What If I Don’t Have a Spiritual Gift?
00:00:00.000 | (music)
00:00:04.000 | For the past week or so we've been looking at gifts and particularly spiritual gifts.
00:00:09.000 | I didn't design it this way. It was providential that so many episodes touched on this topic.
00:00:15.000 | Last week we looked at the question, "What are my skills worth?"
00:00:19.000 | That was APJ 1857. If you're a carpenter or mechanic, plumber, doctor, or a lawyer,
00:00:25.000 | if you have some skill that people in the church assume you will share with them for free,
00:00:29.000 | listen to that episode, APJ 1857.
00:00:33.000 | And then we looked at, "What distinguishes my life from non-Christians?"
00:00:37.000 | APJ 1858, an episode sparked by a question on spiritual gifts.
00:00:44.000 | And then we asked a related question to that, "What makes my gift a spiritual gift?"
00:00:51.000 | That was last time, in APJ 1859.
00:00:54.000 | Today we close out the week with an email from a listener named Kara.
00:00:57.000 | Kara says she has no spiritual gift at all. None. Now what?
00:01:03.000 | Here's her email. "Pastor John, hello. I've been a believer for about a dozen years now,
00:01:07.000 | but I don't seem to have any spiritual gifts. I really feel like a talentless and sinful mess.
00:01:14.000 | Does this mean that the Spirit does not actually dwell in me?
00:01:18.000 | How can I discover my purpose in Him and fulfill 1 Peter 4, verse 10?"
00:01:24.000 | I think I have really good news for Kara. But I need to say a warning first.
00:01:32.000 | She says, "I feel like a talentless and sinful mess."
00:01:39.000 | Here's the warning. There is a fundamental difference between talents and sins.
00:01:46.000 | If it were true, and I don't think it is true, that she were without any talents,
00:01:54.000 | that would not be a spiritually serious problem. Really.
00:02:01.000 | God does not judge us on the basis of whether we have talents or not.
00:02:07.000 | But to be a sinful mess is a huge problem.
00:02:13.000 | God does judge sin. He hates sin.
00:02:17.000 | If Kara's life is spiraling down into sin, that's a very urgent matter.
00:02:27.000 | And my warning is, fight that, Kara, as we all must, fight that with all your might,
00:02:36.000 | all God's might in you, put to death sinful attitudes and words and deeds by the Spirit,
00:02:46.000 | by laying hold on the promises of God and trusting Him to satisfy you
00:02:51.000 | more than any sinful path of pleasure could.
00:02:55.000 | Okay, that's my warning. Now to the main thing that she's concerned about.
00:02:59.000 | Maybe she's overstated the case there. I hope so.
00:03:03.000 | But in any case, here's the main thing she's asking about.
00:03:06.000 | She says, "I don't seem to have any spiritual gifts.
00:03:10.000 | Does this mean that the Spirit does not actually dwell in me?
00:03:14.000 | How can I discover my purpose in Him and fulfill 1 Peter 4.10?"
00:03:19.000 | So the first thing to say is that Kara does have spiritual gifts.
00:03:25.000 | I'm going to take Kara's word for it that she has been a Christian for,
00:03:30.000 | she says, about a dozen years. I'm going to assume, and I think it's right to assume,
00:03:36.000 | that she's truly a daughter of the living God through faith in Christ.
00:03:41.000 | That's how I know she has a spiritual gift, because God said it in His Word.
00:03:48.000 | For example, in 1 Peter 4.10, he does not say, Peter doesn't say,
00:03:55.000 | "If each has received a gift." That's not what he says.
00:03:58.000 | He says, "As each has received a gift, use it."
00:04:04.000 | And in 1 Corinthians 12.7, Paul says,
00:04:08.000 | "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."
00:04:15.000 | He does not say, "To some Christians are given those manifestations,"
00:04:22.000 | but rather, "To each Christian is given the manifestation of the Spirit
00:04:27.000 | for the common good." Or a third way to say it is that
00:04:31.000 | every Christian is part of the body of Christ.
00:04:34.000 | By definition, that makes everyone an ear, or eye, or eyebrow, or foot,
00:04:40.000 | or finger, or tooth, or tongue. Paul is speaking of every Christian
00:04:46.000 | when he says in Romans 12.4, "As in one body, we have many members,"
00:04:54.000 | and the members do not all have the same function, so we, we Christians,
00:04:59.000 | all of us, "though many, are one body in Christ and individually members
00:05:04.000 | one of another." And every member of a body has a function.
00:05:11.000 | So my conclusion from these texts is that to be a Christian
00:05:17.000 | is to be a member of the body of Christ, and to be a member of the body of Christ
00:05:21.000 | is to have a role in the body, which is essential to the body.
00:05:25.000 | Not flashy, not prominent, but essential. In fact, Paul is at pains
00:05:33.000 | to make sure that no Christian, no matter how insignificant they feel,
00:05:39.000 | feels excluded from the body. Here's how he says it,
00:05:43.000 | and I think this is really relevant for Kara's question.
