Good Works Use Your Gifts

Please turn your Bible to 1 Peter chapter 4, that can be found on page 968, if you're using the

Pew Bible. 1

Peter 4, go ahead and stand when you have that. I will read verses 12 through 19, excuse me, 7 through 11.

The end of all things is at hand, therefore be self -controlled and so reminded for the sake of your prayers.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything

God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever, amen.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would bless the proclamation of your word, so we consider this passage here and how you would have us to use our gifts.

In Jesus' name, amen. So we've been going through motivations for good works, and in particular we've been going through this subsection of passages on how good works are especially productive, how good works relate to productivity.

One motivation for good works is the fact that they use your gifts. No one wants to go about life being underutilized, not fulfilling their purposes.

It is a sad thing to want to do something else than what you were made for.

There's a famous fable of Aesop where Donkey sees that a lap dog gets to sit on his owner's lap and be pet and enjoy his owner, and so the donkey tries doing that.

But the master, of course, disciplines the donkey and sets him to harder work.

Donkey realizes that, you know, work is a lot better than trying to sit on the master's lap.

That didn't work out too well. It is good to fulfill your purpose no matter what it might be.

You might have other purposes in mind for yourself, but God has particular purposes in mind for you, and he has determined that by giving you gifts.

And it is in this that you may experience the truest joys of the

Lord, walking in the steps that he has predestined you to walk in, as it describes in Ephesians 2 .10.

In 1 Peter, he has begun in the first two chapters primarily talking about the need for holiness.

Then in chapter 3, he begins talking about how we will suffer, which he continues on in chapter 4.

So given that we must be a holy people and we also are going to face suffering, the question is how then should we live?

As he rounds out this part of the epistle, right before he gives this doxology where he says that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. What is the instruction that he gives? Among a few other notes, he says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

Every one of God's people have received a gift, perhaps not just one gift, but many gifts.

And these are varied gifts. Different people have different gifts, and they are called to steward those gifts.

They are not gifts that are given as other gifts are given, where there is no responsibility.

When you receive a gift for your birthday, you do not have a particular responsibility to steward it.

You can sometimes, you know, when I was young and an aunt would give me a certain quantity of cash, she would say, don't blow it all in one place or, you know, spend it wisely.

So there was this implied stewardship. But really I didn't have to give an account to anyone about how

I spent that money. This is not how these gifts work. They are given to you from a

God who expects you to steward them well. You are to steward your gifts.

And he goes on and he gives an example. And this is something that I think may help set the tone because many people have all kinds of things in mind of what gifts are.

And we'll talk about various kinds of gifts here. But the immediate examples he gives are the examples of the offices in the church.

He says, whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God, and whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies.

And there are parallels of this in Romans chapter 12, where it talks about the one who teaches and the one who serves.

The word serve here is from the same word where we get the word deacon. And clearly when it talks about one speaking as speaking the oracles of God, as speaking prophecy itself, it's talking about one who would authoritatively proclaim the word of God.

This is talking most particularly about the office of elder and deacon.

But that does not mean that this command to steward gifts well is isolated to those.

These are just examples of how someone who has been given a very particular gift, some of the most quintessential examples of gifts, might use them most wholeheartedly.

But the same is true for every single person, that you have been given gifts. If you are in Christ Jesus, if you have trusted in Him, you have gifts and you are called to steward them.

So what kind of gifts does he give? First of all, he gives spiritual gifts.

Now these come in a couple of different categories. For example, consider 1

Corinthians chapter 12. It says, there are a variety of services but the same

Lord. There are varieties of activities but the same God who empowers them all and everyone.

And this is right before saying that there are varieties of gifts. So after saying varieties of gifts, he says there's a varieties of services, of service, and then varieties of activities.

That's talking about what's known in older translations and older writings as administrations and operations, administrations and operations.

There are positions that you can be put in that are spiritual in nature, where you are equipped in the capacity of the church to lead the church in a particular way.

These are the examples that Peter was giving, the office of elder and deacon. So those are the administrations.

