Local Church: Spiritual Gifts Functioning — Bruce Rodgers

Our Father, we would bow before thee this evening and thank thee for the privilege of being together in thy presence again. We thank thee for the words that we have sung in thy presence to acknowledge the Lord Jesus as the one to whom we owe our lives, our eternal blessing.

All that we could ever hope for in the future is dependent upon what he is and what he has done for us. And so we would bless thee for thy beloved son and give thanks that we are given the honor of belonging to him and to being associated with him both now in the time of his reproach and in the future in the time of his honor and glory through all the world and through all realms.

And so we would ask that thou might guide us and give wisdom in opening up thy word this evening. And we pray that it might be for the honor of the Savior and for the blessing of each one that is here in our Savior's worthy name, amen.

Spiritual Gifts in the Local Assembly

Now, tonight we're going to look first of all in 1 Peter chapter four. We're going to be looking primarily at the idea of spiritual gifts and the ministry of spiritual gifts as they're intended to function in an assembly.

I mentioned a few things last night about it, but we'll look in more detail tonight. So 1 Peter chapter four, maybe we could read it verse eight just to get some context. And above all things have fervent charity or love among yourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins.

Use hospitality one to another without grudging or murmuring. As every man or as each one has received a gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth. That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever, amen. Now, this passage is a little bit of a summary statement in the subject of spiritual gifts and their ministry.

I'm just going to suggest that the, what is mentioned here is not referring to one particular spiritual gift, but to basically two classes of spiritual gifts. When we speak about spiritual gifts, we're really thinking about an ability that God has given to each one who is a believer.

And this is something that I just want to emphasize before I get into this, is that in every passage that is, that mentions this subject, it is assumed that all of us, each one of us who are saved, have had entrusted to us some spiritual gift.

And we'll see a very logical connection made in the three major passages that relate to spiritual gifts in relating it to the idea of being members of a body. And the obvious connection is simply this, the different members or parts of our body, they all have a function.

There's no spare parts. There's no parts that don't have any purpose or any meaning. And so just as in a natural body, God has designed it and every little part of that body has a function that works for the blessing of the whole body.

So as Christians, we belong together in Christ and God has fitted us for some function, some ministry. And so it's used here in this language in verse 10, as, and that really is according as, each one has received a gift, even so minister the same.

So I have two questions to ask you. Do you have any idea what your spiritual gift is and are you using it? So do you have a gift? Well, the scriptures will tell us clearly you do. Do you know what it is?

Or we often have more than one, just one gift. And so the next question comes, do you have a ministry? Now, I remember quite a few years ago now, I was visiting an older couple and the dear wife was very, very sick.

She was dying of cancer. And her husband was kind of a crusty old gentleman. He didn't make too many friends in too many circles. He was kind of a rough fellow, but he had a real heart for working among some of the indigenous people, the native people up in Northern Ontario.

And as we were visiting and so on, suddenly he just looked at me and he says, do you have a ministry? Well, I was a full-time preacher by that time. And so yes, I consider that I have a service for God to do, but I'm really not the kind of person that'll say, well, yeah, this is my ministry and this, you know, I prefer not to talk about myself.

But anyway, but then he got talking about a sister from the assembly in Kapuskasing, which is way up in the North, where Murray Pratt and I, as two preachers, were privileged to work for a number of years and to see an assembly planted.

And there was one lady who was the first person saved in that work. And we called her the spark plug of the work because she spoke to so many people and she would bring people out. And she, her husband had actually died just before we met her, tragically by suicide.

And she was left as a widow and she had sort of a daycare. She babysat all kinds of kids. Nearly every one of the parents of those children that she babysat got saved. And by the time that this man was talking about her, she had begun going over to the Ukraine.

Her husband had been Ukrainian, she was not Ukrainian, but she had learned Ukrainian when she was part of a Ukrainian Catholic church up in Kaposkasing. And she began to reach out to people in the Ukraine.

