Fit or Misfit? (Part 7): The Motivational Gift of Teaching

Good evening. Are you ready to learn tonight? Say, oh, I wonder if he's going to get me tonight. Well, this is just number three.

There's seven, so we're not even quite halfway through, so we have a ways to go. And people are coming to me saying, well, I know what mine is, and I'm saying, well, just wait, just wait. Wait till all seven are finished.

And by then, I think you will be able to say, oh yeah, this is, this is where I'm at. All right. Our scripture again tonight is basically at the same place, Romans 12, and verses six and seven is our beginning text.

We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve.

If it is teaching, let him teach. And that's where we are tonight on number three, a gift of teaching. Roxanne furtively glances at the astrology column in the daily paper.

Actually, she doesn't believe the stars control our destiny, but she just wonders. A Christian, she has heard her pastor deplore the recent rage to find out whether one is born under a particular sign. In her mind, Roxanne Roxanne doesn't really believe what the daily horoscopes say, but she wonders.

And occasionally as she leafs through the paper, she glances at her personal horoscope for the day. Dangerous business. What is wrong with Roxanne's faith that she has this kind of curiosity? Well, actually there's nothing wrong with her wanting to know about her destiny.

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, she should be commended for wanting to know how her life is supposed to fit into God's universal plan. Of course, that's not the place to look for it.

This natural desire is seen in the phenomenal spread of the interest in Rick Warren's purpose-driven life, which is phenomenal, which is a modern day phenomena. That is totally unexplainable except to say the spirit of God is in it and to say that it answers a longing in the hearts of God's people, as well as people that do not know him, to have some meaning to their life. They want meaning.

Sometimes people's lives are so void of meaning. Really, it makes my heart just heavy. Do you ever feel like you have tears in your heart? Tears in my heart.

Just knowing about some people whose lives seem to have so little purpose, they really don't know why they're here in the world, what they're living for, where they're going, how it's all going to end. Sad, isn't it? But God doesn't want that for us. God really wants us to have a sense of purpose.

He wants us to know that we belong to him, that we're a member of the body of Christ, that we're extremely important in his eyes, and that he has designed us even before we were conceived in our mother's womb. Before the overthrow of the world, he designed us and had a plan how he wanted to bless us and use us. He wove us together in our mother's womb, and he intends to bless us in different ways, yes, but he intends to bless us and to give us a great sense of belonging and purpose and being fulfilled in his plan.

So does God really have a plan for my life? Of course. How can I know my own blueprint? Well, again, tonight the biblical teaching on the gifts and callings of God will help us understand God's design in our lives, and I'm deeply impressed with the statement in God's word that the gifts and callings of God are unchangeable. God creates us, each one, and he never changes his mind.

Now, he will certainly go to huge lengths to adapt us to his intentions if we miss it, but he never changes his intentions. He has a plan. So when we look at the gifts, there are three divisions.

Our motivational gifts, which are in Romans 12, are spiritual, supernatural gifts that are only for Christians in 1 Corinthians 12. And then, of course, the ministries that result from the combination of our natural gift and our spiritual gift and God's calling. And so our ministries then are unique and different and adapted to what God intends for us.

So tonight, as we continue this series, the third motivational gift, the gift of teaching. Now, what is a teacher? Well, it's kind of a funny word in a way because in the biblical definition of this gift, there are so many things that kind of surprise us in this whole idea, but we'll learn as we look at it. So first of all, tonight, I want to go to some Old Testament Bible examples of people with a motivational gift of teaching who were then given by God a supernatural gift of wisdom to go with it, a spiritual gift that made them remarkable teachers and gave them a great ministry for God.

So please turn with me tonight to Ezra chapter 7. Now, if you're looking for Ezra, turn to the first part of your Old Testament. You'll see kings and chronicles. They're quite big.

You'll find them if you flip around a little bit. Kings and chronicles and then go past chronicles and there you'll come to the book of Ezra. Just a little short book.

