"Life Changing Event"

 

May 20, 2018 readings:  Roman 8: 22-27   John: 15:26-27, 16: 4-15

There is a true story told of a man name Yates who, during the depression owned a sheep ranch in Texas.  He did not have enough money to continue paying on the mortgage - in fact he was forced like many others to live on government subsidies.    Each day as he tended his sheep he worried about how he was going to pay his bills.  One day a knock came to his front door and a man named Robert introduced himself as a member of a seismographic crew.  He suggested that there might be oil on his property and they wanted to do could a test drilling.  After a lease was signed they went ahead.   At 1115 feet a huge oil reserve was struck – subsequent wells revealed even more oil than the first well revealed.  Mr. Yates of course own all the oil and mineral rights.  He had been living on relief all this time and yet he had no idea what lay just under the surface, he had always been a billionaire but it took a strange turn of events in his life to bring it to his attention.

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Reflecting back on the story I told you of Mr. Yates earlier this morning How often do you feel cough within life’s circumstances, feeling depressed, deprived, afraid or sometimes helpless - unaware of the extraordinary power that we have available to us - that which is lying just below the surface held within your Spirit, just waiting to be awakened.  Each one of you here today has the potential to experience your own day of Pentecost, a day on which God makes known to you the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Check it out in 1 Corinthians 3: 16  Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Or 1 Corinthians 6: 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?   The Spirit speaks the truth, teaches and comforts you in all circumstances.  These are things we normally identify with God's presence.  The Spirit gives us much more than joy, peace, patience, and kindness, those things which we call the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit gives us spiritual gifts, gifts designed for the building up of the body of the church.  Your talents, abilities and giftedness are not meant just for your own benefit but are to be used for your individual ministries to which each one of us has been called.  Yes, that is right folks, each of us has been given a ministry and we are all called to use our gifts to minister to one another, and you thought that I was “THE MINISTER”. No, no, no, we are all called to ministry, you have ministry and you are called to minister to the other.  

The prophet Joel in chapter 2 verses 28 and 29 in his prophecy of the last days, mentions some of the gifts for ministry that have been granted by God through His Spirit:  Gifts of visions and gifts of dreams, gifts of prophecy poured out upon our sons and our daughters, upon young and old alike.  In a book I recently was looking at on the internet, the author listed twenty-seven gifts of the Spirit – Here are some of them -  the gift of teaching, the gift of discernment, the gift of communication, the gift of hospitality, the gift of intercession, the gift of presence, that of being a good listener, the gift of wisdom, the gift of prophecy, the gift of faith, the gift of administration, music, the gift of helping, and the gift of humility and of compassion.   Each of these gifts are spiritual gifts – not to be confused with the natural talents we are born with - they are gifts of grace being honed through life experiences and tempered by the Spirit for our second birth.  Don’t let people fool you with the trick question of being born again.  For those who have been truly born of the spirit you will see Gods love their eyes and in the fruit they produce.  Ezekiel 36: 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

For instance this second birth can transform an apparently untalented, shy, self-conscious and fearful person into someone who suddenly begins to speak out against injustice on behalf of the marginalized, the poor and in doing so does ministry unto others.  On the other hand I have seen it transform a self-centred egotistical arrogant person into a humble servant for God.    So the question remains what spiritual gifts do you have hiding just below the surface?  What gift or set of gifts has God poured out upon you so that you might love and serve in the way God has intended, especially for you?  Have you ever considered or tried to identify within yourself your spiritual giftedness?  I have a challenge for you today, homework for you to do.   Take the challenge and this could be a profitable faith filled exercise for you.   Spiritual gifts are not just special talents given to you at birth.  Spiritual gifts often come through tempering and life experiences.  Looking at them in this way forces you to think about what you have gotten good at.  Our giftedness both born with and tempered through life’s experiences can be used appropriately or inappropriately.   Yet our giftedness was meant to be used in ministry as an instrument of God’s love in our world.

What gift or gifts has God given you for your second birth?  Discovering the answer to these questions is so profitable an exercise may I suggest that as a way of honouring God, you start here?  Here’s the challenge:   Take a few moments out of today after church, or later on or in the morning while having your early morning coffee.   Sit quietly and reflect upon yourself.   With a piece of paper and pen, or in the space provided in the bulletin, begin by listing one or more of your personal strengths – things you do well or have developed over life’s tempering- write them down. Often I will hear someone say they’d grown patients. That is a gift folks, grown or tempered it is a gift from God. Do it daily until you have exhausted you known gifts.  

This small exercise in helping you to discover your giftedness can be a powerful experience but you must be totally honest with yourself.  You will begin to see what God has given to you and is doing in your life.  That is kind of what happened with Mr. Yates - someone helped him to see what lay just beneath the surface - and his discovery took him from a life of depression, poverty and desperation into a life of abundance and of generosity.  He was richly blessed.  He found what had always been there - and it changed his life forever. That is what the Spirit is about folks, transformation and change and that is what Pentecost is all about.  The Spirit wants you to discover what your gifts are and how your gifts can help others.  They are there to help guide us as we follow Jesus and His way.  Jesus calls us to love and serve one another and when we use our giftedness as it was intended – it transforms us, our church, and our world into what God intended it to be.