Gifts According to Grace

Let me ask you a question that I put to you a few weeks ago. What is the future of the Church of God? What does the future hold for the United Church of God? For others scattered among the various groupings of people, the various other fellowships of the Church of God, what does the future hold for this congregation in Indianapolis? I asked this a few weeks ago, and we turned to one Scripture at that point to help us to understand some answers to that particular question. I said at that time that you and I can have our own individual opinions. Some have had various evaluations of the United Church of God, the Indianapolis congregation over the years. You may have yours right now. It may be right. It may be wrong. I can have mine. But in the end, there is really only one vision. There is only one opinion. There's only one evaluation that matters, and that is the one from Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 4 and verse 16, Scripture I anchored us in last time. I want to turn there again and read Ephesians 4 and verse 16. Ephesians 4 verse 15 says, From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Verse 16 is a remarkable verse. It is Christ's vision of how the church will be, how it will work, how it will survive. In this world, in this age prior to His coming. Look at it very carefully again. It says that that whole body is joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. It's joined to the head, Jesus Christ. It's a fact.

Every joint supplies something. You could say from other Scriptures, every member. We could say every individual will supply something, has something to supply, can supply something. Every joint does its share. That word is mentioned in there.

Look at it very carefully by the effective working by which every part does its share. Not just one, not just the minister, not just a handful of leaders, deacons, deaconesses, or other individuals who may appear on an organizational chart that might be drawn up on any particular congregation. Every joint does its share. When this occurs, the church grows and it is built up in love, in love. This is a verse that includes everyone.

Everyone. Every joint. These are not my words. Everything that, every joint, everyone does their share according to the working by which every part causes growth of the body. This is Christ's vision for the church. Everything the church does, everything the church is, everything that it hopes to be really must flow from this vision that Christ gives through the Apostle Paul about the church. Every activity that a congregation should, would plan, every sermon that is given, every sermonette, every message that is given should take this into account to provide something for everyone to take part with and work and to build together. This is a verse that speaks to the unity of everyone working together, everyone having a part to fulfill Christ's vision for what the church should become. Well, you and I do our part. Will we be part of the end result? Because this is where Christ is taking the church. This is what it will be. It's not my vision. It's not anyone else's. It's not the president of the United Church of God. It's not some presiding evangelist of another church of God. It's not some president of another organizational part of the church of God. It's not any human being's vision. It is the vision of Jesus Christ.

Everyone who is a member of the church of God is compelled to live up to that. Every minister should be working to accomplish this. We should all be working to do this, to do our part within the context and the frame that this sets contributing to, building up everyone, building up the entire congregation, the entire church, everyone doing their part and contributing to the growth in that way. How do we do that? Well, there are many different ways I guess we could explore and begin to accomplish and look at that. But if everyone has something to give, if every joint has something to supply, then perhaps every joint, i.e. you and I, should look at what we have to give, then ask ourselves whether or not we are contributing, whether or not we are working toward this vision. One way to do this is to look at the gifts that we might have. How many of us are aware and know the gifts that we have?

The talents. There are parables about talents that are given to those that are left to do the work of God while Christ waits for His second coming and His return in those parables. There are spiritual gifts that are spoken of throughout the epistles, especially by the Apostle Paul.

You might say, well, I don't have any gift, but you would be wrong.

We all have a gift. Some have multiple gifts. And we see in Scripture that God expects us to use our gift. And if we can understand what that gift is and if we have the opportunity to use it, make the opportunity to use it, we can have the opportunity to contribute to the vision that this verse speaks to. In 1 Peter chapter 4, 1 Peter chapter 4, let's begin in verse 8.

Above all things, have fervent love for one another. For love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Verse 10, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Verse 10 says, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another. Each one has received a gift. What is that gift? And do we use it to serve? Let's go back to Romans 12.

