23. The Gifts of Apostle and Celibacy

And so we come to the last of the gifts of the Holy Spirit - a series that began, in my planning, two maybe three weeks, and is now almost looked like it was going into two maybe three years.  But it's turned out to be such a special time of delight and encouragement for me as I've been able to spend the time in studying the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  And I am greatly encouraged because God's master plan for the church is terrific.  And it has also been a relief for me to have been reminded by the Spirit that I am not the one that the weight of the growth of the body of Christ in the spirit of unity, the bond of peace, doesn't rest on my shoulders.  It's a shared ministry and each of us have received, by His Spirit, gifts which enable us to do our part in that ministry and to do it effectively and well and with joy, which is one of the marks of the Spirit.

In our last look at the charismata of the Holy Spirit - the gifts of the Holy Spirit - I want to deal with two gifts.  One of them is listed in the major lists in I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, but many people think it has ceased to exist in our contemporary day.  And the other gift is not listed in any of the major lists, but I want to refer to it because I want it to be indicative of the open-ended view that I have of the Holy Spirit's gifts.  The Holy Spirit has not limited His list or His gifts to any particular list.  If He had then we would wrestle with the problem of why did the Roman church receive a different list - a different set of gifts from the Holy Spirit - than the Corinthian church did, or than the Ephesians church.  But I think these are indicative, and I want to point out one that finds itself elsewhere than those major gift lists before we go on.

I want you to understand again that the Holy Spirit's gifts are given to the body of Christ as needed in order to equip us for the task that is ours.  Not mine - ours.  And that is to build up the body of Christ - to build His church.  Not a denomination or a building, but a people who have been called and translated out of the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God's dear Son by the grace of God and through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ.  Now, in Ephesians 4, I refer beginning with verse 11, "And He gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ and as a result we are no longer to be children."

Now the very first gift that is listed there is the gift of the Apostle.  And in considering this gift, I have to make very clear that there is a distinction between the office of the apostle and the gift of apostle.  Because I believe that the office of the apostle has ceased - it no longer exists.  It was a new testament Biblical.  And I'll give you some documentation on that.  But the gift of the apostle is still being exercised on behalf of the body of Christ in the world at large.  So, first of all, let's look: what was the criteria for being considered an apostle in the new testament?  There are four, and I'm going to go very rapidly through these four because, while I'd like to spend more time on them, my purpose is not to give you a Bible school education; my purpose is to instruct you in the gifts of the Spirit.

1) those who were called apostles in the new testament were personally chosen by Jesus Christ Himself.  If you will look at Mark 3, you will discover that when Jesus chose the twelve, His motivation is given, "And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, that He might send them out to preach and to have authority."  There are three facets.  He called the twelve that they might be with Him, that He could send them forth, and that they might have authority.  They were personally chosen.  In fact, the word "apostomos" in the Greek means "one who is selected or commissioned as commander of a fleet of ships."  Anybody that is commander of an armada carries with it authority, as well as responsibility.  The word is heavy with that meaning.

2) One who is an apostle had been with Jesus during His entire ministry here on Earth.

3) They had seen the resurrected Christ.

Now both the second and third criteria (been with Jesus during the entire ministry and being witnesses to the resurrection) are reflected in Acts 1.  Acts 1, the setting is the apostle Peter, who was one of the leaders of the apostles - kind of a natural-born leader that God had set aside and gifted in certain ways to lead - was chairing a meeting of the other apostles, and he said, "Fellows, Judas betrayed Christ, he's dead.  He's gone.  We have got to replace him."  And this is the criteria, "It is therefore necessary", Peter says, "that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day He was taken up from us."  That's one of the criteria: been with Him through the entire ministry.  "One of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection."  In other words, somebody who had witnessed the resurrection now unites with them in their united witness to the resurrection of Christ.

4) That they had the power of working miracles.  I refer only to three passages.  There are a lot more, but in Acts 2, it says that many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.  Acts 5, "and by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people."  Acts 8, "that through the laying on of the apostle's hands the Holy Ghost was given."  Now, the purpose of the miracles and powers that were given to the apostles was to authenticate their message.  I say it again: the purpose of the miracles and powers that were given to the apostles was to authenticate their message, because their message was to become the foundation of the church.  Indeed, it was the apostles' writing that makes up our new testament.  And so we read in the scriptures that it is the household of God, built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles.  And it is necessary, therefore, for the apostles to have an authenticating witness to the fact that their voice is the Voice of God.  There are many people therefore that believe that some of those sign gifts (the miracles and the healings and all the rest) at least have diminished, if not disappeared entirely, because with the death of the apostles their particular function of those gifts has died out.  I don't happen to believe that to that degree, but I do believe that it has diminished, because its need is no longer quite the same.  Now, the Holy Spirit can bring that back any time He wants to, and sometimes He does.

