Many Gifts, One Body: Serve with Agape Love

Get in the game. Because if all Christians need the church, the church also needs all Christians. All Christians need the church, and the church needs all Christians. We need you, and you need us. But as we close, it's important to remember, before we give Jesus our hands in service, he first wants our hearts in surrender. Before he wants our hands in service, he first wants our hearts in surrender. The order matters. [00:56:31] (32 seconds)  #HeartsBeforeHands

I have personally experienced this second route a lot in my life, and I wanna speak specifically to these people and hopefully give you language for the people who are just trying to stay attached to God, but they feel detached from the church. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if it has felt like the church, we have failed you, or at worst, if it feels like God has forgotten about you. Unfortunately, the church gets really messy, as many of us know, because the church is full of terribly broken people. I know firsthand. But do you know what we do when we have broken body parts? You give them structure and time to heal. We as the church body can provide that structure and stability as we give people time to heal, as we embody the love of Jesus in their struggles. [00:47:53] (65 seconds)  #HealingChurchHands

Anyone remember that show called The Addams Family? Oh, yeah. Or if you're younger than me, you've probably seen Wednesday on Netflix. Honestly, I haven't really watched either. But I randomly remembered this one character while I was prepping for this message. So here's that character. This character is called Thing, and it's literally a walking hand. Thing walks on its fingertips, and it's completely detached from a body. That's the image I get when I think of most Christians today. I have spoken to so many people who have been really hurt by the church, and even others who just slowly drifted away because life got busy with other things. And some have even felt really disappointed by God because it feels like he didn't show up for them when they really needed him. I resonate with that so deeply. [00:46:08] (62 seconds)  #FromDetachedToWhole

Maybe you're one of those people. Maybe you're just trying this whole church thing again, or maybe someone was coming to mind while I was talking. In each of those situations, they tend to result in one of two forms of detachment. One, you just detach from faith altogether. I don't want to do church. I don't want to do the whole God thing, and so they're not even believers anymore. But the second form of detachment looks a lot different. You still attend church. You might even still go to a small group, but you're emotionally and relationally detached. You still identify as a Christian, as a Jesus follower, but you don't really identify with your church body. [00:47:10] (43 seconds)  #ConnectedNotJustPresent

The Corinthians thought that if they were able to speak in these unlearned or these angelic languages, that they were somehow better Christians or more spiritual than other people who weren't able to speak in tongues. And so this is why Paul had to say this in verse 11. All these gifts all these gifts are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions or distributes to each one individually as he wills, as God wills. So the gifts are empowered equally and distributed intentionally. Empowered equally and distributed intentionally. All Christians, without exception, no matter how long you've been a believer, are gifted by God. You receive spiritual gifts, but they are meant to be used according to his will and not ours. His plans and not ours. [00:36:58] (60 seconds)  #GiftsFromOneSpirit

Because if all parts of the body are necessary, then we can't be consumers. We are meant to be contributors. And I'm not saying this to guilt anybody. Breathe with me. I'm not trying to pressure you. I'm I want to encourage you. We need you. Your gifting, your presence, your participation here are not optional. And the way that God has gifted you or has not gifted you does not determine your value to God or his body. [00:43:41] (37 seconds)  #StopSpectatingServe

And do not underestimate how praying for these things that glorify God and are for the good of others are slowly but surely aligning your heart with God's. It's teaching you what he loves, teaching you what he cares about. Paul then refers to a more excellent way, which he covers later in chapter 13 that we talked about last week. This more excellent way is agape love. Can you say agape? Agape. And in Greek, agape just means God's sacrificial and unconditional love for his people. So no matter how gifted someone is, if they are not loving others well, they have missed the whole point. So here's our last point. His body, his way. His body, his way. If we are going to truly live as Christ's body, we are going to need to live Christ's way. [00:52:34] (57 seconds)  #LiveHisWay

