St John the Beloved
Sermon and teaching audio from St John Church in Cincinnati Ohio.
St John the Beloved
Spiritual Gifts
What if your spiritual gifts say more about God than about you? Like Spider-Man learning that "with great power comes great responsibility," we too must discover not just what our gifts are, but what they're for.
Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12, this message unpacks three essential truths about spiritual gifts that transform how we view and use them. First, they're gracious gifts—sovereignly given by the Triune God, not earned or deserved. Second, they're common gifts—given not for personal benefit but "for the common good" of the entire body. Finally, they're just gifts—not the most important thing and certainly not what defines us spiritually.
The Corinthian church struggled with gift-obsession, particularly valuing ecstatic experiences like speaking in tongues. They equated dramatic spiritual manifestations with spiritual maturity—a misconception that persists today. But Paul redirects them (and us) to what truly matters: faith in Jesus and the ordinary virtues of faith, hope, and love.
This message challenges us to discover our gifts in community, call out gifts we see in others, and remember that character matters more than charisma. Just as a wedding is exciting but a marriage infinitely more important, our spiritual maturity isn't measured by extraordinary experiences but by our daily, faithful walk with Jesus.
Whether you're wondering how you're gifted, struggling to find your place in the church, or seeking to use your gifts more effectively, this message offers biblical wisdom for the journey. God has gifted you—not to make you special, but to make you useful in building His kingdom.
For the rest of us. I want to invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which today comes from 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, beginning in verse 1,. The Word of God reads this way Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols. However you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for to one is given, through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit To another. Faith by the same Spirit To another. Gifts of healing by the same spirit to another. Gifts of healing by the one spirit to another. The working of miracles to another. Prophecy to another. The ability to distinguish between spirits to another, various kinds of tongues to another, the interpretation of tongues, all these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. This is God's Word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. May God bless this reading and preaching of His Word.
Speaker 1:When did Spider-Man become Spider-Man? Think about this carefully with me. It wasn't exactly when he got bit by the radioactive spider. Peter Parker got bit by the spider and suddenly had all of these newfound powers. But at that time he didn't quite understand the power that he had or what it was for. And initially, when he first received these powers, he used his powers for himself. If you follow, some of the films highlight this, and the comic book series highlights this as well. But he entered a wrestling contest to make some quick cash. He entered as the amazing Spider-Man. At school he would show off humiliating kids who used to bully him and pick on him. Humiliating kids who used to bully him and pick on him. So he was just kind of using them for selfish means. But then one night Peter Parker found himself face to face with a thief fleeing the scene of a robbery and he was running past him and he could have done something to stop him, but he thought this isn't my problem and he just let the guy run on. Later that same thief stole a car and Peter's uncle Ben tried to intervene and the thief fatally shot him and Ben died. And when Peter learned what had happened, he realized that if he had used his power to stop the thief, that he thought this isn't my problem, that his uncle Ben never would have died. And he learned the hard way that with great power comes great responsibility. And that is when Spider-Man was really born. It wasn't when he got his powers, but it was when he realized what they were, for.
Speaker 1:All of us are gifted in various ways, as we read in our section in 1 Corinthians 12, in various ways, as we read in our section in 1 Corinthians 12. We all have been bitten by our own radioactive spiders, and we too can choose to use our gifts for ourselves or we can use them as they're supposed to be used, for the benefit of others. And that's a bit of a picture of what's going on in Corinth. We've been walking through 1 Corinthians and today we come to one of the most well-known sections of the letter this section from 12 to 14, which is about spiritual gifts. The Corinthian church was an incredibly gifted church, which should come as no surprise because they're in an up-and-coming urban metropolitan area in the Roman world a very diverse area, a port city, lots of people from lots of different places, lots of different gifts. But they weren't using their gifts with maturity. Instead of building one another up, they were using their gifts selfishly, just to build themselves up and it was tearing the church apart, and Paul writes to address this. In the next few chapters We'll be walking through that, but the main idea that I want for us to see today from this text is that spiritual gifts are good, but if we don't pursue them and use them with maturity and how they're supposed to be used to help one another, we risk doing more harm than good. Spiritual gifts are good, but we have to learn to use them with maturity. You are gifted and you might not feel gifted, but hopefully over the next few weeks we will help you realize that you are gifted. God has given you gifts for ministry, but be careful how you use your gifts. Be careful that you're using your gifts to build up and this is a timely word for us as a church. We're something like three years old now. God has been gracious to us, he has grown us over the years.
