Found Faithful #4 - "Found Faithful with Our Church" (1 Peter 4:10-11)

Found Faithful Stewardship and the Local Church

1st Peter chapter 4. 1st Peter and chapter number 4. We are closing out the sermon series that we began a few weeks ago that we have called Found Faithful. Found Faithful. Biblical stewardship for modern disciples.

You have a bible and I hope you do take it in turn with me to just two verses. 1st Peter chapter 4. Hope you're there by now. 1st Peter chapter 4 and verses 10 and 11. 1st Peter chapter 4 verses 10 and 11.

If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me as we read these verses from God's word. They're going to form the basis for our message this morning. Stand for this reading out of respect for the word of God.

1st Peter chapter 4 and verses 10 and 11. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words to us. Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God. If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God's words.

If anyone serves, let it be from the strength that God provides so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. I pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it as we come to study it.

Let me pray. Ask for the Lord's help and we will get to work in God's word this morning. Let's pray together. Lord, we would simply ask that as we open up your word and we think about this area of stewardship that we may be tempted to forget.

Father, open our eyes that we would see wonderful things out of your word. May the eyes of our hearts be enlightened so that we would know the hope to which you've called us in in Christ. May your word do a work in the hearts of those who hear and those who know you in strengthening them and encouraging them in the gospel and for those who don't know you.

Would you be pleased to do a work of drawing them to yourself so that they may find eternal life in you? I pray these things in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. Oh, one more announcement real quickly.

I will be around for the Wednesday midweek group this week. I won't be there the following weeks, but this week. So if you have questions about this message or any other messages in the series, this Wednesday is an opportunity to ask those.

Again, details are in the worship guide. All right, let's get to the ministry of God's word. This might seem like a weird way to end a series on stewardship, talking about your church, the local church.

Does the local church come under the category of stewardship? I imagine at least one person in the room, a statistics holder, is probably going to ask, preacher man, isn't that your stewardship? Isn't that your problem to think about?

If you are the one person in the room, you don't need to show your hands. If you are the one person in the room who thinks that, I can forgive you thinking that because to be honest, you're not alone in thinking.

Most American evangelicals, we are apart, unfortunately tend to think that way. One of my brother pastors, I will not mention his name to protect the innocent. One of my brother pastors has said that a lot of Christians view their local church no differently than their doctor, their mechanic or their grocery store of choice.

I pick a local church based on how it will meet my needs. I keep coming as long as it does what I think it should do. And should that church have the unmitigated goal to not do what I think it should, I will go and find somewhere that does.

Now, please hear me. There are 100 biblical reasons for leaving a church. I'm not talking about those. Sometimes you should leave a church because that church has forgotten what it is to be a church.

There are times and places for that. So please don't hear me as condemning that. But we have to be honest with ourselves as American evangelicals and say that there is at times a, not all of us as individuals, but just in the air that we breathe, there is a kind of self-centered consumer-driven Christianity that quite frankly, we should fear as God's people.

Now, how do I know that there is a self-centered consumer-driven approach to church that we should fear? Because that's how our culture operates. Our culture is self-centered and consumer-driven. And sometimes the culture out there puts on church clothes and turns up on Sunday morning.

If you've been at Redeemer for any length of time, you know how I feel about the so-called seeker-sensitive movement. I have many problems with the seeker-sensitive movement. One of the biggest I have is that it essentially created this sort of consumer mindset.

Or at the very least, even if you're not Wednesday, it created it. It definitely found a way to manipulate and exploit that. So the language crept into church life of churches exist to meet. How many of you have heard this in churches?

Our church exists to meet people's felt needs. This is not the time for a history lesson. We're here to study God's word. But if you know your history, that language of felt needs doesn't come from the Bible.

It comes from the business world. It came from a man called Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker was not a Christian. He was a business mind. But he had a kind of interest in sociology and especially the idea of community and people.

And so he said, well, the modern church, if it wants to be the last bastion of community in the world, by the way, that's why the word community crept into church life. It wasn't the Bible. It was Peter Drucker.

