The following teaching is the twelfth and final in this series, Empowered for Ministry, presented by the Rev. John W. Howe. The title is, Come Prepared. I want to come again to the scriptures tonight. This is the final one of a series of meditations that I've been doing on the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are given for ministry. And I just want to very quickly recapitulate. We've been looking at 1 Corinthians 12, a familiar passage in a lot of ways, but for me at least it's been a somewhat fresh way to look at it.

Concentrating on that one particular paragraph, verses 4 through 11, in which nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are mentioned. They are not all the gifts. There are many other gifts of the Holy Spirit that are mentioned in the New Testament.

But these are nine very important gifts, very key gifts for ministry. Someone once compared these nine gifts that are mentioned here to what happens when you take a beam of pure white light and pass it through a prism. And if it's a good sharp beam and it's a good prism, you know what happens.

Out comes a spectrum of color. Interestingly enough, I think it's only coincidental, but interestingly enough, there are nine colors that break out if it's a sharp beam. There are nine colors all the way from infrared to ultraviolet.

And it's kind of like that. We're talking about the Holy Spirit as a shaft, a beam of pure white light passing through the prism of our personality and being refracted into what are here called gifts. They might better be called manifestations.

See, they're all an expression. Each one, all of them are expressions of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is in you, then He can express Himself in any way that He likes.

The beam is in the prism and the prism is in the beam. Got it? The Spirit is in you and you're in the Spirit.

He can express Himself any way that He likes. The gift is the Holy Spirit. And then these are some of the ways in which He manifests Himself.

We've been looking at those. We've been looking at those manifestations as demonstrated in the life of Jesus, because he's the example to us. As he operated in the power of the Spirit, so we are invited to operate in the power of the Spirit.

And then very quickly, last time, we looked at the rest of chapter 12, in which Paul goes on to say that we are like the members of a human body, like the individual organs or the extremities, a hand, a foot, an eye, an ear. And God has arranged the body in such a way that we need each other, whether you like it or not. Do you know that it is not God's will that you have all of the gifts so that you are able to stand by yourself?

Did you know that? Now, hold that alongside of what I just said. If the Holy Spirit is in you and you are in the Holy Spirit, he can express himself in any way he likes.

So you could be, you can be a vehicle, a channel of any or all of the gifts, but on the other side of the coin it is not God's will that you stand there independent, self-sufficient. God has arranged the members of the body in such a way that we need each other. I need you.

And whether you like it or not, you need me. and we need each other's gifts don't miss the thread that ties it all together we need not just each other as persons but we need each other's gifts we need God to express himself through each other in the ways that would please him chapter 13 I'm not even going to get into it you know the love chapter the most famous chapter in the whole bible but what is so often overlooked just want to underscore it's as if Paul is interrupting himself the discussion is on the gifts of the spirit and it's as if he says I can't go any farther without stopping to remind you that the context in which the gifts are to be exercised is that of love the discussion is about the gifts but the context is love and so angels, men and angels. If I have all the tongues of all the universe, of all creation, but I don't have love, it's just a clanging cymbal, a noisy gong.

It's just a lot of noise. The context is love. And then we come to chapter 14, and I just want to make a couple of comments about it to wind up things tonight.

In the first half of chapter 14, he talks at length about tongues and interpretation. And we've already covered that in a previous session. We come at last to verse 26.

What then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silence in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.

If a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent, For you can all prophesy one by one so that all may learn and be encouraged. And the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.

When you come together. This part is addressed to the meeting. He's been talking about some things that happen when we're in private.

We can pray in private, in tongues. We can exercise that gift and it blesses us and it blesses God. This part is for when we come together.

When you come together, each has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, and in light of what has previously been said, one might add a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a prophecy, faith, gifts of healings, miracles, discernment, or any number of other manifestations of the Spirit. Are you with me? When you come together, each one, each one, each one, everyone has something from the Holy Spirit to share.

A hymn, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, a prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom. One of the gifts we've been talking about. One of the other gifts in the New Testament.

Each one has something to share in the meeting. When you come together. Where's yours?

