Use & Purpose of Tongues, Prophecy & Serving

Transcript

GR 1465
03/27/11
Use and Purpose of Tongues, Prophecy and Serving
Romans 12:6-7
Gil Rugh

We're studying the book of Romans together and we've come to chapter 12. After unfolding in some detail the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God to save sinful human beings, Jews and Gentiles alike, to bring them cleansing, forgiveness and the righteousness of God, now able and called to live lives of service and obedience to the living God. Paul began Romans 12 with an exhortation that we present our bodies because of the mercies of God, the grace shown to us in salvation. We present these physical bodies to God as our sacrifice to Him, sacrifice which is living and holy and pleasing to Him. That means we are not to be conformed to this world, shaped by this world's thinking, this world's desires and goals, practices and habits. But we are being transformed by the Spirit who is making us new in the areas of our mind. He has given us new desires, new interests, new goals.

As he moved on to elaborate on this issue of presenting our bodies, he first covers the area of spiritual gifts because as we present our bodies to God as a sacrifice, as we saw in Romans 6, the various parts of our bodies are now used as instruments of His, for His righteous purposes. One of the manifestations of that for us as believers is the exercising of the spiritual gifts that He has given to us. Every believer by the grace of God in bringing us salvation has also brought to us, given us, bestowed upon us a special ability from God to enable us to function as an effective part of the body of Christ. As we saw in I Corinthians 12:13, for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. It's the work of the one Spirit to place us into the one body, the body of Christ. And when He did that, He gave us a special, supernatural ability to function as part of that body. The analogy being a physical with all of its parts—one body, many parts enabling the body to function as a unity. So it is with the church.

As we entered into the discussion of spiritual gifts, we went a little beyond what Paul talks about in Romans 12, we talked about the subject of spiritual gifts more broadly than what is just contained in Romans 12. Romans 12, I Corinthians 12-14 and Ephesians 4, and then you can add I Peter 4, those are the major sections dealing with spiritual gifts in the New Testament. We noted that the scripture indicates that some of the gifts referred to in the New Testament were for the foundation and establishing of the church. They ceased with the passing off the scene of the apostles. The gift of apostleship was one of those gifts we call a temporary gift because it was given only for the early days of the church. And with the gift of apostleship are other gifts—the gift of prophecy that we are going to talk about shortly. We also referred to other miracle gifts—speaking in tongues, gifts and healing and so on. There were gifts that were part of the early days of the church because during that time God was giving new revelation from heaven and that had to be validated and confirmed as genuine. And the miracle gifts did that. We now have the revelation that God intended for us contained as our New Testament. And so we don't need additional revelation from heaven, we don't need miraculous gifts to confirm any new revelation. We come to the written word of God.

You might be interested, it was very early in church's history that the battle over the division among the gifts was settled. We talk about cessation or cessationism where we believe some gifts ceased with the passing away of the apostles. Very early, in the middle of the 2nd century this battle was settled really for the history of the church. Let me read you from one writer. The rise of Montanism, about 151 to 171 A.D., so we're very early in the church's history, back to about 150 A.D. The rise of Montanism brought about one of the early decisive victories for those holding a biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Montanis claimed for himself and his associates the Holy Spirit which had animated the apostles and with him the spiritual gifts and powers of the apostles and the ability to receive special revelation. A man came onto the church scene named Montanis and he claimed that the Holy Spirit gifting him and his followers in the same way He had gifted the apostles of the early church so that they were receiving revelation from God and had the power to do these special miracles.

It won many followers. Some of you are familiar with the early church father, Tertullian. He got caught up in Montanism. In relation to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit it was the occasion for establishing the truth that the scriptures were closed, that the work of the Spirit was illumination of the scriptures rather than bestowing a new revelation apart from the scripture. It was a question, not what can God do, but whether He will, besides the written word, communicate any further revelations of the council of His will. An important contribution of this period to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit lies in its sane conclusions regarding spiritual gifts and supernatural revelation. The church early took its stand that extraordinary gifts were never promised to the church as a permanent inheritance.

