Welcome to Nothing But The Truth, with David Johnston. How to Discover Your Spiritual Gift Church is God's idea. Divine wisdom devised it. If when you think of church, I'm not sure what idea you conjure up in your mind, but if it's not a pleasant one, then it probably isn't the church as described, defined, and devised by the Lord in his scriptures. So our intent has been to open this book, as we do so often, and it's always the greatest privilege of my whole life to open this book and learn thoughts that come directly from God, but to learn to think right about what he calls the church. For according to the scriptures, the church is a group of people. Now, it isn't all the ones you see, because a lot of people go to church who may not even have become Christian yet. But that's okay. But what is the church? The church is those authentic followers of the Lord who by Him have also been gifted. In other words, God, when you became a Christian, made some great deposits in your heart, in your life. He has given you a gift and giftings. And joy in the Christian life comes from discovering your gift, developing your gift, and then using it for the glory of God. Now, we want to look to the scripture, so let's look at a bit of things that we've already learned. And as soon as we just get this brief overview, I want you to discover what is your gift. The reason you want to discover your personal gift is because without knowing your gift, you will probably not know the will of God for your life, because the will of God is directly related to knowing your gift. You probably also won't understand how valuable you are as a person. You may look inside and not see great things other than that which is distorted by an exalted ego, but authentically, God has placed in you great worth, great value, great gifting, great rich deposits, and our great joy is to discover what those deposits are and help you discover what gift you have because once you discover your gift, You will discover your personal value, your significance, your place in the kingdom of God, your purpose for life, and you'll know what to do the rest of your days on this planet, which is to take the gift you've got, develop it, and then use it for the glory of God. So, the Scriptures tell us in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that there are different kinds of gifts, and then proceeds to tell us that there are three different groups of gifts. Here they are in diagram. There are differences of operation, differences of administration, and differences of manifestation. We have learned, for example, that the manifestation, our gifts, are found there in the same chapter, the 12th of 1 Corinthians. And there are nine of those in number. These are how the Holy Spirit shows himself or manifests himself through the church. Then there is the administrative gifts, which are found in Ephesians chapter 4. And he gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to perfect the rest of the church. These are the ways that God administrates the church. But the grouping that we really want to know is this group found in Romans chapter 12. These are called the operations because it's how the Holy Spirit operates. The Holy Spirit operated through Jesus to do all seven of these functions. Proclaiming, serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, ruling, and showing mercy. Watch the diagram now with me again. This is what the body of Christ looks like. This is what the church looks like. The church is made up of members Seven different kinds of members, and you are one of those members of the body of Christ. You have one of those gifts because the gifts are analogous to the members of the body of Christ. So you have one of these seven. Now watch the diagram with me one more time. Understand that this is how the Holy Spirit operates through the church. This is how the Holy Spirit administrates the church. This is how the Holy Spirit manifests Himself through the church. Now watch one more time. And these administrative gifts are given, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, to develop all of us over here and bring us up to our maturity so that we can do the work of the ministry. What is the work of the ministry? The work of the ministry is, look at what, proclaiming, serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, ruling, and showing mercy. And once you discover your gift, God also makes all of these gifts available to you over here, these manifestation gifts, as the tools to help you carry out, fulfill, and function whatever your personal gift is from this first group in Romans chapter 12. But the vast, delightful subject that lies before us today is how can you discover your personal gift. We know that you have one of these gifts in Romans chapter 12. You're either gifted to be proclaimer, server, teacher, exhorter, giver, or ruler, or shower of mercy. You are one of these. These are the seven kinds of members to the body of Christ. The question now becomes, how can you discover your gift? That's our subject. So pull your paper and pencil out. Get ready to take some notes on how you can discover your personal gift. The first step, and it's the only one we're gonna get to cover today, even though there are about seven different steps to discovering your gifts. The first step is that we must know these gifts. Diagram watch it again. We should