Help Wanted

Well, it's great to see all of you here. today, I wanna, just thank all the, leaders of the ministries that are represented in the ministry fair, even the crew that was here early this morning setting up tables. and getting, that ready even for the, the ministries before they, they arrived. A lot of work's gone into the ministry fair today, and, and, we just want to thank the Lord and, and thank any of you for your involvement in making that possible.

our ministry of the week this week is our ministry of deacons and, deaconesses, and I want to do a couple of things here. First of all, any of you that are here in this service, we had some in the first service, but you served over this past year. This is essentially the first day of our ministry year and so the terms of deacon and deaconess come to an end, essentially the first of September and then the new terms begin. But any of you that served as a deacon or deaconess here at Cornerstone over this past year, could you stand?

OK. Thank you. Thank you so much for your, faithful service to our church, and some of these same individuals will be, standing again. In fact, what I wanna do is, have all of the, the deacons and deaconesses that are going to be serving, for this New Year's term to come forward as I read your, your, your names.

and by the way, you'll see these names on the back of the bulletin, a, a ministry overview. on the back of the bulletin, and you'll be able to take these individuals and their names and associate them with the ministry that we've asked them to, to be, leading or be involved with, involved in over this coming year. But if you're here in this service, and I read your name, come forward and stand right here. Chris Johnson, Mike Martinez, Seaborn Boone, Joe Sapko, Chris Kidder, Daniel Bend Schadler.

Ron Warkenton. Brian and Eddie Gill. Dave and Mary Schilling. John Schroeder, Eve Hansen.

Mike Strassenberg. Jim Ward. Kim Davis, Donna Vincent, Jackie Janosky, Lillian Warkenton, and Jira Hansen. So these are, and again, some of them were in the first service, but the, these are, our deacons and deaconesses for, this coming year.

Do keep them in your prayers, and I'd like to take this moment right now to, to pray, for us as a body and for our deacons and deaconesses as they begin this new term of service. Let's pray together. Oh, by the way, before we do that, can we have Tory Dalzell come down also? Not, not a deacon or deaconess necessarily, but she's leaving today at 11 p.m.

to go to Nepal. And she is gonna be gone for 9 months, working with the missionary family there that's been involved in Bible translation and also doing various things to make, the Bible translation more readable and accessible to the people of Nepal, teaching them how to read, and so forth. But Tory's gonna be, ministering alongside of them over the next 99 months. Did you have something, Mike?

All of our Yeah, their names have been been read Yeah, I read his name. Yeah, they're, they've all been read. well, let's, let's go ahead and pray together and, just ask the Lord's blessing on the ministry of all these individuals. Lord, we thank you, for these individuals represented here.

So many people in our church are such faithful servants and the people standing before us are among them. we just thank you, Lord, for their willingness to serve you, to serve your precious people, and to serve your purposes here at Cornerstone over the length of this coming, year. Lord, we just ask on their behalf that you would cause these men and women to be daily full of the Spirit, to be daily full of wisdom, We would ask that you would grant them favor, Lord, with those that they will be leading and ministering to and also ministering alongside of.

We ask Lord that you would flood their minds with creativity and their roles, that you would fill their hearts with passion for the ministry that they are engaged in.

Lord, we ask that you would cause your exceedingly great power to be streaming ever towards and into them day by day that they might be able to perform their roles with excellence and do right by your people. We ask Lord that you would accomplish great things through them, and great things would be accomplished through their ministry in the name of Jesus. Lord, prosper their way in their homes, and in the church and in their ministries that they're involved in. We ask Lord that you would go ahead of these men and women, be with them, be behind them, be to their right and be to their left.

Lord, surround them with your loving kindness, your faithfulness, your power, your provision, your wisdom in absolute abundance, Lord, as they seek to do, your work. Everything I've just asked, Lord, for these men and women up here, we, we ask for ourselves also. We need you, Lord, we need you to show up or all of the ministries we engage in are absolutely meaningless. You must show up and you must be the one who does the work.

And so we ask Lord that you would make your presence very strongly felt during this ministry year that begins today. And do such a great work in our midst, so mighty and so powerful that no one will ever accuse us of having done it, that all will know that this is the work of God, and God is here in our midst. And we just ask these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen. You guys may be seated.

there is one more person that we want to recognize. John Esserturian has, been our sound guy, and all of you have been benefiting from his ministry, week by week, over essentially the last decade. He served as a, for 2 years, as an assistant to Calvin Skelly. some of you will recall.

who was our sound man audio visual guy at the time, and then over the last 8 years, John has basically, handled the ministry and overseen it. And, I don't know if you guys appreciate the work that is involved. Every Wednesday night, he's had to be here, doing the, working with the worship team and, and so forth. And, every Sunday from 6 o'clock basically to 1 o'clock, he's here.