He brings this word in and says, well, the way the church creates community is by meeting people's felt needs. And who determines the felt needs? Well, the audience determines the felt needs. There's many things I could say about that.

And like I said, this is not a history lesson this morning. We're here to study the Bible. But there are many things I could say. But let me just ask one question. I think it's the most important question.

Is that approach, the approach of the church existing to meet felt needs and essentially a small group of people basically putting on a product for a bigger group? Is that the approach this Bible, that this New Testament calls us to?

Does the New Testament teach that the church exists for a small group of people to meet the needs of the many? I hope it's no surprise to you. Maybe if you're visiting, you don't know much about me. Let me tell you up front, I don't believe that.

I don't believe that the church exists to meet your needs through the work of a qualified few. There's a few reasons I don't believe this. For one reason, no human being can fully meet your needs. I hate to break that to you.

When I was single, people used to talk about, oh, you can't get married. You need to get married because if you don't get married, you're just going to be alone and unhappy and no one will be able to meet your needs.

So my wife would say the same thing. I love my wife, but can my wife meet all of the needs I have? Absolutely not. I'm not going to put that pressure on my wife anyway. I'm going to put you no human relationship can meet all your needs.

That's why you need Jesus. He can meet all your needs. So no human being can fully meet your needs. But more than that, the church is not a place where a few people serve the needs of many. The verses that we just read and the verses we're going to study this morning, first Peter four, 10 and 11, remind us that the church doesn't exist for service for a few, but it's mutual service of all for one another.

Let me get specific. If you're visiting us, I'm glad you're here. But really this morning, I'm talking to the folks who call this church, their church home, your ease dropping in on a conversation. This time you're allowed though.

Let me get specific. Redeemer Bible fellowship. This church, if you call this your church home exists for you to serve your brother and your sister in particular areas of Christian service. If I'm going to borrow the language of this sermon series, your local church is a gift that God calls you to steward well through serving.

That might sound like a bit of a stretch, but I think these two verses, first Peter four, 10 and 11 are going to help us see that. And along the way as they help us to see that we're going to learn how to be better managers of the gift that God has given us called the local church.

This morning for the rest of our time, I want to consider three realities, three realities that will help you be a faithful steward of your local church. If you call this church, your home, if you're visiting with us again, glad to have you here.

Maybe another place is your local church, wherever you call your church home. Maybe you'll listen to this online, wherever you call your church home. I want you to think about your local church in light of these three realities.

So three realities that will help you be a better steward of your local church. If you're going to be a faithful steward of your local church, it starts with point number one. You need to acknowledge you have a ministry to your local church.

You need to acknowledge you have a ministry to your local church. So look at first Peter four, 10 again, first section of that verse, first Peter four, 10, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others.

Each one has received a gift, use it to serve others. Not a whole lot of words, but before we can unpack their full meaning, we need to do a bit of a deep dive for a moment. If you've been at Redeemer for a length of time, you kind of know that's what we do around here.

I take deep sea diving expeditions in God's word at will, and this is going to be one of those times. It won't take long, but I want you to focus in, if you're the Bible marking type, which I think every Christian should be, if you're the Bible marking type, mark those words a gift, a gift.

I want to camp there for a moment. I think there can be some confusion about what the word gift in the Bible is, specifically spiritual gifts, is what Peter is talking about here, what that means. Now I've alluded to this already in this series.

If you're visiting, there's a teaching I did about two years ago called Gifted. If you go to our YouTube channel, just search for Redeemer Rogue Valley, you should find our YouTube channel. About two years ago, I did a teaching called Gifted.

You can also find it on our church website. You can also find it in our church app. If you need access to that, see any one of us around here, we can hook you up with that. I can't go through that whole teaching.

It was about an hour and some change in length, so I'm not going to give you all of that. Let me just give you the thumbnail sketch. When most of us hear the language of a spiritual gift, what's the thing that generally comes to mind?

