Your Motivation In Use of Gifts

Other very important motivation for the use of our gifts, and we’re looking at the passage, obviously, in a broad sense. And we saw first because of the source of it, two because of the cost of it, and three because of the impact, because of the impact. What is the impact of the use of my gift within the framework of the body of Christ? What happens when we are equipped and the gifted men do the equipping? We have been given equipping gifts so that you can use your serving gifts. What is the effect? Verse 13.

We all attain to the unity of the faith. We all attain to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. This is a monumental effect. What it says is that when the gifted men equip the saints, when they give their entire lives, if you will, to fixing people, maturing people, when they have birth pains, until Christ is fully formed in them, when they work to the point of sweat and exhaustion to see the saints perfected, as Paul says in Colossians, what is the effect? The saints attain the unity of the faith.

In other words, they come to hold commonly the truth. That’s doctrine. And then that truth begins to be shown in their lives because the knowledge of the Son of God leads to a mature man who then, as a part of the church, puts the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ on display. Ideally, people should come to a church and see Christ. They should see a manifestation of Christ in the maturity of the saints who name his name. The first impact of the gifted men using their gifts for the equipping of the saints is the unity of the faith.

That refers to objective faith to the body of Christian doctrine. You see people who believe the truth, who know the truth, who embrace the truth, who hold convictions about the truth and love the truth. That’s where it has to start. The gifted then have that primary responsibility to distribute the truth, disseminate the truth, teach the truth, so that in knowing the truth you come to the epignosis of the Son of God. The deep knowledge, not superficial knowledge, the deep knowledge, the deep full understanding of what it is to live a life devoted to Christ, the deep knowledge that Paul longed for in Philippians 3, that I may know him, that I may know him.

And so coming to the deep knowledge of Christ, the church becomes a mature man and takes on, as it were, the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. If there’s anyone that we want to put on display in our church, it’s him. Is it not? It’s not me. It’s other teachers. We’re simply the instruments who have been grace gifted by God with a measure of faith and a supernatural capability in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring to you the truth that equips you, that shapes you into an understanding of who Christ is, and then begins to make you look like Christ as it works its way through your life and brings you to maturity.

This is what we do so that we are not on display in the church, but Christ is on display in the church. So the first impact is a positive impact. It is an objective knowledge of the truth that goes deep and conforms us to Christ. There is also a negative, a necessary negative impact, as a result of the gifted men equipping the saints and the saints using their gifts. We are no longer children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

That’s parallel to the objective faith. We no longer are children. We no longer are unstable. We no longer are victims of deception. We no longer chase illusions and fads. We’re no longer spiritual children. In the language of 1 John 2, we become spiritual young men. We’re strong in the word. We’ve overcome the wicked one. We’re not gullible. We’re not susceptible to being lured by cults and isms. We’re not carried about by everything that blows along, every deception, every trick, every crafty delusion. So there is a positive influence. We grow up to know sound doctrine.

That sound doctrine takes root in our lives and begins to transform us together into the image of Christ. And we are no longer susceptible to being led astray by satanic error. But what characterises us is in verse 15. We speak the truth in love. We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

That is a powerful, powerful statement. What happens when the gifted men do the work that God has called them to do and equip the saints? And the saints do the work of service using their individual gifts. What happens is we come to maturity. We come to Christ’s likeness. We are not any longer led astray by deception and false doctrine, but rather we’re characterised by the truth proclaimed in love and we grow up into Him who is the head, even Christ. The whole body then is fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, and it grows for the building of itself up in love.

The final is where we started at the beginning. By this they’ll know your my disciples by your love. By your love. If there was anything that Christ demonstrated on earth, it was the love of God. It was the love of God as He came to save sinners who redeemed unworthy enemies. And if the church is to be known for anything, it is to be known by its love. We are to be built up in love, loving one another. Love only operates with humble people, sacrificial people, and the church only grows into the fullness of the stature of Christ when believers in love use their spiritual gifts.

The message is pretty clear, and again we’ve just done an overview of this. We need to be using our gifts in the church. You don’t want to be a spectator. You don’t want to sit and watch the show here. As great as it is to sit and experience it, if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re unfaithful. You’re unfaithful to your calling, and you’re unfaithful to your gifts, and you’re unfaithful to your church, unless you are ministering to each other. You should be motivated by the source of the gift that you have.

It was given by God, motivated by the cost of the gift. It was purchased by the death of Christ and His suffering, and motivated by the impact of that gift. It is necessary for the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the stature of the fullness of Christ, because every joint, every individual part, is doing what it is designed to do, to build the body up in love. So, how do you recognize a true church? Well, you recognize a true church, because the things that we’ve been talking about in Ephesians 4 describe the life of that church.

This has been a passion in my heart since the first time I ever stood up to talk about this decades ago, and it has not diminished at all. There’s one other statement that I would like to make to you. There’s one other motive, and for that I want to turn to another passage. It should be enough that we look at the source of our gift, and the cost of our gift, and the impact of our using that gift. But let’s look at 1 Corinthians 3-9. Let me give you one more motive. 1 Corinthians 3-9, thinking in the same context, Paul says, We are God’s fellow workers.

We are God’s fellow workers. What a statement. We are not spectators. We are God’s fellow workers. Verse 10, he says, According to the grace of God which was given to me, according to the grace gift given to me, like a master builder who is wise, I laid a foundation and someone else is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds. But no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident, for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.

If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. What’s that saying? That what you do with your gift will determine your eternal reward. It will define your eternity. So if you are lazy now and indifferent and uninvolved, you will receive a diminished eternal reward, and need to be reminded that your eternal reward is eternal. So let each of you be careful, take care, think deeply about your service as to whether or not you want to build with wood, hay and stubble, or gold, silver and precious stones.

Whether you want to build with what is valuable, or what is essentially useless, because your work will determine your eternal reward. There’s plenty of motivation there, isn’t there, for us to be faithful in serving our Lord in his Church. I can’t imagine any other kind of life. I can’t imagine not serving in every possible capacity that I’m capable of, and I’m sure I’ve launched into some that I’m not capable of. But I can’t find any other raise on debt. I can’t find any other reason to live, other than to do in the Church what the Lord has called and gifted me to do.

And I hope that’s your passion as well. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of your motivation in use of gifts. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].