That pretty well settled the issue for the church, even the modern Pentecostal and charismatic movements recognize that. Montanis and his followers were outside the bounds of the true church. So even modern charismatic movement, they have certain stages. They start with the early church, the time of the apostles recorded in the book of Acts. Then you have the Pentecostal movement that began around 1900, the modern Pentecostal movement with the Asusa Street revival, as it has been known. And then you had a third wave, as it is sometimes described, in the middle '60s. An Episcopal priest, Dennis Bennett, claimed to have received the miraculous gift of speaking in tongues. And you have what we have as the neo-Pentecostal movement or third wave Pentecostalism, the latter rain movement, as they call it. The early rains and the latter rains in the book of Job. And so this is the latter rain. A revival, if you will, of all the gifts of the Spirit. There are a number of places where they claim a revival of the gift of apostleship, the gift of prophecy, the gift of speaking in tongues, the gift of miracles. But we've already noted why the gift of apostleship is not present today. Certain requirements for it, one of which required you to have seen Jesus Christ bodily after the resurrection from the dead. We noted in I Corinthians 15 Paul said he was the last one, a uniquely born, untimely born apostle because God gave him that special unique revelation. Because he was going to become an instrument used of God in additional revelation for the church.
I want to say a little bit more about the gift of tongues. It's interesting, the letter to the Corinthians was written dealing with the gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 12-14, and the particular issue in the church at Corinth was the gift of the tongues. And we noted as we talked about the gift of tongues in our previous study, the gift of tongues was the ability to speak in a foreign language that you had never studied or learned. So the Spirit of God would come upon a person and they could begin to speak in another language. We looked in Acts 2 some of the languages that they were speaking.

There still is some confusion on this gift and some who promote the gift with a misunderstanding, particularly coming out of I Corinthians 14. Some think that tongues, they don't identify it with an early language, that's the first problem. You have to first discern what was the biblical gift of tongues. And if it's the gift of speaking in a foreign language that you have never learned or studied, then anything else is not acceptable. We noted Mormons, other cults and groups speak in babbling speech, but actually speaking in an earthly language, no one has ever been able to document. There are second hand accounts of someone who heard someone do that, but people all over, linguists and Pentecostals alike have tried to record meetings and then have those recording analyzed, and no one has ever been able to discern any languages there. To call it a heavenly language would be outside the bounds of what the New Testament talks about with the language.

Some think it could be a prayer language in light of I Corinthians 14. So turn to I Corinthians 14. We're not doing a thorough study of the gifts, you could hear what we did when we studied I Corinthians 12-14 together, and there we did go through the details of those chapters. But in I Corinthians 14, first let me note that in I Corinthians 12:31 Paul says, earnestly desire the greater gifts. And then in I Corinthians 14:1 he says, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts. He is addressing the church there and the focus of the church. It's not an individual desire for a specific gift. And at the end of chapter 12, you earnestly desire, they are to earnestly desire. He's addressing the church corporately, plurally, not singularly here for individuals. The church is to put its focus on the gifts which are to have priority. All the gifts have a place but not all the gifts have the same importance. Some gifts are complimentary and supportive. Now some pick up from I Corinthians 14:2, for one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. God is revealing things here that He has not revealed before, but it's just a matter of this person speaking to God. So they take that it can be a prayer language. Further on in I Corinthians 14:28, if there is no interpreter present in a meeting of the church, a person with the gift of tongues must keep silent in the church. Let him speak to himself and to God. So from these two passages some people take it that there is a prayer language and so a person can speak in tongues to God in private.

Well first we ought to note, according to I Corinthians 12:29, Paul says, all are not apostles, are they? And the way this is grammatically phrased, it expects a negative answer. All are not apostles, are they? No. All are not prophets, are they? No. All are not teachers, are they? No. Come down to verse 30, all do not speak with tongues, do they? No. So it's clear that not everyone received any of these gifts, not everyone received the gift of tongues. So if you're going to talk about the gift of tongues, you have to talk about it was to a limited number of people. And a small number overall because it is just one of numerous gifts that are mentioned. And in fact Paul says it is not even one of the most important gifts that God has given to the church.

Secondly, we have to be careful that we take a study of a subject in scripture in its context. Paul's focus on spiritual gifts in I Corinthians begins in chapter 12 and continues chapters 13 and 14. There is danger when we just jump in and read a verse in chapter 14 verse 2 and say that must be a prayer language for just a person to use individually, privately in his relationship with God.

