Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Turn with me to 1 Cor. 12. If you are visiting us, we are in a series called Letter to a Really Messed Up Church and in chapter 12 Paul begins to deal with a major problem going on in the Corinthian church concerning the spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts were meant to be just that: gifts from God to the church for the good of the church, but the spiritual gifts were being abused in the Corinthian church, in particular speaking in tongues was being overemphasized, to the point where it was hurting the church.  

I don't know what your background is when it comes to the topic of the spiritual gifts. Some maybe have no idea what the "spiritual gifts" are - no idea what do they do or why do we need them. Others might come from a background that taught that the spiritual gifts aren't for today - they ended with the apostles and the first century church. Still others experienced the spiritual gifts being exercised in a way that really blessed and strengthened the church and, unfortunately, no doubt some of you have probably seen the spiritual gifts misused and abused - sometimes doing real damage to people's lives and faith.

Whatever your background, as we take the next several weeks looking at chapters 12-14 I hope we can take some of the mystery and scariness out of the subject of spiritual gifts and put some practical handles on what they are and how they operate so that we can see them for what God intends them to be: good gifts given by God to help the church do what we are called to do. The spiritual gifts weren't meant to make the church do weird and wacky things, they were given to enable and empower each of us to make a difference in people's lives and to play our part in building up the church.  

Chapters 12-14 form a unit and gives a flow of thought and instruction about the spiritual gifts. Chapter 12 presents a general overview of spiritual gifts. Chapter 13, often known as "the love chapter", emphasizes that essential role that love plays in the operation of the spiritual gifts. And chapter 14 addresses the problem of the abuse of the more sensational gifts, particularly the gift of tongues. Let's begin by reading 1 Cor. 12:1-3

In these opening verses Paul tells us how to discern what is and isn't the genuine work of the Spirit. 

1.  The test of the Spirit's work isn't whether it produces ecstatic feelings but whether it results in the exaltation of Jesus Christ

Paul reminds the Corinthians that before they came to faith in Christ, they worshipped pagan idols and a common practice in cultic services was for the worshippers to get whipped up into a kind of spiritual frenzy that would include feelings of religious ecstasy and what could be described as "inspired speech" - as if they had been taken over as a mouthpiece of spiritual powers to talk through. The Greek words that Paul uses in verse two are very interesting: you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. The words imply this sense of being powerfully influenced, literally "carried away" by what Paul calls mute idols. How can these idols (that Paul even calls "mute") have had such a powerful effect on pagan worshipers, when in chapter 8 Paul asserts that idols are really nothing at all, they aren't gods, they are just figures of wood or stone that can't hear or talk or help in any way? 

The answer is in chapter 10 where Paul pulls back the curtain and reveals that, while idols are just wood and stone, behind every idol is a very real demonic being. And in cultic services these demonic beings would stir up intense religious feelings and experiences in order to carry pagan worshipers deeper into their idol worship and convince them that real supernatural powers were at work. The believers in Corinth are trying to replicate that religious frenzy in their experience of the spiritual gifts, which is why tongues was so attractive to them. Once they had been mouthpieces for idols, now they can be mouthpieces for God and the more carried away and frenzied the better. The test of spiritual gifts was how intense, how frenzied, how ecstatic the believer could become.

Years ago I attended a revival service where people all around me were experiencing dramatic physical sensations: falling to the floor, laughing and shaking uncontrollably, staggering around like they were drunk, which they said they were: under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The minister presiding over this spiritual activity made the comment that anyone who doubted the authenticity of his ministry should hold their own revival services and try to replicate what was going on in his meetings. The message was clear: the power to stimulate spiritual frenzy and ecstatic feelings in the crowd validated this minister and his ministry as authentic. 

The Bible teaches us something different. The authenticity of spiritual gifts can't tested by wild and crazy feelings. We can't gauge whether a work is of the Holy Spirit or not primarily by how it makes us feel. That sets us up for being deceived and manipulated. The litmus test, Paul says, is if there is a heartfelt confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There may well be strong feelings of euphoria or peace or conviction or joy - when God moves, He moves on our emotions too! But that can't be how we determine if it's real or not. What the Holy Spirit loves to do most is shine the light on Jesus Christ so that Jesus is magnified and gets glory. Jesus said this about the ministry of the Holy Spirit: 

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16:13-14

So applying this to the spiritual gifts, when someone takes a spiritual gift and uses it to shine the light on themselves or to stir up spiritual activity that is not characterized by a strong and constant pointing to Jesus, then that spiritual gift is being misused and possibly even abused.

