Podcasts about pastor rich

We live in a culture that wants it all. More is seen as better—whether it's more money, social media fame, choices, or power. For those chasing this way of life, "narrow" seems negative. Pastor Rich Villodas shares from his book "The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls." Originally aired August 13, 2024 Check out Susie's podcast God Impressions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: click here

Join us as Pastor Rich kicks off our series, Teach Us To Pray. 

Have you ever hit the pillow at night, only to have your mind instantly race with every conversation, regret, or false accusation from the day? When your head touches the pillow, do you find yourself winning imaginary arguments, scrolling on your phone to escape, or wrestling with an anger that just won't quit? You aren't alone. King David knew that exact late-night battle. In Psalm 4, David finds himself under attack, slandered, and misunderstood—yet he discovered a rest that no circumstances can steal. In this message Pastor Rich walks through Psalm 4 to uncover how to trade late-night anxiety, hurt, and self-vindication for true, gospel-centered peace and rest. In this sermon, you'll discover: • How to Cry Out First: Why going to God in prayer must be our first reaction—before we doom-scroll, turn to Google, or rehearse arguments in our heads. • Victory Over False Accusations: How knowing you are set apart by God gives you security when people lie about your character or misjudge your heart. • "Be Angry and Do Not Sin": How to tell the difference between destructive, self-serving anger and righteous anger that drives you toward God—and why anger left unchecked acts like a precision-less flamethrower. • Forgiveness as a Daily Walk: Why letting go of hurt isn't a "one-and-done" decision, but a daily step of faith in the God who vindicates us. • The Secret to True Rest: How to utilize Psalm 4:8 so you can finally lie down, shut off the noise, and sleep in total peace. The world promises peace through earthly prosperity, but God offers a joy far greater. No matter what you are facing, God will not waste your suffering—He uses it to conform you to Christ, build your resilience, and draw you into His presence. Are you ready to stop fighting the battle in your own strength and rest in the God who alone makes you dwell in safety? Key Takeaway Verse: "I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety." — Psalm 4:8 Connect & Next Steps: Need Salvation or Prayer? If you are ready to repent of your sins, trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and step into a saving relationship with Him today, reach out to us! Memorize the Word: Join us in committing Psalm 4:8 to heart this week to combat late-night worry. Share: Know someone struggling with anxiety, anger, or sleepless nights? Share this video to encourage them with God's Word! #PeaceInGod #Psalm4 #ExpositoryPreaching #SleeplessNights #ChristianFaith #GospelHope #BibleTeaching #OvercomingAnxiety #Forgiveness #RestInChrist

Some hurts do not disappear quickly. A betrayal, an absent parent, a broken relationship, abuse, or years of small offenses can leave anger and bitterness working below the surface long after the moment has passed.   In Week 1 of Getting Over It, Pastor Rich teaches from Ephesians 4:26-32 about the grace we have received and the grace we are called to give. This message names the difference between repressing pain, rehearsing pain, and releasing pain to God. Releasing is not pretending the harm was okay. It is bringing what is real to God so resentment does not keep defining your future.   Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Getting Over It Week: 1 Working message title: Release It Date: August 2, 2026 Scripture: Ephesians 4:26-32; 2 Corinthians 5:15, 19; Acts 7:57-60   Next steps, prayer, and connection: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Learn more about LIFEchurch: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich as we close out our series, Fool's Gold. 

