Availability

Good morning. It’s good to see all of you that are here today joining us in person, those that are streaming in online or joining us later on demand, as we are in the middle of a message series called the Serving Challenge. And two Sundays ago, we handed out 800 workbooks and you guys took them all, so we had to go order another 300.

And wouldn’t you know that all 300 of those workbooks have been also taken. So if you didn’t get a workbook, please let the ushers know, they’ll take your name down and we will order you one because we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to be part of this. We have never done this before where we give someone a workbook and then for 40 days, it coincides with our sermon series and so every day you read the devotional.

And so those of you that have been part of it because I know you’re all doing your homework, you all know what day, Ron, what’s day today? Okay, okay. Okay, now I know what the school teachers feel. Okay, today is lucky number 13.

We are on day 13 and if you haven’t been here the last couple of weeks, no worries, it’s easy to catch up, get a book, start reading through that. We have plenty of days ahead of us and so as you’re gonna hear later, we are gonna take a break next Sunday because there’s this really important kind of holiday and we don’t think that the women around here would appreciate it if we did the next part of the Serving Challenge because you guys all know it’s next Sunday? Oh, good, and we also do a Saturday service so any of you that wanna join us on Saturday at five o’clock and then we’ll have our two normal services on Sunday at nine and 11. What you might not know or maybe some of you realized when you got your book, did you notice it says number three on the book? Anybody see that when you got the, and you’re like, what is going on? We never did one or two.

Why did you jump to number three, the Serving Challenge? Zach, who was with us week one, he’s written all of these. In fact, there is actually six Serving Challenges. I know there says five things underneath here but there’s actually a red letter 40-day challenge and then you can see here, being, forgiving, serving, giving, and going and the being 40-day challenge is about how to be a disciple of Jesus.

The second one’s on for forgiveness and we just thought, you know, Shepherd’s Gate, there’s nobody at Shepherd’s Gate that’s holding on to unforgiveness, amen? Which side-serving, if you are holding on to unforgiveness, we have communion this morning. You actually are supposed to go and reconcile with your brother or sister before you receive communion. That’s how God takes, how seriously God takes holy communion.

So just put that out there for you. But then serving and then giving because we all know that you guys wanna do a 40-day challenge on tithing. How many of you wanna do that one next? You guys wanna do that one next? And then the last one’s on going and how every day do you be a witness for Christ? No, we actually did this on purpose and I wanted to explain this to you this morning because we have some incredible, awesome volunteers here at Shepherd’s Gate.

Did you know that? And back in 2025, when we ended the year, JJ, our executive director, he’s the one that handles all of these numbers. There were 444 unique people who served in some capacity here at Shepherd’s Gate. So when we say step in and serve, we mean from the ushers to the greeters to the people that make the coffee to the kids, the students, the adults, the care ministry and everything in between.

We can’t do what we do on Sunday mornings or all week long without 444 unbelievable people. Can we give them a hand this morning? Now sometimes people get confused on these next two and so if you are new to Shepherd’s Gate, step out and serve 365 is us going out into our community all year long. And so we have teams of people that serve every single month, including in the winter as needs arrive.

We have people that will go out and build wheelchair ramps. We have people that will go out and deliver gifts or groceries or help people that are needing housing needs. Any of those things, whatever that we have the capacity to do, we really try to fill.

And then once a year, the first weekend of June, we actually launch our whole church out into the community to serve, which is incredible. And wouldn’t you know that that’s coming up in just a few weeks on the weekend, the first weekend of June. And you can see the number there as well.

So last year, 371 unique people from Shepherd’s Gate went out and served. Now you may be asking yourself, wait a second, it seems like there’s more serving that goes on than this. And it’s true because volunteer spots are different than unique people serving.

