Kennystix's podcast
Using Our Gifts in Proportion to Our Faith, Part 3
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at www.desiringGod.org. Let's pray together. Father, I ask that now you would bestow gifts upon your people like this, serving, exhorting, teaching, contributing, mercy. Lord, do this great work. Gift your people that we might bless each other with your power, that we might be channels to each other of your grace and your blessing, your purifying agency. Then grant us, Lord, to overflow for the sake of the world. Oh, how the world needs Christ. There is no hope without Christ. There is only destruction and wrath outside Christ. So open the mouths of your people, then open the hands and the lives of your people. Open the thanksgiving tables of your people, the hearts of your people. Oh, God, grant that we would be an outgoing, unfolding people. May the lost world be a sweet and painful burden to us. May we pray about it in the morning and pray about it in the evening. May we not hoard the riches of Christ and all His gifts for ourselves, and so prove to be false disciples. Spill over from this church, Caprae, for the world. Now come and help me be faithful to this passage of Scripture. And you speak and do the work of saving and sanctifying and gifting that your love moves you to do. Pray in Jesus' name, amen. The last time we were together, I stressed that these gifts in verses 6 through 8 were to be done in humility. I pointed to verse 3. Don't think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think. Then we talked about the alternative to that. And it's very surprising. The alternative to thinking of yourself more highly than you ought to think is faith in Jesus Christ. The alternative to thinking too highly of yourself, to having a high regard of yourself, is not mainly to have a low regard of yourself, though it begins there. We ought to have a low regard for ourselves because we're sinners, rebels in the face of God, disbelieving, doubting, loving other things more. It is very appropriate that we begin with a low regard for ourselves. But if you stop there, you will be paralyzed and useless in this world. So I said the opposite of a low regard for yourself is not a paralyzing self-condemnation. It is a liberating Christ exaltation. Now, say that again because that's the summary of what I think is behind the use of gifts here. Don't think of yourself in the use of your gifts more highly than you ought to think. That is, the alternative to a high self-regard is not a paralyzing self-condemnation, but a liberating Christ exaltation. You may remember, I said, if somebody comes up to you in heaven and says, are you humble? You will say Christ is all. There are no mirrors in heaven in which you like what you see. There is glorious self-forgetfulness enthralled with the infinite glory of Christ. And it begins here. And so when we got down to verse 8 and we looked at those last three gifts and we saw those three ways of doing those gifts-- let me read those, and then I'll explain their implication again-- we're in the middle of verse 8-- the one who contributes in generosity and the one who leads with zeal and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness halfway through his list. Paul just bursts. He breaks forth, no longer able, merely to say, in your teaching, do your teaching, and in your exhorting, do your exhorting. Just kind of that empty. Do that humbly. But now he breaks out into three ways of doing these last three gifts-- generosity, zeal, cheerfulness. And I argued what that means is that when you bring verse 3, don't think of yourself too highly, but believe in Jesus, that is, be a mercy dependent, mercy loving, Christ-treasuring, overflowing person. That's the way it looks when you do your gifts. When you give the treasuring of Christ overflows with generosity. And when you lead the treasuring of Christ and the forgetting of self overflows with zeal. And when you do acts of mercy, the treasuring of Christ, the loving of mercy, the overflowing, the forgetting of yourself comes out with cheerfulness. And then I said, therefore, the doing of gifts in the Christian church is not something that's done duty-driven and begrudging. You come to serve me begrudgingly. I will say, stay home. Thank you anyway. I don't care to be served begrudgingly. I don't care for you to look at the list and say, oh, yeah, you're supposed to serve here. So now I will do that because you're supposed to. That's not the picture here. Generosity, zeal, cheerfulness. When we do gifts, they are to flow from a kind of self-forgetfulness. It's not wondering how we're going to come across. And an utter enthrallment of Jesus Christ that is so satisfied and happy that it overflows in those ways. We serve cheerfully. We give cheerfully. We lead cheerfully, zealously, generously. Christian life is overflow. That's last week. Now there are three things I want