Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Doctor A. J. Cronin, the famous physician and author, had a very critical professor when he was in medical school.

He told Cronin that he might make a general practitioner, but he was hopeless as a surgeon, and Cronin believed him.

Completing his medical training, he went to a remote village in the Scottish Highlands to practice.

One winter day a tree fell on the son of the local pastor.

It crushed his spine and left him paralyzed.

Cronin knew a delicate neurological operation was necessary to prevent permanent paralysis, but he also remembered his professor's evaluation of his skills.

He was afraid to take the risk and refused to operate.

But the constant begging and pleading of the pastor finally got through to him, and for the first time he began to question the validity of his professor's verdict.

"Who was he to tell me what I can or cannot do?" His self-image was released from the bondage to another's opinion, and with his new found freedom he went on to successfully operate.

Here was a man who had been thinking of himself lower than he ought to have, and this hindered him from being what he was capable of being.

This is just as much a violation of God's perfect will for your life as it is to think of yourself more highly than you ought.

It is just as wrong to bury your talent as it is to be sinfully proud of it.

Paul makes it clear to the Romans that they are to avoid both extremes of self-exaltation and self-devaluation.

They are to think with sober judgment and just be honest about themselves.

And in being honest he knows they will be able to see that some of them are better at certain things than others.

The Christian who is being honest about himself will be able to say, "I have been blest of God to be able to do this better than most other Christians."

In other words, they will recognize they are gifted in certain areas of Christian service.

This is not pride but just an honest evaluation, and it is necessary for Christians to do this in order to function as God wants.

In verse 6 Paul begins to list 7 examples of the specialized gifts that exist in the body of Christ, and he urges those who have these, and all other gifts, to get busy and use them.

In other words, he is saying not to worry about what you don't have, but just use what you do have, and that is all that is necessary to be in the perfect will of God.

The eye that weeps because it cannot hear like the ear only blurs its vision and fails to be the best of what it can be for the body.

Too many Christians are so concerned about the gifts they do not have that they neglect the ones they do have.

They think of themselves more lowly than they ought.

When the Indian chief Crowfoot gave the Canadian Pacific Railway the right to cross his land he was given a lifetime pass.

He could ride the train anytime to any place at no cost.

He carried that pass in a leather case around his neck for the rest of his life, but he never once used it.

He had a gift of great value but he never took advantage of it.

This is the tragic reality you see when people never use the gifts God gives them.

Paul says that having gifts that differ according to the grace given us, "Let us use them."

Of course, we should use them.

What else can you do with a gift?

You either use them or you neglect them and leave them unused.

You can say in pride, "I do not like the gift God has given me.

I like the other gifts that I don't have, and so I will strive to be something I am not."

This determination to neglect obvious gifts and strive to be something you are not is one of the greatest causes for problems in the church.

The Hebrew Christians are scolded in Heb.

5:12: "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of God's Word.

You need milk, not solid food."

Every Christian has an obligation to learn the basics well enough to teach them to another.

If he needs them taught to him self over and over, he is a baby that just won't grow up.

Every Christian must grow up and be a teacher so that he can communicate the basic truths of Christ's death, resurrection, and how by faith in him a person can be saved.

Beyond these basics there is a vast body of wisdom and knowledge, and that where the gift of teaching comes in.

Only those gifted by God can enter the depths of the knowledge of God and His wisdom, and then share it with the rest of the body in a way they can understand.

Gifted teachers have played a major role in the history of the church.

Origen was the greatest Christian teacher in the first 3 centuries after the Apostles.

He was born to Christian parents in 185 A. D., and he attended the first Christian school in Alexandria.

Violent persecution led to his father being beheaded.

He had to care for his widowed mother and 6 younger brothers by teaching at the age of 16.

Persecution forced the closing of the school, but he gathered a group of young Christians and taught them free of charge.

He was so successful that people flocked to him and the bishop Demetrius officially assigned him to the position of teacher.

