Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, God has given to each believer something that if they understand it, there is a primary motivation, there is a way that aligns their life, their actions, their relationships, but only if they understand what it is and then how to deploy it. What I'm talking about is your primary spiritual gift. If you do not know what your primary spiritual gift is, don't go away. For years, Chippinggram operated in what he calls the era of ignorance, then the era of confusion, and even after seminary, a lengthy era of discovery that left him with a lot of theoretical knowledge but very little real impact. Today on Living on the Edge, as we continue in our series, You Were Made for More.
Chip describes his breakthrough. what he calls the era of empowerment. If you've never been truly clear on your primary gift, today is your starting point. Here's Chip Ingram. I'm going to talk about how I discovered my primary spiritual gift and the impact it made on me.
Four eras occurred in my life. The first era of my life was what I call the era of ignorance. I never heard anyone talk about spiritual gifts. I never heard any teaching on it, no explanation. I was just clueless.
The next era of my journey was I call the era of confusion. And so I just kind of put it on the back burner and didn't think much about it for several years. Later went to seminary and You know, you can't go to seminary without studying all the Bible. and spiritual gifts. And as a young pastor, I entered the era of what I called discovery.
And I decided that you know something, I'm not going to be ignorant anymore. I did a word study. I went to a seminary that had a high value on the languages, and so after three years of Greek and two years of Hebrew, I did a word study on every single spiritual gift, every single word. And I traced it in the etymology of the words. And I mean, I did all the work so that I could say, here's the word, here's the gift, here's where it shows up, here's what this word meant in classical Greek, on and on and on and on.
And basically when I got done, I had a lot of knowledge about spiritual gifts. A part of my study, I learned the basics of spiritual gifts. And it was very helpful. It was a good step. For example, I learned like you did.
Every Christian has one or more spiritual gifts. I learned that spiritual gifts are different than natural talents. Natural talents are abilities I get in my physical DNA when I'm born. Spiritual gifts are what I get in my spiritual DNA when I'm born again. I learned that the word for gift, charismata, literally means a grace gift.
And so it means that whatever gift I have, I didn't earn, but sovereignly the Holy Spirit gave it to me because He has a purpose for my life that I'm to walk into good works, and so it's just a gift and it's sovereignly bestowed.
So, those basic principles, I learned all those basic principles. And then I could define them.
Now, here's the bad news, because some of you may be thinking to yourself, I've done that too. Is what I ended up with, imagine in your mind a salad bar. I mean a really big salad bar with all the gifts. And what I ended up with is I could go over and say, oh, beets, salad, you know, those crouton-looking things. I mean, I could describe them and tell you where they came from.
And I could step back and say, I think my gifts are somewhere, you know, I think I must have a little leadership and maybe a little prophecy. I'm not sure. That sounds like a weird word. I don't know if I'll say that one. And I think I've got some exhortation.
And when I get up in front of people, some things happen.
So maybe teaching. And I kind of boiled it down to five or six sort of general ones. And it had little or no impact on how I lived my life. And my final era is what I'll call the era of empowerment. An era of empowerment is when I discovered I have one primary spiritual gift and that I have a cluster of ministry gifts.
And I began to make decisions about where to focus my energy and where to focus my time. And so what I want to tell you is that understanding your primary spiritual gift and how it fits with the purpose God has for your life is absolutely empowering and can incredibly give you some focus to your life about what you really need to do. I hope you're asking.
So what's the breakthrough? I mean, what helped you? What moved you from this, you understand spiritual gifts in general, to it being a focal, absolute point. For you to understand, this is who God made you to be, and this is what He wants you to do. I want to tell you what helped me the most in unwrapping my spiritual gift.
Put another way. How to discover your spiritual gift. Here's how I want to develop this. First of all, I just want to give you some facts. And I'm just going to, I'm going to walk through this very logically.
Here's the facts. There's four major passages on spiritual gifts. Then what you're going to see is you've got to develop some sort of paradigm or framework to organize those in a way that makes sense.
So I want to give you a framework. It's not from Mount Sinai, okay? But it's a framework. It's very helpful. And then I want to go through the description of what I'm going to call the motivational or the core gifts that I believe everyone in this room has at least one of the seven that I'll describe.
And we're literally going to go through a process where I will describe the gift, give you the characteristics, talk about some dangers, and have you say yes, no, or maybe.
So are you ready? Let's dig in together. Let's look at the framework. As you look at spiritual gifts, you study the New Testament, what you're going to find, there's four basic passages. Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4.
Any study of spiritual gifts, you're going to land in these four passages.
Now here's the question. How do you organize them? I think that paradigm or that framework is found in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 4 to 6. Notice what he says. There are different kind of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of workings, but the same God who works all of them in all men. And so it seems that God here, through the Apostle Paul, is giving a framework about all these different gifts and how they fit together. You'll notice that I put there's different kinds of gifts. but the same spirit.