Introduction: Why Are We Doing This? (Psalm 90): Because TIME IS SHORT . (Ps 90:1-12) Because GOD IS GOOD . (Ps 90:13-15) Because THERE IS WORK TO DO . (Ps 90:16-17) Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Gratitude - Part 2 Jeff Miller / Taylor Brown Download Audio Transcript Paster Jeff00:00Open up your Bibles with me please to the book of Psalms. And we will be looking at the 90th Psalm. I can think of a couple reasons now why we need a building on that property. Both of them pretty evident today, right? Alright, let's get into God's Word together. Pray for me please.Paster Jeff00:30A sermon in three acts. So you pray for Pastor Rich and Pastor Taylor. All right? And we all will pray for you. All right? Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we turn to your word now, I just pray for all of us that our hearts are open to receive what it is that you've taught us through your eternal word. Thank you, Father. Thank you for All that you have so richly blessed us with, but most of all, Father, for the salvation that we find in Christ, because otherwise we would be so lost and hopeless. Father, I thank you that you have left us a guarantee of your love for us, the provision of salvation, the means by which eternal life can be restored, Father. And I pray that you would help us all to just Zero in now in your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I love the kid sounds, by the way. Not a distraction up here. Don't let it distract you. It's a sign of life. I love it. Alright? I told you before when I hear kids making noise, in my mind I just hear, Amen! Amen! Amen! That's how I hear that. So it just encourages me, alright? Psalm 90. Let's take a look.Paster Jeff02:00This is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Verse 1, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Again, this was written by Moses. And I thought, what an appropriate place for us to land today after this last series that Pastor Taylor took us through.Paster Jeff02:29The Psalm that was actually written by Moses. And look at what he says again in verse 1. Look close. Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. That's really a funny statement when you consider what was going on when Moses wrote this. You could say that Israel was between homes.Paster Jeff02:59Right? What is home? Anyways, I was thinking about that a lot as I was preparing for this. All the places I lived. I grew up in Shakura. Moved to Ohio for school where I lived probably a half a dozen different places during my years in Ohio. Then moved back to Butler where I lived on Locust Street and then on North Street and then on Pearl Street.Paster Jeff03:29And then we moved to Renfrew, Prospect, Chicago, back to Prospect, then to Economy, and now in beautiful Zillian Opal. Every time I moved, I swore it was the last time I was ever going to move. So I stopped doing that. But what is home? What is it? I think about the church, right?Paster Jeff03:59met at the meeting room in Pantera Bread. Lo these many years ago. Then we were in a man's basement. He knew. He was there. Then we met in the chiropractor's office. Marshall Middle School. Then 12330 Perry Highway Suite 100. And then almost 414 Klein Road, but right back to 12330.Paster Jeff04:29Perry Highway Suite 100. What is home? Well, if you're a believer, there's no place on earth that's ever really going to feel like home. Because earth is not our home. Wherever we are, wherever we are, that's what Moses is talking about here. Lord, You have been our dwelling place.Paster Jeff04:59Church, our dwelling place isn't this office building or even Klein Road or wherever the Lord has. Our dwelling place, Church, is the Lord. Wherever geographically that is, He is our dwelling place. Well, if this isn't our home, and if the new church building isn't something any of us are going to enjoy forever, then why are we...Paster Jeff05:29Why are we going to joyfully and gratefully go after the work of this church building? Why?Paster Jeff05:40So what's the point? Well, there's three points actually. Here's the first one that Moses reminds us this. Time is short.Paster Jeff05:52Time is short.Paster Jeff05:55Look at verses 2 through 6. He says, For the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.Paster Jeff06:08You return man to dust and say, Return, O children of man.Paster Jeff06:14For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, or as a watch in the night.Paster Jeff06:23You sweep them away as with a flood.Paster Jeff06:26They are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning. In the morning, it flourishes and is renewed. In the evening, it fades and withers. Time is short. Oh, not for God, right? He made that clear. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. When God revealed to Moses what His name is, He said, his name is I Am. And that tells us everything we need to know about God. God's not I was, like you should have seen me in high school. I was in shape and good looking. No, no, God's not the I was. And God is not the I will be. Right? Like, you know what, Moses, I might not look like much now, but I'm exercising and I'm on this paleo diet.Paster Jeff07:26and I just did a juice cleanse and I'm seeing a good chiropractor and I'm going to be something great. No, no, no. He's not the I will be. He is the I am. He is the I am in Moses' day and he is the I am today. And Moses points out here, God is from everlasting to everlasting, but I think it's pretty obvious he says we are not. He says we're not.Paster Jeff07:56around you, you and I are here and gone. Right? Gone like what he tells us in verse 5. He uses three pictures here. First of all, he sweeped them away as with a flood. Could you imagine? Some of you can. Then he says, they're like a dream. I love that image. Have you ever, this happens to me all the the time. Have you ever had one of those dreams that seem like they take place over the course of like days or weeks and then you wake up and it's only been like, you've only been in bed like an hour? Has that ever happened to you? He's like, that's what man's like. We think this is like such a long thing, but it's over quick. He uses another image here that shouldn't be lost on us. He says, we're like grass. We're renewed in the morning. We flourish. We grow.Paster Jeff08:56in the evening we fade.Paster Jeff09:00We wither.Paster Jeff09:02Why is life so short?Paster Jeff09:05He tells us, look at verse 7.Paster Jeff09:07He says, For we are brought to an end by your anger.Paster Jeff09:13By your wrath, we are dismayed.Paster Jeff09:17You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins, in the light of your presence.Paster Jeff09:23For all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are 70, or even by reason of strength 80, yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone, and we fly away.Paster Jeff09:53the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you. Why is life so short? He just basically very poetically sums it up just as one concept. It's the curse of sin. It's because of sin that life is short. God promised Adam, the first man, if you sin against me, God literally says, dying you will die. You're going to get old and wear out and die. Dying you will die.Paster Jeff10:22It's an act of judgment from God on a world that's rejected Him.Paster Jeff10:30You're like, so what's the point?Paster Jeff10:33Why would Moses bring this up?Paster Jeff10:36Verse 12 is Moses' point.Paster Jeff10:39He says, so, this is his prayer to the Lord, should be ours.Paster Jeff10:43So, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.Paster Jeff10:55Teach us to number our days. Okay, so the Bible says that we should number our days. So let's obey, shall we? How many days do you have left on this earth? How many days? Well, we'll take Moses' average here, right? Did you notice he says, in verse 10, 70 or 80. So we'll take the average, which is 75. All right, thank you, accountants. So if we take Moses' average, 75. Now that's just the average. This is an exercise, right? I did the math for you. Okay, so if you're 50, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand with your age or anything like that, right? Okay, so So if you're 15 years old, you're sitting here today and you're 15 years old, do you know how many days you have left on this earth? 21,900. All right? If you're 25, you have 18,250. If you're 35, you have 14,600 days left on this earth. If you're 45, you have 10,950 days left on the earth.Paster Jeff12:21If you're 55, you have 7,300 days left on the earth. And if you're 65, you have 3,650 days left on the earth. And if you are 75, you're done. Anything over that is borrowed time.Paster Jeff12:54That's really not the point, is it? I don't think Moses was calling us to some numeric exercise, was he? Here's the point. Moses is not asking that God helps us consider when we may die, but that God helps us consider how we live our short lives. You see, We don't know the number of days that each of us have, but it's knowing that our days on the earth have a number. We just don't know what it is. I mean, what if you don't make the average? I mean, our family's high score is 73. Both of my parents died at 73. What if you don't make the average?Paster Jeff13:52What if your number of days left is 30? Would that change the way you live August? What if the number of days left is 7? Would that change your week? What if the number of days you have left is 1? How would you live today? Because wisdom says, make the most out of however many days I have left. And I will remind you that time is like money. If you're not deliberate in how you spend it, it's going to be gone, and you're not going to know where it went. So this church building that we've been talking about, building, church, this is one way that you can make the most of your short days.Paster Jeff14:52by praying, by giving, by serving. Because we live in a day when more and more people... No, it's always been that way with people. The thing that concerns me is we live in a day when more and more churches, churches are rejecting the Word of God, rejecting the love of God, rejecting the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And this church building, Is our flag in the ground where we say not here? Not here.Paster Jeff15:32If we learned anything when we studied Jesus' parable of the talents, He's given every one of us resources and opportunity to use in this short time that we have on this earth.Paster Jeff15:43And the Bible says He's coming back.Paster Jeff15:46And He wants to see what we did with what He's entrusted to us.Paster Jeff15:53And that's one of the things that gets me excited about this church building. When the Lord returns, I want to be able to point to that building and say, here, this was for you. This was for you. This is what we did with the opportunity and resources that you gave us. Jesus, this is what we did. We established a place where your word was not going to be denied, where your word was not going to be compromised, but it was going to be preached, It was going to be lifted up. We were going to train other people how to preach your word. This is a place where missionaries were sent out. Because though the last, excuse me, though the first Adam, the first Adam brought sin and death, the Bible says the last Adam. Jesus Christ, through His death and resurrection, brought forgiveness and life.Paster Jeff16:51to share this good news.Paster Jeff16:55Teach us to number our days.Paster Jeff16:58That we may get a heart of wisdom.Paster Jeff17:03Our time is short.Paster Jeff17:05So let's wise up.Paster Jeff17:07Let's make the most of them.Paster Jeff17:09Pastor Rich.Pastor Rich17:11So as Jeff said, why are we doing this?Pastor Rich17:15Why are we seeking to build this new place of worship?Pastor Rich17:18Because God is good.Pastor Rich17:21God is good. Look at verses 13 through 15 with me. Return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen evil. Verses 1 through 12 impressed on us that life is brief.Pastor Rich17:50So the question is, what should we do with this short, momentary, vapor of a life that has been granted to us? Jeff's statistics hit home. I'm not 35. Yeah, how should we spend it? Should we spend it worshiping ourselves, seeking comfort, material gain, wealth, fame, and a name for ourselves?Pastor Rich18:20Eat, drink, and be merry since tomorrow we die. Now Psalm 90 reminds us that satisfaction is not found in any of those things. Rather, satisfaction is found only in the Lord himself. Verse 14 says, Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. See, to be satisfied is to be filled up. The image is a full stomach, right? After a good meal, When you're satisfied, nothing else is needed. You're completely content. We all know that that satisfaction is temporary. It doesn't last. That's why Moses cries out to God that you, Lord, you be our satisfaction. Satisfaction in the Lord is permanent because he is eternal.Pastor Rich19:19He is the I Am. This image is similar to that of Psalm 23.1 where David writes, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord, Yahweh, the I Am is my shepherd. Nothing I lack. Well, how about you? Are you satisfied in God and God alone? Or do you need other things to be satisfied? And when you don't have those things, what do you do?Pastor Rich19:49Do you become resentful toward God and grumble and complain? What do you think you deserve? What causes you to complain against our good God? You know, I've thought a great deal about Pastor Taylor's sermon from last Sunday and the infectious disease of complaining. Complaining stems from ingratitude, and the sermon really challenged me to be thankful about everything. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be thankful to God for everything, every event, every circumstance in life. Because if I'm spending my time being thankful for everything, I'll have very little time to complain about anything. I'm thankful for how things turned out this morning. This rain was an opportunity to complain and grumble and like, man, nothing ever goes right. Nothing ever works.Pastor Rich20:49And I'm thankful. I'm thankful. Everybody is here. I'm thankful for the folks who showed up here, set the auditorium, got ready to worship. And here we are lifting our voices in praise to God. Amen. I want to be thankful to God in ways that show that I am really thankful with my whole heart, thankful in ways that honor him and glorify him because he is good.Pastor Rich21:19I ought to do that. Why? Because as we begin to be thankful for everything, we will see how incredibly generous God is toward us. And as we see how generous God is, we will indeed rejoice and be glad all of our days. He will indeed make us glad for as many days as he afflicted us. And why were we afflicted?Pastor Rich21:49Why are we afflicted?Pastor Rich21:51Because we complain instead of praise.Pastor Rich21:56Remember, this was a song of Moses, so he could have written it in response to any one of the many times the people grumbled and complained against God and felt his stern discipline.Pastor Rich22:09So we should instead praise and give thanks.Pastor Rich22:14Well, what exactly has God so generously given each one of us? There are gifts that every one of us here has in equal, overflowing, abounding measure. I don't have more of these gifts than you do. You have these same gifts in equal measure as Peter, James, and John, as much as George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and Barnabas over in Thailand. The real question is, how much do you lay hold of these good gifts with a grateful heart? The psalm tells us the first and most important gift that God has generously bestowed on us is himself. When you have him, you have all you need to be satisfied. We are assured of his presence with us. It's why Moses says, satisfy us with your steadfast love. That is, Lord, your fill us with who you are lord a god merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin how intently do you seek to know him you are in christ if you have confessed him as your Lord and Savior. He abides in you. Are you gratefully abiding in him? Second, he is generously giving you life and breath. He sustains you. You have the privilege of this brief life to enjoy him, to enjoy his creation and all the things he has created. You have the privilege in participating in rest and work, enjoying food and drink, days and seasons.Pastor Rich24:09Rain and sun and sea is handiwork in everything around you. And in Christ, we're going to enjoy all these things forever. Third, you have the joy of loving and being loved generously. In your salvation, you are placed into perfect relationship with the triune God who overflows with steadfast love.Pastor Rich24:38And you're in a new relationship to every person. And in such relationships, you can extend grace and mercy and love to others. You can seek forgiveness and grant forgiveness. We are made new for the purpose of generously living out the gospel in real time with real people. That time is brief. So be thankful for it and generous with it.Pastor Rich25:07Fourth, he has granted you citizenship in his glorious kingdom. He has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of his beloved son. Moreover, he has given you authority to rule with him here in this world in the midst of his enemies. And how do we rule? We rule by sharing the gospel of Christ, seeing enemies converted into children of God and seeing them become.Pastor Rich25:37are brothers and sisters in Christ.Pastor Rich25:41And yes, because he is a good father, he has given you all you need.Pastor Rich25:47Is there anyone here who truly lacks anything?Pastor Rich25:52There may be plenty of worldly and material things that you want, and you know, you may have even convinced yourself that you need these things.Pastor Rich26:02But the reality is that we individually and collectively are among the wealthiest people who have ever lived on the face of the earth. God has indeed shown us his steadfast love and dealt with us all, every one of us here, generously. So what kind of people then ought we to be? We ought to be grateful, thanking God profusely for all he has put into our hands We ought to strive to lay hold of the full and abundant life we have in God our Savior. We ought to be generous toward God and toward others with the same level of generosity that he has bestowed on us. We should be generous towards God and others with our time. Generous towards God and others with love. Generous towards God and others with the resources that God has generously bestowed on us.Pastor Rich27:02We should be gracious in showing mercy, generous in extending grace, and generous in showing hospitality. Our Father has been so, so good to harvest for nearly 15 years. He has been exceedingly generous to us for all that time. Just look around you. And if we had been at the property this morning, there would be so much to see and thankful for.Pastor Rich27:32But look at his generosity and the evidence of his desire to use harvest for his glory. To use you and your generosity for his glory. We are doing this because he is good. And he wants you to join him in this endeavor. There is more to do. And Pastor Taylor is going to tell us about that. Parents and children, don't worry. As the third preacher this morning, I know it's my job to be short.Pastor Taylor28:02I'm going to try my best. So why are we doing this? First, because time is short. Second, because God is good. And thirdly, and finally, because there is work to do. Moses has a final request of the Lord in verse 16. He says, let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. In other words, God, do what only you can do. Be at work in our lives. Be at work in the lives of others. You know, growing up, dads can seem very mysterious to their children. Especially when they are gone for eight or more hours of the day going to a place called work. You don't know what they do at work, but you know it's very important. You know that it's a very big deal. Very often, my kids will get sad when I have to go to work. They'll say, oh, why are you going to work, dad? I'll ask them questions. Do you like eating? Do you like wearing clothes?Pastor Taylor29:02Do you like not living outside? Yes. Then I have to go to work. For 40 years, my dad was in the orthopedic sales business. He would sell replacement hips, knees, shoulders, and other equipment. He would be a consultant in the operating room, and the doctors could ask him questions as they did the surgery. And as a child, none of those things really made sense to me. My dad's job was a big mystery.Pastor Taylor29:32changed in third grade when my dad came in for career day to explain what his job was. And my dad did more than just that. He brought a small pair of scrubs, a mask, and a beeper for me to wear. Kids, if you don't know what a beeper is, find someone older and ask them about it. After I suited up, my dad had me hold and hand out replacement joints to my classmates. My dad was so happy to include me, and I felt so cool to be included. As long as I live, I'll never forget that day because I got to be a part of my dad's work. For a very short time, I was in the orthopedic sales business. I got to see my dad at work and join him in his work. Do you know that we get to see our heavenly father at work? We get to join him in his Our dad is at work all the time and his work isn't a mystery. We're told in scripture what this work is. Our dad is in the salvation business. He is in the business of changing lives both now and forever. We have been recipients of our dad's work. We have been saved. We have been forgiven. We have been transformed. We have been changed. We've been given a church family to belong to.Pastor Taylor31:01We have been recipients of our dad's work. But even more than that, we get to join our father in his work. We get to be co-laborers with our dad. Did my dad need me all those years ago? I think he could have explained his job perfectly well without me. My dad didn't need to use me, but he wanted to use me.Pastor Taylor31:31need to use us. No. He doesn't need me. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need Pastor Jeff, Pastor Rich, Brian Behe, Justin Katie. He doesn't need anybody or anything. He is 100% self-sufficient every single way. He doesn't need to use us, but he wants to use us. It's a good feeling to be needed. It's an infinitely greater feeling.Pastor Taylor32:01to be wanted.Pastor Taylor32:03Do you truly believe that God wants to use you?Pastor Taylor32:07That He desires to use you?Pastor Taylor32:11God wants to include you in His work of saving the lost.Pastor Taylor32:15Of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.Pastor Taylor32:17Of building this church.Pastor Taylor32:19Of sanctifying His people.Pastor Taylor32:21We have been called into the family business.Pastor Taylor32:25We are in the business of seeing our Heavenly Father save sinners and change lives.Pastor Taylor32:31There is no greater calling. There is no more meaningful work. There is no better job in the entire world. But we cannot do our dad's work in our own power. We desperately need his help. We need to pray the words of Moses in verse 17. He says, Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes! Establish the work of our hands. What we build will crumble unless God sustains it. What we achieve will fade away unless God blesses it. It's easy to look at a massive project like building this building and be overwhelmed. It's easy to think, well, how's this going to happen? There's so much money to raise. There's so much How is this going to happen? You know, I know exactly how it's going to happen. God will make it happen. He will be at work in and through us like he always has been. God is at work behind the scenes and through you as well. Instead of falling back into fear, let's lean forward in hope. Let's boldly and passionately pray for the Lord's gracious favor.Pastor Taylor33:52And that word for favor in verse 17 can also be translated as approval, delight, or beauty. A proud dad delights when his children try their best. A proud dad approves when his kids make an effort and do not phone it in. A proud dad smiles when his kids work hard and do not give up. It's like Moses praying, Lord, smile upon the work of your people.Pastor Taylor34:22Let's pray the same exact thing this morning. Lord, smile upon the work of Harvest Bible Chapel. Smile upon this building project. Smile upon our effort to build a bigger space where more people can worship you, encounter you, and learn about the good news of Jesus Christ. So let's pray right now that we would get to work and that God would establish the work of our hands. Father, we thank you so much for who you are. We thank you so much for all that you do for us.Pastor Taylor34:57As Pastor Rich already said, we so often complain when things don't go according to plan.Pastor Taylor35:02Instead, let us always give thanks because you are always at work.Pastor Taylor35:06You're always doing something that we can't see.Pastor Taylor35:10You are always changing lives.Pastor Taylor35:11You are always doing amazing things behind the scenes.Pastor Taylor35:17Lord, from a human standpoint, I don't know how this building project is going to work.Pastor Taylor35:21I don't know how all the details are going to come together. But the great thing is I don't have to worry about that because you have it all figured out. You will make it happen, Father. You will bring about what you want in this building project. We trust you because you are the I Am. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. We thank you that you don't need us, but you choose to use us anyway. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.Pastor Taylor35:51So before we close, I want to read verse 17 again. Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. We seek to put up this new building for the sake of our children. For the sake of the next generation encountering the glorious power and life-giving work of our great God. We want a safe place for our kids to be kids. To have fun. To have joy in the Lord. And to be trained for the work of God themselves. So we're actually going to put the kids to work right now. So kids, come forward. You're actually going to be singing for the entire church. So if you're able to sing, come forward kids and get ready to sing our song. Hey, that was fantastic, guys.Paster Jeff36:53Don't you think they should do that song with you? And by the way, if you're like, that's kid stuff. Remember Levi's sermon on Wednesday night? Unless you have the faith of a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. We are all called to have this kind of excited faith that is so joyful at what the Lord is doing.Paster Jeff37:21So let's stand. Let's all be VBS kids right now, alright? Small Group DiscussionRead Psalm 90What was your big take-away from this passage / message?BreakoutPray prayers of specific things you are thankful for.

Today's sermon is Mary, Thomas, Simon by Rich Chaffin Find more teaching from Pastor Rich at www.cclc.org

How do you respond when someone hurts, betrays, disrespects, or refuses to forgive you? The answer is rarely simple, but Pastor Rich reminds us that these are gospel questions—moments that reveal how deeply the grace of Jesus is shaping the way we live. In the final week of Transformed, Rich teaches from Romans 12:14-21 and calls us to bless instead of curse, pursue peace where possible, release revenge, and overcome evil with good. None of that means denying the harm or remaining in an unsafe situation. Instead, Rich shows how wise boundaries and tangible acts of goodness can keep hurt from having the final word through us. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Transformed Week: 5 of 5 Date: July 26, 2026 Scripture: Romans 12:14-21   Connect with us: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Learn more about LIFEchurch: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich as we continue our series, Fool's Gold. 

Join us as Pastor Rich as we continue our series, Fool's Gold. 

Join us as Pastor Rich as we start our series, Fool's Gold. 

To Find Josh Monday's Podcast---> https://open.spotify.com/show/07cJzde2nVA3lOA3W028dl?si=3899d3fb885544e7To find Josh Monday's Youtube---> https://www.youtube.com/@joshmondaymusicandpodcastTo find C.O.C. Clips on YouTube---> https://youtube.com/@cultofconspiracyclips?si=Lb5mdAkjoeTnhYagTo Follow The Cajun Knight on Youtube---> https://www.youtube.com/@CajunknightTo find the Meta Mysteries Podcast---> https://open.spotify.com/show/6IshwF6qc2iuqz3WTPz9Wv?si=3a32c8f730b34e79https://flavorsforest.com/cult/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cult-of-conspiracy--5700337/support.

Sometimes we feel too messed up to show up. Like we failed one too many times, so we skip church, or come and hide in the back. This week Pastor Rich pointed us to Isaiah. When he saw God's glory, he didn't run from his uncleanness. He let God touch his lips with the coal from the altar, and the mess became a commissioning. That's the whole heart of it. God isn't after your polished facade or your perfect wineskin. He wants you, filthy and weary and all. Come get filled with the more. Listen in now to hear Life Center Church's latest Sunday message from Pastor Rich.   ⛪️ Connect with us ⛪️  https://www.lifecenternyc.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lifecenternyc/  

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" They're the rawest words in the Bible — a cry most of us have felt but were afraid to pray out loud. In this message from our Summer in the Psalms series, Pastor Rich steps into Psalm 22: a song that refuses to pretend the dark away, yet somehow ends in the dawn. We'll trace how a shepherd's ancient prayer became the very words Jesus spoke from the cross — and what that means for you the next time God feels far away. If you've ever wondered whether faith has room for your hardest questions, start here.

Romans 12 teaches that spiritual transformation begins with surrender. In this message, Pastor Rich walks through what it means to offer your life as a living sacrifice, refuse the pattern of the world, and let God renew your mind. Rich also connects this passage to strongholds in our thinking and the practice of taking thoughts captive. If you are wrestling with anxiety, control, fear about the future, or recurring thought patterns that keep shaping your life, this message will help you move toward surrender and trust in Jesus.   Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Transformed Week: 1 Date: June 28, 2026 Scripture referenced: Romans 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 10   Next steps, prayer, and connection: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Website: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich wraps up our series, Who Are You?

