Northside Church - Sydney
Modern Family // Week 2: Spiritual Gifts
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Finally, a message on World of Warcraft. If we've got any World of Warcraft players in here, come on it's okay to admit we're in a safe place. So, all three of you, that's great. So I'm going where three people are going to get where I'm going tonight. That's really cool. World of Warcraft is this massive multi-million dollar multi-million player online game. In fact, I think there are 10 million people that play World of Warcraft around the world. And the objective is that basically you build up this character. You get this character that starts off really small as an amateur, and you begin to build into this character certain skills, certain abilities that then allow you to go on to quests or missions. And whilst the game can be played all by yourself and you can wander around this virtual world online as your new character and all these quests and missions, basically the game is much better played when you're part of a guild. Rob, is it a guild? A guild. Okay, good. And you join this guild and you go and fight all these evil powers in this mysterious world in your guild. And every person, every character within the guild has unique gifts and abilities that no one else has. And yet, when everyone in the guild comes together, that's really the only way that you can successfully progress through the game. Am I right, Rob? All right, that's good to see. That's World of Warcraft. And so, basically, the principle of the game here is, look, it's about identifying and developing these individual skills and abilities, and then taking them into a group context and a mission and a quest that is bigger than yourself. Ah, finally we had something like that in real life. Oh, of course we do. That's what we've been looking through in the book of Ephesians. It's called The Church. It's not a guild. The Church is where you get to take all these unique skills and abilities and fight these evil powers and be in a mission that's far bigger than who you are and yourself in that way. Look, how do I ground this a little bit better? Right before I moved into the ministry, I'll never forget it, my then boss, I was working at Lemley's at the time, he'd taken me out for a few drinks, he'd had quite a few drinks, and so he was in that mode where you tend to tell the truth a little bit more at that stage in the night, you know what I mean. And those of you that know my story, I think I've shared this with you, put his arm around me and he says, "Fam, take it from me, mate, take it as a compliment, but you're a crap accountant." It's like, you should be doing something else, mate. You should, I don't know, man, you like that Anthony Robbins dude, or you should just go and find something where you speak to people all the time, I don't know where you could go and do that, or you could do, but you should go and do that. And I thought, okay, thanks Andrew, I'll take that on board. And here I am standing, talking to people, Sunday evening like this, nothing to do with accounting, amazing grace, I once was lost, I now am found. And in the negative sense, what he was saying is that your gifts don't fit the context of accounting, that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. In the positive sense, he was saying, "Sam, I see through this truth serum something within you that is naturally built for something other than where you are." And that resonated with me, I don't know about you tonight, but if you ever found yourself with that inescapable itch, that you know that you're in a place that is just not built for who you really are, that there has to be or there could be or there should be a place in which your unique gifts and your abilities and your talents and your skills could be bought together somehow with a group of people for something more meaningful and something more purposeful and something that is far bigger than who you are. Well if that is you, then maybe the word tonight will speak to you. You see, I recognize when we talk about the topic of spiritual gifts and that's what we're going to cover tonight as we've been working through the book of Ephesians, I recognize that there's a whole spectrum of thoughts and opinions on this particular topic, ranging from those who know all about spiritual gifts and have all sorts of questions, you've been a Christian for a while and you think this is the real spiritual end of the spectrum, talk about all the crazy stuff, the big trifecta of gifts and maybe we'll get right down into the nitty gritty and we'll talk about all of that. Then there are the people that say, "Well I know about them but I don't even know what mine are, I don't even know what my unique talents and gifts or abilities are." And then the other people that look at spiritual gifts, what does that even mean, mate just invited me along to church tonight and I'm not sure what that's all about. I recognize that there is a whole range of different approaches that we could take tonight. Look, this is where we're going to go for the next 20 minutes or so, really it's about seeing the bigger picture, if we had, people do 26 weeks in the book of Ephesians, that would take us almost to Christmas by now, right? I like a bit of variety in our preaching, so we've got five weeks and one week is dedicated to spiritual gifts. Let's take a big picture helicopter view and we'll see how we go. