It is such a joy to be here, and I nearly exploded with joy when I found out I was sharing with you for Pentecost! What a privilege.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Ruth (yes, also Ruth) and I’ve been dropping in here since Ruth Hanlon took up residency. I have been part of Creative Space for a while – first writing, and now singing. I regularly attend St Clements, where I’ve been going since I was four years old. I write books: novels and self-help. My latest is called Boots That Fit and it’s about finding your thing. The thing that brings you life and joy and that you can also use to bless those around you and to glorify God.

So, my sermon will be slightly slanted in that direction, and I hope you will enjoy it and be challenged by it.

To begin, let’s pray. [pray]

We had a joyous reading from Acts this morning. The birth of the church. Jesus had told his disciples to wait for the Spirit to fall, and more than that, Joel prophesied about it two or three hundred years before.

 In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

your young men will see visions,

your old men will dream dreams.

Even on my servants, both men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy.

It was an amazing morning, and you can see just how incredible the change was in these people, when you look at what came before.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to many people over a period of time. Sometimes to just a few, and sometimes to as many as 500 people. Then he ascended into heaven, and he told the disciples to wait for the gift that he had promised.

There were about 120 believers who regularly met together after Jesus’ ascension. When you read the first chapter of Acts you see that Peter was acting as their leader, that they were meeting together regularly, and they were following their last instructions “Wait for the gift the Father has promised”. They spent a lot of time praying (1:14). Praying and waiting. They met, often, in a room to sit together and pray and wait. All quiet and serene. All believing the wonders of God, but quietly. Just among themselves.

Then, at Pentecost, the promise Jesus had given was fulfilled. There they were, sitting and praying, and suddenly…

• a sound of rushing wind
• tongues of fire resting on them
• speaking in all sorts of languages.

It sounds like they couldn’t contain their excitement. They could no longer sit and pray quietly in the upper room. Jesus had said that when this happened, when the Holy Spirit came, they would receive power and they would be his witnesses, and that’s just what happened!

They must have absolutely burst out of the room, because the next thing we hear is that Jews who had come to Jerusalem, from all over the place, heard them speaking in their own languages. The writer of Acts mentions that they spoke in the native languages of at least 15 different places. These untutored disciples were speaking at least 15 different languages between them!

What were they saying in these languages?

The disciples were declaring the wonders of God.

Suddenly, they could no longer keep this news to themselves. Suddenly they broke all their limitations, of language and of place, and they just went out and told everyone how great God is!

Some people, people who maybe didn’t recognise all the languages, said they might be drunk. And that led to Peter standing with the eleven disciples and preaching his first great sermon.

In response, the number of ‘followers of the way’ went from 120 to over 3000 in one day. Amazing stuff.

The gift of tongues (speaking in other languages) was such a brilliant thing that it’s been one of the gifts of the Spirit that people have wanted to receive ever since. But the gift of tongues is not the only gift the Spirit gives. Even when we look at this earliest time in the church, we can see different gifts given by the Spirit.

Peter was given the gift of evangelism, shown in the way he preached on that first Pentecost day, and how the people responded.

We all have been given the task of sharing God’s good news. That’s for all of us. But Peter was given a special gift in this area when the Spirit came at Pentecost. I mean, I have had the incredible privilege of leading a couple of people to new life in Christ, and I’ll keep sharing the good news as long as I live, but I’ve never led 3000 people to the Lord in one go. So, I would not say that I have the Spiritual gift of evangelism.

What about the others? Did all 120 of them become evangelists at Pentecost? The Bible doesn’t spell that out. But it shows clearly that tongues and evangelism were not the only gifts poured out when the Spirit fell.

The prophecy from Joel says that everyone, sons and daughters, old and young, men and women would prophesy. So, some, I’m sure, became prophets. A prophet relates the words of God to his people for their encouragement and for rebuke and for any reason God wants. Prophecy builds up the people of God.

Peter also received the gift of healing. In Acts chapter 5 it states that people would bring their sick out and line the streets with them so that when Peter’s shadow fell on them, they would be healed.

In chapter 6 we find that Stephen (the first martyr) and another six men who were full of the Spirit and wisdom, were chosen to administer the daily distribution of food to widows. They had the gift of administration from the Holy Spirit. And just so you don’t make the mistake of thinking that Stephen had less of the Spirit than Peter or that the gift of administration is less important, in verse 8 of Chapter 6 it says that he was full of God’s grace and power, and performed great wonders and signs among the people.

Se we can see from Acts that the Holy Spirit gives all sorts of gifts to his people.

Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 12:4–6

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Why did Paul have to write this?

One of the things that people like to do is compare ourselves to one another. Often, when we do this, we come up short. Sometimes we get all puffed up with pride, but most of the time I think that we do this little comparison and then get envious or jealous. We’re upset that we’re not as good, or rich, or talented, or whatever, as the person we are looking at.

