“God's Gifts, Our Gratitude”

1 Corinthians 12, we started there last week.

I went to a movie this week with two of my daughters. We saw "Amazing Grace" the film about William Wilberforce and his life story. If you don't know anything about him and would like an introduction to his life, I would encourage you to go see the movie.  It is in that type of movie that I think the power of the media can be used for Christian purposes far more than telling the life of Christ.  Christ's story is different than a man's story, though it is history, His story is divine and was never meant to be depicted on a flat screen; it makes it look unreal.  His story was meant to be told by living human lips to living human people because God ordained it that way.  I'm not saying there is something inherently wrong with making films, but you just can't depend on them to tell the gospel well.  After the "Passion of Christ" and there was a hushed silence over every audience that was there, there was very little lasting impact in the church or in the world from that.  Lasting impact comes when people live out their Christian life like William Wilberforce.  Wilberforce was born in a well-to-do home, was taken to his aunt's house after his father's death and his aunt was a devout Christian.  He was exposed to men like George Whitfield and John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace.  His mother was afraid he would get caught up in religious fanaticism so she took him out of that home and sent him away to a private school.  Now, not all of that is in the movie, I don't think, but somewhere along the line God would not let his child go.  He began to stir in Wilberforce things of the spirit, things of moral truth, and his acquaintance with John Owen somehow along the way was renewed.

Wilberforce is known for abolishing the slave trade through the regular means of government and parliament in England.  He fought his entire life to do that, and, at the end of his life just days before he died they abolished slavery through legislation altogether.  He was a Christian statesman.  When he asked the pastor, John Newton, who again was the author of "Amazing Grace," he felt a call to ministry; he wanted to leave the worldly issues he was dealing with and go into that which counted for God.  And, Newton, along with others counseled him; your service is God's service.  And I'm so glad they understood the truth that ministry is not the only calling that God has.  Every believer has a calling and yes, political involvement, politics, and even elected office may be one of those, and I say, 'Have at it.'  And if you need some influence in your life to see that God can still against insurmountable odds do His work through His people in the public sphere, see the movie!  But movies like books have one-liners in them.  I wept, and, by the way…if you go see the movie for the normal excitement of seeing a contemporary movie, you are not going to have that.  It is not a shoot-em-up, splash-em-up, all kinds of things that are unreal, it is very realistic.  But the moral victories in the movie made me weep.  It did!  The thought, they explain how slaves rode in the boat and the moral victory that this man wanted to win for God's sake.  What moral victories are we after?  That was all moving, but I think maybe the most moving line was one they gave the character of Newton.  You know him by his great hymn writing.  If you know his story, he has a horrible past.  He, himself, was a slave-trader.  The movie depicts him as one who had shipped and traded 20,000 slaves.  I don't know what the exact number was.  But, Newton was a horrible man, even by his own description.  He actually became captive to a black woman in Africa for a period of time and was grossly mistreated himself.  I don't know at this point in my mind, because I haven't looked at the story in a long time, where it was that Newton found the Lord, or the Lord found Newton, but his life was dramatically changed, and the amazing grace he wrote the hymn about was the grace he had experienced himself.  He was lost and now he had been found.  And, once again, when Wilberforce goes to Newton for a piece of advice about what things he knows for certain in life, Pastor Newton said this:

"I know two things; that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Saviour."

You know what one of the diseases if not the primary disease in the contemporary church is?  It is we have let ourselves grow too big and let Christ grow too small.  We have become so much the center of everything we do, how we feel about life, what our financial situation is, how our health is, everything in life is related to us.  Our culture exacerbates that, even fuels that, and we think ourselves to be right in having everything focused on ourselves.  That doesn’t mean everything we do is necessarily selfish, and everything thought we have is necessarily bad.  But when trouble comes, we collapse because we have been the center of everything and that foundation can't hold us up.  Maybe the epitome of that is Lisle…we were in discussion with the staff about that the other day and Lisle laid a note on my desk of a review written about "The Secret."  How many of you are familiar with a little book called, "The Secret"?  Well, good… you don't watch much television do you? 

