Spiritual Gifts - The Not-So-Spiritual Gifts

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What classifies a spiritual gift?

There were 4 questions, 4 qualities that we highlighted last week.

A spiritual gift:

Starts with love

Serves to show grace

Given by the spirit as a natural part of connecting the body together

Exists for the common good

Now, before we get into this idea of ‘not so spiritual gifts’, we need to understand this. Paul goes after 2 problems that arise when we start talking about spiritual gifts. Let’s read from 1 Corinthians 12

1 Corinthians 12:15–20 NIV

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

Don’t count yourself out because you don’t work like someone else

This is what would happen - somebody would look at somebody else and go ‘man, i’m not that person. i’m not gifted like them. i must not be a part of the body’. And let’s say that happens everywhere. Alll the ears look at all the eyes and say, ‘man, i’m not an eye, i must not be a part of the body’, and they stop doing their thing. The body of christ loses something absolutely vital.

Paul actually says, if the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? if it were an ear, how could it see?

The key here is in verse 18, he says this:

1 Corinthians 12:18

1 Corinthians 12:18 NIV

But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

You can’t count yourself out - because God counted you in already. You bring something essential to the health of the body with you.

Now, this doesn’t mean, we’re all amazing just the way we are. There’s growth, there’s improvement, and there’s repentence and change

But this is about the part that God wants each one of us to play. And that’s going to be very different person to person. And not only did God give you a part, he gave you one that’s essential to the health of the body as a whole.

But there’s a flipside to this:

Don’t count other people out because they don’t work like you

Paul goes on to say this:

1 Corinthians 12:21–26 NIV

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

There’s another side to this. Because you’ll also see this a lot - somebody looks at somebody else and says ‘man, that person just isn’t spiritual. they don’t have gifts like I have. God must not need them’.

Sidebar - I have trouble understanding how this isn’t exactly like a story that Jesus told about prayer - PHARISEE PRAYING

But paul is saying, not only are those ‘weaker’ people part of the body - they’re indispensible. We NEED those people that we’d consider the weaker parts of the body.

Could you imagine what that would look like - being the kind of person that looks at someone else we consider difficult or ‘less than ourselves’, and saying ‘so, if i think that person’s weaker than me, that means they must be indispensible to God’

Paul goes on to describe what GOD is doing

When WE look at the harder-to-work-with parts of the body, we think ‘are they in our out’. When GOD looks at the harder-to-work-with parts of the body, he thinks ‘More help for these ones’.

And paul says, don’t sweat it if somebody gets more honor, or more special treatment, or more “grace” than you do. God is making sure each part fits.

And I think our reaction comes from a good place - it comes from the desire to be effective. We WANT to highlight the people that have the big flashy spiritual gifts because they seem like they’re more effective at the job.

But the key here is in verse 24 and 25:

1 Corinthians 12:24-25

1 Corinthians 12:24–25 (NIV)

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,

so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

God’s victory condition is that we’re not divided. That we care for each other equally. We’re effective when we’re united, and that’s a really big thing God wants us to fight for.

So when we do what God wants us to do, we win. And when it comes to what God wants us to do, we can sum it up like this:

Every single person has a place and a part to play in the body of Christ

And that includes ME, and that also includes the person over there that I don’t think fits in.

Now, what does this have to do with spiritual gifts?

I want you to notice something I didn’t do here - I didn’t give a list.

Spiritual gifts aren’t really a what - they’re a why and a how

The why is this - I am doing this because I want to love others, I want to show grace, and I want to serve in my church in order to benefit everyone.

The how is this - I want God to do this through me using His power

Next week, we’ll talk about the “big” spiritual gifts and what Paul has to say about those.

But paul says, the greatest gift we could possibly practice is love. And God’s made it clear - He uses the gifts not to be flashy, but rather to knit the body together and make sure we’re all taking care of each other.

So during the week, here’s what I want you to do:

Find a way to love someone, and find a way to get to know someone better

and I promise you, if you try this, you’ll start down this path that we call spiritual gifts.

And here’s a bit of a secret I’ve learned - God’s not that interested in giving out the ‘big’ spirtual gifts if we’re not going to be faithful with the ‘small’ spiritual gifts.

And this is really easy. Just think, ‘what can I do, and who can I do it for?’

Are you a good cook or a baker? Make something for someone you don’t know.

Do you love hanging out with kids? get to know a family that has some

Good at sports? invite someone else out when you go to play next.

Like making crafts? give one to somebody else you don’t know well.

Even just something as simple as, I’m going to invite someone I don’t know well out for lunch.

But the key here is, get to know BETTER. Don’t just keep hanging out with people you already know well. Jesus said, yknow, even sinful people know how to love the people that already love them. That’s easy.