Called, Gifted, Serve

Well, hello again. My name is Mark. One of the pastors and your true purpose is our ongoing series in the Book of Ephesians. And today we have a very special guest speaker because Isaac Serrano is lead pastor of South Valley Community Church, a multi-site church in the South Bay. He's also professor at Western Seminary. He has hosted the very popular Regen podcast. He has toured as a professional musician. I hear that story. He's married to Michelle and together they have five children. So extra happy Father's Day to you. Let's give a very warm welcome to Isaac Serrano. Thanks for being with us, Isaac.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. It's my honor to be here. I've admired this church from a distance from over the hill for quite some time and your team, your staff and Pastor René. So I love Gilroy. It's great living over the hill, but you guys are very blessed to be in this area. As mentioned, my family is growing. We just had our fifth a couple of few months ago. And so Father's Day is like extra awesome. You have like five kids under the age of 10. It's just like pure, pure encouragement all day long. It's awesome.

Okay, so what I'd like to do today is start off by looking at a particular passage and then a particular word that you all looked at several weeks ago when you began this series because it will serve two purposes. One, to sort of sum up the first half of Ephesians and then it will also serve as a sort of launch pad for today's text in chapter four. So for those of you who have been tracking with the series many weeks ago, you were in Ephesians chapter one and it said this in verse seven. “In him,” speaking of Christ, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ.” Paul says, “You all have some things because of the work of Christ. You have redemption through his blood. You have the forgiveness of trespasses, the forgiveness of sins. He's also made known to you the mystery of his will.” And then you have, what's highlighted here at the end in bold, this unity thing that Christ is bringing about and this unity is drawing together things both in heaven and on earth.

Now, it's easy to miss, but that's pretty epic, grand, cosmic language. He is uniting things in both domains, in heaven and on earth. Now, what I'd like to do is focus on this little phrase, “to unite,” because oftentimes when the word unity is used, it's sort of used in a diminutive sense like, “We need to be unified. Yay, hurrah.” And that means like, “Let's not fight and let's get along.” Or sometimes, depending upon like your upbringing, your family context, like unity may be just like, “Hey, just don't bring any drama around and then we could be unified.” And it's sort of this kind of, it's a weak word. Sometimes it doesn't come across very strong. And so it's quite literally a small word, like as far as syllables are concerned. But what I want to do is show you the Greek word that's behind it, because it's literally a lot bigger of a word. And it actually holds a lot more.

So the word “unite” in English might not be a big enough vehicle to hold the kind of cargo weight that Paul intends it to. So the Greek word, huge, huge, anacaphyliosisthai is what gets translated as “to unite.” And anacaphyliosisthai, it has this meaning of to gather all things together, to gather pieces together, to sum up, to collect. So the phrase, the word “to unite” is not a bad translation, but just what you have to have in mind is Paul is making this grand claim. It's like a giant puzzle. Some of you might do these things, you know, where there's like a thousand piece puzzle and there's like little microscopic pieces that you have to find and put together. So picture a giant thousand piece puzzle and you walk into the room, you trip and you fall and for some, the mathematics, the physics were just perfect. It just breaks every possible piece in every possible direction. Anacaphyliosisthai is saying that all the fragmentation, all the fracturing that has occurred is going to be reversed. Christ is putting the pieces of the puzzle back together. He's healing the fragmented and fractured world. That's a grand claim. This is a huge kind of cosmic claim.

And it's even greater than you might first think because we've had two thousand years of the Christian tradition to kind of inform us about the work of Christ. But let's put things in their proper context. Paul is in prison and he is making the claim that the poor Jewish man from Galilee who died a slave's death suffering on a Roman cross, that that man is going to unite things both in heaven and on earth. Do you follow that? That the Galilean who died on a Roman cross in agony, who died the slave's death, he's the one who's going to accomplish this. In him, it's as if Paul is saying all dissonant chords in all songs will finally find their resolve. All plot holes in every story that's ever been told will find their answer in one plot point, namely Christ. It's a big claim.

