A Gifted People Sermon #2 of LifeSong Series
Link for Video
http://www.forministry.com/USTNUMETCVFUMC/Sermon.dsp?sermonsite_action=view_sermon&sermonsite_sermonid=13398
1CO 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
1CO 12:14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 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 cease to be part of the body. 17 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? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
A good place to stop.
I. Sometimes we fail to let our life song sing because we underestimate the gifts that the Lord has given us.
For certain, to be saved is to be born again, born of Spirit….receiving the Holy Spirit into you.
I cannot stress enough that each member of the body is given gifts and abilities to do a work for God by the Spirit.
In these verses Paul is addressing the notion that people sometimes think lowly of themselves and their ability to work for Christ. Because I am the foot, rather than the hand I am not really a part of the body. We are each given special gifts through which we can let our life song sing.
What kinds of gifts do we have?
One person loves to pray, and they pray people into the church as others invite.
One person has abilities to go and do things for others, work around yards and houses. And, their testimony speaks louder than any of my sermons.
One person has a gift of evangelism, they love to tell the story, and people come to the church.
One person has a gift of decorating or building, they make the church beautiful and people come for the atmosphere, yet leave with the Holy Spirit.
One person has a gift of encouragement. This is a great gift.
Writing letters, making phone calls, inviting others to church can inspire others to let their life song sing.
Some have a gift to teach, or preach, or sing, or teach others to sing.
We need gifted people to plan and organize our worship and evangelism efforts.
Many have a mixture of gifts.
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Yet, there is someone who says, my gifts are not important, I’m not really a part of the growth of this church or the Kingdom of God.
Moses stood in the presence of Almighty God, who said, “I want you to lead my people, go and speak to them.” How did Moses respond? He basically said, “I have a speech problem, find someone else.” Moses didn’t think highly of his own abilities did he?
Yet, Moses went and let his life song sing before the LORD.
Jesus was walking along the sea shore with a crowd following. He asked Simon Peter if he would let him use his boat to speak from. Peter obliged. He would honor the rabbi. He pushed out, Jesus spoke, and then the main reason Jesus came to Peter starts coming to light. Jesus said, push out and we will catch some fish. Peter had fished all night without catching anything. Yet, he obeyed. He had enough religion to honor the rabbi. As these boats began to sink from the haul Peter realized this was no ordinary rabbi. And this rabbi had come to call Peter to ministry. Peter’s response to the great catch is found in Luke 5:8. His call to ministry if found there as well.
Luke 5:8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. From now on you will be fishers of men, the Bible tells us that they forsook all and followed Jesus.
Peter was faithful in a little, and his life was forever changed as Jesus made him faithful in a lot as he went forth letting his life song sing.
What if Noah had said, surely Lord you did not mean for me to make a boat the size of the great pyramid? What excuse could he have offered? “I’m over 500 years old!”
Yet, he built and let his life song sing.
The next time you feel like GOD can’t use you, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
John the Baptist ate bugs
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...
AND
Lazarus was dead!
What do you have that’s worse than that?
So no more excuses!
God can use you to your full potential.
Besides you aren’t the message, you are just the messenger
[SermonCentral: Contributed by: Sam George]
But I am not the hand, my gifts are not important!
Remember the parable of the talents,
A man left his servants in charge of his affairs.
One is given five talents,
One is given two,
Another is given one.
On the master’s return the one with five had made another five. Likewise the one with two made another two. And you remember what the man who was only given one did with his. He buried it.
Is it not odd that the person who was given the least was the one who buried the talent?
He could have done something with, even put it in the bank.
What is the LORD calling you to do? Will you bury your talent?
There are a lot of churches walking around on their hands and knees because the feet are afraid to run!
I say to you, don’t be afraid to pick up the ball and run with it.
Sometimes we underestimate our own abilities and fail to let our life song sing.
II. Sometimes we underestimate the abilities of others and cause them to stop singing.
Look to verse 19
1CO12:19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
1CO 12:21 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!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 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, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,
“We really don’t need you” is a statement inspired by Satan.
The eye saying to the hand, I have no need of you is a sad statement.
Sight seeing will kill the dream….. I doubt any of us would have picked the disciples Jesus picked. When we judge by sight rather than faith we many times err.
The lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston and walked timidly, without an appointment, into the president of Harvard’s outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge. She frowned. "We want to see the president", the man said softly. "He’ll be busy all day", the secretary snapped. "We’ll wait", the lady replied. For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn’t. The secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted doing. "Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they’ll leave", she told him. He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn’t have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus". The president wasn’t touched, he was shocked. "Madam", he said gruffly. "We can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery". "Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don’t want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard". The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical property at Harvard". For a moment, the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don’t we just start our own?" Her husband nodded. The president’s face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the University that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about. You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.
[Source unknown: Circulated email attributed to Paul Harvey]
We should never underestimate another person.
A speech teacher once told me that he spends time with the janitor of the building. He said, “you know, that might not sound like much to you, but I could get into this building at midnight if I really needed to.” “Treat others like you want to be treated and you will go far in life.”
Two points we see
1. We can think too lowly of our talents and bury them (the church suffers)
2. We can stop others from using their talents because we think too lowly of them, and convince them not to listen to God…. The church suffers)
WE CAN STILL KILL THE PROPHETS
III. A third thing I want you to think about this morning is that we sing loudest when we sing together.
Look to verse 25
1 CO 12:25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
Mouse Story ...
A mouse looked through the
crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife
open a package.
"What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered -
he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard,
the mouse proclaimed the
warning.
"There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a
mousetrap
in the house!"
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head
and
said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern
to you
but it is of no consequence to me.
I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is
a
mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!"
The pig sympathized, but said,
"I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse,
but there is nothing I can do about it but pray.
Be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a
mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse.
I’m sorry for you,
but it’s no skin off my nose."
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and
dejected,
to face the farmer’s mousetrap-- alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the
house --
like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In
the
darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake
whose tail the trap had caught.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife.
The farmer rushed her
to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken
soup,
so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for
the soup’s
main ingredient.
But his wife’s sickness continued,
so friends and neighbors came
to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died.
So many people came
for her funeral, the farmer
had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for
all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the
wall with great sadness.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a
problem and think it doesn’t concern you,
remember --
when one of us is threatened,
we are all at risk.
We are all involved in this journey called life.
We must keep an eye out
for one another and make an extra effort to
encourage one another.
Our problem is everybody’s problem. [Source unknown: Circulated Email]
Are you afraid to pick up the ball and run with it?
Our church is what we make it. We can choose to let our life song sing, and inspire others to let their life song sing. We can sing together and our church will prosper.
Sez I to myself, as I grumbled and growled,
Im sick of my church, and then how I scowled.
The members unfriendly, the sermons too long;
In fact, it seems that everything’s wrong.
I don’t like the singing; the church a disgrace
For signs of neglect are all over the place.
I’ll quit going there, and wont give a dime;
I can make better use of my money and time
Then my conscience sez to me, sez he
The trouble with you is, youre blind to see
That your church reflects you, whatever it be
Now come, pray and serve cheerfully
Stop all your faultfinding and boost it up strong;
You’ll find you’ll be happy and proud to belong
Be friendly, be willing and sing as you work
For churches are not built by members who shirk.
Stir into flame those gifts within you.
Billy Sunday told of a church on fire. An atheist in the community came running to help. Someone said, this is a little unusual to see you running to church. The man said, well, I’ve never seen a church on fire.
Stir into flame those gifts within you.
Tell this world with vigor that Jesus offers new life through a spirit of flame that leaps within the believer. Let your life song sing.