to do today. I want to look with you at the relationship among the gifts themselves with the implication that has for you and how you seek them. Secondly, I want to look at the relationship between the gifts and ordinary Christian virtues that everybody is supposed to have who's a Christian. And the implication of that. And thirdly, I want to ask what all six of these gifts in verses 7 and 8 would look like at Bethlehem. Number one, the relationship between the gifts themselves, this is really amazing to me and loosens us up a little bit. These gifts overlap and include each other, which immediately explodes any of our nice little boxes that we have for these gifts. I've got a serving box and a mercy box. Figure that one out. You've got a contributing box and a mercy box. No, you don't. They overlap. They interpenetrate. For example, if you take 1 Corinthians 14, 3, where Paul says, the one who prophesies-- now that's the gift mentioned in verse 6-- the one who prophesies speaks to others' exhortation. Same word is right here in the gift of exhortation. So you've got the gift of prophecy in verse 6, and you've got the gift of exhortation in verse 7. And Paul says, when the prophet speaks, he speaks exhortation. So prophecy and exhortation are clearly overlapping gifts. Or here's another example. Titus 1, 9, where elders are being described in their qualification. And it says, elders should exhort-- same word is here in verse 7, gift of exhortation-- exhort in sound teaching. That's another gift that's mentioned here. So you exhort in sound teaching, and you've got the gift of teaching and the gift of exhortation overlapping and on top of each other, interpenetrating, not in little boxes that are separated from each other. So what do we make of this? If these gifts serving, serving includes all of them, right? Here's my conclusion from that observation. Break free from the notion that there are about 27 gifts in the New Testament. Each has its nice little borders, a nice definition, a nice content. And if you take a survey, you can check off three. And I've got those three and not those other 24. Wrong. Rather, think, Lord, just drench me with as much giftedness for other people as I can possibly have. I don't care how you mix them. I don't care how you match them. I don't care how you define them. I just want to be drenched with as many things to bless other people as I can be. I don't think there's ever been a Christian with one gift only. I don't think there's ever been one Christian with the same gift mixed as any other Christian in all the billions of Christians that there have been in the history of the world. I think every Christian is gifted with a muddy, inter-penetrating, foggy gift of personality, spiritual, overflowing, wonderful, complex of readiness to love others that only that Christian has. And all these lists are just there to show us the kind of ways that we should be loving each other. So when you go about seeking the gifts, leave it to God, how He gifts you. Ask for as much as He can give. Don't think you've just got one. You've got lots, and they come in various proportions. Very practically, here's what I would do. And I hope that you eagerly seek spiritual gifts because it says to in 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 1, "Eagerly desired spiritual gifts." I hope that number 1, you will dive in to verse 1 of chapter 12, namely into the ocean of mercy. I beseech you by the mercies of God. Just dive into mercy. If you don't feel like you've got gifts and that your life is meeting other people's needs in various ways, dive in to verse 1 and begin to swim around in mercy until it soaks you to the core. And you become a mercy-saturated, mercy-loving, mercy-dependent person. Then, secondly, go to verse 3 and stop thinking highly of yourself, especially if you're just pitying yourself at how ungifted you are. Stop thinking so highly of yourself. Stop thinking of yourself, period. And instead, look away to Jesus, the great merciful one, and begin to be satisfied, happy, restful in Him. And then let joy in Him overflow in whatever way it overflows, given you and the way you're wired. And what will happen is this. I think you will find that as you've given dove-- what's the word? Dive into mercy as you dive into mercy and stop thinking so much of yourself and begin to be enthralled with Jesus and start overflowing the manifold ways of love. Some of those ways of love are going to feel especially satisfying, and some of them are going to be especially fruitful, and those are your gifts. I don't care what you call them. You can call them anything you want-- A, B, C, Mary, Jane, John. You can call them anything you want. But if you just start loving people with the overflow of enthralledment with Jesus, some of those ways of love in you are going to feel especially you and especially satisfying, and some of them are going to be especially