January 29, 2012
The Gifts of the Spirit
- 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
- Rev. Jim Capps
During my senior year in high school, I was active in the Youth For Christ of Southwestern Michigan which met once a month for a rally in Benton Harbor. In the spring, there was an annual contest where we competed with others from our area to go to a state-wide contest in Sarnia, Ontario. There were all kinds of musical as well as leadership categories. I competed in the song leading and preacher boy categories and won both. Frankly, I don’t think anyone else entered those two areas, which is probably why I won and meant that I would represent our area
While I remember being very nervous ahead of time, my performance must have been rather lackluster, since I don’t recall how I did. But I do vividly remember the ride home on the bus with the other youth from our area. There was a very attractive and talented young woman who had competed very well in the vocal solo as well as the ensemble categories. I certainly had noticed her on the way to the contest, but was too nervous to think much about her.
But now that the pressure was off, she was very much on my mind on our trip home. I must admit that I was quite shy and had not been very astute in winning the favor of the opposite gender during my high school days. I couldn’t believe it; she was sitting in a bus seat all by herself. I wanted so badly to meet her, but it took me several miles to get up enough courage to go and sit by her.
As I sat down I asked her if she minded if I sat next to her. I wasn’t quite ready for the response I got. She looked me in the eyes and asked as a kind of qualifier for my presence in that seat, “Have you had the Second Blessing?” Not knowing exactly how to respond, I stammered something like, “When we stopped for lunch back there, I asked God to bless my food.”
Indignantly, the second question quickly followed, “No, you certainly don’t understand. Have you spoken in tongues?” Again, I had no idea about what she was referring. I sheepishly said something like, “I took two years of French and two years of Spanish in high school.” I could clearly see that we weren’t on the same page as she glared at me and asked me to go sit somewhere else.
What I discovered later was that she had come from a church that emphasized the gifts of the Holy Spirit in quite a different way from the one to which I belonged. I must admit that I had a bad attitude about those kinds of churches for several years following that disastrous experience. While all of us read the same Bible, it made me realize that we don’t all interpret it in the same way. There can be a lot of confusion.
Such was the case for the Church of Corinth as Paul writes to them in this first letter. Now you must understand that Corinth, a major seaport in Southern Greece, was considered one of the most immoral, pagan places in the then-known world. If you wanted to speak negatively about a person who was living a wild and loose life, you would call him a “Corinthian” and everyone would know exactly what you meant.
To go a step further, Corinth was the home of the worship of the goddess, Aphrodite. Temple prostitution was a central part of their religion. The Corinthians held up emotions and the sensual as being very important.
In this cultural context, with Christianity being brand new, there was a lot of confusion and several distortions. Paul deals with some really messy issues that were taking place within their common life together. At the end of chapter 11, he talks about how they have distorted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
If you attended one of their worship services, you might hear all kinds of unintelligible sounds and a heavy emphasis on the use of specific spiritual gifts, which made some feel superior to others. Because of this confusion Paul writes what we know as chapters 12-14.
As we continue this series on being “Renewed by the Spirit,” please turn with me to I Corinthians 12:1-11. This is a crucial subject if God is going to accomplish His purpose in us as individuals as well as us a church family. Read.
LET’S START WITH SOME INTRODUCTORY UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT.
On several occasions, I have preached and led Bible Studies and workshops on the subject of spiritual gifts. Here’s the definition I have always used. A spiritual gift is a special ability given by and empowered by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of ministering to the Body of Christ and/or the world.
Let’s break down the definition.
- As a special ability we can do something better and with greater ease than most other people. When we are using this special ability we gain energy rather than having it depleted.
- When we talk about a spiritual gift being given by and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we must understand that we cannot select, earn, or deserve the gifts we are given. The Greek word, charismata, makes this clear since it comes from the same root as does the Greek word for “grace” (charis). Since given freely by God, a spiritual gift should not make us feel superior on the one hand, or, inferior on the other. Our gifts are God’s doing and not our own.
- For the purpose of ministering to the Body of Christ and the world immediately tells us our gifts are not for self-aggrandizement but for reaching out to others in all kinds of ways. God wants to use those special abilities to have a positive impact in our churches, in our spheres of influence and wherever we go.
In most studies or inventories there are somewhere between 19-28 gifts mentioned. All of us who name Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and are indwelled by the Holy Spirit are usually given somewhere between 2-4 gifts. All of us are gifted, which by the way some people find hard to believe. While not so much the case anymore, there was a time when women had a more difficult believing that they were gifted than most men.
Let me share this story to give you a window into this area of spiritual gifts. One of the first things I did when I became the pastor of the Bonhomme Presbyterian Church in St. Louis was lead a Session Retreat where we did a Spiritual Gifts Workshop. I’ll never forget Sarah, who was a stay-at-home mother of two boys at the time. She was incredulous at the results of her gifts inventory. It indicated that she had the gift of administration.