Speaker 1:Just sitting there this morning realizing that, you know, back in the day when we first started St John, we certainly had people helping from the very beginning, but it felt like and maybe a small handful of us can attest to this it felt like we had to do everything. You know, I came here on Sunday morning to set things up, to set up chairs, to make the coffee. I just came. I didn't have to do anything today. I came and everyone else was serving and we're grateful for the ways that God has built up our church and we need to continue to press into that.
Speaker 1:One of the ways, that sort of our next level as a church, is helping to mobilize and to equip one another to discover and use our gifts together as a congregation, to operate as one body. So it's good for us that we'll be going through these next few chapters together and it's also a timely word for our culture because just even outside the church, everywhere we turn, people are trying to answer the question who am I? Why am I here? What am I for? What is my purpose? What is my ikigai, to use it in Japanese terms and whether it's looking at personality tests or something like the Enneagram, or even horoscopesopes or astrology or tarot cards, people are turning to all kinds of things to tell them who they are and to point them in some direction and to show them what they should do and how they should operate in the world. Paul is going to help us immensely as a church, and even just speaking to our culture in our city over these next few weeks as we look at these words on spiritual gifts.
Speaker 1:But we have to start here. How do we use whatever gifts that we have? Even if we don't know how we're gifted? It's important to understand how do we use our gifts with maturity, and in order to do that, we have to understand three things that we see from this introductory passage. In here we learn that spiritual gifts, no matter what they are, spiritual gifts are gracious gifts, spiritual gifts are common gifts and spiritual gifts are just gifts. They're gracious gifts, they're common gifts and they're just gifts. So, firstly, spiritual gifts are gracious gifts. In order to use our gifts well, we must understand that our gifts say far more about God than they do about us. Our gifts say far more about God than they do about us.
Speaker 1:So let's just start with a simple question what is a spiritual gift, as the term appears here in this passage? What's Paul talking about? They're not just talents, they're not just personality traits, but they're abilities, they're opportunities, they're capacities for service that God himself gives in order to build up his church, and we tend to think of spiritual gifts as exclusively the domain of the Holy Spirit. So when we think about the Christian life, we think about, you know, the forgiveness and the atonement. That's what Jesus did. But when we're talking about extraordinary manifestations or power or any kinds of gifts, we're talking about Holy Spirit stuff. Quote unquote. But look closely at verses four through six.
Speaker 1:Paul says now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities but the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Do you hear the Trinitarian rhythm there? Paul says it the same Spirit. It's the same Lord talking about Jesus, the Lord Jesus, the same God talking about God, the Father. What that means is that your gifts, whether they be teaching or serving, or even tongues or some sort of extraordinary gift, whatever the gift is, are gifts of the triune God. And why do I say this? Because here we have just one more opportunity to learn to be Trinitarian and not to separate God into parts. We can't divide God into parts, as though Jesus died for our sins, but the Spirit gives the gifts and they're completely separate. Every gift that you have, you can think about it as a gift of the Father, a gift of the Son and a gift of the Holy Spirit working together. That's how Paul thinks of it gifts of the triune God Throughout the New Testament.
Speaker 1:We find several lists of gifts here in 1 Corinthians. You can also read more in Romans 12, ephesians 4, 1 Peter, chapter 4. None of these lists are exhaustive. They're not meant to be exhaustive, and certainly there are gifts that God gives that the church has needed at different times that don't show up in these lists. That's not the point of them to be exhaustive. Together they point to a wide variety of gifts that God gives Teaching, preaching, counseling, serving, administrating, leading, and then even things like healing and prophecy and tongues. But all of these together are God's gifts, and the common thread is that these are abilities and opportunities that God gives to build up the body. Paul calls these gifts in this passage.
