"God's Equipment for Building His Church" by Raymond Glick | CGS 2023

Lesson Transcript

Good afternoon, everyone. I feel like I don't know very many of you, though I do see some familiar faces. I'm sure you are here in interest of thinking about the growth of the church. I know that's the theme of the whole Kingdom Fellowship weekend, is our local churches growing and flourishing. And so I think that these topics we've heard today are a good foundation for that.

I've titled this just slightly different than what it is on your brochure, "God's Equipment for Building His Church." And we are going to talk about reaching out as far as making disciples of all nations, but we're also going to think about some of the internal discipleship and building of the church as well. If you have Bibles, you can turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 4. We're going to use that for our text here, Ephesians 4 and verse 11. And I might just start actually in the beginning of this chapter.

I'm going to read it rather slowly so we can try to catch what Paul is saying here. "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord" and I'm reading from the ESV version, by the way, "urged you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called, to the one hope that belongs to your call: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." And that's kind of the basis of our unity here this morning, right? You're probably from all over the country and different churches and backgrounds, but we all serve the same Lord and we have the same gospel. We have the same Holy Spirit. And that's what unites us here, right?

And verse 7 says, "But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift." And that's part of our reason for coming together today too, right? So we experience this in a local body. We experience the different gifts. But I hope that this weekend you can also receive gifts from other people and learn from other groups and other people who are also serving the Lord in their communities, right?

There's so much we can learn from each other and inspiration we can gain from each other because he has given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Verse 8, "Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men." In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

And here's the verses we want to kind of look at today. "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ." And let's just pause a little bit. The word ministry, sometimes we use that word ministry, at least we have in our background to refer to the ministers of the church. But this is talking about services, the work of serving in the church and in the community.

So he's equipped the saints for the work of service. And I'll kind of maybe use that word a little more than ministry this afternoon, for building up the body of Christ. Here's the internal part. And we're going to see today how the internal building up is also what actually helps us to spread out.

"Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." So this weekend we're talking about the growth of the church. This is the goal of growth, that we might all come up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. And I don't know where you're at today in your journey.

We're all in a journey at some point. And there probably in every single one of us, there's been a time where there was a lot of questions. There's a lot of winds of doctrine, a lot of things that we're just grappling with in our minds. What's the next step for me? What does God want for me? And you know what? God has given in the church the answers to all these questions.

He has equipped us with all these things to bring us through that so we don't have to be blown around with every wind by human cunning, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes. Rather, by speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. Now in the ESV, we have that word equipped the second time. So God gives every single joint in the body for the purpose of equipping it.

When each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. So this weekend we're talking about growing the church and the church flourishing. And I want to kind of focus today on this thing of every single part has to be working. Every single part has to be in working synergistically with each other so that there can be this growth. It says to grow or to build itself up in love. This is kind of something that happens from the inside out.

Like this is a living organism that needs to prosper from the inside out, just kind of like your body, right? Your body has the ability to detox itself. It has the ability to get rid of things that shouldn't be there if you feed it correctly. We know the opposite is also true. If you don't take care of your body, it quickly degenerates. And I think the same thing happens in the church. God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Do we believe that?

He has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness so that from within, it can just grow and it can flourish. Now, I'd like to just take a step back and look at the big picture. You know, it's kind of like an artist when he's painting a picture. He's got his nose right up close to the picture and he's looking at all the little details with a small brush. But every once in a while, he backs up and he looks at the big picture to see where he's at.

And I think it's important to do that every once in a while. And let's just look in the book of Isaiah chapter 2. And let's look at the picture that God wants of his church, of his people. "It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills. And what? All the nations shall flow to it.

And many people shall come and say, 'Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'" That's God's plan. You know, and I think one of the brothers mentioned here this morning that sometimes we kind of lose our vision. But it's important to remember that God has this bigger picture that's much bigger than myself.

It's much bigger than just my local church. It's even much bigger than just the people that are gathering here. He has a plan that his kingdom would spread throughout the whole world. And then in Isaiah 54, "Sing, O barren one who did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married," says the Lord.

And I'm not a prophecy student necessarily, but I think he's referring to our time today when the Gentiles in the world are going to receive the gospel. I think God wanted to do this in Israel. I think he wanted Israel to be that model. He wanted Israel to take the gospel to the whole world.

