Grace Gifts: Discovering the Unique Joy God Has for You

Copyright © 2011 Dan Knight

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-2853-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2849-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2848-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011918042

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/21/2011.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I. BIBLICAL REASONS FOR KNOWING AND USING OUR GRACE GIFTS

PART II. A DEFINITION OF GRACE GIFTS

PART III. THE GRACE GIFTS

Appendix One—

The Inventory and Scorecard

Appendix Two—A Strategy for Implementing Grace Gifts As a Congregational Tool

Appendix Three—Annotated List of Spiritual Gift Resources

Appendix Four—Grace Gifts and the Life of Christ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A book is the product of a person’s life, and that life is the result of the influence of so many people. I cannot begin to name and to thank all the people who have made this small effort possible. So, I won’t even try to name them individually.

First, my teachers and professors from Seaver College of Pepperdine University have all been excellent and wonderful. I give credit to them for any hint of actual scholarship that may appear in these pages.

Second, my friends along the way have boosted and bolstered my spirit continually. If you want their names, write to me and I’ll send you our Christmas card list.

Third, members of the churches that I have served over the past forty years have inspired and supported me. Many of you will find yourselves (unnamed) within this book.

Fourth, my family and extended family mean the world to me. God has been so good to me, and my children and grandchildren are great blessings.

Finally, one name I must mention. She has been God’s greatest gift to me (and to many others.) She has consistently lived the principles of giftedness that I describe in this text. Also, she has loved me in that complete way that defies human understanding. She has been the primary editor of the words contained herein and a more beautiful partner I could not imagine. To her alone I dedicate this book:

Vickie.

To God be the glory,

Dan Knight

INTRODUCTION

Allow me to begin with a metaphor about your life.

Have you ever rented a U-Haul trailer or truck to move your stuff from one place to another? When you got to your destination and started to unpack things, did you ever wonder how many other U-Hauls have the exact same stuff stored in them? I would guess that you have not, because the answer is fairly obvious:

Your stuff is uniquely yours.

In fact, do me this favor: Next time you see the words U-Haul on the side of a vehicle, say to yourself, out loud, You Have A Unique Life. If you learn nothing else today, learn that acronym: U Have A Unique Life. However, there are more lessons than that to observe.

No one owns the U-Haul they drive. This dawned on me one day, and I thought, Here we are cruising down the highway in a truck containing all our worldly possessions, and it’s not even our truck!

Our lives are like that. What we have (in the truck) is unique to us. This is our giftedness. No two people have been blessed by God in exactly the same way. The truck represents life itself, and it does not belong to us. It is on loan. God says, Here are your gifts. You have the gifts of shepherding, teaching, and exhorting. Use them well. Here is the life in which you get to use them. You’ll have to take care of the life—maintenance is important, but at some point, I’ll want it back.

Here’s the catch. God doesn’t want the truck or its contents to come back in mint condition. He wants to see they have been used. No one puts their possessions in a U-Haul for keeps. God does not give us gifts to keep inside the truck.

In the next few pages, I want to help you unpack your truck. Some of you will be like I was when Vickie (my wife) told me in September what she was getting me for Christmas. By December 25, I had completely forgotten and the surprise was brand new. Others will read this book and take the inventory and say, Yeah. That’s me. I hope you’ll understand better what your gifts mean and what you can do with them. Still others will claim a non-gifted status. You really need to take the inventory!

Everyone has a truck. Every truck has your stuff inside it. There is joy for all people who will use the gifts God has given them. Let’s begin this journey together!

Grace Gifts and Church Growth

Most books about growth focus on methods for growing the congregation as a corporate entity. ¹ I’m not writing about church growth per se, except in the sense of that old adage, the church is the people. After nearly forty years of active ministry, I’m convinced that the secret we’re missing, and that many phenomenally successful churches have discovered, is that we need to focus on growing people. Attaining the success we desire in the mission God has given us depends on learning how to grow people effectively.

