How Has God Gifted You to Serve Mankind?

Brethren, God has given each and every one of us a priceless opportunity to be in His Church. A priceless opportunity for you and I to serve our fellow man. And as God has given us that priceless opportunity, we want to take full advantage of that. Full advantage of that opportunity. And to do that, God has given us a great big helping hand. One of the things God has done for each and every one of us is to equip us, each one of us, with spiritual gifts.

A gift, at least one gift, and maybe a number of gifts. Now I know a number as we were talking about this year locally, a number came to me and said, well, I don't know what my gift is. I don't think I've got a gift.

Let's take a look at at least one gift. If you're converted, you've got one gift. For sure. Let's take a look at Acts chapter 2. Chances are most of you have got several gifts. But we'll take a look at that, especially for you ladies this afternoon. By the way, we are recording this. We will make CDs available. So if you like a CD of this, just email me. We'll make sure we send one to you. And the survey that the ladies are taking, obviously, as I said, the men can take as well.

And we can give you that information, fellows, as to how you can take the survey too. So here in Acts chapter 2, you've got the Day of Pentecost, a very special day, God giving His Holy Spirit, starting the New Testament era of the church. Here in Acts chapter 2 and verse 38, then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So we're putting to bed this idea, you don't have any gifts. You've got at least, if you're converted, you've got one gift at least. And you know, if you're not converted, we've got a number of young people in the room today, you're in a very special category. Just as the disciples prior to the Day of Pentecost had God's Spirit with them, that gift working with them, you young people have God's Spirit working with you. And in that sense, you have access to gifts. Verse 39, For the promise, notice, the promise, God is promising His people something, the promise is to you, to your children, and to all who are far off, as talking to us, our generation, God has promised us that each and every one of us are going to be gifted.

As many as the Lord our God will call. The fact is, you have been called. That's why you're here on a Saturday. That's why you're not at the other end of the building, at the farmer's market, looking at all the way. Now, I took a brief tour of that. They didn't get any of my money, but it was interesting to see what they're selling down there. So today, we're going to be exploring, especially for you ladies, your gifts. Where you stand? Where you're...

And I'll be honest with you, when I finished the survey, I thought, because I knew the seven categories, and we'll keep you under suspense as you're taking the survey, but I thought, well, surely, as a minister, here's where I'm going to fall.

Didn't fall there! I was rather surprised where my numbers came out. I was rather surprised where my number one strength was, and a little surprised at where my number two strength, and where my last two strengths were. I'm not going to put the ministry as a result of what I found, but it was interesting, and I'm sure that you'll find it interesting as well.

If you would turn with me over to 1 Peter 4, I'm going to read this in two different versions that you may or may not have on your lap. I'm going to read this verse, 1 Peter 4.10, first in a new Living Translation. We've come to some I adopt that in this congregation. Larry Walker, who's got a daughter in this congregation, who will be one of the presenters today.

This is his favorite translation, I believe. It's a very good one. And then after that, I want to go through the Amplified, which, if you don't have, is really a great study tool. 1 Peter 4.10, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. So here we see, right at the get-go, something very important for each and every one of us. That is, we use these spiritual gifts, each and every one of us, to serve our family, our spiritual family.

We don't receive spiritual gifts so we can just use it for ourselves, our own glorification and gratification. We receive these spiritual gifts. It says there's a great variety of spiritual gifts so we can serve one another. Now, let me quote that same scripture in the Amplified. The Amplified does that. It amplifies the meaning of the verse. Verse 10 in the Amplified. As each of you have received a gift, now they have a parenthesis and they're going to define gift, a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment.

I'll pause there for a moment. I think that's a wonderful description of what a spiritual gift is. A gracious divine endowment. You have been endowed by your creator with a spiritual gift. Now, you may have many physical talents. Later on in the sermon, we're going to take a look at the difference between a physical talent and a spiritual gift. There is a difference.

We'll get to that a little bit later. As each of you have received a gift, a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment, employ it for one another as befits good trustees of God's many-sided grace. We're a trustee of these particular gifts that God has given to you and I.

