Gifted for Service

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Well, this week I was remembering a time a few years ago where my mother was helping me. I go through these times a few times a year where I like to do spring cleaning and just get rid of stuff. And it’s not necessarily in the spring, but it just happens when I get a wild hair.

And one day my mother had come and helped me clean some stuff out because Charlie didn’t want to. She had her own stuff to clean. And I was going through my closet and tossing stuff out.

She was going to take it back to the city or maybe back to Oklahoma. I can’t remember if this was here or in Arkansas. But when I was cleaning out my closet, I discovered a pair of pants in there.

And my mother got a little bit upset because she had bought these pants for me. And she had bought these pants for me a few years before. And they still had the tags and the stickers on them.

All right. It wasn’t on purpose, you know. But she had put a lot of effort into this.

My mother had bought a nice pair of black dress pants for me. And it wasn’t necessarily just about the money. My mother doesn’t pay full price for things.

But she puts a lot of work into it. She’s a bargain shopper. When I was a kid, I remember one time her going with coupons and buying a bunch of canned goods and they gave her money to take the canned goods.

And she had shopped sales and found clearance and stuff you could combine and that and Kohl’s cash. I’m sure Kohl’s had paid her to take the pants, but she had put a lot of effort into picking these out and getting them for me. And when I got them, it’s not that I didn’t appreciate them.

I loved the pants, But I hung them in the closet and then hung other stuff in front of it and forgot about it. And as I was cycling other stuff through, it eventually migrated to the back of the closet where it ended up four or five years later and I’d never worn them. And by then couldn’t wear them.

They were too small because at that point my weight was going this way. And so I ended up having to get rid of them. My mother was a little sad.

I don’t know if sad is the right word. A little angry, too. Just mama ain’t happy about the pants because she had gone to the trouble of picking out this gift for me, and it had just gotten shoved further and further back in the closet.

Again, it wasn’t intentional, but still it was kind of careless on my part. And that has happened to me as well. You know, each Christmas I try to make each of the kids at least one thing in addition to what Charla buys, she buys throughout the year.

I don’t like shopping at the stores under good circumstances, let alone at Christmas time. So she does the shopping and I’ll usually go out and make them something. And I know one year I made them, I carved each of them a set of little animal toys to play with.

And I made Madeline some foxes because that’s her favorite. And I made Benjamin some mountain lions because I can’t remember what his favorite was, but it was something I couldn’t make. And so I went with his next favorite.

And so I carved them these. And a few months later, I discovered they were, you know, some of them were just scattered in the side of one of the bedroom floors being stepped on. A tail had broken off of something.

And it just, it was devastating, I guess is the word, because I put a lot of work into these things. I had to remind myself though, that, you know, that, that happens because they’re kids. And I was here, I was thinking, You know, I put so much effort into giving you this gift that I knew you were going to love, and it hasn’t been used properly.

It hasn’t been taken care of. But I had to remind myself they’re they’re just kids. But then that leaves me with the question, what’s my excuse?

What’s my excuse? Not about the pants, but what’s my excuse when my heavenly father gives me a gift, and I end up just shoving it back in the closet? What’s my excuse then?

See, God gives each believer a number of gifts. He gives each of us at least one gift, but He gives us a number of gifts. And this morning, we’re going to look at a message to a church where God encouraged this church to take those gifts out of the closet, take them out of the toy box, and use them, and use them the right way.

So if you would, turn with me to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. I’ll give you just a second to turn there.

Romans chapter 12. We’re going to start in verse 3 this morning, and I’m going to ask you to stand with me if you’re able to. Don’t worry about it if it’s a hardship for you, but if you’re able to, stand with me and we’re going to read together from God’s Word, verses 3 through 8 of Romans chapter 12.

This is what the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them in prophecy, or if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith, or ministry, let us use it in our ministering, He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. You can be seated. So there are several things that Paul addresses in just this little section.

He deals with the unity of the church. He deals with our connection to one another, but he also deals with this this concept of spiritual gifts, and all of these things really tie in together. But if we look back before this section that we just read, probably the part of chapter 12 that more of us are familiar with are the first two verses, where he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And verse 2 is kind of familiar to a lot of us. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So when we get to this passage in verses 3 through 8 that deals with spiritual gifts, we need to understand that it’s in the context of Paul already calling the believers at Rome to present themselves as a living sacrifice.

