The practical authority of Scripture in the life of the local assembly is demonstrated through the functioning of each believer within the body of Christ, as explained in 1 Peter 4:10-11. Every born-again person has received spiritual gifts (charismata) from the Holy Spirit, enabling them to serve and edify others. These gifts are distinct from natural talents and are given for the profit and strengthening of the body, not for personal display. Believers are expected to discover and actively use their God-given abilities as faithful stewards of God's manifold grace, recognizing that each member is essential and accountable for their function.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Actually, Hatboro is kind of a capital for great singers, and they don't even reckon me as having a voice. And I might add that, you know, we're all in a good mood this morning, so we might as well ruin it as quickly as we can. I might add that I did sing here once before, and after I sang here once before, these fellows on the platform asked me not to sit on the platform anymore during the opening part of the service. And so occasionally people come by and they say, he's an humble brother. He sits down front during the open. Humility doesn't have anything to do with it. They told me to sit there. If you have any questions about how that worked or how it was done, you have to see Brother Redling. He looks perplexed right now, but I'm sure I can refresh his memory with just two or three wrong notes on these choruses that we're singing off the board.
Just two or three will do it very well. I want to read this morning in 1 Peter 4. While you're finding it, I want to say a couple of words. on a little different task. Just a little different, but not much. One of the problems in all conference ministries, there are a number of problems that come from time to time. You talk about a millstone being hung around his neck. But one of the problems that comes in conference ministry is you always have a temptation to try to say too much and too little time. temptation is not saying enough and using a lot of time. Those two temptations are hard to fight between, and I'm not sure where I fall, but I often have the feeling that I've either said a thing incompletely or not said as much as should have been said, and various other things like that.
So I've usually said, quite frankly, that as far as my own concepts and ministry are concerned, if you have a question or a puzzlement or something you'd like to discuss or something you'd like to correct or even something you'd like to disagree on in a nasty way, you are perfectly at any given time, preferably not in the next 40 minutes, but at any given time round about the ground. I hang around most all day in a public place, and I'm happy to discuss those things and happy to hear your questions or opinions as the case happens to be. Teaching in the institution where I teach has one advantage to it, and that is you are prone to get beyond the point where you think people are questioning your authority when they ask you a question. Now, that does happen with some men who minister.
You ask them a question, and they look at you like you question Moses on the Mount. But in the seminary, you are almost always wrong in anything except the basic language courses. And we've always said that almost nobody goes to seminary to study theology or study Bible subjects. They go to teach those things. And the teacher has the habit of being almost always wrong, and after a while, if you have a tender skin about questions, you resign and go do something else for your living. So if some particular aspect of my discussion is incomplete or partial, to check with me on more in detail, I will be very happy to discuss it with you. You don't have to bat an eyelash. You don't have to apologize. You don't have to say, what will he think? The latter is unimportant, and the first two aren't necessary.
So I just say that freely, and I'm sure what I'm saying to myself goes for Brother Ernest also. I'm sure that he would be happy to discuss with you or to share with you further light on his excellent ministry in the Psalms. So it's a Bible conference, and technically speaking, a Bible conference is not where you listen all the time, but where you swap and share opinions that particular score, whatever the circumstance happens to be. Now, in 1 Peter 4, I will read verses 1 through 11. For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walk in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, banqueting, and abominable idolatry, wherein they think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. For the end of all things is at hand. Be you therefore sober and watch unto prayer, and above all things have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.
As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God give us, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus. Jesus Christ, to whom be praised and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Now, I've been trying to talk with you about the practical authority of Scripture in the life of the local company. Assembly, church, call it what you will. The authority of Scripture in a practical sense in the life of the local company. And I've emphasized that by the practical authority of Scripture, I mean not what we say about it, but what we do about it. Not how many creeds we sign, but how much it regulates our lives as a collective group.
And I think that I have to be honest with you, as you probably need to be with me, and recognize that Scripture often speaks in areas where we are unwilling to follow it at a given time. So what we pray for is growth, that we will see the wisdom and the power of God, that we will see the all-sufficiency of His instruction, and that we will grow in a pattern of obedience to it, that it will be a corrective and a guide to us, and we will be blessed thereby. Therefore, I have tried to talk about the practical authority of Scripture as far as our message is concerned, as far as our gathering is concerned, as far as our government is concerned and as far as our order is concerned. This morning I want to chat with you largely out of 1 Peter 4, verses 10 and 11 about our exercise.