Then they've got a parenthesis here, or actually brackets, giving you a definition of grace. A faithful servants of the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to Christians by unmerited favor. That's a mouthful. A faithful stewards of the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to Christians by unmerited favor. We're going to go through later on in the sermon. There's three places in the New Testament to talk about spiritual gifts and actually give a listing of spiritual gifts. But you know, brethren, my feeling is that that is not a...a number of scholars would concur, but that is not an all-inclusive list of spiritual gifts.

God's family, His church, grows and develops. All the gifts we see in the Scriptures are certainly available now, but we're in a modern age. There are other gifts that are needed by God's church today. More modern gifts. Gifts of technology. We've got people at the home office who use that to great advantage as a spiritual gift to help get out the gospel.

And so there may be gifts that you have that really aren't listed in the Scriptures, but they're spiritual gifts nonetheless. Please keep that in mind. Now, spiritual gifts usually surface as you and I mature as Christians, just as we've got physical talents. Some have got the talent to teach. Some have got the talent to be a mechanic. You name what you do for a living.

You've got a talent for that. And as you progress through the course of your labors, you get better at your particular job, your skill. The same thing is true for us as Christians. Today, maybe you'll have a revelation. You'll have an epiphany as to what your talent is, your spiritual talent is. But as time goes along, you want that to grow and mature and deepen. You want that to be everything God wants it to be in you, so that you can be the part of the body that God wants you and just called you to be.

Now, last May at the Ministerial Conference, the theme was spiritual gifts. And I made mention to the congregations here in Ann Arbor and Detroit a comment that Mr. Kubik made. He was visiting some of our Russian brethren.

And one of the comments that was made to Mr. Kubik by some of the leaders there in the Ukraine, they said, you know, Victor, you've got so many things going for you in the church in America and Canada, so many things going for you. But one thing that you at the United Church of God really don't emphasize enough and capitalize enough on is spiritual gifts. Now, in Russia, where they don't have the income, they don't have the resources physically that we do in this country, they must rely more and more on God opening the door.

Sometimes we, as Americans, we think, well, we'll put some dollars there and that's going to open a door for us. But we certainly want to make sure that we appreciate the fact that God gives us gifts to do this work. God gives us gifts to love one another, to serve one another, to be there for one another. We never want to shortchange that. And so that's one of the reasons why I think Mr. Kubik and the rest of the leadership of the church decided we really need to start emphasizing this.

And again, today, ladies, you're going to have your eyes open some. I think you're going to appreciate what the two presenters have for you today. So in our prayers, we need to be continually asking God how we can better serve using the gift He has given us. Now, if you're taking notes and you want to have a title for the message, today is this. It's a question, how has God gifted you to serve mankind?

How has God gifted you to serve mankind? That's the right question we want to ask today. The wrong question is, do I have a spiritual gift? That's not a right question. You've got a spiritual gift. You've probably got several of them. We're going to try to diagnose just one of them, maybe your greatest one today for you ladies. So as I was putting my thoughts together for the message today, I was thinking, how can I approach this? I don't want to step on the two presenters and their material today.

But I do want to begin by asking really some basic questions, beside the theme statement, how has God gifted you to serve mankind? Let's ask another question here. Why does God give us spiritual gifts? Why does God give us spiritual gifts? Let's take a look at the why aspect of this. Let's turn to one of the chapters that discusses the gifts. I'm going to leave alone the chapter in Romans that the ladies will be covering later on. We'll be focusing on the other two chapters primarily.

But here in the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, we've got one of the lists of gifts talked about. Why does God give us spiritual gifts? Letter A. You can take the notes. Please forgive if I'm being a little too didactic with this, but I certainly want you to get the information. God gives us spiritual gifts, letter A, to build up His church in unity. Like any good parent, God wants His kids to be at one. When parents invite their children over for a dinner, they want all the kids to be there.

They don't want the kids arguing and squabbling and saying, I don't want to be with that other kid. I don't want to be with my other brother. We've got too much of that going on in the church, don't we? That's not what God wants for any of us. That's something that we as individuals, as church organizations, need to be working on, united very much as well as anybody else. God wants us to build up the unity in the church.

Take a look at verse 11. Verse 11 gives you some of the people who are gifted in the church and the gift they have. This is called the gift of ministry. Verse 11, And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Now, not everybody has those gifts. Those gifts are for basically the men in the church to serve in a certain way. These gifts are not better than other gifts. They're just different than the gift you may have. They certainly are needed gifts.

