9. Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts, Part 2

In I Corinthians, the passage that pastor Steve read from the 2nd chapter, the RSV says in the 12th verse, "now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.  And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.  The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  The spiritual man judges all things but is himself is to be judged by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?  But we have the mind of Christ."

And then the first verse of the third chapter says, "But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh.  As babies."

And it is in order that this not be accurate of us, as a congregation, that we have been spending as long as we have been in seeking to understand the scripture's teaching with regard to the gifts of the Holy Spirit - who He is, what His role in ministry is in our lives, and how He has gifted us for what purpose.

Two weeks ago, we said that the Holy Spirit's gifts to us are not for our titillation or for our enjoyment - in the sense of "just a fun thing" - but they are to help us discover the tools that God has given us for ministry which is to do His will and to build up His body.  And we suggested that there are, at least, five ways in which a person can kind of seek to discover their spiritual gift in case they are not fully aware of it at the time.  The Bible does say that in the case of Timothy, his spiritual gift to became aware of through the laying on of hands.  This is not a formula.  This happens to be the description of the way Timothy discovered his spiritual gift which, by the way, he had allowed to drop into dormancy.  And so Paul has to write to him and says, "Now, Timothy, you stir up that gift of God which is in you."  But it also describes for us that there are ways in which we can seek to discover the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given to us.  But first of all, we need to look over the possibilities.  We talked about this two weeks ago - the possibilities as described in the scriptures.  And you need to look at not just the "big three" passages on spiritual gifts - Romans 12, I Corinthians 12-14, and Ephesians 4 - but you need to read the entire books to get the context in which he's talking.  And then you need to study the other scriptures to see the models and illustrations in the lives of persons that describe how the gifts are operative in their lives.  You need also to spend some time with secondary sources - but only after you've spent primary time with the primary source, which is the authoritative word of God.  And you need to talk about spiritual gifts with people that you view as gifted.

Secondly, we said you need to go to work.  There are many things that are described in scripture, and sometimes its confusing in people's minds between what is my role as a Christian and what is a spiritual gift.  Now, my role as a Christian means that there are many things that I need to exercise myself in obedience to Christ, which is not really the fulfilling of a spiritual gift.  I will illustrate that in just a little bit.  It is important, however, that we be on the move.  You will never determine the direction of a ship or an automobile while it is sitting - even with the engine running - unless its moving.  And so it is that it is necessary for us to apply ourselves to those needs that we become aware of, seeking to discover if in the experimentation of fulfilling those needs we might, in fact, discover our spiritual gift.  Now I operate under the naive assumption that two weeks ago when I said that, there would be an overwhelming rush to volunteer for every needed position there is, and Sonja Lindberg (our coordinator of Christian education) I think was a little bit disappointed.  I just had my naivete demonstrated again.  I'm telling you that there are needs in this congregation, and if you see that need, and if you are interested in discovering if, perhaps, this is an area where you are gifted then you'll never discover it sitting there listening to me.  You will discover it as you apply yourself in the ministry.  And so, go to work.

Now, the third thing I wanted to bring to your attention today is that after you have studied the word of God and know the options; after you have begun to experiment, you will begin to discover that you can also find whether you have the spiritual gift in the area where you're working by evaluating your reactions.  What are your responses?  What is your enjoyment level in the work you're doing?  Where did we ever get the unBiblical idea that serving God was not fun?  Where did we ever get the idea that the more miserable you are, the more Godly you must be?  Now, I used to think that apparently, when I was a young fellow.  Part of my spiritual struggle, my resistance of the will of God in my life, was I suspected if He got ahold of me without reservations, He would send me to a mud hut in New Guinea, which you've all heard about.  Or even worse, He'd make me a minister.  And I could not, for the life of me, understand how anybody could hope to serve a God who wanted them that miserable.  And then I had an older pastor who said to me, "you know, it doesn't make sense.  If your son comes to you or your daughter comes to you and says, 'Daddy, I love you with all my heart' and they express their love and say, 'I'll do anything you ask me to do, just give me a chance to serve you', would you send them out to clean the garbage cans?  That's highly unlikely.  And if you are going to treat your earthly children that way, isn't it just as unlikely that God is going to send you into a mud hut in New Guinea?"  Unless that is where your happiness lies.  And I know people who are in mud huts in New Guinea, who wouldn't trade places with you or me for anything.  And the idea that I am full of joy in the ministry is just still a surprise to me after all these years.  But God, you see, in His mercy, knows and understands so you need to check your interest and response level.  How did I discover that God had called me into the ministry?  I'll tell you.  I went into the ministry.  I didn't have any Damascus road experience or bright lights, or blinding, or anything else.  I did the next logical thing: when I graduated from college, I applied to seminary.

