SPIRITUAL GIFTS (1) It takes the whole church to be the church
Rod Denton
Leadership Development including resources, mentoring, seminars and EQUIP journal
I will never forget the breakthrough that occurred in my life when I discovered that on becoming a Christian, I had been equipped with spiritual gifts by the Holy Spirit to use in my life to bless others and continue the work of Jesus in the world today.
Unfortunately, no one had ever previously shared this truth with me. It was only after I attended a seminar by an American pastor, Dr Ray Stedman and read his book, Body Life, that I was inspired to go on a journey to discover my spiritual gifts and use them as a good steward of the grace of God. Following the seminar, six other members of the church I attended contacted me and suggested we meet as a small group with the purpose of discovering our spiritual gifts. We agreed that it was a high priority. We did this by…
· identifying the more than 20 spiritual gifts that were mentioned in the Bible and understanding what each gift looked like.
· sharing with one another the spiritual gifts that we considered each member of the group had been given.
· praying for one another that we might be good stewards of the gifts given to each of us in our service for God. We believed it was important that with knowledge comes responsibility.
In his book, Body Life, Ray Stedman explained that the church was never meant to operate like a bus with one overworked driver and many unmotivated inactive passengers. Nor was the church meant to be like a football game with two teams sweating it out on the oval in need of a rest being watched by thousands of critical spectators desperately in need of exercise.
Paul refers to spiritual gifts using the word, “grace”, an unmerited gift/s given to each Christian, out of the goodness of God. They are not earned, and they are not badges of excellence. For we cannot boast about the fact that someone was gracious enough to give us a gift that we never earned. The Bible leaves us in no doubt regarding this : “But to EACH one of us grace has been GIVEN as Christ apportioned it.” Ephesians 4:7 “Now to EACH one the manifestation of the Spirit is GIVEN for the common good.” 1Corinthians12:7 “EACH of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10 There is to be no unemployment in the body of Christ. EACH Christian has been given gifts and we are not to leave them unwrapped, gathering dust. We are meant to discover them and develop them with a humble spirit because what we do with the gift/s will reflect what we think of the Giver. For there will come a day where we will be required to give an account for how well we have put our spiritual gifts to use.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, in chapter 12 he writes, “Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed” (v 1) He was writing in response to a number of reports and questions he had received in a letter from the church. He didn’t want the people to be uninformed or wrongly informed about some matters of importance. Paul’s following teaching could be summarised in six words.
1. INTRODUCTION (v 1-3) He was writing to people living in a pagan world who had come from idolatrous backgrounds and he details two tests for authentic Christianity. First, no one who speaks by the Spirit of God can put Jesus down or say, “Jesus be cursed.” Second, it is only possible to say “Jesus is Lord”, except by the Holy Spirit. It is important that we start with a right understanding of Jesus, for He is the one and only foundation upon which the church is to be built. He is the head of the body, which is His church.
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2. INVOLVEMENT (v 4-11) Who can get involved in the life of the church? Paul’s answer is that everyone is to be involved for just as we were born with natural abilities, so it is when we are born again into God’s family, we each receive at least one spiritual gift. In other words, we are all ministers. There are different gifts, but they are all given by the Holy Spirit. There are different ways of serving, but we all serve the same Lord who is the head of the body. There are different kinds of workings or impact, but it the same God who is at work in us all. What a wonderful picture of unity in diversity as each of us come together to form the body of Christ. Ray Stedman writes, “We desperately need to return to the dynamic of the early church. The work of the ministry belongs to the entire body of believers who should be equipped by those who are gifted by God to apply His word. The entire body has received gifts from the Spirit, and it is the task of those in the pastoral ministry to encourage the entire body to use these gifts.”
3. INSIGNIFICANCE (v 12-20) The question of insignificance is a very common question. Some people were saying that they were not very important, and it didn’t matter if they didn’t get involved in the ministry of the church. Paul responds by saying that he heard an imaginary conversation between different members of the body. He hears the foot say, “Because I am not a hand I don’t belong to the body,” and the ear say, “Because I am not an eye, I don’t belong to the body, I am not important.” Paul’s answer is very compelling. “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? But in fact, GOD HAS PLACED the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be.” There are no insignificant members in the body of Christ. Each one is important. It is God who has arranged the parts of the body. We are not to envy the giftedness of others, but to value the role that has been entrusted to each of us. We are all to be round pegs in round holes.
4. INDEPENDENCE (v 21-26) The question of independence often arises. Some people were asking, “Can I be a Christian without being committed to the church?” or correspondingly, “If only that person didn’t come, we would be better off.” Rather than being independent, Paul says that we are to be interdependent.
“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that are less honourable, we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable we treat with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.” Why do we do this? “Because God has put the body together giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”
David Watson in his book, Discipleship, wrote, “One reason why the church has lost certain spiritual gifts may well be that it has so often failed to become, in any real sense, the body of Christ. It is only when we are much more deeply and lovingly committed to one another as members of the same body that God will entrust His gifts to us. It is God who has put His body together. We are part of each other. Consequently, ‘If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.’” Recently, I tore a ligament in my knee, and that night it throbbed with great pain; so much so that the rest of my body, in a great act of sympathy, kept awake all night, to keep my knee company. And Paul says so it is with the body of Christ. There is no place for independence or indifference in the body of Christ. We are to have equal concern for one another.
5. IN CONCLUSION (v 27-31) Paul finishes on a high note. He summarises his message by answering the question, “Who are we?” With great conviction he answers, “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.” What a profound truth. There have been occasions when I shared this truth with the church I pastored where I said to the congregation, “I could step outside this church building and invite a person passing by to come in and I could say to that person, ‘Look around, see these people. This is the living body of Jesus Christ in our city today and each person is a part of the body. These people are the feet, the arms, the hands. the ears, the mouth, the eyes and the heart of Jesus.” The incarnation is going on today. God has put the body together. The Holy Spirit has gifted each person who is part of the body of Christ.
6. INSENSITIVITY (13:1-15) There is one more question to answer, the question of motivation. To do the works of Jesus we need both the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. Our gifts can become weapons of mass destruction if they are not motivated by love. Paul said, “….if I have faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.” We need to serve with both competence and character. Paul wonderfully summarises how the mature body of Christ should be living out its purpose in the world in his letter to the Ephesian church. (4:11-16) This is the vision to which our churches should aspire if they are going to impact the world today. “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, AS EACH PART DOES ITS WORK.” Remember, it takes the whole church to be the church.
Follow link to resource article, SPIRITUAL GIFTS (2)