And for the last part of her life, she would go for about six months at a time. And she was, somebody called her the Mother Teresa of Ukraine. She would care for people going to orphanages and so on and so on.

She was just tireless in her zeal to try to reach people and show compassion to them. So this man said she had a ministry. All right, it was still present at the time. She has a ministry. And yes, I could see that.

Here is someone who was completely open to what the Lord would use her for. And if there's one thing I would just like to say to you, take it as a very personal thing between you and the Lord. He has entrusted you, and this is what it says here.

As each one has received a gift, even so minister the same. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Now a steward is a manager. And you know what a manager is? He's not the owner of the business, but the business has chosen him to take care of a certain part of his business.

And the more trustworthy he is, the more competent he is, the more responsibility he will entrust to him. And if you have a really good manager, a dedicated manager, he will talk about the business and think of the business as if it were his own.

He has that dedication to it. And so this is really telling us that this isn't just a nice thing to have. And it's a wonderful thing to be blessed by God with some ability to serve him, to honor him, and to be useful for him, but it's also a stewardship.

He has entrusted certain ability to us and he wants us to use it to serve his interests. So as each one has received a gift, even so minister the same one to another. So again, this is not something for me to shine up my badges and be an important person.

This is to serve you, to serve one another. And then verse 11 says, "'If anyone speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.'". Now that word oracles comes from the Old Testament and it was used of the communications of God to the people of Israel.

An oracle is a word or a message. So an oracle of God is a message from God. So again, this emphasizes something that we will see throughout the subject of spiritual gifts is that the word of God and the message of the word of God is central to it.

It's at the core of it. And so again, that's what we do when we come together. We're not just a social club. This isn't just what we do because we like each other and we'd like to be kind of, you know, have a nice group together and do things we all enjoy.

There should be social interaction. There should be interest in one another. But the reason that we gather together is because the word of God is here. God speaks to us through his word. And this is a place where God's truth should be taught to us and we should be built up and encouraged.

So the word of God is always at the core of it. So he says, if anyone speaks, now this isn't specifying which one of the speaking gifts because there's a number of them. There's teaching, exhorting, there is evangelism.

There are different aspects of speaking gifts, but this is just really giving that class of spiritual gift. If anyone speaks, let him do it in the consciousness that I am bringing to God's people or to an unsaved person, a message from God.

So there's a sense of doing this to please God, to honor God and to fulfill what he wants spoken. And then it says, if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God gives. So the word minister and ministry, you could use the same word servant and serving.

It's translated some places as to serve, but the word ministry and ministering gives the idea you're doing something for someone. And it can be again used, just as I'm speaking to you tonight, we often call this a ministry meeting.

Now it would be kind of ironic, but there would be nothing wrong with it if we came together some night and said, we're going to have a ministry meeting tonight, we're all going to serve each other in some way.

That would be literally what we're doing. So literally I am serving the word of God to you. That's what I'm doing. But I could be serving you at a table as well. And that same thing is spoken in Acts chapter six right in one context.

And so you have to look at the context of each passage and try to decide in which sense it is being used. So I would suggest here that in verse 11 where it's used, that it's really looking at the idea of serving in a physical way rather than by words, by serving, by doing something.

And notice what it says here, let him do it as of the ability, ability which God gives. So God gives us an ability, that's what a gift is. And he wants us to serve him with it. Now, could I just explain something to you?

And maybe this will make it even more meaningful to you. You notice what it says, I didn't focus on this back in verse 10. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Then you come to the end of the verse that we've been reading.

It is that God in all things may be glorified. So what is, we have these two words, grace and glory. Grace is God giving, God strengthening, God providing out of his greatness. And if you can just think about it this way, God in all his wonder and all the greatness of his being, he wants us to glorify him by us living out, doing, whether it's speaking or doing so that he will be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Now let's take it one step at a time here. Do you think the Lord Jesus glorified God when he was here? He manifested God in a final and ultimate way, didn't he? He brought the goodness of God into the world.

