“Dare to Dream: Discovering Your Birthrite” Eph 4: 1-16

Have you ever noticed that when you are meeting someone for the first time at a party or a friend is introducing you to another friend that the conversations usually go the same way. Where do you live? Who is in your family? And what? What do you do?

Why do we ask those questions, because they are supposed to speak to our identity - who we are. But here’s the thing, what we do and who we are - who we truly are, deep down on the inside are not always the same thing. What would it look like instead if we asked questions like what are you passionate about? Or if you could do anything in the world what would it be? Those type of questions really get to the heart of who we are - what our true identity is. 

For example, Bono is best known for being the lead singer in the band U2, so if you asked him what he did as a job he would probably say musician. But if you asked him what he was passionate about, what he dreamed about at night its something completely different. Its to eliminate poverty around the world, and he has founded non-profit organizations to pursue that dream. 

What about you? What is the dream that God put in you. Here’s a good way to know if a dream is from God or not, a test. If your dream is just about you - its probably not from God. See our God given dreams are meant to reach far beyond us and bless other people. 

This past year in confirmation class we kept circling back to this theme - God has blessed you to be a blessing. In other words, the gifts you have been blessed with through Jesus Christ aren’t just for you - they are meant to be shared with the body of Christ, to build up the believers and with the world, in order to share the good news of the Gospel. 

In this morning’s scripture lesson we hear that the Church is the body of Christ, knitted together under the leadership of the Lord.  Kenneth Carder writes in his book Living our Beliefs, “the Church is our very identify, not an organization we belong to in accordance with our preferences or connivence.” Sometimes the Church looses its way and losses it memory about who we are and whose we are. When we make it about petty things its evident that we have forgotten who we belong to.  Just whose Lordship we are under. Just who we exist for. 

  But even when we remember whose we are, we may still forget what we are supposed to be doing. Paul tells the followers in Ephesus that they are to live a life worthy of their calling. Here’s the thing about calling - we all have one - we just sometimes choose to ignore it. While pastors may have a very specific calling to lead the church, everyone who calls them-self Christian are called to some time of servanthood and ministry by way of their baptism. Its just that the calling varies. But in this scripture passage we are told that we all have gifts - its just that the gifting and calls vary. 

Have you ever taken time to pray about why you are part of this local body of Christ? Because you aren’t here by accident. You are here, because Christ gives us every gifting we need in each local body to thrive, THRIVE, for the Kingdom of God. Not just get by. Not just meet the budget. But to make a difference in transforming the world.

  Whenever I start to talk about the church universal, I get passionate. Because the Church universal is both visible and invisible. Is here in this place and around the globe. Its any place where the Word of God is preached, the sacraments are administered, and there is a presence of people of faith. Not just people but people of faith. People who faithfully want to be the Church. Want to be about something bigger than themselves. Want to be about the mission and work of God. Want to be about reaching new people about Jesus Christ - and move past want to action. In fact, people of faith live a life of holy, active expectancy, meaning that we are aware that God is using us to work in the world for something so much bigger than we could ever grasp.

But that only happens when we live into who we were each created to be. It only happens when we seek after the will and way of God. Here’s the thing - when we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior, we all end up having the same familial identity - we are children of God as part of the Boyd of Christ under the Lordship of our head, Jesus Christ. But we all have different birthrites - or individual purposes. We all have different gifts that we can only discover by being in relationship with God. 

Paul writes in 1st Corinthians, But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

    nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. (1 Cor 2: 9-10)

Paul is talking here about the wisdom of God. But it goes on to say Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. What gifts? Certainly the gift of wisdom and the leading of the Holy Spirit but also our spiritual gifts that play into our callings, things like what are lifted up in Ephesians 4. 

This morning our call to worship came from John 17:4, a prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples that said, I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So I ask you this morning what are you called to do? How has God gifted you and how can you use those gifts to share the good news of Jesus Christ?

Your gifts may not be the same as the gifts as the person sitting next to you or the person sitting across the isle, but we are all gifted. We just may not yet know what those gifts are. Its not about comparing ourselves to others, it about encouraging one another to live into who God has created us to be in order to bless other people. 

I rejoice in the fact that we are all different and have different gifts. I believe God provides within our local body every person and thing we need to reach this county for Jesus Christ. I believe that in the Church Universal we have all the people and things we need to transform the world for Jesus Christ. I have often churches bemoan and say “if only”. “If only” we had more people, more resources, more money. But brothers and sisters, if we neglect this body, the body we have been gifted with, by saying that we are not yet good enough or have enough for the mission of Jesus Christ then we are not living up to the call of the Kingdom. And more will not come. 

Brothers and sisters you have gifts to offer this church community, and this church has something to offer the Church Universal. Do you know what you bring to the body? Why you are so important? If not, I encourage you to spend time discovering your gift. What are you passionate about? What is the deep longing of your soul? How has God blessed you in order to bless other people? If you do know your gift, don’t hide it. We have what we need to transform the world, brothers and sisters, if only you offer yourself and your uniqueness, without reserve, to the risk taking body of Christ! May it be so! Amen.