I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles, please, to Romans Chapter 12. Romans Chapter 12. We're going to share the first eight verses of this chapter together as the launching plate for what we're going to cover in God's Word today. to have your Bibles there and open. I did not print this text for us today. Romans 12, beginning in verse 1. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. By testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. Give prophecy in proportion to our faith. Give service in our serving. The one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. This is God's living Word for us today. Well, last Lord's Day we took a helicopter tour of what the New Testament teaches us about the very vital subject of spiritual gifts. We saw that spiritual gifts are special abilities that are given to us by the Holy Spirit and they are to be used They are given to every believer in the body of Christ. They are given according to God's grace and by His design. And they are given in order to be used within the context of the Bible. We examined last time why it is important for us to understand and to use the gifts that the Holy Spirit entrusts us with. I would encourage you, if at all possible, to go online and listen to that message, because this message today and that one fit together, and really what we'll talk about today is so dependent upon that platform. But we saw that knowing what our gifts are and using them in the right places results in two things. First of all, it results in growth in the Church. in one another. The church grows as we grow together in faith and in love and in unity. It also manifests itself as we grow individually. We have personal growth. We fulfill the purposes for which Jesus has united us with himself and with each other. We also grow personally as we become more and more and more the person that God has designed us to be. Using our gifts in the way that Jesus intends for us to use them is really an outworking of the gospel's implications in our lives. And so as we deploy our gifts and as we build one another up, we bring glory to God as we do what he has designed us to do by serving him through serving others. Well, that was the aerial view, but today we're going to take a real land that helicopter and going to look in specific at the various gifts that are listed for us in the New Testament. And as we do that, I am trusting that God's Spirit will either begin to reveal or continue to confirm for you what spiritual gifts God has woven into your person. I'm trusting that the Holy Spirit will begin to just deepen all of our awareness of how these gifts are meant to work together in a beautiful harmony, a symphony of praise to God. I trust that what we do today will be an incentive to you, that it will be something that helps continue to move you and knowing how you can be fully engaged in serving the church that Jesus is building. So as we go through this, I ask you to keep asking God, who have you made me to be in Christ? What is that unique part of my identity in Christ? How have you gifted me to serve you by serving others? And then, how are the gifts you've entrusted to me meant to fit in and work in concert or collaboration alongside the gifts that you've given to others? I do not believe that the process of discovering our spiritual gifts is meant to be some sort of very deep or dark or mysterious. Rather, I believe that we can become acquainted with the gifts God entrusts to us by, first of all, comparing the different gifts that are listed for us, and then looking at the unique ways that God has been working in our lives in the past, and the unique way that God is working in our lives right now in the present. Are there any particular concerns or burdens that God is putting on your heart? What tends to arouse compassion or excitement in you? Or has anyone ever told you that something you said or something you did really made a difference in their lives? Now, as we mentioned last time, there are four primary texts in the New Testament about the biblical spiritual gifts that we have. The passages are 1 Corinthians 12-14, Romans 12 1-8 which we just read, Ephesians 4 1-16 and 1 Peter 4 8-11. I know several of you took the challenge and you prepared and read those passages in preparation for coming today and I thank you for that. I believe God will bless that preparation time by continuing to help us grab hold of this material. I want today for us to get a brief snapshot of the various gifts that are listed in these four different passages. So I have compiled in your sermon notes and collected and collated all the gifts from each one of these lists and put them together in alphabetical lists. That may be a reference tool for you in the future. I don't think it will be overly helpful for you to be glued to that as we work through that this morning. Believe it or not, I have a few people who always look my notes over in advance and they help me critique them for what's helpful. And someone said, I'm going to cut that out and stick it in my Bible. Well, if that would help you, please, by all means, save that little sheet for the future. Each gift in that list is listed with the appropriate scripture references that will And before we launch into thinking about the individual gifts, I just give a very short disclaimer about it. Because if you go back to these four passages, as I always hope you will, look for yourself in the scriptures. There's one gift I didn't put on, that's the gift of apostles. I left that gift of apostleship off the list because the apostles were a non-repeatable group that were made up of those