But then also there are operations. God gives gifts that someone might serve

Him more fully by being strengthened in faith, hope, love, various qualities that you would have the patience, the fruit of the

Spirit in order to serve Him. Now what a lot of people think of when they think of the gifts of the

Spirit are primarily the sign gifts that are given, where it's authority to heal or gifts of healing, gifts of tongues, things like that.

There are several reasons to understand that those are not… While God still does miracles and miraculous healings still occur, providential understandings of people across languages occur, none of those things have ceased occurring, but the gifts that people receive as possessing them, as authoritative wielders of them, has ceased.

There's a few reasons to realize that that's the case. First of all, the ones who claim these things are claiming something very different than what the

Bible describes. For example, when someone says they have the gift of healing, do they really mean that they can command sickness to leave someone's body, and it does?

I don't know of anyone, apart from, you know, the really wild things that you see in Africa or something.

I don't know of anyone who claims that. What they really mean when they say they have the gift of healing is that God answers my prayers a little more often than the next person when it comes to prayers for healing.

That's not the same kind of gift that you have described here. Yes, someone can be very gifted and effectual prayer warrior, but that's not the same thing that a lot of people – it's not the same thing that's being described in Scripture as the gift of healing or the gift of tongues.

Very clearly, especially if you're around those who believe they speak in tongues –

I grew up in a church, and I'm very thankful for that church, so don't hear this as being too derogatory towards them.

But those who would think that they are speaking in tongues, it's very evident just by the patterns that this is not a real language that would communicate information.

I noticed when I was a child that the amount of vocabulary, if you want to call the different syllables that are used when people speak in tongues, speak in tongues, was varied based on the intelligence of the people.

You know, the very unintelligent farmer that would often sit in front of me would just have one thing that he would say over and over and over, you know,

I'm blanking on what it was, but it will probably come to me later, you know, it was just something like, shahadah, shahadah, shahadah, just something like that, just over and over and over.

While the people who are clearly more gifted in other ways, in intelligence and learning, seem to have much larger vocabularies, it's not something that is really communicating anything or could communicate anything, which is what the

Bible describes. This is other human languages that would be used to actually communicate to people. And then on top of that,

Hebrews chapter 2 verse 4 says that such gifts confirm the

Word that is spoken. The Word has been completed at this point, and so there has been a cessation of those things which would confirm that Word in such extraordinary measure.

You notice in the Old Testament this is precisely what happened then, too. There's prophecy, and there are all kinds of miracles and people gifted with miracles in special ways throughout the

Old Testament, but once the Old Testament ceases being written, there is an absence of these things for 400 years, and it's not until John the

Baptist arrives on the scene and prophecy is spoken and miracles begin happening that we see these things start up again.

A lot of people ask, where do you see that sign gifts would cease?

And the answer is, it is implied just in the purpose of the gifts, and secondly, we have already seen

God use that pattern with His completion of the Old Testament. The Bible describes in Ephesians 4 the gifts that God gives to His church, and it speaks of apostles and prophets, and we know that apostles have ceased.

There's no one who's sent by Christ in the same way who's actually been trained by Him for three years. Even Paul, it says in Galatians 1 that he went away to Arabia for three years, the implication being that he's being instructed by Christ for an extended period of time.

Those people who would even claim that Christ appeared to them and sent them do not usually claim to have been taught by Him for years, and these things are necessary for apostleship according to Scripture.

Otherwise, you're just spreading myths according to Peter. Now, God gives spiritual gifts.

He also gives temporal gifts. You have skills, various skills, whatever they may be.

You have resources, time and money. These are various gifts, but they are sanctified and supernaturally empowered in as much as you are able to use them according to the graces given, where moved by the

Spirit, you would operate in faith, hope, and love. And these things are all guaranteed to God's people by His Spirit.

Christ, when He offered His life on the cross, did not just die for the sake of forgiving you of your sins, though that is certainly one of the most important aspects of what

He has accomplished. His shed blood forgives our sins, but He has likewise lived a perfect life to earn for us that which we could not earn.