Now, are you ready to find out about if you are really going to be honest in church?  Will you promise to be honest in church?  Don't look at me so somber.  How many of you watch Oprah?  We have a few brave souls, to admit it.  Oprah is the one who popularized this thing called "The Secret"  and this person from Australia has discovered the secret to success in life and her secret to success is as old as the lie that the Devil told Adam and Eve….that you can be God.  The whole thing is that your thoughts have this universal power of attraction to this thing in the universe, which this thing is her idea of God, and if you think rightly, then you can draw to yourself.  If you think about prospering financially you can draw that to yourself.  But if you think about death, you are going to draw death to yourself.  If you think about being healthy you are going to be healthy.  If you think about being sick, you are going to be sick.  Throw in a few Bible verses and you've got the health, wealth and prosperity preachers that have been on the waves for years.  It's a best-seller.  Barnes and Noble can't keep it in stock.  That's the culture we live in…and we want to be God.

We are supposed to be studying Spiritual Gifts this morning and I think that we will do that, but, before we do that, I have discovered that there is not much passion about spiritual gifts when there is not much passion about the Giver of those gifts.  What I'd like to help you with this morning is to see that Christ really is a great saviour.  I could tell you that you are a great sinner and would expect a preacher to do that.  I can confess to you that Tony Rose is a great sinner and I can confess to you that Jesus Christ is a great saviour and He is my saviour and Lord, but what conclusions have you come to?  What clear, thought-through conclusions have you come to in this life?  What does God really mean to you?  Is he a figment of your imagination?  Is He something that is on the edges of life?  Is He something that you deal with because you come to church and He is just out there? That's the God I grew up with.   That's the God my church preached as far as I know.   Either that or I was so spiritually dead I couldn't hear what the preacher was saying.  But, I didn't see anybody's life changed.  I didn't see that people were bowing before Christ as Lord, drinking in from Him; believing that He said things like this:

"Without me you can do nothing."  "These words have I spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full." 

Where is that kind of living?  That he came to give us life and life more abundantly.  Where is that? 

Let's take our Bibles and look at 1 Corinthians 12 for just a few minutes please.

The Bible says you are to confess your faults one to another that you may be healed.  I think I'll confess one, would that be okay?  What did you look up at me for? Boy that got your attention! [Laughter]  Every Sunday when I finish preaching, when I walk outside and say "Hello" to you and "Goodbye" to you and I go home, I wonder….Did I do good or did I do bad today?  You know what that's called?  Pride.  What does it matter  if I do good or bad?  Hopefully, you are not here to listen to me.  Hopefully I am God's mouthpiece through which you can hear from God, and I do need to come well prepared and with a clean vessel, but as far as my performance as to how I do, if I perform well that won't do you an ounce of good.  But if God, the Holy Spirit, speaks to your heart through God's scriptures, then that could do eternal good.  That has to do with spiritual gifts.  I've been given the gift to teach, but the one who teaches should not be going home always asking himself, "What if I did good or bad?"  What that means is "I wonder if people like me?"  "I wonder if they liked what I said today?"  Do you really think that John the Baptist went home after telling the Pharisees that they were a brood of vipers and whoever set the grass on fire to make them run out, do you think he really went home thinking, 'I wonder what the Pharisees think about me?  I wonder if they like me today.'  Do you think Jesus was worried about people liking him when he cleansed the Temple and made a whip and drove out the animals and overturned the moneychangers tables. Hmmm…..I think not!

But He does have a message that he wants delivered and he delivers those messages and those messages in those ministries in the church through spiritual gifts and you, if you are God's child, have one.  One thing I have noted in studying the chapter on spiritual gifts, as I read things in commentaries like…now this is not an exhaustive list, this is not a detailed list describing how each of these gifts are use.  So we must be careful about taking texts, about over describing them and just about every commentary that I read, not every one, but many of the commentaries I read then go on to give a detailed description of each gift.  And I'm thinking, "Where did you get that?"  Do you know what fuels that?  I said last week we are going to zoom in and get an alligator view, eyeball-to-eyeball, up close with this passage of scripture and what we do is we zoom down about this far and we stop, instead of coming all the way down.  And we stop  and we look at this wonderful truth….Oh  I'm an individual who has been saved by God and I have been gifted as an individual.  Now let me look at this.  What is my gift in this passage of scripture so I can serve the body and be totally and supernaturally fulfilled in my service?  That is really very little of what this chapter is about.  The chapter is about the body of Christ on earth and, yes, how we as individuals fit in it, but it is about the exaltation of a great saviour who saves great sinners and then employs them in his service. 

The principle then is, the bigger Christ is, the higher he is, the more supreme he is in his church, the healthier his church and the more able we are to serve.