I applied to seminary and everybody said, "Oh, my aching back, what's happening to our seminary!"  But I still went.  And after I'd been there for a year, I had a chance to marry my wife, and we served a church in southern Alabama, down on the edge of the swamp on three sides, and the Gulf coast fifteen miles away.  And that was really quite an experience.  No radio, no television, no telephone, no money to buy gas to go any place.  We spent more time together in the first two years of our marriage than most people do in the first twenty.  And we went through all the trauma most people do in the first twenty in the first two years.  Marriage to me was easy, but marriage to her was really tough!  Of course, I dare say that because you know the converse is quite true of that.  I can remember that Sunday after Sunday as I would preach, and week after week as I would prepare and do the work of the ministry, I am continually saying, "what in the world am I doing here?"  And I would get in there and I would spend time with the word of God and it was just spade work and the ground was so hard I used a pick and shovel - I couldn't get any place.  I didn't have enough knowledge, I didn't have enough background, it was hard work.  And, thank God, He had sent me to some very simple, faith people, who ministered to me more than I ever did to them.  They taught me more about faith in two years down there - more about trust in God's word and in His mercy - than I had learned in seminary up to that point, or would subsequently learn.  Praise God for His people.  But I can recall that it was on the second night of February, after I had been serving that church as its pastor for several months that there came a realization - not a thunder and lightning storm - but just a quiet dawning of realization of that which was there.  I was at peace.  For the first time in my conscious memory, I was deeply at peace.  A sense of "this is where I belong."  This is the task to which God has called me, and it has never left.  Now, I do not suggest thereby that it is really gravy, because there is a lot about the ministry - a lot about the pastorate - that is pure pain.  And a lot of dealing with people that I just don't like and dealing with some people that I don't like, who have to deal with pastors that they don't like.  And the whole business is sometimes very unpleasant, but in the middle of the whole thing, God gives that joy.

So, examine your emotion - your response - your feelings.  Psalm 37 (GNGW) says, "delight thyself in the Lord, and He'll give you the desires of your heart."  But if your delight is in the Lord, He can trust you with the desires of your heart.  St. Augustine said, "love God with all your heart, and then do as you please", knowing full well if you love God with all your heart, you're going to do what pleases Him.  Ray Stedman says in his book "Body Life", "Somewhere the idea has found deep entrenchment in Christian circles that doing what God wants you to do is always unpleasant.  That Christians must always make choices between doing what they want to do and being happy, and doing what God want's them to do and being completely miserable."  Now that is liable against God.  It is simply not true.  The exercise of the spiritual gift is enormously satisfying.  It brings enjoyment, even though the occasion which calls forth its exercise might not be, in fact, enjoyable.  I may be called to exercise my gift of exhortation in a situation that is fraught with pain and discomfort, but the exercising of that particular gift brings joy.  And that is because it is in harmony with God's plan and purpose for us.  He knows every detail of my psychological and my physiological makeup.  He knows my hormonal balance and my basal metabolism, my glandular function or dysfunction, my total personality, my feelings, my fears, my anxieties both known and unknown, both conscious and unconscious.  He knows that I will always do my best job when I'm enjoying the job.  So will you.  And so part of God's plan for us is to match His gifts to the person.  And that's why the matching is not on the basis of our knowledge, but His knowledge.  Not on the basis of our sovereignty, but His Holy Spirit's sovereignty, "Who gives severally His gifts as He wills".  He's got a better plan.  And with that enjoyment comes fulfillment.

I sat in the motel in Eagle Rock, California.  It was a major smog alert - I wanted to go out and go swimming and I could hardly see the swimming pool.  I decided to stay inside my air-conditioned motel room.  I was down there for some meetings in a church.  I had studied until I didn't want to study anymore.  I just reached a saturation point.  I prayed until I was done praying - I couldn't think of anything else to pray about and I was starting to repeat myself and I'm sure it was boring God.  So I decided I was going to do something different.  And I turned on the television set and just as I turn on the TV set, the picture came into focus and there was a man laying on a pallat on a dirt floor.  The man was an emaciated bag of bones.  His body was covered with some awful looking sores.  He looked like he was terminal - that he would die while the camera was focused on him.  The bugs ran all over and the flies lit all over his sores.  And I thought, "Oh man, this is not what I need" and when I reached for the TV set to change the channel, suddenly, off camera right came the robed figure of a sister - a nun.  She was carrying a basin of water and a towel and some kind of disinfectant.  She knelt down on the dirt floor amid the bugs next to this man, who must have smelled as bad as he looked, and she began to bathe those wounds and bind them up.  This went on for what seemed like a long time and I sat watching with fascination.  No words, no music, no voice over.  And then, at last came a voice off camera of the announcer, who said, "sister?"