know what the church looks like when you look at the I mean, you know, we have this old adage, you know something so well It's like the back of your hand because you see it so much We ought to know the church so well that when we look at any member of the body of Christ any member of the church we know exactly which member they are And when we do that, we're going to discover a new appreciation for their worth and value because we can precisely see and understand which member of the body of Christ they are. Now, here we are. And one of those seven belongs to you. How to discover which one is yours begins with knowing all seven of these gifts. And some of you may well, while we go through this right now, start saying to yourself, wow, that's me. I know that's me because I'm just like what he's describing. Well, and let me look at this diagram. Look at the diagram with me. We're going to give a definition for each of the gifts. Then we're going to point out the characteristic of each of the seven gifts. We're going to demonstrate some of the weaknesses because each gift has intrinsic flaws that are almost automatic. Some people discover their gift when they see the weaknesses. And then we're going to talk about the focus. Let me tell you what I mean by focus. Every gift has a way of looking, a focus. You know, if you're shopping for a new carpet for your home, and you go to visit someone else's house, when you walk through the door, what's the first thing you notice? You notice carpet, because carpet is your focus. Each gift has a way of looking, and it is very narrow. And that's why we have so many differences of opinion within the church, because a proclaimer sees something from one focus, and a server sees it from another, and a teacher sees it from another, on and on, etc. So this will also help you with your marriage because the person you're married to may well have a different personal gift than you, sees things different than you do, and that's why we need to understand that diversity does not mean division. But we should celebrate the differences that we have because none of us are the whole thing. Only Jesus was the whole thing and now you and I are each a member of his body and we need one another to make up the completion in this local body of Christ in which each of us participate. Well, we're also going to give you a biblical example for each of these character qualities, or not character qualities, but each of these gifts. So here we are. Let's understand each of the seven gifts. Gift number one is the gift of proclaiming. definition. It's someone who has the ability to speak in order to reveal sin in another person's life and bring that person into contact with the gospel and the love of God so that he can be genuinely converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. What a valuable person this is. By the way, you're going to discover that when you're functioning in your gift, there's no pressure. And we should all do all of these gifts. Everybody should proclaim, serve, teach, and exhort, and give, and rule, and show mercy. We should all do all of them as best we can, but one of them is particularly us. That's what 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27 says, Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular. This particular member of the Body of Proclaimer is someone who looks into somebody else's life and shows them why they need a Savior and brings them to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what are the characteristics? Number one, A proclaimer hates evil. He sees the sinfulness of sin. In fact, he is so sensitive to sin, everything is black and white, right and wrong, and there are absolutely no greys. And he is intent on upholding righteousness. He would side with the truth more than he would side with a person. And what does he want to do? He wants to discern the motives in a person. And he demands honesty from that person. He grieves over their sin and gets them to see the terribleness of their sin. And then when they have seen that, he presents Jesus Christ and what Jesus did on the cross as the only solution for their condition. What a delightful member of the body this is. There are people who just speak to others in such a wonderful way as to bring them delightfully to the most awesome, the greatest person in the whole universe, the Son of God, and God the Son. That's what a proclaimer does. He speaks to reveal a person's sin in order to bring them to the Lord Jesus Christ. These are a very important group of members of the body of Christ. I mentioned before that each of them has inherent or inbred weaknesses. So what are his? Well, number one, he appears critical and that's because he's judging sin. And the danger is that he shouldn't just judge the sin, but judge the sinner as well. In other words, it's one thing to be, um, down on sin, but we cannot be down on the sinner. Some people hate sin so much they hate the sinner, but that's why the proclaimer must learn to separate the sin from the sinner. Love the sinner, hate the sin, but he might appear critical. He also may appear belligerent. He is jumping to conclusions about your spiritual condition. His hatred of evil may make him appear to be impulsive and not think it through with you or not let you see it before he does. And so his hatred of evil makes him appear impulsive. But he may