who had seen the resurrected Christ. and his ministry in that first century. Among the apostles, and there are 25 apostles listed in the New Testament, I know some of you have spent the whole afternoon looking for them, but there are 25 apostles listed in the New Testament, but among those Matthew, John, Paul, Peter, and Jesus' half-brother James were called to follow the Holy Spirit's lead by recording their thoughts and their memories and their reflections about Jesus into what we now know as the New Testament. They receive direction from the Holy Spirit of what to record and how to record it. And so that work is finished. The work of the apostles is finished. There are no more apostles. So if your name is not on that list of original 25, you don't have the gift of apostleship. And if your name is out there, well, I think the Guinness Book of World Records would like to talk to you. All right. is just for reference. I'm not going to stand here and read you an alphabetical list. I would put myself to sleep if I did that, let alone you. But I want to look at the individual gifts under some larger headings, some categories, some groupings. So very much like you might group some files on your computer into folders. I wanna look at some big categories of the gifts and how the individual gifts support those categories. So first off, we're gonna consider three groups of the gifts that can be used independent of other gifts. So these are gifts that don't have to be channeled through another gift in order for it to function or to make sense. They're sort of standalone gifts. They don't have to be combined or paired with other gifts. And among these, Three categories, there are speaking gifts, there are serving gifts, and there are people-intensive gifts. Speaking gifts, serving gifts, people-intensive gifts. So let's just talk about speaking gifts for a moment. Prophecy is one of the speaking gifts, and that's a funny word for us today, and it's another word has a lot of misconceptions that get tied up in it. But prophecy is the divine enablement to proclaim God's truth with power and clarity in a timely and a culturally sensitive fashion for correction, for repentance, for edification. So those who have this gift not their own words, not their own wishes or thoughts, they speak clearly the truth of God, the truth of God that is revealed and contained for us in His Word, the Bible. People with this gift tend to and let people react to it as they can. They have a special, God-given, spirit-driven ability to cut through the fog, cut through the haze, and get to the heart of the matter. For people with this gift of prophecy, there are no gray areas. Some of us look at something, we can see both sides, and we're not quite sure, like, hmm, well, how does this fit together? Some of us get cuts right to their nose. Present the gifts and give a little caution about some of them. Beware that if you're in this gift that you don't lack compassion. That you have some awareness and some sensitivity so that you will do what the New Testament also commands us to do, which is to speak the truth in love. Speak the truth in love and watch out for pride. It's very easy to suddenly become someone who pontificates. Be sure that you cut the legs off of that. And don't be overly discouraging or demanding of those with whom you're sharing. You must know that people sometimes can only absorb so much at one time and it can be very frustrating if you have this much to give and you can only take in that much. So, just be sensitive, be aware. and enablement to understand, to clearly explain, to apply the Word of God to others so that they will gain understanding and grow in faith and hope and in love. Now those who have the spiritual gift of teaching are people who know the truth, they love the truth, and they love to articulate the truth. And their great desire is for other people to know the truth and to love the truth. ability to be able to gather information together and put it together in a form that makes sense or makes it memorable to other people are very, very necessary within the church. But again, those with this gift have to be aware of a couple of things. First of all, being sure to give what is needed and not a whole lot more. And that can be hard for someone who's so excited about the truth. Believe me, I know how hard that is to keep whittling it down. and paring it down so it's the right word for the right time and the right place. And the story is told of this little boy who asked his father that challenging question. Where did I come from? And the father was, well, you know, he gave a very thoughtful, careful, as detailed as appropriate answer to the boy's question and the facts of life and all that. And after when it was all done, the boy said, But, well, Billy came from California and Joey came from Ohio. So we don't even know what questions the people are asking. I have a friend who has suggested to his wife sometimes, I just ask you to tell me the time not to build me a car. Just know, just know we have to always be aware if we're gifted in this way to be able to hone it down into a form that's going to be memorable and meaningful. So spiritually gifted teachers also are not just appealing to the mind of the person, they're appealing to the will of the person, trying to affect the will. The focus is on changing lives with the Word. So the questions, again, don't overload, don't confuse, don't feel superior. And always ask the question, what does God want me to communicate to this person or this group of people in this setting? So those are two speaking gifts. Now, some serving gifts, serving