SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it always means so much for me to uh come into Faith Alive because I am a product of Faith Alive.
SPEAKER_00: And so on the third day of December 1983, my uh older brother brought me from Prince Albert to come to Faith Alive over at Cynthia Street.
SPEAKER_00: How many attended Faith Alive when it was over by the airport?
SPEAKER_00: I see Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Pierce's hands and about five or six others.
SPEAKER_00: And so that night I gave my life to Jesus Christ in a meeting with Charles and Francis Hunter.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might remember the Happy Hunters.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so I've always had such an affinity.
SPEAKER_00: I share your spiritual DNA, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm so glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I've taught for six years, actually.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's five or six years, and it's my first grad I've ever been able to attend.
SPEAKER_00: I'm always traveling in May.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I'm glad to be able to uh to uh be able to share with your grad.
SPEAKER_00: I was given a verse that was the theme for your grad, but first Peter 4 and verse 10 was the theme for your graduation.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh let's dive right into the word of God and uh let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I just thank you for the graduates, thank you for the instructors, and I thank you for this church family.
SPEAKER_00: And I just pray, Father God, that uh you'll speak through this time here, not just to the graduates, but to all of us.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, I thank you for a word in season uh for every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus I pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So, 1 Peter 4 and verse 10 out of the New Living says, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Use them well to serve one another.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a great verse for a grad theme, but it's a great verse for everybody, for every follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it starts out with the very simple thought that God has given each one of you a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say, God's given me a gift, he's given a gift to everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets one.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gets left out.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has received a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Great variety of gifts.
SPEAKER_00: We don't all get the same one, we all get different types of gifts, but God gives every single person a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so he just so happened to give you a gift.
SPEAKER_00: And you might not know what it is, but that's partly maybe what Bible college is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so uh, how many of you uh when you get around somebody who appears to be kind of really multi-gifted, it's sort of intimidating.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because there are certain people that uh, you know, you get around them and it seems like, oh, that guy, he does everything awesome.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he does everything well.
SPEAKER_00: And it kind of can be a little bit intimidating.
SPEAKER_00: It can kind of make you feel a little bit jealous or maybe even a little bit insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: But that was never ever God's intention in giving a variety of gifts.
SPEAKER_00: That was never ever his intention.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you probably, if you've ever handed out gifts to your kids, maybe some candy or something to your kid, to kids, you know, sometimes kids will start whining and just like, where's mine?
SPEAKER_00: You know, how come I didn't get one?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you give a cookie to one kid, and every kid wants uh a cookie all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_00: And so I only had one.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so uh uh, you know, there's always a little bit of that.
SPEAKER_00: Where's mine, or how come I didn't get one?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how many of you ever said that or heard that?
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we see someone who uses their gifts well, it can make us feel like we've been left out in the gifts department.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that God ran out because he gave all the good ones to somebody else, but that's just not the case.
SPEAKER_00: Leave that verse up there because the word of God just says it clearly.
SPEAKER_00: God has given each one of you a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing about your gift, and if you get anything from this today, here's the thing about gifts is that when God's giving you something, you don't necessarily get to decide what he's giving you.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you what he gives you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you don't decide your gift, you discover your gift.
SPEAKER_00: And so you discover your gift and you find out God put this on the inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it takes a little season of walking with Jesus to figure out exactly, hey, what is it exactly that he's called me to do?
SPEAKER_00: What is exactly that he's called me to be?
SPEAKER_00: And he's given us a gift.
SPEAKER_00: You don't decide it, you discover it.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be just like getting a gift on your birthday or Christmas time, where you get a gift and it's all wrapped up, and you don't know what's underneath the wrapping paper until you unwrap it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I just had a unique experience in uh in my last missions journey.
SPEAKER_00: It was in Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00: I was there in March.
SPEAKER_00: It was my first time to the nation of Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, thank you so much as a church for supporting Canadian Fire.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you help enable me to uh find my way to the various nations God's called me to go.
SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes when you go into these different places, you preach in a church and they want to be a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: So they want to present you with a gift.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about gifts today.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to uh talk about this gift that they provided for me, or a couple of gifts they provided for me.
SPEAKER_00: So uh uh Karine, if you could put up that first pick, they gave me some brightly colored uh Nigerian clothing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know if you could throw that one pick up there.
SPEAKER_00: Where is it?
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
SPEAKER_00: All the Nigerians said amen.
