Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. Tonight I'm going to kind of
jump into it a little bit. Pastor actually asked me last
Wednesday. And so as I was chewing on it,
on what I was going to minister tonight, actually kind of got a
little bit from Kingdom Institute.
I teach in our Kingdom Institute class and I was going through a
class and I was like, man, I think this is something I'm
going to expound upon. So I'm pretty excited about
tonight. So I don't know if you know
this, but in Kingdom Institute we teach for about, you know, 70
minutes. So goal's not that long tonight,
but we'll see how it goes. You know, be prepared, right?
So tonight I want to talk about make yourself useful.
Make yourself useful. I don't know about you guys, but
I've been really excited about what's going on at Anchor Faith
Church. For those of you who've been
around for a while, you've experienced a lot with us.
And for those of you who haven't, I hope that you'll get
to experience a lot with us, right?
And so we just celebrated 20 years of ministry here.
And if you know anything about Anchor Faith Church, you know
that we are what always advancing, which means the day
20 passed, we started setting our sights on what's to come,
right? You know, it's not by accident
that we received a word over the church for branches just a
couple weeks before we were going to get into our couple
months, I guess before we're going to get in, that kind of
laid a foundation for where we believe Anchor Faith Church is
going as a whole, right? That our roots have been
established, our trunk is growing, and now it's time for
us to start branching out into other things.
And so with that, I think it's a great time for us as a body,
body as a whole, to start examining ourselves, right?
To start examining where our part to play in this is, right?
For some of us, maybe you've been here for 20 years, maybe
you've been here for 15, maybe you've been here for 10, maybe
been here for five, whatever that is where last pastor
ministered 2 Sundays ago. We're stepping into phase three,
which means you want to start looking at where do I see myself
in this phase, right? And for some of you, maybe
you've been serving in areas of ministry and for some of you,
maybe you haven't. And so with this message, I hope
that we can kind of set a good foundation and, and realize some
things that we're going to be able to step into here in the
future. So I want to start in a second.
Timothy, 222nd Timothy, 220 through 21.
And it says Now in a large house there are not only gold and
silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and
some to honor and some to dishonor.
Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he
will be a vessel for honor. Sanctified, useful to the
master, prepared for every good work.
Prepared for every good work. That word, sanctified means to
render or acknowledge, to separate from profane things and
dedicate to God, to separate from profane things and dedicate
to God, right? God is looking for a dedicated
people. God is looking for people who
are sanctified and dedicated to Him and to His Word, right?
He's looking for someone who who isn't just doing what the world
is doing, but is willing to step out into the way he's placed in
front of us, right? That word purify there means to
cleanse externally, right? To purify or, or the to be free
from guilt of sin. It's an internal purification by
renewing of the mind, by renewing our mind.
And I'm setting the foundation. We're going to go somewhere,
don't worry. And the word useful there is
easy to make use of or easily used.
Easy to make use of or easily used, right?
So it is our job to make ourselves useful.
Amen. Amen.
It is our job to make ourselves useful, right?
We have to, as believers, get ourselves in a position to make
ourselves useful. So when we talk about Anchor Bay
Church and we talk about this 20 years, and then we talk about
branches and we talk about extending and all these things,
you have to ask yourself, have I made myself useful?
Right? Because that is our job to do,
right? It says if anyone cleanses
himself, if anyone cleanses himself, this isn't something
that's just going to magically happen to you just 'cause you
walk through the doors. This isn't something that you're
just going to accidentally fall into.
No, it's a process that you have to do and decisions and choices
that you have to make. Now, the church is here to help
pull things out of you and to bring you somewhere.
But in the end, the decisions to cleanse yourself comes from you.
You have to choose to make yourself useful.
You have to make that choice. Second Timothy 222 if we
continue reading down, it tells us back back in verse 21, it
says everyone cleanses themselves from these things.
Where here's those, these things.
It says now free from now. Flee from youthful lust and
pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who
call on the Lord from a pure heart.
But refused foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they
produce quarrels. The Lord's bondservant must not
be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach patient when
wrong with gentleness, correcting those who are in
opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to
the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses
and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive
by him to do His will right. We have to make the decision to
flee from the youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, which
means we have to get to a place that we start to mature.
And this isn't just a physical youthful thing like, Oh well,
he, he's rash or he makes quick decision.
This Is Us fleeing from our spiritual youth as well, meaning
we can't continue to live spiritually youthful.
We have to mature our spirit past those youthful decisions.
To make ourselves useful means we have to make ourselves of
gold and silver. We have to make ourselves a
vessel that is honorable, something that is set out for
the most prime time, the the best situation.
God says, man, I'm going to call on this because this is my best,
right? I've always told people when
we're in Kingdom Institute that my goal when I got connected to
the vision for me personally was I want to be somebody that if
Pastor Earl calls on, he knows Chase will get it done and he'll
get it done. Like I would have to think I can
faithfully hand this to him and I know he will see it through
just as I saw it through. Why?
