Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 12 | Date: October 3, 2010 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Good songs. It’s been blessed already. Just a mention of the upcoming fall picnic. I haven’t heard anything this year about a pumpkin throwing contest. I thought maybe I’d missed out or something. Maybe we’re not going to have it.

And I say this next item with just a little bit of shame. If we have—we may have—are we going to have a bonfire at the picnic? Are we? Not sure, okay. Well, I understand there was one last night or yesterday at the Hobos’, and they’re making s’mores, which ordinarily is a good thing, you know, the melted marshmallows and the drippy chocolate and the graham crackers, and you can’t eat it without getting it all over your hands. Well, Andrew made a Dagwood out of his. And it’s like this high, and my wife’s daughter ate it. I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it.

1 Corinthians chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. This morning’s message from this chapter: Spiritual People and Spiritual Gifts. Spiritual people and spiritual gifts. We’ve read through the chapter already. I would like to rehearse just a few of the verses, verses one through seven, and then verses 12 and 13 summarize fairly well most of what Paul unpacks through the rest of the chapter.

First Corinthians 12, beginning with verse one:

“Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be accursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Now verse 12:

“…the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. And though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free. And we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

Let’s look to the Lord for prayer. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word and we’re thankful. We’re impressed more all the time of how it meets us at every point and speaks to our every need and every difficulty, individually and corporately as a church as well. We ask, Father, that You would minister Your Word to us by Your Spirit today. We’re grateful for the wonderful gift of Your Word and the wonderful gift of Your Spirit. We ask that You would work in us by Your Spirit today to make us all that You have called us to be, both in our individual lives and corporately as a church as well. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

It has been said in the recent generation or so that until the recent decades, the Holy Spirit has been the forgotten person of the Trinity, the forgotten member of the Trinity. But now in this age of charismatic renewal, we’ve recognized him again and he’s come back to his rightful place. That’s what we’ve been told. Men, I think, with some degree of embarrassment have said that kind of thing as though it has been something that is overlooked. It’s not just—it’s not entirely true, however. In fact, I would argue that there has never been a greater exposition of the person and work of the Spirit and a greater emphasis on His role in the Christian’s life than was given in the Reformed tradition. John Calvin has been rightly called the theologian of the Holy Spirit. And certainly there’s been no greater exposition or appreciation of the work of the Spirit in the Christian life than that which has been given us in our tradition. The Puritans in particular have expounded it at great length. The church has not languished in this regard until the recent generation. And I think that notion is just plain misinformed. And I think it’s grounded in an ignorance of the past as well.

What is true, however, is that this last generation or so has given a kind of emphasis on the Holy Spirit that has led to major kinds of controversy and endless discussions. And more controversy over the subject of the Holy Spirit and His work has been witnessed in this last generation than in many others. And at the same time, perhaps not coincidentally, our generation has seen a rising interest in the doctrine of the church. What is the church? And what is it we are supposed to do as a church? Or as the question is raised today, how do we do church? How are we to do it? And what is it all about? All of that has been the focus of attention in a great way in the last 30, 40 years. And through it all, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 has loomed large—actually chapters 12 through 14, which we will spend the next few weeks in. Ironically, the subject of this passage has been the subject of much controversy and misunderstanding in the last generation or so. And I say that’s ironic because the Apostle Paul wrote this passage in order to deal with the same kinds of controversies and misunderstandings that were going on in his day in the church at Corinth. But still we have it today.

In verses 1 through 3 of chapter 12 here, he clues us into all of this right up front. The Corinthian church was a troubled church. They had contacted the Apostle Paul for instruction. You remember we’ve seen that. Throughout this letter, Paul takes up one subject after another that has been raised, asking him for his counsel on the matter. And so Paul regularly will say, “Now about this,” “Now about this,” and “Now about this,” and we’ll see that again in chapter 16. “Now concerning the collection,” he’ll take up that question next. The resurrection before that; all of these various questions have been sent to him and he’s answering them one at a time. And this is the question that he takes up now in chapters 12 through 14: the role of the Holy Spirit, in particular the role of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts.