gifts. The Administration. Some people think of administration. They don't think of people who are servants. But truly, in the New Testament, the idea of having the gift of administration is to be a servant. Administration is the divine enablement to understand what makes an organization function, along with the special ability to steer the body toward the accomplishment of God-given goals and directives by planning, organizing, and supervising others. So, people who are given this spiritual gift, they're organized people, they're process thinkers, they can see how the process would unfold from the beginning to the end, and all the steps along the way that might go into helping the body meet whatever its goals are. They're very effective, they're very efficient people. People with the gift of administration really provide forms and structures that make it possible for other people to use their gifts. People with this gift can make order out of chaos. These are people who are concerned about both doing the right thing and doing the thing right. It's two different things, but both are very important. Doing the right thing and doing the thing right. So, cautions for exercising this gift. It's very easy if you're gifted in this way to fall into a rut and you start repeating the same sort of pattern over and over again without effectively evaluating and analyzing and trying to refine the new tools. Be careful not to fall into a rut, and be careful not to stifle the spirits of other people. So, if you have a gift administration, don't function like a bulldozer, just like, steamroll, and don't also micromanage. Part of your gift as an administrator is to enlist other people to use their gifts. And you're not there to tell them exactly how to use the gifts, but what the goal is in terms of what they're doing. Remember, too, that building into people is always more important than the process. Building into people is always more important than the process. Another sure meaning gift in Romans 12-8 we read this morning is giving. The divine enablement and ability to contribute money and material resources to the work of the Lord with cheerfulness, liberality, and with no thought of return. Now, let's be clear. We are all responsible to give. We are all responsible to tithe. But this gift of giving is really over and above that sort of giving. This is a gift that excites and ignites a passion within that person to joyfully give to other people. They freely make resources available to others to facilitate kingdom work. Those who have this gift don't ask the question, how much should I give? They're more likely to ask the question, how much do I need to keep? Again, big difference, how much should I give versus how much do I need to keep? So some cautions, if this seems to be a gift God has given you, is to remember this is a spiritual ministry. It's not a lecture, it's not an account book, it's not financial management 101. It's a spirit-driven ministry. And so you don't use resources as leverage to get your way. You may share your concerns, you may share your vision, but ultimately someone who is truly given the gift of giving a vital Holy Spirit to the leadership of other people with no strings attached. That doesn't mean without any discernment. It just means that you're going to trust the people that you give the money to, to do with that what God intends for it to accomplish. So the gift of giving, very much like it, is the gift of helps, because you might think, well, I don't have money to give, but I've got other things I can give. I can give time. So we have the gift of helps in 1 Corinthians 12, 28, and that is really the divine enablement to identify needs and to know how to attach spiritual values sharing life on life with other people, to people in the body, so that they will feel appropriately loved and cared for. So again, the gift of help. excited about doing whatever needs to be done. You may be a person who needs some direction, you may not have the initiative to get out there and to start sort of pushing help on other people, but once you get involved and you know what you're doing is making a difference, it's going to be so rewarding and fulfilling to come alongside of other people and invest in this way. Again, some cautions if you have the gift of the Pope's, you might have a hard time saying no to people. People have a way of gravitating to these people and start draining the life out of them. So there is a need. in God's purview and how we would order things to have some limits, some boundaries around that as needed. And to not let your personal life get all out of whack or balanced. Because if that happens, it's like the lifeguard going out to save the drowning person. Unless that is done properly, the drowning person is going to push the other person under the water. So the gift of help is extremely vital, but needs to be exercised with some caution and some skill. That's the divine enablement to identify undone tasks in God's work, however menial, and to use available resources to get the job done in a joyous way. So the gift of serving, looking for things that aren't getting done that need to be done, washing the dishes after a church function, cutting the grass, weeding the garden, cleaning the bathrooms, any of those things that just sort of pop up on your radar, the person with this gift is just going to do it. And they're going to be joyful about doing them. They're not going to be the kind of person who made me want to climb the rumble, or to climb like, oh, nobody else is taking care of this. I guess I'm going to do it. That would not be the spiritual gift of serving. That