And this is something they would have been familiar with because at this point the Jews had been driven out of Rome, so almost all the believers there in the church in Rome were going to have come from a pagan background. And these pagan religions were very much tied to sacrifice. Now, I know in the Jewish religion there were sacrifices as well, but in these pagan religions, there was basically not much else.

In Judaism, there’s a relationship to God, and there’s the rules and the law, but in the pagan religions, you offer the sacrifices, and the gods really don’t even care what else you do as long as you placate them with the sacrifices. So the sum total of your faith, the entirety of your religion is tied up in these sacrifices. You go offer a bull or a goat to Jupiter or Saturn, and you can live however you want to after that.

And in contrast, Jesus Christ says it’s not just about you offering these sacrifices to go off and live how you want. In Christianity, Jesus Christ has offered himself because we were living however we wanted. And then he calls us in response to live as living sacrifices for him.

Not just to say, well, I’m going to offer an animal and then everything’s okay. He says, no, there’s a price here. There’s a cost in following me.

You’re supposed to sacrifice yourself. Not that we go and die on the cross, but daily we die to ourselves and say, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what glorifies him.

And so as Christians, we’re called on to live as living sacrifices. And it has nothing to do with God offering us something. I’m sorry, it has nothing to do with us offering something to God in exchange in order to somehow earn what God has offered us.

But it has everything to do with us responding to what He’s done in thankfulness and in trying to glorify Him. So as Christians, there’s more to pleasing God than just offering Him sacrifices. We offer ourselves to glorify Him.

And we’ve got to understand that’s the context of what He’s talking about in chapter 12 here with these spiritual gifts. And God has equipped each believer with gifts so we can serve. He says this in verse 3, For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, as He’s talking about these spiritual gifts, He’s addressing it to everyone there in the church at Rome.

They had all been equipped with spiritual gifts. God has equipped every believer with a gift, just as he’s called every believer into service. This morning you may say, well, I’m not particularly good at anything.

That’s not correct. Maybe a better way to say that. There are some things that I’m not necessarily good at, but God’s called me to do them, and he equips me with the gift and the grace to deal with it in that situation.

It has nothing to do with my natural abilities. So maybe a better way to say that is you may be sitting there this morning thinking, I’m not particularly good at anything, so I don’t think God’s really called me to do much. That’s what’s incorrect.

God has given you a gift and he’s given you a calling. And in verse 6, we see that these are tied to his grace. Again, it has nothing to do with our natural abilities.

It has nothing to do with what we earn or deserve or what we bring to the table. But throughout this passage, Paul ties it to the idea of grace. He said in verse 6, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.

These gifts are just that. They are gifts from God. They are things that he bestows on us in order for us to serve.

It’s not saying, oh, you have to be the best singer, or you have to be the best preacher, or the best teacher, or you’ve got to be the greatest evangelist just out of your natural talent. You’ve got to be the guy who can sell ice cubes to an Inuit. I was going to say Eskimo because that’s the expression, but I don’t want us to get censored on Facebook.

I had to stop and think, what’s the other word? You don’t have to be the silver-tongued salesman who can talk anybody into anything. It’s about God’s grace and the gift that He gives us out of His kindness to equip us to serve as He’s called us to.

And so He gives each of us. This morning, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you are somebody who has trusted in Jesus alone for your salvation, and you have asked God for that salvation, not because you’ve earned it or deserved it, but because Jesus paid for it in full at the cross. If you have done that, if you have been received into the family of God in that way, by faith, by grace through faith, then you need to know, regardless of how you feel, regardless of what Satan may whisper in your ear, God’s word tells us that he has given you a gift for service.

He’s given you a gift to use in his service. He’s given each of us a gift as part of his gracious provision, and it enables us to fulfill our place in his plans. What are spiritual gifts?

It’s something we need to talk about briefly, because I’ve heard different interpretations of what a spiritual gift is, and some people tend to think it’s just something you’re good at. Maybe. I think even somebody who’s naturally good at something, it’s because God has given them that talent, but I think it’s a little more than than that.

You know, I’m naturally good at eating, but I’m not sure that’s a spiritual gift. All right. So there’s some overlap there, but I think there’s more to it than that.

