This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. The Scripture this morning is Acts chapter 2, verses 1 through 14. So Acts chapter 2 beginning at verse 1. When the days of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violet wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as a spirit enabled them. Now, there were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked, are not all these men who were speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Meeds, and Elimites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judah, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Fragia, and Pamphelia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Creetans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own language. Amazed and perplexed, they ask one another, what does this mean? Some, however, made fun of them and said they've had too much wine. Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. Thank you, Dave and Joy. Are you back your heads and pray with Me again? God has asked that your Holy Spirit would come and work and move. Father, if you don't work and move and speak, if you don't teach, our hearts hear this morning and this time really is wasted and is really to be better spent probably elsewhere. And Father, I pray with just the opposite would happen. I pray that things that are of me would be quickly forgotten, the things that are of you, God would weigh on our hearts. And that we remember them today and throughout the week, they'd be on our minds as we try to fall asleep at night. But they would be on our minds when we wake up in the morning. God, so may your true come and may God, like a seed, be planted and may it produce fruit for your glory and for your honor. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we are continuing our sermon series called Follow Me, which we started back in August. And I'm excited because as we continue to look through here and continue to look specifically of how God has worked and moved. We're following this guy named Peter. But before I jump into more details about that, let me just give you a reminder, especially this is your first time with us, where we're at here. We've talked about this year our goal being to be it, to be followers of Jesus Christ in a more active way. And that requires us to align ourselves, to place ourselves to be impacted by the life and person of Jesus Christ. Our culture right is screaming, hey, if the church was more like Jesus, we'd be a whole lot more interested. They've got a point. They've got a valid point. Now the truth is Jesus would probably offend lots of people, like he did 2,000 years ago still. But may Jesus be the one that is offending others, not self-righteousness of the church, not legalism, not hypocrisy, and so on for that. So we want to be aligning ourselves following Him, and that's our primary goal. That's why we have these bracelets, says be it on one side, do it on the other. And our desire is that as we know that only as we are being followers of Christ, can we do what He's called us to do? Because it's His impact going through us that enables us to minister and to do what He's called us to do, which is to make fishers of men. To be fishers of men, to draw others, just like we have been drawn by His grace, into His amazing kingdom with that. So we are following along the way here, this guy named Peter. And I love here, because here in Acts chapter 2, in fact I'm going to preach in a very different message you probably heard on Acts chapter 2. It's really not going to talk about so much specifically what happened there, as much as why it happened, and what was going on. But here is Peter receiving the Holy Spirit, because it's a game changer. When that happens, it becomes the biggest thing that shifts things in the life of Peter. We've been talking about him over the last few months, and how he kind of hit the home run, and he struck out. I mean, he was back and forth. He nailed it. Jesus, you are the Son of God. You are the Christ. And then moments later, Jesus is saying, get behind me Satan. And Peter was struggling. Peter was working hard to try to live out in the flesh what Jesus was clearly doing in the power of the Spirit himself. But then the day changed when the Spirit's poured out, and Peter receives the very power and the very source that Jesus had, which was His presence, which was the life of Jesus in Him through the Spirit. And things changed, and it was this day in Acts that that shift happened, and that things began to change. Listen to what Jesus says about this gift of the Holy Spirit. In Luke chapter 11, Jesus is teaching. He says this, which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? What's the good gift that your father in heaven, the best gift that he has to give you? It's a better job, right? It's reconciliation with you and your spouse. It's a better relationship with your kids or kids a better relationship with your parents or with your classmates, or it's making that great on that test, or it's getting that promotion, right? Or it's being healed of that incredible nasty disease, or having the strength to deal with the struggle or loss in your life, right? That's got to be the greatest gift because that's what seems to me, often times, to be the greatest gift, but that's not what your perfect father in heaven knows is the greater gift. Because it is only through the ministry and the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that all those other needs on their surface level can be addressed because what's being addressed will be the need at the core. You need to be reconciled with the God who created you