Sermon Transcript

0:00:00.0

Well, this is week two of the “I Resolve” series, and we’re talking about making New Year’s Resolutions.  It’s the time of the year when we do things like that.  And we started out last week by talking about the resoluteness that we need in three areas of life.  We just broke it down into the resolution of our time, our talent, and our treasure.  Last week we began by saying in a broader sense, “I resolve to view my life as a steward, not an owner,” making that transition in the Christian life from an ownership mentality—where we say, “It’s my time, and these are my gifts and talents and even my treasure, my money, my resources”—to a stewardship worldview that says, “No, all of life is a sacred trust.  All of life is a stewardship that God has given to me- my time, my talents and gifts, even my treasure.”  And with an understanding that one day I will stand before the Lord.  The Bible says to Christians, all of us, every one of us will appear before the judgment seat of Christ.  And that is for believers.  And I believe that that judgment when we stand before our Lord, He will evaluate us in a number of different ways.  Not in terms of whether we get into heaven.  No, that was taken care of through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  No, this is for believers, for their works since they came to Christ.  Even how we manage this sacred trust of time, talent, and treasure will be evaluated on the final day of judgment.  So, as we begin a new year, it’s a good time to say, “I resolve, in a broad sense, to view my life and to live my life as a steward, not an owner, embracing the sacred trust that God has given to me.”  Last week we talked about resolving the stewardship of our time, that brief little fragment of eternity that God has given to us as a sacred trust and a solemn stewardship.  And today we want to talk about resolving the stewardship of our talent.

0:02:06.8

By the way, the word “resolve” means to come to a definite or earnest decision about something.  The problem is a lot of us make New Year’s resolutions, but we lose our resolve about 30 days from now, maybe 60 days from now.  And we start the year with firm intent, kind of with a bang, and we end the year with a bit of a whimper and sad regrets.  We’re going to change that today.  We’re going to start the year saying, “I resolve some things.”

0:02:36.0

Today we want to say, “I resolve to be a faithful steward of the gifts and the talents that God has given to me.”  Will you say that with me?  I resolve to be a faithful steward of the gifts and the talents that God has given to me.”  You know, when my kids were in high school in northern Virginia in the Washington, D.C., area, they went to a secondary school that had what they called a GT program.  It was courses that could be offered to those that were gifted and talented.  And you could apply.  You could sign up.  They evaluated it some way.  If you were gifted and talented in math, you could take the math GT courses.  If you were gifted and talented in science and biology and those kinds of things, you could take the GT classes in that area.  I suppose if you were gifted and talented in…you name the field, name the area of study, they had GT classes in that area.  Now, the reality was not everybody was gifted and talented.  And that caused a little bit of stress for some students, for some parents.  “What do you mean? My kid’s not gifted and talented as you measure gift and talent?”  That was just the public school education system.  For those that achieved well that demonstrated a gifting and a talent in a certain area, there was an academic track for them.

0:04:01.9

Well, I’ve got good news for you today.  If you call yourself a Christian, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you are a born-again follower of Jesus Christ, you are gifted and talented.  Why is that? Because the Holy Spirit is giving you at least one spiritual gift and maybe more.  And that’s what we want to talk about today.  When you became a believer in Jesus Christ, think of it this way.  There was a salvation package that involved the forgiveness of your sins, eternal life, a home in heaven, and guess what?  The Holy Spirit deposited in you a spiritual gift or gifts designed to be used as you engage and do life and ministry in a local assembly like this.  But designed to help build up and strengthen the body of Christ.    The church, the body of Christ, is a gifted and talented operation.  The question is, have you discovered your gift?  And better yet, have you deployed…not employed, but deployed your gift in service to God and in service to the body of Christ. I want to talk about that this morning.

0:05:19.2

Probably the most extensive discussion on spiritual gifts in the New Testament is found in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  1 Corinthians 12.  Also chapter 14 he addresses it as well.  Ironically, 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, is intentionally placed right in the middle of that.  And here’s why.  The Corinthian church was kind of a messed up a church.  Most of the believers there came out of paganism, as we’ll discover.  And all of this stuff about Jesus and the church and…It was just new to them. And they had a lot of misconceptions.  There were fights.  There were divisions.  They had turned pastors into celebrities.  “I am of Paul.”  “No, I really like Peter.”  “I think Apollos…he’s my guy.”  And they turned the role of pastor into your favorite celebrity.  And they had questions.  They had problems.  And Paul writes 1 Corinthians, the first letter—and there are two of them, 1 and 2 Corinthians—to address some of the chaos going on, to answer some of their questions.  Part of their questions and their chaos revolved around the work of the Holy Spirit and especially spiritual gifts.

