Gifts with a Purpose

Most of you know that my mother has been gone for the past couple of weeks to visit her sister. She is due back on Tuesday, and that means that Annette and I (mostly Annette, to be honest) spent much of yesterday cleaning house.

It’s not as if we don’t clean the house when Mom’s home, but Annette always wants to make sure the place is spic and span whenever Mom gets back from one of her trips.

So, a couple of times a year, we go through a major cleanup effort, inside and out.

Annette weeded her garden and rearranged her planters. I vacuumed the house. She cleaned the bathrooms and picked up my clutter. I vacuumed the house. She washed off the outdoor tables and put up the umbrella. Did I mention that I vacuumed the house?

Well, she did most of the work, and nobody who knows us at all will be surprised by that.

But there was something she did that surprised me. She put her new food processor and blender on the kitchen counter.

Now, these two appliances are new in the sense that they’ve never been used — the first time they’d been out of their boxes was this week.

But they’re not really new. She received them for Christmas and has never used them.

You see, there’s been too much stuff on the kitchen counters for them to have the space they need. So, she had to figure out how to make space for them before she could use them.

Now, she’s going to think I threw her under the bus by telling you all this, so let me try to mitigate the damage I’ve done by saying that there’s a little car vacuum cleaner by my easy chair that I also haven’t opened since I got it for Christmas.

Whenever I’m finally ready to pull out the bucket and sponges and soap and everything else I need to wash the car, I’ll open the vacuum up and proceed to do the whole thing up right. I’m just not quite ready to do that. One day soon, perhaps.

I tell you all this to make a point: It’s nice to receive gifts, but they don’t really serve their intended purpose until you take them out of the box and use them.

And today, as we continue our series, “The Church — Revealed,” we’re going to take a look at how the spiritual gifts every follower of Jesus receives from the Holy Spirit are intended for a purpose.

And that purpose can only be realized if we take them out of their boxes and use them for what they were intended to do — to build up the body of Christ.

We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, today, so please go ahead and find that passage in your Bibles.

While you’re turning there, as always, let me give you some context.

The first letter that we have from the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth has some of the strongest language of any of his letters.

That’s because this church had some serious problems that he was addressing. Indeed, though that church may not have experienced a church split in the sense that we might understand it, it was experiencing divisions on a number of issues.

They were divided over teachers. Some claimed to be followers of Paul, and others claimed to be followers of Apollos.

But Paul set them straight. He had planted the seeds, and Apollos had watered them, but it was God — not Paul or Apollos — who caused the growth.

They were divided over whether they could eat certain foods. So Paul said, essentially, eat what you want. Just don’t cause another believer to stumble in his faith.

They were divided over the Lord’s Supper. Some were eating their fill of the bread and wine, leaving nothing of this sacred meal for others. And some were even becoming drunk on the wine.

So Paul said, “when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” And don’t be selfish idiots — that’s from the Spears translation.

And it seems that they were also divided on the matter of spiritual gifts, with those who had the gift of speaking in tongues considering themselves to be more spiritual than those who did not.

So, in chapter 12, Paul talks about some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they relate to the body of Christ, the Church.

And as we consider today this image of the Church as the body under Jesus, its head, we’re going to see what Paul had to say in chapter 12 about these gifts.

But before we do, I want to tell you Paul’s answer to the problems of the Corinthian church. The answer was love.

Skip ahead to chapter 13, the famous love chapter. We sometimes hear this chapter read during weddings, but the true application of it is for the church.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 NASB95

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love was the answer to the divisions in the church at Corinth. It’s the same answer to the problems of the church today. It’s the thing that has made such a tangible difference in our church during the past few years.

And what Paul is saying here is that whatever spiritual gift you might have, it accomplishes nothing for the Kingdom of God if it isn’t manifested in love.

As one commentator puts it, we are to earnestly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit in order that others in the Church may be edified. “Thus it is not ‘love versus gifts’ that Paul has in mind, but ‘love as the only context for gifts.’” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Co 12:31, quoting Fee.] You see, without love, the gifts aren’t really of any use at all.

The problem of the church in Corinth was that the people there were selfish. They were concerned for themselves, so they ate and drank without thought of the others who were in line behind them.