The practical authority of Scripture with regard to our exercise are with our function in the body of Christ. This letter of Peter is written to Christians who are suffering persecution and were scattered roundabout in different sorts of circumstances. I have some extreme dispensational friends who don't want to use it for Bible teaching because they say, one, we're not living in the Roman Empire and two were not suffering persecution like that. And I've always kind of humorously said that if you have to reconstitute the exact historical circumstance of every situation to use it, then you're going to have a lot of grief, since I don't look for any more emperors of these names and maybe not even the exact situation. But the general spiritual trend of a passage is applicable, I think, in all ages, be it Old Testament or New Testament.
We do have to be careful we don't abuse it, and we have to be very careful we don't read into it. Both are our own assembly often says, in fact, Welcom's brother often says, wonderful things in the Bible I see hidden there by preachers like me. And you have to be careful that you neither abuse it, nor that you ignore it, nor that you read into it. You have to watch for both, and you'll discover that you need somebody else to help you watch that, because it's hard to watch it yourself. A very critical wife is a great help. And not that I have one, but it's a great help, just the same. Somebody will help you guide those particular facets. the people who are scattered in a persecuted state. And he tells them many remarkable things as far as the godly character of the living is concerned.
And in my mind, 1 Peter is a primary epistle for the church and for our fellowship in this day and age. Having told us about the remarkable position we have in 1 Peter 2, and having laid upon us certain responsibilities in chapter 3, he then in chapter 4 charts out the fact that persecution will come and troubles will come, but that God's grace will be more than adequate for all of those things. leads to continue functioning for the glory of God. So in this particular section, especially in verses 10 and 11, he gives us a cue or a clue as to our function within the body. And he says it very emphatically when he says, as every man has received the gift, so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
Now these two verses, verses 10 and 11, need the amplification in the passages that Brother Wilson cited yesterday. In Ephesians 4, in 1 Corinthians 12, and in Romans 12, they need the elaboration of those verses. But these verses in themselves give you a groundwork for an understanding of the practical authority of Scripture as it applies to our exercise or to our function. And what I plead for with young and old alike is that the body is really healthy only as the members are healthy and that it functions only as the members function. You can have a toothache and one little nerve in your head and it can ruin your whole body. Or you can smash your finger under a door jam sometimes, and it can make all the rest of you feel badly too.
And I'm sure that all of you know exactly what I'm saying there. Now, I'm not talking about a sinless perfectionism type thing whereby every member in the body has to be totally free from every malady as far as life is concerned. But generally speaking, the body represents itself in great health when the members function under the direction of the head. And so the practical authority of scripture in our exercise becomes very interesting to me. The first step in authority is found in the first phrase in verse 10 of 1 Peter 4. As every man hath received the gift. As every man hath received the gift. You can kind of drop the article if you want and say as every man hath received gift and it will come out about the same way. We recognize two basic types of gifts as far as the technical language the New Testament is concerned.
Now back in Ephesians 4 it is a free gift of grace from a unique Greek word. If anybody wants a unique Greek words, they can check with me later. I always fear I'll strangle on them on the platform. It doesn't make much difference how long you read it or what you do with it. Greek still doesn't sound right to the English mind in my ears. Other men, everybody is his own standard in those things. But the Doron or the Domata, as spoken of in Ephesians 4, is a kind of a personalized gift. Here you have a charisma, which is the idea of that which graciously is given by the Spirit. And the same term, which is translated gift here in 1 Peter 4, 10, rendered that in Romans 12, 6, and in 1 Corinthians 12, 31.
And we usually make a slight distinction in saying that the gifts which the ascended Lord has given, as our brother mentioned yesterday, are those persons placed with these things. And the charisma spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12, 31, and Romans 12, 6 is that enabling of the Holy Spirit that lets every member of the body function. He may not be teacher, he may not be evangelist, he may not be prophet, he may not be apostle, he may not be pastor, but a member of the body. body, charisma, he has a function and he has a skill. Now the translation which is given in 1 Corinthians 1, spiritual gifts is generally just an understanding of the term because in the earlier part of the chapter you simply have a term for spiritual or spiritual things and you don't really get the gift concept until you come pretty much to the end of the chapter.
