So, What's Your Gift?

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Well, if you'll open your Bibles with me, and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we're going to read verses 4-11.
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The Apostle Paul writing, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
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There are varieties of service, but the same Lord.
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And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone.
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To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
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For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit.
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To another faith by the same Spirit.
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To another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
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To another the working of miracles.
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To another prophecy.
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To another the ability to distinguish between the spirits.
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To another various kinds of tongues.
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And another the interpretation of tongues.
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All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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Lord, I cannot thank you enough for your word.
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It is amazing and it speaks to the very need of every believer of every age.
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It is a timeless truth and a timeless message.
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And so Father, as we look at how this message can be applied to us today as a church, I pray that we would, by your grace, see in it the needs that we have, the things which we need to change and move forward, the ways in which we might grow closer in our conformity to Christ.
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I pray, Lord, as I always do, please keep me from error as I preach, keep me tied to the post of the truth.
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And I pray, oh, by your mercy, Father, that what I say will go out into the ears of the hearers, that it would be mixed with faith and that which is true would abide in their hearts and would be used by you to draw them closer to you.
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Father, for the believers, that they might see what gifts they've been given and thereby be able to understand their place in the church and their importance here at Sovereign Grace.
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And Lord, maybe for those who are not believers, that this might be to them a message of call to repentance and faith.
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Lord, for the children in the room who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that today might be a day that they hear the call.
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And that they would see Jesus and his majesty.
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That they would want to follow him all their lives, Lord, for the unbelieving elderly person, for the unbelieving married person, for the unbelieving unmarried person, Lord, for anyone who is here who has not yet bowed the knee to Christ.
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Lord, may today be the day where you work that greatest miracle of all, whereby you bring regeneration to a soul and give them the gift of eternal life.
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Through faith in Jesus Christ.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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This past week, I read an article that said approximately 100 churches will close their doors this week in America and that that will continue on and on.
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Unless something intervenes or changes today, less than 20 percent of all Americans attend church on a regular basis.
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And as a result, churches are dying in large numbers.
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And this is a trend that appears to be accelerating.
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It's already accelerated overseas.
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In Europe, places that were once great and grand churches attended in the numbers numbering in the thousands are now nightclubs and clinics and all kinds of other things where the church buildings have been gutted and they've gone from they look like cathedrals on the outside and on the inside, much different.
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And it's happening here.
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And this hits me close to home because just this last week I was not here and I had planned to visit a friend's church who lives near my mom.
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And I was sort of excited to get to go visit his church.
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And so I called him the night before, Saturday night.
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I'm getting ready to drive down.
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And so I called him and I said, hey, brother, what time does service start tomorrow? He said, we don't have a church anymore.
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It's closed.
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We're going to another church.
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And so I found out what that church was.
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And I went there and thank God it was a solid Bible believing church.
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It was a Keystone Heights Presbyterian Church.
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Brother Rob preached a great message, but it was a small church, too.
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And this article that I read made the point that church participation is just not a priority.
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For many in our country and what bothers me is is not just that, but what Tom Askell, Pastor Tom Askell, pointed this out, he said it's more concerning to him, not just the church isn't a priority for Americans, it's a church isn't a priority for Christians.
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It's not just a problem among the unchurched, but church members who are with increasing regularity willing to make church attendance optional.
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I think one of the worst phrases that has crept into the Christian life in the last few generations is this, are we going to church today? Because that attitude is the attitude of optionality.
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It's optional.
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And that's undoubtedly uttered by the thousands every Sunday morning, Mom, are we going to church today? Because it's optional.
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Dad, are we going to church today? Because it's optional.
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Kids, do you think we should go to church today? Because obviously they're the ones who should make the decision.
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And that in mind, I want to turn my attention to Paul's words in First Corinthians chapter 12, because I want you to think of this question when I'm going through today's text, how in the world can I be actively using my gifts in the church if I'm not reliably active in the church? If the call of God is to use your gifts for the service of God's people, but you're never with God's people or you are inconsistently with God's people, how can you be actively using your gifts among God's people? How, oh, how can we make use of our gifts to edify the body when the body gathered is not our priority? I want you to notice something in this text.
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If you look at First Corinthians chapter 12, you'll notice something.
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If you read the whole chapter, the word body, which I love, my brother Andy loves the word body.
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Since he came to this church, he and I have had many, many conversations and he's always talking about the body.
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And I love it.
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It's encouraged me using that word, not that I didn't use it before, but just, you know, plus he's got that nice accent, but it's the body, you know.