Romans 12. The apostle Paul knew there was a solution to what he wrote in Ephesians 4 and verse 16. And he knew there was a practical application to the theology that even that verse and so many of his other writings actually tell. In chapter 12 of Romans, Paul comes down after 11 very, very difficult trying and taxing chapters of Romans in which he has gone through some of the deepest theological doctrinal subjects of the Bible. If you've ever read through the first 11 chapters of Romans, you probably realize what I'm saying is true. Those 11 chapters are very deep, talking of sin, of baptism, of grace, of the law. I mean, he's deep. One writer about the book of Romans says that Paul must have, as he dictated that book, he must have been walking up and down, dictating it, frustrated and just kind of very emotional in terms of how he's putting out the material for whoever's taking it down because there are sections of it that are very, very powerful in what he says. And he pours himself out in the writing of it. And then he comes down to verse 12. And he goes off into a completely different course because beginning in chapter 12 into 13, 14, 15, he gets into some very practical steps for the church. Practical things. In other words, the first 11 chapters are very doctrinal, but now he realizes that there has to be an application of that doctrinal teaching to the church so that it works according to the doctrines, according to the deep teachings of truths and truths that are there. And this is where he goes into in chapter 12, a section that begins to help people to understand exactly what it is that he is a doctrine and other teaching should lead one to. If I could just make one other comment about doctrine. Since I've become one of the doctrinal instructors at the Ambassador Bible Center, I'm very glad to be able to do that. And it's been a very invigorating experience and looking forward to it again next year. You know, without doctrine in the church, we don't have anything. Our doctrines have got to be accurate, biblical, and true. And I think we, from the very beginning of the United Church of God, have laid out 20 fundamental beliefs in our doctrinal statements that are quite comprehensive and are sound. We have documented them. We have backed them up from Scripture. They're very well laid out. We have a booklet that goes through it all, and we have sought to be very, very careful with our doctrines. If you don't have doctrine right, you don't have anything. You've got just a bunch of people that can be very nice. It could be a nice social club. If we didn't have our doctrines right and true, I think we do. But you and I know as well, and here's where some of us are at times.

You might study the doctrine, but how do you apply it? The doctrine has to have an accurate application. It has to make you a better person. It has to have some practical application to daily life. And you and I know that we don't just study doctrine all the time. We study other parts of the Bible for inspiration, for encouragement, for a lot of the how-to things of life, which we should. But doctrine has a part to play in that as well. Paul knew that.

That's why he broke off here in Romans and starts to get into some of these practical things. With that foundation, then we can begin to build up the church to make it work properly. One of the things that I said I would do when I started to teach doctrines, the doctrines class, is I wanted to make it practical. Teach what the Scriptures say, back up everything with the Bible, but also show the practical application. And I hope I made a good attempt and a good start at doing that. I think I'll get better as I go over the subjects year after year after year. But doctrine has to be practical. There has to be an application for it. Or it's just a dry, dusty book of Scriptures and references. And that's not how God intended it to be. It must be accurate, must be right, we must be faithful to it, but we also must know how to apply it. And that's what Paul understood here in Romans. And I think that's where this concept of our gifts as individuals comes into play, to be able to build on the foundation that we have here of an accurate knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ, of the church, of what God is doing and the purpose of human life.

In chapter 12 and beginning in verse 1, let me just read this down to a few verses here. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. God's not interested in a dead sacrifice. He wants a living sacrifice, a wholehearted dedication to His way of life, a total immersion, symbolized by that baptism to a way of life. We talk about this a lot, especially the three of us on the ground today when we talk about what we're doing and how the programs come together and the responses that we get. And as we look at people as they respond to the program and all of our literature, we talk a lot about what a commitment it takes to this way of life, which you well know. We're not just asking people to write in for a subscription to the good news or for a particular booklet. We're asking them, if it is God's will, we're asking them to commit their life as a living sacrifice to a way of life, a total immersion.

That's far more than just a subscription or 30 minutes a week watching a program. It's far more than tithing, making an offering. You, as you well know, it is a total commitment to a way of life. And this is where Paul goes. He says, present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this world, verse 2, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is good and acceptable, perfect will of God.

Philip's translation puts it this way, don't let the world around you squeeze it into its mold. Let God remold your minds from within. That's another way to put it, a very accurate way. Don't let the world put you in its mold, but God mold us from within. Change has to come from within. Verse 3, for I say, though, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one, a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function.

So we being many are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. He summarizes 1 Corinthians 12 here in about two verses. This is not unfamiliar language for Paul to use to explain the church, how the church functions, comparing it to the body, and that we being many are one body in Christ. But then in verses 6, 7, and 8, he gets into some very practical application by talking about gifts. And he has several that he lists. He has seven that he lists in these verses.

Seven gifts that are very, very important. Now, this is not the only list that Paul comes up with. We could go back to Ephesians 4, and he will talk about it there. He will also talk about it in Ephesians chapter 12. Or, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where he talks about the manifestation of gifts. In Ephesians 4, he talks about the ministry of gifts.

He lists apostles and prophets and teachers. But this particular list in Romans 12 is perhaps one of the most interesting, because it applies so broadly to all members in the church to help us understand the role we can play and how we can contribute as individual joints in verse 16 of Ephesians 4 to the growth of the body by the gifts that we have.