Because I want to be a vessel of honor.
I want to be something that can be used when it's most
important. When I served, I lived in
Valdosta and I served at Cheddar's for a couple years.
And when I went to go get hired, the manager, I was her, it was
her first time hiring. And so she was like, look, I'm
going to be honest, I've never hired someone before.
So I know you know, whoever I pick, it's going to be like a
big deal with the other managers you have no experience serving.
Like what makes you think you're going to be able to do it?
And I looked at her and I said, look, if you hire me, I
guarantee you it's going to be the best decision you make.
Make it cheddar's like I promise you, you will not regret this,
right? So she hired me on.
I came, I started learning how to learn the whole menu, had it
memorized. I knew everything right, knew
all the sides, didn't need to look at it, knew exactly what
was going on. Why?
Because no matter what I did, I wanted to do it at a level of
excellence. So I remember it was only a
couple weeks in my first or I guess my very first night was a
Friday night. I'm serving, someone gets mad
because they order this big dessert.
It's called the monster cookie. It comes out in this little
crock pot pan and it fills the whole pan.
They eat the whole thing and then asked for a manager because
they're like, hey, my Monster cookie was too small.
And she was like, well, you ate it all.
I can't really like what do you want me to do about it?
And she was like, well, I want you to comp my meal.
And she's like, well, I won't comp your meal, but I'll comp
the cookie like it's fine, I'll take that off.
No, no, I want the whole table comp.
It's like 8 people at this table.
She's like, look, I mean, we're not doing that.
That's not happening, right? And so she turns around. that
Lady chunks a plate at her, busts on the wall.
And I'm like serving next to him.
She's like, what is going on? It's my first night.
I walk back there. I look at him like, is this how
Friday nights normally are? Because this is wild.
Maybe you will regret hiring me. I ain't going to take a plate to
the face for you, you know what I'm saying?
Like right, But through time after a couple weeks, a a fight
broke out at one of the big party tables.
It's like 12 people. Something happens and the waiter
says something. Guy stands up, punches the
waiter in the face. It's like full blown brawl.
Cops show up, they pull these people out.
Manager walks up to me and she goes, hey, I'm going to need you
to take over the the party section tonight.
I was like some guy just got punched in the face.
What do you mean you want me to take over the party section?
So I was like, all right, no problem, I'll do it.
So I went from just serving like, you know, 24 top tables to
serving like the Big 12, you know, 16, and then had a couple
other tables, right? And then after that, I never
went back. I just stayed at the party
section and became a shift lead, right?
Then when the managers, our cheddar's, ended up being one of
the best cheddar's in the nation.
So then they brought other managers to come and view our
Cheddar's, and then they would see those managers in my section
so that I would be the one serving them, right?
Because they realized, Man Chase serves like what we want, so
let's put him there, right? Then one time I remember I had a
table and it was like a small table of two.
And they were kind of giving me a problem.
You know, it was late on a Friday night and they're kind of
being an issue. And so then they asked this
week, my manager was like, yeah, no problem.
They're like, yeah, he messed up our order.
He forgot this. He did this.
And my manager looked in the face and was, I'm not comping
anything. This guy's never once messed up
a table. There's only two of you.
There's no chance any of this happened.
Why? Why?
Because she was confident in my ability.
Because I proved myself right. I took myself into something.
I said I'm going to make myself as useful as possible.
I want to be in a position that when they think, man, I need my
best person on this tonight, right?
When a busload of like 50 volleyball players showed up, it
was like a softball team or something showed up.
They're like, Chase can run this, right?
Because I made myself useful. I did the work behind the
scenes. I put in the work to know the
menu, I put in the work to know the specials.
I put in the work to make sure I was up on everything.
That was changing. Why?
Because AI wanted to make money and BI wanted to be good.
And if you were shift lead, then you'd have to tip out at the
other night. So it was like an extra $50 or
something that you got to keep. That's a big deal when you're a
server. I like, I keep my $50.00 so then
I can pay $5 to one of the small sections to come clean my
section because I didn't have to do that, but they didn't make as
much money where they needed it more than I did.
You're like help win win, right? But it was through time of
making myself useful and doing what was required behind the
scenes that it manifested in front of them, right?
So we want to make sure that we're doing what's required
behind the scenes, that we're fleeing from the youthful lust,
that we're staying in the word, that we're not allowing
ourselves to stay in a cycle that that keeps us from
maturing, right? It's our responsibility to make
ourselves useful. So if you feel like you're not
being used, then you need to ask yourself, Am I useful?
Psalms 119 Nine says, How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to your Word.
With all my heart I have sought you.
Do not let me wander from your commandments, Your Word I have
treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you.
Bless are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.
Are we putting ourselves in a position, in a heart posture
that we want to follow the Word at all costs, right?
If we want to make ourselves useful, then we've got to put
ourselves in a position that we're following the statutes.
God's place that we're seeking His Word daily, that we're
putting His Word first in our life, right?