But the Apostle sums it up for us here in one phrase, as every man has received gifts. You can get very literal about it and say, as each and every man has received gifts. And man, of course, is not used in a masculine sense, but in a generic sense, implying all those of the homo sapiens class into which most of you fall, more in the sapiens than in the homo, to be sure, but into which most of you fall. And so the writer says, as every man has received gifts, and he means there that if every person is a part of the body, there is some function granted to him, a unique function granted to him by the Spirit of God. In my own mind, I am not sure that Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, exhaust the list, but they certainly make great comparative leading for those things that are gifts.
We tried to make a distinction last week at the Youth Congress at Greenwood Hills between gifts and talents. Nobody was happy when it was over, and not even I was happy. But what I'd like to say generally is, is that talents are skills and whatnot that you inherit from your parents, whether you're born again or not born again. All sorts of people inherit them. I once saw a little boy giving a violin recital who was three and a half years old. He was not playing on a giant violin either. He was playing on a kind of a matchbox violin. but he was giving a violin recital when he was three and a half years old. That's how old they told me he was. He looked at it and all that sort of thing, but there he was giving it. See, now, you'll say he has a talent that's come to him in a natural way from his parents. That's a talent. Being a believer has, forgive me, almost nothing to do with that. It's the way God has established the race, and that's the way it comes on.
But those things that are spoken of as being spiritual in 1 Corinthians 12 and in Romans 12 are those skills or those enablements that are granted to us that let us bless and edify and strengthen the body. And you might have a man who's a very great violin player, but doesn't really help the body too much. He's busy playing turkey in the straw while we're trying to worship, see. And somehow the two don't go together very well. Incidentally, I've decided not to sing for Talent Night, but to play my harmonica. I might sing, too. You never can tell if they get me carried away, I might even do a soft shoe number. One never really knows what will happen on Talent Night. I've seen some pretty bizarre things happen here. Now, we'll withdraw that last suggestion.
But what I was saying is that the talent is something that comes to you kind of naturally by genetic process that God and His wisdom and ability is established. But the charisma is that which the Spirit enables you to function with for the glory of God and for the wealth of the body. Now, we use the word charismatic today to describe a particular type of movement, and it has a bad ring to it in our ears. But charisma is a perfectly good word in the New Testament that the Spirit gives every believer so that he works. Kairos is the concept of grace, and Kairos law is that which you graciously receive, and the Spirit is the minister of those particular things. So the emphasis that I make is, as every man has received gifts, it means that every born again person is enabled to function in the body.
Now we are told in 1 Corinthians 12, to which I will refer in a couple of minutes, that they don't all function the same way, but we are told that every born again person is enabled to function in the body. We are told that in just one phrase here, as each man has received a gift, as each one, as everyone has received gifts. And the suggestion is not that there are some who have and some who haven't, but as it has come to all, so let them function. Now, in 1 Corinthians 12, at which you ought to look for half a minute, that is made even more emphatic. 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12 made more emphatic in four pretty well throughout the chapter. In verse 7, 1 Corinthians 12, in verse 7, we are told that the manifestation or the showing of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with all, that the Spirit shows himself to each man in a particular way that that man and those about him might profit.
In verse 11, we are told that all these work that one and self-same spirit dividing to every man several as he will. We are told both in verses 7 and 11 that it's not the idea that some are enabled and some are not, but that the Spirit of God, knowing how he wants to raise the body and develop the body, divides spiritual things to individual men as he will. And then in verse 18, we're told that God has set the members, every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And then in verse 27, we're told, you are the body of Christ and members in particular. And I always go back from verse 27, back to verse 18. I kind of like to read them together. God has set the members, everyone in the as it has pleased him, you are the body of Christ, and members in particular, members as it has pleased him.