So in this hypothetical conversation, we have the eye in the head saying, I don't need the rest of the body. I don't need them. I got it. They think that they're more important than the rest of the body. And Paul says that the people that we tend to treat as insignificant, God sees us indispensable, needed. You need them. You need us. And when Paul refers to the parts of the body that are less honorable or less presentable, he's talking about the parts of our body, I hope you're tracking with me, that are typically kept private. I'll leave it at that. Translation. There are parts of the church body that are typically working behind the scenes and aren't as public or acknowledged. So while the preachers and the singers and the leaders might be on display a lot, Paul says that God actually gives greater honor or value to those who are not seen as often. [00:44:51] (54 seconds)  #HonorHiddenServants

So we just had baptisms here a couple of weeks ago, you remember, and we had 30 members of our church family proclaiming their faith in Jesus. And if you were here, we scream, we shout, and we celebrate. But it's important to remember, we are not only celebrating them, being saved out of a sinful world, but also saved into a body of believers. And in this body, we are all distinct and different here, whether by ethnicity or gifting or income, our family backgrounds, even personality types, INFJ for those with me. And we all are wired a little bit different, but we are all still part of this one body, a necessary part of the one body that God has put together. And so just like the Trinity, we are meant to be united amidst our diversity. United amidst not uniformity, united amidst our diversity. [00:40:43] (57 seconds)  #UnitedAmidDiversity

So here Paul uses the terms gifts, service, and activities, which basically just refers to the many gifts that we can receive from the Holy Spirit. And he says that these are manifestations of the spirit for the common good, which just means that we use these gifts for the benefit and for the sake of others. And when we do this, we are manifesting God's attributes, manifesting God's character. Meaning, we are making his power and his presence seen and known in the world. Because God has chosen the church, us, Jesus followers, to be the way that the world sees God working in the world. It's supposed to be through you. It's supposed to be through us. [00:32:30] (44 seconds)  #GiftsForTheCommonGood

So in the Corinthian culture at the time that Paul was writing to, it was really common for these Corinthian people to go to these Greek god and goddesses like Apollo and Aphrodite, and they would offer all these sacrifices to them in hopes of of receiving spiritual gifts and miraculous powers because they were just trying to be spiritual people. Because they thought that compared to other people, if they had these special powers and these gifts, that they were somehow better than them, that they were more honorable, and that was really important in that Roman society at the time. And so in contrast to this, Paul needed to make it abundantly clear that we can only be truly spiritual people if we clearly confess Jesus Christ as Lord. [00:30:40] (41 seconds)  #ChristNotCulture

And that this this is important because this means that the ultimate sign of God's presence truly dwelling amongst his people are not miraculous gifts, are not supernatural powers. It is the clear proclamation of Christ's name. And rather than constantly offering all these many sacrifices, we rely on the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. And rather than trying to achieve this power by our own strength, we get to freely receive God's power because of the strength of Jesus. Amen? Amen. So with that context, we can now properly understand the next set of verses starting in verse four. [00:31:21] (42 seconds)  #ProclaimChrist

So where am I? Paul then asked this list of rhetorical questions. Are all this or all that? Where, like, I whispered, the implied answer is no. And in the context of everything we've been talking about, Paul is basically saying that the church is full of different gifts and that no one has all the gifts. Sorry if you thought you did. Which means for the whole church to remain whole, to remain together, we're gonna need everybody's participation. And when Paul encourages them to earnestly desire the higher gifts, he's encouraging them to desire the gifts that benefit the church, not yourself, not what's gonna make you look better. And even though God has freely given us these spiritual gifts, we should still desire and ask for things that benefit the church. [00:51:23] (56 seconds)  #DesireGiftsForOthers

And Paul then says that these many gifts are given by the same spirit, same lord, and the same god. And these refer to the holy spirit, Jesus the Son, and God the Father, aka the Trinity. Can you say Trinity? Trinity. As Christians, we believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, which says that there is one God who exists as three co equal and co eternal persons who have a diversity of roles, but one purpose. They are diverse in their roles, united in their purpose. In summary, the whole point of Christians having these many, this diversity of spiritual gifts is to reveal the unity and power of God, And the way that we do that is by serving those around us. [00:33:14] (52 seconds)  #TrinityUnityInDiversity