Because you're never going to obtain to a higher level of the
Word if you don't get into the Word.
You'll never obtain to something greater if you don't start doing
greater. So we have to put ourselves in a
position to grow. Romans 12/1 and two says,
Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of
God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do not be conformed to the world.
The Bible constantly tells us that if you want to be useful,
if you want to be righteous, if you want to be holy, if you want
to be sanctified, you can't continue to do the things the
world is doing. The the church has allowed way
too much mixture of culture with the world.
Way too much. We've started to allow because
we want people to get involved. So we allow a little bit of this
because I want to see them connected.
No, there's a standard at which we should obtain to and which we
should help people obtain to, right?
It's our job to make our self useful, and that means we're
going to have to put ourselves in a position to do something
different. We have to make ourselves
useful. And once we make ourselves
useful, we have to present ourselves useful.
We have to present ourselves useful.
We have to make ourselves available to be used.
Because here's the thing, if you make yourself useful, make no
doubt Anchor Faith Church will use you.
If you make yourself useful, we will find A use for you.
But Anchor Faith Church doesn't allow mixture, which means you
have to do the first step of making yourself useful.
You have to take the time to say, I'm going to seek God and
separate myself and live in accordance to His Word and live
in right standing to the King and pull myself out of what I
used to do in my youthful thinking in the way I once was
and start aligning myself to what the Word says.
So you got to present yourself useful.
We have to be available to be used, open to be used, Galatians
513 says. For you were called to freedom,
brethren only. Do not turn your freedom into an
opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
Do not turn freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but
through love serve one another. See, we will all come to places
in our own where we have to decide if we're going to do our
thing or God's thing, right? With freedom comes the choice or
the opportunity for the flesh or for the love and serving of
others. We're going somewhere.
Isaiah 1/19/20 says If you are willing and obedient, you shall
eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall
be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has
spoken. See, once we make ourself
useful, we need to present ourself useful.
Because making yourself useful is not enough if you then refuse
to be used. It's not just enough to know the
word and not do the word. It's not just enough to know the
statutes but not live the statutes.
It's not just enough to have everything you need to be useful
but then refuse the opportunities of use.
We have to be willing to be used.
We have to present our self useful.
We've all heard this said before that there's three things you
can sow your time, your treasure, and your talents.
You can sell your time. You can sell your money, and
then you can sell your gifts and abilities.
Your level of usefulness will cap at whichever one of those
you cap. Meaning when I get to a place
that I say I'm no longer willing to sow this much time, my
usefulness will stop there. God can only use you as much as
you're willing to be used. If you say I'm going to cap how
much I give, I will only give this much.
Then guess what? You'll cap how much God can
bring to you, because if I'm only willing to give this, then
God knows I can't bring just more that he's unwilling to do
anything with. If we cap our time, our treasure
or our talents, then we'll cap our usefulness.
If we have a, a gift or ability, we're like, oh man, you know,
yeah, I can do that, but I do that all week.
So, you know, I kind of like to not have to do it on Sundays.
We put a cap on our gifts and callings, and I'm going to tell
you something about gifts and callings.
Those were placed in you by God to be used.
So you basically slap your purpose in the face by saying
the very gift you gave me. I refuse to honor you with your
time, your talent, and your treasure.
We have to get to a position that we realize I can't have
limits on how much I'm willing to give, how much time I'm
willing to sell, how much of my gift I'm willing to pour out.
I get to a place myself personally so much that I'm
willing to learn new gifts to give out.
I'm willing to pick up something I've never done before because
I. See a need.
I tell people all the time I'm apartment to play guitar.
I learned lead guitar to fill a need.
I enjoyed it, but it was never the ultimate calling of my life.
If anyone's talked to Chris Castro, our drummer, for half a
second, you realize that drumming is the ultimate passion
of that dude's life. I think I had to tell him once.
I was like, look man, I love you, but I just don't love music
as much as you love music. I just don't because it wasn't
something that I knew I would do forever.
It's something that I said I'll learn to feel.
And God met me and said I'm going to get you where you need
to get to be productive at it, to be useful at it.
Because I was willing to be used.
Because like I said, if you put yourself to be willing to be
used, we will use you. God will find use for you.
We can't cap our gifts, we can't put a cap on our talents.
We can't put a put a spot that say, I'm not even willing to try
something new. You know what makes me think of
like Pastor Mark? Pastor Mark Brady knew he was
called to ministry when he came here, always had a desire to
start a church, but wasn't the biggest fan of kids.
And for those of you know, know Pastor Mark, he was our
children's pastor. His heart changed towards kids,
but at the time he had to be willing to do something he never
saw himself doing. He put himself to use in an area
that he didn't see as his calling or his best gift.
But he said, I'll feel a need. So when we talk about 20 years
and we're talking about what's this next phase and we're
talking about branches and we're talking about what's next, we
need to start assessing where do we see ourselves?