And by putting the both together, I see very clearly that every believer is enabled to function in the body. And that is your primary working point when we talk about the practical authority of Scripture for exercise, as every man has received gifts. That every believer is enabled to function in the body, and I will elaborate on that in another discussion in a couple of minutes. But that stands out as a primary thing, that Every believer is enabled to function. And that, of course, means you if you're born again. Now, forgive me for rubbing this chestnut on the other side, but if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you're not in the body. Now, I say that with a smile so that you won't think I'm mad about it. I just mean it kind of humbly and nicely. If you've never trusted Christ, you're not in the body.
That's not running you down. And since I don't know you all, you may all be believers. And I just say it generally because in a group like this, I feel obligated to say it. part of the body you may be one of the very best a lot of other good things but not part of the body because entrance to the body is through knowing Jesus Christ the Lord what you need to do is trust him and believe on him and come into the body through that work of God's grace in your heart trusting Jesus Christ but when you have trusted Christ then you are a member of the body in accord with the purpose the plan the function the will of God the Father the Son and God the Holy Spirit in all three cases you are blessed that way and And as such, you are unable to function, and you have to believe that.
You have to start out believing it. You'll discover, as I tried to say the other day, that the offices set forth in the New Testament are not gifts. The offices are raised up out of gifted persons, persons exercising that gift which God has already given them. But all these remarkable things are gifts. And I'm not going over the total list of gifts. I'm merely telling you that every member of the body receives that spiritual portion which enables him to function in the body. Now you've got to believe that. I've always enjoyed the sports. I'm not a great athlete. I've always enjoyed the sports. I've always enjoyed playing games. I haven't made my appearance on the volleyball court yet this week for a number of reasons, like old age. But other occupations that come in between.
I've always enjoyed it. But I went through that traumatic experience of a young man of thinking I had no part on the team. See here, I was a very clumsy kid. And when they picked up sides at the Dorseyville School where I went in Western Pennsylvania, and if it was a little school. When they picked up sides, if there were 19 fellows, you know, one side would have nine, one side would have nine, and then they would look who would, I would always be the 19th. I was really a fumblefingers deluxe. I would be the 19th, and they would wave me off. But now here's the embarrassing thing. If there were 18, one side would have nine, and the captain of the other team would be looking for some girl to play. I got that tremendous feeling. Now, long before I was saved, I began to overcome that through the influence of some people in my family.
Long before I was saved, I began to overcome that. So when they didn't want me to play on the teams, then I became the bat boy, the water boy, the cheerleader, the umpire arduer, the authority on the rules, the baiter of the other team, and a whole bunch of other things. I became a giant mouse at the athletic contest and worked out very, very effectively. But you know, I discovered, I discovered that when I stopped feeling sorry for myself for what I couldn't do and did what I could do, and things went better too. There are a lot of believers in Christian churches who wish that they could do great things while they're not doing small things. And if the Lord had come and tell them to go and evangelize Moscow, they'd be ready to go.
But if the Lord wants them to do a miserable thing like witnessing to a neighbor, that is kind of another matter. And so I will merely tell you that every member, every believer is enabled to function in the body, enabled to function in the body. He belongs in the body by the work of God's grace. body, he's enabled to function in the body, and you've got to know that as a kind of a mental fact. You've got to say, I belong to this body, I'm able to function. Now, how you'll function, we'll chat about in a couple minutes, but you've got to stamp that in your mind. There is no such thing as an unnecessary believer. First Corinthians 12 is beautiful when it tells us that the weak ones are necessary. There are some we wish would grow, and there are some we have to discipline, and there are some we wish would improve.
But every member is in the body by God's grace with divine appointment and spiritual skill and enable the function, and the body attains its maximum health when the believers per se function. Now, I know that 1 Corinthians 12, at least I think, that 1 Corinthians 12 is looking at the body overall and not immediately just one local company. But what is true of the body overall ought to also be true of the local company, that every individual member sees himself belonging to Christ and enable the function. Now, the passage in Peter tells us this. As every man has received gifts, and so I merely say every believer is enabled to function. The second clause gives rise to our second thought. So minister the same thing one to another.