And if you remember how when they traveled from Egypt, when they went through the Red Sea and as they were traveling, it seemed like the whole world found out the wonderful things that God was doing for them, how he brought them out of Egypt. I imagine if there would have been like national news at that time or world news that these headlines were popping up, you know, "Israel escapes Egypt." And everyone is like, "Wow, how did they do that? Like there's no way." And yet they did.

And then there's news that Pharaoh chased them. And then there's news that they're trapped, but that the Red Sea opened up and they went through. And there's news that Pharaoh has been destroyed in his armies. And I think this was it apparently spread because what happened when they came to Jericho? Do you know what Rahab said to the spies? Like, "We've heard everything that happened and we are so afraid. Like our hearts just melted. Like we are afraid of your God. Your God is the real God." So you know what?

There's a couple of places that I think it's in Isaiah where he says that God has given his people as a light to the nations, as a light to the Gentiles. And we read all these Old Testament stories about them going to war and destroying their enemies. But I think that underneath all of that, God's first purpose was to actually bring the whole world into his nation. And then we have different responses to that. The Philistines, for example, they heard the same news, I'm sure, but they were brazen.

"Goliath says, 'Who are you? Who's your God that I should listen to him? I defy the armies of the living God.'" And so many people did that. And then we have, of course, God telling them to destroy some of those nations. All right. In Isaiah 54, we were reading those verses about the barren woman. This is the next verse, "Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitation be stretched out. Do not hold back.

Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes." So now that we have the big picture of what God wants to do, he wants his kingdom to go into all parts of the world. He is telling us to do something. He's telling us to enlarge the place or the space. And this picture of a tent is just a crude picture here to get our minds thinking about the tent.

But he wants us to look around and think about the needs over here and the needs over here and the people in our backyards and the people in our front yards and the people in our neighboring cities and neighboring countries. And he wants us to think about how we can make a place for these people. "Enlarge the space and then let the curtains of your habitations be stretched." And so we have people who have visions to go into all the world and they're taking the gospel in various ways.

People go into China carrying Bibles. People go into unreached people groups. They're learning the languages. And all these, I think, are—excuse me—are ways that people are stretching out the tent. And then he says, "Do not hold back." And I think here he's saying that I think he understands that it's easy for us to kind of shrink back from this big picture and say, "I don't know. I just feel intimidated about this. Like this is too big for me.

Like I don't have what it takes to win the whole world." "Don't hold back." And Paul told Timothy about his spiritual gift. Like he tells him to stir up the gift within him. And I'm not sure if it's in that same context there, but he says, "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind." So when you feel that fear coming, you feel that sense of inadequacy or you feel just intimidated, Paul says, "That's not from God. That's not from God.

God has equipped his church with everything it needs to do this big thing, to bring all the nations into the kingdom. He has equipped us to do that. And so when we feel like, 'I can't do this. I'm intimidated,' remember, that's not from God. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes." Now, you think about the stakes. The stakes are doing a little bit something different than what the tent is. The tent is opened up. It's spreading out.

It's trying to get the people out there and it's trying to get the people over here. It's not like the Israelite tabernacle that had specific measurements, this wide, this tall, that long. The tent today is us, the church. And this is saying there's no limit. It is a growing tent. It needs to expand and somebody needs to stretch it. But then somebody also needs to strengthen the stakes. What are the stakes for? Well, we know what happens when it gets windy and you have a tent, right?

If you have no stakes and no strings, the wind will just pick that up and just blow it away. And we read here in Ephesians chapter 4 about the winds of doctrine that can just—and the waves that can just demolish us. And so we have these stakes that we drive into the ground. That could be our discipleship. That could be our character building. That could be our doctrines. We dig into the word.

We look for these anchors so that as we spread the tent, as we incorporate the nations of the world, we have an anchoring point so that we're not swept away. And I can guarantee you if we don't have that, that's exactly what will happen. We see that happen so many times. Revivalist movements have happened in history many, many times. And where are many of those today? Too many times there were not people that came along and did the hard work of driving the stakes and doing the discipleship.

In Zechariah 2:1-4, "I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand, a man with a tape measure or a rolling tape measure. And then I said, 'Where are you going?' And he said to me, 'To measure Jerusalem to see what is its width and what is its length.' And behold, the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him and said to him, 'Run.

Say to that young man, 'Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls because of the multitude of people and livestock in it.'" I like that picture. This tent is expanding. There's no walls. There's no parameters to it. It can grow until it goes to the ends of the earth. And Christ has come. And in Matthew, he says, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." I think the gates of hell there are those winds we were talking about.

