Avoid Complacency: Serve the Body with Spiritual Gifts (Pt. 1) - 1 Corinthians 12:1-17

[0:00] Thank you, Pastor Scott. That great word, that's encouraging. I often am accused, and I mean this in the most honest sense, of speaking too quickly, having too much information, and firehosing the congregation with material.

[0:20] So first of all, I want to say if you are one of the many dozens of people that have told me that, I apologize. And secondly, I'm working on it, something I want to grow in.

[0:31] And third of all, it's not going to happen this week. So in all openness and humility, this is probably going to be the most firehosey sermon. So I want to prepare all of you rightly.

[0:44] If you have a notepad, and you take notes, and you've got a pen, I hope you brought some balm or something, because we're going to be writing quick. There's going to be lots of material. It's going to be incredible amount, because Paul has incredible amount to say to the Corinthians, in first Corinthians chapter 12.

[1:02] So a lot of things we're going to talk about, things we're going to cover, but I hope, and I pray that as we look at God's word, and we see all that it has to say this morning, that it would convict us, that it would move us, and that in some way, shape, or form, our lives would be changed, and brought to the better for his glory through what we see in Scripture.

[1:23] So let's go ahead and read 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 1 to 11. 1 Corinthians 12, 1 to 11 says this. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware.

[1:39] You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols. However, you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed.

[1:54] And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but in the same God who empowers them all in every one.

[2:10] To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for to one is given, through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

[2:39] All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he will.

[2:53] Let's praise God. Let's pray. Lord, we are amazed at Your greatness. And even more than just Your basic greatness that can be studied and pondered in, we can stand in awe of it, Lord.

[3:10] I thank You specifically for the greatness that You demonstrated through the Gospel. That because of Jesus Christ and the work which He accomplished on the cross through the resurrection, that we get to come into right relationship with You.

[3:27] And not only that we get to come into right relationship with You, that we get to be called sons and daughters of the King, that we get to be washed white as snow, but also, Lord, You promised to bless us with every spiritual blessing.

[3:42] And Lord, You've given us Your Holy Spirit. I pray that the reality of Your Spirit that is inviting within us will be made present this morning.

[3:57] I pray that we would recognize that as a church, this is primarily a place of worship of You and that You've enabled and allowed us to do just that through the indwelling of Your Spirit.

[4:12] Help us to understand what it is You're calling us to do individually first and corporately second as a body in regards to spiritual gifts. Thank You for gifting us with gifts.

[4:25] Thank You for promising us power, through Your power demonstrated in the resurrection that we might be servants of the King, lifting high the name of Jesus as a church through our words and singing, but also through the manifestations of Your gifts. And Your name we pray. Amen.

[4:50] Well, Pastor Jay summarized it well last week. First Corinthians is a book. First Corinthians is a book to a church filled with problems.

[5:03] They're filled with issues relating to behavior. And Paul addresses all these bad behaviors. He says this and that and this. Why are you doing that? Why are you practicing this?

[5:14] But we know from the start of this series, we've been talking about this, that bad behavior in the church or in life in general is often a result of bad theology or bad understanding of God's word.

[5:26] And so what Paul now turns his attention to in First Corinthians 12 is a whole new topic. And if you will, First Corinthians 12, 13 and 14, three consecutive chapters, operate as the sort of body paragraph of his letter.

[5:43] He's dealt with topics and instances and issues here and there, left and right, high and down. And now he takes his longest monologue, 12 to 14, to talk about what he believes to be the most integral piece of doctrine that the Corinthians could learn that would better their church.

[6:04] Three chapters in a row, and there are massive chapters, all on spiritual gifts. See, the church in Corinth is disordered. And he's writing to set it in order.

[6:16] Here's what I love about Paul. He knows the only way a church can go from disorder to order is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

[6:27] Hence, three chapters dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the ways in which the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers, specifically for the good of the church. So the one big problem in the church of Corinth regarding spiritual gifts, one big problem is this.

[6:48] They were demonstrating eager usage without proper knowledge. The church in Corinth heard of these gifts of the Spirit.

[7:00] Maybe Paul wrote to them before. Maybe they heard it from a church nearby, but they heard of this thing, that there's this Holy Spirit, and he gives gifts to all of us.

[7:15] And there's a gift of tongues we heard of, and there's a gift of prophecy we heard of, but we're not willing to practice. There's a gift of mercy and of teaching, and how cool are these things?