I know some of us during the 20 years, we got to look back and
we're like, wow, we've done so much together.
And I even heard a couple of people who were newer and like,
wow, they did so much. And you feel like what is like
what? This is so new to me.
Guess what? You get to be a part of the next
20 years because Anchor Faith Church ain't going nowhere.
But we got to make ourselves useful.
We got to present ourselves useful.
Colossians 323 says whatever you do, do your work heartedly As
for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord
you will receive the reward of the inheritance.
It is the Lord Christ whom you serve, right?
Amen. Right.
When we present our self useful, we have to realize that we're
going to do this unto the Lord. It's not for my personal gain.
It's not for my own thing. It's because I've put myself in
a position that I want to be used by God.
So God's going to use me and I'm going to do it for him.
I'm going to seek opportunities to continue to do service for
Him. You know, we talk about our
time, we talk about treasures, we talk about talents.
And those tend to be, you know, three things when it comes to
usefulness that most people will obviously struggle with at some
point is they have to feel like they have to find balance of
their time. And then they have to feel like
they have to find, you know how, you know, how can they give me
money's tight in a season or whatever.
Then they have to find like, what am I even good at to sew
into? Maybe some people have obvious
gifts, maybe other people have gifts that need to be pulled a
little bit, right? But when we present ourselves
useful, we understand that this is what the church is for.
It's for equipping the Saints. It's to find those gifts.
It's to pull out those gifts. It's to pull out all of this
stuff that's inside of you and then put it to use, right.
You know, the, the number one question I get when I travel out
with pastor and I do different things, especially from other
like creatives and other people in the ministry.
Because once we start listing how much Anchor Faith Church
does, a lot of other churches just you realize, aren't doing
what we're doing, especially from a creative team standpoint,
right? You know, a lot of churches have
maybe a Wednesday night service. Most aren't doing that anymore.
So they really only have like a Sunday morning service and then
they maybe do like a first Wednesday or whatever.
Then like a scattering of like random group nights, right,
Obviously. And then that's it, right.
Like that's, you know what they probably minister in a year.
We cover in about 3 weeks at Incubate Church, right?
You know what I'm saying, right. So we have a lot that we put our
hands to just from a ministry side.
But then obviously you've got Treasure Harbor Preschool,
you've got Washington, you've got a Keenum Institute.
We've got a huge list that you know, was presented at the 20
years of all the things that we've grown in and done that
creative overseas. Because the rule here at Anchor
Fay Church with Creative is that another eye sees it.
It goes through creative, right? If anyone's eyes but yourself is
going to see it, then creative is going to have their hand on
it. All right, because we have a
level of excellence we want to obtain to you.
So when you look at all of the areas of ministry and actually,
you know, I got a fun little stat from Josh, I'll share it.
So far this year, from from the beginning of the year to now, we
have received 546 creative requests.
Now those, this is a deceiving number because it's actually
probably significantly higher than that because one request
might contain 10 projects, right?
It might be like a slide, a graphic, a poster, a this, a
this and whatever. So that's just within a couple
months what we managed. You know, I was talking to
another creative and they were like, man, I want to build a
system. You know, we're starting to
grow. We're starting to get a lot.
And like, I was like, well, how many requests are you kind of
managing? He was like, yeah, you know,
we're managing probably like, you know, like 30 a month.
And I was like, OK, that's manageable.
Trust me. You know, we all started
somewhere, so I get it. But at the same time, right?
So then the question becomes they're like, So what do you do
with your time? How do you manage your time?
If you guys are overseeing that much, how many of your time?
Let's say, first of all, when it comes to time, I manage purpose
and my purpose takes all of my time.
No time doing purpose is wasted time.
There is no amount of time I can sow into God's purpose for my
life that I will regret sowing into.
So then comes the obvious follow up question.
What about your family? You bring your family into your
purpose and there's the trick, right?
W Augustine need to help out. I got to go take pictures.
Guess what? My kids get to watch a football
game, they get to come hang out with their dad while he takes
pictures and serves, and they get to learn what serving looks
like and be a part of something, you know, especially W oxing.
That's an easy 1/2 of you guys are taking your kids to sports
events and missing Wednesday nights or something anyway, so
you might as well take them to the other ones that help serve.
And that's a pretty easy one, right?
What do we do? We find ways to bring everything
else we're doing into our purpose.
When I look at my time, I'm willing to cut anything that
doesn't serve purpose out to make time for more purpose.
I'll cut any of it out in any season.
Some of you follow me, you know I'm not some like robot.
Obviously, I do things. If you follow him on Instagram,
you saw I just got an Xbox, got a new Xbox.
Wife surprised me. Gift, little nostalgia.
I had a little fun, so I played it.
It's not like I don't play it, but there's seasons of which I
don't touch the thing for months at a time.
I can specifically think at one time that I cut one on, and the
minute I cut on Alyssa was like, Hey, I need.
And I was like, Yep. And you're done.
Like that was it. That was it for the week, right?
