 I love that song. I play this loop over and over in my car all week long. Jolie did a great job, love it. Joel, stand up, stand up. Everybody, if you didn't know, this is Pastor Joel Sorgi. He's our creative director. Pastor of creative arts and all the good stuff on the screens, him and his team do, and him and his wife Ann are awesome, awesome parts of the family here at Radiant. Everybody doing good? Yeah, you know, Michigan, that last shot was something else. It was incredible. It just goes to prove that we're sin abounds, grace does much more abound. And so the goodness of God extends even to the Wolverines. So you guys have to pray for us here in a couple hours because Michigan State plays, and I've got the Spartans and the Wolverines in the finals. So come on, believe God with me, and then we'll deal with it afterwards. All right, so. Hey, next weekend, just to let everybody know, it's gonna be a really special weekend. Actually, the next couple of weeks are gonna be really incredible here. Next weekend we have a very special guest, Pastor Jimmy Evans is gonna be here with us. And how many of you have heard Pastor Jimmy speak before? Okay, a lot of you. If you've never heard him, let me just tell you, he's one of the overseers of Radiant Church. He's also the founder of Marriage Today. So he's a marriage specialist, but he's not just like a talker or a consultant on the subject of marriage. He teaches it from the word of God, and it has impacted Jane and I's life hugely over the years. He's one of my personal mentors. He's gonna be here next weekend, you will not wanna miss it. And then the following weekend is Resurrection Sunday. It's Easter. So you guys ready for that? We're gonna celebrate. And the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the greatest day in history. It's changed everything. And so as Christians we gather together to celebrate that, it's gonna be a phenomenal day here at Radiant. We have three services, 8.30, 10.30, and 12.30 on Sunday morning as well as Saturday night. And so what that means for you 11 o'clockers is we need you to part the red seat and shift gears. Some of you were gonna ask to go to 8.30, and some of you were gonna ask to go to 12.30. How many of you would say I'd be willing to go to 8.30 in the morning to worship Jesus on Easter Sunday? Raise your hand. See I love that, I love that because you're saying if he can get up from the grave, I can get up out of bed. I love that, I like that. Okay, how many of you are saying 12.30 sounding pretty good? Raise your hand if you're at 12.30. Listen, I'm gonna ask some of you to be missionaries to the 12.30. I'm not asking you to move to Bangkok, I'm just asking you to move to 12.30. Be a missionary because here's what will happen is you'll help make room in that 10.30 service that's gonna be smashed packed with all kinds of people. And we want you to invite some folks that you know to come for Easter. There's invite cards on your way out, big table full of them. Grab some of those invite cards, invite everybody you know, bring them, and it's gonna be a powerful weekend. And then the week after that we're starting Red Hot. And if you don't know what Red Hot is, it's three weeks of live simulcast between our two campuses. And it's gonna be three weeks on three different subjects. First week's gonna be on sexuality. Week number two is gonna be Bible questions and doctrine. Third week is anything go and here's what happens. You're gonna come in and you're gonna text your questions in, they're gonna pop up on the screen behind me and I'm gonna answer them as I see them with no preparation, nothing up my sleeves and I will not be sleeping for three weeks in a row. So if you've ever had questions or you know people that are skeptics, critics who are searchers, seekers, this is a great opportunity for that. All right, open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 12. You guys ready for the word of God this morning? Man, I just wanna highlight this. As you're turning in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12, we should be so grateful for the word of God. I know we know this, but guys, what we have is a treasure from the Lord. This is God's word speaking to us. This isn't just a book full of good ideas. This is a book full of God's ideas. This is him speaking life to us. So when we open our Bibles, we ought to be excited about it. If we're more excited about 50 shades of whatever, then we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. If we're more excited about sports illustrated than we are God's word, then there's something deficient on the inside of us. This is the God creator of the heavens and the earth who knows you, created you, has a plan for your life, speaking to you. We ought to be fired up. All right, public service announcement. All right, Romans chapter 12, look with me here at verse number one. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Look at verse three, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace that's given to us, let us use them. If it's prophecy in proportion to our faith, if it's service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes or gives in generosity, the one who leads with zeal and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. We're talking over the last several weeks, the series entitled Flourish. And what we're really zeroing in on is this idea that God knows the environments that you and I need in order to thrive and to grow and to be all that he's created us to be and to fulfill our purpose and our destiny. Because I believe every Christian has a role, every Christian has a reason and every Christian has a responsibility. We all have a role, we all have a part that we play. We all have a reason or a purpose for our lives but we also all have a responsibility. And the reason why we have a responsibility is because God has put something in you that other people need as well. And so when we're talking about God being a God who knows the environments that we need to be in in order to thrive, then the opposite is equally true that there are certain environments that when we're in, we don't thrive. Yesterday I was driving through Kalamazoo and it was St. Patrick's Day and I was shocked, I'm shocked all the time but I was shocked how many people were downtown going from bar to bar to bar to drink really bad beer. I mean, green beer is, you know, and people listen, they had a line at Shakespeare's Pub at 6.30 in the morning. And I was thinking to myself, man, St. Patrick's followers are really devoted. If I had a 6.30 AM service, I don't know, I could get a crowd. Somebody said after the first service, if you were serving beer, we might come. It's like, what's up with that? But certain environments cause us to thrive and certain environments cause us to flourish and then there are other environments that actually can stunt our growth. I think in order for us to have a proper understanding of why God has created each of us as he describes as members of his body, the church because that's really what the church is. The church isn't about a building. The church isn't about brick and mortar. I'm grateful for the brick and mortar. I'm grateful for the buildings that we have just like I'm thankful for my home that I live in. But my home isn't my family. My home is where my family lives. In our church, our buildings are where the family of God lives. But listen, Jesus said he would build a church, but he's not talking about architecture. He's talking about human beings, living stones that he puts together into a spiritual organism that on the outside just looks like a gathering of people, but there's something more significant that takes place when we gather together, when we're in this environment where he says, wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. God knows that the environment that you and I created as Christians to thrive in is the local church. So God is building member upon member, peace upon peace, his body, and we're all a part of it. But the enemy wants to dismember the body of Christ because if he can dismember it, he takes away the potential of the body of Christ because nobody has all of it. Everybody has some of it. I think in order for you and I to have a proper perspective about how God sees the church, I grew up in Sunday school and we always did this thing. Anybody do this? Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, and that was about how many people went to the church I grew up in right there. And that sometimes is our perspective of church. It's like, well, the church is a place that I can go to when I need it. The church is a place where if I need encouragement that I'll go to the church is a place where if I haven't opened Sunday, I'll go to the church is a place where I wanna get married someday. But instead of understanding the church from God's perspective, I think that the way God designed and created the church has much more to do with how you and I perceive a gym than it is how we perceive a church. How many of gym membership? Anybody have a gym membership in this? Okay, raise your hand if you do. Some of you are like, is this a trick? Okay, cause you might raise your hand again if you have a gym membership. Okay, put your hand in. How many have ever had one, but you don't any longer? Okay, see, look at that. So notice what I didn't ask. I asked who had a gym membership. I didn't ask how many go to the gym because how many know there are two kinds of people when you show up at the gym, there are two kinds of people at the gym. There are the people who look like they belong there because they've spent a lot of time there and they are consistent, right? I mean, they show up, I was going to the gym for a couple of years ago. I was going three, four days a week and I had a partner so we were meeting up there and he wanted to meet there at 5.30 in the morning. I'm like, man, all right, yay. So showed up at 5.30 in the morning and there were the same people that were there every morning at 5.30. And listen, people who show up at 5.30, they look like they belong there because they are consistent. And this guy, he'd come in like clockwork. He had his routine. He's like, it's Thursday, it's chest day. So he's in there doing the incline. And he's got his dumbbells and he's got his whole routine, the row thing. He knows where he's going and he looks like he knows. He's got the underarmor shirt on. He's got muscles in places. I'm not even sure where they are. I mean, and he's just ripped. He was probably my age and just ripped and he looked like he belonged there because he's there all the time and he's done it for years. It's routine. He knows where things are at. And then there are the other people who