[0:00] We welcome you to the media ministry of Bethel Community Church, knowing Jesus, making Jesus known. Good morning. Coming in hot.
[0:14] So today is part two of a three-part series on giving. We'll actually have a break from it next week with Mother's Day and then we'll finish up with part three the following week.
[0:28] But a three-part series on giving, giving of your time, giving of your talent, and giving of your treasure. Today I have the talent portion. So a very talented message coming your way.
[0:44] You know, having a series on giving is kind of an interesting, you know, it's a touchy topic. You know, a lot of churches might have the stereotype of, you know, just begging for your money all the time.
[0:58] In fact, one of my unsaved friends, Peter, he holds some resentment to his mom for how much she gives to the church. She's not a believer. She is. And, you know, that's when he thinks of her church, that's all he thinks about is, oh, that's where all her money goes.
[1:14] Well, I will tell you, I've been at Bethel, I think, nine years, somewhere around there. And this is the first time I've ever heard anybody talk about giving. So that's not something we do here. It's not, we're not in your face about giving us money or anything like that.
[1:28] And that's not even what today is. Today is talent, but I thought I'd throw that out there as just a disclaimer that in the decade I've been here, we've never talked about giving before. So today's passage that we're going to spend most of our time, if you want to go ahead and turn there, is 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
[1:46] We're going to spend most of our time this morning in that passage. But giving of your talent, that's what we're going to talk about today.
[1:59] These topical messages are interesting. You know, usually we kind of go verse by verse. We are assigned a passage and then you can go through that. But these topical ones I kind of enjoy personally.
[2:12] I enjoyed the Genesis study because that was topical. And I enjoy this because this is topical. But you never know how all the material is going to fit in. So this might be 10 minutes.
[2:23] This might be an hour and 10 minutes. So buckle up. We'll get through it together. But, yeah, we're talking about giving of your talents within the church.
[2:35] So when you become a believer, when someone becomes a Christian, there are a number of things that kind of come with that. It's an all-inclusive package, if you will.
[2:46] And one of those things is you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. Another thing is that you are given a gift, a spiritual gift. Obviously, you're also justified, saved, made right at that point.
[3:01] And you're given salvation at that point. Lots of things happen. But today what we're going to really focus on is those gifts that you are given. Now, these are not gifts like you would receive at Christmas, right?
[3:13] We're not getting a pack of baseball cards when you get saved. Or, you know, if you're really good, you might get like a Red Ryder BB gun. That's not the type of gift that we're talking about. We're talking about a spiritual gift. And so I'll just read to you.
[3:24] You don't need to turn there. But Ephesians 4, verse 7 says, Each one of us, that's talking about believers, each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.
[3:39] Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and he gave gifts to men. And so we've all been given some kind of gift, some kind of talent, and that's what we're going to look at today.
[3:52] So let's pray real quick, and then we'll get into 1 Corinthians 12. Father God, just thank you so much for the day. Thank you for your word. Thank you that your word contains truth. Thank you that we can look at it and study it together as a group of believers here at Bethel.
[4:06] And I pray that you would just give us attentive ears and attentive hearts this morning. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I do want to say before we get into Corinthians 12, there's more to giving of your talent than just using your spiritual gift.
[4:26] I would say talent are things you're good at. You know, construction might be something that folks in this room are good at. And I wouldn't say that that's necessarily a spiritual gift. That's more of a talent.
[4:37] So I do want to make the delineation there. But a lot of what we're going to look at is spiritual gifts. So 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1 says this.
[4:49] It says, Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. And then we can skip down to verse 4. It says, There are diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.
[5:02] There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.
[5:18] There's diversities of gifts, difference in ministries, diversities of activities. These things are different, right? There's a group of, I don't know, 50, 70 people, something like that. We're all different. And that's a good thing, right?
[5:30] It would be kind of lame to go to a church if everybody was exactly the same. You know, we were all wired the exact same way. One, it wouldn't be very fun. And two, it would just be weird, right? It would just be a weird deal.
[5:41] So there's diversity. There's different gifts. There's different ministries. There's different activities. That word activities. Some of your Bibles might say operations.
[5:52] Some might say, like, effects. That's a unique word. It's only used once in the entire Bible. This is it right here. My version translates it activities.
[6:04] But that word comes off of the word for energy. So it's something you can put energy into. So like your work, your duty, like business operations. Something that you can put your energy towards.
