“GIFTS OF GRACE”

Rev. John W. Fowler
July 27, 2003

Ephesians 4:1-16

I want to share with you this morning from the fourth chapter of Ephesians. This is a message about gifts of grace, about spiritual gifts. It is sometimes difficult to do one message on spiritual gifts and to keep it to twenty or twenty-five minutes. When I made my first several attempts at preaching, in preaching class, they started us off at five or ten minutes and I can remember thinking, “How in the world will I find that much to talk about in five or ten minutes?” I got over that quickly, though, and now I have some sermons that are great--they are an hour, maybe forty-five minutes--but the challenge is getting them down to the twenty or twenty-five minutes that people really do want to hear.

I do believe, as you have followed Jesus Christ, that He has gifted you. A great deal of discovering His abundant life, a great deal of being used by God, is knowing the particular ways He has gifted you. It doesn’t mean that you are arrogant, but it simply means you acknowledge that the talent and abilities, and in this particular instance, the spiritual gifts that he has given you, are going to be the primary ways that he uses you. You can know Christ, serve him faithfully, seek his will, go to Heaven, never having heard a sermon about spiritual gifts, and God will still use you. I believe it helps you serve him more effectively if you know the gifts. I believe it helps you to help other people, and that is why we in the Church encourage people to use their gifts, and call forth their gifts. There are a few people here today whom God is going to call to preach one day. Generally it takes some prodding from someone else to notice that, “Yes, I think you could do that.” There are a variety of gifts and service. All are important and all are very special.

In Ephesians, Chapter 4, the Apostle Paul, who is writing a letter of encouragement from prison to those Christians outside who are experiencing persecution, talks about the importance of unity in the Body of Christ, and he says:

I tend to be in awe of anyone who can play golf. Even when I played on a regular basis, I thought it was amazing if you could break a hundred. There were a few rare times that I actually finished with the same ball that I started with. I usually lost four or five along the way and generally had to borrow one by the time I got to the end. So, when Ben Curtis won the British Open, I think it is amazing--and a lot of people do--that someone could be ranked three hundred and ninety-sixth in the world--which is still a pretty elite club--and win the British Open. This 2001 graduate of Kent State, known to be pretty even-keeled whether things are going poorly or going well, is ranked number thirty-five. He won’t have to worry about whether he can qualify. No one would doubt that he is a very, very gifted golfer.

If you have heard Charlotte Church sing, from an early age--I can remember hardly being able to believe just how old she was when I heard a tape of her singing--you know, I am sure that she works at it; I am sure she has good coaching--but what a gift to be able to sing as she sings. And the gift of music is one that is obvious.

I was reading this past week about the freshman class of Yale University, and found out that their average SAT score is fifteen hundred. Essentially what it was saying is that, unless you are very academically gifted, there is no need to apply. It is pretty obvious when people are very academically gifted and elite. When people are musically gifted, academically gifted, athletically gifted, we tend to notice those gifts, and oftentimes, we look at them and say, “Well, I don’t have that. I’m not quite like they are.”

But there are some gifts that really are even more important. They are called spiritual gifts, gifts of the Holy Sprit, that God has given to his Church. They are to build up the body of Christ. They are given their tools. They are gifts, and are gifts; you cannot earn them. And when a Church that is made up of people who acknowledge the gifts they have and use them in service, there is a unity there. There is a maturity there. And that is a Church that God can use. It is a healthy Church. It is a Church that is focused outward in reaching people for Christ, and Paul is speaking about that.

This morning, I want you to remember that we are called to use the gifts that God has given us. In Ephesians, Chapter 4, Paul talks, first of all, about walking worthy of the calling. First, and foremost, we need to remember that we have been called to set a good example of Christian disciples, and the first place we look is at what kind of love is in our lives.

Paul says: As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love, and make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.

When I look back over the years and think of the different size churches I have serve--I have been a youth minister and a member of a two thousand member church; I have served a sixty member church--and there are differences in how many people show up on Sunday, and the way you govern, and some of the dynamics--but still at the heart, the question is: what kind of love is there? What kind of love is there for God? What kind of love is there among the people? What happens when they have a disagreement? Do they fuss and fight and not talk to each other, or do they actually pray and seek to be united and put that love into practice.

