Chris Hodges - Spiritual Gifts
Come on church. How about we give Jesus all the praise everybody? And I want to say thank you to Libby and her family who right now are at the Greystone campus. They're attending this service. Can we just say thank you for the courage, come on everybody, to share a story like that? God bless you. So proud of you. And I wanna say thank you to all of you who make that possible for people, regardless of their journey of life, to be able to come into this space and find the hope that is in Jesus, and I wanna thank you for your generosity that makes it possible.
You don't know this. We can't talk about it much, but we are very actively involved through your giving in the area of sex trafficking. Obviously, it's something that we have to be very, very secure about because of the lives that are at stake, and so, we cooperate with law enforcement in many ways and serve those who've been affected by that. And I want to thank you for that, the way you serve, the way you pray, the way you give. What a privilege it is, come on everybody, to be a place that offers hope. Come on if you really believe it!
All right, well, welcome today to week number five of a seven-part series that we're in called "Disciple: The Journey of Spiritual Growth," and I want to tell you more about that in just a second, but I always like to start by looking at the camera and saying hello to all of our campuses, our locations across the great state of Alabama and into Georgia, and of course, we have the incredible honor of bringing this service and really all that we are as a church into 26 of Alabama's Department of Corrections facilities, so to the men and women there. And then of course, we always have people that are streaming the service live or watching it later on-demand.
And Grants Mill, there are mics all over this room, and they can hear you. How about saying a big hello to all of our campuses? God bless you guys! Thank you. All right, if you'd like to follow along and you like taking notes on our app, everything I'll have on this screen will be on your phone. You can do that, and you can actually fill in the blanks. There's even a little plus sign where you can take extra notes if you wanna add things maybe that the Holy Spirit's saying to you while I'm speaking, and then there's a chance for you at the very end to email those notes to yourself, and you can keep them as long as you'd like, all right?
So here we go. Our theme verse for this series is found in Matthew chapter 28. This is the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, and here's what he says. He says, "Therefore go and make," say it out loud, "go and make disciples," students. It literally means those instructed in things of faith. "Go make disciples," not just in your own church, not your own city, "of all nations, baptizing them," let me highlight that word just for a second and say that even Jesus affirms that one of the first things that we do as new believers is we have this outer expression of something that's already happened inside of our heart. I call it the wedding band of Christianity. It just lets the world know that you belong to Jesus. It's baptism.
Now he asked for that. So if you've never had a baptism experience since you became a believer, you have that opportunity today, and if you are completely unprepared for that, we've prepared for you. So we have all the clothes that you need. We have the change of clothes. We have the undergarments. We have the towels. We have a photographer. We have everything you need. Just a few more minutes after the service, we would love to water baptize you. So if you're headed somewhere after the service, text 'em and say, "I'm gonna be about 10 or 15 minutes later," and follow the Lord and water baptize.
"Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and then he asks me to do this for you, "Teach them how to obey these commands". So the Bible is full of things that he's asking us to do that are not always so easy to do or understandable, and my job as a pastor or leader is to teach you how to obey the commands of God. And when we do that, "Surely I'm with you, even to the end of the age". God's presence is with us in a great way. So in this series, we've already covered the fact that God has more for you, and one of the baseline things that a disciple does is spend time with Jesus every day. Most people know that, but that's something we need to do.
Very few know how to enjoy it, so we talked about how you can actually enjoy your quiet time with God every day. The importance of being planted in a local church. We think that's important. The next installment, part four, we talked about the importance of having friends, accountability, relationships, that you're growing together with other Christians. And today, I wanna take it to another topic that is what disciples do. This one might be my favorite of all. This one is something that those that have tried to figure out Highlands, I'm actually telling you one of the secrets that something we did from day one that I'm convinced that we look back, first of all, we have to give God all the glory of what's happened here.
But of the things that we did that were maybe different from church experiences that they grew up in, and that is we talked a lot about spiritual gifts. Since the first day of the church, we have made this declaration that God never intended me just to be the superstar around here and doing all the ministry. From day one, we said no, no, no, we're gonna let the church look like the people who attend the church, and we're gonna do exactly what the Bible says, and we're gonna discover and develop the gifts that are inside of people, and let the church look like the people that are here, and make really you the star, and let Jesus be the head of our church with every person involved realizing that God wants to use every single one of us.