Now, what is he going to unite? What are the specifics? In order to understand that, we have to go back to the creation account way back at the beginning of the story in the book of Genesis. And if you're familiar with the creation account, there's a pattern in which God creates the world. God creates in Genesis chapter one where there are like different domains, spheres, or objects of creation that are different. They are different, but he creates these different domains, spheres, or objects to come together and form a unity or to form a whole. So, for example, in the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth. He also creates, there's darkness and there's light to form a day. There's land and sea. There's the waters above, the waters below. And at the climax of that pattern of the creation account, he creates man and woman.

And so there's a difference, but these differences come together to form a unity. So at the climax, what does it say about man and woman? “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh.” So you see this, there are functionally different equal opposites in the created order that are actually different, but they come together and there's a harmony there. So when you leave Genesis one, all of these things that are different, land, sea, night, day, man, woman, husband, wife, there's like harmony. There's peace. Heaven and earth are married. Like there's even peace between man and the animals. Like there's no like little chihuahuas biting your feet and annoying you. Like it's not there yet. There is complete harmony at every layer of reality.

So at every kind of layer of reality, there is harmony, there's diversity, but within that diversity there's a unity. Okay. So if you're familiar with the story, things go terribly wrong. Sin enters into the equation. Everything spirals out of control. It's like the puzzle piece just gets thrown across the room and all the pieces fly everywhere. And then what you have is friction and tension at every layer of reality. And so between man and woman, husband and wife. And then again, if you know how the story goes, like the very next page in Genesis chapter four, now there is hatred and animosity and friction within the family unit. Brother against brother. It's the story of Cain and Abel. Murder within the family unit.

And then just several verses after that, there's a section that most people skip when they read. You can be honest because it's a long genealogy. You know, you're in church. Don't lie. You know, it's like this long genealogy. But in Cain's genealogy, the sixth generation is a guy named Lamech and he writes a poem. He writes a poem that basically says, I'm awesome. I've murdered people. My vengeance is greater than the vengeance of God. So he's making an arrogant boastful claim that puts himself above God. And then he brags about the fact that he has taken for himself two wives. And now you have polygamy and the mistreatment of women. And then you keep going and the beginning of Genesis ends. The zenith of that story, unfortunately, is the story of Tower of Babel, where you have human beings arrogantly trying to defy God and make a name for themselves. And God comes down and humbles them and there's more fragmentation and there's division of languages.

Now since that point in human history, what have we had? We've had division, friction, and tension at every level. Man, woman, husband, wife within the family unit, among the nations, among different ethnicities. And so the story of humanity, our story as a people since that point has been a story of murder, war, genocide, racism, violence, hatred, division. Does the world feel fragmented to you? Does it feel fractured? It's as if it's broken and the pieces aren't together. Like you feel that daily, you feel it. Now take all of that with you back to the original claim in Ephesians 1:7-10. In and through the Jewish Galilean who died the slave's death in agony on a Roman cross, in and through that man, God is going to bring it all together. He is going to bring healing to our fracturing. He is going to put the puzzle back together. He's going to heal our world.

Now how is he going to do that? Part of the answer to how he is going to do that is he is going to make one people, one body, one united people composed of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And within this every tribe, tongue, and nation family, there will be either male, female, no Jew, no Gentile, no slave, no free. And this is what you reviewed, what you discussed last week from Ephesians 4. God is going to create for himself a unified body. Review from last week, Ephesians 4 says this, “I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another, in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit, the bond of peace, there is one body, one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” You feel the intensity of that language. One Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. He is going to make one body, one people, one worldwide global family of every tribe, tongue, and nation. From the rich, from the poor, from people who have different stories and backgrounds. He is going to bring that diversity and make a unity out of it.