Without, without fail, and we have so much appreciated John's ministry. We've seen him grow over that length of time. One of the great things about being the leader of the sound ministry is that there's ample opportunities for growth and sanctification. And we have seen many of those, and, and John, you've blossomed beautifully through that time and we really appreciate your ministry to us.

And by the way, just to say thank you to John, we have a gift for him. I'm gonna have him come up and get it in a, in a moment. The first, it's a groundbreaking book that's come out and it's called a Gospeler for Christians. And it's a signed copy of the primer by the author of the book.

And, it gets even better than that. there are a couple of bookmarks that are in this, this book that John, you will be able to use up until November 22nd, because on that day, there is a game down in San Diego between the Denver Broncos and the San Diego. And the San Diego Chargers, it's a Monday night game and there's 2 tickets in here. All right, why don't you come up and get it.

Let's give our brother a big hand. I'm available that night, by the way, so. Anyway, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 4, for our time of study and, and the word, 1 Peter, chapter 4. We're going to try to, to get everything done this morning.

I, I think I'm going to trim some things on the front end of the message, But, just given the ministry Fair, the beginning of the ministry year, I want to talk to you on the subject of ministry, and if you want to give a title to the message, it is Help Wanted. Help wanted. We're essentially going to be putting up a help wanted sign. In fact, many help wanted signs today.

You'll see them outside in one form or another saying that we need your help here at Cornerstone. But we're not just going to say, hey, we need help, because you may say, well, yeah, definitely you guys need a lot of help, and you may have an idea of how you're going to help us, but we actually not only want to say we need help, but we actually want to define the help that, that we need like the sign I saw recently in the front of a, a store. It says help wanted, and then they said, we mean customers, please buy something.

That's they're not only identifying that they need help, but then they're telling you, here's exactly the help we need.

We're not hiring. We just need customers to buy some stuff from us. We're going to define the help we need because you guys know that it's often true that Sometimes people are thinking to help, and they're actually more of a hindrance than they are a help, right? Have you ever had someone try to help you, and they ended up being more of a burden, more of a hindrance than they were a help ever happened to you?

Anyone? OK, a few of you. not only has that happened to me, but I've been guilty of that. There have been times even in my ministry I've tried to help someone with hindsight, I was being an idiot and was, was more of a hindrance than a help, and I, I regret some of those, those moments.

And then in other ways, I remember trying to help my mom with the dishes when I was in high school. She was in bed and I cleaned the kitchen for her and put all the dishes in the dishwasher and feeling really good about my Service and how happy she'd be when she got up in the morning and I thought well I'll run the dishwasher while she sleeps. And so I took dishwashing soap and I put it in what said was the dishwashing dispenser and I filled that baby up to the full and close it and let it run and I went to bed feeling really good.

Next morning there was dishwashing.

There were soap suds everywhere on the kitchen floor into the dining room because I had used the wrong dishwashing soap. And my mom was not as grateful as I thought that. As I expected when I went to bed that night, trying to be a help, but didn't do it right and I ended up maybe being more of a hindrance than a help. It's because of this phenomenon that Thoreau who was often pretty cynical about human nature, he said this, If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with a conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

And often, I think we act in ways that would bear that, that out. So we need help. We're going to help you from scripture know the help that, that we need. In fact, God's going to define that.

very, very quickly, if I can just give you a very brief theology of the church, and this is what I'm going to try to run through pretty quickly. We do learn in scripture, we learned in our study of First Timothy that, that any true believer in Christ needs to be conducting himself in the church. Paul says, I write these things so you'll know one. About how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.

Throughout the book, he tells us how to conduct ourselves, but at the very least from this verse, we learned that every true believer needs to find a local manifestation of the church. They need to find a local church and then conduct themselves in that particular local family of believers with elders and deacons and men and women, young and old, who are practicing the ordinances of baptism and celebrating the Lord's Supper, and they're, they're teaching the Bible and preaching the gospel and trying to live that out as a community.

Every believer needs to be conducting himself in the church of the living God. You go through the New Testament, you find out that the church is a happening place.

And there's so many things revealed in the New Testament. The church is the bride of Christ. Christ loved the church so much he died to be the one who gets to clean up the church's mess and take care of the church's wrinkles and the spots and any such thing. We learn in Ephesians 5 that Jesus is doting on the church, nourishing and caring for, the church, cherishing the church day by day.

