Spiritual Gifts and Love: The Foundation for Ministry

Spiritual Gifts and Love: The Foundation for Ministry

Opening Story: The Cymbal in the Orchestra

I grew up in the Salvation Army, where multiple generations of my family were involved. As a child and teenager, I regularly attended brass band rehearsals in Oslo. One day, my friend decided to join me—partly to meet people, and partly because there was a cute guy in the band.

The problem was, my friend couldn't read music and had no experience following a conductor. The conductor handed her a triangle. Ding, ding, ding. She still couldn't follow it. Later, during the rehearsal for cymbals, she stood up with the band, and when the conductor cued her in, she crashed them together with all her strength—at completely the wrong moments. A few seconds of distracted teenage girl, then BANG—cymbals crashing at the wrong time.

This instrument, called a dark crash, doesn't sound great on its own. It's an empty sound. But here's what's significant: when played at the right time in a piece of music, during a climactic moment in an orchestra, it creates something beautiful. When that sound hits at precisely the right moment, it's stunning. But if you just bang on it alone? It's not beautiful at all. It easily draws attention away from everything else happening around it.

The Symbol and Spiritual Gifts

I think it makes perfect sense that Paul used a cymbal as an example of what it looks like to use spiritual gifts without love. When you play this instrument, you have to consider the rest of the music and serve the other parts of the orchestra. In a church context, if we are like an orchestra, the cymbal—the spiritual gift—could bring breakthroughs and lift the experience of being God's church. We get to see more of God at work.

But if it's not used to serve others or to love others, it can be quite damaging.

I think it's significant that we discuss this as we begin a series on spiritual gifts, because in the church today, I see both examples:

• On one side: churches that don't emphasize spiritual gifts—or don't even believe the Spirit's gifts are given to the church today. As a result, things can feel a bit flatter than they could be. People gather, but you don't see much of God breaking through in power, equipping, empowering, and encouraging His people.

• On the other side: people who have been given spiritual gifts, sometimes given the platform too soon. Somewhere along the way, the focus becomes them instead of us. The element of loving others gets lost, and the church becomes unhealthy.

Our spiritual gifts can sound like a cymbal crashing alone. But they can also sound like something beautiful within the church—as God breaks through in power, as a word of knowledge is given, as someone is healed, as someone speaks prophetically and God leads His church forward.

What Makes the Difference?

As we gather this morning, let's look at what makes the difference between no gifts, unhealthy use of gifts, and a healthy middle ground where God breaks through and lifts the experience of what it means to be His followers and His church today, as we serve and love each other.

The Warning: Be Alert and Sober

The Context of 1 Peter 4

Peter writes to Christians spread across Asia Minor around AD 62-63. Their day-to-day experience of following Jesus is that they are harassed by others. Through this letter, he encourages them: your suffering is a witness to Christ. He also challenges them: if you live differently from the world around you, that will be a witness to Jesus. And spiritual gifts are part of what it looks like to live differently for Jesus and point to Him.

Something significant that doesn't come through clearly in English but is evident in Greek: the word for "gifts" that Peter uses is charisma—from charis, which means grace. To every one of you, God's grace is given. The gifts of God are given to each and every one of us.

The Call to Alertness

Peter begins with a warning: "The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray."

For them, it might have been comfort that their challenges would end soon, that they could be with Jesus. But whether Jesus returns in my lifetime or whether we're looking at eternity in perspective, what we choose to do as His believers here and now has a massive impact. How we choose to use our gifts here and now can also have a massive impact.

I've noticed that when I don't sleep as much as normal, my ability to pray drops. I'm not as able to hear from God. It's easy to fall asleep; it's harder to pick up on what God is doing. We realize what God does in moments of worship, in moments of encounter, in moments of prayer. Let's make sure we're alert and sober so we're ready for God to break through and interrupt us—both as we gather together and in our daily lives. Maybe God has a word for someone else who wants to give to you. Let's be awake and ready.

The Foundation: Love One Another

Love as the Context for Spiritual Gifts

What I want to focus on primarily is what comes just after: "Above all, love each other deeply."

Love is the only context for using spiritual gifts.

I want to look at this in parallel with the great commandment in Matthew: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

Notice where it starts: with the heart. Why? Because back then, people understood that the heart functioned differently than what we think today. The heart was the central organ that led to movement in the rest of your body. It's also used as an illustration of the core of your being—your will, what leads to actions, the place from which prayers come.

The word "heart" is used over a thousand times in Scripture. This says something about how significant our hearts are. The heart describes the emotional state and how that impacts the rest of our being and what we choose to do. People have hearts filled with joy, sorrow, peace. They feel troubled, happy, cheerful. All of these are biblical descriptions. In Proverbs, we read: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

How Is Your Heart?

This morning I want to ask you: How is your heart doing? How is your heart today?

