St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Epiphany 2 -- Jan 11^th and Jan 14^th, 2007

Dear children of our heavenly Father. Amen

One of the new shows that is on TV is the one where people buy old houses and then quickly fix them up and then resell them for a nice profit. In most cases they are able to buy these houses at a fraction of their regular cost because there are in most cases many problems with the house. They might need lots of repairs to fix them up and make them suitable to put up for sale. The shows usually consists of them gutting the old stuff from the house and buying new things to make the house look nice. At the end, it is common to see that the home hardly looks like the original. They have transformed the house to look much nicer.

This morning as we look into our hearts we recognize that our hearts are very similar to the old houses that we were just talking about. Our hearts are pretty messed up. There are lots of repairs that need to be made. God in his love and mercy came into our hearts through the power of the Holy Sprit and transformed our hearts. The work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts makes our hearts like new again. It is almost impossible to recognize the old sinful heart when we see the work that the Holy Spirit is able to do to fix our sinfully rotten hearts. This morning we will use these words from the Apostle Paul to show us:

Sermon Theme: The Wonderful Work of The Holy Spirit
1. He transforms our hearts
2. He gives many spiritual gifts

The Apostle Paul was a pastor who was serving a number of different churches. He would travel from church to church or he would send letters to these churches to point out problems or to encourage them in their lives. As Paul looked at the congregation in the city of Corinth it was no different. This morning we are looking at the first letter that Paul wrote to the Christians living in this city. As you read through this letter from Paul you can see that there were a number of problems that had started. We see that there were factions in the church. The members were arguing about their pastors and ministers and which one was better. They were allowing someone to live in sin in their midst and did not address it. The members were doing things that were hurting the faith of those with weak faith when it came to eating certain foods and how the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. Paul in this letter was pointing out that these were wrong and needed to be fixed.

On the other hand we realize that God had blessed the church in Corinth quite a bit. Despite some pretty serious problems, God in his grace had remembered the Corinthians congregation as he blessed them with the power of the Holy Spirit and especially in the area of spiritual gifts from the Holy Sprit. Paul in this letter wanted the Corinthians to be sure that the Holy Spirit was responsible for these blessings. That is why he started our text this morning with the words, ^"Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. ²You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. ³Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit." He wanted them to be very clear that it is the Holy Spirit who has worked faith in their hearts. It is the Holy Spirit that gave them the ability to believe that Jesus was their Savior. It is our powerful God the Holy Spirit who gets all the credit for opening our hearts to this wonderful truth.

Let’s concentrate just a little more on those last words we just heard, "No one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit." These words are proof that our coming to faith can in no way be attributed to ourselves. We can’t take any credit or think that we in any way came to believe in Jesus. Paul uses a contrast to help the Corinthians to recognize this. He tells them just how far their hearts were from him. They used to worship false idols that couldn’t even communicate with them. They were being led away to follow gods that could not help them one bit. Paul is trying to emphasize just how helpless their hearts were before the Holy Spirit opened up their hearts. They were not just people who didn’t know about Jesus, they were helplessly being led to follow worthless idols. They were worshipping made-up, imaginary gods that couldn’t even talk or speak.

As we look in our own hearts, we need to recognize that most of us were not at one point in our lives worshipping some form of a physical idol. Most of us hadn’t set up a false god in our homes that we dedicated our hearts and lives to. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that we are off the hook. Every single one of us has been born into this world under the curse of sin. We came into this world separated from God. We are not born into this world as a part of God family or a part of the vine of Jesus Christ. We are on the outside and have no desire to be on the inside. Just like the Corinthians we had nothing to offer to bring ourselves to God. It is impossible to think that in this state of sin, the Corinthians or us have anything that would help us to be saved. Only when the Holy Spirit by his gracious power opened up our hearts through the Gospel were we able to recognize that Jesus is our personal Savior from sin. It is only through the Holy Spirit that we see hope for the helplessness of sin. The Holy Spirit gets all the credit for transforming our rotten hearts of sin into hearts that are new creations that are eager to serve and praise our Lord and Savior. What a miracle!

Paul then goes on to point out that the Holy Spirit did not just stop after transforming our hearts and minds. He went on to describe how he uses us as transformed Christians to do his work here on earth. "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. ⁷Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines." Paul wanted the Corinthians and Christians of all ages to know that special gifts have been given to God’s children. That would be us. As we look at these special gifts we need to recognize a number of things. First of all this is not a full list of all the special gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to God’s children. This covers quite a few, but you will find more listed in other letters that Paul wrote to other congregations. But rather than wondering how many there are, it is more important to recognize where these gifts came from and how God wants us to use these gifts.

God tells us that there are many different kinds of gifts, but they all come from God the Holy Spirit. Paul’s stern warning to the Corinthians was because the Corinthians thought that certain gifts were better than others were. They thought the gift of speaking in tongues meant that God liked that person more than someone who only had the gift of serving. It is important to remember that the person has nothing to do with it. God in his mercy decides which talents or abilities he is going to give to each person -- and each person has been given at least one special gift from God. This is hard for our little egos to fathom. Deep down the Devil is telling us that we are better if we have the gifts that people are going to notice or acknowledge. But instead of pointing to ourselves, but need to give all glory and thanks to God the Holy Spirit.

What is your gift from God? And maybe a better question might be, why does God give gifts to the people in his church? As we look at our lives on this earth, we need to recognize that God has one goal in mind. He wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. To accomplish this God uses his children to be his servants. He gives us all abilities and talents that when combined with others makes a team that is striving for one goal – to win souls for Christ. It doesn’t take much to see that God has used many people and the gifts he has given them to build up his Church on earth.

He used the Apostles and the many people of the early Church. He used people like Martin Luther and those who found the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. He used people like Pastor Sterz, Pastor Lorenz, Pastor Uetzmann, Pastor Vomhof, Pastor Schultz and Pastor Jeske. He has used men and women throughout the ages to bring souls to know of Jesus their Lord and Savior. It is hard to imagine that in 1990 which was only 16 years ago, St. Luke’s was a congregation of 770 souls and 590 Communicants. Today 16 years later the Lord has blessed this congregation to the point that we now stand at 1462 Souls and 1074 Communicants. That means that we have grown through the power of the Holy Spirit who used the many different people and their gifts. We have grown by 692 people – almost doubled in numbers. We could turn around and pat ourselves on the back or we can once again thanks you to our wonderful God who sent the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of so many people. He transformed our hearts and he has poured out his gifts on us to work for his glory and for his kingdom. Amen.