The Church: Where Do You Fit In?

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Well this morning I want us to take one Sunday break from our study that we've begun in the epistle of James. I think it would be appropriate for us on this Sunday as we have our ministry fair, and we're reminded of the role that each of us is to play within the church, for us to turn to a passage that deals with this all important issue. I want to turn to 1 Corinthians 12.

At twenty years old, I was diagnosed with an eye disease that commonly comes to people later in life, and that is glaucoma. The openings in the surface of my eye that are supposed to adequately allow the fluid and the eye to escape are inadequate and are blocked. As a result, the fluid within the eye builds up, creating an excessive amount of pressure. Left untreated, it irreparably damages the optic nerve and eventually causes complete blindness.

As I think about that, and I think about so many of the issues that happen with our physical bodies, it reminds me of just how finely tuned God has made these tents in which we live. When something as relatively insignificant as those minute openings in the eye that are designed to allow the fluid to escape, when those malfunction, eventually blindness results, and the entire body is left without connection to the visible world. In fact, when any part of our physical bodies fails to function properly, to some extent, the entire body is affected.

Sadly, the same kind of malfunction often occurs in the body of Christ, the image the new testament so often uses for the church. Members of the body, members of the body of Christ, simply refuse to function as they were designed. Instead, they simply come and go each Sunday, their sole occupation being sitting in the seat and listening. Their refusal to fulfill the role that God has assigned to them causes the entire body of Christ, the church, to be ineffective, to in some way be rendered less effective than it would have been, if in fact they had filled the role God had designed for them.

You know, as I thought about that this week, and I began to ask myself the question, "Why is it that some Christians never get involved in the life of the church?"I just sat down and thought about that in our culture, and I jotted down just a few reasons that I think are the most common in our day, see if you fit any of these. I think some people don't get involved in the life of the church because they have a flawed mindset about service in the church. Their thinking about service in the church is somehow twisted or flawed. Some people have the spectator mindset, you know that's part of our culture, a hundred thousand people who desperately need exercise, watching a couple of dozen men who desperately need rest. That's part of how the culture functions, and so we get used to that, and we come into church and we assume that we're to be spectators. Others have the flawed mindset that I would call the professional mindset. They have this wrong thinking about the dichotomy between clergy and laity. Their thinking is, "Look, you know, that's what we pay the guy for is to do all this stuff." Other people's flawed mindset about service in the church is the sort of "been there done that" mindset. They're just tired, they say, "Look, I've paid my time, I've paid my dues, I've done what I'm supposed to do, and now I'm taking a break." Perhaps they feel unappreciated, and perhaps they have in fact overcommitted themselves, even neglecting their families, but instead of bringing everything into a proper balance, they overreact and they just stop serving.

So some people have a flawed mindset about service in the church. I think another reason that some people don't serve in the church is distractions, distractions. Why, our lives are filled with these from the general busyness of life, we live in a frenzied culture, everybody's always rushing to be somewhere else, and that busyness distracts us from those things that are truly important. There's the distraction of business and work, in our culture, you're supposed to essentially be married to your work, and so some people spend so much time in their occupation, their daily livelihood, that they have no time for the church. Others are distracted by family. You know family is a wonderful gift from God, but some people are so busy building family memories that they neglect to serve in the church of Jesus Christ.

A third reason that it occurred to me people don't serve in the church today is fear, or we could put it this way; a sense of inadequacy, "You know, I just don't know if I can do anything." It's kind of the Moses approach, you remember, God shows up to Moses and says, "I have a job for you. You're the man I've chosen, you're going to go lead the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." And what was Moses' response? "God, you've got the wrong guy. I'm slow of tongue, I can't do it!" And that's the response of some people when it comes to service in the church.

A fourth reason that I think people don't serve in the church is because of ignorance, ignorance perhaps of how the church works. They don't understand how God designed the church, they've never really been taught. In fact, turn to Ephesians 4, let me just remind you of something we've looked at before; this is God's plan for the church, this is how it's supposed to function. Ephesians 4:11, "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers." God, through Christ, gave gifted men to the church, and what's their purpose verse? Verse 12, "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ." God gave men with specific gifts, the leaders of our church, they're there not to do the work of ministry, notice, they're there to equip you to do the work of ministry. This is God's plan and design for the Church, and some people are totally ignorant of that process, and so they assume that they don't have a role to fill.