And what we find is that a lot of our people will actually sign up not just for one site, some of them will sign up for two, some even three sites because they love serving and they see the joy that it not only brings the person that they’re helping, they see the joy that it brings into their own heart and their own life. And so just so you know, any pastor in any church would be super excited about these numbers, wouldn’t they? I mean, this is incredible. This is awesome, which makes you ask, you should be asking yourself, well, why the heck are we in a serving challenge then? Why are we in a serving challenge? Because the reality is when you do the percentages based on the people that call Shepherd’s Gate home, this is the percentage of people that are actually serving here at Shepherd’s Gate.

It’s really quiet in here. So less than 30% of the people that call Shepherd’s Gate home are serving in some capacity, whether it’s a leadership position, maybe they’re on the church council, the personnel committee, they serve in other areas of the church, ushers, greeters, all those things, which means 30% are serving the, is that good or bad? How about step out and serve 365? That close to 37% of our people are going out throughout the year and finding an opportunity for them to go and be involved. And then for our weekend, did you notice the weekend one? This one is kind of a little bit of a shocker, I think, to some of you.

In fact, did you notice we have four sections of worship here, did you notice that? And so what I wanna do is I want this section right here, can all of you just stand up that are in this section? Go ahead, just stand straight up. This means that on the first weekend of June, these are the people that are out serving, and the rest of you are enjoying your boat, your cottage, or your own backyard. Does anyone see a problem with this? All you visual people? Can we give these people a hand for standing up? No, we wanna awaken this within you because we know and believe that when you go outside of these walls and serve, God meets you there and he does something deep down in your heart and your life.

In fact, last week, Pastor Eric and I co-led the new member class, we just had another new member class, and I always tell the new members that are coming in, your next step after you become a member of Shepherd’s Gate is to go out and to serve in the community. Believe it or not, I don’t want you to sign up to be a greeter or an usher. As important as those roles are, our value on this is so high, we would rather you go out and serve in the community so that you know what kind of church Shepherd’s Gate is, amen? Amen, all right, Kim, you’re with me this morning, thanks for clapping.

So here we are, we’re on week two. Last week, JJ took us through attitude because if you don’t have the right attitude, you are a bump on the log, you should just stay home, okay? If you got a bad attitude, then go find Jesus and go find a good counselor and get your head screwed back on straight and then come and join us on the mission that God has for us here at Shepherd’s Gate, amen? So today’s gonna be a whole lot of fun because look at what we’re gonna talk about. Everyone’s favorite, and what does availability mean? That you and I are challenged to give up our most precious resource, which is not our money, it’s our time.

And some of you here this morning are like, oh crap, I wish I would have stayed home. Dude, you don’t understand, my schedule’s already too full. I can barely make it to church.

I mean, if you have any idea what it took to even get here today or even tune in online, some of you don’t turn the television off, we can see you. I can’t, you can see me, they can see you in the back in the tech room. And it’s so hard for some of us to grasp this whole idea of availability.

This is my favorite definition of it. It means readiness plus access. Readiness plus access.

And the readiness comes from us as a church pouring into you, reading the scriptures, showing you how to model your life after Jesus, building you up, empowering you, and then releasing you to go out and do the ministry. But people have to have access to you. You have to make yourself available to be used by God.

One of the things that we love to say around here is that every single day is a mission trip, amen? And so when you wake up in the morning, you say to God, I don’t wanna do what’s on my agenda today, I wanna do what’s on your agenda today. Who do you want me to put a positive thought into? Who do you want me to ask if there’s something that I can pray for that is happening in their life? Who can I actually stop and look them in the eyes and smile and say something nice to that person? And you know what often prevents us from doing that? Are the people that walk around with these white things that are sticking in their ears. Anybody seen these people? They’re like aliens or something.

And what happens when you run into somebody that has these little white sticks sticking in their ear? What does that communicate to you? They’re not available. How about this, the people that walk around and their necks are permanently down like this. Whether they’re in the grocery store, they’re at the gas station, they’re in line to get a cup of coffee, you know, whatever it is, what does this communicate? I’m not available.

