Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome

We’re continuing a series on the Holy Spirit and specifically looking at the Gifts of the Spirit.

We looked last week at an overview of the gifts and how they work in our Christian lives and how they help us to accomplish the work that God has for us to do in ourselves, in this body of believers, and in the world.

I told you last week that you don’t get to pick your gifts.

The Holy Spirit empowers you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, with a spiritual gift.

However, it is up to you to use the gift that you have been given.

This morning we’ll be studying Romans 12...

[pray]

We are granted spiritual gifts as we grow more deeply connected with Christ and begin to do the work that he has set out before us.

We don’t get all of these right at the point of salvation, though I do believe that we all are granted some seed of a gift that grows within us as we mature in Christ.

I also believe that our gifts change as our faith changes and especially as we begin to do the ministries that God puts before us.

If I had to sum that verse up succinctly in one sentence, it would be this...

Principle: understand your gifts and practice them diligently.

That’s the whole point of the verse above.

Period.

There, I’ve just spilled the beans.

I’ve given you my whole sermon in one sentence.

We can go home now.

[Okay, not really.

I do have some more to say.]

I. Humbly and Honestly Evaluate Yourself

When you’re trying to figure out what your spiritual gifts are, it can be a little bit intimidating.

It’s not really that hard to get off track when trying to assess yourself and your spiritual gifting.

One only has to look to the first verse in our text to see why...

It is our human nature, when we are in a healthy emotional state, to think highly of ourselves.

Of course, we can be prone to let this get out of hand.

The narcissist has the tendency to think so highly of himself that he ignores anybody else.

The weak-minded person puffs himself up by putting others down.

And the beaten-down person has been so emotionally wounded that it can be difficult to give himself any positive thought at all.

In our most healthy state, it is our natural inclination to try to build ourselves up a bit.

But it is not hard to let this get out of hand.

This verse reminds me of the words of John the Baptist when some of his students told him about Jesus’ ministry across the Jordan river.

He told them...

Such a humble response.

John was not in competition with Jesus, but preparing the way for Christ, the Messiah.

He says two things here that are applicable to our lesson today...

“No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven.”

— we can apply this to our gifts, just as John applied it to his ministry.

It was not his ministry to jealously guard or to protect.

It was a gift from heaven, just like our gifts are a gift from the hand of God.

He also said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

He knew that his job was to prepare the way for the Messiah, but he would never grow to be something more than was intended.

Paul gives his readers the advice that they should not think too highly of themselves.

This is practicing the humility of Christ.

We get our spiritual gifts according to God’s wisdom and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

II.

Practice Your Gifts for the Right Reasons

However, there are times that we think we know better than God.

We tell God, “I want to be a preacher, or I don’t want to be a preacher, I want to be an administrator.”

Or as the Corinthians said, “I want to have the gift of tongues or prophecy.

Why do I have to be stuck with the gift of service?”

The Corinthian church was bewildered and had their focus on the wrong things, just like we do sometimes.

Paul told the Corinthians to practice their gifts with love and to shift their focus.

We’ll look at practicing your spiritual gifts with love next week, but 1 Corinthians 14 follows chapter 13, the love chapter.

I love chapter 14 because it tells us where we need to focus our attention...

We tend to get caught up on the gift itself rather than focus on the reason for the gift—which is the building up of the body of Christ...

All the gifts in the world mean nothing if they are not practiced for the right reason.

So use your gift for the right reason.

The spiritual gifts are given for the building up of the believer in the context of the local church and for the benefit of the local church.

Paul calls this “for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7).

When we put our own wishes and desires before the common good, we are actually hurting the church rather than helping it in the way God intended.

I have seen this far too often in the church.

I see people take up volunteer service in the church for the wrong reason and later let people down.

I have had people come to me trying to convince me to let them preach or teach for the wrong reasons and had to disappoint them by refusing their request.

As leaders we have to be able to discern the gifting that people have.

But too often we put people where we need a warm body rather than putting them where they are gifted.

This burns people out and hurts the ministry in the long run.

III.

Be Transformed and Renewed

One of our spiritual tasks that we must take on at some point in our Christian life is to practice what verse 2 says...

We must take our worldly human minds with all our bad habits and sinful rabbit trails built in—sometimes so much so that we live these bad habits out through our physical fleshly selves—it is our job as Christians to take this fleshly mind and begin to train it in a new way, a spiritual and Christ-like way.

Titus tells us that salvation allows the Holy spirit to regenerate and renew and put the way of righteousness within us...

We get all that along with salvation through belief and faith in Jesus Christ.

The Spirit does a work with in us that makes us a new creation in Christ.

That is what verse 5 is talking about when it says we are regenerated and renewed.

But Titus goes on to say that we have a role to play in this process as well.

I’ll continue reading in Titus 3...

This renewal work is something that the Holy Spirit works within us, but we also have some work to do.

Verse 8 says that we have to “be careful”—this means that we have to make a concerted effort—we have to CHOOSE to “devote [ourselves] to good works.”

If we fail to pay attention to this then we will be immature spiritually and ineffective in our efforts.

Paul writes to Titus that his care, his efforts, should be focused on—devoted to, he say—”good works.”

Paul makes it clear in this passage that the Christian believer must...

insist on living the abundant Christian life in the Spirit.

be devoted to good works that produce results.

refuse to waste time on things that are unprofitable and worthless.

does not put up with sinful behavior in the fellowship of believers.

All this is really saying that we have to keep our focus on the things that are important.

It’s easy for us to get caught up in these things that distract us from the job that we are called to accomplish.

IV.

Remember That We’re In This Together

We also have to continue to remember that we are in this together.

We each have our strengths and our weaknesses.

We should seek to balance each other out and work towards being stronger together.

We’re all on the same team.

When people in the church begin thinking too highly of themselves, they begin operating in a spirit of competition or a spirit of self-promotion.

This can happen to leaders and even pastors.

And sometimes when people don’t get what they want, they get frustrated and leave, looking for what they want in another church.

When people don’t leave, but try to force their will upon the fellowship of believers, there’s trouble in the camp.

However, there is a sweet place of cooperation and unity that will produce fruitful and productive results.