And I'm telling you, it's something that most people didn't even know anything about. In fact, when I was first telling these stories in the early years of the church and I was bringing this truth that I've always believed, they looked at me like, "What in the world are you talking about"? And you're gonna see. It's all throughout the New Testament, and no one knew anything about it. In fact, I'll tell you a quick story. Before I ever began the church or right after we began the church, I was doing a lot of appointments just to meet people 'cause I knew no one in Birmingham. And we had a brand-new member of our church named William Borland, and they called him Buzz, Buzz Borland. I call him Buzzy B. That's what I called him.
And so anyway, Buzz wanted to take me out to eat at a restaurant here in Birmingham down Highway 280 called Lloyd's that's been on Highway 280 when Highway 280 was just a two-lane highway. It's been there a long time, and it's good old Alabama comfort food. In fact, I'll never forget what I ordered. I was sitting there with Buzzy B, and he's on the other side of the little booth, and I got one of that chopped steak, you know, platter, you know, hamburger steak. And brother, they brought it, I saw no steak. I saw about eight pounds of gravy. Come on everybody, right? Just, it was this pile of gravy. I thought, well, there you go. Welcome to Alabama, and get ready heart, all right.
And so, we started to eat. I was kind of digging through the gravy to find my meat. And he saw somebody across the restaurant that he knew. He goes, "Hey, I see a buddy of mine. You wanna meet him"? I said, "Well, of course I do". And so he waved his buddy over, "Hey, come over here". And so his friend got up, walked over to where we were seated, and of course I stood up, and I shook his hand. And Buzz said, "Hey, meet my new preacher," and he said it like that, "Preacher, preacher". I've never been called somebody's preacher before. And he said, "Meet my new preacher". And so I shook his hand and said, "I'm the new preacher," you know.
So I just played along a little bit. And we visited, and the guy goes back to his table, and I sat down and looked across the table at Buzz, and I said, "I am not your preacher". He goes, "Oh, yeah, you are". I said, "No, no, no, you're the preacher". He goes, "Oh, no". I said, "Buzz, what do you think a preacher is"? He goes, "You know, they study for sermons every week, bring us a good sermon, good sermon, preacher, you know, on Sunday, and then you go to the hospitals between Sundays. That's what a preacher does". I said, "Well, that might be what you think it is, but that's not what the Bible says". I said, "You're the preacher".
And his eyes got this big around, "Oh, no, man, I don't know nothing about that". I said, "I am determined that if you're going to be a member of this church, that I am to discover and develop the spiritual gifts on the inside of you and we're going to reach this city, not just because I'm the preacher, we're going to do it because everybody in this church is gonna find their place in ministry, and together, we're going to make a difference in Alabama". Can I hear a good amen, everybody? All right, all right? So now, I've got to convince you. So give me a few minutes to make my theological case first, give you three spiritual truths about spiritual gifts, then I'm gonna tell you three ways that you can actually practically do it.
Here we go. Ephesians chapter 4 says this: "But to each one," that means everybody, not just to a few, everybody who is a believer, every follower of Jesus, "to each one grace has been given," now this is not the kind of grace like the prayer you pray before you eat a meal. You know, this is the "say grace". That's not it. It's not even the grace, the "Amazing Grace," how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. That's not that kind of grace. That is one of the words for grace in the Bible. This one's different. This is in the original language of the New Testament, which is Greek. It's the word "charis," and charis literally means "a divine enablement," something God gave you that you're good at, when you do it you feel fulfilled doing it, and it makes an eternal difference in the lives of others.
That's why you can see it's such a hard word to translate, and for whatever reason, the English translators decided to put all of that that I just told you into one word, "grace," which is why I have to explain it to you. But to every one of you, you've been given a divine enablement that when you do it, you actually enjoy it, and are fulfilled doing it, and it makes an eternal difference, and "it's been given as Christ decided". He apportioned it. So he's the one who gives music gifts, administration gifts, mercy gifts, compassion, just, God has given every one of us a divine enablement in some area.
Watch how it continues: "So Christ himself gave," five different unique roles, "the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers," we call that in theology "the five-fold ministry". These are offices within the church that are not better. They just have a unique role to all of the each who have this grace gift. He gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, I'm a pastor, not to be the minister. In fact, my job is not even to do ministry. According to the Bible, I am the equipper of ministers, "to equip his people for works of service". So if we were actually to follow how the Bible reads it, I don't do ministry. I equip ministers, and I was telling Buzz this that day at Lloyd's behind all the gravy. Amen, everybody, right?