And we wanna challenge you to put your chin up. To stop being a sourpuss if you’re a sourpuss. To stop having a bad attitude if you have a bad attitude.

Stop holding on to unforgiveness if you’re still holding on to unforgiveness. Grow up into the things of God and let God, the Holy Spirit, do something deep in your heart and your life. Let him break that spirit of pride and that spirit of selfishness.

And I can promise you this, ask anybody else that’s found this to be true, is that when you live in this reality, there’s this whole new level of joy and peace that comes into your life when you stop looking in the mirror, amen? Amen. So this is why our vision at Shepherd’s Gate is to value everyone we meet, influence everywhere we go, and live generously with everything that you have. And that generosity is first and foremost giving of our time in the service of others.

Now, our key scripture in all of this comes from Philippians chapter two. Last week, J.J. reminded us that we have to have the same attitude as Jesus. Next verse actually tells us that God, in the form of Jesus, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to his own advantage.

Rather, he made himself nothing. He came and put on human flesh. And when he did this, what was he doing? He made himself nothing to become available for us.

He came down as an infant. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. He allowed himself to be under the care of other people as they nurtured him, as they helped him go from being a baby to a toddler to a teenager until he turned 30 years old and started his public ministry.

And so these three precious years that Jesus gives us is what we then focus on in modeling our lives after. Jesus, you are the perfect example. Show us how we can make ourselves available to others.

Amen? So if you have your Bibles, turn to Mark chapter five. This is where we’re gonna be today. And you’re gonna see the availability of Jesus and how this is gonna challenge us to rise up to what it is he has called his followers to do.

So Mark chapter five, verse 21 says this. Jesus had, again, crossed over by boat. So we’re not anti-boat here.

All of you boat owners, okay, just so you know. Jesus was in and out of boats all the time. Peter had a boat, he had a whole fishing business.

He crosses over by boat to the other side of the lake. A large crowd gather around him while he was by the lake. Now, pause here for a moment because a lot of us don’t realize how huge these crowds actually were and how difficult it would have been to actually get to talk to Jesus.

Did you know that? A few weeks ago, there was something on television and there’s a lot of people that spent four days watching this epic annual event. Are you ready for it? It’s an event where you watch other people play golf. It’s called the Masters.

Did anybody else waste four days of their life watching the Masters, watching other people play golf? I wasted four days of my life because I love my son and he loves watching golf. He loves every single sport. And there were so many times that I thought to myself, why don’t we just go play golf? Why do we watch these guys play golf? And what I find so fascinating is the crowds of people, the amount of money that goes into this one annual event as you see people that are running, that shouldn’t be running, and they’re running to go watch a guy take a golf club and shank the ball into the sand trap or the water trap.

It’s insane the amount of crowds that this thing holds. And so I want you to get that in your head. The crowds that are around Jesus are huge.

And so there’s this synagogue leader there. He comes to Jesus and he basically throws himself at Jesus’ feet. Like you don’t do this if you’re in a place of leadership.

Like this is not something that’s normal. Clearly there must be a desperate situation that this guy is in to literally lunge himself through the crowd, push people away to get at Jesus’ feet. And it says that he actually got to talk to Jesus.

He pleads earnestly with them. My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.

How many of us, we got a kid that’s dying. We got a kid that’s got a diagnosis and we can’t figure this out and neither can the doctors. How many of us are gonna be on our hands and knees or become undignified in whatever that is to bring healing and wholeness to that child? All of us.

Some of you would kill other people if it meant saving your own child. I mean, that’s the heart of a parent and a grandparent. We want desperately for our loved ones to experience life into the full and for their life to not be cut off early.

And so what does Jesus do? Even though there’s crowds all around, he could have taught, he could have done more healings, he is going to follow this guy. While he’s on the way to the house, uh-oh, there’s an interruption. There’s a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years.

It’s a long time, 12 years. In fact, it says she suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors. She had been to every specialist, even the organic ones.