And it's good for us to take just a few minutes to look at them in an overview. You can spend a lot of time looking at each one and breaking it down, but we'll quickly go through these seven and look at what we are told here in this. Let's look in verse 6. Having then gifts according to the grace that is given us, let us use them. Keep in mind, we had just read back in 1 Peter 4 that we are given these gifts.

Paul here puts it this way. He said, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. We don't have a choice. They're given to us by grace. That's the word charis, C-H-A-R-I-S, is the Greek word here for grace.

That's another application of the concept of grace that gets beyond forgiveness and unmerited pardon. It's God's grace that even He gives us freely, undeservedly, and adds to and magnifies these particular gifts that He's talking about. That's very important to understand that they are a gift given to us by God to be used. Hold that thought. I'll come back to it when we go through these seven because, as I said, sometimes we get to thinking we don't have any gifts.

Or we get to thinking that we're only a certain way. And if you look at these gifts for what they are, sometimes you might instantly recognize this is you or this is somebody else. Or you recognize you don't have this one gift, but it doesn't mean you can't have it given to you. That it cannot become something that we work for in that sense and we understand for, which is a growth which is becoming different.

And gets us out of a stereotype and gets us out of a way of thinking that we can't or don't have what it takes. But they're given to us. Let us use them.

And then He begins to mention what they are. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Now, let's look at that one for a moment. A gift of prophecy. Now, what is that talking about? Is that talking about the ability to read through the book of Daniel and unravel the 70 weeks prophecy of the book of Daniel? How many of you understand the 70 weeks prophecy of the book of Daniel? I'm putting my hand down because I don't.

Nobody's raising their hand. How many of you have ever read the 70 weeks prophecy of the book of Daniel? Okay, I'll put my hand up on that. We've read it. How many of you have read it in the last month? That's what I thought. The last year. Okay, the last year. Okay.

Does the gift of prophecy mean that you understand every nuance of that?

Does it mean that you are like Harold Camping? You can figure out a scenario to come up with a prediction for the rapture in the end of the age, and if it fails, you can come up with another one, and if that fails, you can come up with another one? Is that what the gift of prophecy means?

Well, no, because even Daniel didn't understand everything, and certainly Harold Camping doesn't understand what he's trying to put out, a very unfortunate scenario. At any rate, what is this that we're talking about? Well, at a very high level, it is talking about the ability to discern the times and the events and the prophetic messages, and to utter things. We were going through Acts in recent sermons and the story of the church at Antioch. There were prophets there, and there was one who predicted that there would be a famine in Judea. And so we see the working of that even in the early church, where a regionalized famine was predicted. We see that office in Ephesians 4 of a prophet, and that can take a wide variety of applications, especially for us today. I haven't seen any Amuses today. I haven't seen any Ezekiels today, talking about us within the church. I have an interest in prophecy to where I can write about it. Not everyone does. How many times over the years have I had ministers tell me, boy, I'm sure glad you started that publication or that you guys are doing that because it does fill a need, and they don't write for it. And I understand that. Some guys are better at other subjects. They just don't have perhaps either that interest or the ability to write about it. Some guys don't preach a lot about it. But it can be a gift, and it should be used in a right way. When you really understand the fullness of the word of prophet and the application of it from Scripture, it broadens out far beyond anything dealing with just predictions or some of these intricate prophecies. Really, some of the deepest messages like Jeremiah and Isaiah deal with social issues and charging the leaders with the sins of ignoring the poor, of stealing, of not just basically teaching the law and the consequences that will come from that. And when you break it down, it really is talking about men and women who had certain perception of the times and of the people. And if you look at this as it's talking about a gift and recognize Paul is writing here to the church at large, this is not to a group of class of ministers, he's saying that there is a gift of prophecy. How does that apply to you and to I? Should you think of yourself as a prophet? Should you start just reading all prophecy and trying to understand and write about it? No, not necessarily. There's an application that brings it down, I think, to a practical level for you and I, and that is one who is a perceiver. Look at this as not a prophet, but as one who perceives. Because a prophet does perceive in many ways. They perceive the times. They perceive people. They perceive trends with God's help. But you and I can perceive various things about people and about the times, about life, about human nature, and that too can be a gift.

How many times have you ever run across someone who is a very good, very perceptive, at reading people's body language, the way people are, the way people talk, the tone, the inflection of the voice, and can draw some accurate conclusions from that?

I've known people who are very perceptive. They can read between the lines. Or they can figure out a situation, size up a group of people, two or three people, or what's taking place, and they're very perceptive. Sometimes, some of us are not. Some of us are not that way. We blunder through life. We see only the good in someone, and that's not bad. But sometimes you have to have somebody that can have a bit of perception. A lot of women are like that. Very perceptive.