They're beautiful gifts. They're wonderful gifts. And the gift you have is just as wonderful and just as beautiful. But these are the gifts of the ministry. But notice, we're talking about the why here. Verse 13, as I've said so many times locally, to my thinking, if you had to take the New Testament and just coalesce it into one verse, it might be this verse right here. Ephesians 4, verse 13, Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect or mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

That's what God wants for each and every one of us. Unity as brothers and sisters. The family to be unified. You know, when we were baptized, we were baptized into the unity of the faith. And we're told to keep that unity. Now, if we're not unified, let's be honest, our Church of God culture is anything but unified. If we're not unified, that's on us. It's not on God. It's not on Jesus Christ. That's on us. And we need to do something about it.

Now, you sit there, and as I'm looking at the room here, I see many different organizations, a number of different organizations here. And that's fine. That's beautiful. That's the way it should be. When we get together as brothers and sisters, we're all united by one common spirit, the Spirit of God. Now, I can't change things organizationally. You can't change things organizationally. So what do we do? We do things individually.

We make sure that individually, each one of us reaches out. We represent the olive branch to the other guy, to the other lady, so that we are brothers and sisters in the faith as God wants us to be. That's something that we each take upon ourselves.

But the context of all of this, that we read in verse 13, is unity, is in the context here, chapter 4 of Ephesians, of spiritual gifts. God gives the ministry the gift because He wants the ministry to, verse 12, to equip the saints, to equip the saints for the work of service. That's what my job is, to help equip the congregations here in Detroit and Ann Arbor for service, for unity, for unity in Christ. Let her be. Why does God give us spiritual gifts?

Let her be. To strengthen God's church in maturity. The gift that you have, God wants you to use your gift among your brothers and sisters to help our family to be more mature. To be more mature. In your notes, you might want to jot down Romans chapter 1 and verse 11. Romans 1.11. I'm going to read this in the English Standard version, Romans 1.11. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

That I might impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. So here we've got an idea that we are to use the spiritual gifts not for our own glory or just our own selfish needs, but to strengthen the brethren, to strengthen the family. And that's what we are.

We're the family of God. Let her see. Why does God give us spiritual gifts? Let her see. To help us express our love. Christ-like love. He gives us a gift to do that. I've said it on a number of occasions here locally that we want to get the gospel to the world in the best possible light.

And people sometimes will say, well, you know, Mr. D., I'm just not really good at being a witness or being an example in the world. I don't remember a lot of scriptures. I just don't have a memory for that sort of thing. And one of the things I may mention here locally is we can be kind to people.

We can show compassion. We can show love to people. People may not remember a chapter and a verse if you give them a chapter and a verse, but if you're kind to people, they're going to remember that. They're going to remember your face. They're going to remember your kindness. Hopefully they'll remember what part of the body of Christ you're in. And maybe they might want to start attending services with us because of your kindness to them. 1 Corinthians 13.

The love chapter. 1 Corinthians 13. Though I speak of the tongues of men and angels, if I've got that spiritual gift, but don't have love, I become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

Now, brethren, it's interesting that this love chapter follows 1 Corinthians 12, which is one of the major chapters in the Bible talking about spiritual gifts. There's a reason why. Look at verse 31 of chapter 12. Paul says, "...but earnestly desire the best gifts, and yet I will show you a more excellent way." So the best gift, the most excellent gift, is the gift of love. It's the gift of who God is and what God is.

It's one of the great spiritual gifts. Today, some of you will find that perhaps that's your strength, that you're a compassionate individual. And God can use that gift of yours, of your compassion, the loving nature you have, in a great way. "...though I speak of the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal." So, in other words, without love, that gift is worthless.

Verse 2, "...and though I have the gift of prophecy..." So we're talking about gifts. "...of gifts of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing." So, when you read those scriptures, in light of the previous chapter, dealing with spiritual gifts, we realize that one of the things God wants us to do with those gifts, and why He gives us the gift, is to use it in love. Before we open our mouth, before we give, before we do anything, we want to make sure that our basic thought is, what I'm about to do is going to be done in love.