He lived in poverty but hardly even noticed it, for he spent day and night in study.

He became so famous that the bishops wanted to sit under his teaching.

This made Demetrius made angry, for no layman was to teach ordained bishops.

He tried to put a man made system above the gifts of the spirit, but it didn't work.

Origen was such a marvelous teacher that wealthy Christians began to support him so he could give full time to exposition of the Bible, and other bishops ordained him.

He spent 20 years in Palestine doing research and writing.

Another persecution broke out and he was imprisoned in Tyre where he died at age 69.

Origen's gift of teaching changed all of Christian history, and we are affected by his gift even today.

Before Origen, sermons were a collection of thoughts unrelated to a biblical text.

He was the first to take a Bible text and explain it, and then apply it to life.

He was the one who started the verse by verse Bible study where he sought to get at the historical and grammatical significance of the text, and then apply it to the present life.

What we take for granted as a part of the body life of the church came to us through this man who had the gift of teaching.

The gift of teaching is more than the ability to teach.

The gift of teaching enables the teacher to communicate biblical truth more effectively.

Usually it is because, like Jesus, they have the ability to tell stories or use illustrations that make profound truths simple enough to be grasped by the average person.

It is possible to be a teacher who communicates all kinds of truth and fact, but in such a way that it is boring and hard to listen to.

The gifts teacher takes the same information and makes it fascinating so that your interest is held as easily as if you were watching the monkeys at the zoo.

The common people heard Jesus gladly because He was interesting and understandable.

In 1973 Miss Becky Alexander became the Washington Wheat Queen.

What an embarrassment when she had to put down the sheaf of wheat she was carrying and confess to the State Senate that she was allergic to wheat.

She really did not fit the role, but she had won it.

By hard work, deception and help you can arrive at many places where you do not belong.

Paul would say that this is thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, for you are not accepting yourself as God made you.

You are not presenting your body as a living sacrifice, but are taking it off the altar to shape it according to your will rather than God's.

Your mind is not being renewed but you are conforming to the world mind, which says you can be whatever you want to be.

Paul says we need to be what God made us to be.

We are determined how God has gifted us and then we are free to do our own thing.

If prophecy is your gift, then let your service to the body conform to that gift and minister to others by that gift.

If service is your bag, then be a servant and serve the body.

If teaching is your specialty, then make sure you are teaching.

And so it is with all the gifts.

When each member of the body does his own thing he is in the perfect will of God, and the body is a healthy and harmonious organism fulfilling the purpose of God.

We want to look at each of the 7 particular gifts Paul lists here as examples of specialized areas of Christian service.

Prophecy is the first one, and it is somewhat controversial.

When you think of prophecy you think of the Old Testament prophets who received the Word of God direct from God and pass it on to the people.

Charismatic Christians say this is the just what Paul is getting at here.

He is referring to members of the body who receive direct inspiration from God.

It is a supernatural gift, and the one who has it does not study for his message, but gets it from God directly.

The majority of non Charismatic believers follow the view expressed by Calvin who wrote, "I prefer the opinion of those commentators who take the word in a more extended sense, and apply it to the peculiar gift of explaining revelation."

In other words, some have a gift for explaining the Word of God.

They can do so with authority, for they know what God wants people to hear and know.

The reasons the majority follow this view are very convincing.

1.

First of all, none of the other gifts in this list of 7 are supernatural in the sense that they are miraculous gifts direct from God that do not involve the human personality.

2. Secondly, the gift of prophecy is one that Paul urges all Christians to strive for in some measure in I Cor.

14.

It is not likely that God would make all members of the body prophets in the Old Testament sense.

It is likely, however, that He would let all of them enter into this gift of being able to read the Word and know Him well enough to communicate it to others.

3. The 3rd and final reason is Paul's limitation on the gift when he says it is in proportion to our faith.

In other words, we are dealing with a gift that has a variety of degrees.

I cannot imagine this in relation to a supernatural direct gift from God.