Spiritual Gifts
Notes
Transcript
CALL TO WORSHIP
690 THE CHURCH IS ONE FOUNDATION
PRAYERS OF CONFFESSION
THE LORD’S PRAYER
83 PRIASE MY SOUL THE KING OF HEAVEN
READING 1 Corinthians 12 1-11
12 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.
—————————————————————————————————————
Let’s begin today by reminding ourselves about the people Paul was writing to. Corinth was a city in ancient Greece, famous throughout the world for its sexual immorality. It was also a place where the Greek mystery religions were very popular.
But these Corinthians believers have left all this behind. They’ve heard the good news of Jesus, they’ve believed it, and they’ve been baptized into Christ. They were baptised and proclaimed their Christian faith in the words, ‘Jesus is Lord’. When they used this word ‘Lord’ they were aware of its significance. In the Roman world it was one of the titles of the emperor.
What a huge change has happened in the lives of these people! On the one hand, they’ve left behind their belief in the power of the mystery religions. On the other hand, they’ve come to belief that there is only one God and Father of all, and only one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What could possibly bring about such a change? Paul is quite clear about this; he says, ‘No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit’ (v.3). He’s not just talking about saying words; he’s talking about the heartfelt decision to commit yourself to Jesus in baptism and to consciously accept his Lordship over every part of your life. This is what the Holy Spirit does; he works in people’s hearts and minds, leading them to the place where they can accept that Jesus is Lord.
But how does Jesus exercise his Lordship in the world today? After all, we can’t see him, and he certainly doesn’t seem to be in control of the world in any political sense. So how can we claim that God has made Jesus the Lord of all, when the world doesn’t seem to submit to his Lordship in any way?
It’s a fair question, and in answer we need to remember how Jesus exercised his Lordship when he walked the earth as one of us. He consciously chose to reject the political and military model and take the way of humble service instead. In John chapter 13 he gets up from the supper table and washes his disciples’ feet – the job the servant was supposed to do when people came in from walking on dusty roads. He then says to them,
“Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:12-14).
And in another place, Jesus says to his disciples,
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
So, in the Bible there’s this strange paradox: God has exalted Jesus and made him the Lord of all, and yet he chooses to exercise that lordship, not by controlling the world, but by serving it. Apparently, he is not interested in changing the world by political campaigning or military action. He is the servant king, and he calls his followers to follow his example.
And this is how Paul chooses to work his way into his discussion of spiritual gifts. The purpose of spiritual gifts is so that the members of the Body of Christ can serve each other and serve the world in the name of Jesus. It’s important to say this, because so often people exercise the gifts that God has given them, but they do it as a way of showing off and bringing glory to themselves. There’s a long history in the Christian church of musicians playing their music to their own glory and not to the glory of God. There’s a long history of preachers who want to make a name for themselves as great speakers rather than lifting up Jesus. None of this comes from the Holy Spirit.
Look at verses 4-7:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
That’s the purpose of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: ‘the common good’. Jesus is building up his Body so that it can serve the world, and he does it by giving its members the gifts they need to serve one another and serve the world in his name.
What gifts? Well, Paul gives us a list of nine in verses 8-11. This is not an exhaustive list, by the way – he gives another list at the end of chapter twelve, and another one in Romans chapter twelve, and while there’s some overlap there are some differences as well. So, it’s not likely that he’s claiming there are only nine gifts of the Spirit – there are more, but he’s choses these to make a point.
Why has he chosen these nine? Well, it seems that he’s emphasizing what we might call ‘supernatural’ gifts. Not all of his gift lists do that; some of them have a balance of the supernatural and the more ordinary. But the Corinthians seem to have been especially interested in supernatural gifts – they were exciting – but Paul wants to point out how these gifts aren’t an end in themselves but fit into Jesus’ plan to serve the world. That’s why he mentions them here.
So, what have we got? He starts by talking about ‘a word of wisdom’ and ‘a word of knowledge’ (v.8). Have you noticed sometimes people seem to know just the right thing to do in each situation or seem to have access to knowledge they couldn’t possibly have had by their own; that’s the Holy Spirit at work!
Paul goes on to mention special ‘faith’. We’re all called to have faith, of course, but some people seem to have it in a supernatural way; they can step out confidently, just knowing that God will be there to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that involves the next two things Paul mentions – healings and miracles. Modern western rationalism would like to dismiss these things as impossible, and of course there have always been charlatans and deceivers, but even today there are stories from around the world of God healing the sick and doing miraculous things, and maybe some of you could tell a few of them yourselves.