Now also important to note from last week, Paul says you are going to need to clothe yourselves in some attributes and characteristics. He says, you need to have humility and gentleness and patience. You are going to have to learn to bear with one another in love, which is fascinating because if it says bear with one another in love, Paul is presupposing that when this family gets together, there is going to be problems. Like it is a presupposition. You are going to bring all these people together from all these different walks of life. There is going to be issues, so you have to be humble, gentle, patient, learn to bear with one another in love and you have to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace because there is the one Lord and one faith, one baptism thing. So if you are all going to get together and try to do this, you have to clothe yourself with these attributes. Otherwise it is not going to work.

Now in the next verse and for today's text, Paul is going to demonstrate sort of the inner mechanics of how this body is going to grow. How is this one body, this one family to grow and to be strong and to be healthy? And Paul's answer to this is going to be, Christ will give gifts to his church and people will use these gifts and when they use these gifts, the body will grow to be a strong body. So if last week's like keyword was the word one, today's keyword will be gifted. Now fair warning about this next text. It is one of the most difficult passages in the entire New Testament to interpret. There is like layers and difficult passages, different sections and it is very difficult. He was like briefly, hopefully not get kind of stuck in the weeds, but give you just kind of a big picture, basic summary of the main picture of what Paul is communicating. But know that it is just, you can study it on your own and you can get into the weeds on it.

But you are going to see it is kind of, there are parts of it that sound strange. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ give. Therefore it says, “when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.” In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. There you have it. So what is going on? Most likely. Okay. Paul is alluding back to Moses who in the Old Testament ascended and descended on a mountain and this is where he receives God's law. So this image of Moses ascending and descending on the mountain and receiving God's law. Next Paul quotes a psalm and he takes some of the imagery from that psalm and imports it back onto the image of Moses ascending and descending and giving the law and says in a similar manner, Christ has also done this descending and ascending thing and gives something to God's people. But what he gives God's people is gifts.

And then there is this language about captives and the imagery is supposed to invoke that of like a battle or a war and you should think that because of Christ's victory, he is now giving gifts to his church. Christ has descended, he's ascended, he is victorious and now he's giving gifts. So what are the gifts is the next logical question. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Okay, so we've highlighted here some key points. First Paul lists some of these gifts. He says he's giving the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. Now this is not an exhaustive list of the gifts of the New Testament. In fact, there's several lists of these gifts that Christ gives to his church. There's all kinds of different gifts. No list is exhaustive. Some of them have overlapping items, but then some of them have extra items. So in the New Testament, you have gifts of hospitality and prayer and faith. In this section, Paul focuses on what we might call the leadership or teaching gifts. You can see it. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers. Now what's fascinating is Paul focuses on the leadership and teaching gifts, not to make that his main point, but in order to demonstrate that God has given these leaders and teachers so that everyone in the entire body is equipped for ministry.

So his main point isn't, look at these leadership and teaching gifts. He's saying that Christ has given these leadership and teaching gifts so that the entire body may work in their gifting because the entire body, everyone who's been called in Christ, is called to be equipped for the work of the ministry. Do you see the logic of that? Now this is an interesting phrase. It says to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Because some of you might have been pausing. I know you just said that we're all called and we all have gifts, but he just used the word “saint,” so don't include me on that list. I'm sure there's some other passages in the Bible about me. Okay. So if you are called in Christ, if you are in Christ, if you've put your faith in Christ, he has forgiven you. Remember, you have redemption through his blood and forgiveness of trespasses. He has made you whole. He has forgiven you. And he has called you, and he has called you a saint, and you are a saint called to the work of the ministry.

Now you may be saying, “I don't feel like a saint, man, if you knew me.” Well, your saintliness, your sainthood is not contingent upon the mere work of your hands. It is contingent on the work of someone else's hands. When Christ dies on the cross, he purchases you with his blood. He forgives you, brings you into his fold. So whether you feel like it today or not, if you were in Christ, you were a saint called for ministry. And I know some of you are even still disagreeing. You're like, “No, my wife is seriously going to disagree with your biblical interpretation at this point.” You're a saint called for ministry, called into ministry. And he's saying we all need to be exercising the talents and gifts that God has given us. And when we do this, some things are going to happen. One, the building up of the church, and then we keep doing this to build up the church until we obtain, listen to the language, the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, in deceitful schemes.