If you get to Nehemiah, you went too far, come back to Ezra. All right, now while you're finding it, let me give you some background very quickly. Around 587 years before the birth of Christ, Babylon completely defeated and wrecked the nation of Judah.

Invading it, destroying it, burning cities, breaking down the walls. Jerusalem was uninhabitable. The walls broken down and the temple of God destroyed.

Eventually the Persian armies conquered Babylon. So one great kingdom conquering another. King Cyrus then of Persia came to power in the world empire of that day and the Babylonians had deported some 4,600 families from Judah to Babylon.

Got the picture? All these Jewish families have been taken captive to Babylon and that's why you have the great story of Daniel and some others. So there they are in Babylon. In 538 BC, Cyrus made a decrees about 50 years later.

He made a decree allowing Jews to return to Judah and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. So I want to read about one man who went back in that group. His name was Ezra the scribe.

He was a teacher. Let me read to you now from Ezra 7 and I'm going to begin with verse 10 and I'm going to skip around but you can follow because I'm going to give you the verses as I go. Verse 10, for Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord.

So notice he had devoted himself to studying the word of God. Study was one of the things that he enjoyed. So he devoted himself to study and observance of the law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.

So here's a teacher. He is committed to study. He's committed to research.

He's committed to understand how it's to be observed, how the law of God is to be carried out and then to teach it to the Israelites so that they can obey God and live according to the law of God. Great. And he's one of the men that goes back then to Judah to help us re-establish the temple in the worship of God and to help the people of God to get their lives in line.

Then you have the next king making some decrees. Verse 21, now I king Artaxerxes order all the treasures of trans Euphrates to provide with diligence, whatever Ezra the priest, a teacher of the law of God of the God of heaven may ask of you. And this is not a Jew or Christian man.

I mean, this is a man who's a pagan, but God's moved on his heart. Verse 23, whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? I love that.

I'm glad to see a pagan ruler get frightened about God. I wish we'd see some of that today. Oh, North America, you better wake up.

And you Ezra in accordance with the wisdom of your God, which you possess appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of trans Euphrates, all who know the laws of your God. And you are to teach any who do not know them. So now he has a commission, a commission, not only from God, but a commission from a pagan king, go back there.

And you are a student. You are a researcher of the laws of God, go back there and teach the people how to walk with God. Great picture, isn't it? A wonderful picture of a teacher in the old Testament.

There's some more to be said about him. Nehemiah talks about him. So if you just go on over to the right a little bit, you'll come to the book of Nehemiah and go to chapter eight.

And again, I'm going to read a number of short passages out of that chapter, beginning with verse one. Now this is a great picture. I like to call this the, uh, the Jerusalem camp meeting because that's basically what happened.

Thousands of people came together, uh, these Jews that had come back and other Jews that were still there in the land. And they came together and they camped out in the city of Jerusalem. And Ezra taught them the word of God all morning, sometimes afternoon.

Then they went out and they ate and they celebrated and they slept for the night and they came back. And then I used to go to camp meetings like that. Even when I was a kid, anybody here ever go to the great summer camp meetings, man, are you deprived? You've been terribly deprived.

They were wonderful times of meeting God. So let me read some of this. All the people assembled as one man in the square before the water gate.

They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra, the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon.

I mean, this is a long meeting. You ain't seen nothing from daybreak till noon. He preached for about and taught them for about six hours straight.

That's pretty good. And as they faced the square before the water gate in the presence of all these people who could understand and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law, Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Ezra opened the book.

All the people could see him because he was standing above them. And as he opened it, the people all stood up and Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and shouted, amen and amen. So that's biblical.

So don't get upset when I say amen. All right. So they were, then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

And then the Levites helped him and instructed the people in the law while the people were standing there. And they read from the book of the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that people could understand what was being read. Then all people went away and to eat and drink and to send portions to people didn't have any to celebrate with great joy because they now understood the words had been made known to them.