[6:18] So I really like that word activities. But the idea here is that there's diversity in this. There's differences in these things. There's more than one option, and we're all probably a little bit different.
[6:31] But notice where the unity comes in is that these gifts come from the same Spirit, the same Lord, and it is the same God who works all in all.
[6:42] So as a group of believers, as a church made up of individual, uniquely different, diverse believers, we have one common bond, and that's the Lord.
[6:53] Right? It's the same Spirit. It's the same God. It's the same Lord who works all in all. And so the church, being a diverse bunch, is really brought together in our diversity almost.
[7:06] Like the only common thread we have is Christ. So that's kind of a cool deal. Continuing with that thought, verse 7 says this.
[7:16] It says, It says, So here Paul kind of gives you almost like a list of potential spiritual gifts, right?
[7:58] He says a word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy. He gives kind of a list of them. But what he says is, look, it's the same Spirit that is doing these things.
[8:11] And in fact, in 11 he says, It's one in the same Spirit who distributes to each one of us individually as he wills. So again, each one of us is different.
[8:24] Each one of us has an individual gift given to us from one common Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And did you catch the why? It comes in verse 7, For the profit of all.
[8:36] So we've all been given a unique gift by the Holy Spirit for each other's benefit. So the unity of a church comes from the Lord.
[8:49] We're all different. The only common bond we have is Christ. And then we've all been given a measure of the Spirit, some kind of gift, some kind of talent, individually for each one of us, for the profit of all.
[9:03] So it's for one another's benefit. You know, there's an African proverb. This is not inspired, but I think the thought is good. It says, If you want to go fast, go alone.
[9:15] If you want to go far, go together. And I think that applies, you know, if this were just me trying to do this just on my own, there's a lot of weakness you've got to overcome.
[9:26] But when you have a group of individual believers that are all gifted, that are all using their gifts for one another's benefit, your weaknesses, or your strengths overcome my weaknesses, and my strengths overcome your weaknesses.
[9:39] It's a herd mentality, if you will. So we each have an individual gift given for the profit of all. Kind of the flip side of that coin, that's kind of a positive spin, kind of the flip side of that coin.
[9:54] If you're not using your gift, maybe someone else is missing out on the benefit. Right? Which is maybe not as pretty of a picture to paint, but, you know, if you're not using the gift that the Holy Spirit's giving you, someone else is missing out.
[10:11] You know, one thing that I really like about Bethel is being kind of a small to medium-sized church. There's plenty of opportunity. There's opportunity May 6th, 5 o'clock, whatever time, I don't know, up here, move some furniture around.
[10:22] But, you know, a bigger church, a more well-funded church, they might have the full light show, they might have full sound production, the whole shebang. I'm willing to yield that in order to use your gift a little bit more, right?
[10:36] And to be involved in ministry a little bit more. So there's plenty of opportunity here, is what I'm trying to say. Taking a quick pause from this passage, I gave a message a bazillion years ago at Turkey Hill about how do you find your spiritual gift.
[10:52] And I'll just give you the highlight version of it. But one, what is something you just naturally kind of enjoy doing? For me, I enjoy teaching. What is something that you maybe feel like, I'm pretty good at this.
[11:05] I don't feel like I'm good at teaching, but others have said that, so whatever. And if there's nothing that you find yourself enjoying, if there's nothing you find yourself good at, the point I had at Turkey Hill was, go find somebody older than you and say, what do you think my gift is?
[11:21] And they might point you in the right direction. And exercise those things. And if it doesn't feel like a good fit, then maybe exercise something else. But 1 Corinthians 12, you know, 8 to 10, and then verse 28, give a pretty good list of potential gifts.
[11:36] So find that, exercise those. See which one might be yours. That's just kind of a side note. All right, so let's go to verse 12.
[11:47] Verse 12 is kind of a confusing verse. So we'll go through it here. It says, As the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ.
[12:02] That's kind of a confusing one. There's ones and bodies and members and many. As the body is one and has many members, all the members of that one body being many are one body. Ooh, there's a lot going on.
[12:15] So what's it saying? It says the body is one. How many bodies do I have? Let's just go real life physical body. I've got one body, right? Has many members. So I've got two hands, ten fingers, ten toes, one nose, two ears.
[12:31] This hand makes the L, so you can tell it's the left. One body, many members. All the members of that one body being many, so there's many members of that one body, they are all one body, right?
[12:45] So the hand is not its own body. It's a member, one of many members of this one body. We together? Is that good? So then it says, So also is Christ.
