Building the Church and Spiritual Gifts

Building the Church and Spiritual Gifts
1 Corinthians 14:1-19

Corinthians
Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy (NRSV).

The first verse from our New Testament reading this evening. A reading in which Paul gives the Corinthian Church some clear advise on the priorities they should adopt; to build up their Church.

They were experiencing splits and division over practical issues; especially the use of spiritual gifts in worship. Paul recognised that they needed to go back to basics, and to re-affirm their dependence on Jesus Christ.

I wonder how we compare against Paul’s priorities? Are we a Church overflowing with love? Are we a Church eager for the Spirit? Are we a Church that speaks out about the Good News of Jesus Christ?

We’re going to look at these questions through our readings and Paul’s teaching on Spiritual Gifts to see if it helps our understanding about what our priorities should be here at St. Mary’s.

Love
The first priority Paul has is that we should make love our aim.

Love is the most important thing in the sight of God. The problem the Christians in the Corinthian church had, was that there wasn’t much love about.

They were a very faithful church congregation. There were people there who could lead the worship and preach. And there were also people with tremendous Spiritual gifts in the community.

The people prayed. They listened to the Word. They believed that God freely forgave their sins and allowed them to enter a relationship with him.

Everything needed that was vital to the church was happening except for one vital ingredient; they were failing to live out the love of Christ.

Our reading this evening follows that wonderful passage in which Paul describes love as the greatest of all the fruits of the Spirit:

Love is more important than speaking in tongues; more important than Christian maturity; and more important even than personal sacrifice. Love overcomes problems within ourselves; in our relationships with others; and in our relationship with God. The two commandments on which everything else hangs can be reduced down to that one aim.

Spiritual gifts strengthen the church fellowship. Spiritual gifts extend the church witness.

But love is the means by which these gifts are made and to be shared. It’s only when the love of God, through Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, come together that things really start to happen in a church.

Spiritual Gifts
Next, Paul tells each of us to be eager for the gifts that the Spirit brings.

He lists nine gifts in his First letter to the Corinthian Church: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). And includes further gifts in his letter to the Roman Church: ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading and compassion (Romans 12:6-8).

All of these, says Paul, come from the same source, and all are to be used to produce a Christ-like character in the heart and life of God’s people.

Paul describes the church as the body of Christ, with many limbs and organs and Jesus at its head. We’re all baptised by the one Spirit into that one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

Each one of us, says Paul, is needed to play our part in that body. We must all get involved in using the gifts we’ve been given for the benefit of the whole.

The Spirit provides everything we need, and Paul urges us to seek out and make the most of what we’re given. If you have a gift to offer, don’t hang back. Remember that we’re in a place of God: and when freely given, for him, God’s blessing will come upon us through the presence of the Spirit within us.

Paul had no doubts about the keenness of the Corinthian church towards their Spiritual gifts. Their problem was that they became over zealous about one in particular, to the exclusion of the others. They focused too much on “speaking in tongues”, which resulted in emotional outbursts in their services causing chaos and deterioration of the worship, and dividing the Church.

Prophecy
Which leads us on to Paul’s third priority: to desire the gift of prophecy, or inspired speech.

Paul tells us that above all other gifts we should strive to develop the gift of speaking out the Gospel, both conversationally and publicly.

Speaking in tongues only has personal value to the one speaking and requires an interpreter. Whereas applying God’s truth to a situation is more highly valued, because it contributes to the building up of the body.

Emotions are important but not at the expense of understanding. Paul says it’s better to speak a few intelligible words, than flood out a whole heart of words that people don’t understand (1 Corinthians 14:19).

When we pass on the message of the gospel we must communicate in a way that can be understood, and is sensitive to the needs of our hearers.

Paul uses an analogy with playing music: if an instrument is played in a way that the hearer doesn’t want it to be played, it’s interpreted as noise and they want to switch it off. The same will happen if we try to speak to someone who isn’t tuned in to what we say, to them it’ll sound like a foreign language and they’ll want to switch it off (1 Corinthians 14:7-9).

But when we meet someone who’s ready to listen, we must be ready to give out a clear and right message. The trumpet of God must reveal the word of God and not the words of the speaker. If the message is from God, it will build. If it’s from us it will have no value for the body of the Church.

When we’re called to witness about Jesus Christ, we must remember that it’s not through our own strength that we’re called, but through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Before we speak therefore we should pray, pray for God’s help. We need his input and his filter otherwise our efforts will be wasted. It’s only when the Spirit is working in us and in the listener that our words can become a revelation.

Conclusions
So how do we shape up against Paul’s advice? What should our priorities be here in St. Mary’s?

Is love the number one aim in our church?

Love is the means by which the spiritual gifts are made effective and without it we’ll appear un-inviting to those outside.

Love is the test for our faith. Love is the test of our community. Love is the test of our lives.

Paul urges us to celebrate the many gifts within the church and to see them as having a common source and a unifying purpose. We must make the most of our gifts and each one of us needs to play our part in fulfilling God’s plan for his church here in St Mary’s.

We’re called to witness to others about Jesus: to propagate God’s word so that the Spirit can grow in them. But until we have the Holy Spirit present within us, and his powers shown plainly to others through us, we will not be effective.

We must strive to be a loving Spirit-filled and outgoing church, able to offer a clear and inviting message firmly rooted in the love, power and person of Jesus Christ.