Editor’s Note: This article is a modified transcript of a recent message by Scott Pauley.

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Connecting Your Gifts to the Gospel

The most important thing a person can learn is why God made them. Why are you breathing? Why are you at this moment still living on this planet? The answers are found in 1 Peter 4:10. This verse reveals three principles for connecting your gifts to the gospel. We will hang each of these principles on three words, like three pegs, and they all start with the same letter

God Gives GIFTS

What is the gift? In this passage, Peter has been talking in the previous verses about the love of God. When you come down to the end of this verse, he is teaching about the grace of God. It is a reference to everything you receive when you accept Christ. When you trusted Christ, Christ came to live in you. But if you think that you have already discovered everything you received at the moment of your salvation, you are just scratching the surface. When you get Jesus, you get it all! The Bible says that we have “…all things that pertain unto to life and godliness”  (2 Peter 1:3).

Do not think of salvation as your ticket out of fire. God did not just save you from something. He saved you for something. Salvation is not past tense (the day you got saved), or future tense (the day you go to heaven). Salvation is today.

When Peter says every man has received a gift, he is referencing the fact that when you were saved, you received some spiritual gift. In the very next verse, he continues talking about gifts, such as speaking, ministering, and giving.

Most people never think much about how God has gifted them. But every one of us is gifted. When you were born, you were given certain natural gifts. Those gifts are different for everyone. Some are tremendous athletes. Others excel at math. These are disciplines, things you can work at, but for some, they do not have to work at certain things as hard. They are just gifted. That is a natural gift that you were given at your birth. You were “…fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14)

God Gives All Christians a Spiritual Gift

Maybe you know what your gift is. Maybe you have not quite put your finger on it yet.

But there is a gift that God gave you when you were born. Peter is not talking about natural abilities here. As surely as you were given natural gifts when you were born, when you got born again, you were given spiritual gifts. On that day, your Heavenly Father gave you as His child some spiritual gift that you could use to minister to other people and to bring Him great glory.

In Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians, Paul talks about many of those spiritual gifts. Everything from helps to governments, administration, and discernment. There are many gifts, and we are all gifted differently.

I believe that your natural gifts and your spiritual gifts, while not exactly the same, are connected. I believe God is sovereign over all, and the God who made you is the God who saved you to become something when it comes to living your life, and He empowers you to do that.

How do you find out what your spiritual gifts are? You do not find your spiritual gifts by taking a test. Instead, be yielded to the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit of God has control of your life, walking in the Spirit, and living as a spiritual person should live, you will not have to figure it out. The Holy Spirit will show you. He will start giving you opportunities to serve and putting desires in you. It is the Holy Spirit who gives the gifts, shows you the gifts, and enables you to use the gifts. It is the Holy Spirit’s gift in you. Your gift is not you trying to be better. It is something the Holy Spirit puts in.

God Gives GRACE

The second word, we see here in 1 Peter 4:10, that helps us know what God made us to do is grace. The verse mentions “the manifold grace of God.” I love that word manifold! It is the same word that would have been used for Joseph’s coat of many colors. God gives multicolored grace. It has every hue, color, and shade, like a rainbow.

Gifts are all different. Some are reds, yellows, or greens, but this is a picture — it is a symbol of the fact that we are all made different. Whatever it is that God has given you to use for His glory is beautiful. When it is all put together, it is awesome. When everybody finds their place, does their part, and discovers what God put in them when He saved them, and they start living in that, it is powerful.

My gift is not yours, and your gift is not mine. People ask me, do you get nervous when you speak? Yes, I do. But at the same time, when I am doing what God made me to do, there is a fulfillment in it. There is an enabling in it that I know is not me. God is helping me.

People have asked me, do you think you could have done something else with your life besides being a preacher? I think I could have. My dad was in business and sales. When I was in college, I had a sales job, and I did pretty well at it. I probably could have gone into business, but I do not think I could have gone into business and been fulfilled. Because I believe God made me to do what I am doing right now.

The Grace to Use the Gift God has Given

I am not suggesting that every man is supposed to be a preacher or every woman is supposed to be a missionary. I am simply urging you to find out what God put you on earth to do, because if God made you to do one thing with your life, and you do something else, you are missing your gift. If God made you to use this gift for His glory, and you use it for your gain, you are abusing how God made you. You will never be happy doing that.

