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WE’VE TALKED about spiritual
gifts for some weeks now, and it’s time now to get the theory
onto the ground. We’ve heard how we need a sensible attitude
to the issue, we’ve seen how every person — every gift
— has a role in the life of the local church. Now we are
down to putting it all together, making it work in a spirit of
love.
On Friday night we were talking
about our personal experiences of prophecy. Some of us had experienced
receiving a prophetic word from someone with that gift. Some
of us had had experiences of being given a word for a specific
situation, a prophetic word for that instance.
It’s good to know that prophecy still continues. It is one
of the Lord’s greatest gifts to the church, as Paul tells
us in this passage. But, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, it
is far from the only gift.
If you were brought up in Brethren circles, or among people influenced
by Brethren, you might have been taught that prophecy today is
the ordinary preaching that you hear in the pulpit every Sunday.
To an extent, that demeans preaching. Preaching may not be as
focused as prophecy, but it is broader. Prophecy is crisis intervention.
Preaching covers a broad spectrum. In the past month or so, our
sermons have talked about facing the grief and shock of the Bali
bombing, about correct attitudes to spiritual gifts and about
celebrating an important birthday. There’s a bit of everything.
I’m saying it so that you can clear your head of any misconception.
Joyce recently sent me a thoughtful e-mail. A man wrote to the
newspaper,
“I have
been a regular and active church attender for about 30 years.
Recently, I realised that I have heard 2 000 or more sermons
in that time, yet I can’t remember a single one of them.
I have decided that it isn’t worth going to church if it
has so little impact on me.”
There was discussion in the paper,
but the last word was from a man who wrote,
“I have
been married for around 30 years. In that time, my wife has made
me about 27 000 meals, and I can’t even remember exactly
what was on last night’s menu. But those meals have fed
and nourished me, and without them, I’d have grown sick
and died long ago. In the same way, I’ve been fed regularly
at church by the sermons and talks I have heard, and I might
not remember too many of them, but my spiritual life would have
sickened and perhaps died without them.”
The first thing to think about
when we consider spiritual gifts is that they are all about edifying,
about building up the Christians in the church.
In fact, let’s begin with a key statement:
USE YOUR HEART
Paul’s opening statement is,
Follow the way
of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift
of prophecy.
Here is heart and passion. Love
and eagerness. These are basic and essential to the work of God.
I once attended a quite fundamentalist church where principle
was more important than love. Sadly, they were able to justify
all kinds of evil as long as it was Bible–based. For example,
you couldn’t criticise anything that Israel did, because
God had brought them back to Palestine. Of course, God brought
them back to Palestine. But does that mean that everything they
do is right? Is everyone sinful and fallen — except Israel?
Something was wrong there!
Listen to your heart — a
heart informed by the Bible. You’ll grasp what it says about
justice and mercy and love. Without love, ultimately there is
no justice, either — just cruelty and revenge. Love tempers
everything and makes it good and right.
Love opens our eyes to spiritual
gifts.
But the Corinthian church didn’t
grasp the central position of love. They squabbled over spiritual
gifts. They didn’t see them as ways of expressing love,
but as ways of proving themselves.
So the people became proud of themselves and their gifts. They
felt they had something extra, something to make them special
before God. And it was very easy for the tongues–speakers
to think they were right at the top of the heap.
Some people always seek proof
that they are blessed by God. You can’t prove it, you can
only trust it, and the evidence will follow.
As Capitalism swept Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries, it
was an epidemic among Protestants, specially among Calvinists.
Why? Because Calvinism emphasised God’s sovereign election.
God had chosen some for salvation and some for damnation. All
you can do is hope that you are of the Elect.
That was fine for people who trusted Jesus, who experienced his
grace and love. It was great to know that God had always planned
this. It was exciting to realise that, even though you might
feel that you struggled to gain faith, from God’s point–of–view,
it was foreordained for all eternity that you would be saved.
But the children of the Reformation
had little real idea of the faith that had so firmly gripped
their fathers. They were saying, “How can I know if God
accepts me?” And the answer they gave was, “I know
he accepts me if he blesses me.”
And Capitalism gave some people
a great advantage. They could get enormously wealthy, and they
could say, “God is blessing me: I must be of the Elect.”
They didn’t stop to realise that their wealth, their sense
of blessing, was bought at the price of the poverty of those
who laboured all day every day (except Sunday) in their factories.
In Corinth, the very same attitude,
the very same lack of faith, was at work. How do I know I am
saved? God is blessing me. Look! I can speak in tongues! Look!
I can speak a word of wisdom!
And they didn’t give two hoots about the fact that they
were doing nothing for the needy and the powerless in their own
church.
“Look at me! I can speak Angelic! I am already so close
to heaven that I’ll fit right in as soon as I get there.
You prophets, you just have to speak what God tells you to; I
can tell God the things I want him to hear, because I speak the
tongue of heaven.”
Can you see the attitude coming
out here? It’s not a problem with speaking in tongues, it’s
a spiritual problem with people who think they are extra close
to God because they can.
Paul wants them to turn their
focus right around. It’s not about getting your 15 minutes
of fame. It’s about building up, about serving.