and your relationship to be restored, and for you to live in the power of the Holy Spirit as apart from the power of the flesh, which Peter was a master of the power of the flesh, and it failed him time and time again. But this was a new day for Peter, and it can be a new day for you and I as we learn the secrets of what it means to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, to trust and rest in that. So I want you to be reminded to think about the best gift that God the Father has to give to His followers, His children is the Holy Spirit. Don't leave it sitting unopened, don't leave it unwrapped, don't leave it on the shelf when you get up in the morning. You know, the Holy Spirit has many roles, but one main role and what is the main role is for the Holy Spirit to bring glory to the Son of God. And one major way the Holy Spirit does that is to impart spiritual gifts to us, those who follow Jesus Christ. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. He says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. But one in the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills. What an amazing gift that God gives us, not only Jesus is a Savior from sin, but a manifestation of the Spirit. God gives us a gift, or in maybe many cases, a few gifts that stand out, that come out and stand above the rest. God uniquely is equipped as He's poured out His Spirit in different ways. Let's just say, take for an argument and say here that everybody in the room here is a follower of Jesus Christ here. Then whatever, the 60 or 70 or 80 people who are here, every single person has a portion of the Spirit, not the exact same. It doesn't look exactly the same, poured out so that we can be a body of Christ here. It's an amazing strategy. It's a perfect strategy, so that our gifts are used to bring us together. So our gifts are used to glorify the one who has given us the gifts. Many gifts are mentioned in Scripture. And here's just a good list of them. And by the way, right there at the top is a great tool that we often use in here in the church to help you figure out what yours are. Just ask you a bunch of questions to help you kind of process life and go, what may be standing out? Maybe not a follower of Christ, just to kind of follow with us. I'm glad you're here on the journey with this. But just understand these are things that are imparted by the Holy Spirit. So we're not talking about your natural gifting and inclinations. Like for example, one of my gifts is leadership. Let me tell you growing up when I was a kid in school and stuff like that, that gift was not prevalent. We needed to become prevalent when I began to follow Jesus Christ. I was the quiet kid sitting in the corner and didn't say anything. That was, had just a few friends and didn't lead anybody in any way. But that began to change as the Holy Spirit imparted his gift his life in me. I would not be a pastor today, for example, if it wasn't for that gift I think of leadership at least in part with that. So, we're not talking about just natural born anything. We're talking about something that's imparted by the Spirit of God. And here's a list of scripture gifts. Some think this is an exhaustive list, some say it's probably not. But we know these are all specifically listed. So I want you to, as you think about that, to be asking yourselves and wondering here, what are the gifts? What is a gift that God has given you if you're a follower of Jesus Christ? When you choose to follow Him, one or more of these are imparted specifically. By the way, I should say every believer has some level of all of these. Because sometimes there's the mistake of saying, well, I don't have the gift of evangelism. So I guess that's for somebody else to do, right? Well, no, no, no, no. Because you may say you don't have the gift of service. Does that mean only the people who have the gift of service should be serving? I don't think so. We're all called to do that. We're all called to evangelize. It means that some that will be leaders in these specific areas of evangelism, of service, of discernment, or whatever. So we're all called to reflect this, that represents this, but we're uniquely gifted, empowered, to manifest some of them above the rest for the common good with that. So think about it. What gifts have you been given? I challenge you guys that are at Christchurch as your home. I sent you, again, a reminder. We did this couple of months ago in our equip gathering, which is the next one tonight. Hope to see you there. We talked about our spiritual gifts. Many of you took the test just to help you begin to discern that. Do it again if you haven't. Maybe some of you did it this week, but I want you to specifically be thinking about your gift as we continue to talk here this morning or severed your gifts. The text tells us why these gifts are given as well. Not just what they are, but it tells us why it's given for the common good we just read. So therefore one key point and the key point for the morning, if you're falling along your sermon insert, is God gives gifts to give. It's a nice alliteration, right? God gives gifts to give. But I want you to remember that. I want you to take that home. You know, I might be saying this morning, I thought gifts are meant to be received. Isn't that kind of the point? You know, you get a gift. You know, you have a gift and you give it and somebody is supposed to receive it. And somebody is supposed to give you one and you're supposed to receive it. Well, that is true, but some gifts are meant specifically to be given. And the Holy Spirit gives very special gifts. And each of them are meant to be