"So that," why is that? "so that the body of Christ may be built up," you're gonna see today that whenever you develop your spiritual gifts, find and develop your spiritual gifts, it actually defines your life in a great way, brings meaning to your life, you have purpose, you have focus. Your life is built up "until we all reach the unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature". So the Bible's even saying that there's discipleship levels, and now, we're diving into in the last few installments of the series into the mature levels, "attaining to the whole measure," which means there can be a half measure, and for some of you, I'm not picking on you, I'm just telling you the truth, some of you only have half measure of Jesus.
Now are you going to heaven? Yes, the only thing you need for heaven is Jesus, all right, just to know him as your Savior and Lord. But there's more after that. That was week number one. "You can attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then you're no longer a baby, an infant," where your life is this way one day, that way the next. It says, "Tossed back and forth". So if anybody that is under the sound of my voice that's been looking for a way for your life not to look like that, spiritual gifts is actually the answer, that your life is matured whenever you find out what your life's all about and you're "no longer tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming".
Watch how it finishes: "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow," now you're growing, "to become in every respect mature," there it is again, "this mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ". Watch how it finishes, this is so cool: "From him the whole body, joined," in other words, we all do it, and then we all have to connect with one another like a body does, "the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its," say the last word, "as each part does its work".
So the ultimate goal is for all of us to find our spiritual gift and get to work. Like, do something with our lives together that makes this massive impact in the lives around us. So here's how I define spiritual gifts. A spiritual gift is a special supernatural ability that God gives to everybody, all the children of God, so that we can come together, connect, be developed and equipped by people like me, with one another, be strengthened and matured together, to advance His purposes in this world. Now listen to me. All of hell does not want that to happen. So let me tell you a story to prove to you how all of hell over 2,000 years has tried to keep, well actually, even before.
So in the Old Testament, there were certain groups of people who had the ministry calling. They were called the priesthood. In the Old Testament, God picked some people to know God. There was actually only a group of people that could talk to God, and then they would talk to the people on behalf of God. They were called the priests. They were of the Tribe of Levi. They called them the priesthood. When Jesus came on the scene, Jesus mixed it up. He came and said that the ministry and the gifts and the purposes of God aren't for a select few, they're for everybody, and so, he selects this ragtag group of people called disciples, fishermen, tax collectors, people with a terrible past. He gathers them together, and he says, "I'm gonna put my presence and my power in you, and you're gonna go be a voice for me".
And then when the day of Pentecost came, or the day that the church was actually born and birthed, God's Spirit was poured out, not on a few, not even on the 12 disciples, there was actually hundreds of people, thousands of people gathered at this first day the church started in the New Testament. In fact, they quote this verse in Acts chapter 2. This is the day the church was born. "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on everybody. Your sons and daughters will prophesy," in other words, we're not even gonna be discriminate against how old you are. It wasn't reserved for a 61-year-old, 40 years in ministry kind of guy. No, God says, "I'm gonna let my young people," which is why we champion young people here, why they're the ones at the doors. We don't say they're the next generation. They're the now generation.
Come on, church, help me preach just a little bit out there today, right? Yeah, they're the now. It's why if your student gets involved in our student ministries, we don't just entertain them and preach to them and sing to them. No, no no, we're gonna train them as leaders. We're gonna get 'em involved leading in their schools, and leading in their community, and making a difference. In fact, it goes on to say, "Even on my servants, both men and women," even you women can be involved, come on, ladies. Where y'all at, right? Thank you. I'm trying to help you right now. "I'm gonna pour out my Spirit on men and women, and all of them are gonna prophesy," that means proclaim the Word of the Lord.
We're gonna make a difference in people's lives. And then right after the New Testament, guess what happened? No one did that. In fact, the church even created words that are not in the Bible, neither Old or New Testament. You ready for 'em? Clergy, laity. And the clergy was this special group of people who would be the ministers. The word "clergy" comes from the word "clerk," and it literally means "one who reads". So, let the smart people who can read do all the work, and you rest, you dummies out there, y'all just listen.
Please don't even do anything, Y'all are a mess out there. And it says, so we have this special group of clergy, and we have these laity, these laymen, they call them. Well, that's not in the Bible. Those words aren't in the Bible, either Old or New Testament. Then 1,500 years later, the Protestant Reformation happened, led by Martin Luther. He gets this revelation out of God's Word. He goes, "Hey, wait a minute. I've been reading the Bible, and we're all supposed to be priests". He had this doctrine called the "Priesthood of All Believers," and it was revelation. It's what birthed the Protestant side of Christianity was this idea of, wait a minute, there's not a pope, there's not just one person who's special.