Evidently, there were those in Corinth, as there are in the evangelical church today, who felt themselves specially gifted because they had special kinds of gifts. And generally that focused on the spectacular kinds of gifts that were given. But the word that’s used here in verse 1—”now about spiritual gifts”—evidently this is their term, pneumatikos. Evidently, it’s something like, “My gift is a particular manifestation of the Spirit. I am a spiritual person because I have the manifestations of the Spirit.” And generally, as I say, this seems in that context, as it often does in our own context, to take on the connotations of the miraculous and the spectacular kinds of gifts. So their word is, “We have these spirituals, these spiritual gifts, these manifestations of the Spirit.” And evidently what’s in mind is the flashier kinds of gifts, and they are, without doubt, a manifestation of the Spirit.

And so there is some kind of spiritual elitism going on, it seems, in Corinth. Not unlike what we have today, where there’s often—and this really isn’t going to be a diatribe against charismatics or anything like that—but there is very often within those circles that kind of a spirit, not always thankfully, but very often in those circles, a spirit of superiority, of elitism, because “we have these flashier, spectacular kinds of gifts.” And so there are the haves and the have-nots, particularly when that understanding of the spiritual gifts is attached to an understanding of the Spirit himself. That is, “these flashier gifts are the manifestation of the Spirit in my life. I know I have the Spirit because I have these flashy gifts.” And so the question becomes: Do you have the Spirit? And the way you know you have the Spirit is because you have these spectacular gifts. And there’s a kind of spiritual elitism, the haves versus the have-nots.

We might expect, and Paul does here, sets out to put the lie to this elitist kind of mentality, and we see through the rest of the passage that he changes the vocabulary. He doesn’t use their term except at the beginning here, “now about spirituals,” manifestations of the Spirit. But when we get to verse 4, immediately he changes the vocabulary: “different kinds of gifts.” And here the term is charismata. They’re just gifts. Or if we could push the significance of the word, gifts of grace. And already he’s subtly working toward his point that whatever manifestation of the Spirit we have in our lives, it is simply by a gift of grace, by the Spirit of God. And this is something that people are generally very slow to learn. We think that if a person is spectacularly gifted, he must be spectacularly spiritual. That’s why we’re so profoundly shocked when a particularly gifted preacher is known to have fallen into sin of some kind. How could he? And we forget that spiritual gifts are no indication at all of sanctification. These are sovereignly given. And so Paul starts out on that level.

But there is a, first of all, a more basic and fundamental observation that cuts across any kind of spirit of spiritual elitism, and that is in verse 3. Paul here, making reference to evidently the older days when they were in paganism: “I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says ‘Jesus is accursed.'” But now he turns it around: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” And here a mountain of Pauline teaching regarding the Holy Spirit just comes together. This is one of those passages that we love in our Reformed tradition. You cannot say “Jesus is Lord” except by the enablement of the Spirit of God. On a formal level, of course, anyone can mouth those words. But the point Paul is making here is that a genuine confession of Christ as Lord comes only from those whom the Spirit of God has enabled to do so. That is, He has come and enlightened their eyes and made them see their sinfulness, so as to make them see then, in contrast, the glories of Christ and turn to Him in faith. And it is only those who have been enabled by the Spirit of God to do that that actually say it.

And so Paul here is beginning with this fundamental assertion that he emphasizes many times elsewhere, and that is, every Christian has the Spirit of God by definition. Every Christian is spiritual. Paul makes this point emphatically, you remember, in Romans 8, verse 9: If you don’t have the Spirit of God, you don’t have Christ either. This is part and parcel of what we receive in coming to Christ. We are gifted by the Spirit. We are given the Spirit to indwell, to enable us in so many different kinds of ways. Paul has emphasized this in 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2. You remember how at great length he expounded on this subject that those who believe are those who have been enabled by the power of the Spirit of God to believe. And so Paul says our ministry has been characterized by this sense of dependence upon the Spirit of God. And so we preach in the enablement of the Spirit to open hearts to Christ. And this is a great part of what Paul has emphasized then throughout the book.