She’s been to those doctors that you have to pay that don’t take insurance. You know how I know that? She spent all she had, every supplement, every pill, trying to figure out her diagnosis, trying to figure out what’s wrong with her. And what does it say? Instead of getting better, she got worse.

Some of you, you know this pattern. You’ve been part of this. Whether it’s in your own life or with a loved one, you’ve gone to multiple doctors and you’ve gotten different diagnoses and you try to figure out which path to take and no matter what you do and how much you pray and how hard you research this stuff, it doesn’t seem to be helping.

And it says that when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and she touched his cloak because in her head, in this moment of desperation, she thought, if I can just touch his clothes, I don’t even have to touch his skin or him, if I just touch his clothes, that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be healed. Mark tells us that immediately, immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from this suffering. I mean, you imagine the electricity of the Holy Spirit going through, like that zap that she could actually physically feel and then in faith believe that in that moment, she had been healed.

Well, Jesus, realizing the power that had gone out from him, he turns around to the crowd and he’s like, who just touched my clothes? And because Jesus always had his secret service agents with him, aka the disciples, they were like, dude, everyone’s touching you. You’re nuts, dude. We don’t have a perimeter around you.

How do you expect us to protect you? How are we supposed to know who actually touched you? And is Jesus asking the question because he doesn’t know who touched him? No, he’s fully God, he’s fully man and the crowd is pressing in around him. And see, Jesus looking around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, same posture as the dad, trembling with fear and she told him why she did it.

Why is she falling at his feet and why is she, first human emotion, the reaction is fear? Here’s what’s so crazy about the culture at this time is that if you had something like this, you were considered unclean. You needed to stay away from everybody else. You were kind of like a leper.

You stay out of contact with anybody else and this disease that you have, this condition that you have, it must be because you sinned or God just might be mad at you. You must have ticked him off. Something doesn’t add up and it’s your fault and the shame and the guilt that you would carry.

This woman for 12 years trying to figure out why this took place. And so she’s approaching Jesus because she knows culturally she’s not even supposed to be around a crowd and she knows culturally that she’s not even allowed to go to the temple and worship. She knows that by touching another human being that you actually make them unclean.

And so now this emotion that she’s carrying, this trembling with fear that she has in her heart is because she’s now worried that she has made Jesus unclean. But here’s the good news for you and for me and for this woman. Our uncleanliness cannot contaminate Jesus.

Aren’t you happy about that? There is such a relief to know that whatever words have come out of your mouth, whatever bad attitude you carry, even in the church, whatever things that you have done in this life and the sins and the levels and depths that you have gone to commit those sins, you never, ever, ever, ever have the ability to contaminate Jesus. Jesus is the one that absorbed all of those things on the cross. He is the one that stretched out his arms.

He’s the one that breathed the last breath. And when he said, it is finished, it is finished. All of your sins that you’ve already committed and all of the sins that you will commit in the future, you don’t recontaminate Jesus.

Jesus has paid for it once and for all, amen? Not only so, three days later, he comes out of the tomb and he reveals himself to people. This is what we celebrate on Easter. So that you and I would know what has already been done for us in declaring victory over sin, death, and the devil so that you and I can not only be forgiven, but that we can live as redeemed children of his, amen? He is the only one who can make us clean.

And that’s why he said to this woman, daughter, and I love that he calls her daughter, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be free from your suffering. Man, Jesus not only healed her physically, he healed her mentally and emotionally and spiritually.

Her entire being, her entire life from this moment forward is completely different. But remember where we started this story. We got a dad who’s got a young daughter who’s on her deathbed and Jesus just got interrupted by a woman that had been enslaved to this horrible, horrible condition for 12 years.

What is going on? Imagine being the father. Imagine you’re just trying to pull Jesus back to your house, wanting him to touch your daughter. And so often in life, the idea that sometimes pops in our head is that maybe God is just too busy for us.