I mean, this goes on and on. It's great. You ought to go read it.

And they had them one great time. They had a Bible camp meeting in Jerusalem and Ezra was the teacher, a student of the word of God. And he taught the people.

Now they had a little intermarriage problem. When you go to Ezra 10, let me give you just one little more little bit. Ezra 10, 16, 17.

So the exiles did as was proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family heads, one from each family division, all of them designated by name. And on the first day of the 10th month, they sat down to investigate the cases.

See, this is a man who wants to know all the options. He wants to know all the facts. He's a seeker after truth.

He's a researcher. This is a picture of a teacher and he's, he's going into the cases. And by the first day of the month, they finished dealing with all the men who had married foreign women and they got it all straightened out.

So here is this teacher, Ezra, a great example of a person with a motivational gift of teaching on whom the anointing of God came so that filled with the spirit, he had tremendous wisdom and was greatly used of God as the Jews came back to Israel. Now, let me give you another example. King Solomon.

I'm always impressed with King Solomon, a great teacher of the old Testament. See, Ezra was a priest and a teacher. Solomon was king and a teacher.

Are you getting the picture? I mean, there are different ways that these gifts can be used by God and were used by God and are used by God today when we pay attention. All right. So here is first Kings chapter two, and I'm just going to give you some little snippets here of the fact that this man, Solomon had this wisdom before God gave him the special anointing.

Okay. So here he is in chapter two, verse one, when the time drew near for David to die, that's his father. He gave a charge to Solomon, his son.

Now you yourself know what Joab, son of Zariah did to me deal with him according to your wisdom. So you already had it. He wasn't king yet.

And remember verse eight, you have with you Shimei son of Gera verse nine, but now do not consider him innocent. You are a man of wisdom. You will know what to do.

See David, this great king is about to die and his son is going to be king. And he says, I already recognize the tremendous wisdom in your life. And so I'm not telling you what to do about these cases.

You will know what to do. You have the wisdom to deal with it. So here's a man who has the motivational gift of teaching, and then you're going to see how God blesses it and how it's used so mightily.

Then first Kings three, and I'm going to read verse three and then go to verse seven. Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statues of his father, David. Now he's king.

Verse seven. Now, Lord, my God, he's praying. You have made your servant king in place of my father, David, but I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.

Your servant is here among the people. You have chosen a great people too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong for who is able to govern this great people of yours.

The Lord was pleased that Solomon asked for this. He's asking for it because it's the natural desire of his heart. Are you beginning to understand this thing? Here is this young man.

God has created him this way. He becomes king after his father, who was not a teacher, who was a prophet and a musician and totally different, a great warrior and a great leader of men. Now Solomon has become king, but he has totally different motivational gift.

And so God says to him, what do you want? And he doesn't say, I want power like David had. I want to be a great warrior. I want to write, you know, I want to do.

No, he says, I want more wisdom. I want to be able to teach the people. I want to know how to lead this great people.

See, it's natural. He's asking for the thing that God has already put in his heart, the desires of his heart. Are you following me? And so of course, God is very pleased.

And he said, you didn't ask for wealth or you didn't ask for power or any of those things. So I'm going to give you what you asked for. I will give you a wise and discerning heart.

So there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Wow. And he said, I'm also going to give you what you didn't ask.

Oh, that's pretty good. I'm going to make you a great king and give you wealth and long life, even though you didn't ask for it. Then look at first Kings four 29 to 34 and see what God did with this man.

God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight and a breadth of understanding as measureless as a sand on the seashore. Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt and his fame spread to all surrounding nations. He spoke 3000 Proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five.

He described plant life from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles, and fish, man. I wish I, it'd be great if we had some of those books.

He was, he was interested in everything. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom sent by all the Kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom. The queen of Sheba came and she, it knocked the wind out of her.