The church is the body of Christ. It's the means through which Christ is accomplishing his purposes on this earth. The church is the fullness of God. If you want to experience the fullness of God, On this planet, then you need to be a part of a local assembly of believers living in community with them.

Paul says, that's as good as it's going to get this side of glory. The church is the body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The church is the temple of God. God's presence dwells in a unique way amongst his people in the church.

The church is the household or the family of God. It's the pillar and the support of the truth, meaning the gospel truth. It is the ultimate platform or podium upon which God wants to put His gospel on display before the eyes of a watching, observing world. The church.

Also the place where God wants His glory to be displayed. God takes his overwhelming power and streams it towards a local church, towards us as believers in that church, because God wants explosions of grace and power to take place that will redound. To his glory. In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul says now unto him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, unto him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus throughout all ages.

God wants to be glorified in the church, and he wants to be glorified, not just before the eyes of human beings that are watching us, But God's doing something larger and more cosmic in its scope, according to the teaching of the New Testament. God's trying to put something on display and convey something about Himself to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms, and He wants to convey that message to them through the church. Talking about God's agenda for the church, he says, Paul says in Ephesians 3:10 and 11, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

And this was in accordance with the eternal purpose.

which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. God, before the world was even created, God was up to something. He had hatched this plan and, and God wants to do so much by way of glorifying Himself and making this cosmic point. He wants it to happen in the church and through the church.

And this is what we get to conduct ourselves in day by day, what we get to be a part of. And in our passage today, God is essentially going to say you have a role to play in the accomplishing of this great and glorious, mighty plan. That I communicate to you in my word. And so God would say, here's the part that I want you to play.

And on the Lord's behalf, what I'm going to convey from 1 Peter 4:7 and following is 5 ways that you can really help this church here at Cornerstone. If you're just visiting, here's 5 ways you can help whatever church that you, call your church home. Let me read the passage and then we'll break it down. Verse 7.

The end of all things is near. Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 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, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

5 things. Let's try to go through this this morning. The first thing, out of Peter's mouth, by way of telling you how you can really be a help to the local church that you're a part of, is this, and that is be sane, be sane and get into prayer. Be sane and get into prayer.

Look what he says in verse 7. The end of all things is near, therefore, be a sound judgment. Literally, in the Greek text, it's just be sane, be sane. This is the word for sanity as opposed to insanity.

So it's like if you really want to be a help around here, don't be crazy. Be sane. And then he also says, be sober. This is to be in control of your senses as opposed to being drunk or intoxicated with wine or whatever else there might be out there that would disconnect you from reality and cause you to be out of control.

And so he's saying, you want to be a help. Here's what I need you to do be sane and sober, he says, for the purpose of prayer. Now what's interesting. About this is the way this reads literally.

I want to give you a literal rendering of this. in, in the Greek text at the end of verse 7, he says, the end of all things is near, therefore, be sane and sober into prayer. Be sane and sober into prayer. It's just an interesting, way of wording that he doesn't just say pray, he could have said that.

No, he says be sane and sober into. Prayer. What is he conveying by that? Part of what Peter is conveying by this, is this, and that is that sane people pray.

People that are connected to reality, as it really exists. who are sane in that sense, they pray. People that are sober, pray. Let's flip that around.

In the mind of Peter, prayerlessness is insanity. In the mind of Peter, quite literally, guys, someone who is not devoted to prayer is drunk on something. That's, that's quite literally. The idea that Peter is conveying, people that are really connected to reality, as it really exists in the physical and in the spiritual realm, they pray.

And Peter could tell volumes about a Christian based on whether that person prays or not. And if they don't pray, he says you're crazy. You're disconnected from reality. So he says, you want to be a help around here, get sane and sober into prayer.

And he doesn't just say pray. He's like, get into prayer. Do you just pray or do you get into prayer? That's what he's urging.

us to do here. Think about the connection to reality, like why, why we should pray if we're really sane. the truth is, if, if God could remove the scales from our eyes, and we can see as he sees, no one would ever need to tell us to pray, right? What we would just pray.

Think about it. One of the things we try to accomplish here at Cornerstone is the salvation of souls, right? So we engage in ministry in order to cause that to happen, but there's a problem, and that is that the souls we're wanting to save are dead. And we can't raise them from the dead.