SPEAKER_00: I should have worn that today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, show the second one.
SPEAKER_00: They gave me what's called an Akbada.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I hear some amens there.
SPEAKER_00: So I look pretty dapper, I think, and uh to Agbada.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so I preached in this church, and the very last church I preached in, they gave me a very large frame picture.
SPEAKER_00: But don't go to that uh uh next slide just yet.
SPEAKER_00: So they had it all wrapped up in wrapping paper, and it was the last church I went to.
SPEAKER_00: And the pastor started unwrapping the gift, and I'm standing on the platform waiting to see this gift he's provided for.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the night before, I went into uh I noticed something as I walked into the church.
SPEAKER_00: There was like a plaque on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: So if you can go to the next picture there, it actually shows the actual plaque that I was looking at.
SPEAKER_00: And there were three missionaries who came into this church, uh into the area of Nigeria, I guess, about 100 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And these three guys, two of them gave their lives, it says, if you're gonna read all that stuff that's on there.
SPEAKER_00: But uh I'm looking at these three guys, uh, and I'm just very touched by it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one thing that was a really cool moment, how many of you love it when you have like a God moment?
SPEAKER_00: You know, a God moment is just when God reveals something to you, He shows something to you.
SPEAKER_00: And every missions journey I go on, I always ask God for one or two or three God moments where it's just like, God, show me the purpose of this trip.
SPEAKER_00: Show me the reason why I came here, or show me something about this trip.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got to preach in a seminary for this particular group of churches.
SPEAKER_00: They're known as Evangelical Church Winning All, Equa.
SPEAKER_00: And I got to preach in their seminary.
SPEAKER_00: And so their seminary was huge.
SPEAKER_00: It was like a it was like a town.
SPEAKER_00: There was like 15 buildings, and there was like 450 students, and there's dorms and residences and libraries and all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of preaching, they took us out to a two-story building that had balconies, and then all the students stand along the balconies and standing along there, and I'm standing in the front on the bottom level with all the faculty uh and uh the professors and all the students are all surrounding me, and then I had a God moment.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, All of this is here, because three Canadian missionaries went.
SPEAKER_00: I almost started crying.
SPEAKER_00: And so, those of you who've been on missions journeys, never underestimate the power of even a single mission trip as to what Jesus can do, as to what Jesus can do.
SPEAKER_00: And so come back to the story I started with.
SPEAKER_00: They're presenting me with a picture, and as they started unwrapping it, the picture is not me.
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, oh, they're giving me a picture of one of these, one of these uh Canadian missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: So show the next picture here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh I uh uh I said to the pastor as he's unwrapping this huge, it was quite large, it was like about, it was almost too big to fit in a suitcase.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't bring it home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so uh I said, Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, that's you.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a little bit awkward because I had to say, No, that's not me.
SPEAKER_00: And so the pastor tried to defend himself a little bit uh as to who I don't know whether it's computer created or painted or drawn or what, but um it's not me.
SPEAKER_00: And so he still dug his heels in and tried to defend a little bit more, and he goes, Maybe it's a younger version of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, um, no, like I had a receding hairline in my 40s and it grew back in my 60s.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He finally conceded that the gesture, the gift that was intended for me, wasn't actually a picture of me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you do a Google image search for your name, I don't know if you've ever done a Google search on your own name.
SPEAKER_00: This guy is also Brad Mayer, and he's the 17th guy that comes up.
SPEAKER_00: He is, I I did it yesterday just to see.
SPEAKER_00: He's number 17.
SPEAKER_00: I counted 17 pictures before it came to this guy.
SPEAKER_00: He's in Texas somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: I feel sorry for him.
SPEAKER_00: I actually want to find him and let him know there's a big picture of him in Lagos, Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00: And so the weird thing is, is that I come up seven times before this guy, number 17.
SPEAKER_00: And they missed every one of those ones, and uh they created this picture that was supposed to be me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you have ever, this might sound racist, but it actually is not racist.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you ever heard white people say that many African people look the same, or many Oriental people look the same?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's actually a well-documented uh psychological phenomenon.
SPEAKER_00: It's known as cross-race effect, where people tend to um have greater difficulty distinguishing faces of races other than their own.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so if you've ever had that happen, so I'm experiencing the reverse of this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm experiencing the all white people look the same because they found this picture of me, made a picture.
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, you can take that down.