Come back to I Corinthians 12:4, and this helps us review the subject of spiritual gifts generally. There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit. So there are different kinds of gifts, but there is only one Spirit who has provided all the gifts, one Spirit who is working in the exercising of the gifts. There are varieties of ministries. We're going to see that word serving in our study a little bit later. There are varieties of ways of serving, that's what our gifts are, ways of serving. But the same Lord. Jesus Christ is sovereign, He's the head of the church. So He is the One determining how we serve, what we do. There are varieties of effects, the outworkings of our gifts working, the same God. So the triune God is at work in the exercising of our gifts. So the one God eternally existing in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—are all involved. And this subject of the exercising of our gifts, it is crucial. So there should be no conflict in the exercising of our gifts because if there is we are not functioning in submission and obedience to the God who directs in the use of the gifts.

Then you'll note verse 7, but to each one with all of our varieties, in all that variety, to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit. The Spirit is the member of the Godhead who is active, if you will, focal in the exercising of the gifts. That's why they are called the gifts of the Spirit. To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit, you'll note, for the common good. Early in this discussion of spiritual gifts Paul makes clear, the gifts are given for the common good, for the good of the body, if you will. He gives examples of different gifts that have been provided by the Spirit. There is only one Holy Spirit giving each of these individual gifts. Then you come to verse 11, but one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one as He wills. And then the analogy of the body. The physical body is one body, has many parts. Verse 12 states that, there is one body, many members.

Verse 13, for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body and made to partake of the only Holy Spirit. For the body is not one member but many. Verse 18, God has placed the members, each one in the body just as He desires. The he goes on to talk about no part of the body has importance or value removed from the rest of the body. In other words my hand is very important to my body and it enables me to do many things, pick up this Bible, move things, grasp things. But you cut it off from the body and it loses all value. It's as it contributes as part of the body that its great importance is found. It is for the common good, as he moves on through this.

Verse 27, now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. So anything that affects one part of the body affects the whole body. That's what he has said leading up to verse 27. Then again a reminder, God has appointed in the church the different gifts. Then you have I Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love and it enables us to appreciate what God has to say about love. But you ought to not forget that I Corinthians 13 fits between chapters 12 and 14. He's talking about love primarily as the motivating factor in the exercising of our gifts. When we get selfish in the exercising of our gifts, we have conflict, we have division, we have jealousy. But when you exercise your gift in love you are always functioning for the benefit of the other person, for the common good. It's not that I ought to get attention, my gift is more important, I'm more important, I'm doing more than someone else is doing, and so on. No, we're functioning in love. That's the driving factor.

So I'm not thinking about myself, what I get out of it, what benefits there are to me. That's not the way love functions. Then you come out of the chapter on love to chapter 14. Let's come back and talk about spiritual gifts. And in verse 2, one who speaks in a tongue, in a language that others don't understand, he speaks not to men but to God. If I started speaking in a foreign language that I didn't know and none of you knew, you know the only one who would understand it? God, because He understands all languages. So I'd be speaking to God because I certainly wouldn't be speaking to you because you don't have the foggiest idea of what I am saying. So that's what he is talking about here. In his spirit he speaks mysteries.

But note here, note the emphasis on edifying here through this chapter. Verse 3, but the one who prophesies, we're going to talk about the gift of prophecy in a little bit, speaks to men for edification. That becomes key, as well as exhortation and consolation. So you see the value of the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues, if no one can interpret tongues, is it edifies the body. Verse 4, the one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; the one who prophesies edifies the church. What's the proper use of the gifts? We talked about this in our previous study, it's to edify the church. I can sit at home in my study and go through teaching what I would teach you today, but if I just do it in my study and I say, that really is a marvelous passage, I really benefited from that. But I never come and teach you, I've edified myself, but is that the proper use of my gift?

So just skip down to verse 28 where it says if there is no interpreter he must keep silent in the church, let him speak to himself and to God. If you tell me, I know you have the gift of teaching, why don't you just teach yourself and do it at home. Yes, that's how they want me to use my gift. No, that's not a use of the gift at all. It is for edification. If your gift is administration, go home and administer yourself, don't use it here. We say that's an improper use of the gift. But somehow we select out tongues and say, that's an okay use of the gift. We're going to talk about the gift of serving. Do we tell people to go home and serve yourself? No, but somehow people get the idea that the gift of tongues is different. Note the context.

