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I Corinthians 12:4-11
 
! Introduction
            We have been talking about what it means to be a healthy church.
(show overhead) A few weeks ago, 30 of you filled out a survey to try to identify how we are doing in these eight quality characteristics.
Next weekend, the ministers and deacons will be going on a retreat to look at the results of this survey and will be recommending a course of action to help us increase the health of the church.
We will be sharing our thoughts with you next Sunday as we complete this series.
Today, we will cover one more of the quality characteristics, namely, “gift-oriented ministry.”
Once upon a time all the animals got together and decided that they should start a school.
They wanted it to be a good school, so they made sure that they had all the important courses like swimming, running, climbing and flying and all the animals were required to take all the courses.
The duck was a great swimmer, in fact, he was better than the instructor, but he barely passed climbing and was a very poor runner.
He was slow and often had to stay after school to practice.
This caused his feet to become so badly worn that he became only average in swimming.
The rabbit was tops at running, but after a while, she developed a twitch in her leg from all the time she spent in the water trying to improve her swimming.
The squirrel was a top performer when it came to climbing, but his body became so beat up from the landings when he tried to fly that it hurt for him even to climb.
The eagle was a continual problem student.
In climbing class, she would insist on getting to the top in her own way - flying - and so had to be continually disciplined.
Each of the animals had a particular design.
When they did what they were designed to do, they excelled.
When they tried to operate outside their area of expertise, they were not nearly as effective.
This is kind of ridiculous isn’t it?
And yet how often we do just that in the ministry of the church.
What a thrill it is when I hear someone describe the joy they have in the ministry they are involved in because it fits with the way God has made them.
Sadly, we often hear about the burden people have in the task they have reluctantly consented to do.
What would happen if we were all involved in ministry and all involved in a ministry that we were well suited for?
!
I. Called To Serve
The topic before us today is based on an assumption, but one that I do not want to pass by without mentioning.
The assumption is that we understand all Christians are servants of God.
We come to this understanding from the Bible and this morning, I would simply like to point to two passages which talk about this.
I Peter 2:16 instructs us to, “live as servants of God” and Galatians 5:13 tells us, “serve one another in love.”
We have not only been rescued from sin and death, we are not only followers of Jesus, but also servants of Jesus.
This is not something that comes to us as we mature, but is a simple understanding of what it means to be a Christian.
A Christian is a person who follows and serves Jesus.
I recognize that this is not an automatic assumption, and it would be appropriate to preach on the importance of having a servant attitude, but today, I am assuming that we understand and agree that all believers are called to serve God and others.
!
II.
How does God want us to become involved in serving?
Assuming then that we all accept that we have been called into a life of service for God, the question before us today is, “how does God want us to become involved in service?”
To answer that question, we will examine what the Bible says about spiritual gifts.
There are four main passages that speak about spiritual gifts.
This morning, we will examine one of these passages, I Corinthians 12:4-11.
Read the text.
!!! A. Spirit Directed 4 -6, 11.
As the planets revolve around the sun, they are well organized having a mathematical precision in their orbits and their relationship to each other.
It is not their relationship to each other that provides the organization, however, but their relationship to the sun.
It ought to be the same way in our ministry in the church.
We sometimes want to control all the ministry in the church so that we have complete control over everything that happens.
That would be like asking the planets to organize themselves according to each other.
The organizing and directing center of the ministry of the church is the Holy Spirit.
Notice how powerfully this is taught in the text.
In verses 4-6, we learn that there is one Spirit, one Lord and one God.
In verse 11, we learn that all the different gifts are “the work of the one and the same Spirit, and he gives to each one, just as he determines.”
It is the Spirit of God who directs the work of God and as we ask the question of how we are to do the work of God, we must ask the question, “Are we relying on God’s Spirit in the ministry of the church?”
As we answer that question, we need to think about several things.
When we as a church try to organize the work because certain things have been done in the past, or certain rules have been established in the constitution we are in danger of failing to listen to God’s direction for the work.
There is nothing wrong with organizational structure or a constitution, but the question we must ask is, “Who is the Lord of the church, our past, our constitution, our pastors or the Spirit of God?
What evidence is there that we are under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit?”
Another thing to think about is what are the qualifications of those who are asked to serve?
When the fledgling church was established on the day of Pentecost, it was led by the apostles of Jesus.
But the work was large and changing rapidly and it wasn’t very long before the need to expand the base of workers became obvious.
One of the first instances of choosing people for service is found in Acts 6. Please keep your finger in I Corinthians 12, but turn to and let us read Acts 6:1-7.
From earlier chapters we know that the early church had everything in common and distributed food to those who needed it.
The text tells us that a dispute arose in which a cultural barrier caused some people to be missed out in the distribution of food.
The solution which the apostles proposed was that the people should choose 7 men who would look after this.
They were like a food committee or a trustee committee.
Their ministry was one of service.
What has often struck me about the way in which they were chosen was that they were not instructed to look for men who were good business managers, or men who were willing to do it.
The instruction says that they were to look for men who were “known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.”
What strikes me most is that they were to be “full of the Spirit.”
They were to choose people who gave evidence in their life that they were directed not by self, not by duty, but by the Spirit of God.
If it is the Spirit of God who directs the work of God in the church, then surely this is an important factor in considering how we choose people for ministry.
How much attention do we pay to this qualification?
If we look at church work as our work then human qualifications are certainly enough.
If we look at church work as human work for God, then human qualifications might be enough, but if we look at church work as the work of God, then it seems obvious that the primary qualification ought to be that those who do the work of God need to be people who know God and are in a close walk with Him.
After they were chosen, the apostles commissioned them by praying and laying hands on them and they began to do their work.
The result, which is given in verse 7 is that “the word of God spread.”
The Spirit of God is the director of the work of God.
Are we in tune with Him as we do God’s work and as we choose people to serve?
!!! B. Spiritual Gifts 4-10
The second thing we learn from this passage is that people are called to serve in the area in which God’s Spirit gifts them to serve.
In verse 4 - 6 we read that there are “different kinds of gifts,” “different kinds of service,” “different kinds of working.”
In verse 7 we read, “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
Then in verses 8-10 we have a list of examples of the different gifts.
This teaches us some important things about how God’s work is to be done.
First of all we notice that there are many different gifts.
The church in Corinth was really excited about the gift of speaking in tongues.
Paul is making the point to them that they will miss out on all that God wants to do if they only emphasize this one gift, because God’s Spirit has given many different gifts.
A healthy physical body is not one which is all arms or all noses.
A healthy body has many different parts and we need all the parts of the body.
It means that we should be humble enough to know that we need each other’s gifts for the church to be healthy.
What I lack is being provided for by others in the church and I am so thankful for that.
We need to be open to allow for the expression of the great variety of gifts the Spirit gives.
Sometimes we have emphasized some gifts and stifled others.
If the Spirit gives gifts, should we not allow them to be used?
Secondly, if there are all these different kinds of gifts and if it is the Spirit of God who directs the distribution of the gifts, we should focus our ministry on doing what we have been gifted to do.
Spiritual gifts are more than abilities, they are Spirit empowered works of service which have more than the stamp of human power on them.
If that is the case and we want to be most effective in our ministry, we need to be doing those things that the Spirit of God empowers.
This also allows us to free each other to do what God wants us to do according to our gifts.
For example, if someone has the gift of evangelism, should we saddle them with all kinds of roles in the church structure?
Should we not free them to serve in the world, ministering to unbelievers?
Have you ever borrowed someone else’s pair of shoes?
They may be the nicest shoes and be close to the right size, but if they are not your shoes, they will not be comfortable.
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