The greatest objective of the Spirit's work and the truest test of the authenticity of the spiritual gifts is that it leads God's people to love and trust and lift up Jesus Christ. A spiritually healthy church isn't where people swing off the chandeliers but where people want to give more of their lives to follow Jesus and see him glorified in and through their lives! That's the Spirit's work, and that's the purpose of the spiritual gifts. With that in mind, I want to share two thoughts that I hope will put some practical handles on how each of us can flow in the spiritual gifts in a way that makes an eternal difference in the lives of others.

2.  There are a variety of ways that God can use you to build up His kingdom  (vv.4-31)

The point of these verses is that the Spirit's work is really diverse and unified at the same time. There is great variety and deep unity at the same time. God is a God of variety! Look around you and you'll see countless varieties. For instance, there are over 10K different species of birds. Ten thousand! There is unity - they are all birds. There is variety - they are different in countless ways. Think of people: if you look around  you'll notice that pretty much everyone has pretty much the same facial equipment: two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two ears. Unity. But we can tell each other apart because of a rich variety of facial characteristics and structures. Variety. Of the 7 billion people living on the earth, they say that no two people have the same fingerprints. Unity - most of us have two hands and ten fingers. Variety - imprinted on those fingers are individual identifiers so unique and personal that no one else on earth shares your finger prints. God has woven vast amounts of variety into His creation.

And so it's not surprising that when the Spirit of God gives gifts to His people, there is great diversity and at the same time, a deep unity. Paul lists nine spiritual gifts in verses 8-10, but we know that this list isn't meant to be exhaustive because in other lists, including the list he adds in verses 28-29 at the end of this chapter, he changes it up, adding some gifts not mentioned in the earlier verses, and leaving some gifts out. 

The believers in Corinth were focusing on a few gifts - tongues being primary - and that left everyone either trying to operate in the same gift, or discouraged because they figured if they didn't have that gift, then God hadn't gifted them at all. What's important for us to realize is that unity doesn't mean uniformity. Uniformity is trying to squeeze everyone into the same mold. Everyone needs to look the same, think the same, act the same, have the same gift and use it the same way as everyone else. Uniformity crushes our sense of purpose and joy in serving because we stop being who God created us to be and try to be something or someone else. 

The church is not a single cell amoeba, it is a body with many members and those members have different functions and specialties. Paul writes, the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you", nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you". It's true that the hand has a lousy sense of sight, but have you ever tried to open a bottle with your eye? The head needs the feet if it's to go anywhere, to get "ahead" in life. As I'm going to share in a couple minutes, I wouldn't encourage you to try to apply this metaphor to people - "are you a foot, an eye, or the mouth?" Paul is thinking of spiritual gifts and admonishing them not to write off certain gifts because they are so focused on other gifts. But the principle remains: God has shaped and gifted us all differently and He doesn't want to squeeze you into a cookie cutter mold, He wants to use you and me in ways that He has best suited us for. 

3.  Rather than thinking of spiritual gifts as special abilities, think of them as ministry assignments that God gives the grace to complete 

The movie Sky High is about a high school that caters exclusively to teens who have inherited superpowers from one or both of their parents. They are dealing with the challenges of super powers and puberty at the same time! When an incoming class of freshmen arrive, one of the first things they have to do is something called “power placement” where they have to demonstrate their super power in front of the entire class and then Coach Boomer decides if their power qualifies them to be a hero or a side-kick. The main character, Will Stronghold, is privately tormented because he doesn't know what his super power is, or even if he has one. 

A lot of today’s teaching on the spiritual gifts builds on the assumption that spiritual gifts are abilities given to each one of us and what we need to do is uncover what those spiritual gifts are and then begin to serve out of those gifts. Kind of like a spiritual "power placement" within the church. Thinking of spiritual gifts as special abilities (or talents) that we all have if we could just figure out what it is and how we use it can leave a lot of people frustrated and confused: “I know my gift is administration, but I have no idea how to use that for God’s kingdom” or it can put artificial limitations on where and how we serve– “Hey Jim, could you help us set up some chairs for the meeting?” “Sorry, that takes the gift of helps, and I don’t have the gift of helps.” 

This way of looking at spiritual gifts as special abilities that the Spirit has given each one of us leads us to look inward and focus on what “my special ability or abilities are?” Or, like Will Stronghold, we can secretly wonder, “do I have any spiritual gift at all?”