There's not... no, no, no, we're all supposed to be ministers, and right after he died, nothing happened. And here we are, 500 years later, and there's still two groups of people, the ministers and the congregation. And it's just not scriptural, and they think the pastors are supposed to do all the ministry, and the people are just supposed to sit there and be ministered to, and that's not what the Bible says. And so, one of the reasons why Highlands honestly has reached so many people is I'm not the only one doing it.
We have trained literally tens of thousands of people in their spiritual gifts and have activated and motivated and mobilized tens of thousands of people to make a difference. There are things in this church that you think came from me and it didn't. Like, I didn't even have the idea to do prison ministry. No, we developed and discovered the gift of one person who felt called to do prison ministry, and we said, "Hey, we'll help you. We'll equip you. We'll resource it. Why don't you go try that thing"? And next thing you know, nearly every correctional facility in the state of Alabama has ministry taking place, and it wasn't my idea. All right, so there's the theology.
Let me give you three truths that I want you to have, and then, you know me, I'm gonna make it practical. We'll close with that at the end. Here's the first one, and that is that God has called every believer to be a minister, and I need you to accept that. Embrace that. In other words, I want you to say, "I'm a priest". My name is Sarah Smith. My name is Sue Johnson. My name is Mike Thomps... I don't, and I am a minister. I'm a priest, and I have been gifted by God to make a difference in some area. Every one of you need to say your own name in that blank. I am, fill in your name, and I am a priest. I'm a minister, and I'm here to make a difference in this world.
This is what 1 Peter says: "You are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments," here it is again, "to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you". And every one of you, watch this. Don't miss this. Every one of you, God had this before he even created you. You have, God first had the thing for you to do, then he made you. It's not the opposite. He didn't make you and go, "It's the tough one, man. Huh, what in the world can I do with them"? No, no, no, he had the thing for you to do first, and then he made you. And when you understand that, believe that, and realize that, it actually draws you to God.
Ephesians says it this way: "We are God's handiwork," one translation says, "his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do," and there it is again, "to do good works," all of us, "which God prepared in advance for us to do". Here's the second truth that I want you to see, and that is that every gift, so every person, every gifted person, every person with a spiritual gift, God has given is unique and important. So we don't even say, no, no, no, "The senior pastor of the church is more anointed. His prayers mean more".
In fact, when people say, "Hey, I've had people pray for me, but I really would like for you to do it," like I have a special, special kind of, you know, like, he won't listen to the rest of you, but he'll listen to me. I always say, "I'm happy to pray," and I will come, promise you, I'm happy to do that, but I don't have any more access to God than you do, and I wanna make sure you hear that. Because the people's tendency is still to pull us back into this church history that's not biblical, where no, no, no, there are special people, and there are not so special people. That is just not true.
In fact, Romans says it this way: "We have," all of us have, "different gifts, and according to," and there's that word again, "the grace that's been given us". I'm trying to build inside of you the belief that there is something very, very special about your life. If you love God, whether you ever find it, or develop it, or use it, that God has a gift on your life, a special, unique, divine ability to make a difference in the world around you. And we honor you, and we celebrate you, and we say that it's important for all of us to get involved in this truth.
And here's the last one, this one's my favorite today, and that is the gifts God has given me actually show me who I really am. I should have put the word in there, "really am". Because right now, we're living in a generation with so much confusion around identity. They've even put a name to it. This is a secular name: dysphoria. There's just, there's confusion around my body, my gender, my sexuality, my future, my life, and they say that we are the most medicated generation in history and the most that have gone through therapy, the most confused about theirselves in history, and that we have confusion, where our minds and our bodies don't disagree.
And in a lot of cases, what they're doing with that is when their mind thinks one thing and their body thinks another, they're just changing their body to fit what their mind thinks. By the way, the Bible actually offers the opposite approach, that if your mind and your body don't agree, don't change your body, change your mind. Don't be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, everybody. Come on, help me preach this a little bit out there. Don't leave me up here by myself. And we don't look down on anybody, for heaven's sake. I had dysphoria whenever I was a teenager. I had no sense of what my life meant. I was so shy, so insecure.