Today's sermon is Bearing Fruit by Rich Chaffin Find more teaching from Pastor Rich at www.cclc.org

Join us as Pastor Rich shares what the Lord laid on his heart to encourage fathers. 

Do your words reflect your relationship with Jesus? In Week 5 of Jesus + Nothing, Pastor Rich closes the series by teaching from Colossians 4 and reminding us that everything is spiritual, including the words we speak, text, post, pray, and use in difficult conversations. This message explores four ways our words can point people to Jesus: pray with your words because they connect you to God, engage with your words because they build bridges to outsiders, encourage with your words because they strengthen others, and honor with your words because they deepen relationships. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Jesus + Nothing, Week 5 Message: Words That Point People to Jesus Date: June 14, 2026 Scripture referenced: Colossians 3:17, Colossians 4:2-18, Luke 6:45   Connect with us: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Learn more about LIFEchurch: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give  

Join us as Pastor Rich continues our series, Who Are You?

Introduction: Love > Any Spiritual Gift. (1 Corinthians 13:8-13) Spiritual Gifts Are TEMPORARY. (1 Cor 13:8) Jeremiah 5:15 - Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the LORD. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. Isaiah 28:11-12 – For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear. 1 Corinthians 14:21 – In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” Spiritual Gifts Are PARTIAL. (1 Cor 13:9-12) Deuteronomy 29:29 – The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Love is FOREVER. (1 Cor 13:13) Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Questions and Answers: Why Do I Love? Jeff Miller Download Audio Transcript 00:36Open up those Bibles with me please to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. While you're turning there, I would again ask that you would please take a moment and pray for me to communicate God's Word clearly and accurately as I should. And I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive a very difficult passage, but we are going to get through this together.01:05All right? Let's pray. Father, I pray that You would remove any distractions from our minds or hearts right now. All of us. You've called us to love You with our minds, and that happens through the study and understanding of Your Word. And I pray, Father, that Especially over these next few minutes, we would love you with all of our minds. As we lock in to see not what we think your word says or what we heard somebody else say that your word says, but help us all to just lock in and see what your word actually says. And Father, this is a passage where it would be real easy for us to miss the point.02:05Holy Spirit, by the wisdom of Your Word, that we would get what it is that You're communicating here. I thank You ahead of time, Father, as You're continuing to make us a church unified and purified. Make us a loving church, Father, we pray in Jesus' name. And all of God's people said, Amen. 1 Corinthians 13, are you there?02:35or so, a little boy from our church, I will not mention his name, a little boy from our church after the second service runs into my office and he goes, Pastor Jeff, how do I get the girls? And I thought to myself, well, isn't this just precious? Little Lambie comes into Pastor Jeff's office at such a tender age.03:05Wanting relationship advice. Pastor Jeff, how do I get the girls? So I knelt down and I said, the most important thing for you right now at this stage in your life is to always be kind. And he looked me in the eye and he said, we're playing tag.03:39And I knelt down again, and I said, you've got to be fast.03:47And that little anecdote reminds us of a very important truth about life. Context makes all the difference. I was ready to have this heart-to-heart about something that he had no interest in talking about.04:05Context makes all the difference. And it never matters more than when we come to the Word of God. Understanding the Word of God in its context. And we're going through 1 Corinthians verse by verse. And you could sum up the first 12 chapters very simply. Lack of love. That was the problem. That was the bottom line. Lack of love. Paul's like, you're not loving each other the way that you need to love each other.04:35So we get to chapter 13 where Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us the solution. And the solution is love. Love. Love each other. We talked about this last week. Agape love. Self-sacrificing love. Yes, there are feelings involved, but it's a word more about doing. Right? And then he talked about 15 ways that real love Love acts. Why is this so important? Well, look at verse 8. He says, love never ends. What Paul's doing here and what I'm trying to just echo in representing the Word of God is church, can we grasp the matter of love. Can we really wrap our minds and our hearts around how utterly essential and huge it is for us as a church to get this? He says love is eternal. It's never going away. Now, through all of eternity. Listen, this literally should be translated, love never ends.06:02Some translations say things like love never fails. And that's not what he's saying. He's not saying love always conquers the day. He's not saying that because in that sense, love does sometimes fail. I mean, come on, let's not lie to ourselves. Love does sometimes fail. Have you ever loved a family member?06:32and everything went south anyways. Have you ever loved somebody in the church? And you were still met with hostility. In that sense, love does sometimes fail because here's the thing. Love can be rejected. Just ask Jesus. Right? Jesus loved everyone perfectly. But sometimes even in Jesus' Jesus' interactions, his love was rejected. But, that's not what he's saying here. He's not saying love always conquers, he's saying love lasts forever. And he makes that point clear in these subsequent verses. Because their emphasis, we've been talking about this the last, what, two or three weeks or whatever, their emphasis was on the spiritual gifts. They were so, like, obsessed with this.07:32Who has the best gift? Who's the most important person in the church? You're not as important as me. And this gift, that's way more important than this gift. And they were so out of joint about spiritual gifts. And Paul's coming along, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All that stuff, all that stuff's going to be over someday, all right? But you know what won't ever be over? Love. That's what he's saying here. So, on your outline, love is, greater than any spiritual gift. That is the greater sign, right? Okay, thank you. The one person here who knew. Okay, Brian. Brian Krauss, thank you. He knew that one. That is the greater sign. It's been a while. Thank you. He's always got my back. Love is greater than any spiritual gift. That's the point. Number one, spiritual gifts are temporary. That's Paul's first point. He goes, love never ends.08:32Love never ends. But look, you're all tied up about these spiritual gifts. He goes, that stuff is all temporary. Look at the rest of verse 8. He says, as for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. They're all going to end someday. And Paul gives three examples. They were spiritual gifts that were a big deal.09:02church and there are three spiritual gifts that are a big deal in a lot of churches today.09:07Do you see them?09:08Let's talk about it.09:09First of all, he's talking about prophecy.09:13Jump over tongues for a second.09:16Prophecy and knowledge.09:18That's putting those together.09:20That's knowing and speaking God's truth.09:25It's a big deal.09:26It's a big deal in this church.09:27It was a big deal to the Corinthians because we talked about this a few months ago.09:31In that culture, public speaking was the cool thing. It was competition. It was entertainment. Public speaking was the thing. Right? So prophecy and knowledge, knowing and speaking God's truth. And right in the middle there, he talks about tongues. What are tongues? We talked about this briefly. We're going to really take a deep dive in this starting next week. But what are tongues? Tongues are literally known languages. All right?10:01It's not gibberish. Tongues are a known language. The spiritual gift was to be able to get up and speak in a language, an existing language that you didn't know, that you never learned. Like if I got up and all of a sudden I started speaking Mandarin. I don't know any Mandarin, but all of a sudden I start speaking it. That's what the gift was. And there would be an interpreter to have the gift to translate what was said. But it was a known language. Acts 2.10:31Look at Pentecost. That's what happened. We're going to talk more about that in a second. But Paul's point here is just simply this. All these gifts, prophecy, tongues, knowledge, they're all temporary. They're all temporary. All right, let's not get too excited about these. Like, they're all temporary. Yes, they have a purpose. Yes, used in the church. Yes, a gift from the Holy Spirit for the edification of the body. Yes, but, but, They are not the most important thing because they don't last forever. Alright, we're going to go to Sunday school here for a second. I want you to notice in your Bible, this is so important, notice the different verbs that are used talking about prophecy and tongues and knowledge. Did you see there are different verbs used describing them? One verb is pass away.11:31What that means literally, I'm not going to bore you with a grammar lesson, you can study this out yourself. Take me to Chick-fil-A and I'll show you my homework. But pass away literally refers to something coming along and putting an end to it. Like this is happening, but something's going to come and stop this. All right, that's pass away. The word cease though literally means something that stops all by itself. It just ends.12:01Nothing puts an end to it. It just stops. So notice he says here in verse 8 that prophecy and knowledge will pass away. They're temporary. Something will stop them someday. You're like, well, what's going to stop prophecy and knowledge? Oh, he tells us. We're going to get to that in verse 9. He tells us what puts an end to it. But he says tongues will cease. Again, tongues also temporary. He says tongues, literally, His wording is tongues will stop by themselves. So that is the question, isn't it? When will speaking in tongues come to an end? Well, here we go. Speaking in tongues. Speaking a language you didn't learn. This is the purpose of tongues. Tongues was actually a sign of judgment against the people.13:01the nation of Israel.13:05See, Israel had rejected God, and in Paul's day, Israel rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah, so God was moving on to people of other languages.13:18With speaking in tongues, God was saying, you're not going to listen to a language that you understand?13:23Well, I'm going to speak a language you don't understand.13:27And this isn't something that I came up with.13:29This wasn't my idea.13:30this is from the Old Testament. I want you to consider a couple of verses here. This has always been God's way. Jeremiah 5, verse 15. Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation. It is an ancient nation. Look at this. A nation whose language you do not know. Nor can you understand what they say. Do you see as a sign of judgment?14:00God's saying, people are going to be coming and speaking a language, you don't have any idea what they're saying. He says the same thing, Isaiah chapter 28. He says, for by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue, the Lord will speak to this people. To whom He has said, this is rest, give rest to the weary, and this is repost. Yet they would not hear. There it is again. God says judgment is going to be connected with, I'm going to bring people speaking a language that you're not going to understand. It's their language, but you're not going to understand what it is. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Pastor Jeff, okay, okay, that's Old Testament. But is that really connected to the New Testament? Well, absolutely, because in 1 Corinthians 14, which we're going to be getting to real soon, Paul quotes Isaiah 28 in talking about tongues. He says, in the law, it is written, there it is, by people of strange tongues, And even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. You see, Paul directly connected speaking in tongues with this sign of judgment from the Old Testament. All right? So tongues was a sign of judgment against Israel, and it was to affirm the apostles, their teaching and their message. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Quick review.15:29Speaking in tongues was actually a miracle. And God used miracles through the apostles to verify the new covenant gospel message because the New Testament wasn't completed yet. You see, these apostles didn't get up and say, open your Bibles to the book of James or whatever. They didn't have the Bible completed yet. It was being written at this time. So to verify their message, God backed them up with miraculous gifts.15:59Tongues was one of those. So miracles, including speaking in tongues, speaking a language you didn't learn, miracles ended, now listen very closely, they ended as normative with the apostolic era. What do I mean as normative? Do I believe that God still does miracles, including the biblical gifts?16:29The Gift of Speaking in Tongues today? Yes, I do believe that. I do believe that these miracles still happen on occasion. When God wants them to happen, they happen. But it's not normative as it was in the days of the apostles. In fact, you go through the rest of your Bible, there's zero mention in the New Testament after the book of Acts, after the book of 1 Corinthians, which is the earliest epistle written. There's zero mention of speaking in tongues moving through the rest of the New Testament. Zero mention. Why? Because it was a miracle gift connected with the apostles. Look, you might have a different understanding of speaking in tongues. And you're like, I want to fight about it. And I would say, I have no interest in fighting about it.17:28Because if we were to fight about it, we are going to completely miss the point, right? The point was, the church was fighting about it! And Paul's like, it's temporary! We don't fight about spiritual gifts, he's just reminding us, look, these things are not going to last into eternity! The spiritual gifts are all temporary! But love never ends!17:59All I can do as a pastor is tell you what the Bible says about it. Right? And I know that's why you're here. This is what the Bible says about spiritual gifts. Paul says, prophecy and knowledge will pass away and tongues will cease. But love never ends. Alright?18:28So spiritual gifts are temporary. And number two, write this one down. Spiritual gifts are partial. They're partial. Look at verse 9. He says, for we know in part, and we prophesy in part. Stop there. Knowledge and prophecy. Notice he dropped tongues in the conversation. Tongues has exited the chat.18:59Right? But knowledge and prophecy are always going to be needed in the church age. Right? Not new revelation. I'm not getting up anytime, nor is Pastor Taylor, Pastor Rich, or Brian, or anybody who gets up here to speak. Nobody's getting up here saying, hey, here's this brand new word from God. No, the revelation has been completed with the word of God. So knowledge and prophecy have to do with understanding and preaching the truth.19:28that's revealed in God's Word. But notice he says, we know in part. And we prophesy in part. I don't know everything. I didn't even know the little boy was playing tag. I don't know everything. And I certainly can't preach everything. Because knowledge and prophecy Not only are they temporary, but they're also partial. Look at verse 10. He says, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. All right, here's the question. What is the perfect that he's talking about here?20:32Well, you know what? I did a lot of reading this week. I did a lot of reading. And there are scholars and commentators and theologians, they are all over the board on this. Some people say that the perfect is the completion of the New Testament. That knowledge and prophecy pass away when the Bible is completed. Some people say, that the perfect is the rapture.21:05That's the perfect.21:06When the Lord returns and takes His church, that's the perfect.21:10And I've got to tell you, I don't see how either of those make any sense at all.21:16Knowledge and prophecy passing away.21:18First of all, when the New Testament is completed, even though the New Testament is completed, They're