One of my mentors in ministry defined it as something that motivates you, that it’s a spark inside of us that God’s given us, that I may not be the most, I may not be the most skilled evangelist, but I’m very passionate about it, that sort of thing. I think that’s maybe a little closer to the definition. I would say after studying it this week, it’s an aptitude, not necessarily a talent, but it’s an aptitude that it’s given by God’s grace through the Holy Spirit for us to build up the church and bring glory to Jesus Christ. Because again, I’ve heard people say, well, singing is my spiritual gift.

By the way, I don’t see that listed as a spiritual gift anywhere in scripture. It may be that it is, but I can’t say that for sure because I can’t go beyond what scripture says. But singing is one of those things you can use it for the glory of God or you can use it for the glory of yourself.

I’d say if you’re using it for the glory of God and to build up the church, it’s a little closer to being a spiritual gift. But it’s one of those things that it’s given to us by the Holy Spirit for the church to bring glory to Christ. And there’s a few that are listed in this passage. Now there are different places in scripture that it talks about spiritual gifts.

So I want to be clear that these seven that it lists here are not the only seven there are. And each of the lists is a little bit different. And some people have said, let’s compile all the lists, and there’s the full list of spiritual gifts.

Again, just like with music, God doesn’t say, here’s a certain number of spiritual gifts in Scripture. He lists a few here and there. Are there others outside of these lists?

It’s possible God’s just giving us a general overview. I’m telling you, I’m not going to go beyond what God’s Word says. All I know is that the ones that are listed are spiritual gifts.

Anything beyond that, I don’t know. But there are seven that are listed in this passage that are not the only ones mentioned in Scripture. But in verse 6, he describes prophecy.

Now, we think of what is that that Johnny Carson used to do with the envelope? Is it Karnak? He’d guess what was in the envelope.

We think of psychics and fortune tellers. That was before my time, I think, but I’ve seen video of it. We think of psychics and fortune tellers, or we think of guys standing out on the street corner with a sign, the end is near, and people foretelling events.

That’s just a little tiny sliver of what the Bible describes as prophecy. In the Bible, the ministry of a prophet was really about warning and discerning. It was about warning people of God’s judgment.

It’s a lot like teaching, but in the sense of prophecy, there’s a warning aspect of it. It’s declaring God’s word with a warning or helping people to discern truth from error. So that’s a spiritual gift.

In verse 7, he talks about ministry, and that’s just another word for service. Serving other people in the name of Jesus Christ is a spiritual gift. And we’re all called to do it, but some people are just really excited about it.

Okay? Some people are a little less excited about it, and we have to talk ourselves into it. But it’s a spiritual gift.

Then there’s teaching, helping others to understand God’s Word. There’s exhortation in verse 8, which is encouraging and giving comfort to people. There’s giving, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Leadership, again, to lead and influence God’s people in the right direction to shepherd them. And verse 8 tells us that mercy is a spiritual gift. And one other thing I want to caution you on with these lists of spiritual gifts is that sometimes we’ll think, oh, this one on the list. This is my spiritual gift.

So I can totally neglect all these others. If our example is Jesus Christ, if we’re trying to be more like Jesus Christ, he held all of these spiritual gifts that the Bible describes in full measure and perfect balance with each other. Okay.

And so for us to emulate Jesus, these need to all be present in our lives and we need to be growing in all the spiritual gifts as the Holy Spirit enables us, but there are going to be a few that stick out more than others. I will admit mercy is not my primary spiritual gift. All right.

I think once upon a time, my spiritual gift was more along the line of prophecy. I think now it’s more teaching and shepherding, but I’d say in high school and college, prophecy and warning and discernment. That was my wheelhouse.

And I kind of clashed with the other people in the youth group who were more merciful because I was saying, this is sin. And they’re saying, oh, it’s okay. No, it’s not okay.

Yes, it is okay. You know, you kind of clashed. Mercy is not my first and foremost spiritual gift.

But does that mean I get to neglect mercy and just be hateful? No. We should be growing in each of these.

So for each of these gifts and the others listed in scripture, there’s a corresponding challenge for us. And we see it right here spelled out in verses 6, 7, and 8 when he lists these spiritual gifts. Each of them comes with a corresponding challenge.