fruitful. And when those two things come together, fruitfulness and joyfulness, you've got a gift on your hand. Use it big time. Now, I've jumped already into number two. The second thing I want to look at-- namely, the relationship between the gifts and ordinary Christian virtues. Look at this word serving in verse 7. If service in our serving. And then let your mind run to Ephesians 4, 12, where it says that God has given some apostles, some evangelist prophets, teachers, pastors, for the equipping of the saints to do the work of the-- the word is the same one is here, translated ministry there, but it's service. So all the saints are to be serving, according to Ephesians 4, 12. And here it's called a gift that some have. So the first thing we observe is that some of these gifts everybody should have. But they're still called a gift that a hand has, an eye has, an ear has. Remember the body with all of its parts? Or consider the word mercy at the end of verse 8. Those who do mercy-- that is, you've got a gift of mercy? Do it cheerfully. Well, Jesus said, Matthew 5, verse 7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." You better be a merciful person or you won't obtain mercy. Being a merciful person is the evidence that you've dived into the ocean of mercy. That's the evidence of being in mercy, in Christ. Trust in Christ is that mercy is coming out of you. So all Christians are to be merciful. Remember the parable, scary parable, right? The sky owes the king $1 million, $10 million. The king in overflowing, mercy says cancel. You're free. I know you can never pay that back. I'm a loving king canceled. This guy walks out of the king's chamber and chokes his friend who owes him $10. Give me my $10. And the people watching, you have to feel the incomprehensibleness of this parable. The people watching this cannot believe what they're seeing. That can't happen in Christianity. And so the king said this, verse 33 of Matthew 18, "Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?" So it's clear from Jesus, every Christian is a merciful person. But here it's called a gift. Verse 8, last part of the verse, it's a gift. That some have and others don't have. Or take contributing, right there in the middle of verse 8, those who contribute, generosity. So some people have a gift of contribution, generosity. Well, 2 Corinthians 9, 7 says God loves a cheerful giver, and everybody's supposed to be one of those. He says in Matthew, I mean in Ephesians 4, 28, "Let the thief no longer steal, let him labor with his hands, that he may have to give the same word, contribute to him who is in need." So clearly, God means for all Christians to be contributors, financially supportive of the works of God. So what do we do with this, exhortation? There's one. Verse 8, the one who exhorts in his exhortation to gift. And yet Hebrews 3, 13 says to the whole church, exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. So over and over again, you've got five of these gifts that are normal Christian virtues. Every Christian should have those virtues, and they're called gifts that some have and some don't have. So here's my inference. Here's my conclusion from all the Scripture, not just a little piece of it. Namely, some of these virtues, these forms of love, these spillings over of joy in Christ, are extraordinarily satisfying and extraordinarily fruitful for some and not others. And the alternative to that extraordinary, and this is not sin, just normal good Christianity. Spiritual gifts are not simply natural abilities. We argued for that. They are works of the Holy Spirit, and the evidence that they are of the Holy Spirit is that we are fruitful. So if you think that your happiness in teaching is a spiritual gift and nobody's getting helped, it isn't. If you think that the pleasure you take in walking up to people to exhort them is a spiritual gift, and all you do is leave a wake of insult and discouragement and fruitlessness, it isn't. It isn't a gift. You think it is, it isn't. Gifts have these two dimensions to them. They tend to feel that's me. I'm doing it. Yes, and people are getting helped by it. Faith is increasing. Sin is falling away. Strength is coming. Boldness is rising. They are drawn to you when you do that, because they get helped, and they walk away from you when you do the other thing that you don't have a gift for. People are not drawn to everything I do, but I think I have a gift for teaching. The evidence over the years is how many people say, I got helped this morning. I got helped. I got humbled. I got encouraged. I got saved. I got helped. That's the only reason I keep on. If nobody came to me and said that was helpful, I'd resign, because what would be the point of flapping my lips up here if nobody was being spiritually helped? A gift is something you do out of love and overflow from joy in Christ that is both satisfying in your soul. And I don't mean it's