walk in and they don't know where anything's at. And they look like it. They're looking around and going, oh, oh, drinking phone. I know that one. I gotta do some reps on the drinking phone. And then they grab their towel and they go over to this machine and it's like, they're doing it like this and you're just like, oh, actually that's a leg machine. You're gonna, okay. And they get the five-pell dumbbells and it's like lifted a couple of times. Put it down, look around, watch ESPN and leave. And you know that gym memberships know, look, in January everybody buys a membership because they want to be, they wanna look like that guy. And so they come in and they pay their membership but then after two or three weeks, we don't show up anymore. And so the gym clears out so that the people who know what they're doing actually get the gym back. And it's amazing to me how if you stick with something long enough, if you go into it and you make it a priority, your life changes. That's what the gym is, your life can change. Your life doesn't change when you get the membership. Your life changes when you use what's in the building, right? It doesn't change, I wish it worked that way. I wish you could just buy the membership and all of a sudden the next day you wake up and you're not like your former self. Wouldn't that be amazing where you woke up and you look like one of those people on the Peloton commercial? It's like, if you don't know what that exercise bike, have you seen this? They're like all just carved out and they're riding it, watching the video and they're just like, come on, yeah, you can do it. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. Ha, ha, ha. And they get off and they just look happy because they've been working out. I never look happy after I've worked out. Anybody else like that? I wish you could just like take a pill or get a subscription. But can I tell you that God is in the body building business and the way that you build body is through resistance, it's through exercise, it's through consistency, it's through the proper diet. It's in order for you to get strong, in order for you to develop muscles, body parts have to work together. You can isolate parts, but all the different, in order for you to work the bicep, the forearm, the hand, the shoulder, every part of your body has to work together so that that one part gets stronger and in the process those parts get stronger. It's every part, it's a miracle. The way that God has designed the human body is miraculous. And the way that God has designed the body of Christ, which is made up of you and I as members individually, is even more amazing. It's even more amazing. It's even more miraculous because each of us are a part of the whole, but we're not the whole and we need each other and some of us are more flashy than others but it doesn't matter, we all need one another. Everybody has a part that they play and what I have noticed over the years is that there are two great errors that people make when it comes to strengthening and growing and maturing up into Jesus and becoming who they were created to be, living out their reason and taking their responsibilities, two great errors and their polar opposites of one another but they're equally damaging. They're found right in Romans chapter 12. Number one is this, is when you make the mistake of underestimating your importance, you will live far below your purpose. So you can never underestimate your importance in the body of Christ. Listen to me, I want you to hear me say this to you. You are an important part of what God is doing right now on planet earth. You may say, well, you don't know me, I don't need to know you because what I do know is I know God and I know how God works and if you are a follower of Jesus, that means that he put you on planet earth and saved you and redeemed you out of some things but he's also redeemed you for some things. Ephesians two verse 10 says that you are God's created for good works that he created before him before the earth ever began that you might walk in them. So if you're alive, if you're breathing and you believe in Jesus, it's because God in his grace saved you and he knew you and he also has a purpose for you and good works for you. You are an important part of what God is doing in the earth, whether you know it or not. But sometimes we make the mistake of undervaluing ourselves or underestimating. It's amazing to me when it comes even to like time management that the two great errors are always over and under. We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term and we tend to underestimate what we can do in the long term. Well, the same is true in our own personal lives with our relationship with God is we have a tendency to over or to underestimate our own value. Well, you know what, I'm just average. I'm not gifted, particularly there's no flashy gift on it. Sometimes our gifts are obvious, right? But then other times it's like, well, I'm not really sure that any of my gifts are level 10 gifts. And so a lot of times we underestimate ourselves at that point, we say, well, I don't have anything. I sure can't sing. I mean, I'm not a singer and I'm not rich so I don't have a lot of money to give and so what I do have isn't significant. And when we make that mistake, listen, we not only rob ourselves of living in our purpose but we also rob