Series: What Now
Title: Work Out
Text: I Corinthians 12:1-30
Truth: The discovery and use of our spiritual gift will help us grow to be like Christ.
Aim: To encourage them to find and use their spiritual gift.
INTRODUCTION
Use a child’s puzzle with big pieces so people can see easily.
What’s wrong with this puzzle? (They’ll answer a piece is missing.)
Some of you enjoy jigsaw puzzles. You are patient and meticulous. You enjoy discovering how a thousand pieces of a pastoral scene fit together. If you want to pull a prank on someone, just remove one piece of the puzzle. When they have completed the picture and show it to others the first question people will ask is, “Where’s the missing piece?” Or, they’ll say, “You have a piece missing?” If you dare, that would be a good time to hand over the missing piece.
I wonder how incomplete the ministry of our church is because members refuse to bring their puzzle pieces, their spiritual gifts and abilities, to the table of ministry? Instead, they hide them in their pockets and join others in the chorus of why our church isn’t doing this ministry or that ministry. Many ministries in our churches suffer because the members are holding on to the missing piece.
After a person is saved they often ask, “What now?” After salvation the big goal in life is to become like Jesus Christ. This means we are to develop the character and lifestyle of Jesus Christ. Christians are to progressively develop the mindset and thought life of Jesus. We are to love and forgive like Jesus. Like Jesus we are to be compassionate for others and seek out the lost in order for them to be saved. A Christian’s goal is to become like Jesus Christ. But how does this transformation take place?
We’ve seen in our series that God uses the Bible, prayer, and the church in order to encounter Him and His power. God uses these means to teach us, convict us, and empower us to live differently. Another means to encountering the living God so that we become like Christ, is the discovery and use of our spiritual gift.
Every Christian plays an important role in the work of God. The OU football team would have a difficult time winning any game if it played with ten players instead of eleven. Yet, the church is expected to field a team and score big though half its starters are sitting on the bench.
There are many metaphors the Bible uses to describe the importance of a Christian serving in his church. The Bible says Christians are members of a body, we are the bride of Christ, we are brothers and sisters in a family, and we are stones that make up a building. Think how hampered you would be if you were missing an arm or an eye or a leg. Would you think it a little matter to the comfort and safety of your home if a hole the size of a brick were left in an outside wall?
Jesus didn’t save us only to go to heaven someday. He saved us because he wants to proclaim the glory of God and the Good News of Jesus Christ to others through our lives. Jesus was not interested in preaching to a succession of audiences. Jesus was primarily interested in having followers through whom He could multiply himself over and over. Because of that it is important to find out how the Spirit of God has equipped us to be used by Jesus. This is one of the ways we meet God and are changed to become like Christ.
Every Christian receives from the Holy Spirit a spiritual gift that is to be used for God’s service. Read I Cor. 12:7. Every Christian has a spiritual gift, and every spiritual gift is to serve God and his church.
The Bible speaks of spiritual gifts often. There is a list of spiritual gifts provided in Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, I Peter 4, and Ephesians 4. When these passages are combined there are listed more than thirty different gifts. Most scholars believe that these lists are simply representative of a larger number of spiritual gifts. There are as many spiritual gifts as are needed by the church.
A spiritual gift is a provision by the Holy Spirit, an ability that equips you to do the work of God. For example, He wants his church to know the Word of God. He outfits a church with teachers who have an ability to help children, youth, and adults to understand and apply the Bible. Teaching is a spiritual gift by the Holy Spirit to the church to accomplish the work of God.
The church at Corinth was in a mess. They were arrogant, they acted disgracefully in public worship, they abused the Lord’s Supper, and they were divided over the different personalities of their pastors. The church was confused over some basic Christian doctrines. Yet they were so endowed with spiritual gifts that Paul said they didn’t need anymore in order to do what God wanted done in that city. But they didn’t understand some basics about spiritual gifts.
In chapter 12 the overriding emphasis is that there is only one Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of unity. He loves oneness and harmony. The Holy Spirit dislikes discord. He is the great uniter of the body of Christ. One of the ways Paul makes this point is to explain the nature of spiritual gifts. The apostle explains that a variety of spiritual gifts come from the one Holy Spirit and they are given for the common good. This is most clearly seen in verses 4-11.
With those basic fundamentals in mind, let’s talk about the gifts themselves. First, there are spectacular gifts.
I. SPECTACULAR GIFTS
The spectacular gifts include such enablements as miracles, healing, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. Naturally, these gifts create the most interest and the most controversy and disagreement. Some believe these gifts were for times past and no longer are in operation. Others believe they are valid and useful for today. Whichever position a person takes in regard to these gifts; they must all agree these gifts should be used according to God’s original purpose. The purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the body of Christ for the common good of all. According to I Corinthians 12, the exercise of these gifts is to create unity in the fellowship of the church. Unless they magnify the Lord and promote the Good News of Jesus Christ for the purpose of building up the church, they are being perverted.
