What’s Your Gift for Grace? – Part 2

 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.  – 1 Peter 4:10-11

Attention Grace Community Church member:  According to the Bible passage above you have been given a gift to serve our local body and to conform GCC into the image of Christ.  Are you using your gift?  Is your gift blessing others?  Do you even know what your gift is?

Before you say, “Oh, I don’t have any gifts.  I can’t sing or preach.  Never could play an instrument.  I’m just not talented”, consider this:  The spiritual gifts are not natural talents or learned abilities.  The spiritual gifts are a display of God’s grace through each of His redeemed children.  Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 reveal that these gifts fall into three categories:  sign gifts, speaking gifts, and serving gifts.  The sign gifts (gifts of healing, speaking in tongues, performing miracles) that accompanied the teaching of the apostles and authenticated their message ceased after the apostles died.  The speaking gifts (teaching, preaching, exhorting) and serving gifts (giving, leading, offering mercy) are still being used today to build up the body of Christ.  It’s true – the Holy Spirit has empowered you with a gift for Grace Community Church.

Don’t think the spiritual gifts are only for those occupying the stage on a Sunday morning.  Our church certainly has lots of people who sing and play instruments beautifully and we are all blessed and encouraged by their talents.  These talents (which are natural abilities from the Lord as well as the result of hours of practice) are not their spiritual gifts however.  Singing and playing instruments may be the means by which their gifts are demonstrated – gifts of teaching or exhorting, for instance – or they may not.  Their spiritual gifts, in fact, may be something totally unrelated to their musical talents.

Spiritual gifts are essential to church growth.  In Matthew 16:18 Jesus promised that he would build his church but we often mistakenly think he is referring only to numerical growth.  Jesus Christ however is not only interested in gathering a group of unrelated persons and calling them a church, he wants to build us up, each member of the church together, into a holy edifice that offers spiritual sacrifices to God (1 Peter 2:4-5).  Grace Community Church is not just a crowd of people but “living stones” that make up a “spiritual house”.  We are “God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:9).  Do you want to see the Spirit moving mightily through GCC, counseling, comforting, blessing, edifying, and sanctifying?  Do you want GCC to be a bright, shining light to our neighborhood, our city, and beyond?  Do you want GCC to be pleasing to our Lord?  I do, too!  But it’s going to take more than some talented singers, faithful preachers and teachers, elders, deacons, and ushers to make that happen.  Because of how God designed the church, all of us – every single redeemed member of Grace Community Church – must pour out our spiritual gifts for the common good to make that a reality. 

Let’s get started!

Discovering Your Spiritual Gift for GCC

Now it’s at this point that most people want an itemized list of all the spiritual gifts so that they can analyze which one they have.  They want to take an aptitude test to match their abilities and preferences to the list of spiritual gifts.  But you will never discover your spiritual gift in such a worldly way.  Taking aptitude tests, doing surveys, and discovering your personality type will never reveal how the Holy Spirit has uniquely empowered you to serve Grace Community Church.  That’s because the unregenerate of the world have similar aptitudes, abilities, talents, and personalities.  They do not have the gift of the Holy Spirit, however, which is given only to God’s children (Ephesians 1:13, 14).  So even though God blesses the lost with abilities (like natural artistic talent) He does not give them spiritual gifts for the building up of the church.

The best way to discover your spiritual gift is not to focus on what your gift is at all.  You will be more likely to use your spiritual gift when you focus less on the gift itself and focus more on desiring to use the gift.

You’re probably thinking, “Wait, that makes no sense!  That’s a bunch of meaningless double-talk.  How can I possibly use my spiritual gift if I don’t know what my gift is?!”

From a worldly standpoint, you’re right – it makes little sense.  But remember we are talking about spiritual concepts here, not worldly ones.  God has intricately weaved the use of spiritual gifts into His awesome design for the church and we must adopt His holy mindset to properly use our gifts.

Spiritual Gifts and the Nature of the Church

If an alien came down to our planet in a spaceship and visited the typical Christian bookstore he would probably come away with the idea that Christianity is strictly an individual pursuit.  Assuming the alien could decipher our language, he would read book after book about each Christian’s “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and their pursuit of personal happiness, joy, fulfillment, and meaning.  Indeed, the self-help section of Christian bookstores rivals that of secular bookstores these days.  The alien would probably not even be aware of a “church” since so little is written about it.

Many Christians have adopted this personalized view of Christianity but this is actually a worldly, Americanized concept not a biblical one.  The Bible does not speak of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”.  Though it is obvious Christ draws each of us individually to him, once we are saved he sees us as members of his church.  In fact the metaphors used throughout Scripture to describe the church – as branches connected to a vine (John 15), members of a physical body (1 Corinthians 12), living stones of a building (1 Peter 2), and brothers and sisters in a family (Mark 10) – reveal the interconnected nature of the church. 

The “one-anothers” commanded in several epistles describe how we as Christians both benefit from and are obligated to members of the church.  Even the epistles themselves were most often written to churches and not individuals and the few that are written to individuals are written to leaders in the church.  The risen, glorified Christ, in his Revelation to the apostle John, addressed churches not individuals (Revelation 2-3) further revealing how Christ thinks of us.  Probably one of the most convicting passages detailing how God views us is in 1 John 4:20-21 where it reads, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  We learn in 1 Corinthians 13 that this brotherly love is more than just pleasant thoughts about church members but active love in the form of patience, kindness, and burden bearing.

How does this all relate to spiritual gifts?  It proves that discovering your spiritual gifts is not a personal pursuit, one that you engage in to bring attention to yourself.  The spiritual gifts are for the building up of the church so that the church in turn can draw attention to Christ.  In summary, the spiritual gifts are for Christ and his church, not for us.  It is no coincidence that Paul’s famous love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 comes after the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. 

Therefore, the best way to discover your gift is to increase your love for Christ and your desire to see him magnified and exalted.  This will increase your love for his church, Grace Community Church.  As you love GCC more and more and desire to see Christ exalted in her, you will be drawn to different areas in which GCC is deficient in displaying Christ.  As you strive to perfect those areas using your talents, efforts, knowledge, and prayers you will likely be using the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirits has imparted to you!

Isn’t it wonderful how God designed the church?  We are so much more than just a random crowd of people meeting regularly throughout the week.  Let us each increase our love for Christ and the church he died for, Grace Community Church, so that the collective use of our gifts will transform GCC into a bright and shining image of Christ the world will not be able to ignore!