May 26 – LD 21, Day 6: The Use of Our Gifts
by Prof Herman Hanko
Read: I Corinthians 12
We have learned that the
communion of saints means that within the church each member receives the
blessings of Christ, but each member also receives gifts and responsibilities
unique to him, which make him able to occupy his own unique place.
This same truth applies
to a congregation. All share in a common salvation, but all also have unique
gifts and abilities. There are no two people alike in a congregation,
any more than there are two people alike in the whole church.
Each saint lives his own
life in the world. Each has his own sins. Each is saved by grace, but in
different ways that give him grace for his walk and calling. Each has his or
her own responsibilities. Each is important in the church, whether high or low,
young or old, brilliant of mind or mediocre, with bodily and mental handicaps,
or normal in all respects, male or female, employer or employee, etc.
Now, then, says our
teacher, “Every one [of you] must know it to be [your] duty, readily and
cheerfully to employ [your] gifts, for the advantage and salvation of other
members.”
Away goes all
self-seeking and self-centeredness. With a wave of the hand, our teacher tells
us, “You and what happens to you are not important; what use you are to the
congregation of which you are a member – that is the one and only important
thing!”
The responsibility for
the advantage and salvation of your fellow members is and must be your only
concern. Are you tired after a day in school? Never mind. It is not important.
There is a fellow classmate that is troubled and needs you.
Has Christ given you a
gift of music? Are you asked to use your gift for worldly entertainment in
special programs? That is a waste of your gift. Is it your idea that the church
is too small and that you would be wasting your gift if you used it to play the
piano on the Lord’s Day? The teacher says, “If you belong to the church, stop
thinking about yourself and start thinking about the church and how you are
called to serve it.
Are you so busy earning
your daily bread that Bible Study tonight is too great a burden? O selfish
person! Why did Christ put you in the church? For your own
pleasure? Did Christ seek his own pleasure when he went to the cross for
you? For you, a worthless sinner?
There is only one reason
why you have, with an unmerited favor of a gracious God, been given a place in
that noble and exalted company of saints. That place is to serve others. Maybe
that is as a mother in the home, bringing up your children, the children of the
covenant, in the ways of God’s covenant. Maybe your place is to teach in a
school for covenant children. Maybe your place is to be an elder, a deacon, a
minister. Maybe your place is to keep the church clean for worship. Maybe your
place is to speak a word of good cheer to that lonely fellow saint whose
burdens are so great they almost crush her.
The welfare of the
church, whatever the cost – that is what it means to believe in the communion
of the saints.