And she didn't stop.  She just said "Yes?"

And the off-camera voice said, "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars."

She turned around and looked full into the camera and she said, "Neither would I."

Do you understand?  The exercise (in this case, of the gift of mercy) bears its rewards that could never be compensated by the kind of reward system the world and society is set up to reward.  There is enjoyment even though, in the middle of the enjoyment of the exercise of that gift, that there is squalor and misery and everything else.  She did not enjoy the pleasure of this man's suffering.  But the pleasure of exercising that gift of mercy to minister to him in suffering.  And she was right - she would not do it for a million dollars.  You know men and women who are busily engaged in serving the Lord in various capacities that you say to yourself, "I'd just be exhausted if I tried to do that!"  A few months back, we were having some problems finding people who were responsible enough to accept the challenge of serving in children's church.  We still have some problems there.  And so I said to those in charge, "Alright, we're going to take the membership of this church and we're just going to assign them, a month at a time."  Man, the fall-out from that was enormous.  But it was kind of fun - I just fastened my seatbelt and let her come, because I thought, "Alright, this is a need in the body of Christ and you will never know if this is your gift unless you get involved."  And I'd stand there on Sunday and people would come past - and they hadn't been in the worship service - they'd been with children's church and they'd say, "Man did you preach a long sermon today!"

"Well, how do you know?"

"I've been with the kids!"

They were exhausted.  They looked totally spent.  They looked as though I had run them around the island behind my car.  And then there were others that came out of that as fresh as a daisy!  Excited and chattering about what God had done in their midst.  The difference is that one couple had been working with their gifts and the other couple wasn't.  And how do you find out?  You put them in the job.  And if some of you are the ones that were so mad at me...  tough!  You weren't volunteering to get in the job and there are needs all over the place.  And you'll never really know.  Now, if you already know your gift is someplace else... (but you'd better be able to document that for me, if you will)  Because I discovered that the most unlikely places are where joy comes in service.  And it is frequently unlikely, because God in His mercy will gift us in ways we did not expect.  So, examine your feelings.  There are those who do tasks that would exhaust me.  Just watching them exhausts me.  But they seem to be energized by the doing of that task.  That's the difference between working with a gift and not having a gift.  When members of the body of Christ are in right relationship with His head, the members should delight in the ministry of his gift.  Conversely, if you just endure, instead of enjoy, if you just know constant frustration instead of fulfillment, maybe your task is not lined up with your gift.

Well, I've really got to hurry.  Let me look at one more.  You see a need that you want to do something about, you have a burning desire to see people come to Jesus Christ.  Or you see organizational confusion and lousy, inefficient methodology, or poor policy planning, and you would really like to get in and do something about it.  Or you see the lonely and sick or the deprived or the retarded and your heart just goes out to them - you just are filled with a desire to become involved.  You are experiencing the touch of the Holy Spirit to motivate you into the areas where He has gifted you.

So, once you have looked at the word of God; once you have experimented and spent some time (not just a one-shot deal) experimenting and working and seeking God's will and being obedient in your Christian roles; and then when you have examined your enjoyment level, then take a realistic look at your effectiveness.  That's also a very important key.  You see, if you just look at your reactions and feelings, that's so internal and can become very subjective.  So you need a little bit more objective view and the Scripture suggests that you look at the outside - take a look at the effect.  Are other people helped?  Are they encouraged?  Are they won to Christ?  Are they given insight?  Are they comforted?  Are they built up?  Do they grow?  This is no time, church, for phony false modesty that masquerades as Christian humility.  I don't believe in false modesty.  I believe in humility.  But I don't believe in false modesty.  If God has given you a gift, then don't say, "Oh, I can't do anything."  Just roll up your sleeves and say, "This is a task I can do!"  And do it!  The question, therefore, is when you do a task, does the task get done?  And is the body, as a result, built up?  Is that ministry successful?  Don't be spooked by that word.  There's nothing wrong with being successful.  God has no premium on mediocrity and failure, although you'd think so sometimes.  God wants us to be successful.  He has gifted us, by His Spirit, with gifts in order to be successful.  Now, don't judge success by the world's standards of success, which are cockamamie anyway.  The scripture says, "The last shall be first and the first last", so if you get things right side up (not world side up) you'll be able to understand what success really is.  Gifted people get results - without exhaustion.  Therefore, it's in order when you are gifted, to expect those gifts to work and to be effective.