[7:29] Let's try and get them. Let's get these gifts, and then let's just practice them. This sounds so cool. They're power from God on high through the power of the Spirit. They're eager, but they don't have knowledge to ground them in how to use their gifts.

[7:47] This is like a car mechanic who works on cars without any training, who turns the bolts without any knowledge.

[7:58] But here's the thing, this car mechanic has all the tools. He's got the compressors, he's got the wrenches, he's got the socket wrenches, he's got every single car part and tool that you could imagine is disposal in a garage, and he goes into the garage and he says, let's do this!

[8:14] And people bring their cars, and he has no idea how to use the tools. He has no idea the ramifications of using tools without knowledge. Anybody ever worked on their own car?

[8:25] I've done it a few times. Sometimes it's gone right, sometimes it's gone horribly wrong. The reality is, unless we know what we're doing, it doesn't matter how many tools we have on our disposal to do any given job, if we don't know how to use the tools in a proper way, we will hurt and harm that which we are trying to fix.

[8:49] When Brooke and I were dating, my wife, I was back at SPU and I had this old 80, I think it was 81, Carmen Gia that my dad let me borrow.

[8:59] I drove this around Seattle, it was a crazy manual stick shift, it was very dangerous on those hills. I remember taking this car, because I didn't have a car, and he let me use his old, awesome car in Seattle, and I took my girlfriend out on a date, and we came back and the battery dies, and her car is near, and says, hey, let's jump it!

[9:17] So I call my dad and I say, hey dad, we're going to jump the Carmen Gia, anything I need to know. And I didn't really listen, I was just trying to impress him, that I was taking care of his car. So he says, yes, Eric, this is very important, you need to take the cable and make sure, because the terminals are reversed on those old cars in that model.

[9:32] So there's a negative on this side and a plus on this side, and there's a third terminal, don't touch that one, and make sure you reverse that you normally would do, the red goes on, I'm not really listening. Okay, thank you dad, okay, Brooke, give me the jumper cables, let's do this thing, I pop the hood open, put it on, what do I do?

[9:48] I put the black on negative, the red on positive, because that's what you're supposed to do, right? Well the terminals are reversed, I didn't have the knowledge because I wasn't listening. What happens?

[9:59] I stand there, I'm like one of the first dates with my wife, and I watch slowly as steam, smoke begins to rise, and I wonder what's going on, and I look over at my car, and there's melted rubber all over my dad's beautiful Carmen Gia, and on my wife's car I melted the front right part of her headlight, and I thought, I'm going to meet her parents, and they're going to kick me out immediately, destroying one of their family cars.

[10:31] But the point being, I took a picture, I should have put it on the screen, there's this nasty, gnarled, rubber disgusting cord that burnt through two cars because I didn't know what I was doing, but I did have the tool.

[10:48] That's what I feel like the Corinthians are doing a little bit. Listen, we've got this awesome car, we've got to jump it up, we're going to jumpstart this church, we're going to have some fun, we're going to go out, and we're going to do this, and oh, we have a jumper cable, great.

[11:02] I don't know, this is cool though, this is awesome, there's energy here, and let's just fire it up, and they plug the jumper cables into their church, and it's a disaster.

[11:13] They're demonstrating eager usage, a good thing, we need to be eager, we need to be excited about God and His grace in our lives and the gifts that He gives, yes, but without proper knowledge, it can lead to disaster.

[11:28] So underneath this one major problem, there's four sub-problems. Eager usage without proper knowledge leads to four sub-problems in the Corinthian church.

[11:39] First, they were using their gifts selfishly. 1 Corinthians 12-21, flip with me to this verse, it's a little beyond our passage, but check this out, says this, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

[11:56] And Paul's using an illustration of the body here, talking about gifts, but he's speaking on their behalf, he's speaking as if he's heard these words from the Corinthians before, and I strongly suspect that he has heard something along these lines, or at least they're displaying an attitude of independence.

[12:13] In other words, one person that may have the gift of service looks to the person at the gift of teaching and says, service is great and this is awesome, I don't need you. The person over here that can preach the house down, but can't serve at all, looks to the person that serves and says, all we need is teaching, I don't need you.

[12:31] In other words, they're practicing their gifts selfishly for self-gain, for self-promotion to make themselves look good. 1 Corinthians 14-9, they were using their gifts flippantly.

[12:45] Says this, so with yourselves, verse 9 of chapter 14, if you're tongue, you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said?

