Are You Struggling To Find Your God-Given Spiritual Gift?

James Greer: [00:00:06] Morning, Journey Church. We appreciate Brooke and the praise team. Amen? Micah and Michael are out of town on a conference. Terry got sick, and they stepped up, didn't they? So we appreciate that. Hey, before we get started, don't forget we've got these in there. It's called Stuff The Bus. And you probably know about this local school that we picked. And I'll tell you what we found out from the school superintendent, Leslie Moore, right closest to us. And I talked to you and I heard you. Did you know that that's one of the poorest schools right under our nose? I didn't even know that. And the principal has picked, we got 150 Stuff the Bus backpacks, and we're going to put in their school supplies and we're going to deliver them there. And the principal and assistant principal are going to give them to the most needy kids. So, man, you want to be a part of that. It's $50. Yeah. And especially right here by us. And we don't have to do that. We get to do that. Amen?

James Greer: [00:01:09] Well, I'm excited about the new series Assemble Avengers, leading right up to VBS. Amen? It's going to be unbelievable. But, you know, Journey Church, you know, we can assemble as a body of Christ, and we could do unbelievable damage to the enemy. And so my goal and eventually is to help you find your gift, your part, so we could be assembled as one. 1 Corinthians 12:12 says this. It says, for as the body is one, it has many members, but all members of the body being many are one body also in Christ. In other words, we all have different parts, different members, and when we all come together, we can accomplish great things. But what I started thinking is this. If I help you find your gift, which I'm going to help you do that. Because I'm going to give you the outline, but we're not going to get into it yet. Everyone is important to God in the church. Amen? Everyone has a calling. And I can show everybody here, if you're saved, you have at least one or more gifts. In fact, I will tell you, it is simpler to find your gift than you thought. When I was growing up in church, it was almost like it's a secret. It's like some kind of mystery. Like they didn't want us to know our gifts. Like it was mysterious or something.

James Greer: [00:02:36] But I will tell you, basically today it's broken down in really two categories. You either have the speaking gifts, you know, speaking teachings, or you have servant gifts. And kind of everything falls underneath those. And I've given you an outline. I mean, a folder you can look at and you can almost find your gift. I usually find my gift by it says, when you're in the spirit, when you're not in the spirit. I usually find mine when I'm not in the spirit, I find my gift. But you can bring it home and you can look at that. But, you know, I thought, what if I did it? What if I helped everybody at Journey Church find their gift and you stepped up and I went down the line and you said, Hey, this is your gift, this is your gift, this is your gift. 80% of the people say, okay, that's my gift, but my plate is so full, I'm so stressed out, I can't use it. And so this morning when I woke up early and I was preparing to preach the message and I said, God, I want everybody to find a gift because there's nothing more exciting than to find your gift and use your gift.

James Greer: [00:03:32] It energizes you, bringing more joy than anything you'll ever do in your life. But what I do know, if I help you find your gift, most of you would say, That's great, but I'm too busy. I'm too stressed out. I got too much on my plate. And I understand that. And if the devil can do anything, listen, he can't keep you from getting saved. He'll just keep you too busy to be used by God. So I thought what I'd do today before I even get into the message, I'm going to backtrack a few minutes and I'm going to try to help you learn the difference from being stressed and stressors. And that's what I want to do. There's at least four things you have to know before we even get in. Number one, you got to know God. In other words, the first thing you got, I'm not saying know God. You've got to be saved. Amen? That's the beginning place because He's then our Father. Then second of all, we don't teach this part. We tell you that you get saved, and you can have John 10:10, that you can have life and you can have it more abundantly. But we don't tell you how to have that. You can't have the abundant life without having a consistent fellowship with Christ on a day-to-day basis.

James Greer: [00:04:48] Now, when you get saved, you get God as your Father. But that doesn't mean you have a consistent fellowship with Him. I've got kids. I have kids all over the place. My kids and grandkids are everywhere. But it doesn't mean we're always in fellowship. Believe it or not, sometimes me and my kids or grandkids have disagreements. Sometimes we're not always in fellowship. Sometimes we don't talk all the time like we should. And God's saying, if you want to have the abundant life, you cannot have the abundant life without a consistent fellowship with God. And what I'm telling you, if you really want to have the life, you can't be so busy that every single day, preferably in the morning, that you don't spend some time with God. And then not only spend some time with God, why don't you talk to Him during the day? He's a person. He tells me all the time, Slow down and shut up. Really does. He told me the other day there was this person. I really didn't like him, and I don't want to. And I came to church, and all day long I didn't want to call him and tell him I'm sorry. And me and God argued till noon. I even called the guy, true story. And I said, Man, I hate to do this. And he said, Well, go ahead and do it anyway. I said, I hate to call you and tell you I'm sorry for the way I talked to you. That's some apology, isn't it?