Paul said you need that. And then he begins to talk about gifts of grace, spiritual gifts. What are spiritual gifts? Well, one place we begin with is realizing what they are not. God has given us talent. You may have a talent for music. You may have a talent for the mechanical. These are God-given and important to use for his glory. But those are not spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are not fruit of the spirit which Paul lists in Galatians of love, and joy, peace and patience; those are the very important results of faithful Christian living. But the gift of the spirit, you have it because you are a Christian. If you are not a Christian, you don’t have a gift of the Holy Spirit. But it is one or two or maybe three ways--sometimes there is a mix there--in which God has primarily gifted you to be used by Him at this point in your life. We find out more about them when we read three main passages. Ephesians is one of them. In First Corinthians, Chapter 12, it says it this way about spiritual gifts, when Paul is writing to the church in Corinth.

He says in verse 4: There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

So that lets us know that there are a variety of gifts, a variety of services. It is the same Lord. Then he goes on to list some of them.

He says: Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

So, spiritual gifts--the basics are--they are a gift; you don’t earn them. You can ask for them, but that’s not the way it works. God gives them. And they are given for the common good. They are given for building up the Body of Christ.

And at the end of that chapter, he writes: Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

What Paul is saying here is that, “No, not everyone has these gifts. But you are gifted. And God wants you to use that gift for his glory.

How many gifts are there? Well, depending on which spiritual gifts books you read, some come up with twenty-one, others nineteen or twenty. But we have already covered most of them.

Let me read this passage from the 12th chapter of Romans, which talks about, especially, the “serving gifts”, as I would call them: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, again, that is an attitude about spiritual gifts. First of all, you are to offer your lives to Him. It’s not yours. It’s His. He gave you life, and then whatever gifts God has given you, again, you want to offer them back to Him, and you want to seek His will in that.

Ant then he lists the gifts: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

One of the best books I’ve come across on spiritual gifts--I think it was used as a Methodist Women’s Study--is Patricia Brown’s Spirit Gifts. She divides these gifts into three categories, and just listen with yourself in mind, if this is a gift that you think you have. First of all there are the serving gifts, especially listed in Romans as a gift of exhorta or encouragement. These are people who are very encouraging. You are having a hard time. These are the people you want around. They encourage you. Barnabas is an example of that in the New Testament.

There is the gift of giving. These are the people who are oftentimes generous financially. We encourage this gift quite a bit. But these people are generous not only with their finances, but they are generous with their time. Again, Barnabas is another example of this in the New Testament.

Compassion is a gift. These are people oftentimes who help with people who are hurting. They just feel what other people are feeling and they are able to enter into what they are experiencing.

There is also a serving gift of wisdom. These are people who take spiritual truths and they grasp them. And these are people who, again, are good to listen for their wisdom. It’s great for a parent to have this gift.

The gift of knowledge often goes with this, and of course people with gifts of wisdom and knowledge oftentimes make good teachers. They have experience, and they have learned spiritual truths, and are very good at mentoring other people.

There is a gift of faith. We think of Abraham and Sarah who were called to put enormous faith into practice to have a child at a late age. These people with the gift of faith you especially want praying for you because when they stand on the promises, they stand on the promises. They really believe if God says it is true, then they have great faith on your behalf.

There is also the gift of leadership. What a great gift it is for the Church, but again, these are gifts that are not only used in the Church, but are used in your work; they are used in your families. We are talking about the 168 hours. The body of Christ ministry is more than what happens here at Church. It is that, but it is when you go forth from here and you see yourself as a missionary, that God is using you. The gift of leadership is a very important one and I know that this Church is definitely blessed in that regard.

Then, there are gifts called “signs”--and these are maybe the more dramatic ones--but there is the gift of healing. Sometimes this is someone who is especially good at visiting the sick, praying for the sick, or when they find out there is an operation, they really want to know about it and they either want to visit or pray or do both. But again, they are good at it and they have a merciful attitude about it. The power of miracles. Peter certainly had that in the New Testament; he believed God for great things. And sometimes, that is what it comes to, isn’t it? We need a miracle and this is a person whom you want. There is gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. The Pentecostal revival at the turn of the century was especially birthed in this gift. These are some of the “sign gifts.”

