Lane Gilbert: Good morning, church. Let me have a microphone 2 weeks in a row. Today's, scriptures from the book of Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1 to 11. I'm gonna turn there in my Bible and I invite you to read along. It'll be on the screen or you can just hear the words of God.
Let me Now about the gifts of the spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagan somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore, I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the spirit of God says, Jesus be cursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit distributes them.
There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone, it is the same God at work. Now to each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the spirit a message of wisdom. To another a message of knowledge.
By means of the same spirit to another faith. By the same spirit to another gifts of healing. By that one spirit to another, miraculous powers. To another, prophecy. To another, distinguishing between spirits.
To another, speaking in different kinds of tongues. And to still another, the interpretation of tongues. All of these are the work of 1 and the same spirit. And he distributes them to each one just as he determines. Amen.
So, the whole idea behind this sermon series, if you weren't here last week, you can get caught up very, very quickly, is that I wish I could carry everyone out to a cup of coffee and that we could talk about what God's doing in your life, and I want to ask questions. The thing is is that when someone, you know, especially someone you go to church with, right, they invite you out for coffee. First thing you think, like, uh-oh. What's wrong? You know?
But the other thing is I like to ask questions because when you ask questions of people, it it takes that tension of, like, I need to know what I need to say, and and you can have really good conversation. And so this one is our 2nd week where we had a chance to go get coffee. And, again, this is kind of a a thought exercise, like, we're just gonna pretend. I don't know if you have coffee right now, but pretend you do. You know?
But before I get real deep into it, I I wanna point out that there are things that I am good at. And there are things that I am not good at. And I'm I am moderately self aware. Right? I am not good at design.
Like, I design like any guy does, which everything goes against the wall. Everything's in perfectly l's squares. Somehow or another, you're covering up as much wall as possible. Furniture is not to be floated in the middle of the room. Not good at that.
You know? I am good at lifting heavy stuff. Not because I'm strong, but just because I've used hand trucks and pallet jacks and stuff so much in my life that I've really learned how to move things with just a little bit of leverage. And in my attempt to find the things that I'm good at and the things that I'm talented and and all the years I spent just wondering, like, what what does God want from me? Right?
I've taken all the, like, personality assessments, all the the skills tests, all of that. Probably not all of them, honestly, but, you know, for the sake of this talk. There's one that I really enjoyed. It was called strengths finder. And the premise of it, it was more important to me than the actual results.
Now I will tell you that the results told me that one of my top three was ideation, which is this idea of coming up with big ideas. So if you've if if you have worked with me anytime, you know that I have about a1000 good, like, in my mind, all good ideas about every hour. And, and there was a couple of other ones, but none of my things that I was good at was the implementation of the steps to make that idea happen. None of that is details. The lots are in my eyes, but I'm pretty sure I see Stephanie laughing right now because she knows exactly what I'm saying.
Like, so, but I'm aware of that. But the things that I liked about this test was the fact that it only gave you your top 3, 5, or 7. I don't even remember exactly. And it was out of 40. And it was because that no matter who we are, if I give you a list of things you were good at, and number 1 is what you're best at, and number 40 is what you're worst at, you look straight down to the bottom and say, well, I need to work on.
Right? And so the idea, the premise behind this test was if you'll just stay working in your strengths, the weaknesses don't really come into play. And what does that look like though if we start talking about, like, spiritual gifts and talents in the church? So again, we're at our cup of coffee and I I like to start off with questions. So these are the questions I would ask you.
I would ask you, do you have a sense of your spiritual gifts and natural talents? What are they? Which I know that y'all are all thinking, thank goodness we're not having a cup of coffee. Because if that's the first question you ask me, I'm gonna be mad. But in in my mind, where this is our 2nd cup of coffee, so you're expecting a spiritual conversation.
Who has affirmed these gifts and talents in you? Right? You'll hear me say it a lot. If you see something in somebody, tell them. This is the the time.
And and then if somebody has seen something in you, acknowledge that. Thank them for that. Right? How have you used these gifts and talents to benefit yourself? Often, how we can serve others and how we love others is directly tied to how much we love ourselves.
And so I I would ask you that, and then I would ask you how have you used these gifts and talents to benefit others? And then I finally, I'd ask you, what do you want to do with your gifts and talents? If you're here last week, I like to shorten that too. What are you gonna do about it? Right?
That's the Alabama and me coming out. Right? What are you gonna do about it? Our scripture told us that we are gifted with many gifts in the same spirit. I have had the benefit of I have been on staff here for almost 12 years.
I'm still terrible with names. So, that's why everybody gets, hey, buddy. You know? But I know y'all. And and in the in that over a decade of being in one place, I I've learned that sometimes people are gifted in the greatest, most wonderfully unique ways that I if I didn't spend time with them, I wouldn't know.