She said, the half has never been told about this man's wisdom. So he was a great teacher, a great student, a great researcher and learner at the picture. And God blessed him and used him mightily as a King.

So God can use people with different gifts at different times in different situations. Let me give you another one very quickly. Four men who were teachers in the old Testament who worked together, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and into bed you go.

I mean, and a bed and a go. My mother used to say, shake the bed and make the bed and into bed you go. Do you ever hear that? These, these are their, their Babylonian names.

And so here they are. Let me just read you a little bit about it from Daniel. Daniel one, beginning with verse one in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came to Jerusalem, besieged it.

Now that's back when I was telling you about the Babylonians taking over Israel over Judah and the Lord delivered Jehoiakim King of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple. Then the King ordered Ashpenaz chief of his court officials to bring in some of the Israelites from the Royal family and the nobility. So these young men were all from the nobility of the land, from the, the kingly lines, young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well-informed, quick to understand and qualified to serve in the King's palace.

He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. To these four young men, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kind in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the King questioned them.

He found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. And you study the stories about in Daniel, about those young men. And these are men who were teachers.

These are men with wisdom, with understanding, with a great passion for learning and for research and study and to get the answers and to know the truth and to be able to teach it. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Isn't it exciting? I love to study the practical stuff in the Bible, don't you? The Bible isn't just some old tired book, you know, it is practical. It fits today, just like it fit then. We just have to understand it and be willing to accept it.

Now, let me pause in the middle of this and give a more detailed description of a person with a motivational gift of teaching. Are you ready? I'm going to do it kind of fast, scribble fast, you know, here we go. Number one, he's a detailed person.

Number two, one with this gift likes to search out the truth, likes to study and search out the truth and then share it with others. A person with this gift likes to do research, dig out the facts, see all the options, accumulate knowledge, sometimes have difficulty in boiling it down to simple language to teach others. They like to systematically organize all of these facts and truth and concerned to have all the details and possibilities.

You know, it's absolutely fantastic. I love being married to my wife. She is a great wife.

She is a wonderful woman and she has to give motivational gift of teaching. So it's interesting to me because I pushed her till she started to use the computer and I said, Oh, you can do it. You can do it.

And, and she can, of course. So once she learned how to use it and to use email and to write letters to everybody, and that's great because I hate to write letters and she loves to write letters and tell all her friends and relatives and everybody. And that's just marvelous.

And so now what's interesting to me is every time something comes up, she, as soon as she gets home, she's over the computer and looking, looking it up. She wants to know everything about it. I mean, we just saw the tail end of a program about, uh, a disease that some children have is very debilitating.

And, uh, the first chance she got was this afternoon and she was on there looking up that disease and find everything she could about it. And then she found some more about some other diseases and then the other stuff that children, I mean, this is wonderful. And you say, well, uh, you, you don't know, I don't, but you know what happens? Then she tells me some of the stuff and then I use it on you.

It's just great. So their idea of people, they, they get a hold of the truth. They're not always how to people like I'm a how to person, but you know, they want to communicate the truth.

If a Christian college has all teachers on the faculty, people with this gift, it will be strongly academic and possibly theologically sound, but maybe spiritually cold and weak and practical application because such a faculty needs prophets, rulers and exhorters as well. So if all the faculty are teachers, you got a problem. You need a lot of good teachers, godly men and women who, who have learned and know what they're talking about and have the facts, but you also need some prophets to lead with fire and you need some exhorters who are warm and can relate it to the students.

And you know, you need the other gifts. Amen. I know I served on one of those boards for 10 years.

So that's true. People with this gift are skeptical of new information or ideas, sometimes suspicious of change. If it's not fully explained and documented, they tend toward traditionalism.

So it takes a while for them to learn the new courses because they'd like the tradition and so forth. They will lovingly disagree, need time to think, discuss and dissect. They don't want to make quick decisions because they don't have all the facts.