Come back to I Corinthians 14:5. Paul said, I wish you all spoke in tongues, even more that you would prophesy. Greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying. That's the goal of the gifts. Any other use of the gift is basically irrelevant. We all get benefit and blessing from using the gift God has given us when it is used as God intended it to be used—for the edification of the body, that the church might receive edifying. Paul's question is if I come to you, verse 6, speaking in tongues, what will I profit you? You understand, I don't profit you at all.

So what we have to do verse 12, so you also since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. That's the goal. If you are speaking in a tongue and no one benefits, verse 17, you are giving thanks well enough but the other person is not edified. So Paul said I'd rather speak five words, verse 19, with my mind rather than ten thousand words in a tongue. That's a pretty drastic contrast. Why? Because the only proper use of the gift is for the edification of the church.

Down in verse 26, let all things be done for edification. And so if you have the gift of speaking in a language and there is no one to interpret that, keep silent. Talk to yourself and to God. I mean, that's not saying you have a prayer language. That's never a proper use of the gift any more than my gift of teaching is being carried out when I sit in a room by myself and teach. I get some benefit from that. You get benefit from doing things with your gift perhaps when you are alone, but that's not really the use of your gift. It just is a total ignoring of what he is talking about with gifts to talk about some kind of private use.

And on this basis then, come over to I Peter 4. Reiterate things we've already covered. Verse 10, as each one has received a gift, and remember the word we translate gift here, primarily we're talking about spiritual gifts, are forms of the word grace. They are grace gifts, they are gifts of God's grace to us. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another. How do you employ your gift? Serving one another. Doesn't say as good stewards employ it in serving yourself and in building yourself up. No, you employ it in serving one another, and as you do that the process of building up will go on for us all. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

So first to remember is that our gifts come from the Spirit of God, dispensed according to His will for the purpose of serving others. It's for the common good, for the benefit of others as they are exercised in love. And it's in the context of the church, particularly the local church. Paul talks about the Corinthians, and we noted in I Corinthians 1 that that local church did not come behind in any gift. And sometimes the church has gotten into trouble because it has ideas of expanded “ministries” it could do. And yet they don't have the people to step up and do it so they decide that they will make an adjustment.

In a book written by a well-known man, and he's talking about God's intention is that men teach the word. But if there are not men available, use women. And I guess if no believing women are available, use unbelievers. I mean, where do we go? We've tried to follow the pattern here as a church, if the Lord has not provided the people to do that ministry, then we can't do that ministry. We can't decide we will help God out by filling in the gaps. He may have given us an idea, we may start to pray about it, but the Lord will raise up people to do it because we don't come behind in any gift. We make things available here, we exhort, because some people may not be exercising to the fullest the gift God has given them. And so there is a lack in the body. I mean, if my arm is not functioning, I go to the doctor to find out if it's something to be corrected, because without my arm functioning the rest of the body moves to compensate, but it never fully compensates for that inoperative part. The most desirable thing is for that part to be able to function again to its fullest. And that's what the emphasis on the gifts is for us.

Come back to Romans 12. We've looked at the first part of this. We are to view our spiritual gifts soberly and soundly, God has allotted, dispensed to each of us a measure of faith, verse 3. And we have many members in one body, verse 4, all members do not have the same function. So we are many members. We are one body in Christ, individually members of one another. He keeps stressing that—one body, in Christ, we are all part of one another. But we all have different functions to carry out. Since we have members that differ according to the grace given to us, Paul is writing from verse 3 on the basis of the grace to him as an apostle, now we have grace that has been bestowed upon us that gives us differing gifts and we exercise them accordingly. You have that inserted there and it gives you the sense of what we have in a compressed grammar form here. So we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. And he gives some examples.

First, if prophecy is your gift of grace, you exercise it according to the proportion of faith. Two things involved in that. You function in the realm that God has gifted you, that's your primary focus. That doesn't mean you don't do other things. It becomes clear, as believers we are all to be characterized by showing mercy, but there will be people who have the gift of showing mercy. So the primary focus will be in the realm where God has dispensed or allotted to you a measure of faith. So you function according to the proportion of your faith. That's __________ with verse 3, God has allotted to us each a measure of faith, that ability to trust God and rely upon Him to serve Him in a particular way as part of the body. It would also probably indicate that you function according to the full measure of what God has dispensed to you. Not every prophet would have the same abilities given to him to the same degree.