And that word for gifts is charismata. That's our general word. It means a grace gift, something an endowment, supernatural ability given from God. But then he goes on to say there are different kinds of service, also referring to spiritual gifts, and that's our word diakanion. And the word deacon?
It just means a waiter of tables. It has the idea of just service. And then the third where it says there are different kinds of workings. That's the idea. The Greek word is energamaton.
And I put that there not necessarily to impress you, although I don't pronounce them very well. But I put it there. Can anyone see an English word that might come out of that? Energy. You see, it's energy.
And so what the Apostle Paul, when he wants to take a framework, he says there are certain, what I would call, motivational gifts. There's certain passions, there's certain drives, there's certain ones that every believer has, I will argue. And then he's going to say that every one of us will have one of them, and I'll develop that point in just a minute. And then he's going to say, but that one strong motivational drive will then be manifested in different arenas of service or ministries. And then as your motivational drives, primary gift, comes out in different ministries, then the effects or the energy or the manifestation of what the Spirit of God will do will show up in the body of Christ in various ways.
And so what I want to say is, one, every believer has one primary motivational gift, and those are found in Romans 12, verses 6 through 8. And then I'm going to argue that we're to concentrate on discovering and developing. This gift. The second thing that I'll argue is that the motivational gift out of Romans 12, this driver ability, can express itself through a variety of ministry gifts. And we find the ministry gifts in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12, 28 and following.
And third, when we exercise our motivational gift through our ministry gift, the Holy Spirit then determines what manifestation or impact the believer will receive. Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to Romans chapter 12. And let me see if I can build my case. Romans chapter 12. We know verse 1, you're a living sacrifice, right?
Verse two, don't be conformed to this world, be transformed. Verse three, have an accurate view of yourself. And verses four and five, that we're an interdependent body, just like the physical body. And then when he talks about unity and diversity, he says to us, but we have different gifts according to the grace given us. Can't take any credit, it's grace given us.
Then notice this command, if a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it. Into the proportion of his faith. If it's in serving, let him serve. If it's in teaching, let him teach. If it's in couraging, let him encourage.
If it's in contributing to the needs of the saints, let him give generously. If it's in leadership, let him govern diligently. If it's in showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Now the second thing you'll notice there that in Romans 12 you have prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy. But you'll notice there's a whole other set. There are ministry gifts. These ministry gifts are areas of service. They're people that are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, a worker of miracles, someone who's gifted in healing, helping, tongues, administration.
And when you study those, what you find is those are actual ministries. Those are actual service to people. And where the final category, the workings, 1 Corinthians 12, 8 through 11, these are literally manifestations or effects. When someone is motivated by a certain gift and then in this ministry, then what you see is people get a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge or faith or healing or miracles or prophecy or discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues.
Okay, enough talking. Are you ready? Let me paint a few pictures. give you three or four examples and then let's get down to what you really want to look at and that's would you go through each of those motivational gifts and describe them and help me figure out which one of these might be mine. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll continue our message in just a moment.
We're in the middle of Chip's series, You Were Made for More, How to Discover God's Purpose for Your Life. If you'd like to catch up on any programs you've missed or share a message with someone who needs to hear it, every program is available free at livingontheedge.org. You'll also find study resources and bonus content from Chip. That's livingontheedge.org.
Well now back to chip. Let me give you a couple examples. I work with a guy and have worked with him for a number of years now. His name is Greg. His primary motivational gift is service.
In other words, what motivates him is he sees needs and he wants to serve. It can be with his hands, it can be in multiple ways, but his ministry gifts are twofold. His ministry gifts are in the area of administration and in the area of pastor-teacher. And so Greg has this amazing desire, but his drive is always to serve, to serve, to help, to fix, to make things right, to care, to be behind the scenes, to go away from the limelight, and to make everyone else work. In an organization, this guy comes in and he's like oil.
I don't care what's going on in the organization. Once he begins to work in the relationships, things just start working better. Because he has the ministry gift of administration. But his motivation is not to be an administrator. See what happens, he administrates so well, people keep trying to elevate him.
And like, you know, he was chief of staff.
Well, then, you know, people want to make him, why don't you be the chief operating officer of this group over here, this company over here? And he goes, that's not what I'm made to do. I want to serve. I implement the vision of a visionary. I do it primarily through the gift of administration, the ministry there, and by pastoring and shepherding people.
And because he understands that, when he does that, guess what happens? People get a word of knowledge. Oh, I'm in the wrong fit in my job. People get a word of wisdom. Oh, I guess the way I talk to other people in the organization is offending them, and that's what the barrier is.
People get healing as they understand what went wrong in a relationship. Do you see what I'm saying? But see, when he's what happens, though, is if you confuse motivational gifts with ministry gifts. you can really go in directions because everyone pulls you where they see you operating. But it may not be your primary motivation.