Maybe the crowd is just too big. Anyone ever think there’s too many people on the planet? Anybody still drive down Hall Road, by the way? I avoid Hall Road like it’s the plague. I just pray for people that are brave enough to drive down Hall Road.

And sometimes you get in your car and you go, God, there’s just a lot of people in Metro Detroit. Help them all, bless them all. And especially in our community, if you drive around and you see, there’s not a lot of trees anymore.

I mean, the builders keep knocking everything down, and new subdivisions keep popping up, and that’s kind of awesome, because that means there’s gonna be more people that need to hear about Jesus, amen? These people aren’t our enemies, they’re our friends, and they’re made in the image of God. Here’s the point, you are never an interruption to God. You are never ever an interruption to God.

Jesus told us to bring our prayer requests before him, to lay them at his feet. He already knows what we need. He already knows what’s in our minds and our hearts.

He knows the sins we’ve committed. He wants fellowship with us, and he invites us into this relationship with him. And it’s always for our good.

Because what’s fascinating is while Jesus was still speaking some people came from this house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. And they say the words that no parent ever wants to hear. Your daughter’s dead.

Might as well let Jesus go a different direction. Might as well let Jesus, maybe he just wants to stop and do another teaching, maybe he wants to go help somebody else. It’s too late.

He didn’t get there in time. And this woman is the one that kind of caused the situation to end the way that it did. And can we be honest this morning? If we had a pick, if we had the ability to pick between Jesus and the time that Jesus has, and Jesus only has enough time to heal one, not both, would we pick the woman or would we pick the child? We’d pick the child.

There’s something so innocent about children. And in our minds we just think, God, what did they do to deserve this? And were they born into this condition? Was there something that her parents did? Was there something that led to her being in the situation that at a young age she is no longer on this planet? And it forces us to ask this question. Well, how do we feel when God doesn’t come through for us? We pray and we pray and we pray and we plead and we plead and we plead.

And we feel like sometimes we’re dragging Jesus’s arm. Come on, Jesus, just come over here. If you just do this, if you just lay your hand on my loved one.

And some of you know this really well because you’re dealing with it right now. You’re undergoing treatment. And you’re worried and you’re wondering what the future holds for you.

Some of you in this room, let’s just be honest. You did this, you prayed, you laid your loved one at Jesus’s feet. And the same outcome, that loved one is no longer with us.

And it hurts, you grieve deep inside of your heart and your life. And so often you have to tell people that you’re fine and that things are great, but deep down you know that they’re not because you just want your loved one back with you. And then when you see other people receiving healing, or other people are being blessed, maybe it’s a job or all of a sudden a promotion, all of a sudden they’re making more money.

And the natural human reaction is like, well, why God do you love them more than me? And why God are you blessing them more than me? God, what do I have to do to get your attention to help me in my time of need? The reality is, God loves all of us. And he loves all of us equally. He is not a respecter of persons.

And whatever is happening in our life in this moment is exactly where God needs us and wants us to be. And he will work all things out for our good. Because he loves us, and because we’ve been called according to his purpose.

And so for those of you that are in the waiting, or those of you that have had to say goodbye to a loved one, know that God sees you and he knows you and he loves you, and he will never stop working out his plan for you. See, they finally get to the house. Jesus sees that there’s a commotion, and as we would expect, there’s some people crying, but there’s some people that are weeping.

I mean, they are wailing, it’s so loud. And of course, whenever a tragedy, especially with somebody so young like this happens, this is what you would expect to take place. And as Jesus goes in and he asks them, why is all of this happening? This child is not dead, but it is asleep.

What is the response of the people? They laughed at him. That seemed kind of odd. Had they not heard the reports of Jesus? Did they not know that he had healed other people? Did they not just hear where Jesus had come from just a few moments ago? Is this a nervous laugh because they don’t know what else to do? Is this a lack of faith laugh because they’re just so overcome with emotion in this moment? And this is the beautiful part of Jesus.

