Embracing All the Gifts

In I Corinthians chapter 12, Paul compares the church and its members to the physical body.  Paul starts his discussion with this simple comparison.  Just as the physical body is one body with many parts, so too the church is one body (of Christ) with many members.  And just as with the physical body, each member of Christ’s body is different and gifted for a unique function and contribution to the church.  The beauty of it all is that “God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired” (vs 18).  God Himself has placed you in the body for a purpose.

To summarize the main points of Paul’s analogy, no part of the body should consider itself inferior to another.  Conversely, we should not look down on others as less important than ourselves.  And we should not desire to be a part of the body that we are not.  Every individual and unique member of the body is crucial to its function.  “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?” (vs 17) and so on.  So crucial is each part that we should never say to another, “I have no need of you” (vs 21).  But I wonder if, in subtle and subconscious ways, this is exactly what we say to each other.

As I visit with people, especially young people, across the country, folks are looking for a way to exercise their gifts and talents in the church.  They are looking to extend the church’s reach through their various circles of influence.  The churches themselves, however, are often going the other direction; streamlining and eliminating ministries in ways that suggest not every gift is needed.  For example, when the church choir disappears, what happens to those with the gift of song?  When the adult Sunday School classes are dissolved, what happens to those with the gift of teaching?  When the service projects go away, what happens to those with the gift of helps?  Focusing on doing a few things well is great for businesses, but it does not fit the church, the body of Christ.  The church is made up of diverse members with diverse gifts and all should be embraced.

A young missionary working overseas shared with me her joy at being asked by a team of nationals to join them in planting a new church.  She has the gift of encouragement and had an integral role in helping the local leaders get their new ministry off the ground.  The joy in her voice as she shared her story was unmistakable.  Why?  Because she had been asked to contribute to the cause of Christ in a specific way that matched who she is.  She not only felt needed, she was needed!

My own ministry experience has been marked by great highs and disappointing lows.  The highs were generally marked by being asked to do something I was made to do and the lows usually involved serving in an uncomfortable role; not uncomfortable because it was difficult, but uncomfortable because it was not where I felt that I had something to contribute.  Maybe it was far from my giftedness or just a place where I was filling a slot and not really feeling needed.

Now, let me make clear, as we mature in the Lord, we move beyond our natural talents and develop ways to serve in all kinds of areas even those we thought tedious.  We should always be willing to be stretched by God into new areas of service.  We should never become a prisoner of our personality or our own self-evaluation.  We should always be open to new challenges and opportunities to serve.  But as leaders helping spur our members on to maturity, a good place to start is helping them find their “sweet spot” in the church and develop that avenue of service.

Unity, Diversity, and the Body of Christ

One of the beautiful aspects of being connected with believers as members in the body of Christ is the celebration of our diversity.  When we love well, our differences become causes for celebration, not barriers to inclusion.  This is one of the unique features of the church.  The church is not a social club where membership depends on a shared trait or interest.  We are not an affinity group.  We are a body.  Listen to Paul’s description of the church in I Corinthians chapter 12.

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  For the body is not one member but many” (I Cor 12:12-14).

“If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.  And if the ear says, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?  If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired” (I Cor 12:15-18).

“If they were all one member, where would the body be?  But now there are many members, but one body.  And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’  On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it” (I Cor 12:19-24).

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.  And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.  Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it” (I Cor 12:24-27).

It is incredible to me how, after almost 2000 years of human history have transpired, this passage could have been written to today’s church.  Maybe that is because it was written to today’s church.  Themes like celebrating our diversity at the same time as practicing our unity, God forming the individual parts of the body as He desired, the danger of declaring “I have no need of you”, jealousy mixed with inferiority as to our part in the body, each suffering when one in the body suffers, and each celebrating when one is honored all have application to our contemporary church; application that we will explore next time.

Hating One’s Parents?

Last post, in the comments, Nancy brought up Matthew 10:37 and appropriately so.  “He who loves father and mother more than Me [Jesus] is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37).  In the parallel passage in Luke chapter 14, Jesus uses even more striking language, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Lk 14:26).  This seems to be in direct contradiction to the point of our last post – we love God by loving our families – so what gives?