always easy, by the way, just deeply satisfying in your soul. And other people are feeling the force of the Holy Spirit and being helped by it. So I think you should pray broad prayers and specific prayers. So all of us should be praying, Lord, give me as much of your blessing as I can so that I'm the most merciful, the most exhorting, the most helpful, generous person I can be, and pray also, if you sense over time, I think I think I'm willing to let the community confirm, but I think I have a gift for this. Ask him to confirm that. Ask him to give you more and more and more of that. If you're good at something, ask for more and more and more of that, and you'll be a bigger and bigger blessing. Now, here's my last observation or question, what would this look like at Bethlehem? North Campus, downtown campus, Lord willing someday, south campus, multiplied churches, what would these six gifts look like? And here's what I am going to do. I'm going to report to you what I wrote down Friday. As I prayed, I said, Lord, there are 100 things I could say about each of these gifts and what they might look like at Bethlehem. Hundred ways to talk about giving, teaching, exhorting, serving, mercy. But I want to be practical. I want to just say just general broad things. I want to get down to the nitty gritty now and say a specific thing about each one. What should I say? And I prayed, and this is what I am going to say. Number one, service. We're just going to take them one at a time and say a word about each one. If, we're at the beginning of verse seven, if service in our serving, I suspect Paul has in mind here practical, nitty gritty, lowly, ordinary, need meeting in the church of all kinds, just a broad sweeping service, even though the word is used for high level apostolic word ministries. We know that from Acts six. But let's assume he means just ordinary run of the mill, get it done type service. Now my prayer is that God would raise up increasingly a small army of people at Bethlehem who don't seek the limelight. But rather love being invisibly useful, or visibly useful if you're scared to be visibly useful. But mainly doing ordinary things. For example, is there anyone in this room? You don't need to raise your hand. Who would feel the burden, the joy of being a person who gathers around him a small army of winterized Minnesotans to stand in the blizzards in the parking lot this winter on Vikings days and every days helping poor people find a park in place? We've had that in the star for weeks. Where is that person? You don't need a preach. You don't need to teach. You don't need to open your mouth. Well, you do need to open your mouth by getting on the phone and calling somebody and saying, how'd you like to stand in the snow this Sunday? Just tell people where they can find a parking place. We need an army of people with big orange jackets that say, God is most glorified in you and you're most satisfied in him. And I am, therefore, I'm out here in the snow to pour my life out to help you get to church on time. Jesus would be very pleased if somebody like that got called and had a gift for parking, parking gift. That's not listed in the New Testament, but I hope you understand. I hope you understand what I've said so far. It doesn't need to be listed there. It's there. It's there. Number two, teaching, the one who teaches in his teaching. I pray two things. Number one, that every single person, little child, teenager, single, male, female, adult, old, every single person who learns anything in this church about God in his ways would pray for the gift to teach it to somebody else. A 10-year-old girl can teach a truth to another 10-year-old girl and ought to, ought to. And secondly, I pray that the leadership at Bethlehem would lead by teaching and persuading not power and compulsion. I pray that all leaders at every level would pray for the gift of teaching. There's a joke at this church. You want to get something through the elder board or a committee, write a paper. That's not an accident, and it's not a joke merely. It's true. And the reason is this, I have done my best for 24 years to cultivate a leadership atmosphere in which persuasion on the basis of the Bible carries the day, not personality and not high-lifted voices. The elders can tell when my voice is getting so high because my arguments are weak. We argue with each other. We write papers. We give reasons from the Bible. That's a power issue to keep personalities and brokers from getting their way in this church, including me. Truth holds sway at the Elder Council. And if you have good reasons from the Bible for your view, it will pass, God willing. And therefore, you're inclined then to assemble them. And that's why they turn up on papers. This is an issue for me, and it's really big, and I hope I never lay it down, that we lead by truth. We lead by teaching. We lead by persuasion. And therefore, we can be