James Greer: [00:06:18] True story. I said, I just hate to call you. In fact, if God, I'm going to tell you the truth. If God hadn't convicted me, I wouldn't call you. He said, What's bad is God it already convicted me to call you. Now I feel worse. So then we had this big, I'm sorry, you're sorry, forgive me, I forgive you. You know? And God just said, I walked out, I said, man, why I'd go through a day and a half of arguing with God? And God was right all along. But see, if I hadn't had a consistent fellowship with God every day, I just wouldn't have done that. I would've said, that sorry son of a gun. But then I don't experience the power of God. So number one, number one, you got to know God. Second of all, you have to have a consistent fellowship with God. You ought to write this down. Everything in life rises and falls, everything in life, every single thing in your life rises and falls on a fellowship with Christ. Everything rises and falls with having a consistent fellowship with Christ. Your marriage does. Your finances does. Everything in your life does, including your health. That changes your perspective. Now say, Well, I'm too busy. Well, you're too busy.

James Greer: [00:07:39] Everything in your life rises and falls on a consistent fellowship with Christ. First, you got to know God. Second, you have to have a consistent fellowship. Third, you got to be truthful with God. You got to be completely honest. What do you mean, honest? Well, I mean, you just got to be honest with God. God already knows the truth anyway. Sometimes, I mean, confess, like I had to call that guy. Sometimes that means I got to just tell God I cannot handle this. It's too much. And I just got to give it to God. And fourth, you've got to learn to be thankful. Thankful in the good times, thankful in the bad times. You know why you can be thankful to God? You can be thankful because God loves you no matter what. You can be thankful because God has the power to accomplish whatever it is you need. And you can be thankful because God wants what's best for you. So we got to learn to do those four things if we want to reduce stress. And then even we got to take it two steps further. This is so important.

James Greer: [00:08:56] This is not an outline, but I would write it down. This is so simple. It's profound. It'll change your life. There's genuine concern, and there's fearful concerns. Genuine concerns and fearful concerns. Everybody should have general - stressors drive us to have genuine concerns. Stress causes us fearful concerns. Genuine concern is this. It's expressed through the dependance of God. It calls us to say, God, God, what will you do? It's the Psalms 55:22. Give your burdens to the Lord. Uh oh. What are we supposed to do with our burdens? Give them to what the Lord. And He cares for you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. So first of all, this is not optional. God said, you absolutely ought to give your burden to God. Stressors come into our life. Stressors are not to turn into stress. Stressors are an indication to us that we're to be giving our burdens to God. God, what are you going to do with this problem? That's what it's for. 1 Peter puts it this way. Therefore, a humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Why? Where He'll exalt you in due time. Stressors. Cast all your cares upon Him. He cares for you. Genuine concern looks like this. Lord, here's the situation. I don't have what it takes to fix this. But you do. I'm going to humbly place this broken problem, burdening this problem in your hands. So the result should be peace. Amen? But no, no, not me. When I'm not in continued fellowship with Christ, this is what I do. You ready? When I say ready, you say amen or yes.

James Greer: [00:11:12] You ready? All right. Many times I have fearful concerns expressed through the dependance on myself. So I think, what am I going to do? The problems come, the stress comes, and I say, Oh, man, what am I going to do? Hey, Lord, please, please help me solve this problem. God, I'm under so much pressure. I just cannot handle this. No kidding. Did I ever tell you to do that? Can you ever find it in your Bible, God said, hey, handle all this burden and let me pile it on, please. [inaudible] That's pretty good. If you find it in your Bible, Tim said, then you need a new Bible. I'll agree. Amen? That's pretty good. You can't find it in there. Over and over, He says, no, no, no. He doesn't say that. Fearful concern says, look, look, look. Instead of keep piling on higher and higher and higher on your shoulders, the situation gets out of hand, it's beyond control. You keep trying to handle it anyway. So it feels like I have this unbelievable stress, anxiety, and worry. Yet then He says, Come unto me, all that labor and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