the other parts of the body that we were meant to connect to that even though you and yourself may never do something that seems world changing or earth shattering, when you are connected to others, you're able to do more together than you could ever do by yourself. But not if we underestimate ourselves because as soon as we underestimate ourselves, we isolate ourselves. We say, I'm not significant and important. I don't have anything to offer, especially the church. It's like, man, I don't preach, I don't sing, I don't run lights, I'm not a videographer, I can't make cool videos where it's a boom, boom, boom. I don't do that. I mean, so I had a guy come up to me one time years and years ago and it was after a similar type of message where I was talking about getting involved and every person is significant and he said, you know, Pastor, I'd love to get involved but I just don't really have anything to offer. And I said, well, I mean, that's not true. I said, but tell me what you do for a living. He said, well, I mean, I'm a grant writer. I said, well, what do you mean a grant writer? He says, well, you know, I work with nonprofit organizations to help write grants. Writing grants is a very intricate process. I write grants and they submit them and they get money from government and agencies and beneficiaries to help fund, like, you know, after school programs and things like this. I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I said, so you help nonprofit organizations get money. He goes, well, yeah. I go, do you know we're a nonprofit organization? He says, well, yeah, I know, but it's like spiritual. I'm like, are you kidding me? There are things that God has put in our hearts that we would like to do to impact our community that we would love to get a grant for but we don't know how to write the grant. And he's like, well, that's easy. I'm like, for you, listen, it doesn't matter. We have business people who think, well, you know, I go into the marketplace and I get paid really well to do what I do, but I'm not a super, I'm not a Bible scholar. I can't do anything like this. Listen, God may have equipped you to go into the marketplace to raise money to finance the kingdom of God. Do you know it takes a lot of money to send missionaries around the world? We have missionaries that we support in 24 nations of the earth. Every month, this church, you, through your giving, every member that contributes and gives goes to help support people that have moved or live in other nations where they have not heard the gospel and you're fueling their decision to go in the name of Jesus. But here's the good news. When people get saved like in Miramar right now, that doesn't just go on that missionaries account. Every one of you who give faithfully week in and week out and you think, well, my giving, my finances, my tithe doesn't make a difference. It does when you give it to God and it's added with other people's finances. It's designated to a person who made a decision to move to a nation where only less than one-tenth of one-hundredth of one percent know Jesus. And then that missionary under the inspirational Holy Spirit and the financial support that you've given has a conversation with somebody in a coffee shop and they make Jesus the Lord of their life. When that person goes to heaven, it's on your account, your account, your account, your account and your account and my account. And you might never know it on this side of eternity, but your giving makes a difference. And your serving makes a difference. And your gifting and your account, the way God has shaped you and devised you. And even your past and your pain and your experiences that's led to your perspective. It's all part of the package. But if the enemy can get you to underestimate yourself, then he can paralyze you and isolate you and keep you from making a difference. You're far more important than you probably believe you are. That's the first error that we make is we underestimate ourselves. Isn't that true just about in every area of life? I remember when we found out we were gonna be parents for the first time. I thought to myself, literally, Jane found out she was pregnant with Ashley on a Saturday and when she was in our little apartment, she came around the corner with the pregnancy test and said, plus, it's like, oh no. And I just laid on the bed for like two hours because I'm thinking, I do not know how to be a parent. I do not, I don't know how to do this. I mean, I just, I still need my mom and dad. It's like, I need them to take care of me. And now I'm gonna be a parent. It's amazing how there's more on the inside of you than you know is there that we overlook. There's abilities. If we make ourselves available, if we step into some areas that seem risky, that seem out of our comfort zone that we've never done before, do you know that in those moments where Jesus actually meets you and empowers you and grace actually finds you, the Bible says right here in Romans 12 that every one of us have received grace from God. The word grace means the empowering presence and goodness of God upon our lives. Grace doesn't meet you and then all of a sudden you feel it and then you step out and say, well, I feel, I feel sassy today. I think I'm just gonna eat some bread and carbs and get all fat and sassy. Now, grace meets you when you step out and you begin