Therefore, the new testament seems to have an official meaning to the word "apostle".  It seems to have a defined, official meaning.  In fact, in Revelation 21, it says that when the new Jerusalem is constructed, the twelve foundation stones will have the names of the twelve apostles on it.  And it also goes on, Jesus says in the gospels that the twelve apostles will be the judges of the twelve tribes of Israel.  So there was an official sense in which the office of the apostle took place.  And that office passed out of existence with the closing of the new testament.

What was the role of the apostle?  Alright, the answer in general terms is given in Ephesians 2, which is what pastor Steve read for our scripture.  I read only a part: "So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens."  Now Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus which is made up primarily of gentiles (non-Jews).  And he said, "you non-Jews are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you have become," (with we Jews), "fellow citizens with the saints.  And you alien gentile outside the pale, you now are part of God's household.  And that household, remember, is built," he says, "upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.  Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone."

The primary task, then, of the apostles was having been trained by their experience with Christ, having been witnesses to His resurrection, having been directly called and commissioned and empowered by Christ, they were to take the things of Christ as Jesus had told them they would, "The Holy Spirit will come and take things of Mine and declare them unto you."  And they would then develop this into the full foundation upon which the church was to be established.  And so Paul says later on to the Ephesians that, "you now are part with us of the church, which is the household of God which is solidly built upon the foundation which is the teaching of the apostles."  Now that's the primary task, and that task was finished with the new testament.  Only those writings which were considered to be from apostolic sources were accepted into the canon in the new testament.  In fact, one of the major tests of the canonicity of any writings that was candidate for being in, in the council of Carthage was: was it written by an apostle?  And the only three writers in the new testament that were not considered to be apostles are Mark, Luke, and James.  Now Paul, of course, was but he received a call from Christ on the road to Damascus and He was a witness to the resurrection.  But Mark was a young fellow - a teenager raised as a personal friend of Peter and most people believe Mark acted as Peter's secretary in writing the gospel of Mark.  The gospel of Luke was written by a physician who was continuing - a kind of physician to the apostle.  Certainly he was with the movement into the gentile world.  And James, who wrote the book of James, was the brother of Christ.

Now, question: does the gift of apostle exist today?  The office of apostle has passed, but does the gift exist today?  I think it does and I think that the new testament demonstrates that while the office of apostle was limited to the twelve, the gift and ministry of the apostle is not so limited.  For instance, Paul was called an apostle. The whole book of Galatians is an argument in backing up his claim to apostleship: he was called by Christ on the road to Damascus and yet when he went down to Jerusalem, Paul never considered himself to be one of the twelve.  He considered himself to be an apostle, but not one of those twelve.  Others in the new testament that are called apostles: Acts 14 calls Barnabas an apostle.  Galatians 1 calls James, the brother of Christ, an apostle.  I Thessalonians calls both Silas and Timothy apostles.  In Romans 16 Andronicas and Junia are called apostles.  And you didn't even know they were there.  It would seem that there is, therefore, a continuing aspect of the gift of the apostle - especially in the light of I Corinthians 15 when Paul is writing about all of the witnesses to the resurrection, he says "He appeared to the twelve and then to the other apostles".  There had to be more.

The gift continued although the office was blocked in.  And in II Corinthians 11 and in Revelation 2, the warning is given against false apostles.  Well you don't have any problem about false apostles unless there are continuing the gift of apostles.  Therefore, here's the definition:  The gift of apostle is the supernatural ability given to some members of the body of Christ (you know, one of these times, if we weren't finishing up today, I'd ask you to say that in unison, because that's the introduction to all the gifts).  It is the supernatural ability given by the Spirit of God to some members of the body of Christ, enabling them to establish and to exercise  extraordinary authority in spiritual matters over a number of churches, often in trans-cultural settings.