would be getting something done because it needs to get done. But if you have the spiritual gift of serving, you'll get a kick out of that. You'll get joy from doing that. So those are some serving gifts. Now, people-intensive gifts. of encouragement, depending on which translation of the Bible you may be looking at. The divine enablement to come alongside of someone with words of encouragement, comfort, or consolation, and to counsel, and to help to reassure that person, to strengthen, to affirm those who are discouraged or wavering in their faith. So, a person who gets given this gift is going to have a real heart to come alongside of someone, Reassure them in the faith that they're going to be able to spot someone who's what we would call fainthearted, or weak, or tired, or just kind of struggling. They're going to gravitate towards that person and try to give them a lift. And God offers strength, offer affirmation, again, offer words from God's Word of encouragement. They're going to be able to listen to not only what is being said by that person, they're going to be able to hear what's not being said. and try to draw that out as well. People who have the gift of encouragement or exhortation tend to be practical, they tend to be pragmatic, many times they are results-oriented. Again, they can see someone as just getting a little stuck, someone who's stuck at some point in their life, and they can't seem to get beyond whatever that is. Come alongside of that person. Get over the hurdle and get on with it. There's some cautions about this gift. Sometimes people with this gift have a tendency to minimize their oversimplified problems. So they might come alongside of someone and they would put some kind of Christian bumper sticker or cliche over it. So be careful. We can't really... We can't use scripture as a band-aid. We can't take scripture out of context. As I've told you so many times, there are greeting card scriptures that just get ripped out of their context and they sound good on a card, but it has nothing to do with what it means in scripture. So, if you have the gift of education and encouragement, make sure that what you're giving has the weight and has the authority of the Word of God behind it. Evangelism is another people-intensive gift. The divine enablement to effectively communicate the truth of the gospel to unbelievers in a way that allows them to embrace the gift of faith and to become followers of Jesus Christ. Now all of us are called to witness. That is the calling and the mission of every fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. And so there is a distinction between witnessing and the spiritual gift of evangelism. For those who are given this spiritual gift, their hearts just beat faster when they're able to start a spiritual conversation with anyone who will listen. They have a unique and special ability to just bring the gospel, bring Christ into all kinds of different conversations or settings. I believe the consummate example of this that's familiar to many in the congregation would have been Pastor Moore. I mean, it was recounted at his memorial service this last March how Pastor Norkin introduced the gospel by talking about what brand of potato chips you were eating. That's a spiritual gift. I mean, really, to be able to make that kind of connection, that goes beyond human intelligence or creativity. Now, the caution for someone that has this gift is to be continually aware of why there's many approaches, many learning styles, many different ways in which the gospel can be presented and can't just boil it down to say, this is the way, this is the only way, I have to do it my way or it's not the right way. There's also an opportunity for Satan to trip someone up with this gift and put a little judgmental spirit in their heart about people in the, body who aren't doing what they're doing, and they're not out there sharing their faith three to five times a week, and they begin to think that somehow they're not pulling their weight. You have to realize, again, this is the Holy Spirit working in you in a very unique and a special way. Hospitality is another people-intensive gift, the divine enabling to warmly welcome people, especially strangers, into one's home or church as a means of serving those in need of food or water. Someone with the gift of hospitality likes to provide a warm and a caring atmosphere in an environment where people will feel welcome and valued. They love to have heart-to-heart conversations with other people. They are generally much happier when other people are around. They have a special ability to get people to open up and start sharing what's going on inside. And there's some cautions, of course, with this gift, too. Hebrews 13, verse 2 tells us to not neglect this gift. implications of what they are doing. In the New Testament, the whole idea of hospitality is primarily focused on making strangers feel welcome, making strangers feel like they're going to be warmly embraced within whatever setting. So there is a subtle distinction here between entertaining our friends and extending hospitality to strangers. So again, someone with the gift of hospitality will be more inclined to look out for those who are on the fringe, those who are standing apart, those who are are, after a service, just not being engaged by anyone, they'll get over to that person. They'll know how to do that. Another caution for someone with that gift, if you're in a family setting, you have to just be sure you protect your family, because it's very easy to just start bringing people into the house, having people over all the time, and the