He brought the love of God to mankind. He brought his compassion. He also displayed the power of God in the miracles. So the Lord Jesus glorified God by the words that he spoke, the truth that he taught, the honor that he brought to God directly and by speaking to others and by the works that he fulfilled.

And what you see in this passage is that now God wants us to perpetuate that work. He wants us to fulfill the same purpose of bringing glory to God, of God becoming known in his greatness. So in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, but it's us that's doing the work.

It's us that's doing the speaking because we are speaking about Christ. We are doing it in his name. And so as we serve God out of love, out of compassion, out of conviction of truth, we speak for God and we honor God in what we do, we are reflecting on the Lord Jesus.

And in turn, that's reflecting on God. And it's really showing that Christianity is from God. It is God's work that is being fulfilled through his people. And so I've spent a little more time on this than I had intended, but this is a very foundational passage that gives us the framework of the idea that God has blessed us with some part of his goodness, of his love, of his care, of his greatness, of his ability.

Different Gifts Within One Body

And each one of us are entrusted with a little bit of what God is to minister to one another. Now let's go to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, we have some of these gifts identified. And in each one of the passages, there's just a couple of emphasis that I'm gonna try to draw attention to.

In Romans 12, now this is about in the first two verses about presenting ourselves to God as a living sacrifice in response to his mercy. And then it says in verse three, for I say through the grace given to me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith.

Now again, we're gonna have this illustration of a body. For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office. Now the word office, I don't know if that really conveys to your mind what it should, does it particularly mean much to me, the word office, I think of an office, I think of the principal's office or something like that.

But this is talking about a function. All members do not have the same function. Verse five, so we being many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another. So as I mentioned before, in every one of these passages, this idea of being part of a body is very, very prominent.

And so that immediately emphasizes we're to do this for one another in the recognition that we belong to each other and that we are to serve one another instinctively as belonging to the Lord Jesus. So verse six says, having then gifts, differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry, let us wait on our ministering or he that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation.

He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Now this again is not an exhaustive list of the spiritual gifts. There are a few more mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and Ephesians chapter four, but this gives a significant number of them.

But you notice what it's emphasizing. Each one of us has a gift. And that gift is according to the particular grace that God has bestowed on each one of us. Now, this is what is different from the context of salvation.

Salvation is offered to all without distinction. And the grace that you received in salvation is the same grace that I received in salvation. And you are no more saved than I am and I am no more saved than you are.

We share together in common the grace of God in salvation. But when it comes to our service, it's particular, it's individual. And so God bestows upon me in his grace a particular capability to serve him with.

He bestows a particular one upon you. And so having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. So I come back to the same question again. Do you have a gift? Yes, you do, if you're saved.

It may not have developed much yet. Gift can develop. Do you recognize your gift? Are you aware of it? And then are you using it? Do you have a ministry? Are you fulfilling it in some way that is fulfilling a service for God for one another?

And so he mentions a number of gifts here. Prophecy was one of the foundational gifts in the time of the church. Ephesians chapter two mentions the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That was the giving of the New Testament revelation.

Have you ever thought about it that your Bible is divided into two parts? That's kind of obvious, isn't it? Old Testament, New Testament. The Old Testament starts in Genesis, 4000 BC, up to the time of Christ, actually about 400 years before the time of Christ.

It was the last one, Malachi. Moses was the writer of the first five books of the Old Testament. And so even if you take it from his time down, there's a long time that the Old Testament was written over many generations.

That revelation was given in little bits and pieces at different times. And it was progressive. And it was always pointing beyond something new, something more is coming. It was never final or complete in itself.

When you come to the New Testament, how many hundred years before the New Testament was finished? Well, it was all completed in one generation. In the words of Christ, in the Gospels, record of his life to the time of the apostles, to the book of Revelation, to the completing, you might call it of the New Testament Revelation, one generation.