It’s important to know that Sarah’s father had been a top executive with Standard Oil of Indiana, working out of a corner office in downtown Chicago. Sarah’s husband was an advertising executive with a good company there in St. Louis. She had no doubt that they as well as other people she knew might have the gift of administration, but she couldn’t imagine that she had it.
When trying to determine whether one really has been given a particular gift, I suggested a couple of tests. First, ask those people who know you well and see if they see it in you. Second, I encouraged them to put themselves in a setting where they had to use the gift and see if they felt they were in their “sweet spot” and gained energy through the process.
Well, Sarah put herself into some smaller easier, situations and felt affirmed. We were about to have a building campaign for a much-needed major building addition, which we decided to do “in house” without bringing in an outside fund raising firm to help us. While volunteers would do a lot of the work, there were crucial administrative tasks which we would have to hire someone to do. Sarah applied for the job, got it, and did such a good job that other churches began to contact her for her expertise.
When there was a gathering of 1200 people to form Presbyterians for Renewal, there was a need for someone to take on administrative details of the conference. Sarah did the whole thing with a deep sense of joy. Constantly on the run for three days, I’ll never forget seeing Sarah at the end of the meeting. She had graduated from dress shoes to tennis shoes. When I stopped her and asked how she was doing, she had the biggest smile on her face. There was inexpressible joy in using her gift.
With these understandings in mind, let’s get back to I Corinthians 12.
GIVEN GRACIOUSLY BY THE SPIRIT, GIFTS ARE MEANT TO BE USED FOR THE COMMON GOOD.
Paul begins by making the case that just as the Spirit will not cause them to curse Jesus, so without the Spirit they are incapable of proclaiming Jesus as Lord. In other words, the Holy Spirit will never denigrate or tear down Jesus, but, instead is necessary in proclaiming and sharing Him with their world.
Paul next deals with the wondrous way that the same Spirit gives us not only different gifts, but different ways to use our gifts to serve others in different kinds of settings. Each one of us is unique in God’s eyes and the same Spirit gifts us as individuals. Yet, it’s not every person for himself or herself. The gifts are for the common good in ministering to the rest of the Body of Christ and the world at large.
The Spirit gives us the gifts to do whatever God wants to do in the world. There is never a shortage of gifts to accomplish God’s purpose. The problem is with you and me discovering, developing and using the gifts which are already are ours.
In the last part of I Corinthians 12, Paul uses the wonderful metaphor of the body in describing how the gifts work. Our bodies are mutually dependent, with each part playing an important role. In the body of Christ, each one of us brings special gifts which are necessary for the health and well-being of the whole. While some parts of the body are more visible and seem to be more crucial, every part is important.
Let me cite some examples. As a pastor, I am keenly aware that there are some things I do better and more naturally than others. That makes sense if I only have 2-4 of a possible 28 gifts. After 40-plus years in ministry, I realize more than ever how limited I am and how much I need people around me who have gifts that I don’t. In large churches like I have served throughout my ministry, it has been important to find people, both staff and congregants who are gifted in ways I am not. Because of insecurities, sometimes we aren’t very good at allowing this to happen.
In the first church I served, I remember being in a Sunday Morning worship service when one of our elders was leading us in the pastoral prayer. As I heard him pray, I thought to myself, “He is really good! In fact, if the truth be known, he’s better than I am in that area of leadership.” My next thought was, “Oh no! They don’t really need me.” From being threatened, I moved to being really excited about finding, training, and “setting loose” all kinds of people to do all kinds of ministries. It occurred to me that far too often we hoard opportunities to serve and don’t allow people the joy of using the gifts that God has given them. Furthermore, I am now convinced that there are people out there where you sit who are gifted to do everything I do as well and often better than I can. As I have grown and mellowed in my competitiveness as an old athlete, I have come to find great joy and satisfaction in people doing what I do, much better than I could have done.
Let me share a case in point. When I was a pastor In Southport, there were four pastors, each of us being very different in many ways, but especially in the way we preached. I really felt called for us to be a team when it came to preaching. Without abdicating my responsibility as the senior pastor, we worked together in the planning process, putting together series in which all of us had input and investment. I preached just over half of the time.
After they adjusted to the change, people would say to me, “You know I have my favorite among the four of you, but I have really come to appreciate all four voices, even though they were different.” I felt great joy in seeing the other 3 use the particular gifts and styles which were given them by God and be affirmed. If you’re a basketball fan, it’s like finding more joy in a good pass for an assist than scoring the points yourself.
If gifts are used properly they should move us from comparison to community; from being spectators to being participants; from being competitive to being cooperative.