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But he talks about the body and the importance of the body.
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Do you know that word body is used 18 times in just this chapter? That tells us what the focus is.
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It's translated 19 times in the ESV because at one point it's implied, but not explicitly stated in the Greek.
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So the ESV goes ahead and translates it.
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So you'll read in the ESV 19 times the word body is translated.
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Beloved, the subject is spiritual gifts, but the focus is the body.
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And there is just no biblical warrant for lone wolf believers or Christians who do not make assembling with other believers as a body a vital priority in their Christian walk.
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It's just not biblical.
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People say, can you show me a verse where it says we should gather as the church? Show me one that says we shouldn't.
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The whole Bible is written to the church.
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It's directed to the church.
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Why should I have to defend the obvious? What we're going to see today is every one of you has a gift to give.
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The title of the sermon, what's your gift? So what you ever heard that? So what's your gift? Right.
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That's the that's the subject.
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But here's that.
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Here's the here's something to consider.
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Not one of them, not one of them is intended to be just for you alone.
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It is for the body.
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You are a gift to the church.
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Your gift is a gift to the church, not to you.
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All right.
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So last time we began in verse chapter 12, verse one, two and three, we looked at the spiritual gifts.
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I just want to remind you what he says.
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He says now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren or brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant or uninformed.
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The word there without knowledge.
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You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols.
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However, you were led.
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And I talked about that last time, how all the idols were known as idols because they couldn't speak.
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Therefore, I want you to understand no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is a curse and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.
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You realize the only reason why you can proclaim Jesus as Lord with truth and confidence and a surety of spirit is because the spirit of God gave that to you.
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He gave you the gift of regeneration whereby you are able to cry out Abba, Father.
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This is what Romans eight tells us.
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We are we are we were given the adoption of sons by the work of the spirit in our hearts.
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And that's why we're able to cry out to God and know Jesus truly is our Lord.
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It's not just words, but it's our life.
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Well, now that same spirit, by the way, I think this is part of the problem with a lot of folks.
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I think they think that the spirit comes, he gives us regeneration, we become believers, and then he just sort of parks in our heart and just sort of sits there.
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Right.
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That's it.
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He came for a purpose.
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He came to give you regeneration.
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He gave you regeneration.
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You believed.
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And now he's just kind of got an apartment in your heart and he's just hanging out.
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He's just there.
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No, the same spirit that came to give you regeneration also gives you empowerment.
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And I am careful to use that word because that has been so maligned by the charismatics.
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When I say empowerment, people think that means running around in circles and clucking like a chicken or quacking like a duck or barking like a dog or saying all kinds of foolish words and falling over.
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And that's not empowerment.
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You know what the Holy Spirit empowers? Holiness.
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That's first.
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It's in his name.
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And he's empowered you and gifted you for service in his church.
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And I want to ask this question before we even really dive into the next part of the text.
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I want to ask a few probing questions.
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And if these hurt your feelings or or get you uncomfortable a little bit, it's not the intention, but that's going to just have to be okay.
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We can still be friends.
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But I want to ask you a few questions and you don't have to raise your hand.
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You can raise your heart hand inside.
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You'll know.
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Number one, how many of you know or are fairly certain of what your spiritual gifting is? I said you didn't have to raise your hand, but I appreciate those who did.
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A couple of them.
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All right.
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Now, don't again, you don't have to raise your hand.
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How many of you have no idea or believe you may have no gift at all? Don't.
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I said don't raise your hand.
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These are probing.
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These are, you know, questions in your heart, in your head.
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How about number three? This one is the one I don't don't take offense to this.
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How many of you look around and think to yourself sometimes, boy, it seems like a few of the people around here do all the work? Hmm, that can be offensive, not intended to be.
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But honestly, one of the things I'm truly convicted about is the belief that the reason why so many churches stall in the area of ministry and they eventually die is because they're not practicing the ministry of the spiritual gifts among them.
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And we we rest on two major dilemmas.
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One, the body as a whole doesn't understand the importance of being together and thus the gifts aren't being used.
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But number two, when the church is assembled, the body doesn't know how or where or when to apply the gifts given.
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So it's ignorance, it's either it's either apathy, they don't get together or ignorance.
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When they do get together, they don't know what to do.
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And this is this is an issue with the leadership, too.
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And I'm not condemning my elders or commending them, I'm saying it's an issue with all of us, because instead of oftentimes what the elders do and the deacons do is instead of finding people that are equipped to do something and placing them in those positions, we often find the first available candidate to do something.