[12:57] For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, I would add blacks or whites, vaxxed or unvaxxed, shocking, I know, have all been made to drink into one spirit.
[13:13] For in fact, the body, now it's talking about the physical body again, is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?
[13:28] I mean, obviously not, right? The foot's still a vital, important of the body. And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? For if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?
[13:40] And if the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? You know, if the whole body was just one eyeball, you know, you could see really well, and you might be able to roll around a little bit, but, you know, I hope you're headed downhill, because it's going to be pretty tough getting back uphill.
[14:02] You know, same thing with the hands. You know, if the whole body were a hand, you'd give a mean handshake, but that's about it. It says that God has set the members, each one of them, each one of us, now it's talking about the church, He has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.
[14:24] So there's kind of two points from that part of the passage. One, that diversity, as far as the uniqueness of the individual believer and the individual believer's talents, the uniqueness, the diversity there, is totally necessary.
[14:38] Right? You don't want a body made out of hands. You want the whole shebang. Every part. You wanted different parts. And then the second thing is that diversity, that uniqueness, that individuality, is of God.
[14:53] Verse 18, He has set the members, each one of them, in the body as He pleased. So the unique talents, the unique gifts, are totally necessary, and they're totally of the Lord. Go into verse 19.
[15:06] It says, If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you.
[15:20] Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. No, much rather those members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary.
[15:30] A little anatomy lesson for you guys. If you can touch your pinkies to your thumbs, and then facing, your palms facing towards you, bend your wrists.
[15:42] Can you see that little tendon there? Everybody do that. Both hands. Does anybody not have that little tendon? In this room, there's probably somebody that's missing one. Anybody? Everybody got one?
[15:53] Darn. That is called the palmaris longus. It is a completely useless muscle. There's no need for it. It is a normal anatomic variation to not have it.
[16:05] That means that there's a decent amount of folks that don't have one, or they'll have one but not the other. Does nothing. There's no function. If a pitcher blows a ligament out of their elbow, they will harvest the palmaris longus from the opposite arm, sew it together, and put it in as a new ligament.
[16:23] That's called Tommy John surgery. You end up with your elbow in the sling, and then your other, the harvest site in the sling, so it makes it hard to, you know, wipe back there.
[16:36] Useless muscle. Other than that, all the parts are necessary, right? It's not like when you put a piece of furniture together and there's some parts left over and you wonder, you know, what's missing.
[16:48] Other than that, every part is necessary, and so even the weaker members of the body, and I don't necessarily love that word weaker, but the less honorable parts of the body are totally necessary.
[17:01] Same in the church. You know, a group this size, I'm the only one up here teaching today. Does that make me special? Not really, no. How many people in here had a cup of coffee today? I mean, everybody, right?
[17:11] I mean, I had several. I know people did because it's empty. I went to go get some before I came up here, and it's empty. Just as important, probably more important than me speaking up here. You know, whoever made the coffee this morning, I assume Mary Ellen.
[17:24] Yes. But the point is, when I'm done speaking, there will be a handful of people who will come say, hey, nice job, hey, appreciate the word. Nobody's probably saying, hey, thanks for the coffee, but we all drink it, right?
[17:34] I mean, it is a less honorable, a weaker, if you will, part of this body, but vitally important. And I know that's a silly example, but that's how it works in the church.
[17:46] I mean, I could not be up here speaking if somebody wasn't running the sound, if somebody hadn't run the cables and the antennas to make the wireless mic work. You know, it wouldn't be on YouTube if KJ hadn't wired that all up.
[17:59] I mean, the list goes on and on and on, right? Even yesterday, you know, we had a new air conditioning unit put in, and, you know, somebody has to handle the logistics behind all of that. The point is, you have a gift, you have a talent that the Lord has given you.
[18:16] He's given it to you differently than he's given it to someone else, and he's given it to you for the benefit of this church, or wherever you go to church. Even if you think your talent or your gift is not that important, it is vitally important.
[18:33] I'll give you one other example. This one kind of from the healthcare realm. You know, let's say you're having a heart procedure done. You're going in his operating room, and there's probably half a dozen people in there.
[18:49] You know, you'd have your surgeon, and he or she is obviously very important to the procedure, and you'd probably have a nurse or two, maybe a surgical tech or two, you know, and everybody has their role, you know, whether it's grabbing meds or assisting with the actual hands-on part.