Don't be too impressed with that definition.  It's not all that original with me and it sounds a little complicated.  What it really says is that the office of apostle has ended, but the gift of the apostle enables some to, in an amazing way hard to understand from a human point of view, church plant and exercise authority and guidance over a number of congregations - a number of churches - and frequently in a trans-cultural setting.  A missionary, for instance.  Let me try to illustrate it from church history.  Boniface was known as the apostle to the Germans.  And when you read the story of Boniface, you are impressed with the fact that as he went to Germany, he would preach the gospel in such a holistic way that people would gather the whole meaning of the gospel - the basic teaching - then he'd move on.  And from that congregation would spring other congregations over which Boniface exercised a type of authority, and they listened to him.  Not because he spoke with the power of an office; because he spoke with the power of one who was so gifted.  Egede, the apostle to Greenland - the same kind of thing.  Adinoram Judson, to Burma.  William Carey, to India.  Hudson Taylor to China.

And in the Covenant, we have our own Peter Matson, who had the gift of an apostle as he went to China.  Farm boy, kneeling down at noontime, having devotions beside a haystack out in the middle of a farm.  There he has a vision of Christ calling him to go to China.  Peter Matson had a tough time with English, but he went to China.  And God uniquely gifted him by the power of the Spirit.  And he founded a congregation here and there and here and there, over which he exercised an amazing level of authority.  Not because anybody said, "that man's your authority", but because they recognized the authority that came with him.

C. T. Studd, not only established churches and exercised the gift of apostle in China, but also in India and then to Africa.  On three different continents!  There's no explanation for that kind of ability.  There's no human that is capable of that.  It is a supernatural gifting of the Holy Spirit.  They have the apostolic gift of imparting whole faith in churches and even the nations.

What about today?  Are there any apostles today?  You know, you throw around these big names you know, like Egede and Judson and Carey and all these people and you say, "what's that got to do with me?"  Well, yes, there are a couple that I would say are rather high visibility who have the gift of apostle today.  I think of Cho Yonggi who is the pastor in Seoul, Korea, who has some 50,000 members in his congregation, but the congregation meets in some 2,000 "cells".  And of these 2,000 cells, making up over 50,000 members, pastor Yonggi exercises an enormous degree of authority.  With a sweet, gentle, quiet spirit - he doesn't sound like bombast and wall street and all the rest.  He doesn't speak with power.  He doesn't speak to them from a power broker base.  He speaks to them from a gifted base.

And here in the United States, I think probably I would have to say somebody like Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California.  Somebody that came to the forefront, seemed to be just kind of nobody - nobody had ever heard of Chuck Smith.  Even in Costa Mesa they'd never heard of him.  Until all of a sudden, in the early 60s with the Jesus People movement, he became very well known, and he was uniquely gifted to be able to flex.  You know, the Jesus People flooded a lot of churches and the churches just had a stroke - they didn't know what to do with these people!  I mean, they didn't use the evangelical language and they didn't even wear three piece suits, and it just blew their minds.  But Chuck Smith was uniquely gifted in his congregation down there, so that now he ministers through Costa Mesa Calvary Chapel to over 25,000 people every week.  And there are almost 95 other Calvary Chapels that have sprung up, been spawned by that type of ministry, that are stretching all the way to the east coast now.  This is not because Chuck Smith said, "I'm going to start a denomination of my own because I'm the only one that's got the truth", like most denominations started.  Chuck Smith started that work simply to carry on the ministry where there was no place where the ministry could effectively be carried on by those to whom He'd been sent.  And I understand Chuck Smith exercises an authority over those churches that is just something to see.  Very soft spoken gentleman.  Kind of balding and dumpy and 51.  But Chuck Smith has got a voice of authority that people listen to.  Not because he speaks with bombast, or because he has some big clout.  But he speaks and he is expected to be obeyed and heard.  And he is.

Now some people refer to this as the "missionary" gift.  In fact the Living Bible translates it that way, but that limits it to a cross-cultural ministry and Peter and Paul were both apostles.  Peter to the Jews - he couldn't cross cultures at all.  He had the biggest struggle you ever saw when he tried to minister to the gentiles.  In fact, he kept waffling back and forth.  Paul, he had his greatest ministry among the gentiles, and he had a tough time with the Jews.