Use it. He said, if your spiritual gift is prophecy, use it for prophesying. If your spiritual gift is for ministry, for service, then go out and minister.

If your spiritual gift is for giving, then give generously. Give as much as you can. If it’s in mercy, then be the most merciful you can be.

Take that gift, whatever it is that God has given you, and use it. So how do we use it? There are a few things that I see in this passage, and I was so excited this week working on this message because I love Adrian Rogers, and I can never get my messages to alliterate like his did, and yet these all wound up as C words, and it was great.

I thought Adrian Rogers would be proud. How should we use these spiritual gifts? We should use them courteously with a humble spirit because he talks in verse three about not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to and remembering that these spiritual gifts are a measure of God’s grace.

They are gifts. They’re not something we cultivated in ourselves. We’re not responsible for that.

See, God gives us gifts as opportunities to serve, not to show off. And yet there are some people who do use their spiritual gifts to say, hey, look at me. The proper use of the spiritual gift is for us to do it in humility, not getting a swelled head about it, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to, but to serve with a humble spirit, to serve others in love in a way that glorifies Jesus.

We should use our spiritual gifts cooperatively. He says in verse 4 that we’re all members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. Imagine what this church would look like if every person in it was just like I’ve thought about what it would look like if everybody here was just like me and it’s not a pretty picture because there’s one or two things that would get done probably really well and everything else would just be a mess you know why that is it’s because God has given God has wired each of us a little bit differently and he’s given each of us different spiritual gifts that are supposed to work in cooperation with each other so that it all gets done and if we try to go out and exercise our spiritual gifts alone will never be as successful as we would working together.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t go out and have a ministry out in the community. You should. But we as the church should be working together.

The body works together and we bring our spiritual gifts together and we complement each other. And I’ve talked to you about me and Greg working together. Greg and me working together.

Greg and I. Anyway, sometimes when we get benevolence, well, all sorts of things, but benevolence is the one that always comes to mind. Because even though I said I don’t have the gift of mercy, I’m ready just to hand over the check.

I’m gullible, I guess. I’m ready to hand over the checkbook to everybody with a sob story. Greg, on the other hand, has a little more wisdom and discernment about some of these things and says, I think let’s ask a few more questions.

And so working together, people who need it get help, but we avoid giving away the farm. It would not be good necessarily for me to handle that all on my own and make all those decisions all by myself. We’re supposed to work cooperatively.

God gives us gifts that complement each other’s gifts, that complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, rather than us just being Lone Ranger Christians. And we should use our gifts constructively. We should have a godly goal in mind.

He tells us in verse 5, that we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. And the picture that Paul paints throughout the New Testament is of us working together to build up the body so that through each of our individual members, every other member of the body is strengthened. Through our individual, I say that right, through the ministry of our individual members, every member of the body is strengthened.

God gives us gifts to build up the body, not just to benefit ourselves. And then we should use those gifts consciously. Do it on purpose.

And that’s what he says all through verses six through eight. I’ve given you this gift. Use it.

I’ve given you this gift. Go out and use it. God gives us the gifts so that we can use them in his service, not just chuck them in the back of the closet and forget about them.

Those gifts are given to us to be used for the benefit of God’s people and for the advancement of his kingdom. So if you’re a believer this morning in Jesus Christ, you need to know that God has given you a spiritual gift. You may not know what it is because you might not have ever thought about it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have one.

It just means you need to spend some time with the Holy Spirit thinking about it. Even if you think this morning, I’m not good at anything, that’s not the point. You are indwelled by the same Holy Spirit.

I think I talked about this last week. You are indwelled by the same Holy Spirit that empowered Peter and John. You’re indwelled by the same Holy Spirit that empowered Paul when he wrote this.

You’re indwelled by the same Holy Spirit who empowered every one of the apostles and every believer who’s ever lived. You have access to the same Spirit of God who lives inside of you right now if you belong to Jesus Christ. And that Holy Spirit gives you the ability to serve in whatever capacity he’s called you to serve in. Sometimes God will call us to serve in some capacity.

And we say, well, no, I can’t do that. Sure you can. If he’s called you, he’ll supply the gift.

