I would like to talk to you today about the Gifts of the Spirit. If the last three sermons have hit home with you then you are likely encouraged, even excited, to serve the Lord as Christ's ambassadors. You realize that you are a new creation and cannot live the way you used to. Not that you have to try to live a different life separated from the world. Not that you are commanded to live differently than the world, but if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation and cannot help but live a different life separated from the world. Within the world, but apart or separated from it in hope and purpose. Chris love compels us with new desires and new convictions. New ways of walking and talking as we live as foreigners in the land. Not that you have to but that you cannot help but live for Christ.
The question now, if you are in Christ and Christ is in you, is not if we serve Him, but how. I will attempt to answer that question over the next two Sunday's in our series on gift giving. Today I want to talk to you about the gifts of the spirit. I pray that you will leave here today with an understanding of how we can, how we must, live out our faith. That you leave here today with a clearer understanding of how and where God is using you.
One preacher told the church, “My job is to preach and your job is to listen. If you get through before I do, please be patient and I’ll try to do my best.” Please, today, if you get done listening before I get done talking, restart. I pray it will be worth it!
Paul said this to the Romans in chapter 12, “1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. [HOW – Prayer and Scripture by controlling the input into it.]Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
What a great return! If you feed your mind with the Word of God and pray to God about the Word of God, you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is! So the question then becomes, “How do we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice?” Not if we do, but how we do.
He goes on to say, “3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”
Now, if we flip over to Ephesians 4 and read what Paul says there, we find this, “1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. … 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 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 fullness of Christ.”
And one more, I think it is important to see how these all work together. In 1 Peter 4 – “4 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. … [Do you remember how we test and approve what the will of God is? Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind!] 7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
So to start to understand the how of our questions, let’s begin to look at these verses together. In Romans, Paul says to offer our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. He says not to think to highly of ourselves, because, even though we are all different and serve in different ways, we are all one in the Body of Christ. … And we belong one to another. We are not our own!
In Ephesians, he says to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. He says the purpose is to equip His people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ might be built up. We are to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. What calling have we received? Paul says we are called to belong to Jesus, called to be His holy people, called according to His purpose, called to live in peace, called to be free, free from the bondage of sin and suffering. LIVE A LIFE worthy of that calling! We often times look at this verse and think of lists of what we can do or can’t do. This is not right. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 6 – “12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
All things are lawful unto me … It is not about what we can and cannot do. Present your bodies a living sacrifice and live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
In 2 Peter 4 we read, “1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. ... 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
And in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, “7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” We belong each to the other. We have each been given an ability to serve God in our own special way, according to His purpose. We belong to Christ, we are His holy people, called according to His purpose. Present yourself a living sacrifice, understanding that we are all working for the same purpose, using an ability given by God in order that we might live a life worthy of that calling through suffering in the body, or working in the body of Christ, serving in the body of Christ, using whatever gift you have received to serve others.
This is what it means to work out our own salvation. We have talked about salvation by grace through faith and have contrasted that with what Peter says about faith without works being dead and this might be the answer of how to reconcile those two together. You see Paul said whoever confesses Christ with their mouth and believes in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead will be saved. We WILL be saved. And we have taken this so far that it looks like a single event. If we have, at any time in our lives prayed a prayer confessing Jesus and if we believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. We WILL be saved. And that’s true, that is true, that statement that Paul just made is true … if we believe. Do you really believe this? … If you do, it will make you a new creation. living a life worthy of that calling through suffering in the body, working in the body of Christ, serving in the body of Christ, using whatever gift you have received to serve others.
Before and after that day comes repentance. You see this is not a single act and then we go about living our lives indistinguishable from the world, the same as we were prior to that day, but instead when you are saved, you are a new creation. This means, in the original context of the scripture, continuous repentance. You see, Paul said we no longer view Christ from a worldly point of view. This is the first repentance. We change how we view Christ, change to believe that He is the Son of God and that God raised Him from the dead, but then every time we live outside His will, every time we fail to live a life worthy of His calling we repent, we agree, we confess… again… and again … and again… until He comes. We don’t just udder some words and then continue to live as we have lived, we are a new creation!