SPEAKER_00: I was very gracious.
SPEAKER_00: I told the pastor later in his office that mistakes happen and that I would not be taking a picture of this other Brad Mayer back to Canada.
SPEAKER_00: My son-in-law laughed so hard, he said, You should have brought it and stuck it in your garage.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, no, I don't need that.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh, it's an example of a misplaced gift.
SPEAKER_00: And so now I get back to the grad speech here.
SPEAKER_00: There was a point to all of that because I've seen it too many times where someone has a gift, but they want to be somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: They want to serve in a certain area, but it really maybe maybe isn't their gift at all.
SPEAKER_00: And so two problems happen when you do that is not only are you not fulfilling what you're supposed to be fulfilling with your gift, you're maybe standing in the place of somebody else uh and causing them to miss out uh on being the place that they're supposed to be in.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in my missions journeys, I've I've been I've been uh honored, I guess, or privileged to speak in hundreds of churches.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one thing I see a lot is a lot of times I'll see a pastor and his wife is the music director.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she can carry a tune, many times she cannot.
SPEAKER_00: And so I know that's it got all quiet in here.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, Barb doesn't lead worship here or or Sessie, I don't know, but you've probably been in the same situation.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to be mean when I say that, but I just I feel like you know, find your gift, function in that gift, operate in that gift, utilize that gift.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to be somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that doesn't help uh things if you try to be someone else.
SPEAKER_00: So let me come back to what I shared.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to decide your gift, you discover your gift.
SPEAKER_00: And just like you don't know what's inside the wrapping paper on a Christmas gift or a birthday gift, you don't always know what God's given you as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: I never knew when I first gave my life to Christ back in the 80s that God would call me into evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that first, you know, first off or right away.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but uh, you know, you could ask for a gift.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know how how God responds to that.
SPEAKER_00: If we say, God, could I be gifted in music or could I be gifted in this sort of way?
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, you don't know what you get until you unwrap it.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that just involves spending time with God, and uh, you know, and that's where Bible college comes in, because Bible college is a powerful place to discover your gifts.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I like like uh Reverend Ananda said, it's been 38 years of me one way or another teaching in a Bible college.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's a great place to not just discover your gifts, but to develop your gifts and to refine your gifts.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're celebrating some graduates here today, but perhaps you're someone who maybe isn't so, you know, you don't know for sure what is what is the gift that God's placed inside my life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, taking some time in your life to, you know, take some classes and get into the word of God in an intense way.
SPEAKER_00: Because church is church, and we, you know, we get the word of God at church, but when you're going into a Bible school, you're getting the word of God sometimes four and five and six days a week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you could be getting the word of God every day and in a very intense kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: And that's uh a powerful season of a life where God can show you these are the gifts I've given to you, these are the gifts I called you to refine, to develop, to utilize.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, when people get jealous or feel insignificant around others who've developed their gifts, more often than not, uh, it's not a case of them not having received a gift.
SPEAKER_00: No, more often than not, it's a case of them not discovering or developing or utilizing the gift that God put on the inside of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was looking, I was trying to think, what's a good scriptural story about use your gift well?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and do you remember the parable of the talents?
SPEAKER_00: I thought this fits so perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect example of 1 Peter 4, verse 10, where it talks about use your gifts well.
SPEAKER_00: And the parable of the talents, in case you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a parable Jesus shared where two guys were given uh some gifts and they used their gifts well, and then there was one guy who didn't use his gift well.
SPEAKER_00: And so the master gave five talents to one guy, he turned those five into ten.
SPEAKER_00: He gave two gifts to another guy, and he turned his two into four.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some read that far and they start to freak out a little bit because it's like none unfair, you know.
SPEAKER_00: How come one guy only got one when somebody else got five?
SPEAKER_00: That's so not fair, that's favoritism.
SPEAKER_00: That's how socialists read it, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's not fair, is what you get out of reading the parable of the talents, then you need to read it again.
SPEAKER_00: You need to go to Bible school, you've missed the point Jesus was trying to make.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I could just say, uh, Pastor Brandt is, you know, why are you so stupid?
SPEAKER_00: You know, but I I I didn't know that that was part of his uh part of his repertoire there, but uh but one thing you notice in that parable, and I'm not gonna go through all the verses of that parable, but one thing you notice in the midst of that parable is exactly what we started with in 1 Peter 4 10.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly what we started with.
