Gifted To Serve
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Introduction
Good Morning Church...
We are continuing in our series on the early church today called Ekklesia, the unstoppable Movement of God and for the past couple of weeks we have been looking at one particular local Church, the Church in Corinth. Paul loved this Church, and last week we looked at how he affectionately considered himself their “Father in Christ Jesus”, and as any other good Father would, Paul sets out to guide and instruct his children so that they will flourish.
Tension
Whenever a group of people come together they are doing so with different personalities, preferences and life experiences and we can expect that we will not always see eye to eye on everything, so the Apostle Paul is excited to tell them about the special way that Holy Spirit works to equip each Church to come together like no other gathering on earth.
Unfortunately, this is not the overwhelming reputation of the Christian Church. Our culture right now doesn’t disagree very well, as evidenced by the events over this past weekend. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of logical argument and intentional listening out there. We just seem to be talking right by one another and end up rushing away to “our side” before we ever really hear what it is that we are disagreeing about. Sadly, in too many instances the Christian Church has not been an exception to this cultural norm.
But we need to be. We must be. And we can be.
Because God has given us everything we need to be able to come together in ways that no other gathering of people could accomplish. To flourish together as a group that is both diverse in it’s make up and unified in it’s mission, even over a sustained period of time. The kind of gathering that would stand out so brightly in our world that people would have to sit up and take notice. This is what the Apostle Paul wants for the Church in Corinth and it is what Jesus wants for every local expression of His Church.
It can be done, and the Apostle Paul is going to show us how. In fact, this is such an important aspect of being a Christian Church that Paul also writes similar things to the Church in Rome and the Church in Ephesus. Clearly this is something that Paul knew would be essential for the Church to be all that Jesus is building it to be.
So open up with me to 1 Cor 12, page 959 in the Bibles in the Chairs. I’ll pray and we will look at how God is working to equip His Church to be so different than any other gathering of people on earth.
Truth
Paul begins by saying:
1 Corinthians 12:1–2 (ESV)
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.
We have a way to go this morning, but lets stop here and unpack this for just a second.
Having been in the book of 1 Corinthians for several weeks now we know something of the culture there. Like much of the Roman world, the Corinthians practice a polytheism. Poly meaning “many” and “theism” meaning how they worshiped their gods. So they worshiped many different gods and each of these gods had various kinds of priests who would demonstrate some sort of “spiritual gift” that they had in order to set them apart as someone who could get you in good with that particular god. This is how the people were “led astray” to these many different idols.
But it all really just led to confusion. Because one person with a so called “spiritual gift” would tell you that you had to do one thing and then another one would say that you had to do something else and so on and so forth so you never really knew where you stood with these so called “gods”, because they never directly asked you for anything and they never directly taught you anything. It was always through these “spiritually gifted” people.
Paul begins here by bringing up their previous experiences with “spiritual gifts” to contrast that experience with how “spiritual gifts” operate in the kingdom of God. Specifically here, he brings up one of the most unique aspects of the one true God…that is that He is not mute…our God speaks. He doesn’t leave us guessing about who He is or about who we are or about what it takes to be right with Him.
And the truth is that this can be either very freeing or very frustrating depending on how you have responded to Jesus.
It can be Freeing because unlike the “made-up gods” worshiped through out the Roman Empire - we are not left guessing over what God asks of us. We don’t have to hope that maybe we might have gotten it right this time. Maybe we gave just the right offering in just the right order with just the right attitude to please this and/or that god. We should praise God that he didn’t leave us in the dark like this. Instead, we can freely rest in the message of the Gospel. That on our behalf, Jesus gave the perfect offering in his life, death and resurrection and all that we do now is in loving response to that amazing gift that He has given us. We then follow Him by faith through grace and love him by obeying everything he has commanded of us in His Word. This is such a blessing, if you have submitted your life to Jesus.
But if you have not submitted your life to Jesus, then this is where it becomes frustrating. Since God has been so clear about what He asks from us, there is not room to manipulate the system. We don’t get to play any games with God, or try and make bargains with Him. In Polytheism, nothing is really set in stone so if you don’t like what one “Spiritual guide” tells you then you just go talk to another one. Eventually you find someone who will let you worship your “god” in the way that you want to worship him or her or him/her or it.
Not that I am confused by pronouns, but they were - There is nothing new under the sun guys!
But Jesus has not left us wondering about who we are, or who He is or the way to be right with the One True God.