Why? Because in anything I'm willing
to cut out the things that don't serve my purpose to continue to
advance my purpose. Because no time and purpose will
not yield anything but extra fruit.
No time and purpose will not make me feel worse.
God will manage anything you have any relationship he will
make up time with if you're serving purpose right?
So if we present our self useful, we can't then start to
complain once we're getting used.
We do our work wholeheartedly unto the world, not to the world
unto the Lord, right? Once we begin to get used, we
then can't just be like, oh, now they're using me so much.
That's the whole point of being useful, right?
Because once you find something that's really useful, you use.
It. Right, Everyone knows when you
get on to something new and you like really like it for a
season, maybe it's like a new meal that you tried and you love
it. Then all of a sudden you're
eating like every other night until like you can't have any,
right? You start doing something very
consistent because like this is great.
This is useful. I love this.
It is helps my life. I can continue to do this.
And the same thing should happen for you.
When you make yourself useful, expect to be used.
And the goal should be that I can be used to help make things
easier. And.
Usefulness, obviously can, can, can come in sometimes seasons
where maybe you're being used a lot more, maybe a little bit,
yes, But I'm always being usable.
I'm always presenting myself for usefulness.
It's always surprising to me how easy it is.
For us. To discount our service to the
Lord because we have something else planned, we need to get to
a mindset of realizing that our service to the Lord is the most
important thing we can do right Because there was a time in
your. Life.
That you're not where you are today.
And then you came to Anchor Faith Church and somebody served
as a greeter and you felt welcomed, and someone served in
the parking lot and you were assisted.
And someone served in sound, and you got to worship and the band
served on stage and you got to sing.
And their service pulled usefulness out of you and got
you to a place that you are now. So why would we hold that in
when somebody coming through that door needs your service?
I don't know how many times we've heard testimonies at
Anchor Faith Church of Man. My marriage was changed.
Why? Because we invest in it.
There's marriage conference coming up.
There was one month ago. Guess what that takes?
People serving, and they're serving you and they're serving
your marriage. So how dare I say I'm not
willing to serve, to hold back a gift that could change someone
else's life? Who knows what your smile and
handshake could do at the front door?
But are we willing to be used or are we putting caps on our time?
Are we putting caps on our treasure?
Are we putting caps? And then you can justify.
Well, I do a lot. I spend a lot of time, so I
don't need to give this. Well, I don't invest my money,
but I do invest my time, Your cap in your treasure.
Well, I invest a lot of money so I don't have to.
Like I'm busy making the money to invest, so I don't have time
to serve here. So you're capping your time.
This isn't a trade off system of trying to make something work.
It's a I'm willing to serve when service is needed.
Because I'm telling you now, when you find your calling and
your gifting and your purpose, it all becomes easy and exciting
anyways. Because the other thing I always
tell people is like, how do you manage your time is like, well,
it's pretty easy. I love what I do, so it doesn't
bother me to do it. I fully love what I do.
So to come home and edit photos from a Sunday morning or
Wednesday night while I'm still at home before I go to bed, I
enjoy it. I love looking at them.
I love seeing all the photographers grow.
I like laughing at somebody else's faces you make.
I get joy from it. I love putting things together.
I love training other people. You know, we got Connor
somewhere who you came on staff with us.
He put together that that testimonial video.
It was amazing. You said in service we see these
things, why we do this as service and because we love what
we do, it becomes easy. So when you love what you do,
you're not you're willing to put time into it first.
Peter 410 says as each one of us has received a special gift,
employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold
grace of God. Whoever speaks is to do as one
who is speaking the utterance of God.
Whoever serves is to do as one who is serving by the strength
which God supplies, so that on all things God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen.
We want to place ourselves as vessels of honor, right?
So that we can be used. And when we're used, it's
because we know I've made myself the best for this area.
Amen. When they call me in, they're
calling in the best. When they call me and I'm going
to give them the best, I'm going to present them with the
absolute best I have. I'm going to present myself
honorable of this position. I'm going to present myself
worthy of being here. I'm going to present myself as
someone who knows their value, right.
If we're going to strive to be these vessels of honor, then
we've got to. We've got to not only make
ourselves useful, present ourselves useful, but then we
have to keep ourselves useful. Because here's the thing, once
you start getting used, if you don't maintain your usefulness,
you'll wear out. And it's a pretty easy trick to
maintain your usefulness because it's the same thing you had to
do to make yourself useful. You stay in the word.
You keep yourself righteous because the last thing you want
to do is become seasonally useful, right?
Because the verse says, look, there's plates of gold and
silver, then there's earthenware.
But I also want to say there's a third set of plates.
There's your Thanksgiving plates, there's your holiday
plates, There's those plates that you pull out for a season
and then you put in a box. Some of us have made ourselves
seasonally. So I'm, I'm good in the fall,
but when winter comes, I hibernate.
Oh, it's summer, I'm busy. Block out the whole month.
OK, We don't want to become seasonally useful.