So we can only confess Christ as Lord by the Holy Spirit. But having said that much then, we have said already that a Christian by definition is one in whom the Spirit dwells. And so the question already is not: Do you have the Spirit? By virtue of the fact that I confess Jesus as Lord, I give proof to the fact of the Spirit’s enablement and working in my life. This is a great part of the promise of the New Covenant. “I’ll put my Spirit in you,” Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesying that. The whole theme of sanctification and progressive godliness, growing in godliness in the New Testament, is grounded in this: that the Spirit of God has been given to all of God’s people to work that out in their lives. The virtues that are demanded of us are called in the New Testament the fruit of the Spirit. Because we don’t ultimately—we are not the ones who produce these virtues, but it is the Spirit of God working in us. And this is the common experience of all believers.

And so Paul already is alluding to that in verse 3 when he tells us that no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Spirit. The very fact that we are believers confessing Jesus as Lord gives proof to the fact of the Spirit’s work in us. We have the same thing in verse 13 where the Apostle says, “We were all baptized…” And here I just have to work with the translation. There’s a huge debate over this. How should this proposition be translated? “For we were all baptized…” I’m going to translate it “in one Spirit” or “with one Spirit.” And you don’t have to know a lot of Greek to know this, I think. Think back to the Gospels. You remember John the Baptist? What did he say? He said, “I baptize you with water. But one is coming after me who’s greater than I. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Notice then, it is not the Holy Spirit who does the baptizing; it is Jesus who does the baptizing. And the element in which we are baptized—obviously this is metaphorical language—but the element in which we are baptized is the Spirit. So I don’t think it’s right to speak really of the “baptism of the Spirit” or “baptism by the Spirit” as we have here, but it is Christ baptizing us with the Spirit of God. I think that’s what Paul’s point here is.

It is not what is so often portrayed today as a second work of grace in the believer. And this is what Paul is emphasizing here. Common popular teaching today is that receiving the Spirit or the baptism of the Spirit is a second work that comes later after you have believed, and at some step down the line, you receive the Spirit, and that is manifesting itself—depending on the tradition you come from—it manifests itself in perfectionism, or a higher life, or in speaking in tongues, or in something along those lines. But again, what’s important here, first of all, is that it is Jesus who does the baptizing, not the Spirit. And more to the point, this is Paul’s point in verse 13, this blessing is enjoyed by A-L-L, all of God’s people. You’ll see that in verse 13: “We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.” That is, this is an initiatory thing. This is something we all experience on the way in.

Now what it means to be baptized with the Spirit, how does Christ baptize us with the Spirit? Again, it’s metaphorical language, but the promise is that this New Covenant age would be the age of the Spirit. The Messianic age is an age of the outpouring of the Spirit, or if we like, the overwhelming of the Spirit in so many ways. And Paul is simply saying here, this is what is true then of all believers. All in the New Covenant experience this blessing of the Spirit. We receive it at the very outset, on the way in. Paul says if you don’t, in Romans chapter 8, if you don’t have the Spirit of Christ, you don’t have Christ either.

So don’t ever, wherever we go with the rest of this, don’t ever let your friends who are in those other traditions make you feel like somehow you’ve been left out. “Have you received the Spirit?” “Did you receive the baptism?” or “Have you received a second work?” as though these are proof that somehow they have made it and received the Spirit and left you behind. Far too often the contemporary charismatic movement has created this second-class citizen kind of mentality within the church. There’re the haves and the have-nots. “I have the Spirit. I am spiritual because I have these gifts,” and so on. Paul’s answer here is yes, I’m spiritual. If you ask, “Do I have the Spirit?” Yes, I have the Spirit. If you ask if I’ve received the baptism, yes, I’ve received the baptism. My meaning of that is a little bit different than what you think. Yes, I’ve received the baptism. “Are you spiritual?” Yes, I’m spiritual. And the proof of it is from my heart I’ve confessed Jesus as Lord. And that is proof positive of the Spirit’s work in my life. So this is the unity of the church. All of us possess the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God possesses all of us. There’s a kind of leveling of the playing field that Paul emphasizes throughout this chapter. In Him we are brought together under one Lord, in one Spirit, to form one body, the body of Christ.

