You know how french fries are bottomless at Red Robin, so you can just keep getting more and more, all that you want?
Yeah, hold that thought.
Sometimes we come across people in church who are wonderfully gifted. Maybe they have a way with little kids that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Maybe they’re on the praise team and seem to hit every note without trying. Maybe they’re exceptionally discerning and they notice things like fulfilled prophecies or details about people that you had never picked up on.
And maybe we respond the wrong way when we come across such people.
Oftentimes, we notice these people because they have the gifts that we have, or that we wish we had. And when we do, there are two ways that we often react, neither of which are proper or beneficial.
The first is that we often become jealous. When you see someone who seems to be better than you, per the world’s definition, it’s almost first nature to wish we had their abilities. You see that one youth leader who is able to get the depressed kid to open up and talk, and you think, “I literally just tried to talk to him yesterday and he wouldn’t say a word. Why is she better at this than me? I don’t like it.” Or maybe you hear someone preach a sermon, and the altar ends up full - even though you preached on the same text two months ago, and no one seemed to respond - and then you start to envy his gift because you assume he must be a better preacher than you.
Can I tell you something? The only thing that jealousy leads to is bitterness, and bitterness has no place in the heart of a believer (Hebrews 12:15).
The second common response is to feel that your gifts are useless and insignificant, because when you measure them up to someone else's, they seem to be nowhere near as great. (This is a real struggle for me, I’ll be honest.) You think God has gifted you musically, and you think creativity is your strong suit, but then that Christian singer gets through the first verse of the opening song, and you realize you do not have his range and your lyrics are nowhere near as intriguing. The worship set has barely begun, but your whole mood has changed - and not for the better. And then the next time you walk into a songwriting session, you have this looming mentality of, “This is not going to accomplish anything, because I suck at this.”
Can I tell you something else?
Both of these responses shift your focus to yourself… not to God.
And when you are focused on yourself, you’re not going to be focused on God and glorifying Him.
When it comes to these kinds of situations, there’s two words to remember so that you can avoid becoming jealous or believing that you’re useless…
Admire & inspire.
Scripture never tells us to ignore or suppress the amazing gifts that He has given others, but quite the opposite.
-Paul specifically mentions the sincere faith of Timothy, Lois, and Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5).
-Paul specifically notes Tychicus as being faithful in his service to Christ (Ephesians 6:21).
-David is also described as “... a skillful musician, a mighty man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech…” (1 Samuel 16:18).
So, throughout Scripture, we see God’s servants being recognized for their gifts and their strong suits. It is a good thing to do this.
1 Corinthians 12:26 says, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
Therefore, when one member of the body of Christ is acknowledged as being gifted by God, we ought to rejoice alongside them. But if we suffer from jealousy or feeling useless, the entire rest of the church will suffer as well; they won’t be encouraged or fed by our gifts if we’re too self-focused to put them on the table.
This is where the word admire comes into play. We ought to recognize and acknowledge and celebrate the gifts of others; in other words, we may admire the way that God is using them, but not to the point of jealousy. We must keep ourselves focused on the way that God is being glorified and people are being reached through the person’s gift; for that is how we come to a place of standing in awe of the way God is coordinating the gift of the person with the way He is actively using it to reach the world - which in turn causes us to celebrate with them, as well as glorify God ourselves for the wondrous way in which He works.
Admiring causes external reflection - reflection of the way that God moves, works all things out for His glory, and has the ability to transform and use others. And honestly, it can be very encouraging to witness.
The second word is inspire. When we see just how locked in and humble someone is and how well God is using them because of that, it prompts us to lock in and get on our knees so that we can be used to our maximum potential. It’s almost like a little wake up call of just how much God can accomplish through someone who is focused and steadfast, and it inspires us to keep focused and steadfast ourselves.
Being inspired by someone causes internal reflection. It causes you to think, “Am I surrendered to God so that He might use my gifts for His glory, just as they are?” I just experienced this a few weeks ago when someone I knew was talking about how they’re using their gifts for God’s glory. Because I could actually see the evidence of how God was working through my friend’s gifts, it pierced my heart and convicted me to lock in properly, too, so that God might use me in the same way.
Now that we know the words we should pursue - admire and inspire - let’s talk about the words we should run from…
Competition & Comparison.
Circling back to the response of jealousy, allow me to ask a question: What exactly are you jealous of? Usually it’s the honor and recognition that the gifted person receives from others, the esteem that others hold them in. But if that is your concern, then, friend, you are competing against your brother for your own glory - not working alongside them for God’s glory. You’re living to please men, and you’re living in pride - neither of which reflect the nature of Christ nor the proper heart posture of a Christian. It’s like those who prayed on the street corners just to be heard by men; you are living for man, so you will get your reward from man - not God (Matthew 6:2).