The gift of speaking in tongues is the example Paul deals with in I Corinthians 12-14. There is no debate among honest scholars that in Acts 2 the disciples were speaking human languages when they spoke in tongues. In fact, the word used conveyed that the disciples not only spoke a foreign language they didn’t know, but they spoke in the particular dialect of that person. In other words, Peter spoke with a southern drawl and John spoke with a Yankee accent. God removed all possibilities of anyone not understanding the message. But in I Corinthians, this gift of speaking in tongues is not so clear. Were they speaking in known languages or was it ecstatic utterances?
The church at Corinth was abusing this gift. Paul gives them a proper perspective. Basically, what Paul does with the gift of speaking in tongues is list one limitation after another on the exercise of this gift. The gift of tongues can’t be used in a worship service unless someone else has the gift of interpretation. No more than three people with this gift could speak in the service. Women should not speak in tongues at all (I Cor. 14:27-28, 34). Paul puts so many restrictions on this gift that there is little opportunity to exercise the gift of tongues except in private devotions.
I can understand the need for this gift when the church didn’t have the Bible. I can see how there was a need to get a first hand message from God. However, we have today in our lap the written Word of God. It is a complete, thorough Word of God. What we need is more illumination of this Word and not a new Word. What message could be shared with this church that God hasn’t already spoken in the Bible?
There is the gift of divine healing. Do I believe in divine healing? You come back tonight and hear me pray over the prayerlist, and you will have your answer to that question.
I heard Calvin Miller, the popular Christian author and speaker, tell of being called to the hospital because a woman who was a member at the church where he was interim (Council Road Baptist Church, OKC) was expected to die of heart failure. The doctors said she was soon to die. With the family present, he prayed for this woman to be healed. As he and a staff member of that church left the hospital, the other minister rebuked him for his prayer. Why would he pray such a prayer? Obviously, she was about to die.
That night a young man died in a motorcycle accident in Tulsa. They took his heart and performed an emergency heart transplant on the woman Calvin Miller prayed over. Several weeks later she stepped through a huge decorated heart on the stage at Council Road Baptist Church as a testimony of healing. Yes, I believe in divine healing.
I do not believe in divine healers. My understanding is that many years ago the American Medical Association offered Oral Roberts a million dollars tax free if he could produce one case of a verifiable miracle. Oral Roberts has yet to collect his million dollars. Hank Hannegraft met with Benny Hinn and asked about his healing ministry. Benny Hinn assured him that he had seen many miracles of healing. Hannegraft, who is the radio personality of the Bible Answer Man, asked for Hinn to give him the top three examples. After pestering Benny Hinn for several months, Hannigraft was finally given the three best examples of miraculous healing. After thoroughly researching those examples, it could not be sustained that God miraculously healed those people. Honestly, these divine healers that you see on TV or in the convention centers of our land cannot stand up under investigation. That is just the opposite of Jesus and the apostle’s miracles. Blind people actually did see, lame people actually did walk, and leprous people were actually cured.
The gift of miracles actually means “powers.” It may have to do with the power of exorcism, the power to cast out demons. George McDowell told me that before he went over seas as a missionary he tended to downplay the issue of demon possession. Then he went overseas to the mission field. Many of our missionaries have encountered demon possessed people and participated in exorcisms.
On the whole it is possible that these gifts are in operation today. But when they are used they serve the church, contribute to its oneness, bring glory to God, and advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are the spectacular gifts. There are the service gifts.
II. SERVICE GIFTS
The spectacular gifts have all the glitter and glamour, but it is the service gifts that are so very important to God’s work. The service gifts include such spiritual gifts as faith, wisdom, knowledge, discernment, administration, benevolence, and mercy. The church can go a long time without the gift of tongues or miracles or healing, but the church will have trouble just existing without service gifts.
Let me give a brief explanation for just a few of the gifts in this category. I Corinthians 12:28 lists the gift of helps. This describes those who will never speak to large groups or maybe never teach a Sunday School class, but they give themselves to practical works of service. We have members who find pleasure in preparing meals for the bereaved or church meetings. One member spends several hours preparing the music in notebooks for the choir to sing week-to-week. Another member mows our lot across the street, and we have members who assist the secretary in some of her duties. We all miss Roy Gregory since his home going to heaven. Roy had the gift of helps. He came early every Sunday and opened the church and set the A/C. The exercise of his gift had an impact on every person who attended on Sunday. If the people with this gift decide to leave this church, I’m going with them. They are that valuable.