rest of your family is like, hey, what happened to me? All right? So be careful about that. ability to attract, lead and motivate people to accomplish the work of the ministry. So those who are to get to leadership are able to point people toward divine goals. They're trustworthy, they're secure. The word leader in itself means to stand before, to stand in front of. So they lead others toward a particular goal and naturally they feel more comfortable leading rather than following. However, Cautions. Cautions about this gift. There are many people who would like to exercise the gift of leadership who don't have the gift. They like the idea of being in charge. They don't necessarily like the idea of being a follower. So it's very important to understand in the body of Christ that you truly have been given this gift. I know in the school where I taught for a while, I learned to talk for a long time, I often heard the first grade teacher. Remember first grade? No, some of you don't watch. First grade, and the class would go down the hall in a line and each day there would be a different line leader. Remember line leaders? How exciting it was to be the line leader. If you're the line leader and you're a boy, in particular, I hate to be sexist, but that's the way it is. I mean, you're the line leader, oftentimes the boy will just like take off. And the rest of the class will be. And you hear that first grade teacher calling down the hall to say, you're not a leader if no one is following you. Everything I need to know, I learned from the first grade. You're not a leader if no one is following you. So it's important that those with this gift don't underestimate the value of team, that they're not insensitive to other people, that leaders have to understand how the group functions as a whole, not just someone who is dictating commands. So it's important to examine in your heart why you feel God has given you this gift. Why do you lead? Are you called to lead or are you driven to lead? Mercy. Mercy is another people-intensive gift. That's the divine enablement to be sensitive towards those who are suffering, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally, and the ability to minister cheerfully and appropriately to them with words of compassion and beads of love to help alleviate their distress. People with this gift, the gift of mercy, they can help people in their affliction with a very cheerful confidence. They're aware of their practical needs, and they bond emotionally with those to whom they're ministering. Their great desire, the great desire of the person with the gift of mercy is to remove hurt, to take someone's hurt away from them. And they feel compelled to to enter into that and to act and to see past the problem. They keep pointing to the other end of the tunnel if that's the case. They see the value of the person. But again, some possible pitfalls if you have to get to mercy. It's easy to forget there is a benefit to hard times. But sometimes you want to just help the person like, okay, let's somehow get over this. And then we fail to mind what God is teaching us And that's an important thing for personal mercy, to be sure that those lessons aren't missed and they're not wasted. It's also possible for a person with this mercy gift to start carrying the weight of other people's burdens to such an extent that it begins to interfere with your own life. So you've got to be careful not to do that, and you've got to be careful not to enable someone. Not to enable someone to keep repeating the same defective pattern of behavior or interaction with others. Again, it's very, very important, because with mercy it's so easy to come in with the constant compassion and the desire to just befriend them. But don't enable. Pastoring, the divine enablement to lead, feed, care for, and protect individuals or groups in the body as they grow in their faith. So pastoring is a spiritual gift. It's not an office. It's not an office in the church. Some of your translations will use the word shepherding. So pastoring or shepherding, it's a special gift and ability to be able to lead other people to a greater sense of obedience and a greater sense of faith. a greater sense of security in the Lord through teaching and through example. People pastoring or shepherding with this gift, they know they are under-shepherds. Jesus Christ is the Supreme Shepherd. Tend to be knowledgeable about what it means to walk with God, and have a way to be able to help other people come along in that. Some cautions here again is to be sure you don't abuse any authority that goes with that. There is some authority that goes along with this gift. You must begin to see people as projects, like this is someone I'm moving in on because I think I can fix them. That would always be wrong. Don't become too independent and then Always watch out for gossip and for burnout. It's very easy, again, when people begin to start trusting you to feel like you have information that would be shared with other people that has to be guarded against. Now, all of those gifts that we've covered so far in those three big categories of speaking gifts and serving gifts and people, intensive gifts, as I said, they can be used on their own. They don't have to be channeled to another gift in order for it to be useful to the body. There are a few, we're going to cover very briefly this morning, that really need to be used in conjunction with other gifts in order for them to make any sense. And one example of that is discernment. 