I think I will single out my wife Debbie as having a perception at times where I have not, with certain situations and certain people. When I look back over our 38 years in the ministry together, and the conversations we've had, the situations we've been in, I will have to say that she sized up some of them far quicker than I did, whether it was individuals or a particular situation. And if I didn't agree with her, I was proven wrong. And they've had to eat whatever I had to eat, and say, you were right, I was wrong. Men are like that in some ways, and some men are more like that as well. But it is a gift. It is a gift that can be cultivated. There's one example in the scriptures of a prophet that I think is very interesting. That's John the Baptist. You may not think of him in that way, but his messages that we have the extracts from are very, very perceptive. He called hair to fox. And when the Pharisees came out to be baptized, he didn't say, Well, welcome! Let's all have a love fest here on the Jordan. No, he said, you pack of vipers, you snakes. Not very inclusive, was he? Not very loving, but accurate. John the Baptist had a gift for perception, or in a sense, he was able to predict and understand the flow of people's lives, and certainly the times, and he spoke directly to it. He had a unique role, but he's also an example of that. So prophecy is, the gift of prophecy is far more than just being able to unravel the intricacies of the biblical prophecies, and understand them, to be able to even teach them. The application of it gets into our lives, because, look, if you as a parent, in working with your children, can point out to them the consequences of their actions, if they persist in this relationship with person so-and-so, whether it's a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or a pack of, you know, a boy with his male companions, or vice versa with a girl, and you as a parent have a discerning eye that that person is not the best one for you to be around, and you can, in the right way, at the right time, steer them into better companions, because you recognize if they continue hanging around with that crowd, they're going to be getting in trouble. And you're the one that can see it, and they can't. I used to have a friend that I would bring into the home in high school. My mother had an instinctive dislike for the guy. I remember after him leaving one time, she says, you better watch him. You don't need to be running around with him. She'd point her finger at me as she was good at doing. And, you know, I didn't want to listen to her. Well, finally, one day after having him in my room, something came up missing. It was the last time I had him in my house, but my mom saw it. But in my stubbornness, I wouldn't see it. She was a prophetess. But she had a discerning mind about how she could read this person. You, as a parent, we as individuals with our friends and our relationships at times, can have that perception and recognize it as a gift to help, to help keep someone from a course of action that's going to lead to trouble. If you can see down the road, you're acting like a prophet, and keep people pulled back from that. Let's look at the second concept, the second gift here. He who exhorts in exhortation, I'm sorry, verse 7, or ministry, let us use it in our ministry. The word here is one of the basic words for servant, diaconos, the general classification of the servants, one who is given to serve and to help other people. Paul lists this here, this gift of ministry or service, as a gift, the gift of serving, the ability to help others, a doer, in other words.

You know how you hear the old saying, some people do, the others teach. Or is it the other way around? Those that can't do teach. This type of an individual is someone who serves but who does. There's an excellent example in Luke chapter 10 of Martha. Christ went into their home and Martha was the one who was tending to the food, working in the kitchen, and Mary was the one that was listening and talking with Christ in the living room, and Martha was bustling about in the kitchen.

Christ chastised her mildly for it. Or actually, Martha said, you know, make my sister help, and Christ chastised her a little bit for it. But Martha was, in a sense, acting as a servant. She was doing it. There were things that had to be done with people in the home. And there are some people who have, again, the innate ability to do that. They're detail-minded. They will see a need. They will meet the need. They don't always have to be asked. Maybe they're a high-energy type person, but they're doers. And the church needs those. And when those people have the opportunity to do, they should be facilitated, encouraged, just for the sake of service. Not always with the expectation of something in return, whether it's an appointment to an office, ordination, or anything like that. Over the years, we've all seen and done, in our own time and way, many different acts of service. Sometimes it may be openly seen by others. Sometimes there are acts of service that nobody else sees. Not I. I'm not your fellow member. God does. God sees those things. I know that there are countless acts of kindness and graciousness that are done for us. And I know that there are countless acts that are done for our people, among ourselves, on a regular basis, that I don't know about, don't need to know about. Sometimes some things I do find out about, some things I do see, we all may see, if it's in a social activity or social setting. But there are those who do that. And if you recognize that as a gift that you have, use it. Use it and do it without prejudice toward anyone and without any expectation of return.