If you’ve given your life to Christ then you are a new creation and Paul says we have been equipped for works of service to that the body might be built up. We have been equipped to build up the body of Christ, are you doing it? We have been equipped with a gift of the Spirit to build up the body of Christ, are you doing it?
Paul says - If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. ARE YOU DOING IT?
He says in Ephesians 4:11-13 – “11 Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up13 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 fullness of Christ.”
And the question I have for you is are you moving toward the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Are you doing it?
He said in 1 Peter 4:11 – “11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” Are you doing it?
I am not talking about works. Hear me in this, I am NOT trying to take us into a works salvation. I am NOT talking about works … I am talking about change. Have you given your life to Christ, then stop questioning what He does with it. Stop questioning what He is doing with it and live a life worthy of your calling. Live out your faith in obedience and when you fail, when you sin, and you will sin, repent and get back in the path of righteousness. You are a new creation equipped as God needs you equipped. Are you doing what He has called you to do?
I am involved in a Bible Study on Saturday mornings and two members of that Bible Study are from what they call “sub-cultures” cultures outside the US. And what I have learned from them is that the American version of Christianity is a watered down version at best of what God had in mind. Have you offered your body as a living sacrifice? The Christians in these subcultures have. They are serving Him with sacrifice and risk and they do it because they can’t help but do it, they are compelled by Christ’s love.
They, some of them, sacrifice everything … they risk everything … possessions and families and livelihood even their very lives. They are compelled by Christ’s love. When you live in a culture that beheads Christians, that kills those who profess a faith in Christ … there must be something compelling … there must be something compelling for someone to profess a belief in Christ in that environment. They don’t serve Him because someone is telling them they have to, they serve Him even though everyone around them is telling them they can’t. They serve Him because they have no desire to do anything else. They are compelled by the ove of Christ. They are a new creation.
How do we serve Him. Each of us should use the gift we have been given to serve others. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” That is what we are, stewards of God’s grace.
Now, you might have been expecting us to go through a list of the Spiritual Gifts in the Bible. Some have spent time categorizing those gifts and listing them according to their timelines and purposes. I’m not going to do that. I don’t think that is the point of those scriptures read above. Take a close look and you’ll see in each case, there is a list of gifts, but there is something much more important, much more life changing, much more specific about how to live for Christ.
All of them talk about unity and diversity in the Body of Christ. We are all one in the body of Christ, serving Him through the use of our spiritual gifts. Not because we have to, or because someone asked us to, but because we are COMPELLED TO! Are you compelled by the Love of Christ? If you are not, they you should examine yourself because there is a good chance … there is a good chance, if you are not compelled by the love of Christ, there is a good chance … that the Holy Spirit is not living within you and if He is not living within you, then you are not saved.
The moment we are saved, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit as a deposit of the wonderful things to come. He goes to work within us and the bible says He who begins a good work will finish it. He guides are ways and guides are actions and compels us to serve Christ. He equips us as He needs us and if you are not compelled by the love of Christ, how do you know that you are really saved?
1 John opens with this, “1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.”
And it closes with this, “13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” How do you know that you are really saved? Read 1 John … read 1 John because he has written these things so that you may know…
The greatest gift we have been given is Jesus Christ. And everything else is to put purpose in our compulsion to serve Him, unified in the Body of Christ, unified in purpose, diverse in action. If you are in Christ, you are compelled by His love and cannot but follow Him. You no longer live for yourself but for Him.
I hope you are encouraged, even excited, to serve the Lord as Christ's ambassador. I pray you realize that you are a new creation and cannot live the way you used to. Not that I am telling you that you cannot, but that you can’t help but live for Christ, you cannot help but live apart or separated from it in hope and purpose.
The question now, if you are in Christ and Christ is in you, is not if we serve Him, but how. Through wisdom, knowledge, faith, teaching, encouragement, giving, leading or showing mercy? These aren’t all the ways … they’re some of the ways. Serve Him by uplifting the body of Christ. Loving one another, being devoted to one another, honoring one another. Are you doing that?