All right, the Bible alert says be ready in season.
And meaning I'm willing to step into something because here's
the thing about seasonal plate. They get put up, they get dusty.
That means when they go out they got to be re cleaned, re
cleanse, re purified, ready to be used again.
There's a little bit of time you can't you don't just pull those
things out and throw them on the table.
No, there's prep work that has to go back into it.
And the other thing about seasonal places, they're
seasonal, which means what look good one Thanksgiving come
around, right? My wife's big seasonal direct,
you know, decorator. She loves decorating for fall
and all these kind of things. And every time she tells me that
will be good for next fall. But next fall comes and
Pinterest says what we had last year is no longer good this
year. So I kept my fall decorations in
a box for no reason because now I'm getting new fall
decorations. So if we become seasonal
workers, then we might find ourselves at a season that we're
no longer needed because we've pulled ourselves out of
something. Let me come back home.
I'm ready to, you know, I'm here again.
Oh, well, we move. You're out of season, we've
moved on. You're out of style.
It's going to take some time for you to get back in this thing,
rework yourself, right? If we're going to keep our self
useful, then we have to make sure that we're staying in the
word constantly. Right, this is the.
Great thing about Anchor Faith Church, every message you might
miss will come out before the next message is preached.
So get on the podcast, get on YouTube, get on Spotify,
anywhere you can find the audio we have it.
Why? That's so you can continue to
help keep yourself useful. It's so that you can continue to
put yourself in a position because God will honor your
service. So make no mistake, if you're
serving in kids and something happens in here, you don't miss
out when you actually take time to listen to it again, God will
honor that time you served. God will not call you to do
something and say, ah, sorry, no, He's gonna honor those
things. So if we're going to keep
ourselves useful, then we have to make sure we take on
ourselves the time required to stay full.
Because once you're being used, there's wear that comes with it.
I love boots. A big boot guy.
I have a lot of boots. Some boots way nicer than
others. The good thing about a nice real
leather boot? There's a break in period.
Right. There's time that you just got
to wear them every day and break them in and then they start to
form and it hurts a little bit. And then couple days in you
question like, why did I do this?
You know, I went on a trip once and brought a brand new pair of
boots and I was like, I'm breaking boots all the time.
I'll be fine. About day three, you're like,
man, that was a decision that was made and now we're here with
just this one pair of boots, right?
But then they get broken in, they get formed, they're being
used, they're nice, they're soft, they're easy to take on
and off. They've got this good feel.
It feels like just a regular pair of socks and it's just
nice. But then maintenance is required
to keep them that way, right? I got back from a trip, I then
have to take them off and I put some leather oil on it and I
clean them up and I take care of why?
Because I wanted to serve a long time.
Because when I spend money on boots, I got to convince my wife
that I'm going to have them for a long time.
You know, I'll never forget the first pair I actually got rid of
cried a little shed of tear. So I just got a message there
like he could have resold him. I was like it was time.
Had to let him go. They had duct tape on the bottom
right. But if we take the proper care
of the things, then it will last through seasons, through storms,
through trials, through tests, through long journeys.
But it's the maintenance that we require because as we're pulled
on, you have to have something in you to then give out.
Most of the burnout comes from not having enough inside of you.
So the key is burnout doesn't really come from man, I've been
used too much. I'm burnout.
No, you didn't keep yourself full enough to be used.
I tell creatives all the time, they're like, you know, do you
ever get to a point where you're just creative block?
I'm like, no, because I stay in the word.
If you don't stay in the word, you're going to supply the
cement for your creative block. You're building this wall
yourself that you've got a bust through.
No, we have to maintain our usefulness.
We have to keep our self useful. We have to put in the work
required that in, even in a season of pouring out and
pouring out, that we're making sure we're putting more in.
Because as long as I continue to put more in, I'll always have
something to give out. We have to keep ourselves
useful. 2nd Corinthians 47 says, But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the
power will be of God and not from ourselves.
We make ourselves useful, but the power of which we use comes
from God. And if we continue to pull on
God and on his word and his power, it will be available to
us to give out to place where needed so that we can continue
to sow and continue to serve and continue to be honorable and
continue to be something that's presentable and continue to be
something that's great, right? I tell people all the time,
there's another scripture I pulled out and I didn't use, but
it says, you know, you want to be, you know, the the plates
that are used for honorable, not like the trash can, right?
But then obviously we also think every part is important, right?
And so you're like, maybe you're not a plate, maybe you are a
trash can. Then guess what be the best
trash can in the world be the one that's got recycling and
then trash. And then when you push the lid,
it goes down slow so it doesn't slam.
It's got that stainless steel that doesn't get smudges on it
right In whatever you're calling is you want to put myself in the
position to be the best of it, to be the most honorable use of
it. I don't want to be something
that that we hide behind the corner.
I call man. We want to use this guy, but
definitely don't put him up somewhere, no.
We want to in every position, make.
