Epiphany 2 - God Works With Us - Many Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:1–11 (NRSV): Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Building a Church

This year we are going to learn how to be and grow as disciples of Jesus and to make and grow up other disciples with us. The goal at the end of the year is to not only have more disciples connected to our church but to have more disciple-makers who know how and intentionally choose to raise up other disciples. Disciple-makers are not all pastors, nor do they all go to school for their training. As we learned last week, God shapes us from our birth (both physical and spiritual) throughout our entire life, to shape us into people who all do the disciple-making work Jesus calls us all to do. We are going to go deep and wide, we are going to learn together and practice together, in the next weeks and months, just like Jesus and His disciples did together. We started with Jesus and how He is our Savior, Lord, and ultimate Sacrifice, leading us into a new relationship with Him and each other, that transforms us from normal human beings into something more. Today and next week, I want to jump ahead and share a vision of what God's Word says the Church could look like if we put the pieces together well and all do our part. Today I want to share with you what it means to be a Church that makes disciple-makers.

Given and Powered

Now, when we hear the word "church", most people think of a building. The picture in our minds may not all be the same building, but the kind of "home base" for people when they think of church is a building that people gather in for worship. We have preached sermons and taught lessons, people have written books and even songs against the idea that the church is a building. No, we say emphatically. The church is not a building, the church is the people. We say it. We know it. And yet, most of us still think of and function as if the church is mostly a building. Take away that building and our faith gets confused and frustrated. So let's start where we are today, talking about a church building. It takes a LOT of thought, praying, planning, work, and sacrifice to make a church building. Many of you know that well because it has not been too many years since you were involved in church building projects. You have to get very talented people to draw up plans that connect with the reality of the landscape. You have to get workers in to level out the ground, dig down, and pour in a solid, level foundation for the rest of the building to sit on. You have to have trucks hauling in quality materials to build with and someone to order and measure the right amount of bricks, concrete, drywall, and many other materials. You need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and people to come in and clean up after the sections of work are completed. You need HVAC workers to heat and cool the building. Oh, and don't forget, you need someone to pay for all of this. Specifically, you need people to help lead others in giving generously. That is an enormous amount of work itself, and at the end of the day, you still just have an empty building. You need decorators, carpet-layers, painters, and people who think about how to lead people closer to God in how we arrange the furniture and in choosing colors. You need tech people to provide sound, lighting, and many other things (and I won't even get into providing worship online yet). If you sat down to write a checklist of every need in building a new church building, you would have a book by the time you finished. Hundreds of people and thousands of hours of work. But what would happen if you took away the power behind that work? What if the trucks didn't have gas? What if there was no electricity for the carpenters? Without that power, they couldn't even get started. What if the architects did not know how to draw or do math? What if the plumbers didn't know plumbing? It would be a total disaster! Just as it takes many, many people to build a church, so it takes many people to make a disciple. Each of those people needs the knowledge and power to do their work, and both of those things come from God. Paul writes at the beginning of our passage today that all of that disciple-making work is centered on obeying Jesus Christ. It is not random people doing random things. You cannot accidentally make a disciple. You may have incredible gifts and talents, but it won't make a disciple if you are using them for yourself or something other than Jesus. At the end of the passage, Paul reminds us that those gifts are also given to us by God in the first place AND they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. God gives both the knowledge and the ability to serve better than we could ever do on our own. As the last verse tells us, all gifts are allotted and activated by the Holy Spirit.

Many Gifts

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

So, it takes all of us together to make disciples, and God provides the knowledge and ability to do that. How does that work? Paul tells us there are a variety of gifts. Some of you have taken the SHAPE Assessment in the past few weeks and learned about some of yours, and there is still plenty of time to take it if you have not done so yet. What are those gifts? Paul lists a few of them in our passage today. Sharing Wisdom and Knowledge Faith, Healing, and Miracles Prophecy and Discernment Tongues and Interpretation If you have taken the SHAPE test or another spiritual gifts inventory, you know that these gifts come in groups. We don't just get one gift, we receive multiple gifts. Sometimes those gifts fit together in common patterns, and other times they fit in in a shape that is unique to you and your calling. There are many gifts that God gives us, including our personalities, our life experiences, and the skills and talents we acquire through our lives. Spiritual gifts are something different though. As Paul wrote, these are gifts that we cannot do without God. Peter and John may have been excellent fishermen, Matthew may have been good with money, Paul was certainly a gifted scholar... yet they embraced new spiritual gifts, went far outside their comfort zones, and were transformed by the mission Jesus gave them. In a sense, their original gifts were reshaped by their new spiritual gifts, and whether those gifts seemed spiritual or not, we work differently when we are working under God's direction and power rather than just our own. Instead of just being fishermen we become fishers of men. Identifying and using our spiritual gifts helps us to find and live into our identity in Christ. However, our experience and understanding is incomplete if we focus on ourselves. Paul's whole purpose in writing about spiritual gifts was to show the way we fit together better when we are living our lives as disciples and using those spiritual gifts to make other disciples with Jesus. When we are assembled as the Church, with all gifts present, we are able to make disciples together far better than we could do by ourselves. Only as the whole church are we able to share spiritual wisdom and knowledge, teach them faith, offer them healing, and the miraculous provision of God. We are able to discern and share God's will and Word with them, and we are able to communicate past all of the cultural boundaries that come between us and the people God sends us to invite into our church family.

What's your gift?

What spiritual gifts has God given you? How has He called you to use them in the mission we have of making disciples for Jesus? Just like a church building project, making a disciple is a job for more than one person. It takes a team of people, directed and empowered by God, to do this work. And it takes time. Discipleship is not just Bible Study. Discipleship begins with telling the good news of the gospel to those who have never heard it and carries through the rest of their lives as we grow more and more into Christ-likeness together. The Church does not fit together right without all the pieces being aligned with God and each other correctly and serving with their gifts. When we get out of relationship with each other, we struggle to make any disciples at all. We can spend money, put on programs, even have great fun together, but in the end, fail to do the one mission Jesus gave to us: making disciples. However, when we are in the right relationship together, listening and obeying the Holy Spirit, and stepping out in faith as the Spirit leads, we will be amazed at how many disciples God can raise up with us. As we close in prayer, I want to introduce several of our leaders who have stepped up, following God's call, to lead our church this year. David Riel - AdCouncil Chair

Bonnie Banker - SPRC Chair

Ron Gilkerson - Finance Chair

Tim Chiki - Trustee Chair

Carrie Shifflet - Lay Leader We want to pray for them that God would equip and empower them and their teams with the gifts to lead as they form a framework, like the outer edges of the puzzle, in which we all find ourselves filling in the picture of who we are as NUMC and how we make disciples and disciple-makers for Jesus.

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