What Gifts Do You Bring to the Church?

1 Cor 12:1-11

Our church has been blessed with some very talented people who are great assets to this congregation. Some of them are very easy to spot. The elders have a definite gift of spiritual leadership. Jay Wilson has a heart for the hurting. Carol and Mary Jo have a gift for making the building always beautiful. Many of our men and women have the gift of teaching and touching the hearts of our children. Sandy Rose and Kathy Utter have the gift of enthusiastic help. Lisa Hooley and Helene have a gift for connecting with the children and their families who attend our preschool. Our deacons have the gift of serving and overseeing various works going on in the church. Several here have the gift of hospitality. Some even have the gift of financial giving. Yes, that is a spiritual gift and an important one to have in a church.

There are two ladies who have gone on to God that didn’t ever feel like they had much to offer the church in their last years. They saw themselves as useless in many way. Let me tell you, whenever you saw Maria Weber or Velma Vandermark you were guaranteed to see a smile. Sometimes I think our church is a little less bright since their lights don’t shine here anymore. They didn’t feel they had much to offer, yet they made this church always seem like a warm caring church. That is one of the greatest gifts any of us could possess. READ vs 21-23

PRAYER

I. Understanding Spiritual Gifts

A. The Corinthian church

1. Spiritual gifts were exactly new to the Corinthian church.

2. Vs 2 Paul tells them that they were led astray to idols.

3. More than likely, evil spirits had been part of some of the pagan worship.

4. Paul tells them that you can tell the difference between evil spirits and the Holy Spirit.

a) No one who has the Holy Spirit working in them can honestly say Jesus be cursed and no one who has an evil spirit in them could honestly say Jesus is Lord.

5. I imagine Paul starts this discussion this way because of the misuse and confusion that was happening in the church with spiritual gifts.

B. Spiritual Gifts and Spiritual Gifts

1. If I understand scripture correctly, there were two types of spiritual gifts.

2. Those all Christians have in them by the Holy Spirit.

a) Rom 12:3-8

b) Eph 4:11

c) We’ll talk more about these in a minute

3. Those that had special miraculous gifts done by the laying on of hands from the Apostles.

a) These were also obviously by the Holy Spirit, but were for a much more specific purpose; the promoting of the gospel to a people who didn’t have God’s word written down to taught to them yet.

b) If we understand the context of Philip in Acts 8; he couldn’t give the Samaritans the miraculous gifts because he wasn’t an apostle. Peter and John and to come to Samaria and lay hands on people to give them those miraculous gifts.

c) Therefore, once the generation beyond the apostles died out, so too did the miraculous spiritual gifts.

4. The Corinthian people were only concerned about who had what miraculous gifts.

a) Those that had them thought they were better than everyone else.

b) Those that didn’t have them were mad or jealous and weren’t using the gifts God had given them.

c) Both groups were wrong and needed to repent

II. Part of the Body

A. We are all an important part of the body of Christ, the church

1. READ vs 14-20

2. It doesn’t say you have to be an elder or deacon to be important; it doesn’t say you have to be a Christian for 10 years or more to be important; it doesn’t say you have to be a man to be important;

3. God through Paul says we are all important to the body each with our own role.

a) Some of those roles are very visible and get a lot of recognition.

b) Other roles are rarely if ever seen and probably never get recognition here on earth.

c) But the most important recognition is the recognition of your service by God himself.

4. I have never seen my pituitary gland. In fact I don’t really even know what it is. All I know it that I have one.

a) Does that mean it isn’t important to my body. God must have thought it was important or he wouldn’t have put it in.

b) Even though I don’t know it’s function, even though I don’t care about like I do my heart, lungs and other “important” body parts, I’m glad it’s there and doing whatever job it does.

c) If it wasn’t there, then my body would realize something was missing and not function as God intended it to.

B. What gifts do you have?

1. In Romans, Paul talks about the use of gifts and being part of the body of Christ just has he does in vs 12-31 of our text

2. READ Rom 12:3-8

a) Look at the gifts we all have to some degree and need to share with the church.

b) If we don’t, we are killing the body by becoming useless body part.

c) preaching, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership and mercy

d) We all have one or more of these gifts and are expected to use that gift for the kingdom of God.

3. We may not all know every member here, and we may not even really miss someone when they are gone, but the fact remains that an important part of the body is missing and we are not functioning like God wants us to when part of the body is missing.

a) If it’s missing because they have cut themselves out or if it is missing because they aren’t working like they should.

b) the body isn’t performing at it’s full capabilities.

4. You may not see yourself as an “important” part of this church, but without you and your gifts we aren’t working like we could as the body of Christ.

5. You may not feel you are important to the body, but God does.

6. Never lose sight of whose opinion really matters in your service to the kingdom.

7. It doesn’t matter what Jim Dillinger thinks of you, it only matters what God thinks of you.