St Joe Q&A Podcast: How to Discover My Spiritual Gifts

Today on the St Joe Q&A, Pastor Greg Byman explains how to discover one's spiritual gifts. St Joe is located at 2900 North Anthony Blvd., just a few blocks south of the campus of Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Pastor Greg Byman serves as the senior pastor and the entire St Joe church family welcomes you to join us for worship service each Sunday at 10:00 am. For more information visit www.StJoeCommunityChurch.org or call (260) 471-4704.

Transcription

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​Welcome essential feeling day a usually weekly podcast hosted by Pastor Greg vine in a St Joe committee Church in Fort Wayne St Joe Q And I use produced by research and consulting service helping churches make sermon content and Bible teaching more accessible discoverable and projectable for more information about St Joe community church visit St Joe Community Church dot org for more information about research consulting as a research dot com That's Are the sermon dot com or call 260-508-3136. Hello and welcome to a new installation. Of a podcast from St Joe Community Church My name is Greg Byman and I wanted to talk with you a little bit about spiritual gifts. In a recent sermon series I have been going over the fact that we are shaped by God to serve others in a special way each of us has a unique thumbprint and unique ability to make an impact spiritually emotionally physically mentally on people around us to the glory of God and through the local ministries of the local church and also extended beyond that to parrot church ministries to our workplaces were ever we are we are to be a blessing to others around us to the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ and God equips us to do that and the one thing I wanted to talk about in this podcast was that God gives us spiritual gifts I'm adapting some material that we received years ago when we started our church Pastor Rick Warren did a series of seminars class 101-213-0148 extension 1 and one A one class was about discovering what it means to belong to a church family the membership in the local body and then to a one is about spiritual maturity what it means to develop ourselves and to grow spiritually and number 3301 class was about our ministry discovering my ministry and we've adapted that material for our church as a way to help our people take their next steps in their growth process as a Christian so I'm kind of zapping I'm adapting the material from discovering my ministry Class 3 A one and I'm so grateful for Pastor Rick Warren and so many others who have developed material like this through the years I know that it wasn't original with him it's certainly not original with us and ultimately our our foundation for all that we're going to talk about is God's word I'm going to share several verses that are used to back up what we're talking about that encourage. You to write those verses down and to study these on your own but I'm going to go through them quickly you're not going to have time to look them up as I'm talking about this I want to get this material out to you so the you can use this in your own Bible study time when you think about and you pray about and you study spiritual gifts 1st of all a spiritual gift is a special ability given by the Holy Spirit to every believer at their conversion to be used to serve or to minister to others and build up the body of Christ that's what a spiritual gift is and all of us have spiritual gifts of where a believer in Jesus Christ In fact here's 10 things about spiritual gifts number one only believers have spiritual gifts 1st Corinthians 214 bears witness to that Number 2 every Christian has at least one spiritual gift 1st Corinthians 77 there isn't a single person who is a believer in Jesus Christ that does not have a spiritual gift you've got a spiritual gift God given it to you at the point of your salvation experience at the point at which you begin born again or became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ number 3 no one receives all of the gifts 1st Corinthians 1227 through 30 we're all a particularly gifted person and we fit into the Body of Christ with our unique talents our abilities but we have a spiritual gift or more that is not all of them but we have something to give and the number for it no single gift is given to everyone there is no reference in the Bible that we all have. One particular gift all in common spiritual gifts are given and distributed to the Body of Christ to individuals within the Body of Christ as the Lord directs and again everyone has something not everyone has any particular gift and not everyone has all of the gifts why would God do that why I believe that God's telling us that we must live in community with one another we must depend on one another Let's just say I had all of the gifts why would I need you in my life why would I need anybody and how much pride when I began to develop thinking of how wonderful I was that I brought all of these gifts to the table and you didn't have as many gifts as I had I've got them all I don't need you and and so we would have that problem and what is it if we all had one particular gift in common I don't know what the total revocations with that would be but we'd all be looking to make sure that if you didn't have that particular gift we wouldn't we weren't sure if you were a Christian or not and there are some groups of people that actually believe that they think that there are particular gifts in the New Testament that it is required of us to have that particular spiritual gift in order to give evidence that we are followers of Jesus Christ the Bible says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved it doesn't have a print that sees and the only way you know for sure is if they have this particular