And I'll never forget those drives home from my matches and those talks, conversations, lectures that my dad would give me, some more calm than others, where my dad would just say something along the lines of, son, you're borrowing my stuff. Those don't belong to you. I worked for those. I earned those. And I'm just letting you use them because I love you, and because I want you to have the best. And I have this feeling that there may be some of us here today who are kinda like me on the tennis court. We have gifts from the Holy Spirit. God has given you talents and skills, things that you're good at. But we've tried to assess our own seasons of life, what we got going on, our priorities, our vision board, and then we assess our gifts, and then we try to decide how, when, where, for who we're going to use those things. [00:38:48] (59 seconds)  #GiftsAreLoaned

my goal here was not to guilt or pressure you into serving more at our church. That's honestly not even my main concern Because lit here's why, Mark. Because living a life living a life of service for the good of others is a lifestyle Yes. Yes. Not a checkbox. It's not something that we do just to say that we did it. We live it because Jesus did. So if the holy spirit has been speaking to you and you're feeling encouraged and convicted just to try something, awesome. Stop by our welcome center. Our staff members would love to talk to you and get you plugged in. Seriously, go talk to them. But for the rest of us, I'm just humbly asking that you prayerfully consider how the Holy Spirit may be calling you to use your gifts in this church for your fellow believers, Whether within the walls of this church or in the various spaces that you occupy outside the church, either way, please don't remain a spectator. [00:55:29] (61 seconds)  #ServiceIsALifestyle

And one important thing to note here is that we should not assume that Paul's intention here was for this list of gifts to be exhaustive, as if he was trying to list every single gift that a Christian could have. Because throughout the New Testament, we actually see partial lists of gifts, and none of them are exactly the same. So rather than seeing this list as exhaustive, we should see them as examples of the ways that the Holy Spirit may gift believers. And with that being said, the order was not an accident. If you noticed, Paul in his order of gifts listed the gifts related to speaking in tongues last. Because like many Christians today, the Corinthians at the time had this over obsession with that gift. And we're gonna talk more about the gift of tongues and prophecy in the coming weeks. So here's what you need to know for now. [00:36:08] (50 seconds)  #GiftsAreExamples

And, you know, as as I was growing up there, I also served there a bunch over the years. Everything from scooping rice and serving food to stacking chairs all the way to when I was in college. I actually led the elementary ministry there for a couple of years. And as I reflected, as I prepared this message, when I think about all the capacities that I served in over the years, I honestly think I served in a lot of them because I kind of felt like I had to, or it kind of felt like they needed me even if that wasn't true. And that small church environment, as many of you are probably familiar with, comes with this really blatant sense of the urgency to meet needs. And every single person matters and needs to serve in something. [00:25:08] (43 seconds)  #SmallChurchAllHands

And so in turn, we've ended up misusing or at worst abusing the things that we've been given. Just like the ways that I misuse and abuse my dad's tennis gear. Paul makes it very clear that God gives us these gifts according to his will and not our own. And so just like Jesus' prayer in the Garden Of Gethsemane, we must constantly pray, not my will, Lord, but yours be done. Amen? Amen. Let's pick back up in verse 12. For just as the body is one and has many members or parts, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. [00:39:47] (57 seconds)  #YoursNotMine

And because we only receive and we don't earn and achieve these gifts, God, the gift giver, gets to decide how and why we use his gifts, why we use his stuff. So I started playing tennis when I was a really young kid because my dad was a salesman in the tennis industry for my whole life, and he worked for all really big companies. And so from a really young age, this meant that I always had free access to some of the best tennis gear in the world. But wearing the best tennis gear in the world, I also had the worst temper issues on the court. I had the worst anger issues when I was playing. And I would miss a shot, and all the parents, you can just roll your eyes at me during this part. Okay? So I'd miss a shot, I'd slam my racket on the ground, [00:37:57] (45 seconds)  #GiftedNotEntitled