Did you come prepared tonight? Do you come to the meeting prepared to share? Now mind you, as the meeting gets this large, probably not everyone will be able to share.

probably not everyone will have a chance to share but each one comes prepared if there is an opportunity i've got something that i am ready to share now i don't insist on my need to share it or my right to share it that everything's got to revolve around me because that's not the spirit of love. Love doesn't insist on its own way, I read somewhere. But each one comes ready.

And then as the meeting begins to unfold, the Spirit moves in waves doing His thing, if we let Him. And it may be that something which has been in your spirit all day is appropriate to share. Or it may be that right then in that moment God gives you something as we just saw happen a few minutes ago.

A vision. And it was confirmed by another vision to somebody else. Now maybe there were other confirmations throughout the room.

Not everybody had the opportunity to share but do you see what I'm saying? I believe there's a work of preparation that we really ought to attend to before we come together. and it begins early in the morning of that day maybe it begins a week previously you know as as you're anticipating coming to a prayer and praise service are you just so caught up in the busyness and the hassle and the demands and the conflicts and the rat race of running around you know that your mind is totally occupied on that or is there somewhere in your day somewhere in your spirit where you have the opportunity to say, Lord, what do you have?

Do you have something for tonight? Do you have something for Sunday morning? Do you have something that you would have me share?

Most of the folks that have developed gifts that I'm aware of in this congregation, gifts that you can count on when so-and-so gets up and shares a witness or shares a testimony or shares a vision or shares a prophecy or whatever it may be. You know what I'm talking about. Folks who you can trust.

Boy, God really spoke to me when so-and-so got up, right? Most of those folks who have developed gifts like that, as I've talked to them, see, I'm very nosy. I want to find out how it works.

How did you get that? How did God do that? How did you develop that?

And most of them have told me that they carefully spend time in preparation, seeking the face of God, and something begins to germinate in their spirit. Maybe it's just one word. Maybe it's the word love.

Maybe it's the word sin. Maybe it's the word conflict. A word comes to mind, and they can't get it out of their minds, and they just keep coming back to it.

Or maybe God gives a vision early in the morning as they're praying on Friday. It gives them a little vision and they say, well, Lord, is that just for me or is that for tonight? And they just sort of hold that all day long and then maybe it's for tonight and as the service begins to unfold, it comes back again and it comes stronger.

Maybe it's richer than it was in the morning and so they share it. Do you follow what I'm saying? Are you with me?

I think there's a work of preparation. When the body comes together, that's when it is best able to accomplish what it's about. Okay?

Paul has previously said in chapter 12, the hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you. Right? But if the hand is downtown in Washington and the foot is here in Fairfax, they may need each other, but they're not functioning together too well.

But when the body comes together, do you see what I'm saying? then they can function together and what God has given to one can be shared and reinforced and complemented and confirmed by what he's given to another and the members of the body work together and everybody is blessed there's a Zen proverb forgive me sharing it but it is perfectly appropriate that says what is the sound of one hand clapping not much sound what is the sound of one hand clap not much sound it's when you got the other hand and they're working together okay so we need individually to do the work of preparation and waiting upon the Lord so that when you come together each one has something if God gives the opportunity. I don't insist that I've got to share, but I'm ready.

And then if God does give the opportunity, we share. Look back at the end of chapter 12. Verse 27.

Now you are, corporately, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. And then a series of questions.

Are all apostles? What's the answer? No. Are all prophets?

No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all possess gifts of healing?

No. Do all speak in tongues? No. Do all interpret? No. But any one of you, any one of us, might be used of God as a channel for manifesting the Spirit with any one of those gifts.

You got it? He's talking about offices. There is an office of apostleship.

There is an office of prophet. There is an office of teacher. Sometimes we recognize those in the contemporary church, and sometimes we don't. I don't wear the title of teacher.

My office is rector, but my principal area of ministry is teacher. I am a teacher. Not all are teachers.

I am. But any one of us might be used of God on a given occasion to bring forth a teaching. Got it?