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And we put them in that position.
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Right.
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Because we have to, because something has to be done.
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Right.
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And instead of finding out what God has uniquely gifted a person to do, we say, oh, you're willing? Here, do this.
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Willingness is the first and most important gift.
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So we take you and we put you here and then we find out six months later that really weren't what you were supposed to do.
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And now we got a drama attached to a need that was unnecessary.
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Because we've tried to put a round peg in a square hole or vice versa.
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And often the issue for that is the reason for that is because so few in our day feel obligation to ministry and because there's no obligation, there's very few pickings as to where we're going to put folks in the needs.
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And I believe this is the reason why the megachurch has become so appealing to so many people, because they provide a place that serves rather than a place to serve.
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They provide a place that provides service.
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And when you go there, rather than joining a ministry, you join the staff.
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Because what you have is you have you don't have a body doing the service.
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You have a staff.
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You have you have the you have the staff pastor.
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You have the staff teachers.
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You have the staff nursery workers.
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You have the staff youth leaders.
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You have the staff parking attendants.
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Everybody's on staff.
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And it's run like a CEO based business rather than a gift based ministry.
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I'm not here to step on toes and make you feel bad.
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And that's the worst thing in the world I could do.
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I'm here to try to encourage you to understand that this is what the church is supposed to look like.
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And because a lot of people have no desire to serve and they desire anonymity, they find these churches that are so big that they can get lost.
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You cannot get lost here.
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I will find you.
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We're too little to get lost.
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And so people leave, failing to realize that the goal of the church is to understand that we are all in this together.
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And God has not brought us together by accident.
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You are not here today by accident.
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He has granted to each one of you the ability to be here, and he's given you something as a reason for your being here.
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And only when our gifts are coming together and cohesive and united will we really be accomplishing what God has called us to do as a church.
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When this happens, we'll not be looking to simply place our first willing person into a ministry position, but instead we'll be looking for the person God has called to that position.
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And it will be obvious.
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So with all this in mind, I do want to look at verses 4 through 11, but I'm going to focus on 4 through 7, but we are going to look at the rest, but 4 through 7 really outlines the rest of the chapter.
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So this is important as far as how we understand what's being said.
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Because 4 through 7, if you're taking notes, here's 4 through 7.
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There's a variety of gifts, but the same spirit.
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So the first thing he mentions is gifts.
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Then he says there are a variety of service, but the same Lord.
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And you can write service, you can write gifts and service.
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And then there are a variety of activities and the same God who empowers them all and everyone.
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You can write activities.
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So you say gifts, service, activities.
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And interestingly enough, and I don't want to spend, I could spend an hour on this alone.
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There is a reference to the Trinity here that's often missed because we see the same spirit.
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That's a reference to the Holy Spirit.
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And then he says the same Lord.
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Koryos is almost always exclusively used of Christ, though it can at times be used of the Spirit and of the Father.
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It's almost exclusively a title of Christ.
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And then we see the word Theos, which is God, which is almost exclusively used for the Father.
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So we see here it's the same spirit, the same Lord, that is, Jesus, the same God.
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That's the Father.
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And there's a reference to the Trinity in the fact that God himself in his fullness is working among us when our gifts are working.
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And we see this here.
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And somebody says, well, the gifts, the service and the activities are all the same thing.
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Possibly, but I, and it could be that, but I want to say it this way.
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I think that one is, it builds on to the next.
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I'm going to explain how I wish, this is one of those times where I feel like I wish I just had a big board up here and could write things down.
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Maybe one day, huh? Because here's how I understand this.
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Number one, I think the gifts are best understood as those internal motivators that drive us to service.
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And then the service is the ministry of that motivation being worked out in the body.
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And the manifestation is the activities that happen as a result of that.
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So let me give it to you.
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Three M's, and I don't often do this, but the three M's I see is motivation, ministry and manifestation.
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Motivation is the gift.
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Ministry is how the gift is applied.
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And the manifestation is the visible outworking of that application.
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You say, well, what do you mean? All right.
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Let's let's break it down for easy.
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If you have, let's say God has given you a motivation toward mercy, that would that we would call that your spiritual gift of mercy.
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All right.
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Now, you are motivated by that.
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So you look around our church and your mercy motivation causes you to see a need that's not being filled.
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Let's say hospital visitation and you see that and you say there's a there's people in this church that need mercy, people who are hurting, need mercy, and it's not being done.
