Spiritual Gifts: Edifying the Church

Conrad Hertzler

Spiritual Gifts • Sermon • Submitted 2 months ago • Presented 2 months ago

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This weekend we are focusing on spiritual gifts

I don’t know what most of your opinions are about spiritual gifts

I think it’s probably safe to say that there are different opinions and feelings in this room this morning when it comes to the subject of spiritual gifts

Maybe you were at Rosedale a long time ago and took a test there, but that’s been 20, 30, 40 years ago, and you don’t really remember what the results of that test was

Or, maybe you remember what it was, but just aren’t sure what you should do about it or what it means for you

OR, maybe you know well what your spiritual gift is, and you are using it and finding joy in using it

Whatever your situation, what I would like to do this morning is just to take a very brief look at spiritual gifts. Particularly how they edify, or build up a church

I say very brief, because this is actually a big subject, a lot could be said about it, and we don’t have time this morning to do a full investigation into what the Bible says

First of all, I want to share with you a scripture that I shared with the group last night

1 Corinthians 12:1–11 “1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For 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 ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.

The Apostle Paul covers a lot of ground in his first letter to the Corinthian church

There is quite a lot on his heart that he addresses with them

And one of those things that he spends actually a good bit of time on is this question:

HOW DO WE EDIFY THE CHURCH?

This word “edify” means “to build up” or to make stronger

In other words, how do we as Believers, make the church of Jesus Christ stronger

And he really approaches this question from the standpoint of

He just assumes that as a believer, as a member of the community of Believers, as a member of the family of God, or the household of God, that this is what you will be doing

As a member of this church, or community of believers, this is what you will be doing,

You will be edifying or building up the church

or at least, you will have the desire to do this and will be seeking out ways to “become better at it”

He doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to build a case that you should be building up the church.

Rather, he just says, “This is how you do it”

And he explores a number of ways that we can build up the body of Believers

And one of those ways that he spends quite a lot time on is this subject of Spiritual Gifts.

Particularly, spiritual gifts in the context of corporate worship

And so, he opens up his discussion about spiritual gifts like this:

“Concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed”

It is important to understand spiritual gifts.

Paul says, I don’t want you to be ignorant or uninformed about spiritual gifts

Maybe this subject of spiritual gifts is something that you haven’t had a lot of instruction on

Perhaps you haven’t read much about gifts personally

Maybe you just haven’t cared that much because you are kind of happy where you are at…you know the Bible talks about sg being important, but you haven’t really wanted to be challenged that much

Whatever the case, I believe that this is important to talk about and try to dig into because of the way that Paul starts out this discussion

“I don’t want you to be ignorant or uninformed about this”

Which says to me that this is an especially important subject that he is about to talk about

And he puts a little reminder in there about where they have come from as pagan people

These are Gentiles who would have been pagans, or those who followed after various and many idols and small g gods

and he also puts little warning in there about heresy’s, particularly the heresy of denying that Jesus was God in the flesh

You had false teachers saying that Jesus is accursed because he claimed to be The Anointed One

And he reminds them that the Holy Spirit is key in us understanding who Jesus is and how He is Lord over His church

The point that Paul is trying to get across to the Corinthians is this:

that at one time you were far from Christ

You served idols

You were easily led astray

But now, you have come to Christ

You are now under the power of the Holy Spirit

So now, it is by the power of the Spirit that you honor Jesus as Lord

And honoring Jesus as Lord means that we need to understand something about the gifts that He gives us

So, it is important to understand and talk about spiritual gifts!

There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit

1 Corinthians 12:4–6 “4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;

6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”

11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit

What does this mean?

It means that there are many different ways in which our spiritual gifts are displayed.

gifts

service

activities

And I don’t believe that the list of gifts given here or in Romans 12 or in other places are meant to be exhaustive lists

The ways that God has gifted us are many.

But who gives these gifts, and who gives them power?

But they are all given by the same Holy Spirit. The same Lord

What I take away from this is that as receivers of those gifts, we have no room for comparing our gifts to the gifts of another person

We have no room for feeling like our gift is superior to another person’s gift

we have no room for feeling like our gift is inferior to another person’s gift

and the same goes for Churches comparing themselves with other churches

Yet, too often that is exactly what we do. We err on one side or the other—feeling superior or inferior to others regarding spiritual gifts

You know, as parents, you like to give gifts to your children.

On Christmas morning usually each child has one or two presents from mom and dad

And they eagerly tear into these presents

What would make a mom and dad feel really bad on a Christmas morning?

It’s if your children started comparing their gifts…the things that you had given them out of your love for them

Usually your children are too humble say, “My gifts is way cooler than yours!”

But a lot of times a child might feel, “My gift is not as cool as my brother’s gift”

Even though it was given by the same parents with the same love and care to a child whom they know maybe better than that child knows himself

IN the church, we struggle with this

One of the things that I really struggled with when we were serving with MAF, and one of the things that I struggle with now is that sometimes people would put us on a pedastle

Oh, you’re missionaries—overseas missionaries!