In our church today, after multiple decades of time and our existence, there are people in any congregation of the people of God who are doing some of the same things they were doing 30 and 40 years ago. And love it and do it and have no expectation of anything other than the joy of service. And expect to do it. My father-in-law is an example of that. He has in the Akron congregation where he lives with a single amputee. And we call him the Energizer Bunny. He's had cancer, heart attacks, bypass, knee replacements, hip replacements, everything. And he just keeps on going, doing what he can. I mean, when I first met him, he was helping to organize our wedding and serve at our wedding 38 years ago. As I got to know him over the years, after we became part of the family, he handed out the songbooks, organized the ushers, hosted socials. As the years have gone by, he's not able to do that. In fact, I think he still probably hands out the songbooks.

In fact, the minister at one point was trying to retire him and he didn't like the idea of being retired. Well into his 80s, with all the multiple health problems, he still wanted to do it, and still wants to do it to this day. And if he can't serve as much as he did in those physical areas, you know what he does today? He picks up the phone and he calls his other octogenarians in the congregation who are laid up like he is and talks to him on the phone. And they pray on the phone together, and he encourages them. I've been in the living room and watched him do it, because all he has to do today is basically make his way down the steps on the electric chair that the VA has put in for him, and to his living room, to his nice padded luxury chair, again provided by the VA that lifts him up and puts him in his wheelchair, and that's where he sits all day. But he's alive. He's more alive than some people who can go in and out of their doors each day.

He has a gift of service. Lots of people like that. Lots of people like that. They are the salt of the earth, glue of the church of God, decade after decade. The diagonals, the marthas, the individuals. You know who they are, and they don't get tired of doing it.

One thing that I have noticed among us who are younger is that we get tired after a while, and we want to do something else. Or if we're not ordained to an office or recognized in some way, we will drop it, and we will move on.

Brother, we need to fight that tendency.

Because who's going to do the jobs in five years? Who's going to do the job in 10 years?

Sometimes we feel we're not appreciative. Sometimes this happens. Sometimes that happens. But I've noticed that that is a tendency. And it doesn't matter if you're Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, J K L M O N F P, or L S M F T, or whatever initial you want to put on it. I'm tired of labeling every generation by some little letter and thinking that you got it all figured out. Because every generation is different, but every generation is subject also to the same guidelines and the same principles of God's Word, whatever they may be. And we can change. You can change. We don't have to be pitch and hold into baby boomers or the forgotten generation or the greatest generation or whatever. There's just one generation. And that's the one we happen to live in together, young and old. And the gifts of the church need to draw us together to help us in this way as a servant. The third one that he mentions must go on. He who teaches in teaching. And so there is a teacher. Ephesians 4 talks about teachers as a class of God's people or roles within the church. But this one's pretty straightforward. It's talking about one who loves to research and to communicate truth and is able to communicate the truth and explain. To do so requires a certain amount of self-discipline to study through a subject, to master a subject, to master a subject, to be able then to teach it. It takes a certain amount of logic.

The ability to apply scriptures, in this case, to life, to show people how it applies in an everyday situation, how it applies in a family, how it applies in a crisis. That gift is something that is very, very important. We have an example in Acts 18 of a man named Apollos, who was seen to be a gifted teacher. He had to be pulled aside by Quilla and Priscilla and instructed and had his method refined and his information refined to a degree. But the church is always in need of teachers, Paul's time and in our time. And God always provides those particular gifts, the ability to communicate the word of truth. Now, a teacher is someone that is gifted, but they're also held to a higher standard.

James warns to, you know, not don't be too many teachers. Be careful that you don't assume that or aspire to that solely or for the wrong reason or solely as one particular gift, thinking that if you were able to do that, you'd really arrived.

One who has this gift or would even desire this gift needs to be very careful not to aspire too high before being ready or perhaps in some cases even appointed to teach.

Paul gives very careful instruction in his letters to Timothy and Titus about people teaching as they've been taught, about certain qualifications of some of the spiritual teachers as to a standard of conduct in life that they must have. I think we all recognize that certainly when it comes to the ministry and even teaching the word of God, we have to always be careful that we have our lives are an example that does not detract from the message that we might give. Otherwise, our teaching can be in vain. Otherwise, we might be even bringing certain level of judgment upon us that we shouldn't. But a teacher is a gift, is a gifted individual, and the church needs those. And those that are logical and can apply that scripture to life can provide that. He goes on and mentions a fourth category, a fourth gift. He who exhorts in exhortation, an exhorter, is someone who loves to encourage other people to live a successful life. People who can focus on the positive, who can encourage other people and bring out the best in other people by encouraging, by exhorting them. You have that gift. And there's something, again, this is a classic example of people who like people and are able to discern the best and to encourage that in others. Probably one of the best known examples of the best examples in the New Testament is that of Barnabas, son of encouragement. He was the one who took Paul when nobody else wanted to deal with him, and he mentored him into an apostle. He encouraged Paul that he indeed was a valid, accepted member of the congregation, first of all, and he vouched for him in the initial period after Paul's conversion. Paul disappears from the scene until we find him there at the time of the story of the church at Antioch, when Barnabas needed some help and he went to Tarsus and he found Paul, brought him back to Antioch, and they worked together for a couple of years there, and then went out together on the first trip to established churches in Asia Minor. But Barnabas was an individual who could see the value in someone like Paul when no one else did and encouraged it. Someone with that gift loves to encourage people and to see that as a motivator.