to do something. You're looking at me like I'm crazy. Have you guys never seen that meme, by the way? All right, need to get out more. Okay, number two. So number one is never underestimate yourself. Number two, you ready for it? Never overestimate your value. Never overestimate your importance. Here's our error. Sometimes we underestimate ourselves and it's like I've got nothing to offer. I can't do anything. That's over my pay grade. I don't have the time. I don't have the resources. I'm not rich. I can't make a difference. That's underestimating. But the second one is equally important. Look at what it says. It says in verse number three, for by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to. Don't think of yourself too highly. By a show of hands. Have you ever met somebody who thinks of himself too highly and they're the only one who doesn't know it? Raise your hand if you know somebody like that. Point at him if, no, don't. If you've ever met somebody, it's almost embarrassing for them because they think to themselves, you know what, I got this gym motif. I was at the gym one time and I was with Tony and there was this guy who was obviously in over his head and he put like 225 on bench press. And if he weighed up a buck 25, so can wet. I mean, he was lucky. So he's like lifting twice his body weight and Tony goes, watch this. I go, what? Look over at this guy. He lowers the bar under his chest and he couldn't get out of it. He's like, this is like a little help. So guy came over and grabbed one end of the bar and he still couldn't get it up enough to roll out from underneath it. So it took four people to come over there and like lift the bar off so he could scooch out. He was so embarrassed. And it's kind of like, what are you thinking? Well, sometimes we underestimate ourselves in the role that we play and how good we are. And sometimes we overestimate ourselves. We think, you know what? I got this, especially when it comes to church. It's like, I don't, you know, church is great, but I don't really need it. Once in a while I need it, you know, Christmas and Easter or I make it when I can. And we don't realize without even knowing it we're kind of saying, God, I know your plan was to build the church and you wanted me to be a part of it because I've got something to add. And I know you wanted me to be a contributor that every part does it share. And I mean, I know you say all that, but you know what? I kind of just view it from a consumeristic mind point that I want to go and I want to, I want to get it when I need it. But we never realize that the way that God has formed all of us is that none of us are enough by ourselves. We're not enough by ourselves. It's just the way God has designed us. Now you individually, relationally with God are more than enough because your sufficiency is not in yourself, it's in Christ. But I'm talking about you carrying out your destiny and your purpose in the earth. You're not enough. The whole idea of self-made individuals, you know, I just, I did it all myself. You look at a company of success like Amazon.com and if you were to ask Bezos who's the wealthiest man now in the world, he's worth $120 billion. If you ask him, are you a self-made man? He's the face of Amazon but if he's wise, he would say, no, it takes a team to get me where I'm at. It takes a team to get me where I'm at. There are faceless, nameless people that you don't know that are part of the organization. And can I tell you that in the body of Christ, it's even more so that way. The way that God has designed us on purpose was that none of us would be enough by ourselves but we would need one another. And sometimes our attitude, whether knowingly or unknowingly can be, you know what? I'm saved, Jesus loves me, that's enough. And I get fed by watching a podcast or I read some books, I go to church occasionally but you know, I'm just kind of doing my thing. Listen, not only are you getting robbed of your full potential but you're robbing other people of their full potential because you're connected to them and your life will only make sense in context of the local church. Let me demonstrate to you what I mean, all right? Hold on, I gotta do a little dismembering here. Don't worry, it's not real. Anybody remember this guy? Mr. Potato Head. New Super Mr. Potato Head. Eyes and ears and funny noses, you can shape his arms in so many poses. You can even get a Mrs. Potato Head for new Super Mr. Potato Head. That was the commercial. I never forget commercials because I loved Mr. Potato Head. Before there were screens, before there were computers and iPads and video games, there was Mr. Potato Head. And you know, this is the spud but you know, the beauty is it comes with all of these really cool parts and interchangeable stuff. It's awesome, all the little things that they got that you can use here. Now here's the thing is if I put Mr. Potato Head over here and here's all the parts and I ask you to make sense of this, you would say, oh, it's just a bunch of parts. You know, for example, like this nose. This nose is, it's great, it's a good nose, I think. But I dare you to walk around for the next month and every time you meet somebody new and they say, hey, how are you? Just go, it's like, why are you kidding around a nose? Oh, isn't it a great nose? It's awesome, look at that nose. Really, why, yeah, it's great. Why