Like the devil is not happy with what's going on. He's not happy with this tent being expanded. And he's going to blow hard and he's going to try to make this thing collapse. But Jesus said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And when a church fails, it's not because Christ has failed, not because his plan has failed, because I believe he has given us all the equipment necessary to build and to expand and to keep it from blowing over. We get to be part of this big plan. Enlarge the space.

Stretch out the curtain. Don't hold back. Lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes. Our commission in Matthew chapter 28. "And Jesus said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" Jesus knew this big picture. Jesus saw this. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." All right.

Just a little exercise to help us maybe stay awake. What are some verbs you see here to us? Commands. First one. Go. Go. Next one. Make disciples. Make disciples. Baptizing. Baptizing and then teaching them. Right. Those are specific commands that he gives us as churches, as believers. And he has equipped us to do that. In 1786, we have a man by the name of William Carey. You probably have read about him. He was a shoemaker who was burdened by the needs of the world.

And he stood around a council of representatives at the ministerial meeting in Northampton. And he explained his burden to share the gospel. And he was rebuked, but he was rebuked by the eminent Dr. Ryland who said to him, "Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine." Ignoring their advice, Carey followed his heart and the Bible. And the rest, as they say, is history. William Carey has been called the father of modern missions.

He initiated the modern missionary movement as we know it. And of course, we heard earlier today about the Anabaptists and their zeal. And there have been many groups of people who have had this kind of zeal. And I just share that story to tell us that depending where you are today, and if you're in a group that doesn't have a vision to reach the world, don't let that stop you from sharing the gospel and reaching people around you.

William Carey has also known to have said this, "Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God." Now, we read those verses back there in Isaiah. We already know God wants to do great things. We can expect him to do great things. Now, attempt to do great things for God. Don't hold back. And now, if we as churches are not seeing this need to commission people, to send people, we can expect there's going to be omission of obedience to Christ's command. Because here's what happens.

When you have no commission, somebody has said there's four people. When it's time to do a job, there's always four people. There's everybody, anybody, somebody, and nobody. And everybody thinks that somebody is going to do the job. And somebody thinks that anybody can do the job, but guess who does it? Nobody does it.

See, when there's not a delegation of responsibility and we don't commission people, we don't recognize gifts in the church and commission people, there is going to be omission of the commands of obedience to the commands of Christ. And in Romans 10 here, how will they call on him on whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him on whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are what? Sent.

So we need people going, but we also need people sending. We need people that have a vision to send. And we have lots of young people. We have people with a lot of energy. And these people are looking for things to do. And we as churches need to be aware of their gifts and help them understand their gifts and be willing to commission them to do things, to serve in the church and in the community. And like I said, when we don't do that, nothing happens. Nobody tends to do it, right?

We think somebody else will do it or anybody can do it. So here's what we can do in our local churches. There's some practical things. Identify the gifts in your local fellowship. Did I miss a slide? All right. I'm not sure what I did. I'm jumping ahead. I want to get this one first. Delegate responsibility. You were not meant to do it all. And I don't know how many church leaders we have here or fathers we have here with young people, but I would just like to say this. I don't care how big your church is.

Delegate responsibility. You were not meant to do it all. And this happens time and time again. Churches get bigger. Converts come in. Discipleship is needed. Ministering of the word is needed. Outreach is needed. And if we only have the fathers doing this or the ministers doing this, you are going to burn out. And it's time that we understand that there are gifts in the church that need to be commissioned and need to be blessed.

Maybe we need to lay hands on people and just say, "Look, you've got the gift of evangelism. Go do it. Our church wants to bless you in this." And the apostles did that in Acts chapter 6. They were getting busy. And I can imagine. I know what it's like to be busy as a minister, time studying, time preaching. And yet there's needs that need to be addressed. And somehow it all comes back to you, but it doesn't need to all come back to you. You can delegate responsibilities.

And that's exactly what the apostles did in Acts chapter 6. The 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good report, full of the spirit of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty." And that doesn't mean they were going to sit back and do nothing.

Sometimes we get that idea that the people that are out in the field working and the people out in the front lines are all the ones doing the work and everybody else is just on the back line. But that's not necessarily the case. It shouldn't be the case because here's what they were doing. "We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." So I think we have a nice rounded picture here. There is work for every single person.