Speaker 1:Charismata that's the word that's used here, which literally means grace gifts. That's why it's translated as gifts. Charis is the root word there. Some of you go to your children, attend the Karis school here in Cincinnati, and do you know what that word means? It means grace. So that's the root word of Charismata it's grace gifts.
Speaker 1:Charis means grace, and that means that the gifts that God gives, the gifts that you have or that your neighbor has, that your fellow church member has, they're gifts. They have nothing to do with your merit or with your worthiness. You cannot earn them and you can't lose them. They're not called rewards, they're called gifts. What's the difference between a reward and a gift?
Speaker 1:A reward says something about you, right, like you won the game, you kicked the football, you did the slam dunk, whatever it is that you did, and you get a reward, you get a trophy, you get a badge. It says something about you, what you've done, what you're capable of doing. If it's a gift if I give you a gift, for example it says something about me and my affection for you and my love for you, and it's not about you. That's what the gifts are. They're gifts. You can't earn them or lose them. They're not proof that God loves you more than he loves someone else.
Speaker 1:Every gift is proof that God loves his church, and they're certainly not what makes you special, and we'll get into that as we go on in the sermon. But you can be incredibly gifted and you can still be incredibly spiritually immature very gifted and yet spiritually immature. And that's the issue that Paul confronts here and in the next few chapters, and he'll drive that home in chapter 13, that you can have every gift but have not love. And if that's the case it amounts to nothing, that spiritual maturity and giftedness are different things. And then, finally, look at verse 11. Paul says all of these gifts are empowered by one and the same spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. So they're gifts of the triune God.
Speaker 1:They're gracious gifts, and we see here they are also sovereign gifts. God sovereignly decides what gifts to give to whom. So some of you have gifts that you've never asked for. Some of you have asked for gifts that you've never received and might never receive. Some of you have been given gifts that you've never received and might never receive. Some of you have been given gifts from God that you didn't want. At least at first, you didn't want them. Every gift is a sovereign act of a gracious God. He determines who gets what gifts, and deciding who gets what gifts and where they go is really above our pay grade. It's in the realm of the sovereignty of God. So the conclusion here, all that to say, spiritual gifts are graciously and sovereignly given and they reveal far more about the goodness and wisdom of God than about the worthiness or the maturity of the person who has them, than about the worthiness or the maturity of the person who has them.
Speaker 1:Dr Harry Schomburg is a remarkably gifted man with a very particular gift. He's now retired, he's an old man, but he spent his entire career as a Christian counselor, focused on one particular thing. He was focused on sexual dysfunction and brokenness and he did nothing else. That was his lane and he regularly counseled people and saw people for maybe 30 or 40 years. And from reading his books and listening to him speak, you can tell that this is a man who has seen it all.
Speaker 1:After 30 or 40 years of counseling through this kind of stuff, counseling people through every kind of addiction, every kind of infidelity, every kind of dysfunction imaginable, and I once had a chance to speak with him and I asked Dr Schomburg, why did you choose this as your life's work? I mean, you could think it. I don't know if you ever think about that like you know, when you think about doctors, like medical doctors, somebody's got to be the butt doctor. You know why. How do you get into that? How are you in medical school? And you're like this is going to be my area of expertise.
Speaker 1:So I asked Dr Schomburg. I said, dr Schomburg, of all the things you could have given your life to, why this? Why did you choose this as your life's work? And his answer surprised me. He said I didn't, I didn't choose it, god did. He said I never wanted this, I don't want this, I don't want to know these things. These people come and talk to me and they tell me I don't want. These people come and talk to me and they tell me I don't, I don't want, I don't want to be involved, I don't want to know these things. But God put me in this position just over the years. That's what God did. God gave Dr Schomburg just a unique set of experiences and tools and insights and graces, tailor-made to help people in this specific area of brokenness, and thousands have been helped because of that. Not because he mastermind that, not because he pursued that gift or chose it for himself, but because God, because God sovereignly gave it to him, because Jesus loves his church so much that he will never leave it without the help that it needs. Dr Schomburg is retired now. I don't know who's going to replace him, but he was truly a master of the particular area that God gave him to serve in.