And some of that which has been earned is the Spirit. At the end of the

Lord's Prayer in Luke, when the Lord's Prayer is given in Luke, this is not the canonical way you usually hear it in Matthew, but in Luke at the very end, it says that God gives good gifts to His children, and how much… even a good

Father gives gifts to His children. How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

This is what Christ has earned for us. He has earned for us His Spirit. Everyone who has trust in Christ has the

Spirit in order that they might live a truly fulfilled life, might be able to use gifts that God has given, and be fulfilled in those things.

So they're not using the temporal gifts that every person alive might have.

You might be gifted in all kinds of natural things, but apart from that supernatural grace, you are not capable of using those temporal gifts in a way that truly pleases

Him and honors Him. In Hebrews 11, 6, it says, Without faith it is impossible to please

God, for those who come to Him must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. You do not have, apart from the work of the

Spirit, gifts that are so meaningful that you would be able to please God. But you take those natural gifts that you have, then

He gives you His supernatural gift of the Spirit, and you are able to be productive in abundant ways.

And none of these things are possible apart from following the commands that He has given.

Once again, when I speak of good works, what I'm not talking about is just the most philanthropic things you can imagine.

I'm speaking of any way that you might follow God's law, whether it's resisting temptation or positively doing what

He commands. All these things. Now, how do you discern what gifts

God has given you? This is what people want to know a lot of times. How do I know what my spiritual gift is?

And they're usually looking through the list in 1 Corinthians, trying to pick out which one it might be, because it's got to be just one, first of all, and secondly, it's got to be one of those in that list.

This is not the best way of thinking about it. Secondly, it's also not the best way of thinking about it where you would say, okay, well, it's the thing that I desire to do the most.

I've been told by a hundred Disney movies that I need to follow my heart, and so therefore, my spiritual gift is whatever work my heart desires.

Maybe you've heard the standard parable about the woman who always wanted to sing in church in the kind of church that would have a special singing where just one person is singing for the sake of the rest of the congregation, and this was her—this is her gift.

She knows it's her gift because it's her desire, and so every week she's asking the pastor, hey, you know, this is my gift.

I need to sing. I need to sing. But everyone knew she was not gifted for this because she was not a good singer.

Also, what you should not be looking at in isolation is your ability.

Just because you are able to do something does not mean that it is the kind of gift that 1

Peter 4 has in mind here. So for example, you might be exceptionally good at knitting, and so you say to yourself, this is what

I will do for the sake of the Lord. I will knit all kinds of clothes for people and give them to them. We live in an era where a lot of that, a lot of clothing is manufactured in very efficient ways such that your knitting may not be helpful in that particular way.

Now there could be ways that knitting would be helpful, and you see in Acts that Dorcas makes clothes for the poor and things like that, but just because you have an ability in something doesn't mean that it is particularly helpful, doesn't mean it's the kind of gift that 1

Peter has in mind here. You don't want to just say, yeah, because I have the capacity for something, therefore

I must do this thing. Instead, and what you also don't want to do is go through a spiritual gift inventory where they're basically just affirming these things.

That's what a lot of spiritual gift inventories do. If you've ever done one of those, you know, piece of paper, you answer a bunch of questions, and it's basically like a

Christian version of the Myers -Briggs test, right? And so they tell you, okay, well, you've got this gift from 1

Corinthians, and they are pointing out your desires, they're just reaffirming your desires, they're reaffirming your abilities, and then they're locking you into something such that they're giving you the idea that this is what

I am and I can be no other, this is what I must do to be fulfilled. What you should be primarily thinking about is need.

It's need. Now, your ability to meet that need is certainly a factor, so it's not as though ability is nothing, but ability needs to be considered in the framework of need.

1 Peter 4, chapter, or 1 Peter 4, verse 8 says, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Okay, so he talks about love. And then in verse 10, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another.

Okay, so it's actually to serve one another in the ways that are needed is implied. Think about 1

Corinthians, Paul in addressing the spiritual gifts and talking about the different things that the body has in chapter 12, and then he stops there to talk about a more important kind of gift in chapter 13.