They're not even able to respond to the message of the gospel without the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in their life. And so if we really see that as we plan our ministries and how we're going to reach out to the lost, we're not going to think, man, we got to do this and we got to do that as if it's all up to us. we would realize that God's got to show up and God's got to do a work. Also, you think about, the, the spiritual opposition that you wake up to every morning.

Guys, the, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, the principalities and the powers and the evil one and demonic beings. If, if we could see the enormity of their power, and the ferocity of their intentions against us, I guarantee you, if we could see that for just 5 seconds, we would pray, if we were connected to that reality. Just silly illustration. Let's say that I, I, put you in this big 20 by 20 metal cage and I say, I'm gonna have you engage in a wrestling match.

And so you're like, OK, and so you, you trust me because I'm your pastor and you go in there and, and And you're wondering what you're what or who you're going to be wrestling against and I usher in this 800 pound lion with rippling muscles, just a hungry, ferocious lion. I don't even know if they get that big, but imagine there's an 800 pound lion that that I have sent into that cage and then I lock the cage door behind the lion. Here's my question. Would you pray?

Would you pray? I think you would pray and you would do more than pray, you would get into prayer, what? You wouldn't be like, Lord, thank you for this day and Help me, help me with this situation. no, you would be very passionately into prayer, right?

Guys, that's just a physical lion that weighs 800 pounds that multiply that by infinity, and we're talking the reality of what we're up against, against us, as we try to serve God and be holy day by day, what we're up against in our marriages. As we try to have a godly marriage, what we're up against as we're pursuing the hearts of our children and trying to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, all that opposition is aligned against them and aligned against our efforts and everything that we do that God commands us to do to serve his kingdom purposes.

We've got all of that opposition lined up against us. And Peter says, if you're not devoted to prayer, you're disconnected from reality.

You're insane, or you're drunk on something. So he's saying, get a clue, get a grip on reality, be sane and sober and get into prayer. He's saying. And what, I think Peter starts with this because this is first, because it's the last thing that the devil would want conveyed, right?, the devil really doesn't mind ministry fairs.

He doesn't mind Christians busy about ministries, as long as he can keep them from prayer. In fact, listen to what one writer says, Samuel Chadwick. He says the one concern the devil has is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless ministries.

He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. That's not to say that our ministries are meaningless. It's just we need to realize that we can do everything we do perfectly, but if God doesn't show up, then all of our labor is for naught. My favorite commentator says this.

He says the devil cares but little about how many activities we engage in, or how many organizations the church has developed, so long as he can keep believers from intensive prayer. Without prayer, all the machinery is useless for lack of power. So we just need to have a humble assessment of ourselves and our inabilities apart from Christ, realizing that apart from Him. We can do absolutely nothing.

Realizing the opposition that is about us and the real stakes that we're up against. And if we are connected to those realities and fully sobered by them, we will not only pray as individuals and in our homes and in our care groups and in our Bible studies and in whatever other opportunities we have to come together. not only will we pray, but we will, as a people get into prayer. And as we pray and cry out to God, God is a prayer answering God.

And God willing, he will show up and he will do a work. And as I talked about earlier in the service, our prayers that he would do a work so great that no one would ever accuse us of having done it. They would know it's the work of God. So you want to be a help around here, pray, be sane, be sober, and pray.

Some people feel it's their first duty in a church to criticize. And they're, man, they're real sharp and keen and observing anything wrong with other people in the church or in the leadership, and, and they're free to speak about that. In fact, it's, it's their spiritual gift, the gift of criticism. And, and what, if that's you, I'm not even going to try to talk you out of that.

All right. Here's all I'll ask for. Can you give us equal time in the presence of God? Can you spend as much time praying for us?

We got a long way to go. Can you spend as much time praying for us as you do criticizing us? You spend that much time praying for us, I think the rest will take care of itself. You really want to be a help to this local church, get sane and sober, and get into prayer, because it all ultimately does depend upon God and we need to cry out to Him.

That's our, that's the first miracle. That's our first posture as we approach all of our ministry. There's a second thing to To do to be a help at your local church, and that is to go above and beyond in loving your flawed fellow Christians. Go above and beyond in loving your flawed fellow Christians.

He says in verse 8, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. First of all, just notice the language there in the New American Standard, keep fervent. In other words, stay fervent in your love for one another. That's a good capturing of what Peter is conveying here.

See, it's easy to be fervent at the outset. You get to know someone and whoa, this person's really great and you're fervent in your love for them. Maybe you meet, a partner and you're like, oh, this is the perfect spouse, and, and the way people are when they first fall in love with each other and man, their love is so fervent, but then over time reality sets in and they see the failings and, and the disappointments become a reality and it's easy for that fervency to wane. And also in the church, the same thing happens.