shown wrong on the basis of the authority. That's a very crucial thing for a church to get a handle on. It's leaders lead by teaching this book, not by huffing and puffing because of their tenure or their personality or how long they've been on the council or anything else. Teaching is a leadership issue in a local church. Number three, exhorting. The one who exhorts in his exhortation. I want to read you a verse that's amazing. When I read it years ago, I pray it had a profound impact on me. You have to judge whether it did or not. Philemon, verse eight, it's only one chapter in Philemon. Here's what it says. This is the apostle Paul with all of his divinely given authority to write scripture and to tell the churches how to be. And here's what he writes to Philemon, his friend. Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what he has required, yet for love's sake, I prefer to, and then he uses this word, exhort you. I could command you, I have a right, I'm an apostle. But for love's sake, that must mean that love is cultivated better when we're not bossing each other around. But exhorting, there must be a difference between do this and let's do this or something like that. You figure that out. My sense is, and I'm going to use it right now. I'm going to do it right now. Let's as a church exhort one another in a way that causes free responses of love. Rather than getting each other's face with excessive authoritative commanding that only squashes people down and makes them respond either legalistically in obedience or rebelliously in non-obedience. There is something to this issue of exhorting-- I'm using this gesture right here, because I think that's what paracaleo does. It gets its arms around somebody first and then tells them where they're blowing it. Don't do it that way anymore or better. We could do this better. Let's do this better. We can, together, be a better church. Rather than-- what's wrong with you, jerks? Shape up. That's not going to produce love. I mean, Paul is so profound. He's so wise. And so I just-- my prayer now, for Betham on this issue, is that we become really good exhorters. You've got to have some courage to do this. You can't just walk away, disappear in your bedrooms. I'm not going to talk to anybody about anything that there might be a problem with, because I like peace, peace, peace at any cost. That's real modern, real relational, and real wrong. And therefore, let's get in each other's faces or better beside each other's faces. Get our arms around each other and say, we can do better. Let's-- and here, you read Philemon and see what he was trying to get accomplished there. Number four, contributing. The one who contributes in generosity. Bethlehem Baptist Church exists, survives, thrives in its multi-campus church planting, global deaconate, treasuring Christ together, expansion, spreading a passion, vision, because there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of you who are cheerful givers to this ministry. And, secondly, it survives and thrives because there are-- I don't know. I'm going to say dozens and dozens who have the gift of giving. What that means is that God, sometimes in a season of church, and sometimes over a lifetime, raises up people who find absolutely extraordinary delight in extraordinary giving, which produces in ways we do not know extraordinary fruit. You know, the way we do it here at Bethlehem-- I was talking with another pastor that does it totally differently last Thursday. They know all the pastoral staff knows what everybody gives in that church. The pastoral staff and the elders know what nobody gives. One human being knows what everybody gives in this church. You know that? Nobody else knows what people gives, except Paul Johnson, who has to send you your tax receipts. That's intentional. Not everybody does it that way. I'm not saying it's the only way to be done. Jesus said, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. That's governing my philosophy here as we give. But one day, in heaven, the books will be opened. They're going to be opened. And it will be plain why the unknown people with the gift of giving were that way, and what became of those pennies-- I say pennies because the gift of giving has zero to do with your wealth. Jesus made that very plain. The widow with two pennies obviously had the gift of giving because she was really stupid in what she did. Financially, stupid. And Jesus loved it. Loved it. He just saw that woman give those two pennies. She had nothing more. I don't know what she was going to do. God would take care of her somehow. That's imprudent. And she gave it. And we're going to see what those two pennies did in heaven. There's going to be a tracer on that penny for about 10 years in this church. And the widow who gave more because she just loved giving. She just loved to give. We're going to watch the fruitful tracer go to the North Campus, in the