Romans 11:33-12:8
What do you think of when you hear the term, spiritual gifts?
As a pastor, I’ve sometimes had conversations like this with Christians. “I wish I knew what my spiritual gift was; I don't think I have one” they say, usually at the door from the sanctuary after I've preached about spiritual gifts.
“You know,” I tell them, “the New Testament says that all baptized believers in Jesus have at least one spiritual gift. You’re a baptized believer in Jesus, right?”
“Yes,” they say, “but I don’t think that I have a spiritual gift. Maybe I’m not a good enough Christian.”
And usually before I can continue the conversation, they’re gone.
Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the people with whom I’ve had that conversation over the years were really dodging something.
Most church members in today’s world have little interest in being disciples. In fact, some appear to have a deathly allergy to following Jesus with day-in, day-out devotion.
Discipleship entails something people hate these days: commitment.
The only clubs we’re apt to join are retail warehouses like Sam’s Club or Costco.
We shy away from commitments to employees, employers, marriage partners, family members, friends, neighbors, or the Church.
I suspect then that many Christians who claim not to have a spiritual gift, even though God’s Word insists that they do, are basically saying, “I only want Jesus as heavenly fire insurance; the flames of hell don’t appeal to me. But I don’t want to get involved with the Church or finding my spiritual gifts. If I did that, it might change the way I live my life. And, really, my life is way too busy right now for me to add the complication of discipleship or being accountable to God or the Church for whatever spiritual gift God may or may not have given to me. I don’t have a spiritual gift. Now, I’m off for lunch and the game.”
In today’s Gospel lesson, Peter confessed that Jesus was and is the Son of God--that phrase meaning that Jesus is God--and the long-awaited Messiah, God’s anointed King. In subsequent verses of Matthew and in the other gospels, we see that Simon Peter, whose nickname of Peter, petros, given to him by Jesus, means Rock, was about as dumb as a rock when it came to understanding all that his confession of Jesus meant.
But as clueless as Peter was before Jesus died and rose, do you imagine for one moment that he thought that faith in Jesus didn’t mean changing the way he lived and thought?
To follow Jesus as a disciple is to submit to a process of continual change.
And, if we honestly survey our lives, we must readily confess that there are lots of changes to be made!
Every Christian needs, at some time, to deal with an important question: If Jesus died and rose to give all who turn from sin and believe in Him new life, how do we dare not put our whole lives at His disposal to heed His call as His disciples?
All Christians are called to believe in Jesus, to live in daily repentance and renewal, to seek, in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, to love God and to love neighbor and to make disciples.
But the spiritual gifts our second lesson addresses today are God’s imprint on your life as a disciple. Spiritual gifts are the topic of the middle part of today’s second lesson.
Take a look, please, at Romans 12:3-8.
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you,” Paul writes in verse 3. “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
Disciples saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ are enabled to look at themselves with clear-eyed judgment. They don’t affect a false humility. And they don’t see themselves through the prism of self-righteousness, either. God helps us to see ourselves as we are: Sinners saved by grace, loved by God, still evidencing imperfection, but given a particular design for serving in God’s kingdom as saved and confident children of God.
Whatever the maturity of our faith, Paul is saying, God will help us to see exactly what we need to see when it comes to our role in His Church at any given time.
Read on, please: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Listen: Christianity has nothing to do with the rugged individualism our culture so often celebrates.
It’s not us against the world.
It’s not even God and us against the world.
For the Christian, it’s we believers in Jesus in the world, together, praying for each other, encouraging each other, being accountable to each other, growing together, each of us parts of one single body, the Body of Christ.
The Church is not meant to be an association of individuals who show up for weekly Sunday worship 1.3-times a month (the current average attendance record of North American Christians); the Church is a mosaic God is fashioning into a single, eternal organism with one purpose--to be and make disciples--by reaching up to God, reaching into one another, reaching out to others to make disciples and serve neighbor.
Each of we believers in Christ belong to God and to each other.
When any of us who are part of Christ’s Church neglect the unique role God has given to us in the congregational fellowship, that fellowship is less than what God intends for it to be, for its members and for the world He calls us to reach for Him.
When each of us who are part of the Church fulfill our unique roles as the Body of Christ, the Church is whole, able to be and do all that God has called us to be and do, both as individuals and as the Church.