Notice one other thing: the gift of the apostle does not stand alone.  Anyone who has been given the gift of apostle also has other gifts, which the gift of apostle enables them to use.  For instance, I believe that some of the people that I've referred to have given ample evidence of the fact that they have the word of wisdom.  And they exercise the word of wisdom in an enormously effective, broad-based way, because of the enabling gift of the apostle.  I don't want to spend too much time on this, but let me suggest that it is altogether possible that God has called and gifted you with the gift of apostle.  And one way in which you can test this out is in a cross-cultural exchange.  We have enormous opportunities in today's society for short-term missions work.  Many from our congregation have taken advantage of this opportunity.  Many more of you should.  And let me tell you that one way in which you can test it out is this way: if you go to another culture to see if maybe, cross-culturally, you've been given this gift, and in that other culture you find that the food makes you sick, the natives make you irritated (they just don't do it the right way!), you want to spend all of your time with the Americans, and you dream about hamburgers and french fries, you don't have that gift.  But, if instead, you find yourself kind of drawn into their culture, you almost become acclimated to them, you almost start to think like that other culture, you love them, you're patient, you've got... then you discover you may have that gift.

I have a very dear friend that went onto the mission field and he went with his wife and he felt he had the call, mistakenly, because his wife didn't.  And God never calls one without calling the two.  Because in God's sight, you are one.  So don't say, "Well, I wish God would get ahold of my wife, because He's called me to go here and she doesn't want to go."  Forget it mister!  If God called you, He calls her too - let's her in on it.  Same way the other way, ladies.  Well, this guy went.  And he went clear, thousands of miles away.  They got down there, he loved it.  She hated it.  She tried to turn her home into a little part of America.  They came home after four years, she spoke less of that language than I do, which is nothing!  And she'd lived there for four years!  She just fought it all the way.  Well that obviously was a demonstration that she did not, and I don't think he did either.

Now, some people discover that they really do.  I have friends that have gone to a mission field...  And by the way, you don't have to go across the waters.  We are becoming a different culture.  When the scripture says that we are pilgrims and sojourners and strangers, believe me we are!  If you have any intelligent interface with our society today, you know you're a weird one as far as the world's concerned.  You are thinking different thoughts, you have the Kingdom mentality.  And the Kingdom mentality is different than this world is.  You know it.  And some of you that are trying to work out a smooth interface between the world and the Kingdom are having problems.  Let me tell you, you're going to keep having problems, because it can't be done.  We are sent to be in the world, but not of it.  So be in it, like salt.  Like light in darkness.  But don't try to be of it.  There's no way you can be integrated.  It just doesn't fit.  More and more, I discover that my ministry here on Mercer Island is a cross-cultural ministry.  We're dealing with heathens.  Yeah.  We have heathens in this congregation.  I don't mean "not religious people".  I mean "non-Christian people".  And I'm delighted that you're here.  I'm thrilled that you're here.  I'm flattered that you're here.  Because we've got some good news to share with you.  Wonderful news to share with you.  But listen, brothers and sisters, when you get out in this world, you better know you need at least a little touch of the gift of apostle if you're going to have any intelligent interface with our world.  The platforms and patterns are different.

Now, one way in which the gift of the apostle can effectively be yoked with another gift.  I've talked sometimes about how sometimes the gifts of the Spirit are hyphenated.  You know, you've got this and this.  And this and this and this.  The combinations are mathematically staggering.  But, can you imagine my friend that went to this foreign country with a wife who wanted to stay in America even though she lived in the foreign country, could you image what would have happened if that man was really called of God to be an apostle and at the same time had had that call coupled with the gift of singleness?  Yes, that's a gift.  Some of you single people, sit up and take note.  Some of you married people, shape up and pay attention.