SPEAKER_00: The parable points out to the simple fact that God has given something to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not the same quantities, but he's given something to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: He gave five to one, he gave two to another, he gave one to another.
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody in the story that says, and to poor Billy over there, he received zero.
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: He gave something to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no one in that story that receives zero talents.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, one guy got five, one guy got two, and one guy got only one, but nobody in the story receives zero.
SPEAKER_00: So the real lesson to be learned with the parable of the talents is this is that it's not a story about how unfair the master was and how he doled out the gifts.
SPEAKER_00: The real lesson isn't about the quantity of gifts, it's about what you do with your gifts.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with what you've been given?
SPEAKER_00: And there was a reason why some received more talents than others.
SPEAKER_00: And it was because they accomplished something with what they were given.
SPEAKER_00: They multiplied what they were given.
SPEAKER_00: And so the guy with five turned his five into ten, and the guy with two turned his two into four.
SPEAKER_00: But the guy with one, this third guy, he's the poster boy for not using your gifts well.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be this guy.
SPEAKER_00: What did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He went and dug a hole in the ground and he buried the one talent that he was given.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's not bad enough, he kind of blames his master for his failure to do something with his talent.
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew 24 and verse 24 out of the HCSB says, The man who received the one talent also approached and he said, He said, Master, I know you.
SPEAKER_00: You're a difficult man, reaping where you haven't sown and gathering where you haven't scattered seed.
SPEAKER_00: He just calls out his master and kind of blames his master.
SPEAKER_00: I buried this thing in the ground because of you, because of how hard you are, how difficult you are.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says that this difficult master of his reaps where he hasn't sown and gathers where he hasn't scattered seed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know there's a word for somebody who reaps where they haven't sown and gathers where they haven't scattered seed?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what that word is?
SPEAKER_00: It's a thief.
SPEAKER_00: You're stealing stuff, you're a robber.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me point something out to you that the God who has put a gift inside your life, he is not a thief.
SPEAKER_00: He is a giver, he's not a taker.
SPEAKER_00: And he's put something on the inside of you, and maybe you don't know for sure what it is, but he's put something on the inside of you, and he's not a thief.
SPEAKER_00: And so this guy had no right, he had no basis to stand on to go and declare uh that uh, you know, this is this is the master's fault, you know, and that's why I'll go bury what I have in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this one guy, the poster boy for how to not use your gifts well, he gets a talent and then he basically goes and digs a little grave for it.
SPEAKER_00: He has a funeral for it, and then he sings a hymn, Oh, he was a hard man.
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know if there's such a song uh for as that, but he literally buries what he was given in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: The last thing God wants for you in your life, and graduates especially, I want to say this to you, is that he does not want you to go to your grave with an undiscovered gift.
SPEAKER_00: He does not want you to go to your grave with an unutilized gift, with an undeveloped gift.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you spend your whole life being jealous of gifted people around you and you don't realize that you also carry gifts that the world needs, you're missing out on the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the kingdom of God is missing out because the kingdom needs your gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Your local church needs your gifts, and even God Himself, you know, is desiring that you would step into your gift and that you would use what he's called you to use.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you live out your gift, God is glorified and his church grows, people are impacted, Jesus is proclaimed, hearts are changed, all because God works through people that he puts gifts on the inside of.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a gift is made to be given.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when God gives you a gift, it's not just that he gave you something, but he gave you something that was made to give to others.
SPEAKER_00: That's what gifts are.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are just all about, oh, I wish I could receive a gift from God or receive something.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but if it's a gift, that means it's about giving it to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: And he calls us to give our gifts away.
SPEAKER_00: One purpose one person said it this way He said, the purpose of life is to discover your gift, but the meaning of life is to give your gift away.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh some psychologists said that.
SPEAKER_00: And so when gifts are given, what happens when you give?
SPEAKER_00: Things multiply.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Give and it shall be given unto you.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you give away what God put on the inside of you, it can multiply.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a seed that's planted, and so that guy with the five talents says he planted uh you know his five somehow.
SPEAKER_00: He multiplied that five and it turned into ten.
SPEAKER_00: And then eleven.
SPEAKER_00: Because do you know the end of the story?
SPEAKER_00: The guy with the one, the buried gift in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: It went to the guy with the five with the ten.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, all the socialists would go bananas, just thinking, what?
SPEAKER_00: Now he's got eleven.