The gift of benevolence is mentioned in 12:8. All Christians are to be givers but there are some people who are amazing in their generosity. They give sacrificially without fanfare. They know that God has put these resources in their hands to be shared rather than hoarded. People with this gift make things possible in a church that otherwise might not happen, or at least not happen without delay or sacrifice.
The gift of leadership refers to people who can organize others and get things done. There are those who can do that and others who cannot. The people with this gift can lead people to accomplish a work, and do it with willingness. If a church has a few people who can take a job and get it done with excellence, they have been given a gift worth its weight in gold. These people are few and far between.
The gift of mercy is necessary in a church. We must have members who can console the sorrowing and distressed, who can put heart back into people. Interestingly, the person I know who most represents this gift works in a hospital.
The gift of discernment protects a church. This gift can identify those who could harm a church either by false teaching or a corrupt and divisive character. Members with this gift can accurately read people and warn us about what to look for in the future. We must have this gift in the body because so many of us are dull in recognizing the deceiver or the divider.
Paul names the gift of faith. All Christians are to have faith, but these people help a church believe God for the miraculous. Members with this gift cause a church to trust God far more than it would normally would. They influence a church to please God. Hebrews 11:3 said, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
A pastor told of a woman in his church that had the spiritual gift of service and mercy. Over and over she was used in situations that brought great honor to the Lord. There was a woman in the community with eight children. The terrible news came to this mother that her husband had been killed in a trucking accident in another state. She was not only devastated by grief, but she was panicked as to what to do with her eight children while she went to identify the body and make arrangements to bring her husband back to Tennessee for funeral services. That’s when Jodi sprang into action.
Jodi arranged for the eight children to be taken care of in the homes of church members. She made sure the woman was taken to the airport and got on the right plane, since she had never flown before. When the grieving widow arrived home a couple of days later, she was picked up at the airport and taken home. Upon arriving home, the grieving widow could not believe her eyes. The house was cleaned from top to bottom, all the laundry was done and put away, and there were eight pairs of little shoes completely shined and ready for the funeral service.
The pastor preached the funeral service. Two weeks later the woman and the eight children started attending the church. Soon after that the mother accepted Christ as her Savior and had all eight kids in church. Why? Because a Christian lady with the gifts of service and mercy used her gifts.
What happened is that church experienced God at work through a woman exercising her spiritual gift. When she exercised her spiritual gift, God was glorified and the Good News of Jesus Christ was proclaimed, and the church came together in unity.
If you have one or more of the gifts of service, you are critical to the work and glory of God. Do not think lightly of your place in God’s plan. A man goes to buy a hamburger for lunch. The young lady behind the counter asks, “Do you want fries with that?” The man answers he does. The lady gets the fries from under a hot lamp. She could not have gotten the man fries if someone had not delivered them in a truck. The truck driver could not have delivered them unless someone had grown the potatoes and taken them to market. The fries could not have been taken from market and delivered by truck unless someone had made boxes in which to ship them. The boxes would not have been available unless a plant had been built. The plant could not work without a machine, and the machine would not have been available without an engineer to design the machine. The engineer is working on the design of a machine when he notices it is noon. He drives to the nearest fast food restaurant and orders a hamburger. The lady asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
Everyone in the story is important. Some may make more money or have more prestige, but if you left out one person in that circle there would be no fries in the restaurant. Service gifts tend to be in the background, but that does not mean they are unimportant. They are critical to a church accomplishing the work of God to his glory.
There are spectacular gifts. There are service gifts. Finally, there are speaking gifts.
III. SPEAKING GIFTS
These gifts have to do with public gifts. Though the various lists of spiritual gifts in the Bible vary, the gift of prophecy is always first. It is the most important gift. Not all the gifts are of equal importance. I Corinthians 14:5.
The word “prophecy” means, “inspired preaching.” Paul names this gift in every list of spiritual gifts in his writings. Prophecy is the ability to announce the message of God clearly and convincingly. If a Christian can do this, it is a gift from God.
No man is born a preacher. God selects the men and then equips them with varying degrees of ability to explain and apply the Word of God. The greatest need of the church in every generation is to be taught the Bible. The Bible teaches us how to be reconciled to God and how to grow in our relationship with God.
Ravi Zacharias, the Christian apologist, quoted a historian as saying that the central contribution to the moral perversity of our day—including the destructive lust for materialism, the culture of death that kills babies and old people for the sake of convenience, and many other problems--is a result of preachers have undercutting the authority of the Bible. The church has not been taught the Bible. Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
We need exhorters, I Cor. 12:8. Exhorters inspire people to give their lives to Christ. Years ago churches had what were called exhorters. The pastor would preach the message and then another would get up and appeal to the church to respond in obedience to what they were taught. Real preaching ought to appeal to God’s people to obey the Word.