The apostle Paul indicates as much in Ephesians 4 when he challenges Christ’s followers to

no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.²

The context of Paul’s statement (that is, giftedness) leads us to our purpose. Growing people in a healthy way means teaching, training, equipping, and releasing them in the use of the gifts that they have received from the Father and the Son through their Holy Spirit.

In the first part of this book, I’ll review the importance that Scripture places on giftedness. In the second part, I’ll develop a working definition of Grace Gifts, explain why I’ve chosen that rubric and explore the way Grace Gifts encompass the work of all Christians. In part three, I’ll present a breakdown of the individual gifts and how they function in the kingdom. Following that there are appendices, including the Grace Gift Inventory I have developed for our congregation. Some will want to skip the rest of the book and take the inventory. That’s fair enough; I’ve done the same on many occasions. Remember, however, that any inventory reflects the gift definitions of the creator of the inventory, and this inventory might be misleading if you’ve got a preconceived picture of your own giftedness.

My hope and prayer is that this book will help individuals and churches grow in their understanding of the wonderful gifts God has given to the church. Gift neglect is a dangerous practice that threatens to hamstring a kingdom created for power. The kingdom of God is designed by the Father to be a powerful force for good, and I believe that the way he has gifted us, through the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the key to the power. ³

PART I. BIBLICAL REASONS FOR KNOWING AND USING OUR GRACE GIFTS

Ignorance is No Excuse: Four Scriptural Reminders

Jumping right into the New Testament passage most recognized for dealing with gifts, we land in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. ⁴ The first verse is an important reminder that justifies the purpose of this study. ¹ Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. Paul then develops one of the longest sections in all of his letters about one topic—chapters 12 to 14—to remedy the apparent lack of knowledge among the Corinthians concerning their gifts. He opened this letter by reminding them, with a hint of eschatological thinking, of the fact that they were behind no one in their giftedness.⁵ However, with privileges come responsibility, and the Corinthians, for all their gifts, were not acting as Christ would have them act. It is worth noting that the compellingly beautiful chapter on love lies in the center of this discussion of gifts. In fact, the principles of chapter 13 are pivotal for understanding how to use one’s gifts in a way that results in true growth and maturity.

Another clarion reminder concerning gifts is in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, verse eight. Therefore it is said, ‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.’ No less an event than the triumphal ascension of the victorious Savior to his eternal throne is associated with the giving of Grace Gifts to his church. It seems unfortunate to me that the various creeds (the Nicene, the Apostle’s, etc.) that have been espoused throughout the history of the church fail to mention this important characteristic of the ascension. Churches that ignore the work of God in gifting people are actually sending the message, albeit unknowingly, that Jesus failed in what he intended to do, and that his purpose in the ascension was a mere homecoming. Later we’ll look at a passage from the Gospels that parallels Ephesians 4 in a significant way.

We find the third reminder in 1 Timothy, a letter Paul wrote to encourage his son in the faith, but at the same time sent to instruct that wayward Ephesian church where Timothy was serving as a Missionary. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. (1 Timothy 4:14) Timothy stands out as the minister who received the highest kudos from the apostle Paul,⁶ yet even this paragon of Christian service needed to be reminded of his own giftedness. If Timothy’s ministry was in any way comparable to that of the modern pastor, it is easy to conceive what might have happened to deserve this reminder. If a minister (volunteer or full-time) is not careful, a needy congregation can eat up his or her time. They can so monopolize their minister that what the minister has been called to do through his or her gifts becomes forgotten and neglected.