0:06:38.0

Ironically again, it’s found in chapter 12, his answers, and in chapter 14.  But he inserts 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter.  Understand, we often take that out of its context, but in its context Paul was trying to say to a church that had just kind of gone off the rail when it comes to spiritual gifts, he says, “You’ve forgotten the most important gift, and that’s to love.  To love one another.”  So let’s just keep that in mind as we resolve the stewardship of our gifts and our talents.

0:07:11.7

1 Corinthians 12 is where we’ll spend most of our time.  And I just want to draw out of it what I call a short course in spiritual gifts.  Just a short course, three or four thoughts here that we derive from the text of scripture.  And the first one is this- as Christians we should not be unaware of the Holy Spirit’s work.  Look at it, beginning in verse 1.  Paul says, “Now concerning spiritual gifts.”  He’s not getting around to the topic of spiritual gifts and their questions.  He says, “Concerning speaking gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.”  Don’t be unaware.  “You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”

0:08:07.8

Now, there were a lot of people back 2000 years ago in the church of Corinth—and a lot of people today, quite frankly—who are rather uninformed and unaware of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  In some churches it’s all about the Holy Spirit.  In some churches, it’s all about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is big, but Jesus, the second member of the trinity, and God the Father are kind of small.  All about the Holy Spirit.  In other churches, the Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the trinity.  We never talk about the Holy Spirit because we don’t want to be weird like those people down the street.

0:08:37.7

Granted, the Holy Spirit is the shy member of the trinity.  Why?  Because His job is always to point people to Jesus.  If you’re in a church and it’s all about the Holy Spirit, something is slightly out of balance there.  And the Holy Spirit would be very uncomfortable standing in the spotlight.  No, He points the spotlight to Jesus and always glorifies Him.  And that said, there is a whole big theology and understanding of the Holy Spirit we must grasp.  And this is not the time for that.  Pneumatology as we call it, the theology of the Spirit, is a fascinating study.  And I can only give you a short course on a portion of His ministry, which is the gifting of the body of Christ.

0:09:26.8

But this church in Corinth, these are people who came out of paganism.  They weren’t like the early church in Jerusalem that had generations, if not decades and centuries of experience being the chosen people of God.  They were coming out of Judaism and were taking all that they had learned in the Old Testament and all that God had taught them through the sacrifices and through being in a covenant relationship with him.  They just had to tweak that a little bit and understand that Jesus was the fulfillment of all of that as Messiah.

0:10:03.3

The Corinthian church, they’re coming out of Roman paganism.  I mean, it is just so…and it’s all new to them.  And they’re confused, and they don’t understand all of this.  What Paul is saying in these early verses is, “Listen, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to clarify who Jesus is to you.  And anybody who says Jesus is accursed, that isn’t the Spirit of God speaking.”  How important it is as believers in Jesus Christ to have the discernment to know when the Spirit is speaking and when He is not.  And Paul says when somebody stands up and says Jesus is accursed, that is not of God.  That is not of the Holy Spirit.

0:10:38.4

Likewise, nobody who says Jesus is Lord…and this phrase “Jesus is Lord” was an early church creed.  It was a creed that kind of summarized some doctrine and theology for them.  He says nobody can say Jesus is Lord and really understand that apart from the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.  So he says don’t be unaware of the work of the Holy Spirit.  He says that as a background to this conversation about spiritual gifts.

0:11:09.3

Number two, in terms of the short course, the body of Christ, which is the church, is a diverse and unified living organism that functions according to the spiritual gifts distributed to each member by the Holy Spirit.  Now, that’s a mouthful, so let me say it again.  The body of Christ is a diverse and unified living organism that functions according to the spiritual gifts distributed to each member by the Holy Spirit.  Let’s read on beginning in verse 4.  Paul says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”  

0:12:00.3

Now, if you see something said once in the Bible, it’s worth paying attention to.  When the Bible repeats itself, when you see the same word repeated over and over again, you need to mark that and pay close attention.  Three times Paul uses the word “varieties”.  There are varieties of gift.  There are varieties of service.  There are varieties of activities in the body of Christ.  And three times he uses the word “same”.  Same Lord, same Spirit, same God.  In other words, the way you describe the church in the body of Christ—if I could just use this phrase—it’s the same kind of difference in me and in you. That sounds kind of counterintuitive.  But there is something about the body of Christ where there is sameness and there is difference.  There is diversity, and there is unity all at the same time.  A difference in terms of the variety of gifts and expressions and service in the body of Christ, but it’s the same Lord, the same God, the same Spirit.

