You Are Gifted

Dear members of Divine Peace and guests—those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, who are called as saints—along with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, …³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Amen! (1 Cor 1).

Twenty-two year old Kodi Lee was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, causing him to become legally blind. He was also diagnosed with autism at an early age and a glandular disease.  But he learned to play piano, loved to sing, and wowed Julianne (Hough), Gabrielle (Union), Howie (Mandel), and Simon (Cowell) along with the studio audience and millions of viewers, coming out as the winner of the fourteenth season of America’s Got Talent.  No one would doubt. He’s gifted. Ever wish you had a little bit of talent like that to serenade someone with the buttery smoothness of Michael Bublé, portray a canvass like Monet, glide on a dance floor like Fred Astaire, ace an exam like an Einstein? What would it be like to have someone say, “You’re gifted!”

I get to tell you that today, and I’m not pulling your leg or making stuff up just to make you feel better when you get a little upset with life. Guided by God the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul penned the pronouncement in today’s second reading from his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter twelve:

You Are Gifted!

Given By God alone

The past few years have been a challenge for the world as people were forced to consider their worth.  Three years ago Covid-19 infected the world and suddenly we were forced to do things that we never thought would happen.  For instance, we were forced to wear masks everywhere.  Some were forced to work from home or participate over zoom calls.  To be sure there were some who would rather stay at home or enjoy a short furlough from having to drive into work.  But, I think it is safe to say that after a while most of us missed being able to go to our jobs and interact with people in whom we saw worth.   Or what if your business was deemed non-essential, and suddenly you’re out of a job, worried about the future and wondering about your own worth?  Maybe your are experiencing your own worth because you are empty nesters and wondering what your worth is, or what your purpose is in your marriage or your family?   Maybe your just going through the motions of your day to day life and questioning your worth in society?

Today is Pentecost, the Festival of the Holy Spirit, an opportunity to consider the cool things that God the Holy Spirit brings into our lives. One of his biggest and best fun projects is to pour out on us special gifts, special abilities.  However, some of the members of the Corinthian congregation started looking at other members sideways. A jolt of jealousy percolated as they thought, “God favors them more because they have gifts and abilities I don’t. What am I worth?” The apostle knew that there was no better way to stem that tide than to direct them back to the source. “⁴ There are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵ There are different kinds of ministries, and yet the same Lord. ⁶ There are various kinds of activity, but the same God, who produces all of them in everyone.”  Because they come from God the Holy Spirit, we call them “spiritual gifts.” But as we discover the meaning and purpose of those gifts, we don’t want to lose sight of the main point. The Giver is far more important than the gifts. We did nothing to earn them. Spiritual gifts are just that, Gifts Given By God Alone!

Here’s an example: If a bride and groom measure their value and worth based on the size and dollar value of the wedding gifts they receive, they are in sad shape. What’s going to happen when those gifts get tarnished or broken or lost?   Likewise as God’s people our value and worth do not come from the spiritual gifts we have but from the Giver who has given them.  He chose us by grace for Jesus’ sake to be his own even though we often live in the gutter of sin.  God’s Word is filled with times when God had to say to his people, “You have prostituted yourselves to sin. But I still love you.”  Our sins had separated us from God and left us spiritually dead, that is, unable to achieve any spiritual gift on our own.  Even our ability to declare Jesus to be our Lord and Savior is a miraculous gift from the Holy Spirit.  That’s why Paul wrote very clearly, “³ Therefore I am informing you that no one speaking by God’s Spirit says, “A curse be upon Jesus,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”  Yes, God’s Word says we are gifted, but our worth to receive those gifts comes from him.  Listen carefully:  The gift of faith we received from the Holy Spirit is the gift that tops them all.   Because of his work, you and I can declare Jesus to be our Lord and Savior from our hearts.  This is the gift that tops them all.   Give praise and thanks to God because You are gifted by God alone.  Now, we might ask the question, “Why God gave us such a gift?”  St. Paul tells uswhy:

For one purpose

Let me make this comparison:  Do any of you know the name of the first credit card?  It was Diners Club in 1951.  You didn’t have to pay the waiter, but could sign the check and get a bill in the mail.  Since then, Americans have adopted the use of credit cards to do the shopping, or even to do the shopping and bill paying online! If you have to get gas, you can fill your tank without interacting with another human being. You can call the grocery store, swing by, pop the trunk, and they’ll dump the goodies in.  It’s easy to avoid interaction with others, to live anonymously and in isolation, to cocoon into our own private world. If someone wants to live an isolated life like that, I suppose we could say, “To each their own.”  But, when we run into issues or events that force us apart, most people are not happy in such a situation.