When we look at Paul’s usage of the word charisma there is much to support an understanding of spiritual gifts being ministries, or assignments, that are given by God to the church. And God then gives every believer grace to operate in one or even many ministry assignments. And by ministry, we mean anything that builds up the body of Christ. So a ministry can be short term or it can be long term, it can be ongoing for a life time or something that lasts 20 seconds (like giving a tongue or performing a miracle). But it is always for the building up of the church.

If this is true, then in the metaphor of members of the body, the parts aren't us, one of us is a hand, one of us is an eye, etc. The parts are ministry assignments, and God might call you to be a hand in one season, and an eye in another. Therefore, Paul can say in verse 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. The gifts that do the most to build up the body of Christ - we'll talk more about that when we get to chapter 14. You can't tell a hand to earnestly desire to be an eye, but you can encourage people to seek ministry assignments that most build up the church, believing that if God gives you the assignment, He will give you the grace to accomplish it. 

This different way of looking at spiritual gifts makes a significant difference in several very practical ways.

First of all, instead of asking, what spiritual gift has God given me? How can I discover my spiritual gifts? We simply ask, God, where do you want me to serve? It doesn’t leave us paralyzed until we figure out what spiritual abilities the Holy Spirit has given us – we can pursue the gifts by seeking God for His direction about where we are to serve, and then trust that if He’s called us to an assignment, He will give us the grace to fulfill that assignment. Certainly God has shaped us and given us passions and interests that can help us identify where God can best use us, and certainly some ministry assignments have a long term aspect to it: Paul was called to be an apostle. The assignment was being an apostle and the duration of that assignment was the rest of his life, but we can still look at it as a ministry assignment that God graced Paul to fulfill rather than a "special ability" that Paul had to discover. 

Finding our spiritual gifts then, looks less like power placement and more like ministry placement. For instance, when the scriptures lay out the qualifications for being an elder, little is focused on abilities, almost all of the focus is on character qualities. Faithfulness, rather than special abilities, is the emphasis. Now a person shouldn’t become an elder unless God has called them to be an elder, but elders don’t need to be super-gifted men. They need to be faithful men called by God to be elders. And if God calls them, the Spirit will give them the grace to serve.

Another difference is that it helps us to have a category for God calling us to ministry, not out of our strength, but in our weakness. If spiritual gifts are defined as abilities that God supernaturally gives us, then we will assume that God will only call us to ministry that matches our strengths – and usually God does call us in areas that match our strengths – but sometimes God decides to use us in our weakness not our strengths and His power is made perfect in our weakness. If we think of our spiritual gifts as abilities we may write off an area of ministry because it isn’t our fast ball. But God may call us to it.

It also means that, while every believer will have one ministry, many will have more than one ministry especially over the years. And often God will use one ministry assignment to guide us to another and we begin to find how God has graced us, not through a test, but by following the leading of the Spirit and finding that where He leads, He gives grace.

Conclusion:

I want to close with a real life example of this different mind-set in operation. In his book, Good to Great In God's Eyes, Chip Ingram writes about a woman who came to him with a concern one Sunday. She had a 33 year old daughter who had Downs Syndrome, and though this daughter loved Jesus and wanted to grow spiritually, because of her disability it was hard to find churches or believers that would take the time to care for her. Chip Ingram cared about the problem, but knew they had no one who would be able to do that, and because, as he put it, their policy on church leadership was that they were equippers, not professionals who did all the ministry, he gave her his standard answer as nicely as he could: "dream a dream, form a team, and write a one page paper summarizing how the ministry might be carried out."

He writes,  Before long, this woman, who was not gifted as a leader or an administrator, [nospecial abilities!] had found two other ladies with those gifts and a heart for special needs, and together they started ministering in that area. Soon we had about sixty Down Syndrome and mentally challenged people filling our front section, and a year or two later we were baptizing a lot of them.

As we close, I mentioned I wanted to put handles on this area of spiritual gifts. Here's a handle: don't focus on ability. Focus on assignment. As you answer yes to God when He lays a ministry assignment on your heart - it can be as simple as sharing an encouragement with a brother or sister, or providing food to a needy person, or signing up to serve in VBS or Children's Ministry, or leading a community group, or getting the courage to witness to that co-worker - as you say yes, God will use that obedience to guide you into more areas of ministry. 

Each of us have a spiritual gift – at least one ministry God has graced us to serve in – let’s ask the Lord to use us as His instruments of grace to build up the body in the ways He has called us to serve.

Let's ask God to speak to our hearts individually and guide us and develop us in the spiritual gifts He has for us.