Why? Because it's final, it's full, it's complete. And so the apostles and the prophets, were the foundation for what we have today. So 2000 years later, we don't have 15 new books added to our Bible.

We don't have 100 or 200. The revelation is complete through the apostles and prophets. So prophesying belonged to that first generation. And now teaching basically replaces that as far as its primacy in importance.

But he speaks about it here, prophecy. And then he says, or ministry. And I'm just going to suggest that the word ministry here, again, is in that sense of serving, like we mentioned from 1 Peter chapter four.

Well, that's quite a difference. Someone being a prophet and somebody serving. You say, well, I want to be a prophet. I want to be, you know, I want to say things that are important. I like the idea that Paul here weaves different kinds of gifts in together to show us that we shouldn't just think certain ones are important and other ones aren't.

All of them are needed. If you don't think serving matters, just wait till nobody does anything, whether it's around the house or around the assembly, then you'll find out how valuable somebody is who serves others in their needs.

So the important thing is to be willing to do what we can, be willing to serve according to whatever gift he has given us. And then he speaks about teaching. But you notice what keeps on being repeated in here.

If it's prophecy, be involved in it. If it's ministry or serving, wait on your serving. He that teaches on teaching. So what is he emphasizing? He's emphasizing you be available. You be active. You be involved.

Many assemblies, and I'm grateful to have grown up in assemblies and to be familiar with this idea that it's not just one person's responsibility to do all the teaching. This is shared in the public gatherings.

It's shared by the brethren of the assembly according to their gifts. So it's a privilege and it's a responsibility. But it's easy for us to neglect our gift, especially if there are other people that will keep on fulfilling service and if I don't get up and do anything, well, somebody else will.

It's easy just to let go. Some of us are more backward. When I was a teenager, I was so backward, so quiet and backward, that I remember being at a barber shop with my next older brother, David, and David had just left university because he was convinced that God wanted him in the Lord's work on the mission field.

And David was getting his hair cut and the barber was asking him, well, what are you doing, and so on and so on, and David told him that he was going to be a missionary. And so they chatted about that for a while, and I had come to the same conclusion, not to be a missionary.

I didn't know if I was going to be a missionary, but I felt that the Lord was calling me into his work. So I kind of had this inkling that I might get the same question because I was out of school, too.

And so it was my turn next, and the barber says, well, what are you planning to do? And so I was brave enough to say what I thought that I was going to be doing, and he just stopped. He stopped cutting hair.

He was quiet for, you know, 20 seconds, and then he says, well, he says, I can see your brother doing it, but I can't see you doing it. You're too quiet. So the Lord had to pull me out of my shell. So the Lord had to pull me out of my shell.

He had to stir me through faith in him and his calling to have conviction that he wanted me to take part publicly. I was not naturally inclined. I remember the first time I had to say something, do a little thing in front of the class, and I was just petrified, and I was so embarrassed and everything, I hardly knew what I was saying.

And so the Lord doesn't always use someone who's very, very outgoing, who finds it easy to talk and so on. Sometimes he pulls people out by their teeth to speak for him. Now, I will always be quieter than some others that I work with, and I found it very helpful to work with Marie Pratt, who still is focusing in his life work in evangelism, because he was more outgoing, and he found it easier to talk to people, to visit strangers, and to invite people and so on, to open up conversations.

And so when we were working together in gospel work, he was kind of the leader. I was glad to be there to help him, but I was not a good front man and so on. And so each of us, we can be useful to God despite our natural inhibitions and limitations, but we need to have faith, we need to have courage, we need to be encouraged in order to serve God, or else we could be paralyzed, at least some of us.

And so in these different gifts that are mentioned here then, he says, if it's teaching, focus on your teaching. Now, I would say that the Lord led me into this aspect of my ministry. Gradually, he gave me a love for the scriptures, he gave me a desire to get to know God and to know the word of God, to study it.

That was something that I did gravitate to very readily within myself. And I'm grateful looking back that when I was a teenager, while I was still on the farm, going to high school, that I began to dedicate two hours an evening to the study of the scriptures.

