Your Uniqueness: A Gift of Christ to His Church

Introduction

Have you ever wondered what your gift is in the Church? You run through the list in 1 Corinthians 12, compare yourself to others, and walk away with no clear answer. Stéphane Guillet, drawing on Ephesians 4:7-16, invites you to flip the question around. Stop asking "what is my gift?" and start asking "what gift am I to the Church?" Your uniqueness isn't an obstacle to the unity of the body of Christ. It's part of it. Christ himself gave you to his Church.

Message outline

1. "Singular" in the plural: the Church is made of unique people

• In the series "The Church in God's Plan for the World," after addressing unity (verses 1 to 6), Paul turns to singularity in verse 7.
• The word in the title is plural on purpose, a reminder that the universal Church is made up of a multitude of singularities.
• Three levels of questioning: How is a union of churches singular among families of churches? How is your local community singular? What is your singularity within that community?

2. Postmodern society has turned singularity into an obsession

• German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz wrote a book on this very question. Today, everything can be personalized: a ringtone, a wine label, the color of a car.
• There was once a time when the common good smothered the individual. We now live in the opposite era: singularity threatens any sense of shared purpose.
• Precisely because our culture pushes toward singularity, the Bible starts with unity, before addressing singularity as a richness to be ordered.

3. "To each one of us" : every unique person has received grace (verse 7)

• The text could literally be translated "to each unique one of us." After the string of "ones" in verses 4-6, Paul drives the point home: unity is neither confusion nor uniformity. It's singularities held together.
• Your DNA marks you as unique; it also places you in the category of human beings. You are unique and alike at the same time.
• When Paul says there is no longer "Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female," he isn't saying those differences vanish the moment you come up out of the baptismal water. He's saying that in the Church, those differences no longer carry weight, because the Church is a people oriented toward the kingdom, where such divisions will one day cease to exist.

4. "According to the measure of the gift of Christ": two readings that converge

• First reading: the measure is God's infinite greatness. Grace is given to you at the scale of his love revealed in Jesus Christ, the grace that saves, that transforms, that lets you be united with people very different from you.
• Second reading: each person receives a particular measure, a gift proper to their own singularity. This is the reading many commentators favor, alongside Romans 12:6: "having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us." Here, it's the grace of service.
• Stéphane Guillet simply says he can't settle the matter, both may well be true at once. Paul may have had both in mind.

5. The return of the victorious King (verse 8, quoting Psalm 68:18)

• Paul freely quotes Psalm 68: "When you ascended on high, you led captivity captive. You received gifts among men."
• The image is of a victorious general returning to Zion with captives whom he puts into service. In the ancient Near East, this scene of a king returning from military campaign with plunder was a familiar one.
• Paul applies it to Christ: the victor is Jesus, who descended and then ascended again after his death and resurrection (the Ascension). The captives are us. Paul calls himself "the prisoner of Christ" (Ephesians 3:1), not "for the sake of Christ," but "of Christ."

6. The gifts are not abilities : they are people (verse 11)

• The list in Ephesians 4 is a narrow one: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. It centers on the ministry of the Word.
• In Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the gifts are abilities stirred up by the Spirit. Here, Paul shifts perspective: the gifts are people. People put into the service of the whole.
• The stated goal: "for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ" (v.12) and its "harmonious growth" (v.16).

7. Change your question: "what gift am I to the Church?"

• Many Christians are tormented by the question "what is my gift?" They run through the list in 1 Corinthians 12 over and over without ever landing on a clear answer.
• Ephesians 4 invites you to flip the question: Am I a gift that builds up the body of Christ? Am I a gift that helps its harmonious growth, in the measure that has been given to me?
• This question stops you from fixating on discovering some abstract spiritual gift. It simply pushes you toward service, toward doing "whatever your hand finds to do" in the present moment, out of who you are, what you know how to do, your own singularity.

8. That one original brother who bothers you : Christ gave him to you

• That brother or sister who's a little unusual, whom you'd rather avoid because they get on your nerves, you'll see them differently once you consider that Christ gave them to you.
• They aren't someone you picked because you happened to click with them. They're someone Christ chose to give to his Church.
• Stéphane Guillet points to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together, chapter 1 · pages rich with insight on this kind of fellowship you don't get to choose.

9. The Church's calling: to bear witness to a new humanity

• What if the Church's calling were exactly that: to show that men and women, rich and less rich, natives and foreigners, can live together in harmony because of the gospel?
• This is the "new humanity" of Ephesians 2, where the dividing wall has come down. Not to flatten diversity, but so that singularities become a richness.
• It's just as true between local churches: each has its own way of celebrating worship, of doing evangelism. That's not a problem, it's even desirable, as long as the same Lord is worshiped in truth and the same gospel is proclaimed. True within the Union of Free Churches, within the CNEF, within the Protestant Federation of France, within the communion of Christian churches in France.

Key takeaways

• Christian unity isn't uniformity, it's singularities held together by one Lord.
• The gifts of Ephesians 4 are people given to the Church, not abilities to be discovered within yourself.
• The right question isn't "what is my gift?" but "what gift am I to the Church?"
• The brother or sister who bothers you isn't an obstacle: they're a gift Christ chose to give his Church.
• Your uniqueness doesn't divide the Church when it serves its harmonious growth, it reveals its richness.

Personal application

• If you swapped out "what is my gift?" today for "what gift am I to my church right now?", what would your hand find to do this week?
• Is there a brother or sister you tend to avoid because they get on your nerves? How would your view of them change if you received them as a gift Christ gave to your church?
• What singularity do you recognize in yourself (story, temperament, skills, culture), that you've never dared to think of as useful for the body's growth?
• Does your unity with other Christians depend on how much they resemble you, or on the fact that you all have one Lord?
• Your local church has its own way of living out worship, of doing evangelism. Do you receive that as a richness, or do you measure it against some other "ideal" church?

Scripture references

• Ephesians 4:1-16 · main passage, singularity in the service of unity
• Ephesians 4:7-16 · the text Stéphane Guillet meditates on
• Ephesians 3:1 · "I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus"
• Ephesians 2:14-16 · the dividing wall torn down, the new humanity
• Psalm 68:18 · "You have ascended on high, you have led away captives"
• Romans 12:6 · "having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us"
• 1 Corinthians 12 · the broader list of spiritual gifts
• Galatians 3:28 · "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female"

Further reading

• How to Train a Small Group Leader
• How to Start a Home Group
• Someone Who Monopolizes the Conversation: What to Do?

Frequently asked questions

Should you try to identify "your" spiritual gift?

The approach isn't wrong in itself, but Ephesians 4 shifts the question. Rather than staying stuck on "what is my gift?", Stéphane Guillet invites you to ask "what gift am I to the Church?" This reframing frees you from paralyzing introspection and pushes you toward concrete service, starting from who you already are: your uniqueness, your story, your skills, your availability.

What should I do about a brother or sister in my church who bothers me?

The message reminds you that you didn't choose the other members of your church: Christ gave them to his Church, you included. The brother or sister who bothers you isn't an accident. Bonhoeffer, in Life Together, develops this reality: Christian fellowship isn't a community of affinities but a gift that precedes our preferences. Receive it as such before trying to run from it.

How do you reconcile uniqueness and unity in the Church today?

The Bible doesn't set singularity against unity. It first establishes unity (Ephesians 4:1-6, the string of "ones"), then singularity (v.7 onward) as a richness to be ordered in service of the body. Christian unity is neither confusion nor uniformity, it's singularities held together by one Lord, one faith, one baptism, in one body growing in harmony.