still preaching, right? Have you ever heard somebody preach? Have you ever experienced preaching? Okay. Thank you. They're still preaching. The Bible's complete, but there's still prophecy. We talked about this. Prophecy literally just means speak before. Talk before people. It's sharing the Word of God with people. That's what prophecy is.21:58That's still happening? Yeah. Okay. So prophecy's still a thing, right? And knowledge has to be a thing because I'm not getting up here, nor is any of our other preachers getting up here just talking about ourselves. We're talking about this. So we have to have preaching based on the knowledge of the Word. So that's still a thing, right? So the completion of the New Testament doesn't really, that doesn't make any sense. All right? I was so worried that I was going to get up here and say, you know, is still happening, right? And you're like, huh? Like, no. Like, it is! Right now! And then the rapture. People are like, well, the perfect, obviously, it's the rapture. Is there preaching during the tribulation? The tribulation will be the most evangelistic time in the history of the world. Yeah, the Bible's clear.22:58be preaching during the tribulation.23:01Now that doesn't make any sense either.23:05The context is clear, and it's going to be even more clear as we go through the verses.23:09What is the perfect? He's talking about heaven.23:12He's talking about heaven. Here's what he's saying.23:14Listen, he's saying when we're in glory, when we're in heaven, we are not going to need this partial knowledge of God.23:22We're not going to need it.23:24And we're certainly not going to need to preach in heaven.23:26That's what he's talking about.23:29I want you to listen very closely. Lest I be misquoted. Listen, the Word of God is perfect. But the knowledge is still partial compared to what we will know in glory. Prophecy also is partial.23:57Compared to all that there is to know. In a church like ours, every church has their thing, right? Every church has their thing. This church was planted on the belief that the Word of God does the work of God. And we have committed since day one to do nothing but straightforwardly proclaim the Word of God verse by verse.24:28That's expository preaching. And even though we proclaim God's truth verse by verse, it's still only partial. You can find this on our website. I looked this up. I don't track this stuff. I think Murph does. But go to our sermons tab on our website.24:57some time. Not now. But go to our sermons tab on our website. And they put up a tracker. You know, there are... Do you know how many chapters are in the Bible, by the way? Do you know how many chapters are? There's 1,189 chapters in the Bible. Since 2011, and this is what's tracked on the website. Since 2011, Harvest Bible Chapel, what?25:2715 and a half years, something like that. Okay, in that time, we have preached 214 full chapters in the Bible and 120 partial chapters. You know what that is percentage-wise? Since this church was planted, percentage-wise, of all the chapters in the Bible in 15, almost 16 years, we have preached 28.1% of the Bible.25:57Bible. Do you know what that means? Again, that's just Sunday sermons. That's not even talking about like, you know, Folsey preaching on Wednesday night or any of our conferences or anything like that. That's just our Sunday sermons. So to this point, we preach 28.1% of the Bible. Do you know what that means? That means if we're going to get to 100%, I get to go, more than 30 more years. I don't think I got it in me. But hypothetically, let's say we do. Let's say we do make it 100%. We covered every single verse in the Bible. Do you know what that means? That's still only part of what there is to know about God. Right?26:58Deuteronomy 29.29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.27:10Look, this is partial, but we know everything that God wants us to know here.27:18Right?27:19So in saying the knowledge is partial, I don't want you to leave here thinking the Bible is deficient anyway.27:23It's not.27:24This is perfectly what God wants us to know here. But this isn't everything. But it's what He wants us to know here. Like, from the Bible, we know enough to be saved, don't we? I mean, isn't that clear? We know what it is to be saved, right? The Bible's clear. We are born with a sin nature, a rebellious nature. We are lost. We are dead in our sin. And Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect life and died on the cross.27:55That should have been me on the cross.27:57That should have been you on the cross.27:58Jesus said, I will take their place.28:00I will be punished for their sin.28:05And then Jesus rose from the dead three days later, conquering death.28:09And it is through turning from our sin and receiving Jesus Christ by faith, believing in Him that we are saved.28:17That's in the Bible.28:19We know enough to be saved.28:21Oh, do we know enough to live the redeemed life? Do we know what it looks like to live a Christian life? To be a Christian neighbor? To be a Christian spouse? To be a Christian parent? Yeah. But no matter how much we know and preach in the Bible, it's still only partial compared to all their will be to know in glory. So, you got all that? Well, for those that maybe are still a little unclear on the temporary and partial nature of spiritual gifts, Paul gives two illustrations respectively. Listen, verse 11 illustrates the temporary nature of spiritual gifts. And verse 12 illustrates the partial nature of spiritual gifts. He gives us illustrations so that we can understand what it is he's talking about. Alright? Look at verse 11. He says, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child.29:50When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. See here, Paul's illustrating the temporary nature of spiritual gifts. And this is an easy illustration to grasp. Super easy. He's just simply saying this, I did things as a kid that I no longer do as an adult. Right? That should be all of us adults, right? Should be.30:21I did things as a kid that I no longer do as an adult.30:25You know, if you would have, if you go back in time, if you got some DeLorean or something that would take you back in time, and you would find me like in the early 80s, you know what I would have been doing? I would have been in the arcade. Oh, I love the arcade. Amen. Thank you. Yeah, I love the arcade. Dad would give me a dollar, and you'd go get the quarters, and you'd play your Pac-Man.30:50And oh I love the arcade. I spend so much time in the arcade. If you would have found me back then, you know what else I loved doing as a kid? Trick or treating. You know why I mentioned that? Because I know there are going to be people upset about this message. I figure I don't want to miss anybody.31:23It's true. I got on my Spider-Man costume. And it was, trick-or-treat was an hour in Shakura. And we made it our goal to hit every house. Maximize the time in Shakura you could hit every house in an hour. But, yeah, that's what I did as a child. Oh, as a child, I remember going to school. I had a blue He-Man lunchbox.31:51I do kind of miss that. Did you see Paul's point? He goes, when you grow up, you don't do the things you did as a kid, right? Well, this is the illustration. He says, our life on earth here now, this is our spiritual childhood. Because we are all, we are all right now, spiritually, we're like children. We're immature. We don't know a ton.32:22And what we do know, we struggle to understand it sometimes. And it's hard for us to sort of take it all in, right? But spiritual gifts are sort of like the ABCs for childhood. Notice, he says, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. Do you see what that is? Spoke like a child, that's tongues. Thought like a child, that's probably knowledge. Reason like a child, That's prophecy. What's he saying? He's just simply saying this. In glory, we're going to be grown up. So we're going to put away the earthly things, the childish things, the spiritual gifts. We're not going to need earthly spiritual gifts in heaven. That's what he's saying. We need them now, obviously. We're not going to need them in heaven. Because they're temporary. Verse 12 illustrates the partial nature of spiritual gifts.33:22He says, For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then, face to face, now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.33:44Here He's illustrating partial nature of spiritual gifts.33:47He's talking about a mirror.33:48When we hear mirror, we think of the one that we have in our bathroom, right? The big, shiny. You can see all the imperfections and whatever. You can see all of that. It's so crystal clear. But understand, in Paul's day, their mirror was really just shiny, polished metal. That's really all it was. It was just shiny metal that when you saw your reflection in it, listen, the image, was true, but it wasn't clear. It was partial. That's why he says dimly. That's why he says right now we see dimly. Oh, oh, we see the glory of Christ now, don't we? Do we see the glory of Christ now? In His Word, we see the glory of Christ.34:48In a transformed life, we see the glory of Christ. In worship, we see the glory of Christ. We see now, but as glorious as it is, it's dim. But then in glory, he says, it's face to face. And think of how overwhelmed we will be with the glory of Christ.35:19when we're actually looking at His face. How well will we really get it then? All I know is it's not going to be partial then. That's why He says, look at the last part of verse 12 again. He says, now I know in part. Then, see that's glory, that's the perfect. Then I shall know fully even as I know.35:48I have been fully known. You see, now I know Jesus in part. Then I will know Him fully. You're like, well, how much? How much? How much? He says, I will know Jesus even as I have been fully known. He says, I will know Jesus as Jesus knows me.36:23Do you know what this means?36:28It means that someday It means that someday I'm going to be out of a job You know, like right now, I've dedicated my life to this I strive to tell you how glorious Jesus Christ is. That's all I try to do. Tell you how glorious He is. As revealed in His Word. His love for you. Oh, we don't deserve it. But He has demonstrated a love for us that nothing compares to. Oh, His love. All He's done. Laid down His life. Suffered disgrace and humiliation and insults.37:16and to raise from the dead triumphantly so that we could be adopted children of God. But you know, someday I'm not going to need any spiritual gift of prophecy or knowledge or exhortation in heaven because everybody there is fully going to know Jesus. Do you know how frustrating that's going to be for me? Do you even care?37:46I'm getting a strong vibe that you don't. Because this is heaven. Here's a preview of heaven. I'm going to be like, isn't Jesus awesome? And you'll be like, dude, I'm looking right at him. Yeah. Yes, he is awesome. Love is greater than any spiritual gift because they're temporary.38:17They're partial. But, but, but, number three, but love is forever. Love is forever. You probably know this verse. He says, so now faith, hope, and love abide. These three. But the greatest of these is love. Shifted gears a little bit, didn't he?38:47He says, so now faith, hope, and love abide. Like spiritual gifts, we use those sometimes, right? We use our spiritual gifts sometimes. But these three, faith, hope, and love, we're using those all the time, right? He says, but love is the greatest. Love is the greatest. Why? Why is love the greatest? Verse 8, because love never ends.39:16That's why it's the greatest. Faith, hope, and love. Oh, faith. Yeah, faith is pretty important. We need faith because according to the Bible, that's the only way we're saved. We are saved by faith. It is by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We need faith. We need it for salvation. Hope. What do we need hope for?39:46We desperately need hope. You know what we need hope for? We need hope for perseverance. Hope is the only thing that keeps me going. It's knowing that things will not always be as they are right now. Knowing that there is a glorious future for everyone who loves Jesus Christ. That keeps me going. We need hope for perseverance. But you know, faith and hope, those are just earth things. They're temporary.40:16Because someday faith is going to be replaced by sight. You're not going to need faith in heaven. Oh, and someday hope is going to be replaced. Someday hope is going to be replaced by reality. Look, I'm here. Everything he promised, I got it now. But what's going to replace love? Nothing.40:49Spiritual gifts, ministry, stuff, even faith and hope are all temporary things. And they're all partial things. Love is the only thing that is for now and for eternity. That's why I look at chapter 14, first two verses, here it is.41:16That was the introduction. Here's the sermon. Look at chapter 14, verse 1. He says, pursue love. Pursue love. We talked about this before, right? Last week. Pursue love. Become like God. That's what it means to pursue love. Become like God. Be imitators of God. You know, the Bible doesn't say God is faith.41:47The Bible doesn't say God is hope. The Bible does say God is love. Pursue love. Pursue love, church. Hey, examine yourselves. Examine your relationships. Meditate on what it means to love. Go to God and say, God, make me love the way that you have called me to love. Pursue love.42:15That has to be your goal. It has to be. It takes us right back to love is patient and kind. You know, all that stuff we talked about last week. Remember that exercise last week? Put your name in where it says love. Put your name in there and see if the passage still makes sense because where it doesn't, it shows you where you need to grow. Remember that exercise? That can't be a one and done.42:4715 ways real love acts. Put your name in where it says love. See if it makes sense. Remember that exercise last week? Yeah, I think we should do that again, right? You're like, no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on. You're like, hang on. Time out. Pastor Jeff, before you do that, that's a lot to remember, right? 15 is a lot to remember. Like, Pastor Jeff, could you maybe exercise some spiritual gift?43:17and summarize it for me. And the answer is no. I don't need to summarize it for you because the Bible already did. All of it can be summed up in one thing. And that is, love your neighbor as yourself. That's all through the Bible, right? Leviticus 19.18, Matthew 22.39.43:459, Galatians 5, 14, James 2, 8, over and over and over and over. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what you need to meditate on. How do you want people to love you? How do you want people to forgive you when you mess up? How do you want people to talk to you? How do you want people Because the only thing that we have here on earth that we're also going to have in heaven is each other.44:29So, pursue love.44:35Our worship team would make their way forward in our communion servers.44:40We're going to close our time here around the Lord's table because again, Love isn't something that you can muster up. Love isn't something that you can try harder. The only way you can love is it has to come from God. It has to be the rivers of living water flowing through you. The Bible says we love because He first loved us. And there is not a more thing that I could think of, than to gather around the Lord's table and remember and participate in the reality in how He loved us.45:29We're going to ask you to stand, and when you are ready, come down the center aisles, receive the elements, and return to your seat via the outside aisles, and hold on to the elements, And when everyone has received as a sign of church unity, we will receive the Lord's Supper together. So please come when you're ready. We love because He first loved us. God demonstrated His love in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.46:11The Bible tells us that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it and He gave thanks. And He said, this is My body, which is given for you. Eat this in remembrance of Me. After the meal, Jesus took the cup and He said, this is the new covenant in My blood. Pour it out for the forgiveness of sin. Drink this in remembrance of Me.46:44Would you please stand as we close our time in worship. Small Group DiscussionRead 1 Corinthians 13:8-13What was your big take-away from this passage / message?What is the difference between “pass away” and “cease” (1 Cor 13:8)? How does this help us understand these spiritual gifts listed?What does “the perfect” refer to in 1 Cor 13:10? Defend your answer!Explain Paul's 2 illustrations in 1 Cor 13:11-12.How is love greater than faith and hope (1 Cor 13:13)?BreakoutPray for one another.