As every man has received gifts, so minister that which he has received one to another, or the same one to another. And so the point that I try to make is that every believer is enabled to function, but not only that, but every believer is expected to function. Every believer is expected to function. That is, he's given the gift, not as a trophy to display in his living room, but given the gift that he might minister to others. Now, the word minister merely means to serve. It's not necessarily a platform word, but it means to serve or to put yourself into service and to give yourself into the service of others. So when the writer says, let him minister the same one to another, in effect it's saying, let him take and render this thing serviceable one to another, so that each ministers to the others' need and to the others' well-being within the framework of the body of Christ.
Every believer expected the function. But from time to time, we are haunted by what is my gift, or how shall I function? It's easy to say that everybody has gifts, but it's not always easy to tell everybody what that particular charisma is. Not always easy. And so I have usually tried to say it this way. Somebody told it to me, but I have usually tried to say it this way. But since you're all equally capacitated, headed up by Christ, and all equally empowered by the Holy Spirit, and all equally called by God to his glory, then the chief way in which one determines his function is by putting himself into the active employment of the body. You don't put yourself into the body.
Christ does that. But into the active employment of the body. In other words, finding what the gift is by looking for it. Now that may be a little crude, but finding what it is by attempting to discover what it is. Some believers wait for the angel to come and write it as Mr. Schmeiser from Philadelphia used to say, write it on the ceiling of their bedroom so they could read it while they're lying in bed waiting to know what it is. Some believers, if an angel would come and say, your gift is this, they would believe him and they would be happy about it. But gifts, I don't think, is normally determined that way. The ability to function, the charisma, is more normally determined by the individual who puts himself to something. Now, I had this experience at a conference a couple of years ago where a man was talking about how he found his role as a Bible teacher.
A lot of brethren were gathered, and they were talking about the difference between evangelists and Bible teachers. And I hope this won't be an offensive kind of an illustration to you. I just listened to it. But the man said, he spoke of a man who was a great evangelist. He said, I wanted to be a great evangelist too. And so he said, I went and studied with him. And he said, he would give a small sermon, he would look at the group, he would give a small sermon, and then he would say, who'd like to trust Christ? And he said, the aisles would be filled with people that wanted receive the Lord Jesus. He said, I would get up and give a sound, solid, carefully worked out theological talk, ask who would like to trust Christ. And he said, a lot of people would head for the door. He said, nobody came forward. And so one day he said, I said to myself, I'm going to preach like brother so and so does.
I'm just going to take one simple thing. I'm going to read it. I'm going to illustrate it. I'm going to shout at them for a little bit. And then I'm going to ask who'd like to trust Jesus. And so he said, I did that. And he said, the night I did it, he said, still nobody came forward. In fact, of people came stood at me, his door said, you usually have a good message. What do you do tonight? And things like that. He said, right then and there, he said, I learned a lesson. He said, right then and there, he said, I said, thank you, Lord, that I have the gift to give a good message and to teach something. Thank you for that. And bless brother so-and-so in his evangelistic work. It doesn't mean a brother so-and-so couldn't give good messages and couldn't give rich teaching. It just meant that in a practical sense, the Lord had blessed him in a unique way to reach souls.
Although I've not always agreed with the of Finney. In fact, there's a lot of them that I don't agree with. I've always been struck by the fact that they tell them in time when he went to the big, you know, the Coliseum in Chicago. And while walking up the steps, four men sitting on the top of the steps, one of them suddenly looked at Finney and cried out and said, Mr. Finney, he said, how can I be saved? I don't guarantee you that there's hardly anybody in the room that's walked up the, you know, the steps of the local meeting and somebody on the top of them said, I've been waiting here all hour to see you. How can I be saved? Now Finney had a remarkable kind of a manifestation in that way. And so the emphasis here is that you discover what it is by trying. When I went to college, we used to go out preaching on the streets in Tennessee. We didn't realize that most of the people had passed by at our 30,000 street sermons, and I went under the aegis of a fellow from Winchester, Virginia, who had a great loud voice, needed no loud speaking systems under almost any circumstance, he had a great loud voice, and he was a fiery street preacher.