There's a gentleman around here that that does woodworking like professional grade, beautiful woodworking in his garage. Right? I wouldn't have necessarily known that just for meeting them. There are people that write music. There are people that write plays, poetry.
There's artists. There's tradesman. There's craftsman. And that's some of the giftedness that's that's in this room right now. Engineers.
And then we start thinking about the giftedness of this congregation, the things that that make worship and mission happen. Then we're in a whole another conversation. A lot of times we forget, like, our our everyday gift is, but I'll talk a little bit more about that. At 8:30, I I told them I I say whatever I want because it's not recorded and Latham will never know. Right?
But he may watch this one later, and so I just gonna tell don't snitch on me till he does. Coming up right after we had, like, all like, I think a whole month of talking about serving in the church, an opportunity to serve. And I'm not trying to undo any of that, but like, I was both excited, but also some of the the things that I heard, it it left a little bit of weight on me. Like, the fact that a lot of us are just tapped out. You know, I'm talking about an experience, you know, like I I work here at this this is both my profession and my passion.
But some of us just feel tapped out. We just feel like, man, I don't know how much I have left in me. Some of that is just for we've been doing something for so long that we're tired. Some of it is that, we have worked so hard to be available that we that we've worked to burn ourselves out. Some of the times, it's because we're working outside of our giftedness.
A lot of you know we just hired director of children's ministry. Right? I don't know that anybody's more excited than I am. I love kids. I love kids ministry.
It's not necessarily my giftedness. Right? I'm more of a rile all the kids up like they just drank Red Bull Mountain Dew and ate, like, handfuls of sugar and then send them back to their parents. That's that's my style of kids ministry. But sometimes we're working outside of our giftedness.
But also in the process of asking people, I got I got answers like this and I've summed them up. So this is not the exact wording, but like people that say we've we've done our time. I did this for years. We've given our gifts. Right?
Like, hey, I I'm not doing that, but, hey, here. I'll I'll help pay for it. And I'm not saying any of these things are bad. Please hear me. You know, hey, it's my it's it's our time to just enjoy, just to enjoy the things.
And since Latham's out of the country and he won't watch this till later and I won't get in trouble today at least, I unfortunately have to tell you no. That's not how that works. God's giftedness does not care about your age. Young, old, or in between. God's giftedness does not care about your ability.
Quote I use all the time and I probably should know who said it first, but I don't. Is god doesn't doesn't call the equipped. He equips the called. Yeah. That feels like he's like, he just drove to my house and slapped me in the face.
God's gifted just doesn't care if you're man or woman. Right? Like, there's not a job that's just well, I can't do that. The bible tells us over and over and over again that we're we're serving we're living a life of discipleship our entire lives. We don't retire from service.
We don't retire from discipleship. We don't put our years in and then we're done. We are called to sometimes change how we're serving, how how we're using our gifts, but we're always called to use them. I I love this church. Like I said, I've been here almost 12 years.
And I could I could probably talk all day long about all the things this church is good at. But if I'm gonna do it, I wanna do it from just a personal thing. Right? It just it's a very short story. Right?
But I got here in, this January 2, 2013, and this church welcomed me well. This quickly became my church. Now that, you know, makes sense to a lot of y'all, but also as someone that worked at miscellaneous and multiple churches over the course of 2 decades. It's special when the church is not only where you work, but it's also your church. And then when the time came that something traumatic and hard was happening in my life, the church loved me well.
And didn't just love me well, really set the the gold standard for how churches should care for staff and congregation when they experience something traumatic. The the the folks at the church used to leave food on the steps, you know, to make sure I ate just little things like that. Sometimes when we're thinking about our giftedness, we get so caught up on all the internal things. And the reason I I I wanna go through and talk about how well this church loves is is I'll get to that in a minute. But we get so caught up in looking internally that we can only see the scarcity.
Right? There are never enough volunteers. There is never enough resources. There is never enough fill in the blank. And the reason why that's tough is because when we look at that, it we just it just feels too heavy.
It feels too heavy, and we can't get past it. But if we tried, if we worked really, really hard to look at this through the lens of abundance, if we look outside instead of inside, and we could acknowledge that the reason why there's never enough volunteers is because of the how great the need is. Because when you start thinking like that, when you start thinking about how this affects what our church is doing outside, then needing volunteers isn't this negative thing. It's because there's so much need in the world. There are so many people that are waiting to be loved and welcomed and filled with grace.
And that's why I told you that this church loved me well. Because I know you can do it. See? You got no excuse. You already messed up.
And you made me feel welcome and loved. So now you've gotta do it for everyone. Yeah. You see how that works? Sometimes when somebody compliments me, I tell them, don't tell anyone because I don't wanna be expected to do it all the time, which is terrible.
Right? But I'm just being honest that I'm human too. If we look outside instead of inside, we see all the people that need what we have. How can we use our gifts to reach them? A lot of times when we're we're talking about gifting and especially spiritual gifts.