There are some gifts which Paul lists in Ephesians, and these are the gift of the people whom God has called, set aside especially, to equip the Church, pastors and teachers and evangelists and apostles. They aren’t exclusively ministers and missionaries. They are laity as well, but think about this for just a moment: the gift of prophet. These are people, sometimes they are preachers, who are more prophetic, like a Martin Luther King. These are people who are oftentimes involved in a social justice ministries, but they are prophetic.

Then there is the gift of pastor and teacher. Whereas it is good for a pastor to have that, and a teacher, this is why you have Stephens Ministers and a lot of informal things. Some of the best caring people--visitors-- are not necessarily the pastors. The laity are so good at that. And teachers, the varieties of service with this: Some are good with children; some are very good with older people; some are good with lectures; some are good with small groups; some will use it more at the Church; some will use it more in the public school system; some will use it as counseling. There are different varieties of service with the gift of teaching, but it, again, is someone who likes to read, likes to study, likes to explain the truths of the scriptures.

The gift of apostle is very important one. Paul certainly had it. John Wesley had it. This is someone who is not necessarily just in one church, but they can oversee a lot of churches. Superintendents often have this gift. They have to relate to different cultures.

Then there is the gift of evangelist. We think of Billy Graham. But I think of someone like a Bill Bright, who is the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the strongest college student Christian ministries today. He went home to be with the Lord, I think it was this last week, but Bill Bright was not only a great leader of this organization, but he was one who knew the spiritual laws and was just very good at sharing his faith one on one.

How do you discover these enabling gifts? Well, sometimes we think it is hard. In our family at birthdays and Christmas, sometimes we send people on scavenger hunts. I think sometimes I do it because the gift is not really all that great, but hopefully, if we send them on a little trip, with riddles, through the garage and back yard, or whatever, maybe it will make it a little bit better. But sometimes, we feel that way about spiritual gifts. It is a scavenger hunt: “Well, how in the world do you know that? Don’t you have to be real special to do that?” Well, not necessarily.

Charles Bryant made this discovery after he had been in the ministry for twenty-four years. I remember hearing Brother Charles when I was in school at Chapel Hill. He was the pastor of University Methodist, and a very effective preacher, but apparently several years after that, he had quite a burnout with ministry; he was just going through the motions. He describes burnout as just lacking motivation. What you used to like to do or loved to do, you just don’t really care that much any more. And for him, he had the wrong kind of ambitions, the wrong desires and he was just tired of it; and he says as he went--as he put it--“all the way to hell and back,” in praying to God, finally God began to teach him about spiritual gifts and he began to not only write a tremendous book about spiritual gifts, but experienced it in his own life, and once again experienced the joy that comes from serving God the way he was meant to.

He shares nine ways we can discover our spiritual gifts: It’s an acronym that spells OBEDIENCE. The first word is Obey. That is, we obey God’s calling. If we want to know the ways we are gifted by God, we obey His calling. How has God called you? I know I have been called to preach. I have been called to be a husband and a father, and called to be a Christian. Those are some of the basic foundational callings and there is no sense, if you are not going to be faithful to those basic callings, that God is going to reveal to you about spiritual gifts. We need to obey the calling he has upon our lives and then we begin to make a study of God’s gifts.

You can either look over these passages that we have read today or look in the Concordance in your Bible. Also, you can look in the excellent book, Spirit Gifts, by Patricia Brown or Charles Bryant’s book, Rediscovering the Spiritual Gifts. It’s great for your Sunday School Class or just a book of life. (tape change.) ….realize that when God calls us it’s something we have a desire for. We have this idea that God is going to call us to do something that makes us miserable, that we will hate. We may be a little afraid at first. I remember, years ago, the first time I visited a hospital room, I had to walk around a lot just to get the courage up. And it is hard for me to imagine that now. Certainly with the first attempts at preaching--and I still get nervous about it--I was just really petrified; so I can say that, even though you might be afraid, examine your feelings. Is there something you have a desire to do?