gift certain people who became Christians exhibited an open display of giftedness when they got saved but that was not true for every single person who believed in Jesus Christ in the New Testament so we know based on the witness of God's word that there is no one particular gift that all of us have to exhibit in order to prove that we're Christian. No single gift is given to everyone and we can find some reference to that conversation in 1st Corinthians 122930 number 5 you can earn or work for a spiritual gift for 7 God decides what we're going to do and he's the one that decides what we're going to have to do it and we need to let him be in charge of that not try to think that in any way we could get it by doing something special number 7 the gifts that I'm given are permanent Romans 1129 when I have that gift it's what it is it's what I have and at the moment of my spiritual birth I'm given that gift and that gift is intact and is something that I will continue to have and can continue to depend on and use to the glory of Jesus Christ until I reach heaven number 8 I am to develop the gifts that God gave me 1st Timothy $414.00 Paul said to Timothy hey you need to do spirit up get it go and get get stronger in the gifts that God gave you as a pastor of that church get stronger we're all to to grow in the giftedness and to not just say well I got it that's it no no we've got to develop the gifts that God gave us also we need to it's a sin to waste the gifts God gave us Number 9 it's a sin to waste the gifts that God gave us 1st Corinthians 41 through 2 and Matthew 2514 through 30 when God gives us the talent ability we are responsible for what God gives us in other words we are stewards. We are to be responsible for taking care of what God gives us and spiritual gifts what God gave us that's a gift that we must care for diligently and it's a sin if we waste our guest put him on a shelf and don't use him back the body of Christ is hurt when people sit on the sidelines in the church family and they watch everybody else display their gifts I heard it this way one time a church a local church can possibly be described as like a football game there are many men there just a few players out on the field in desperate need of rest and there's a whole lot of toot of people in the stands watching them who are in desperate need of exercise we all need to exercise are spiritual gifts not just leave it to a faithful few that take care of the church day in and day out. Number 10 and finally using my gifts honors God and expands me it honors God when I use it I give glory to him. The power of God comes through me I display the various grace or the unmerited favor of God The Bible says when I display when I use my spiritual gifts appropriately and it expands me it makes me better it's been a stronger it make it grows me up it helps me to have a greater influence for God's name sake it's just it's just a better thing for us to use our spiritual gifts personally brings honor to God and it blesses us personally Well I want to shift also for just a moment to talk about the purpose of spiritual guess why in the world would God give us these gifts in the 1st place why did it in God's grand design why I don't I'm not going to ever say that I know the mind of God but I know God Scripture tells us that in 1st Peter 14 that we are good managers of God's different guess and we're to use them for the good of others those spiritual gifts that we've received from the Lord so in other words 1st of all the purpose of spiritual gifts is not for my benefit but for the benefit of other people it's not for me to gain financially or to gain the blessing I get a blessing I just said that by serving others in Jesus name using my gifts I get better I get stronger but it's not for my benefit it's for the benefit of other people and the 2nd thing that the purpose for spiritual gifts is it produces maturity and harmony in the church family. God gave men in their giftedness in order to build up or to equip the saints for the work of ministry so that we would all grow up into a greater unity in Christ that's in a fees and chapter 4 What a great. Passage of Scripture that tells us right there and if Eason's for another starting verse 11 and beyond you can see where the whole purpose of gifting people was for people to lead or to serve in ways that builds up the body of Christ makes them more mature and brings them into greater unity in fact. If you ever are displaying the spiritual gifts or if they another Christian is is using the spiritual gifts and it's bringing immaturity earths causing people to turn away from Jesus Christ and it's not producing a true unity in Christ and we got a problem that gift isn't being used appropriately Now let's just say that you have the gift of prophecy and by that I mean you have the gift of 4th telling not for telling your fortune telling but you have the gift of you just see black and white truth as it is and you just share that truth and somebody is in sin there actually living outside of the will of God and you actually say I'm going to I'm going to live in my giftedness by telling that person they are wrong in the Lord Jesus Christ and you say well then when you say that then that causes disunity No I think Sin is what causes disunity and so if a person is if a person is living in sin and they are then they are by their very actions disrupting the unity of the fellowship we have in Christ because how can we walk with a brother who is in sin in carnality and walk with Christ at the same time we can't do it they're not walking with Christ and so they're pulling us away from Christ so that would be an example where you say well that's causing disunity the tell them the truth you know how to really cause us disunity if you never went in the name of love in the name of Jesus Christ if you didn't come sharing