What does it look like to honor Jesus in marriage, parenting, & work? In Week 4 of Jesus + Nothing, Pastor Rich teaches from Colossians 3:18-4:1, a passage that can feel uncomfortable in our culture. Rather than fast forwarding through difficult Scripture, this message invites us to ask what faithful obedience looks like in the roles God has given us. Rich walks through biblical submission, sacrificial love, parenting with a shepherd's heart, work as unto the Lord, and authority as stewardship under Christ. The message also makes an important pastoral distinction: Scripture is never permission for abuse, manipulation, or cruelty. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Jesus + Nothing, Week 4 Message: Honor Jesus in Every Role Date: June 7, 2026 Scripture referenced: Colossians 3:18-4:1   Connect with us: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Learn more about LIFEchurch: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich continues our series, Who Are You?

Join us as Pastor Rich continues our series, Who Are You?

Introduction: Mark 1:8 - I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Since I'm a Member of the Body of Christ… (1 Corinthians 12:12-31) I shouldn't DOUBT the Part I Play (1 Cor 12:14-20) Because That DENIES My Purpose (1 Cor 12:14-17) Because That DISHONORS God's Design (1 Cor 12:18-20) I shouldn't DOWNPLAY the Roles of Others (1 Cor 12:21-26) By Acting Like I Don't Need ANYONE ELSE (1 Cor 12:21-24) By Exclusively Focusing on My NEEDS (1 Cor 12:25-26) By Shining the Spotlight onto ME (1 Cor 12:27-31) Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Questions and Answers: How is the Church Like a Body? Taylor Brown Download Audio Transcript 00:36Please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12-31. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12-31. Isn't it frustrating to witness someone not do his or her job correctly? Maybe you have an employee or a direct report who constantly comes late, makes excuses, or has a suspicious number of grandparents that he has funerals he has to attend.01:06How many grandparents do you actually have? You hire a contractor to carry out a project in your house and he makes huge mistakes. And he acts very inconvenient when you come, when you ask him to come back and fix those mistakes. Your waitress has a horrible attitude and never checks on your table because she is constantly texting. You know what's even more frustrating than that? Witnessing or experiencing someone else.01:36not allow others to do their jobs correctly. You watch your favorite team lose yet again because one key player can't get his act together and he messes it up for everybody. You have a boss who is an expert in incompetence. He expects everyone to do their jobs as well as his job. You have a co-worker who makes your job so hard you can't finish this project at work because she has constantly dragging your feet and she is not communicating with you.02:10And instead of accepting that blame, taking it on herself, she points the finger of blame at you and says that it's your fault.02:19You know what's infinitely more frustrating than all the examples I've given already?02:24Witnessing a Christian refuse to do his or her job in the church.02:30or experiencing another Christian attempt to hinder you from carrying out your job in the church. Instead of contributing to the team, this person backs away, tries to go solo and do his or her own thing. Instead of building others up and encouraging them, they tear others down and diminish them. Wasted potential is a sorry sight to behold. Misused talents are squandered resources.03:02Missed opportunities for ministry are to be grieved. As you learned over the past eight months in 1 Corinthians, the church is commanded to be unified and purified. Unfortunately, this unity is undervalued, ignored, and tested by many who should know better. This purity is jeopardized, abused, and cast aside by many who claim to know and love Jesus Christ.03:30Excuses are made and commitments are unkept. Complaints are spoken instead of genuine praise. Zooming in on me and what I want is far more common than focusing on us and what we need. Am I describing you? Am I describing your contribution to the church?04:00Ask yourself, am I contributing to the unity and purity of Harvest Bible Chapel, or am I subtracting from it? Are you neglecting to do your job in the church? Are you standing in the way of others and making it hard for them to carry out their jobs in the church? Take a moment to go before the Lord and consider those questions.04:32Quiet your heart and ask God to convict you today. Ask God to challenge you today. Ask God to change you today. Go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you as your people for the most important appointment of the week. May we not be distracted. Or may we truly dial in to what what you want to teach us this morning. Lord, may you show us who you've called us to be and what you've commanded us to do. I pray we'd all walk out of this room with a different vision of the church and a different idea of what we are called to do individually in the church. I ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We are in the Q&A section of 1 Corinthians. Paul is addressing questions that this congregation asked him in a previous And last week, Pastor Jeff showed us Paul's answer to the Corinthians' question about spiritual gifts. Every single believer is given at least one spiritual gift that is to be used to bless the church and advance the gospel. No one is skipped over. No one is forgotten. No one is left giftless. And these gifts are to unite, not divide.06:00And Paul continues to answer this question in chapter 12, verses 12 through 31, by providing a powerful illustration. He compares the unity of the church body to the unity of a physical human body. Check out what he has to say in verse 12 of chapter 12.06:30So it is with Christ. I'm going to ask you a very easy question, and I'm even going to let you cheat to get the right answer. So everyone, look down and give yourself a quick once-over. Come on, go do it. Are you ready for my question? How many bodies do you have? It's not your question. Just one, you got the answer right. Great job.07:01I'm asking you an easy follow-up question. You can look down again if you have to. How many body parts do you have? Do you have more than one body part? Yes, you have more than one. According to Dr. Google, which is never wrong, you have 78 organs, 206 bones, and 30 to 40 trillion cells. You have individual body parts, legs, feet, toes, toenails, arms, Arms, Hands, Hands, Fingers, Fingernails, Heart, Lungs, Kidney, Stomach, Pancreas, Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, Nose, Nose, Hairs, Mouth, Teeth, Gums, Tongue, Uvula.07:41And on the list goes. Sorry, Pastor Jeff's uvula was swollen this week, and you're talking about it a lot, so I had to add that.07:50He was sick. That was the reason why.07:54But these individual parts do not operate or function independently from one another.08:00Instead, they work together as one body. They serve different roles. They carry out the same mission to keep you alive and kicking. And Paul is saying this truth about your physical body applies to the church body as well. Yes, we all have different roles. We all have different functions. But we do not operate independently from one another. We work together as one body.08:30same mission to lift high the name of Jesus Christ by making disciples.08:37And you may be thinking, hold on a minute.08:39This illustration seems to break down a bit because I've always had my physical body.08:44It's the only one I've got.08:46How did I become a part of the church body?08:48When did that happen?08:50It's a great question.08:52Thankfully, Paul answers it in verse 13.08:55He says, For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit. You realize at one point you didn't exist. There was no you. Then you popped into existence and you grew in your mother's womb. And at one point you were born into this world with your physical But if you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, if you have been saved and given new life in Him, you have experienced more than just one birth. According to God's Word, you've experienced a new birth. And on your spiritual birthday, you were brought into the body of Christ. You became a part of the body of Christ. And this second birth is a work of the Holy Spirit, who Paul That sounds really cool. What in the world does that mean? Baptized in the Holy Spirit. Well, 2,000 years ago, John the Baptist baptized men and women in water as a sign of their repentance. But John was up front. He was very clear that he was not the point. He was not the be-all and end-all. He came to point to someone greater than him. He says, He says, I baptize with water, but He will baptize with the Holy Spirit.10:37Who is this greater person?10:39Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit?10:42Jesus Christ Himself.10:46This has massive implications for my life, your life, and the life of this church body.10:52This means that I, Taylor Samuel Brown, wasn't just baptized in water on July 30, 2000 by Pastor Jesse Boggs at Northgate Church. Yes, that was an important day. That was an important baptism. But I experienced an even more important day, an even more important baptism years prior. Before that, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ. I was saved from my sins.11:25I was made into a new person.11:27I was brought into the body of Christ.11:32My water baptism was simply an outward symbol of the salvation I experienced.11:39Of this baptism in the Holy Spirit that I experienced.11:45And Paul even says that I drank of the Holy Spirit.11:50Again, sounds great, but what in the world does that mean? Well, think about it this way. When you drink something, you are filled with that liquid, aren't you? Whether it's water, coffee, wild cherry, Pepsi, or kombucha. When you drink a liquid, you are filled with that liquid. When you drink of the Holy Spirit, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. He lives within you. He takes up residence within you.12:20If you have trusted in Christ, you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. You have been filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 13, Paul mentions different factors that would divide people back in his day. He mentions ethnicity and social status. In 2026, we live in a world where we are constantly being tried to be ripped apart because of our many differences. We have different backgrounds. We have different skin colors. We come from different financial situations. We have different careers. We have different personalities. We have different temperaments. We are different in so many ways. And as we'll discover soon, that is good news to celebrate. But we are the exact same in the most important ways. We have the same Heavenly Father. We have been redeemed by the same Savior.13:20been changed by the same Holy Spirit. We belong to the same body. Our differences may be great, but our unity in Christ and His Spirit is even greater. So after this long and theologically heavy introduction, you may be thinking, all right, this is all very interesting, but what's the point? I get it. I'm a member of the body of Christ.13:49Now, you need to be encouraged to do your job in the body of Christ. Now, you need to be encouraged to let other people do their jobs in the body of Christ. So on your outline, since I'm a member of the body of Christ, number one, I shouldn't doubt the part I play. I shouldn't doubt the part I play.14:19Some of you in this room and watching online struggle to truly believe that you have an important part to play in the life of this church. You may think to yourself, I mean, sure, this is my church and I'm involved, but if I left, nothing would change. No one would notice. I don't have an upfront role that matters. I don't play an instrument. I don't really matter here. And as one of your pastors, it deeply saddens me that some of you feel that way about you.14:51It deeply saddens me that you believe a lie about yourself instead of believing what God's word says about who you are. You do matter. You do have a part to play at Harvest. This church does need you and it wouldn't be the same without you. And I'm not just saying that to make you feel good. I'm saying that because that's what God's word says. Listen to what Paul says in verses 14 through 17.15:19For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?15:49I didn't doubt the part I play. Letter A on your outline, because that denies my purpose. Because that denies my purpose. You claiming that you have no part to play in the body of Christ because you don't have the gifting of another person is as ridiculous as your foot saying, I have no part to play in the body because I'm not a hand. I'll never be able to hammer a nail into the wall. I'll never be able to type on a keyboard, so I just give up.16:18I mean, sure, your hands can't do, your feet can't do what your hands can do. But your hands can't do what your feet can do as well, right? Walking is pretty important, right? Most of you don't agree with that. Walking is really important, right? Your hands can't do that. Okay, good. Man, you are sitting right now, but eventually you will have to get up and walk away.16:45You claiming that you have no part to play in the body of Christ is as insane as your ears saying, I have no part to play in the body because I'll never be able to look at the Grand Canyon. I'll never be able to stare up at a starry night. So I'm just going to tune out and call it a day. I mean, yeah, your eye is important, but your eyes can't do what your ears can do. Without your ears, you wouldn't be able to hear anything. Just imagine if your entire body was just just one feature. Eyes are beautiful, aren't they? I love my wife's eyes the most, and I could stare into her eyes for hours. But imagine if Kate was just a big eyeball and nothing else. There's a big eye bouncing around my house and sleeping in the bed next to me at night. That sounds like the premise of a horror movie. I mean, yeah, I'd still love her because I made a vow to her 12 years ago, but That'd be pretty rough. That'd be hard. A big eye has 20-20 vision, but it can't really do anything else. A big ear has great hearing, but it can't really do much else. Now imagine if every single person in this church had the same exact gifting and function. Would that be productive or disastrous? It would be a total and complete I have been in a room with thousands of preachers before.18:20Imagine if those thousands of preachers tried to carry out the same function in the same church.18:27There would be arguments about who does what.18:29The bills would never get paid.18:31The building would fall in disrepair and probably burn down.18:34Preaching is an essential function of the church, but is not the only function.18:41Some of you men in this room do have a preaching gift.18:44We are so thankful for you. You realize it's very different. It's very unique to have this many guys who can preach a message in a church. That doesn't happen everywhere. God has gifted this church. But others of you guys do not have a preaching gift. And that is not something to be upset about. That is not a bad thing. Not everybody has the gift of preaching. Not everyone has an upfront role.19:14If your part is behind the scenes, it matters. Maybe your part is in the AV booth. Without Mike back there, without all the AV team back there, no one would be able to hear the sermons. I'd just scream at the top of my lungs for you to hear me. Without Ben and Lincoln working on the sermons afterwards, people across the country and across the world wouldn't be able to hear it, which does happen.19:43Maybe your part is being on the prayer team. You show the rest of the body what it looks like to faithfully lift up the needs of the saints to the Lord. Maybe your part is security. You function as the antibodies of the church that keeps the rest of the body safe. Maybe your part is working at Harvest Academy or working as an adult leader in Arrow. You are training up the future generation in Jesus Christ.20:14is leading a small group. You are on the front lines of congregational care and discipleship. Maybe your part is on the relocation and building committee with Pastor Rich and the others. You help formulate the budget. You count on Sundays. I can keep going and going and going. Without a doubt, you do have a part to play. Stop believing that you do not matter. Stop being envious of others. Stop denying your purpose at harvest.20:45I shouldn't doubt the part I play because that denies my purpose. Letter B, I shouldn't doubt the part I play because that dishonors God's design. Because that dishonors God's design. Let's look at verses 18 through 20. But as it is, God arranges the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?21:18When you badmouth a team's starting lineup and strategies, who are you ultimately dishonoring? The coach who decides who starts and designs the place. If you pick apart every single detail of a restaurant and complain about it to everyone that you know, who are you dishonoring ultimately? The manager, the owner, who decides who to hire, who makes all the big decisions. If you complain about your gifting and part in the body, who are you ultimately dishonoring? God himself. He is the one who created you. He is the one who designed his church. Paul says that God arranges the members in the body, each of them as he chose. When you are discontent with your part in the church, you aren't just hurting yourself, and you are hurting yourself.22:13You aren't just shortchanging your fellow members. You aren't just making ministry hard for the pastors, elders, and other leaders. You are accusing God. You are saying something about Him that is not true. You are shouting this message to your Creator. God, you made a mistake with me. I deserve a do-over. You could have done better. Is that a great message to send to the most important and powerful person the universe. No, it is not. Because God doesn't need a do-over. Because he nails everything on the first try. God did not make a mistake with you. He designs you purposefully and puts you into his church with purpose and design. It's a complete waste of time, energy, and effort to resist the Lord. So cut it out. Get on board with his plans for the body. Lean into your God-given part instead of backing away from it. Do your job in the church because it was personally chosen for you. Since I'm a member of the body of Christ, I shouldn't doubt the part I play. Since I'm a member of the body of Christ, number two on your outline, I shouldn't downplay the roles of others. I shouldn't downplay the roles of others.23:44from sabotaging yourself to sabotaging others. It is foolish to stand in your own way, but it is wicked to stand in the way of other people. As we just talked about, many of you struggle with a low view of yourself and how God has gifted you. Others of you have the exact opposite problem. You have a low view of others and how God has gifted them.24:13In the next several verses, Paul warns you to not downplay the roles of others in the church. Listen to verses 21 through 24.24:43which are more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it. I shouldn't downplay the roles of others, letter A on your outline, by acting like I don't need anyone else. By acting like I don't need anyone else. So Paul turns the tables on the Corinthians as well as you and me in these verses. He flips the scenario.25:13First, he says it's dumb for a foot or an eye to say that they're not a part of the body. Now he says it's dumb for the eye or the head to tell other parts of the body that they don't matter. This kind of attitude is arrogant. This game of comparison misses the point. You know, naturally, we all create lists of importance and systems of ranking.25:43a to-do list that you want to complete, right? Where do you put the items that you think are the most important? Top of the list, right? Where do you put the items that you think are probably the least important? At the bottom of the list. Several months ago, many of you took part in the college basketball brackets, right? You decided which teams you thought were the best and which teams you thought were the worst. If I were to ask you your favorite movies, you could list them very quickly. If I were to ask you to list your least favorite movies, you could do it even quicker. We naturally evaluate everything. We're constantly grading other people's performances. We form our own personal rankings. And this was happening in the Corinthian church back in the first century. There were the spiritual elite at the top of the charts who looked down on those they thought were weaker, less honorable, and even unpresentable.26:45Paul says those brothers or sisters who seem weaker are actually indispensable. Those who seem to have a less than honorable role deserve greater honor. Those who seem unpresentable should be treated with the utmost respect. You may be thinking, oh, Pastor Taylor, I'm not spiritually elite. I don't look down at other people. I don't act like I don't need anyone else.27:16Are you sure about that? Are you sure? Do you make excuses for why you can't be in community with other believers? Do you refuse to join a small group or be involved in other ministries that we offer here like fishermen, live, laugh, lunch, precepts, mugs and moms? You say you don't have time or energy for these things, but inwardly you know that's not true.27:43By not joining a small group or participating in any of these ministries, you are communicating a loud and clear message, I'm doing just fine on my own. I don't need anyone else. I am self-sufficient. Maybe you are a part of a small group of one of the other ministries that I mentioned, but as soon as you walk in, you put up your defense shields. You don't share a detail of your life with anybody. No one knows anything about what you're struggling with or how they can pray for you because you don't.28:13tell them. You don't want to trust anybody else because they might let you down. You were hurt in the past and so you think, well, it's going to happen again, so I'm not even going to try. Are you someone who comes in late and leaves early because you are terrified of knowing others and being known? You're acting like you don't need anyone else. Are there people in this room or the other service that you actively avoid?28:45Is there a guy in your small group that you intentionally leave out of conversations and hangouts? Is there a woman down the aisle from you who you are blatantly rude to face to face and make fun of behind closed doors? All of these behaviors are childish. All of these behaviors are reflective of the Corinthians, not Christ. All of those behaviors hurt the body and do not help the body.29:14I shouldn't downplay the roles of others by acting like I don't need anyone else. Letter B, I shouldn't downplay the roles of others by exclusively focusing on my needs. By exclusively focusing on my needs. Let's read verses 25 through 26. That there may be no division in the body, that the members may have the same care for one another.29:44All suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.29:53Have you ever been walking around your house minding your own business whenever you stub your pinky toe on the bed or a bench or a chair?30:01Let me ask you, in that moment, is it just your pinky toe that reacts?30:07Does the rest of your body think, man, sucks to be pinky, too bad for him.30:11I'm just gonna kinda do my own thing for a little while he calms down. No, when you stub your pinky toe, the pause button is pressed on life and nothing else matters. Your whole body reacts, your face grimaces, your mouth yells out some things that you hope nobody else hears. Your back arches, your hands reach down and grab your damaged foot and you pogo stick around on the undamaged foot and then your eyes inspect the damage. Your whole body reacts to the pain.30:43You ever had a bad back problem? Or a nagging tooth pain? Are you able to compartmentalize that and not think about it? Now when your back hurts, it's game over for your day. If your tooth is throbbing, you have one all-consuming thought, end the pain right now. Your whole body feels the pain of even its smallest member.31:12The same should be true of the body of Christ. If one person is in pain, all of us should be in pain. If there is a need, we should all rise up to meet that need. If someone in your small group has a big surgery or a major medical issue, start a meal train. Go visit them in the hospital. Take care of tasks around the house.31:41If there's someone on your serving team who loses a family member, show up at the funeral. Show up at the visitation. Your presence will speak far louder than any words you could possibly share. Care about the pain of other people. Meet the needs of others. Care about what other people need, even more than what you need. If one member suffers, all suffer together.32:11If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Here's a question that's been nagging at me all week. Do I love to celebrate the victories of other people? Very often the answer is no. What about you? Do you love to celebrate the victories of other people? Do you rejoice with other Christians?32:41When something good happens to another Christian in your life, do you think, praise the Lord, what a blessing? Or do you think, man, when's it going to be my turn? Nothing good ever happens to me like it does to that guy. When there's a couple in this church that has a solid marriage and really great godly children, do you think to yourself, man, what a great example that I want to follow? Or do you think to yourself, when will my family get it together? I'll never be like Mr. and Mrs. Perfect. I wish they'd stop rubbing it in my face.33:13You have to understand that other people's success is not your failure. According to Paul, their success is your success because you are a part of the same body. Let's share in the pain together. Let's share in the joy together. Let's thank the Lord in the good times together. And let's trust the Lord in the hard times together.33:41I shouldn't downplay the roles of others by acting like I don't need anyone else. I shouldn't downplay the roles of others by exclusively focusing on my needs. Finally, I shouldn't downplay the roles of others by shining the spotlight onto me. By shining the spotlight onto me. Let's wrap up with verses 27 through 31. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, These verses are jam-packed with a ton of stuff that we cannot get into. We don't have the time right now.34:41But it's really important to see that Paul mentions an office that no longer exists today. The office of apostle. Some churches have not got that memo yet. God is not posting apostleship jobs on Indeed. He is not hiring or looking to fill that position in 2026. Paul also talks about the sign gifts like speaking in tongues, miracles, and healing. Thankfully, I don't have to wade into that controversial topic because Pastor Jeff did it last week and he'll do an even deeper dive this summer.35:11Sometimes it pays to be the associate pastor.35:15But for now, catch the principle that Paul is communicating instead of getting bogged down in the details.35:21And the best way to do that is to answer the layup questions that Paul asks.35:25Let's go through the list.35:26And you have to participate.35:27You have to answer the question.35:29There's one obvious answer for all of them.35:31Are all apostles?35:33Good job.35:34Are all prophets?35:36Are all teachers?35:38Do all work miracles?35:39Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? What's Paul's point? God has given every single believer a spiritual gift or several spiritual gifts, but he has not given any believer all the spiritual gifts. That's not possible. You know, we have a lot of talented musicians and vocalists here at Harvest, don't we? Let's give them a round of applause and thank them for all they do for us.36:13You know, Jesse Hogan, he can sing, he can play the guitar, he can play the drums, he can play the piano. He can play three instruments and I can play none. I guess I shouldn't rank our abilities, right? I shouldn't compare. I'm sorry, I'm still learning that lesson myself. I shouldn't compare with Jesse. Jesse can play all those things, but he can't play every single instrument in the world of which there are over 1,500.36:39Also, Jesse can't play all those instruments at the same exact time. If Jesse tried to come up here and do a one-man band and try to run between the guitar, the piano, and run between the drums, he would make a total and complete fool of himself. Because prideful exaltation always leads to forced humility. Jesse needs the rest of the band around him.37:09He needs everybody else. He needs the vocalists who can't reach the notes that he cannot. He needs Chris or Jay on bass. Jesse needs everybody else working with him. You know, the Corinthians were experts in self-exaltation. Many in the church wanted to shine the spotlight onto themselves. Look again at verse 31. Paul says, On a first glance, it may look like Paul is commanding the Corinthians to seek after the biggest and best gifts, but that totally misses the point of what he's actually saying. If you pay attention to the context, he's saying the exact opposite. This word, earnestly, is most often used in the context of envy and jealousy. A better translation of this verse is, But you are jealous for the higher gifts Paul is not commending them He is not celebrating them He is correcting the Corinthians Because they desired the flashy and showy gifts Serving wasn't on their mind because they wanted to show off Paul is telling them You're not the point So stop trying to be You're not in competition with one another You are working together Be in sync with one another do your job and help other people do their job as well. And he concludes by saying, and I will show you a still more excellent way. What is that still more excellent way? It is the way of love, which Pastor Jeff will talk about next week. This whole topic of spiritual gifts and the unity of the body should be viewed the lens of love.39:05The love of Christ for us, our love for Christ, and our love for each other. Otherwise, we'll miss the point of why God even gifted us in the first place. If you have been saved by Christ, never forget that you belong to Christ. Never forget that you belong to Christ's beloved body. Since you're a member of the body of Christ, you shouldn't doubt the part that you Since you're a member of the body of Christ, you shouldn't downplay the roles of others. As this sermon concludes, some of you in this room may feel a bit left out because you're not a Christian. You are not a member of the body of Christ. As of now, you are a detached hand or foot that has no function in the church body. As of right now, you are a detached eye or ear that is not connected to anything greater than yourself. As of now, the life-giving blood of Christ does not flow in you and through you. I have to warn you, if you continue in this state of self-isolation, you will wither away and die in your sins. You will experience a life without purpose, and you will endure an eternity separated from the giver of life.40:35and the other recipients of his life. If that's you, I beg you to turn from your sin and turn to Jesus. Place the full weight of your faith upon him, what he has done through his life, death, and resurrection. And then, and only then, will you be forgiven and given new life. Then, you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. You will be filled with the Holy Spirit. You will be brought into the body of Christ.41:04you will be placed into the perfect role that you were made for. You will be given the high honor and responsibility of serving Christ and his body. We'd love for you to join us. Let's pray. Father, we come to you and we thank you for your word. We thank you for the encouragement and the conviction that we all experienced. Lord, if there is someone in this room who is currently not a member of the body of Christ, who is not saved. May today be the day where they finally say no to sin and yes to your son.41:43And for the rest of us, Lord, may we do our jobs.41:47May we let other people do their jobs.41:49May we work together and encourage each other.41:51Lord, we thank you for all that you're doing with this new building project.41:57Lord, none of that matters if we can't work together now.42:01May we be faithful now.42:03May we work together now. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Small Group DiscussionRead 1 Corinthians 12:12-31What was your big take-away from this passage / message?Re-read 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 - What does it mean that we are baptized in the Spirit and drink of the Spirit? Why is this so important for church unity? Do you ever doubt the part you play in the body of Christ? How can you fight against this discouragement? How do you see professing Christians standing in the way of others and downplaying their roles in the church? How do you see this disturbing trend within yourself? What does it look like to prioritize the needs, hurts, and victories of other members in the church body over your own? BreakoutPray for one another.