So let's look briefly at just some ideas that come out of this passage of scripture.  Now if you want to pursue it more deeply, I want you to know what your spiritual gift is.  I want you to investigate, I want you to find out, and I want you to put it to use, but I warn you once you have a clear direction for your life from God, your responsibility and accountability before him increases. Not this Sunday night, but the next couple of Sunday nights, the staff is going to do a seminar on Sunday evenings about the particulars of spiritual gifts.  They are going to give you aids to find your spiritual gift and then we are going to follow then on the next Sunday night at the end of this month with a Ministry Fair to show you all the ministries in the church so you can see where you might get plugged in.

So, let's just walk through, again, four words to remember.  I simply want you to remember four words.  Now this isn't just for this passage of scripture.  This is for all of life. 

The first word is:    LEARN

Every Christian is a learner.  The great Shema of Israel begins, and when Jesus said that, he said it when he was asked "What is the first and greatest commandment?" He said, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God the LORD is one."

So it begins with learning.  There is truth we must learn and that truth comes from the revelation of God so that speaks of the attitude of humility.  The Christian is always learning. 

The second word is:          LOVE.

It is the primary word in all of Christian life.  That displays in you and I the priority and our passion.  What we love is always found out by what has highest priority in life and what develops the deepest passion within us.

Third word:  LIVE.

You gotta be real.  Your Christianity is not known by your words but by your life.

Fourth word: LEAD.

Who do you need to help?  Who now is looking to you for help?  Have you grown to the point in your Christian life where you can help someone else?  That's what spiritual gifts are all about.  That's what every sermon I'll ever preach is all about. What you learn, who you love, how you live and who you are going to lead.  That's what the Christian life is all about.  Now, we need to remember from this passage of scripture that these things we have are spiritual gifts.  Just put that in your head because that is primary to all we are talking about.  They are spiritual gifts. They are from the Spirit of God and they are gifts to us.

Look at verse 4:

"Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation  of the Spirit for the common good."

Because they are spiritual gifts that tells me two things:

1.                 We are to be grateful.  What do you do at church?  Are you thankful you get to do it?  What skill do you have?  What gift?  Is it encouragement, is it teaching, is it giving, is it the gift of faith?  Are we grateful for those things? And our gratitude ought to come out not only in our actions but in our attitudes that this is a gift of God.

2.                 We are to be humble.  If it is a gift, I didn't develop it.  I didn't generate it.  I didn't cause it.  It is something God gave me.  So the attitude, the action, the whole atmosphere around us is to be that of gratitude and humility.

But along with that gift let me show you what you have.  This is all wonderful until it comes down to our part of what we are going to do about it.  Look at verse 6.  Verse 6 says this:

"And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone."

Now look at verse 11:

"All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills."

Along with the very gift that God has given you, he gives you the power to use it.  This is not a simple, natural gift, it is something that you can do with supernatural power behind it.  He gives you the place to use it.  Look at verse 27 towards the end of the chapter.  He says to each individual:

"Now you are the body of Christ [the group] and individually members of it."

That is where the gift is to be used.  That doesn’t mean you don’t use it outside the church and it definitely doesn’t mean it is only for use inside the building; this is just where we gather, but it's in visitation, it is in caring, it's in taking meals to those who have been sick; it is in doing all kinds of those things.  You've got a place to use it.  Sometimes the church is diminished because we don't see what it is exactly.  It is the Body of Christ purchased with the blood of God.  And it becomes that way by you being put in it by your conversion, by receiving the free gift of the gospel, and therefore, believe it or not, you are Christ operating on this earth.  We are to carry on the work that he did.  That's what these spiritual gifts are for.  So you have the place to use it, the Church of Christ; you have purpose for using it, Verse 7 says 'To each is given the manifestation  of the Spirit for the common good.' They are for the building up of one another.  And you do have the pleasure of using it.  Look at Verse 25:  25 interrupts a sentence but we are going to let it do that.  It tells us the purpose of the gifts:"That there may be no division in the body."

The Old Testament says "How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity."

Have you ever been in an angry church?  Have you ever seen a church fight?  Have you ever been in a church that split? How much impact does that church now have on her community? Very little.