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So I'm going to start visiting hospitals or I'm going to start bringing people together and we're going to all visit or we're going to start a class on how to go visit hospitals.
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And we're going to have Pastor Keith come in and we're going to go through the scriptures and talk about how to do this on a practical level.
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We're going to make this happen.
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Right.
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And now we're going to go visit hospitals.
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Now, the people that are in the hospital see you coming and they see a visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit walking into their room.
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Not some crazy weird way, but I mean, they see you and they see you working out your gift in their life.
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And now it's manifest the work of the spirit in the church.
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You see how that worked? It went from motivation to ministry to manifestation.
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I'll give you an example in my own life, and I don't often use myself as an example, but sometimes it's helpful.
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Some people will be talking among people, say, Pastor, you know, your spiritual gift is preaching.
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And I'll say, well, I don't think so.
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I don't think my spiritual gift is preaching.
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And I'll tell you why.
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Public speaking is certainly a talent that God has given me that I'm thankful for.
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And it's certainly not something that I came up with on my own.
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It's something that God has naturally gifted me with.
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And I'm thankful for that.
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But I was able to do that before I became a believer in high school, I was in chorus and I played in plays and musicals.
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I was a professional magician at the age of 16.
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Speaking in front of people has never been a problem.
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But I did not have a desire to proclaim God's word or to stand for truth until I got saved.
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The motivation to proclaim God's word was nowhere in my teens.
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In fact, I was embarrassed by people who did.
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I was shied away from people who were Christians.
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And when I was around other Christians, I would sometimes be explicitly provocative just to make them blush.
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But when God changed my heart, he also changed my motivation.
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And that's why I think that that's related to the gift.
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Maybe you see it a little differently.
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But when I talk about the gift as a motivation, because I believe my spiritual gift is prophecy.
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Let me be clear.
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I do not mean that I predict the future.
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But the gift of prophecy, I understand in two ways.
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One is a man who is able to proclaim the foretelling, something that's going to happen, like the Old Testament prophets.
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But I also believe that the role of the prophet and the people of God is to proclaim God's word to the people.
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And that's what I believe is my job here to do.
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So in that sense, I believe prophecy is the gift that I'm expressing in the way that it's expressed in the church today.
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And it's because I have a desire to proclaim God's word.
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It's like Jeremiah said, it's a it's a fire pin up in my bones and I can't contain it.
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And they weren't there before I got saved.
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Now, God has honed and refined that speaking ability that I had, but it's been in relation to the gift of the desire to preach.
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So with that being said, I want to look now, I want to look at two sections of Scripture and verses 8 through 11 in 1 Corinthians 12.
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This gives us a listing of spiritual gifts, but there's another list elsewhere.
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And I want to make sure we look at both very quickly.
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Looking at the list in 1 Corinthians 12, here are the gifts that are mentioned.
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Utterance of wisdom, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, the ability to distinguish between spirits.
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Some people call that the gift of discernment.
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The gift of tongues and interpreting tongues, and that's also could be translated languages and interpreting languages.
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So that's the that's the gifts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.
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Now, turn over to Romans 12, just one book back, look at Romans chapter 12.
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If you're in your if you have your pulpit Bible or if you have your pew Bible, it's page 1205.
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All right, verse 4, Romans 12, verse 4.
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This is Paul writing a very similar, but quite different message to the Romans on a very on the same subject of spiritual gifts, he says in verse 4, he says, for as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function.
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So we, though many are one body in Christ and individually members, one of another having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.
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If prophecy, there's first one, in proportion to our faith, if service, second one, in our serving, the one who teaches and is teaching, that's three, the one who exhorts, exhortation, that's four, the one who contributes in generosity, that's five, the one who leads, that's six, the one who does acts of mercy, that's seven.
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So here we have a sevenfold list of gifts.
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And here's the thing, there are some similarities in the two lists, but there's obvious differences.
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There's some very obvious differences between what the list in 1 Corinthians says and what the list in Romans says.
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And so why? Is Paul just trying to be intentionally confusing or is there a reason why there's a difference in the two lists? Well, the first reason could be that 1 Corinthians is written earlier than Romans, and we see then in 1 Corinthians a priority being given to the more miraculous signs, such as speaking in tongues and healing.
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And in the later book of Romans, we see more priority given to the more functional, useful, ongoing things such as administration and service and leadership, those things which would be ongoing.
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That's a possible reason for the distinction between the two.
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We have the earlier gifts of the church and those that would be ongoing in Romans.
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But there's another reason that I think is also possible, and I propose this to you today.