Ourselves as useful as possible because even behind the scenes
are not behind the scenes. I don't tell you no matter what
position you think you serve it even if you think it's behind
the scenes it's not behind the scenes.
I got guys who come in here in a dark room wearing all black and
I still get people who talk to us about them.
No, the church come in now your your camera guys are so good.
What do you do to train them? How did you get like, what did
you like? Do these guys work in this
industry? Had that question before.
No, I've got a team that said I'm gonna make myself useful,
that I've never worked on a camera before, but I'm gonna
learn a gifting and I'm gonna put my hand to this thing and
I'm gonna practice. I was so blessed by one of our
team members who texted me was like, man, I just want to come
up and just practice the camera stuff a little bit.
Is that alright? Absolutely.
Just get up here, get my hands on it again, practice a little
bit more. Why?
Because they, they're recognizing that they want to
continue to grow in something, they want to continue to learn
in something, they want to continue to get themselves
somewhere. And that required an investment
on their time, right? We have to make ourselves
useful. We have to present ourselves
useful. We have to keep ourselves
useful. And all three of those things
will require our time, our treasure and our talents.
And like I said, anchor faith. Let's not get to a place that we
cap any of them. We want to be a people that
says, man, the vision is worth it.
The vision is worth it because there was a time that these
people serving is what changed my life.
And now I get to step into a season where my serving can
change someone else's. I get to step into a moment
where we're going to look back in 20 more years and I'll be
able to be like, man, I was a part of that.
I saw that thing through. I put my hand to that.
I remember when when I was just getting, but now I'm I'm
running. We have to make ourselves
useful. We have to present ourselves
useful. We have to keep ourselves
useful. See the seasons coming in
everything with the church as a whole that we have to make a
decision that we're gonna press into this thing, right?
Because it says in the end, the times will get darker and and
things will happen. So how much more do we have to
press as a body of believers to be light, which means we have to
put ourselves in positions to shine.
We have to put ourselves in positions for our light to be
seen. We have to put ourselves in
positions that we can continue to grow.
See, the church is to be the port and the pillar of truth.
The church is to equip you to go out and to continue to grow
outside of those things. Our job is to pull usefulness
out of you so that then you can go and bring more people in to
make them useful so that you can continue to go out.
You know, I tell people all the time, like, yeah, we love to
pray and get people born again, but the ultimate goal would be
that you go get them born again out there and we just get them
in here and start building them up.
Because as a believer, we're all called to go minister the gospel
to those around us. We're all called to go out and
minister to people. So you don't have to have a
platform to do it. You're going to reach places
I'll never reach. You'll go into places I'll never
step into, right? A part of my purpose class, I
tell people the way you think and process and the way you
communicate is specifically designed to impact a group of
people that the way I think and process and communicate won't
impact, right? It's like the constant
difference between generations, right?
You got the Boomers, you got Gen.
X, you got Millennials, you got Gen.
Z. And they each have their own,
like, little slangs and sayings and things and all this kind of
stuff. And then every once in a while,
you know, I get on Instagram and I get some humor that's like
Gen. Z humor.
And I just look at him like, this is the dumbest thing I've
ever seen. Like, I do not understand.
Like, I never feel older than when I get a Gen.
Z reel. And I'm like, I do not get this.
I've officially entered into that stage of being like, what
are these kids doing? Right?
So there's somebody out there who will communicate to them the
way they need it communicated to, to make the most impact in
their life when they hear it. So don't shortchange yourself
thinking, well, I, you know, I'm, that's not me.
No, that is you. Some of you are here because the
people from this church worked their job, did their thing, and
communicated to you in whatever way they did.
And it resonated in you enough that got you here.
And so now you grow in something, and you go out and do
it. And that's service, right?
Our goal is to serve unto the Lord.
Our goal is to continue. To press into.
Greater things to see something new happen to be light into the
world, and it's not going to come if we're not staying in the
word. If we're not willing to step
out. If we're not willing to take
chances. If we're not willing to be used.
If we're not willing to slip or fall.
If we're not willing to do something different.
If we're not willing to let someone pull something out of
us, you've got to be willing to let someone pull you to
somewhere else. That's what's great about the
church is they'll see something in you that you didn't see
yourself. There were seasons.
Pastor came to me and said, I want you to do this and pulled a
gift out of me that I didn't realize was there.
That I never would have stepped in myself, that I never would
have saw myself going down. But it took someone investing in
me and seeing worth in me outside of what I saw.
But you still have to be willing to allow it to happen.
See, all throughout the Bible you have people who step into
their destinies. Moses, David, all these things.
What were they doing? They were just doing their
general purpose of loving God, worshipping God, serving God,
serving their land. And then destiny came upon them
and pulled them out from where they were and set them into
greatness. I guarantee you David, counting
sheep, didn't see himself on a throne one day.
There was no line at which he saw his course.
It's not like, well, if my brother's uncle's aunt's mom
dies without a kid, then, you know, maybe I could be a king
one day. No, he was just doing the Word,
loving God, serving God, putting his hand to work when Destiny
came upon him and took him somewhere else.