How do you trust God when you are suffering and cannot make sense of what is happening? Pastor Rich continues the Jesus + Nothing series with a message from Colossians 1-2 on the mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory. Paul writes about suffering while he himself is in prison, reminding us that struggle is not evidence that God has forgotten us. In Christ, suffering can become a place where we experience His presence, depend on His strength, reject counterfeits, and focus again on what is real. This message names the ways we often reach for substitutes when we are hurting: control, blame, escape, positive thinking, busyness, and trying harder. But Jesus is not a supplement to add to our lives. He is everything. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Jesus + Nothing, Week 2 Message: Jesus Is Everything in the Struggle Date: May 24, 2026 Scriptures referenced: John 15:13, Colossians 1:24-29, Colossians 2:1-17 Next steps, prayer, and connection: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Website: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich kicks off our next series, Who Are You? 

Introduction: What About Spiritual Gifts? (1 Corinthians 12:1-11) Spiritual Gifts are FROM God and FOR Every Believer. (1 Cor 12:4-6) Spiritual Gifts Are to Be Used to BLESS the CHURCH. (1 Cor 12:7) Spiritual Gifts Come in Many FORMS. (1 Cor 12:8-10) 2 Corinthians 12:12 - The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. Hebrews 2:4 - while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. Wisdom Knowledge Faith Healing Miracles Luke 9:1 – And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases Prophecy Distinguish between spirits Tongues Interpretation of tongues Spiritual Gifts Are Given at the HOLY SPIRIT'S DISCRETION. (1 Cor 12:11) SEEK God. Consider the INTERSECTION. Take an ASSESSMENT. Take the Spiritual Gifts Test! Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Questions and Answers: What About Spiritual Gifts? Jeff Miller Download Audio Transcript 00:38Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the book of 1 Corinthians 12.00:45While you're turning there, let's just pause for a second, and I'm going to ask that you would please pray for me00:53to be faithful to communicate God's Word accurately and clearly as I should.01:01And I will pray for you to be open to receive what it is that God said. All right, let's pray. Father, sometimes we come to your word and I guess some passages seem to hit some of us more than others. And we're about to enter into a section that according to your word literally is for every single one of us. So I pray.01:31That Your Spirit would be the power behind the wisdom of Your Word and that You would continue to conform us into the image of Your Son, not just individually, but as a church body. Father, glorify Your name as we immerse ourselves into Your Word now. We pray in Jesus' name and all of God's people,02:02Amen. Look at 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1. Paul says,02:07Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.02:18This section of 1 Corinthians has been a big Q&A section.02:25They had sent Paul questions and he was responding with answers.02:28And up to this point, we've mainly been dealing with earthly matters. We've been talking about liberty and marriage and gender. And now we're on to more, I guess you could say, spiritual matters. And he says, concerning spiritual gifts, look at that verse 1, I do not want you to be uninformed. I don't want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts.02:58Spiritual Gifts. Wow, that's a phrase that really describes the church today. Right? Because as always, church, we will go to either side of the extreme. When we talk about spiritual gifts, immediately you're going to have some people on one end of the spectrum that just completely neglect or ignore them. And think, oh, that's just like,03:28Goofy, charismatic stuff, but we're like sober-minded people. You completely dismiss the role that the Holy Spirit has in the work of the church. They're just neglected. And we do church according to human intellect and creativity. And then you have people on the other end of the spectrum that don't neglect the gifts. You could say they misrepresent the gifts of the Holy Spirit.03:58And over on the other extreme, people are doing all kinds of goofy things in church saying that it's a work of the Holy Spirit. We're slain in the Spirit and we're hooping and hollering and barking and howling. It's a gift of the Spirit. Excuse me. Absolutely essential in your work for Christ. Absolutely essential04:28in the health of the church, in the health of this church, you have to understand what spiritual gifts are, and you have to use your spiritual gift in the church. All right, look at verse 2. He says, you know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols. However, you were led. What he's doing here is he's setting up a contrast.04:58by idols.05:00And we're going to see this as we go throughout this section,05:03but the Corinthians in their former pagan lifestyle05:07learned a lot of bad methods of worship.05:11Pagan methods of worship.05:13And they brought those into the church.05:15Like, I guess this is how we worship.05:17And Paul here is making the contrast.05:20Like, look, no, no, no.05:22You used to be led by idols.05:24Now, now you are led by the Holy Spirit of God.05:30The Holy Spirit. Somehow, despite how essential His role is in the church, He just doesn't seem to get the press that the other members of the Trinity get, right? I mean, we talk about Jesus a lot. His sacrifice on the cross for our sins. His resurrection from the dead.05:58We talk about God the Father a lot. But God the Holy Spirit, just is essential. The Bible says that every Christian, every born-again Christian receives the Holy Spirit. That's Romans 8 and 9, among other places. That's God's presence abiding in you. Why? Why does God's Spirit live in you? Well, there's two main reasons. One is for character, right?06:28The Holy Spirit manifests the character of Christ in you. That's the fruit of the Spirit. That's Galatians 5. That's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's what the Holy Spirit does in the life of the believer manifesting those characteristics. So it's character. The other reason the Holy Spirit lives in believers is for service.06:58And that's what we're talking about in this passage today. Every believer is given a spiritual gift to be used in the church. And you're like, wow, you know, how do I know that I even have the Holy Spirit? Well, look at verse 3. Paul says, therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says,07:28Jesus is accursed. And no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. So how do you know you have the Holy Spirit? Here's a foundational test. How do you regard Jesus? And I don't just mean what do you say about Jesus here in church on Sunday morning or at small group. I mean in your heart, in your innermost being privately,07:58How do you regard Jesus Christ? In your heart, is Jesus Christ everything to you? Because your true heart disposition towards Jesus is manifest by the Spirit. If you're born again, Paul says, you cannot curse Jesus. And apparently some of that stuff was happening in the Corinthian church. That's a whole other study for another time.08:28Paul says, if you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you absolutely will regard Jesus Christ as your Lord. The Holy Spirit. He's not just for preachers and missionaries, by the way. The Christian life, every Christian's life, is a Holy Spirit-led and empowered life. So the question that Paul's getting into here, and Pastor Taylor's going to be talking about this more next week, here's the question on the table.08:58They asked. He's answering, so what about spiritual gifts? I mean, what are spiritual gifts? And how is it that the Holy Spirit uses spiritual gifts in the church? So on your outline, what about spiritual gifts? What about them? Paul's giving us a great foundational teaching on Holy Spirit gifts.09:28Number one, write this down. Spiritual gifts are from God and for every believer. Look at verses four through six. He says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities,09:58is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. He says there's many kinds of spiritual gifts, but notice he says they all come from God. And he really wants to make that point clear because you notice he mentioned every member of the Trinity as being the source of spiritual gifts. You notice that? He talks about the Holy Spirit in verse 4. He talks about Jesus Christ, the Lord, in verse 5. He talks about God, the Father,10:28in verse 6. Spiritual gifts are gifts that come from God. Now, understand that spiritual gifts are different than talents. Okay? Like a skill that you have to play an instrument or to paint a mural. Spiritual gifts are different, but listen. I can show you biblically, and that's a study for another time.10:58come from God. Absolutely.11:03But here we're talking about ministry gifts.11:06Church ministry must be Spirit-powered, not done in the flesh.11:15Why?11:19Because if we're just doing ministry in our power, in man's power,11:25we're going to get man's results.11:27But when ministry is done in God's power, we get God's results. So which do you want? At the end of the day, I want to see what God can do in this church, not what I can do. But you notice the end of verse 6, beginning of verse 7, to everyone, to each. Listen, because every Christian possesses the Holy Spirit, all Christians, all Christians are given a spiritual gift.11:59It's so fascinating because every gift is a characteristic of Jesus Christ Himself. You realize He had everything perfectly. Think about that. Jesus, God in the flesh, who embodied every characteristic perfectly. You see the Holy Spirit giving us a spiritual gift. What's going on here? Here's what's going on. The church is called the body of Christ.12:29And each member is given a gift so that collectively, we as the body of Christ become a sort of representation of Jesus Christ himself. It's absolutely mind-blowing. But God wants the church to be Christ-like, and this is how it happens. We each use our spiritual gift. We're collectively built up in all of the characteristics that Jesus Christ possessed perfectly in the Incarnation.12:57So, spiritual gifts from God for every believer. All right, number two, spiritual gifts are to be used to bless the church. Look at verse 7. He says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For the common good.13:28It's kind of funny when you think about it. You're given a spiritual gift, right? But in a real sense, the spiritual gift given to you isn't even for you. Isn't that strange? God's given you a gift, but He goes, oh, that's not for you. That's for everybody else. You see, my spiritual gift is supposed to benefit you.13:57benefit me.14:01And that's why we believe in every member of ministry at Harvest Bible Chapel.14:05If you're attending here, if you consider this your church,14:09we're not shy about asking where do you want to serve.14:15Not because we're like, we need help.14:18We do need help.14:21But that's not the primary reason.14:24It's because if you're part of the church, God has gifted you to bless the church. Right? So I have to ask you, how is God using you in this church? How's God using you? If you've been given a gift that's for the common good, how is that working in your ministry?14:55Now look, I've got to tell you, we are so blessed at this church. We were talking about this not too long ago, but we have a crazy high percentage of people who are actively serving in this church in so many ways. We're not there yet, but that number needs to be 100%. And if you're attending this church and you're not serving, please hear me.15:26I just want to lovingly tell you that God hasn't called anyone to warm a seat. Nobody's spiritual gift is attendance. We need you to be using your spiritual gift for the common good. All right? So spiritual gifts are from God for every believer. Number two, spiritual gifts are to be used to bless the church.15:54And number three, spiritual gifts come in many forms. Here's where we need to spend some time. In this section here, Paul lists nine spiritual gifts. Now, this list is not exhaustive, okay? Actually, we're not going to look there today. We're going to stick in this passage as is our custom. But you can see also Romans chapter 12. You can see Ephesians chapter 4. There are other gifts than the ones that are listed.16:24here. This isn't exhaustive. This is more just representative. Spiritual gifts come in many forms. Let's look at verses 8-10. Paul says, for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit.16:54To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation.17:24of tongues.17:27Alright, so with spiritual gifts there are two categories.17:31There are speaking gifts and there are serving gifts.17:35But there are also two kinds of gifts.17:38There are permanent gifts.17:40There are gifts that were given that will be active in the church until our Lord returns.17:46And there are gifts that are temporary that were only for a time and purpose.17:51And this is where we get controversial.18:00Because this is where a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. But are you ready to go to Sunday school for a few minutes? Three of you? Okay. Thank you. Tristan always has my back. Always. And some of you are like, I don't know if I want to get out of here.18:23this road. Well, we're going through 1 Corinthians. This is next. And we receive God's Word as presented, right? So let's do it. But I want to talk about temporary gifts. And please hear me out before you storm out. That door's hard to slam, but it can be done. Before you storm out, before you throw anything at me, I would like you to please hear me out for a few minutes, all right?18:53Because this isn't my opinion. This is what the Bible says if you read it straightforwardly. Temporary gifts, sometimes they're called sign gifts. Those are the more miraculous type gifts. Please hear me because this is where I'm going to be misquoted, but not you. Listen, those gifts are not normative today.19:23Do I believe that they still happen? 100% I do. But they are not normative. Okay? So if somebody's like, well, what is Jeff's position on some of these sign gifts? I do not believe that they are normative today. I'm going to show you why. Can God do them? Yes. But, listen close. These sign gifts, are these spiritual gifts19:53that are possessed by people in the day of Paul and the apostles. And the answer is no. They're not possessed by people as they were in Paul's day. God still does them on occasion, not normative, but they're not possessed by people. I want to talk about miracles for a moment. Pastor Taylor and I were talking about this last week.20:23I think when we read the Bible, we get this idea that miracles were just like happening all the time, right? Like Moses woke up and like before his oatmeal, he like fired off five miracles. Boom. Not a man a meal, not oatmeal. But actually miracles in the Bible were actually very rare.20:53And apart from Moses' day, and apart from the day of Jesus in the apostles' ministry, miracles performed through men were actually very rare things. So why did we see so many miracles, especially in Moses' day, and especially in Jesus' and the apostles' day? Because this is why.21:21God performed miracles through people to verify or prove when new revelation was given. That's why it was normative in Moses' day. That's why it was normative for the apostles. Because God was giving new revelation, and that was the way He verified it. Any knucklehead can run around and say,21:51this is the new word of the Lord. And like, how can you prove that? Anybody can say that. God would verify what is actually revelation from him by backing it up with people who were giving not just this message, but performing these miracles. That's why you see that in Jesus. Why did Jesus perform so many miracles? Why did Jesus perform miracles? He's putting on a show, right?22:21He wanted to dazzle people, right? Hey, check this out. Check out what I can do. Anybody got two fishes, five loaves? Let me show you a trick. No! Jesus wasn't an entertainer. Why did Jesus do all the miracles? Actually, He referred to them as signs. Why? Because they were done to prove He is who He said He is. He's like, I'm God in the flesh. And of course, you're going to have people that were like, pfft.22:51I'm not buying that. But when you see this man raising the dead, healing the sick, feeding multitudes, you're like, there's something more to him. Right? Jesus' signs proved he is who he said he is. You're like, awesome, but what about spiritual gifts? Well, same principle here. Listen, to back the apostles'23:21while the New Testament was completed, was being completed, God authenticated the gospel with sign gifts. That's what the Bible says. You're