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 7 through 12, "But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it." This is why it says, "When he ascended on high, he led the captives in his train and gave gifts to people." What does he ascended mean, except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. I was watching a show on TV the other day, it was called Shark You. How do you get a job as a marketer and call a show Shark You? A long story short, it's not the point of this illustration, needless to say, Shark is all about these Shark researchers living in the Bahamas. This particular guy, he loves his sharks, he goes up flying to map the community of sharks and he counts the sharks just by flying above the reef and in fact it's far easier to see the sharks both individually and as a whole if you rise up above it and count them rather than going scuba diving, which for my money is worth is a far better way to look at sharks. And so he goes up and counts tonight, like I was saying, this approach to spiritual gifts, I want to take the Shark You approach to spiritual gifts. We could get in close and have a look at what they all are individually but let's take the big picture view, verse 12 gives us the Shark You perspective, the spiritual gifts, it's to prepare God's people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. He's saying and, sorry, we should go back to last week, that's why we looked at chapters one to three of Ephesians as I said the structure of this book which is six chapters, a chapter is one through the three, really look at the why we do church, why the church exists in that way and then for the rest of this series, chapters four, five and six that we'll look at for the next four weeks talk about the how. And so really when we looked at last week, we saw the God for whatever reason, I mean he could have written his name on the sky, he could have thrown pillars of smoke down here on earth, he could keep doing that for whatever reason, God decided to prove that A, he was real and B, that he was powerful by bringing a group of people together from all sorts of different backgrounds who would normally tear each other's hair off, hair apart, I don't normally fight like that but people who would normally tear each other apart, he would bring them together in community and call them the church, that's how he would demonstrate that he's real and that he's powerful, I don't know why he did it, it's a great mystery but we're a part of it tonight and not only that, as we looked through and looked at the topic of predestination and all the confusion that that can cause, I said the best way I can describe it is that that you can choose to swim whichever direction you want in a tsunami, a God is a spiritual tsunami of unconditional love and unconditional acceptance and inescapable scope and inescapable power that is forging towards a finite point in the future in which all things on earth will be born under the headship of Jesus Christ. And so the great mystery in all of this is that you have a choice tonight, you had a choice last week, you have a choice tonight do you want to be a part of that, do you want to be a part of that mission, that quest, that guild, Ephesians 2 it said we didn't read it last week but it says that you were God's workmanship, you were God's treasured possession, you were God's artwork, you were God's handiwork created to do the works that he is prepared in advance for you to do and that means that God has ordained contexts but he's also ordained unique skills and talents and abilities that you have to meet at some point in time in the future. Isn't that amazing thought? That there are plans and there are purposes beyond our understanding for which you have been specifically ordained to step into and not just by yourself by community in this new humanity, this church and that's why when he talks about the church it's why as we move now from chapter 1 through 3 and then into chapter 4 which we skip the beginning of it all, Paul goes on to a great length to be talking about unity, he says you need to be bearing with one another, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace, there's one body, one spirit, one hope, one lord, one faith, one baptism and one God who is father over all. Paul continues this theme of unity through the book of Ephesians and why is that? Why does Paul front load this concept of spiritual gifts with unity? I think it's because as we've said outside of the gospel, outside of the message of Jesus Christ, outside of Ephesians chapter 2, 11 to 12 that we looked at last week when Jew and Gentile, outside of the leveling message of Jesus Christ you will always take your own distinctions, your own assets and your own gifts and your own abilities and your own talents and you'll take them and you'll lift them up to a position that's above the other person. What do you mean you don't have that? What do you mean you can't teach like that? What do you mean that you can't see the big picture here in all of that? If you go through and read 1 Corinthians 12 you see that Paul speaks into exactly that issue in the church, that one of the tricky situations when you talk about spiritual gifts is that unless we continually remind each other of the application of the gospel in our lives we will be inclined to grab something that is given by God freely to all and lift it to a position above everyone else. And yet Paul is saying