If you aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most standard texts read at weddings.

It is the chapter about love. All these different gifts last for a while, but faith, hope, and love are forever, and the greatest of these is love.

In verse 8 of chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, it says, Because love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.

As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide. These three, but the greatest of these is love.

And then what does he go on to address after this? Tongues, speaking in tongues. The Corinthians are thinking not about what is actually going to serve, not what is actually going to build up.

What are they thinking in terms of what they desire to do and what they have the ability to do?

And so I've got the ability to speak in tongues. This is how I'm doing what the Lord wants me to do. I'm going to speak in tongues.

And Paul says that is not actually using your gifts. What is using your gifts is recognizing what love wants you to—or what love would indicate that you should do, what love demands.

Love doesn't demand that those who are able to speak in tongues—in 1 Corinthians 14, this is where they actually do have the real gift of tongues.

It doesn't, even for those who actually have a real spiritual sign gift, just in the desire to use it, does not mean that they should.

What love demands in 1 Corinthians 14 is they be quiet. It's that they not use that gift because it's not really using gifts the way that God would have them to be used, which is by being employed with the fuel and the power of the most important gift, which is the faith, hope, and love given by the

Spirit. That is the most critical gift that is given that believers have that unbelievers do not have that should be used at all times.

It's love and what is actually needed, what is actually going to build things up.

So, you should be thinking in terms of what the need actually is, not—and this may be something that you aren't especially gifted in either.

According to your assessment of things, you know, across a universal consideration of everybody who's gifted in this particular thing.

In 2 Corinthians, it describes this.

It says, For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

Now this isn't giving wealth to those in need. Now, you could say, well, I don't have enough to help the poor that are undergoing famine in Jerusalem.

That's what's being described here in 2 Corinthians. But it's not according to the amount that you have, it's according to the need that exists over there in your readiness to give it.

This is how you should be assessing things, not by what you have and the need that can be met, not what you have in comparison to the universal set of all people who might be able to do that thing.

It is what is the need and do I have—has God given me some capacity to meet that need such that love, the greatest gift, indicates that I should be doing that thing.

This is how you ought to think about gifts and you ought to be discerning your gifts. So a couple of things that must be taken away from this, knowing that you have a gift.

You should not use it less than you have it to give and you should not use it more than you ought to.

So, here in 1

Peter 4, it says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's various grace.

You want to use your gift not less than the capacity that God has given it in.

Now there are various reasons that people do this. Sometimes people don't know that they have a gift, they're just not even thinking in these terms, they don't know that they have a gift.

There are other times where people don't recognize that it's needed, okay?

And so sometimes this is a false humility like you see in 2 Corinthians where they don't realize that their wealth can actually be helpful even if it's not much.

Other times it's like what you see in 1 Corinthians. So in 1 Corinthians where it describes the different parts 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, 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. Okay, so God has given capacities in the measure that He intends.

And so those people who don't realize that there's a need for it and are thinking only in terms of, well,

I'm not as gifted as this other person in this other thing, are not going to be thinking right.

If you're thinking about your ability and other people's ability and you're not discerning in terms of need, you're not going to be thinking as clearly as you should about it.

And maybe you've seen this. I've seen this a number of times. I know a number of people who have refused to go be a part of a church where, one, they're more doctrinally aligned, two, the church has better doctrine, and three, the church needs them more because they have in mind a spiritual gift that they have that they don't think they can use at that church.

Okay, so I've seen this a number of times. I knew a guy—this is somewhere else. This was out in Virginia.

I knew a guy who was Reformed. There was a

Reformed church nearby that could really have used him. But he decided, you know, my gift is playing the guitar.

I'm going to go instead to this other church that has pretty wacky theology because I'm able to play the guitar there and I'll be most serving

God because I'm using my gift. And he's thinking most about his service to the

Lord being measured by his capacity to give in terms of ability and not in terms of the actual need that's being met or the actual result that's coming from it.