Right? Like, we get overwhelmed by the the the tongues and the prophecy. Right? And we forget about some of the the things that we could be doing every day. One of my favorite spiritual gifts is evangelism.
Not because I'm particularly good at it, because I think that everyone can do it. Even today, every study they've ever done, the single most successful way to get someone to go to church is a personal invitation. So you're all invited to church today and every day from now on. So you've all received a personal invitation. Now it's your job to go on and do that for someone else.
Personal invitation. So it doesn't matter, like, even though I have been shut down many times when I've came up with really good one liners to put on the sign, And Latham's like, no. We're not doing that. Lane, it's borderline inappropriate for you to even say it. And we're definitely not putting it on a sign.
But I'm like, I'm telling you to get people in church. It won't. Personal invitation is actually what gets people in the church. Telling people about Jesus, telling people about what Jesus has done in your life. Those are the kinds of things.
It's the most effective way. I mean, there's other ways that people will find this church. But when I ask, it's always personal invitation is the number one reason. And so and I use evangelism because if if nothing else, if you're like, I don't know what my spiritual gifts are. I took that test 20 years ago.
I don't even remember the words they used. It's really complicated, and no one's ever complimented me in my entire life that I'm good on something. And, again, that breaks my heart. But if nothing else, start with evangelism. Right?
Because we make that one harder than it is. I was at the grocery store one time and a lady come behind me, you know, the conveyor belt right there and I could fills me full of anxiety that my items are gonna get mixed up with someone else's and then we're gonna have an awkward interaction where I've just paid for something or they pay for something of mine. Anyway, but she had a stack of cupcakes. Right? And this is before I found out I had diabetes.
So, like, I was still like like a big cupcake guy. Right? So just box of cupcakes. I'm like, I don't know where you're going, but I wanna go with you. And she did not blink.
It's like she left her house and and knew what I was gonna say, and she had prepared for it the whole day. She didn't blink at all. She said, I'm headed to church. Come with me. And by gosh, she would've carried me.
She'd let me get in her car. She'd have drove me there. It was so easy for her. It came with a smile. Well, I was like, man, that's the gift of evangelism right there.
That's the gift of inviting people. And sometimes we get so wrapped up and over complicate things that we we we think that the extraordinary giftedness is what we're missing instead of using our everyday giftedness. What are the things that you're good at right now that you know about? Right? That's why I I told you about that that test I took.
The strength is because what are the things you're good about and quit worrying about what you're not good at. What are the things you're good at and how can you use that to reach others? How can you use that to to increase the spiritual life and the discipleship? And not only in your own life, but others. Like, how would our church look different if we lived into the gifts we've been giving?
If we lived into our strengths. Like, we're a church that loves well. Right? What if we what if we made that everything we do at the beginning? Hey.
I I don't think I have prophecy in me, but I can love you. How would the world look different if we did that as individuals? How would our lives how how would the communities that we're in? Right? Like, you you may work somewhere, you may have a group of friends, or you may play pickleball.
I still don't know what that is. It looks kinda like wiffleball and tennis had a baby. Like, maybe you have a group, but you have a community you're in. And what if you started using the gifts that you have in that community? How would it look different?
And how would the spiritual lives of not only us, but all of our brothers and sisters in Christ look different if we all did that? If you've never taken a spiritual gift inventory, call the church office. I'll, I've I've gotta remember to do this. Right? This is one of those times where I turn to someone and say, remind me to, I'll make sure you have access to 1.
Give me a couple of days, you know, or take find one online that's, you know, not from, you know, buygokart.com. I don't even know if that's a real website. Right? But but I encourage you to take one. But at the very minimum, when you see something in someone, tell them and when somebody says something and, like, write that down.
Remember the questions I told you I would ask you if we were we were having coffee? I'm gonna ask you again. I do this every week. Get used to it. But now I want you to think really hard about what does this what does the looking at this through the lens of your giftedness look like?
I wanna ask you, do you have a sense of your spiritual gifts and natural talents? What are they? Who's who's affirmed those in you? Who said, hey, you're you're good at this? How do you use those gifts and talents to benefit yourself?
Don't let that make you feel stingy because it's a legitimate question. How are you loving yourself well? How are you serving well? How do you use these gifts and talents to benefit others? What do you want to do with your gifts and talents?
What are you gonna do about it? I'll leave you with that question there and I'm gonna invite the the band up and, let's pray together. Father god, I thank you for both the in individuality that you've gifted us all with and how we're each gifted and we each have talents that are different. And how beautiful that looks when we bring that together in you. As we sit and we and we leave here with questions on our minds, remind us that in the questions and in the seeking of answers, we get those answers from you.
And we ask that out of the abundance of blessings that you have gifted us with, that we use those gifts, those talents for your glory. We thank you for our time together and your presence here, and when we leave this place. And it's in your son's holy name that we pray. Amen.