in 1 to 3 look at the big picture here, look at the way that Jesus Christ has broken into the world and at the cross he has defeated both sin and death and he's risen from the grave and he's ascended to on high. That's what he's talking about in that funny passage in verses 7 onwards in chapter 4 here when he's talking about well what does it mean that he ascended on high and what does it mean that he descended and really what Paul was alluding to was some 68 I believe it is where he talks about the way in which Jesus is almost coming home in a victory parade. It's like in the old days if a Roman emperor or general had won a war they would come all the way back down the forum and they would come back into the very center of the city and they would bring all the bounty and they would bring all the winnings from the war and they would come through with a big road behind them and they would stride into the city and they would be throwing and dispersing bits of the bounty off to the citizens of the country that's been victorious. And so can you see the linkage? Paul is planning to very vivid picture for people particularly in Ephesus where it would have had a lot of moments. He's effectively painting a picture saying that Jesus is like a victorious king that has defeated death and descended into the very depths of hell and has been risen above everything else and he's coming home victorious and he's dishing out all the bounty of his winnings and it's called spiritual gifts. Now Paul's a lofty sort of dude don't you reckon? Can you imagine having Paul around for dinner? Paul can you pass us the salt? Oh my goodness, yes, you know Jesus said you were the light of the world. You are preserving nature in the decay. Paul, I just want the salt. He's a lofty sort of guy but this is what love about Paul is that he always needs to know why you're doing before what you're doing. That he's painting this big picture here and here's the funny thing in light of all of this, in light of this the Jesus who's been victorious over death and over sin at the cross and is ascended on high. In light of the fact that God is bringing people together in the church, this random bunch of people that are all coming together to prove his power and the scope of his power and it's a body of people that we together for all of eternity from now until eternity. In light of all of that big picture, can you see just how focusing on what I call the trifecta of the spiritual gifts, puns, prophecy, healing? Could you see how that's so totally incongruent with the beautiful picture that Paul is trying to paint for us here? Why is that? People constantly asking me questions about tongues and prophecy and healing. Here's the funny thing, I've never heard of anyone praying for the spiritual gift of giving their money away. That's biblical. Romans 12, Paul says, if it's contributing to the needs of others, then let them give generously. Is anyone want the gift of generosity here tonight? You see, why is that? Look, on one head I think the supernatural side of things, we all want to get a sense that God is in our life and somehow we attribute these supernatural gifts that somehow I'm more spiritual, I'm more accepted or I'm more loved. I'm more loved. That somehow we're relying more on experience than truth to find a sense of security and assurance of the love of God in our lives. We want to see something snazzy. And here's the other thing, this is what happens, this is what happens in the Corinthian church. When you get something that's more snazzy than everyone else. When some people have got more of the snazzy gifts in that way, there's always the inclination to say, oh, don't you have it? What do you mean you don't speak in tongues? And friends, there have been many churches that have stuffed that up so badly, so badly. Nowhere in the Bible does it say everyone should have exactly the same gift? I mean, what would happen to the guild? If everyone had the same gift, if everyone did the same thing, then how are we going to fight off the evil monsters? World of Warcraft, come on. And so of course I'm not poo-pooing the gift of tongues. There have been times in my own ministry when I pray and have spoken with the gift of tongues. And I can tell you as an Anglican boy, from an Anglican background, that's a scary thing to say, that's the first time I've shared it with this congregation. But this is not something that's there to be snazzy to lift up in front of other people. I've got brothers and sisters, younger ones, they're always fun, particularly when they're much younger. My sister went off to a party and the deal was in my family, if you went to a party you had to share everything, I don't know about you, but you had to share everything. And so my sister comes back from her little birthday party and has this lolly bag full of all sorts of stuff. And I said, I want that one, I want the bananas, I love bananas. It's almost my favourite part of the lolly mix, I want a banana, I want a banana. And we were so consumed in this, that goes, whose party wasn't, she goes, I don't know, this is straight and ruffling back in. I want a banana, I want a chocolate freckle, yeah, don't give me a black jelly bean, I don't like them. And you see her problem was that she was more focused on the gifts than the giver. When you see people squabbling about, oh, a gift of you got one gift of you got one gift of you, oh, what so, oh, you've got the gift of bananas. I