I am referring to what I consider to be a gift of the Holy Spirit called the gift of celibacy, or the gift of singleness.  In I Corinthians 7, Paul is busy giving counsel to the church at Corinth.  And he's giving them all kinds of guidance with regard to marriage and divorce and remarriage, with regard to the sexual relationship between husband and wife, and you might find that, husbands and wives, very instructive to go home and to read that especially the first twelve verses very carefully and obediently and you might find some changes are taking place in your own lives, and in your own relationship.  Now in the middle of all of that, Paul gets kind of impatient and he comes as close to gift projection as I want to accuse Paul.  Because he says, "I wish that all men were even as I myself am" which he means "single".  "However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, one in another, and I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it's good for them if they remain like I am.  But if they don't have self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn."  And when it "than to burn", it's not talking about eternal damnation and hell - it's talking about being aflame with sexual passion.  The Bible doesn't play games euphenizing, like we sometimes do.  It just states the way it is.  Paul says, "I wish you people were like I am.  The task is enormous, the time is short.  We don't have time to be messing around building our nests, we need to be moving out.  And I wish there were more people like me that are willing to be in the gorilla outfit, who are willing to penetrate our society with all of the risks that it took."  Have you ever read that list of things that happened to Paul?  All the times he was beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and clobbered?  Can you imagine the problem it would have been if he had a wife and kids to worry about?  Or to worry about him?  And that's why he said, "I wish you people were like me, man, and we could really move!"  But then, he stops.  He interrupts himself and he says, "Not everybody has that charismata."  That gift.  The very same word that is used all the way through the new testament relative to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Not everybody has that gift.  "A variety of gifts" the scripture said, "but the same Spirit."

Now let me define it.  The gift of singleness is that supernatural ability given to some members of the body of Christ to remain unmarried and enjoy it without undue sexual temptation.  To remain unmarried and enjoy it without undue sexual temptation.  Now, that's a gift.  You notice I have been using the term singleness and celibacy synonymously.  Not because I am unaware of the sexual realities of our society, but because I am insistent upon the Biblical realities of Kingdom living.  And Kingdom living says if you are single, you are celibate.  If you are married, you are married and are sexually faithful to your spouse.  No exceptions.  No rationalizations.  No contemporary arguments for the new morality, which is just current dress for the old immorality.  Doesn't change a thing.  Don't give me this hogwash and baloney about "meaningful relationships" and all the rest.  The scripture makes it very plain: sex outside of marriage is dishonoring to God, destructive to the sex, destructive to the marriage, and destructive to the person.  Sex outside of marriage is sin.  It's that plain.

Now, with that in mind, if you here are single and you know in your heart of hearts that you would eagerly marry if given any reasonable opportunity, you don't have that gift.  Okay?  And, if you are single and suffer from the frustration that comes from unmet sexual desires, you don't have that gift.  But, if you are single and are really pretty picky about who you are going to marry and not too anxious or eager or shopping, and if you are single and your sexual needs, while they're real and you recognize them, do not cause you undue frustration, hey you may have the gift.  And if you have the gift, like the gift of apostleship, it doesn't dwell alone.  That has freed you for the exercise of some of the other gifts that the Holy Spirit's given to you.

Now, I've got to say this church: some of you married people seem to think that ever since Noah brought them two by two into the ark, the only way into the Kingdom salvation is two by two.  And you are running around like a bunch of amateur Yentas trying to match up all these beautiful girls with all these handsome guys, and I want to tell you to butt out.  It's none of your business.  And I'm serious about that.  I feel within my own heart sometimes, when I see some of the beautiful single people God's given to us as a congregation, "Oh wow, wouldn't it be...  Oh what a neat wife she would make for somebody" you know.  Usually the guys think that.  The ladies look at the men and think "Oh, what a wonderful husband he'd make for somebody".  Hey that's not your in your hands.  So just kind of cool it.  If it really bothers you - if you really think the Lord has told you to match two people - you go to one of them and say, "Hey, you mind if I set you up with a blind date?  I think you'd really like that person."  And if the person says "yes", go ahead and do it.  And if the person says "butt out", then butt out and don't be bad about it.  Because, the cause of Christ throughout history has been carried enormously on the broad shoulders and free-to-move aspect of those with the gift of singleness.

Now some of them have discovered the gift of singleness later in life, after the death of a mate.  And God has honored this enormously and tremendously.  Paul goes on to say, "I want you to be free from concern.  One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he can please the Lord.  But one who is married is concerned about things of the world, how he can please his wife.  And his interests are divided.  And the woman who is unmarried and a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.  But one who is married and is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.  And this I say for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is seemly and to seek your undistracted devotion to the Lord."

Now, I am not a supporter of celibacy as a part of a job description.  I don't know who it was, but somebody cut a classified ad out and put it on my desk.  It said, "would you like to be a Catholic priest"  And underneath it there was a little line item in there that said "celibacy optional".  And the note said they wanted me to be aware of all the job opportunities that come down the line.  I wish they'd be honest enough to just tell me to leave!  I'm just teasing.  I don't believe in that.  I believe that part of the problem with the celibate clergy, in such churches as the Roman Catholic Church, part of the problem is that they have not been called to that kind of a life (some of them).  And to try to live that kind of life means that, according to Paul himself, it is possible to be aflame with passion it is possible to get caught in all kinds of problems.  But when the gift of celibacy is truly given as a gift, it allows a singleness of purpose that is beautiful.