the truth in love the Bible says then that would be using your gifts in appropriately telling them off and creating some sort of legalism. That they have to perform in order to be accepted by you as a person no you're calling out the behavior as as a leader in the church as a person a brother or sister in Christ and you're saying man you can gang any more black and white than this year and send and you need to stop it. And that's an opportunity for that person to repent and return and to increase the unity of the fellowship of Christ by turning away from that which is not Christ like but I want to warn you that if you're have that tendency to see things black and white and you just just call like you see it I encourage you because you need to get alongside someone who has the gift of mercy. Not because you need to get their gift into your life but you need to depend on them to know how to be more merciful than you are and that person who has the gift of mercy might need to get closer to you to learn how to maybe they use their gift the gift of mercy to possibly. Possibly give evidence that the they are letting someone get away with sin and they're tiring a blind eye to that which needs to be called out for what it really is so the gift of mercy person says I need the Alongside the prophet or the 4th teller the truth bearer to get a little more careful in the way I show my mercy to say I'm not just going to give somebody license to do the wrong thing by the way I act towards them but the prophet needs to get towards the merciful to say you know what I need to extend the hand of mercy to this person and give them the open door of repenting of turning away from their sin and letting them know that we grieve over what they're doing we're not just we're not just responding out of anger or or have some kind of vindictive spirit we really have the gift of mercy we want to see this person turn around to Jesus that's our whole motivation for telling them the truth in love so it's to produce maturity and harmony in the body of Christ in a local church when someone's not exhibiting their gifts in a way that brings harmony and maturity in the body of Christ that that is an inappropriate way to use our gifts also just a few cautions when we talk about spiritual gifts let's not confuse gifts with natural talents so we don't have the spiritual gift of musical voices or the ability to speak to have musical instruments station ability that's it that's a talent we don't have the musical giftedness of carpentry we don't have the musical giftedness of accounting. And you might be able to say that certain gifts might tend to cluster around people who have certain natural talents as well but that may be the case but let's not confuse the fact that there are natural talents and abilities that we have that are different and not the same as that it's not one that's not we're talking about when we're talking about spiritual gifts and also don't confuse gifts with the fruit of the spirit in glaciers 52223 the fruit is what shows that I'm mature and it's not fruits of the spirit it's the fruit of the spirit you can look at infusions 522 and 23 and and see those fruit that fruit displayed are the description of that of what it means to look like a mature person the fruit shows my maturity but the gifts are what empower me in my ministry I also don't confuse gifts with Christian roles sometimes we think well via this Gift I have a certain right to have a title in the church we say at St Joe Community Church actually around here we don't have a lot of roles we might have roles and responsibilities but we don't pass out titles at the door we pass out tiles and when someone gets a title it is attached to it is right alongside with a towel because towels represents service serving Jesus on the night that he was betrayed what do you do he washed the feet of his disciples Wow The King of Kings in the Lord of Lords washing humbly washing the feet of his followers What's that all about he became the servant and they became The served every leader is a servant in our church and everyone's a servant before their leader. So let's not confuse gifts with Christian roles that's a that's a different conversation and let's not expect let's be aware of expecting other people to see things the way we see it based on our giftedness sometimes when you are that have the gift of mercy list go back to that and you see someone searing the truth in love they're sharing things that that need to be shared and you got all man I don't I don't want to know that I think they're I think they're being too harsh Well you may be thinking that from your giftedness but you need to depend on other mature believers who have other gifts than you have to know how to better respond holistically to every situation in the body of Christ and then let's not ever think that our gifts make us a period others there is no superior gift there might be more prominent out going guest gifts that people see out in the open and more more more often but there is no superiority to any one particular gift. Finally and. We are gifts must be practiced in the love of Jesus Christ 1st Corinthians 13 is the law you know is that the law of chapter right but there's no way if I if I practice my spiritual giftedness and I don't have love what is it even matter if I don't really love somebody and if I'm not in love with Jesus Christ while I'm displaying my gifts then really what I'm doing is of no help to myself and it certainly is of no help to what Christ is doing to build His church. So how do we discover a spiritual gifts. Before we close I want to just give you some practical tips on how. You can discover what your spiritual gifts or gifts are 1st of all we're going to use the acronym start S T A R T And right now if you've got a pen a pencil I just met write that down the list S T A R T