It's a gift of being able to take the truth and apply it beyond the level of research, but to know how the truth of the scriptures can be then applied in a way to encourage people to be better. It's a gift that is manifested by a willingness to help people move along the path of Christianity and wants to see people change for the better and is willing to invest the time to help them to do that. This is a person who sees the glass that is half full rather than half empty. This is the type of person that you and I probably like to be around rather than one who's got the storm cloud over his head all the time.

That's the type of person who is an exhorter.

It's the type of person who sees a trial as a growth opportunity and doesn't get so depressed that life comes to a closure, shuts the door, bars the, pulls the shades on the window, goes to bed and pulls the covers up and can't get out of bed and motivate and get things done because of depression. That's not an exhorter. That's someone who needs someone who can encourage and lift them out of the doldrums. That's the type of person who is kind of like a rainy day person. To borrow the term from a Gordon Lightfoot song.

A rainy day person. Not that they bring rain, but they know how to help, in a sense, dispel the rain out of a person's life. They know when to come. They know when to go. They know when to speak, when not to speak. When to just be there or to listen or to offer the help or the word at the appropriate time. Just enough, not too much, but is able to help people and exhort them along to a successful life. They focus on the positive and they encourage the best in others. I was fortunate to have a few people in my younger years playing ball and coaches, sports, who did that. The one that stands out in my biggest in my mind was a guy named Archie Smiley, who was always an assistant baseball coach on any of the teams that I happened to play on with his son. Where every son was playing, he was always an assistant coach. And he could, you know, you never did anything overly bad, even when you missed the ground ball, even when you struck out, and you were trudging back to the dugout, Archie Smiley had an encouraging word for you.

And he would show you how to correct it. And he always loved to see Mr. Smiley sitting down on the end of the bench. And what was most remarkable about Archie Smiley and his encouragement and his ability to exhort was that the man didn't have any hands.

He'd blown them off playing around with dynamite years before. And all he had were stumps from about halfway down forward. That's all he had. But he ran a bicycle shop back of his house.

And I used to sit on the bench and watch him pull his wallet out of his back pocket and unfold a map or piece of paper from within that wallet. And then he'd light up a Winston.

Could pull a cigarette out of this package, flip the Zippo up, strike it, and light up.

He died a heart failure later on, but he lived an encouraging life. He did what he wanted to do, didn't let the handicap get him down. He was an exhorter.

It's a gift. It's a gift when God gives us his Holy Spirit and that we can use that to help one another, supplying something that everybody in the church needs.

The fifth gift. He who gives with liberality.

He who gives, let him give with liberality. Not conservatism, but liberalism. This is a different form of liberalism, not of political liberalism. This is someone who knows how to use wealth to, in a sense, give it away, not unwisely to their own hurt, but knows that in any economy, the wealth must be circulated for all to benefit and for the overall economy to grow, only by the circulation of that wealth, a certain liberality. And a giver gives not just money, but gives time, gives talent, gives energy, as a means of benefiting others, as a means of advancing the work of the church, advancing the gospel of the kingdom, someone who contributes in a generous way of themselves, their life, their experience, their time, and yes, even their money.

In Acts 10, we have an example of a man named Cornelius, who was a Roman centurion, who was known for his generosity among the Jews. Part of the reason he was the one that God opened up first to baptism and the door of conversion to the Gentiles and sent Peter to the home of Cornelius, because he was a good, devout, just man who was known for his liberality. And he had a whole household who followed him along into the church, it seems, at that point. But he was known for his goodness and his generosity to give, have that ability. And it can be a gift. And if it's not a gift for us because whatever motive we've grown up with that has caused us maybe to be a hoarder, or fearing going without or having nothing to the point where we can't give of ourselves, a hoarder affect being the one who just hoards money has a far more reaching impact in one's life than just putting the money away and never giving it out or being very, very tight with it. That also affects one's personality and their ability to engage with people and to give in other parts of their life in a non-monetary fashion.