To put it simply: We need each other. When we hold back from using our gifts for the good of the Church and its witness to the world, the Church itself isn't fully alive to all that God calls it to be.
When we’re all in, we’re all alive.
Verse 6: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” In other words, every Christian has a spiritual gift.
Paul goes on to talk about seven spiritual gifts, “If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”
Do you know what Paul is saying in a nutshell? You have at least one spiritual gift from God, use it. To paraphrase Nike, “Just do it!”
“But what’s my gift?” you might be wanting to scream right now. Let me give you a few “field-tested” ways of finding your gifts.
First, try to participate in a ministry of the congregation. If it works, it might express some aspect of your spiritual giftedness. If it doesn’t, move on to try something else.
Some of you have heard me tell how at the church I served in Cincinnati, I got behind a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity in a big way. I encouraged our folks to help build a home in New Richmond. I felt that I needed to lead by example. So, I showed up, along with about fifteen of our folks each Saturday morning to help out.
Finally, one Saturday, a member of our congregation, Steve, pulled me aside and said, very lovingly, “Look, Mark, we all have our gifts. This isn’t yours. Please don’t come back or you’re liable to get yourself or someone else killed.” I knew that construction work didn't express any spiritual gift I had.
Second, and this was exemplified in my interaction with Steve, listen to the feedback of other committed Christians.
“Do I have the gift of leadership?” a man asked a pastor. “The easiest way to make a determination on that,” the pastor said, “is to turn around and see if anyone’s following.” The man said that no one seemed to follow him and was a bit disappointed.
That’s understandable; we all like to think of ourselves as the general not the buck private. But our spiritual gifts don’t make us any more or less important to God or the Church; they simply give us the tools to do the specific calls God gives to us within the Church.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:24: “...God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it…”
I think that we’re all going to be surprised when we believers in Jesus arrive at the heavenly banquet after we’ve risen from the dead to see how many unassuming people with gifts like servanthood are sitting at the dais, while the preachers who strove to exercise gifts like teaching, leadership, and shepherding are sitting in the very back, just inside the door.
All who believe in Jesus will be there of course, saved by God’s amazing grace. But, as Jesus says “...the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16)
So, to find your gift, first, participate in a ministry and find out if it fits and second, listen to what other Christians tell you. Third, pray and really ponder God’s Word.
I began to suspect I had the gift of teaching when, as I considered the words of Bible, I found myself standing up, pacing around, struggling to find ways to teach others what God was teaching me in His Word.
I never wanted to be a pastor. Never. In fact, when I was growing up, my grandfather, to whom I was close, always warned me to stay away from pastors. "They're all lazy," he told me. "They work one day a week and then want to take your money for it." He told me about pastors he'd known who he said had basically run easy money-making rackets, but really didn't care about God or people.
So, I really didn't want to be a pastor. I had other plans.
But, increasingly, I sensed God telling me--and mature Christians were confirming--“This is My gift to you. This is your calling. This is what I made you for. This is your obligation to Me and to the Church.”
I tried to say, “No.” But God would not let me go.
When I finally bowed to God’s will and recognized the gift that He was giving to me for the good of Christ’s Church, I felt a great burden lifted from me. I told a friend, who was also wrestling with his place in God's kingdom, “It’s like a boulder’s been taken from my shoulder.” I felt that way even though I was working two jobs in order to go to school and support our household. I remember one night being in the stock room of Sears, where I'd taken a part-time job and just praying, "Thank You, God" for finally showing me how He wanted me to use my gifts to His glory!
Look: It isn’t just preachers who are given gifts or calls from God. As a baptized believer in Christ, you’re part of Christ’s body, the Church. You have an indispensable gift and calling from God. God has given you your gifts and your life experiences to be used by God in the ministries of the Church in this time, in this place, in this congregation. Truly, if you don't exercise your spiritual gifts, the special calling God has just for you will not get done. And that would be tragic!
So, please, if you feel that don’t have a gift or have never sought to find it, begin praying today that God will help you find your gift. Risk failure by trying a ministry in which you’ve not been involved before. Listen to the wisdom of fellow Christians. Pray and ponder God’s Word.
Your spiritual gift given to you by God, for the good of the Church and the glory of God, is just waiting to be unwrapped. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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