Stirring Up and Being Used in Your Spiritual Gifts
by Pastor Jim Feeney, Ph.D.

Sermon Summary: God still gives to His Church today the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. This sermon outline will share some biblical keys to your being used by God in these spiritual gifts.

1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.

Amplified Bible: As each of you has received a gift (a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment), employ it for one another...

•• No one who wishes to be used by God in spiritual gifts is left out.

• Amplified Bible — “Each of you has received a gift...”

• Be resolved to “use [it...] to serve others.”

• Let’s see how the bible tells us we can be used.

Acts 3:2, 6 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.... [6] Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

KJV: ...such as I have give I thee.

•• [1] “What I have” — An important mindset: We do have spiritual callings, giftings, ministries.

• A very mature man of God once said, in reference to being used in our spiritual gifts, “It takes realizing who we are in Christ.” Not in ourselves, of course. But we are something, and we have spiritual gifts, in Christ!

•• [2] “I give you...” — without this proper, other-centered motive, the whole process of spiritual gifts and ministries breaks down. God gives spiritual gifts to us so that we may minister them for the benefit of others.

Romans 12:6a We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.

•• Remember that it is always by grace. We can never earn spiritual gifts, never deserve them, never “make them happen,” and we certainly should never boast about them.

•• And “we have different gifts...” — and even different administrations of the same gift — so that:

[1] We always remember that we need each other. My gifts are different from yours ... different from his ... different from hers...

[2] In the “corporate” body only is there completeness, is there fullness of ministry.

Romans 11:29 ...for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

Amplified: For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable — He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call.

•• If God has used you in spiritual gifts or ministries in the past, they are still there, still valid in your life.

• Perhaps dormant, perhaps neglected, but still there!

•• Perhaps you sensed a “call” years ago, but life’s busyness has intervened. The call is still valid!

• “[God] does not change His mind about those...to whom He sends His call.”

1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:1 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.... [14:1] Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

KJV: Covet earnestly the best gifts.

•• God will never force spiritual gifts upon you. No, He is looking for willing, yielded “vessels unto honour.”

•• Your part? “Eagerly desire...covet earnestly the best gifts.”

• You are not presuming on God to do this. Rather, He commands us: “Covet...the gifts.”

• A Christian friend of mine, who was well used by God in spiritual gifts, told me that in the preservice prayer time he would consistently pray: “Lord, use me in the gifts.”

• We need to have an insatiable desire to be used...from a heart of love towards others.

1 Corinthians 14:12, 26 So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church....

•• Several keys here —

[1] a wholesome eagerness for spiritual gifts.

[2] “Try to excel” — Aim for excellence in your ministry.

[3] “gifts that build up” — the motive is to edify.

[4] “...build up the church” — love the church. Love your church, even as Christ loved it and died for it!

1 Timothy 4:14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

•• Jesus warned that “the cares of this world...[and] the desire for other things” can divert us and make us unfruitful.

• In the stress and pressure of 21st-century life, it is all too easy to “neglect your gift.”

• Take stock of yourself — Am I sidetracked, am I diverted by the world? Have my spiritual callings and gifts become secondary in my life?

• “Do not neglect your gift.” 100 years from now, spiritual considerations are what will have mattered.

2 Timothy 1:6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

•• There is a “gift of god ... in you ... fan [it] into flame”!

• As I do with my woodstove.

• There may be “fire” there, but it’s not being effective.

• So I have to get down there and fan it to life!

• It’s the same with our spiritual gifts. There’s fire there, but if it’s coals only, it’s not heating the house of the Lord!

Revelation 1:10-11 On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, [11] which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.”

•• John was “in the Spirit” when he received this revelation.

•• We, too, need to be often “in the Spirit” — in prayer, in praise, in the Word, in quiet reflection — in order to prepare ourselves to hear the Lord’s voice and to see the great things He wishes to show to us.

•• Those who are often “in the Spirit” will find themselves often used by God in spiritual gifts.

SUMMARY of Keys to Being Used in Spiritual Gifts

• Remember that "each one" of us receives spiritual gifts from God.

• These gifts are given to us to minister for the benefit of others. "Other-centeredness" is the motive.

• Spiritual gifts differ from one Christian to another. Seek to be used in those that God has given you. Don't try to copy someone else's areas of giftedness.

• God's gifts to His people are irrevocable. If God has used you in the past, those gifts are still available to you and in you. They may be dormant, but they are still there for your use.

• We must "eagerly desire ... [and] covet earnestly" the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

• The motive of our desiring spiritual gifts is love towards others in need of ministry from God.

• "Try to excel in gifts that build up the church."

• Take care that you do not neglect the spiritual gifts God has given you.

• Fan those gifts into flame! Stir them up.

• And finally, through prayer, worship, and time in God's Word, seek to be often "in the Spirit" and thereby to be receptive to God moving through you and using you in His service.

Preached at Medford Christian Center, Medford, Oregon, March 26, 2000
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If the topic of spiritual gifts is of interest to you for further study, may we recommend:

The Supernatural Gifts of the Holy Spirit Are For You Today

Speaking in Tongues: Is It of God? Is It For Today?

Divine Healing | Spiritual Healing

Supernatural Signs Will Follow Those Who Believe

Increasing in Spiritual Gifts

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of the Zondervan Corporation. All rights reserved.

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© 2000, 2006, James H. Feeney, All rights reserved.
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