What You Can Do to Help this Church

Turning your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 11. We're gonna take a, a one Sunday break from our study of First Timothy and this morning we'll be spending our time at the very end of Romans chapter 11, and we'll look at the 1st 8 verses of Romans 12., this is, like Mike has already said, this is our kickoff Sunday. Most people are back from their vacations at this point, and the summer being over, and then September is the month where so many of our ministries start ramping up and and and getting started.

Our Sunday school ministry, our Ana ministry, children's church ministry.

our youth ministry, men's Bible study, and our various women's Bible studies, as well as, our care group ministries. These are just some of the ministries that are starting up in, in September. So, we like to use this particular Sunday of September to, to, to think a little bit about doing church and to gather our thoughts around God's word along those lines. So that's what I want to do with the time that we have, today.

And if you want to give a title to what we're going to be talking about, it would be this, what you can do to help this church, all right, we need to help. And you probably already knew that. and we can use your help. And perhaps you are interested in doing what you can to be a help to this church, and today I want to give you 9 things from God's word that you can do that would really be a great help to us.

Now for our church to become everything that God wants it to be, for any local church to be everything God wants it to be, work needs to be done. In fact, in Ephesians chapter 4, we learned that Christ gave apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, that's you for the work of the ministry. And that word that is translated work there is the Greek word we get our English word energy from. So to work, as you probably already know, means to expend energy.

You are spending yourself and Your energy when you do work to the building up of the body of Christ. Now, how many of the saints are involved in this? Is it, is it 20% that do 80% of the work, and the church becomes everything God wants it to become? No, look at what he says.

A few verses later, he says, from Christ, who's the head of the body, from Christ, the whole body, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. So Christ is directing this as the head, but he uses his body to cause the further growth of the body. But that growth Occurs only as each member is working properly. Look again at what it says, according to the proper working of each individual part.

So there are no exceptions. We need 100% of God's people that are a part of this local church, not only working, but working properly. See, it's not really enough to just work, right?, I don't know if you've seen the bumper sticker that says Jesus is coming soon, look busy. I don't necessarily like that philosophy, but, but there's some people that, they just might think, well, I'm doing something, but they don't think about the quality of the work that they are doing.

What God is interested is, is in each member of the body working, but working properly. If I stood up here behind the pulpit and my hand started working and started slapping myself just again and again really hard, you all would sit there and say, Wow, his hand is really working, right? But it's not really working properly. And so we need to make sure that we're not just busy and not just working and expending ourselves, but that each individual member of the body is working the way that it should work at the task that it should be.

working at. And so, you're, you're going to be going outside, you probably saw it coming in. I don't know how you could miss it, but there's 31 ministries out there, as Mike said, and maybe, you're new here to Cornerstone and your thought is, what, this church really needs help, and I've got gifts and I'd love to use my gifts to, to be a help here at Cornerstone. And if that's your mindset, we would love that.

but I would say that that's not all that we need for our church to be everything God wants it to be. Of the 9 things we're going to look at, that's only the last thing, all right? There's 8 other things prior to getting to that point that if you skip those 8, then even if you try to do number 9, you're going to be getting in the way and actually being more of a hindrance than a help. So with the time we have, we're going to do our best to, to look at 9 things that each of you can do, and I'm not making this stuff up to where this is Milton's will.

No, this is God speaking through His word, and we're going to pull them from the word, 9 things that God urgently desires and pleads with you to do to really make the local church or a part of everything God wants it to be. All right, you ready? All right, number 1, you really want to help. cornerstone.

Here's the first thing that God wants you to do. Get over yourself and be all about God. Get over yourself and be all about God. Look at what Paul says in Romans chapter 11, verse 36.

He says, for from him, this is the God of our salvation who has sent his Son to die and shed his blood and raised his son from the dead. and God who saves us through the shed blood of Jesus, forgives us of our sins, cleanses us through the blood of Jesus from all the guilt of our sins. This God who has accomplished this salvation. Look what Paul says, for from him and through him, and to him are all things, and to him be the glory forever.

Amen. What he's saying is this salvation has come from God. It has come through God, and it goes back to God. In other words, it is designed to save a people who now live wholly and utterly for God, seeking to glorify Him.

see, church is not about you. Life is not about you. It's not about me, but it's about something far bigger, infinitely larger and more glorious than we ourselves are, and that is God, our Savior. That's, that's what the church is all about.

