What Are My Spiritual Gifts — and Does Using Them Actually Matter?

From the sermon preached on March 8, 2026

There is a short, quiet question a lot of people carry without ever saying it out loud: Does what I do matter? Spiritual gifts — the particular ways God has wired each person to contribute to the people around them — are one of Scripture's clearest answers to that question. The short answer is yes, you are needed, and the body of Christ is incomplete without what you bring. But getting there requires being honest about why so many of us don't believe that yet.

Most people, if they're being straight with themselves, have told someone "I'm fine" when they were not. They've shown up, done the work, gone home, and assumed nobody noticed either way. That pattern doesn't just happen at the grain elevator or at the plant. It happens in churches, in families, and in the places where people are supposed to be known. The Apostle Paul wrote to a divided church in Corinth not to motivate them with a pep talk, but to say something he needed them to actually hear: you are a body, you are not meant to function alone, and every part — including the ones nobody sees — is indispensable.

The image Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 12:12–20 is a human body, and it is not a soft metaphor. He names actual parts — a foot, a hand, an ear, an eye — and points out the obvious: if a body had only one of them, it would not work. A body made entirely of eyes cannot hear. A body made entirely of ears cannot smell. The point is not poetic. It is structural. You need all of it.

What Paul says in verse 13 goes deeper than function, though. He writes that every believer — regardless of background, regardless of whether they walked into a church for the first time last week or have attended for thirty years — has been brought into one body by one Spirit. That is the leveling fact underneath the whole passage. The person running the sound board and the person preaching from the front are operating from the same standing. The person who brings a meal to a family after a surgery and the person leading a small group are both doing the work of the body.

If you have ever felt like what you do at church doesn't really register — like it could go missing and no one would notice — Paul's argument in this passage is a direct challenge to that. The body cannot function without its parts. One missing person, one withheld gift, one person who decided they weren't needed, makes the whole body less than it was meant to be.

One honest actionable step: Read 1 Corinthians 12:12–20 once this week on your own — slowly, not as a church assignment, but as a question to sit with. Ask yourself what part of the body you might be, and whether you're showing up as that.

Pastor Austin Pendry, Trinity Church's counseling pastor, made a point in his teaching that is easy to skip past: it is not a question of whether you have something to offer. The question is how you use what you have. That shift matters. It moves the conversation from "am I enough?" to "what has God already put in my hands?"

In Matthew 25:14–30, Jesus tells a story about a master who distributes resources to three servants before leaving on a trip. Two of them put what they were given to work and returned with more. The third buried his, gave it back untouched, and the master was not pleased. What Jesus does not say to the second servant — the one who earned two talents instead of five — is worth noting: he does not ask why he didn't produce as much as the first. He says, well done. Faithfulness is not measured by output compared to someone else. It is measured by whether you used what was given to you.

That has a direct bearing on the question of discovering your spiritual gifts. You may not know exactly what yours are. That is a real and honest place to start from. But the passage is clear that there is something there — some way you are wired to care for people, to serve, to contribute — and the body of Christ is waiting on it. A spiritual gifts test can be a useful starting point, as can a conversation with someone you trust at church, a small group, or simply asking God for the discernment to see it.

One honest actionable step: If you genuinely do not know what your spiritual gifts are, take one small step this week to find out. Talk to someone in your church, take a spiritual gifts assessment, or simply pay attention to where you naturally move toward serving — that often tells you something.

The last few verses of 1 Corinthians 12 pull back from the anatomy metaphor and get to the point underneath it. Verse 25 says the reason all this matters is so that there would be no division in the body — that every part would have the same care for every other part. Verse 26 completes it: if one member suffers, all suffer. If one is honored, all rejoice.

That is a description of something most people in Watseka and Iroquois County have seen in their best moments — the way a community shows up when a neighbor loses a crop, when a family gets a hard diagnosis, when someone needs a meal and three are already on the doorstep. It is also a description of something people quietly long for when they are the one hurting and nobody knows because they said "I'm fine" when someone asked.

Pastoral Counselor Austin Pendry put it plainly: there are people sitting in churches and communities right now carrying things nobody knows about. Not because no one would care — but because they haven't found someone they trust enough to be real with. The body of Christ, when it is functioning the way Paul describes, is supposed to be that place. Not a performance of togetherness, but people using what they have to carry what someone else can't carry alone.

That doesn't require a title or a platform. It might be a phone call. It might be knowing your neighbor's schedule well enough to show up with dinner before they think to ask. It might be thirty minutes a week checking in on someone who isn't doing as well as they're letting on.

One honest actionable step: Think of one person in your life who is probably not fine, even though that's what they'd say. Reach out this week — not with a program, not with an agenda. Just reach out.

If you live in Watseka, Ashkum, Gilman, Milford, Cissna Park, or anywhere in the county, you probably already know what community looks like when it works. You've seen it at a funeral dinner, at harvest when someone's equipment broke and three neighbors showed up before he had to ask. That instinct — to show up, to use what you have for the person next to you — is not far from what this passage is describing. Trinity Church's C.A.R.E.S. ministry exists in that same spirit: meals when someone is sick, financial help when things are tight, presence when a family is grieving. If you've ever wondered whether a church like this is the kind of place where regular, working people actually belong, it is worth coming to see.

The body of Christ is not a metaphor for how a church should work someday. It is a description of what is already true about every person who has put their faith in Jesus Christ. Every gift, every small act of service, every honest conversation that costs something to have — these are the things that hold a body together.

If you are ready to see what Trinity Church is about in person, plan your visit in the button below — no pressure, no expectation that you have it all together.

If you are not quite there yet, connect here and let someone know how we can pray for you.