You don't want to think about it that way where you have in mind, okay, I have this gift. I have to use this.

What ultimately that does is make your gift not about serving others but about others serving you. Others have to give you this opportunity to use that gift in order for you to feel fulfilled.

Don't think that way about it. Also, people—the reason why they wouldn't use their gift is they don't understand the purpose of the gift.

God has given the gift in order that it might be used. You are a steward of it. It's not a gift without strings attached.

It is a gift that has obligations that come with it. You are to use it.

You are to use it for the sake of the Lord. You are not to just spend it on yourself. Many people use their gifts just for themselves, and they aren't even thinking about how they can use the gifts that they've been given for the

Lord. Secondly, they are most supposed to be used for the sake of building up the church.

That's what all these passages talk about. They always talk about building up the church. And when they don't say that explicitly, it's what's implied.

But many people are thinking only in terms of these very individualistic ways that they might serve the

Lord, and they're not realizing that He has primarily decided to glorify Himself in the institution of the church.

We live in an era that's very opposed to those kinds of institutions, and certainly they have been abused in the past.

And being Baptists, we understand that there's a problem with church hierarchies, where you have authorities above the local church that can be over -institutionalized and abusive.

Yet God still has determined that the institution that Christ founded, the church, the local church, be the primary means that His glory be shown in His kingdom on earth.

And this is another reason why people don't use their gifts. They're not thinking in those terms. So why should you use your gifts?

You should use your gifts because the alternative is to waste them. If you do evil works, clearly that's not productive.

If you do dead works, or you do things that are ostensibly good, right, things that are ostensibly good, maybe you're providing for your family, etc.,

but you're not doing it with faith, you're not doing it with love, you're not thinking about how your gift could be the most edifying, right?

If you're speaking in tongues but you're not thinking about how it's edifying, like in 1 Corinthians, right, if you are playing the guitar but you're not thinking about how you can use yourself in the most edifying way, when maybe the most edifying way you can be helpful is just to, sometimes

I say this, just being a warm body, you know, can often be really helpful in a church that just wants the joy of worshiping together with one another.

So this is the alternative. But if you operate by love, you are using a gift that God has given you, and you are not wasting it.

You are being more effective. Even if you don't see the results in particular, you are being more effective.

You are using your gifts. We live here in Silicon Valley. Maybe some of you have heard of or even know someone who decided they're sick of software engineering, they want to go run a farm.

And so they go and run a farm, and they do a horrible job because they didn't realize that that's actually a difficult task, and you have to know a few things.

And so they're not getting any kind of yield out of their crops, et cetera, right? That kind of story is always so sad because here you've got someone who's really gifted in a certain way, and they go try to do something they're not gifted in, and they're just awful at it.

That's what happens when you take this wonderful gift that God has given you of His Spirit by which you can operate in faith, hope, and love.

And you choose to pursue your own purposes, whether they be ostensibly good purposes or whether they even be evil or indulgent purposes.

When you perform good works, when you follow the Lord in obedience, you are using your gifts in the greatest measure.

And this is true even when you are constrained from using those natural gifts that you may have that you want to use.

Consider the example of Joseph. Joseph is thrown into prison.

He's sold into slavery, and then he's thrown into prison. It'd be very easy to think to yourself, my gifts are not being used, if you were in Joseph's shoes.

And in my life, this is an example that I've gone back to a lot of times when I felt like my gifts aren't being used because of my station in life or something like that.

I think about Joseph. Joseph, the measure that you should be observing these things by is not what

God has given you and whether or not it's being fully expressed, but the situation that He has placed you in and whether or not you are being called to endure certain trials that would involve not using all the things that He has given you.

In fact, that's some of the reason why He gives particular natural gifts is so that people would endure being in circumstances where they would not be able to use them in a way that itself is the gift.

Just continue considering Joseph. He has all these gifts. He's able to interpret dreams, and he only gets to do this, what, once later for the cupbearer and baker and then finally for Pharaoh.