[12:56] For you're speaking into the air. Guys, I can speak in tongues, so here we go. And no one has any idea what they're saying or what they're doing up there, and the whole church is confused and not built up in Christ.

[13:13] And Paul says, what? So with yourselves, in other words, you are doing this. You're using your gifts flippantly. I have it, let's use it.

[13:25] Okay, that sounds great, just go up there and do it. Third sub-problem, they were using their gifts distractingly for 1 Corinthians 14-40, flip a little bit further down this passage.

[13:37] He says this, but all things should be done decently and in order. That's not a popular thing right now.

[13:49] Decently and in order. In other words, if there is a spiritual gift that anyone in the church possesses and they desire to use that gift, order and decency implies that they should go to authority in the church or leadership and ministry and say, here's my gift, use me.

[14:08] That the leaders of the church might say, let's orderly and decently put you somewhere where you can be effective and not promote yourself for your own gain or put you over here just because we don't know what to do with you.

[14:21] That'd be disorder. Paul says this out of the example we just looked at. There's people speaking in tongues everywhere, no one has an idea what's going on. It's confusing.

[14:32] His concern is that someone is going to come into the church from outside the church, maybe a first-time guest to the church, and they come in and they look around, they go, what is going on? They're mad and they leave.

[14:43] Paul says, do everything decently and in order. This is why we have an order of service, that every week our staff works on. Pastor Josh puts it together and presents it and we walk through it because we want to be a church that's ordered in how we worship God, who himself is an orderly God.

[15:04] Fourth sub-problem, they were using their gifts unlovingly. This is the greatest problem. All of the sub-problems of this church in regards to spiritual gifts ultimately boil down to this, and I'm not going to spend much time here.

[15:19] Pastor Jay, you got this in a few weeks. They were using their gifts unlovingly. All of 1 Corinthians 13 is my quote there.

[15:32] To use your gifts in an ordered manner, in a purposeful manner, and in a selfless manner, the antithesis of the first three sub-points, means nothing if it's not done in love.

[15:49] We need to remind ourselves that Scripture, as we read it, has primary, secondary, and tertiary applications. And that as we interpret Scripture together, so we do the process of interpretation, then we correlate, then we apply after we do all of that, that when we look at Scripture and we say, this is what the text means, we need to be careful to understand the tiers of application and the primary tier of application for 1 Corinthians 13, the widely known chapter on love, maybe the most known chapter in the secular world.

[16:24] What is the primary application of 1 Corinthians 13? Spiritual gifts. That you would use the way in which God has gifted you in your church to build it up in love.

[16:41] And then a secondary application from there might be, well, we're called to do all things in love. Maybe a third application is marriage. Well, yes, we can say, talk about 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding ceremony.

[16:53] That's okay, but we need to understand that the primary application is the main application. It's the intention by the author. And the intention by the author is that the Corinthians in a broader sense, all of the church would use their gifts in love.

[17:11] Amazing. Jay, talk more about that later. So we have a big problem. They're demonstrating eager usage without proper knowledge. They have four sub-problems, selfish usage, flippant usage, distracting usage, unloving usage.

[17:24] And now we're going to move into eight truths for 1 Corinthians 12, 1-11. Bear with me here. I know this is a lot, but it is exactly what Paul is intending.

[17:35] He wants to correct anything and everything that is happening in Corinth. So he does exactly that. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1 is point 1.

[17:46] Ignorance is unacceptable concerning spiritual gifts in the church. Let's look at what he says. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, remember we talked about this. Now I'm moving into the massive portion of my letter here.

[18:00] Now concerning spiritual gifts, here we go. Ready yourselves. I do not want you to be uninformed. And I love how the NASB puts it, unaware.

[18:14] Both, uninformed, unaware. Imply that the church in Corinth, even though they're practicing gifts, they don't know what they're doing.

[18:26] They've heard of gifts. They sound cool. But he says, I don't want you to be ignorant. In other words, you are ignorant.

[18:39] Thank you, Paul. It was very clear. Appreciate that. I love his clarity and just this absolute cut to the quick in the book of Corinthians. But here we go.

[18:50] Ignorance is unacceptable concerning spiritual gifts in the church. And here's why Paul is pointing to this. He's pointing this because ignorance leads to complacency. And on top of that, it leads to inability.

[19:03] That when we are ignorant of what we ought to know, what happens? We revert to what we do know. But the problem is that the things that we do know in relation specifically to this are bad for the Corinthians.