They are the Bereans of the church who search the scriptures daily to see if those things that are really so that the preacher's saying. Amen. It should do it.

If you have that kind of gift and I preach, go home and check it out, search the scriptures, find out. And if I, if, if I'm not on course, tell me, of course you'll probably be mistaken, but sure. They can be slow in making decisions because they haven't got all the facts concerned about new converts that they'd be sound in the faith, not just surface, some danger of pride and knowledge, possibly critical of other people.

One of the biggest dangers is riding a hobby horse such as eschatology or some other such thing. So that's a quick definition of people with this motivational gift. What are their vocations in the secular world? Well, there's all kinds of them and I'm not going to be able to name them all, but I mean, out in the secular world, they make good secretaries, good accountants, scientists, technicians, attorneys, physicians, librarians, reporters, all kinds of teachers, good diagnosticians in any field, computer programmers, analysts, philosophers, and on goes the list.

Are you getting the picture? Very important. When I was pastor in Hamilton, Alabama, Northwest Alabama, uh, there was a clinic there in the town. It was a small town, county seat town.

And, uh, there was a clinic there in town that had a doctor who was the best diagnostician in, in all that part of Alabama. And I always got tickled at him because he, uh, and I don't have anything. I should have had something to do this with, but whenever you go to see him, uh, he, he, he would have his eyes at half mast and he had a, a figure hanging out of the corner of his mouth and he would look at you, you know, and he thought, man, this idiot doesn't know anything, but he was good.

I mean, he was really good, wonderful diagnostician. He had researched and studied and he picked up everything he learned and man, uh, he could just look at you and talk to you for a couple of minutes. He knew what was wrong with you.

That's wonderful, right? Yeah. Cause sometimes doctors make mistakes and take off the wrong leg, you know, I still remember how mad he got at me the night I broke my foot. Oh, he got so mad.

I, we had a Sunday school picnic going on church picnic, a church wide picnic, and the young adults were playing volleyball and, uh, and we were really young and so I'm out there playing volleyball and I jumped way up high. We're playing it on a blacktop road and I, uh, in the park and I jumped up high to hit a ball and when I came down, I landed on my foot crooked and I heard it snap like, you know, it went crack and I can feel it. And I said within myself, I just broke the side of my foot and I went and sit down and my foot was shaking like that.

I mean it hurt, but they hadn't, they hadn't had their picnic supper yet. I thought, well, if I leave, the preacher leaves, I'll spoil their, their church picnic. Can't have that.

So I better stay. So I stayed and I got back that night to the clinic about five hours after I broke it. And of course, you know, it was swollen up twice the size of a foot.

And, uh, I still remember him, you know, he came in from home, wherever he was, cause I got back there at 10 o'clock at night and there he was, you know, you know, with this messed up cigarette hanging there about ready to fall off and, and looking at me with half mast, you know, he said, stupid preacher. I can't set that thing. You, you should have been in here hours ago, you know? And of course he couldn't set it.

There's no way he could set it. But I'll tell you what amazing to me, as swollen as it was, he took it in his hand. He felt of it all over.

He told me exactly where it was broken, which bones were broken, everything. And he said, I'm gonna have to put you in the clinic and I'm gonna have to give you a drug for a few days to get that down so we can fix it. And so we can put it in a cast.

And, uh, man, he was right on, you know, he fixed that thing, put it in a cast. I've never had a moment of trouble with a sense, you know, he did a great job. Just, just that was his gift.

He had that motivational gift of teaching and he was able to do that. So ministries in the church, well, uh, many, many, they can be pastors, Sunday school teachers, elders, and deacons, secretaries, search committees, librarians, trustees, recording secretaries, theologians, and teachers in Bible colleges and seminaries, writers, all kinds of things. Charles Finney, the great revivalist had the motivational gift of teaching.