And then he's let out of prison, and then his gifts are completely shining. But a major part of his story is that he is restrained from using those things and is constrained joyfully serving the

Lord in the ways that are needed without complaining, without crumbling, without demanding that he have some mechanism to express all the capacities that he's been given.

He's someone capable of sitting at the right hand of the throne. And it's apparent that he is a type of Christ.

He's pointing forward to Jesus Christ, who likewise, for much of his life, simply did what his father called him to do in that context, which is to serve his own family.

When he went at the age of 12 and was teaching in the temple, he had the capacity to do incredible things.

But he went home and was submissive to his father. And later on in Mark, he's called a carpenter.

He has the capacity—he's the Messiah—he has the capacity to teach in the greatest ways and is already doing it.

But when called by God to not use that one kind of gift, he understands and does not until the beginning of his ministry when he's 30 years old.

This is how we are called to follow. We're called to follow in the pattern of Christ, using our gifts as called here in love, not merely determined by ability or desire, but contextually read in the circumstances that God has given us.

Now, not only should you not use your gifts less than God is calling you to, you should also not use them more than he is calling you to.

An important passage on this is found in Romans chapter 12, where in Romans 12 .3

it says, "'For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in the one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching," et cetera.

We are not to think more than we ought to think about ourselves. One of the most clear ways that that exists is in teaching.

There are a lot of people who would try to grasp teaching office for themselves or teaching in ways that is not granted to them.

A lot of people, if they feel that they're not being used sufficiently to teach in their church, rather than in concert with their pastors, try to understand how they might use their gifts best, kind of go and start their own thing.

It's very—once again, God has primarily determined, or God has determined that primarily the way that truth be kept pure, that the pillar and buttress of that be his church.

And so to operate outside of it without having some concert with the authorities that he has placed in the church is to not understand how it is that truth is intended to be guarded

A lot of people don't realize that, and it sounds—to hear a pastor say that might sound very controlling, but this is what

God intends for guarding his truth, that there be a measure of authority that is used in order to ensure that it is going forward in a right measure.

But many people want to do their own thing, and this is what Paul is guarding against in Romans, those who would try to teach beyond their capacity, or even those who would try to serve beyond their capacity.

There are all kinds of people who want to serve in ways that they are not fit to serve, and they demand to be able to do those things, just like the

Shoraya mention of the woman who would demand to sing every week, saying that that's my gift, that's how

I have to serve. Do not go beyond the capacity that God has given you.

Now I've mentioned in previous weeks, I'm not talking about ways that you need to grow spiritually, right?

If you say, oh, I'm too anxious to obey the Lord, that's not a good reason to not obey the

Lord. Obey Him and grow in peace. But you should not commit yourself in physically ways that you do not have the capacity.

It's just not helpful for anyone. And then you should also not give in ways that are beyond helpful. Think about what 2

Thessalonians describes about those who would give to people who are idle. That's not helping them, it's actually hurting them.

You're encouraging them in idleness, and you're enabling them in idleness. But this is the way a lot of people go about giving, because they're only thinking about what do

I have the capacity to do, okay, let me do it, and they're not thinking about how they're actually helping, or whether they're helping, or whether it's actually harmful.

These things can be harmful, likewise. So you are to think about what the need is, and you're not supposed to just look for whatever program will use your gift, because you should be asking yourself, is that program actually accomplishing good things?

When I was... A lot of people have heard this story, I even wrote a little about it on the website.

But when I was younger, I felt that the right way of going about church was to do so in a way that wasn't consumeristic, and was looking to give.

And so one of the ways that you should look to give is just, you know, don't be too critical about what church you would join. Just join that church and try to help out as much as you can.

So I did that, and for a month, because it was the first time I had a real job, I was giving more money than I'd ever given a church before.

I was giving them more time than I'd ever given a church before, and I was trying to really help out. About a month in, I realized it was a cult.

They didn't have the true gospel, and all of my investment was not actually accomplishing anything.

It was actually doing the wrong thing. It was working in the wrong direction. And I woke up to realize, oh, wow,

I need to be thinking about how my investment is playing out, not just taking the gifts

God has given me and using them haphazardly. I need to be thinking in love about how am

I actually going to serve Christ's body, and thinking in ways that are informed by Scripture that would give you the discernment to recognize such things.