Peter used the word manifold one other time in this book. It was in the first chapter when he talked about manifold temptations (1 Peter 1:6). Your life is going to be filled with two things. Multicolored temptations and multicolored grace. For every temptation, there is grace. Whatever you are going to face, if you live in God’s grace, God’s grace will give you what you need for every trial and temptation in your life.

Every Gift is Grace

Do you know why every gift is grace? Because you did not deserve it. The only thing any of us really deserves is hell. That is what grace is. If you are intelligent, that is God’s grace to you. If you are good with people, God gave you that gift. Some people have the ability to make money. Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “…it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth…” If God made you so that you make money, that money is not for you to just spend on yourself. God did that so you could use it in service to Him.

J.C. Penney, one of the greatest businessmen in American history, was a dedicated Christian. He funded gospel projects. He supported evangelistic work. I think that is why God blessed his life and blessed his business in his lifetime. He figured out why God had put him on this planet.

We are all different, but we are all the same in this sense: we all have some gift, and that gift is grace. God’s grace to you. Grace was never meant to be kept to itself. Grace is always meant to be shared. The very nature of grace is that I am supposed to give it. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “one to another.” You are supposed to relay what you have received to others.

How are you serving God and ministering to others? How are you letting God use you to minister to others? Not everyone will stand up and give a sermon, but everyone can do something for the glory of God and for the good of others.

God Receives GLORY

1 Peter 4:11 contains the third word in this study. It says, “that God in all things may be glorified…” Every gift God gives you by His grace is for His glory. Not to draw people to yourself, to be famous and rich, but to bring God glory. If God made you to bring Him glory, and you are not bringing Him glory, what reason does God have to let you continue to breathe? If we have no interest in bringing God glory, then why should God allow us to continue to live? Your purpose is His pleasure, and when you live for God’s pleasure, God will make sure you find pleasure in that. There is nothing like living for God’s glory, knowing that God is using you as a little part of His big plan in this world.

Connect Your Gifts to the Gospel

I believe that every person on earth, gifted by God, by God’s grace, and for God’s glory, has to learn how to connect what God has given them to what God is up to in the world. You must figure out how you can connect your gifts to God’s gospel work.

1 Peter 4:10 says, “…we are to be good stewards…”  There is a motto that many churches use, saying that we talk about being stewards of everything. We are stewards of our time, our treasure, and our talent.  Most lessons on stewardship focus on 1 Corinthians 4:2: “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”  However, notice 1 Corinthians 4:1: “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

You are a steward of the mysteries of God. What is the mystery of God? Christ! In the Bible, the word mystery does not mean some weird, spooky thing that you need to figure out. The word mystery means something that was hidden for a long time, but is revealed now in Jesus. In the New Testament, the “mysteries of God” are salvation. It is who we have. It is Jesus. You are a steward of the gospel, the message of Christ.

Some people have never heard the gospel. Your greatest stewardship is not time, talent, or treasure. It is the stewardship of truth.

Our Time Is Limited

There will be an end to your time, talent, and treasure. But there will be no end to the truth. The only thing that is going to last forever is the truth of the gospel. Only two things you see today will still be in existence 1,000 years from today: the Word of God, because it is forever settled in Heaven, and the souls of people. Those are the only two eternal things you will ever come in contact with in your life. God’s Word and people.

The greatest thing you will ever do with your life is to let God use you to get God’s word to people and to bring people to God. When you do that, then you have connected your life to something bigger than yourself, and something longer than your lifetime. You have now connected your gifts to the gospel.

Have you seriously prayed about giving your whole life to the work of God? I think some people never even think about it. You ought to at least pray, “Lord, do you want me in the ministry in some way?” If God leads you to be a businessman, or a mechanic, or a housewife, you should do that. That is what God made you to do. But while you are doing that, connect your gifts to the gospel.

When you leave this world and meet Jesus, the only things that are going to matter are, did you know Him, and did you help others come to know Him?

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About Scott Pauley

WATCH: What Will You Do for the Gospel’s Sake?