01-20-2019 - Gifts and Calling

Gifts and Calling

If there was ever a religion that would come up with the idea of Christmas presents - it would be our religion.

Only Christians would have a God who gives everyone else gifts on His birthday.

Gifts are so essential and foundational to what it means to be a Christian.

Sadly, when most people, many of us perhaps, begin telling people about what it means to be a Christian, we start with all the things we are “supposed to do”.

We have Law in our faith, but the bible does not start with law… it starts with the gift.\

Our faith always starts with God giving us a gift and all of humanity trying to decide what they are going to do with it.

Our scripture begins with just that point.

Ephesians begins

Ephesians 4:7-

Ephesians 4:7–10 NLT

7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. 8 That is why the Scriptures say, “When he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people.” 9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. 10 And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.

Paul here is quoting

Think of the Story of the Exodus - probably the most important story in the Old Testament to the Jewish people.

Moses ascended from being a lowly shepherd, set his people free, and plundered the Egyptians of their gold and jewelry as they left Egypt.

Some of that jewelry went to make the Golden Calf, and those people were punished for it.

But then that same plunder was used, through the talents of the people, to create the Tabernacle - the place the people came to meet with God.

In doing so, He forever gave us an example of what true Godly leadership looks like - we are called to lead with humility.

1. Everyone gets a special gift

The first point here for us is that Jesus came down and rescued us, and then gave us gifts.

Every pastor I’ve met has the same job description but they do it differently.

Every Sunday School teacher I’ve met has the same job but they do it differently.

The gifts we receive from Christ both fit us now and reshape us as we use them.

2. Jesus didn’t ascend to rescue us… He descended.

Next we have the explanation of how this verse applies to Jesus.

In doing so, He forever gave us an example of what true Godly leadership looks like - we are called to lead with humility.

Because He led with humility, God lifted Him up and He is filling the whole creation with Himself. That’s important, and we will come back to that.

Back to the gifts… what are the gifts that Christ gives us?

Ephesians 4:11–13 NLT

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-

Gifts of Christ for the Church

Apostles

Prophets

Evangelists

Shepherds (the actual meaning of pastor)

Teachers

This is known as the Five-fold ministry, and for churches that are trying to get back to a more biblical basis… this is what they are looking at as guidance.

Don’t get caught up in the titles just yet though… there are a few other lists of church jobs, so to speak… and we still hold that the gifts God gives us are unique.

What makes these special is the purpose for which they are given.

To build up the church

These gifts are made to help every person God calls grow to maturity in their faith.

Remember those spiritual infants, children, young adults, and parents that we read about Paul praying over last week?

This is how they grow.

God gives us gifts to help people grow in their faith, from whatever point they start until they are so in union with Christ and all of us together that Jesus can step down from the clouds and gather us up.

Unity

Every gift is created to be used in communion - or in unity with - all the other gifts

There is no lone ranger gift. - which is a silly notion because I saw the Lone Ranger movie and Johnny Depp, playing Tonto a large part of the work. Even they tried to be a team together.

We get this really off in churches though.

Somebody gets a word (or an idea) from God and they just have to share it and tell someone what’s wrong with them. That prophet role gets used a lot as an excuse to get an emotional feeling off my chest.

When God really brings a word, it doesn’t come through just one person. It comes through the whole body.

Meeting with Chris Backert from Pennysylvania, Tina, and a fellow pastor.

Dinner church - Dinner church - Dinner church … This is not my idea.

That’s a word from God.

Talk is cheap!

If you’ve got a word from God, what are you doing about it.

Prophets don’t just tell others, they demonstrate by living it out.

Called to Maturity

The immature want to be moved by God.

They want to feel and experience

They come to church to be fed

Often, they don’t know how to feed themselves, let alone anyone else.

It’s okay to be immature at the beginning of your faith, but it’s not ok to stay there.

It will have devastating effects on your family’s spiritual life… or more specifically, you will have devastating effects on your family’s spiritual life.

The mature want to build something with their faith

But if they stop growing once they learn to feed themselves and be content in their faith they grow lukewarm.

It’s like a man who comes to saving faith in Jesus and wants quit sinning and go to heaven.

So he builds a church for Jesus and builds himself a pew and resolves to sit in this pew until Jesus comes back. Day after day, he’s in the same pew, looking up to Jesus. That’s not building up the church, that’s being a bump on a log, and in Revelation, Jesus says those kind of lukewarm faiths are disgusting to Him. (It’s actually a lot grosser if you read the actual scripture.)

That’s not building up the church because the Church is not a building.

St. Mark is not a building and what we are doing right now is gathering to encourage each other and share how we have been the church this week.

How many people can our church hold?

I’m not talking about the building… I’m talking about our church.

I’ve heard the stories about needing to drag out extra chairs for people here years ago… but the church obviously couldn’t hold them. They left.

We can get lots of people hanging around us, but really, honestly, how many people can our church hold.

Sharon mentioned this week that the kitchen feels pretty full on Wednesday nights… if she’s going to bring in a new disciple, she might need to graduate another one out to a different ministry.

How many people can your ministry hold?

We grow the church, not by trying to attract people in on Sunday mornings, but by using the unique, God-given gifts to challenge, encourage, inspire, nurture, and teach each other into more mature faith through closer union with Jesus and each other.

Maybe we need to stop using the word church and start using the word team.

St. Mark is a team and we are building it up so that everyone on it will be so in touch with Jesus, so close to heaven, that they won’t even notice dying.

What about those outside our church?

1. Using our gifts to build up out team (which really includes all Christians, not just people who attend here) does not cancel out our God-given mission to share Jesus with the entire world.

2. If we don’t do the work to build each other up, we will end up being a building with a revolving door that everyone leaves except those few guys still sitting in the same pew they built themselves, waiting for Jesus.

APEST - the Five-fold Ministry

Apostles

Prophets

Evangelists

Shepherds

Teachers

Where are the preachers, singers, instrumentalists, and all those other people we focus so much attention on?

Every unique gift finds a home in one of these five roles above.

Here is why:

A singer with a God-given talent and a lot of work can sing a beautiful song for God for 60, 70, maybe 80 years.

Then that song dies, and is not heard again. (and no recordings are not the same thing as listening to someone in person)

But if that same singer focuses less on herself and makes disciples, passing that gift on to others, and they on to yet others, and so on, and so on...

That song will never die.

That’s why disciple-makers always out do the soul-winners in the long run.

That’s why Jesus humbled Himself and chose to be a disciple-maker rather than a soul-winner.

Brothers and sisters, we are given gifts from God and called to use them to lead, to challenge, to inspire, to nurture, to teach, and by all of these things... to hold others up to Jesus.

How many people can team St. Mark hold?

How many people will you hold?