Pastor Brian – Opening Prayer
Lord, we just bless Your name this morning in this place. Lord, we gather in Your name, and we gather for Your purposes. So, Lord, I just pray that You bless our gathering, Lord, that You bless our Fellowship. Lord, I pray the anointing of the Holy Spirit on this house today. Lord, the anointing to me and every person and Lord, the anointing to challenge every aspect of our lives, and we need to hear from You. Lord, I pray for the anointing to heal lives today, spiritually, Lord, mentally and emotionally and yes Lord, physically, we pray. May Your Spirit move amongst us here, to meet us in every way. And Lord, as You being with us here, God, let our praises rise up to You. Lord, may we not be silent, may we not be passive, but Lord, let us meet You in this place, where You have determined to meet us. Lord, lift every head, lift every heart. Lord, let us sense Your presence and know You today, because we are Yours, and You are ours. We join You today, in this spirit today, Lord.

Pastor Brian Welcome
We welcome you all in this place. We’re a skeleton. Everyone, give Cielo a big welcome. Mary and Cecilia have taken on duties at the back. It’s good to have people here today, that first love the Lord, and secondly love the church and commit themselves to service. We’re going to be celebrating that today. Amen. Let’s just worship the Lord a little bit.
Many of you know that our sister Eva-Lena has written this song, and this song has travelled all over the world. But we actually learned it, before the world knew it. Not because of Eva-Lena, but because there was a big choir from Sweden here in Greece, way back in the early ‘90s. And then they recorded this song and made it a big thing in Sweden. So, that night, at the concert, behind the stage, there were about four or five of us who sat together, and they had translated the song originally for us from Swedish to Greek, and then we took the Greek and made something in English out of it, and it was a little different to what came out later and was famous in America. But I still like the original that we had translated, so, Mary can we go with that? It goes like this: ‘For You are great…’
Keep that heart of worship. It’s good to see you all here today. Now, (Taking off his glasses), now, it’s good to see you all here today. I love being in the presence of the Lord. And I don’t know about you, but I really need to be in the presence of the Lord. And I know he’s with me everywhere.
But even the Scripture tells us there’s something special in you when we’re gathering his presence. And I’m sad for the believers, who do not or embrace that, or do not believe that. Jesus loves you, and he loves us. Together. Amen. So, let’s do this, I just had you sit down, but let’s get up and go around and greet one another. Okay.
Amen. Where’s Leto, Leto come here for a minute. You may be seated. I just need to talk to Leto for one second.
Well, as I said, it’s good to welcome you. I trust you also welcome me. And of course we welcome the Lord Jesus. I do have to bring you greetings again from Pastor Gail. She’s ministering in a ‘missions’ conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana today. Exactly, Baton Rouge. As the French Creole say.
I’ll give you more information. So, I pray for her, as always. She’s been on a long, long road. And we’re believing for the Lord to do some significant things. And the Word is so be it in the Bible, it is ‘amen’, so say amen. A little parenthesis; I’m always amazed when people say negative things and then go ‘amen’. We don’t want to ‘amen’ the negative things. But we will, yes and amen, the blessings of the Lord. Thank you. There’s one. Thank you. There’s a few more.
We do want to remind you, basic announcements, we are back in the building on Wednesday nights. It’s a work night, so we never know who’s going to be there. But it’s always a good conversation. So come and join us if you like. Especially if you’re not a part of one of the care groups or that’s what we call our home groups. But we’re going to continue to encourage you, slash bother you, about becoming a part of one of the care groups. They are great places for deeper fellowship, for growth together. We get to say things to each other that we don’t get to say on Sunday morning. Usually there’s some food involved. So, if you don’t know where one is near you, you’re not a part of one yet, please talk to me or to Leto and we will find a place.
We do want to remind one another, you love me, right? I’m going to make sure. Tell me first. Look at me. The last two Sundays, we spent time talking about what it means to be a generous giver. And we’ve made it clear. We do not often make a big deal about that in this church. But we took the time to emphasize it. Number one, so that it can release blessing into your life and your family. And that’s a good time for God’s people to say amen.