[19:16] What do they know? Well, we've seen in this book that they're very selfish, that they come to communion and they get drunk on the wine and they eat dinner and food instead of taking Christ's supper as incredibly important thing, like Jay talked about last week.

[19:31] They've come misunderstanding the entire role of men and women in marriage and in the church. So they come with ignorance. So what do they do? Well, the culture at large in Corinth is highly sexual and highly fluid and highly public in its sexual nature.

[19:49] So let's just bring that into the church. So we revert to what we know. And that's what they do as spiritual gifts. They start off with the place of ignorance and they eventually turn themselves into improper vessels of spiritual gifts in the church.

[20:05] And here's why Paul starts off his discourse on spiritual gifts. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, all right, let's talk about spiritual gifts. I don't want you to be unaware.

[20:16] Why did you start out with that? Well, during my small time as a pastor, I have discovered what I believe to be a somewhat tragic reality. The vast majority of believing church members here at other churches or elsewhere that I've spoken to at least are unable to identify the spiritual gifts that have been graciously bestowed on them.

[20:42] God's power of the Holy Spirit giving gifts graciously is unrecognized. Furthermore, I find that few Christians can explain basic ideas about what spiritual gifts are or why they exist.

[20:57] And if you, someone in here today who knows what spiritual gifts and you've studied it and you've prayed over this and you know what your gifts are and you're putting yourself in the church in a place where the elders and the leaders of the church can put you specifically, ministry leaders, put you specifically into places where you can serve at your highest capacity, good job.

[21:15] Let's teach everyone else around us the same things. I would hope that we don't find ourselves at a similar place as the Corinthians when it comes to spiritual gifts.

[21:27] I don't know, but it's okay. I'm just going to serve. I'm just going to love other people like Christ did and that's enough for me. I don't need to know my gifts. I hear that a lot. And in some ways, there's the cool thing about God's grace is even though we may not know specifically what our gifts are, God still uses us to do our gifts even in our ignorance.

[21:47] I really believe he can do that. There's so many people in the church that are serving selflessly and they're incredible servants and they sign up at every time to clean up a kitchen or clean something up or put chairs out and even though they may not have identified, I have the gift of service.

[22:00] God still uses them in the gift of service and that's great and that's a measure of his grace, but that doesn't excuse us for not knowing and studying and being real about the ways God has gifted his people.

[22:13] If we neglect a right understanding and practice of this highly critical element of what it means to be the church, we risk tarnishing the sacred worship of our God. And if you're anything like me in this American culture that has obsessed over being an individual and finding your creative purpose and whatever it may be, you may have taken tests like Strength Finder, Myers-Briggs, Disc, or even the In the Church and for the Church is the way it was designed, the Enneagram.

[22:47] And if you've taken any one of those, I've taken a few of those and you know your personality type, you know your number on the scale, you know your little position of personality that fits into this box.

[23:02] That's okay. You can use those things and I know mine. I'm an ENTJ, whatever it means, right? I know my four letter and here's what they all mean, intuitive, emotive, whatever they all are, right?

[23:14] And we know all those things. We've taken our personality test and we've pushed ourselves into these boxes to say, here's where I operate. This is my personal self, my individual self. And here's how I fit in to the workplace, to the world, to marriage, and all those tests apply to every one of those things, right?

[23:34] How many of you know your type in those tests? I pray that we would be a body of people who place the truths of God's word above all their influences. I pray that we would subjugate all of their voices, opinions, tools, advice under the authority of Scripture.

[23:51] That as the body of Christ we would come to God's word, we would see that spiritual gifts are really, really important along with every other thing. Paul mentions them three times in good length in three different paramount books.

[24:04] First Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. Some people would argue those are the three huge doctrinal books of the Bible. And Paul takes dedicated time in each of them to specifically address spiritual gifts.

[24:19] So it is important to Paul and it's important to God and it's important to the church that we understand spiritual gifts. Okay, now that I've laid that out there in the wait, hopefully has settled a little bit, let's move on to point number two.

[24:34] So point number one, Paul says, I don't want you to be uninformed. It's not okay that we don't know and we don't really care. Verse two, the Holy Spirit leads us to God's glorifying servitude.

[24:47] This goes hand in hand with spiritual gifts. Look what he says in verse two. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. And what Paul is saying here is he's pointing to their pagan past and we know that in Corinth they worshiped a lot of false gods, but none was worshiped more than the goddess Aphrodite.