00:05:47.000 | He says, "If the foot should say, 'Because I'm not a hand,
00:05:53.000 | I do not belong to the body,' that would not make him any less
00:05:57.000 | a part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I'm not an eye,
00:06:02.000 | I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less
00:06:07.000 | a part of the body. As it is," he writes now, verse 18,
00:06:12.000 | "God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose."
00:06:19.000 | 1 Corinthians 12, 15-18. Now it seems to me that these words
00:06:25.000 | are almost perfectly suited to help Kara not feel despairing
00:06:31.000 | about her role in the body of Christ. These people at Corinth
00:06:36.000 | that he's quoting, these people were looking at their own relative weakness
00:06:44.000 | and feeling totally insignificant because they weren't like others.
00:06:50.000 | They didn't have the gifts of others. They weren't an ear.
00:06:52.000 | They were only a finger. Now I wonder what Kara would say
00:06:58.000 | if someone asked her whether people with profound mental disabilities
00:07:05.000 | but with a simple faith are part of the body of Christ.
00:07:10.000 | I think she would say, "Yes, they are." And Paul has something amazing
00:07:16.000 | to say that I think relates to that extreme case and to Kara's as well.
00:07:22.000 | He says, "The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
00:07:28.000 | and on those parts of the body that we think are less honorable,
00:07:33.000 | we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts
00:07:38.000 | are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts
00:07:43.000 | do not require. But God has so composed the body,
00:07:47.000 | giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,
00:07:52.000 | that there may be no division in the body, but that the members
00:07:56.000 | may have the same care for one another."
00:08:00.000 | That's 1 Corinthians 12, 21-25. So Paul is willing to go so far
00:08:06.000 | as to say that the gift that some people have in the body of Christ
00:08:12.000 | is to be weak and needy so that others may have opportunity
00:08:18.000 | to show them special care. Now I doubt that's the case with Kara.
00:08:25.000 | I don't think so. But I mention it so that she will perhaps reorient
00:08:31.000 | her thinking about the body of Christ and perhaps not have expectations
00:08:37.000 | about the nature of spiritual gifts that make her feel so inadequate.
00:08:43.000 | So let me touch on one more thing that she asks about, namely,
00:08:50.000 | "Can I discover my purpose or how can I discover my purpose
00:08:57.000 | and fulfill 1 Peter 4.10?" In other words, what's her next step forward
00:09:03.000 | from this point of discouragement? And I think there's a clue
00:09:07.000 | to answering that question in verse 10 itself in 1 Peter 4.
00:09:12.000 | Here's what the verse says. "As each has received a gift,
00:09:17.000 | use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace."
00:09:26.000 | So one way to define spiritual gifts on the basis of this verse
00:09:32.000 | is that they are simply the outworking of our experience
00:09:37.000 | of the grace of God expressed through our personality.
00:09:41.000 | Or to say it another way, we look away from ourselves to the grace of God
00:09:48.000 | to use us. And then we set our hearts to love people by God's grace,
00:09:56.000 | to show God's grace to people, to channel God's grace through ourselves,
00:10:02.000 | through our God-given personalities in whatever way feels natural to us.
00:10:08.000 | And that way of loving people will probably turn out to be blessed by God.
00:10:14.000 | That is a gift. I'm encouraged to say this because in Romans 12,
00:10:21.000 | verses 6 and 8, Paul calls some pretty ordinary things spiritual gifts.
00:10:28.000 | For example, he says, "Let the one who contributes do it with generosity.
00:10:36.000 | Let the one who leads with zeal. Let the one who does acts of mercy
00:10:45.000 | with cheerfulness." So, Kara, don't make it your aim to discover your gift.
00:10:54.000 | I know it's counterintuitive, but let me say it again.
00:10:57.000 | Don't make it your aim to discover your gift.
00:11:01.000 | Rather, make it your aim to love people for Christ's sake.
00:11:07.000 | And then do it in as many ways that feel natural to your personality as you can.
00:11:17.000 | I think in doing that, you will discover your purpose,
00:11:23.000 | and you will fulfill 1 Peter 4:10.
00:11:27.000 | Really good. Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:29.000 | This episode reminds me of our last episode, "What Makes My Spiritual Gift Spiritual?"
00:11:35.000 | APJ 1859. That was Wednesday.
00:11:38.000 | If you didn't hear that, make sure you go back and listen to that episode.
00:11:42.000 | Well, thank you for joining us today.
00:11:43.000 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive,
00:11:46.000 | or subscribe to the podcast hall at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:11:53.000 | And speaking of spiritual gifts and mission,
00:11:56.000 | if you have any inclination towards missions,
00:11:59.000 | you should read, you must read, John Piper's classic book,
00:12:02.000 | "Let the Nations Be Glad, the Supremacy of God in Missions."
00:12:07.000 | It's a modern-day classic, and it has just turned 30 years old, that book.
00:12:12.000 | It has sold 300,000 copies, over 300,000 copies now.
00:12:17.000 | And to celebrate, we have just released a special 30th anniversary edition of the book.
00:12:21.000 | It's a hardcover. We're going to talk about it next time.
00:12:24.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you back here on Monday.
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