I think others are ignorant of the priority that God gives to the church. You know, Christ said in Matthew 16:18, that He would build His church. There is no other institution, no other organization that you're involved in, that Christ has given that priority to. There's not another thing that occupies your time and energy and life, that Christ promised to build. And if that's His priority, then it's right for us as believers, if we want to glorify God with our lives, to get in line with His priorities, which means giving priority to the church. But some people are ignorant of that great priority. There's a final reason that I think people don't get involved in the life and flow of the Church, and I think it's just pure disobedience. They know they should, they know they have a responsibility, but there are things they want to do, there are things that occupy their time, that they enjoy more and so they just decide not to.

But we need to learn this morning from the pen of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, that God has designed the church for 100% participation.

When you look at this letter on 1 Corinthians, let me give you a little feel of the context, Paul had founded the church in Corinth during his second missionary journey, and he'd ministered there as a pastor, the founding pastor if you will, for about 18 months. Several years later, he's now on his third missionary journey, he's in Ephesus, and he writes back to the church in Corinth, and he writes for two purposes. He writes first of all to tell them of his impending visit, he plans to come and winter there. But also he writes to correct a number of problems that had arisen in the church in Corinth. He addresses those as you flow through the book, he begins in the early chapters with the division that had been created there in the church, the divisiveness where people where attaching themselves to certain leaders. There was the issue of tolerating incest, the lack of the practice of church discipline, they were suing one another in secular courts. There were a number of issues he addresses, but when you come to chapter 11, Paul turns his attention to the issues surrounding corporate worship, things that were happening when the church gathered as we've gathered this morning. In chapter 11, he deals with women's roles in the corporate worship. The church in Corinth had misunderstood that, and he sort of lays out a perspective about the woman's role in the corporate worship of the church. He addresses the issue of the Lord's Table, its meaning and its abuse there in Corinth. And then he comes to a block from chapter 12 verse 1 through the end of chapter 14; those three chapters deal with the issue of spiritual gifts. Now, the Corinthians had apparently asked Paul some questions in a previous letter they had sent to him, this is implied in verse 1 of chapter 12, and Paul begins by answering their questions, but then when he gets to chapter 14, he goes beyond their questions and he begins to deal with problems he saw in the church, specifically the abuse of the gift of tongues.

So when you look at these three chapters, understand it this way, chapter 12 is general instruction about spiritual gifts. Chapter 13 he deals with the priority of love, he shows that long after even the abiding gifts of prophecy and knowledge have ended in the eternal state, love will still remain, so it is to have ruling priority. And then in chapter 14, he gives a specific response to the misuse of spiritual gifts in Corinth.

But when you come to chapter 12, which is where I want us to look this morning, in chapter 12, Paul lays a framework for understanding how God uses gifts in the life of the church. The first three verses, his primary concern is to lay down a basic criterion for distinguishing what belongs to the spirit and what doesn't, verse 3 he says, listen, "no one speaking by the Spirit of God says 'Jesus is accursed'; and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit." He means no one can say those things with intensity of meaning and heart, except as he's explained there. In other words, a person who's speaking by the spirit will always speak in line with the revealed word of God. In verses 4 through 7, Paul argues for the need for diversity within the body, and then in 8 through 11, he includes a brief list of spiritual gifts to illustrate this diversity. In the rest of the chapter, beginning in verse 12 through the end, he uses the members of our physical bodies to illustrate the reality of, and the importance of, diversity within the body of Christ.

I want us to concentrate this morning in verses 4 through 7, Paul writes:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

In these verses, Paul begins addressing the problem not by attacking the abuse of tongues, but by laying a doctrinal foundation regarding spiritual gifts, here is the most basic understanding of spiritual gifts. He provides us with four foundational principles about spiritual gifts and their use in the church today.