given this New Year's Day 2014. This past year, Elaine's church and her family in Chicago appeared on a today's show. The morning of January 1st, at least via Skype. You might ask, well, why? Well, the reason why is that they got a gift in the mail. Okay. Well, everybody had just gotten gifts in the mail, right? Christmas had just passed. But they got this large box that had come from a distant uncle and it had a bunch of small box Christmas gifts in it. Some of us will do this or receive it or send it. But then they had another box at the bottom. They just kind of was stuck in there. And it was a little bit torn open, a little bit ripped. And on the label, it said to Eleanor Mama K Wilson from Barack, Michelle, and the girls. Well, her name was not Michelle. Her husband's name was not Barack. And they didn't have daughters. So they knew right away that something was up here. But as they looked inside because they weren't sure what they had exactly, it was a family photo album of the first family with personal pictures from the 2013 year that was sent to the Godmother of the Obama's children. So this one was like, what do I do? I have received accidentally a gift that has come from the president of the United States. And I'm the wrong recipient of that. But the gift's been given to me. So amazingly, she decided to keep it because she realized that these pictures will one day be worth thousands of dollars that she could keep. And then she could, she could do it. I just want to ask you, can you believe that she would keep a gift that's not hers that was designed for somebody else? Well, don't believe it because that's not what she did. That's why she was on the today show. She nearly knew that, wow, I received this gift, but it's clearly not for me. It was intended for somebody else. Now, granted it came from a very, very important family, but it was all about her. She had to get it to Mama K. In fact, it was interesting when they asked her on the today show. Hey, can you show us some of the pictures? She's like, no, these were kind of private moments from the first family just for this friend. She protected it even. She made sure that the gift, as much as she could at this point, went further. It was a gift she received that she understood was for her to give. Your gift of the Holy Spirit is specifically designed for you to give. Specifically, not oh, it would be nice. And let me tell you something, the more your gift is suppressed and not used for that purpose, the more that gift will just filter out of the way. I'm not saying it'll be taken away from you. I'm just saying it's power, it's working your life will be untouched because it's designed to be given. It's for someone else. Like what Ann Voscamp says, talking about that with God, she says, a gift can never stop being a gift. It is always meant to be given. Everything we have is a gift from God. And a special gift is given to you by the Holy Spirit of your follower of Christ. And it's specifically designed for you to give to somebody else and to continue to give to others. By design, God gives gifts to give. So my question this morning is your gift giving? Is your gift giving? First, is it giving to give glory? Is it giving to give glory? We already mentioned the primary point of spiritual gifts aligns with the primary role of the Holy Spirit. And the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory to Jesus Christ. So the Holy Spirit is imparting part of His power and abilities and gifting to you and part to continue on what he specifically called to do, to give glory to Jesus Christ. Listen to what Jesus says in John chapter 16. Jesus is talking about what Peter experienced and walked through that day. He's saying it's going to happen. He's saying, but when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, Jesus says, he will guide you into all truth. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. Jesus tells us from the get-go, this is what the Holy Spirit is about and why he's coming. He's not coming to give you some sense of boost to self-esteem or look at me and look what I can do. He's not coming for yourself worth to be enhanced by. How could he improve on what he's already done in his son and giving you the full righteousness of Jesus Christ? He's going to improve on that. There's no improvement on that. The power of the Holy Spirit is going to show that you are closer to God or somehow bring you closer. He's going to bring you closer than he has already brought you through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Holy Spirit is gifted. Let me just tell you. It's not about you. It's not about me. And that could be a little disappointing to look at in one way, but let me tell you. You could free you in ways you may be never thought of. If you realize, wow. I've been given a gift so that I can give. So the gifts are a portion of the Spirit given to us to unite us with a larger body of Christ. To bring glory to Jesus. It's only as each member of the body, like a puzzle piece, comes together as one that we get the full picture of who Jesus Christ truly is. This is a case for the strong need for church unity among the church. Just let's say among Christ's kingdom church, because the Spirit has dispersed himself in the gifts apart from this family, this part of the body of Christ in such a way that you won't get the picture of Jesus. If a bunch of us are missing, that's why we need you here on Sunday mornings. You might think it's so boost our attendance records. No, it's because we want to see that. We want to see him. That's why we need you here. That's why we need you in the life and the ministry of