[19:03] You'd probably have a sales rep in there who's, you know, doing their thing. Will's not here today, so I can't, I can't rag on him too bad. You have an anesthesiologist in there, I would assume, you know, that's an important one, because you don't want to wake up during the surgery, but you sure would like to wake up after the surgery.
[19:24] But there's a vitally important member, a not very glorious part of the team, that's missing. That's housekeeping, right? I mean, you want the instruments that are being used to be clean, right?
[19:38] You want the bed that you're laying on to be clean. You want the whole environment around you to be clean. I mean, that is not a glorious job, being a housekeeper in a healthcare setting.
[19:51] Crazy important, right? I mean, if anybody has ever had a parent or you yourself spent much time in a hospital, there's a really nasty infection called C. diff that affects the GI system, and I mean, it can kill you.
[20:02] It kills a lot of people. And the best way to not get C. diff is to have effective housekeeping. Super important part of the team, right?
[20:13] It may be a weaker, less honorable member. But man, crazy, crazy important. And there's all kinds of roles like that in a church and in ministry. So again, there's diversities of gifts, differences in ministry, diversity of activities, but it's the same Lord who has given each member a gift or a talent just as he pleased.
[20:37] So two other passages I want to hit just real quick. One is right on the next page, and it's 1 Corinthians 13.
[20:49] So how would you use a gift? Well, the most important thing, we're not going to go in depth, but the most important thing, if you miss this part, you miss all the rest, is that whatever gift you use for the Lord has to be done out of love.
[21:05] So 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1, it says, He's just going through the list, right?
[21:25] It doesn't matter what it is. Even if I had faith to move a mountain, but I have not love, I am nothing. And though I give all my goods to the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
[21:38] Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails.
[21:57] And then he goes on to give a list of gifts that will fail, but the idea is that no matter what you do, as far as serving the Lord, it has to be done out of a place of love.
[22:11] I know there's ministries that I've been involved with where it starts to feel like you're doing it out of duty. Well, I need to do this, you know, because these people are counting on me. And it's no fun when that's your motivation.
[22:23] It needs to be done out of love for others and love for the Lord. So again, I said I kind of wanted to delineate between talent and spiritual gifts. I think spiritual gifts are talents.
[22:37] And I think some talents might be spiritual gifts. I think there's some overlap there, but there's a difference. You know, a talent, I would say, the easy example is like construction, right?
[22:48] There's men in here, Kevin, John, others that are gifted in construction. Kurt would be a great example of that. Where that is just a talent that they have, that is a skill that they have acquired and honed that not everyone has.
[23:05] You know, for me, I can juggle. I don't know what other talents I have. You know, I'm decently handy, especially if something's way up high.
[23:16] You know, I can reach a pretty good. But we all have talent, whatever X, Y, or Z might be. There's some area in which you are skilled. Again, separate now, let's say, from spiritual gifts.
[23:29] Whatever talent that has been given, you know, to you, you can use that for the Lord. Again, with the construction example, you know, Kevin, I don't know, what's what, two, three days a week now you're down at Dayspring working on the cabins at Dayspring.
[23:45] You know, that's a huge ministry for the Lord. You know, skilled labor to donate your time, that's huge. You know, I've had John help me with some projects at the house and wouldn't accept payment and said, you know, I like to do it for free for the guys that teach because that's not his gift.
[24:04] And I'm sure he gave you guys some kind of different excuse if he worked on your house. But, you know, that is a skill that I appreciate, that it's a talent that is used for the benefit of a member of the body.
[24:21] You know, one thing that I do really enjoy and I feel like I'm skilled at is I do enjoy the out of doors. I enjoy, you know, hiking, hunting, fishing, whatever it is, camping. And I feel like I am kind of skilled at that.
[24:33] And I'll tell you that the Lord has met me there many times, whether it's, you know, I mean, I could give you a million examples. I won't, but I could give you a million examples of just intimate times I have had with the Lord out in the wild and just the ways that the Lord has romanced me in those things.
[24:49] And so what I would say is don't, don't shy away from the areas that God has skilled you in, whatever that is. Pursue those things and pursue those things with others and treat it like a ministry or don't, but pursue those things because the Lord can meet you in that.
[25:06] If you turn to Exodus, which is way in the front of the Bible, 31, it's kind of an interesting passage, you know, the, the Lord leads the Israelites out of Egypt where they've been in captivity for 400 years.