Someone comes into a church and, and maybe they're fed up with their previous church, they come into a new church, and they're like, Whoa, this is like the greatest place. I've had people talk about Cornerstone that way, like this is such, Cornerstone is such a breath of fresh air and, and we love this church and here's all the great things about it and we're just so happy that God has brought us here and And to such people, I feel it my duty on behalf of this body to say, just give us some time.

And we will no doubt disappoint you. You stick around long enough, you're going to see our faults and our failings.

We're going to disappoint you. Undoubtedly, we're going to wound you. We're going to give you abundant reasons to have your love for us become less and less fervent. See, Peter acknowledges that reality.

He acknowledges the fact that there's much in our brothers and sisters and in the church that would seek to quench that fervency, but he's like, what? Maintain that fervency in your love. Don't let the sins and the failings of others cause that to diminish or wane. God doesn't allow his fervency of love to wane towards us, and so we should not towards others.

In fact, I love what Mark Dever says. This is a great test, guys. He says, do you want to know that your new life is real? Like, do, do you want to know you're a genuine believer in Christ and that this life in Christ is real?

Do you want to know that? Here's the test, commit yourself to a local group of saved sinners. Try to love them. And don't just do it for 3 weeks.

Don't just do it for 6 months, do it for years. And I think you'll find out and others will too, whether or not you love God, the truth will show itself. Can you stick with a body of flawed believers that are all In their journey, and there's a lot of messes and, and failings and disappointments, and yes, even sins and immaturities. Can you be committed to a local body of believers for the long haul, and not only love them, but fervently love them.

Keep fervent in your love for them. That's the command. Back, going back to the, the previous slide, this, the word that's translated fervent literally has the idea of being stretched out, being put to full strain. being exerted to the limit of one's strength.

The idea literally is, is extend yourselves in love, extend yourselves out in love for each other. It speaks of, of, of being stretched out in this way and extending oneself and loving others to the limit of one's strength as opposed to slight efforts at love or half-hearted efforts at love or short-lived. Efforts at love. And you guys, you've been around long enough to know that we can be guilty of what you see there at the bottom of the screen.

So many times we will do a few right things just so the record will show that, that the record show that I did this and this and this, and we'll make efforts and those efforts are short lived. Well, I give up. I did everything that I could when we know that we have not, we've not fully stretched ourselves out and love towards another person. But that's what Peter's commanding us to do, to extend ourselves to the limit and beyond.

What we think, think are the limits in loving our brothers. Look what he says, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Peter understands that what diminishes our fervency is the sins of our brothers and sisters, and he's like, hey, I understand that. I get that, but allow God to produce in you a fervency of love that extends yourself through and beyond and in spite of the sins and the failings.

Of your brothers and sisters in the Lord and love them the same way God loves you through and in spite of and beyond your sins and your failures against Him. He says love covers a multitude of sins. Listen to what one writer says. He says this love.

refuses to deliberately expose the sins it encounters to the gaze of all. It prefers to refrain from and discourage all needless talk about them. It acts to throw a veil over them. Do you guys understand that?

That true love covers sin, to the best of its ability, it, it shields that. Now, and you don't want to take this wrong because, you may be thinking, what about Matthew 18, where we're told to confront sin. We are, do we just let sin go? No, but Matthew 18 actually makes my point, and Peter's point here.

Jesus says, if your brother sins, go to your brother. What's it say? Privately. So he's saying more than just go to your brother.

He's saying go privately. In other words, you shield that brother's failing from the view of other people. You don't bring them in on it. If your brother sins, he doesn't say, go tell everybody else, go tell the church, pick up the phone and call your closest friends and say, you won't believe what so and so did.

No, no, go to your brother privately. So as you go to your brother to address the sin in love, you're just, you're casting a veil over that. You're doing to your brother what you would want done to you. And then if your brother refuses to repent, you might be like, Oh, can I tell the church now?

Can I expose it now? Well, Jesus says, take 2 or 3 others, but only 2 or 3. And so not only are you now letting them in on What that brother's sin is, but you're shielding it. You're continuing to shield it from everybody else.

You get the picture. And only if there's persistent unrepentance do you escalate that circle and widen the circle of knowledge and awareness of that brother's sin. This, this hits right. At our sinful hearts because we all know sometimes it feels real good to talk about the sins of other people, right?

Because it makes us feel better about ourselves. It, it, it can feel good to talk about the failings of someone else's children in the church. Can you believe what they did? I can't.