That was an important foundation for beginning to develop in the word of God, to get to know the truths of the word of God. And so it's never too late to start, but the younger that you are, the easier it is to absorb, to understand and to pick up knowledge more readily.

And so I would encourage you at whatever stage you are to read the word of God, to meditate in it, to study it. But God is looking for those to dedicate themselves to seeking him and to serving him according to how he leads.

Or he that exhorts on exhortation. Now, what's the difference between teaching and exhortation? Exhortation is stirring people up, encouraging. Teaching is explaining something. Exhorting is stirring people up to get active and to fulfill it.

And then it says, he that giveth. And then it says, he that ruleth. And then it says, he that showeth mercy. So there's quite a wide range here that is implied. And so none of us need to feel like there's nothing for us to do.

There's no responsibility that the Lord would have upon us. There is some aspect of care, of helping, of encouraging, of teaching and so on that we can be involved in. Now, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and we'll see another detail or two.

The Spirit's Distribution of Gifts

Now, one thing I didn't mention from chapter of Romans 12 is that the emphasis is on God and his will being fulfilled in our lives. When you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit as superintending, giving, distributing and working.

And so it says in verse four, 1 Corinthians 12 verse four, for now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations or of ministries, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations or works, but it is the same God who worketh all in all.

Now, when you look at that, immediately you can see that God in all his fullness is involved in this business of serving God and spiritual gifts. The Spirit of God, the Lord God. So God must be very interested in this.

It must be very significant to him. If God in all his fullness, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are each credited with being involved in making sure that this gets fulfilled. It also emphasizes that there is a unity, a oneness.

And so part of the problem that Corinth was, these believers were all excited about being able to do some of these miraculous gifts because there were some very spectacular spiritual gifts at that time, healing, working miracles, speaking in tongues, interpreting, some of those spectacular sign gifts.

And they were very enthused about being active in manifesting these powers, but they were focused on themselves. Some of them were glorying in the gifts that they had and despising others. And others were feeling left out, I guess, and thought that they weren't worth anything because they didn't have that particular gift.

So Paul is trying to get them away from selfishness, self-focused, and he says, behind all of this, God is at work and God is not in competition. God is working to bring harmony and unity in his work.

And so in 1 Corinthians 12, we have that idea emphasized. And then in verse 28, he has a little description here. He says, and God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? Now, it's obvious that the answer to each one of those questions in verse 29 is no, no, no.

So what he's emphasizing is, God is not intended that everybody would have the same gift. He has dispersed them so that there would be a usefulness in the distribution of gifts. But you'll notice that he gives a descending order here.

And the gift of tongues is at the very end. And the particular reason becomes more obvious when you come to chapter 14, when it seems obvious that that gift was being misused to be a selfish display, to glorify the person, to be paraded in the assembly.

And he says, that's not what it's for. And it doesn't help anybody else. It doesn't benefit anybody else unless somebody is interpreting the communication given through that other tongue. Now, in between chapter 12 and chapter 14 comes chapter 13.

And that's a brilliant observation, isn't it? Now, if all you're interested in is just figuring out what gift you have or what gift you would like to have, well, then you could almost just jump from chapter 12 to chapter 14.

But you would miss the focus that God wants you to have. You would miss the main purpose for all gift. And that is that underlying it all, we would show the love of God. In chapter 13, he brings this emphasis.

Is even if you have the most spectacular gift, even if you have, if you understand everything, if you have all knowledge, if you have all wisdom, or if you have all faith that you could remove mountains.

Now, wouldn't you like to have power like that? Just to see that cliff just disappear. Now, maybe it's kind of pretty. Maybe you'd rather leave it. You could move mountains, acts of power, miraculous powers.

He says, if you are acting or speaking without love, it's worthless. And not only is it worthless, but you are worthless. That's exactly what he's saying here. He says, without love, the value is nothing.