Now that then is what Paul unpacks then throughout this chapter. There is one Lord, one body in whom we are made a part in one Spirit. However, this does not mean that we are all therefore the same. This does not mean that there are no distinctions among us at all. And it doesn’t mean that we all do the same thing. And it doesn’t mean that we are all gifted in the same way. And this is the point that Paul works over throughout this passage. This is what dominates chapter 12. We do not all look the same. We do not all do the same thing. We are not all gifted in the same way. While all of us have the Spirit of God working in us, we do not all manifest that in the same ways.

What Are Spiritual Gifts?

Begin, then, with a question: What are spiritual gifts? Well, notice how they are described for us in verses four through six. And I want you to notice we have three different terms that are given here. And it’s arranged, actually, according to the Trinity, emphasizing the involvement of all three persons. “There are different kinds of gifts” for the same Spirit. “Different kinds of service, but the same Lord”—that’s Paul’s typical word for Christ. “There are different kinds of working, but the same God”—that’s his typical word for God the Father.

But notice the description that he gives of the gifts. Verse 4: “there are different kinds of gifts,” charismata, gifts, something given by grace. The emphasis is that the abilities are not earned or achieved. This is something, an enablement that’s given us by the Spirit of God. Verse 5: “there are different kinds of service,” services. So a gift may be looked at then from another perspective as not only an enablement, a gift of grace, but something intended to serve. We’ll see that in a minute as well. It has to do with their function. And then in verse 6: “different kinds of working,” or we might say energizings, or different kinds of operations. Or we might just say different abilities that are given. The emphasis here is divine enablement. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:11, he speaks of serving God with the strength that God gives us. That’s the idea here.

So then, putting these together, spiritual gifts are very simply God-given enablements to serve the church effectively. God-given enablements to serve the church effectively. These are the means by which the Spirit of God manifests Himself in the church through the gifting of His people, enabling them to minister to the whole. Now, the theme of these gifts and their function in the local church is what dominates, then, the rest of the chapter. And Paul works this out, I think, under two major points of emphasis.

Every Believer Is Gifted By The Holy Spirit

Number one, we’ve already mentioned this, but we’re going to highlight it again. Number one: the Holy Spirit gifts every believer. Or, say it another way, every believer is gifted by the Holy Spirit. Now, we’re going to see by the time we get to chapter 14 that Paul is setting us up here. From chapter 12 verse 1 onwards, he’s aiming at those who are more spectacularly gifted and evidently glorying in their more spectacular kinds of gifts. At least some of them were making much of their giftedness as though they had “the spirituals,” they had the manifestation of the Spirit because of their flashier gifts. But Paul has already taken, as we’ve seen, one subtle step toward correcting that abuse back in verse 3.

But there’s more here. It’s important to him to make it clear that the Holy Spirit gifts every believer only in different ways. Look at verse 7: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given. Here’s the Spirit manifesting Himself in the church. And He does that through His people. And every one of them is an instrument through which the Holy Spirit works for the building up of the church. Look at verse 11 as well: “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one just as He determines.” So, He gifts all believers.

Now, He gives us a sampling here of the kinds of gifts that he’s talking about in verses 8 through 10. To one, there’s given through the Spirit the message of wisdom. To another, the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit. To another, the gift of faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by that one Spirit. To another, miraculous powers. To another, prophecy. To another, distinguishing between spirits. To another, speaking in different kinds of tongues. And to still another, the interpretation of tongues. These are all various kinds of gifts that he gives to every believer.

We have another list of the gifts, if you’d like, in verse 28: “And in the church, God has appointed, first of all, apostles, second, prophets, third, teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing and also able to help others with gifts of administration, those speaking in different kinds of tongues.” There are several different gifts listed there as well. Again, he does it in verses 29 and 30: Are all apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, speaking in tongues, interpretation? Here are the various kinds of gifts that the Spirit gives. If you’d like other lists, you can find them in Ephesians chapter 4 and in Romans chapter 12, verses 6 through 8 as well.