SPEAKER_00: But stop and think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm an investor and there's a business that can take$500 and turn it into a thousand dollars, I want to invest with that guy.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a good investment, and so there's a reason why someone was given five and someone was given two, and someone was given one.
SPEAKER_00: It's because the ones with five and two very most likely had already been doing something with what they've been given.
SPEAKER_00: And they showed that you're a worthy investment, that you're a good person for me to put five into because you're gonna turn around, you're gonna turn that five into ten.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 24, verse 25, in the message just goes a little bit further with the excuse making, the poster boy for not doing using his gifts well.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be this guy.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and I secured your money.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, safe and sound, down to the last cent.
SPEAKER_00: Loser.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, your gift was made to be multiplied.
SPEAKER_00: If you just give back to God nothing more than what he gave to you, that's not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Because everyone Of you has been called by God to discover your gift, decide uh uh develop your gift, let's spit it out, and utilize your gift.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're called to to carry this thing that God put on the inside of us and use it so that it be multiplied.
SPEAKER_00: Your gift was made to be multiplied.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you do that, man, you'll get to see that multiplication.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the coolest things ever.
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't go to your grave with your gift.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is just don't bury what God's given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go sticking in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of your life, you go and you say, All proud, you know, look, God, here is what is yours.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this guy with the one talent did.
SPEAKER_00: He gave back that one talent.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like he's all proud of himself, thinking he did a good thing, but the master was not impressed.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, if we were to read the next verse, he calls him wicked and lazy.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's the perfect example of how not to use your gifts well.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, if God's given every one of us a gift, then we all have that responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Discover the gift, develop the gift, use the gift.
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's where a local church is vital, but then that's also where a Bible school is vital.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know during my own season of myself going to Bible school, I was able to really, really solidify what Jesus had called me to do during that season.
SPEAKER_00: So don't go to your grave with an under undiscovered gift.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go to your grave with an undeveloped gift.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go to your grave with an underutilized gift.
SPEAKER_00: God gave you that gift so you could use it.
SPEAKER_00: And when you use it, God is glorified.
SPEAKER_00: It's like He gives a gift to you, just something super unique, something special, like your DNA, like your fingerprints.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that's that that's specific to you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are things that you are good at that not everybody is good at.
SPEAKER_00: And God put that in you.
SPEAKER_00: And when you use that gift, it multiplies, and then that's your gift back to God.
SPEAKER_00: Not just the original form of the gift, but the multiplied version of the gift.
SPEAKER_00: That's your gift back to God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And so praise God.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you would say, I know what my gift is to some extent, and I believe I'm walking in it.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you would say that?
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to raise your hand on this.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many of you that should know this and do know this, and I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing like, you know, walking in the thing that God designed you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, sometimes we miss it, and sometimes we go down some some some detours and some some wrong trails, you know, looking for the thing that we thought God wanted us to do.
SPEAKER_00: I got a four-year degree in business, uh, and I'm glad I have it, but it wasn't what God's call on my life was.
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up going to Bible college after that.
SPEAKER_00: But while I was in uh university, I uh I determined I was gonna put God first.
SPEAKER_00: I had just gotten born again right before I went to university, and uh I determined I am gonna put God first every single day.
SPEAKER_00: So I went over to the university campus.
SPEAKER_00: I carried with me back in the 80s when I went to university the amplified Bible was a big was a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And so I stuck this in the front pocket of my backpack and I brought this book to university every single day for four years, and I beat the living daylights out of it.
SPEAKER_00: After the end of four years, you know, this Bible's falling to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: You know, here's uh you can do this, you know, here's Ephesians to Romans right there.
SPEAKER_00: So it's full of highlighting notes, you know, the margins are filled, it's colored by highlighters, and uh it was like you never end going to Bible school.
SPEAKER_00: You can still can and so this was my Bible school before I went to Bible school.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the same could be said about after that you continue diving into the word of God, that you continue making it a priority in your life, that you continue to learn.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it it'll help you just keep uh developing that gift, developing that gift that's on the inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a different verse here.
SPEAKER_00: Take this just a bit of a different direction.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 18 and verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: It says, A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before a great man.
SPEAKER_00: I remember my first day in full-time ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I'd spent my years getting that university degree, but my pastor saw something in me during that time and said, We want an outreach guy in our church.
