Your Position On God's Team

If you were to receive a phone call from the All Blacks’ coach (whoever he is at the moment) asking you to play for the All Blacks and so desperate to have you that he said you could choose any position in the team, what position would you choose? Would you like to be a forward or a back? If a forward, would you want to be the hooker or a prop of a flanker? If a back, would you prefer half-back or full-back or a wing or second five-eight? Would you choose on the basis of your physique, or your importance to the team, or because of some past All Black hero of yours, or…

Actually, would you prefer to be the coach? I understand there is a vacancy at the moment. Or, would you like to be the psychologist, or the manager, or the physio? Not everyone in the team is on the field.

Or, if you were on the Team New Zealand Americas’ Cup boat, would you like to be a grinder, or a cyclor, or the skipper, or navigator, or tactician? Maybe the boat designer or boat builder or sail maker?

If the elders decided we were going to start a shoe-making factory, would you prefer to be in design, or procurement, or manufacturing, or sales, or maintenance, or human resources, or administration, or accounting, or security?

Let’s go back to the All Blacks’ example. Are you cut out to be an All Black? Do you have the physique of an All Black? Do you have the energy or the skills or the knowledge of the game to be an All Black?

What if God said that He recognised that you didn’t have all the right attributes, but He wanted you to do it and He would supernaturally give you the strength and skills and whatever else you were going to need? Would you do it? You are going to be on TV. You are going to look like a complete idiot. Can you imagine you puffing and panting and failing every time the ball comes near you? Or, if God keeps His word, you could look like a hero. This could be the experience of your life.

Imagine how the disciples felt when Jesus told them to go and make disciples of all nations. Making one disciple is hard enough, but the whole world!

Last week we said that every Christian is chosen to be on God’s team. When Jesus calls people to follow Him, He is building a team. But teams have multiple different roles requiring people with very different skills. What is your position on God’s team? What are you cut out for?

The disciples had spent three years with Jesus, watching and learning. They had been well trained by the very best teacher, but they were not ready to make disciples of all nations. In fact, Jesus told them more than once to not even try. They were not to even leave Jerusalem until…

…until they had received the promised Holy Spirit. They had the knowledge and the experience but not the power until Pentecost. Jesus had said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

Making disciples of all nations might have seemed utterly ridiculous, except for that supernatural empowering by the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit the impossible becomes possible.

When we talk about being on God’s team, we need to figure out what position we are meant to be in. What am I meant to be doing? Out of all the millions of things that God calls Christians to do, what is His calling on me? But we also need to know that God will empower us to do it. God will not call us to do something and then leave us to fail. He wants us to succeed. He wants His Kingdom to grow. So He will give us all we need.

If someone is a genuine prospect for the All Blacks, his position will be determined by his size and strength and skills and desires and past experiences. He is tailer-made for some positions and definitely not going to go well in some other positions.

In the shoe factory, the person on the design team is going to have very different skills from the person in accounts and the maintenance engineer.

You are unique, just like everyone else. God has created you with certain skills and interests. He has given you certain experiences and a particular personality type. All of those things determine who you are. And then there is the supernatural. Your position on God’s team will be heavily determined by the spiritual gifts He was given you. You are just the right person to play a particular role in His team.

The Bible doesn’t use the All Blacks, or Team New Zealand, or a shoe factory to illustrate this. It uses a number of other images to represent the church – a family, an army, a flock of sheep, a building made of bricks. Most of the images consist of one thing made up of many parts: one family, many members; one army, many soldiers, one flock, many sheep, one building, many bricks. The images emphasise the diversity of the many parts but the unity of the whole. A family needs to be united; an army needs to be united. You do not want your flock to scatter. If the bricks do not bind well to the neighbouring bricks the building falls down.

The main image the Bible uses is the human body. The church is one body made of many parts.

READ 1 Corinthians 12:4-12, 27-31a

Isn’t it incredible how our bodies work? Isn’t God’s design just amazing? There are so many different parts, and the different parts are very different. The eye is very different from the bowel. The brain is so different from the kneecap. And yet, that great diversity of parts works together seamlessly (most of the time) to achieve something incredible – a living person capable of so many things.