Speaker 1:So just to make an application here of point one, there's lots of directions we could go here, but here's one big takeaway. I'll just say this Spiritual gifts matter, and we'll emphasize that over the next few weeks. They matter, but character matters more. Spiritual gifts matter, but character matters more Gifts matter. Jesus gives. We need the gifts. We need people like Dr Schomburg. We need people like Adam, who helps us lead in worship, and all of you who serve here in various capacities. We need the gifts. Jesus gives them to build up his church, and Paul even says that we should earnestly desire them. We should earnestly desire them. But here's the thing we do not control the gifts and we can't mastermind them. We don't control what God gives to whom or when. God gives them graciously and sovereignly, as they are needed. What we can pursue and what matters even more is character.
Speaker 1:It's good to pursue the gifts, but it is better to pursue the fruit of the Spirit. What matters more? That you speak in tongues or that you learn to be patient? Which is more evidence that the Spirit is present? Patience or speaking in tongues? All who are filled with the Spirit we learn are patient. They become patient. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Not all who are filled with the Spirit speak in tongues. So which is more important? It's good to have a gifted preacher Hopefully one day you will have one but it is better to have a godly pastor. It's good to have a gifted preacher, but it is better to have a godly pastor. What matters more? A home run sermon every Sunday or a faithful, trustworthy shepherd, and ideally let's have them both, let's try to get both. But if you have to choose, choose godliness. So let's be careful that in our pursuit of the gifts of the Spirit, we do not neglect the fruit of the Spirit. So that's point one, that gifts are gracious gifts.
Speaker 1:Point two spiritual gifts are common gifts. Gifts are always given not just to the individual but to the whole body. The gifts that God gives are not given just to the individual, but given to the whole body. Look again at verse seven. Look again at verse 7. Paul says to each individual is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For the common good.
Speaker 1:And there are three key truths to notice there. First, every Christian is gifted for ministry. Every Christian is gifted for ministry. Paul doesn't say to some here, he says to each. And that means that every follower of Jesus has been entrusted with a manifestation of the Spirit. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian, it doesn't matter whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, or what kind of personality type you are or what Enneagram number you are. It doesn't matter whether or not you're a leader. Each individual Christian is uniquely gifted by God for some kind of ministry. So that's the first thing to notice.
Speaker 1:Secondly, gifts are meant to be public. Notice that Paul calls them a manifestation of the Spirit. What does that mean, manifestation? A manifestation is something. It's not private. It's something that can be seen or heard or touched. It is made manifest, it's a public thing. Gifts are never something that are just used in private, but something meant to be experienced by others.
Speaker 1:The Spirit of God is made visible, made manifest, as we use our gifts. When someone teaches in the power of the Spirit, god's wisdom and God's knowledge are being heard. When you welcome a stranger to church or to your home, in the power of the Spirit, god's hospitality is felt. When you give financially, when you're generous, god's wealth, god's generosity are put on display. When you sit with someone and listen to their story, god's presence is made real to them. God's presence is made manifest, a manifestation of the Spirit. When you speak a word of encouragement to someone, god's encouragement is made present. God's multifaceted glory can never be embodied in just one person. He distributes his gifts broadly and widely among all of us. In a church community, God's varied glory is made manifest through the gifts of all the members working together. And then, finally, every gift is for the common good.
Speaker 1:Again, your gift is never just for you. God gifts you so that you can become a gift to the body. He gifts you so that you can become a gift to the body, especially to your local church. You may be a gift to the body in broader ways than that, but especially to your local church, whether your ministry is well-defined and fits into one of the nice categories that we have, or whether you're pioneering something new and it doesn't quite fit, that's okay. The purpose of your gift is always the same it is to build up the people of God. Each one is gifted for the common good. So let me just to further unpack this. I'll offer two applications with some examples to help illustrate it. So, if that's true, here's one thing that we should do we should learn to call out each other's gifts, call out one another's gifts.