It, it feels good to talk about that because it makes you feel better. We all have that evil that is inside of us. But Peter is saying, stretch yourself out, and in love, like cover the sins of a brother while you're dealing with it, praying over that brother and addressing those issues, doing towards your brother and sister exactly what you would want done to you. So just a beautiful balance here.

So verse 8, we're essentially learning that there's going to be sins and failures in the church that we're going to have to address when those are manifested. You don't bolt and get out of there and go find a church where there are not sins and failures. No, you stretch yourself out in love towards your brothers and sisters in the church. We need that from everyone in the Cornerstone family.

There's a third thing to do if you want to be a help. to this church body, not a hindrance, and that is love others with your house. And do it without complaining. Love others with your house and do it without complaint.

Verse 9, be hospitable to one another without complaint. Now, the expression that's translated be hospitable, is a combination of two words in the Greek text, it's the word for love and the word strangers. So, And the word for love is the particular word that speaks of the love of friendship. So it's like looking at someone who may be a stranger today, and you're like that person will not be a stranger tomorrow.

I will love this person and open my heart. I will open my home to this person who is today a stranger so that tomorrow they will no longer be strangers to me. To be hospitable is to warmly reach out to and welcome others into your life and home, including those presently outside your circle of family and friends whom you presently know well. At the bottom of hospitality, though, it includes a hard attitude.

Of openness towards people at the bottom of it, whenever this word is used, it always has the idea of loving people with your home, with your house, opening up your home, your house to other people and loving them with your home and in your home and with the stuff that's in your home. Alexander Strau says this about hospitality. He says hospitality flashes out love in a uniquely personal and sacrificial way. Through the Ministry of Hospitality, we share our most prized possessions.

We share our family, our home, finances, food, privacy, and time. Indeed, we share our very lives. So, hospitality is always costly. Through the Ministry of Hospitality, we provide friendship, acceptance, fellowship, refreshment, comfort and love and one of the richest and deepest ways possible for humans to understand.

He goes on to say this, that unless we open the doors of our homes to one another, the reality of the local church as a close-knit family of loving brothers and sisters is only a theory. I think we need to receive that point. I was blessed on Friday. I and a few men from our church, we just finished going through a book by Strau, Leading with Love, and we Skyped him and had a video conversation with him and got to ask him questions, and one of our questions was about how he implements hospitality in his day to day life.

And I'm not even going to tell you everything he said because it was pretty overwhelming. But I'll say this, he indicated that probably not a day goes by that he's not showing hospitality to somebody, that just, people just come by and come in and they are able to love them in the context of their, their home. And that, that lifestyle is something that, like I know I've got a lot of growing in as a church, I think we can, many of you really model this beautifully, but, but for many of us, I think we've got some journeying to do to where I, I think we need to start reimagining what our life is like from this standpoint, to where, look what he says, be hospitable, to where hospitality is not just something we do, it's who we are.

Just try to revision your life over the next month.

Like what if over the next month, this was just who you were? And you just, I'm going to love people with my home. What, what would your life look like? And I, I think all of us need to just start thinking and getting a vision for that.

And then just start taking baby steps in that direction and just, and being this, where it's not just something we do, it's, it's the essence of who we are from day to day. this is the way the early church was in the Book of Acts. The New Believers. It says day by day they were continuing with one mind in the temple, and they were breaking bread from house to house.

So they gathered in the temple, big group gathering, and the rest of the body life. Guess where it happened? From house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God. Our dream is ultimately, and this, this largely comes from our study of First Timothy, is that at Cornerstone, every member of Cornerstone will begin to see his home as an extension of the Cornerstone campus, to where we see our homes, dorm rooms, Apartments, condos, town homes, whatever that we're seeing where we live as a cornerstone facility, an extension of the, of the church campus.

When you think about it that way, we are a multi-church facility with tons of square footage, right? And if, if every one of us just say, what, beginning with my family, here's the deal, our home is going to be an outpost for the kingdom of God, where God's grace, His gospel wisdom is going to be put on display in this home, and then issuing forth from this home. And by the grace of God, our home will be a place of worship, and ministry and instruction. And outreach.

Imagine if we all had that vision for our home, to where it's like, what, I'm going to love people, and I'll love them wherever I am, but I'm also going to heed this call to love people with my house, to love people with the stuff that I have. I will bring them in, and I will love them. Peter says, this is, this is, you really want to be a blessing and to be a help to the church that you're a part of, be this, be hospitable to one another without complaints. Just adding the words without complaint indicates that Peter gets it.

