Sermon for September 21st, 2014

Romans 12:1-8

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Spiritual Gifts, Spiritual Ministries: Exhortation

Today we'll be talking about the spiritual gift of exhortation. To exhort simply means to encourage. Now, I am fortunate to be the pastor of a congregation full of great encouragers. But not all pastors are so lucky.

A preacher had just finished preaching his heart out one Sunday, and in the line of people greeting him after the service, one woman stopped him, praised him highly, and suggested that he should publish his sermons. The preacher, trying to be modest, told her he planned to have them all published posthumously. The woman replied, "Good. The sooner, the better!"

The next person to greet him in line was a little boy who told the preacher, "Someday when I grow up, I'm going to give you a lot of money." The preacher responded, "Thank you very much, but why do you want to give me money?" The little boy replied, "Because my dad says that you are the poorest preacher we've ever had."

Another congregation member stopped to shake the minister's hand and told him, "You know, pastor, every sermon you preach is better than your next one."

Finally, one of the last people in line to greet the pastor told him, "Pastor, that sermon reminded me of the peace and love of God!" The pastor was ecstatic. "No-one has ever said anything like that about one of my sermons before! Tell me, how did it remind you of the peace and love of God?" "Well", said the congregant, "it reminded me of the peace of God because it passed all human understanding and it reminded me of the love of God because it endured forever!"

Last week we talked about the spiritual gift of teaching, and I shared with you how, as a former high school teacher, that particular gift is near and dear to my heart. Last week's sermon on teaching was, for me, an easy sermon, an enjoyable subject to talk about.

So it figures that this week we come to exhortation, or encouragement. I've spent the past seven days sweating it out, racking my brains for any shred of what I might possibly share with you about this one.

As a pastor, it is certainly part of my job to encourage people, but (and I hope this is a shock and surprise to you!) being encouraging is something that doesn't come naturally to me. I have to work hard at it.

Growing up, my father was a computer programmer. A big part of his job was analyzing software to find glitches and problems. He was pretty good at doing that with kids, too. My mother was an officer in the United Sates Army. She was tough: She was "Major Mom," literally. So my brothers, my sister and I, we were well programmed and well disciplined. Now, please don't misunderstand me--there was plenty of affection in our family; we loved our parents and we knew they loved us. But words of encouragement just weren't exactly my family's strong suit. When we wanted to encourage each other we'd say things like: Suck it up. Keep your chin up. Life isn't fair. Suffering builds character. Build a bridge and get over it. Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Or my personal favorite...If you don't stop crying, I'll give you a reason to cry!

Perhaps because of my stoic upbringing, I am fascinated and amazed by people like my wife, Amy, who is a constant encourager. You can tell the difference in our personalities by how we approach Facebook: I'm a selfish Facebooker. I post things to facebook, broadcasting my thoughts, my opinions, my pictures, my location to the entire world, but I rarely ever read anyone else's Facebook updates. By the way, I'm sorry I missed your birthday on Facebook. Amy, on the other hand, rarely ever posts anything to Facebook, but she reads everyone else's updates, and likes them, and comments on them, and tells me, "Hey, you need to call so and so, he's having a rough week." When I told her I was struggling with what to say this week, she gave me a hug and told me, "I know you'll think of something amazing to say." Encouragement is second nature to Amy.

So this is the hard part about Paul's teaching on Spiritual Gifts: If--as is commonly, and incorrectly taught--Spiritual gifts were innate abilities, secret superpowers that God gives to some people and not others, then whenever one of you came to me as your pastor, pouring out your deepest fears and struggles in life, I could just look you in the eye and say...stop it! Put on your big boy britches and get back out there. Build a bridge. Oh, and don't forget to attend my Bible Study next week, because I'm a really good teacher. But encouragement? Sorry, not my gift. Talk to my wife.

I don't think I'd last very long as a pastor with that kind of mentality. And I don't think we'd last very long as a congregation if we only gave the spiritual gifts we felt innately qualified to give.

I think part of the reason Paul's teaching on Spiritual Gifts has been so misunderstood is because of the analogy he uses in Romans 12, the image of one body with many parts. Like all analogies in the Bible and elsewhere, it can be helpful up to a point, but you can also take the analogy too far.

Paul says, "4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us" and then he goes on to list the gifts. We read this list, we find one we like, or that we think fits our personality, and we say "I'm the foot. My function is to walk. When the church needs to go somewhere, call on me. But when the church needs to listen, or speak, don't call me. That's the ear's job, that's the mouth's job.

Reading the passage this way warps the analogy into something overly individualistic. First of all, a foot doesn't think to itself, or talk to itself, or compare itself to any other body part, or even realize that it's a foot. The body acts as one unit, and the principle teaching that Paul wants to get at here is that we, the church, are one unit. The "parts" that Paul is speaking of are not the individual people who make up one body, but rather the various gifts and ministries that make up the body. So when we want to go somewhere, we don't say "Ok, now who is a foot?" but rather, "what is the gift that will get us where we need to go, and who among us is willing to seize the opportunity and give that gift?" If two people respond, we're grateful, but it may take us awhile to get there. If everyone responds to the need, to the opportunity...then we'll get there a lot faster.

So who gives the gift of encouragement? Amy will. But I will, too. And I hope you will. Actually, I know a lot of you will, because I have seen this gift at work in our midst so many times. When do we give this gift? Whenever there is a need, whenever there is an opportunity. And for this gift, there's almost always an opportunity.

I'd like to spend the rest of my sermon answering the question of "why" we should give this particular gift.

-From Dr. Seow: "Neal, I love the way you research and think and write. This is the rare student paper from which I have also learned, and I spent more time on it than I could spare. A mark of your success, too, is that I find myself wanting to follow up on a number of your ideas—especially those you laid out as areas for further research."

-Word gifts vs. deed gifts?

-If Teaching aims for the head, exhortation aims for the heart.

-Mary had grown up knowing that she was different from the other kids, and she hated it. She was born with a cleft palate and had to bear the jokes and stares of cruel children who teased her non-stop about her misshaped lip, crooked nose, and garbled speech. With all the teasing, Mary grew up hating the fact that she was "different". She was convinced that no one, outside her family, could ever love her ... until she entered Mrs. Leonard's class.

Mrs. Leonard had a warm smile, a round face, and shiny brown hair. While everyone in her class liked her, Mary came to love Mrs. Leonard. In the 1950's, it was common for teachers to give their children an annual hearing test. However, in Mary's case, in addition to her cleft palate, she was barely able to hear out of one ear. Determined not to let the other children have another "difference" to point out, she would cheat on the test each year. The "whisper test" was given by having a child walk to the classroom door, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and then repeat something which the teacher whispered. Mary turned her bad ear towards her teacher and pretended to cover her good ear. She knew that teachers would often say things like, "The sky is blue," or "What color are your shoes?" But not on that day. Surely, God put seven words in Mrs. Leonard's mouth that changed Mary's life forever. When the "Whisper test" came, Mary heard the words: "I wish you were my little girl."

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I am writing you simply to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."