If you experiment with a gift and you consistently find that what is supposed to happen is not happening, you've probably discovered one of the gifts the Holy Spirit has not given you.  C. Peter Wagner tells in his book of the frustration he had because his professor of evangelism in seminary was continually thrilling the class by telling stories of how he'd get on the bus, he'd ride three blocks and by the time he got off, the seat mate on either side had been led to the Lord and C. Peter Wagner just used to feel awful about it - just guilt-ridden about it.  So he'd get on a bus, and by the time they'd gone six blocks, they were all mad at him and he'd say, "something's wrong."  And he felt so guilty and all the rest - what he was doing was discovering that, while he has the responsibility of witnessing (that is the Christian's role and responsibility), he did not have the gift of evangelism.  And by evangelism, I'm not just talking about the mass Billy Graham full Kingdome type meetings.  I'm talking about the fact that here, frequently from time to time in the course of layman's viewpoint, someone will stand and share how that week they had a chance to lead someone to the Lord.  It happens with a certain degree of regularity.  You say, "why does it happen for him and not me?  I share just as faithfully; I seek to live a life just as committed to Christ; but here's one who bears fruit, and I just seem to be one of the planters."  So?  It's God Who gives the increase.

Gifts are for a purpose.  When true gifts are in operation, whatever's supposed to happen will happen.  If you have been called and given the gift of evangelism, people will come to Christ regularly through your witness.  No big deal, just the fact.  You've been given the gift of exhortation, people will be helped with their problems, you will be able to discern steps they ought to take for the correction of their lives, they will be encouraged and built up.  It just happens.  You've been given the gift of administration and you walk into a mare's nest of organizational inefficiency and before too long, things are just humming right along.  Or if you have the gift of teaching, amazing!  Students learn!  There's nothing Holy about ineffectiveness.  We are called, the scripture says, "to bear much fruit."  The exercise of our gifts should produce fruit in us and in other people.  So, we ask ourselves, "Is my competence and is my joy increasing?  Is the exercise of this gift effective?"  You see, gifts are instruments - they're not ornaments: does this lead me to grow and other's too?

And that leads to the last step in the discovery of spiritual gifts and that is that confirmation has got to come from the body of Christ.  Otherwise, you see, we can become so subjective and so wrapped up in ourselves that it has no checks and balances.  And confirmation of the body comes as a check on the other steps.  Do other people recognize these gifts in you?  In Acts 6, the deacons were selected on the basis of gifts.  One of them is wisdom.  Look at Acts 6:3.  It says that they were men of wisdom.  But it was the body that recognized those gifts and confirmed those gifts and confirmed these men in ministry.  As we obey the commands of Christ and serve Him in obedience in our roles, others in the body may see gifts operating in our lives before we do.  You know that?  We may be just doing our job and then, low and behold, somebody says, "You know, you have a real gift in this area."  And you begin to look at it - and isn't that amazing?  Sometimes our joy and preoccupation in what we are doing with effectiveness - in accord with the giftedness we've received - makes us kind of oblivious.  A very important duty therefore, of Christians, is to encourage fellow believers.  When we observe a gift in operation in somebody's life, don't be jealous - share that good news with that person.  Gifts are for that purpose.

And the confirmation of the body, by the way, works both negatively and positively.  Here's the negative side: 
o if you say, "I believe God has given me the gift of teaching" and people stay away from your classes in droves
o or you believe God has given you the gift of preaching, but nobody seems to have the gift of listening when you're preaching
o or you believe God has given you the gift of administration and you never can get elected so you have a chance to use that gift
o or you believe God has given you the gift of wisdom and nobody asks you for counsel.

Proverbs 25:14 says, "Whoso boasts of himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain".

