good work that is carried on by all the staff and faculty in the Mass. And we wouldn't really value your prayer for the ministry that we're involved there. I do have some literature along, burgundy colored literature. And we'd be happy, if any of you would like to take it, we'll just put it down on the front here. Most of the folks in this area know a Mass very well. I feel like Minnesota's second home to me. Not that's good or bad from your viewpoint, but the fact is, We very much appreciate the fine support in so many different ways concerning the ministry of the Mass and personal friendships that have developed over the years here. With Ross, I too would like to thank you for the opportunity to be with you during this conference time. I realize there are numerous people that have worked very hard to make this conference the time that it is. There's a lot of work that goes behind in planning and preparation and prayer and exercise the soul and spirit, and we're thankful for that. A few of us get the opportunity to be on the platform representing very little of the work that really goes into such a time, and it's been a good experience for us as speakers, and I trust for you as participants in the conference this Labor Day weekend. We'll be good if a result of our time together, as many have prayed that we go back change. active participants in the local church, not conformed to the world, squeezed into the worldly mold around the batter, anticipating the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. A wonderful change with us. And we just could bring all of that into focus and go back a little different than we have come. I'd invite your attention again to the church at Antioch in Acts chapter eleven. The church at Antioch was a church that was committed, a church that was evangelistic, a church that was well taught, church that reached out and included all sorts of folks in their company of fellowship. It was a church that had the attention of people who would function in a full-time way. It was a church that was practical and sensitive to the needs of others and gave This morning it was a church that was functioning according to individual spiritual gifts. As we look at this passage, we find that the gift of evangelism was present. The gift of exhortation was present. That's what Barnabas means, son of exhortation and encouragement. The gift of teaching was exercise. The gift of giving was no doubt exercise. The gift of hospitality was exercise. I don't think Paul lived in one of his tents for a year, do you? numerous gifts, help, giving, administration, teaching, expectations. The Church of Antioch was a church in which there was a multiplicity of spiritual gifts exercised by various individuals within that congregation. And I assume that is the characteristic of a successful church. It is not a church in which one or two, in a public way, exercise gifts given by the Holy Spirit and the rest are observers. We've heard something about that today already. A properly functioning New Testament church is a church of gifted people, each one exercising his spiritual gifts in conjunction with the functioning of that local church. Each one developing that spiritual gift. It is a complex of varying spiritual gifts and varying degrees of development. working together to build up the whole of the body of Christ. At the very heart of that concept is this, there is no distinction between a clergy and laity dimension of personnel within the church. Even when we use the term full-time workers and servants of the Lord, they are a term of compromise we understand and I'm sure Ross agrees with me in this do you not thank you did I put you on the slide a person who works in the marketplace is biblically as much a full-time worker for Christ as a person who preaches the word makes little difference spiritually between those two one serves the Christ as well as the other. My brother who designed torpedoes for the Department of Defense as much as the Lord's doing that as I do shooting down students in a mess. My missionary uncle couldn't understand how that really was the case and challenged my brother. That didn't seem very peaceful to design torpedoes. He said, well, I do that. Those missionaries need to go preach to God. It's true. We serve the Lord in both of those ways. And whatever your vocation, you serve the Lord. And that is certainly true in the church. We are all gifted in one way or another to function in the church. As we look at First Corinthians twelve and Romans twelve and Ephesians four and first Peter four, we find specific spiritual gift lists listed. And I conclude all of the spiritual gifts listed in those passages. They are equally available at the discretion of the Holy Spirit for male and female alike. There is only one gift, I think, that is limited by gender. And that is the gift of apostleship. And I don't think that's really very important for now. Because none of us that I'm aware of have come into witness the Lord from the time of John's baptism and were witness to his death, burial, and resurrection, thus qualifying to be an apostle. I certainly would not admit to being that old. And I know none of the ladies would. So it is rather a moot point to discuss what gifts are available gender-wise. All that are available are available for all of us at this time. And as we look at those four lists found in the epistles that I mentioned, there is a wide variety of spiritual gifts. And the Holy Spirit, according to his sovereign will, distribute those to members of the body of Christ when they become members of the body of Christ. There is a distinction between natural and spiritual gifts. Athletic ability is a natural gift that I did not