It probably comes as no surprise, but sociologists are telling us that our
society has changed over the last few generations, from one in which there was
more of a community spirit, of people looking out after one another, to a
society that's turned in on itself, to an emphasis on the individual, in which
the person thinks mainly of him or herself rather than of others. What’s true
of society is also true, they say, of the Church. So often when people are
looking for a church to join, the number one question on their minds is,
"what can I get out of it?" instead of asking "how can I be of
service to this church?"
Actually, this idea of looking out for only our own interests and not
thinking about others isn't anything new. When the apostle Paul wrote his first
letter to the church in
Paul begins by emphasizing the change that has come over those who say they
are believers and belong to Jesus Christ. He says, "You know that when
you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led."
We can only imagine what kind of lifestyle these people in
“Jesus is Lord.” That was the church’s earliest confession, its earliest creed. Everything else we’ve come to confess about Jesus in the creed is just an expansion on this basic truth, that Jesus is Lord.
We can be thankful that the Lord has seen fit to bring us to this great
confession. Because, in fact,
this is a confession which human beings cannot make by their own
ability or knowledge. This is a confession into which we are led by the Holy
Spirit. As Paul says in the text, "no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,'
except by the Holy Spirit." What that means is,
you and I are Christians because it was the Spirit of God who worked in our
hearts to give us that true knowledge of Christ, and to open our eyes of faith,
that we might confess Him as Lord. When Paul says, “no one can say, ‘Jesus is
Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit,” he’s not saying no one can simply mouth the
words without the Spirit; he’s saying no one can make that confession from the
heart except the Spirit first renews the heart that it may in fact be subject
to the Lordship of Christ. Paul writes in Romans that the natural mind is not
subject to the law, or the Lordship, of God, nor indeed can it be (
We need to note this, too: that everyone whom the Holy Spirit brings to faith in Jesus Christ and into that kind of vertical relationship with the Lord, is also brought by that same Spirit into a community of believers, into a horizontal relationship with others who have come to submit to the Lordship of Christ, into the Church. There is no other way to be in Christ than to also be in His Body.
Paul, a little later on the text, uses the illustration of the body to talk about the Church. He notes that in the body there are many different parts: eyes, ears, hands, feet. None of them have the same function, the same purpose, but they all work together get the body where it needs to go and what it needs to do.
What it means is that in Christ, we're not lone rangers Christians. We're not in the Church simply for the benefit of ourselves; we're put together as a community, in a body. It's not everybody for himself; it's everybody for The Body.
It's the Holy Spirit who puts us together as a body and works through every member for the functioning of the whole. And so, He endows us with all sorts of spiritual gifts, differing from everybody else’s gifts, for the purpose of building each other up, not primarily for the benefit ourselves. We usually think of a gift as something give to us for our own enjoyment. But in the truest sense, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be the gifts that keep on giving.
Ephesians 4 is the classic text: “He [that is God, the Holy Spirit] gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying [or building up] of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ… [that we] may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joints supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph. 4:11-16)
Wouldn't it make the church somewhat freakish, if everybody had one particular gift – if, say, we could all sing well (which is much to be desired!), but there was no one who had gifts of leadership or of teaching, or if all had the gift to speak well but no one could handle matters of finance and property?
Each of us has gifts that the Lord, by His grace and by His Spirit, has given to us. Every congregation is filled with gifts. In fact, I marvel at the gifts that I see in this congregation, whether they are gifts of teaching or music or leadership or whatever they may be. The problem in a congregation is not that there aren't gifts there for the building up of the body. The problem is in the developing and in the use of those gifts. To this end, Paul wants us to know that we have the Holy Spirit to help us in that matter.
We said earlier that we cannot come to faith without the Holy Spirit. So
also in this matter of seeking the good of others, of caring for one another, of
doing the work of the Church, it's the Holy Spirit who strengthens and
energizes a church to do this. Notice what Paul says: “There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works
all in all….One and the same Spirit works all these things.”
I said in another sermon that we Anglicans believe God works incarnationally
and mediately,
or through means. That’s exactly what this text is saying. God the Holy Spirit
is the one who is working, but he so fills the members of the Body of Christ
that they are the one doing the actual activity. There’s the Incarnational part – literally, “in the body.” And the Holy
Spirit is also the one who equips the saint to do the work of ministry by
giving us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, by giving us
the Word and the Sacraments. See, there’s the “through-the-means-of” part.
Now our serving the Lord and serving one another isn't a matter of our searching forever and trying to figure out what it is exactly we have that's a spiritual gift. Rather, it's seeing a job that needs to be done in the church and then going ahead and doing it. It is said that about ninety percent of your ability to do something lies in your willingness to do it.
An elderly woman had done just about everything in her parish. She’d been president of the Women of the Church. She’d been a member of the choir. She’d been on Altar Guild. She had been the VBS director. Now, at quite an elderly age, she was teaching Sunday School. When someone asked her, "why are you doing this?" she said, "well, there was nobody else to do it so I thought I'd better."
So why are you here at this church? Is it to get something, or to give something?
You see, it’s another one of those great paradoxes of the Gospel: the more you give and minister you gifts the more you receive, blessing upon blessing. And the more you try to hoard your gifts, the more you try to hold on to them and keep them for yourselves, the weaker they become. So the Lord bless us as we use the gifts the Holy Spirit has given us to build up this little part of His body. +
Based on a sermon preached by
The Rev. Thomas W. Larson,