And what, hearing this right off the bat, I hope that doesn't sound like a downer. It's actually really good news. all of us our default setting in our flesh is to be consumed with ourselves, right? But don't we hate that?

How many of you are happy when you're absorbed with yourself? Raise your hand. I see one kid raising their hand. They'll learn, they'll learn.

but what, when we're absorbed with ourselves, we're miserable, are we not? Think about, listen to what Timothy Keller says in his book, The Reason for God. He says, nothing makes us more miserable than self-absorption, the endless, unsmiling concentration on our needs, our wants, our treatment, our ego, and our record. You guys know from experience that when you're in a place like that, you're not a happy person when you're absorbed with yourself and your needs.

Guess what? Your needs don't get met, do they? Not the way you want them to get met. So you get angry at life and at people that aren't meeting your needs, your wants, when you're Focused on that, you don't always get your way in this fallen world, do you?

And so you get angry at God and at life and at other people when you're focused on the treatment that you think that you deserve. Guess what? You don't get treated the way that you deserve. There's not a day that goes by where you are treated the way that you might selfishly deserve.

And so you're angry and frustrated over that. He mentions ego and then record. I can't tell you the number of counseling appointments I've had where someone comes in. And they do an excellent job of confessing, for example, their spouse's sins, and they do a really pristine job of recounting their record of righteousness and good deeds.

And as they're recounting that, that's why they're frustrated, because listen, I've done all these things and look at how they're treating me. And so the more absorbed they are, even with their record, the more miserable and unsmiling they become. And so we all know this intuitively, we know this from our own experience, not just from the Bible. And so we actually should be relieved when we hear right off the bat that the best thing I can do to help the church is just get over myself and be all about God.

True happiness is truly found. and forgetting about ourselves and living for the God who created us and saved us. So we don't want, if you want to help this church, then don't be absorbed with yourself, be absorbed with God. Secondly, here's another thing that God would urge you to do, and that is to know and be motivated always by the gospel, to, to seek to study the gospel, to understand the gospel of what God has done for you through Jesus, to become expert on this gospel.

And then not only to know the gospel, because it's possible to know the gospel and then put it on a shelf somewhere. but to know the gospel and then to download what into your fuel tank, all right. In other words, you download that into your heart and then let your life be motivated by an overflow of your celebration and appreciation of God and what He has done for you through Jesus. Look what Paul says in Romans 12:1.

He says, Therefore, I urge you, I beg you, brethren, by the mercies of God, I'm going to tell you guys to do something here. But if I can motivate you somehow, I'll motivate you this way. Therefore, Which points back to everything he has said in chapters 1 through 11. And then he makes it even more clear, I urge you by the mercies of God, if I can hold out the banner of the mercies of God that I've been describing for you, you were sinners deserving God's wrath and his judgment, but God sent His Son into the world to die.

And by believing in Him, God responded to that faith by cleansing you of your sins. A whole lifetime of sins, making you as child and look at what you deserve from God and, and, and gaze upon this and then be motivated by this in worship to this God, and in ministry to other people. You look at someone in your life that needs ministry, and you're like, well, that person doesn't deserve my time. what, you didn't deserve God's time.

Study the mercies of God in your own life, and then you will have mercy to give to other people. Somebody wrongs you and you, you want to strangle them. and you don't want to show them love, but if you stop and look at the mercy that God has shown to you, you're like, Well, God has done this for me. I deserve to be thrown in the lake of fire.

But instead, God's lavished His grace on me. And so look at my sins against God. Those are forgiven. So can I not give even a lesser grace to this person that they require from me?

See, if we go to the gospel and we're absorbed in the gospel and breathing gospel fumes all the time, that will change us and out of the overflow of that we desire to worship God and we, we then mimic the gospel in our relationships with other people. And so even as a believer, please don't set the gospel aside once you're converted. Every day, live in the good of the gospel, keep the mercies of God in front of you, and let those mercies motivate you to worship God and to minister.

There's a third thing that we can learn from this text that you can do to help this church that God would urge you.

To do, and that is to become a part of a fully surrendered community sacrifice to God, to become a part, make this decision that I want to become a part of a fully surrendered community sacrifice to God. Look at what he says in verse one. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice to God. Now when he says present your bodies, he's not saying you only have to present your body.