want to do chocolate freckle. I keep asking God for a banana, but I haven't got it yet. Can you see what I'm saying? You can get caught in the specifics of spiritual gifts, but is your focus tonight on the gifts or is it on the giver of the gifts? Now, to put you at ease for those that sit at that end of the spectrum that want to get nitty gritty about what our gifts, I'm this person who I want to know what it's all about, what it's all about. Look, let me quickly run through what some of the spiritual gifts are. In this verse, it gives us a list of five prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers. And then if you read 1 Corinthians 12, it gives us nine, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, powers, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation. And which is it? Five or nine? Or how many other have we got here? Which one is it? Is the Bible against itself? No. Paul wrote both of the lists of gifts that we have in this way. What Paul's saying here? Here's what he's saying. He's saying red, and yellow, and pink, and green, purple, and orange. You can sing with me. I can sing rainbow, sing rainbow. Have you ever noticed when you put a source of white light through a diamond that it refracts out into a rainbow? And when you take that pure source, it splits out into all of its element parts. And when Paul talks of spiritual gifts, here he attributes it more to Jesus Christ's giving gifts. But when it's 1 Corinthians 12, he talks about the Holy Spirit giving gifts. That's why he's saying gifts of the Spirit. What he's really saying is that God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit is the source of life, that when it moves into his diamond, his precious jewel that is the church, and he shines out into that church, it splits out into an array and a spectrum of beauty that the world has never seen. People serving one another. I mean, what can be more beautiful than seeing a corporate CEO come in and serve you coffee over morning? You know that happens here. What can be more beautiful than seeing people who are financially and socioeconomically weak move in to minister to the needs of the rich? What could be more beautiful and wonderful to see that? You see, the reason that there's five gifts here and there's three gifts here and there's nine gifts here, is that Paul is just trying to explain all the wonderful colors of the light that is God himself. And all of us reflect a bit of that light, whether it be through teaching or preaching, or whether it be through service, or whether it be through gifts of wisdom. You know, the most important thing to recognise when we see it in that plane and that spectrum, it means that no one gift is better than the other. You seriously think that I've got a better or more important gift because I get up here and speak every Sunday night. My gift is no more important than the person who's been here at four o'clock this afternoon to set up communion in our nice little cups and gone through with a little clicker thing bit by bit by bit, all alone in the back of a boardroom with no one else there to watch them or to applaud them or to stare up at them and give them that sense of affirmation. My gift is no more important than that person because we're red and yellow and pink and green purple and orange and border. The gifts of God are a wonderful spectrum and a reflection of himself. It's a manifestation of himself, an expression of himself. Thankfully, you know, there's this difference between attitude and manifestation. If I'm angry, I'm just angry. If I manifest that, I punch you in the face. And so what I love about this spiritual gifts is that they are the manifestation of God. They are the expression of the attitude of God in his love and his mercy and his grace that he would give every person equally, all Christians at least a slice of this beautiful rainbow. And what it means for us then in that way is that all gifts are equal. And most importantly, every person in this place is a minister. Not those that can speak well, not those that can pass the well. Every person is a minister. That's what the gifts are, prophets, apostles. Now, look, if you want to dig into, I'm talking to this person over here, the one that wants to nitty-gritty of the gifts. I've given you some homework tonight. Here it is. There's five different catalogues of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 14, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter, chapter 4 verses 10 onwards. All go through the different spiritual gifts. And when you add them all up, you see that there's at least 21 different gifts, probably more. And so what grabs you is the spectrum, the spectrum of it all. But here's what I want us to get away from tonight. Here's the big idea of everything tonight. Here's what I want you to grasp tonight. When you're saying, well, what is a spiritual gift? Here's the template. Here's the framework. Here's the overhead transparency that you can put over your life and work out whether it sits within the realm of being a spiritual gift. A spiritual gift is an ability to meet a need for the common good. It's an ability given to you freely by God to meet the needs of other people for the common good of his church. And so that could involve something that correlates with your natural talents and abilities. It could be something that's radically different from that, but they're very, they're very different. And therefore if the church is this diamond of God's, this gem of God's that he shines his light through then to focus only on tongues and teaching and prophecy and healing would diminish our understanding of the source. Instead, we should be looking around this church and seeing God manifest himself in the most wonderful of ways. Friends, let's not let tonight be a night where we go home and we're constantly looking at the bananas. Annoyed saying to God, look, why haven't I got, why haven't I got a banana? Oh, I love bananas. Why haven't you given that to me God? Look, let's focus on the giver, not the gifts themselves. And so finally, how do I know what sort of gift that I've got? We've been through why God gives the church gifts and why we need gifts. Let's keep the, keep the guild together to build the guild up for its mission. Then we see that what spiritual gifts are, they're an ability to meet a need for the common good. And then we see, well, this is a golden question. I don't think I've ever spoken on this yet, but how do I know what spiritual gift I have? I know you're all busting. You just, I can see it in you. You're just, oh my goodness, which, which one have I got? Well, let me add it. Look, let me set this up because the next five or so minutes is going to be critical, particularly because does anyone remember the NCLS survey that we did here at church? So it was a funny couple of people. It was a funny church survey that surveyed all the aspects of our church life and looked at what we do do well and what we don't do well. And you know, one of the biggest areas of confusion was spiritual gifts. In fact, as a ministry team, our hearts sank because it was one of the areas that people had the most confusion over. Most people figured, I don't know what my spiritual gifts are. And our reaction to do that, and I think we will be doing this later on, which is entirely okay. But our first reaction is that let's do a survey. I don't know if you've been around the church for a while, but you wonder what your spiritual gifts are. It's like, let's do a survey. Let's, let's get one of those multiple choice things. You rub out your lead pencil and stick it through the machine. And you know what, I was thinking that we need to do surveys and I thought, that's, that's exactly what the Ephesian church would have done. I'm thinking, of course, Paul, you know, there were the Silver Smiths, he pulls out the little multi-choice sheet and gets them all to fill it out, put it through, comes back in all various colors and flow charts for you. So you can see where you got Kingley or Priestley or pastoral gifts. Of course, that's... How do you think that early church discovered their gifts? It's a little simple. They served. They served in the church. They became Christians and they served in the church. In other words, participation preceded identifications. They participated before they got worried about sitting in a church chair somewhere out the back going, oh yeah, I wonder what spiritual gift I've got. You know what, we just, we haven't done our survey as a church in at least six months and I'm just so confused. I just don't know what I've got. No, that they served. And it's through service that you will quickly find your sweet spot. I mean, what's sweet spot? What are you talking about? Look, I want you to draw three circles. If you've got... You can draw it on the attendance card that you didn't fill out tonight. Let's grab a pen. Draw three circles like that. I want you to fill them in. Mesh, don't let them in on the secret just yet. We'll bring up the other slide in a sec to fill it out. But here's what I want you to draw on the top left. It's just the word affinity. So in other words, what am I drawn to? This circle represents all that you resonate with. You know what I mean? You know how... There are some people that just have an... I marvel at them. They have an incredible heart to be working with people that are in need and the poor. Their lives just seem to pour out and it's just never ending. And I look at it and I go, I just don't know how that... Have you ever seen those sorts of people around church? Just absolute, absolute heartbleeds for ministries of mercy. So what are you drawn to? Some are drawn to that. Others are drawn to thicken up crazy ways to explain the Bible like myself. Some people are drawn to spend their spare time trying to think of 80s illustrations that will somehow teach the book of Ephesians. It's crazy. And some are drawn to putting on Brian Houston DVDs on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and just practicing, bless you. Bless you. Bless you. God's going to bless you. I love Brian. We love Hillsong in this place. You get what I mean. I just... I love spending my life watching other preachers because that's what I'm drawn to. What's your affinity? What are you drawn to? What are you drawn to, top circle? And this is what during the week what I want you to do is to then fill out all the different things that you're drawn to. It doesn't have to be churchy stuff. If it's been with friends, if it's socializing, if it's helping people out right in there, the next one is ability. This means what am I naturally good at? And this is can be quite subjective. But it means what am I good at? What do people remark that I do naturally at? What do I... Here's the best way to think of it. What do I excel at without even thinking? And then the last one is opportunity. And then simply that says, what can I do? What's available? What are the areas of service? I read them also at news again this week and they're looking for musicians. Now they're looking for youth leaders. Now they're looking for kids leaders. Now they're looking for Bible study leaders. We've got a list that could fill that circle overnight. I can tell you that now. And so the sweet spot is that funny little circle right in the middle of it all in which you get the combination of your affinity, what you're drawn to, your ability, what you do without thinking really well. And most importantly, the opportunity that presents itself. Friends, you don't need some spiritual survey to work out what sort of spiritual gift you got. The church back then didn't need it. You know what they did? They served. They served. It's like, for example, one of our girls here tonight, the When Her Connection Group, closes down for the end of 2012 and they multiply it into other groups. Instead of emailing me to say, Sam, where are you going to fit me in now that my group's closed down? She says, you know what, I've been thinking and praying about it, but I'm just drawn to work with young women. And I just love getting alongside girls. And you know what? I've had a bit of Bible experience and my church somewhere I could help out? Of course there is. It's the guy. One of our youth guys I hear at the moment has gone and taken an electronic drum kit home just so we can learn how to play drums. I like this. It's like there's a perpetual black hole underneath that funny riser on this stage. It's like people, they play one session, they mysteriously get sucked through the floor off into some other place and they disappear. There's a chronic need for drummers in this place. And here's the funny thing. Just as a side note, I want to go for a bush walk once to a place called the Knoll I think it was in the Blue Mountains. You can look it from Evan's lookout and it was this beautiful looking, oh, soft and just even a wonderfully placed lookout in the Blue Mountains. And I said, Dad, we've got to hike there one day. I mean, it would be like walking in fields of God. It was just perfect and it was beautiful and it just looked wonderful. So we eventually did it three years later. We get there. We start trekking out towards the Knoll. I get out there to this wonderful place that somehow I think I'm going to roll around with sweet music and bluebirds flying from the sky and it was just going to be a piece of heaven until I discovered that that green grass that I was supposedly looking at, that velvety almost billiard table-like texture that I was looking at from a distance was just a bunch of thorny bushes and trees and it scratched the absolute daylights out of my legs. I mean, I couldn't wait to get out of there fast enough and I think service can be a little bit like that. I think you look from a distance a week then the church could be rosy and I've got all my gifts to use and I can't wait to hike there and then you get in the thick of it and you realize that there are scratches and there are bumps and sometimes it just sucks and it takes effort. A worship leader that's driving all the way up from Wollongong and all the traffic and his irreverence on a Sunday afternoon. I mean that in seriousness, in all seriousness, as your worship pastor goes away, we've got a bunch of people in this place. We're prepared to drive an hour and a half to come up and practice for an hour and a half so we can sing together and worship God together. They served. They served. We don't need surveys. We will do surveys and that's okay. It's going to be part of how we support you as a team but you don't need surveys and I guess where I'm being really real with you tonight is that if you're using a survey as an excuse, as an excuse for not exploring the wonderful and the unique and the precious gifts that God has given you, if you're using a survey as an excuse to not link them into a picture that would blow your mind, then you haven't got it. They served. So that's how we know what we have. I hope you fill out your circles this week but I encourage us all to get into it this week, to look at the ways in which God has drawing you to things that he's given you natural talents and abilities with things and the ways that that might link into the purposes of his church. We could have gone a whole direction with spiritual gifts tonight but we unfortunately or fortunately I've just had to take a shark you approach. We just had to fly over for all the 20 minutes or so and see the big picture of it all but it's World of Warcraft to a T. Are you on a mission where you are plugging your individual gifts? Are you growing them? Are you discovering them? Are you moving into a guild? Into a body of people that can only achieve the mission if they do this together. If you're doing that then you're moving ever closer into the plans and purposes of God. Friends there need not be any more excuses for us tonight when it comes to spiritual gifts. God's eternal plan was to create a new humanity through Jesus Christ, the wonderful victor. The one that has come down and dispersed in all these wonderful aspects of life into this beautiful and wonderful community. You have an opportunity to be a part of that bigger picture over this next week in these coming months. Don't miss the opportunity to identify and discover and grow the spiritual gifts that God has given you.