We're not all occupants of these offices, but any one of us might be used to bring forth a gift of the Spirit, and each one of us is supposed to be ready to do so. And the corollary is that as you do that work of preparation, and as you find yourself sharing those gifts as God gives them, an office may emerge. A ministry may emerge and it gets confirmed by the body and you begin to exercise that ministry with great fruitfulness and reliability and we come to the point of saying, wow, that person really is a teacher or a prophet or an evangelist or whatever it might be.

Do you know, I'll bet you sitting right here tonight, There are folks who God would call to be evangelists. He's already gifted you to be an evangelist. And you've never led anybody to Christ.

Because you've never tried. How do you know unless you try? I bet you sitting right here tonight, there are folks who God would call to be prophets.

Recognized prophets in his church. And you've never brought forth a prophecy. how will you ever become a prophet unless you dare to share a prophecy and let the body confirm it or correct it or both and as you exercise the gift it gets deeper you grow into it Billy Graham is coming to town right?

are you excited about that? do you know what he used to do you know what he called himself the first time he did a Washington crusade? God's Gabriel in Gaberdine.

Let me tell you, Billy's first sermon was not all that worth hearing. But he was faithful with it. And he grew into it.

And he grew into it. And he grew into it. Until he's got an anointing like few people have ever had.

And I think that's true of everyone of the ministry gifts, and that is certainly true of the offices. They begin as we are willing to share and willing to make some mistakes and trust each other that the body is going to love us, that if we make mistakes, that's okay. We'll learn from it and we'll grow.

Come prepared. Come prepared to share as God gives you something to share. And take the risk.

And if this is kind of scary of doing it with 400 or 500 people, Do it in your shepherd group. That's supremely what those small group fellowships are for, is to develop the kind of relationship in love and trust and support of each other where we can afford to try and to fail if need be and grow and develop. A lot of us, especially on Friday, spend the day prior to the meeting fasting.

And I would not want to lay that on you as a rule, as a requirement, or as a law, but I would commend that to you. Fast and pray. That could be part of your preparation.

Let this be a special time. Special time. Get into the Word and seek the face of God and see if He has something not only for you, but for the body.

Let it brew. Let it germinate over the day. And then come prepared to share it if there is an opportunity.

a vision as God gives it, a word as it seems appropriate, a testimony if there's an opportunity for a testimony, a song. Somebody started a song at the end of that prayer time. Praise God that you didn't wait for us to get to it.

I mean, we were into prayer up here. We might never have gotten to it. Amen.

Amen. Let all things be done for edification. and then there's there's one more word that I just have to add I don't really want to but I have to because Paul does that's a word about women and he says the women are keep silent and I am sure that if you read that closely there is something reflected there that was cultural because he says have any questions let them ask their husbands when they get home the background of the comment is that women in this particular church situation were disrupting the meeting with a bunch of questions and and talking that was not edifying and he says let them ask their husbands about that the background of that is that neither in Jewish society nor in Roman society were women permitted to come to meetings like this.

So it was an absolute scandal as far as everybody else concerned that the Christian church was a place in which men and women met freely together. And the ladies didn't have any background for this. They didn't understand it.

And so they're disrupting the meeting and Paul says, don't let them disrupt the meeting. Let them ask their husbands when they get home. Okay?

That's the cultural background. The principle that I think is non-cultural, The principle that we have to take very seriously is that he's urging the men to lead. And I'm interested, I've said this before, but I think it needs saying from time to time.

It's not a problem of this church, it's a problem of the church. That the women lead. When there's an opportunity for testimonies, it's the women who testify.

When there's an opportunity for prophecy, it's the women who prophesy. That is not the fault of the women. that's the fault of the men the women lead because nobody else is leading and so I want to take everything that I've said tonight and particularly direct it to my brothers here gentlemen will you come prepared in the midst of all the other responsibilities that you have in the midst of all the other distractions would you make it a commitment of your life to spend a little time to get yourself ready before the meeting so that you're in tune with what God is doing.

I don't want to shut out the women. I want to include the men. And I believe the Spirit of God wants to.

Let's work on that week by week. Not only Friday evening, Sunday morning, or whenever we come together, but especially in these services that when the body comes together, there wouldn't be the sound of one hand clapping, but the body working together for the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.