Have you ever been in a church that is healthy, loves Christ, loves the gospel, teaches the Word, loves one another, loves her community? I pray that's what we are.  There is hardly anything better.  Much pleasure in that.  But some of the pleasure is your individual pleasure in fulfilling the purpose God gave you.  I'm not minimizing that when I said earlier about our personal pleasure, but there is great pleasure in that.  That there may be no division in the body; you have fellowship, you have friends you can share with, you have people who love you, people you can confide in.  But that the members may have the same care for one another. It doesn’t matter  if you are the pastor or the janitor, it doesn’t matter if you are a Sunday School teacher or a preschool teacher or if you just stuff envelops on Friday, you have the same care for one another.  Nobody gets priority.  There is this unity of the Body.  And if one member suffers, all suffer together.  If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Have you ever had the pleasure of suffering with someone?  You say, "What kind of pleasure is that, Pastor?"  It's the pleasure of knowing with another human being you have entered into the Eternal where suffering matters.  Paul said, "I count that these sufferings are light and momentary in view of the glory that is to be revealed."  Our suffering is directly connected to the life to come where there is no suffering, and, instead of denying that, when I have the privilege of entering in with somebody who is dying, or has lost a job, is it weighty, Yes, and it hurts.  Oh, but the pleasure that comes when you know you have been a tool of God used to support a brother or sister, and what about that grand pleasure of when one member is honored, the others rejoice with them!  That's spiritual maturity, my friend, because most of the time when somebody is honored, we're so insecure that we don’t want to rejoice with them, we want to cower under them, run from them or criticize them.  Oh, but the joy and the pleasure of each member having the same care for one another!

Two major thoughts in application.  Faith and Wonder!

Let me ask you something.  You know, William Wilberforce must have had a great faith, to go through sickness, humiliation, to stand against insurmountable odds, because God had convicted him that all men, no matter  the color of their skin, were equal and no man should be enslaved to another. 

I stood next to a Black man right after that movie was over, and I heard him talking to another Black man, and I said, "Were you all in the Wilberforce movie?" He said, "Yes, Sir."  I said, "It was good wasn't it?"  He said, "Yes, Sir."  I said, "It would be nice to have a few more Wilberforces today, wouldn't it?"

What is your faith driving you to do? That is the only thing you can explain a Wilberforce about.  Something greater than him drove him to this moral and spiritual victory.  But let's back it down to where we are, sitting in his pew, in this church this day.  You've got your life; you are not called to be a Wilberforce, you are called to be you.  And you'll have insurmountable obstacles in front of you, but you must be and do what God has called you to be and do, but if we have a shrinking, self-centered faith that has a Christ that is so small he can't do anything for us…..look at this passage of scripture and see what it says.  Do you believe that God has gifted and empowered you?  You, my friend, have the supernatural power of God to serve his Body and to help his children and to evangelize this world.  But, if you have a small God you are not going to have much power.  This God has given you a definite purpose, he has given you a definite ability, he has, along with that because of his greatness, given you high motivation.  He has absolutely given you clear direction for the specific helping of others and deep personal fulfillment as you obey him.  Is that the faith you are experiencing.

Second, accountability and responsibility.  Back in the days when Mr. Clinton was our President and he was in all of his shenanigans and debacles and he said "he would take personal responsibility for everything he did,"  Os Guinness about that time wrote a book about responsibility and he said, "It's strange today.  Everybody is willing to take responsibility for everything they do, but nobody is willing to be responsible to someone for what they do.  We are responsible to God for what we do with our lives.

Romans Chapter 14, verse 12 says: "So then let everyone of us give an account of himself to God."  You know what?  That shouldn't terrify us.  We say, "Oh, man…I've got to give an accountability to God, this is going to be awful."  Which teacher do you remember?  Which coach do you remember?  The one who would always force you to give an account of whether or not you have done your work, whether or not you did your homework, because if they didn't care, then you didn't develop.  God cares and he is going to cause you to give an account to him for everything you do, every idle word spoken we are going to give an account.  You say, "That's too scary."  No, that is God's intimate love for his children.  Accountability and responsibility.  We need to recognize that God is supreme and the supplier of our gift.  When I think of that, I think He's given me my salvation, before that he gave me life; he's given me a spiritual gift, he's given me the power to use that gift.  How then, will I explain to him my use of his gifts?  How will I explain to him my use of his gifts?

Second, how is the Body doing, this Body - the Church, as a result of your service and stewardship.

Third, are you experiencing the joy of self-forgetfulness and self-fulfillment?