lack tactfulness. He is so intent on getting you to the Lord and the facts are so black and white that he may not used to win friends and how to influence people approach and lack tactfulness. He sometimes is a gruff person and there's a risk of his being negative. That is, he may be intent on exposing sin without restoring the sinner. So he can become very negative. He can also be viewed as harsh because the truth is more important to him than people. and then he may have pride in his speaking ability. And this pride in his speaking ability causes him to be more interested in the mass than in the persons. When in fact Jesus, by the way, is our personal example of every one of these gifts, And Jesus did most of his preaching to one person at a time. So he must be interested in individuals and not just interested in crowds. And another danger is that he should be interested in getting decisions for the Lord instead of making sure they get authentically converted. He may become or appear to be manipulated because He is after the sinner to get to Jesus, to get to the cross, to get to the gospel, and he's coming at you sometimes. He's in your face sometimes. He speaks strongly. He speaks prophetically. He is rather blunt. But his motives are pure. He wants to get you to the Lord, and he may use some techniques to get you there, and those techniques may come across as manipulative. What a wonderful person this is, though. Now, his focus is clearly on the message. His focus is on the gospel. And the proclaimer is intent to get as many people as possible. He only sees this gospel, this message. He is very tunnel-visioned, and he wants everybody to discover the delights that he has found in the Lord Jesus Christ. A great biblical example of this is Peter. Remember on the Day of Pentecost, Peter has stood up, yes, with the eleven, but he was a spokesman, and he went right at the audience. You have crucified by wicked hands this Christ. And he did everything he did, and he did it successfully, a great example of a proclaimer. What a wonderful member of the body of Christ this is. Well, the second gift is what we call the gift of serving. Definition? Server is someone who demonstrates the love of God by the doing of good deeds. Let me pause here for a moment. Because, you see, the proclaimer speaks about the love of God, but the server demonstrates the love of God by doing good deeds. What a precious member of the body of Christ this is. He may not be much of a speaker, but he goes about like Jesus did. You remember Jesus personified perfection in all these gifts. And what does the scripture say about Jesus? He went about doing good. These people get their delight in just demonstrating the love of God through the doing of good deeds. And they are the ones that bring such credibility to Christianity. because they go about doing good. Now, remember, we're all supposed to do good. Ephesians chapter two, verse 10 says that we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. All of us should be doing good works, but these members particularly are consumed with helping people out. And in fact, just like Jesus was, they serve. Oh, what a disposition. How likable. How wonderful it is to have people around you have this gift. Remember, Jesus sat down with the disciples and he took their shoes off and he washed their feet. Servers are like that. Let's look at some of the characteristics of servers. Number one, they have the ability to detect the needs. Their focus is the needs of other people. So everywhere they look, they are sensitive, they are tuned into needs. Remember, the proclaimer is tuned in to, are you a Christian? Have you got victory over your sin? But the server, he detects needs. And secondly, he finds his intrinsic fulfillment in meeting those needs. In fact, he can operate in his gift almost tirelessly. because, as we'll discover later on in discovering how to discover our gift, that when you're functioning in your gift, the energy comes from God through you or your gift to others. And so this, he could just keep on serving and serving almost tirelessly, meeting those needs, which is the delight of his soul. He's committing to meeting practical needs. Down to earth, real life solving problems. He is not concerned about receiving the praise of people for what he does. In fact, you see, that's one of the primary difference between Christian and a non-Christian. Because a Christian does what he does, guess who? Guess why? He does it for the Lord. He's serving you, but he's really doing it for the Lord. You see, if someone does good deed for someone and doesn't get thanked, they tend to say, well, if that's all the thanks I get, see if I ever do that again. But not the server, because he gets delight and fulfillment and doesn't care about getting praise back. Because when he does what he does, he does it Not for personal benefit or praise, but he does it as unto the Lord. That's why the scriptures are important scriptures for each of these gifts. One of those, whatever you do, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Whatever you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. The server just demonstrates. That's why Jesus said, you know, when you give a glass of water to somebody that's thirsty, By doing it and giving it to them, you're really doing it to me. If somebody is hungry and you feed them, it's like