This is a unity of faith, the knowledge of the Son of God. We are to mature so that we're no longer like children tossed to and fro. The church should be a place of people who are mature in Christ, who aren't tossed to and fro by every new thing on the scene. The world needs some mature people who do not get tossed to and fro with every new thing. Do you understand this? Do you feel this? It's like we need this. And the way we accomplish this is when we recognize all of us have a role to play. We've all been called and we're all gifted. And when we serve in this giftedness, the body of Christ will grow.

He goes on. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ.” And we'll pause right there because this is a quick phrase, but it's super important. “Speaking the truth in love.” This is something else the world is in desperate need of. People who know how to speak the truth in love. Because truth be told, because of our own temperaments and personalities and upbringings, most of us find ourselves where we're pretty good at one half of the equation. Some of you are naturally temperamentally. The truth-telling thing comes easy for you. The loving part does it. And some of you like naturally, temperamentally. You know, you're kind, you're gentle, you're compassionate. So the love part comes out. But it's very difficult for you to like just know, this is what I mean. This is the truth and you need to hear it.

So for example, like some of you are just, you're just the way you're wired. You're just temperamentally truth-tellers. You're the, you know, I'm going to go tell them how it is. Honey, you can't just go tell that person. No, they need to know the truth. You know, what does the Scripture say? The truth will set them free. I'm about to set them free. You know? And he's like, “Well, how did it go?” I told them the truth. And how did they respond? They started yelling. And, “Well, what are you going to do?” “I'm going to go post on Facebook and tag him and his friends and let him know that he received the truth today and why he's wrong.” It's like, “Oh my gosh, what's going on?” And then some of you, honestly, it's like to like confront somebody because somebody has done something wrong. Someone is in the wrong. They've wronged you or someone you love or you care. And it's like, “Oh my gosh, I'm the one who's going to have to bring this up. I have to confront them.” And so you start building up the courage to do so. And 47 weeks later, you're finally ready. And you go to them. And some of you, you know this about yourself, right? At the end of the conversation, somehow it ends like this. You're looking at them and you say, “I'm sorry. I now realize that I am in the wrong, I guess.” You know, I'm exaggerating to prove a point. We're all temperamentally kind of wired a certain way. And what Christians need to do is recognize the call that we've been called with commands us to speak truth in love. We're able to do both.

And so if you are going to, if you're going to do this body of Christ thing, you're going to presuppose there's going to be some problems. So you have to be eager to maintain the unity as you're working out your gifts. And you have to master the art of speaking the truth and love to one another. Because if you don't, it's going to go terribly wrong. It goes on. “From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it will build itself up in love.” You see the totality of this language? It's like the whole body joined together. Every joint will be equipped. Paul's vision for this one worldwide global, neither Jew nor Gentile family that's composed of people from every tribe, tongue and language, his vision is that everyone has a role to play. Everyone has a part. Everyone's been called. Everyone's gifted. And everyone needs to serve this body. And when you do that, the body grows stronger and the body is healthy.

Okay. Now what I'd like to do is take a kind of step back and look at a big picture issue. Oftentimes when we think about the body of Christ, especially if you grew up in church, some of the first kind of thoughts you might have will be what you first learned like in children's church or Sunday school, which are their very good lesson. So don't hear me being negative to them. They're actually really good, but they just may not be big enough to capture what Paul is trying to articulate. For me, when I first think about the body of Christ, I think back to like the first kind of children's church illustrations, which are great. It's like we're all part of the body of Christ and everyone has a role to play. Some of us are like thumbs and elbows and some of you might be the back. And then it's like, I just, you know, for me as a little kid, I was like, just, Lord, please don't make me like the big toe or something. Lord, please just don't give me like, let me be your fist. How about I'm in the black, let me be the, you know, the whole truth or love thing. You could guess which one I gravitate to. Let me be the fist of justice, Lord. Don't make me the big toe.