do you have it? Because I like this nose. You'd freak some people out or, hey, how about, or how about try this, you know, carry around an arm with a little hand, little hand. Next time you see somebody say, hey, you wanna see something really cool? Lay my hand. It's a hand in a hand, do you get it? And they're just like, wow, man, you need a life. And the reason why they would ask you, listen, because if I take that same hand and I actually put it on to something where it's supposed to be and I set it over here, the same people who see the same hand will not ask the question, why is there an arm connected to that thing? It's why, it's because an arm was meant to be connected to a body. Just like the other arm is meant to be connected over here and got a set of eyes are meant to go here and you don't put the nose on the side of the head because there's a place for the nose. You gotta put it in the right place because then it makes sense. And you got a cool smile here and you put that on there. And all of a sudden, when every part is in the right place where it's supposed to be, it gives context and it makes sense. Now, can I tell you, this is the body of Christ. And Jesus is the spud, please don't tweet that. But we are all members and there's a proper place for us in the body, the way that God has designed us because of what we're supposed to do. The eye sees, the ear hears, but if the ear gets upset that it's not an eye, it will live its life in a constant comparison mode and it will never become good at what it was created to do. It will live all of its life wishing it was something else. Or what about the arm? The arm is a perfectly good arm but if it disconnects from the rest of the body and it just walks around, it's weird because now when it says, oh, hi, everybody's like, that is really immature. That is really weird. Would you put it back where it's supposed to be? And you know, guys, this is what happens a lot of times. Jesus is here on the earth and he says, I want my body to be connected and in unity. And we're over here going, I'm eyes. I don't wanna be connected. Well, your life will only make sense in the proper context when it is put in the right place. And a lot of the reasons why the church is unhealthy, a lot of the times the reason why we're dissatisfied is we've not connected where we're supposed to be because we haven't realized the value that we carry and the importance of the role and the responsibility that Jesus has given us in the body of Christ. Come on, can we just give it up for Mr. Potato Head here this morning? So here's what I want you to know. A couple of things I want you to know about not overestimating yourself. Number one is this, you're gifted, but you are not complete. You're gifted, but you are not complete. Everybody has gifts. Some have more gifts. Some people's gifts are more obvious, but everybody has something. Everybody has the ability to serve. Everybody has the ability to give. Everybody has the ability to be custom made by Jesus in the unique way that you are and to identify how he's wired you and used it. I'm so grateful that, you know, like there's counselors. I believe in counselors. I've gone to counselors personally because sometimes you just need to talk to somebody and counselors are patient and they listen and they give you wise counsel and advice. But here's the thing is I'm not a counselor and I've had people say to me, Pastor Lee, I wish I could come and get counseling from you. And my answer is, no, you don't because here's my counseling. Are you ready? Here it is in a nutshell. Admit it and quit it. It's my answer for everything. Admit it, quit it. There you go. But I'm grateful for Pastor John Porter who's down the front row, who's our counseling pastor. He's a mentor to many people. He listens, listen, my battery would be so drained they would throw me in the junkyard at the end of a day listening to people go through their issues and having to give them counsel and advice. But he thrives on it. He is a wise counselor. He's gifted by the Holy Spirit uniquely. I'm gifted for the people that minister to our children. Do you know we have hundreds and hundreds of children? And we have so many servant leaders who show up early who go to the classrooms, they pray over our kids, they teach them Bible lessons, they pray for them, they mentor them, they follow, they lead them in worship. I'm so grateful for them. I'm not wired that way, but they're not wired the way I'm wired. If I live my life in constant comparison or over exaggeration of my value, then I not only am stealing something from somebody else, I'm also stealing from myself. We are gifted, but we are not complete. We're complete when we're together. See, the body of Christ is, it's a mysterious miracle. How a group of people that could never change the world by ourselves together change the world together. Isn't that amazing? I mean, just think about this, last year in December, we put, during our big give, we raised over $200,000. If I were to ask any one of you for $200,000, you'd be like, I don't got that. Maybe some of you do, but we also put coats on 400 kids, boots on 400 kids. We built a school in India. We helped support an English school in Myanmar. If I were to give a list of everything we did during the big give and say, I need you to do this, most of us in this room would say, that's