And they formed themselves into factions that set the teachings of Paul against those of Apollos. In doing so, they brought division into a body that should have been experiencing unity.

But what’s really interesting about the call to unity in this letter is the part that diversity plays in it. And that’s what we’ll see in chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12:4–6 NASB95

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.

There are many different spiritual gifts. Some will be listed in the coming verses. Others appear elsewhere in the New Testament.

In fact, since we know that all good things come from God, it’s not a stretch for us to conclude that every gift or talent you may have can be a spiritual gift.

Since there are multiple lists of spiritual gifts in Scripture, and since each of those lists is different in some regards, it seems reasonable to conclude that these are examples of spiritual gifts, rather than an exhaustive catalog of them.

And so, there are varieties of gifts. But they all come from the same Holy Spirit.

There are also varieties of ministries to which those gifts may be applied. Perhaps your spiritual gift is teaching. There are many different places where this gift can be applied. Perhaps it’s an adult Sunday school class, or in children’s church, or in a small-group setting.

Or maybe you have the gift of helps. Your ministry of helping could be applied in lots of different places within the church. There are many ways your gift of helping can minister to the church.

So, there are varieties of ministries for your spiritual gifts. But those ministries all come from the same Lord.

And there are varieties of effects. In other words, there are many different ways the ministries in which you use your spiritual gifts will change lives.

Perhaps your ministry will plant seeds in the hearts of unbelievers. Perhaps your ministry will water the seeds planted by someone else. Both of these effects are important. But who brings the growth?

“The same God who works all things in all persons.” It is God who brings the increase.

In fact, what we see in these verses is that it’s God the Holy Spirit who gives the gifts. It’s God the Son who gives the ministries. And it’s God the Father who makes ministries effectual.

This should be an encouragement to you. I know it has been an encouragement to me. That’s because I have come to realize one very important thing about my own ministry.

God will not measure success for me as a pastor by numbers. He won’t even measure my success by comparing the faithfulness of believers in this church from when I started ministering here to whenever He takes me from here.

The measurement of my success will be one thing: my faithfulness to what He has called me to do.

And the same thing is true for you. If you apply whatever spiritual gift you have been given to some ministry in the church and you faithfully do that work as to the Lord, then in God’s eyes, you will have been a success in your calling.

Now, I’ve tipped my hand a bit, but let me ask the question, anyway. For what purpose have you been given spiritual gifts?

Look at verse 7.

1 Corinthians 12:7 NASB95

7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Each one — every believer — is given some manifestation of the Spirit — some spiritual gift — for the common good. Our spiritual gifts are given to us for the edification of the church — for building up the church, for building up our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We don’t receive spiritual gifts to puff ourselves up — to make us feel more spiritual than others.

That’s the problem that existed in the Corinthian church. The people who had the gift of tongues considered themselves to be closer to God than the others.

And we don’t receive our spiritual gifts to keep them in a box beside the easy chair so they’ll still be nice and shiny when we stand before God. That was one of the lessons of the Parable of the Talents.

The wicked and lazy slave had received one talent, which was a unit of measure for gold or silver. And he had buried it in the ground until his master came back from his journey.

The other two slaves had put their talents to work, investing them. And they had doubled the value of what they’d been entrusted with. But the one who buried his talent had nothing to show for what he’d been given except the gift itself, and his master called him wicked and lazy.

Your gifts — whatever they are — have been given to you for a purpose. And you can’t achieve that purpose if you never take them out of the box.

Now, verses 8 through 10 present a list of spiritual gifts. And again, this list isn’t exhaustive, but representative.

Paul mentions the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues here.

We’re not going to spend time this week talking about the specific gifts. What I’ll say about them is this: This letter was written to the church of the Apostolic Age, the new church that had come into being as a result of the preaching of the Apostles.

And because of that historical context, we might expect that some spiritual gifts might apply to that church but not apply to the modern church in the West. We exist in a different time and context.

So, for instance, we have the full Bible from which to see God revealing Himself to us, whereas that church had only the Old Testament and whatever New Testament letters they had received by that time.

Therefore, we might well expect that gifts of miracles and healing would have been more prevalent then than they are now.

I think it’s interesting that we hear of such gifts, even today, in the churches of China and in Muslim countries, where access to the Bible is extremely limited. Perhaps God speaks to those people in ways He does not need to speak to us.