D is to dare to commit yourself to this gift. You could do a spiritual gifts inventory but then just drop it. You can identify a gift--“Well, I have a gift of faith. I have a gift of teaching.” But I dare you to use it. My first attempt at teaching Sunday School did not go well. I went to a Youth Sunday School class. It seems like there is always a need to teach in the youth department, and I knew I was going to be a minister and they let me go up there, in Wilmington. I had a lesson plan that, well, I thought it would last for thirty-five or forty minutes, but it didn’t, because they just looked at me and they didn’t talk to me. And they didn’t answer my questions. And so, I dismissed them early. That’s all I knew to do. But, I kept at it. Dare to commit yourself to this gift. I investigate the gifts of others. That doesn’t mean that you look at others gifts and feel inferior, but you learn from others, “How did you become interested in that? How did you get involved in Hospice or Stephen’s Ministers or some other outreach ministry?”

E is to experiment with the gifts you think you have. You may think you have a gift of mercy, the gift of healing, and you go visit someone who is sick And you go, and you are terrified, and you don’t go back like I did. Well, maybe that’s just not for you. But, it could be that you do have a gift, for example, of administration and someone asks you to lead a group, and you not only do it, but you like it. You enjoy getting ready for the meetings. You make an agenda. You like being organized. You love seeing God’s work being done. You experiment.

N is never doubt God’s promise. You come back and, again, you just absolutely refuse to think that you are an inferior Christian, inadequate. God has gifted you and He has promised that to each is given Grace.

Then C is censor all thoughts of pride. There is no reason to feel better than anyone else because you have the gift that they don’t. It is a gift.

And E is expect results. Expect God to use you. In Disciple Bible Study, which I highly recommend, came about because Bishop Wilke and his wife and several others were praying, and praying, and praying, back in the mid 80s, I think in 1984, “God, move on the Methodist Church once again. We are tired of this membership decline. We really want You to move.” And they felt that the key was getting Christians back in to the Bible, back into the Scriptures. If you read accounts of any spiritual awakening in any shape or form, in any denomination, people get in to the Bible. They are praying and they are reading the Scriptures once again.

Well, that birthed Disciple Bible Study in a two-week retreat. And it is great. You go through the thirty-four weeks of the Old Testament, seventeen weeks of the New Testament, but the thirty-third week you stop and you look at spiritual gifts. It looks at some of the gifts we have looked at here. It looks especially at equipping gifts. It looks at the gift of helper and administration. But especially what it does is, it points out that you are gifted and asks the question, “Are you willing to use that gift for other people?” It points out Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. It points out Abraham and Sarah being used late in life: the gift of faith. But it mostly addresses, not knowing all the spiritual gifts, but: do you really want to be used by God? I believe that is at the heart of spiritual gifts. That is at the heart of what Paul is talking about. I’ll never play golf like Ben Curtis. I’ll never sing like Charlotte Church. And I’ll never make a 1500 score on the SAT. But I know I’m gifted. You are. There’s no one just like you. I know your parents told you that, but it really is true. And I’ll close with this: Jesus said it this way in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew:

The one who entered into the joy of the Master is the one who took those five gifts and put into practice serving the Lord and God gave him more. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Master.

The one who was given two gifts, he was faithful. He went out, put those gifts in practice. He came back and the Master said, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Master. He was given two more.

But then there was one who was afraid to use his gift: “Well, I just don’t have anything to offer God.” He had one gift. For all we know, it was an incredible gift. He didn’t have abundant gifts, but he had one. But he didn’t use it. He buried it. Did you ever bury a gift? He buried it, brought it to the Master and the Master couldn’t believe it. He said, “You wicked and lazy servant. Why did you do this?” And he took it away from him.

Oh, to stand before the Lord one day and to hear those words, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Master. Why do we do it? It is for the unity of the Body of Christ. It is for lives to be touched. The world needs God’s people to truly be faithful in serving him with the gifts that he has given. Let us pray.