On the side of your paper and I'm going to give you some some words for this. First of all you need to study study the Word of God there's 4 major lists of gifts they're found in Romans Chapter 12 there Freud found in 1st Corinthians Chapter 12. If Chapter 4. And 1st Peter chapter 4 and you can just kind of search through those chapters I won't give you specific verses but there are other passages that mention or illustrate gifts that are not include in this list but I say 1st of all you need to get to the Word of God and just see is this an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts some believe they are Others say that's just for instance these are the gifts I would say that you just need to get to the Word of God and see specifically what gifts are mentioned at least especially before you start speculating what other gifts might exist outside of that record but there's of the major spiritual gifts and the inferences to spiritual gifts in the Word of God You need to study and there's several other good resources out there but. For the sake of time I would just say get to the Word of God 1st because you probably more likely are going to spend more time reading the Word of God than if I were to tell you here's a whole bunch of other books out there that you could get or go to Amazon Kindle and get something you can do that and I welcome you to ask me personally e-mail me call me and say Is this a good book is this a good resource online I'd love to be able to advise you in that but my 1st advice is before you go to what man says about God's word go see what God's word says to you as a man or woman study Number 2 trial T stands for trial and error you need to experiment to start serving somewhere get involved don't wait to find out what you belong and do you know a lot of people go to college and they get book learning and they never apply it while they're in college they never go out and do an internship or they never have any kind of hands on experience and then when they are when they graduate they have no they all they have is a bunch of head knowledge but they have no practical experience of being coached are encouraged or mentor it in any particular way in their particular field of study and it's the same as as learning about. Spiritual Gifts are the best way to figure out what you got how God gifted you go do something one hears a big one fail Yeah you know sometimes you can learn your spiritual gifts just by failing in a way that you thought you were gifted but you find out quickly that you're not that's not a bad thing there's nothing wrong with failing in fact it's not failure at all in fact that's a success now you know what you're not good at that's successful in my mind so you need to have trial and error you need to just get out there and start serving and figure it out and in your own experimentation of growing and learning and applying yourself to sit to ministry situations A stands for analyze. You know it is good to speculate and to think and to and to take some little tests on line and to and to just kind of see what it is that based on what you've learned based on what you know about yourself and based on what other little inventories might say you can analyze it but I would say don't pay a lot of attention to all of those resources it's just one of many ways to give input into your life. Here's the bigger one this is more important than personal annals ation the R. Stands for request request input from others you need to humble yourself and let other people speak into your life because you are not your own you're not you're not by yourself you're not out there on an island you don't come into the church demanding people expect that you expect people to just recognize and affirm your giftedness you need to ask them Hey. What do you think my spiritual gifts are where do you see me. Flourishing spiritually and where do I tend to bring the most harmony in unity to the Body of Christ when I'm serving How is it that I might be doing that you see a gift coming out of me and other mature believers when you are doing trial and error the letter T. Stood for trial and error when you are out there doing ministry now you have kind of like. A track history you have a billet A for people to see what you're doing somebody recently asked me they said hey how can I get into youth ministry I love to get into youth ministry I think I have a lot of opportunities or a lot of experiences that I could share that would be helpful to young people and I really what he was saying is I made some mistakes I don't want them to make and I think I could gain their they could gain from my ministry to them and I said you know the 1st thing you do is get involved in local church get involved let people know who you are get some men or women in your life if you're a man get man or woman get some women and get some people in your life to encourage you to strengthen you to disciple you to mentor you whatever you call it Coach you gets people in your life and then start serving somewhere you know when it's when you're able to get involved in whatever area of ministry to this person I said ask how do I get involved in youth ministry in your church and start serving students in the way in the US the church gives you open doors to do so and just get involved start doing it and when you're doing that when you're involved like that and you're analyzing kind of personally your are requesting input from others and you're willing to accept people saying you're not so good at that you're really good at this I see that maybe God is is has gifted you in this particular way and it may not be one I think it is careful for us not to just ask one person but ask more than one person because quite honestly I've had people ask me what you think my gifts are. And I knew them well enough to say this might be a range of where