ministries and the church of small groups of volunteering with the youth serving with the kingdom kids in the back there because our kids are you think to see him? And you bring a special part to that. You want the hardest things about parenthood and some of you have been there with us. Half our kids have left the home. Half the kids are still at the home. And we have to sit at a dinner, lunch table, breakfast table every single day with empty chairs. So we're excited about Thanksgiving. We're excited Riley's home on this weekend to be with us. We're excited around Christmas time because the chairs will be full. Let me tell you, the Puckett family is not the same without every single chair with the right Puckett member in it. There are people here missing here today. Some are just out of town, can't be here. Some don't feel like they're neither are wanted here. Some haven't connected yet. Some are bearing wounds and burdens that they feel like nobody could understand or wants to maybe hear about. Maybe we need more chairs in this room because more people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. And the more we see that, the more we're going to see him. Why are we part of leading a ministry called Converge, partying with the other churches in this community? Do you think this doesn't happen on a larger scale? Do you think it's just Christ's kingdom church that is showing Jesus to the East Orlando community? I'm relieved that we're not. Can you imagine? We can't carry that burden alone. And we're not called to. We need to have on church. We need a life song church. We need discovery church. We need summit water for campus. That's why these guys are my friends now. That's why we meet once a month. God's got exciting things to do down the road in his church to show who Jesus is. Two examples are given in this specific passage here of the Holy Spirit being poured out. One, the gift of tongues. And that's where a lot of churches want to run with this passage and talk about. And that's where a lot of the churches run with this passage and talk about it in a completely different way. Let me just tell you, none of us debate this. That it was a gift poured out in the day of Pentecost. But let me point out here why, verse 11 says, we spoke in tongues and we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. What was the point of tongues to declare the wonders of God? To build yourself a steam? Nope. To show that you have some kind of special blessing? Nope. To declare the wonders of God and to hear it declared in your own tongues. This gift of tongues here in this example is doing exactly what it's been designed to do, to give glory to God and to give glory specifically to Jesus Christ. Because that's what spiritual gifts are for. That's what they do. There's another spiritual gift here given, the gift of evangelism. Let me just say this point out there. Don't perceive what I just said as a slam against the gift of tongues. Because that's not the point there. My point is to remind you what it was for and the point of evangelism and teaching that is the very next gift demonstrated is through the life of Peter. Peter goes on here and we didn't have time to read it, but right after we ended this passage here this morning, Peter preaches a sermon in what 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus Christ. Peter, who was the guy that remembered tonight, he's just three times because one time a little servant girl said, you're with him. You're one of his followers, aren't you? And Peter was like, I don't know the man. That same Peter just a few weeks later standing up to preach. How and why? Because the Holy Spirit has come upon him. And Peter, we know at least right, some degree, has the gift of evangelism, the gift of teaching. Two thirds of everything he says, two thirds of all the sentences that we have recorded of the sermon that he preached in Acts chapter 2 mentioned Jesus specifically. Peter's whole sermon is about Jesus. And Peter ends it with drawing his hearers to follow Jesus with their lives on it. What is the very first manifestation of the gift of evangelism and teaching, the gift of the Spirit that Peter receives? What is it doing? It's giving glory to Jesus Christ. It's lifting up Jesus Christ. Every single spiritual gift has that point and that purpose. Tongues did teaching and preaching and evangelism do. Every single gift you saw on that list, that's its point. That's its objective. God gives gifts to give. Your spiritual gift is always given with the primary goal of giving glory to God. So think about your gift this morning. I very ask you to do that. What is your gift? Don't say it out loud, but say it in your head. You got your head around it. What is your gift? Is it wisdom? Is it discernment? Is it hospitality or whatever it might be? I want you to think about it. Are you using it to glorify God? For example, what if your gift is the gift of giving, which is one of the ones mentioned? Here's a way it doesn't glorify God. If you have a gift of giving, if you're motivated by guilt when you give, by fear when you give, by obligation when you give, or if you're motivated to be seen or valued or respected by others, because you give, you're not doing it for the glory of God. The glory of Jesus Christ. Does that mean it's not your gift? No, it just means that you're not using it properly. In my way, that gift will wane. That gift will turn into something that doesn't honor Jesus, it will turn into legalism or it will turn into self-righteousness. But if it is there to glorify God, you're motivated by love, by joy, by passion, for God's kingdom. You take delight in seeing God's name exalted, and his word go forth. And so they thought of giving financially. You're like, yeah, I'm all over that. Because that gift may be excited. That's how it looks for somebody. God gives gifts primarily through the Holy Spirit to give glory to Jesus Christ. Is your gift bringing glory to God? But the Spirit is also giving you a gift, to give grace. The second point this morning, give grace. Two audiences, two targets of that grace. One is the church. First, to give grace to the church. First reading in 12-7 says this, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Then, Paul also writes in Ephesians 4, so that the body of Christ may be built up. That is why, secondarily, you've been given a gift for the common good that the body of Christ might be built up. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to give grace to the church. It's not a one man's sport. Something to put out. You know, it's a little bit like this gift I was thinking back. You know, before cell phones, before we even had cordless home phones. Who's with me? Who can remember before cell phones, before cordless phones? You know, you had that really long stretchy cord that you could walk, ladies, right all around the kitchen. And if you're lucky, you could even make it down the hall to yell at the kids or whatever they needed at the moment, right? You had that really long cord, okay? And after a year or so, you know, it looked like a rope. You know, that you could tie around the house. Every kid, though, on Christmas morning, dreamed of a different kind of futuristic communication. And every kid, you know, maybe it says boys, maybe. But I think girls were into this, too. Every kid thought this was an amazing gift. How many of you got gifts like this when you were kids? Oh, yeah. This, this, younger folks, these are walkie talkies, okay? Because let me explain to you the name. The reason is because you could walk and talk at the same time. You could like walk without a cord. You know, your buddy could be outside somewhere and you could be in your room. You know, or you could be different sections of the woods. And you could hear each other. And you could hear them talk back. So kids, you might want to put that on your Christmas list for this year. But imagine, what did you live by yourself? What if you live by yourself and you got this gift in the mail? You could pull them out and go, wow. What if it was just you? What, what, if, what if you were a loner and you didn't really like to, to share your gifts? Do you open this up when Christmas morning, you're like, oh, this is amazing. Everybody always wanted to walkie talkies and you ran up to your room and you pulled them out and you stuck them in the bed and you're like, that's so cool. And they stayed there. The toy would become nothing more than two paperweights, right? At the most. But if your best friend gets this for Christmas, even if you did it, you're like, thinking, yeah, why? Because I'm getting one of those. We're going to be talking. This is a gift that's meant for two, at least. By design. By yourself, this is a very stupid gift. Correct? People don't give it for that reason. Think about your gift. It's meant to be shared. Are you using it to give grace to his church? Let me give you an example. If you have the gift of discernment, okay, here's a non-glorifying way that the gift of discernment might be used. You get these insights. You have these perspectives on situations. You can see them there. But rather than becoming a tool to serve others, it becomes a tool to help you think better about yourself. Or it becomes a tool to help you kind of gossip behind the scenes. Whereas, if the gift is used to glorifying God, it could be a gift that God uses you to help to speak the truth and love to others. Maybe helping them see blind spots, they can't see. Or maybe it's a situation that you see out there. You speak up about it and you say, look, as he might thought about this and all of a sudden people turn and go, no, that's a great point. Why would a gift that would be a gift that's used to serve others? You know, one way you got that gift is because people will seek you out for advice from you if you have the gift of discernment, especially if you use it to glorify God. They're not worried about you telling somebody else about it and spreading gossip. They want to know what your thoughts are because they know that you've got insights gifted by the Holy Spirit and they want to hear them. Wow, that's powerful in the church. See, that happened. God gives gifts to give grace to His church. Is your spirit giving, is your gift giving grace to His church? But He's also giving you a gift to give grace to the world, to give grace to the world, not just to the church but to those outside the church, the world. When the church is experiencing the glory and grace of God in their midst, with each member of the body having its gift that it uses or for the common good, for the whole, then the church operates in unity and power. We're going to talk about that a little bit. Why is that so important? Let me tell you what Jesus prays in John 17. Not long before He's going to be crucified on the cross. Jesus prays for the church. He says, quote, may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved me. The Spirit doesn't dump all His gifts on one person. Jesus is the one person who had all the gifts of the Spirit, but He disperses it across His body. So they need each other. So the chairs need to be filled. So your small group feels lacking when one of those members can't be there that week. It's like my table at dinner feels a little lacking