over, I can't do that, but when every part does its part and does what it can, doesn't focus on what it can't do, but says, all right, I can do this. And you know what, I'll take a day off of work and I'll show up and you know what I'll do? I'll get here early and I'll align all the tags and I'll load the truck and I'll unload it and I'll make the video of it and I'll inspire people and motivate them. I'll make contact with the school. When every part does their share and it comes together, a miracle happens. No one person can take credit for the miracle because it's everybody, it's all the members doing their part. It's fantastic. When we celebrate the fact that everybody's gifted, but not everybody, not one person is complete. First Corinthians 12 says it this way, God has carefully designed each member and placed it in the body of Christ as he desires. A diversity is required for if the body consisted of only one single part, there wouldn't be a body at all. Second thing I wanna tell you in closing is this, is that you need gifts to actually help strengthen your gifts. Ephesians chapter four says that Jesus, when he ascended, he gave gifts to men. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And here's the job of apostles and pastors and prophets, evangelists and teachers. It's to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. See, there's a misnomer that we've believed far too long and it's this, is that we come to church to listen to the minister. That's a lie. You don't come to the church to listen to the minister. We come as the church to be equipped as the ministers. But we also need five-fold ministry gifts that help strengthen and equip us to do the work of the ministry. So this mindset that you can be a Christian without the church, that you can be a Christian and love Jesus and fulfill your destiny and not be plugged into a local church. Let me tell you, you can get to heaven without a local church, but you will never fulfill your destiny without the local church. And here's why. When Jesus left planet earth, he also left behind gifts. And those gifts are coaches. He calls them apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And their job is to help identify, strengthen, equip and motivate every member of the church so that we walk in our gifts and our callings. And when we come together, this is like a locker room, guys. We come together, this is, Sundays are like halftime. It's like, get in here, it's Tom Izzo motivating you to beat the snot out of Syracuse this afternoon. It's like motivating you. It's like, come on, we're going out there. We're going zone and we're going man and I need you to do this. Come on, Tommy, you got this. It's motivating. So when we go back out on the court of life or on the football field of life out into the battlefield that we are equipped, we are sharpened, we are fueled, we are fit, we got our act together and we go out into the marketplace and we exemplify Jesus. And we all need those gifts in our life. Can I tell you one of the things I do every Monday? Somebody asked me one time, they said, what do you do all week when you're not preaching? I just sit around and drink coffee and read my Bible all day. No, that's not true. But on Monday mornings, I go to church. See, because I preach three times on a weekend and a lot of my time is spent praying and it is writing a message, but then also leadership things. But on Mondays, I have voices that speak into my life. I sit down in front of my computer and I watch Craig Groshel from Life Church in Oklahoma City and I listen to his message and it feeds me. Sometimes I listen to Chris Hodges, Pastor of Church of the Highlands or Robert Morris from Gateway Church or Jimmy Evans, sometimes Bill Johnson from Bethel or Chris Valleton from Bethel Church. And I watch probably two to three messages on a Monday. And you wanna know why? It's because I need to be fueled. I need to be equipped. I need to be challenged. I need to be inspired. We all need it. Jimmy Evans coming in this next week. He's like John Wayne with a Bible. I mean, he'll call me up sometimes, Lee Cummings, what are you doing? How's the marriage? How's the church? And he's challenging me. We all need those gifts in our life. You need pastors. You need leaders. You need spiritual leaders that you submit your life to. And it's not a control thing. It's an equipping thing. Oh, I don't need anybody. All I need is my Bible. And I just kind of float around like a little butterfly. Oh, I love Jesus. And nobody can tell me what to do with my life. Nobody can challenge me. It's like, you aren't ever gonna do anything for the kingdom of God like that. You need to have some people that you are strengthening and you need to have some people in your life that are strengthening you. You need to have about five crazy friends in your life and a really good pastor. And so I hope you got some friends because I love you as a pastor. The greatest joy of my life is to be the pastor of this church. But listen, we all need that in our lives. In order to arrive safely into the kingdom of God knowing that we lived a life that we fulfilled our purpose. I don't know about you, but you can stand up with me if you would. I was thinking last, a couple of weeks ago when Billy Graham passed away. Like a little over two weeks ago. Billy Graham's one of my heroes. I think probably