The stinginess, being a tightwad, is a manifestation of even larger, deeper issues. But it can be something that can be dealt with, approached, and overcome by God's help and God's gift. The sixth gift that he mentions here is one who leads with diligence.

Think of this as someone who can administer. An administrator. It's a leader. It's not just always somebody like a Churchill or a Roosevelt or a Reagan or some other great figure of politics or some other field. It's leading in a sense of being able to accomplish and direct the efforts of a group of people, martial resources, time, talents of people, lead people, facilitate, get things done. Somebody like a Joseph from the book of Genesis who could organize and administer a whole kingdom to prepare in advance for the lean times. Someone like a Nehemiah who could organize all of the families in Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and set them in the various sections to get it done. Someone like a Deborah who stood out at a point in time and rallied the people of Israel to throw off an oppressive yoke and could administer. Someone who just knew how to get from point A to point Z and all the steps in between that had to be done. Can motivate and organize. Can communicate directions and actions, strategies, tactics, action steps. All the various things we put on these flow charts to get things done in any type of organization. It takes a certain amount of vision to see the end result and how to get there.

It's a practice that can be cultivated, honed through mistakes and successes as well. But who can lead a group of people to a stated goal, to a stated end with a vision in mind. The seventh one he mentions is mercy. A gift of mercy with compassion.

One who has compassion and is able to show mercy to people, to love, to care for someone in need, who can empathize with others and show true understanding of people's plight. The parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ uttered, is one example of an individual who saw a need and had compassion upon the man who'd been left after being robbed and nobody would help him. He was willing to bend and get it done. Or a Ruth who stayed with her mother-in-law. Or even Joseph. Not the Genesis Joseph, but the Joseph of the Gospels, the husband of Mary, who, when he could have legally put her away because she was pregnant, chose not to do so.

Because he had compassion. Because he had mercy. So, God knew exactly the type of man to whom the word incarnated as Jesus Christ could be raised. It couldn't be just any family. And the selection of Joseph to be the physical father of the infant, Jesus, was not by accident. He had a level of compassion or mercy.

And that is a gift. It's one who is ready to do what is necessary to alleviate a problem, suffering, and to do it, and is able to do it with joy, to do it with grace. Someone who is attracted to and feels the pain of those who are hurting and can take the action to relieve it and remove the hurt. These are some very practical, hands-on, rubber-meets-the-road type of gifts that Paul lays out here that shows exactly what it is and what it takes for the body to work and to function together. Every joint supplying what it can for the effective working of itself, growing up together in love to its head. Jesus Christ. Where do you fall? Do you recognize yourself in any of these seven gifts? Do you recognize it in others? Do you see where you may not have certain gifts? We can all look at this and see where we fall short or where we have strengths.

Paul says here that they are gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us here in verse 6 of Romans 12. They're given to us by the grace of God. Now, we can talk about the nurturing, we can talk about environment, we can talk about even DNA. And all of these things are certainly important aspects of who we are and how we come together in life. But we also see that this is a there is the element of a gift that is given from God. He may build upon what we already have in Aetli. But it also might be something that God gives us or is maybe even there's we say this waiting to give to us through the process of His Spirit working within us and bringing us along to growth and change in life. You see, any one of us can change. Any one of us can grow. We can see even where we lack certain of these through prayer, through application, grow through a period of adoption to bring on some of these qualities and begin to show them more in our life. We don't have to let who we are, external events, keep us out of them, keep us from doing these or to even dictate who we are, what we become. It doesn't matter what your personality type is.

Whether you're a lion, a squirrel, a monkey, whether you're red, blue, choleric, how many different tests can we be put through at various times to determine what our personality type is? How many inventories can we go through? How many of you put yourself through an inventory of personality type of some sort over the years? Oh, go ahead, admit it. I've been pigeonholed, categorized by these, Myers-Briggs, whatever. And I don't know if I'm a horse, a leopard, a lion, or what I am at any particular given time. Sometimes I feel like a lion, sometimes I feel like, you know, a cowardly lion, too, looking for the courage to get back into it. You see, we don't need to let any of these pigeonholes, the generational dynamics of whatever baby boomers, Gen X, whatever, they don't explain everything. And we don't have to be locked into certain assumptions, social norms, or any period of time. I think we are to eyeball ourselves and our times against the revelation God gives us in the Bible. And measure ourselves against that standard, against Christ, because Christ is our standard, and He, it says, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I know that I would get an argument with anybody, any number of people on this, some of my closest friends, would argue with me all through the night, that I don't know what I'm talking about. I listen to the lectures, I go to the breakout sessions, I take these tests, and then sometimes I stand back and I wonder, what did the Apostle Paul do if he didn't have the Myers-Briggs? What were they in the Apostle Paul's day? Were they baby boomers of their own time? Gen X or Gen Y? Or were they just all part of one generation that he, in one of his phrases, he says, this present evil generation? Kind of lumps them all together, young and old, the same time and place. You know, these gifts are important to study.

