Who Needs Gifts, Anyway?
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I want to brag about my wife for a few minutes this morning. She’s in the nursery today, so I think it’s safe.
While we were in France on vacation this summer, she and my friends did something that was very cool. The villa we had rented was near the town in Provence where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year in an asylum.
Annette and our friends took a tour of the asylum, a portion of which still houses patients, and then took an afternoon painting class looking out over the same courtyard that Van Gogh could see and paint from his room.
Now, I wasn’t interested in making a complete fool of myself by getting more paint on myself than on the canvas, so I opted to walk around town with my camera and make a little of my own art while they were there.
But when they came back to the house after they had finished, Annette had a wonderful story to tell of her experience.
It seems her easel had been set up nearest the entry to the little colonnade where there were painting, and, as there were other tours taking place the whole time they were there, folks would pop their heads inside and look at all the “artists” working on their canvases.
More than a few of the tourists thought Annette and crew were patients receiving art therapy for the afternoon. And Annette is a part of the memories many of them had, as it was her and her artwork that most of them photographed as they passed by.
And that’s very cool, because it turns out that she has something of a gift for painting.
The instructor had given them some very basic instruction and then pointed them toward the courtyard and told them to paint what they saw. Annette’s painting turned out beautifully, and the instructor was very complimentary, urging her to find a way to pursue this unexpected talent when she got home.
So, for our anniversary last week, I gave her a six-week “Joy of Painting” class at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts.
And from what I heard of her first class there on Thursday, this instructor was impressed as well.
Personally I’m hoping we have another Van Gogh in the making. I just hope she won’t cut off an ear.
It’s funny how we can have a talent like that and never know about it. I listened to a Christian songwriter on a podcast on the way home from class on Saturday, and he said something that goes right along with this: Nobody knew they could do anything until they did it.
Annette didn’t know she could paint until she picked up a brush and tried to paint. I didn’t know I could preach until I had preached. Miss Lynn didn’t know she could teach until she had taught something. People who are good with kids didn’t know they were good with kids until they spent time with kids.
What we’re going to learn today is that each of us has been given some gift — and in the context of this message, that means some spiritual gift — but we’ll never know what that gift is until we’ve tried it. And you can’t know what to try if you don’t start trying something.
We’re going to be reading from Romans, Chapter 12, today, so if you’d go ahead and turn there, you’ll be ahead of the game. We’ll concentrate on the first 13 verses today.
Now, some of you will recall that we’ve been talking about some of the basics of faith the past couple of weeks.
First, we discussed the most important matter: what it means to be a Christian.
We said that baptism doesn’t make one a Christian and that church membership doesn’t make one a Christian and that having learned some creed as a child doesn’t make one a Christian.
We can only be identified with Christ — people who are truly Christians — if we have given our lives to Jesus Christ in faith that the willing sacrifice of the perfect Son of God on a cross on Calvary is the only thing that can save us from the penalty each of us owes for our sins.
Now, I’m not talking about head-knowledge here. I’m talking about a true change of heart that accompanied your genuine confession that you are a sinner who deserves Hell because of your sins and that you accept God’s gift of grace.
Too many people who call themselves Christians know the STORY of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, but they do not truly know the CHRIST at the center of that story.
So, having determined that a true follower of Jesus Christ will have had a change that takes them from being subject to the ruler of this world to being a subject of the Ruler of the Universe, we then looked at how true followers of Christ should be less connected to the things of this world and more connected to the church that is the Body of Christ.
If you were here last week, you’ll recall that I closed the service by saying that if you’re a true Christian and not a nominal Christian, you need the church, and the church needs you.
Today, we’re going to unpack that statement a bit.
Having spent the first 11 chapters of this letter talking about the surpassing grace and mercy of God, demonstrated by the sacrificial death of His only Son, Paul now begins to make an application for the church in Rome.
We’ll pick up in Verse 1.
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
The Jewish converts who received this letter knew all about sacrifices. They knew how they looked, how they sounded and how they smelled.