You don't have to worry about presenting the rest of yourself, just your body. Make sure you present that. No, he uses the words your bodies to show the extent of our surrender. All right, we surrender our whole selves all the way down to the physical part of who we are.

This is an entire absolute surrender. And he says to present your whole selves down to your physical being as a living and a holy sacrifice. Now, we're a living sacrifice now. Why?

Because through the gospel, God has made us alive, right? And we're holy in the sense that we've been made holy through the gospel. The reason God has brought us to life through the gospel, and by his mercy, the reason that God has made us holy and righteous through the gospel is so that we could then come to Him as a living and holy sacrifice, wholly dedicated unto Him, He wants us to be a living sacrifice. Think about what that means.

why would God want us to be a living sacrifice? You might say, well, I know why, because like in the Old Testament, he wanted dead sacrifices, but we're alive, we're not supposed to kill ourselves. So we're supposed to be a living sacrifice. That's not entirely accurate.

The truth is, in the Old Testament, even God always wanted a living sacrifice. Imagine someone making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and before they leave, they find a dead animal. And then they bring that to Jerusalem and hand it to the priests and say, Here's my sacrifice. It's a dead animal.

No, God wanted living animals. That were without blemish, that were holy as it were, and then those animals' lives were surrendered on the altar. And so it's the same with us. God wants us to come to Him as living and holy sacrifices, and then we, as we sacrifice before Him our lives.

What that means is that we die to ourselves. What we say is our life as we have now known it is over. I'm not going to live for myself anymore, Lord. I want to wholly unto you in doing your will.

People who do that on the front end, it looks like dying. But on the other end, we find that we enter into life truly at its fullest. Jesus died on the cross, right? Is he alive today?

Yes, he's alive. God raised him from the dead. Often we are afraid of dying. We're afraid of these layers of dying that God calls us to.

We cling to life as we know it, when God would say, Come on, just let yourself die, because on the other side of those layers of dying is a life that is far more amazing, far more intimate and glorious than right now what you are experiencing. And so what looks like dying we actually see is is ascending. It is experiencing life at its fullest. Now, as we look at that, you might say, well, Pastor Mountain, why do you have to word it this way, become a part of a fully surrendered community sacrifice to God.

Why don't you just say, present yourself as a sacrifice to God? Where does this idea of community come from? It actually comes from the text itself. If you look very carefully at the text, and some of your English translations don't catch this, some of them do.

And so let me just help you out with this. Literally in the Greek text, here's what Paul is saying in verse 1. He says, present your plural, so he's speaking to many people, present your plural bodies plural, a sacrifice singular. That's extremely significant.

He doesn't say if he were talking to all of us that, that I want all 400 of you to present yourselves. Involves all the way down to your physical being as 400 individual sacrifices plural to God. Now some of your translations have the word sacrifices plural, but in the Greek text, it's singular. What Paul would say if he were standing here today is what he's trying to express in this passage is this I want every one of you individually To come together and present yourselves plural as a single community sacrifice to God.

There's actually two movements here. There is movement towards your brothers and sisters in the community of faith, you link up your arms with them, and then you step forward with them as a single sacrifice to God. Does that make sense? and what, that's where some people have a problem.

God, you want me to surrender myself to you, I can do that. But I'll move this way. But they look at this body of Christians, messed up Christians over here, and they're like, I'm supposed to move that way and then move towards you and worship. And they're like, I don't want anything to do with these messed up people.

And you hear people say, in the church, people are really messed up, it's full of hypocrites. In fact, people are more messed up in the church than even people out in the world. And is that not to a degree true? but think about it., let's take the analogy of the hospital.

Aren't most people in the hospital sicker statistically than people are out in the general population? Yes or no? So have you ever heard anyone say I'm not going to that hospital, because studies have been done that show that people statistically are sicker. There's a higher percentage of sicker people in the hospital than there are outside of the hospital, so I'm not going there.

Does anyone ever talk that way? No, because they know that sick people come to the hospital because they know that they need the care that is provided there. So of course the church is. is full of messed up people that are still dealing with a lot of issues of sin and their lives because those people are the ones who actually perceive their need for a Savior more than those who might think that they have it more together.