There have been a few times when people have told me, “That
was a good sermon.” Once I even had a congregation of about
500 stand and applaud when I finished preaching. So I’ve
had my 25 minutes of fame. I’m well ahead.
But, when I look back, probably
the most important things have been almost unnoticed. I don’t
know that anyone changed because of the good sermon I preached.
But I know someone whose life has been changed by seeing that
I left a good, secure, and well–paid job to become a pastor.
Now I think the only time that person ever commented on one of
my sermons it was to say, “I didn’t like that one.
It was too loud, too aggressive, too harsh.”
Paul makes it very clear that
our primary goal must be to care for and to love our brothers
and sisters through using our gifts.
Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in
gifts that build up the church.
USE YOUR HEAD
You all know someone who is all heart and no sense. Generally
such people aren’t really all heart, either. Most of the
ones I have known were bright manipulators who knew that acting
super–loving paid off.
Paul wouldn‘t stand for that. Although he starts with the
instruction to respond in love, to be passionate, to look at
where the need is, he goes on to set down very clear principles
of communication.
Now, brothers,
if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to
you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy
or word of instruction? 7
Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as
the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played
unless there is a distinction in the notes? 8 Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call,
who will get ready for battle? 9
So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your
tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just
be speaking into the air.
The whole question here is to
do with intelligibility. If you can’t make the word plain,
then you have failed to communicate God’s love.
When Luke first began playing for us, he was just discovering
a whole world of Baroque music. He often found music that Bach,
Händel or some Italian composer had written as an offertory
piece, and he’d play it during the offering.
I don’t deny for a moment that they were beautiful. But
Italian baroque for an Inner Western Baptist Church? It took
him a while to work out why everyone sat there with bewildered
looks. We didn’t really grasp what he was talking about.
He was “playing in tongues”. In the same way, the person
who insists on the King James Version as the only real version
of the Bible is speaking in tongues to most other people because
we don’t understand the lingo any more.
I remember a sermon preached
by one of my pastors one evening. It was on the Holy Spirit,
and the theology was very good. Unfortunately, the pastor hadn’t
really made his case at all, because his key point was based
on a total misunderstanding of the passage. He hadn’t checked
the underlying Greek words, and didn’t realise that English
had changed so much since the late 1500s that what he thought
it said and what it actually said were two different things.
If the trumpet
gives an unclear sound, who will prepare for battle?
Sometimes conservative Christians
will tell you in a very serious tone that ”the Intellect
will lead you astray” or some such nonsense.
The truth is that, apart from the Lord, Jesus Christ, anything
can lead you astray. I’ve met people who have been led astray
by what they have read in the Bible, because they refused to
submit to the rule of Jesus. I’ve often heard it said that
we mustn’t major on minors. But some people will muddle
anything they read.
So, use your noggin, and work
out how to make that message God has given you into a shining
light which will work on the intellect, the emotions and the
will of a needy and dying world.
Finally,
USE YOUR WILL
Throughout the passage, Paul uses active verbs to encourage us
to do something in a determined and passionate way.
...eagerly desire
spiritual gifts
..try to excel in gifts that build up the church.
...stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants,
but in your thinking be adults.
Paul also gives us his own attitude
as an example:
What shall I
do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my
mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my
mind.
He is determined, we must be,
too.
I believe that some Pentecostal churches have gone a bit too
far with their efforts to get people speaking in tongues or using
other gifts.
I’ve heard preachers telling their congregations, “Forbid
not, seek not.” It sounds very reasonable and balanced.
In fact it’s about as balanced as Hell. Yes, forbid not.
But never, “Seek not.”! The Bible quite clearly admonishes
us to seek. It tells us to eagerly desire spiritual gifs. It
teaches us to aim to exercise our gifts effectively and well.
It instructs us to act in a rational, grown–up way in seeking.
And it shows us a model of balance: using every faculty, every
gift and talent, in the service of Jesus and to the glory of
God.
CONCLUSION
A major weakness of today’s church is our reluctance to
let spiritual gifts work in our midst. We have known for decades
how the Spirit is working in the whole church. Across the world,
people are turning to Christ in unprecedented numbers. There
are more Anglicans in Africa than in England. There are proportionately
more Christians alive today than at any previous time in world
history. Yet the Australian church, by and large, is shrinking.
When Spiritual gifts work properly
among God’s people,
Words of knowledge confront the complacent
Words of exhortation urge the fainting to move on again
Prophecy declares the Father’s will to his children.
Faith shows us the way ahead when the road is dark
Healing mends us for further service.
We need our gifts to operate!
We need a fresh desire, a passionate determination, a love–filled
boldness to seek, to plead, to cry out to God until we find the
gift we are seeking, until we are equipped to replicate the ministry
of Jesus, until the love of God fills us and overflows in a fresh
experience of glory and of mighty strength in the inner–most
being.
So, don’t let go! Don’t give up! Pray, pray, pray,
until the heavens themselves open and the oil of the Spirit pours
out on us, anointing and filling us for service to one another
and to a needy world.
Never give up! And may God bless
us all in our searching,
AMEN |