Actually, I had lied to myself about things because of my experiences that I had. And the Bible comes along and says things like this: "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought," and by the way, that's not talking about you think you're all that and a bag of chips. I'm gonna explain this word. I've highlighted it. Don't forget it. I'm coming back to it. "Don't think of yourself highly, but rather think of yourself soberly," I'm gonna define these words in just a second, "in accordance with the measure of faith that you have". So don't think highly, think soberly, and the answer comes from faith in God.
Watch this: "Just as each of us has a body with many members," again, it goes back to that metaphor, "and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body," we all have a different role to play, I've already explained that, "and each member belongs to all the others. We have different," and there's that word again, charis, or "spiritual gifts". Now, I told you I'd come back to those words. The real word in the Greek, that's what I do for you. I go back to original language when I study messages, and I'll look up these words in original language to bring you deeper truths 'cause the English language is limited in its expressions sometimes.
And the word "highly" is the word huperphroneo in the Greek, and it literally means just an "improper view". So it means you just don't see yourself the right way, and that's what we have going on in society right now. We have people who they're trying. I don't look down on 'em. They're trying. But what the view they have is not the view that God has for them. It's an improper view. The opposite word, "sophroneo," in the Greek, is the word "sober," and it literally means "having a right mind". You're in your right mind. It's the same word that's used When Jesus cast the demon out of the demoniac of Gadara, and it says that the man came in his right mind. It's sophroneo. He became sober.
And the third word that I told you to remember, highly sober, you find who you are through faith in God, that word literally means "allowing the One who created you to give you the right view". So if you put all that together and you rewrite that verse, I'm not rewriting the Bible, I'm just paraphrasing it. You know, if I was translating it and saying it to you in a way you could probably understand a little bit better, here's my stab at it: "Do not have a wrong view of who you are, instead be set free and put in your right mind by allowing the One who created you to show you who you are and what you were created to do".
Come on everybody, are you listening to me? All right, this is what God wants to speak to all of us here today. If your life makes no sense, if you have confusion, anxiety, depression, it could be that the missing ingredient for the solution of all of that is you just finding out how God created you, and why he created you, and what you're supposed to do. So, how do we put this in play? Here's the practical part. Well, we discover our spiritual gifts. So if you don't know what it is, that's fine. Discover it. Discover it. You've got to find out what it is. Don't be in the 87% that don't know. Be in the hopefully growing 13% that do know.
And where do you find it? You can only find it in one place, which is why I love my job so much, and that is you can't find it in your career. You can't find it at your college. You can't find it in any other place than in God 'cause he's the one who created you. He's the only one who really knows what it is. "It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us. He had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone".
Colossians says it this way: "For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, everything got started in him, finds its place in him". So what do we do? Then we go to God. That's what we will help you do if you would join the Growth Track tonight. We'll take you on a journey and to look into how God made you. We know that from Psalm 1:39: "God created my inmost being". God turned me into the person I am today. He created me. "He knit me together in my mother's womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made". Notice I don't have dysphoria. I don't have confusion. I don't have depression. I don't have anxiety. I'm going, "I know how God's made me". It's "fearfully" and it's "wonderfully". And your works are won, I love who you've made me, God.
And I love the last line: "And I know it". And unfortunately, so many don't. And that's why when we take you through the Growth Track, we'll help you realize the truth of this scripture and that simply is that your design will reveal your destiny. How God made you points to what you're supposed to do, and so when we take you through these spiritual gifts profiles, and I'll talk more about that in just a second, but when we take you through all this journey of helping you discover it, you're gonna see different roles. And I've taught you this before. If you've been around probably for four or five years, you've already seen this before.
I think it's about the last time that I shared this with you, but you can see the different gifts in people. Like, if you were part of a big family at a big gathering and you're having like a Thanksgiving meal and all the family's over, and then somebody walks in the room and they spill their entire plate on the floor, you will see different, so the Mercy gift will say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. That should have never happened". They feel compassion right off. The Preaching gift will say, "Well, that's what happens when you don't hold your plate right. You're gonna spill it a little," like.
The Serving gift will say, "Oh, I got it. I got it. Go ahead and sit down. Get you another plate. I'll clean it up". The Teaching gift says, "Well, the reason it fell is because your plate was too heavy on one side and then that person came and knocked your sh..." The Exhortation gift will say, "Oh, that's okay, it could have happened to anybody". The generosity or Giving gift says, "Here, take my dessert. You can have mine". And the Administration gift will say, "Hey Jim, you get a mop. John, you clean it up. Mary, why don't you"? This is what the body of Christ is supposed to look like, everybody. We're all not supposed to do everything. We're all supposed to find our place. Can I hear a good amen, everybody?
