One Another Gifts

Me:

Good evening everyone,

Tonight we will continuing on an ongoing series where we simply look at how are we supposed to follow Jesus command for us to love ONE ANOTHER.

At the last Supper, Jesus gave an impossibly clear commandment. He explained, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ( ESV).

Allelon. One Another. Followers of Jesus were meant to interact with one another in an interconnected way. Interdependent on one another.

We are not meant to live out our relationship with Jesus apart from Community. Over 59 times in the New Testament this phrase is used to add practical examples that this original One Another was meant to be lived out.

Within this, we see Jesus’ divine ideal for His followers, that we would be a people defined by love, that when people looked into biblical communities they would see love beyond obligation, commonalities, or fears. They would intentionally choose love even when the difficulties of loving far exceed any value.

This is a lofty ideal, but Jesus spoke of it as if it was attainable.

So was he just being idealistic? Because what can all of us struggle with… serving one another, encouraging one another, not gossiping about one another, protecting one another, and ultimately loving one another…

You: When it comes specifically to serving one another, there can be some challenges… we can feel like we have nothing to offer. You have tried to find your fit, but have never really seen where you are gifted or what you could do to serve others.

Or the reality that none of us want to be a rug for everyone else to walk on. You may have been identified as talented or gifted so you had all this responsibility thrust upon you that your soul wasn’t ready for until you burnt out.

But still the inescapable call of Jesus remains to love one another. But the way we demonstrate our love shouldn’t just lead us to having a bigger ego, like ya I am so good at serving, nor should it lead us into believing that this love is supposed to deplete our souls.

Main Idea: The gifts that the Spirit has uniquely given each of us are meant to demonstrate love for God and one another.

God: We will be journeying into

Peter was writing to a diverse groups of churches across Asia in the letter of 1 Peter. Within this letter, Peter continually gives words of encouragement and focus to these exiles, who found themselves in hostile territory.

He just spent , unpacking the beauty of the Gospel, and moved on toward how should this incredible gift we have received in the Gospel affect the way we live our daily lives.

He explains the importance of prioritizing love above all else, and demonstrating that love through hospitality.

But then he turns to the way that believers are called to serve one another with the various gifts they have received.

Vs 10- Peter begins with an assumption of spiritual gifts. That the Spirit of God does gift us. Each has received a gift. This underlying assumption destroys any thought of superiority or of being forgotten about.

The Holy Spirit didn’t run out of gifts in His bag. He doesn’t scratch His metaphorical head and hand over some white elephant gift. Instead, He gives generously and abundantly exactly what He knows we need, not just us as individuals but us as a community together.

Remember, the focus in this passage is not individualistic it is communal, but it is born out of the individual component.

Spiritual gifts are different than simply being talented at something. Talents can be genetic, based in discipline, or cultivated by desire. Spiritual Gifts go where talents cannot go, toward bearing spiritual and eternal fruit. They can be honed and crafted, but they are not our work or stem from our abilities, they are the gift of a good Dad who delights in His kids.

So what are the purpose of spiritual gifts? To make ourselves feel more spiritual? More superior to others? To prove our value?

None of those are the purpose. They aren’t meant to be about us at all.

Main Idea: The gifts that the Spirit has uniquely given each of us are meant to demonstrate love for God and one another.

We are called to use whatever gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us to be active demonstrators of love toward one another.

We are called to use them to serve one another.

Of course, this is kind of scary, because within community we can get walked out or taken advantage of. Our gifting could get exploited. Like if you have the spiritual gift of hospitality you could end up hosting people 300 days a year since you live near Disney World. Or if you have the spiritual gift of service you could end up being volunteered and recruited on every team that Mosaic has and serving to the determent of intimacy with Jesus.

Serving one another does not have to be the enemy of healthy boundaries. Knowing our limits and dying to ourselves in the right way matters. But ultimately what this means is that we should have our hearts postured toward loving one another and toward serving one another.

That we aren’t so quick to say no, or think what is in this for me. Instead, we allow the Spirit of God to give us hearts that desire to serve one another with the gifts that God has given us.

Why?

Because our lives and gifts are not our own. “As good stewards of God’s varied grace.” A steward is not the owner. A steward is one who has been given the responsibility and the resources to fulfill the wishes of the true owner.

We can walk around in life as owners of our possessions, our time, our lives, and our gifts. Living frustrated when we are uncomfortable or when we might actually be called to sacrifice.

But when we are living as good stewards of God’s varied grace we live in the reality of the Gospel. We are following the in the path of Jesus.