For example, if I could use an Old Testament prophet, these are not church prophets, but an Old Testament prophet, the prophet Habakkuk received revelation from God. But it's just a little book. The prophet Isaiah is usually viewed as the most majestic of the prophets with the greatest revelation given to him of our written prophets. Well there is a different degree there. Did Habakkuk fail because he didn't prophesy and have the extent of revelations that Isaiah did? No, he had to function according to the proportion given to him.

That would be true in all of our gifts. Even as a pastor/teacher I am not responsible to measure up to the gift God has given to someone else or to think I am doing fine because it may seem I'm doing more than someone else with the same gift. I have to maximize, if you will, and function to the fullest ability that I can with the gift God has given me. And that's the area that I will focus.

If your gift is prophecy. Let's talk a little bit about the gift of prophecy. First of all we have to discern what is the gift of prophecy. Just like the other gifts we talked about—what is the gift of apostleship? What is the gift of tongues? People run right on and they really haven't discerned biblically what is that gift. Some say the gift of prophecy is equivalent to the gift of preaching today. That is not so. And those who are careful in their handling of scripture acknowledge that it's not exactly the same. What is different? The gift of prophecy involved the ability to receive from God new revelation. I think we ought to limit the gifts by how they are defined for us in the New Testament. So that we don't just say, the gift of apostleship, that would be the same as the gift of missionary today. No, it's not the same. The gift of apostleship brought with it authority over the church and the churches. It brought with it the ability to receive new revelation from God and so on.

So the gift of prophecy. I don't have the gift of prophecy, I have no new revelation to bring to you. I simply teach you what the scripture records that was revealed through the apostles and prophets. So the gift of prophecy was the gift of receiving new revelation from God.

Come over to I Corinthians 12 again. Look at verse 28, God has appointed or set in the church. Now here he prioritizes some of the gifts. First, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, and then he categorizes the gifts. That doesn't mean these other gifts aren't important, but there is a priority given to these three gifts. Apostles, they were first in importance. They had authority over the church, all the churches came under the authority of the apostles. Paul's authority as an apostle, he exercised it wherever. He didn't found the church at Rome, we're studying that letter, but he exercises apostolic authority at the church at Rome. So they are unique. They had authority from God over the church as it is founded and grows to be multi-churches. And they receive revelation from God. They are first in importance.

Second in importance are prophets. They don't have the same authority exercised over all the churches, but they do receive revelation from God. Some of that revelation may be recorded as part of our New Testament. For example Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke and Acts, he was not an apostle but he received revelation from God. He is inspired from God. The writer to the Hebrews, we don't know ho wrote that, if it wasn't an apostle it would have been a prophet. Prophets receive revelation from God. We often think of prophecy just with a future dimension, but prophets could also address a present situation. Why did you need prophets in the early church? Well they didn't have a New Testament, they couldn't do like we are doing—go to the book of Romans, go to the book of Corinthians, go to the book of Peter. They didn't have it. How was the church to know what it is to do? God would speak to the church through prophets. Some of that would be for immediate concerns of the day. What will we do here?

We'll look at some examples. Come back to Acts 11:27, now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit. So you see here he is, he has revelation from God. That there certainly would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the reign of Claudius. And the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. This they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. So you see here a prophet received revelation from God concerning a coming event so that the church would know how to function. Gather offerings to send to believers in Judea to help relieve them because they will feel the brunt of this.

Come over to Acts 21. We don't hear about Agabus the prophet in between, but he evidently is functioning as a prophet. Perhaps he traveled to different churches, perhaps he is focused in one or two areas, but in Acts 21 he comes to the fore again. We don't know what kind of prophetic ministry he has been carrying on in between, whether it's the Spirit's intention to preserve that. In Acts 21:10, and we were staying there for some days. A prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And coming to us he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet and said, this is what the Holy Spirit says. In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Here by prophecy he has a revelation from God to tell what is going to happen to the Apostle Paul.

And in this context he is at the house of Philip the evangelist, according to verse 7. That's another gift mentioned in Ephesians 4—evangelist. Philip was an evangelist. We see his action in the book of Acts. Now this man had four virgin daughters, verse 9, who were prophetesses. And Paul addresses the issue of prophetesses in I Corinthians 11. Interesting, you might have thought he was mentioning the four virgin daughters of Philip who were prophetesses and then go on to tell about the prophecy they gave. He mentioned those, but then he goes on to talk about Agabus the prophet. There were prophets and there were prophetesses in the church in its early days. And receiving revelation from God is what they did.