And so yes, you come to a church and And if you've been at Cornerstone for a week or two, and you're like, Man, I love this place. sometimes we hear people like that, they've been here a week or two, and they're like, in heaven, like, this is awesome. And I always tell them, just give us some time. And, and you'll start seeing our imperfections, and we don't want to do this, but we're going to wound you and, and you're going to start seeing, a lot of stuff.

But, we're on a journey and God loves us and he's growing with us and you're welcome to stick around and go on that journey. with us. but this is what God is calling us to do, to, he's calling every believer to make a move towards the community of faith, and then to link up his life with them, and then as a community to present ourselves to God. And are you willing to make that move?

Towards your imperfect brothers and sisters, Mark Dever, I love what he says. He says, Do you want to know that your new life is real? You want to know that you're really saved? Commit yourself to a local group of saved sinners.

Try to love them. 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. if someone really gets the gospel, if they're willing to respond to what God has done in their life by moving towards other messed up sinners in the community of faith, someone who looks at a community of saved sinners as beneath them, I don't want anything to do with them, they don't get the gospel. They don't understand that.

That's exactly what God did to them. God reached out to them and His grace and mercy. They didn't deserve a single thought from God. They deserved His judgment for the sins that they committed.

And, and, and God simply asking this saved person to now do what God Himself did for that saved individual, to come to other saved sinners and link his life with them, and to be a part of a single coherent community sacrifice to God. So if you really want to help this church, then move towards the community here and become a part of an ongoing ever increasing in its purity, community sacrifice of worship to God. There's a 4th thing that you can do to help out this church and that God would urge upon you, and that is don't let the world press you into its mold.

Don't let the world press you into its mold.

Verse 2, do not be conformed. To this world implied is that the world is trying to press you into its mold and you need to resist that influence of the world. The world is not trying to help you towards godliness. Hollywood executives are not sitting around their.

Conference tables pondering how can we encourage God's people towards holiness and godliness. Musicians, secular musicians are not sitting around just thinking about what lyrics can I write that would encourage holiness and love for God. The world is not, that's not their interest. That's not what they're trying to do.

They're trying to press you into the opposite mold because they want you just like them. And that highlights the danger that a number of Christians and even churches unfortunately have fallen into that in their efforts and their legitimate passion to convert the world. The church tries to become just like the world in an attempt to convert them, but at the end of the day, guess who got converted? The church got converted to worldliness.

And people in the world have not been converted to Christ and to holiness. And so in our individual lives as well as as a church, we want to be careful that we're being molded and shaped by God and by His word and by the gospel, and that we are resisting the influence of the world. I don't have this slide in my notes for some reason, but it's on the screen behind me. But William Kirk Kilpatrick in his book Psychological Seduction.

says something to the effect that, people come into the church in the first place because they're burned out on what the world has had to offer them, and we in the church render such people a great disservice when all we do is give them more of the same. We need to be a sanctuary, a place where God's presence is felt, where our goals are different than the goals of those that are in the world. And so we need as individuals and as a community of faith to steadfastly resist the influence of the world around us and seek to be conformed instead.

By God and His word.

That leads to the 5th thing that you can do if you want to help out and make a contribution at this church, and be a part of this church family, and that is be perpetually transforming, be constantly, continuously changing and transforming. He says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. and this is present tense. So be continuously undergoing a transformation all the time, every day.

Be committed to change, be committed to transformation., if you come into this church or any other church, let's say you come into Cornerstone and your attitude is, hey guys, this is just who I am. You're just gonna have to deal with it. I am who I am. If that's your mindset, and we say this in every new member's class, if that's your mindset, talk to me because I've got a list of churches that I could recommend you to, and Cornerstone's not on that list, OK?

you don't belong here. We don't want people that this is who I am and I'm not going to change. I'm not going to grow. We want people that understand.

That there's a lot of changing that still needs to take place. God here is talking to people that He has saved gloriously through the gospel. And having saved them, he looks at them and says, be constantly changing. that implies something a little negative, right?

If I hung out with you for a few days, and then you said, Well, what do you have to say to me now? I would, and if I said, you got to change. You would take that as a criticism, right? You would think Milton's seeing something that's either incomplete or is not altogether right.