Let's look at these four foundational principles together. The first is in verse four, God has chosen the character of your gift. Notice verse 4, "There are varieties of gifts." The Greek word that translates varieties is used three times in the New Testament, all of them in these verses I've just read for you. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, as well as in secular Greek, this word is often used in the sense of distribution. But the context here argues for the New American Standard translation. He's saying, there are various kinds of gifts, there is a diversity of gifts. Paul makes this point throughout his writings regarding the issue of spiritual gifts, notice down in verse 8 of this same chapter, "For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge" and so forth, and he tracks through, expressing there are these different gifts. In Romans chapter 12, another passage where Paul deals with the issue of spiritual gifts, in fact the other primary passage, where he deals with the issue he makes the same point; there are these various differing gifts. Peter, when Peter deals with the issue of gifts in 1 Peter 4:10-11, he refers to the "manifold gifts" literally the word is multicolored gifts. He says, listen, there are varieties, there are various kinds of gifts.

Now what are these gifts? Well, you'll recognize the Greek word, it's the word "charismata." It literally means a grace gift, a gift extended from God as an expression of His grace, God is the source of this gift, and He gives this gift solely on the basis of His own favor. Specifically, what we're talking about here is spiritual gifts. What is a spiritual gift? I love what one author has written, listen to this definition, I think this clarifies the whole point, "It is an ability given to an individual, supernaturally by God through the Holy Spirit, so that the recipient may utilize that ability to minister to the needs of the church." It is a capacity for service, it is a unique ability to serve in the church. Now, when you look at the breadth of the New Testament teaching about gifts, and I've explained this to you before, but let me just do it for the sake of those who maybe haven't heard it, there are two categories of spiritual gifts in the New Testament; there are what we could call temporary sign gifts. 2 Corinthians 12:12 refers to the signs of an apostle and lists a couple of these spiritual gifts: miracles, healings, probably also includes tongues and their interpretation. The purpose of these foundational gifts, of these temporary sound sign gifts, was to authenticate the apostles and their message as the word of God. But both biblical history if you trace the chronological flow of biblical history, and secular history or the rest of church history, show that these gifts ceased with the death of the apostles. What we know as the modern tongues movement is, in fact, a modern expression. So there are these temporary sign gifts given to found the church and to authenticate the apostles in their message.

Second category of gifts in the New Testament are the permanent edifying gifts. And Peter does a good job for us in breaking down those permanent gifts into two basic categories, he says, there are those gifts that are teaching type gifts, this is in 1 Peter 4:10-11, and there are those gifts that are serving gifts. So all of the gifts that are available in the church today break down into those two basic categories, teaching, whether one on one, admonishing and exhorting, or whether teaching to a group as I'm doing this morning, and then serving, various kinds of service. Nine gifts are listed in verses 8 through 10 here in 1 Corinthians 12, and there are eighteen total in the New Testament. Four of those were probably sign gifts, and two of them occur in both lists. So by the time you do the math, you end up with about twelve permanent edifying gifts. But because the list varies slightly, it's possible that it's not intended to be an exhaustive list but merely representative of the potential diversity. But at the very least there are 12 permanent gifts listed in the New Testament, and those become a kind of divine palate. Most Christians are a carefully blended mix of several of those gifts.

Scientists tell us that the human eye can distinguish about ten million different colors. If they were placed in front of you, you could pick out and distinguish ten million different hues and crons and colors. But all ten million of those colors, an amazing diversity, come from three primary colors; red, blue and yellow. And those three primary colors can't be mixed from other substances, they can only be derived from substances in which they are inherent. But once you have those three colors, the entire range of tone and color can be created from those three. Now think about that for a moment; if God can use three primary colors to produce ten million different colors, imagine the diversity of gifts within the church, when God has not three but twelve primary gifts to blend, there is an infinite variety. You want to see that just look around you in this church. No two people in this church are gifted exactly the same, each of us have a unique blend of gifts that make us function just as God intended.