Ultimately, we are all running this race, and we are all racing for the prize of Jesus. But we are certainly not in a competition.
Often, though, when we do have the right posture of heart and we’re not trying to compete, we fall into the other trap of thinking that our gifts mean nothing because they’re not as “great” as someone else’s. And that’s where the word comparison comes in.
1 Corinthians 12:15-16 says it best: “If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.”
(I just love that, through Paul, God addressed the issue of comparison specifically, because Paul is someone a lot of Christians end up comparing themselves to… It’s just kind of ironic.)
Let me apply this passage to the modern experience…
If the background vocalist says he doesn’t bring God glory because he’s not the song leader, he’s wrong. If the guy sitting in his lifegroup thinks he’s not glorifying God because he’s not the one teaching it, he’s wrong. If the mom sitting in service thinks she’s not glorifying God because she’s not working in the nursery, she’s wrong.
If anybody thinks they’re not part of the body at all just because they’re not a certain part of the body, they’re mistaken. The reality is, the body of Christ has many parts, and they all glorify God.
-The background vocalist is the heart that lifts up and prays over the song leader while he serves as the mouth… and that glorifies God.
-The guy sitting in his lifegroup is the hand that texts the lifegroup leader every day to make sure he’s doing okay since his surprising diagnosis, so that the leader can be the feet that travel to class twice a week to bring the Word of God to everyone… and that glorifies God.
-The mom in the sanctuary is the shoulder that other women like the nursery helped lean on and cry on during their own trials, so that they are encouraged and strengthened to be the arms that hold the babies every week… and that glorifies God.
You see, there is no point in comparison. If we were all song leaders, or lifegroup leaders, or nursery helpers – all mouths, all feet, or all arms, there would be no body.
1 Corinthians 12:17-19 explains this when it says, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be?”
God has given you the gifts that He personally desired for you to have, and you can rest in that. All of the members come together to form one body, and that body is the body of Christ. All the members working together with their own abilities is what allows the body to function, even the less honored members. That means that - since we are the body of Christ when all of us are put together - we as a whole are what Jesus uses to reach earth.
Jesus is not on earth in bodily form. But He does have the Church to represent His body, and He works through us. All of us. Because every member comes together to form the one body.
With that in mind, we see how futile our thinking must be if we feel the need to compare ourselves.
All of that to say… let’s go back to the french fries.
The concept of glorifying God is like the concept of bottomless fries… always desired, neverending, owed, and brought willingly.
-God always desires for us to glorify Him with our lives. He will never stop wanting us to reflect His nature or to stop surrendering ourselves to Him. Kind of like how we always want the fries to keep coming, He wants the glory to keep being given.
-God’s glory is endless. Not only does He always want us to use our gifts for His glory, there is simply always glory to be given. He is just so good and just so holy that the time will never come for us to stop glorifying Him with our gifts until He calls us home… just like how those french fries will keep coming and coming, endlessly, until our time at the restaurant is up.
-We owe God glory for all that He has done for us. God would be holy and worthy even if He never provided a sacrifice for our sins, but He did, and that is all the more reason that we owe Him our thanks and we ought to glorify Him. You are owed those fries, no matter how many you want, once you buy that bottomless appetizer; likewise, God has bought your freedom for a very high price, and that is all the more reason that we owe Him infinite glory.
-Bringing God the glory He deserves is an intentional act. It’s not always first nature, and it’s not always easy; we have to work to keep our eyes fixed on Him and His purposes. Just like your server does not accidentally bring you that third basket of fries, you will not accidentally keep your heart in the right posture so as to use your gifts for His glory.
And I have one final point to make with these fries, and please bear with me, guys, because it’s really important…
Whether it ends up being Sarah or Mike or Hannah or Sam that brings you the basket you order, you are going to be pleased with that basket of fries. Whether you think your server is skilled or unskilled or pretty or ugly, the fries are going to taste the same. And the fact that the pretty, skilled server brought you your first basket of fries does not mean that you don’t want that second basket from the ugly unskilled server, nor does it mean that the second is less pleasing than the first. You just want somebody to bring you your basket of fries.
What I mean by that is, so what if you don’t think you’re as good as somebody else? So what if they’re doing amazing and you don’t think that you are? So what if nobody remembers you?
The point is for God to be glorified, and you can do that. It doesn’t matter if someone seems to be better at using their gifts to glorify God than you are, because no one is going to “out-glorify” you because that is not the point.
It’s bottomless, it’s endless, the glory to be given to God, so as long as you keep on going, and they keep on going, and we all keep on going with using the gifts He has intentionally given us as He saw fit, we are glorifying Him.
And that is the way it should be.