And so God has saved us. We're forgiven, and he looks at us and he says, be constantly undergoing transformation. I love the fact that he says this rather than be perfect. He doesn't call us to be perfect, but to be on a journey of transformation.

The truth is we all mess up. We all mess up, but God is pleased if we repent and seek forgiveness and walk in His grace and day by day are changed into something that God is fashioning. Implied in this command to be transformed is a number of things. Number one, we're never done being transformed.

This is present tense, so be daily undergoing transformation. You're never ever going to reach a place where you no longer need to be transformed anymore. All right. I hope that's not discouraging for you, but it's just easy for us in our Christian life to reach a place where, we're undergoing change, and then we start looking around us at everyone else, and it's like, actually, I'm about where everyone else is.

In fact, I'm, I'm actually a little bit ahead of everyone else around me. So, and then we just stopped growing. When God would say, no, keep being transformed, even, I'll use that transformation in your life to spur on those around you who also need to continue on that journey of transformation. Also, when he tells you to be perpetually transforming, implied in that is that your focus should primarily be on your own transformation.

He doesn't say transform the church. He doesn't say transform your spouse. He doesn't say transform the other people in your life, although you are to be involved definitely in, in, in God's work of transformation in other people's lives, but that's not where your primary focus is. Your primary focus is to be the change that you want to see in other people.

And so many times. I've I've not only seen this in my life, but, but in, in counseling, there are people that are waiting to change, because they're waiting for someone else to change first. They're waiting for their spouse to change. And when my spouse starts doing this and this and this, then I will change and, and start behaving differently.

And God would say, don't be waiting on anybody else. You have a responsibility to focus on yourself and to be the very change that you want to see in other people. Implied in this instruction also is the fact that transformation is not something you do, it's something you allow God to do. The voice of this verb is, is passive, meaning he's not saying transform yourselves.

You can't do that. He's saying let yourself be transformed, and God is the one who does that. Another thing implied here is that the change that God wants to produce in you is really radical. In fact, the Greek word translated transform is the Greek word we get our English word metamorphosis from, like a caterpillar would would change, be transformed into a butterfly.

No one would ever guess a butterfly came from that caterpillar if they had not scientifically observed that. That fact. So God is saying be radically transformed down to the very depths of your being., sometimes we come to God, and we don't ever use these words, but we, our, our attitude is, God, you have every right and you have my permission to tweak my life in any way that you see fit, you have permission to make some adjustments, Lord, please, your God and I guess I need to grow and, and if you need to make adjustments or to tweak a few things in me, then please do that.

God responds by saying, I'm not interested in tweaking you.

I'm interested in transforming you down to the very core. of your being. In this sense, every one of us in the church should be revolutionaries, not so much the revolutionaries where we're out to revolutionize the culture and the lives of other people, although it would be great if God used us for that purpose, but we need to be the re revolutionaries where we allow God not to tweak us, but to accomplish a revolution inside of us, where our prayer is not just God, change me or tweak me or make adjustments, but God revolutionize me and my life into something radically different, and to be constantly, continuously on that journey of transformation.

So be committed to change.

And you'd really be a blessing at whatever church you are at. A 6th thing you can do to help whatever church you're a part of is never stop renewing your mind in any area, on any topic. We need to be thinkers. We need to be thinking people that are committed to renewing our minds.

Look what he says. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, to renew means to renovate, it means to refurbish. All right.

And that sounds like a really positive word, right? Actually, it is, but it involves something extremely negative. All right. To renew one's mind means to take in the new and to throw out the old.

Like if I were to refurbish our home, That does not just mean that I buy all new furniture and appliances, appliances and bring them into my home. It also means that I throw out the old. what would you think if I said we're having an open house, we've refurbished our home, and we just want everyone in the church to see it, and you all show up and there's all this new stuff, but everything old is still there. We've got the old bed mattress and then the new ones just laying on top of it and a new washer and dryer, but the old ones are still there in the house and we've got new furniture, couches, but all the old ones are still there.

You would say you haven't refurbished your home, right? You've not renewed your home. And, and you would rightly think that even though we brought in new stuff, the job is not finished because we didn't get rid of the old. And so when God says to be continuously renewing your mind, what that means is that we're reading the Bible, we're taking in the truth of the gospel, but at the same time we're looking for the lies and the deceptions and the sins in our thinking, and we're renouncing them and expelling them and replacing them with the truth.