It's going to be done in love. Verse 4, love suffers long. You know, as you go through the survey today, ladies, you're going to find that each of our spiritual gifts can have an unwanted side effect if we're not careful. You know, we might be very good at certain things, and if other people aren't as good at it, sometimes we can become judgmental.

We don't want to be that way. And so here it says, love suffers long. So when we've got that spiritual gift, we want to be patient in the use of that gift. Love is kind. You know, that gift, we need to use that gift in kindness. Love doesn't envy it, doesn't parade itself, it's not puffed up. So here we've got some discussion about the fact that the gifts we've got need to be used in great humility, great humility.

You might be a virtuoso when it comes to playing the piano. You might have one of the most beautiful singing voices that there are. And God has given you that gift of being able to play music, or God has given you that gift of being able to sing, or God has given you the gift of being able to encourage one another. But if we're not careful, because we're good at something, we can make that something a point of pride.

And we don't want that to be the case. So the good part is that God has given us those gifts, but there's a caution. Don't let it go to our heads. Verse 5, Love doesn't behave rudely, does not seek its own, does not provoke, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And now notice verse 8, Love never fails. God's spiritual gifts never fail. But where there are prophecies, they will fail. Where there are tongues, they will cease. There comes a point where the great gift, love, trumps everything. And that is a gift we want to make sure that we ask God diligently for every day in our prayers. Maybe you're not a loving person. Maybe you're not a huggy, touchy, warm-type person. But we can ask God to help change our nature.

That's what God's Spirit does. Because ultimately, all the other gifts, when we're all spirit beings, there's not going to be a need for a prophecy. There's not going to be a need for some of the other gifts. But there's always going to be a need to have the nature of God. Always going to be that need. So just something for us to think about.

The chief trait of our family, of our spiritual family, is love. Letter D, why does God give us spiritual gifts? To develop godly fruit. To develop godly fruit. Let's go back to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. I want you to notice something about the gifts. You know, people who we tend to think, well, I don't have anything to give.

Yes, we do. Let's not shorten the hand of God. God has given you something, or a number of things, that He wants you, and He shows you specifically, to be a part of His church, to be a part of His family. There's something you have that God wants for you to bring to the table, to this family. Verse 16, Ephesians 4.16, From whom the whole body joined and knit together, you know, unity, by which every joint supplies, knows every joint, every individual, everybody's got a spiritual gift, by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share.

Brethren, everybody is somebody in the body of Christ. You are, you know, in the world, all of us are probably a bunch of nobodies, but God looks at things much differently than the world would. In the body of Christ, all of you are something. You are valuable to God. You are valuable to this body. And you supply something. And it says we need to make sure that it's an effective working, by which every part does its share.

You've got a gift. Are you effective with your gift? You know, we've got Mr. Rose up here. He's got a wonderful, wonderful gift. I think we all know what his gift is. He works out that gift. He takes that gift and he works on it and he works on it and he hones it. It's more skillful in the use of his gift. And I can point out, I don't want to make him feel embarrassed, but there are a number of people in this room.

Everyone, to the degree I know you, I could start listening like the other, we had a social at Mr. Hobbs last Saturday night. And I heard some people say, well, I don't think I've got any gifts. And I'm looking at that person and I know what your gift is.

I know how you've helped me. I know how you've reached out and I've enjoyed your company and the words you've said and the encouragement and so forth.

Don't sell yourself short in terms of what God's doing in your life. That's not being vain. It's recognizing the power of God in your life. And that's what today we're wanting to do with you, ladies, recognizing that tremendous power that God has from whom the whole body joined and knit together by which every joint supplies to the effect of working by which every part does its share. Notice, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

So God wants us to be effective in the use of our talents for the growth of the body.

You know, there's been times when I wish I'd taken singing lessons. I don't even sing in the shower.

But I listen to some of the some of you folks you get up and you do special music where I'm standing next to some of you and you're singing away. Just a beautiful gift from God.