And that's why the motto of our church, for the Dream Team is "I was made for this". I was made for this. We want people to say, "I was made for this". All right, write that down in your notes. Here's the second one. And the second one is that once you have it, we're gonna develop it, and I say this because I don't want you to be discouraged when you're not that good at it. Because discipleship is not about knowing more, it's about learning and growing more, and that's why we call it the Growth Track. So I'm here to tell you that the first day you do something, you're not gonna be best in the world at it. You're gonna have to grow into this, and so we have a Growth Track. I wanna, you know this. And it starts the first of every month.
So if you've never been a part of it, or you haven't been a part of it in more than ten years, you may wanna go through it again. We always improve it. But we have three steps. The first step, if you came tonight at 6 o'clock, you would come to your campus, and we will show you basically what it means to be a part of this church. You could actually, if you choose to, you could actually formalize your membership and say, "I'm a member at Church of the Highlands".
We think it's important. The second step, if you come back next Sunday night, we take you through this discovery process. That's where you are gonna find out which one of those different gifts, the mercy, or the preaching, or the serving, or the administration, you're gonna find out your uniqueness in God's economy, and you're also gonna find out there's lots of opportunities, look in my eyes, that fits you perfectly. And when you find it, no one's ever talking you into it. This is what I was made for.
And then the third Sunday, if you came back two Sundays from now, for the last step, we actually get you into your first opportunity to connect with other people like you, what we call the Dream Team, to connect with it in that kind of way. But here's what we know, and that is that "all of you only together," and you can only grow to your potential together. In fact, let me say it this way. If you know what your spiritual gift is and you never get on a team, you can't even function in it. Because we're not a single member, we're the body of Christ, and "we're all together, one body, and each one of us is a necessary and separate part of the body of Christ".
And I'm living testimony of that. You guys who know me know I am now in my 41st year of full-time ministry, but my story is a journey of growth. So some of you that know me, you know these stories. But when I got saved, I was very insecure. I had dysphoria. I didn't know who I was. In fact, I was telling myself, you're a shy, bullied, and so I just, I was very insecure around people. So when I went to study accounting at LSU, thank God I got delivered from accounting. Can I just go on record and say that? But in my sophomore year, I had to take a speech class, and I failed speech.
We were... I only had to speak in front of 30 people. I had hives to speak in front of...and I failed the class. Talked my professor, I said, "How close was I to a D"? He said, "Actually, very close". And I got on my knees in front of his desk, tears coming in my eyes. I said, "Please don't put me through that again". And he had compassion on me and gave me a D so I wouldn't have to stand in front of people anymore. When I preached my first sermon, I had a lot of confidence. It was in Colorado Springs when I was a youth pastor there. And my pastor's on the front row, taking notes. I'm thinking, my God, look, he's getting something out of this himself. I thought, my God, look at all the notes he's taking.
Found out the next day at the lunch, where we did the debrief of my message, that's where all, those were all the notes of the things I was doing wrong, and I was at a barbecue restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado and cried like a baby, and I said, "I guess I'm not good at this". He goes, "You will be, and you're preaching again next Sunday". And I looked at him, and I said, "No, I'm not, no". And he goes, "I pay you. You're preaching next Sunday". He says, "I'm gonna develop you," and are y'all following me, everybody? And then yesterday, some of you guys saw this, my team posted it.
Yesterday, I got a honorary doctorate degree from High Point University for... yeah, just crazy. And I was sitting on this stage with this robe on. Come on, everybody. Y'all should have seen me in a robe. You ought to go see it just to see PC in a robe. Just made me want to go like this to all y'all. I just made. And I was sitting there, going, "Man, it's a million miles". It felt like a million miles from failing a speech class at 19 to sitting on that stage yesterday, and I looked up to... God be my witness, I said, "Only God".
Thank you. But what would have happened if I'd have believed who I was and followed that? Thank God I didn't listen to my feelings. Thank God I didn't listen to my wounds. Thank God I know. I let God develop. Did it happen overnight? No, it's taken me 41 years, and I'm still growing. And I say that to you 'cause I want you to not settle. Pastor Mark started this series off with "God's Got More". He's got more.