when one of my kids is not there. There's something missing. Jesus knows that the importance of the gift there is for it to come and to be an expression of the body of Christ for the church but also for the world. So the world would see, something the world would know. God gives gifts to give grace to the world. So if you think your gift has little value, be corrected this morning. It has eternal value. The world is definitely looking for what only the true living and spirit-filled church can show them, which is the glory and grace of God. You know, it's like a gift in the area of medical research. You know, we give gifts. A lot of people have recently written to ALS. You know, a lot of you made some silly videos. Why? It's for good cause, right? ALS or MDS or cancer research. But was it just to heal your friend or your loved one? No, right? It was to bring a cure that would be for the world. Every single medical vaccine or thing that we have that cure something was once developed and was once administered to one person. Can you imagine if it was only administered to that one person and never shared with the world? How much, how deprived we would be as a world? If the polio vaccine hadn't been discovered, used, and spread, or the mumps? Think about your gift. Are you using it to give grace to his church? And that will give grace to the world? I think, for example, if you have the gift of mercy. If you have the gift of mercy, a non-glorifying way to God would be to, for it just fills you up with compassion. You watch those commercials on TV or you hear about something, you feel the compassion, but you're not moved to action. That's a non-glorifying way to use the gift. That's not using the gift. But imagine if you let that compassion turn around to where you must enter into the world. You must give. You must serve. You must help. You must touch. Wow, it becomes life-changing. That's why we must think differently as a country about the Ebola crisis. And why we must think differently about those who are actually stepping in to help serve in the medical field for that. If anybody should be thinking differently, it should be the church. Those who have the perfect example of one who entered into our world to come and bare sin himself so that we might be saved. If there's anybody here that should understand the need and the importance of that and support it and say, why shouldn't it touch this soil if it's touching that soil? I guarantee you, when it touches this soil, its chances of getting a cure are much faster than when it stays in the soil of Africa. You and I both know that's true. Take precautions, right? Absolutely. Have compassion. Absolutely. Few things get the attention of the world like genuine mercy and compassion. It shuts up the real critics. Critics are Christianity when they see the church functioning compassion and mercy and they stop talking critically. Because you know what, even the atheist wants to live in a world that's been impacted by Jesus Christ. Even the atheist, I believe, honestly doesn't want to live in a world that doesn't have the presence of God's people working and serving in administering mercy and grace. Who is still in Louisiana and Mississippi after Katrina? The church. In a powerful, strong way, the church. Is that so we can pat ourselves in the back? No, that's for the glory of God. But those people in those communities, they know who was there at first may know who's still there. You can still go on a mission today or this summer and serve. The communities are so struggling from Katrina. Once last time you saw that on the nightly news, that's called the church to be that voice. There's no greater gift this world needs than to see the glory and grace of Jesus Christ. And God gives gifts to give. So let me ask you, are you using your gift to give? If you haven't started yet, let me tell you it's not too late. Start today. Ask God how to use that and He will show you how. Let's pray. God just asks that you would empower us now to move forward in faith and trust to use those gifts. God, we thank you that you give them to us. And I pray that everybody here, if they don't know it, they will quickly discover that. And like Peter, God, they will let it flow and be free because nothing will make us more alive than being alive than you. And being alive in the way that you designed us to be alive with those gifts. So I pray for every man, woman, every boy, girl that's here. Now, there are followers of you who would impart that gift. And God, I pray for those that might be here that aren't followers of you that know that they're just not part of that. If they would look in and see God, the truth of who you are, that you would draw their hearts to you, that you would administer to them, that you would draw them close. God, that you would open up their hearts to see the truth and to see the life. So God would impart us as a church to be your hands and feet, to be your body here, but also to be that in this community. To be that around the world. May you encourage the rest of the church, guys, we stand in unity by the power of the Holy Spirit to honor Jesus Christ and all that we say and do. Let me pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The ushers and elders will come forward. Let's be prepared to come to Lord's table. Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took the bread and he broke it. He says this represents my body, which is broken for you. Eat of it, all of you in remembrance of me. And he also took the cup and he says this cup represents my blood, new covenant, drink from it, all of you in remembrance of me. Jesus invites us to come.