Now, in this respect, verse 28 here, we should take time to notice, is something of a key listing of the gifts. Because notice how he says it: “And in the church, God has appointed, first of all, apostles. Second, prophets. Third, teachers. Then, workers of miracles.” Now what does he mean by that? The answer, I think, is fairly clear that because some of these gifts later in the list were not necessarily given later, he’s not speaking in order of their giving. He’s speaking of order of priority, order of importance. And at the top of the list is apostles, of course, because it’s foundational to the church. And you’ll see this in Paul’s teaching elsewhere as well, where the priority is given to those gifts that are serving to shape and give the church its shape. They’re foundational gifts in that sense. More of that idea in a minute.

One question often comes up here, by the way: Are these lists complete? Are there other gifts that we might have that are not listed here? I’m a little nervous saying that there might be other gifts that are not listed for us in the Scriptures, just by virtue of my commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture. But at the same time, I would think that these are broad categories of gifts that have been given to us. And it’s exhaustive in that sense.

Also, I think it’s important to notice that your and my responsibility does not end with our giftedness. I may not be particularly gifted in the way of, as he mentions here, the gift of helps. That would be an awful excuse if you needed help, wouldn’t it? I might not be particularly gifted in the area of giving, but if you needed something and I could give it, that’d be a pretty lousy excuse for you to say, “You know, that’s not my area of gift. You can go somewhere else. Good luck with that.” And so our giftedness does not define our responsibility. It’s just a particular area of service in which we are given enablement.

Now in all of this, we have to be careful not to miss the point. All of these—this is Paul’s point—all of these areas of service equally are manifestations of the Spirit. This is how the Spirit of God shows Himself in the local church, through equipping us to serve the body in our own unique ways. He works through every believer. There are no Christian haves and have-nots. But just as every Christian by definition has received the gift of the Spirit, so every Christian by definition has received the gifts of the Spirit. Clearly here in this passage God has set out to impress us with the fact that each of us has some kind of divine enablement to contribute to the whole. Spiritual gifts are not reserved for pastors, missionaries, maybe Sunday school teachers—you know, the professionals. Spiritual gifts are not reserved for that. All of God’s people enjoy this blessing and are given the enablement to minister to the body.

Now, to be sure, we are not ministering, all of us, in the same way. And that’s the point here in verses 29 and 30: “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have spiritual gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” And the expected answer here, of course, is no, of course not. And Paul works that out with that otherwise ridiculous illustration earlier in the chapter, verses 12 and following, 14 and following, that the body is not one body part. It’s a ridiculous kind of illustration. Can you imagine if the body were just one big eye? Paul says this is just nuts. Well, then why would you think that everyone has to have the same gift? But in the body of Christ, we all have different manifestations of the Spirit—manifestations of the Spirit, to be sure, but in different ways and in different enablements. And so Paul says in verse 12, “the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. And though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” I love that statement. “So it is with Christ.” What a great way to speak of the church. “So it is with Christ.” That is His body, the church. Many parts, one body, all working together. Various ways in which God has gifted every believer to function in the local church.

Now it’s important here to notice again the source of these gifts. It’s not enough only to say that these are gifts of the Spirit. Paul goes to great lengths here to emphasize that they are gifts of the Spirit sovereignly given or sovereignly administered. Look at verse 11: “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one just as He determines.” Verse 18: “But in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be.” Various gifts given by the Spirit of God sovereignly in order to fill the spot that the Spirit of God determined that individual would best fit. So He gives them sovereignly. So the difference in giftedness between you and everyone else in the church is a difference God made.

And you can see where Paul is going with this by the time we get to chapter 14. You think because you have a more spectacular gift that says something about you? It doesn’t say anything about you at all. This is a gift that God gave sovereignly as He saw fit. And so Paul says this is how the body functions: the Spirit of God working through all of the parts to the common good. In fact, we were left to see that from verse 3 onward, that because we have the Spirit, God works in all of us sovereignly. The Spirit of God works in us sovereignly to bring us into the body. And the Spirit of God works within us sovereignly to equip us to serve the body also. But all of these equally are pneumatikos, manifestations of the Spirit. And no particular gift can lay any superior claim to the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul is emphasizing here. So Paul has established then that God has uniquely equipped every believer to fill an essential role in the life of the local church. He’s gifted believers. This is the means by which the Spirit manifests Himself in the congregation.