0:13:07.9

I think what Paul is trying to say and what the Spirit of God is trying to say to us is that the body of Christ—this universal thing we call the church, which is defined by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and is centered on Jesus, a true and living church—we should shy away from franchises, clones and copycat churches.  Why is that?  Well, there is some things that should be the same.  And those two things…The list there is very small- same God, same Lord, same Spirit.  I would even add same message, same mission.  That ought to be across the board in any gospel-believing church.  It’s a gospel-centered message, a Jesus-centered message, a cross-centered message, a message about His cross and His resurrection.  And it’s the same mission.  Jesus gave us the mission.  Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching to observe all that I have commanded them to do.  And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.  That mission He gave us 2000 years ago, it’s not up for debate.  It’s not up for discussion.  Don’t tinker with that.  Beyond that, how we do church and the unique expression in the church varies from place to place.

0:14:36.7

I get a little bit nervous when I meet pastors and churches in certain settings that had great success and all this.  And they take their success, and they invite everybody to a conference.  And they tell everybody how to do church, and it spawns these copycats and these franchises.  And you go this church and that church, and it all looks the same.  There was even a time in Southern Baptist life not many decades ago where, with 40,000, 50,000 churches Southern Baptist churches across the nation, the largest Protestant denomination in the world, you could look inside any of those churches at 11:05 on a Sunday morning and know exactly what was happening.  Because at 11:05 we sang this song.  At 11:08 and 30 seconds we took up the offering.  At 11:27 the deacon came up and gave a prayer.  And at 11:31 the pastor preached and so on.  Copycats, franchises, clones.  It’s not the same kind of different in me.

0:15:35.3

Think of this way.  Let me use a human example.  You and I are the same in the sense that we are all human.  But you look inside any of our DNA, and the presence of that DNA strand, let alone the combination of millions of possibilities of DNA strands and DNA combinations, makes up what is unique in you and in me.  And what Paul is saying here is that there is some sameness in this and variety at the same time.  Because when the Spirit of God gifts you and gifts me and then brings all of us together in a unique local church setting, well, it’s the same kind of different.  We shouldn’t look like…except for the message and the mission and one God, one Lord, one baptism and one Spirit.  Other than that, we shouldn’t look like every other church out there.  Because there is a different combination of gifts and talents and expressions willed by the Holy Spirit Himself.  Does that make sense?  The body of Christ is diverse and unified, and it’s a living organism. By the way, this is not a human organization.  There are organizational elements to help us run efficiently.  But this is a living organism called the body of Christ.

0:17:07.9

Number three, the Holy Spirit distributes spiritual gifts according to His will so that Christians can serve the common good in the church.  Let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 12 and look at verse 7.  Paul says it this way- “To each,”—that is, to each believe in Jesus Christ—“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  Why has the Holy Spirit given you and given me a spiritual gift or spiritual gifts?  It’s not so we can hoard it and be selfish with it and say, “Oh, look at my spiritual gift.  Aren’t I cool?”  No, it’s to share it. It’s to use it for the common good, because the body of Christ grows stronger when each of us discover our gift and then deploy it in service to the Lord and to the body of Christ in a local church setting.

0:18:09.0

Let me turn that around in a negative way.  When we fail to discover our gift, when we are ignorant of our spiritual gift or uninformed, or informed but fail to deploy it, we do so to the common bad in a church.  And the church becomes weak and inefficient to the extent that there are some that are not exercising their gift for the common good.