Our job is to seek his guidance on what he’s called us to do. It’s to ask him, show me, show me what you’ve called me to do. Now there are things out there, and I’ve even used them in ministry, it’s called spiritual gifts test. And they’re great, or spiritual gifts assessments, they come under different titles.

They’re great things. They’re great things. They you know, maybe show us some broad views of where those aptitudes lie.

But we need to be careful with them because there’s nothing that beats the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. And the Spirit will show you what your gift is and he’ll show you what your calling is.

I’m convinced the gifts follow the calling. I don’t think the Holy Spirit, I could be wrong in this, but I don’t think the Holy Spirit just gives us gifts and says, there you go. just shoves us out of the nest. I think he calls us to do things and he gifts us according to that call.

And so if you’ll ask him what it is he wants you to do, that’ll be a big clue to what your spiritual gift is. Because again, he’s not going to throw you out there either to do something he’s called you to do and not gift you and not equip you to do it. But a lot of times we get this backwards.

We get this backwards because we think, you know, God will call us to do something. We put a great deal of energy into figuring out what the gift is. And once we figure out what the gift is, again, we sometimes think, well, I just have this one gift.

I don’t have to worry about the others. But we figure out what this gift is, and then God calls us to do something. We say, no, Lord, it must be a mistake because that’s not my gift.

Last I checked, I mean, God doesn’t make mistakes. And if God calls us to do something, he’ll equip us for it. But we sometimes let the opportunity pass to obey God in his calling because we think, well, that’s not my gift.

so we need to ask him to show us where he would have us to serve ask him today what it is that he what is it that he wants you to do in this church in this community with your family with your co-workers with your friends what is it what is it that he’s called you to do to serve him and then he’ll show you the gift and then it becomes our job to use every gift he’s placed at our disposal to serve to the best of our ability.

So ask God how He wants you to strengthen the church, how He wants you to bring Him glory, how He wants you to help others find hope in Jesus Christ. Because if we will resolve to use the gifts that He gives us, not just shove them back in the closet and wait for something that we think better fits our gifts, but if we’ll commit to take whatever gift He gives us and we’ll use it for the purpose that He’s called us to and the purpose that He’s placed on us, we will point others to Jesus Christ. I mean, I’m not promising you here that people are going to turn to Christ in droves, but if you’re serving God as he’s called and you’re making full use of the gifts he’s given to fulfill that calling, you’re not going to be able to help but point people to Jesus Christ. And I don’t think it matters what the ministry is either. God will use it.

So we need to resolve to use those gifts to do whatever he’s called us to do. If you don’t know what that gift is this morning that you have until you focus on the calling. Ask him to show you what he wants you to do.

I believe he’ll show you the gift through that. And then Paul’s message to us this morning is get out and use it. And this morning, some of you may not even be in a place of thinking about spiritual gifts.

You just realize that you need the hope in Jesus Christ that I’ve alluded to. When I’ve said if we’ll work according to the calling that he’s given us and use these gifts, we’ll point people to the Pope in Jesus Christ, you may be thinking, what is that? And it’s a very simple message that God created us to have perfect fellowship with him, to have a relationship with him.

God created man to live in perfect harmony with him and glorify him forever and love him and be loved by him. And yet man, after all that God had done and all that God had offered, man decided instead to reject God and pursue sin. And sin is a biblical term for disobedience.

We decided to disobey God and reject him. And that rejection, that sin, has separated all of us, each of us, from God. We are not only separated from that loving relationship with him now, but we will remain separated from him in eternity in a place called hell.

And there’s not enough good that we could ever do to change the wrong, to undo the wrong that we’ve done. And so our options are to stay separated from God and be separated from God in eternity or to look at the other way that God has offered. Where we couldn’t pay for our own sin, he sent Jesus Christ to live a perfect sinless life.

God the Son took on human flesh and came to live a perfect sinless life so that he could be the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins. And when the time was right, he was nailed to the cross where he shed his blood and he died to pay for our sins in full. And because he’s done that, not because of any good that you or I can do, But just because of what Jesus Christ has done when he paid for our sins in full on the cross and rose again from the dead three days later to prove it.

Because of that, God offers us forgiveness. He offers us eternal life with him. He offers us a relationship with him.

If we’ll simply believe that Jesus Christ died to pay for our sins in full and rose again, then we’ll ask God to forgive us.