All kinds of issues were tearing at the seams of the congregation in Corinth, pulling people apart. That’s why the truths about spiritual gifts were so important. Those gifts were lavished on them by the Holy Spirit served a purpose, namely, to serve as glue to hold the body of Christ together as they complimented each other by faithfully using their gifts to love and serve each other.  They were also equipped with their own unique gifts to be used to proclaim the love of Jesus to others.

The Holy Spirit has also granted each of us our own unique spiritual gifts for the purpose of serving the Lord.   We might be tempted to think it is enough to know our status as the Lord’s dearly loved bride.  Or wonder why do we need spiritual gifts? God himself answered that through the apostle, “⁷ Each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”   On Pentecost, when we think of how the Lord has blessed us with our own unique set of spiritual gifts.  We also are reminded to use our gifts well to serve God’s purpose.  Today let us thank the Lord as we recognize what a marvelous joy it is to be a part of a Christian congregation in which each member makes use of his or her spiritual gifts not for himself or herself but for the benefit of others!  Do we use our gifts perfectly?  No, and we confess that sin before the Lord.  Then we stand up from our humble knees of repentance and look for ways where we can put our spiritual gifts and talents into motion.   God’s purpose is fulfilled when we use our spiritual gifts to care for and contact a fellow church member by phone or text or email with an encouragement.  God’s purpose is fulfilled when we use our spiritual gifts for worship, not just occasionally when you feel a need but every week.  Or when we put a church social event on our schedule and see how the Lord works through us to impact our fellow members, creating more connections, and building a foundation for mutual support and growth.  God’s purpose is fulfilled when we use our gifts to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to our family, friends and neighbors.  Yes, You are gifted by God alone for one purpose, to connect with and serve others.  And here comes the next point:  We are all special living under God’s grace to serve him in different ways…..

With different gifts

Let me set this up for you.  What would you think if I said, “God spoke to me last night, and I’d like to share that message with you”?  Would you believe me, or not?  Or what would you think if I asked someone with a recently broken leg to stop by my house for an immediate healing?  Do you think I could do it?  Or what would you think if I started to preach the rest of this sermon in French, a language I previously had not studied and do not know?   I bet you’d probably think, “His elevator doesn’t reach the top floor. The lights are one, but no one is home.”  So, there are people today who claim to have different gifts, but how do we know those gifts are legitimate and from God or from someone else?

To help the Corinthians overcome the problems that plagued them, the apostle Paul first announced how much the Lord loved them, and then illustrated the Lord’s love by listing examples of the gifts, the spiritual gifts, which the Holy Spirit poured out on them. If we wanted to catalogue these gifts, we could separate them into two general categories, natural gifts and supernatural gifts.  Before God had gathered the 66 books into His “library” we call “The Bible” today, the Holy Spirit used Supernatural Spiritual Gifts in the days of the apostles. For sixty years, from that big Pentecost in Jerusalem to the death of the apostle John, God used supernatural gifts to get the good news out to places where it had not been before. But once the Bible was written, there was no need for those supernatural gifts.  The use of Supernatural Gifts evaporated away to be replaced by the infallible, inerrant, unchanging Word of God.  This became vital in the church on account of the presence of false teachers claiming Supernatural gifts that weren’t from God, but from the devil.  The Bible is God’s high standard against which all preachers, prophets and those who claimed Supernatural Gifts must pass the test. 

Since we have all the books of the Bible, God’s own words to us, we don’t need supernatural, miraculous gifts, and there are plenty of natural spiritual gifts to go around. Paul mentions: “⁸ To one person a message of wisdom is given by the Spirit” that is, applying the truths of God’s Word in practical ways. Next, “to another, a message of knowledge, as the same Spirit provides it;” this is the ability to mine the depths of God’s Word for insights into divine truth.  Next Paul says, “⁹ by the same Spirit, faith is given to someone else;” in this context the word “faith” is not referring to saving faith here but the gift of Christian optimism and trust that God can do it!  These are a couple of examples Paul shares but we understand there are many more gifts God uses in order to proclaim Jesus Good News to the world.