0:18:36.8

Now, what these verses also tell us is it is the Holy Spirit who determines what gift you get.  Did you see that?  Look at it in verse 11.  Paul says, “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” (0:19:00.1)  It’s the Holy Spirit who determines what gift He’s going to give me and what gift He’s going to give you.  Gifts are not determined by faithful service.  They’re not earned.  Like your salvation, which is by grace and through faith and not by works, lest any man should boast,” so the gifts of the Spirit are graces or gifts of the Spirit.  You don’t earn them.  You don’t pray for them.  You don’t work hard for them.  You don’t look at another person who has a gift and envy what they have.  Because the Spirit of God of His own free will and of His own sovereignty has said, “No, Bob over here needs this gift and this gift.  Julie over here needs this gift and this gift.  Now, I’m going to move Julie and Bob into this church with this congregation of people.  And this variety of gifts that are present in this church will do wonders in this body if everybody is on board.” It’s according to His will (0:20:00.0) that gifts are distributed.

0:20:04.8

And that’s why He asks some rhetorical questions at the end of chapter 12 and dispels the idea that everybody ought to have the same gift, let alone certain kinds of gifts.  He says in verse 29, “Are all apostles?  Are all prophets?  Are all teachers?  Do all work miracles?  Do all possess gifts of healing?  Do all speak with tongues?  Do all interpret?”  These are rhetorical questions, and the implication is no.  No, anybody who tells you, you have to possess certain gifts—and especially if you are a super spiritual Christian, you will possess the gift of speaking in tongues—anybody who says that has glossed over verses 29-31.  Because Paul clearly says here not everybody is going to speak in tongues.  Not everybody is going to interpret tongues.  Not everybody is a prophet.  The Holy Spirit chooses of His own will and of His own sovereignty this person gets this gift, this person gets that gift.  And we become an interdependent living organism.  We need everybody on board.

0:21:19.2

The fourth, the body of Christ, the church, well, is like the human body.  I’ve already alluded to that with my DNA analogy.  But Paul goes on and, kind of tongue in cheek and, I imagine, a little bit of laughter in the background at the Corinthian congregation, he writes these words.  Verse 12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.   For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”  And then he goes on to say, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye,” …how crazy is that, right?  Just one big eye.  He says, “Where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.  The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’  On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”

0:22:50.0

Back in ancient times and during waring times, the army that conquered the other army would take people prisoners and capture them and cut off their thumb and one of the toes on their feet.  You say, “Well, that’s not much.”  Well, without a thumb, they weren’t able to grab a weapon.  And without all five of their toes, they weren’t able to march as well.  Even what seems to be an indispensable part of the body was vital to being a soldier.  And so it is in the body of Christ.  There is nobody that is indispensable.  Just because somebody has a big mouth like a preacher or can sing a song or do something very visible, that is no more important than somebody who is shaking a hand at the door or rocking babies in the nursery or you name the place of service that is needed.

0:23:46.7

Here is the problem that I see happening in a lot of churches, and it’s true of us to whatever percentage and extent you want to guesstimate.  But if the church is the body of Christ and it’s kind of like the human body, a lot of churches operate like spiritual amputees.  Because there are certain parts of the body that are not in operation and are missing.  You see, the Holy Spirit chooses your gift.  I think the Holy Spirit even guides you to a particular local assembly where, in His sovereignty and according to His will, He sees the collection of spiritual gifts in that place.  Remember, the same kind of difference in me.  And He wants an expression in that local assembly.  But the problem is there are too many parts of the body that are sitting comfortably in the pews and taking it all in and not serving.  And we’re like a spiritual amputee. We’re like an amputee with one leg trying to run the hundred-meter dash in the Olympics.  And you just can’t get there because there is a hand over here or a leg over here or an eye or a mouth or a little bitty thumb or a little bitty toe that either hasn’t discovered their spiritual gift or, having discovered it, has decided, “I am not going to deploy it.  I am not going to get involved for the common good, for the building up of the body of Christ.”  Have I created enough angst in your spirit? Hopefully, it’s the Holy Spirit who does that.  But let’s move on.

0:25:27.1

Maybe you’re asking the question, “Pastor, all that is great, but I need a definition of a spiritual gift.  What is a spiritual gift?”  I’m glad you asked.  A spiritual gift is a special enabling, maybe even a supernatural enabling is a way to express it.  A special or supernatural enabling the Holy Spirit gives to believers in order to build up the body of Christ.