God Gifts Each Believer For The Common Good

Second point that Paul emphasizes here then is that God gifts each believer for the common good. God gifts each believer for the common good. Look at verse 7 where he says that exactly: “Now, to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good,” for the good of all. That is, these gifts are not given for self-aggrandizement. You can see where he’s going with that, can’t you? We’ll get there in chapter 14. These are not given to put you on display. The gifts are not given for self-indulgence. The gifts are not given—it’s interesting to me—there’s not a gift of criticism that’s given. These are given for the common good. Neither is there a gift of bench warming, self-indulgence. But these gifts are given for the common good. He has uniquely enabled each of us to minister to the body as a whole.

That’s emphasized again in verses 12 and 13: “The body is a unit, though it’s made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For…”—there’s the explanation—”…we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.” That is, the fact that God has brought all of us into the one body, different though we are, speaks to the fact that He has equipped each of us to minister to the whole. So this is Paul’s second point of emphasis, that God gifts every believer, but He gifts every believer for the common good.

Now to strengthen that argument, he gives this humorous illustration in verses 14 and following. No single member of the body is the whole body. That would be ridiculous to think of the whole body as one big eye or something like that. The body has many members, each with its own particular function. So also with Christ. Now, this is not to say that all parts of the body are equally important. And Paul deals with that in some respect here. There are gifts that are given first, second, third, in terms of importance. And there’s shame language here in this illustration as well, covering some parts of the body, just to make this point that there are varying degrees of giftedness in all of that. But, he emphasizes along with that, that all gifts are essential nonetheless, and all are manifestations, equally, manifestations of the Spirit of God. I don’t think I would ever argue that a little finger is as important as a foot. But boy, that little finger’s important. You ever get a tiny sliver in your little finger? All of life’s got to stop, doesn’t it? All of life’s got to stop. Paul is not saying that any are unimportant, even if there are varying degrees. As I say, Paul indicates that in verse 28 as well. So one has the gift of helps. One has a gift of service. One has a gift of giving. One has a gift of teaching or preaching, and so on.

And this then is Paul’s point, that there is no gift given for the purpose of self-advancement. There’s no gift given for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. There’s no gift given for the sake of self-indulgence. Our gifts are given for the common good. And God has uniquely equipped all of us for a service to the whole. Common goals, common ambitions, common concerns, and all of us working in our various different ways to those same ends. And so then there’s built into the body a sense of mutual dependence.

This is very important for the Apostle Paul in verses 21 and following. There’s built into the body a sense of mutual dependence. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’ The head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. The parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor, and the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body.”

Isn’t it interesting to hear they’re fighting over gifts? And Paul says all these various gifts are given so that there will be no division. That is out of a recognition that each of us has a different manifestation of the Spirit, a different enablement to minister to the whole. There’s built into it a sense of mutual dependence. How can there be division in the church when there’s this healthy sense of mutual dependence on one another? So, verse 25, “so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” That’s the way it ought to work in a local church, isn’t it? When one member is honored, we all rejoice. When one is hurting, we all suffer with it. Nobody will say, “Well, he’s a little member.” It’s like when you get up at night; it’s dark in the room. “I don’t need that light. I know my way around this room.” And pretty soon, all you need is to bang that little toe—just a little one. It’s all it is, a little toe. And you feel like it’s the end of life. And Paul is saying here, every member of the body is like that. There’s a sense of mutual dependence, a sense of mutual need. And when one is honored, we all rejoice. When one suffers, every part suffers with it.

Ever consider that you are needed here? You know what Paul’s driving at here? Isn’t that the bottom line? That there’s no first class and second class, but that each one of us is needed here in our various expressions of the Spirit’s work. Now then, that brings us to one question that’s just screaming to be asked, and that is the question that has received almost endless treatment over the period of the 70s and 80s and into the 90s some: How can I find my spiritual gift? How can I find my spiritual gift? And pardon me if I seem just a little bit annoyed, but I hate that question. “How do I find my spiritual gift?”—like it’s some kind of wrapped-up package hiding in a bush somewhere, and God wants us to go sneak around until we can find it.