So, Paul says there are varieties of gifts, but notice the end of verse 4, he says, "but the same Spirit." Now Paul's point here is that the same Spirit is the source of all that diversity of all those different gifts; He's the one who distributed them. Verse 11, "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills." You see, the variety that's within the church, the variety of giftedness, is not something God merely tolerates; it's part of the divine purpose, it was part of the Spirit's purpose. In fact, as Paul fleshes out his argument here, in verses 4 through 7, he weaves into it the ultimate illustration of diversity within unity, and it's the person of God. Notice in verse 4, the Spirit is mentioned, in verse five the Lord, that's a reference to Jesus Christ, is mentioned, and in verse six God is mentioned, almost certainly a reference to the Father. The being of God is diverse in the sense that there are three persons who make up our one unified God. Even so, the diversity of gifts within the church has its roots in God Himself and is a reflection of the diversity of the divine persons. God has determined what unique combinations of gifts you will have, and you can do absolutely nothing to change that.

Now the most immediate application of that reality is that God has given you a special capacity for service. If you're a believer, you have a unique capacity to serve God, you have a role to fill in the functioning of Christ's body, but whatever it is, you can't take pride in it. If you were especially gifted, the reality is you had nothing to do with it, and that should demolish every temptation to pride, it was the Spirit who distributed that gift to you. You see there's a temptation today that was common in Corinth, and that was to consider our giftedness as superior to others. In fact, if you look at chapter 12, verses 20-24, Paul gives the illustration and he says there are parts of the body claiming to have no need of the other, verse 21, "And the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'; or again the head to the feet, 'I don't need you." It's ridiculous! You can't say that your role is superior to the other roles in the church. In Corinth, they were looking down on all the non-tongue's gifts. They had somehow concluded that those were the highest gifts and that everybody else was second class. I think in a teaching church like ours, there's a temptation if we're not careful to look down on the serving gifts. But none of us can consider our gifts as superior to others, we simply fill a role in the body.

On the other hand, if you find yourself less spiritually endowed, the knowledge of God's sovereign choice in giving you that gift should erase your discontent, you have what God wanted you to have, there will always be a temptation to consider our giftedness as insignificant when we compare it to others. "Oh, if only I could teach like he teaches, or if only I could serve like she serves." Same thing happened in Corinth in verses 15 through 19 of this twelfth chapter.The foot decides "Look, you know, I'm tired of being the foot, It's dirty and smelly down here I want to be the hand. My role is not important enough." There's a real tendency to think like that. But Paul says, "Listen, God has sovereignly determined the character of your gift. He has placed you in the body just as He chose.

Now, before we leave this first point, I need to answer the most common question about spiritual gifts, and that is, how can I discover my own? Well, the first and most practical step you can take to discern where your capacity lies, is just begin to get involved. You see, we have a tendency to gravitate to the area of our gifts. Take our physical bodies as an example, so much of their function is involuntary, that is, each part just functions. Your pancreas didn't have to take a three page personality profile to determine how it fits into the body, it just does what God designed it to do. God placed it in the body, and it just ends up doing exactly what he made it and designed it to do, and the same is true in the church. Just decide to get involved, and as you get involved, your gifts will begin to be evident. People will encourage you in the direction of your gifts, you'll gravitate in the direction of the areas of your gifts. God will use your desires and the input and direction of those around you to get you moving in the right direction, but you have to decide to start.

Paul says God has sovereignly determined the character of your gift, but he goes on to a second foundational principle. Here, in verse 5, God has decided the context of your service, he says, "there are varieties of ministries." Now the word ministries is the word services, it's the work in which our gifts are employed, it's the context or the circumstances in which we use our gifts. This speaks of the various ways that your gift can be used in the church, various areas of ministry, various avenues of ministry. For example, if your gift is teaching, there are a variety of ministries in which that gift can be used. Perhaps you're gifted to teach a certain age group, perhaps you're gifted to use that gift in different venues, such as one on one. Maybe your gift to teach is one on one, while others' gift is more public as a Bible study leader, or even as I'm doing this morning in the corporate worship. There are also different local churches in which you can serve, as your family is providentially moved by God to different areas. There are a variety of ministries, but notice the second half of verse five, "but the same Lord." This is a reference as I said to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. He is the source of the various ways spiritual gifts may be used. In Ephesians 4:11, we saw that gifts and gifted men are given to the church under the authority of Jesus Christ and for His purposes. The Lord decides the context of your service, the work in which your gifts will be employed.