SPEAKER_00: And so he gave me the opportunity to go to Bible school in the morning and go uh do outreach in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: We started doing outreaches and to the point that at one season we had 250 outreaches a year from one local church.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're just doing outreach all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: But they gave me an office, and I remember walking into that office early on, my first week or two of having it, and just thinking, my gift literally made a room for me.
SPEAKER_00: They gave me an office, you know, and I was just so, so, so touched by that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and uh and yet I think, you know, as you walk out your call, just how many great men I've been able to stand before it.
SPEAKER_00: I've been privileged to meet, you know, presidents of universities.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Ethiopia, I met the vice president uh of an entire nation.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so many countries, you know, as you come as a missionary, sometimes they open up doors for you to meet some very great men.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as I find my way into nation number 72 and 73 next month, you know, uh pray for me because I'm going right through a war zone.
SPEAKER_00: And so as I fly through Qatar and into Pakistan, that's where I'm headed next.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I would I would love it if uh uh I had another church praying for me.
SPEAKER_00: But it's you know, I had somebody at our Thursday night outreach.
SPEAKER_00: We feed people hot dogs on Thursday night when you're praying.
SPEAKER_00: Always, you know, if you're praying on Thursday nights, think of us down there.
SPEAKER_00: Because uh we give out food and we have a kind of a street church uh on uh on uh Thursday nights.
SPEAKER_00: And so a guy asked me, he goes, Why would you choose to go through a war zone?
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's all about the gift that God put in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And if I don't do what God calls me to do, I'm not using the gift that he gave me.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a price to using the gift, there's a cost to using the gift, and he called me just like he called you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and he called you to multiply the thing that uh was put on the inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we planted City Center Church, there was a five-year period where I didn't go anywhere on any missions journey outside of the country.
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is something I believe to be a big part of my calling on my life.
SPEAKER_00: It was a super frustrating time, not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00: I went through a massively difficult time because I knew I was called to do something and I wasn't doing it.
SPEAKER_00: And I would meet with my pastor, it was when Pastor Jim was pastor, I'd meet with Pastor Randall, I'd literally beg him to go on some missions journey anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: But then he would wisely point out to me that I had no money, I had no connections, and I had no real clear direction as to exactly where I wanted to go.
SPEAKER_00: And all of that was true, and he's right about that.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing I still had is I had a call.
SPEAKER_00: I had a gift that God put on the inside of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember how frustrated I would get.
SPEAKER_00: And Pastor Randall was so focused on planting the inner city church that he said, you don't need to go into world missions.
SPEAKER_00: This is your mission.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there, he's right about that because I was called to that inner city mission, the inner city mission that I'm still a part of.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh, I'm called to that, but I knew there was something more.
SPEAKER_00: And I would sit in his office with tears streaming down my face, and my overwhelming thought over and over and over again was uh I need to fulfill this mission's call that God put on my life.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I had no many, no, no, I had no idea how many doors God would open, but one after another, slowly but surely, this door opened, that door opened, this door opened, that door opened, and doors opened.
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time sitting and saying to Pastor Jim, I just said, if I don't do this, I'm disobeying Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the the the gift in your life should get so strong on the inside of you, graduate, that that's how you have that kind of a passion where you realize if I don't step into the things that Jesus has called me to do, I'm disobeying him.
SPEAKER_00: I must do what he's called me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: His gift will make room for you.
SPEAKER_00: It might not be right away, might not be tomorrow, might not be next week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh keep developing, keep refining your gift, and his gift will fulfill you, it will satisfy you, and yet at the same time, it will challenge your heart and uh sometimes put you in some of the most difficult situations you'll ever face.
SPEAKER_00: His gift will make room for you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, about three or four years ago, I was in Amsterdam and I was at this massive conference.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have heard this story before, but it just fits with what we're talking about about how a gift makes room for you.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was uh I was um at this huge gathering of evangelists.
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me backtrack a bit, even like 20 plus years.
SPEAKER_00: My first missions journeys were to the Philippines and to Italy.
SPEAKER_00: Two trips to the Philippines in 1999 and 2000, and then I think around 2002, uh, we took a trip to um Italy.
SPEAKER_00: And I was with a man of God that since gone to be with Jesus, who was like a mentor to me.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I remember coming back from that second or third trip and just saying, Where do you think Jesus wants to send us next?
SPEAKER_00: And so we'd sit in each other's office, and and I remember that man of God, his name was John Power.