What would have been unexpected for them was this concept of a living sacrifice — a living death. What on earth could Paul have meant?
Just this: In light of God’s mercy, the only rational thing they could do — and rational is another meaning for that word that’s translated here as “spiritual” — the only rational thing they could do was to give their very selves to God as an act of worship for His glory.
This kind of sacrifice goes way beyond getting up early and getting dressed up on Sunday to spend an hour or so in church.
Paul is talking about complete commitment to God here. And we see that in the next verse.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do not allow yourselves to be shaped into the people the world would have you to be. The world has plenty of cable news junkies. The world has plenty of people who identify first as Democrats or Republicans. The world has plenty of liberals and conservatives.
If you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, your primary identity should be in Him, and you should be about the business of following Him — in other words, doing the things He commanded.
If you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, instead of being conformed to the image of this broken world, you should be being transformed — metamorphoo in the Greek — into the image of Jesus.
How does this happen? Through the renewing of your mind. And how is your mind renewed? By spending more time pursuing the mind of God and less time pursuing the mind of the world. And how can you know the mind of God?
Well, from His Word, for one. By submitting yourself to solid teaching, for another. Spending more time in prayer.
Do you want to know God’s will for your life? It’s right here. I promise you that if you spend regular time studying His Word, He will make His will clear to you.
And something else will happen, too. You will begin to find that you’ve got less time for yourself. And that’s a good thing.
You see, most of us spend way too much time thinking about ourselves. There was a whole philosophy that grew up during the ‘70s around the idea of the Me Generation. The idea was that each of us need to do what’s good for me.
How has that worked out for us? Is the world a better place now because of all the people who have followed that philosophy?
Paul says here that we should all think a little less of ourselves if we’re following Christ.
3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
R.C. Sproul had a great observation about this verse: “When we know who God is, then we know that we cannot make a move in this world of any significance, without the grace of God. Knowing that we are utterly dependent on grace for any achievement that we enjoy in this world, how can we be anything but humble? This verse prohibits pride and arrogance, a boastful exalted opinion of ourselves.” (R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 198.)
And as it turns out, a little humility goes a long way when it comes to doing church together.
4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
Now, I think we all get the first part of this passage, though we may not always be good at applying it.
We all have different functions within the church. Paul will list some of those functions a bit further on. And we’re all part of one body. We’re all members of this body, the church. And we’re all members of the greater body of the capital-C church, as well.
But the part that I think we often miss is this: We are all individually members of one another.
At the Last Supper, Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
Jesus’ reply tells us something about the eternal relationship among Himself, His Father, and the Holy Spirit.
John 24:
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
Within the Trinity, there is something that theologians describe as a mutual indwelling of each of the Persons. The Father is in the Son and in the Spirit. The Son is in the Father and the Spirit. And the Spirit is in the Father and the Son.
This is perfect community, and it has been that way from eternity. That’s how Jesus could say that He did the things His Father had Him do. He knew what the Father wanted done because they had been in perfect community and fellowship together from eternity past.
And the awesome and frightening thing is this: That’s the kind of community we’re called to as the church. We are to be “individually members of one another” as we share in the Holy Spirit and are made into the image of Christ.
It’s a hard calling, and I do not think we will see it perfected this side of glory, but nonetheless it is what we are called to aim for even here.
Fortunately, we do not do this on our own.
We have the Holy Spirit indwelling each of us as followers of Christ. And the Holy Spirit has given each of us certain spiritual gifts that are designed to aid in this hard calling. Our part is to figure out what those gifts are and then to use them to build up the church in love.
Paul talks about these gifts in the next few verses.
6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;
7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Preaching would be the equivalent to Paul’s idea of prophecy in this context, and I think we all recognize that preaching and teaching — and maybe even serving, leading and exhortation — are spiritual gifts.
But have you ever considered that giving might be your spiritual gift? We’re all called to give, and we’ll talk a bit more about that in the next couple of weeks, but some are gifted with a special level of generosity, and I can’t tell you all the examples I’ve read of people who had no idea they had the gift or the blessing it could be to them until they tried giving sacrificially.