He was an attorney when God saved him. And a man who studied and researched and in his day, if you were going into the ministry, you put yourself under an older pastor and you did your reading under him and so forth before you ever went off to school. And, uh, he started to study the Bible after he got saved and he devoured it and he studied it from one end to the other.

And he just knew it very quickly and he couldn't stand. He couldn't stand these guys that really didn't know it. They were trying to teach him.

And, uh, I have his, I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but I have his systematic theology. It's a book about that, that one of the finest theologies ever written, man, that thing is, is detailed. Now I'm going to tell you later, you know, what I do with some of these guys, but Charles Finney, he had that gift.

Uh, he was also an evangelist and a theologian. Calvin wrote his institutes, right? Anybody ever hear of Calvin's institutes? Yeah. And, uh, he did that when he was quite young.

Also Augustine wrote and John Wesley in the great revivals, the end of the 17th, beginning of the 18th century, George Whitfield was the prophet. Great fiery preacher. People stand for three hours, listen to him preach, weep, and repent of their sins by the thousands.

Great evangelist, great evangelist. And he was a prophet, but John Wesley got pulled in. You know, he forced him, almost dragged him by the collar and said, you know, he was a high churchman.

He said, you're coming out in the field to hear me preach. And I mean, no way you'd die first, you know? And he said, no, you're coming out. And he came out and, uh, he stood there and he listened to Whitfield preach.

And he saw people weep by the thousands and get right with God. And he went home and wrote in his diary tomorrow, I will be more vile than Whitfield. But what happened? John Wesley was somebody with a motivational gift of teaching.

And he's the one that began to put the doctrine in order and the theology down and write the books that laid it all out and research it. And he was the one that began to organize the church and developed a great Methodist church that came out of that revival and was at that time, the great evangelical church of the world. So you see these different men with different gifts.

The body part comparison, the brain of the church. Now, new Testament examples, who in the new Testament had this gift? Luke, Luke, the physician, he was a scientist, a physician, a researcher, a historian, and a writer. His, uh, his wonderful book, uh, the gospel of Luke, you could just tell that he is a student and a researcher and a scientist.

Like he, he brings out the details that another kind of person wouldn't bring out. And God let him write the life of Christ, Matthew, an accountant, a historian, and a writer. He went back and studied and researched all the genealogies of the Jews and showed us the genealogies of Christ all the way right up to the time that Christ was born.

Uh, a man with that gift, Thomas, Thomas was someone with a motivational gift of teaching. He was a doubter, a researcher. He had to have all the facts.

He said, unless I put my fingers into the nail prints in his hands and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. He's skeptic. He said, I saw him crucified.

I'm not going to believe that he's alive unless that happens. And, uh, the Lord went out of his way to take care of that. And when they were all together again, the Lord appeared and, uh, looked right at Thomas and said, Thomas, come here.

And Thomas pitched down in his face and cried out my Lord and my God. And Thomas became a great missionary, went to India, won thousands of Christ. There's still a church, a great church in India that was founded by Thomas.

And by that, I don't mean one church. I mean a whole movement of churches that were founded by that great man. So well, many people can teach.

Listen carefully. Many people can teach who do not have this motivational gift. For instance, I teach, but that's not my gift.

Okay. Some who do have it are poor teachers because they become too preoccupied with every fine detail and their students cannot stay with them and lose interest. Okay.

I had a friend, a dear friend. Uh, we roomed together. We sang in a quartet together.

We double dated together and we pastored in the same area in Alabama for a while. We were, we were dear, dear friends, Donald Waldron. And we both became pastors.

And, uh, the only problem with Don as a preacher was that his sermons had 15 points. He couldn't stop. Say Don, don't give them the whole load.

They can't handle, you know, but he'd get in the subject and start to research it and get into the scriptures. And it was so wonderful. And that was his gift.