But, praise God, it works positively and its wonderful.  Look at the Biblical examples of the confirmation of the gifts by the body.  I referred to the one in Acts 6, where the deacons had the gift of wisdom confirmed by the body. In Act 16, when Paul chooses young Timothy to join him on his missionary team, he made sure that Timothy was "well reported by the brethren."  That is, both moral and spiritual evaluation took place.  In Paul's very early years in the Christian ministry, his gifts and his mission to the Gentiles were affirmed by the church.  Listen to what he says in Galatians 2 - he goes down to Jerusalem and there he kind of lays out before them his plans and his experience and all the rest, and "when they perceived the grace" (that is the gift) "that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabus the right hand of fellowship that we should go to the Gentiles."  That's confirmation by the body of the gifts.  That scripture reminds me of another teaching on gifts that was the experience of an early disciple.  You know that there was a follower of Christ in the very early days of the church whose name was "Joseph"?  You don't even know him by the name of Joseph, but that's his name.  He was a Levite, he was a native of island of Cypress.  He had the gift of giving, he sold everything he had and brought it and layed it at the feet of the apostles.  He was an amazing kind of a guy.  But the major gift that was exercised in his life was that of exhortation.  So much so that he was nicknamed "Barnabus", which means "son of encouragement".

Barney was the kind of a man that, every place he went, was just a build up to everybody else.  The early disciples loved him - he was a favorite of the whole crowd.  But it also has to be said that not always is the exercise of a gift appreciated by all parts of the body of Christ.  For instance, Paul and Barnabus team up as missionaries to the Gentiles.  And Barnabus thinks its a good idea to take along his young nephew, by the name of John Mark, who is just a young fellow who needs encouragement and building up.  So they take John Mark, and John Mark bailed out - he quit.  He found out missionary activity was not just sitting around on a rickshaw or taking pictures of snakes - it was real work.  And after he'd had a few weeks of that, he just ducked out.  Now in Acts 15, Paul is making up another team for another missionary journey.  And he goes to Barnabus and he said, "Barnabus, let's go an check those churches that we started up last time we were out."

Barnabus says, "Great!  I'm ready to go!  Let me tell John Mark to get ready."

And Paul said, "Hold it!  That guy bailed out on us in the middle of the thing.  I'm not hauling him around again."

And Barnabus thinks, "Well, you know this boy, he's suffered discouragement, he suffered defeat, he feels like a failure, he's sitting at home wondering if he's any use to God or anybody else.  Come on, Paul, this guy's spiritual life hangs in the balance.  We've got to take him."  You know, Barnabus, true to his name, Son of Encouragement, he wants to take John.

And listen to what the word says: "after some days, Paul said to Barnabus, 'Come let us return and visit the brethren in every city where we proclaimed the word of God and see how they are.'  And Barnabus wanted to take with them, John called Mark.  But Paul thought it best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphillyia and had not gone with them to the work.  And there arose a sharp contention so that they separated from each other."  And Barnabus took Mark.  He didn't quit, he didn't give up. He took Mark and he went to Cypress, which was his home territory.  And Paul teamed up with Silas.  So now, instead of one missionary team, God gets two.  You see, God works through strange ways - even the contention of men.  So don't get shook up about that.  We are called to unity in the body of Christ, but that is nowhere in scripture described as "unanimity".  That's okay.

Now, that Biblical final step in the discovery is confirmation by the body.  It is the Biblical pattern.  The gifts are for the building up of the body, and so the body will provide a system of accountability for your use of the gift.  Once you're gift is recognized and known by the body, don't expect to be able to sit back and retire.  The body will expect to see it in action.  That's why I said in the prerequisites to the spiritual gifts: you'd better be ready to work.  You must be willing to go to work before you will discover your gift, because once that gift has been discovered and confirmed by the body, you will be held accountable by the body.  Gifts are not some kind of adornment that we wear - they are tools.  And that's why Paul writes to Timothy and says, "Now look Tim, you stir up the gift of God which was in you by the laying on of hands."  Get at it!  The existence of a gift is the call to exercise it.  Listen to Weymouth's translation of this in I Timothy 4: "Do not be careless about the gifts with which you are endowed.  Habitually practice these duties and be absorbed in them so that your growing proficiency in them may be evident to all."  Now don't have the feeling you need to come into this giftedness at graduate level.  Allow the growing proficiency, which comes as a result of your obedience to God, to become evident to all.

Well, believe it or not, next Sunday's Easter - we can't talk about the gifts next Sunday, we've got to talk about the greatest gift of all: that's the empty tomb, the resurrected Christ.  But next time I preach, I promise we'll start on the specific gifts.  All right?  Meanwhile, if you suspect you've got a gift because God has awakened an interest in your heart, roll up your sleeves and get at it!  Don't sit around and wait until - somewhere down the line, who knows, it may be October before I get to your gift - and I don't want you sitting around until then, because we've got needs now.  So, go to the adventure of discovering giftedness in the work.  You have been called to multiple roles and lives of obedience as disciples.  Go, and in the process of fulfilling those roles in obedience, discover the grace of the gifts.  And God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will be with you and your ministry and with me in mine until, by His good grace, we're together again.