It's generally something along the lines of an ability, that there is this special ability that you have and only you have, and basically the only way you can serve is if you know what that ability is, and then you can use it.

How many of you have heard teaching along that sort of line before, when it comes to the issue of spiritual gifts? It's an ability. It's a supernatural ability. Everyone acknowledges that it's a spiritual gift, but it's an ability that you get, and it kind of creates, the language I heard growing up was, it creates a sweet spot for ministry, and so you need to find your gift so that you can serve in the sweet spot, and for years, I taught it.

I held that view. I no longer do. Actually, I think that understanding is quite flawed in a number of areas. I take the view, and in fact, in this week's study guide, on the last page, it normally says digging deeper, there's a reference that, there's some material, excuse me, that I referenced, one of which is called spiritual gifts, rethinking the conventional view.

I read that about three, four years ago, and it changed my view of this subject. See, I'm going to argue from the Bible that spiritual gifts are not supernatural abilities, according to the Bible, that spiritual gifts are actually assignments.

That spiritual gifts are not abilities that God gives, they are ministries that God gives to every believer for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. In fact, this makes sense of a number of the places in the Bible where the Bible talks about spiritual gifts.

Let's look at a couple of them real quick. Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. This one I'd like you to see. Romans chapter 12. Paul has just begun the practical section, or the application section of this letter.

Romans chapter 12. Pick it up with me in verse 3. Romans chapter 12 and verse 3. Paul says, Romans 12 3. For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think.

Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. Now, as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

Know the language Paul uses in verse 6. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts. Okay, so Paul's going to talk to us about spiritual gifts. But notice how he describes these gifts.

If prophecy, use it in proportion to, use it according to the proportion of one's faith. If service, use it in service. If teaching, in teaching. If exhorting, in exhortation. Giving with generosity, leading with diligence, showing mercy with cheerfulness.

Paul describes these gifts, and he focuses not on this ability, but on activity. There are assignments that are given, and Paul says every one of you has an assignment. So according to the grace of God given to you, use that assignment.

Paul speaks of himself in this way. You don't need to turn to this one, but first Corinthians 3 .10 if you're taking notes. Paul says according to God's grace that was given to me, or what was the grace?

The grace was to, he says, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. There are lots of other passages we collect at, but for time I want to cut that short.

When the Bible talks about gifts, my argument is that it's not talking to you about some supernatural ability that you have, as much as a ministry that's been committed to your hands. Again, I encourage you to go back, listen to that teaching I did a couple of years ago called Gifted sometime this week.

It will go into much more detail about why I think the view that spiritual gifts are abilities and not assignments, I think is quite damaging. I labor that point, deep dive is over, let's get back to our text.

I labor that point because notice what Peter says, again look up 1 Peter 4 .10, as just as each one has received a gift, simple observation question for a moment, according to Peter, who has received a gift?

Who has received a ministry assignment? Well louder than that, come on, each one, every individual believer, every believer has been given a ministry, a ministry assignment, and what are you meant to do with that ministry assignment?

Look at the text, verse 10, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others. Peter says, essentially you've been given a ministry, so put it to use. More about that in just a moment, but now I just want to camp on the fact that every Christian has a ministry assignment that is given to them by God.

This is a reality, it's an indicative statement in the original language. All that means is, is a statement of reality. This is not he's commanding you to find a ministry, the command is for you to use it.

Now you have a ministry, you don't go looking for it, you already have it. This is a reality, it's an indicative, it's not grounded in your activity, it's not grounded in your feelings about it, this is how it is.

This is how God has designed the church to work, and yet, think about this with me for a moment, how many churches function as though the vast majority of the people who sit in, whether it's pews or chairs, the people who sit out there don't have a ministry?

How many churches function as though most of the people who sit in the chairs or pews don't have a ministry? I think part of this flows from just the language we use. I don't believe that you can speak things into existence, but I do think that the words you use can unfortunately create a reality around you.

Think about how we talk about ministry in most cases. We talk about people who are in ministry versus people who aren't. In fact, in our theological tradition, often the primary preaching pastor is called the minister.