We all have certain ones. It's important that we know what they are in light of what the Scriptures tell us so that we better understand ourselves. And I sometimes think it's better for us to ground ourselves in this discussion in the Scriptures and in the types of the Bible and in the ultimate type of Jesus Christ. The others can be fun sometimes, a bit useful, but at the end of the day, what do you have if it doesn't square with the revealed knowledge of the Scriptures? Some of these tell us in some of the details of these listings and these Scriptures that God gives us gifts, that God can change us, that He can transform our lives, that we are to be renewed, not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Romans 12 too reminds us. God can change us from the inside out if we let it happen. We can understand one another. We can understand ourselves by these various gifts, strengths, and talents that we might have. Problems, weaknesses, and even in that, because if we understand one another, then we can at least understand where we are at a given point in time and appreciate that.

I'm a firm believer that it is important that we do seek first to understand, to borrow Stephen Covey's principle from his seven habits. Seek first to understand. I truly believe that if we had more understanding of each other, we would have less division and more unity in our midst throughout the years. But we don't always take the time to do that. One way to understand each other is to understand the gifts that we might have.

Certainly, it would help us to understand each other and ourselves.

Find your gift. Discover what God has given to you and ask Him to reveal it to you.

Figure out how you can use it and find a way to use it. And if your name is not on a chart, then pray to God that He'll open a door of opportunity for you that is very clear. Act on it within the church, within your life. Seek the appropriate counsel. Be careful when it comes to teaching and some of these. And, again, to recognize and be guided by the other scriptural principles of the ministry and the teachers within the church as well.

But there's a wide-open category and opportunity for all of us to live up to the vision to which Christ is bringing His church. That's the beauty of the Scripture. We do not have to create our own vision from our own perspective. Christ is bringing the church to His own vision. He is in the midst of the church directing it. We have that beautiful vision from the first chapter of Revelation, the book of Revelation, where Christ is standing in the midst of the seven candlesticks. He is standing in the midst of His church at any given time, and He is directing it and guiding it, the individual members. He is giving us, by His grace, the various gifts. He is bringing His church to the point where it is being knit together, where every joint supplies that. Our job and our duty, folks, is to make sure that we are in line with Christ's vision in everything we do and everything we desire and hope for His church. His vision, not ours, not somebody else's, not something that's read out of a book on management, organizational leadership, motivational concepts, but out of the Bible. And out of specifically these scriptures, like Ephesians 4.16, that tells us where Christ is taking the church, because He is in the midst of it, leading it, directing it, and He knows the end result. In Revelation 22, you might ask, where does this lead? Where does this leave us?

Brethren, I think, let me say this one point, and I'll come back to this, I'm sure, in private and in other discussions. Whatever we do as a church, in our mission as the United Church of God, whatever we endeavor to do in our congregational setting here, through an activity, through a program, through something, it's got to conform to Ephesians 4.16.

We must always ask ourselves, does everyone share in that? Is everyone given the opportunity to supply what they can supply? Everyone may not be aware on the same page or the same part of the page at any given time. The Christ is guiding us to that point where everyone will, and even everyone who is there will want to. We can never have an operation going on that does not allow the individual members the opportunity to contribute, should they choose from the point where they are. Because ultimately Christ is going to bring the church together to that point. Revelation 22 and verse 12, he says, Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give everyone according to his work.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I will reward everyone according to his work. What is our work?

What is our work? Well, it's good works. We are created, Ephesians 2 tells us, to good works.

Works of service, exhorting, works of teaching, works of generosity and service. Those can define those works that Christ is going to define us or reward us by. This is at the end of the story. This is the reward, part of the reward, that he lays out here. Blessed are those in verse 14 who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life and enter through the gates into the city.

Verse 17, The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him who hears say, Come, and let him who thirsts, Come, whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. The bride will have been made ready. The bride will of the church, the body, will have been built up in love to the head, Jesus Christ. Christ has placed us in the church as it pleases him. We are to work and use our gifts to build the structure that he is building.

That it's a time that we act on those gifts and put our hearts and mind to building that structure in love.