for many of us, he's a hero. But I was thinking to myself, wow, if it's really true that all the people that we impact in this life when we get to heaven, we'll get to meet. Imagine what it must have been like for Billy Graham to step out of this life into eternity. Can you imagine millions and millions and millions of people waiting there saying thank you like a friend of mine who gave his life to the Lord watching a Billy Graham crusade on television? I mean, just think about the million, he preached to more living people than any other human being who's ever lived on the planet. What a powerful, powerful life that he lived. Can you imagine that moment of stepping into eternity and looking and seeing all these people that you've never met who are there and says thank you. I'm here because of you. Do you know you don't have to be Billy Graham for that to be true? You might say, well, pastor Lee, listen, there's nothing extravagant about me. I'm not a preacher like Billy Graham. Or I'm not a worship leader like some famous worship leader. Nobody even knows me. I mean, all I do is I show up here and I make coffee or I greet people. Or you know what? The only thing that I know to do is I work hard 40 hours a week and when I come to church, I'm here. I worship, I serve and I give financially. Here's what I want you to know. I think you're gonna be shocked someday. I think you're gonna be shocked someday when you show up into eternity. And God says, it wasn't all about you, but you did your part and you were connected to here because the leg bones connected to the knee bone, the knee bones connected to the shin bone, the shin bones connected to the foot bone. Is there a foot bone? The foot bone and the hip bones connected to the back bone, the back bones connected to the collar bone, the collar bones connected to the shoulder rotator bone thing which is connected to the, you know, the humerus. The humerus is connected to the ulna and the radial, thank you. And every part has to work together. And not only when you show up to heaven, I think when we show up to heaven together, we're gonna realize what in the world were we able to do together? There were no limits. There were no limits when every part does its share. And here's the good news is every part gets the reward of the whole. We get to share in his glory. Isn't that a powerful, powerful thought? Isn't God so good that he didn't just save us, but he invited us to live lives of purpose and to be his body, his hands, his heart, his eyes, his ears extended to a lost and dying world? Did you buy your heads with me all over the room and I wanna invite our prayer team, care ministers if they would, to move into place this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight today, Father, for your grace and your goodness. Lord, that you saved us and you called us members of your body. You filled us with grace, filled us with your life. You've connected us to one another. And Lord, I pray for unity. Lord, I pray for a spirit of unity. There's only one Lord. There's only one faith. There's only one spirit, only one baptism. We are part of your body. Lord, help us to be connected. Lord, in those places of our life where we've gotten dislocated and just joined it because we've been hurt, because we've undervalued ourselves, because we've put other things as priorities or maybe we've been indifferent about church and about serving and about being a part of what you're doing. Lord, I pray that you would reverse that and fill our hearts with vision and passion and willingness and unity, Lord. Lord, help every part be fruitful. Help us to flourish. And before we dismiss this morning, listen, I sense with all of my heart that the Holy Spirit is here as He always is when we gather in Jesus' name. And He's here because He cares. And He cares for those of us who are experiencing some brokenness, some pain, some hurt, some rejection. It's really believed that the brokenheartedness, there's an overwhelming sense of brokenheartedness and it may have nothing to do with church as we're talking about. But I just sense today that some of us came into this place today and we've, we're brokenhearted. We've lost something. We've experienced rejection or maybe we just never felt valuable. Maybe you've gotten a bad physical report and you're just overwhelmed and don't know what to do. Listen to the beauty of the body of Christ is that we love one another and we pray with and for one another and we find strength together. And today as I pray and I dismiss, if you have a need in your life or maybe God's doing something on the inside of you and there's a vibrancy arising in your heart saying, I need to get connected. I need to get plugged in. I need, I need to do my part. I wanna, I want help in doing that. I'm just gonna invite you to come and receive prayer. Maybe you need to get over some pain of the past or some fears of rejection again or maybe you've kind of been a lone wolf and today you say, I need family. Whatever your need is this morning, as we dismiss, we're just gonna invite you to come forward and let one of our prayer partners pray with you. Father, send us from this place, not leaving Radiant Church, but send us as Radiant Church, a light that shines in the darkness, each one of us to every corner of our city and may this city be known as a radiant city in Jesus' name, amen.