Please don't call me the minister. I just about handle being called pastor if I'm really honest, but I say don't call me the minister, you know why? I am not the minister. I am a minister, just like every one of you in this room as a believer is a minister.

Let me not pass words too harshly. I know what people mean when they say that. What they mean is this is somebody who's set apart for vocational full-time Christian service. The Bible does have a category for that.

There are those, 1 Timothy 5, who are worthy of double honor because they work hard at preaching and teaching, but the problem is if your definition of ministry is just those people, maybe at most some of the people who do some of the more support things to help that happen.

If that's your only category for ministry and you keep using that language, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know what I mean when I say that? That you keep saying it so often that it starts to become true.

That ministry is only for a few people, you know, typically it's the really committed people, you know, super Christians, super saints. Yes, they're the ones who do ministry, you know, me, Joe, you know, what's the phrase?

Joe Schmoe, Christian. Well, like me, regular Christian, I'm not in ministry. No, that's the special people. But can I present maybe a different line of logic for a moment? All through this series, we've been talking about how all of life is a stewardship.

Everyone agree with me on that point? I know you should all be nodding because that's what we've kind of laid out in this series. That all of life is a stewardship. Remember we've said, think back to week one, those of you who are here, that stewardship is divided into roles and resources.

Roles that God has given you and resources that God has given you. You would all agree the local church, I hope you view this this way, is a resource that God has given. We can say that. We shouldn't have to argue that.

That's a gift God has given you. No one would argue that, I hope. But here's the thing. A relationship to a local church is not just a resource. It comes with a role that you're called to play in that local church.

If we have ministry assignments, then it's part of our role to serve our local church, right? That might be a new thought for you. I don't know. I'm not going to presume for anybody in the room. It may be a new thought.

It may not be. But if that is a new thought for you this morning, can I encourage you to kind of think about that for a moment? If I take some time this week and just sit with that reality that I have a ministry to my local church, just sit with that for a few moments.

I would say this is the first step. It's the most foundational step in stewardship of your local church. You have to acknowledge that you have a ministry to your local church. But not only do you have a ministry to your local church, there's a second reality you need to grapple with.

Yes, you have a ministry to your local church, but there's also the need for you to point number two, remember why you have a ministry to your local church. Remember why you have a ministry to your local church.

So if the gift that we have received is not an ability, but it's a ministry, it's an assignment, and we're supposed to put that assignment to work for our brothers and sisters, well, again, notice what Peter says, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others.

Let's pause there for a moment. God gives us the ministry assignments that we have for the purpose of seeing our brothers and sisters built up. This is a principle that's taught to us all through the New Testament.

So 1 Corinthians 12 verse 7, Paul says a manifestation of the spirit is given to each person for the common good, for the good of all. Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their abuse of spiritual gifts, and in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 12, he says that we are to seek to excel in building up the church.

Verse 26 of the same chapter, 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says everything is to be done for building up. In Ephesians 4, 12 through 16, Paul says that God gives ministry gifts to the church, and interestingly there, Paul says the gifts are people, not abilities, because again, ministries are assignments.

He says, verse 12, that God gives these gifts to the church to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ. God graciously gives ministry gifts to his children, the gifts of people with assignments.

He gives those gifts to his children for the benefit of others, but here's the question I want to answer under this point. Why should you accept this ministry that you have in your local church? What should motivate us in serving the Lord in the context of our local church?

And look at 1 Peter 4, 10. How does Peter put it? Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God. It's understanding the grace of God that ought to motivate us in our service to one another.

It's understanding what God has done for us ultimately in the gospel. It's understanding that that puts wind behind the sails, fuel in the vehicle as it were, for us to be able to serve one another. In one sense, this really shouldn't surprise us because think about the gospel for a moment.

In the gospel, God gave us his greatest gift, his own son. He gave us his son and the Bible describes the son as the perfect servant. So remember Mark chapter 10 verse 45, for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Part of the impulse that should fuel us in serving one another is the reality that we have all received of the grace of God in our lives. That in the goodness and the mercy of God, Jesus lowered himself and became a servant.