There is an amazing unity. There is one body with all of the parts working together, but that one body is made up of 80 different organs (and I suspect those organs are made of multiple different parts so 80 is  a very conservative number), 206 bones, 650-700 different muscles that all have distinct names, the skin, hundreds of joints, 32 teeth and enough blood vessels to circle the earth twice. All making one body.

The main points being made in 1 Corinthians 12 are…

1. There are many different kinds of gifts…

…and many different kinds of service, and many different ways of working. There are many different roles in the Body of Christ – many different positions on the team.

But all of that diversity is held together because it is God who distributes the gifts as He determines and it is God who is at work thought the varied ways of working. God coordinates all of this for His purposes. Multiple gifts but one coordinator and one purpose. One body has many parts.

2. Every Christian receives some spiritual gift or gifts

v.7 says, “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” and it goes on to talk about different gifts being given to different people.

v.11 having listed some of the gifts, says, “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He distributes them to each one [to each one], as He determines.

Ephesians 4:7, again in the context of spiritual gifts, says, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it”.

1 Peter 4:10

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace”

If you have been born again, God has given you some spiritual gift. The exciting thing is recognising what that gift is and using it.

3. Gifts are given so we can serve others

1 Peter said “use it to serve one another”. 1 Corinthians said we each have a gift “given for the common good”.

4. God decides how those gifts are distributed

That is said repeatedly. “There are many kinds of gifts but the same Spirit distributes them” (1 Cor 12:4).

1 Cor 12:11

[Having listed some of the gifts] All these are the work of one and the same Spriit, and He distributes them to each one just as He determines.

He decides what position we play in His team. He knows what is best and He equips us for it.

5. What are the spiritual gifts?

There are lists in the Bible. They are all supernatural; they are not natural abilities. Things like:

·       knowledge about someone that you could not have known without God miraculously revealing it.

·       Healing

·       The ability to perform miracles

·       Discernment of spirits: the ability to sense when something is a bit off

·       And many more. And I am not sure the Bible lists everything. What about music? Many people can make music but are some people gifted so that their music contains the power of God to move people in supernatural ways?

6. Every gift is needed in the body and the diversity of gifts is needed

It is possible to think that some gifts are less important or not needed at all. 1 Corinthians 12 goes on to talk about a foot that thinks that, because it is not a hand, it is not part of the body. No, the body needs feet as well. It is the diversity of gifts that gives the body many abilities. Every gift is needed.

7. We are to eagerly desire spiritual gifts

Chapter 12 finishes by saying, “Now eagerly desire the greater gifts”. First, “eagerly desire”. But having said that all gifts are important, it seems that some are greater than others. 14:1 says, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. Again it says that we are to eagerly desire spiritual gifts. Desire to serve God in powerful ways. Desire to serve other in powerful way – in ways beyond just your natural abilities. Ask God for the ability to make a Kingdom impact.

Why is prophecy prioritised? Prophecy is the ability to speak God’s words – to hear from the Holy Spirit what God wants said in this situation, and to speak that out for others to hear. I guess we can see that that is particularly valuable. The gift of prophecy allows people to hear directly from God.

Every person brings something unique to the team; every person is a necessary part of the team. What part of the team? Well, that depends on how God has created and shaped us.

We want to be well set up to help people discover their spiritual gifts and the other things that help them discover their place in the team. We are not quite ready for that, but we are working on it.

Next week we will hand out a form to get feedback from you about how you believe God has shaped you for your part on His team. It will contain a list of spiritual gifts and a wee description of each one. You might be able to say, “That’s me!”. You might have a sense of how God has gifted you – or you might not, and we would like to be able to help you discover that about yourself. We want this to be a journey of discovery for you. If you are a Christian, you have been chosen to be on God’s team, but what position on the team? What are your natural abilities? What are your Holy Spirit abilities? What is your personality type? How have your experiences shaped you? God has designed you for a particular role on His team.

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