On the back of the bulletin, there's a quote from William Nicholson. I don't know if he—I don't think he technically counts as a

Puritan, but he was an associate with Puritans. I'm not going to read this whole quote, but he describes the person who would want to use gifts that they haven't been given or in a capacity that they haven't been given them in.

It's like if the body of Christ, thinking about a human body, all the different humors in it, if you're familiar with that term, the fluids, all the different fluids decided that they wanted to be in different parts than they were supposed to be, you know, the blood was spewing everywhere, the bile was spilling everywhere, like all the different parts, then you will—that is a sick, sick body.

But that's what a lot of people want to do in serving in capacities that—in measures that they have not been qualified for.

So think about these things in terms of need, that is the way to think about it.

Do you have the capacity to meet that need? And you should desire this. You should desire to grow in your gifting on the most basic level.

If you do not have Jesus Christ, you do not have the kind of faith, hope, and love that is the most important gift that would validate and legitimize any kind of natural gift that you've been given.

You need to turn to Jesus Christ. Your life is pointless, or the only point that it has is to honor

Him in judgment. But it is not accomplishing anything fruitful or good apart from being in Him, apart from turning to Him and serving

His kingdom. All the other kingdoms are going to be destroyed. Every other kingdom is going to pass away.

Any effort you put into building up anything else will be demolished. The only way that you can have the gifts necessary and have the assignment necessary to really build up the kingdom that lasts is by turning to Him.

If you have not trusted in Christ, do this. Turn to Him. Repent. Turn away from your sin.

He forgives. Once again, it is not the good works that make you right before Him, but Him freely giving

His mercy and forgiving. He equips you with everything that you might be able to have a full and purposeful life where you are serving

Him in meaningful ways in the kingdom. But then, having trusted in Him, you should desire the greater gifts.

Like it says in 1 Corinthians 12 31, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way.

What is that way? He talks about love. Desire the greater gifts.

Grow in them. You must grow in natural gifting as God gives you the capacity to, but then most especially that spiritual gifting, that holiness.

2 Timothy 2 verse 20 says, Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as wholly useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

As you are a holy vessel, he will be able to use you for more and more things.

Now I say be able, obviously God is not constrained in His ability, but He has chosen that those who are prepared for holy use will be used for holy use.

Now He is the one making us holy, but it is in our reception of that, of the benefits of redemption through abiding in the vine, reading

His Word, going to Him in prayer, that we increase in this holiness.

So desire the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, desire this holiness without which there can be no holy working.

Desire that, but then also as you have the ability to pursue natural gifts that may be helpful to God's people, pursue those natural gifts as well, whatever skills, whatever resources.

Just like it says in 1 Corinthians 7 that someone should not become a slave because they have been made free by Christ, what is that saying?

Maintain that natural gift of freedom so that you can serve Him. You should, and then if you are a slave, if you have the capacity to become free, you should because that is a natural gift to serve

Him more. So you should want the natural gifts as well, but then definitely be growing in the spiritual gifts by which those natural gifts are sanctified and have great power.

And then evaluate your situation according to the rubric that you see here implied in Scripture.

The rubric is not what is my desire, the rubric is not merely what is my ability, it is what is the need in my capacity to meet that need, it is what does love, the greatest gift, indicate.

And as you do so, you will find that you are filled, you will be joyful as you walk in the ways of the

Lord and as He works through you because there really is no greater joy than to know God more fully.

And one of the ways that we know Him is in being made holy through reading

His Word, through coming to Him to be made more fit vessels for His purposes and then living those purposes out.

May God bless your desire to serve Him and may God bless your actual service of Him as He empowers you through His gospel that the world does not have.

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for that gospel. We thank You that we have forgiveness of sins and we likewise thank

You that You have given us Your Spirit that we might serve You in ways that we do not even expect.

We pray that You would help us to walk in those ways set before us beforehand.