If you're an older person, if you're a mother, if you're a father, if you're an invalid, you can pray. You can devote yourself to the word. There is something that everybody can do. Now, back to this thing about commission and omission. If you remember in school studying the active and passive voice, anybody remember that? Maybe you had a hard time grasping the difference between active and passive voice.

And if you're a student here and having a hard time, I'm going to give you a little picture that might help you remember that. See, in the church, there shouldn't be only a certain group of people that are doing all the work and the rest just passively sitting and just enjoying the service and then going home and doing nothing. I don't think there should be. I think there should be gifts that all can participate in. But here's the difference between the active and the passive voice.

Well, let me just give you the picture. There are places all around us called funeral homes. And in the funeral home, you have the man who's doing all the work. And then you have the dead. The dead one is just there. He's just laying there. He's doing nothing. He's having the work done to him, but he lays there like this. He doesn't do any. He's completely passive. And then you have the undertaker and he's doing the work. So that's the difference. You have two men.

One is the active voice and one is the passive voice, right? So students, if you're having a hard time with that one in your schoolwork, just remember that. The undertaker is doing something. He's doing the action. And the dead man laying there, he's receiving the action. That's the passive voice. And I think it's A.W. Tozer that said we have way too many of those kind of people in our churches. They want to be there like this. And they might not be sleeping in church.

And I'm not criticizing anybody that's tired because it's hot and it's late in the afternoon. I'm talking about an attitude. If your attitude is that you can go to church and be preached to, prayed for, fed, and you can go home and that's all you're going to do for a Sunday morning, you have missed what church is all about. That's not normal for a Christian church. All right. Now we're back to this. Identify the gifts in your local fellowship. All right. So as a brotherhood, we have done this.

And I'll just put this out for an inspiration. If you have never thought about the spiritual gifts in your brotherhood, sit together and just talk about these things. Talk about what you might see in each other. Because it's difficult, I believe, for one, for myself at least, and I think I've seen this when we worked through some of these, that most times we personally don't always have a very accurate picture of what our gift might be.

And many times by the help of the brothers and discussing these things, we can get a little better picture. And then here's what we can do. We can bless each other in our gifts. We can say, "Brother, you've got the gift of teaching. And teach, like do this. Put your heart and soul into that and do that." And that's how you bless people in their gift. "Brother, you've got the gift of evangelism. I see how you so-and-so in the community. God bless you in that and you be that evangelist.

Young man, we see how you are serving your church and your parents. You're volunteering. You're doing these things." Those are the kind of things we should be blessing. And you know what? Those are the kind of things that reciprocate. The more that people do this, the more that people engage themselves, the more the church is going to recognize them and the more the church is going to use them.

So don't think that you can sit back in church and do nothing and sometime down the road, God's going to have a great work for you. Start with the little that God has given you now.

And that's how Timothy actually was called in 2 Timothy 1:6, "For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands." But it's not the verse I exactly was thinking about, but there's a place where he talks about how Timothy, this young man, Paul saw that this man was beneficial to the church. He was doing things in the church. And Paul said, "That's the man that we want." And the church took him. They brought him probably in the front of the church.

They laid their hands on him. They prayed for him and blessed him. And I would like to see more of that done in our local fellowships. Valuing and blending differing gifts. Just a couple of thoughts for leaders again. And I have these kind of segregated as leaders and all the church. And we've in the past maybe used the terms leaders and laity and I don't really like that term, laity. It kind of sounds like we have people that aren't doing anything. I guess it depends what you mean by that.

But we do have different roles in the church. We have different functions. We do need leaders, but all of the church, let's start with the leaders, focus on the word and prayer, which includes teaching, discipleship, and commissioning. So leaders, don't think you're just going to delegate all your responsibility and that sets you free. No, no, no. You are going to be spending hours like we heard this morning on your knees, hours in the word.

You're going to be that stake that's going to be holding this thing down, not you yourself. There's going to be, of course, multiple people doing that. But think of yourself as doing that. And then we have the church who focuses on creating a culture of service, ministry, service to each other, service in your communities, service abroad, wherever that is. Start right at home. Start right with your family. Start right with your brothers and sisters, young people. Start right with your parents.

Don't expect to go to the mission field and say, "God's going to really use me over there to witness to people." If you have never done that here at home, if you don't know how to have relationships with your family, don't think you're going to do it somewhere else. Focus on creating a culture of service right where you are. God needs your gift. And whether the church has laid their hands on you or not, God has commissioned you. You need to be active and stir up that gift.