He understands that there's cause for complaint when we show hospitality. One writer says these words without complaint add a sharp twang of realism. Then, as now, guests could overstay or otherwise abuse their host's welcome. It is a good reminder that hospitality can be an exasperating chore to be shouldered cheerfully if it is to be worthwhile.

our biggest motivation to be hospitable. The fact that we ourselves are the recipients of an amazing hospitality from God through Christ. That's what the gospel is. We are rebels on this planet, and God sent His Son into our world, and he suffered and died for our sins.

God raised him from the dead and ascended him to his own right hand. And from that position, Jesus is now giving salvation to those of us on this planet who believe in Him and acknowledge our own bankruptcy, repent of our sins, put our trust in Jesus Christ, and once he saves us, he doesn't say, OK, you're saved. Just enjoy that, but stay. You are, you're not getting into my home.

No, we then realize that the whole purpose of the gospel, the whole purpose of forgiveness and justification, is to get that stuff out of the way so that God can now freely bring us into his home that he's preparing for us. To live with Him forever. We will through all eternity, be the recipients of divine hospitality. And all the saving work of Jesus, all the forgiveness and grace and all the stuff we experience in our journey on this planet is simply what God is doing to ready us to live with Him for all of eternity.

Now let me ask you, as God is engaging in this effort at hospitality, have we given him reason to complain? Have we? Be bold. OK, we've given him multiple reasons to complain.

We've given him multiple reasons to say, what, actually, I'm done with this hospitality thing. I changed my mind. You just enjoy being saved and stay where you are, but stay out of my house. We've given him reasons, but he doesn't do that.

And so here we are destined for this amazing hospitality for all eternity, and God's just saying, hey, I just, I just want you to do with your home the same thing I've done with mine. I just want I want you to love. And what, as you do this, you'll be wrong. Your kindness will be abused or not appreciated, just like my love and kindness are abused and appreciated by you yourself.

Just be like me in your hospitality towards others. This is being hospitable is a tremendous way. To be a great blessing and a help to what God is trying to do here at Cornerstone. We would love to see, because I think it matches the picture in the Bible, a migration occur from ministry on this campus at Linden Street to where, yeah, a lot of it still takes place here, but that there's a migration of a chunk of ministry that now begins to take place more and more in the environment of the home and from house to house.

That's part of what the care groups are all about, but it goes far beyond. Just our weekly care group gatherings. We got far to go. We got a lot to figure out, but we're thankful for passages like this that stop us in our steps and help us to revision how different things can be as a church and in our lives from day to day.

There's a 4th thing that we can look at. And the 5th thing will be very, very quick. So this is, it's very much tied to the 4th thing, and that is if you want to be a help here at Cornerstone, put your spiritual gifts to work for the benefit of others. Put your spiritual gifts to work for the benefit of others in the body.

Look what he says in verse 10, as each one has received a charisma, OK. So don't freak out, but we are actually in this sense, a charismatic church. All of us have received a charisma from the Lord, a supernatural endowment. It's a glorious ability that God has given to us.

We all have received a charisma from the Lord, as each one has received a charisma and Employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the literally multicolored caritas of God. That word grace is from the same root word as gift earlier. And what is a charisma and a caritas? It is anything God gives to us that is free and it's not earned.

In fact, it's ill deserved. So whatever gifts or charisma God has given to you, you didn't earn that. It is given to you as a gift. And God says, in the same way you've received that charisma from me, which is you've received it without deserving it.

I want you to employ that charisma and serving other people. And don't just use that charisma to bless other people that you think are worthy or deserving. No, it has the word grace on it. So you use that gift towards who you think might be deserving, and even towards the undeserving because it is a grace.

God is saying you're a steward. The gifts you have, it doesn't belong to you. You're just a steward, a keeper of this gift for now. And I think a healthy way of viewing the spiritual gifts we have, whatever the charisma is, ability that God has given to you, you need to realize that gift, you might look at that and say, this is my spiritual gift.

but technically, it's not your spiritual gift. It's got the names of all your brothers and sisters on it. And God says, I want you to put that to work for them. God looked at your brothers and sisters, he saw what they needed in Christ, in terms of grace, and God gave them much of that directly.

But God then looked at some of what your brothers and sisters needed, and, and he measured it out and deposited it inside of you. And he says, now, I, I want them to experience the fullness of my grace, so you're going to have to go connect with them, enter into a relationship with them, and use the gift that I've made you a steward of and put it to work on behalf of that brother or sister. So realize God has blessed you with a charisma, with a gift, and put that to work. In fact, if you don't, you're robbing the body.

