Step Into Your Spiritual Gifts

Have you ever wondered what God’s will was for your life? “What is my purpose?” This question is important. Many of us seek God’s will for specific areas of our lives. “Should I marry this person?” or “Should I take this job?,” etc., Now, while I believe we can seek God’s will and direction for specific areas of our lives, what we should be most concerned with is God’s overall purpose for our lives. Now that I have accepted the grace of God offered through faith in Christ Jesus and my sins have been forgiven ... now what?

This is why God led Paul to write his letter to the Church at Rome. Paul has been leading us through humanity’s need for salvation … our need for salvation. He has grappled with the relationship between God and unbelieving Israel … “the others” of our lives … confident in God’s mercy and grace will be made evident.

In chapter 12, we come to a new section of his letter. The word “Therefore” is a sign. In philosophy and logic, the word “therefore” is a word signaling a conclusion to an argument of some sort. Paul has given a sign to the reader that everything he has been saying from the opening line of his letter has been leading to what he is preparing to say. This conclusion deals with a couple of touch subjects: sacrifice and change.

We are called to sacrifice ourselves to God.

They say change is inevitable, even for those who resist it. But intentional change can be hard. In , Paul confessed to his readers that he even struggles with this flesh. Yet, as Christ is present in us, we must change. We cannot serve two masters. We can chase after the things of this world or we can chase after the things of Christ. We have invited Christ into our hearts and so we must make room for him. We must sacrificially give everything to him and follow him.

tells us that we are called to give our bodies to God. What does that mean? It means everything we do physically, including our work and our leisure, is to be submitted to God for his purposes. There we come back to the idea of God’s will for us. What is this purpose? Let’s keep going.

In , we are called to give our minds to God and to resist the pressures of the world. Jesus taught us in the Gospels that we are not of this world, but of the kingdom of heaven. Understanding and fulfilling our role as a citizen in the kingdom of heaven means we be transformed from the inside out. We must allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds into the obedient mind of Christ. Obedient to what? The will of the Father.

We must sacrifice our will for the good of Christ’s body, the Church. Hear me out. We said during week one, that faith is something we live out individually and as a community. As the body of Christ, we exist as a community with many gifts to support the body of Christ and the will of the Father. What is the will of the Father?

Matthew 22:37–39 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Every aspect of our lives must be given over to God. Everything. When we give everything to him, we realize that worship is something we live out daily, not just something we attend once a week. Worship is doing God’s story. It is participating in the narrative of his saving deeds and anticipating his redemption that is to come. Yet, it is also living in the present. It is loving God and loving our neighbor each and every day.

Matthew 28:19–20 NASB95

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

In the Exodus account, women work together to oppose injustice and protect life. The midwives disobey Pharaoh and call forth new life. Moses lives because of his mother, sister, and the daughter of Pharaoh. In Matthew, Peter names Jesus for who he is, and a new community, the church, begins to take root. Paul names the differing gifts that support the community, the body of Christ.

THEME IDEAS The life of faith is lived in community, where many gifts support the body of Christ. In the Exodus account, women work together to oppose injustice and protect life. The midwives disobey Pharaoh and call forth new life. Moses lives because of his mother, sister, and the daughter of Pharaoh. In Matthew, Peter names Jesus for who he is, and a new community, the church, begins to take root. Paul names the differing gifts that support the community, the body of Christ.

These are our core values as a church:

We connect to grow.

We equip to serve.

We live in service to God and others.

The women, in our passage from Exodus, they worked together to oppose injustice and protect life.

In Matthew, Peter names Jesus for who he is, and based on Peter’s confession, and through his actions in , a new community, the Church, is born.

In , Paul explains a key theological concept for the Church. We, like the women in Exodus, must be willing to sacrifice our bodies, minds and wills for God. This is extremely hard to do. Paul states in , we cannot do it on our own. We must do it collectively, together, as the body of Christ. Why? Because we are only equipped to face life when we face it together … alongside one another .... as each person … each member is equipped with different spiritual gifts.

is perhaps one of the most difficult passages on which to preach because it deals with two very touchy subjects; sacrifice and change. They say change is inevitable, even for those who resist it. But intentional change can be hard. There must be a change in each of us in order for Christ to be present in us. We must make room for him. This is what makes sacrifice necessary. Every aspect of our lives must be sacrificed, given over to God, so much so that worship is something we live out, not something we attend once a week.

Finally, we are called to surrender our will, because even if we have committed our bodies and our minds to God, our will still has the driving force to do what we want. We don’t pray “Thy will be done” with our fingers crossed behind our backs, hopefully.

We are called to step into our spiritual gifts.

The spiritual gifts are grammatically and theologically referred to as “gifts of grace.” Grace as a noun means “the undeserved favor of God.” As a verb, grace means “to honor or adorn something by someone’s presence.” Along these lines, Merriam-Webster defines grace as “a virtue coming from God.” These are spiritual gifts that allow us to share God’s grace and love with others. In this passage, Paul specifically mentions prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leadership, and acts of mercy.

Within Pentecostal theology, we tend to limit the spiritual gifts to those things listed in , or (like speaking in tongues, a word of knowledge, healing, etc.). However, I am going to be bold and say that there are more “gifts of grace” than that. It is anything that we are empowered to do in and through the Holy Spirit. It is anything that is holy and pleasing to God. Something is “sacramental” when we see God’s divine grace is made evident in and through that thing. It is divine and mysterious. The Eucharist is referred to as “the Sacraments.” Baptism is sacramental. Reconciliation is sacramental. Anointing the sick is sacramental. Marriage is sacramental. Moments can be sacramental. Your life can be sacramental.

Remember these four words – living, sacrifice, holy, and pleasing. That is what God requires of us.

Roberta received a word from the Lord a week ago that he wants her to “go above and beyond” … to go above and beyond what she has been doing or what is expected of her in every area of her life. In what areas can you “go above and beyond” for God? In what areas of your daily life can you be used by God to communicate his grace? Let us, through the Holy Spirit, constantly be willing to live sacramental lives.

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