James Greer: [00:12:34] So my whole goal through this series is for you to help you find your gift. Amen? But it's not only to help you find your gift, but it's to free you where you can use your gift. Man, that is good, Brother James. This doesn't mean that you don't learn to have a budget, plan and schedule your time, make better decisions. But it means ultimately, God's in control and not you. The sooner you learn that, the easier and happier you'll be. Now let's go back to the message. All that's the introduction. Good introduction, Brother. Number one, everybody is important to God and to church. Everybody. For there's many members in one body, as many members, but the members of one body being a member are one body also in Christ. In other words, hey, it takes us all to make the body of Christ. And so then it comes down in 1 Corinthians 12:15. I love this part. If the foot says because I'm not the hand, am I not the body? Is there therefore not of the body? In other words, what it's trying to make us get together, can you imagine functioning on one leg? I can barely make it on two. And can the ear, should it say because I'm not the eyes, I'm not one of the body. Now close your eyes and try to function. Is there therefore not of the body? He's trying to say, I'm giving you a physical picture of spiritual application. If the whole body were the eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body was hearing, where would the smell be? I wish I'd have had time and I would have had staff up here. And I'd have tied one hand behind one back, one leg behind the other, and a blindfold behind the other. You see how we function? Not very well.

James Greer: [00:14:35] But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as it pleased Him. Uh oh. Do you know why you have the gift that you have? Because God gave it to you. And He said, He gave each one of you a gift as it pleased Him. Each one of you have a gift. Amen? That's not what I said. That's what God said. And He gave you the gift as it pleased Him. Some of you are the foot. I can tell because you smell. No. I don't know where that came from. But anyway, some of you are the ear. A lot of you are the mouth. And if they're all one member, where would the body be? Do you see what it's trying to teach us? It's trying to teach us how important it is that we all have different members. Now indeed, there are many members, yet there is what? One body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. No. Much rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

James Greer: [00:15:53] It's really talking about this. We all need each other. Now our church functions very well because I think we have the best staff in the world. They take such good care of me. You would think I'm a senior adult. But it's not what I am on the outside. It's what I am on the inside. Amen? But we have a great functioning staff, do we not, Steve? It's probably the best staff in the world. We got one of the best children's, youth, I mean, the whole executive pack, the whole group. We just function fantastic. We do. And we're blessed that way. But the church does too. When I preach this message, I think people think how bad we need other people to function, and we do. But it's not so much, I don't preach so much for that. But it's for you. I know what it's like to be able to operate your gift. I know what a joy it is. I just want you to know what it is. I love Isaiah went, after he had gotten right with God, he says, Also, I heard a voice from the Lord. It was after he got right from God. It was after he confessed the sin. He said, Whom shall I sin and whom will go for us? Then he said, Here I am. Send me. See, Isaiah had finally got to the point that he said, God, here I am. Send me. See, first of all, first of all, everybody is important. Second of all, everybody has a calling. Everybody has a gift. Everybody has a part. Everybody has a purpose. But Isaiah couldn't hear God say that until he had gotten right with God.

James Greer: [00:17:41] See, you can come to church and one person can hear one thing from the message and the other hears something else. Some people come with their heart is right. And some people. You ready? Some people come with a hard heart. See, you got to come ready to receive it or you won't. You got to say, God, I want what you have for me today. See, if you had not confessed the sins in your heart, the Lord would not have listened to you. Not only do you not hear from God, God doesn't hear from you. Luke 8:7 puts it this way. See, when I'm preaching the Word, that's called the seed. And your heart is where it goes to be planted. And Luke 8:7 calls the seed this. It says this. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear. In other words, you come to church, you hear the Word. You ready? But as they go on their way, they're choked. You came to church and you go on your way and start getting choked out. You ready? What choked it out?

James Greer: [00:18:51] Your worries, riches, and pleasures. They didn't mature. In other words, you came and you heard the Word. You got excited about the Word, but then you let worries, riches, and pleasures choke you out. You feel like you're getting choked to death. Instead of living the abundant life, your worries and your riches, the wrong use of worry and riches and pleasures just chokes you down. Some of you know what I'm talking about because you said, I've been coming to church, coming to church, coming to church, coming to church, and I still feel like I'm just stressed out and choked to death. It says, you're using your time the wrong way. You're worried when you should be worshiping. You're playing when you should be praising. Your riches should be helping further the Kingdom. It's all about you. And you say, Well, I know that's how I'm going to be happy. It's really not. There's nothing wrong with riches. There's nothing wrong with pleasures. It's about the way you use it. And He said, when used the wrong way, it begins to choke the life out of you.