Why do we serve? Because Jesus first made Himself servant.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ( ESV)

When Jesus was born He emptied Himself of His rights. Instead, the owner began to live life as a steward. Serving humanity by becoming humanity. He demonstrated perfect love toward God and toward people. He lived out the divine ideal of love, and put it on ultimate display by surrendering His life to die on the cross so that we could live. Then the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead, and for all of us who are followers of Jesus we have been filled with that same Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance!

We cannot serve with any eternal value in our own strength. But the Spirit of God has the ability and the desire to empower us, to embolden us, to live and to love beyond our capacity.

Then He has given us varied gifts, unique and personalized but all equally valuable.

Main Idea: The gifts that the Spirit has uniquely given each of us are meant to demonstrate love for God and one another.

Vs 11- This is where Peter gives two examples of how varied the gifts that God gives can be, and for both gives the power and gravity of all of these varied gifts.

He first mentions those who communicate in public settings. The word he uses here is inclusive of all kinds of public communication, whether it is teaching on a stage, instructing within a discipleship relationship, teaching an equipping class. Wherever and however, do it with a weightiness and a spiritual boldness.

He then compares that to those who are serving in the everyday realities of life within community. In our context, this would be those who are setting up, cleaning up, running production, planning events, praying for our gatherings, serving as Blue Shirts and shuttle drivers. That wherever you serve do it with a weightiness and a spiritual boldness as well!

There isn’t one spiritual gift or job description that is more holy, more spiritual, or more important than any other.

Instead all Spiritual gifts have inherent value and purpose. Why? Because the gift giver is the same for all of them, and he doesn’t give bad gifts!

The reality is these gifts really are various.

Main Idea: The gifts that the Spirit has uniquely given each of us are meant to demonstrate love for God and one another.

In fact, there are three spaces within Scripture that are often focused in on as places where the gifts of the Spirit are listed. It would be hard to say that these list are completely exhaustive, but they do provide a launching point.

: prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leadership, acts of mercy.

In , Paul writes, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 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. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills… And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.” (, ESV)

The reality is there a lot of thoughts on the way these various gifts play out in daily life and even in life today.

For me, growing up I saw some of these gifts done poorly and in ways that I eventually discovered didn’t follow in obedience to Scripture.

SO what I began to do as I grew and learned was to avoid any Spiritual Gifts that I had seen executed in a way that seemed unhelpful at best and unbiblical at worst. This is what Sam Storms refers to as the 11th Commandment, “That which thou hast seen done poorly, thou shall not do at all.”

The reality is within Scripture we see an infinitely creative God who has uniquely created each of us as pieces of a beautiful Mosaic meant to be crafted together into a work of art worth standing in awe of.

These gifts that the Holy Spirit chooses to give us are meant to be demonstrations of love toward one another. They are meant to build up the body and display of indispensable and valuable each of us are meant to be toward one another.

That those of us who stand on a stage have no great value to this community than any of us. Instead, we are all called to serve with whatever we have been gifted with in love, humility, and spiritual boldness.

In my personal life, over the last year God has been challenging the way I viewed many of the Spiritual Gifts that made me uncomfortable. If the God of the Universe desires to give me a gift that would demonstrate love to my community and glorify God would I refuse?

So I now pray that God would give me whatever gifts He would desire to give me, and help me to grow in them in a way that is consistent and submitted to the authority of the Scriptures.

Because ultimately:

Main Idea: The gifts that the Spirit has uniquely given each of us are meant to demonstrate love for God and one another.

“In everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” Our purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We were created to love God and love people. When we are all living in the gifts that God has given us we are following in the path of Jesus, and we display the beautiful diversity and invitation of the Gospel to a world desperate for an invitation into a thrilling hope.

As we remember our true purpose, we remember who we truly are, that we are not forgotten, not damaged goods, but sons and daughters of the king called to serve one another as siblings!

“To him be dominion and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

You: Does this mean we should only serve in spaces that we know we are gifted? Should only people who have the gift of encouragement encourage, or the gift of being a Gospel Voice share the Gospel, or the gift of faith live in active trust of God, or people who have the gift of healings pray for healing?

No, spiritual gifts are meant to be an encouragement in how to focus the way we serve and love one another, not an abandonment of those things.

Instead lets discover the gifts that the Spirit of God would desire for us to live in, and use them in a way that would demonstrate love for God and for one another.

Us: What if we lived out this prayer: “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” ( ESV)