Again, take your physical body, take your eyes for example. Not only did God give certain capacities and skills to your physical eyes, but He decided where they would fit in the body and exactly the kind of service they would render to the rest of the body. In the same way, God has sovereignly placed you and your family in this church, and He has an assigned place of ministry for you here. Just as God has given every member of the physical body a role to fill, in the same way, He has given every person in the church a place of service. There's no such thing as a part of the body that isn't designed to fill a function. There are a few that they took out in years past, thinking they filled no function, and we've since discovered that maybe that wasn't the brightest idea. The Lord has designed the body with every part filling a role and a function.

So, God has determined what your gift will be, He's determined the context in which you'll use that gift, that brings us to the third foundational principle in verse 6, God has determined the results of your efforts. Notice what he says, "There are varieties of effects." The word effects is used two times in the New Testament, both here in verse 6 that I just read to you, and in verse 10, where it's translated as "effecting." Our English words "energy" and "energize" and "energetic" come from this Greek word, it refers to the effects of God's powerful working. We're talking about the results of your ministry, the outcome of your efforts, those are determined by God. Notice what he says, "There are varieties of effects, but the same God." Paul's point is that the Spirit decided the gift you would have, Christ determined the way you would use those gifts, the context in which you would use them in the life of the church, and the Father will decide what the results will be. Now this isn't an excuse for a sort of half hearted effort, you and I must work as hard as we can, we must expend the maximum effort, but in the end God determines the results. You remember earlier. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-6, Paul says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth." Notice how he continues there in verse 6 of chapter 12, he says "There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons." The same God who "effects", this is the verb form of the word "effect", the same God who "effects" all things, that is, every spiritual result in every person.

Let me give you an example of what Paul is saying here: if you have the gift of evangelism, you need to use that gift, you need to use it to the utmost of your skill and ability. We all know people who have the gift of evangelism, you go out with them to lunch, and before you can even look at your menu, they're evangelizing the waiter or waitress.They just have a unique ability to encounter people. We're all supposed to do it, and we need to do it, but there are some people who have a unique ability. But if you have the gift of evangelism, every convert is the result of God, granting repentance and faith.That's what Paul is saying here, the same God works all spiritual results in all persons. If you have the gift of exhortation, you're able to admonish and encourage a brother or sister individually and privately to grow in their faith. If you have that ability, you use that ability, you expend the maximum effort, but understand this, that God is the one who produces the results, every believer's minuscule steps toward maturity is the work of God. If you have the gift of teaching, a gift that's dear to my own heart, teach; do the homework, prepare be ready, but then remember that God is the one who produces the results. Every biblical truth that is properly understood is not the result of your powerful argument or your wonderful logic, instead, it is the result of the work of the Spirit of God, illuminating the mind of the believer to comprehend it and understand it. You and I must still apply ourselves and use wisdom in our ministries, but God produces the results.

Understanding this principle of God's sovereignty in the results of your ministry and the results of the gifts that God has given you, it'll do two things; it'll protect you from becoming discouraged because your ministry hasn't succeeded like somebody else's. It'll also protect you from becoming proud if your gift does succeed in the church, because whatever the result, it comes from the hand of God, you and I are responsible to be good stewards to work like it all depends on us, but then to constantly be aware that it all depends on God. So God sovereignly distributes varieties of gifts. He sovereignly distributes varieties of places in which to use those gifts, and He sovereignly determines the results.