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I don't think either list is intended to necessarily be exhaustive.
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I think Paul is using specific gifts as examples, but I don't think either list is necessarily completely full and this is all that there is.
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Moreover, it is possible that a person could be a unique combination of gifting which made their service unique to the church as the church needed.
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So with that being said, my question to you this morning is rather than what's your gift, and I know that's the title, I would ask you this.
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If you're having a difficult time trying to figure out where you fit in the grand scheme of God's kingdom, I want to ask you a question.
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What motivates you in the kingdom of God? What motivates you in the kingdom of God? And I'm going to ask you a few questions, and this is not a survey, we did spiritual gift surveys in seminary, I don't know if you brothers have ever done them before.
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Those of you have been in other churches, give out like a handout, check off on this.
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And if you have more fives and you have sixes, then you're this.
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If you have more threes and you have fours, then you're that.
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I don't know how helpful they really are, but I do know that some people need to be asked and have to question some things.
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I'm going to ask you a few questions.
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Maybe this will help you, maybe it won't.
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I don't know.
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I hope that it would.
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What are you motivated by? Are you motivated to reveal sin and proclaim truth? Does that motivate you? Maybe you have the gift of prophecy.
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Are you motivated by loving and meeting the physical needs of others? Maybe you have the gift of service.
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Are you motivated to research and clarify truth in the people of God? Maybe you have the gift of teaching.
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Are you motivated to stimulate the growth of others? Through encouragement, that's the gift of exhortation.
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That's a blessed gift.
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Maybe you're motivated to share your assets to further the ministry of someone else.
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Maybe you have the gift of generosity and giving.
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You're not the guy going, but you're the guy sending, holding the rope as he goes.
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Are you motivated to coordinate, delegate and achieve long term goals among the people of God? Maybe you have the gift of administration.
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Maybe you're motivated by a desire to identify and comfort with those who are in distress.
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That's the gift of mercy.
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Now, I'm limiting myself in that little questionnaire there, only really to the seven mentioned in Romans 12.
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But I do think, though, that you might be unique.
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But I would ask you first, what is your motivation? Maybe you're motivated by another thing that I haven't thought of.
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Maybe you're motivated by something that the kingdom needs done and I can't see it and others can't see it, but you see it.
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And God has given you that insight for that thing that's needed.
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Because here's the point.
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The miraculous thing about these gifts is that when you see them working as a unit, the entire congregation never has a need that goes unmet.
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But when everybody's functioning according to their gifts, the entire congregation ensures that the rest of the congregation always has their needs met.
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I want to tell you a story.
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It's not really a story, it's an illustration.
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It's his brother Richard, one of our elders.
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He's done a lot of study on the subject of spiritual gifts, and one of the stories he tells uses this illustration.
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So I credit him for helping me with this.
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He said, imagine a dinner party where a person was invited and there were people from and everybody there represented a different spiritual gift.
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Right.
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And during the dinner party, the hostess who'd been working on these wonderful pastries that she had prepared to share with everyone at the party, as she was carrying out her big tray of pastries and she's so happy and so delighted that she's able to share this food with her friends.
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And she walks out and as she walks out, she topples and trips and she spills everything out onto the floor and all of the food is ruined and it's all on the ground.
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And the people are there having to respond to this tragedy.
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How would each gift react according to their giftedness? Prophecy might immediately stand up and announce that the host has fallen and we all have responsibilities in this work.
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The person with the gift of service might immediately begin to pick up the items and go to the kitchen and grab the cleaning utensils and come in and begin to clean and wipe everything up and help save the embarrassment.
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The gift of teaching might step up and look at the situation and realize there was a cord on the floor that caused her to trip the first time, and if it's not moved, she's going to fall again.
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So let us do something about this.
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The person with the gift of exhortation may go to the fallen person and begin to lift her spirits and say, it wasn't your fault and you can do this and be encouraged.
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It's not the end of the world and I know you're embarrassed, but all will be well.
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The person with the gift of generosity might immediately pull from his pocket finances to where he goes and says, I'm going to go and buy more pastry so the party can continue and nothing will be lost.
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The person with the gift of administration might seek to ensure that everything is back in order and all that is needed to be done is being done.
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And the person with the gift of mercy might empathize with the group and say, guys, understand it's not the end of the world and we're going to continue and we're going to make it through.
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Now, such a thing might be a simple illustration, maybe too simple for you to relate to, but I think it hits the nail on the head because in this fictional illustration, every one of the spiritual gifts, not only present, but active, ensures that the the event doesn't stop, but continues through the drama and the tension of the difficult situation.