In fact, Timothy seems to have had a problem with remembering what he was gifted to do. (Or, in another sense, giftedness was so crucially important to Paul’s vision for ministry that he could not help mentioning it one last time.) In 2 Timothy, Paul wrote,

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; ⁷ for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. ⁸ Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, ⁹ who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. (2 Timothy 1:6-9) This reminder is often taken out of this gifts context to say that Timothy was a timid preacher. The passage reflects rather on that tendency of Timothy to forget what his gifts were, (a favorite device of the Enemy below, by the way) and to begin relying on other pseudo-sources of strength for the work to which he had been called. Notice the mention of grace in this context as well. As one author phrased it many years ago, What God has called us to do, he has gifted us to do; and what he has gifted us to do, he has called us to do.⁷ Later, we’ll rephrase that saying, but for now it points to the true work of God’s grace in us. Through the gifts we have received, by his grace, we have received tangible evidence of those ministry opportunities to which he is calling us.

Be Reasonable: Do It God’s Way

Ten Practical, Bible-based Reasons for Knowing One’s Grace Gifts

It has been said, Knowledge changes nothing; application changes everything. In other words, unless we find practical reasons for discovering and using our Grace Gifts, people still won’t be motivated or fulfilled.

Reason #1. God has a plan for every Christian. A well-known verse in this connection is Jeremiah 29:11: For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. We have appropriated it out of its context in our popular usage, as is our tendency I’m afraid. Jeremiah is giving comfort to the nation of Israel. The people ignored the prophet’s message for years, but now that destruction is upon them (the very destruction Jeremiah foretold), God sends them this word of comfort.

Should we apply the verse to our individual circumstances? Does it sound a little too Calvinist to some? Most prophecy is the antithesis of Calvinism. The prophetic messages are almost always conditional on the response of the people. Their part of God’s plan is invariably a call for repentance. God’s messenger (even God’s message) often sounds frustrated when dealing with recalcitrant people. Why should we do God’s will? they continually ask. The answer is how this beloved text applies to us.

We do God’s will because it is always—not some of the time, or most of the time—always in our best interest. He who made us knows us. He knows us because he put our spirit in us and, on top of that, he has put his Spirit in us. There is a melding that takes place between our spirit and his, which is not unlike the exchange of blood when a mother gives birth to a child. (I know about this, because I’m O+ and am married to an O-. This meant that after our first son was born, Vickie needed a shot of Rhogam in order to prevent her blood from creating antibodies toward the blood she naturally exchanged with him.) For science fiction lovers, it’s as if God’s Spirit assimilated our spirit, and that Spirit now knows us better than we know ourselves.

So what’s his job? To produce in us the gifts that God wants us to have according to his plan. Knowing those gifts allows us to know God’s plan. His plan for us is a good one. We should never settle for less.

Unfortunately, I have seen too many Christians who are willing to settle. I remember one man in our congregation who was unaware of any other place to serve except to hand out trays to those who were serving communion. He did that very well. He was precise, and he was punctual in his task. Every Sunday, there he stood at the back with the trays, and he sent the servers to their appropriate destination.

One day, however, the deacon board (we called it SALT, then—the Servant And Leader Team) asked me to suggest someone for the task of coordinating the participants in our worship assemblies. My response was, We need to find someone who is gifted in administration and exhortation. I pointed out the name of the person who was handing out communion trays. He’s got the gift mix, I said.

Suddenly, this young man was handling a much more significant task, and he was handling it easily and joyfully. It was what he was waiting to be asked to do, even though he didn’t realize it. Later, the same man became a member of the deacon board, but if it had not been for our awareness of his giftedness, he might have remained virtually anonymous. God knew the plans he had for him; we and this man were not as quick at discerning them.

Grace Gift Concept # 1

Gift Mix

+Opportunity

+Results

Passion in Ministry

Let me introduce here the first of ten Grace Gift concepts. Gift mix + opportunity + results = passion in ministry. According to 1 Corinthians 12, the trinity plays a direct role in making our giftedness effective. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. (1 Cor. 12) The Holy Spirit distributes gifts to various individuals. The Lord Jesus offers us the opportunities we need to employ our giftedness. The Father himself brings about the results.

This means, first of all, there is no bragging about what we have done. God has done it from beginning to end within us. Secondly, when this is happening we sense a real purpose in our lives. We feel we are being used to