Come back to Acts 13, we're taking all of this from Acts. Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there prophets and teachers. You see how the gifts are primarily focused. Apostles become unique because they are used of God with their authority over all the churches, while the revelation of God is being completed. So in the church at Antioch there were both prophets and teachers. The prophets would receive revelation from God concerning present events. That's true of Old Testament prophets as well. You read the Old Testament prophets, they sometimes are giving prophecies about future events, they sometimes are addressing the present needs and concerns of God's people. So the prophets there, you couldn't go find out, what should we do here. You could turn to a prophet who could seek revelation from God on that matter. Now with the completed Bible we don't need that.

There were prophets and teachers, and some of them are named here, five of them. Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen and Saul. And Saul who we know is the Apostle Paul. All of the apostles would have been prophets, but not all the prophets would have been apostles. Because all the apostles were recipients of revelation from God. But the apostles in addition to having revelation from God as the prophets did, also had authority in the church and over the churches that wouldn't have characterized prophets. That's why in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, the prophets' messages were examined to discern whether they fit with the revelation God had given or not. The apostles had independent authority even to a greater degree.

And what did the Spirit say through the prophets? While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said. You see you have direct revelation taking place. Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So verse 4, being sent out by the Holy Spirit. We need to be careful. We come to the book of Acts and then we're going to have someone go into the ministry, become a pastor, go on the mission field. We say the Spirit of God has called them out and sent them. Well, that's the intention but we want to be careful. There is a difference here, we don't have direct revelation on that so we are seeking God's will and He does lead. We believe the Spirit of God leads today, He leads in the body, He leads in the body as we function together, He leads in different people in the body. But the direct revelation is not there. So we want to draw a line there. We'll talk about this in our next study when we talk about discerning your gift. But for me to say, God called me to be a pastor. Well, that ought to be recognized with others. People call themselves to a job or ministry, the body ought to recognize that and be key in discerning that and recognizing that. And even here it functions in the context of the church, though direct revelation is given to those recognized as prophets in the church.

One other incident, Acts 15. And here you see prophets being used to encourage and strengthen the church. Verse 32, Judas and Silas also being prophets themselves encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message. I think that's why some think that preachers are prophets, because they give a lengthy message. But even though I give a lengthy message, it's not a prophetic message. But Judas and Silas were, and they encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message. Well why did they have to be prophets to do that? Because they couldn't go to I Corinthians and encourage and strengthen the brethren, they couldn't go to I Timothy and encourage and strengthen the brethren because those books hadn't been written, the New Testament wasn't completed. But God could reveal to them what the church and the brethren needed to hear on this occasion. And so use them as His mouthpiece.

Come to Ephesians 2:19. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. There is that picture we looked at in a previous study—God's household, how God's family functions. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a temple in the Lord. You see the same picture. We have the body and all of its parts. Here you have a building with the parts. What is the foundation for the building? The apostles and prophets. Well why not the apostles and prophets and teachers and tongue speakers, and miracle workers and ............. Well wait a minute. The apostles and prophets received direct revelation. Now we build on that foundation. We come and read the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians. We are building on that foundation, we're studying the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. We are building on that foundation. So that's complete. Everything we need to build upon has been revealed. So there is no new revelation, we're building on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and the message that they were given.

Come back to Romans 12. If your gift is prophecy, that's the area where you function and do it to the maximum with the ability God has given you. There is another gift here we ought to mention, if service in your serving. So if the grace given to you is to enable you to serve, then you function in serving and do that to the maximum. Now interesting how he mixes the gifts here. He goes from prophecy, he didn't say the third would be teaching and then we move ........... Serving. Now in one sense all the gifts are serving, we already saw that in I Peter 4. Use the gift that you have been given in serving one another as a good steward of the multifaceted grace of God. So all the gifts are ways of serving, but there are those specially gifted of God with a measure of grace and faith to enable them to serve in a special, greater way. And those who are gifted help those of us who are not gifted in that particular area to become better when we do function in that area. But we are all serving. Those with the gift of serving have that ability. We say it might be a general gift. It's not in inferior in the sense that it's not important. It's not as important as apostleship, none of the other gifts are. But it is absolutely essential to the functioning of the body.