Think of it like this: The fun thing about opening Christmas or birthday gifts is seeing what you got. One of the fun things about being the bride of Christ is discovering the different gifts he has given to each of us. Learn to recognize your own spiritual gifts. Ask yourself, “What spiritual gifts do I have? Where do my interests and abilities lie? Has God given me the ability to write? To study? To administrate? To support behind the scenes? To talk to others about Jesus? To encourage? To care for others?”  This is so important and exciting to the leadership of Divine Peace that they are currently supporting one of our members to be trained as our Coordinator for Personal Member Ministry.  After this training is complete our congregation will spend time together to discover, encourage and provide avenues for us all to serve the Lord at Divine Peace with our different gifts from the Holy Spirit. The apostle gives us this sampling so that we get the point. You are gifted by God alone for one purpose with different kinds of gifts 

To make you unique and useful

Remember earlier we were considering on our sense of worth and how its absence can lead to envy or jealousy.  There is no place in a Christian congregation for arrogance, pride, or jealously over spiritual gifts.  We are sitting in a room filled with people who all have their unique spiritual gifts.  Those people and their gifts are different from yours.  That’s OK. They have theirs. You have yours. They’re all good. They’re all important.

The problem in Corinth wasn’t necessarily recognizing different gifts. The problem was who gets them. They fought and bickered like kids getting a video game with one set of controls and being told, “You have to share!” In Corinth this became an issue since, “to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. ¹⁰ Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues.”  The issue was this: some who had the gift of proclaiming a message they got directly from God, or some who got gift of miraculous healing, or some who could miraculously speak in foreign languages got snooty and arrogant. Those who had the more common, natural gifts felt like they got gypped. Factions developed. God was displeased. Paul was displeased. He said, “¹¹ One and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them to each one individually as he desires.”  The gifts of the Holy Spirit are all of equal value when they are used to point to Christ.  Yes, the Holy Spirit distributes different gifts to different people according to his holy will to make people useful and unique in the body of Christ, not to distract with selfish ambition, but to attract people to Christ!

That’s what makes it so fascinating to be part of the body of Christ. Each is an important part. You might be the eye, somebody is the nose, and somebody is an elbow.  All different, all important.  No boring sameness, no cookie cutter assembly line. You are molded and equipped as special and unique.  You are worth the blood of Jesus. You were washed clean of sin to make you precious and valuable in God’s sight.  Your spiritual gifts add to your worth because you use them to help others see Christ, know they are important, have their own gifts, and are loved and cared for. Learn to recognize not only your spiritual gifts but the spiritual gifts and talents in others, and thank God for them. The Holy Spirit distributes different gifts to different people, and every Christian gets at least one. You are gifted by God alone for one purpose with different gifts to make you unique and useful.

Let me close with a little story.  A king fell in love. That probably doesn’t sound unusual, but in this story, it is because the woman he loved had no country estate, no duke or earl in her family, not even the duke of earl. She had no formal schooling, no beauty, no brains, and no blue blood. In fact, just the opposite. She was a prostitute … in jail … for murder. She was just plain wicked. But the king loved her. He arranged her release from prison and then lavished her with gifts.  Sound impossible? Not even good enough for a B-movie?   Well, I know the king, and I’ve met his wicked bride. You know them, too. Jesus is the king, and we are his bride. But that’s what sin does. In the sight of God, it lowers us to the gutter and chains us to the prison walls of guilt. Yet, the king has loved despicable me and despicable you, committed himself to an eternity of faithfulness, forgiving and forgetting all of our crusty, crumby, cruddy past, and lavished us with the gift of the Holy Spirit who delivers to us wedding gifts from God alone, for one purpose, different kinds of gifts, to be sure, to make us unique and useful. Sound too implausible and too fantastic even for a B-movie? Good thing it’s real. Good thing it’s our life! What a joy to stand here before you today and be able to tell you, because of the creation of God, the redemption of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit…. “You are gifted!” Amen.