South Campus, in the church plants, in the global deaconate to Sudan, or Haiti, or wherever. And that penny is going to be traced. And we'll just read those stories. We'll read those stories in heaven. So when I think about giving or contributing, I say, Lord, just let the tide of joy for everybody rise in giving, the tide of responsibility, discipline, proportion, regularity, sacrifice, everybody. But Lord, raise up some dozens and give them absolutely extraordinary, extraordinary, unusual, incomprehensible, unexplainable joy in extraordinary giving, and let those pennies, or if you're the wealthy person, those tens of thousands of dollars, have fruit that one day will redound to your glory because of that giftedness. Number five, leading. Let the one who leads with zeal. And as I prayed about this and thought, here's what I want to pray for and exhort toward. Everybody's a leader in some way. Men, women, boys, girls, they're all leaders. Every little child can be a leader, according to some other little child. But I have in mind mainly now the elders and the pastoral staff of this church. They're about 20-- they're almost 30 elders now. And there's a staff here of about 17 pastoral people. And my prayer for them-- because some of them, like me, Tom Steller, who turns 50 years old today, by the way, so does David Yeager. They have the same birthday and the same year. And Tom, what's significant about turning 50 today for Tom and almost for David is that he's given half his life to this church next year, just within a year. That's a huge contribution. So Tom and I have been here for 24 years. Some of you have been there longer than that. And a whole bunch of the staff has been here. 18 years. We love each other. We hang together. People go on this staff. They don't leave quick. It's a really happy place to be. We like each other a lot. This is a great place to serve, and that's dangerous, because you can get real sloppy, right? Man, I wear this church like a shirt. I like being here. It's easy to be here. This pulpit is an easy place to be. Going away, that has its challenges. Coming home, hmm, I love this pulpit. I'm at home here. You, I like you. This is an easy place to be. And you don't call me up. What are you doing this afternoon? You earning your money? Nobody calls me up like that. I can do anything I want in this church, and nobody asks me any questions, which is hugely dangerous for all of us on the staff, because we can get lazy, sloppy, no vision. So my prayer is to take this word zeal here, and work for all it's worth. And I want to say publicly to the elders, to the staff, to me, mainly, let's not be lazy. I'm 58 years old, and I'm bursting with dreams for this church. I want to see us in treasuring Christ together, become something nobody's ever dreamed. You think I'm joking when I say add a zero, to $10 million, add a zero. That's no joke. This city is without Christ. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to hell in this city. You think we should be content with our little 3,000 people? Good night. Come on elders, come on leaders. Let us lead with zeal and vision and energy. Let's get up early and go bed to late. Let's burn out for Jesus. Of course, we need to find a pace to finish the race, but oh, the dangers when you turn 58. Been here for 24 years to get up late. Go to bed early, dink around on the computer. Piddle and piddle. Oh, don't be that way. Number six, closing. Do mercy. The one who does mercy with acts, does acts of mercy, let them do it with cheerfulness. And here, I would simply pray that all of us be more merciful, that all of us dive into verse one. I beseech you by the mercies of God. Just dive into the ocean of mercy. Let's all be more merciful people that Bethlehem. And then let's pray, Lord, raise up hundreds. Raise up hundreds who inside not under some kind of burdensome, ugly, oppressive, guilt-producing duty, but rather explosively, out of abundance of the heart, may the mouth and the hands get down dirty with the poor. Eric prayed for Cuba, and he prayed for Sudan. I forget the other one he mentioned in his prayer. And all over the world, I heard a statistic on the radio the other day that 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. What do you live on? Squeak by it, $70,000 a year. May God raise up among us models of lovers of mercy. It's cheerful, right? It's cheerful. Of course, it may be costly. It may cost you your life to go to the hard place where the poorest of the poor are to take a global deaconic gift and pour it out there. It may cost you your life, but you will die cheerfully if you've got the gift of mercy. So it's late, I close. For God's name, for the good of the church, for the joy of the peoples, Lord, grant gifts to this church. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts, and much more, all available to you at no charge. 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