This word, we're familiar with it, we get a lot of words from this. The word deacon is one we're familiar with. This word is used for serving over seventy-five times in the New Testament. It was a common word, it originally was used of those who served tables and waited on people, provided the food and made it so things worked well. Let me give you a couple of examples from the gospels of the use of the word.

Luke 4. Here Jesus has come to the home of Peter, Simon Peter's home. Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. Evidently she was living in the home with Peter. They asked Him to help her. Standing over her He rebuked the fever, it left her and she immediately got up and waited on them. That word translated waited, you may have a marginal note, that's our word served. Served them. You can see, what would she do? Well as the matriarch in the home evidently she would have seen that the meal was provided, all that was necessary for them to be taken care of was taken care of.

Look over in Luke 10, a familiar account. Verse 40, Jesus is in the home of Mary and Martha and He is teaching and Mary is sitting there listening and Martha is working her fool head off. That's a paraphrase. Verse 40, but Martha was distracted with all her serving, all her preparations. And she came and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving. You see, there were things that needed to be done, that were being done. You get the idea of the word. It is doing what needed to be done in providing and caring for what was necessary in the home.

Come back to Mark 10. Lest we play down this gift. You know in light of what we have said about the gifts, the gifts are not stages of working up. You start out by serving in an area but then if you get good at that and are faithful you can graduate up to a next gift and a next gift, and you work your way up the ladder. There is an element of that, that may be true. It is good for us that we have served in a variety of areas, but over time you'll see an area where you are probably most effective, most used of the Lord and recognized by others. So we are not moving up because there is no moving up from the place that God has given us.

Mark 10:45. And in this context the disciples are arguing who will be the greatest in the kingdom and so on. You know, you begin to think, I ought to get priority because I'm this and I'm that. Verse 42, in this context the mother of James and John have asked Christ that her sons have the greatest position and the rest of the disciples act indignant, but they were guilty themselves of jockeying for position. What they probably didn't like here was not that they weren't thinking ........... What they were thinking was they should get the better position. But Jesus calls them to Himself and said, verse 42, you know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. Their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you. Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. So all believers are to be concentrating on serving others. You know there is a gift of serving.

Note this, then. Verse 45, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve. And that's our word. So our desire is to be like Christ, right? And to be entrusted with the gift of serving is a great honor. It may not be as important a gift as the gift of prophecy was, but to be entrusted by God with His grace to serve and given that special ability to serve the body in a unique and special way. Where would our church be without the gift of serving? The people who serve and just do what needs to be done. I look around and say, it's just amazing. We would be crippled greatly if it weren't for people with the gift of serving and they just are there and they do it. You know you sometimes are embarrassed and say, I should have thought of that, I should have stepped up and done that. There is something about a person with the gift of serving, they just do it and they are there doing it. It may not seem great, but it's absolutely essential for the household of God to function.

It's like the mother in the home. How do you categorize it? What she does makes the home function. That's what the gift of serving does and it's what Christ came to do, to serve, to function for the benefit of others.

We won't go there because of time, but in Romans 15:8-9 Paul will remind the Romans that Christ came to serve the Jew and the Gentile alike. He used that same word.

This probably is the same gift referred to as helps in I Corinthians 12:28. In different lists of the gifts—Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, I Peter 4—you don't always have the same. In some of the lists it seems like what you might call helps would be similar to the gift of serving. It's hard to know what the difference would be, a person with serving helps in whatever way needs to be done. That's just not a general gift that anybody does, there is a special gift that enables the body to function.

Well we have to stop there. God has marvelously planned for us. We ought to understand this, we are stewards of His grace, every one of us as believers. This is what we will give an account for, this is what enables the body to function in a way that brings honor to Him and a way that enables us to grow together to maturity.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your grace, the grace that has brought us salvation, the grace that with that salvation enabled us to be placed into the body of Christ as those forgiven and cleansed, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, gifted with the indwelling presence of your Spirit. How marvelous it is that with all the diversity, all the variety that characterizes us as the body, it's all by your divine appointment so that each of us has something to contribute that is significant and important so this body can function wholly as one body in accomplishing the ministries that you have entrusted to us so that we might bring full glory to you. Use us day by day to that end. We pray in Christ's name, amen.