0:25:51.5

Now, whenever I talk about speaking gifts, the question that often comes up is, “Pastor, what’s the difference between a natural talent and a spiritual gift?”  Again, I’m glad you asked.  You may look at me or any pastor like me and say, well, you have the spiritual gift of preaching and teaching that kind of looks like a natural gift of teaching you could use in a university setting or on a speaker’s bureau or something like that.  And you’re absolutely right.  The difference between the two in my estimation is the spiritual enabling.  The special enabling of the Holy Spirit who takes what looks like a natural talent and anoints it and enables it in a way that it yields a spiritual result and a spiritual impact.  I could go out on a speaker’s tour.  I could do time management seminars, all kinds of different seminars in the corporate world and probably do a decent job of that.  I mean, I’ve been speaking for 25 years.  I’ve developed that talent over the years.  But it wouldn’t have the spiritual impact that, when the Holy Spirit gets ahold of that natural talent and enables it in a spiritual and supernatural kind of way.

0:27:02.0

Likewise, there are some gifts of the Spirit that sound very spiritual.  You know, you don’t think of miracles and healings and speaking in tongues at a corporate seminar.  All right, I get that. But sometimes there is this gray line between natural talent and a spiritual gift.  It’s all about the Holy Spirit’s enabling.

0:27:23.6

Now, having said that, let’s get specific with some specific gifts.  And there are four passages of scripture in the New Testament that talk about spiritual gifts and list out specifically those gifts.  That’s Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4.  I’m not going to take the time to read through all of those texts.  Do that at your own liking.  But when you read those…And no passage has a list of all of the gifts.  You compile the gifts from those four passages, and you come up with your list.  And I want to categorize all the gifts from those four passages into three areas- what we call sign gifts, supporting gifts, and serving gifts.  And let me talk about each.

0:28:20.8

First are the sign gifts.  These are gifts of miracles and healings, the speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, some even say a supernatural word of knowledge or wisdom that you might have.  How are we to understand these sign gifts?  They’re called sign gifts because they were used purposefully during the apostolic era as a sign that authenticated the message and the messenger.  Now, there is a lot of discussion, there is a lot of debate among good, godly people that debate whether or not these gifts are operative in the church today like they were operative in the 1^st century. And there’s no reason to get mean and nasty about this.  Remember, 1 Corinthians 13 comes between 12 and 14, and Paul intentionally put it there.  So let’s love one another even though we might agree to disagree.

0:29:20.0

And this church, though…and you may remember not too long ago when I was teaching through the Book of Acts 1-12, we touched on this matter of what was unique and purposeful during what we call the apostolic era.  I define the apostolic era as the time of the apostles. I’m not apostle Ron. It would be wrong and unbiblical for me to call myself or present myself as apostle Ron because the definition of an apostle is somebody who has seen the risen Christ.  And during the apostolic authority when the church was just getting started and when this Bible that we hold in our hands wasn’t even written—the New Testament wasn’t.  They didn’t have 1 Corinthians and Romans and Galatians and the full canon of scripture—the apostles showed up and spoke in apostolic authority.  In other words, they said, “We’ve seen the risen Christ with our own eyes.  We are eyewitnesses of His majesty.”  Throughout Jesus’s ministry and even the apostles’, the question kept coming back from the religious leaders, “By what authority do you say the things you say and do the things you do?”  Theirs was apostolic authority.  “We’ve seen Him.  We’re eyewitnesses.”  And during that time, God kind of supercharged and authenticated their authority with signs and wonders and miracles.  It’s not that God today cannot do signs and wonders and miracles.  He can do anything He wants to do.  The question is, is it necessary?  And I say—and you can go into the scriptures and find evidence of this—that there was a time when these gifts would fade.  Some would cease on their own.  Why?  Because the church was beyond the apostolic era.  It was now growing up.  We had the full canon of scripture.  I don’t speak in apostolic authority.  I speak with biblical authority.  This is not Ron Jones’s best advice about things.  I’m saying this on the authority of scripture, scripture they didn’t even have at that time.

0:31:30.2

And keep this in mind, too, when it comes to signs and wonders and miracles and all of that.  Again, God can do anything He wants to do at any time, anywhere, anyplace, and through whom He wants to do it.  But He always wants us to believe by taking Him at His Word.  Not because we saw some divine manifestation of some miracle.  And if there’s any miracle that’s going to encourage us to believe, Jesus said, “Look at My resurrection.”  He pointed to the sign of Jonah, three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, just like the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth and then rise again from the dead.  You don’t need more of a miracle than that to believe, is the idea.  So the purpose of the sign miracles was to authenticate things during the apostolic era for all the reasons that I just said.  I know there’s a lot of debate in the body of Christ about that, but that’s where we’ve historically been as a church here at Atlantic Shores.