I think the challenge is that when we hear "guard your heart," we try to block it off, protect it. But I don't think that's what God means, because that sadly impacts both how we love each other and how we love God—and as a result, our lives together as His church.

As you journey through life, occasionally it feels like your heart breaks quite hard. Occasionally you've opened it up only for someone to crush it. The devastating loss of someone you love leaves a massive hole within your heart. The loss of dreams, disappointments, hurtful words—when we don't feel as close to God or other people as we wanted to.

I don't think it's just me: when you're in that stage, you try to bandage it up just to keep it safe, so nothing comes and causes that harm again. Or if there's a hole within you, you try to fill it with whatever else—whether that is healthy or unhealthy.

The Heart Is a Muscle

I found it quite helpful to read something that stuck with me: "The heart is a muscle, not a bone." Bones can break, but muscles are more flexible. Of course, a muscle can tear, but in principle, they're strong. The challenge is that you must continue to choose to dare to use that muscle.

My first challenge to us this morning is: Can we dare to love others fully and wholeheartedly, following the Lord's example?

Because the reality is that the opposite of love is hatred. But even if we're not feeling hatred against someone, there is a danger: if we try to use spiritual gifts while hatred is within us, that is what will be reflected to the person we minister to.

Jesus said in Luke 6: "For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks." So if hatred is within us, that is what will come out. But the Psalmist asks: "Who may stand in the Lord's holy place? Who has clean hands and a pure heart."

Let me ask again: How is your heart doing? Let's make sure that as we minister, we allow God to heal our hearts, so we can stand in His holy place and as we love other people and use our spiritual gifts, we do so from a place of health.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: "The church is only the church and it exists for others." So let's dare to love other people.

Loving God: The Glory Belongs to Him

Speaking and Serving as God's Vessels

What was the first part of the great commandment? Love the Lord your God.

Peter writes: "If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever."

If we look at loving God and what Peter writes here, I think there are two key challenges for us:

First: Do we acknowledge that spiritual gifts are given from God and that they only work through the power of God at work in people's lives? It's not us who do these things. It's Him who does it all through us. His gifts, His grace.

We need to check our perspective as we grow in awareness of what spiritual gifts are and how God can work through us.

Who Gets the Glory?

Second: Who gets the glory?

I mentioned the Salvation Army earlier. One thing that still stands out to me is this: if anyone sings really well, or plays in the brass band really well, or speaks really well, and the crowd is cheering, they point upwards again and again. The glory goes to God.

But I think for us, it's a massive challenge, because it feels so good to have other people applaud us or give us the glory. At a time when so much of what we do in the world is power-driven or slightly egocentric, we need to test our hearts again and again: Do we love the Lord? Let's give Him the glory.

I read on the BBC news this week that the applause of crowds cheering for Liverpool actually caused earth tremors—the same thing happened at the Taylor Swift concerts. Of course, you want to receive the applause. But the glory belongs to God. In particular, as we start ministering on His behalf, using His gifts and His grace, we're just willing vessels with slightly broken hearts who do the best we can to love God and to love others.

Peter ends this beautiful passage expressing his longing: "In all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever."

What if that was the prayer of our life? All thanks and glory to Him forever and ever.

The Challenge of Our Hearts

So let me ask you: if you already know what your spiritual gift is, how can we make sure it doesn't work like a cymbal crashing alone, but instead builds up God's beautiful plan for His church? We get to see Him break through in new ways, encouraging, equipping, and empowering His people.

I think the key is our hearts. Let's remember to love others and to love God.

The Invitation to Surrender

Opening Our Hearts to God's Healing

Lord, we thank you that you loved us first. This morning we pray: come Holy Spirit. Will you come and fill us with your love again?

Lord, I pray for Your healing touch where that is needed—where our hearts have been broken. Will You come, Holy Spirit, and touch us?

And Lord, I pray that You will create a longing within us for more of You—that we will eagerly desire these gifts, but with a longing to serve and love others through using them, and loving You through using them. Will You come?

The Sign of Surrender

As we respond this morning, I'd love for us to offer ourselves again to God. At the start of this series on spiritual gifts, I'd like for us to offer ourselves to be used by Him in the area of spiritual gifts. But also to say to God: I want a deeper love. Because even if you're the most loving person in this building—and some of you are—there's still more.

As a sign, I'm going to move the cross to the front, and I'd love for us to come and kneel at the front. If we can't kneel, stand. I wonder if we have friends on the prayer ministry team who could come and help.

All I would like us to do is say: "Come, Holy Spirit." This is between each individual person and God. But if you're willing, offer yourself to God—to be used by Him and to increase in your love for Him and for others.

So as the band plays, just come. Just kneel at the front. If we have prayer ministry people, that's wonderful. If not, that's okay too. But let's offer ourselves to God.