And he'd go studying it and he'd end up, you know, with this complete coverage, but you can't, you can't listen to a sermon with 15 points. I mean, you can hardly listen to mine with three, you know, so it made it hard on him and he couldn't seem to quit doing that. Prophets, administrators, exhorters, all must teach.

They make use of the work done by teachers and depend on them for truth. And I want to give you just a quick illustration of what I have done all through the years. There are many books written by teachers that are marvelous books, fantastic books on the Christian faith.

Most of you who are sitting here have never read them and never will. You wouldn't get beyond the first chapter. That's sad, really, simply because they're wonderful and full of great truth that would bless your life.

Okay. So I make use of these guys. I say, thank God.

For instance, how many of you have read all the way through a book by Dr. Schaefer? One, two, three, four, five. We may have we may have about eight or nine. No, of course not, because you just get all bogged down with it.

But see, I can read it. And then I can take that wonderful truth that this man with his tremendous gift has searched out and put down so explicitly and so beautifully, then I can take it and I can serve it up so you want to eat it and give it to you. For instance, I have a sermon on John 3 16 that I got from his book, The God Who Is There, a profound apologetic for the existence of God.

And I stole it from him. Somebody says, well, you know, you need to be careful about copyright. There's not what it means.

Copy it right out of the book. Well, no, I'm sure that Dr. Schaefer would be thrilled to know that somebody took his profound writings and then took the truth and then boiled it down and illustrated and served it so that people who would never read his books would be blessed by it. Don't you think so? See, that's how God means for the body to work together, right? God wants the body to work together.

I do this with C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis has the most razor like mind of anybody I have ever read in my life. He's gone to heaven now.

But, you know, Nixon's hatchet man got saved through reading C.S. Lewis personal Christianity. And this man, oh, he's a great apologist of the Christian faith and a great teacher, taught at a great university in England, one of the most famous and just a marvelous student and researcher. But a lot of his writings now, the tales of Narnia, many of you have read, that's different.

But his philosophical books that are an apology for the Christian faith are different. And so I take this wonderful stuff that he's already worked out with this wonderful gift God's given him, then I take it with my gift and I give it to you. Good deal, huh? Wonderful deal.

That's what God intends. I've done that with Finney's teaching. I challenge you that most of you would never get by the first chapter of Finney's systematic theology, but I've read it all the way through and I take many of his main teachings and then I teach them and preach them with the gifts God's given me so you can be blessed by them.

Isn't that good stuff? Sure, and you don't have to read it. So that's how God puts the body together. Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were sent by the king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and rebuild the city and reconstitute the nation of Israel, of Judah.

But they depended on Ezra in order to accomplish their work because he was a great teacher sent by God to systematize the truth and teach the people because they hadn't had the teaching of the law of God for many years. And now they were going to be a nation again and Ezra was sent by God and these other men and Joshua the high priest, all of them depended on these men. During those years Jeremiah was a prophet, Ezra was a teacher, Nehemiah was a ruler, Joshua was a high priest and exhorter.

They all had different motivational gifts and the anointing of God and supernatural gifts and God used them to rebuild Judah for his glory and to get it ready for the place where Christ would come one day and teach and be crucified for our sins. So that is how God works. One more thing before I close because someone's asked me this I want to make sure I say it.

If I have a certain motivational gift is that all I should do in life? No, no you won't be able to live like that. All Christians should show mercy right? That's one of the gifts but all Christians should show mercy agreed? It's just that the people who have the gift are a lot more merciful than the others and do it better. All should serve one another right? Even if they don't have the gift of service.

All must teach in some ways even if you're a father or mother and you don't have that gift you still have to teach your children right? So there's always some instruction we have to do. All need to exhort and encourage one another. God says that we're to do that that we're to encourage and exhort one another.

We must all share the word of God with others and all must organize and administrate to some extent. Does that make sense? Absolutely. We must all serve Christ in the world and in the church in many different ways not just in one but we will be most effective and fulfilled when we are able to function in the area of our own motivational gift.