Turn please to Ephesians 4 this morning.

Now for some weeks we've been on this subject called Growing Up.

Growing up. I've been enjoying it myself thinking about it.

I believe I'm growing up.

You believe you're growing up? so let's read our text again

ephesians four and uh eight says when he jesus ascended up on high he led captivity captive

and gave gifts unto men.

Now verse 11 talks about the gifts he gave to men.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

These are men and women.

These are anointings on their lives and graces in them.

And their gifts to the body.

Can you say amen?

Well, thinking back over my life,

the gifts that God gave Phyllis and myself.

I mean, I'm talking about back as a boy. I remember the Pentecostal preacher who waved his hands and spit cotton and told me about Jesus and told me all he knew.

Thank God for that.

I'm thinking about Baptist ministers, Church of God ministers that were gifts to me and my family

during that part of our life.

And I'm thinking about people like Brother Hagen that God let me serve under for decades.

Gifts, precious, gifts, and it's not just the flesh that's the gift.

It's the anointing that God puts on the people and the revelation that he gives them and the grace that he puts in them.

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