receive. That's a natural gift. Some people are coordinated. can do things others will never be able to do. Music is a natural gift. I could try all my life to sing like that, and I couldn't. I could practice and practice, and I could never play the piano like Peter did. But my hands is impossible. Those natural gifts are common, too. Individuals become at birth. They need to be discovered, developed, used. Spiritual gifts come at new birth. They need to be discovered, developed, and used. We may not know what our spiritual gift is. We may be using it and not know it. But there's something better than that. It's knowing it and using it and developing it. God has seen fit in his sovereign purposes as he works in the church and builds the church to equip up everyone in a very unique way to do his work. Spiritual gifts. and the function of them is the genius of the unity of the church. Spiritual gifts make us mutually dependent one on another. I am always interested to come to a conference when I will speak with a person that I'm never sure it'll apply at four points. And it's always pleasing to see how God makes us different. to compliment one another. And it's wonderful to share in ministry and to be refreshed by another brother as I listen. And I hope the experience is the same in the other direction. We are different. Nobody's the same. And that's the way God intended it. We have different personalities, different natural abilities, different intellectual limitations. and differing spiritual gifts so that when God has, at the moment of salvation, given us a spiritual gift that is to be used in the church, we find that we are a unique creation of God. We are mutually dependent on one another. What I can do, you cannot, what you can do, I cannot. And through spiritual gifts, we... learn to depend on one another and build up one another in our most holy faith. It meets some of the basic psychological needs that we have as human beings, foremost of which is a need to be needed. And you're needed in the local church. By sovereign design, only you can do what you can do. at this given moment in time. It makes every one of us important in God's plan and program. It makes us all important in the local church. It gives dignity. God gives indignity to every person. It makes you valuable. I sound a little bit like Mr. Rogers. today, you know. Only you can be you. That's true. And that's the spiritual truth. You see, God could have arranged it that we could save and we have Christian family. And that's it. It would have made for a much easier schedule, wouldn't it? Just work and go home. But he didn't do it that way. He related us in bodies of believers, mutually dependent on one another, all meeting one another, all supported by one another, bearing burdens of one another. The whole concept of spiritual gifts. What is your spiritual gift? Take a look at all of those lists. Do a little word study on each one of them. Throw some lines through some of them. There are no apostles around anymore in the narrow sense of Scripture. There are no prophets anymore in the sense of getting additional revelation from God. The article written some months ago, one of the magazines, where have all the prophets gone? Well, they're going to heaven. That's where they belong now. That's not complicated to answer. There's nobody getting new revelation from God. Pipeline revelation. Pipeline exhortation. I can't say to you, I got something new for you. God told me this yesterday. You can't say that. He may have revealed something through the Word. And that's generally what we mean when we say that. But nothing new. It's spoken finely and it's not. There's nothing new to say until the sun comes back. So some of those gifts are temporary. And between you and the fence booth, I could align through a few more gifts. That's temporary in addition to a possible process. We're not time to talk about that today. Thanks, boy. But there are a lot of gifts left. Which one is yours? Well, I suggest you find out by trying all those kinds of gifts that remain. And that's where the active participation in the local church comes. It's wonderful that there is opportunity for you to teach, be it in Sunday school or vacation Bible school, or in the public meeting of the church. Try encouraging people. Try helping. Try being hospitable as you have. Try giving. Try organizing or in ministry. Try being merciful. Try the gift. And see which one brings success to you. See if you can teach. If you can help. If you can organize. Try then. See what is successful. Hear what others say. Talk to your elders and leaders in the church. Talk to your brothers and sisters in the Lord and ask them what they thought about the way you conducted that particular responsibility. Get some insight from them. Come on. There's some people that will tell you it's wonderful no matter what. One gentleman in Texas, when I used to speak at the assembly there, when I was in seminary, he said, I'll always say this. For the part of the message, I was awake, I really enjoyed it. And there are always people who say nice things. And that's good. That's probably the gift of encouragement. Let's talk to somebody that will be brutally honest with you. Those of us who are married have that first. And that's good. That's good. Get an honest evaluation. See, you're measuring things. You're measuring, am I having success? That's a measure of gifts. What do other people think? I'm attempting to use the gifts. I think it's important to have this in mind, too. What do I like to do? How do I enjoy? God has not assisted you. God has been involved in your life from the very beginning. The Apostle Paul says, I was separated to the gospel from my mother's