1 Corinthians 12.10 talks about the gift of discernment. That's a divine enablement to distinguish between the truth and error by judging whether a behavior or a teaching is from God, Satan, human error, or human power. So a person with the gift of discernment is able to distinguish and then separate inconsistency, separate motive, point out any misuse of scripture. But you can see that if you have the gift of discernment, but no way to let that out of yourself, that wouldn't do anybody any good. So the gift of discernment is exhortation, encouragement, or pastoring, or leadership. I believe discernment is one of the most tremendously needed gifts in the body of Christ today because so many people are being bombarded with so many things. And we need people with the gift of discernment to help filter all that out and keep focused on what is true. The gift of faith is also in this category. The gift of faith is the divine, Enablement to be firmly persuaded of God's power and promises to accomplish His will and purpose, and to display such a confidence in Him and His Word that circumstances and obstacles do not shake that conviction. So those are the gifts of faith that very well radiate the fact that God is able, He's faithful, trust Him. The gift of faith is often manifested in prayer. It's something that believes and acts. The gift of faith. The gift of healing is a divine enablement to be used as a means to which God makes people whole. That's either physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. There are many, many kinds of healing that are needed in people today. And this is often, again, expressed through the ministry of prayer. People with the gift of healing are people of strong faith, people who are able to know that it's God who is working whatever form of healing through them. Knowledge, the divine enablement to accumulate and analyze information effectively, and to then apply that knowledge to specific needs and circumstances. So, again, this is a special gift that God gives people who would like to dig deeper and then be able to express that knowledge through either teaching, or through leadership, or through administration. The gift of miracles, the divine enablement to effect powerful acts which will authenticate the message of Christ and glorify God. The gift of miracles is something that will always point to God, always authenticate God as the source of power. There's a book that we've been circulating in the congregational order, but I don't know where it has wound up of late. So if you have the book Miraculous, It's a missions-oriented book. I'd like to get that. Circulating in, there's a contemporary account of someone that God gave a special ability to go into a Muslim group of people and actually pray for someone to be resurrected from the dead. We don't see that so much in our Western world, but in other cultures and other places. These gifts and miracles are still being enabled and performed by God's Spirit to people. The gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues, as it's painted for us in Acts chapter 2, that is a divine enablement to speak in a language that's not previously been learned so that unbelievers can hear God's message in their own language and be edified. God's spirit directly speaks through another person's spirit in order to communicate who Jesus is in the gospel. Scripture is very clear that when no interpreter is present, then the gift is not being appropriately manifested. And so those two really have to go hand in hand. Tongues and interpretation of tongues. And if you want to know more about that and stuff, you need to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Paul is quite detailed there about what that is and what that isn't. And finally the gift of wisdom. That's a divine enablement to apply knowledge by discerning spiritual truth and God's will so that they effectively guide decision making and daily life situations. So people who have the gift of wisdom they often just feel like They have more common sense than other people. But again, it's a spiritual work that God is doing in their lives. It's practical. It gets to the application of the truth. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, they all talk about how one is to flesh out faith in order to live life in a way that honors God and puts us in the place of blessing from Him. So the concern for the person who gives the gift of wisdom is showing them how they should live. Now, that's a lot of information, and I know it's probably overloading, but I don't know any other way to get it across to you. Let's just think practically for a moment as we wrap this up and close. So, say, next Saturday, we're all at the Senior Center. You all could be there for the Church Council meeting, right? We're all there, we're connecting with one another, we're updating one another on the life and the ministry of our congregation, and somebody slips into the The senior son is sort of sheepishly, head pumped low, poorly dressed. It's a man who fears loss. In a soft voice, he stares at the floor and he announces that he needs $226 to pay some passenger bills. Well, here's how different people at the church council meeting with different gifts might want to respond to. Someone with the gift of administration. Now, I haven't put your own names on this, although I think I could have filled this whole thing out. The names are all different. So, Bill, why don't you call George and see if the deacons could offer some help through the deacon fund? Jeannie, could you call T and see if there's anyone there who might be able to step right in and help? So the focus of someone with that administrative is gonna be immediately on organizing people, getting results, having a strategy. A