Okay. So that's all good. That's a perfect illustration. It's like we all have a different part to play in the body of Christ, but there's something, there's something much bigger going on here as well. Okay. So when Jesus comes to earth, we know that he is man and God. This is like the Christmas message, God with us. He's 100% God, 100% man. Jesus descends to the earth and we have this idea that as Jesus is walking around Israel, it's God himself walking among humans. That part is usually understood. But then there's something else that happens. The first Christians claim that Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and then he ascended and is currently now at the right hand of the father. Now, when he ascends, he ascends in a physical human resurrected body, which means that when Christ descended, he brought divinity with him. He brought a piece of heaven because he was God. It was God walking among us. But when he ascends and sits at the right hand of the father, he brings a part of us with him. There is a human at the right hand of the father. That human is also God, let's be very clear, but he brings part of us, our humanity, to heaven with him. There is a man who is the divine son of God, who is currently ruling and reigning all things both in heaven and on earth, which means in a person, the uniting of heaven and earth has already begun. The unity in Christ is occurring in the heavenly places presently right now.

Now, the next layer of that is this. Okay, where is Jesus? Well, he's in heaven. What is he in the body of Christ's imagery? He's the head. He's the head of the body. If Christ is the head of the body and he's in heaven, where is the body of Christ? We're presently down here. We're presently down here. Now, another question then. How then does the sovereign Lord, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, who is at the right hand of the father, exercise his sovereign will on earth as it is in heaven? Answer, in and through his body, his people. You've heard the phrase like, “The church is the hands and feet of Jesus.” Now, let me be clear. God is sovereign and free. He could work outside of the church, his body. He can work in whatever way he wants to, but the way I would say it is his preferred method of choice is to work through his people. That's his body.

So, you see how this imagery of Christ is the head, who is in heaven exercising his sovereignty, then flows down to his people, who are empowered by his spirit on earth for the work of the ministry. Now, let's take all of that with us back to the body of Christ image. Because, yes, you might say, “Oh, we're a pinky.” But when I was a little kid, I was like, “That kind of sounds weak.” If it's your pinky, it's weak. But if you understand that everyone is called in the body of the Christ to serve, and the entire body is being presently empowered by the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ is the vehicle, the mechanism, that is empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the work of ministry. The church is the means and mechanism by which God is bringing the puzzle pieces back together. And you are all proof of that. Because at some point, whether it was your parents or a friend or a loved one, or you watched something on TV, you heard the gospel message proclaimed by somebody. And God, through that gospel presentation, was reaching out to you through his body and incorporating you into his body.

Last week, Pastor Kyle quoted this verse. It's quite remarkable. It's Jesus on the night of his betrayal praying. He says, speaking to the Father, he says, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me, and loved them even as you loved me.” The world may know that you sent me by their ability to be one. In other words, when we do this global family of neither Jew nor Gentile, people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and we're all serving in our giftedness and the body is growing, that is demonstrating to the world that Christ was whom he said he was. It is the proof that Christ was victorious over Satan's sin and death. Christ prays this. Paul claims that the radical claim that through that crucified man, the fragmentation, the pieces would come together. And so when we're able to do this in unity and serve, we are demonstrating to the world and the powers and principalities behind the scenes that Christ is its true Lord by our ability to do this.

Now, the world will often have sort of these counterfeit unities. The world will try to create something that is a parody of the unity that can only be found in Jesus. It's very important because there will be things that try to pull you together, and the world's version of unity is always a kind of false forced homogeneity. In the first century world when Paul wrote that, that's what was going on. There was something called Pax Romana. It's Latin for “Roman Peace,” likely started by Augustus. With the phrase Pax Romana, the Roman Peace was used probably for roughly 200 years. And the Roman Peace was something like this. In and through Rome, Caesar is bringing about peace and salvation to the whole world. And look at the nice roads we build. Look at the great architecture. Look how our military will come and protect you in times of need. And it was this sort of propaganda, this unity and this peace being brought around by the Roman Empire. But how was that peace purchased? It was purchased by the sword. Because if you disagreed with Rome or their ways, guess what? You might find yourself nailed to one of their crosses. So Rome did it with militaristic might. How does Jesus purchase his peace? Not with the sword, but by the shedding of his own blood. He doesn't kill his enemies. He gives up his life for his enemies. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” So you are a blood-bought people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The world will know.