And I want you to note that each of these gifts must be put to work in the proper way in order for them to edify the church.
Prophecy here would be the proclamation of God’s word. Service and teaching are self-evident. Exhortation is teaching with an eye toward encouragement. Giving can refer to giving financially or of your time. Leading
Prophecy, or preaching in this context, must be done with faith. Giving should be done liberally. Leading must be done diligently. Mercy should be given cheerfully.
All of these gifts are important to the church.
“The church needs instruction, exhortation, ministries of mercy, administration of its program, encouragement and healing in times of illness, wise counsel in dark days, and many other things besides.” (Brand, Chad. “Spiritual Gifts.” Edited by Charles Draper, Archie England, Steve Bond, E. Ray Clendenen, and Trent C. Butler. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003.)
Brand, Chad. “Spiritual Gifts.” Edited by Charles Draper, Archie England, Steve Bond, E. Ray Clendenen, and Trent C. Butler. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003.)
The church needs instruction, exhortation, ministries of mercy, administration of its program, encouragement and healing in times of illness, wise counsel in dark days, and many other things besides.
And all of these gifts are manifestations of the grace of God.
“What makes me different from other people is not my greatness, but God’s graciousness. Therefore, we should enjoy and honour all those differences of abilities, talents and gifts in the body of Christ.” (Sproul, R. C. The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans. Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994.)
When we embrace our own spiritual gifts and the spiritual gifts of others in the church, we can begin to see incredible things happen.
What makes me different from other people is not my greatness, but God’s graciousness. Therefore, we should enjoy and honour all those differences of abilities, talents and gifts in the body of Christ.
Sproul, R. C. The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans. Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994.
Christians were never meant to be people who were merely ministered TO. We all have gifts of ministry, and therefore, we are all ministers of God’s grace. And if we would all embrace this concept, I believe we would see not only this church, but the capital-C church begin to have something like the power that Jesus was talking about when He said the gates of Hell would not prevail over it.
THAT church will be characterized by love, by genuine love, and that’s what the spiritual gifts are all about: building up the church in love.
Picking back up in Verse 9.
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.
Love one another genuinely. Love one another with a brotherly love. That’s family, folks. We are to love one another as family. We are to give preference to one another. We are to honor one another.
And in case we missed the point the first time around, Paul now reminds us that our spiritual gifts are to be manifested in the proper ways.
11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;
Leading with diligence. Preaching fervently through the faith that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Serving the Lord by serving one another, and serving one another AS IF we were serving the Lord directly.
12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,
Encouraging hope within one another through exhortation, mercifully helping one another to persevere during hard times, remaining devoted to personal and corporate prayer.
13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
Giving generously — with liberality — to help meet one another’s needs, having open doors and hearts ready for hospitality.
We spend so much time trying to make sure that we’ve got all our I’s dotted and all our T’s crossed, trying to make sure that we’re presentable and putting on our best face, and none of those things is wrong, in and of itself.
“God wants to see discipline (in His people and in the church), but he also wants to see passion, to see hearts that are on fire, that are excited about what he has done.” (Sproul, R. C. The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans. Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994.)
If you have followed Jesus Christ in faith that He is who He said He is and that He will do what He said He will do, then your heart should be on fire with the recognition of what that means for you. Your heart should be on fire with the desire to let others know what He has done for them. Your heart should be on fire with a desire to build up His church in love.
God wants to see discipline, but he also wants to see passion, to see hearts that are on fire, that are excited about what he has done.
I said it last week, and I will say it again today: If you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, you need the church.
The church is the place where you will find accountability, where you will find solid teaching, where you will find true Christian fellowship, where you will find discipline, where you will find the best opportunities to work with fellow Christians to do the things that Jesus Christ commanded that we do — to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
But if you are a true follower of Christ, the church also needs you. You have some special spiritual gift that God has graciously given you through the Holy Spirit. He has given you this gift as a way to help build up the body of Christ in love.
I don’t know what your gift is. And you may not know what it is, either. So pick up the paintbrush, and let’s find out.