And I have several reasons I don’t like the question. One is the silly answers that have been given to it almost endlessly. Elaborate questionnaires have been drawn up, multi-pages: “What do you think about this? How do you do this? What is your favorite that?” And by the end of it, you’ve got this personality profile that’s supposed to direct you to the kind of gift you have in a local church. You see those things? It drives me nuts. I should be more patient. Patience isn’t my first gift. Silly answers that have been given. And people can fill out the forms and find their gift. And really, if you’re clever enough, you can make it say whatever you want. I’ve known plenty of—too many—young men who have thought, or older men for that reason, have thought they’re gifted to preach. And they never take time to notice that no one seems to have the gift of listening.

Another reason I don’t like the question is that it just gives the wrong focus entirely. When I say, “How can I find my spiritual gift?” the whole focus becomes: What are my talents? What are my abilities? When the whole focus of Paul’s discussion is not that; the focus of his discussion is service. Service to the whole. And what strikes me as odd is that in that whole “how can I find my spiritual gift” search, the question seems never to have occurred to us that Paul never sets out to answer that. Paul gives us no direction. “Here’s how you find your spiritual gift: Fill out this form. Turn it in.” He merely asserts that each of us is divinely equipped to minister to the whole. And then the assumption is: Get at it. Find a place of service, an opportunity to serve the body, and do it. It is not a thing to be discovered. It’s a service to be rendered to the church.

And I think one thing that would help tremendously in all of that is we would get away from the idea of professionalism. We’ve got people who are equipped. We’ve got people who can preach and teach, and they’ve gone to seminary. And we’ve got other people who’ve gone to school and learned music, and they can minister, and they’re gifted in that way. And maybe some others who are gifted to teach, and so they teach Sunday school. Well, what’s left for me? “Oh, well, I can be an usher.” Okay. Well, what’s left for the rest? And the whole focus, rather than thinking in terms of professionalism or formal categories of office, we should simply think in terms of service and helping one another.

And I think what we must take home with us today from this chapter is simply the question: In what way am I valuable to this body? In what way can I be of service to this body? How can I better serve? Who here can benefit from what participation I can give? And again, you ask, “Well, what can I do?” I think, again, the answer is stop thinking in terms of formal office and start thinking in terms of service. You might not be able to teach. You might not be able to sing or play a musical instrument. But who here cannot befriend someone and give a word of encouragement? Our Lord put high premium on those who give a cup of cold water to one of his little ones. Who can’t give a word of encouragement and maybe accompany it with a plate of cookies? Or if you see someone in the church struggling in their marriage, you can’t help? Try to take them and make it a point to fellowship with them in a way to help.

Lots of young mothers here. I was impressed with that this morning in Sunday school when all the children got up and left. Lots of young mothers here—who can’t help? Offer to help with them and all of the pressures that they have and be of service in that respect. Or if you know of someone who is struggling with discouragement, who of us can’t pull aside and say, “Hey, can we get together this week?” and make it a point to speak substantively when you’re together, just for encouragement’s sake. There are a thousand ways in which the church can minister to itself through all of its various parts. And that simply is what Paul is getting at here. We really must try to rid our minds of this formal office kind of thinking. That’s part of it, but it’s only a part. The ideal that Paul is giving here is that the Spirit of God manifests himself in every believer in the local congregation and every one of us to give himself to the good of the whole. And all of those kinds of ways, many of which may seem to you to be mundane—if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of it, you know that it’s more than mundane. These are ways that the Spirit of God is determined to work to the enrichment of His people and to the enrichment of our fellowship here.

Well then, is this your view of the church and how it is to work? This passage has told us that the church is not a spectator sport. It’s not something that you come on Sundays and watch. The church is something we do, and not just on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights. The church is something we do seven days a week. The encouraging thing we find in all of this is that each one of us is gifted by the Spirit of God to work to the enablement and the enrichment of the whole. Amen. Let’s pray.

Our Father, forgive us for our selfishness and our self-centeredness. Forgive us for being simply takers and receivers and not givers. We pray that You’ll give us increasingly a mind to help and to serve one another here. Lord, make it our mind and our heart this week to find ways in which we can enrich the fellowship of RBC here. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.