Oh, you’re in the ministry!

And maybe they don’t say it that way. Usually it comes out something like this: “Well, I’m not in the ministry or anything like that”

Kind of this half-hearted, sort of ashamed way of saying, “Well, where I am and what I’m doing is not as significant as being a pastor or a missionary”

As a pastor, I have had to battle feelings of inadequacy as I look at how “cool” other churches are

they just seems so gifted and there’s so much going on

Or, i talk to a pastor who seems to be doing amazing things, and I think “Oh, I should be doing things like that”

What i’m doing or the way that I preach isn’t nearly as cool

And so we battle these attitudes and feelings of either superiority or inferiority

And meanwhile, I imagine that God, our Father, must be saying, “ But I’ve given you a gift. Are you using the gift that I have given you? Are you finding joy in that? I’m the one who gave it to you!” And it must hurt His Father’s heart when His children start comparing their gifts among themselves

either feelign superior, or feeling inferior

There are many different gifts, but there is only one Lord, one Spirit who gives these gifts

They are not our creation. We don’t invent our gifts.

We didn’t go to the store and pick out what we wanted.

We didn’t look through the catalogue and make out our wish list

They are given to us by our wise and loving Father

Look at verse 11 again: All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.

Meaning, there is no room for bickering, jealousy, or wishing for something different

The Same Holy Spirit gives out these gifts according to His will and He gives the power

Each one has a gift

Verse 7: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit...

So, Paul started this chapter by saying, “You must understand spiritual gifts!”

Why is this so important? Because each person has one!

YOU have a Spiritual Gift! The LORD has given you a gift

That is why it is important to understand the gifts and to recognize that you have been given a gift

The question is, are you using it? or is it gathering dust for lack of use?

Think again if you gave a gift to someone, something that you knew that this person really needed

Maybe you knew that his car was wearing out and he needed a new one

So you made a way for him to get a new car

And a while later, you went over to your friend’s house, and there that thing was, gathering dust

What would that communicate to you? Does he truly value the gift that you gave him?

does he value YOU as a friend?

Is your spiritual gift(s) gathering dust?

Is it rusting because it’s not been kept in good shape

Have you buried it much like the servant in the parable that Jesus told?

Are you sitting on it because no one has asked you to use it?

These questions are important because The gifts are for the common good (vs. 7)

These gifts are not yours to do with what you want

God didn’t give you a gift to make you famous or wealthy or comfortable, or make you happy some how

Although, i will say that there is great blessing and JOY in continuing to dig deeper into how God has gifted you and using that gift

He gives us spiritual gifts for the purpose of building up His body

Paul expounds on this in the following verses of chapter 12

and he uses the analogy of the human body

Our body has lots of different parts to it, but it is still only one body.

and our body parts don’t have the option of doing their own thing. If they do, we call it a sickness or an abnormality

And we go to the doctor to try and get it fixed

God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Do you see this? Our giftings are meant to bring the body together and to make the body more effective and more united

Do you care for the Body of Christ? Do you love the Body of Christ?

If you do (and I believe most of us do), then seek how you can serve and build up the Body of Christ by discovering the gifts that God has given you and seeking how to use those gifts to serve the Church

Using your gifts without love is not allowed!

1 Cor. 13, the following chapter speaks to this

We often hear this passage at weddings and things like that which is OK

But the context is in this discussion of gifts and building up the church

Because the HOly Spirit, speaking through Apostle Paul, knows full well that our sinful hearts, which are still in the process of being redeemed and transformed, can become arrogant and full of pride, even while we are exercising the gifts that God has given us

And so we need this gentle but firm reminder that LOVE is the most important thing

1 Corinthians 13 (ESV)

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Are you using your spiritual gift?

And are you using it lovingly?

If you arent using it lovingly, then you might as well just grab a trumpet and blow it in someone’s ear

Or walk into church banging on a piece of sheet metal with a hammer

It’s that useless and irritating!

So, before we put think, “Stand back everyone, I’m about to put my gift to use!”

deep breath, prayerfully consider, “Do I truly love the Body of Christ”

There is so much more that we can learn about our spiritual gifts, and there is so much more to learn here at Fairview about putting those gifts into practice

But my desire is that our fellowship is strengthened by discovering and using these gifts

One of the things that we can think about changing, and I think it already is changing, is how we structure our committees

for years, people have cycled through committees and ended up leading the committee

and it’s possible that at times, people have been sort of forced into positions that they aren’t at all gifted in

And we have sort of taken the position of “Well, it’s their turn”

Or people get put on committees because, “Well, it’s their turn”

Well, maybe so. But is that where they are gifted?

READ STORY FROM SERVING FROM THE HEART

Spiritual Gifts: Edifying the Church

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