Ephesians 4:7-12

The Olympic games will begin in 12 days and the Bible uses sports images to speak about the Christian life. The letter to the Hebrews talks about the need for perseverance as we run this race. So you will see in your program that the August Sunday themes will be drawn from the Olympics.

 The Olympian for today is now living in California. I want you to guess the name. He was in college at the end of the 1960’s and won medals in 2 different Olympics. He was at Munich when athletes from Israel were killed, so he left the games early even though he had won gold medals. He has won 11 Olympic medals and 9 of them were gold. We are speaking about Mark Spitz.

 Mark Spitz has a story of determination. He also knows how to advertise himself. But the biggest story is that Mark Spitz won different kinds of swimming events in the 1972 Olympics. Most swimmers specialize in 2 or 3 events. The idea is that some swimmers think they are gifted with special endurance. Other swimmers think they are gifted with a clean fast cut through the water in a sprint. Mark Spitz knew that he had gifts for multiple events.

 I hope you feel a pang of envy as you hear that. Even Paul tells the Corinthians to strive for the better gifts. None of us are given all the gifts. But too many of us ignore the Christian teaching that each of us are given some gifts.

 The beauty of Mark Spitz’ story is that he knew he had some gifts. He still had to be tested by competition, he needed to keep his focus with the publicity, he had to discipline his energy and endurance, but he knew he had some gifts.

 A lot of Christians have a sense of failure because they cannot name their gifts. One of the blessings of church involvement is that you should be able to discover and test your gifts. And so we have a passage of Scripture today where Paul will help us think about our gifts. These help you in church, they help you at school, they make you effective on the job. They can be one of your greatest blessings. May God grant you wisdom as you apply the Bible to life today

 Paul is writing a larger section to the Ephesians on the topic of unity. We did not read the whole section. So I am drawing from both passages to give these two points – first identify the gift that God has given you, use your gift in some way to strengthen the church for witness, and everyone else, stand out of the way and let them do their gift.

 Identify your gift. Most people don’t like to talk about gifts because they can’t stand to talk about their limitations. I first noticed this when as I learned more about my gifts. Think of it. If you have a gift of working with details, then you probably don’t have the gift of seeing the big picture. If you work closely with me, you have noticed that I don’t have a gift for details. I try as hard as I can. I have a pda on my waist to take notes when I talk to you after the service. I even tell people not to tell me anything you want me to remember on Sunday. I have gone through five computers since I started to work here. I am so glad that God delayed my birth from the beginning of time until computers were invented.

When you learn about your gifts, that means immediately that you find out your weaknesses. The whole point of the Bible teaching is that we each have some gifts in some areas. And we have a host of areas where we are not gifted. It is only when we come together as the church that we combine the gifts and miracles happen. But people do not like to think that there are any gifts that they will never have. To which Paul responds, get over yourself. You are severely limited. I am severely limited. The news of grace is that God has given us each something.

You need to discover and unwrap what God has given you and that most often happens in church. This is so important.

You will find your gift in three ways. You find it in a Disciple Group as other members tell you more about yourself and give you feedback. The essential parts of church life include celebration on Sunday and the cell group experience where you are discipled into a more successful Christian life.

You find your gift as you try different ministries in the church. The Vatican has just called feminism dangerous. That is because Catholics don’t have church potlucks. In my first church, there were a lot of potlucks and the women did all the cooking. It was assumed that women had all of the cooking gifts. I just got a funeral notice from that church for one of the older women who died at the age of 92. She was delightful spiritual person who could lead a prayer meeting and testify – all of those dangerous feminism things. But even she credited her long life to the fact that she never ate her own cooking. You learn your gifts and lack of certain gifts through ministry experience.

And you learn your gifts through expert feedback. Our church is connected with a wonderful personnel agency in Wisconsin. I have known Ruth for 25 years. Ruth helped me understand my gifts with profiles that she offers and she is working right now to help us find a new principal for the school. She is not cheap, but the money that you would spend would be an investment in the rest of your life.

Exploring your gifts is a lifetime process because our gifts irritate and delight us throughout our whole life. There are always new things to explore. We have been doing this search for a principal and I put down what I wanted and two agencies started to discuss it. And then Ruth came back and said, Ron, we disagree with what you want. If we give you what you want, it won’t work. Don’t you just love a day with feedback like that. And one of my gifts in knowing what I want.

Ruth pointed out that my gifts weren’t going to work that well with the kind of gifts I was looking for in a new principal. And after all these years of thinking about my own gifts, I got new insights three weeks ago. And since I hope we are hiring someone who will be with the church for 10 years, I realized that this process was God at work, delaying a hire until we knew what to look for in gifts.

If you are interested in a September Disciple Group midweek that would meet until December, that works on discovering your gifts, please let us know.

The gifts are to build up the church for witness. Some of you have wonderful gifts but you are waiting for something to happen to use them in a church context. I hope you don’t wait. Community Church is a permission giving church. If you have an idea for ministry, then come and see me. The Leadership Team is there to coordinate ministries and offer support, we are not there to assign everyone to a task. We want to help and we try to recruit, but the real truth is that you need to try something too. We have programs like the homeless, teaching children, prayer ministries, and English and choir. But we can enlarge these programs and you can add more with what God is calling you to do. Your gifts have been given to build this church for witness.

If you are going to two churches, then it takes extra energy. And I don’t have any easy answers. But we cannot be a strong church if the only commitment of members is to attend. The commitments for members are listed today in the program. If you each recommit yourself to these goals, then the church is going to be more and more effective in reaching others and also providing the kind of church that you want.

And lastly, if someone identifies a ministry, it is the task of leaders to encourage them and not stifle their work. We expect some mistakes to be made. The church is a laboratory where people are trying to figure out our lives.

I have a picture here. It is not Mark Spitz. It is Michael Phelps, a student at Towson State in Maryland who is hoping in 20 days to be another Mark Spitz. You see him there with medals from last year and obviously he knows something about his gifts. God has given you gifts that are even more awesome. And if you invest in yourself and discover this, you will find one of the great joys of being a Christian.