It is important to understand the words of Christ in the context of His overall message.  Throughout His ministry,  Jesus extended – and to his listener’s ears – pushed the limit of the law of love to a radical model of unconditional love that, for example, includes forgiving our brother an infinite number of times (Mt 18:22) and loving our enemies of all stripes (Lk 6:27).  With that kind of expansion of love taught by Jesus to include even our enemies, it would seem to contradict Himself to suggest denying love to those closest to us.

Additionally, Jesus supports love of parents in his complaint against the Pharisees in Mark 7:9-13.  When talking about the Pharisee’s tradition of allowing a man to say to his parents in need, “The money I have available to help you has been set aside for God, so you are on your own”, Jesus condemns this action as not honoring one’s father and mother.

With that background of support for love of family, what is Jesus saying in Matthew 10 and Luke 14 about loving family less and hating one’s parents?  Just as the pursuit of wealth can come between us and the kingdom of God (think rich young ruler of Mark 10:21, 22 who when commanded by Jesus to sell all that he had went away “saddened for he owned much property”) so too family ties can become a barrier to following God.  I believe we honor and love God by loving our families, but never by putting them ahead of God’s leading in our lives.  For example, do we deny God’s call to come to salvation because family disagrees?  No.  Do we ignore His instruction in the path He has for us because family cannot accept it?  No.  But we can always respond in a loving way and trust God to work in the hearts that don’t agree with God’s call on our lives.

Back to Luke 14:26, I don’t believe Jesus is asking us to “hate our parents” in a literal sense.  What Jesus is saying is discipleship is serious business and we dare not minimize His point.  The context of the two verses we opened this post with is Jesus’ focused teaching on the cost of discipleship; the need to take up our cross and follow Him.  The story of the Pearl of Great Price and many other parables and teachings of Jesus emphasize that our first allegiance is always to Christ and His kingdom.  The “hating one’s parents” is Jesus using the most jolting and arresting language available to him to make His point; our first allegiance as Christ followers is to Christ and His kingdom.

What is interesting to me is how, as the New Testament revelation progresses, it becomes clear that one of the ways we demonstrate our allegiance to Christ is by the way we love our wives (“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” Eph 5:25), by the way we love our family (“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” I Tim 5:8), by the way we love our neighbor (“If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well” James 2:8) and by the way we love each other (“No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” I Jn 4:12 and about a hundred other love one another passages).

Love of family and love of God, as presented last time, are not competing loves.  They are both part of our pursuing all that God has for us in this wonderful adventure of being His child; loving Him as our Father and loving our wives, children, parents, neighbors, and brothers and sisters in the Lord.

 

Love in the Big Circle

In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus identified the two great commandments – love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself – as the greatest commandments in the Old Testament.  Did I just say Old Testament?  I did, and I said it because Jesus said it.  Jesus listed these as the greatest commandments in “the Law” (understood to be the Old Testament) saying that “the whole Law and the Prophets” (again, the Old Testament) depended on them.

In the New Testament, Jesus introduced a new love emphasis.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love on another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).  Three times in these two verses, Jesus repeats the new and radical command, “Love one another”.  And Jesus elevated loving one another as the gold standard by comparing its priority to His love for us.

When we view love’s priorities as competing circles, love God first and love others second, we may defend our lack of loving others in a particular situation with the reasoning that in this case my actions demonstrate that I am loving God more.  The message and model of the New Testament is that we are never to deny love to others on the basis of loving God first.  Our loves are not competing loves, but complementing loves.  Loving God is one big circle and loving our wives, loving our children, loving our fellow believers, and loving our neighbors are part and parcel of the big circle of loving God.  The apostle John, for example, equates loving God and loving others at the highest level in his epistle.  As to love’s priorities, John writes that we demonstrate our love for God who we cannot see by how we love our brothers and sisters who we can see.

Let me give you one example of how this works in practice.  In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul encourages husbands to, “Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for it” (Eph 5:25).  When we add in, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13), we find that we are to love our wives with the greatest love possible.  Our wives do not take second place to loving God.