And what we need to learn here is that what is more important to God is not how significant or otherwise your spiritual gift may be, but that you are using it with the right kind of heart. That you care, that you love, that you are fulfilling his love.

And this reminds us that God himself is love. Christ came to show us the love of God, to bring us into that love and for us to live in that love. And the life of the body is love. That is the life, the spiritual life that will make everything have value.

And so he is emphasizing that. And he's also putting it in contrast because these gifts that these Corinthians were so excited about were actually all temporary. They were going to pass away. Even the gift of prophecy, he says, whether there be prophecies, they shall fail.

Well, it doesn't mean that prophecies will prove to be wrong. They're not going to fail in that way. They're going to fail as the gift is no longer in effect. I don't know if you've ever, I grew up on a farm where in the springtime there would be the streams, the little creeks, and they would be filled with water and there'd just be quite a little river there.

Maybe by the middle of summer, there would just be a trickle or it might've dried up altogether. That's the idea of failing. It's going to run out. And so that very, very important gift of prophecy and some of the gifts of special knowledge and wisdom that were granted at that time, they're all going to be taken away.

And then he talks about the gift of tongues and he says, whether they be tongues, they shall cease. They would be cut off. They would no longer be in effect. But he says, love will always be there and love will always be essential.

And love will always be, not only now, but for eternity. Love will be supreme. And so he is emphasizing the permanency as well as the supremacy of love in our spiritual lives. Now, I already mentioned from last night a little bit in chapter 14.

I'll just remind you again of it where it mentions in verse 26, how is it then brethren, when you come together, every one of you has a psalm, has a doctrine or a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.

Let all things be done unto edifying. Just whatever you get involved in, however you participate, keep this in mind. It is meant to build up the assembly. It is meant to build up and to encourage others.

Now he mentions in verse 29, let the prophets speak two or three and let others judge. If anything be revealed to another that sits by, let the first hold his peace. For you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted.

And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace as in all churches of the saints. Now, wouldn't it be obvious from this that there were a variety of men who were gifted to speak.

Although the gift of prophecy itself, as these passages already told us, was going to end, but the gift associated with it like teaching, explaining the word of God and exhorting and so on. And so he said, when you are in an assembly, God has gifted certain men to be able to participate publicly in teaching, in helping out publicly.

So this gives us the pattern we might say for the New Testament assembly functioning. Now you might say, well, when, where did this idea come from then of having a priest or a preacher, a pastor over the congregation and he's the only one that speaks?

Well, that is something that is not known in the New Testament. It began to happen a few generations later, partly in response to the heresies that were happening, the false doctrines that were coming in.

And in order to try to stop some of that, it seemed that they began to put more and more authority on one man and to say, that man has, listen to him. They were trying to control, that seemed to be part of what it was.

And the other part of it was when the Roman Empire formally became a Christian state, so-called from paganism, they began to impose a system upon the Christian churches. And in that imposing, they imposed leaders over it and so on in that particular way.

Christ's Gifts for Equipping the Saints

And so I want to just mention then from, well, I should go to Ephesians chapter four. There's just one more, one or two more little details that again would make clear the pattern in the New Testament.

Ephesians chapter four. Now the context of Ephesians four is really the wider scope of the body of Christ. But it says here, again, I mentioned that Romans 12 was focused on God and his will being fulfilled.

First Corinthians 12, the focus is upon the Holy Spirit and his power and his influence in control of the spiritual gifts. When it comes to Ephesians four, the emphasis is upon the Lord Jesus, who has conquered, who has come into our world and he has conquered.

Now he has ascended up into heaven. He's the risen conqueror. And there's a quotation from the Psalms, from Psalm 68 in verse eight, wherefore he says, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.

Now that imagery is like a conqueror who has swept into an area, he has overtaken his enemies and now there's all the spoils of war. It was very typical, even in that time of the Roman conquerors to, when they overtook a territory, a city or whatever, that they would make a parade back.