Second example I'll give you is my wife. She has the gift of exhortation. She will learn what that is, but at the essence, it's the ability to come alongside people and both comfort them and bring wholeness and challenge them to really walk with the Lord.
Well, her ministry gifts are administration, teaching, and actually apostleship. She wants to help people and she'll see something that needs to be done.
So where we were, she started with a box of books and built a whole library. Why? To encourage people to learn how to walk with God, she developed and recruited and actually prayed in a team of about 10 ladies to help her, and more counseling occurred in our library than any place else in the church. How did she do that?
Well, she had a ministry gift of administration to organize it.
So guess what everyone wants Teresa to do? They always want her to start new things or be some admin. That's not what she wants to do. The other thing she always did is she found the most hurting, lonely, unlovely people in any church we've ever been to, and she is drawn to them like a magnet because she sees the hope. And so she ends up mentoring and counseling individual ladies.
But when she does that and teaches, it did real well. And we had people, so we put it on the radio once. And then we got all these requests, you know, this church, this church, this church. Will your wife come and speak, come and speak, come and speak, come and speak? It was great.
She goes, no. She understands she can, in the ministry gift of exhortation, teach, but her calling is not to be a teacher. Her calling is to encourage people. Do you see how Understanding your primary motivation can really shape what you do.
Okay, now we're going to look through these gifts. We're going to walk through specifically each one of these gifts, and here's how we're going to do it. I'm going to give you. written definition that you can see there. Then I'm going to give you some quick characteristics.
And by the way, don't try and write these down. I'll make you nuts. If you're obsessive-compulsive, just lean back. And then here's what I want you to do. Underneath in your notes, where it says prophecy, I want you to write the words yes, no, maybe.
And then when I get done, just gut reaction, circle, yes, no, or maybe. All right?
So I'll give you the definition, I'll give you a few characteristics, and then we'll do a quick application. Prophecy, motivational gift from Romans 12, 6 to 8. The divine enablement to proclaim God's truth with power and clarity in a timely and culturally sensitive fashion for correction, repentance, or edification. It's the ability to reveal God's word accurately.
Now one of the good tests is people with this gift Often intuitively ask about almost every situation: what went wrong, what caused this. By way of definition as well, in the Old Testament, obviously prophets were telling the future and forethelling or preaching. In the New Testament, we get some rare occasions where they are telling the future. But the primary nature of this gift, we'll discuss this later on this issue, is the forthtelling or the culturally accurate preaching of God's Word. It's the ability and consuming desire to reveal the truth of God that it might impact lives.
I found a little quote, you know those scholarly books where they have the print that's, you know, like microscopic? I cut this out and pasted it in my notes. And this is by an older fellow named Darby, and I love his description of this. He says, by a special energy of the Spirit, doesn't that sound like old school? By a special energy of the Spirit, it can unfold and communicate the mind of Christ where the church is ignorant of it.
Though, it says, this treasure is already found in Scripture. It brings truth hidden previously from the knowledge of the church in the power and the testimony of the Spirit. Of God to bear on the present circumstances of the church and the future prospects of the world. And thus it practically is prophetic, though there may be no necessary new information or revelation. It's someone who has a sense of the culture and the needs of the church, and God gives it where there's an alignment.
So when they speak, they speak to where the real issues are of what we need to address. Characteristics. They tend to be persuasive speakers. They can read people. They often are opinion, very black and white.
They often like large groups rather than one-on-one. People with this gift, often I've been with people that I mean, you fill a stadium and you feel like you're their best friend and you sit next to them on the airplane. And you say, Hey, how you doing? Fine. And you're thinking But I just had this warm wonderful experience with 50,000 people in the stadium.
How's it going? Great. I mean, there's just something about some people with this gift is that they don't necessarily like the one-on-one stuff.
Some of the dangers of this gift. There can be a tendency to be proud of their speaking ability, depending on the speaking ability rather than on the power of the Holy Spirit. And people with. Prophetic gift to want to make it right can be insensitive to the feelings of other people.
Okay, how about you? Yes? No, maybe. Does that kind of describe you? Just take a quick shot in the dark.
Don't overanalyze it. Gift number two is service. It's the divine enablement. To attach spiritual value to the accomplishment of physical tasks within the body of Christ. It's the ability to demonstrate love by meeting practical needs that releases other Christians for direct spiritual ministry.
The question these people intuitively ask because of their gift is, what can I do to help? What can I do to help? Uh the gift of uh uh word here is our word diaconon. It is translated deacon. It literally means to serve or to wait on tables.
Uh some characteristics of this person doesn't need much public recognition. These people don't seek the limelight. They're content to work behind the scenes. They often like manual projects, unusual ability to detect people's personal needs. These are the kind of people that walk in your house or there's a little conversation and they come back around later and they give you something and you're thinking, well, how did you even know about that?