Dear friends, I think this is what Paul is getting at when he writes to the Corinthians who were confused about this whole idea of the gifts of the Spirit. Each believer when indwelled by the Holy Spirit was given gifts to be used not for self-aggrandizement, but for the common good, building up the Body of Christ and reaching out to the world.
Let me be quick to say that we as human beings can distort and abuse the gifts of the Spirit. Like some of the people of the Church of Corinth, we can think that the gifts we have been given make us better than others. For example, “I have the gift of leadership and all the rest of you should bow down and follow me.”
Sometimes we build a shining barrier around our gifts, hoarding them for ourselves and our glory and don’t use them to reach out in ministry to the Body of Christ and the world. For example, Alice and I have both been given the gift of giving in this season of our lives. If we hoard the financial resources with which God has abundantly blessed us we do not accomplish his purpose for us.
Another distortion is that our spiritual gifts can never change. As we experience different seasons in our lives as well see different needs which God desires to meet, God may change our areas of giftedness. David was a graduate of the University of Michigan and had an MBA from Stanford. After Stanford he went to work in downtown New York City for a large international corporation. The church he attended in Old Greenwich was active in a Great Banquet-kind of community. David went on a weekend and began his spiritual journey. Not long after that weekend, he attended a spiritual gifts workshop at his church. One of the gifts that he scored lowest on was evangelism. Every incident of evangelism he had ever experienced was negative, whether being trapped on an airplane or someone on the street.
When David and his family moved to Belleville, Illinois and became a part of our church family, he became a part of an early morning men’s Bible Study I led. He was hungry for not only more growth in his knowledge of the Bible, but also a way to live out his faith. After about a year in that study, I was putting together a team of people whom we called our Evangelism Family. Their primary purpose was to learn how to share their faith in all kinds of settings. We emphasized listening to and meeting the person where he or she was, winning the right to share our faith. David became a part of the team and even though he was somewhat of a cerebral introvert, he really clicked with the ministry.
After David had been a crucial part of that team for a couple of years, we happened to have a gifts workshop. David scored high on the gift of evangelism. Gifts are never meant to be a “once and for always” kind of scientific delineation of our special abilities. God can change them as the seasons of our lives and need around us change.
Another distortion is that we can have the Gifts of the Spirit without the Fruit of the Spirit. We will be talking about the Gifts of the Spirit in a few weeks as a part of this series. In Galatians 5:22-23, we are told that “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
If I have the gift of leadership, but use it without love or patience, ordering people around in a demeaning way, I am abusing the gift. It is not by chance that wherever the gifts of the Spirit are mentioned in the Bible- Romans 12, I Corinthians 12-14, Ephesians 4, and I Peter 4, there is a major statement about love. Love is the soil from which the fruit of the Spirit grows. An example is I Corinthians 13, shortly after today’s passage.
The last distortion is that if I don’t have gifts in certain areas, I have no responsibility to accomplish certain things. While we should try to be in areas of our giftedness as much as possible, gaining energy rather having it depleted, there are times when we need fulfill certain roles. Filling a role means that I see a ministry which needs to be done, and even though I may not be gifted, I do it any way to serve and glorify God.
Back in the 70’s when I first learned about gifts, the church I served was in the second wave of refugee resettlement, this time with Cambodians. I found that I was not very good at working with them. Alice could always tell when I was talking with our Viet Namese or Cambodians since I always talked louder and slower.
When I returned from that workshop I saw my best friend, Bob, who had done a wonderful job working with our refugees, taking them shopping, to the movies, or teaching them to drive. When I next saw Bob, I said, “Bob, you know how I’m not very good with our refugees?” He said, “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Then almost triumphantly, kind of excusing myself from my responsibility I said, “It’ because I do not have the gift of cross-culture communication.” After a pensive look and a long pause, Bob responded, “Neither do I.” Because the need was great, he was joyfully filling a role outside of his giftedness.
APPLICATION
When we are indwelled and renewed by the Holy Spirit, each one of us is given gifts to be used for the common good- to build up the Body of Christ and reach out to the world in which we live. Do you know what your gifts are? It is of utmost importance, if we are going to accomplish God’s purpose for us as a church, that each one of us do three things
Discover our spiritual gifts
Develop our spiritual gifts
Dedicate or use our spiritual gifts to build the Body of Christ and minister to a hurting world.
If you have not already done so, I challenge you to pick up one of our Spiritual Gift Inventories at the Welcome Center and complete it, or, go to our website where you will find a link that will allow you to complete it on line. On the back page you will find ways that you can begin immediately to use your gifts in ministry for the glory of God.
I praise God who renews us and brings us joy as we discover, develop, and use the gifts of the Spirit.