womb. All those years when he was fighting God, God was at work in his life. Even before birth and forming personality, intellectual limitations and all the rest, God's been at work. And he's not now just going to come and dump you with a spiritual gift that's going to make you miserable the rest of your life. A lot of us are afraid of serving God. We don't have to be. The service of Jesus' true pleasure of words. And that's true. It's enjoyable. He wants you to enjoy teaching, or enjoy helping, or enjoy organizing, or enjoy whatever your spiritual gift is. And put that test to it. Do I like what I'm doing? Now that's after the third or fourth try at least. I expect none of us to like the first time we knock on the door and talk to a stranger about the Lord. Let's not use these things as topouts or we'll never do anything for God. By getting over those first fears, do I like what I'm doing now? And as we over a period of time put these things together, we will be able to identify The gift that God the Holy Spirit has given to us. Who are the gifts? Who are all that He's given to us? And then my responsibility as at the church at Antioch is to throw myself, full tilt into the exercise of that spiritual gift. So the building on the body of the room. Whether it is helping or exhorting and encouraging or teaching or ministering or giving, whatever it is, That's my responsibility. That's my place in the body. That's my part. And I'll do my part, and you do your part, and together we'll grow. But we don't have to do everything. Are any of you glad to hear that good news? The whole church doesn't wrestle in my shoulders. I can't do it all, and I don't have to, and God never intended me to. Find out what your spiritual gift is. Burr yourself into the exercise of that. If you do your part, I'll do mine. And together the body of Christ will grow numerically and spiritually as we function together. The Church of Antioch was a church that functioned well in relationship to individual spiritual gifts. Brethren, that is one of the great contributions of Brethrenism. to evangelical Christianity, they're just now finding out about body truth. They've been talking about it for a hundred and fifty years. And now that they've discovered it, they're coming our way and we're going their way. Does that make sense? We need to give ourselves to what has been a mark of presentism from the beginning. to give ourselves to the exercise of individual spiritual use that all of us have, men and women alike, to give ourselves to that kind of individual participative church group as the body builds itself from it. One last characteristic of the church at Antioch. found in the beginning of chapter thirteen now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon who was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Maniac who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul as they serve the Lord and fasted the Holy Spirit said, Separate thee, Barnabas and Saul, for the work unto which I have called him. When they have passed him and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them away. The leadership of the church at Antioch was characterized by certain specific attitudes. They were serious. Amen. They were men of prayer. They were sensitive to the direction of the Holy Spirit, then rather direct, now through the Word of God. But the thing I'd like to expand on just a little bit in this closing few minutes is that the leadership at the church at Antioch serves God and God's people. A servant could leadership. That is the way the Lord led His disciples. He bowed before them, girded with a towel, and washed their feet and said, Do you know what I've done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and you are right. If I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. Do as I have done. You know these things. Happy are you if you do that. He said that to the apostles. that leaves very little room for those who are in the place of leadership to rule by Edith, to rule by secret meeting, to rule in an authoritarian way. The church at large has seen that as the Lord wants to speak. Those who are leaders in a local church must, first of all, have a servant mentality. Leaders lead by being an example of a barn slave of Jesus Christ. Spiritual leaders serve God and serve the saints. they are not so much over the thing as they are the bishops and the deacons with the same. True leadership is permanent. Leadership by example. Leadership by doing for others. By being at the disposal of the congregation. And I'm the head of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the kind of people we had at the church of being God. They were serving the Lord. Interestingly enough, as they serve and pray and fast, some of those very folk are the ones sent out to start new churches throughout the Mediterranean faith. leadership that genuinely leads the saints by example, by practice. It is no wonder that the Church of Andean was such a successful church. Committed Christians, taught Christians, evangelizing Christians, inclusive Christians properly governed and led. May we imitate the church at Nantia, in whatever local assembly we attend, and really be called Christians by the people that contact us. And our day by day is here. They call them Christians. First, that is here. Shall we pray? I am certain there'll be some closing events. Father, as we have prayed at the beginning of this conference, we pray again. We pray that we may be changed. We pray that we may be committed Christians to our local churches and to the head of the church, separated from the ungodly world around about us, looking for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this. Amen.