I think you are but but it was really some people that were in their small group. That knew more how they were gifted they knew better because they had more experience with this individual and using my information and information from people from their small group and maybe information from people on a ministry team that they served on the combination of that advice that that. Spiritual counsel gave them some answers to what their spiritual gifts were and then T. Take some training your local church I know St Joe Community Church we try to offer training periodic Lee. Just just some some time to study the Word of God to have some practical application and to allow you to just grow kind of quickly in a situation we train through. Different training events through in our ongoing ministry teams we train when we do short term projects we have taken people on spiritual. Minister mission trips and many times a mission trip. Is I call it discipleship on steroids it's a way for you to quickly. Grow up in Christ you don't have any choice you don't have anywhere else to go you've gotten on this bus you've been dropped off somewhere and here you are serving and you're with a team of people that you may or may not like right now and suddenly you're been called upon as a quote leader you've seen been seen as a leader because you're on the mission team and now that ministry situation is demanding of you your time your energy and really stretching you in ways that you would never get stretched that quickly here at home and boy what I'm what opportunity is for you too in a short term project like a mission trip or a project here in the city that we are a part of is for you to just start growing quickly in the Lord and that's a way to figure out what your gifts are and then spontaneous situations you're going to you're going to use your gifts just on the spur of the moment and I'll tell you this when I pray in the morning God lead me to someone who needs me when I pray that diligently when I have a whole hearted attitude of wanting God to use me for that for a special purpose that day. He does he does he will use us that sometimes you may not notice that he used you in as much of a way you may be very impactful in someone's life and you didn't even know it you might not even know it to get to heaven or you might get a note later somebody makes a comment you don't realize that that word or that encouragement or that active service just absolutely changed my lot you you may not get that you may just be helping nudging someone along a little bit closer to what God wants for their lives and you are part of that process and you're part of the tapestry of a team of people that are surrounding that person or that situation or that ministry need in your city in your area in your workplace wherever you might be your school. Will special you college students what a bright and wonderful opportunity to serve and care for students around you friends acquaintances classmates roommates dorm friends all the places that you are you sometimes in the most vulnerable moments of life you have opportunity to make a difference as a college student so when you're ongoing ministry you're going to use your gifts through short term projects you're going to go out and serve you've got to grow and learn and through spontaneous situations. I also want to finally say that there are 2 primary ways. There are 2 ways that we use. And serve and use our gifts to serve people in our church in our church there are. We put people we want to put people where there are gifted but sometimes we just put people where they're needed so my final counsel lives you may know what your spiritual gift is you know I know exactly how you need to be serving in the church body but that particular door or the great influence of your giftedness is not able to be displayed in an official role or capacity in the church you can in a general sense but you may not have a particular role to be able to do that but while you're seeking that opportunity to serve in your primary giftedness you may see a need and he said Well I'm not really gifted in that area but it's run needed to I need to serve so that don't ever think that you are above serving somewhere where you are not strong spiritually and I've discovered that while we are not we probably should hang out more in the areas where we're gifted the most and serve the best in those areas the most in those areas. What a humbling and awesome experience it is to serve where we're really really weak and not really equipped by the Holy Spirit to serve boy we're hanging on by a thread and really depending on others who have those giftedness that giftedness and we serve in those places and bring honor and glory to God and it and he grows us and it enables us to see our need to depend on other people in those areas of the church where we are not so gifted I hope this podcast helps you to not only discover your spiritual giftedness but to begin to use your giftedness to prosper in is spiritually and be blessed personally and to bring glory to God as you use your spiritual guest in the local church to welcome you to contact me if you have any questions or would like to have some personal time to start unpacking how God may have gifted you in your spiritual life for His glory and his Honor thanks so much for listening and God bless. Thanks for listening to the same joke here and they usually weekly podcast or support Pastor Greg climate change or church or where St Joe Q. And A is produced by research and consulting service helping churches make sermon content and Bible teaching works US will discover whole project for more information about St Joe commune the church visit St Joe Community Church over our heads as to Joe for you to Church dot org for more information about recent consulting visit Reaser him and dot com That's our sermon.