You can see clearly from Paul’s letters that this was already happening in the church back then. People were looking at other people’s gifts and saying, ‘I wish I was like them.’

Hadriana was looking at Aurelia and thinking, ‘Why don’t I have the gift of tongues like she does?’

Augustus was checking out Octavius’ gift of healing and feeling annoyed that he hadn’t been given that gift.

In fact, it went further. People were saying, ‘Well, because I don’t have the gift of tongues, I must not be a Christian.’ or ‘Because I don’t have the gift of healing, I must not be a Christian.’

Paul says that’s not true. He says we’re all part of the body of Christ. Let’s look back at 1 Corinthians 12:

‘If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.’

If I’ve given my life to Jesus and become part of the church and then one day I turn up here at St Luke’s and say, ‘Man! I wish I was just like Trevor. I mean, look how great Trevor is. Look how he uses his gifts, and I just don’t have those gifts. I can’t serve the church like he does. Oh man! I must not really be a Christian.’ You know what? It wouldn’t make any difference.

I’m still a Christian, even if I don’t do what Trevor does, or what Kathryn does, or what Ruth does, or what Luke does. I’m still a part of the body.

Then Paul goes on,

If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body was an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

[I mean, how would the body smell? Terrible!]

He says:

God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

We all have our gifts, and we all need to use them. My use of the gifts God has given me is a part of God’s plan for the church. Your use of the gifts God has given you is also a part of God’s plan for the church. He’s planned it all out, just the way he wants it to be.

It works the other way too:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.

(Now you know where that bit in the prayer book comes from.)

If I have a gift of prophecy, I can’t look at someone who has a gift of teaching and say ‘I don’t need you’. We all need all the gifts. We are meant to work together, the same way a body works together.

I want you to think about what goes on in your body when you stand up. I could get you all to stand up and think about it as you do. What were the important parts of the body when you stood up?

Thigh muscles.

Maybe you used your hands to pull yourself up using the seat in front.

Your glutes are really important.

But there’s another little part of your body that you might not have thought of that is quite important when you stand up, and that’s your big toe.

Your big toe is vital for balance, allowing your body weight to be evenly distributed as you stand up.

There’s another part that’s also vitally important. It’s a tiny, hidden part of your body that you never ever get to see. But it’s really important.

The labyrinth of the inner ear.

If that gets messed up, then you can’t balance. Anyone here had an inner ear infection? It’s wild. You find yourself falling against the wall at random times. Like you’re on a sea cruise even though you’re walking on dry land.

Every part of the body is important.

And the same with the body of Christ. Each of us has gifts that we can use to serve the rest of the body. Each of us is important. We all need each other. You might not be able to work out what someone else’s gift is – it might be hidden, like the inner ear or like the big toe. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a gift. It’s just not your place to know what it is at the moment. And that’s fine.

I wonder if you know what your Spiritual gift is? Paul mentions a few gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:

• apostles
• prophets
• teachers
• gift of miracles
• gift of healing
• gift of helping
• guidance
• tongues (languages)

But this is an incomplete list. There are other gifts mentioned in other places ­ – service, generosity, administration, and on and on. And I reckon the Spirit is not limited to the gifts outlined in the New Testament. He’s an infinite God, so he’s infinitely creative and loves to bless us with all sorts of gifts.

I encourage you to spend time with God and maybe talking with others and see if you can figure out what special gifts God has given to you. What kinds of things give you great joy when you do them?

• Do you enjoy serving morning tea? That’s the gift of service.
• Do you enjoy talking with strangers? You might be gifted with evangelism.
• Do you love to share what you have with others? You might have the gift of generosity.
• Do you love to build people up? You might have the gift of encouragement.

How can you share his love and greatness with others, or make their lives better, or help them to heal, or teach them something? It’s wonderful when we work within the gifts God has given us, when we do life the way that God has intended for us – it gives us life and it gives to others as well. If you know what your gift is, you can be more intentional in using it. And we’ll all benefit together.

But I need to finish the way Paul finished, by showing you the thing that is more important than any gift.

The most excellent way.

Paul goes on to say in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians that we can be supremely gifted – speak the language of angels, understand everything, have faith that can move mountains, prophecy the very words of God, but if we do not have love, we are nothing.

All these gifts are nothing without love.

God is love, and he gives us his gifts to allow us to show that love to one another.

Eventually the gifts will fail. And what will remain is faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love.

So, while I encourage you to look at your gifts, I encourage you much more to think about, and pray about, how you can show love to your fellow Christians here, and also to those in your family, in your community, in the world around us.

When we love each other, we show God to the world.

When the Spirit came upon the church in Acts 2, he enabled them to love each other and those around them. At the end of the chapter there’s a description of what the church looked like in those earliest of days.

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? A community of love.

Our community may look slightly different, but the best way we can witness about our great God is to show love to one another. From the big toe to the inner ear and every other part of the body.

Let’s pray.