But also, so that it can bring blessing into the household and Kingdom of God. As a church, we seem to be constantly kind of running behind and catching up to pay our bills. And we’re facing one of those cycles again right now. I happen to believe that God has placed among us everything required for us to do what He desires of us. That means He’s going to work through us to bring these things about.
So, we’re going to ask you once again. Pray. Everybody, say, ‘pray’. What the Holy Spirit encourages you to give. You need not give more. But don’t give less. Follow the voice of the Holy Spirit. Not mine. Not Anton who preached the first sermon, so, you’re guilty too. Not the request of Pastor Gail or anybody else. But I believe the Holy Spirit is going to release a spirit of generosity in and among us. And I believe with all my heart, that always releases the generosity of the Lord. So, with that we are going to get ready to take our offering.
Encourage your friends and family. We’re here every Sunday at 10:30. Come. Be prepared. Bring someone. I’m trying to do that myself. I’ve got some hard-headed friends, but I’m going to get them here.
We have not mentioned this in a long time. Which is a shame on us. Don’t forget your five people. We call it five for five. That’s take a minute for each person a day, five minutes a day to pray for five people. And if for some reason you can’t do five minutes speak their name out before the Lord. Place them there and pray them into the Kingdom. Amen. So don’t forget the five for five. And now I’m going to pray for the offering today.
Lord. We declare this gift for you. As we come with our tithes and offerings today, we profess, we declare it’s not just a sacrifice, it is a joy and a thanksgiving to give to You. Anoint my heart and my life to know Your generosity. With my time, with my gifts and talents. And yes, with my money. Lord, release your generosity in me, in each and every one of us. And then Lord, release a spirit of encouragement between us. That we would constantly be able to look and smile at one another, and say great is the Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Children, we have them here today. You can go ahead and go, I’ll talk to you after church.
There’s a song that we used to sing quite a lot. We haven’t sung it in so long that we don’t have the music sheets and we don’t have slides. And I don’t remember it in Greek anymore, maybe Leto can remember it. I don’t know why we stopped singing it. Unless it was just maybe we wanted to stop being used by the Lord. But we used to declare this often. You can stay seated before we start the sermon today. I just wanted to do this with you. Make it a declaration from your heart.

Pastor Brian – Main Message
I wanted to do something this morning. Unfortunately, about 75% of the people I wanted to do with this aren’t here. But I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway and we’ll just fill in the blanks for those. Originally, I was going to do this at the end of my sermon today. I thought, no, I want to do this to kind of paint a picture, to set a tone.
Our topic today in our ‘Gifted’ series, is how the Lord gifts His people to serve. The Bible word is “He equips”, the saints, He equips His children, to serve the body of Christ and to serve the world.
And as I was thinking of this, it was either Thursday or Friday, I can’t remember, I got this picture in my mind, so I want to try this and see how it works. It’s not going to work like it did in my mind, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Every Sunday, pretty much every Sunday when I arrive at church, there are certain people here already serving. So, I’m going to ask Cecilia to come stand up here behind me, and Evy, I’m going to ask you to come stand up here behind me, and if they were here with Cecilia today, I would have the ladies that she brings to church stand up here behind me, the ladies that she usually brings to church, I would have them here. Because she’s often got one or two or three ladies helping her out. And then I thought about Natasha, who’s not here today, that’s often here helping Evy.
So, in your mind, you have to picture about five more people. And they’re here serving even before I or Pastor Gail, get here. And then I come downstairs, and we won’t count Cecilia for two. But she’s usually helping get things ready down here. And then comes the worship team. And so, Cielo, you need to come stand up here behind.
And if they were here today, we would put Victor and Billy, and Eva-Lena, and Simon, and Fannies, and sometimes Kari, so Kari, come on up here. Myself, Pastor Gail, Lars, who’s not here, George, who’s not here, so now you have to picture about 15 more people who are at work an hour, hour and a half before church ever starts.
And they’re serving this body, so that we can come in here and enjoy what we do. Anybody else who’s cleaned the bathroom in the church this year, raise your hand. Or swept the front yard. Picked up the trash and took it out. Eric, come on up here. Welcome back, by the way.
