Get Your Gift In Gear
1 Cor 12:1, 4-7, 12-27 Oct 1, 2006
Review:
Being truly, completely, wholly, alive – having the life that Jesus promised would be “to the full”, begins by getting on Jesus’ “narrow road” which leads to life, then walking that road “in step with the Holy Spirit”, and then keeping your head up and your eyes on others. As you and I live like that, God’s promise is that our lives will be full.
What It Is Not:
God’s road to this fullness of life is a challenging thing for us to properly grasp, because we have some pretty wrong concepts of what a “full” life is like stuffed down our throats from our culture. Last week we talked about one of those wrong concepts – that a full life means we have lots of money and stuff. That misses the mark. A second wrong concept is that a full life means we will always feel alive – that emotion we feel at those few moments in life where everything seems so much brighter and stronger and glorious. Think perhaps of when your team was playing for the championship, the game comes down to the last play, and somehow you pull out the victory. Or perhaps when you first held your child. Or your first kiss, or when you were really there for a friend, or even that time you really knew the incredible presence of God surrounding you and loving you and filling you.
Each of those are wonderful times, where we really feel alive. Our lives feel full. Now listen closely – God’s road to fullness does not lead us to some place where we feel like that all the time. This is very important, because it is easy for us to think that when Jesus said He came to give us life to the full, it means we should feel the way we felt at those moments. And it is easy to think that if we are not feeling that way, we are doing something wrong, we are missing something, or even that God is holding back on us.
God’s road to fullness is about something deeper than feeling alive. The feelings are good, they are important, I am not diminishing them in any way, but there is something deeper. And that deeper thing is this: A life of love. Often that feels great, and sometimes it feels hard, sometimes it feels sorrow, and sometimes it doesn’t feel at all it just chooses to continue to love. That is the only way that you and I can live in the fullness of life in the long term. By living a life of love.
A Life Of Interdependence:
A true life of love is a life of interdependence. A life where we gladly know we need one another, where we give and receive love and help and guidance, and we do so in community. A life of love is vulnerable, it is open, it is tender, it weeps with those who weep and it laughs with those who laugh. I experienced that this week, as I tried to care for people in need, in turn a number of people cared for me and prayed for me and encouraged me and listened to me share my feelings. I needed those people, and they were there at critical moments.
That idea of interdependence is the one I want to look at this morning, by turning to 1 Cor 12. The chapter is one unit of thought, and the main point is that God has created us to need one another, and given us spiritual gifts so that all of us together can be God’s body. It is one unit, but has far too much for one sermon, so this morning is set up so that we can look at the interdependence part – how we really need one another and how that leads to a life of fullness – in the sermon, and the specific spiritual gifts part in the discussions afterwards, which takes place during the Sunday school hour for adults in the lower hall. This morning, you really need both to get the idea of the passage!
1 Cor 12
1And now, dear brothers and sisters, I will write about the special abilities the Holy Spirit gives to each of us, for I must correct your misunderstandings about them…
4Now there are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all. 5There are different kinds of service in the church, but it is the same Lord we are serving. 6There are different ways God works in our lives, but it is the same God who does the work through all of us. 7A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.
12The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up only one body. So it is with the body of Christ. 13Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into Christ’s body by one Spirit, and we have all received the same Spirit.
14Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. 15If the foot says, "I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand," that does not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear says, "I am not part of the body because I am only an ear and not an eye," would that make it any less a part of the body? 17Suppose the whole body were an eye--then how would you hear? Or if your whole body were just one big ear, how could you smell anything?
18But God made our bodies with many parts, and he has put each part just where he wants it. 19What a strange thing a body would be if it had only one part! 20Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. 21The eye can never say to the hand, "I don’t need you." The head can’t say to the feet, "I don’t need you."
22In fact, some of the parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. 23And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect from the eyes of others those parts that should not be seen, 24while other parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together in such a way that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. 25This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other equally. 26If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.
27Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it. (1 Cor 12:1, 4-7, 12-27 NLT).
What’s Your Gift?
This passage is one of four main NT passages on the topic of “spiritual gifts”. What is your spiritual gift? Do you know what it is? Have you learned how to use it effectively? Do you understand how important it is to God and His church that you use it?
I want to speak directly to our young people here for a moment. Do you know what it is that God has placed within you, given to you as a gift, that others desperately need you to use? I get really excited about the idea of you, while you are a teen, discovering and learning how to use your spiritual gift in God’s Kingdom, because you have a whole life of importance and service ahead of you, and the sooner you can identify and begin to use your gifts, the more full of life you will be. Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can – there is nothing better in this entire life than watching God use you to make a difference in the lives of another person. Nothing. The Bible tells us that into each and every one of us, God has poured His Holy Spirit and the Spiritual gift or gifts that He wants us to have. When we obey, and use those gifts, we discover the full life that Jesus promised.
Why?
The whole passage is about the church – and about how God created us to need one another and to be interdependent. That is most clear in verse 7: “7A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.”
This is pretty important – our gifts are not for us, they are so that we can “help the entire church.” That makes each of us a critical part – this is the whole idea of interdependence. It is a theme that Paul returns to near the end of the chapter: “Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.”
“Each one of you is a separate and necessary part”. You matter to the Kingdom of God. You matter to this church, as a particular outpost of the Kingdom of God. You are a part of this body, you are connected to the rest of us, and you are necessary. The point Paul was trying to make is that we need each other – that is how God designed the church! Eyes need feet, mouths need hands, each part is connected and important and necessary.
Making it Visible and Tangible:
I thought a living example might help make this concept more real. So I need Pastor Lawrence and 3 helpers to come and join me.
Now, Scripture says that “together we are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.” So, Pastor Lawrence is going to be the mouth. The goal of this little illustration is to feed the mouth. The food is at the back. (make one person the feet, one the eyes, one the hands; instruct them to get the food to the mouth).
Fullness:
When we know the part we play, and when we see how interdependent we are, and when we use our gift in obedience to God, here is what happens: “harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other equally. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.” When that happens, we find fullness of life.
Deeper Than The Feeling:
God’s road to fullness does not lead to a feeling of being alive, it leads to something deeper. To knowing, in the depth of our being, that we matter to God and one another. That others need us, depend on us, and that our obedient use of our gifts “helps the entire church”. At times, we will feel great “alive-ness”; but when we grasp this truth at the core of who we are – that we matter to God and one another – then we keep living this life of love even when it doesn’t “feel” alive. And in that core truth of identity – us as God’s children brought together as the body of Christ – we discover that living a life of love is God’s road to fullness.
Conclusion: Get Your Gift In Gear:
I drive a 1995 GMC Sonoma. It has a 4.3L engine, 160 000kms, and a full tank of gas. I could sit in my truck. I could turn it on and listen to the engine purr. I could turn on the stereo and listen to music. But none of that would be the point. My truck exists to take me from point A to point B. All the parts are there, they all work, but my truck doesn’t do what it was created to do until I put it into gear.
The same thing is true of us as a church. I believe God has given us all the “parts”. And that through the Holy Spirit, they each “work”. Each of us needs to put our gifts into gear – we need to use them because we know that “A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.”
And as we do, we see how God works through our gift to move His church along. And as that happens, we live a life of fullness.