Some of our breakthroughs might be hiding behind the Time
Treasurer talent we've decided to cap, Which means some of you
might be just a couple service hours away from stepping into
Destiny. Some of you might be a couple
checks away from stepping into Destiny.
Some of you might be a couple giftings away from stepping into
Destiny, but are we willing to step out into Him?
Are we willing to put ourselves somewhere that it can be pulled
and drawn out? I would hate to think that at
the end I look back on my life and God goes, man, if you just
would have give me a little more time, I could have got you
somewhere. If you would have just given me
a little more time, we could have broken past this thing.
But I was, I was hindered by the amount of time you were willing
to give me. The calling for my life on you
was hindered by the amount of time you were willing to give
me. So you look at Samson's life and
he wasted his anointing, wasted his talent.
And then in his last moment he pushes down the pillars.
And it says in that moment he did more for God than his entire
life before. So when you think about all that
he could have accomplished had he just been willing to put the
time in to live according to the statues that he was supposed to,
are we willing to put in the time?
Are we willing to put in the treasure?
Are we willing to put in the talents?
Some of your financial breakthroughs are being held
because you're holding. Some of you might have a gift on
your life that you don't even know, but you're not willing to
try something new, right? Just like Pastor Mark didn't
realize that if he just stepped into this kids, it was going to
open the door for the rest of his life.
What if he had said no, right? We have to be willing to not set
boundaries on our purpose, right?
We look into phase three, we look into this next section.
We look into these branches. We look into what's happening
and what's coming up. Are we willing to, to do what's
necessary to be of service, right?
My, my whole word tonight as even I prayed, right?
Because, you know, I remember when we were building up for
this 20 year anniversary, initially was just going to be
kind of this fun, like hang out, celebrate.
Because we do push a lot here. We don't do like a tons of just
like fun, like only things We still always want to bring, you
know, great word content. Initially we're like, let's just
look back. And then pastor like 2 weeks
before was like, no, I'm going to preach.
I got a word And then like he told me the word and I was like,
Oh, no, you're not just bringing a word, you're bringing like a
word. This just went from like fun
look back to like course correcting of the next section.
Like this just wasn't a minor shift.
Like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm going to preach.
No, this was like, oh, we're preaching, right?
And so then I look back over the year, I'm like, man, this was a
year of capacity, right? This was a year for us to assess
our lives and say, man, what is our capacity?
And this is the thing about capacity is capacity isn't about
getting rid of something to get something.
Capacity is how much more can I handle, right?
If I have £25, a 25 plate on each side of a, a bar to do
bench press and I take it off and put two 10s and A5 on, I
haven't added more capacity. I've just changed the
arrangement of it. I've just made it look
different. Capacity is know how much more
can I handle? How much more in this season can
I step into? Where is the limit to which I
can continue to run effectively and serve effectively, which you
know what that means. The more I handle, the more I
have to maintain. The more wear and use that comes
in, the more that's going to be required of me to keep myself
full. The more that's pulled, the more
that has to be replenished. And am I willing to make that
sacrifice? Am I willing to put myself in a
position that I know I'm going to have to increase not only my
usage, but also my, my, my refilling?
I increase my usage. I increase my maintenance,
right? We want to look at ourselves and
we got to think, where do I see myself in the next 20 years of
this vision? Where do I see myself?
Am I going to continue to progress here?
Am I, am I going to cap myself in this moment or am I going to
step into something bigger? Am I going to continue to push
into something bigger? Because it's not always about
doing something new. Sometimes it's about extending
and doing more in what I'm already doing.
How can I take where I'm at and do more with it?
How can I take what I've been doing and become better at it?
How can I take where I was and get it to the next place?
That's right. That's what we're talking about,
incapacity. That's what we're talking about
and making our self useful. We're saying, man, I'm not going
to set limitations to my usefulness.
And I encourage each and everyone of you to just do like
David and say search my heart. Is there any area that I'm, I'm
limiting my usefulness in? Is there any area that I'm
unwilling to continue to progress in?
Is my destiny right behind a block because I'm willing to
step into something? New and you can come.
I'm willing to put myself wherever I need to be to be in
the best position to be used by you.
And like I said before, make no doubt if you make yourself
useful, Anchor Faith Church will find use for you.
If you make yourself available, we'll put your hand to work.
If you make yourself available, God will give you something to
do. But we have to step into it.
We have to place ourselves there.
Amen. Thank you so much for listening
to this message. If you want more, subscribe to
our message podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and
SoundCloud. Rating and leaving a comment
will go a long way with helping our messages get better
circulation. If you'd enjoy watching our
weekend messages, visit youtube.com/anchorfaith.
We'd love it if you'd subscribe, leave a comment or a like on the
messages. If you'd like to find out more
information about us and how we're influencing the world and
help support the work we're doing by giving, just visit
anchorfaith.com.