Well, you mentioned it three months ago when we had dinner and you're going. I didn't even know I needed that. They're just really attuned to meeting the practical needs of people. They're able to overlook personal discomfort in order to meet other people's needs and will often use their own funds to make things happen because they just want to serve.
Some of the dangers. They can be bitter when their deeds are not recognized. They don't need a lot. of limelight, but when they get none, it's kind of like, hey, does anybody care? And by the way, these are the most neglected people in the body of Christ in the church.
These are the people that I'll tell you what, when you go to your church this weekend, you don't see them, but they really make it happen.
Someone got in early, someone turned on the lights, someone cleaned things, someone folded the bulletin, someone typed something, someone's watching the kids, someone fixed the buses, someone's helping the single moms, someone's doing repairs at night. These are the kind of people that where the Spirit of God, where the rubber meets the road practically, In my mind, these are Hebros. In fact, Paul says, you know, the more unseemly, less visible members, we need to exalt. That's this gift. Another danger is putting an overemphasis on practical needs to the exclusion of spiritual needs.
In my life, there's a guy named Dick. Dick was a school teacher. Dick retired. Dick found a group of eight or ten retired guys, and we had one who was a plumber, one who was a carpenter, and I mean, we fixed single moms' cars. They fixed everything around the church.
You know that verse that we kind of overlook in James? True religion is caring for widows and orphans? Dick thought that was in the Bible and we ought to actually do it. and he developed a team of people And I mean, we just did practical search. He was an elder.
And in elders' meetings, what I knew, no matter what we talked about, guess where Dick was going to come back to? Bang. Because here's what you got to understand about what you bring. In every discussion, every decision, it's the lens you look through. I don't care what we're talking about.
We can talk about money, we can talk about church, we can talk about families. The lens I'm going to look through is: hey, what went wrong? How can we make it better? How do we help people reach their full potential? That's what prophets do.
Other people are going to be the lung you'll look through is how can we serve them? How can we help them? Third gift. Oh, are you ready? Yes, no.
Maybe. Circle it or just write that word. Third motivational gift is teaching. It's the divine enablement to understand and give detailed explanation of biblical truth. It's the ability to search out and validate truth which has been presented.
People with this gift are asking the question, what is truth? Uh where did you get that? Uh uh why? It's the classical Greek word here is to impart information in order to develop talent and potential. It's the motivation and power to present with clarity the truth of God's Word.
People with the gift of teaching, few characteristics here, they love to do research. They love to study. And they like to study down to the minutia. That's the gift of teaching. Um The danger of this gift is to concentrate too much on content to the exclusion of application.
A danger is boasting and getting proud about their knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. Another danger is being inattentive to the response of students. See, if you've got the gift of teaching, the truth is so wonderful. I mean, they just like they swim in the truth.
The truth is so wonderful. They can get up and study and study and study, and they can give it. And like the back row can be asleep.
So what? I mean, they're just missing out. The truth, and did anybody apply it? Who cares? I'm going to go back and study, you know.
That's why we need the body.
Okay, what yes? No? Or maybe you got the gift of teaching? Could it be? Could that be your primary motivation?
You're listening to Living on the Edge and a message titled How to Discover Your Primary Spiritual Gift. We'll hear some final thoughts from Chip in just a minute. Here's what we know God has given every believer a specific gift. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 12. The problem is, most of us never get truly clear on what our primary gift actually is.
We have a general sense, maybe a guess or two, but Chip's point today is that vague is costly. When you don't know your gift, you end up saying yes to the wrong things, spending energy in the wrong places, and missing the specific good works God designed you for before you were even born. That's why we've put together a free resource to help you take the next step. It's called The Real You, a free online assessment at the RealYou.org. It's carefully designed to help you understand how God has uniquely wired you, your personality, your strengths, your God-given design.
Head to therealyou.org and take it today. It's completely free. And right now, we want to say thank you to everyone who supports the mission of Living on the Edge. Every message, every free resource, every broadcast that reaches someone at just the right moment, it all happens because of people who believe this ministry is worth backing. Today, we invite you to be one of them.
Give online at livingonthege.org or call us at 888-333-6003.
Well, now here's Chip. Getting this clear is critical to understanding your spiritual gift in a way that's really going to help you. I don't want you to leave with, well, yeah, I think my gift is exhortation, leadership, mercy, serving, and one, maybe it's playing the piano. I want you to know what's the one primary gift that the others flow out of, and you can learn it, but it's going to take some effort. This is critical.
It's important. Will you please make the effort? to discover this precious gift God's given you. It'll make all the difference in the world. I'm Dave Druy.
Ship isn't done yet.
Next time, he continues walking through the remaining motivational gifts from Romans 12. You won't want to miss it. Join us next time here on Living on the Edge. Uh Oh. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.
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