Preacher: Pastor Tim Redfield
Date: February 7/10, 2019
Text: 1 Corinthians 14:12-20
Our gospel lesson for today made me think about how God works with us. Now, that doesn’t mean that Jesus gives us a miraculous catch of fish and that he calls all of us to be fishers of men. And yet, look at the basics of what happens. These disciples had been pretty ordinary people who were going about their daily work. I can’t speak for all of you but there are plenty of days when I feel like an ordinary person going about my routine. In the Gospel Lesson, Jesus called them to serve the Lord. I suppose as a pastor I see more of a connection with the disciples because I proclaim God’s Word on a regular basis but really, all Christians can be like the disciples. We use our abilities to share the gospel. Today I encourage you to Use Your Gifts to Share Jesus.
Part 1: Recognize how to support ministry
Going through chapters 12, 13, and 14 of 1 Corinthians shows many practical applications to the life of a congregation. In chapter 12, Paul encourages using spiritual gifts for the good of the body of believers. At the very end of the chapter he gives many examples of gifts. He lists apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, gifts of administration, gifts of healing, and speaking in tongues. This list is not a complete list of spiritual gifts. Some of them were gifts that only applied to the church back then and today we have different gifts.
Chapter 13 stresses that the gift of love needs to govern all of our other spiritual gifts. When we use our gifts out of Christian love we are better able to encourage and comfort both those inside the church and those outside the church. Chapter 13 gives a good description of the perfect love that God has for us. We often fail to have that kind of love but through the forgiveness of Christ working in our hearts, we are motivated to love like chapter 13 describes. We want that love that is patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, not easily angered, rejoices with the truth, always protecting, always trusting, always hoping, and all the other characteristics that are mentioned. When we practice that kind of love, we use our other gifts to benefit many people.
In our section today, Paul talks about the gift of prophecy and the gift of speaking in tongues. He points out that speaking in tongues is only beneficial to the church if someone can interpret what is being said. The Corinthian congregation had been placing a lot of value on the ability to speak in tongues. This ability was a special gift of the Holy Spirit. Like it said in chapter 12, there were many special gifts that the Holy Spirit had been giving in those early days of the New Testament church. For example, the Apostles had been performing various miracles as they went out and proclaimed the gospel of Christ. These special gifts of the Spirit were further testimony that this church was the true church of God.
When it came to the gift of speaking in tongues, Paul needed to rebuke the Corinthians for their overemphasis on that gift. As we look back on that gift, we sometimes wonder if those tongues were a known or unknown language. On the Day of Pentecost, when the disciples spoke in tongues, it is very clear that they were speaking languages that were known languages. All the people who were present on that day could hear the gospel being proclaimed in their native language. Were the tongues in the Corinthian congregation like that? We are not sure. Some people wonder if they were an unknown language or some kind of angelic language. We just don’t know.
We do know what Paul says about it. He tells the congregation that the worship activities of the congregation need to edify the whole congregation. He tells them that if there is no one to interpret the tongues, then they are not edifying for the whole congregation. It is not that great of a gift if no one understands what is being said. He highlights the necessity of being understood in the verses of our reading from 1 Corinthians 14. He points out that it is good for the message to be understood so that everyone in worship, whether believer or unbeliever, is convinced by the message.
Some people think that this gift of speaking in tongues is still around today. Many are skeptical if that is truly the case. The reason for the skepticism is that the people who claim the gift of speaking in tongues usually sound like they are speaking gibberish rather than a known language. There is also difficulty in interpreting what is said. Paul emphasizes the importance of interpretation. I suppose if someone claimed the gift of speaking in tongues but said it was only for their personal prayer life, I would not feel like I needed to dispute their claim since it doesn’t need to be interpreted by other people.
Since speaking in tongues doesn’t seem to be a very prevalent gift today, we focus on other gifts. I think about how gifts change over time. Back then they had gifts to perform miracles and today that doesn’t seem to be a gift that God still gives out. Today we have various technology that people didn’t have back then. I was thinking about that this last week as we were discussing technology for the church. We were talking about the audio visual system and the possibility of making improvements. One thought that came to mind is this: this is a good project to spend money on because ultimately it is about gospel proclamation. If we make improvements, we can better share the gospel.
It is important to talk about the gospel connection when we think about our projects. I think about that even with projects that might not always seem like they are ministry related. I think also about our capital campaign. It was a great blessing to replace our roof. That is about proclaiming the gospel. We can’t gather together for worship, especially in winter, if the roof of our building isn’t taken care of. I think we can at times think that if we are not a pastor or teacher, we are not proclaiming the gospel. However, there are many ways that we can use our gifts to help share the truth.
Part 2: Use Gifts to help others see Jesus
In this section, Paul does talk about the importance of prophesying. When Paul talks about prophesying, he is talking about speaking the Word of God in the language that the group can understand. When the Word of God is being proclaimed, the Law and Gospel message is being spoken. The Law convinces us that we are sinners. It shows us that we are despicable before God for all the evil desires that reside in our hearts. Our words and deeds have offended God. We have served ourselves rather than God. We have been driven by various lusts and desires. We have coveted. We have hated. We have disrespected. The Law judges us. When we see the full force of God’s law, we cannot hide our sins. God sees our innermost thoughts.
There is the chance that some of the people who are sitting in churches may reject what God’s law says. They may not think of themselves as sinners. And that would truly be unfortunate. They would not fall down in repentance and worship God. Unfortunately there are some churches and some pastors who fail to proclaim the truth. Paul warns about this in his second letter to Timothy. “For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
How sad it is that people don’t follow the truth of God’s Word. It is disheartening to know that some churches actually refuse to speak the law against sin. Without the law, there is no need for the gospel. If we haven’t sinned then we don’t need a Savior. Ignoring the truth of sin doesn’t make it go away. It just drives people further away from God. We need to proclaim the truth. The goal of proclaiming the Word of God is to always lead people to see their salvation in Christ. The only way that we can really understand this is through an understanding of our sin.
When we see our sin, we see that we need a Savior. The Word then tells us about our Savior Jesus Christ. We see how he perfectly obeyed every portion of the law in our place. He never gave in to the lusts and desires that grab hold of us. He died the death that we deserve. He gives us a gift which is far greater than speaking in tongues. He sends the Holy Spirit to give us the gift of faith. Because of this faith in our hearts we are convinced that we are sinners and we are convinced that we are forgiven through Jesus.
Whatever your gifts might be, you can use them for gospel ministry. You might not be sure how you can help but it could be that you are already doing something in your life that could easily translate into Gospel ministry. For example, at this time of year, shoveling snow could be part of Gospel ministry. We need to have our parking lot and sidewalks clear so that people feel safe as they come to church to hear the gospel. If you want to know how you can serve, come talk to your pastors or church leaders. We have tools that can help you discover how your skills can be used for the good of God’s church.
Conclusion
I think more about the disciples. The day before Jesus called them to serve, they had no idea what was about to happen. Jesus completely changed their lives. But they didn’t know how to be apostles right away. They learned from Jesus for three years and they made a lot of mistakes before they were able to share the gospel with the world. We shouldn’t expect that it will be different for us. Sometimes it takes us quite a while before we learn how we can use our gifts to serve in the church. We are going to make mistakes along the way. We might say or do the wrong thing in our efforts to help others see Jesus. We might feel guilty about those mistakes. That is why we keep coming back to the comfort of the forgiveness of Christ. Built up by Christ, we are able to use our gifts to share Jesus with many others.