And so he tried to initiate all the voice into preaching on the street. He even told us how to wave at the right time and how to hold up your Bible at passing cars so they could catch a glimpse of John 3, 16, a lot of other things like that. Well, I personally soon observed that he had some gifts that I didn't have. One was that thundering, noisy voice. I'm fairly loud, but he made me sound like a whisperer. And I discovered I quickly didn't have that, and I also didn't have certain other things in discernment. But if you don't seek to discover, if you don't seek to discover what you have, then you'll never know. You'll never know. So I have said many times that in the framework of a local company, one seeks to help. He doesn't demand a prominent place.
He seeks to help. I urge the young people at Greenwood that if they had any questions, when they go back home, start visiting the elderly and the aged and the infirm. Now, there are none of those present with us today, so I can say this kind of frankly. I said to them, start visiting the elderly, the aged and the infirm. You may discover that you have a pastor's heart or a shepherd's gift. You may discover it. But you're not likely to learn it by sitting in a dark room reading Mickey Mouse. But by putting yourself into the active employment of the body, you may discover it. So when we say every believer is expected to function, we mean that, first of all, he'll be concerned with what his skills and his gifts happen to be, with what the charisma is that he's blessed whereby he can take activity.
Now, in 1 Corinthians 12, you see towards the end of the chapter, the great problem is resolved when believers began putting their eyes on certain gifts because they were big and showy and expressive. I don't know how far the gifts of health goes and how far the gifts of government goes, but there's a natural tendency to want the big and showy and expressive gifts. A natural tendency, you might not want to admit it, but it's there. So you hear a brother give a great message from the Bible and you kind of wish you had his gifts. Well, we are told to covet the best gifts, to seek them and desire them by the grace of God. But the best gifts are those that edify the most, as I understand it, gifts, rather quiet and building-type gifts.
But again, one discovers his own function only as in the body he gives himself to active participation. So in Romans 12 and verses 5 through 8, the writer lays down the line, as you've been given ability to do this and do this and do this and do this, and you only discover the ability as you prayerfully and actively want to discover it and know it. Now I can't say there's never been any exceptions to that. There may well have been, but as a general rule, that's the case. My father was an auto mechanic. He had gifted hands. He lived on a farm, but my father just kind of lived there. Farming was not his lot. But the auto business, he had had a garage in Pittsburgh almost since the invention of the car. Almost.
It was a sputtering thing because of other problems, but he was gifted that way, gifted with his hand. And he was one of these fellows who liked to hold the piano wire in his teeth. Old-time mechanics were great for this. By holding piano wire in their teeth and letting it trail along the side of the block to determine if the cylinders were hitting well and if the compression was good by the jangle that it gave in their teeth. Every now and then they came across the coil wires and they got a real jangle in their teeth. But he was one of those fellows that liked to do that. He was just very, very gifted in his hands and you could show my father almost anything around that was broken and he could figure out a way to fix it. He was very, very clever that way and you'll just have to take my word for it right now. But I was not clever that way. My father could hardly believe he'd get a fumblefinger's son.
And I remember to put the paper towels in the paper towel dispenser. Now putting the paper towels in, you pull the front of the dispenser down, you set the towels in, you pull the first one through a gap, and you put the front of the dispenser back on, like that. And I've never forgot that. I was maybe 16, he was going to break me in on the garage business and away from the farming business. I remember pulling the front of the paper towel container off, and the whole thing came off. The whole thing came off. And I called my father, and he came in, and he wondered how anybody could be that dumb. And so he got a couple screws, and he was going to put a little and then put a couple of screws in the bottom of it. And then I got the paper towels, got them like this. And as I went to shove the paper towels in, they kind of collapsed in the middle, and they all fell out.