person with a mercy, don't be embarrassed. We all run into difficult times. I'm sure something could be done. Let's see what we can do. And the focus, of course, is on hope and alleviating the source of the suffering. Someone with a gift of prophecy, and obedience to the word in the area of your finances. You need to have a plan and a reserve fund for these kinds of things. And the focus of that prophetic interest is on the truth and on correction. Someone with a gift of hospitality says, oh, oh, let me get you a chair. Please sit down. Would you like a cup of coffee? We also have some fresh fruit. Well, maybe not in our church council. How about some pastry or some bacon? Of course, gluten-free. and comfort, very much like that of giving help. So we would say the same thing, here's a chair, and they wouldn't just say, would you like a cup of coffee? They'd put the cup of coffee on the person's hand and say, here's a cup of coffee, what can I do? Do you take a glass? Do you want me to get some cream, some sugar? And focusing on very practical needs and how to meet them. So when we would get to teaching, we'd say, well, how did this happen? Has it happened before? What led up to it? What have you learned through your experience? will be on trying to understand the facts. Someone with the gift of encouragement will say, do you know how much you matter to God? You are so important to Him and He wants you to trust Him with your needs and your cares. So the focus would be on affirmation and building up. And finally, someone with the gift of giving would say, I'd be happy to help you. Let me do this as a gift because God has been so good to me. the focus would be on giving and freeing. Know which one of those responses would be right? All of them. All of them would be to work together in harmony and concert with one another in order to do whatever God would be leading us to do at that moment in that setting. Now, how should we go about discovering and developing and using our spiritual gifts? First of all, looking at our own heart. Is there a particular burden, interest, something that God is putting on our heart? Perhaps you really care about unwed lovers, or you care about the poor, or unbelievers, or youth, or discipleship, or evangelism, or reaching out to business professionals. All of that is part of the way that God is directing you to the place where He wants you to use your spiritual gift. Using our gifts must conform to the way that they are described in the Bible. You can't make this up for yourself and say, well, I have this gift and I'm going to use it in this way. No, it's all there in the text. Bible passages, we need to look at characters in the Bible and even in Christian history that reflect what those gifts are and begin to observe and learn from them. We need to seek out other people who may have a similar gift and begin to talk with them or ask, can I work alongside of you? Or would you tell me about how you discovered your gift and how you knew that you were serving God in the right place? Because when you're serving God in the right place, the Holy Spirit provides such a peace Such a joy in your spirit. And there will be such an evidence of godly fruit. There will be affirmation within the body of Christ. And that is such an important thing for us. Affirmation in the body of Christ. We need to be on the lookout. You may be thinking, what are my gifts? We need to be on the lookout for the gifts in other people and affirm them. Oh, you know, when you did that, when you said that, when you took care of that, that meant a great deal to me. I don't think we're overly good at doing that in New England, but it's so important to the body that we affirm what we see God doing through another person, because that validates the spiritual impact of the ministry. There are tests, there are surveys, there are assessments that they can be useful tools, but nothing beats being able to have gifts personally affirmed by the people with whom we share our faith on a regular basis. If you're faithfully using your gifts to build up the body of Christ, if you're serving in the right place, there's gonna be that affirmation from the leadership, there's gonna be affirmation from the people you serve, and there's gonna be affirmation from those alongside of whom you serve. So we need to just work on that dimension in church life. So commit yourself, commit yourself to using your spiritual gift on a regular basis. Assess whether Making a difference in the body. Start small. Find a small way to begin to serve. Don't begin to sort of think of ministry as a career ladder, or some sort of stepping stone. One ministry to another. Like, don't sign up to be a minister this week, and then think, I'll work in the nursery next week, and the third week I'll be a pastor. No. It doesn't work like that. Just find the place where you need to begin, and appreciate the spiritual principle of prudent faithfulness. Give yourself, give your ministry some time, and pray for a teachable spirit. Pray for a willing heart, and let's pray together. God, we thank you this morning for your grace gifts in our lives. We thank you for the fact that you have come, that you have shared your power with us, that you have put your spirit inside of us, and you've united us with Christ and with each other. We pray, God, that you would just continue to teach us and help us to grow, help us to learn how to serve you by serving others. And God, we thank and praise you in advance for what you would unleash in our body through all of this. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's stand and we'll share together a closing song.