And so we take all of that and we say, okay, this whole body of Christ thing is a whole lot bigger and more important than I could ever imagine. It's central to the heart and mission of God. It's not peripheral. It's not a side issue. The fact that we're all called, we're all gifted, and we're all supposed to serve to build up the body so that I can grow strong and reach the nations. It's not peripheral. It's central to the heart and mission of God. It's what Jesus prayed for on the night of his betrayal. And so here's our checklist. Do you recognize that you're called to serve? And when you are serving and you're living your life as a Christian, are you doing it with humility, gentleness, patience? Do you bear one another in love? Are you eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit? Are you speaking the truth in love?

So it gets real practical right here. Do you recognize you're called? Do you know you're gifted? He's equipping you to serve. And even if you find yourself to be like the broken toenail on the pinky toe in the body of Christ, you are a part of the body of Christ, the body that's being supernaturally powered from on high by the Spirit of the living God. So whatever he's called you to serve in that body, it is your honor and privilege, because I shouldn't even be here. But it was his grace that drew me in. Now let's close with Paul's claim. Remember all of this. Two thousand years ago, Paul's in prison, and he says that in and through that crucified man, the first century Jewish man from Galilee, from Nazareth, who died in agony on a Roman cross, that that man was going to create a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And people from all walks of life would swear allegiance to that man. That claim two thousand years ago is absolutely insane. It's insanity to claim that. The crucified guy from Galilee. Yeah, right.

Brothers and sisters, two thousand years later, you are all the living, walking proof that Christ is Lord and the world's true champion. We wouldn't be here. It is insane to say that that crucified man would accomplish this. And I know it can be discouraging because we often times, we focus on the division in the world and in the country and in the church and all of our differences. But look, with all of that said right now, you join in with countless hundreds upon hundreds of millions of other Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation, men, women, and children who gather on this day and lift the name of Jesus high and say, “He has my heart. He has my life. He has my all.” You are currently joining in with countless millions from across the globe to say, “That's our king.” So what you do in the present, you embody imperfectly in the present what Christ will ultimately accomplish perfectly on the last day. So even though there's problems, there's sometimes ways we don't get along, we do imperfectly in the present what Christ will perfectly accomplish in the future because this is where the story ends.

Book of Revelation, last book. “After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples, and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.’” There's a phrase, “Blood's thicker than water,” you know, say that. Nothing's thicker than the blood of Christ. Nothing is more powerful. You are a blood-bought family. What binds you together is not mere earthly ideology or opinion. You are a part of the blood-bought family of Christ. You've been called, you've been gifted, and you can serve. And when you do that, the body grows stronger, and you will be a part of the great Anacophylosis, the gathering together of God's family. So carry that in a worthy manner. Let's pray.

What a great Father's Day thing to be able to say, that whether we're dads or not, whether we have good relationships with our fathers or not, we all share the same Heavenly Father, and you have been so good to us. Your goodness is beyond measure. You have blessed us, as Ephesians says, not only on earth but in the heavenly places. And so today, we trust you, Lord. We commit ourselves to you. And I pray that your Spirit would empower everyone at this church to recognize their calling, their giftedness, and they would commit to serving your body. And that we would recognize whether it's a great task or a small task, that it's for you and it's worth it. If your son could wash his disciples' feet, then nothing is beneath us. And so, Lord, empower this church, empower Twin Lakes for the work of ministry, and may they reach their communities and their loved ones and their friends. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.