like, where does the Bible say that? Many places. I'll give you a couple. Okay? Like 2 Corinthians 12. Look, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience with signs and wonders and mighty works. You see?23:51the true apostles were performing miracles. It was to authenticate the gospel message. Same thing in Hebrews 2.4. It says, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. Same principle as God was giving us the New Testament. You see, in those days, they didn't have the New Testament completed yet.24:21was being worked on by the Holy Spirit. So when somebody got up and said, let me tell you this message from God, how do we know it was from God? He backed it up with miracles. That's why when you go through the book of Acts, you see miracles less and less and less and less as you go through the book of Acts. We spent like three years in Acts, and that's what you see. In 1 Corinthians here, the book that we're studying, it was one of the earliest24:51written. So sign gifts were still very much a thing when Paul wrote this, but they were on their way out and they were ending as normative spiritual gifts when the New Testament was completed. That's why in none of the other epistles you see any talk about the spiritual gifts of miracles or healings or tongues or interpretation of tongues. You don't see that in any other25:21book in the New Testament.25:25Because it was phasing out.25:28We have God's word complete in written form,25:31so we don't need to verify it with a miracle.25:35God wrote it all down for us.25:37All right?25:39So, with that backdrop, I'm going to go through these quickly.25:44Each one of these could be a sermon,25:45and that's not the intention.25:49Interestingly, Paul does not explain them. He just lists them. I want to give you a little definition for each, a little understanding. So look at your spiritual gifts here, starting in verse 8. The first one is wisdom. What is wisdom? That's just skill in applying the Word of God. Do you know who typically possesses this gift are people that are counselors, whether it's formally or informally, people that are able to say, I understand how to incorporate God's truth.26:19into my life.26:21I can help you incorporate God's truth into your life.26:23It's applying the Word of God.26:24That's wisdom.26:26Next is knowledge.26:30That's understanding the Word.26:34It's somebody that can see Bible facts and knows how they fit together.26:39You know what's amazing?26:40Did you ever see these Christian authors?26:43They take like one subject and they write a whole book about it.26:46That's always amazing to me.26:48Like, how do they do that? They wrote a whole book about one subject? Well, I think a lot of them have the gift of knowledge. Right? Next is faith. Gift of faith. Now, obviously, this is faith beyond believing to get saved, because every follower of Christ has that kind of faith. Right? But you ever notice that there are some Christians that you meet that just seem to have a deeper,27:20Confidence in the Sovereignty of God. You know what I'm talking about? There's some Christians you meet, they could be going through just the worst trials a human being can go through, and they're just like, you know what? God's in control. He's got this. And they're just completely unflappable. They have the gift of faith. Those people are typically the best prayers. Right? Next on the list.27:48is healing.27:51Now again, I believe that this is one of the gifts27:55for people that was phasing out at this point.28:01But what is healing?28:02Well, it's just supernaturally healing a physical illness.28:12I wish I had that gift.28:14I wish it was still a thing.28:17And you might say, well, Pastor Jeff, I think it is still a thing. Because I saw this guy on TV. He was slapping people on the head deaf and they were getting up with full hearing. Interesting about those people, they never go to the cancer ward or the children's hospital. I mean, if I had the gift to heal people, that's the first place I'd go. You're like, oh, so you don't believe in healing? Oh, yeah, yeah. Look, listen.28:47Let's be clear. God still heals. I believe that 100%. And I have seen in this church God miraculously heal people. I believe that God heals. I'm not convinced that Benny Hinn ever did. All right? So next is miracles. Miracles. Like, wait a minute. What's the difference between miracles and healing? I'm not going to bore you with the long systematic Thompson Chain reference.29:17But here's the thing. That word for miracles, when you trace it through the New Testament, was most often connected with casting out demons. That's the difference. That's the distinction. See, that's what Jesus was talking about. Look at Luke 9.1. We'll have it on the screen. It says, and he called the twelve together, look, and gave them power and authority, here it is, over all demons and to cure diseases. So miracles.29:47In the New Testament referred to casting out demons. Again, I believe that was an apostolic era. Do I believe God still does that 100%? Absolutely, yes, He does. Normative? That a person has the gift and is running around doing that? No. All right, next is prophecy. Prophecy. Now, when we think prophecy, when we hear that word, what's the first thing we think of? Like future stuff, right?30:17Tell us the future. Well, sometimes, actually rarely, that's part of it. But you realize that's not what prophecy literally means at all. Do you know what the word prophecy is? It literally breaks down to a compound word that means speak before. You're like, speak before what? Speak before an audience. That's what prophecy is. It's somebody that stands in front of a group of people and says things.30:47Before Them. That's prophecy. It's the public speaking of God's truth. That's what happens when I get up here, Taylor or Brian or Justin or whoever stands up here proclaiming the Word of God. That is prophecy. We are speaking before. Right? Next is distinguishing between spirits. If you're interested, we did a whole sermon series on this.31:17A couple years back, this is what we more commonly call discernment. It's the ability to evaluate if something is from God or not. And in that sermon series, I'm not going to preach it all now, but I'd just like to remind you that that is something that we are all called to do. We are all called to discern what is from God and what is not from God. And again, I'll remind you that we live in a day that it is more crucial than ever because we live in a day where we have access to more information.31:47than we've ever had. You open up your phone, you're going to have 10,00031:51preachers giving you contradictory31:54message about31:55thus saith the Lord. How do we know31:57what God actually said? Discernment32:00is the gift to be able to32:01tell, he's not saying what God32:03said, but this guy definitely is, right?32:05Right?32:10Some people have that gift.32:13Alright, next gift is tongues.32:18Next gift is tongues.32:21You're like, are tongues for today?32:26People ask that, are tongues for today?32:31Yeah, tongues are for today.32:32How would you eat your ice cream otherwise, right?32:38Listen, I'm not going to go too far into this.32:42Oh, you're scared? No, not at all.32:43We're actually going to be doing a very deep dive in this. We're spending four weeks on this subject. But what is tongues biblically? Tongues is the ability to speak in a foreign language unknown to the speaker. It's a known language, by the way. It's not gibberish. It's somebody speaking an already existing language that that person doesn't know. They're just speaking it. Like I said, we're going to spend so much more time on this. And then interpretation of tongues is just simply that.33:13a person that was gifted with the ability to translate what the tongues speaker says. Many forms. One spirit. Oh, speaking of the Holy Spirit, number four. Spiritual gifts are given at the Holy Spirit's discretion.33:47Look at verse 11.33:52He says,33:54All these are empowered by one in the same Spirit34:01who apportions to each one individually as He wills.34:09As He wills.34:11The Holy Spirit, in His sovereignty, determines who does what. That's the Holy Spirit's job. Understand, as your pastor, I did not get to choose your gift. Like, oh, you want to be a part of our church? All right. Prophecy. Okay, how about you? You want to join the church? All right. Healing. You're like, you totally didn't listen to that sermon, did you? I don't get to determine that gift.34:41get to determine that gift. You know what? Preaching looks like a lot of fun. I think I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit for the prophecy gift. He is the one who determines the gift. It is a gift. And the gift giver determines the gift that he wants to give you. The gift giver determines the gift35:12that he wants to give you.35:19And I know this is a hard sell in our day.35:23I mean, Murph, you get it. You go back. We get it.35:27The gift giver determines the gift he wants to give. We get it. The younger people don't get that.35:33Like, why not? Because you know what we do in our day?35:38You know what we do in our day? We have a big event.35:42We have a baby shower, a wedding, little Joey's birthday party. He's turning five. Going to have his party at the Chuck E. Cheese. Do you know what we do today? We tell people what gifts we want, don't we? We do that. Little Joey's turning five. He's registered at Target. Right? Right?36:10Or, yeah, I'm getting married. Yeah, I'm getting married. Yeah, I'm registered at Target. We tell people the gifts that we want. I'm getting married. I want this toaster. I want this knife set. I want this vacuum. And then, I mean, we've done it. Aaron and I will go and be like, okay, this is the vacuum they want.36:40and we buy it and we wrap it up. And then they act surprised when they open it. They open it up and they're like, oh, you got me exactly what I was asking for. Oh, you shouldn't have. But you go back a generation, the gift giver determined what gift you got. Don't try that with the Holy Spirit, okay? You're baptized.37:11I'm registered at Target.37:15Well, we don't get a say in it.37:17It's His gift, right?37:19It's His gift.37:19Do you think I would have signed up for this?37:25Oh no.37:26Oh no.37:30He'll make a better choice than we would anyways.37:33Alright.37:35That's all well and good.37:36But that's really not the question37:39that we're asking right now.37:40The question that we're asking right now is how do I know what my spiritual gift is right I mean it's clear he's given all of us each of us a gift to represent the body of Christ and we're to use it in the common good we saw the kinds and you're like awesome what is my spiritual gift how do I find out what my spiritual gift is all right I'm going to give you three things we're going to close with this three things how do I know what gift I've been given letter A seek God38:10You're like, that sounds like a cop-out. No, look. If you make your life about on-your-face praying and in the Word and just get serving in the church, the Spirit's going to do what the Spirit does. He's going to be at work through you. You're going to figure that out real quick. So just don't worry about seeking a gift. Seek the gift giver. He'll do what He does.38:40That's what he does. Seek God. All right? Letter B. Consider the intersection. Like, what's the intersection? I was studying for this this week. I came across something. I thought it was super helpful. It's one of those diagrams where everything intersects. What do they call that? A Venmo diagram?39:10Venn. Not Venmo.39:20What's a Venmo?39:23Oh, that's giving money.39:26Also a spiritual gift. Right!39:30So you could Venmo your...39:31Alright.39:33I just feel like I had like an inception moment here.39:37Alright.39:38Consider the intersection.39:39Yeah.39:40All right. So I came across this Venn diagram. And I thought it was helpful. I'm going to try to recreate it here. But there's three things here. First of all, this circle here, we're going to call that, we're going to call this one ability. We're going to call this one ability. What is it that you seem, not complicated,40:10You seem like you're able to do this. Right? Of all the gifts. You're like, you know what? That's something that I seem like I'm able to do. I mean, I'm not boasting or anything. It just seems like something that I'm able to do. Okay? And then, with this one, we're going to call this one affinity. That's an idea. Okay. That's affinity. Like, well, that's an idea. Like, what do40:40I enjoy doing.40:42If somebody was like, you can do whatever you want in the church, whatever you enjoy most,40:46what would be the line I get to the front of first?40:50What's my affinity?40:53And then the third thing here, my circles are getting less and less circle-y, but I think you get the idea.41:01This one we're going to call affirmation.41:12You know, you have people maybe in your small group or other people in the church that are, they say to you, you know what? You seem like you have a real gift for teaching. You really seem like you have a gift for praying with people. So the point is this. Consider the intersection right here.41:39This is very likely your spiritual gift. I would say extremely likely. What you're able to do, what you love doing, and what people affirm that it seems like God has equipped you to do, that is very likely your spiritual gift. All right? Then letter C, assessment. Seek God, consider the intersection or assessment. We have a QR code.42:10Go ahead, take your phone out and give that a scan. Pastor Rich sent this along. But this is an online assessment. And really, I think between seeking the Lord, considering the intersection, doing the online assessment, I think that's going to get you all on your way to giving you a deeper understanding of what your spiritual gift is. So go ahead. Go ahead, do the...42:41Either scan that or Venmo me some money. Since you have your phone out and I just learned what Venmo is. Do I have a Venmo? Never mind. Aaron says I don't have a Venmo. All right. Our worship team would make their way up. While they're coming, you know, when I was in high school, I played soccer.43:11In my junior high year of playing soccer, the coach didn't like me. Why? Because I was unlikable. So I sat on the bench most of the season. Now, I knew I had the ability.43:39senior year, we had a new coach, and I didn't sit for one minute that entire season. In fact, I was co-captain of the team. But I got to tell you, I think back to that junior year of playing soccer, and I just remember feeling incredibly frustrated because I felt incredibly useless. You know, you put your shin guards on, you put your cleats on, you put your44:09your soccer uniform on.44:12And you just, I just sat there and watched the whole season.44:16Just sat there.44:21So many times I thought, why am I even here?44:25Why am I even here?44:26What am I doing?44:29I want to tell you, you don't have to worry about that with God's team44:34because there are no bench warmers.44:39God doesn't tell any of His children, you know what? You're nice and all, but you go sit over there. We don't really need you. Or you just wait, and if we decide there's a place we can squeeze you in, we'll see if we can do that. No, no, no, no, no. God's Word has made it very clear that He has called and He has gifted every single one of you.45:08this church. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, so often we get a gift and we don't say thank you, but Father, we thank you not just for the gift of your Holy Spirit himself who lives within us, but the gift that he has given each of us to serve you and your church. For some people here, Father, this is probably brand new teaching.45:38Never really considered this. And for some people here, Father, maybe we've known this and have sort of strayed from it. But I'm asking today, Father, that your Spirit would grip every heart in this church and grip the church collectively so that we truly, as the body of Christ, might represent the person of Christ.46:08as these spirits are at work in us. So Father, I pray for the person here who maybe has been coming to this church but just hasn't stepped up. Remind them, Father, it's not just a matter of the elders and pastors and ministry team would value your input. Remind them, Father, that you have equipped them to serve your church.46:38We do so to your glory and honor. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Small Group DiscussionRead 1 Corinthians 12:1-11What was your big take-away from this passage / message?What does it mean that spiritual gifts are for the common good (1 Cor 12:7)?Are sign gifts such as healing and miracles still possessed by people today? Why or why not?Why is it important to understand that the Holy Spirit is the One Who chooses what gifts believers receive (1 Cor 12:11)?How do you know if a ministry is done by the power of the Holy Spirit, or done in the flesh (that is, just by “human power”)?BreakoutPray for one another.

