Viola Solid Rock Assembly
The Forgotten Gifts
A few weeks ago, we made a shift from the direction that we had been going, but really we didn't make a shift. We had been talking about all year, hearing God's voice and acting on what God is telling us. And we shifted and we started talking about having a blessed life, but really in having a blessed life, the key to having a blessed life is hearing from God and doing what He says. The first step in having a blessed life is obedience to God, right? And so we've talked about a few things that are part of a blessed life. We talked about the law of the first born or the first fruits. We've talked about the law of multiplication. We talked about the law of reciprocation last weekend. And I want to clear some things up just because we're talking about a blessed life and we've been talking about a blessed life, and although money and finances are part of a blessed life, there's so much more to having a blessed life than just about, it's not just about money and finances, right? It's about every aspect of our life. I never want us to confuse the fact that God is our supply, not finances. As we've talked about, the key to a blessed life is walking in OB and it's in hearing God's voice and walking it out, and all year, that's kind of been the theme, right? I want us to hear God's voice, and I want us to act on what He's asking us to do. And part of a blessed life is acting on what God is asking you to do. We've been talking about on Wednesday nights and talked about it a little here on Sundays. It's kind of funny how things have just kind of flowed together, not on purpose, but having. We've talked about hearing God's voice, and I said something last week, and I said, if you are wondering if you're hearing God's voice, odds are you probably are hearing God's voice. You're just trying to justify not doing what you want to do, right? Not doing what He wants you to do. But we had a conversation with someone this week, and the conversation, I just let them talk it out to me, and it was God speaking, because the devil is not going to tell you to do something that's spiritual, just so you know. All right. You know, we talk a lot about, we talk a lot about spiritual gifts, right? I've heard sermons about spiritual gifts and the fruits of the spirit, and we all want the gifts at work in our church, right? And we all desire to have those, but work in the church, and Paul gives us a list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, beginning in verse 4, he says, "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but is the same God who does the work. In all of us, a spiritual gift is given to each of us, so we can help each other. To one person, the spirit gives the ability to give wise advice. To another, the same spirit gives a message to special knowledge. The same spirit gives great faith to another. And to someone else, the one spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern, whether a message is from the spirit of God or from another spirit. Still, another person is given the ability to speak in an unknown language, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. And so Paul gives these lists of spiritual gifts, right? And he says it's the same spirit, different gifts, and he gives nine gifts here. He talks about wise counsel. He talks about knowledge, the gift of healing, the power to perform miracles, prophesy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation. And we've all heard about those, right? We've all heard about those gifts, and we've talked about them, and we want them at work, and we want to see those gifts in action. Then there's one that isn't considered a gift by most. We don't talk about it as much, and that's great faith. He says the same spirit gives a message of special knowledge, and the same spirit gives great faith to another. We like those other spiritual gifts. We've talked about healing, and the power to perform miracles, and prophesy, and tongues, and interpretation, and discernment. We talk about those, but how often have you ever thought about having great faith as being a spiritual gift? We all want faith, right, James? We all need faith, and we know that Hebrews says that faith is believing what we do not see, and we know that faith is, and we talk about faith, but what is great faith, David? It's a spiritual gift, and if it's a spiritual gift, then I want it. I've never heard anyone preach about how a great faith is a spiritual gift. I've never heard a sermon on it. I've never read anything where someone wrote a book about how the spiritual gift of great faith, but if I don't receive any other gift, if I don't have any other gift at work in my life, I want great faith. I want great faith, because throughout Scripture, when we look at people in the Scripture who God used, it involved great faith, and it was because of their faith. It was because of their faith that He did something in their life. I want that spiritual gift in my life. The thing that Paul was focusing on, though, is that as the body of Christ, we all have a purpose and a function, right? We've talked about it. If you are breathing, you have a purpose, and we all have a function, and we talk about the gifts of the Spirit, and we tend to forget, we tend to forget. We think this is the only place it talks about spiritual gifts a lot of times, but we tend to forget that in Romans it talks about gifts of the Spirit, more of motivational gifts of the Spirit, and so Romans 12, it says, "In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well." So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you the leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift of showing kindness to others, do it gladly. And these gifts are often, if you see anything talking about them, they're often referred to as motivational gifts, because usually the person who has this gift, it motivates them to use it. I believe that everyone, every one of us has one of these gifts at work in our lives and somewhere or another. And as believers, we really should have a portion of all of these gifts with one that's probably more prominent than others in our lives. And so the list is there, right? They give a list of these gifts. And then verse 9 through 15 provides correlation for each gift in this list. Verse 9 of Romans 12 says, "Don't just pretend to love others. No, don't just pretend. Really love them." This is golden, right? This is something that we should teach everyone. Don't just pretend, but truly love people. Don't act like you like people, and then walk away and say, "I hate people." He says, "Really love them. Hate what is wrong and hold tightly to what is