A beautiful gift from God and it helps the body to grow. I feel inspired when I'm standing next to some of you. You're just singing regular hymns or as you're doing various things and services. As you're serving, you're playing the piano, you're part of the choir, you're doing what you do. And you give growth to the body, every one of you. Again, we don't want to shortchange the hand of God in all of that. So why does God give us the spiritual gifts of one through four things here for you? A, to build up His church in unity. B, to build up His church in maturity. C, to build up His church in love. And D, to help us develop godly fruit. Again, all this will be given in a CD which we'll be able to give out to you later on. I'm going to quickly here for you.

Now, earlier in a sermon I made mention, I asked the question, is there a difference between natural abilities and spiritual gifts? The answer to that is yes. God also gives natural ability.

God gives natural ability. God gives spiritual gifts. Why does God give natural ability?

Because God loves all of His creation. He may not be calling everybody right now, but God loves every human being on planet earth. And in His love for every human being, God bestows upon all of His creation talents that serve our fellow man.

And you may have a good many talents. Let's not, let's talk about talents from one and not spiritual gifts. You may have a good many talents that you use. Now, I'm about as handy as a fish.

I'm glad people have a talent where I can drive my car and say, here, here's the case, fix the thing.

They fix it, they charge me ten thousand dollars and off, you know, off you go. You know, I was reading a story. There was a fellow who took his car in and he really, really wondered if people worked on his car. So he took his car and they said, well, just park it over here, we'll get to it. And so when everyone had their back turned, he took a piece of chalk he had with them. He went out in front of his car, in front of that front tire. He put a mark by that wheel. Later on in the day, they called him and said, Mr. So-and-so, your car is ready, come pick up your car. So he went to pick up his car. There's car, sad. Shock, mark, still there. Car hadn't been moved. Now, we, you know, I guess people have a gift of pulling the wool over your eyes. We don't want those kinds of gifts, but God has given every human being a talent for the benefit of the rest of mankind. But they're also spiritual gifts. Now, if you would like, again, pardon my being so didactic here, but if you want to make a little chart, I'll give you a chart. In this chart, you'll have two columns. One column will be natural talents. Maybe you might put that on the left side of your paper. The right side, you'll put spiritual gifts. And then under that, you'll have five rows. Natural talents, spiritual gifts.

Number one, underneath both, under natural talents, the source of a natural talent comes from God through our parents. Something that we many times inherit.

In this room, I can look at a number of families here and see where music runs in the family.

Let's just stay with natural talents. It doesn't get too confusing.

Number two, under natural talents, generally, generally, possessed from birth.

Number three, the purpose is to benefit mankind on a natural level, on a physical level.

Number four, there's a certain process involved that must be, these natural talent must be recognized, developed, and exercised.

See a gentleman here near the front of the room who is an outstanding piano player.

I'm sure he spends long hours on his craft to make sure that craft is one that is appreciated and everyone that I know appreciates it very much. But the talent must be recognized. Hey, I've got the hands for being playing the piano, and I'm going to do it. I've got to recognize it, you've got to do something about it. And lastly, number five, the function.

Because if we dedicate this, even as believers, we dedicate our natural talents to God.

Whatever it is that we do that has a natural talent, you may be a natural-born mechanic, a natural-born teacher, a natural-born cook, a natural-born artist, natural-born musician, but you dedicate that talent to God. Now, the other side of the paper, spiritual gifts.

We talked about the source under natural talent. Let's take a look at the source under spiritual gifts. The source is from our heavenly Father, under natural talent is from our physical parents.

But under spiritual gifts, it's from our heavenly Father, not our physical Father, our heavenly Father. Number two, it's possessed as God has given it to you at the time of your conversion, or sometime after your conversion. God gives you a spiritual gift.

Sometime in your Christian walk with God, He's going to give you that gift.

There are those of you in this room who may have two or three spiritual gifts or more right now, and as time progresses, God may decide, you know, they've really done a lot with the gifts I've given them. I can give them another gift because their church area needs that particular gift. So I'm going to give it. I'm going to gift this person something else. Number three, talking about the purpose of the gift, is to benefit mankind on a spiritual level. The benefit mankind on a spiritual level. Same process is under natural talents in one sense. The spiritual gift must be recognized. That's what our ladies in this seminar are going to help do today, help you recognize your talent. And then it must be developed and exercised.

Just as you would do the same with a natural talent, the same thing is true with a spiritual gift. And lastly, the function, number five, a spiritual gift, is to be used for God's glory.