[25:35] He leads them out into the desert, says, here's the promised land. I want you to send some spies in. They're going to scope out the land. We'll see how good it is. And then I want you guys to go take the land.
[25:47] And you guys know the story, right? Ten spies were bad, two were good. Caleb and Joshua said, yeah, let's go get them. And the other ten shied away. And so the Lord said, well, if you're not going to trust me, you're not going to get the land.
[25:57] And so you're going to wander for 40 years until everybody of this generation dies. You're not getting the land, but your kids will get it. So they wander around for 40 years. And so that creates a problem because how can you have a temple to worship the Lord if you're wandering around?
[26:13] You can't really have a brick and mortar temple. And so he gives them instruction on the tabernacle, which was a mobile temple, if you will, a tent that they could put up and take down no matter where they were wandering.
[26:27] And so for about like nine chapters, I don't know, chapter 22, 23, somewhere in there, there's instruction on how to build this thing. And it is detailed and it is ornate. There's all kinds of detail on how to physically build this physical tabernacle.
[26:41] So you get to the end of all the instructions in chapter 31 and something really cool happens. So that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to work in gold, to work in silver, to work in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship.
[27:22] And indeed, I have appointed with him a holy ab, the son of Hizomach, of the tribe of Dan, and have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans that they may make all that I have commanded you.
[27:37] You know, I wouldn't say that like working with silver or gold or, you know, woodwork, it says carving wood, I wouldn't say that that's a spiritual gift, right?
[27:51] That's more of a skill, more of a talent. But it says that the Spirit of God filled these guys with the wisdom and knowledge to do these things, to design art, to cut gold, to cut silver, to cut jewels, to carve wood.
[28:08] The Spirit of God filled these guys with the wisdom and understanding to do these physical tasks. So to me, that says there's no limit to what the Spirit of God can skill you with, right?
[28:23] There's no limit to what, I mean, why limit it to just cutting gold and silver and jewels and woodworking, right? I mean, the Spirit of God filled these guys with the understanding to do these things.
[28:34] So whatever that thing is that you are skilled in, that you enjoy, pursue that and pursue it for the Lord. I'll give you a great example. Last week, there was a shower up here for Courtney.
[28:45] You guys might have seen the balloon thing on the floor in there. You could give me a thousand years in an unlimited budget and I could not decorate that room in the way that it would take Sarah Wayne or Meyer or Melanie Wayne or my wife or Amy or Teresa or anybody to decorate.
[29:03] They are skilled in that and I'm just simply not. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But whatever skill that you have, use it for the Lord and use it for the benefit of others and use it out of a place of love.
[29:17] Because it might just be of the Lord that you're skilled in those things because certainly these guys were skilled to decorate the tabernacle. So if the musicians want to come up, I just want to close with one more verse back out of where we were in Corinthians 12.
[29:39] And it's verse 7. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. So you are uniquely you. You have been given unique talent that's going to be different from someone else's talent.
[29:54] You've been given a unique gift that's going to be different than someone else's gift. But it's the same Spirit. That's the bond of unity that we have as believers. And it is given to you for the benefit of others.
[30:04] For the profit of all. You know, here at Bethel we have different ministry teams. We have the hospitality team, which, you know, if we're at an event like Pinecrest or even just on Sunday, it's kind of in charge of food.
[30:21] We're in charge of the meal trains, getting out to people. We have the audio-visual team, which is responsible for all the slides and all the sound work. You know, KJ does a lot of the website stuff, but I'm sure he could use help.
[30:36] We have the beautification team, if you are skilled in decorating or planning. You know, we're going to be doing some more work in the fellowship hall this year. You know, so whatever your talent is, there is a boatload of opportunity.
[30:49] And we are totally willing to let you help us. So, no excuse to not use your talent here at Bethel. We would love to have the help.
[31:00] And whatever you do, do it out of love. Father God, we just thank you for your word. Thank you that it's the road map for life, Lord. We'd be just totally lost without you. Lord, a group this size, we have many different gifts, many different talents.
[31:16] But Lord, a group of unbelievers would have similar talent, whether it's skill or construction or whatever, Lord, but what they don't have is the bond of the Spirit and the unity that we have in Christ.
[31:28] So we're thankful for that. Thankful for the opportunity to have a church in this country where we can serve and serve corporately, Lord, and meet with freedom.
[31:40] We pray that you would allow that to continue in this country for many years. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[31:52] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Men. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[32:16] Amen. Amen.