Speaker 1:If your gift is for the common good, then the best way to discover our own gifts how do you figure out how you're gifted? Well, it's not to get really introspective and just look at yourself and stare at your belly button. Do you figure out how you're gifted? Well, it's not to get really introspective and just look at yourself and stare at your belly button until you figure it out. It's not even to take a person. I don't. I hate personality tests. I don't think personality tests are accurate because they're not testing who you really are. They're testing your perception of yourself. So even it's not a personality test or a spiritual gifts test, which I think are also kind of ridiculous. But the way that you figure it out is to be involved with the body and to listen to the body.
Speaker 1:We often do not see ourselves quite as clearly as others see us. Sometimes we think that we are gifted in things that we are really not very gifted in and sometimes the areas of our true gifting, where we're really gifted, escape our notice because we've just been maybe it's the way that we were brought up we just don't see these things, they don't matter to us. But as we get involved in the body, other people are able to see these things more clearly and help us recognize them and to call them out. So let's build a culture of calling out what we see in one another. And I'll just give you an example.
Speaker 1:Two friends of mine come to mind who have opposite gifts that are both very important, and I didn't really understand what their gifts were, or that they were gifts, until I was able to interact with them both and sort of compare them both to one another as the body began to function together. So two friends so my buddy Justin can be very critical and I didn't realize that this was a gift. I thought it was a personality flaw that this was a gift. I thought it was a personality flaw. But when he looks, I realized that when he looks at a situation, it's easy for him to see problems and he doesn't mind speaking up about it. He's like this is what's wrong with, here's what's wrong with you, this is what's wrong with your marriage, here's what's wrong with your church. These things stand out to him and he doesn't mind speaking up about it.
Speaker 1:My buddy, sam, on the other hand, is an incredible encourager. When he looks at a situation, he doesn't necessarily see all the problems Same situation. It's easy for him, when he looks at a situation, to see the good things, to see the things that are working, to see the things that need to be celebrated and encouraged. So when you get together with Sam, no matter how messed up and Sam is a hairstylist, so it's good for him. That he's an encourager probably makes him a lot of money. But when you get together with him, no matter how messed up your life is, sam can easily find something to cheer for and something to encourage. He's an encourager.
Speaker 1:I realized, justin, now, both of those gifts can go wrong. Sometimes our gifts are also our greatest weaknesses. But Justin has the gift of discernment. He's able to see problems and identify them. Discernment. Sam has the opposite gift. He has the gift of encouragement, and every church needs both, because every church has problems that need to be highlighted and called out. But we also need people, so that we don't collapse under the weight of our problems, to say, well, hold on, we don't just have problems, there's also some good things happening. Let me breathe some life into that and speak a word of encouragement into that. Every church needs both.
Speaker 1:So I wanna encourage you all if you see something, say something In our community, in your community groups, in this church. If you see a manifestation of the Spirit coming through someone in this church, tell them what you see. Let's call out one another's gifts so that we can more easily understand how God has gifted us. That's how we do that. We get involved with a body and then second application here I'll just say get in the game. This also means that we need to get in the game Each of us. If we are each gifted for ministry, then we need to step out in faith and start acting like that. You know how.
Speaker 1:Every now and then, then, if you're a regular attender or a member of this church, you'll get an alert from planning center telling you that you're scheduled to serve this Sunday or next Sunday, maybe in kids, maybe as a greeter or just in some other way. That's good, but I want you to think about it like this If you're a member of this church or a part of this body, whether you're just a member or just regularly attend, think about it like this Whether or not you get a planning center invite every Sunday, you are scheduled to serve Every Sunday, maybe not in an organized ministry role, but why is it that we come here and gather together? It's not just to receive. Who knows whether or not you'll bump into someone here who you know or who you don't know, who needs a word of encouragement? Who knows whether or not you'll meet someone who needs to be invited to lunch or who needs someone to reach out to them as a friend? Who knows whether or not there might be an opportunity to pray for someone or welcome someone and make them feel at home? Who knows whether you need to accompany a friend here who needs to be invited to church or to community group to come and see what Jesus is all about? So your gifts are needed On Sundays, at Bible study, at community group, the events that we do, whatever it is that we do as a church, whatever it is you're a part of it, is better when you're here.