Everything God gives us, we turn right around and we use for His glory.

Now, you may, as I'm going through this, you may have questions in your mind.

One of the most frequently asked questions when I've gone through this subject in the past is, Mr. Del Sandro, I'm a teacher. And when I became a member of the church, did teaching become one of my spiritual talents? And I would say to that, not necessarily. Not necessarily. A person may have all sorts of abilities and natural talents, but they may not be able to translate that into a spiritual teaching. Maybe a person does, maybe a person doesn't. But what I'm saying is, it's not automatic. It's not automatic that if whatever physical talent you have, you're converted, they become a spiritual gift. I wrote in my notes here, an unbeliever may have the talent to teach. He is able to impart knowledge and facts, but not in such a way as to bring spiritual blessing and growth. You might have a history teacher, but that history teacher may not be able, at once converted, to use that in a spiritual way to bring spiritual blessing and growth.

On the other side, you may have a person who never taught in his life.

There's nobody in his family who was ever a teacher. And then he or she becomes converted, and God gives him the gift to be able to relate the scriptures in the way that people, co-workers, and next-door neighbors, their family, really understand. The person has the ability to make the scriptures come alive. You don't have to be a minister to have that gift.

We're all members of the body of Christ. Not everyone can stand behind a lectern here, but we don't want to shorten God's hand. There are plenty of examples in the Bible, Old and New Testament, from Deborah on the one hand, to Dorcas and other people in the New Testament, who had tremendous spiritual gifts that they used. Let's take a look now at 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We talked about Ephesians 4. That's where one listing of the spiritual gifts are. The second one I want to go through is 1 Corinthians 12. What you ladies will be going through in your seminar today is Romans, Book of Romans. Here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, let's take a look at something. There's something here that's very important for us to make sure we catch. I said, everybody is somebody in the body. Everybody. Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians 12 verse 12. For as the body is one and as many members, one church of God, let's forget about organizations, one church of God, as the body is one and as many members, that all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. So there's a running analogy we're going to see here.

For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free and all been made to drink into one spirit. That's why I said earlier in the sermon, when we were baptized into the faith, we were baptized into unity. And if we're having issues of unity, the issue is of our making. It's not of God's making. And we as people, God says, okay, I've given you my spirit. I've given you gifts. I've given you my scriptures. Fix the problem. That's on us. Verse 14, for in fact, the body is not one member but many. If the fuchas say, because I am not a hand, I am not of the bodies, that therefore not of the body.

So brethren, let's, you know, today, ladies, you're going to be taking a look at what your gift is.

And I don't want to be going through too much material for fear. I step on toes of the two presenters today, but don't compare yourselves among yourselves. Some gifts sound more spiritual, perhaps, than other gifts. Every gift is needed. And the analogy here is the body.

Now, you know, when you think of the body, you think of, well, the brain is great. But you know something? I remember Mr. Murray and Mr. Murray Jr. came over to our home several years ago to build a deck. Those two guys, by the way, have a gift of being able to work hard.

And they worked hard. But on that day, you know, they're putting together all this lumber. They're putting all these things down fast and furious and beautifully. And I went to get my talent. I brought water to the men. It was my talent. I brought water to the guys. But in going out the back door of my house, I was in such a hurry, I closed that back door behind me. And I closed the full bore on one of my fingers, right where the top part of the cuticle was. I just, I mean, that door was solidly shut, right on my finger. And I looked at that after the door was opened. I bounced around several times in my garage, thinking great, colorful thoughts.

But I realized, you know, that fingernail's coming off. And sure enough, over the course of time, that thing fell off. But as great as my brain is, when that finger was hurting, that's all I thought about. So is a finger important? You better believe it's important! The other day, Lee Kajie wanted to go out golfing with me. And I said, Lee, I can't golf.

Whatever the reason, my index finger on my right hand was having a problem.

We were out of dinner. I had to ask poor Mary to cut my food for me. I felt like a 95-year-old man.

She says, oh, here, hon. I said, well, don't enjoy that so much.

You know, I couldn't cut. We're talking about ravioli. How bad is it?