good." This is referring, and it's talking about the gift of prophecy. Someone who walks in the gift of prophecy, they hate things that are evil and cling to what is good. The Scripture is telling them, "Let love be real." In other words, "Love everyone, hate the wrong that they are doing and not the person." If you look at prophets in the Bible, man, they were harsh, right? They came out, they gave their prophecy, and it didn't matter if you were doing what they were telling you is wrong. They didn't just hate the sin, they hated you. And he's saying, "Don't do that." He's saying, "Love people hate the wrong they are doing, but love the people." How many people are you going to win that are doing wrong if you just tell them you're doing wrong and then just hate them and never help them? There are people that are doing wrong that I don't like, but I still love them. There are times that I don't like my kids, but I still love them, and all of you parents know what I'm talking about. You've lived it, some of you that aren't quite yet parents, you'll understand. This tense says love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. This is dealing with the gift of serving, and people who walk in the gift of serving that truly walk in that, they love, they delight in honoring people. They want to serve people, and they don't do it begrudgingly, they do it with joy. They don't serve someone and then walk away and say, "He's serving people." You can tell those waitresses who have the gift of serving, right? They love it. They're the ones that keep your glass full of water. Skip well, verse 11 says, "Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically." This is dealing with the gift of teaching, and teachers tend to be diligent, and the word is saying to be enthusiastic and working hard to teach the truths that the Lord has given. Don't just teach what you think is truth, find the truth out in the word, and be enthusiastic when you teach it. Don't be boring, don't put them to sleep, be enthusiastic about it. Act like you love what you're doing. Verse 12 says, "Rejoice in our confident hope, be patient in trouble, and keep on praying." This verse is dealing with the gift of an encourager, people who have this gift know how to rejoice, but they also know how to be patient with people. The problem is they typically have a strong desire to get people past their trouble. An encourager wants to get people past their trouble because they're trying to encourage them out of it, and the word is saying, "You've got to be patient. Just be patient. Don't rush. Just be patient through it." Verse 14 says, "Bless those who persecute you. Don't curse them. Pray that God will bless you." This verse deals with leadership, and people in leadership know all too well that people are going to speak negatively about you, and you have, and to you, not just about you, but to you. And in those moments you have a choice. You can either get mad, or you can say, "Thank you for your concerns." We'll move on. Verse 15 says, "Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who are weep." And this deals with the gifts of mercy, and people who walk in that gift often know when to weep, but sometimes need to be reminded when to rejoice. People who have that gift of mercy and having so much mercy on people, they truly know when to cry with people. They know when to be there and do that, and they know when to show mercy. The problem is sometimes they don't know when to rejoice. It's one of those things that it's against their nature, because they want to show all this mercy, and mercy is a lot of times it's the sad, it's the getting past it, it's the crying. But the rejoicing part of mercy is so much greater, but sometimes they forget to stop crying and start rejoicing, and he's saying, "It's okay to weep with them, but also laugh with them, also be happy with them, also be joyful with them." When I was looking at these gifts, though, I noticed something, and I noticed one that I'd never really talked about, and it kind of fits on the same category as the faith and great faith, and it kind of fits in that same category that I've never really heard anyone talk about it, as far back as I could remember, I've never heard this gift mentioned as a gift. It's almost as though it's been forgotten. I've never heard a sermon on it, I've never read a book about it, that talked about it as a gift, and we like prophecy, and we like being at the teaching, and we like kindness and encouragement and mercy, but the gift, this kind of forgotten is the gift of giving. It's almost never mentioned in the context of being a spiritual or motivational gift, but right here in verse 8 it says, "If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously." That tells me that it's a spiritual gift, but it's got the same forgotten status that great faith does. We hear about them, we talk about faith in the context of having faith, and we talk about giving, and we talk about in context of giving, but we never talk about it in the context of these are spiritual gifts. It's not just something that we do, they're gifts, and we don't talk about that. I found it interesting as I was studying for this this week, and as I was looking at this that I've never heard anyone refer to giving as a gift. Not in a spiritual context, I ask someone this week, I said, "Have you ever, I mean, I know that it's here in the scripture, but have you ever heard anyone talk about it this way?" No, it's a spiritual gift that we almost forget is a spiritual gift. I know people who have the gift of giving, I know people who are very generous when it comes to having that gift, but I've never looked at it as it was a spiritual gift. You know, my desire is that we all have great faith. I want us to all walk in that spiritual gift. I want everyone in the church to have great faith. I want us to believe that he'll do what he said he would do, and not just believe it but have the faith to say it will happen, but just as much as I desire that, I desire for myself to have the gift of a giver. I want to do that, I want, I want to give generously. I don't want to just give to give, I want to give to meet needs. I want God to use me as a conduit to meet needs at home and abroad. I want to give generously. I said earlier that I went to the kids service this morning, but at the beginning of service I went back there and I shared with the kids, and one of the things, I shared with them about the 21 day devotional, but I also shared with them that during the month of September, speaking of giving generously, that in the month of September that we are doing a push for BGMC. And so I encourage them and implored