Leaders, be more concerned about the health of the body than your own reputation. And I think this happens in places where you have a certain elite group of people who are running the show and everybody else is these passive people. It's all about a show in my mind. When I see these kind of things, large groups of people doing nothing and certain people that are always on the stage, to me, it looks like they're more concerned about their own reputation.

But you can tell when a leader is genuinely concerned about the health of the body and not just his own reputation. Pray that God would give you that. Church, see your gift as a necessary part of church growth. You either work together in synergy or you're a spiritual parasite. There's no neutral ground, I don't believe. And here's maybe go to the next slide. The church is more than the sum total of its parts. Now, we read in Ephesians there that the church will build itself up.

The body will build itself up when every part works like it should. So I have never done this test, but I've read that if one horse can pull 9,000 pounds and another can pull 8,000 pounds, what's the sum? 8,000 and 9,000? 17,000, right? But what do you think those two horses together can pull? They say they can pull 30,000 pounds. I kind of think it's the same way in the church. God has put us together. He has fit us together. And by the way, he says he has framed us. God's one of the best framers there is.

You ever watched a framing? He's the best framer there is. Have you ever watched a woman knit? He's the best knitter there is. He says he knits us together. By doing this, the church is more than the sum total of its parts. Don't think that your gift is somehow unique and you're just going to go out there and make a splash. You need the gifts of all your brothers. You need to knit these things together.

And when it feels like your gifts might be contradicting each other, like you might look at the brother with the gift of evangelism and you might say, "Hold on a second. Like you're just what are you doing? Like calm down a little bit." No, no. God has put that zeal in his heart. And he might look at you and say, "Brother, like wake up a little bit. Like come on. There's souls to be saved." No, no. He's doing his part too. He's anchoring. He's into the word.

Bless each other in those gifts and see this as a synergism. And together, it is going to be more than the sum total of its parts. Whether you have two, five, or one talent, that's not important. The Lord commended each one for faithfulness, not quality of talents.

And we read that verse there, "When each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." So now to you, each individual, every single person, fan into flame the gift of God within you and excel in what you are called to do. I want to tell you, there's nothing wrong with excelling at something. Like sometimes we want to be so humble, we're afraid to be good at something. But if God has given you a gift in a certain area, excel at that. If you're a teacher, excel in that.

Learn how to teach. If you're an evangelist, learn methods of evangelism. If you're into Bible study, learn methods of Bible study. Don't be proud about it. We need to be loving. Or like Paul says, "Above all, seek to love each other." But I believe we can do that and at the same time excel. It's an excellence, I believe, where yeah, we can just experience a really fullness of Christ together. What happens when we try to do it all? You've probably heard this that a jack of all trades is a master of none.

So if you think you've got to do everything, I can tell you, you're not going to be succeeding in any of them. You're going to fail. And I think that happens to so many leaders. They burn out and they fail. Excel in what God has called you to do and the things that God has not given you a gift, delegate to others and bless them and let them run with it. Don't be a spiritual parasite. We talked about how putting together some of the gifts that the sum total is more, but the exact opposite is also true.

If you're spiritually idle, it's also not without consequence. You actually take away energy from the body, just like cancer takes away energy from a human body. You know cancer is growing too. Cancer is bodily growth. It's rapid growth, but it's growth going wrong. And I think when we're not synergistically working together, that cancer cell, he's taken all the energy from the body. He's sapping the body of strength. He's taken blood. He's taken oxygen. And what happens? It ruins the body.

And the same thing will happen in the church. Don't think that you can be a bench warmer and it doesn't affect everybody else. It will. It will have a negative impact on the church. Cultivate a culture of service. The Republic of Kenya, I'm told, has a their official motto is something like I wrote it down, but I'm not sure where I had it. Call to help or call to serve or serve together or pool together, something like that. And early on, when one of the presidents let me see if I can find where I wrote that down.

Kenyatta was sworn in as president of the Republic of Kenya on December 12, 1964. In a broadcast to the nation, he said, "The Republic is the people. And just as I called on you to enter the Republic in the spirit of hamurambi" hamurambi was this idea of pulling together. "So I call you now to enrich the Republic with the spirit of community. Commencing with this coming year, let every man who is educated teach a man to read and write. Let every man who is healthy help a man who is sick.