James Greer: [00:20:05] But even if you respond, even you said, here I am, God, use me, even if you said, I heard God and God, I want you to use me, many times we wouldn't know where to go and how to use it. We wouldn't know what our gift was. That's why I simplified it more than I ever have. I want to make it so simple that almost anybody could understand it. That's why I said when it says I heard a verse of God and said, Whom shall I send and where shall I go? And then I said, Here I am, use me. I want you to know in 1 Corinthians 12:1, I love it. I have it written it in front of my Bible. I read it every Sunday, sometimes during the week. It says now about the spiritual gifts or gift or the special endowment of supernatural energy. Anybody needs some extra energy? Hello, brother. Brother and sisters, I don't want you to be misinformed. I don't want you to be ignorant. God says, listen, I want you to know that God has supernatural energy that brings joy to your life. And the supernatural energy comes about when you use the gift that God's given you. The youth just went on what I call a youth retreat. No, sir, I did not go. But a couple of our seniors did go and they made it. Some of y'all had 12,000 and 15,000 steps the same day. One of them was back there. I'll don't see Terry. Terry Mitchell went and at the time, he couldn't make 5,000 steps. But anyway, he came and made 10,000 or 15,000 steps a day. Came back and said, I couldn't believe it. God gave me the energy to make it. I asked Harper the other day, Did you enjoy it? You said yes. I mean, they were just there and said, Hey, God, use me while I'm there. And God gave them almost supernatural energy. And I'll tell you, when you find your gift, that's kind of what God will do. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? In February, they say I'll be 70.

James Greer: [00:22:10] No, I don't know about that. That's what the calendar says. Oh, Mike, you're older than I am. Thank God. Anyway. Can you imagine? Can you imagine preaching three services on Sunday morning without supernatural you know what? Not only do I enjoy it, I love it. And I'm praying that we grow enough, I get to preach four or maybe five. Amen? Whew. But that's the great thing about it, huh? But you know what? I enjoyed it before then. What I'm telling you is, when you're operating with this special supernatural energy of God, let me tell you what. It's not only supernatural energy, it brings joy. Let me give you my paraphrased version of it. Now about the spiritual gifts or gifts, brethren, I don't want you to be misinformed. I don't want you to be ignorant. I don't want you to be just plain stupid about it or stubborn. Because when you use it, God gives you a supernatural endowment of energy that results in a joy and a fulfillment that's beyond your expectation or your comprehension.

James Greer: [00:23:11] Why would you not want that? As a pastor who loves his people, I promise you, I want you to experience it. Once you experience this, you always want to go back to it. Now there was a time that I tried to not do it for a while. Just nothing else would fulfill it. I tried it all. I'm not going to tell you what all I tried. But I tried it. I tried to run it from God. I said, I'm not going to preach anymore. I'm tired of it. Just nothing would fill the gap. You know, just wouldn't do it. And there's just no way. Because of time, I'm going to get down to there's two basic groups of spiritual gifts today. There was apostle gifts at one time. There was miracles and signs. And the Bible says that most of those stopped when the cannon, the Bible was written. But at the time, the Jews required a sign and the Greeks required wisdom. Now, there's mainly two categories today. There's mainly speaking gifts and service gifts. If you really want to know what your gift is, you can look at the categories I gave you. But if you want to break them down to have a speaking gift or a serving gift. And then you can put categories under there and we can help you.

James Greer: [00:24:31] Now, if you really want to know, you can take out, we have next step cards, I think, in our bulletins, don't we, Darrell? And they could take their next step card out if you really wanted to, and you can say, hey, this is Pastor James. I have a speaking gift. Turn it in if you want to. We can help. This is Pastor James. I have a servant gift. Guess what? We can find where you serve. It's that easy. I went through all those years thinking, it was a secret. It's like God's trying to hide it from me. Do you think God is trying to hide a gift? No. He said, I want you to find it where I can give you supernatural energy and you can find joy, where you can have the life and you can have it more abundant. No. He wants to reveal it to you. Your heart's just got to be right. 1 Peter 4:10 puts it this way. Each of you has been blessed. Uh oh. It's just been what? Blessed with one of God's many wonderful gifts. They're not just gifts. They're wonderful gifts.

James Greer: [00:25:34] To be used in the service of others. That you're not only blessed with a gift, the reason God gives you the gift is to be used to serve other people, not yourself. Selfish people are not happy people. Serving people are the most happy people. So use your gift well. That's pretty plain. If you have the gift of speaking, preach the message, brother. If you have the gift of helping people, do it with the strength that God supplies. That is good. Everything should be done in a way that it brings honor and glory to God because of Jesus Christ who is glorious and powerful forever. Do you understand how much He's telling you, how much power God gives you? Do you understand how much He's saying how wonderful it is? Do you understand how much you're blessed with? He said, Man, it's a blessed gift. It's a wonderful gift. It's a powerful gift. It's a gift every one of you get it. You use it to serve other people. Amen? Man, if I was you, I'd be picking up trash when I left here. I'd be doing something.