SPEAKER_00: He he he said, uh, he said, Why don't you uh go pray about it and I will too, and let's come back and let's see where God wants to send us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we both went and did that, and then I went back into his office and I said, This is the craziest thing.
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like the next nation or one of the nations God has called me to go to is Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Me too.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, really?
SPEAKER_00: And we knew nobody in Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know anything about any church movement, didn't know a single Christian, did not know a single soul in Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God put Iceland in both of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Now, unfortunately, I think uh my mentor there went to be with Jesus prematurely.
SPEAKER_00: I believe I I he was I think only in his 50s when he passed away 15 years ago or so.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I still carried Iceland in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: So there I am in Amsterdam, and I'm sitting in this conference, and a guy comes in and he sits behind right behind me.
SPEAKER_00: If any of you have ever heard of Nathan Morris, Nathan Morris is an amazing British evangelist who is doing a session, and I was enjoying it, but I see this guy with his name tag, and it says Iceland on his name tag.
SPEAKER_00: So I thought I can't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: And I turned around and I told him the story.
SPEAKER_00: I never tried to uh to um kick doors down.
SPEAKER_00: Uh your gift will make room for you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to go make room for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to go barge into places and try to make something happen.
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I uh I turned around and I said to him, Hey, listen, I told him the whole story I just told you about how a mentor of mine and we both carried Iceland in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: This man of God from Iceland goes and says this to me.
SPEAKER_00: He says, That is so amazing that you would come and you'd say this to me.
SPEAKER_00: Because eight years ago, a prophet came to our church.
SPEAKER_00: He called me forward and he said, A day will come that a man named Brad will come to you, and that man will say he has a desire to go to Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: So I've been there now twice.
SPEAKER_00: I went there by myself once, and then I brought my wife with me the second time.
SPEAKER_00: They begged me to bring my wife with me, but his his gift will literally make room for you.
SPEAKER_00: And God will make plans that sometimes are years in the making, because that one was, to set something up for you.
SPEAKER_00: And when I went there, the I again you go there and then you ask for that God moment.
SPEAKER_00: God, you set this up with literal decades.
SPEAKER_00: What do you have for me?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it was the last day I was there, and I didn't have a moment.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm sitting around uh a dinner table in uh a pastor's home, and there are two or three ministry couples there, and then I just was listening to their conversation, and uh they were saying things like, Now we know we can reach our nation.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm passionate for unity, and as Ananda said, everywhere I go, I gather evangelists together, and they had 27 evangelists show up on the first day, on the first time I went to Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: 27 evangelists showed up, they were all doing their own thing, nobody was working together, and I came in and I preached.
SPEAKER_00: Peter and John went up together.
SPEAKER_00: And when I heard one pastor say it, and the second pastor say it, and the third pastor say it, that was my God moment in Iceland.
SPEAKER_00: Is that God's called you to unify evangelists so that the work of the harvest gets done?
SPEAKER_00: Now that's my call.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't about me today, this is about you guys.
SPEAKER_00: What's he called you to do?
SPEAKER_00: Let me take you to the next verse just before I wrap up here.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter 4 and verse 11 is the verse right after the one we started with.
SPEAKER_00: It says, if anyone speaks, they should do so as the one who speaks the very words of God.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God is glorified when various gifts are being used.
SPEAKER_00: That verse, I never preached on this verse, I don't think, in 38 years of ministry, but I read that verse and I just thought that's a verse for Brad and Kim Mayer, because we're very different.
SPEAKER_00: And I've had people say sometimes that, you know, when a couple gets married that you share the same call.
SPEAKER_00: But uh we do share the same calling at City Center Church, but Kimberly and I are very different.
SPEAKER_00: We are extremely different.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have this long-running joke, it's not really a joke, it's true, is that if Kimberly has to preach for 15 minutes, she needs about two weeks to prepare.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because and she's a good preacher.
SPEAKER_00: When she does put all that time in to prepare, she's a great preacher.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, it's just not her thing.
SPEAKER_00: She oversees the kitchen at City Center.
SPEAKER_00: And uh over the years, we've she's provided leadership for us to provide more than a hundred thousand meals in the inner city of Saskatoon.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh that's not something I can do.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'd be burning the toast or something like that, and people wouldn't come back to City Center if I was the if I was the head cook or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But I just look at that verse because it talks about him who speaks and him who serves.