Speaker 1:It's better when you're there and you're there. You're here to receive ministry, but also to participate in ministry. Every Sunday you're scheduled to serve. We need you, not just your warm body sitting in a seat, not just your money, not just your finances. We need your presence and your attention and your gifts. God has gifted you to build up the church. Each one of us is gifted, but we will only ever discover our gifts and reach our fullest potential in the context of the body, because our gifts are common gifts. And then, finally, point three spiritual gifts. We have to understand this if we're going to be mature with our gifts is that spiritual gifts are just gifts. They're just gifts. Spiritual gifts are wonderful, but they're not the most important thing and they don't define you. But they're not the most important thing and they don't define you.
Speaker 1:Go back to verse one. Paul says now concerning spiritual gifts. Brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. In the Greek there it's sort of an awkward sentence. There is no subject in that sentence. In the Greek the word gifts is not there. Literally, it just says now concerning spiritual blank brothers. I do not want you to be uninformed, so the translator has to supply a subject when translating it into English. Gifts is one possibility, but another good possibility is people. It could be translated as now, concerning spiritual people, brothers. I do not want you to be uninformed. And if that's right, then Paul is saying let's talk about what it really means to be spiritual. And this makes sense because the Corinthians were confused about what it meant to be spiritual and where gifts fit into that picture. It seems like the Corinthians were especially enamored with the more ecstatic, extraordinary gifts, like prophecy and tongues.
Speaker 1:Paul spends much of his time in this section and in the next few weeks talking about those two gifts, probably because the Corinthians were overvaluing them and ignoring others. And that fascination makes sense if you understand the world that they lived in, because ecstatic experience was very common in pagan worship, in many pagan rituals you know they're former pagans. Paul says that right out of the gate in verse one or two here. But in many pagan rituals worshipers would be sent into frenzied states through music and dance. At the Oracle of Delphi, which is not far from Corinth, the priestess would enter a trance-like state and speak in tongues, which would then be interpreted by the attendants of the Oracle, and speak in tongues, which would then be interpreted by the attendants of the oracle. And then in Corinth itself there was a temple called the Asclepium and it was dedicated to miraculous healing. So the world that they lived in was very different from the world that we live in or sort of the modern world that we're coming out of. It was not at all a secular world. They were coming out of experiences of ecstatic, powerful pagan worship.
Speaker 1:The Corinthians grew up equating spirituality with ecstatic experience and miraculous power. The more intense the experience, the closer they believed they were to the gods. And now, as Christians, they were bringing those same assumptions into the church. But listen to Paul's correction. In verse two Paul says you know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols. However, you were led. And so Paul is saying there just because an experience feels powerful or ecstatic or supernatural, just even just because you lose control, doesn't mean that it is from the Spirit of God. And the same is true today.
Speaker 1:In some Christian traditions there's a very heavy emphasis on speaking in tongues or receiving spontaneous prophetic words, and I'm not here to say that those experiences are inherently bad, but we need to remember that they are not unique to Christianity. Modern pagan religions, including Wicca and other pagan religions today, practice ecstatic speech and speaking in tongues, and they also claim to channel divine revelation and information. The intensity of an experience is not proof of the Holy Spirit's presence. So what is proof of the Holy Spirit's presence? Well, look at verse 3. Paul says no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. That is the proof of the Holy Spirit's presence. The surest evidence of the Spirit is not someone's gifts, however powerful they might seem. It's their confession of faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:The ordinary virtues of faith, hope and love are the truest marks of spirituality, and gifts come second. So the gifts are good and we should desire them, but they are not the most important thing, and that's the note that I want to strike as we begin our study in the spiritual gifts. They don't define us. They do not prove anything about our spirituality. You can have a lot of gifts and be very spiritually immature. They're not as important as the ordinary virtues of faith, hope and love.
Speaker 1:Let me give you an analogy. In our culture, weddings are a big deal. We just came from a wedding just the other weekend. The wedding industry is a multi-billion dollar machine in America. The average American wedding now costs anyone want to guess Somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000. That's like just the average American wedding. I mean, that used to be a down payment on a house. You could get a new car for that for sure but for an event that just lasts a few hours.