Today's sermon is You Must Be Born Again by Rich Chaffin Find more teaching from Pastor Rich at www.cclc.org

What do you really believe about Jesus? In Colossians, Paul reminds the church that the gospel is Jesus plus nothing. Jesus is not simply one part of the Christian life. He is supreme over all creation, the one who rescued us, the one who defines our identity, and the one who holds all things together. Pastor Rich teaches that we often treat faith like a buffet, choosing the parts we want while leaving surrender, patience, generosity, forgiveness, and obedience behind. But if Jesus is truly enough, then every area of life belongs to Him. This message will help you ask whether Jesus is the foundation you are building on, or decoration you add to make life look better. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Jesus + Nothing, Week 1 Message: Jesus Plus Nothing Date: May 17, 2026 Scriptures referenced: Colossians 1:3-6, Colossians 1:9-10, Colossians 1:13-23, Colossians 3:17 Next steps, prayer, and connection: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Website: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Join us as Pastor Rich and Mrs. Frances Harris aka Queen Mother discuss being a Proverbs 31 woman. 

This message continues our journey through the book of Acts, where the first followers of Jesus experienced remarkable depth and growth as they embraced a new way of life. Together, we explore four practices God uses to shape us—practices that lead us into the kind of authentic, life-giving community we long for. Scripture Referenced: Acts 2:42-47

Welcome to the audio podcast of Generation Church, led by Pastor Rich and Tina Romero. Our hope is that these messages give you hope, faith and encouragement throughout the week. To learn more about Generation Church: Visit us online: https://mygeneration.cc Contact us: https://mygeneration.cc/contact Interact with us: If you made a decision to follow Jesus, text "Established" to 970-00

Discouragement can feel normal when life stays uncertain, but this message reminds us where courage really comes from. In this sermon from Joshua 1 and Joshua 4, Pastor Rich shows how God meets us in the middle, re-anchors our confidence, and reminds us of His faithfulness when fear and discouragement try to take over. Speaker: Rich Greene Series: Strength & Courage Scripture: Joshua 1, Joshua 4:3-7, Numbers 13, Deuteronomy 34:12, Romans 5:5 Next steps: Connect / Prayer / Baptism / Salvation: https://bit.ly/m/lifechurchia Website: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/ Give: https://www.lifechurchnow.org/give

Welcome to the audio podcast of Generation Church, led by Pastor Rich and Tina Romero. Our hope is that these messages give you hope, faith and encouragement throughout the week. To learn more about Generation Church: Visit us online: https://mygeneration.cc Contact us: https://mygeneration.cc/contact Interact with us: If you made a decision to follow Jesus, text "Established" to 970-00

This message is Part 1 of our new sermon series on the Book of Acts that will take us through the summer. As a companion to our series on Mark, Acts shows us how Jesus invites ordinary people to carry on His mission and live out what He began. Scripture Referenced: Acts 1

Welcome to the audio podcast of Generation Church, led by Pastor Rich and Tina Romero. Our hope is that these messages give you hope, faith and encouragement throughout the week. To learn more about Generation Church: Visit us online: https://mygeneration.cc Contact us: https://mygeneration.cc/contact Interact with us: If you made a decision to follow Jesus, text "Established" to 970-00

Welcome to the audio podcast of Generation Church, led by Pastor Rich and Tina Romero. Our hope is that these messages give you hope, faith and encouragement throughout the week. To learn more about Generation Church: Visit us online: https://mygeneration.cc Contact us: https://mygeneration.cc/contact Interact with us: If you made a decision to follow Jesus, text "Established" to 970-00

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and remember that the story doesn't end where it seems. What looked like the end was only the beginning. We wrap up our six-month journey through the Gospel of Mark with a message on three powerful lessons Easter teaches us about life with God. Scripture Referenced: Mark 16:1-7

Welcome to the audio podcast of Generation Church, led by Pastor Rich and Tina Romero. Our hope is that these messages give you hope, faith and encouragement throughout the week. To learn more about Generation Church: Visit us online: https://mygeneration.cc Contact us: https://mygeneration.cc/contact Interact with us: If you made a decision to follow Jesus, text "Established" to 970-00