So, before the rest of us even get here to do anything called church, they’re busy. And then Leto and Stavro. Come early to make sure, come on, get up here behind me. Helping make sure that everything’s in order. And then on the Sundays that she’s able to come, Mary. Again, we’re missing a lot of people up here. But that’s all just to try to get started on Sunday. So, I’m going to stop right there for a moment and we should all say thank you. Thank you.
And then I think about what happens on Sunday mornings. So, we have the worship team. And I think we have most of the kitchen help taken care of, at least in our minds. Evy represents all of them. But then we have probably the hardest job and the hardest to recruit for. And that’s those who teach the children.
You haven’t started yet, Eleni, but you did before. You did before and you will again. We’re prophesying right now. Okay, yeah, Rebecca. How many kids does she have? No, you can’t go, Sarah. No, I need you out here in a minute, though. Let her just stick her head in the door. Just ask her to stick her head in the door. Because to be honest with you, there’s nobody I want to appreciate more this morning than the teachers of the children. Let her come stand for a moment and then I’ll call you back. Come here, Rebecca. Come stand up here. And, Rebecca, can you tell us more about this? And Elpida, the sister’s already upstairs, so we’ll picture her. Can you tell us more about this? Let’s see. We’ll get back to that one day, I believe.
Let me see. Then, not only do we have people teaching children, but then we have to have people who teach here. So today that’s me. Some days it’s Anton, Pastor Gail, Leto, Billy, at various times other people. Isn’t it good to have a church full of people capable, able to teach? Now, this is such a small group for what you should be. I should have about 35 people here already.
And this is just Sundays. And sometimes we have others who help do ushering. Come on, guys. You’ve helped usher before and you’ve taken up the offering and put out the Bibles. So, we haven’t even gotten past Sunday. And people are serving.
Then we have things that go on during the week. Henneke leads a home care group. Come on ahead. Samanthy, come ahead. Leto and Stavro are already here. I should have Sean and Beatrice here today, along with Lars and Marina. Christina, who’s not here, does an outreach group. See, am I missing anybody? Anton, we got anybody missing from that or from Wednesday? Trudy on the island. Trudy and her family. They’re not having church today because of weather on the island, but she’s probably online watching right now. So that kind of gets us through the week.
But then we have other stuff going on that’s not necessarily just a part of this church. As we heard last week, we’ve got Samanthy and Sunil going to Sri Lanka. We have Henneke heading out to lead a ministry for refugees every week. Anton doing whatever he does every week. Many and varied things. With ministries all around town, including our own. Eric, who’s doing refugee outreach and discipleship every week. Kari and his family doing the same. Where’s your husband? Where’s Michael? He’s upstairs with the kids, so you have to come. Michael, who are doing refugee stuff up at the camp.
Running a whole house. Let’s see, we have Cecilia leading the ministry in Lavrio, teaching women to sew and weave, that’s the word. Let’s see, who am I missing today? Sarah. Again, she does something, nobody knows exactly what, but it has many parts. She helps lead Hellenic ministries in town and has done homes for unwed mothers and education programs for gypsy children.
Now, this is not to say anything about anybody else in the room, because there’s a lot of people here and not here who do many things. But I wanted us to see the mental picture that in this church, more, I don’t know if more, but at least half of us, are doing something in ministry every week. I don’t know a lot of churches that can say that. And that doesn’t even count the things like the encounters that Evy or Christina, have when they’re tutoring children and ministering to their families.
Or people like Angelo. Angelo, come here. Angelo might be the number one person in our church to invite people to church. Maybe many of you don’t know this because he looks so young and hip. But Angelo pastored a church in Athens for many years and we were actually able to ordain him 25 years ago.
And there are other churches in this city today that will be meeting that are led by people who came from this church. There are 14 churches in Europe and North America today that are led by people who came to the Lord and were discipled in this church. And that’s just the direct stuff; that’s not everything we don’t know about. And maybe I’ll get to learn the stories about what many other people are doing. You guys can go sit down, thank you.
I am blessed by what I feel like the Lord revealed to me. Now that’s not to say that all the people who stood up here or that all the people sitting down are doing everything they could or should be doing. I cannot answer that for you. And we’re going to keep repeating this about everything until Jesus comes back.