And some of you guys have settled. You look just like you looked five years ago. You're not doing more. You're not serving more. You're not giving more. You're not praying more. You're going to heaven? Yep. Don't be satisfied with that. Find your gift, develop your gift, and then, of course, lastly, use it. Use it. And I'm gonna talk to you more about that next week because really, the hope of this church is not Chris Hodges, the hope of this church and every church is that we do the reality of 1 Peter that "God has given gifts to everybody from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them, use them, so that God's generosity can flow through you".
So I'll close with a story about one person. So in 2020, which I'm trying my best to forget all things 2020, okay, but in about September of 2020, I was up at the office on a Wednesday, headed into a lead team meeting with my lead team. We meet on Wednesdays. I was there about five, ten minutes early, and my phone went off, and it was a dear friend, pastor friend, of mine. It was his wife, and so I went to my office to take the call. I always try, to all the pastors that I pastor, I try to take those calls. And she said she just lost her husband to a tragic, tragic loss of her husband. It was tragic, and I was the first phone call she made.
Layne Schranz was standing next to me. Layne had done missions with this couple in Switzerland. We'd all actually been there together. Layne knows them extremely well. Said, Layne, skip our meeting. Get in your car, drive up to Nashville right now, and go be with them. He jumped in the car and went to be with them. And we've been pastoring them, not only were they going through the realities of 2020, but they had this added story. Her name's Jill, Jillian Chambers. Her husband, Danny Chambers, one of the great worship leaders, one of the great songwriters in the Christian world and I've been knowing him forever, love him deeply. But she didn't let that part of her life destroy her life, as hard as it was to become a widow at, you know, a very young age. She called me about a year later. She says, "PC, I want to minister to widows".
What she understood is that even all the interruptions and the plans that the enemy throws in your life cannot derail the fact that you are called by God. And I said, "Jill, write some curriculum for those who are widowed. Then test it, beta test it. Like, see if it works, and then let's formalize it, and we'll pass it to thousands of other churches". And she did, and it's working. In fact, the reason why we had this special day, that if you've been around the last few weeks you've heard us talk about, for widows was because of Jill. And I said, "What do you need next"? She goes, "We need to gather them all together. Let's have a brunch for them". And by the way, you paid for it. When you're generous with your giving, it's not only rescuing girls from sex trafficking, but it's also, you served, you ready for this? Six hundred and seventy-four widows attended yesterday. Give God praise for that. You did that!
And I'll just close with one story. We had such the best day yesterday, my goodness, because we got to listen to 'em, care for 'em, find out their needs. And then on Serve Day in July, we already have about a hundred, I think they told me 179 projects that these widows need that we can actually do for them, very simple projects at their homes. And on Serve Day in July, we're gonna go to every single project and make a difference in Jesus's name.
But let me close with one story from Kate. She posted this on her own social media. She says, "In May of 2010, I became a widow. For years, I lived in denial, cringing every time I heard that word. Today, I attended my first Widow's Brunch at Church of the Highlands. I think I handled being spoiled better than I'm used to because it rarely happens. Man, did they spoil us. The young lady to my left had been a widow only for nine months, and the lady on my right for 15 years. The lady across from me teared up several times. For a brief moment, the odd man out feeling disappeared. It was a wonderful time, the perfect brunch. Thank you to everyone who made it possible". And by the way, I read that because that's you. Give God praise, everybody, come on.
Let's pray, let's pray. Would you just pray this prayer right there where you are? Say, "Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me"? Everybody say that. "Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? What does this mean for me"? And I am challenging every person who considers themselves a Christian, don't settle, keep growing, keep developing, keep serving, keep giving, make a difference, develop your gift, serve in your gift. And if you've never gotten connected to the body of Christ, step out today. Step out. Go to the Growth Track. Cancel what you had tonight.
And Father, I pray, grow your church, mature them, I pray, God, through spiritual gifts, through spiritual gifts.
And if you're here today and you're far from God, you don't know the Lord, you're not a Christian, or you've walked away from God and you want to come back home, then pray this prayer right there where you are. Say:
Jesus, I need you. I've walked away from you. I live my life my way, and today, I repent. I come home, and I make you the Lord of my life. I'm gonna follow your way and what you believe about me. So save me. Forgive me. Holy Spirit, live inside of me and make me the person you want me to be. In your name I pray, amen.