So to renew your mind means that you need to be able to be critical of yourself, critical of your own thinking. You need to realize that your own wisdom that you wake up with in the morning actually is not only not sufficient, but it's usually dangerous, and you need to be able to critique your own thinking and look for those things that are wrong and to bring in God's truth and renounce the wrong thinking that's inside. your own head, that's what it means to renew. This is a continuous thing, meaning no matter how long you live, there's always going to be stuff to renew.

There's always going to be things to expel and say no to and new truth that you need to take in, or even old truth to understand more deeply and understand here, as you see on the screen, never stop renewing your mind in any area. This and to our way of thinking includes the way that you do theology. One of the things that unfortunately has happened throughout church history is that, for example, Martin Luther, during the Reformation, he made great strides away from the false doctrine that he grew up in, and God used him in a great way, but then a bunch of people, when he died, drew a circle around Martin Luther's theology and said, we're Lutherans.

And their basic mindset is, God, don't give us any more light outside of this circle.

And the Wesleyans did the same thing with the teaching of John Wesley, and many, many denominations have done exactly that. And before we're too critical of such things, all of us, I think, to one degree or another, are guilty of that. It's easy for us to maybe study an issue and then to reach a point of arrival. To where we draw a circle around our present understanding of a given passage or a given topic and basically say, God, I don't want any more light outside this circle.

Rather than here's, here's what we would love from everyone in the Cornerstone family, that you see theology as a journey. That's the way you do theology and that there's no doctrine in the Bible, as I said last Sunday, there's no doctrine in the Bible, even the deity of Christ that we're persuaded about, that we understand as fully as we should. We're still on a journey, even in understanding the full depths of that. And with any doctrine, we need to be willing for God to show us light outside of our present systems, our present circles.

And even if it shatters our systems, we need to say that's OK, Lord. I'm not, my allegiance is not to my circles, not to my systems. I just want to follow you here at this church. We have people all over the place.

we're agreed on the fundamentals, but we've got people in our church that are charismatic, some in our church that that are not, some in our church that lean more on the spectrum towards Arminianism, and others that lean more towards Calvinism. the issue on, for me regarding subjects like that is not so much where you are right now. But are you willing to abstain from drawing a tight circle around your present understanding of those issues? And to not say, God, don't give me any more light.

Are you willing to just go on a journey with us as a church body as we just try to keep our nose low to the text and just sniff out our theology as we derive it one verse at a time from God's word and it's a journey. Let's see where we go. And as we discuss theology with one another and process it in community with one another, we do so as fellow travelers on a journey that's not finished. Rather than as some do, they have theological discussions from positions of arrival.

I, I've studied this and I am done and I want to talk to you about the subject that I'm now persuaded about. We shouldn't do that. We want people in our church body that do theology as a journey and they're willing to join us on that journey, allowing God to show them whatever light from His word, even if that light falls outside of their present circles. Never stop renewing your mind in any area.

And if you are going to draw a tight circle and you don't want any more light outside those circles, Again, I've got a list of churches that I can recommend you to, and Cornerstone's not on that, on that list. There's a 7th thing that, that God would urge you to do. And that is to make it your daily ambition to discover and demonstrate that the will of God is exceedingly awesome. Look what he says at the end of verse 2.

You do this so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. In other words, I want you to do these things that I'm commanding you to do. Not just because God commands you to, but, but on a personal campaign to discover in your own experience something about the will of God, and that is that it is good, it is acceptable, meaning extremely pleasing, and it is perfect. God wants you to go on a journey.

He dares you. Try out my will, set your will aside, and you'll see how amazing my will is. Unfortunately, we, we sometimes have this view of our own will, like it's some grandiose glorious thing. And then there's God's will over here, and it's this small little colorless thing and And we're called to that.

And so, all right, I'll obey the Lord. He saved me. So I will, I will die to my grandiose will, and I'll squeeze myself in sight of this, and I'll embrace God's will. And Lord, I sure hope you appreciate the sacrifice I'm making, setting this big thing aside and embracing your will instead.

What we need to understand is that it's the opposite. Our will, no matter how grandiose we think it is, is incredibly puny, colorless. It won't survive the fires of Judgment Day. It ultimately does not bring joy and happiness to our life.