them, challenged them to this month, the month of September, to give to BGMC. We're focusing on a project, and we talked about the project a little bit that we're focusing on, and you'll be hearing about that, and I challenged them to give. And I gave them some incentive that the two who got gave the most during the month of September to BGMC, and we've talked about these BGMC cards, and I told them that the person they have, nope, they have these binders that go with them, and in the binders, it's of characters from that BGMC, Buddy Barrel and Winnie the World, and I got, I said, whoever two, the two people, even though one of them was pink and one of them was not, because I was hoping that maybe a boy and a girl would be the top givers, but I told them it didn't matter if it was two girls or two boys, the top two givers are going to get one of those binders that have a special BGMC card in it, and they're also going to get a pack of these cards. And you may be, if you have not been paying attention, if they haven't talked to you about it, on Wednesday night we started playing the game that goes with these cards, and they've been, they gather up and play it for a little while, and then they go do other things, but what they're learning, what they're learning from these cards is important. But you know, we talked about that, and I told them about and challenged them, and as I said, we're going to talk about it a little bit later, but Romans 12-13 says, "See, we skipped it while ago," because it says, "When God's people are in need, be ready to help them, always be eager to practice hospitality." Typically, people with the gift of giving are very hospitable. They love meeting needs of the saints, missions, as a whole. I feel like we do well in this category as a whole in the church. In the last several years, when we have shared a need, you have stepped up to the plate as a body. And we've been able to fund several projects across the globe. We've funded projects here at home. We've funded projects in Africa, in Vietnam. We've funded projects in South America. We've given a convoy of hope and real compassion. And all of those projects are great, and we've seen God move in all of those things. Well, the project that I shared with the students, the kids, is this. We're partnering with BGMC and World Serve International. World Serve International is one of the partners of BGMC. They're committed to solving the water crisis in Africa through large-scale, sustainable, solar-powered water systems. They're providing clean water and sanitation in the most challenging of locations in Africa. That's what World Serve International does. And we're partnering with them. I reached out to Ben Andrews, the next gen pastor here in the district, and he shared with me this project and it's with World Serve and they're meeting a need in Nigeria, Africa. They're going to the Kalari Summit, the project that we're focusing on encompasses five empowered school projects, which means they go in and do five school assemblies in five locations. And then they're also going to be building sports courts, which include basketball courts and soccer fields. They'll build school gardens and provide additional water supplies. They'll dig wells there. They'll provide purification systems. They'll provide personal purification systems for the people in these communities that they're going into. The project costs is $4,500. Now, as I was talking to Ben about it, he said, "During the month of September, that World Serve has a matching grant, meaning that whatever we race, there's a donor that will match it." They have several projects going on throughout Africa. Wouldn't it be awesome? Wouldn't it be awesome if our church, the month of September, raised $4,500 for BGMC. And then it was matched, and so not only did we meet this need and this project, but through our giving, another project is completed. I'm not taking up an offering for it today, but I want you to be praying about it. And if a kid comes up to you and talks to you about BGMC and asks you to give, "Be generous. Be generous." All of these gifts of the Spirit are awesome, right? We all want to see prophecy and teaching and the other gifts that are mercy and kindness and all of those things. We want to see those at work, but more than anything, great faith and giving. I want to start seeing those as spiritual gifts, not just as something that we do. It's a gift, and I want God to begin to work in us, not because I want to see bigger offerings or because I want to see you give more, I want God to begin to deal with you because I want you to be able to be able to do what God is asking you to do because I want you to walk in a blessed life. Lord, I just thank you for today. Lord, I thank you for the gifts of the Spirit, Lord. I thank you for the gifts that you have shown up time and time again and let us see. And Lord, I thank you, I thank you for the gift of great faith. And Lord, I pray that in this house that we begin to see the gift of great faith at work in this place. And Lord, I pray that the gift of giving generously just increases among these people, Lord. Lord help us to function in these gifts. Help us to function in these gifts, Lord. No, we just pray, we just pray that you just begin to move and you begin to touch God, that you begin to touch hearts today, Lord. Maybe you're here this morning and you say, you know what, I want that great faith. I've had faith, but I want great faith. I want to invite you to come, I want to pray with and believe with you. Maybe you're like me and you say, you know what, God, I want that gift of giving generously. I want you to help me to see it and desire to meet it. I want to invite you to come. This isn't a, I want us to see these gifts at work in our church. I want to see these gifts at work in your life, not just here in the house, but outside the house. I want to see these gifts at work, and so I encourage you, I encourage you, if you say, I want those spiritual gifts at work in my life, I want to encourage you to move. I want to encourage you to move. Lord, I just thank you right now. I thank you right now for the ones that responded and Lord, I know that there are more that need to be here in this morning. I pray that you just begin to move on hearts, and that you begin to move on hearts, and that you help them to believe, God. Lord, I pray that you help them to see these spiritual gifts, Lord, that what they do is not just something that they do, but it's truly a spiritual gift. Oh, we just thank you today, God. We thank you today. These altars are open. You feel it to come and pray around these altars, feel free to do so. [BLANK_AUDIO]