0:32:35.6

The second group are the supporting gifts.  I could also call these the equipping gifts.  These are the gifts of pastor, teacher, evangelist, apostle and prophet.  And they are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.  Paul also mentions them in Ephesians 4 when he says, “God has given to the church pastors, teachers, evangelists, apostles and prophets,”—now, listen to this— “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.”

0:33:05.4

Over the years when I’ve had an opportunity to sit down with a pastor search committee if I was, you know, moving from this church to that church, I always have a lot of fun by asking that esteemed search committee, “So what again is my job description as the lead pastor?”  “Well, Pastor, we’re hiring you and paying you to do the work here.”  That kind of an expression.  And I just smile and very gently say, “No, you’re not.”  First of all, I’m not for hire.  That’s called a hireling, and a hireling would be gone at the most immediate expression of conflict and all of that.  Jesus warned against the hireling.  You’re calling a pastor who has been called of God, gifted by God with one of these supporting or equipping gifts- pastor, teaching, evangelist, apostle, prophet.  And my job and the job of the pastoral staff is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry because this is a “all hands-on deck” operation.  All hands, all eyes, all ears, all lips, all thumbs, all little toes.  Everybody needs to…and God has given to the church…the Holy Spirit has gifted some to serve in these supporting roles, these equipping roles to get everybody else out of the stands, as it were, and onto the playing field.  Does that make sense?  Most times in our culture these supporting equipping gifts lead to a vocational decision.  That’s not true across the world and other cultures, but oftentimes it is in ours.

0:34:52.1

Then the third category are the serving gifts.  The gift of administration, encouragement, faith, giving, hospitality, leadership, mercy, service, wisdom.  I may have left off a few there.  This is the vast majority of people in the body of Christ.  Finding one or more gifts to serve the Lord and to serve the body of Christ, to build up and strengthen the body of Christ.  That’s how the church operates.  We’re not a human organization.  We’re a living, spiritual organism led by the Holy Spirit who has gifted us.  He’s given all the gifts that are necessary for a church to thrive.  But the sad reality is most churches are struggling to run the race with endurance because too many parts of the body aren’t showing up or are comfortably sitting in the pews.

0:35:55.6

So where do we go from here?  What are we going to resolve to do in this new year?  Well, we’re going to resolve to be faithful stewards of the gifts and the talents that God has given to us.  Where do we begin with that?  Number one, we want to discover your divine design.  I resolve to discover my divine design.  You know, one of the greatest discoveries of life is how God has wired you, how He has made you.  Maybe you’ve been working in a vocation or serving in an area of the church where you are so unfulfilled, you’ve just had it.  You’ve been down that road before, but somebody stuck you in the corner with 2-year-olds.  And that’s the last place you want to be.  And you’re not going to go down that road again.  No, we’re here to help you discover how God has wired you, how He’s gifted you.  You will find no greater joy, no greater peace, no greater thrill in life than to operate and function within your area of giftedness and your passion.  So first, we resolve to discover what that is.  Maybe nobody has ever sat down with you before and helped you discover you.  I think…and this is a whole other subject…this is a parent’s job, too.  We’ve worked hard as parents to study our kids and to find those unique areas God has wired them, their personalities, their temperament, their passion, their natural talent, yes, spiritual gifts, the whole package, help them come to an awareness of that.  Some of you have never had anybody do that for you, let alone a church.  So discover my divine design.

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Secondly, I resolve to deploy my gifts by serving the body of Christ.  You know, this is not just head knowledge.  This is something we put into practice.  This is hands and feet.  Romans 12:6, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,” Paul says, “let us use them.”  Let us use them.  And I’m going to encourage you to make that resolute decision, that definite and earnest decision to say, “This is the year, this is the day I stop sitting on the sidelines and watch other people get blessed by serving.”  And if that doesn’t encourage you to, just remember, this is a sacred trust.  God has gifted you.  He’s given you a gift and expects you to use it in the body of Christ.  One day you and I will stand before Him.  And He’ll say, “What did you do with what I gave you?” And if we’re like the guy in Jesus’s parable who says, “Well, I took it and buried it in the ground,” that won’t be a very good conversation between you and the Lord or me and the Lord if we do that.  No, given the differing gifts “according to the grace given to us, let us use them.”  Amen?

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