But the will of God is cosmic. It is universal in its scope. It is a glorious thing. And God calls us to forget about our will and our puny ambitions, and to lose ourselves in His will.

And he says, if you do that, I guarantee you, you're going to catch yourself saying, this is good. This is well pleasing. This is perfect. You discover that and demonstrate that by your own experience, so make that your ambition.

Lose yourself in the will of God and see how glorious it is. there's an 8th thing that you can do to really help out. The church, and that is to realize that we must have each other if we are to experience the fullness of God. Realize that we need each other.

If we're going to experience God's fullness. Look at verse 3, for through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. what he's saying there? What he's saying is that God has looked at the full scope of what all of us need to be everything He wants us to be.

But he's chosen not to give to each of us the full package. Not one of us has the full package. What he's done instead is he's measured it out. He's parceled it out, and he's given pieces of the full package to us and to all our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

And then he says, Now come together and serve one another, and you will have the fullness of my blessing experientially. God is the God that if he were in this room, and he wanted to provide us a meal, he wouldn't just prepare the whole meal himself, and then have us one by one come up and get everything directly from him. What he would do is he would, He'd give to one person all the spoons, another the forks, and another the knives, another the glasses, another the ice, and, and then to another person, the, the, the drink, and to another person, the lettuce, for the salad, to another person, the tomatoes, and on and on the list can go.

And if we're talking about a meal that the Lord would make, it would be lasagna.

And God would not, he would not make that lasagna. Instead, he would give the ingredients of that lasagna. And by the way, I don't even know what the ingredients are, my wife won't tell me, because it would ruin it for me. but God would give ingredients to different people.

And when he's done, we all have something in our hands, but none of us have a complete meal. And then God says, now come together, discover what each other has. And you will have a full meal. And so we do that.

We work together and before we know it, we all have a complete meal. That's exactly what Paul is saying. God has given to each only a measure of the faith, and so we need to think humbly and realize that I don't have the full package. I'm not the full package.

I only have a part. what I need. And if I'm going to experience God's fullness, I need my brothers and sisters in my life ministering to me. And if they're going to experience God's fullness, I got to take what God's given me.

And I need to share that with my brothers and sisters, so that in community with one another, we can experience God's. Fullness that leads to the last. And the final thing that you can do to help out this church, and that is whatever gifts God has given to you, use them in ministry to others and let others do the same. To you He says in verse 4, just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function.

So we who are many are one body and individually members one of another, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. If prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness, Paul is just giving categories of giftedness.

in which we find many other gifts. And he's saying, whatever gifts God gives to you, realize those gifts are not yours, they belong to your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

And you need to share those gifts. God saw what they needed, and he deposited some of what they needed inside of you. And now he wants you to go into their lives, and share that grace he's given to you. And then you enter their lives, let them enter your life, and share the deposits of grace that God has given to you.

So as you leave this morning, check out, what God is doing here at Cornerstone. And And like Mike said, just, if you're not already involved, find, one or two ministries that are consistent with your passions, your burdens, and, and get involved. But as you use your gifts, please keep in mind, do the 1st 8 things we talked about this, this morning. The Corinthian Christians were extremely gifted, right?

And they were using their gifts, but they weren't using them in the right way, and they were causing division. So if you do the 1st 8 things, it'll set you up very well to use your gifts in a way that'll be a great blessing to this church body. Let me ask you to bow your heads. And we're going to be taking up an offering here in just a moment.

We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. Any prayer requests, praise items? You can put those on the back of the comment cards and we'll include those in our Tuesday staff meeting and pray for them. And even put them on our church prayer sheet if you want.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your amazing grace. That is ours in Christ. A grace we do not deserve, but it's one that we celebrate.

God, you've been so good to us. May we be motivated by this mercy to worship you and to show the same mercy to others. May we be humble and seeing our need for one another, humble on the journey that you are taking us on, realizing we have much to learn. Even us as a church, we have so much to learn, Lord.

And we look forward to the transformation that lies ahead. We thank you for the privilege of giving of our offerings to you. Ask that you would bless and multiply the funds that are given for the glory of your kingdom. For the fame of Jesus Christ and the gospel.

And in giving you these funds, Lord, we also give you ourselves in full surrender. And we do so in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said, And