James Greer: [00:26:40] I'm not kidding. Romans puts it this way. Having then gifts differing according to the grace, which is the power to do what God's called you to do and do it with joy. You say, Well, I can't do anything anymore. Pray, intercede, encourage, write notes. That was given to us. Let us use them. If it's prophecy, let us prophesy. Prophecy in that sense means preach the Word because we don't have prophets today that can foretell the future and never be wrong. That gift's gone. If anybody tells you I'm a modern-day prophet that can foretell the future and give you a date and never be wrong, he's lying. In proportion of his faith. Let him do it. Or minister, we have a lot of people. We don't need a lot more administrators. We need ministers. Amen? Let us use it for ministering. He who teaches, teach it. He said, Man, that's what it is. Who exhorts men, we need encouragers, don't we? Man, there's nothing greater than getting a note or a phone call or a text from somebody, encourager. Who gives, do it liberally. Don't rat hole them. I mean, give it out. He who leads, do it diligently. He who shows mercy, we need that. I don't have much of it.

James Greer: [00:28:01] Do it cheerfulness. But I mean, you see what I'm saying? He's trying to tell you that, hey, what you have, use it. You got a list and you got a list in your bulletin, you know? And so most of the miracle signs and wonders, most of those stopped when the Bible was written. You say, no, they didn't. Yeah, they did. You know anybody? I can't go put my hand on everybody in here and heal them. Say, yeah. No, I can't. And neither can anybody else. I believe that we pray, and we've seen people healed. I believe that. But I don't believe there's anybody that can walk down in my shadow, fall on you, and you're healed. That was in the beginning because they needed signs and they needed miracles to establish a church. Now we got the Bible. But we still need teaching gifts. We need serving gifts. And you can go down and you can do that now and you can find out what is your gift, which is yours. And there's about 20 different gifts, but they're found in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4.

James Greer: [00:29:10] But most of them right now, most of them right now are serving gifts or speaking gifts. I want you know, you have at least one gift. I want you to know to have that gift, you have to be born again. You have to be saved. Most important decision you make today, if you're not 100% sure that you're saved, that when I give the invitation, you would come and accept Christ. Second, after you accept Christ, I would ask God, Do I have a serving gift or do I have a speaking gift? Most people have serving gifts. They really do. But God will teach you. If you can't hear from God, it's for only one or two reasons. Either you're not saved, you've got sin, or you're stubborn. God will tell you which gift you have. He's not trying to hide it from you. So He wants you to. You want to know where you are spiritually? Go to JamesWGreer.com and look up spiritual checklists and be honest with yourself and take it. Ask God, where should I start using it? Say, tell me. Tell me this. Tell me you're too busy. Tell me you're too busy for God. We use our gifts on our job. That's our mission. We use our gifts in our church. That's our body.

James Greer: [00:30:38] That's what we do. That keeps us focused. That keeps our priorities right. Ask God to do this. Let you start enjoying your gift. I'm going to preach about it next Sunday. You don't want to have your gift and not enjoy it. I want you to enjoy it. I want you to experience a supernatural energy God has just for you personally that you can have a joy that you've never had before. I'm not talking about, it's not work. I mean, I have to study, I have to prepare. But man, it's all worth it. There's nothing worth it like this in the whole world. And why would you leave today without doing those things? Would you stand and let me pray with you and pray for you? God, you're a wonderful, awesome, powerful God. You said in your Word that you gave each person a wonderful gift, a powerful gift, a special gift. But God, that gift comes in salvation. Is there somebody here that doesn't know Jesus Christ as their personal savior and they don't know that they'd go to Heaven? Today would be the day that they come in the front and they would ask somebody.

James Greer: [00:31:56] Is there somebody that doesn't know what their gift is? For sure, they would come. They have people in the front. They would pray with them to help them find their gift. If they can't hear from God, that they say, Hey, man, I'm not sure. Would you pray with me? Would you help me to get right where I can say, God, here I am, use me, send me. Maybe you're here and you're hurting and you're under all that stress and pressure I talked about. In Matthew, it said, Come unto me. God, use this for a time. Use the altar as a way. If you come into God and say, God, I'm going to give you my problems, I'm going to give you my stress, I'm going to give you my word, I can't handle it. God said, it's about time. Give it to me. Go home in peace and go home and rest. Leave it on the altar. Leave it at God's hands. Let Him take care of it. Maybe you need to follow through in public baptism and today's the day. Whatever God's called you do, man, I would not leave the same way I came. I pray it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.


Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.