Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Do I Know My Spiritual Gifts? | Questions You're Asking | 1 Corinthians 12.7

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Struggling to find your purpose in life or role in the church? It can be really tricky. Learn how to discern your spiritual gifts and calling from https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/patrick-miller/ (Pastor Patrick Miller) as he continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/questions-youre-asking/ (Questions You're Asking). Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources and related episodes, including a blog post by Annie Kelly on "https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/blog/work-sucks-i-know-what-to-do-when-you-hate-your-job/?hsCtaTracking=ff3768ed-7d03-42d7-9ed4-96a4e9e4d19a%7C77d9f86b-213b-4b07-b1de-0a02d5cfde3f (What To Do When You Hate Your Job)" and "https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/are-you-a-team-player/ (Are You a Team Player?)" from our last series on Learning to Follow Jesus. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we are answering questions you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So, follow 10-minute Bible Talks on Facebook, vote on your favorite questions, or you can just give your own, and you might hear it right here on the podcast. How do I know my spiritual gifts? To answer that question, we have to first begin to do.

to understand what a spiritual gift is and why God gives them to us. So I just want to start with the why. I think starting with the why is always a great place to begin. And the why, why does God give us spiritual gifts is simple. God's got a huge mission for the world, which only a collective of differently gifted people can actually accomplish. A little illustration. In 1969, there was an incredibly important event that had happened. You probably know what it is. three men landed on the moon and returned to Earth alive. The Apollo 11 mission with its three heroes, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, it was a watershed moment in science and in human history.

Michael Collins, one of those three astronauts, he said this. He said, all of this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of people. All you see are the three of us, but underneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others. which of course that kind of leads you to an interesting question. How many people did it take to put three men on the moon? Seriously, how many would you guess if you had to put a number on the table? Over or under 10,000? Over or under 50? In her book, Team Moon, Catherine Themash estimates that it took 400,000 people.

Mathematicians, spacesuit seamstresses, radio telescope operators, parachute designers, engineers, contractors, metalurgists, computer programmers, television technicians. The list just goes on and on. And although we live in a culture that adores and glorifies and celebrates individual heroes, you know, think of athletes, politicians, really talented people, this story reminds us that great missions, great purposes, great dreams are rarely accomplished by solitary individuals. They take teams. In this case, it took 400,000 people to put three men on the moon. It took a team. It took a collective. It took a group committed to a singular purpose, putting someone on the moon. And the exact same thing, of course, is going to be true of bringing God's

kingdom on earth as in heaven. It's not a story of individual heroes. It's a story of an amazing collective. You see, Jesus has a mission that makes putting a man on the moon look tiny. Matthew 2817, Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now, this is not a mission for individual superstars. It's a mission for a team. Now, according to the Apostle Paul, God's Spirit has given every member of God's team

special empowerment to carry out the team's mission, to take the team's mission forward. And these empowerments that God gives, they're called spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 12.7, he writes, To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. So what's a spiritual gift? Well, they're manifestations of the creator's life-giving power to empower the church to bring God's kingdom on earth as in heaven. on a practical level, it looks like being a healthy, loving, other-centered, Christ-glorifying

community of people whose strength is in their diversity of gifts. There are six lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, and none of those lists are exactly the same. I think that kind of makes sense because these lists were written to different communities, and different communities are going to need different things at different times. Just an example, no one needed a live stream camera operator in 1920. But in 2020, we need people who are gifted with artful camera operation to be able to run our live stream so that people at home who can't come here because of COVID can worship with us. But those lists, they included things that aren't just bound by time. They included things that every church needs in all time. Think about things like discernment,

encouragement, evangelism, knowledge, shepherding, teaching, prophecy, tongues, wisdom, faith, leadership, administration, creativity, giving, healing, hospitality, mercy, and service. So how do you know what gifts God has given you to help our team move forward and build God's kingdom on earth as in heaven? Well, if you Google spiritual gift test, you'll find a lot of free inventories out there just to get you started. But I got to warn you, don't trust those tests too much. Spiritual gifts test, they tend to tell you what you want to be more than what you really are. Every time I've led a class on spiritual gifts, about 75% of the people who take those tests, and I always have them take the test, but about 75% of them will tell me that they have the gift of

leadership. Now, I don't think it's because God can't count. The problem is that everybody wants to be a leader, whether or not they actually have the gift of leadership. So what I tell people is, take the test and then start serving in some of the ways that your test recommends. You'll know if you've got a gift when you see these three things happen in your life. The first thing will happen if you've got a real spiritual gift is your service is going to be productive. A spiritual gift is a spiritual empowerment. So when you exercise your gift, it should actually produce fruit. If you think that you're gifted with teaching, but everybody starts to check their phone the minute you start teaching, it's probably not your gift. If you think you're gifted with faith and you discover that you're able to encourage people and

pray with them so that they trust God in a special way, well, faith might actually be your true spiritual gift. Okay, the first thing you should look for, your service is productive. The second thing you should look for is that people should affirm your gifting. Now again, if you think that you're a leader, but no one seems interested in following you, it's time for you to move on. But if you find your friends commenting, they're saying things like, wow, you're such a great host and I feel so loved whenever I come over to your house and you share a meal with me. Well, if your friends are telling you that, you might have the gift of hospitality. Okay, so first, your service is productive.

Second, others should affirm your gifting, not with you going out and, you know, trying to seek out their affirmation. And third, you should find some joy in your gift. This is the third thing for a reason. When you're gifted by the spirit, you will, if you're being faithful, end up using that gift a lot. Now, sometimes it's going to be a joy, but if you're using it a lot, at times it's not going to be a joy. It will be a grind.

But if you never get any joy out of something, my guess is that you're not truly gifted in it. I know today's world is obsessed with superstars and people who show individual greatness. But you have to know, God does things differently. He brings about his mission through a body of people. And each person is like a different organ within a human body. You have to have them all for the body to function well. So I just want to end with a final warning. Your gift isn't supposed to be used by you to make much of you.

Your gift is, again, to quote Paul, it's for the common good. It's not for your sake. It's not for your personal use. It's a resource that the whole church can rely on. A few years ago, one of the more shocking things to happen in the NBA was when Carmelo Anthony, who was a superstar at the time, and he was on the Nuggets, when he came out onto the court, the entire arena burst out with booing. They were just booing him.

And he wasn't being booed by the opposing team. He was being booed by his own fans, by Nugget fans. So what happened? They were booing him because Carmelo Anthony only plays for himself. At the time, he was holding out on a contract so that he could try and get a trade to New York, and it was hurting the Nuggets. The fans saw it, and they let him know, we're not into this. We don't want superstars like you who only play for themselves.

We want team players. What ends up happening is the Nuggets basically, they just let him go off the team, alongside another All-Star who kind of had the same attitude. And they used that money to buy people who were known for being team players. And here's what's really cool. When they brought a bunch of team players onto the team, none of them were superstars. They were all just team players. Their record actually improved dramatically.

They were better without the superstars than they were with them. Let's use our gifts to take our team forward, to pursue our calling from Jesus collectively, to make disciples from every single nation. Today I want you to pray and ask God to give you clarity on your spiritual gifts, and then I want you to go, and I want you to act on that clarity. I want you to use those gifts, not for you, not for your glory, not for your sake, but for the sake of God's people, for the sake of God's world. You've been empowered by His Spirit for a reason with a purpose, so don't sit on that gift.

Use it be a team player. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.