Let every man who has work and position find some prospect for a man who is unemployed and poor. Let service be the inspiration of our future and so our future can be made worthwhile." And while I don't know if this man was a Christian, I think that this kind of is the picture of what the church should look like, a culture of service. See, we are so we have this mentality too many times that I want to go to church. I want to be served. And we are served. Don't get me wrong. We come and we feed on the word.

We get so many things from coming to a place like this and into your church. But remember, Christ said not to be like the Gentiles. And here he says, "Let it not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." Now, here's the secret to all of this. You want to be served. You want to take something from the church.

You can have it all. But you know what? I don't think you're going to get it until you first become a servant to the church and you start serving other people and giving of your abilities and talents and serving others. And then it reciprocates and we get back so much more. Some people want to be great by making a name for themselves. And there's a certain family that had two sons. The older said, "He's going to make a name for his family." And so he turned his face toward parliament and fame.

The younger decided to give his life to the service of Christ and turned his face toward China and duty. He was Hudson Taylor, the missionary who died, beloved, and known on every continent. But someone wrote, "When I looked in the encyclopedia to see what the other son had done, I found these words, 'The brother of Hudson Taylor.'" That's all there was. See, just trying to be great or trying to be famous, trying to have a reputation isn't going to get you anywhere.

Service is going to and it's not that we're trying to be somebody. Service is going to make you useful in the kingdom of God and to others. When each part is working properly, the whole body or it makes the whole body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And I've read this a few times already. Now, we might ask this question, can a person be a Christian without the body? And I would say that probably yes. Somebody can find Christ outside of the body.

Now, the Anabaptists were famous for making this statement sometimes that no man is in Christ without his brother. But here's what I think they meant. I think fullness of the fullness of Christ that Christ has promised is to his body. And if you want to experience all there is of Christ, you want to experience all the gifts of Christ because remember, you've only been given one or two or three. You've been given a select number of gifts.

But you can experience the fullness of Christ within his body by working synergistically with others. In our Bibles and our English language, the word you is a difficult word to understand whether it's singular or plural. Some languages like Spanish, it's easy. They have one word for plural, one word for singular.

It would be helpful if in our English language we would have a word that's plural because if you look in your Bible, when it talks about being complete in Christ, receiving the fullness of Christ, they're all given to you plural. And I think there's a reason for that. God wants to give a gift to each one individually, but we experience fullness together. God has equipped us with all the resources to enlarge his tent. Some of my favorite verses are in Second Corinthians 9, verse 6 through 8.

And these verses are talking about giving, maybe money, but I think we can apply them to giving of our lives, giving of our service. The point is this, whoever spares sowingly will also reap sparingly. Did I read that wrong? Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. So like I said, if you're unwilling to give much, you're not going to receive much. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his own heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Now, this next verse is one of my favorites because it has some words here that just capitalizing them doesn't do them justice. And God is able to make maybe you can say the words together that are capital. God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Those are just some quite outstanding words, but that's what God wants to give to us by giving each of you here today, everyone in your church back home, something that you can bring together and work together at synergistically. Expect great things from God. Attempt great things from God, William Carey said. And I would just like to close with this prayer for you all. And this was the prayer of Jabez, but I want you to think about how we talked about enlarging that tent. This was Jabez's prayer.

And I have no idea what time this is. Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my border so that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain." And God granted what he asked. Sometimes I tell my children, in all their innocence, there's nothing wrong with this. I say it kind of jokingly. They say very short prayers when they're young. Dear God, thank you for this day. Thank you for Dad and Mom in Jesus' name. Amen.

You know And there's nothing wrong with that. But in my mind, I think, you know, you could have had so much more if you would have asked for more. Jabez is saying, "Enlarge my tent." And this needs to be our prayer. We can ask for more. God has given us, like we said, everything we need to enlarge the tent. Find that place in the tent. We say this when I was growing up, this benediction was prayed many times. And we would stand up and say this. The preacher would pray this benediction.

And of course, as young children, we would be in a hurry to get out of church. So we would stand there, listen to this benediction as it's prayed. The words would just go in one ear and out the other. They were said sometimes very quickly. But never again say this verse quickly. Think about what this promise is. When we ask big things, when we think big things, and when we attempt big things, it says that he is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. According to the power at work where?

Within us. So we have a part to do in this. When we work, when every joint is working together, God will work. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.