Only the Holy Spirit can reveal that to you. No prophet’s going to pronounce a ministry over you and it be your ministry. It might be pronounced and agree with what the Holy Spirit has said. But the Holy Spirit is the one who calls. The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers. Because that’s what he was sent by the Son Jesus Christ to do. So, pastors can ask people, would you help, would you serve, maybe this is something for you. But it won’t mean anything until the Holy Spirit inspires that in you.
I want that to settle in for a minute. Because that means that we as God’s people must be asking Him, what should I be about? Who am I in you? And what would You like from me? And to be honest, it may not be a once and for all lifetime calling. It may be, teach the children. But one day that becomes teach the youth. Or one day it becomes stand up here and teach the people. It may be, play the guitar. Until it becomes build the walls. It may be, preach. Until the Lord says, go serve.
He’s the one who reveals. But I want us to see three simple things. You’ve heard this before. And you will hear it again. Today is supposed to be a good reminder. But I want that reminder to be bathed, at least in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to you. Take His challenge today. Not my challenge, take His challenge.
Turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians 4:11-12. We’re going to do this in 10 minutes, so let’s hold on and go fast. It says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service or (ministry) so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
Now, for the English speakers, I put that word ministry in parentheses because some translations say “works of service”, other translations say “works of ministry”, but in the Greek it’s about “ministry”.
A soldier cannot go to battle, without the right tools, the right armor. Okay, David didn’t need armor, he just needed a sling and a stone. But that was obviously a God thing. I encourage you, don’t go to war, unless God really reveals it to you, do not go to war with a slingshot and a stone. Put on some armor and have the right weapons. In the same way, a builder cannot build without the right tools. And believers cannot fulfill their calling without being equipped with the right tools.
So, here’s our core truth for today. God equips every believer. Okay, say every believer. You can say it in Greek. Every believer. Now say, that’s me. That’s me. That’s me. Christ equips every believer. Through His Word, and through His church. So that we can be built up to fulfill His mission. The fulfillment of God’s mission does not happen by accident. It does not happen by accident. Between God and us, and between us together. But a lot of believers are living life as though they’re just out here by themselves gaining whatever they think, doing their thing. But that is not the design, nor the intention of Jesus for His church.
So, I have three points for you to see today.
Number one, the source of being equipped, the source, not the tools, the source is Christ Himself. Ephesians 4:11, Christ Himself gave. We do not have apostles, pastors, evangelists, teachers, and prophets who are self-declared. If they’re self-declared, they are false. Because Christ Himself and only Himself is the source of the gifts.
Equipping God’s people is not man’s idea, it is God’s design. That’s why it’s so important to come together. This is our training ground. We learn to serve one another. We learn how to do it, why to do it. We learn better ways of doing it. By being among each other and practicing those gifts, hearing the Word of God, being challenged and changed so that when we go from here, we are better equipped to do what God wants than we were before.
And that equipping may be learning something we didn’t know. It may be practicing something we’ve never tried before. It might be just as simple as encouraging each other. And say, hey Eleni, I think you’re a pretty good translator. Let me encourage you in that. Don’t ever be afraid. Don’t ever be ashamed. Because God has gifted you. It might be Cielo, don’t turn down your voice in the monitor. We want to hear your beautiful voice. Use what God has given you.
It might be, hey we’ve got a voice coach over here. Let’s learn something. It might be, hey Anton, we want to do a little study on worship, let’s go deeper. But we gather to be equipped. You know, if you’ve never laid hands on somebody and prayed for them, I challenge you to try it. Let the Lord work through you to bless somebody. Because He’s equipping us to become all that He wants so that His body can be matured.
So, trust God’s design for the church. Pastor Gail may not be right about everything. But trust her voice. God has set her in a place. You may not believe everything your care group leader says at the home meeting. But trust what God has done to put somebody in that place. And at least open your ears to hear. So that maybe the Lord would challenge something. I’m not going to tell you what it is, we don’t have time.