But the point I'm making is, when one part of your body is seemingly not that significant, you know, it's not like the brain or your stomach or something, but, you know, the pinky or little toe, when those things are hurting, they get your attention.

They're all important. And that's what Paul is saying here. Verse 15, if the foot should say, because I am not a hand, am I not of the body?

Is it therefore not of the body? And so on and so forth he goes. Verse 16, and the ear should say, because I am not of the eye, am I not of the body? Is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, if we all were ministers, standing behind an election, well, first of all, we'd all be men, and that wouldn't work.

But if we all were able to preach, who would preach to?

Mr. Cupid made an interesting comment. He was going to a seminar someplace with several of our Barlini ministers. It was a small seminar, and the lady asked our group, she said, well, what do you fellows do? And Mr. Cupid says, well, we're ministers. She said, oh, man, that's the worst bunch. Because you guys always think you're right about everything. So we don't all want to be the ministry. Verse 18, but now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. Notice verse 18, He has set you in His body as God pleased.

There's no mistaking the fact that each and every one of us who are Christians, who have been called, who have been baptized, who've received that gift of the Holy Spirit, that God wanted us here for the spiritual gift, for the physical talents that He has given us, for the growth of this local, of whatever local congregation you're in. As it pleased Him, it pleased God to call you and to give you the natural abilities and the spiritual gifts He's given you. Verse 19, and if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. We have need of one another.

You are part of a living organism called the Body of Christ. You're not the entire organism, you're a part, I'm a part. In spiritual as well as biological terms, your well-being, please note this, your well-being hinges on the health of those around you. Do you have a healthy local congregation? If you don't have a healthy local congregation, if I'm not doing my part to make Ann Arbor or help Ann Arbor to be a healthy set of congregations, then there's going to be some real issues. The same thing would be said for any of your other pastors who are represented here in this group today. On the other side, the person sitting next to you wants you to be well. Their spiritual health hinges on your being well. So together, we work as a family. That's why we say in verse 21, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the foot, I have no need of you. We have need for one another in each other's gifts. So then a spiritual gift is a spiritual ability.

One person defined it this way, talking about spiritual gifts, it's an ability to function effectively and significantly in a particular service as a member of the body of Christ.

You may think it's a physical thing that you play the piano, but it's a spiritual opportunity to serve the body. You may think singing is a physical thing, but you elevate the spirit, just as the pianist would, of those who are doing their spiritual talent.

So hopefully we're wetting your appetite a little bit for the kinds of things that we have.

Let me give you these three chapters for your further study.

And again, as I may mention, I don't believe that these three chapters are the end all and when it comes to spiritual gifts, I believe that when the ladies are going through Romans 12, that's one section, Romans 12, verses 3-8, those are called, incidentally, a motivational gift. Let's take a look at that for a moment. Romans 12, I'm not going to talk a lot about it. I don't want to steal a lady's thunder today. Just take a brief glimpse. Romans 12, starting here in verse 3, So these particular gifts in this chapter in Romans, which you ladies will be going through more in depth, are called the motivational gifts. Motivational gifts. And there are some beautiful gifts that are discussed here as you go through. 1 Corinthians 12 is the second area. What do we see gifts being mentioned? 1 Corinthians 12, verses 8-10, and verses 28-30.

That's verses 8-10 and verses 28-30. These are called the manifestation gifts. Scholars, people want to give names to these. Scholars would call these the manifestation gifts. Or some people refer to these as the sign gifts. The sign gifts.

Here in that section, you'll have the gift of wisdom. Let's just take a look at it here, starting in verse 8. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 8, For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit. Now remember, we're talking about spiritual attributes here.

We're talking about spiritual wisdom. Not just somebody who's wise in the ways of the world, but spiritual wisdom. Spiritual knowledge. Verse 8, verse 9, To another faith by the same Spirit. To another gift of healings by the same Spirit.

I remarked a number of times throughout my local congregations when I was in North Carolina.

We had an elder's wife. Now the elder himself was a tremendous man of God, and you went to him when you wanted your prayers to be heard. You talked to Mr. Shigey Hara, and Mr. Shigey Hara prayed, and things got done. It seemed to be, though, when you talked to Mrs. Shigey Hara, Janet, things got done quicker. She was a woman of tremendous faith, and of course, both of them, both of the individuals, not only were just really solid scripturally and just very humble people, they both had master's degrees. They were highly intelligent people. But there were many times, if I couldn't get to Roger, I would go to Janet. Janet, would you please pray for me?