He knows the human heart. He knows that almost always we screw this up and don’t respond the way that we’re supposed to respond. And so he takes this little girl by the hand and he says to her, get up.

And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around. Mark lets us know that she’s 12 years old, 12 years old. And at this, the crowd was silenced.

The weeping stopped. People didn’t probably know how to respond as you go from one emotion to thinking you lost this loved one to now this loved one has been brought back to life. Who is this Jesus? And how in the world did he make himself available to this religious leader that the daughter would be healed? So let me ask you this.

Who did God work through to bring healing to this little girl? Who did he work through? I want you to think about this for a moment because the woman that had the bleeding issue, she herself pushed through the crowd and grabbed Jesus’s garment. In this second account, it was her dad that took the day off of work, that didn’t give a rip about his 401k, that didn’t care what football, basketball, baseball, soccer game was gonna be on the television. We’ll include golf today as well.

He would have done anything for his daughter and for his daughter to be healed and made new. And because of that dad bringing Jesus to that house, this little girl’s life was completely different from this moment forward. And that’s why we believe and it’s in your workbook as you’re gonna look this week that God works more through the available than the able.

Did you know that? You do not have to have this whole serving thing figured out. You don’t have to take a 22 week class on being the world’s greatest evangelist. What do I say, what I don’t say? You just need to make yourself available.

And you know what I find now in the culture that we live in because of how fast everything has developed? Most people nowadays, do you know what they’re looking for? They’re simply looking for someone to listen to them. Anybody have the gift of listening? Anybody think we can grow in the area of just being quiet and asking people questions the way Jesus asked questions? How are you? How’s your day going? Is there something I can do for you? Is there something I can pray for you? Do you ever notice sometimes people get weirded out when you do that? They’re like, what do you mean? Because it’s so counterculture. Our culture is for us to be focused on ourselves.

It’s I, I, I, me, me, me. And to live counterculture means to live like Jesus in view of those that are around us, to have eyes and ears for fellow human beings, amen? So what is preventing you from being available to be used by God? Do you know what it is? Is it your cell phone? Is it the lifestyle that you’re living and you probably need to go and maybe restructure some things in your calendar and in your flow of life? Are you willing to admit what those areas are that maybe are preventing you from being available to even your own spouse or your kids or even the neighbor that lives right next door to you? See, this message is twofold because it really convicts us in one way in our own personal lives. And likewise, it also has the ability to convict us in the opportunities that we give here at Shepherds Gate for all of us to give up a whole weekend, one weekend, and to go out and to serve those in our communities.

So let me ask you this as I close. What should be the goal for Step Out and Serve 2026? If last year we were at 23.7%, what do you think our goal should be this year in activating it? If we got one section, you think we can go to two sections? We got two sections, you think we can go to three sections? We get three sections, or are we just like the 11 o’clock service serves but the nine o’clock doesn’t? Is that the problem or is it the other way around? Like, what do you think should be the goal? You tell me. What is it? 75%.

Anybody else wanna take a gander? Why not just make it a, why not just make it 100? Because here’s what it comes down to and as the worship team comes, it’s 100% of your participation. Let me just give you a very quick history here. When we started Step Out and Serve 17 years ago, is how long we’ve been doing this, we used to come together on Sunday morning for church and then you would have to go serve at your site.

And over the years, people started skipping church, we caught on to that. So then we said, well, why don’t we expand and do Saturday and Sunday so people can go out on a site on Saturday and they can worship on Sunday. Then we started doing Friday night services.

We’ll do a Friday night service and people can go out Saturday and Sunday and we got feedback that the people that were coming to the service were the people that were already serving. It was just becoming too much of an intense weekend. And so for the last, I think, four or five years, we haven’t had worship services because we want people to worship out in the community.

We want you to go out and to be the hands and feet of Jesus to your neighbor. Here’s the crazy part. All it takes is your time and your availability as God leads you.