruitfulness. Evaluate fruitfulness. Jesus said in John 15 when He was commissioning the apostles, He said that He had called them to bear fruit, and that their fruit should remain. God has called us to fruitfulness. He’s not called us to failure. He’s not called us to barrenness. As you serve in different ways, observe where God blesses your service. Where are the positive results? Where are the negative results? Are there any results? Now this rule or guideline provides a check to the previous one about desire. In other words, motivation is confirmed by production. You can desire a certain ministry, and yet there’s no fruit when you serve in that ministry. It’s just unprofitable. That should cause you to question or evaluate your motivation. Perhaps that’s not what God has called you to do.

Now as I said, this is where it gets tricky, because if an area of ministry bears no fruit, then at least we should examine whether or not that’s really what God wants us to do. However, we must also make an important clarification, is that a lack of results may not, in and of itself, indicate a lack of God’s calling. See, in Scripture and even in church history, we see people who are called to a ministry, and in some cases there is no fruit. Jeremiah is a great example. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet, and it even says he was called from his mother’s womb. Before he was in his mother’s womb God ordained him to be a prophet, and He sent him to Israel. But you know what? Israel never repented. So from a human point of view, Jeremiah was a failure, wasn’t he? No big crowds, no decision cards, nothing. It was a bad deal. Nothing. Couldn’t get on the radio and say, we got 1,000 decisions last week at the arena. Didn’t happen. No response. Well, he didn’t get a response. He got thrown in jail. Got put in the dungeon. Got betrayed by his friends. Experienced the whole lot of it. But he was obeying God. And there are those cases where God may call you to a ministry and He’s calling you to be faithful. And maybe that’s all He wants you to do is just be faithful in spite of the lack of results. That is surely the case in prophetic type ministries.

But the other thing we have to keep in mind is that failure or lack of results is relative. What I mean by that is, we Americans anyway, we don’t have patience. We don’t. So that’s why all the diet plans say you’re going to lose 40 pounds in 40 days. They promise you the world and it’s going to happen quick. It’s got to be quick. It’s not 40 weeks or 40 months. It’s got to be 40 days. We don’t have patience. And so we will experiment maybe with the ministry, or we’ll do something, and if we don’t get immediate results, we quit. We give up. That’s why a lot of people don’t persevere in things like other things, workouts. If they can’t work out and look in the mirror the next day and see a transformed body, oh, I guess it’s not working. We don’t have patience. And so sometimes, when God calls you to do something, you may not see results, at least immediately. Back to my own experience, when I responded to this call of service, for years I had just a handful of kids come into a Bible study. It wasn’t growing, it wasn’t doing anything. And then in a very brief time God just transformed the thing and it became an amazing thing where hundreds and hundreds of kids were getting saved and it was astounding. So very often in God’s work we have this period called the day of small things. And it’s a day for sowing, it’s a day for breaking up the fallow ground, it’s a day for working on the foundation, and it’s a day where you’re building for the future. The most important thing regarding this point is that if we’re called to do something, we need to do it with excellence and we need to do it with faithfulness, and then we leave the results with God. Leave the results with God.

Providence and Corporate Counsel

Two more points and then we’re going to close. Number seven, observe what John Newton calls the correspondent opening in Providence. I love that. In other words, often when we’re called, there’s opportunity. God opens a door. Okay? I say often, not always. But circumstances can provide a clue, if you will, as we attempt to discern God’s will. Our desire and our fruitfulness and opportunity at some point will line up. They will line up. So we have to ask ourselves, is there an open door that corresponds to what I desire to do? Because usually where God gives the desire, He opens the door, and where He bestows the gifts, He opens the gate. Usually. Not always, but usually. Sometimes the door just swings open for you. Sometimes you have to knock on it. And again, this takes much discernment on our part to answer these things.

The last point, we should submit to corporate counsel. [audio unclear] worship, someone giving thanks. But then notice in verse 21 it says, “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ,” or the fear of God, submitting to one another. I believe this passage is one of the most neglected exhortations in the Bible. Submitting to one another. And what’s interesting, Paul goes on and he gives examples of it. Wives submit to your husbands, children submit to your parents, servants submit to your masters. So he gives applications of this principle of submission. But we are all called to submit to one another. One thing that I’ve done is when I have a significant decision, especially related to various ministry things, a lot of times I’ll ask, I might ask Pastor Bond, or often I’ll just ask all the deacons their advice. [audio unclear] Submitting to one another, I want you to know, doesn’t mean asking advice and then doing the contrary. It means submitting to the counsel that you’re given. Okay. When I was—this isn’t a big deal, but years ago when KSIV approached me and said, would you consider being one of the hosts on the Encounter program? I did not want to do it. Okay. I just really didn’t want to do it. I had enough to do, and blah, and I said, I’ll pray about it. So I did. So I went to the staff and the family, said, okay, you know, they were looking for another host to fill, you know. And to a man, they all said, you should do it. And so I did it. I didn’t want to do it. Okay, I didn’t want to do it. And so I did it. But this verse tells me to do it. So you seek counsel of people who are mature, who care about you. You ask them to pray. They pray. You get advice and then you listen to it. Because God is speaking through the church to you. So important. So important, I’m telling you. So, this is a great check to our proneness to self-deception, and we all have it, myself included.

A very important principle. So, could you repeat those eight back to me? No, I’m just kidding. Transform your mind. Pray for wisdom. Identify your spiritual gifts. Seek to serve and edify the church. Identify your desire or motivation. Evaluate your fruitfulness. Observe the opening of Providence. And then submit to corporate counsel. If you do these things, you will know your calling and you’ll learn your gifts. And every Christian is valuable. Every Christian is important to the body of Christ. And some of you are sitting on your big fat gift. Tricked you, didn’t I? Tricked you. You’re sitting on your big fat gift. And because of that, you’re losing out and the body is losing out. But God has given you something precious. That’s why it’s called a gift. It’s precious. [audio unclear] Please pray, please serve, because you have a very important role to play in the bride of Christ, every one of you. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Let’s stand together. Father, we thank You, not only that You’ve saved us, but that You’ve gifted us. You’ve given us a part of Your wealth. And it resides in us through Your Holy Spirit. I pray, Lord, for each one of us, every person here, every person here, God, that through Your Word, through Your Spirit, through Your Church, they would know the ministry that You have called them to do. They would know the gifts You put in them, and I pray, dear Lord, that they would use them, that they would use them. Remind them, Lord, that they have a very significant purpose, a very important role to play in being used by You in building up Your church. And Lord, I ask that You would answer this prayer for Your glory, because Your testimony—we are Your testimony. Your church is Your testimony in the world. That by using our gifts and fulfilling our ministry, You would be glorified. Jesus, thank You. Amen.