That woman had the gift of faith. Don't have to be a minister or a minister's wife to have the gift of faith, or any of these gifts. It's just a matter of how we use those gifts. Some people use the gift behind a pulpit, some don't. They're all valuable. You've got valuable gifts that God has given to you. To another, the gift of healing by the same spirit. Verse 10, to another, the working of miracles, to another prophecy, whether we're talking there about inspired speaking or foretelling events, either one would be applicable. To another, the discerning of spirits.

You know, ladies, over the years, I've found that so many times that this is a strength of so many of you women, the ability to discern. You know, sometimes we men, we have our set of strengths, but you know, ladies walk into the room, they've got that antenna array out there.

They're sensing things, they're picking up things. You know, my wife picks up things that many times right over my head. But ladies have this like a, this is something that so many women I've noticed just have an intuitiveness about them. And that's something to be prized. A discerning of spirits.

You know, who, what's that person, what are they like, what are they doing, what's behind what they're saying. Some people are really good with that.

First down, to another different kinds of tongues, the interpretation of tongues. We drop down to verse 28. And God has appointed these in the church apostles, prophets, teachers, those who work miracles, gifts of healings, helps, administrations, gifts of administrations.

Not everybody is organized.

Some of you are laughing. You've probably maybe been in a church, maybe you've had a church pastor that you knew how to get the church. The pastor knew how to get the church. That may be as organized as that guy was. I remember years ago, the fellow who trained me in a ministry in North Carolina, he moved from Raleigh, North Carolina to Buffalo, New York. And he, this is back in the worldwide days, he had a very large church and he wanted to have a deacons meeting. So he's got like 15 deacons. Some large number, I forget the exact number, some large number, you know, because they had like 600 people in the church. So he got all these deacons. He came over to his house for a deacons meeting and Mike says, okay, I want to find out what you all do. I'm new. Who sets up the hall? All their hands went up. A little bit of an issue with organization there in that congregation.

Some of you are really good at organizational abilities. You see what needs to be done. You can boom, boom, boom. You'll be able to put it on paper. You've got flow charts. You've got graphs. You know how to delegate. You see the big picture and you've got a game plan.

Other people's game plan is they're going to show up to the game. So don't think that some of these things aren't needed just because you may have, well, if I've got it, it can't be much of a gift. No.

Every gift is very important. We need every one of these gifts in the church.

Verse 29, they're all apostles, they're all prophets, they're all teachers, they're all workers of miracles. Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? Of course not. We've got our different gifts. But notice verse 31 again, but earnestly desire the best gift.

And then he goes on to talk about love. That is the best gift. That is the choice gift.

Now, we've already covered Ephesians chapter 4. We've looked at that. That's where that third area is, talking about gifts. So we've looked at Romans 12, 1st Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. Those are the four areas. Ephesians 4 is called the perfecting gifts or the gifts of ministry. Those are gifts that are mainly given to men. Every once in a while we'll have a prophetess in the church, especially in the Old Testament, but basically it's for the men. So we've gone through the material that I wanted to cover with you today, hopefully to whet your appetite. Brethren, God has given his family tremendous treasures, tremendous gifts. Ladies, you are not in the second row in any stretch of the imagination, just because we don't have ladies who preach or teach you from a pulpit.

I have recognized in my ministry the value of our converted women and all that they offer to the church in the insights that they have. So I'm hoping today, after we have this nice lunch, and you do your surveys, think deeply about 176 questions, ladies. Think about it, and it's not a matter of, you know, you're not turning anything in, it's not a matter of right or wrong. There are 176 questions that are value statements, and they're going to say, now is this me? Some of the time or never? Or are various things in between? And when you're all done, you're going to have something really special to talk about, and as a group of ladies, that's what you'll be doing this afternoon. So I'm looking forward to being a part of that. There'll just be a few of us fellows in the room to walk around with microphones because there'll be some interaction. You ladies will be able to interact as groups within your particular talent, your gift, and we'll look forward to all of that.