But the Lord challenged me about a doctrine I had believed pretty much all my life. I believed it because I never studied it. It wasn’t anything severe, it was a little nuance, just a thing. But the Lord used somebody to just send me a little text message. They weren’t trying to correct me; they had no idea. They just sent me a little word. And the light bulb went off. I never thought about that and I never prayed about it. Maybe I should do that now. Because Christ equips. Through His Holy Spirit and through His church.
Number two, the purpose of equipping. To equip His people for works of ministry. My example this morning, it’s not limited to pastors and leaders in the church. It’s everybody learning to serve somehow, some way, serve someone. One pastor wrote it like this. ‘God equips us to stand and serve, not to say it’.
So, ask yourself, two parts. What has God called me to do to serve His body? In other words, how is He asking me to serve the church? And how is He equipping me to serve the world? And the answer to those things will supply every bit of purpose your life needs.
And number three, the fruit of this equipping. It’s the building up of the body of Christ. So that the body of Christ may be built up. Equipping leads to maturity. Equipping leads to unity. Equipping leads to love. I encourage you today, continue reading Ephesians 4 and let that soak in.
If we as a church, let me say it this way, because people think of church as a single entity. But as we always remind ourselves, this is not the church, we are the church. But I might stand outside of the Glyfada Christian Center one day and say, you know, I don’t think that church is very mature.
You know what the answer to that is? If it’s not, it’s because we’re not. If it’s not equipped, it’s because we’re not equipped. If it’s not thriving, it’s because somehow, for whatever purpose, we are not thriving. It’s not a thing out there. It is us in here. A church that learns the people, a church that allows itself to learn, that seeks as individuals and together to be equipped, that allows the Holy Spirit and the church to do its work. The end result, God has said, is that the body will be built up.
A people that are mature and are equipped are a people that shine. They’re a people that reflect something different to the world around them. They’re a people that embody an invitation. In them is an invitation. Come and experience what I have experienced. I have tasted that the Lord is good. And I don’t need to teach you a bunch of doctrines. I just want you to come and taste that the Lord is good.
I want to learn to reflect that to you because that spirit shines. And it changes things around us. Are families? Probably there is nobody in this room today that does not have family that we are concerned about their relationship with God. And we’ve probably told them everything there is to tell.
So, what’s the answer? Shine. Grow yourself. If that person is not any more attracted to Jesus today than they were 10 years ago and they’ve been with me that 10 years? They either have a really hard heart and that could be or they haven’t seen anything different in me for 10 years. I’ve stopped being equipped. I’ve stopped maturing. I’ve stopped helping others in my fellowship to do the same.
That’s why the Apostle said, “Push each other to go do good works”. Vassili, go out there and do something good, man. Leto, go do something good. Something different than before. Learn something. Be equipped by the Holy Spirit. Find something fresh in your relationship with the Lord. So that freshness can be reflected out.
God gave these gifts. And over the next weeks we’re going to learn about a bunch of different kind of gifts. Are you an administrator? Do you have the gift of teaching? Or encouraging? Maybe sometimes God uses you with the gift of miracles. Maybe sometimes He prays in and through you with tongues.
Maybe sometimes He uses you to speak a word of knowledge or wisdom to somebody. Maybe He’s giving you a special gift of giving. Or a special gift of serving. I think of Stavros every time I say that. This dude will run around for anybody at almost any time. Unless his boss won’t let him.
I’m amazed at people like that. We’re going to be asking each other. How do we see these gifts expressed and become more expressed among us? But it begins and ends with this. I am equipped to serve. Put your hand on your heart for me.
Holy Spirit, I just want to pray this prayer over us. We started saying, Lord, that You have to speak the words. So Holy Spirit, I’m asking You to speak into every life. That no matter where we’re at, no matter who we are on this journey, that You are moving us to better and better places. You’re going to teach us, Lord, to receive more of your relationship. And that relationship is going to be displayed through who we are for you. Here’s my hands, Lord. Here’s my feet. Touch my eyes. Or speak through me. But Lord, You can use me. Let that be the Word of the Lord. Let it be the voice of the Holy Spirit. And be challenged in Him today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
And with that, let’s go have coffee. Fellowship with each other and enjoy Him together.