Perhaps the same thing is true of the gift of tongues and of some of the other more charismatic gifts we see in this list and others.

But what I want you to see from these verses is that the gifts are all from the same Spirit, as Paul puts it in verse 11:

1 Corinthians 12:11 NASB95

11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

You may have the gift of teaching, of giving a word of wisdom or of knowledge. You may have the gift of unshakeable faith. You may have the gift of helping.

But whatever your gift, it comes from the Holy Spirit, and He gives the gifts as He wills. His choice of gifts is HIS choice.

And here’s where we see that diversity is the heart of unity. Look at verse 12.

1 Corinthians 12:12–14 NASB95

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.

If you have a body, raise your hand. Good. Just trying to see if you’re paying attention. Every one of us has a body. And every one of our bodies is a collection of parts.

There are hands and feet, spleens and hearts and livers. There is skin and hair, and there are noses and ears and everything else that bodies are made up of. A body that was just a spleen or just a liver wouldn’t be much of a body, would it?

And so it is with the body of Christ, the church. The Holy Spirit doesn’t make us all ears in the body of Christ, and He doesn’t make us all mouths or feet or hands or whatever. And that’s intentional.

Look at verse 15.

1 Corinthians 12:15–20 NASB95

If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body.

If you are an eye in the body of Christ, then you are an eye because God desired you to be an eye and placed you in the body as an eye on purpose.

This body needs its eyes. It needs its heart. It needs its skin. And it needs each of these things to do the work they were made to do.

In fact, as Paul says in verses 22-26, even the weaker and less presentable members of the body are important and have a purpose within the body.

And since they do, the physical and spiritual health of each part of the body should be important to all of the other members of the body.

“And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

We have seen this principle in action here at Liberty Spring in recent days. Today, we have celebrated — we have rejoiced — with three high school graduates. And it was absolutely right for us to do so. They were honored in receiving their diplomas, and we rejoice with them for a job well done.

On the other hand, many of us have hurt right along with Joanne and Nick Ashby as Joanne has entered the final stage of her life here on earth and as Nick struggles with his own health problems while grieving for his wife’s pain.

It is right that we suffer along with them, and I have never been more proud to be your pastor than as I have watched you all come alongside them and hurt with them during this hard time.

As Paul puts it in verse 27, we believers in Christ are collectively the body of Christ, and we are all individually members of that body. And so, when one suffers, all suffer. When one rejoices, all rejoice.

But the body is worthless without its head. And as Paul says in the Book of Ephesians, Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

Ephesians 1:22–23 NASB95

And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

We are the body. Jesus is the head. That means that He is the one in authority. He is the one who directs the action. All parts of the body operate under His control. We members of the body must be in subjection to Him who is the head.

This is His rightful place, because He is the one who gave His life for the church. We are His body only because of the sacrifice that He made in our place and on our behalf.

But all this talk about the body and the head is meaningless to you if you have never placed your faith in Jesus as the only one who can reconcile you to God the Father.

If you have never followed Jesus in faith, then your are outside of the body. You are not part of the body. Indeed, the Bible says you are dead in your trespasses.

Your sins have separated you from the only one in whom there is true life, life eternal, life the way it was always meant to be — in fellowship with God through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you have never placed your faith in Jesus and his sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection as your only means of salvation, then the gift you need to open isn’t one of teaching or helping or any of the others we’ve talked about today.

The gift you need to open is marked, “Forgiveness.”

Your sins have separated you from God. Your sins will bring your physical and spiritual death. Your sins will earn you an eternity of suffering in Hell.

But Jesus. Jesus came and lived a sinless life as a man to show us how a life lived in obedience to and in fellowship with God should look.

And then He gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross, taking upon Himself the sins of mankind — your sins and mine — and taking upon Himself the just punishment for those sins — so that all who place their faith in Him, in that sacrifice and in His resurrection could be forgiven and have eternal life.

This is the greatest gift of all — the love of God poured out on all mankind in the blood that His precious Son shed at the cross.

Will you accept this gift today? Will you accept His offer to become part of the body of Christ? Will you trade death for life? Come and see me during this next song if you would like to talk about it.

Let’s pray.