John 14:5–6 (ESV)
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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Acts 4:12 (ESV)
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
There are no other options. There are no other choices. You cannot game God, you just don’t have enough game. Jesus is the only way to salvation…that is why when it comes to people who are claiming to have “spiritual gifts”, Paul says that you will know if they are legit or not according to what they say about Jesus:
1 Corinthians 12:3-6
3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
Our first theme for the week is:
1. Spiritual gifts work in unity to establish the supremacy of Jesus Christ over every other allegiance. (1 Corinthians 12:1-6).
1. Spiritual gifts work in unity to establish the supremacy of Jesus Christ over every other allegiance. (1 Corinthians 12:1-6).
No matter what experience these Corinthians have had up to this point with things called “spiritual gifts”, the “spiritual gifts” given by the Holy Spirit always point people to Jesus. It is always about Jesus. His Kingdom. His Glory. His Name. His People. His Church. It is never about ourselves. The “Holy Spirit” doesn’t give gifts for our selfish us or personal gain. It is always about Jesus. This is how Jesus described the nature and role and the Holy Spirit. Before He ascended into heaven Jesus told His Followers:
John 16:12–15 (ESV)
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
This is an incredible picture of how the Trinity works in our world now that Jesus has conquered sin and death and is working through the Holy Spirit to build His Church. John Piper explains it like this:
“The Spirit is sent to make Christ real to people and to show us who he really is in his glory so that we come to love him and trust him and obey him and show him to the world. What this means is that the Holy Spirit is more likely to come in power where the truth about Jesus is being lifted up and made plain. The Spirit loves to come and take the truth about Jesus and turn it into an experience of Jesus.” - John Piper
So our first step in walking in brilliant unity is that the we are spiritually united together in this one purpose. To communicate the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. That is our mission statement. That is our goal. And wherever the name and glory of Jesus is bring lifted up, the Holy Spirit is going to active. This means that any Church that keeps Jesus at the center of everything they do will not need to be concerned with divisions over lesser allegiances. The Holy Spirit will be drawing us even closer together in Jesus Christ. We just need to keep asking ourselves and each other - “Is what we are fighting for all about Jesus? or is it about something else?”
This is how Paul wrote about this to the Church in Ephesus:
Ephesians 4:1–6 (ESV)
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Spiritual gifts are never given to puff up an individual, they...
1. [Spiritual gifts] work in unity to establish the supremacy of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 12:1-6).
1. [Spiritual gifts] work in unity to establish the supremacy of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 12:1-6).
Spiritual gifts work in unity, but Paul continues to show how...
2. Spiritual gifts work in diversity to support one another and strengthen the church (1 Corinthians 12:7- 12).
2. Spiritual gifts work in diversity to support one another and strengthen the church (1 Corinthians 12:7- 12).
As Parents we watch our kids grow and we discover that each child has specific talents and interests so we try and work with what we see in them and provide what what each child may need to reach his or her full potential. In a similar way, but on a much larger God sized scale, the Holy Spirit provides the spiritual gifts that we each will need in order to flourish in the vital role that He has designed for each one of us in His kingdom. Continuing in verse 7 it says:
1 Corinthians 12:7 (ESV)
7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Wait…who does it say will get “the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”? to each one of us. To each one of us who has declared “Jesus is Lord”. But Paul goes on to talk about how this One Spirit manifests himself in each of us in many diverse ways:
1 Corinthians 12:8–10 (ESV)
8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
Did you notice how clear Paul was in that this is just One Spirit that was manifesting in all these different ways in people. He had to be so clear about this in their polytheistic world. The Kingdom of God is not about the movement of many different “spirits” but one “Spirit” the same ‘Spirit” the Holy Spirit. And that is how a unity can be maintained despite such diversity. He continues on this idea:
1 Corinthians 12:11–12 (ESV)
11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
Paul gives us something of a list here but it is pretty clear that he did not mean this list to be exhaustive because he mentions other gifts later in this chapter as well as we can find similar but not identical lists in Romans 12 and Eph 4 and even a short one from Peter in 1 Peter 4.
And many have set out to categorize these many gifts with particular labels like speaking gifts, serving gifts and sign gifts or something like that and those kind of things can be helpful, but more than breaking down all the spiritual gifts today, I wanted us to see that Paul taught that in the Church there is just one Spirit, the Holy Spirit who works in and through all of us to glorify Jesus - that brings great unity.