Speaker 1:I like weddings. I like to be invited to weddings, I like to officiate at weddings. They make for great memories, great photos, joyful celebrations. But how much emphasis do we put on the wedding compared to the marriage? Julie and I were just at a wedding last week and we couldn't help but think about our own wedding and how we haven't looked at our wedding pictures in years. None of them are hung in our house just because they're old photos. When did you last break out your wedding album? If you're married and you have a wedding album, do you know anyone who's still talking about your wedding and how fun it was? I barely remember mine.
Speaker 1:Weddings are great. What's more important, the wedding or the marriage? The wedding is glamorous and exciting and fun, and you get to spend money and have nice food and dress up nice. By comparison, the marriage is ordinary, a long obedience in the same direction. But a healthy marriage is infinitely more important than a perfect wedding and, at the end of the day, a healthy marriage is infinitely more interesting and infinitely more exciting than a perfect wedding. So for those of you who are not yet married, let me encourage you save the money. Elope, you know. Have a party. Focus on the marriage. If you have a nice wedding, that's fine too, but focus on the marriage.
Speaker 1:But that's exactly what it's like with spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are wonderful, we should celebrate them, we should use them, we should desire them, but they are not the thing that defines you. What matters most is what you do with Jesus and your relationship with Jesus in the ordinary parts of your life, your lifelong walk with Jesus through the mundane. Your lifelong walk with Jesus through the mundane, through the disappointment, through the painful parts of life. As someone once put it I don't know who said this, but it's a good quote Our love for Jesus should not be measured by how high we can jump in praise, but by how straight we can walk in obedience, not measured by how high we can jump in praise, but how straight we walk. We can walk in obedience. So celebrate the gifts, desire the gifts. That's what we're going to be studying over the next few weeks, but remember to celebrate them for what they are they are just gifts and keep your eyes on the giver, the one who gives them.
Speaker 1:So what does spiritual power really look like? Not powerful teaching, not speaking in tongues, not miraculous healing as good as all of those things are but, as Paul will tell us in 1 Corinthians 13, what this is all driving toward. It looks like love. Spiritual power looks like patience and kindness. It looks like forgiveness and keeping no record of wrongs. It looks like long-suffering, like flexibility and not insisting on your own way. It looks like self-control. It looks like Jesus. Spiritual power looks like Jesus, the greatest thing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry. What was the most wonderful, fantastic, powerful thing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry? What was the most wonderful, fantastic, powerful thing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry? It was not turning water to wine. It was not healing a blind man. It was not restoring mobility to someone who was paralyzed or even raising someone from the dead. All of those things are amazing, but the most important and amazing thing that Jesus did in his ministry was what he did on the cross. It was bearing your sins and mine, dying for us so that we could be raised with him. That is what defines us. That's the most important thing that Jesus has done for us.
Speaker 1:So over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about spiritual gifts. As we do remember, we can do nothing to earn God's gifts, because they are gifts of grace. He sovereignly gives them as he chooses and they are always gracious. We can't earn them and we can do nothing to lose them. Each of us are gifted for ministry. That's why God gives us gifts. It's not just for us, but it's so that we can become a gift to our local church and to the kingdom of God at large. We're gifted for ministry and your gifts are needed, and we're going to unpack that as we go on in this series. Gifts are good, but they are not what's most important.
Speaker 1:So, as we study this, let's pray together. May God richly bless our church with more and more gifts. We do want to desire them, but especially with more faith, more hope and more love. To these ends, let us pray Our Father, we thank you for all of the gracious gifts you have given to us. We thank you that you have not withheld your beloved son for our salvation. You gave him so that we could be saved, and if you have not withheld him, how will you withhold any good thing from us that we need?
Speaker 1:So, lord, we know that you don't always give us exactly what we ask, because we don't always know what we're asking for, and you know better than we do and your wisdom is better. But we do pray, god, that you would empower our church for ministry. You have given us gifts. Help us to learn how to use them together and, lord, help us grow us into a body that is supporting one another and depending on one another and helping one another to use our gifts to build up the body of Christ here, but also the kingdom of God, as we see more people come to know Jesus Christ. Lord, we want to see that and use our gifts to that end. We pray that you'd help us with that and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, stand with us.