The gifts that are inside of you belong to the church. They belong to your brothers and sisters. He says now, verse 11, there's two different categories of giftedness, those that have to do more with speech and those that might have more to do with deeds or action. He says, whoever speaks, if you've got a speaking gift, whether teaching, preaching, or prophecy, if it's understood in a certain way, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, or, I know there's different definitions for, for those things, a word of exhortation and what have you.

Any giftedness you have, whatever the name of it is that has to do with you speaking words, he says this, whoever speaks in the exercise of their giftedness is to do so as one speaking the words of God. Don't you take my gift that I've given to you and go speak in your own words or someone else's words. I didn't give you that gift so that you could go speaking the words of Sigmund Freud. To your brothers and sisters in the Lord, you speak my words.

Speak the words, the utterances of God. So be a student of my words and let all that you say to your brothers and sisters in the exercise of your speaking gift be informed, governed and shaped by the very words of God. Whoever serves. In other words, their giftedness is more in the shape of deeds.

Whoever serves is to do so as one who's serving by the strength which God supplies. Whatever your giftedness, even if you're making a meal to take over to someone, Who's going through a crisis in their life, you, you, you realize that as you do whatever you do, no matter how mundane or practical the task that you're doing so in the strength that I've given to you. Do it in my strength. You might say, well, it's easy to do this, or I can make a meal.

God's like, no, no, for you to do it with the right heart in the right spirit, and to give that to the person in a way that genuinely is manifesting my heart towards them, you can't do that in your own strength. Yeah, you can make a meal, but you can't do that and give that gift in a way that reflects my heart in your own strength. He's saying, whatever you speak, let it be my words, I want the words to come from me. And whatever you do, you do it in my strength, and that leads us to the 5th and final thing to do to really be a help to this church, and that is be most concerned about God getting the glory for all He says and all he does through you.

God says there's a reason I want you to speak in my words and doing what you do and the strength I give you. Look what he says, so that, Or in order that for the purpose that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. God says, I want you to speak in my words because I want to be glorified.

And I want you doing what you do in my strength because I want to be glorified. I want my strength to be what's on display, my wisdom, my words to be what is used and is put on display. You want to be a help to Cornerstone. You need to care only that God gets glory.

Put aside your desire to be recognized or get glory for yourself. Just, all I care about is that God is glorified. And so if God uses me in some great way through my speaking gift, Lord, all the glory goes to you. If God uses me to show love to a brother or sister, and some great way, maybe at a time when no one else in the church even knows about this person's need or they're not caring the way they should, but I'm caring and this person's like, oh thank you so much, no one else is caring about me in this time of need.

It's easy in those moments to take glory unto yourself, but no, all the glory goes to God. Guys, there's no telling what God can do in this church and through this church if all of us will just do these things and care only about the fact that God gets glory for it. We're not worried about who gets credit, other than that God gets the credit. You've heard the prayer, Lord, please send revival and let it begin with me.

You ever heard that? and often what's stated after that, or it's never stated, but it's thought, Lord, please send revival to this church. Let it begin with me. And Lord, when you do send revival, could you make sure everyone knows it started with me?

Sometimes we have that insidious evil inside of us, and Peter's calling us to something higher and something greater, something far better. So help is needed, and these are things that God is communicating to us that he wants us to do to really bless and be a help to this church. Let me ask you to bow your heads. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment.

We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. And comments, prayer requests, praise items, put those on the back of the comment card. We'll pray over those in our staff meeting, put those on our church family prayer sheet if you like. And you can put your comment cards in the offering bags as they come by in a moment.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love. We thank you for saving us and for calling us together. And then what's beautiful, Lord, is you don't just call us together, but then you, you speak to us as a group and say, now here's what I need from, from each of you.

here's the role that each of you play. And you speak to us with such insight and such grace that is so tremendously helpful. Thank you, Lord. I pray for this church body, Lord, that You would bless all those that labor in ministry.

Lord, show up. Unless you build a house, we're laboring in vain. So show up, Lord, and do what only you can do and prosper every ministry here at Cornerstone. As our folks leave this morning, Lord, and they're looking to get involved, show them ways, guide them in ways they can be involved in ministering and even through what they see outside, ways that they could be ministered to and blessed.

And just make us a richer and a more prosperous church in terms of our experience of the gospel together in community with one another. Accept our offerings, Lord, that we give to you also, because we give them to you in Jesus' name. And all God's people said,