For Paul can say in Romans chapter 15 verses 8 to 9, Paul can say, for I say that Christ became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises to the fathers and so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy.

It's interesting the word that's used for servant is where we get our word deacon from. Christ became, you can translate it literally as, Christ became a deacon. He became a servant, both of the circumcised and the uncircumcised, the Jew and the Gentile.

The motivation for service in a local church should not be the urging or begging of the pastors. It shouldn't be whether it's convenient for us or our lives. It shouldn't be whether we like the praise that comes from people watching us serve.

No, the motivation of motivations, the motivation that should form the foundation for everything else is the multifaceted, the multicolored grace of God that we have received in the Lord Jesus. Of late, some of you may have noticed, I use a phrase a lot of late, gospel culture.

I talk a lot about gospel culture in the life of a church. Gospel culture is not just the preaching of the gospel, but it's a culture where the gospel fuels and shapes all that happens. There are lots of ways you can tell if a church has a gospel culture around it.

You know one of the ways in which you can tell if a gospel culture is forming in a church? Think about it. A culture is the sum total of the individuals who are part of it. If that is true, what should you see in a church where the gospel is shaping and giving life to everything that happens?

You see people who serve. You see people who reflect the greatest servants of all the Lord Jesus in giving everything that they have for their brother and their sister. And if that is true, pause for a moment and make a point of application here.

If that is true, here's a question I want you to think on. Has the work of grace that you've experienced in your life, has that work so impacted you that you desire to utilize the gifts and the resources and the talents that God has given you?

Have you come to an awareness of just how much grace has been given to you, which in turn turns you around and says, I want to minister that grace to my brother and to my sister? I often wonder if the struggles that often we find in church life of service come from the fact that we forget how much we have been given.

And so it feels like an imposition when someone asks for something that is inconvenient, that somebody asks for something that messes with my life as I know it. Again, we should obviously be wise with our stewardship.

We should be wise with our use of time, obviously. But our primary motivation, the first question we ask is not, how does this make me feel? Is this convenient for me? Does this disrupt my life? The first question we should ask is, how is this going to demonstrate the grace of God that I have experienced in my own life?

If you're going to be a faithful student of your local church, it starts with you acknowledging that you, sitting in that chair right now, that you have a ministry to your local church. You also have to remember why you have a ministry to your local church, because of the grace of God that is revealed to us in the gospel message.

But that's all well and good. It's all well and good to acknowledge that you have a ministry. It's all well and good to remember why you have it. But at some point, you can't just sit there and store up information about this.

You need to actually do something. So point number three, acknowledge you have a ministry to your local church. Number two, remember why you have a ministry to your local church. And point number three, identify your ministry in the local church.

Identify your ministry in the local church. Now we get to the part where this starts to land a little bit more practically. If by the grace of God you have received a ministry, well, I imagine the question that you should be asking by now is, well, how do I know what it is?

How do I know what that ministry looks like? Actually, Peter gives us a bit of an inspired summary in verse 11. So look at verse 11. Peter says in verse 11, if anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God's words.

If anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. For a moment, I want to walk through this verse.

I want to kind of break it apart a little bit. I want us to make some observations from this passage. I've put them in the form of questions. This first observation we should probably ask is, well, how many kinds of ministries are there?

How many kinds of ministries are there? Well, for Peter, there are two broad categories of ministries, two broad categories of assignments. Again, look at the verse. How does he describe it? He says, if anyone speaks, and then he says, if anyone serves, I would argue from scripture, those are the two big categories of ministries that believers have.

Some may have speaking ministries. Some may have serving ministries. I'm going to come back to the list of spiritual gifts that we see in the New Testament. This kind of merges with that reality that when you look at the gifts in the New Testament, the different assignments that are manifested among God's people, they broadly map into two categories.

Some involve speaking and some involve serving. Speaking gifts would involve ministries where the word is spoken, stuff like teaching and preaching, counseling, more informal encouragement and exhortation, ministries of that kind where the word is being brought to bear.