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Because of this, all that is needed to be taken care of is taken care of.
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And that's how ministry should work, we're all exercising the gifts God's given to us so that when things need to be done, the congregation comes together and ensures that nothing is left undone.
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And so is the illustration of gift based ministry.
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Does that make sense? Is that helpful? I want to leave you with three thoughts today as we draw to a close, I want to leave you with three things to think about from this text, and if I'm not careful, I'll preach three more sermons, so I'll try not to, as each one of these things is important.
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But all of these come from the text.
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And there are three thoughts that I had as I said, how am I going to draw this to a close? Here's three things for us to to immediately take from this and hopefully apply to our lives.
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Number one, we don't get to choose our spiritual gift.
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God gives as he wills.
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That's verse 11.
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That's verse 11.
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All these are empowered by one in the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
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Right.
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You don't get to come in and say, OK, pastor, I've decided my gift is prophecy.
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I told God that's what I wanted.
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I sent in a slip and he sent it back, you know, paid in full.
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You know, that's not how it works.
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You might not think you have the gift that you do have.
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So I ask you, what motivates you? That's that's the quickest way I've found to learn what people's gifts are, because I want to tell you, I didn't choose to be motivated by preaching truth.
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I didn't.
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And here's the thing, though, I want to tell you, this is the hard part.
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I could choose to be disobedient, not use my gift.
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I could choose to be disobedient to God.
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So one, you don't get to choose your gift.
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God chooses it and he gives it to you.
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You have to realize what it is, what motivates you.
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Number two, whatever your motivation for ministry is, it is meant to be active in the body.
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Whatever your motivation for ministry is, it is meant to be active in the body.
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That's verse seven to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.
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Common good.
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Sumpheron in the Greek, it's one word.
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It means to bring together for profit, to bring together for the advantageousness of everyone.
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It's meant to be for everyone.
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Your gift is not for you.
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It's for the church through you.
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So one, we don't get to choose what our gift is.
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God chooses that.
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Whatever our motivation for ministry is, that's our gift and it's meant to be used in the body.
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And number three, and this one is very important and it draws back to what I said at the very beginning.
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For our gift to be active in the body, we must be active in the body.
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You say, Pastor, I've looked here.
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I don't see that.
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You're right.
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It's not stated in the text explicitly, but it is what we call a good and necessary inference.
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You know what an inference is? When you infer something from something.
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Why is it a good and necessary inference? Because how could you possibly contribute to the common good if we are consistently not coming together? How could you possibly contribute to the common good if we are not consistently being together? So what's your gift? If you don't know, what motivates you? If you are a believer, remember this.
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The same Holy Spirit that indwelt the Apostle Paul indwells you.
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The Apostle Paul didn't get more of him than you do because guess what? He is a person, not a power that's simply given in this and that.
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He is in you and he's uniquely motivated you in some kind of pursuit.
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And he has also equipped you to specifically pursue it.
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And I don't have your gift.
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That's the other key thing.
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And again, this is going to be next week, so I don't want to get into next week's sermon this week.
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But here's the thing that's so important.
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I can't do your gift.
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I can only do my gift.
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And Paul is going to tell us next week when we get into verses 12 and following, he says, the hand can't say to the foot, because I am a hand, I have no need of you.
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The eye can't say to the ear, because I am an eye, I have no need of you.
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Because if all I was was an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? And all if I was was a hand, where would be my ability to walk? All of those things are so important.
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And so please come next week as we continue to look at this, because not only do you have a gift, but your gift is so vital because God has brought you here as a gift to this church to be used as part of the body of Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father, your word tells us very clearly that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket.
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In the same way, Lord, you tell us to let our light shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to the Father who is in heaven.
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And Lord, I believe in my heart that that is what we do when we demonstrate the gifts and motivations that you've placed in us.
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We shine the light of the gospel.
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And Lord, I know that there are those here who are still questioning where they fit in the kingdom.
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Lord, I pray that this has been helpful for them and motivation and in drive and in pushing them toward understanding.
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Lord, not that they just need to find things to do, but Lord, that there is so much that is is needed to do.
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And Lord, I pray that their motivations would turn into ministries.
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And those ministries would turn into manifestations of the spirit and that we would see the spirit working among us.
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As the people of God, moved by the spirit of God toward confirmation to the son of God, to the glory of God alone.
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And we pray it all in Jesus' name.
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Amen.