you fed me. That's why the server doesn't need a whole lot of praise because he's serving the Lord. He delights in taking pressures off of other people so that they can do the things that they need to do. In fact, they play second fiddle really well. They honor us by relieving pressure, enabling us to have our needs kept met by them so that we can get on with other things that either temporarily or in long term are important. They love to work with their hands, do physical things. They want to see visible results and When they do something, they really want to feel it was done well. What a delightful member of the body of Christ this is. Someone who just goes about demonstrating the love of God through the doing of good deeds. But, like all of the gifts, they have their weaknesses. Number one, they may seem to be overbearing. I guess you could call this overreaching. Let me tell you what I mean by that. They are so zealous to serve that they try to meet the needs that we have before we know that we even have the needs. It's like the guy who bends over to pick the pencil up for you before you've even dropped it. So they get in our way sometimes. They're a little bit overbearing. That's one of the weaknesses, because they try to meet needs before we know we even have needs. Well, their zeal may appear as self-advancement, that they might have some other motive. Another risk, by the way, is that in serving, they must be careful not to interfere with reproofs that God is bringing into the life of the person that they're serving. In other words, sometimes God is reproving a person for some disobedience. The server must be careful not to undo that chastisement, if you please, that God is doing. then their feelings of importance fluctuate. They sometimes feel that they're the most important member of the body and other times they don't see their personal worth. They fluctuate in their feelings, but they also have the risk that they're so busy serving the needs of others that they may neglect themselves or their own responsibilities or even their family. Because they serve others and they forget that, wow, they needed to start that gift at home. There's an old adage and I like it and I want to tell it to you. And this is what it says. The light that shines the farthest, shines brightest at home. So your gift, whatever it is, reaches way out to many people, but it better shine brightest at home. So the danger is that servers should neglect their family and their own personal responsibilities and their zeal to help us, to help others. Another danger is that they should meet practical needs to the neglect of spiritual needs and not put due importance consideration into the spiritual needs of the person that they're serving. Another thing about them is they like to do it all by themselves. They don't want too many people, you know, the old too many cooks spoil the broth. They want to be the hands-on person. Another weakness a server has is that they're not very good at saying no. When an opportunity to serve comes, they want to jump right on it. And so the risk is that they don't say no frequently enough, and consequently of that, they become overworked, and they have too much serving to do, and that's a risk. Another risk or weakness of the server is that he might be bitter if he's not appreciated. He does something, And his gift may be not properly respected. Bitterness is a danger of the server if he's not appreciated. And then he might become critical of others who he sees as lazy because they don't have the same zeal for helping people in need as they do. And then, of course, like all the gifts, there's the risk of pride. Only, you see, the proclaimer is proud of his speaking ability, but the server is proud of his good works. These are the weaknesses. What is his focus? His focus is on the needs, is on needs and deeds. I remember for a number of years, when I first started out in the ministry, I had a team that traveled with me. Few as 12, as many as 24, there was a bunch of us and everywhere we just went together, a whole pack of us. And we came into town and busied ourselves. Well, I remember standing as we often did at the back of the church and just standing around with a team talking. And in the front door of the auditorium, the side front near the stage, the platform, came the janitor with a ladder that was so long and he couldn't manage it very well. And I'm just standing there and I'm just looking. It didn't cross my mind to help him. But I had one of our team members, I remember his name was Bob. Do you know what? He didn't think twice about it. The moment he saw the need, he headed for the front, grabbed a hold of one end of that ladder and helped the janitor in with the ladder, went up the ladder, changed the light bulb or whatever it was. Because you see, servers are very sensitive to people's needs and do the deeds that it takes to meet those needs. Well, the biblical example, of course, is in the Bible. And that is, other than Jesus, he's our best example, but Martha is another good example. So, in this time together, we have learned two very important members of the body of Christ, the proclaimer and the server. Know what each of these is like. Learn to respect and appreciate them. See if you fit them and the next time we get together We're going to go on and learn because the first step is to know all of these gifts