Serving gifts often involve ministries of more practical nature, so stuff like giving, helping, administrating, more manual labor, those sorts of structural and support ministries in a church. Whether you have a speaking gift or you have a serving gift, both are necessary in the life of a church.

It's not we prioritize one over the other. So how many kinds of ministries are there? According to Peter, there are two kinds. There are speaking and serving ministries. At least a second observation we need to ask, well, what does ministry look like individually?

Okay, so there are these broad categories, but what about me as an individual? Is there some kind of list I can look at that will tell me what the gifts are? I would say no. Maybe you think, wait a minute, Kofi, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You just said that there are lists in the New Testament. There are, taking notes, the two big ones, Romans chapter 12, verses six through eight, and then first Corinthians 12, seven to 10, and first Corinthians 12, 28.

Those are the two big lists, well, three really, I guess, that you find in the New Testament. Are those meant to be an exhaustive list of all the gifts that are out there? I would say no, for a few reasons.

I almost put it in the study guide and I couldn't get it to work. But if you look at those lists, if you own an ESV study Bible, which is a great resource, you should have it in your Bible study library.

If you look in the ESV study Bible, when it gets to Romans 12, there's a little chart where they have all the lists of the gifts. The interesting thing is when you look at that list, none of the lists in the Bible agree.

None of them. There are some categories that, okay, are shared, but by and large, the lists, every single one are different. I noticed that a few years ago, and I began to kind of go on a hunt to figure out why that is.

A simple conclusion I came to was, God in his infinite wisdom has not pigeonholed us into a specific set of gifts that are available. Like I said, I was the only one who noticed this. One commentator put it like this.

He said, because they may resist over-classification, there is not much value in taking tests, informal or formal, to determine what spiritual gifts we have. So somebody mentioned spiritual gift inventories.

Anyone had to take one of those in church life at some point? I remember being in my youth group. I was, ooh, I wasn't even a Christian. I must have been, what, 12, 13? My youth pastor, Stephen Osatis, he was a Ghanaian guy like myself.

Good man in lots of ways. I thank God for him. I remember he preached a message one day about, you know, finding your spiritual gift. It had us filling this multi-page questionnaire. At the time, I was like, okay, youth group teacher said we should do it, so I'm going to do it.

But if you're in this situation, do you find yourself doing this, this, or this? If you're in this situation, count them all up. Oh, okay, if I count them all up, okay, this is, oh, I seem to trend in this direction.

Here's the problem with that. One thing, they're mostly more personality tests. They're not actually driven by the Bible. They're personality tests. They just slapped the Bible on top of it. There actually isn't much value in that for the simple fact that this commentator goes on, a believer's gifts can be an overlapping combination taken in different proportions from the various categories of spiritual giftedness.

One person may be obviously strong in a single gift, such as teaching. Another may not be strong in any one gift, but have some measure of three or four categories. It is best to see each person's gift as a unique blend of the categories of giftedness granted to that individual in connection with his or her traits and experiences and needs of the church.

Each believer, I love this, each believer becomes as unique spiritually as his fingerprints are physically. Your assignment might not be very neatly packaged where you can say it has this label, but can I actually say that's a good thing?

That's a good thing because if that is true, that frees you up ministry-wise. One of the problems I have with the abilities view of spiritual gifts is this. I've had people tell me this, and honestly, I think it's an excuse.

I might be wrong about that. I'm wrong about lots of things. I might be wrong about that, but it comes off just as a bit of an excuse sometimes. We have this need in the church. That's not my gift. No, I'm not gifted in that area.

I might have a little more to say about that in a moment, but one of the things that I would simply want to point out is you don't have a single gift or giftedness, I should say. Let's distinguish between giftedness and spiritual gifts.

Gifts are ministries. Within that ministry, you may have certain giftedness and skills you need to do that ministry, but the New Testament emphasis is interesting. You know, there's no way in the New Testament that tells you how to discover your gift.