Paul goes on to mention ‘prophecy’ – delivering a message from God to an individual or to a community. He talks about ‘the discernment of spirits’ – the ability to know when the Holy Spirit is at work and when it’s some other kind of spirit, one that we wouldn’t want to encourage at all. He ends by mentioning ‘various kinds of tongues’ – the ability to pray or to deliver a message from God in a language you don’t know – and ‘the interpretation of tongues’ – the ability to interpret what has been said by the person who was speaking in tongues so that everyone can understand it.
Almost all these things are related to the ministry of Jesus in a real way. We know from the gospels that Jesus healed the sick and performed miracles. We know that he sometimes knew things about people that he wouldn’t have been able to know under ordinary circumstances. We know that he ‘prophesied’, in the sense of delivering a message from God to the people. We know that he exercised great faith, speaking a word of healing in the absolute confidence that his Father would hear him and grant his request. We know that he exercised discernment of spirits, being able to detect when the powers of evil were especially at work in people’s lives.
Notice what Paul says about how these gifts are distributed: ‘to one’ is given through the Spirit a certain gift, ‘to another’ is given another gift by the same Spirit. This means that every Christian is a minister, and every Christian has a gift to share. And this also means that some of our traditional Christian understandings about the role of Church Leaders are wrong. Paul does not expect that the leader of a congregation will be the only ones to exercise spiritual gifts. He doesn’t expect, for instance that the person who preaches will necessarily be the person who prays for the sick, or that the person who has supernatural wisdom will also be the person who has great faith.
Let’s close by facing the big question: where are these gifts today?
The answer is, they are still present in the Church today, when the Holy Spirit leads his people to desire them and to exercise them. But because through the last three centuries or so the western Christian tradition has tended to emphasize the rational elements of Christianity and neglect the emotional and the supernatural ones, we western Christians have found it harder to have the faith to exercise these gifts. We like to be in control; we like to know when the service is going to start and when it’s going to end, and we like to know what’s going to happen in between. We want God to touch our lives, but not in such a way as to make us late for our Sunday lunch!
This is relevant for us today if we allow ourselves to exercise the more supernatural gifts. We might find that sometimes we have hunches about that turn out to be true – what Paul would call a ‘word of wisdom’ or a ‘word of knowledge’. We might find that God has enabled us to preach sermons that challenge and inspire people. We might find ourselves praying for sick people and seeing what looks like answers to our prayers, or we might find ourselves playing music in a way that helps people to worship God. We might find ourselves praying in a language that we don’t understand, that just seems to flow from us, or we might find ourselves gifted with a special sympathy for others that makes us good at listening, caring and compassion.
We need to ensure we learn to recognise which gifts that God has given to each of us: This dilemma is illustrated by the story of a sea captain and his chief engineer who were having an argument as to which one of them was the more important to the ship. Failing to agree, they resorted to the unique idea of swapping places. The chief ascended to the bridge, and the captain descended into the engine room. After a couple of hours, the captain suddenly appeared on the deck covered with oil and soot.
“Chief!” he yelled, wildly waving aloft a monkey wrench. “You’ll have to come down here; I can’t make her go!”
“Of course, you can’t,” replied the chief. “She’s run aground!”
Perhaps one reason why so many have chosen to do so little or nothing in the way of ministry in local churches is because they have seen how frustrated those are who are striving to accomplish tasks they were never intended to attempt. The primary qualification for most tasks in the church is a willingness to try. But this may not be the answer.
The solution to both these problems is a proper understanding of the subject of spiritual gifts. You may well find that many books have been written on the subject and that no one message will deal with every important issue. But in many ways the writers have often made this subject far more mystical and mysterious and complicated than it really is. And you know that if there is anyone who can look at a matter with simplicity, it is me. My friends often remind me how simple I really am!
Some of the gifts God gives we call ‘natural’, and some ‘supernatural’, but in the end they’re all about the same thing – loving one another and loving the world God loves. It’s possible to preach and lead services for the glory of God and the love of God’s people, and it’s also possible to preach and lead services for our own glory, or because we have a need to be loved and recognized by people. Outwardly it may look the same, but one attitude builds up the Body of Christ and the other does not.
So, as Paul says, let’s all ‘pursue love and strive for spiritual gifts. Let’s pray that God will help us to grow in love for one another, and also that he will give us the faith to exercise these spiritual gifts in such a way as to cause his kingdom to come and his will be done on earth as in heaven. Amen.
348 HE IS LORD HE IS LORD
PRAYERS
317 AT THE NAME OF JESUS
BLESSING