Evangelists have a great passion for the lost. All Christians are to be evangelists, but some are particularly gifted and successful at reaching the lost for salvation. Some speak to crowds, others witness one-on-one on doorsteps or in chance encounters. My experience with people who have this gift is they can think the thoughts of a lost person. One of my friends with the gift of evangelism was witnessing to a man. The man was hesitant and my friend said, “You’re thinking…” and then he named something. The man said, “Yes, that’s right.” My friend gave an answer to that concern and the man was saved. Winning the lost is always on their mind and their antenna picks up opportunities to share Christ that most of us miss. May God make us more like them.
Paul said we are not to be ignorant or unlearned about spiritual gifts. It is God’s will that you know how He has gifted you to serve in the church. You please Him when you seek to discover your particular calling in the church.
Before I tell you how to discover your spiritual gift, there is one fundamental principle to keep in mind about spiritual gifts. The need of the church supercedes your spiritual gift. In other words, you are not to avoid serving because it doesn’t fall within your spiritual giftedness. Moses told God he couldn’t speak. God called him to speak. Henry Blackaby, the author of Experiencing God, said he was gifted to be a pastor/teacher but he served a church in his student days as a music minister because that was the need of the church. We’re not to use our spiritual gift as an excuse to avoid serving in an area where our church has a need.
How do we discover our spiritual gift?
1. Know the gifts.
Study your Bible about those gifts. Get some books that talk about spiritual gifts.
2. Know yourself.
An honest, prayerful appraisal of your abilities without conceit will help a great deal.
3. Experiment.
Experiment with some of these gifts. Are you effective? Do you experience the joy of the Lord as you perform that service? I may be dog-tired on Wednesday, but after doing midweek Bible study, I am energized.
4. Ask others.
Sometimes others will see the gift before you do. One of the great Southern Baptist preachers was George Truett. He was the pastor of the FBC, Dallas, for over 40 years. When he was a young man, his home church told him he was called of God to be a pastor despite his objections.
I heard about a seminary student that was a terrible speaker. The professors kindly tried to tell him he was not called to be a preacher. He insisted he was called to preach. One professor responded, “But no one is called to listen to you.”
People will tell you if you have the gift of teaching. People will come to you voluntarily for advice if you have the gift of wisdom. Ask others.
5. Success.
People will be blessed. The church’s work will make progress.
In my first pastorate, Jasper was a man with the gift of administration. I had organized trips in the past but he organized a ski trip for members of our church. That was a worry-free trip for me. Everything was arranged. I simply showed up where I was supposed to show up and things were done. Some people couldn’t organize the alphabet. Some people can take the complex and make it work smoothly. They enjoy doing it and the evidence tells them they have this gift to contribute to the church.
6. Pray.
Throughout the process ask God to give you eyes to see how He gifted you.
CONCLUSION
A survey was conducted of 5,000 pastors across the United States. They asked the pastors what their greatest needs were in the church. Interestingly, 98% of the pastors who responded listed as either their #1 or #2 need, the need to get the laymen involved in the work of the ministry.
Someone has said that God’s power does not come upon programs but upon people. Spiritual gifts are an opportunity to make us available to God to be used by him.
Years ago there was a train wreck and people were injured, wounded, and dying everywhere and there was a doctor on the train. Someone rushed up to him and said, “Doctor, doctor, why don’t you do something? Help these people.” The doctor answered, “I can’t do much because I didn’t bring my instruments with me.” Sometimes it seems as though the hands of the Great Physician are tied because his instruments, those people anointed and endowed with spiritual gifts, are not available for his service.
You will grow in Christlikeness as you discover and utilize the spiritual gift God has given you to serve his church.
PRAY
INVITATION
The greatest gift is the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. The cross tells us that the crime of our sin is enormous. We have offended and rebelled against the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. It’s one thing to break the laws of the U.S., but it’s in a completely different category to personally offend Almighty God. To compound the horror, there is no possible way for finite beings to make things right with an infinite Being. The ghastly death of Jesus on the cross, though we struggle to fully understand what it means, does tell us that our sin is repulsive to a holy God. But the cross also clearly tells us that despite the offensiveness of our sin to a holy God, he loves us and offers the gift of forgiveness. This is the first and most important gift God gives to everyone who repents of sin and submits to Jesus Christ as God.
Christian, the church is not a bus. On a bus one person does all the work and everyone just goes along for the ride. The church is a rowboat. If someone doesn’t pull their load often times we find the church just going around in circles. Will you commit to God to discover your gift and then employ it in your church?