It was unbelievable. But you know, it's been a long time ago, but we rode home that night, and my father said, Tom, he said, I don't think you have it in you to be a mechanic. I said, I don't think you have it in you. Now, he was right, see. We knew it by trying. We knew it by trying. We knew it by trying. And when I decided to become a teacher and went home to see him in his latter years, when he was ill a great deal, and we sat and read and talked together, he said to me many times, he said, I'm glad I didn't try to make you a mechanic. He said, I'm glad I didn't draw it. So in the body of Christ, not everybody has the same function. And almost nobody has all the functions, although God has some greatly gifted servants. But everybody has some gifts, and he discovers what that charisma is as he gives himself to it, and as he seeks active employment in the body.
encourage you to know don't just be a don't be just a sitter don't be just a sitter a brother greenwood told a story last week that was touching to me and i'm going to repeat it to you uh although i he related of a brother in a pittsburgh meeting i don't know the brother's name but he related a brother in a pittsburgh meeting he said to whom he said his chief function all those years in the assembly had been to give out to him books and clean the hall and do other things like that he said he never said much but he said he was always there and he always faithfully did and so then he said he was dying in his old age he was dying and in and out of a coma and he said a number of the brethren went to see him in and out of the coma situation and while he was there in his last few moments in this life he suddenly cried out to the brethren he said the missionaries are going he said the missionaries are going and the brother who was there said to him all and i can't remember his name but take robert for a good one he said ah robert he said did you always wish to go with them and the dying brother said no no but he said i would gladly carry their bags.
And I said to myself, like everybody else said in a situation like that, see, there is what we call an unostacious brother, but who has found what his function is and delighted to render it for the glory of God. But unfortunately, and here's a nasty note, unfortunately in a lot of our gatherings and in a lot of churches in our day and age, there are great quantities who never wonder what the function is, let alone actively seek to find it. Let alone. And maybe we encourage them in that. Maybe we who minister and maybe we who have the oversight try to discourage people from actively discovering it by trying to do everything ourselves or by looking at a fellow and saying you can't do it or by looking at somebody else and saying you're obviously not able.
Maybe we actually discourage them by not promoting and encouraging active participation. Maybe we actually do it. Maybe so. But the writer says here quite apart from that, minister the same one to another. And he tells them in verse 11 that you minister in accord with that ability that God gives, that God might be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. Now, just check me on this. If you're a member of the body and have no knowledgeable, serviceable function, then you'd better look for one. I don't know how to say it right. It's easy on the platform to sound like you know it all.
I don't feel that way a bit. But if you have no knowledgeable function in the body, then you should look for one. You are not born inept and impotent into the body of Christ. But every believer is enabled to function, and every believer is expected to function, and the function is not just having your name on a donor list at the end of the year. Although, of course, as we're told in Romans, if you can give, you ought to do it as cheerfulness and simplicity. But the idea is not just being a bad example for traveling preachers to pick up and use at the next point where they go to minister. Well, the third thrust is found in the last half of verse 10. See, every man is enabled to function, every believer.
Every believer is expected to function. In the last half of verse 10, minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And so I like to say that every believer is accountable for his function. He's enabled to function. He's expected to function. function, and those, I think, are the biblical principles of authority for our exercise. Now, when I say it's accountable to function, I don't think we ought to get the idea that God is keeping a big time clock on us. Some believers are afraid to take any time off. I kind of know what that's like. You're afraid if you take a single day and just rest that day or loaf that day. Once in a great while, you're afraid that an angel will show up and write it down against your eternal reward.
Some believers are kind of like that. Maybe it's pride. I don't know what it is. But you want to get out of your mind the idea that stewardship accountability is God running a time clock on you and all those things in your somehow you have to get away from that But you have to remember in 1st Corinthians 4 the one thing that's expected of a steward is that he be faithful And here that he be faithful to the manifold to the much showing of the grace of God That he be faithful to the multiplied grace of God that's been shown on him in order that he be in the body If it weren't for God's grace, you wouldn't be in the body God's grace you wouldn't be kept in the body. If you'll just let me say it bluntly, God's grace is everything to you. Christ died for you not because you ordered him to, but because God and his grace made that provision for you.
And all the truth that you know, you didn't make it up yourself, you don't have one thing, says Paul in 1 Corinthians 4, not one thing that you didn't receive by the implication of this grace of God. So every believer is to be accountable as a steward of that grace, how he shows it, how he demonstrates it, how he uses it. And so in 1 Peter 4.11 it says, Let him minister according to the oracles, that is the Logia, the word of God. Let him minister according to the ability which God give us. But let him, in measure to what God has given him, let him exercise himself. He is accountable for the stewardship of the grace of God as it is bestowed upon him. Now it's easy to look at a brother and say, there's a greatly gifted brother, and we ought to pray much for him, his responsibility is large.
