Talk—Sam Doak
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So I'll keep this pretty short. There's just one thing that I wanted to talk to you guys about.
That's kind of been on my heart and we talked about it a little bit today about spiritual gifts.
SO11 portion I wanted to kind of start out with and I have one thing on my heart and I want to kind of preface it with.
A fact, and that fact is talked about in Romans 12, and you guys don't have to turn to it.
But that Romans 12 talks about the body of Christ and it makes the the analogy of the body of Christ being like an actual body. And so that's really interesting to read. You know, we've all probably been in a meeting that studied it. You know, there's the application of the hands not doing the feet job, but everything has an important purpose. So obviously, you know, we know that each person has their own gift.
Or talent. OR it might be a life experience that they bring to the table that nobody else really has.
Some are more obvious, some are less obvious, but that's kind of I want to start our talk really quick off the baseline that each person here and each person in the body of Christ has a unique.
Skill set that they can use to benefit others and to serve the Lord.
So I wanted to talk about how to identify your spiritual gift.
And the first thing that I wanted to say is if you guys haven't done this already, and I honestly feel like a hypocrite standing up here because I can't say that I know for sure what my spiritual gift is. I've done these things and, you know, I have some idea of, you know, the things I'm good at and the things I enjoy.
But you know, I'm not speaking to you from a pulpit. You know, I'm, I'm with you guys. So this is more of an encouragement to myself as well as to you guys to seek these things out for yourself. So.
The first thing that I think is really important to do, or it's not really necessary always, but something that's really interesting to do is to do some research, read, read some passages. You can look online and read some ministry, but list out all of the gifts that you can find that you can think of. And it's really interesting to do that because when you start to list out a whole list of different gifts.
The list gets really really long and often I found that.
For not, not that I've done that a lot, but when I've done that, you really realize that some of the things that are considered gifts you don't really think of as gifts, You know, like, you know, hospitality. You know, we think of talents and gifts as, you know, the like teaching and you know, talents might be like a high level of performance in a sport or something like that.
But when you start to look at what the Bible says about different skills and talents and gifts that can be used for the Lord and the different stories.
Of people that use what they had for the Lord, it might be, you know, it might be financial means that you have that you're a wealthy person and that's something that you can use for the Lord. So when you start to list out all of the different things that we can use for the Lord or all of the different gifts.
More often than not you'll be able to see, OK, you know what that is actually something that I excel in that I didn't really think of before. And so that I found that very helpful in just kind of listing them all. So just four, four things that.
I think would be really, really helpful when you're trying to identify what each person's gift is or something that they excel in that they can use to serve the Lord. Number one would be just prayer.
Being active in prayer, the Lord wants us to know what our gifts are and to walk in them, to use them for him. So that would be absolutely the number one thing that I'd recommend starting with. Ask the Lord to show you what your gifts are.
Ask the Lord how you can use what you have. Even if you don't know what it is, ask the Lord to help you find that out and how to apply it.
Matthew 7, Seven. Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Seek, and ye shall find. So the Lord and you are on the same team when it comes to finding out what your gift is. So the first one is prayer and asking the Lord what your gift is. Another thing #2 asking others.
I'm a very critical person of myself.
I think everybody here would agree that, I mean, unless you're a narcissist, people are pretty, pretty negative about themselves. Just as a general rule, it's, it's a natural thing, but it's very easy to see what other people are good at. And so when you go to your friends or maybe an acquaintance or something, ask your friends and maybe your family what they think something that you're gifted in is because they're often a lot more forgiving than you are with yourself.
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So asking others would be #2 The third thing.
Is I've found that the things that I feel are a gift I'm a very relational person, so I like building relationships and getting to know people well and understanding, you know, challenges they might be facing. I do it for work and I try to do it, you know, throughout my life. I.
I found that the things that I enjoy doing I'm often better at than things that I don't enjoy doing. And that'll take us to our our last, our last point. But the Third Point would be things that you look at, things that you enjoy, things that you really just are naturally find enjoyment in doing. That'll make first of all, it'll make doing it more enjoyable. It'll make you naturally better at it. But often we find a crossover and what you're really good at and things that you.
And then the 4th and final thing, I mean, I'm sure there's others others could add to this, but.
The last thing would be to practice it. So when you have an idea, I mean, for me, when it came to, you know, figuring out what to do after, after I got out of out of college or just different things, I just tried a lot of different things. And when you try something and you fail, you say, OK, that's maybe that's not it. And that's totally OK. So trying, just just trying different things. Maybe you have an idea. You say, maybe I'm a, you know, maybe I have a gift of hospitality and you get people in your home. You're like, actually, I really don't like this. I'm not hospitable.
Maybe that's not your gift, but just trying different things, trying to identify, hey, you know what? That is something that I'm really, really on fire about. You know, it could be using the resources that you have. Maybe you, you know, maybe you have, you know, a pick up and you can go help people move stuff. You know, everybody with a car needs somebody to pick up. They'll all complain until they need something or whatever it might be that you have that somebody else maybe needs. Those are all different things that you can use for the Lord.
So practicing, so when you have an idea of what your gift is really practicing any skill, you know, we all, we all kind of know the analogy here, but any skill that people are good at, they've gotten there by practicing. So when you have an idea of something that you think might be, you know, a, a spiritual or a natural gift, practice it, do it a lot. That's when the Lord's really going to start to fine tune that in you. And then you'll get a sure grip of it. And then you'll be able to be really, really.
Lord.