But this one Holy Spirit manifests himself differently in “each” of the different people who make up the Church. That brings great diversity.
It may seem like these two things are at odds with each other, but in fact they are very much in sync. More than that, they are are interdependent to one another to make this thing called the Church, the Ekklesia what Jesus is building it to be. Even though we are given very different roles and gifts, Jesus is building us up together into something that is uniquely beautiful and transformative over and against any other gathering. This is because...
3. Spiritual gifts work in maturity to grow each believer in their vital role in the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:13-20, 27).
3. Spiritual gifts work in maturity to grow each believer in their vital role in the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:13-20, 27).
1 Corinthians 12:13–20 (ESV)
13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
These were the dividing lines of the day for the Church of Corinth - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and our “groups” today may look different but our call to lay aside anything else that might divide us for the unity of the body of Christ is the same.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
This will probably not come as a surprise to you but…we are not all the same. Again, we have different personalities, preferences and experiences. But more than that, what we see here is that the Holy Spirit has equipped each of us with different spiritual gifts. That is a lot of different...but yet... we are all a part of the same body. There is no call for any of us to look at someone else’s role or gift with either envy or disdain especially because of who it is that is giving these gifts:
18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
There are many illustrations that one could use to teach this idea of finding unity among diversity. A sports team, a symphony, a mechanical device of some sort. Each of these have diverse parts that make up a whole...but there is something very profound about the illustration of a body.
Because a body is designed to mature. We talked about how we individually were designed to mature a few weeks ago, but here we see Paul also teaching that we mature as Church body. The goal of our gathering together week after week should never be to sustain the status quo. We should not leave this place the same we came in here. We are designed to mature as a body.
Sometimes I think that many of the conflicts that rise up in Churches are because the Church is not looked at as a body, but more like a machine. Think about that for a moment. What do we want from a machine? We want it to work exactly like it did the very first day we started using it. It is never a good thing when a machine starts operating differently, when that happens then we see it as a sign that something is broken.
But the Church is not a machine. It is a body. A body that is meant to mature and grow and so change. And a body works exactly the opposite of a machine. It it is not maturing, growing, and changing then THAT is a sign to us that something is broken. Many of conflict that I have seen in the Church come from people who have lost sight of their vital role in a maturing body, and instead are trying so hard to keep the “machine” from working differently then it did before.
They forgot how they are uniquely equipped with “spiritual gifts” to play a vital role in the local Church that is unified in that it is all about Jesus, diverse in it’s many roles and gifts and designed to mature into the Church that Jesus is building.
Gospel Application
Back when I was in 8th grade I had a life changing appointment with my new cardiologist. I realize most 8th graders don’t even have a heart doctor at all, but I did because I was born with a small hole in my heart. By God’s grace and a lot of people praying for me it had shrunk so that it didn’t seem to be a problem, but every 6 months or so I got a day off school to got out to lunch with my mom and then go get my heart checked out.
My old cardiologist had retired and at the first appointment with my new one he did some tests, say us down and said, “Well Daniel, I am afraid you are going to need heart surgery”. And I thought, “I don’t like the new guy”. But sure enough, after a second and third opinion it was clear that after all these years I was going to have to have surgery because I still had a hole in my heart and it was causing damage.
A hole. This tiny little place where there was just supposed to be the smallest little bit of heart tissue standing in there and that part wasn’t there. It was missing. That little part of my body was missing and it was threatening the rest of my body.
Ultimately what was happening is that the little leakage that we were keeping an eye all these years had begun to pull on the wall next to the aortic valve and that side of the valve was starting to deform. It wasn’t immediately life threatening but over time what would happen is that little missing piece would so damage my heart that I would have to have a entire valve replacement in one of the most critical places in my body.
You probably know where I am going here don’t you? No matter who you are…even if you think that you are just a small part of what Jesus is doing here at Friendship Church, you are still a vital part! The fact that you are here means that the Holy Spirit has supernaturally gifted you with something that this body needs. We need you to grow with us. Always remembering that God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. So even if your part seems very small to you, if you are not there to fill it then it will cause damage to the body.
Landing
But the good news is that the Holy Spirit is working in and through us to do these incredible things. Stop and consider that for a moment. The Holy Spirit has given you a specific vital gift for what He wants to accomplish among His people here. What a privilege to experience being a part of the body of Christ like this!
I will close with this from the end of the chapter...
1 Corinthians 12:24b–27 (ESV)
24 ... But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Would you pray into this with me.