The challenge, for ministers and laymen alike, is to not put our love of ministry – whatever God has given us to do to serve His body – above our love for our wives and I believe by extension our families as well by some expectation that leaving them behind is putting God first.  Ministers gaining their congregation’s admiration while loosing their family’s is a well-worn tale.  It shouldn’t be that way.

Before I set up shop to prepare a Sunday School lesson or write a blog post, I often ask Rhonda, “Will you be lonely if I go off and …?”  It is my way of saying, “Do you need anything from me right now before I disappear into the study?”  It is, in a small way, an expression of my love.

In I Peter chapter 3, the apostle starts the chapter off with an admonition to wives on how to treat their husbands with respect.  Turning to the husbands in verse 7, Peter writes, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered” (I Pet 3:7).  Do you want to be a prayer warrior?  You can pray in Jesus’ name, stare down the devil, exercise great faith, or whatever you want, but the effectiveness of your prayers may come down to the simple question, “Are you treating your wife in an understanding way?”  Or put another way, “Are you loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it?”

When you are doing your seminary homework and you hear the dishes rattling around in the kitchen, the most spiritual thing you could do at that moment might be to go downstairs and help your wife with the dishes.  When you would like to start the day with focused prayer and see a lunch that still needs packed for your grade-schooler, the most spiritual exercise might be to pitch in and finish the job.  In the final analysis, loving your wife does not compete with your spirituality, loving your wife completes your spirituality.  Putting down your Bible and filling the dishwasher might be the clearest expression of your love for God today!

Motivated by Love

When we embrace the gospel message of Jesus Christ, one of the changes we experience, whether rapidly or gradually, is that we are no longer motivated by selfish ambition, by “what’s in it for me.”  We have a new motivation for our actions.

In the first chapter of I Peter, the apostle goes to great length to explain our inheritance in Christ.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Pet 1:3-4).

Peter continues in this chapter with two actions that should naturally follow when we recognize the spectactularness of our salvation.  Obedience and love.  “Therefore [based on what I just said about so great a salvation]…as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior” (I Pet 1:14-15).  And, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart” (I Pet 1:22).  Obedience and love.

It is interesting that Peter follows verse 22 with the reason we are even able to love.  “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (I Pet 1:23).  God’s imperishable seed inside empowers us to love fervently.

If our goal for living the Christian life is to keep a set of rules or attain a certain level of character qualities, the road will grow stale and the motivation will fade away.  If, on the other hand, our goal is to love from a pure heart, our motivation and enthusiasm will grow as our love grows.

Think about this progression with me and the verses that go with it.

  • My ultimate goal, the greatest commandment in the New Testament, is to love one another.  (See Jn 13:34, Jn 15:12, Jn 15:17, Rom 12:10, Rom 13:8, I Thess 3:12, I Thess 4:9, II Thess 1:3, I Pet 1:22, I Pet 4:8, I Jn 3:11, I Jn 3:23, I Jn 4:7, I Jn 4:11, I Jn 4:12, II Jn 1:5.)
  • I love others by serving them.  “Through love, serve one another” (Gal 5:13).
  • A clean vessel is a vessel fit for service.  “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things [the bad stuff], he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (II Tim 2:21).
  • I cleanse myself by obeying God’s commands, an obedience that comes from my love motivation.  “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love” (Jn 15:10).
  • Love is our motivation to do the right thing.

The apostle Paul adds an additional dimension to our love motivation in II Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us.”  The idea of being “controlled” or “constrained” (KJV) by love is more than just being motivated by it.  As my friend Greg Despres points out, the word picture in this verse is like a rushing river being controlled or constrained by its banks.  Its the idea of being controlled or constrained by a crowd as we all press into an arena for a sporting event.  Faced with this “control”, it only makes sense to go with the flow.  Our love is going with the flow of who Christ indwells us to be.  Let your pride and selfish ambition fall to the wayside and go with the flow of Christ’s love filling you and overflowing in service to others.  Go with the flow!