I have a pastor friend that's a bachelor.  And he has resisted all of the best efforts of all of the maternal instincts in the whole denomination.  He's still single and he loves being single.  We're off at a conference someplace and I say, "I got to get back to the motel because I promised my wife I'd call tonight."  He doesn't have to call home.  I don't either, but I want to.  I want to let her know I still love her.  I'm clear across the country, but hey you're still special to me and how are the kids and the house hasn't burned has it?"  That kind of thing.  He doesn't have that kind of worry.  He doesn't have that kind of concern.  His resources are not being squirreled away to try and help with the education of kids when they want to go to college.  He doesn't worry about that kind of thing.  He doesn't pay high insurance rates for teenage drivers.  Any of that kind of stuff.  And when he senses God leading him in a direction, he throws his toothbrush in his bag and splits.  And while I'm spending time I love and enjoy with my family, he's writing another book, preparing another sermon, carrying on another ministry, and neither one of us would trade places with the other one, because we are operating in conjunction with our gifts.

John R. Stott, that great expository preacher, that marvelous writer and scholar of England is a single person who has been called and gifted to the single life.  And the productivity of his life is enormous and the whole body of Christ benefits because of it.  In Zaire, during the wars of independence, the covenant experienced great threats against their mission stations in Zaire.  When the Simbas were crowding down around them, we had to evacuate our mission stations.  But much of the mission work in that part of Zaire is medically related.  And some of our medical personnel said, "we can't stay away, we've got to go back.  There are people that are going to die without our care."  And so, some of them went back, leaving families on the other side of the river in safety.  Some of them went back, had to be evacuated a second and a third time.  Enormously costly.  Enormously emotionally wrenching for the families involved.  Indeed, Dr. Paul Carlson paid for it with his life.  While his family is safe on the other side of the river, he himself was shot down by the Simbas.

How much more effective and efficient it is to have a kind of special cadre of men and women whom God has called and gifted to the single life, who are able to give themselves.  The ministry to youth in this congregation is an enormously demanding task.  Demanding hours and evenings and time and weekends.  Some of you parents would like to be involved but you know very well you can't be involved to that extent without compromising your commitments to your family.  Praise God for those called to the single life in our congregation.  So singles, when somebody says "how come a nice girl like you isn't married?"  You straighten your shoulders and say, "God wants it that way."  If He does.  If you would be happy to marry at almost any reasonable opportunity, leave your name on my desk.  But understand God has called us to be part of a body and we are really in need of each other.  Really in need of each other.

Alright, we have now come to the end of the gift listing that I'm going to spend the time with, but I want to remind you: the task that we've been called as a church to fulfill is an absolutely supernatural task.  There is no way we can do it.  None of us are smart enough or good enough or clever enough.  So God, knowing that, has gifted us with gifts from His Holy Spirit, enabling us to be intertwined because we are interdependent, because no one has them all.  And enabling us then to build the body of Christ to the unity and peace of His Spirit.  And I praise God for it.  Let me remind you now from the scripture, from I Corinthians 12, "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and a variety of service, but the same Lord, and a variety of workings, but it is the same God Who inspires them all in every one.  Each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."  There is not a Baptist Holy Spirit and a Covenant Holy Spirit and a Lutheran Holy Spirit and a Full Gospel Businessman's Holy Spirit and a Women's Aglow Holy Spirit and a Chuck Smith or Swindol or Wesley or Stedmen or even a Bud Palmberg Holy Spirit.  There is only one and we are bound together, brought into His Kingdom by being birthed by His Spirit into that Kingdom, gifted by His Spirit - not to celebrate our separateness, but in order to effectively minister our oneness.  How I praise God for each of you, who have discovered - or maybe haven't even discovered it consciously - but are using/exercising your spiritual gift.  May God, by His Spirit make us all sensitive to what ours are, that we might use it for the benefit of the whole.

And so, in the name of Christ, you are sent to your ministry, knowing full well you're outnumbered, outsmarted, and over-matched except by the power of the Spirit who dwells within you.  And so to the Ephesians, Paul wrote this: "And now to Him Who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen."