Gifts of the Spirit: Why?
Gifts of the Spirit: Why?
This is the first post of several that will think about the gifts of the Spirit. And it is good to start by thinking about why the Spirit gives gifts to His people.
God gives spiritual gifts for the good of the church, so that everyone in the church would grow to look more like Jesus.
1 Corinthians 12
12:11 - There is a list of spiritual gifts, and then God says, “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He will.”
So the Spirit is empowering these various gifts, and service, and activities. And the Spirit is apportioning each of these gifts. The Holy Spirit cuts the cake, He decides that you get the corner piece, you get the middle piece, you get the piece with words on it. That in itself has an application. It means you don’t need to look at other people in the church and think - ‘I wish I was able to do that.’ What you have comes from God, and so you can thank God for that other person and what He’s given them, and you can thank God for what He has done in your life. And in the same vein, we shouldn’t look at other people and think that they’re less important to the church because they don’t bring a lot of skills or abilities to the table. They’re a part of the body, and God has given them their abilities and roles in the church. And so if you look at someone and you think they’re just dragging us down and holding us up as a church - no, don’t think that. Thank God for them too.
This we know to be true, God adds people to the church (Acts 2:47) and God arranges people in the church according to His plan, according to His will (1 Cor 12:11).
And why is the Spirit dishing out these gifts in the way He does?
12:7 - “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Your gift from the Spirit is for the common good. Why does God give you the abilities, the wisdom, the insights that He does? It’s for the good of others. It’s in order to help the other people in the church. And “common good” isn’t just some vague term, it means something specific. It means that we help people look more like Jesus.
In 1 Cor 14, Paul continues to talk about the spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues, and he is more specific about their purpose. He says in 14:5 that the purpose for these gifts is - “that the church may be built up.” So we’ve narrowed in from “common good” to “building up the church.” That’s why the Spirit gives gifts.
We could narrow in one step further. In Eph 4:11, you see that God gives people to the church, Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, and then he tells us why they are given. They’re given (v 12) to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ (so that’s the same thing we just saw - God gives gifts so that the church will be built up). But what is the church being built into? We’re not just being built into a stronger organization that is going to last longer. We’re being built into the image of Jesus. Eph 4:13 “until we all attain to… the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
So we’ve narrowed in and seen that spiritual gifts are for the common good. That means that they are for building up the church. And building up the church means growing to look more like Jesus in every way. That’s why God gives us spiritual gifts, so that everyone in the church might help each other to look more like Jesus.
Sometimes we can wonder what our gift is. But when we remember that the gifts are for helping people look more like Jesus, it helps us remember that the gifts are just a tool that God gives us to accomplish our task. So if you don’t know what your spiritual gift is, don’t stress about it. You don’t have to know what your gift is before you can serve God and be a part of the church and help people without ever knowing what your spiritual gift is.
In fact, I would probably say that the gifts of the Spirit are more fluid than we think. The purpose of the gifts are to build up the church, and that requires different things at different times. For example, God may give a person the ability and calling to pastor, and they are faithful in that. And then, for one reason or another, they end up retiring. When a pastor retires, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still able to help the church, it just means that they’re going to be doing it in different ways. And those different ways are still empowered by the Spirit and for the purpose of people looking more like Jesus. And so that’s another reason why I don’t think we should be overly rigid in thinking “this is my gift,” or overly concerned if we have difficulty figuring out what my gift is, because as long as our focus is on building up the church, the Holy Spirit is going to show you opportunities to do that and empower you to do that.
Our focus isn’t on “what is my gift,” our focus should be on, “how can I love this person well and help them grow to love Jesus and look more like Him.”
We don’t need to overcomplicate this process. God gifts and empowers people to build up the church to look more like Jesus. Make it your aim to help fellow church members grow in their faith, think about ways you can do that, and then start doing it. It doesn’t have to be some mystical thing, God often uses simple straightforward methods to accomplish His purposes.
One more thing to think about, and this is just a huge idea. If you go back to 1 Cor 12:7 we see that phrase that God gives to each a “manifestation of the Spirit.” That deserves some thought. That doesn’t mean that we only get a part of the Holy Spirit. Everyone has the fullness of God (Col 2:9-10). What this is talking about is that the Spirit shows up in different ways in each person's life. Not everyone has the same giftings, that’s the point being made. Some people are an ear, some people are an eye, but you each have the same Spirit. But since the Spirit is showing up and doing different things in each person's life, that means that the fullness of God’s glory is going to be seen in a unique way when you look at the church.
The ear is an amazing thing, with it’s tiny bones and eardrum and how it functions. But you’re going to be even more amazed when you zoom out and see all the systems and inner workings of the entire body. You can zoom in on one person’s life and see how amazing God is, but when you zoom out to look at the entire church, you see the amazing breadth of God’s grace, that He is doing so many things at the same time in so many different people. And so the church is set up by God to bring glory to God in a way that an individual Christian cannot. The church displays the multifaceted glory of God.
This is one reason why the church is so important, not just in our life, but in God’s grand plan for the universe. God creates all things for His glory. Everything in the universe is for Him. People are created to display the glory of God and bring Him glory. And if you want to bring God more glory, then you must be involved in a church. Because it is in the church that the fullness of the glory of God is displayed in a way that cannot happen anywhere else (Eph 3:7-11; 4:11-16).
And so structure your relationships around the church (only marry a Christian, don’t schedule family things during church time, bring your family to church instead of missing church to spend time with family.
Structure your leisure time around the church. Church time should not be optional, it should not be a time to catch up on our favorite hobbies. But more than that, we should start thinking about how we can include other members of the church in our day to day lives in order for us to grow and them to grow.
Structure your job around the church. Is this the job God wants you to take if it means that you're going to have to miss church for work? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Structure your risk tolerance around the church. I mean, people in other countries know that they literally might not come back home from church, they might get arrested there, they might die there. But they go anyways. That's how important the gathering is for our faith and in displaying God's glory.