I don't know if that's theologically sound or not, but I know people often say it. But actually, see, the responsibility in this sense of every brother is large. Some gifts are more showy, and you kind of think that they are more important. And I don't have the last word on that. But every functioning brother is responsible to minister to the company and to the body as a steward of the grace of God. Steward, meaning a caretaker, caretaker is a kind of a crude word, a housemaster, an overseer, a dispenser, but one who has responsibility and will one day pick up the accounts and read those accounts to God. And before we practiced our number this morning, I was talking to Larry in the hall, and he had a great pocket full of bills belonging to a concession thing.
I think. They had a great pocket full of bills. He was transferring one pocket to the other. And I said, that's a problem that concessionaires have. I said, I've always got a pocket full of money that's not their own. And we chuckled over that for a little bit, and then I thought of it myself. The concessionaire has that. Not his own. He's got it. But sooner or later, he gives account of it. Sooner or later, somebody says, what did you do with this? And what did you do with that? And what did you do with the other thing? And where is the accounting of it? And then and there, you know whether he has a realistic appreciation for what his position is and what his practices are to be. If he kind of looks at you and says, well, I don't know, I don't know. you find he's $172 short, and it's just about $172 tape recorder, you've got to look at him and say, well, we know, maybe you don't know, but we know.
Every steward, every steward, a responsible type of count. Now look, folks, what I'm simply saying is that the scripture legislates our exercise. It doesn't have your name and your duty, but here's what it has. It has the facts of your salvation and the facts of what it means for you to belong to Christ. And then the writer says, as every man has received the gift, every believer enabled the function. So let him minister the same one to another. Every believer expected the function. And let him do it as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, every believer accountable for how he functioned.
and I cannot make your functioning my primary responsibility. I've got to make my own functioning my primary responsibility. As far as the account that's given to God is concerned, my stewardship is the one I account for. I know in the local meeting we often look around like John did in the last chapter of that gospel, like Peter did rather, in the last chapter of John's gospel. We often look around and see somebody else and say, how is this fellow fulfilling his function. But I've often thought that the Lord's words to Peter when he said, don't worry about it, you follow me. I've often thought that they were sharp and to the point. You, as an individual, with a gift to be used and to be accounted for by the grace of God and for the grace of God.
Now that in a nutshell is my thinking on the practical authority of Scripture for our exercise. But whatever you do, don't sit back and say, well, because I'm not the ear, I'm not going to be part of the body. Or because I'm not the eye, I'm not going to be part of the body. Whatever you do, don't sit back and say, well, you can't discover what my function is. And in my church, nobody really cares. I mean, you cannot afford that kind of an attitude because you are dealing with the gracious dealings of God for which you are accountable in due time. And so on one hand, we sometimes have people who want to imagine that they have gifts they don't have. That's one problem. On the other a far larger number who are not concerned with function at all.
Somewhere in between the two extremes, you find yourself and say, I'm glad that Jesus Christ saved me. I'm glad to be placed in the body. I'm glad that God has placed me where he wants me in accord with his will. And now my prayer is that I shall function, that I shall do it for the benefit of the body, and I shall do it as one who accounts eventually to God. And the beauty of it is, as I see it is, men or of missionaries or of pastors or of teachers or of evangelists, as I see it, the beauty of it is, is that it is a necessary part of the life of every believer, the practical authority of the Word of God for his exercise. Lord willing, tomorrow night, I will try to talk for a little bit about the practical authority and our internal problems, and I will try to go beyond that in Friday.
But what my chief concern is, that to those who know the Lord Jesus, the practical authority of the word will become not a talking point but a living point shall we pray I'm thankful this morning father for the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ the wonders of his grace and the enjoyment that is ours and his person and how we thank you for his goodness and mercy to us and we might ask humbly, dear Father, that we should find the area in the body where the Spirit enables us to function and for the edification and strengthening of one another might be building and living stones in this holy temple.
Bless us today and the activities of this day. Watch over us and protect us and help us to live with a sense of enthusiasm and appreciation for the Lord Jesus Christ.