But in all of that, there's only one divine purpose. The fourth foundational principle that Paul sets forth is that God has prescribed the purpose of your gift, notice verse 7 he says, "But to each one." Now in the Greek text, the words "each one" are in the emphatic position he wants to emphasize it. He's saying "each and every" that's bad English, but you get the idea, "each and every single Christian, every individual Christian." Paul makes the same point in verse 11, "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills." In Romans 12:3 he says, different gifts have been assigned to each one of you. Everywhere gifts are discussed in the New Testament, there is this emphasis, this stress, on every individual Christian. Every Christian, Paul says, has been given by God, notice verse 7, "the manifestation."Literally the "exhibition", the "display." The gifts God has given us are not intended to be private, they're intended to be seen, to be a display. We could translate it, "to each one is given the display the Spirit produces." Now this isn't some display designed to call attention to ourselves. Instead, notice, it's "for the common good." Literally, the Greek says, "it's for profit." It's for everybody else's profit. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 4:10, he says, "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another." "Employ it in serving" translates to one Greek word, and it's the verb form of the noun "deacon", the New Testament word for selfless service. You see, while there are specific men set apart in the church to the office of deacon, there's another sense in which every person in the church is to be serving as a deacon. Every believer has received a gift from God meant to edify everybody else. Whatever abilities and skills God has given you, He didn't intend for you to use those to try to make a name for yourself, to try to impress others. Nor did He intend that you keep that gift to yourself, refusing to invest that capacity in the lives of others. God's plan was that you would use that ability for the good of everyone else who's a part of this church. That's God's purpose, that's God's immediate purpose.

But let me show you God's ultimate purpose. You see, the gift that you and I have received from God is certainly intended to benefit each other, but there is a much higher, even more noble cause for using our gifts than that, turn to 1 Peter 4:10. Peter writes, "As each one has received a special gift," he's using the same concept here of spiritual gifts "employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." There's the lateral expression of that gift, to one another, as you and I serve one another, there's a great benefit as we function together. But there's a higher purpose as well, verse 11, "Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies." In those phrases, Paul addresses the temptation that each category of gifts has: if you have a teaching gift, you're very tempted to rely on your own speaking abilities and not speak the very word of God. You're very tempted to simply get up and spout without having done your work, so that you can't say you're speaking the very words as it were of God. If you have a serving gift, you're very tempted to do so in human strength and not by the strength which God supplies. So he says, "Don't let that happen", but now notice what he says. When you do that ,when you function like you're supposed to function, here's what happens, "so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." You see, when you and I function as we're supposed to function within the life of the Church, when we use the giftedness God has given us to fill our role in this body, not only does the body function well, but God is glorified.

God has chosen the character of your gift, God has determined the context of your service, God has determined the results of your efforts, and God has ordained the purpose of your gift. Now what are the timeless lessons for us that flow out of Paul's arguments here? Let me give you just a couple of very practical things to consider.

Number one: if you're a believer, God has gifted you to fill a specific role in this local body.

Number two: you need to learn to value the diversity of gifts God has placed within the church. Thank God everybody isn't like me or like you, it takes a lot of different members to make the body work. What if your entire body was a liver? Learn to value the diversity that God has placed within the church.

Number three: don't become discontent with your giftedness as you compare it to others. God gave you the gift He wanted you to have, and He has a role for you, and you will be evaluated not compared to others, but on your faithfulness to use that gift.

Number four: don't consider your gift to be more important than others, not a single one of us can say, "My job, my role in the body is the most important or is more important than so and so." It's not how God arranged the body.

Number five: decide to stop sitting on the sidelines and get involved, go through that insert in your bulletin and find one of the needs, one of the ministries that is in need of help and get involved, go down to the ministry fair see what's available, find a way to begin to fill a role in this local body.

And finally, as you do that, develop a constant awareness that God is sovereign in the character of your gift, in the context of your service and the results of your efforts. Paul writes "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation" or display "of the Spirit for the common good."

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this clear practical teaching on how you design the church to function like a body, each member filling its role performing its part. Lord, I thank you for the people who make up this church, I thank you for their faithful ministry, there are so many who serve like this. I pray that you would encourage their hearts today that they would see that they serve as unto you, filling the role that you designed them to, being part of the only organization, the only organism that Christ promised to build, the only one that will matter in eternity. And Lord I pray for those who have not yet, for whatever reason, really worked at finding their place of service to you. Lord, I pray that you would challenge them even today. Again father, I thank you for this church, I thank you for the way so many serve. I just pray that you would help us to excel still more. To Your Glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.