SPEAKER_00: He says, you gotta do them both.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta do them both.
SPEAKER_00: The other side of that joke, I started to say it, is that if she has to speak for 15 minutes, she needs two weeks to prepare, and I'm the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: That if you give me 15 minutes, I can preach for two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: I won't.
SPEAKER_00: I know my time, I'm supposed to end here today.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, I watch my wife as she carries out her calling, and it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do what she does.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it is with gifts.
SPEAKER_00: When you notice a gift in someone else's life, you know, uh, you know, give them a pat on the back.
SPEAKER_00: Encourage them.
SPEAKER_00: Just say, Man, you are awesome in what you do.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the fact that you can do this.
SPEAKER_00: I could never do what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and and and that's part of what a gift's all about.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you might notice things.
SPEAKER_00: I've been walking in the calling that I've been walking in for a lot of years now.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I started to notice things about evangelists and missions people.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I I remembered, I had a flashback to when I was like five years old.
SPEAKER_00: And uh my parents had a coffee table book, a reader's digest coffee table book full of pictures and maps.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was National Geographic or Reader's Digest, one of those two.
SPEAKER_00: I remember I just used to flip that thing over and just pour through those pages, and it was and it was like a global type of book.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and I realized that mission's calling was inside of me from even like five years old.
SPEAKER_00: It was there.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like Jeremiah, the way he was called.
SPEAKER_00: It's like God put the call on the inside of you from your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, my wife discovered her calling at City Center.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that she, you know, goes to sleep at night, you know, dreaming about cooking a big meal, but she just does such a good job with it.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like I said, it can be that thing that you're passionate about or that thing that you are just so gifted at that everybody looks at it and says, That's God.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be Him that put that on the inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: One last verse about gifts is Romans 11 and verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: Out of the manglified Bible.
SPEAKER_00: No, the amplified.
SPEAKER_00: It says, For the gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable.
SPEAKER_00: He does not withdraw um uh uh what he's given, nor does he change his mind about those to whom he gives his grace or to whom he sends his call.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get a second version of this.
SPEAKER_00: The gift that God's already been stirring up on the inside of you, maybe over your time uh of your studies uh in Faith Alive Bible College, you know, he's been sorting those things out.
SPEAKER_00: Run with that gift.
SPEAKER_00: It is super satisfying to step into those things.
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't be the one who frustrates the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he put what he put on the inside of you because God knew it would be a good fit.
SPEAKER_00: And so run with the call, graduates.
SPEAKER_00: Run with what he's given you.
SPEAKER_00: Develop, continue to develop.
SPEAKER_00: You're not done developing.
SPEAKER_00: You're not done developing the gift that God's put on the inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and like I said, you may not walk into the fullness of what you know uh your gift is all about uh today or tomorrow or next week or even five years from now.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been in ministry close to 40 years, and only in the last four or five years have I stepped into some of the things that God put in my heart, even when I first got born again.
SPEAKER_00: And if I would have tried to be that guy uh then, you know, what God has me doing now, I would have fallen on my face so many, so many times.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll end with this.
SPEAKER_00: I loved how you did this last night there, uh Reverend Anande, where you had a word for every student.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a word for every student, but for the body of the students.
SPEAKER_00: And it was weird because it was related to uh what a software company had as their slogan many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was when Microsoft Windows started to become a thing and when the internet really started to become a thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so the slogan was, where do you want to go today?
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll just twist it a little bit for you.
SPEAKER_00: Where do you want to go into your future with the gifts that Jesus has given you?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you stand to your feet, Gods?
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we have some more parts of the grad ceremony that are coming up in a minute, but I do want to specifically pray for these six.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, I thank you for the gifts and callings of God that are on these men and women of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I thank you, Jesus, Father God, that you did not make a mistake when you put callings on the inside of them.
SPEAKER_00: And for some who are still seeking clarity about that thing that is uh uniquely designed to be them, Father God, I pray that you just uh give them that clarity, that focus, that just that pure gift, Father God.
SPEAKER_00: That may they walk into that gift and may they get around others who will help them develop that gift.
SPEAKER_00: Those perhaps who have walked farther down the road than they have, Father God.
SPEAKER_00: May they develop and strengthen that gift, and God, may they utilize that gift.
SPEAKER_00: As unique as it may be, thank you, Jesus, for these graduates.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all the exploits that they will do in Jesus' mighty name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.