[25:07] That Corinth was built on the seven hills and the biggest hill and the biggest part of the city with the highest exposure, visual exposure to everyone around was the temple of Aphrodite. And everybody knew Aphrodite and everybody had little tokens of Aphrodite in their homes or their workplaces and they worshiped this pagan idol.

[25:26] And here's what Paul says. You know that remember when you were pagans, you were led astray to those mute idols, however you were led. In other words, however you got to that God and to worship him or her, there's a lot of ways.

[25:41] But what's implicit in what Paul is saying in verse two is this. Now that you've received Christ, now that you're no longer a pagan, but a transformed child of God, you are now led to God himself.

[25:59] And I love what he says. He calls the idols mute. Very intentional as he talks about spiritual gifts. Those mute idols that you were led to, yeah, they're mute. They can't speak.

[26:11] They can't operate. They can't do. They can't affect miracles. They can't affect change. They can't affect anything. They're mute. Now you are led to God.

[26:23] And the whole point of this is as he talks about God's going to idols to serve them. He's pointing to this opposite reality. The Holy Spirit has now taken you over. He has now taken you over to the gospel of his body as the church.

[26:36] And you are now going towards a place where we're serving God and worshiping him. Verse number three, spiritual gifts are only for those indwelled by the Spirit. Here's his third point.

[26:48] Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is a cursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

[27:00] Paul draws on two things. There's two things that a person on this earth could say. And they could say Jesus is a cursed. They could say Jesus is false. He's fake. He's dead. He's not alive. Or you could say a person could say he's Lord.

[27:12] He's king. He's my Lord. I give myself willingly to him in worship and adoration. You can say one of those two things. He's using three word sentences just to illustrate.

[27:24] But these are the giant paths that he's pointing to. There's one or there's two. And here's what he's saying. Only those indwelled by the saving presence of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us from death and into life.

[27:38] Only those that are indwelled by that Spirit can truly, honestly say Jesus is Lord. He's king. I worship him gladly. He's my God.

[27:53] You need to be reminded that there's a clear delineation between the world and between the church. Many. There should be many. Jesus says you'll know them by their fruits, by their love.

[28:04] But one of the primary ways that I've used in my life to be able to say is this person saved or they not? It's a sticky wicket to play because you can get all sorts of judgment things. But generally, to be able to have the Holy Spirit living within them.

[28:18] Is there evidence of the Holy Spirit living within them? Is Paul saying anyone that doesn't have the Holy Spirit is willing gladly to say Jesus is accursed?

[28:29] Okay, but your point says spiritual gifts are only for those indwelled by the Spirit. I don't see Tim talking about spiritual gifts here. Let's broaden out the context. What is he about to jump into? What is the giant section he's about to start into?

[28:40] And what he's already mentioned in verse 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, the whole point of verse 3 is for him to say, I want you to remember, Corinth, that if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you worship Jesus.

[28:51] That if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you worship whatever, but it's not Jesus. And as a result of this, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you say Jesus is Lord, that spiritual gifts are for you.

[29:02] Everything I'm talking about is for this camp of people. Point number 4 is verse 4. The Spirit sources a diversity of different gifts.

[29:13] And I love this. Here's what Paul says. This is kind of his opening statement into the specifics of theology concerning spiritual gifts. Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit.

[29:25] What he's saying is that A, spiritual gifts are real and they're for believers, but B, there are many of them. And I'm going to talk about next week, that's part 2.

[29:37] We're going to talk about the rest of chapter 12. Part 2 is going to deal with the body of Christ. Paul uses an analogy of the body about every one of us is a part of the body. If I'm a server, I'm a hand.

[29:48] Maybe if I'm a speaker, I'm the tongue. Maybe if I'm one who gives, maybe I'm the feet. I don't know what one-to-one correlation would be, and I'm not sure Paul really cares. But the point is next week we're going to talk about that.

[29:59] What does it look like for us to individually find our gifts, assess our gifts, thank God for our gifts, use our gifts in the church in a way that completes a part of the body. We're going to look at that next week.

[30:10] But for now I will say this, there is a diversity of gifts for that purpose. There's a diversity of gifts that each one of us have received, and the reason it's diverse is not for the sake of diversity, but the reason why there's a diverse amount of gifts is so that we would be forced to be interdependent.

[30:30] Did you hear that? That we're forced to be interdependent. That if I'm a teacher and I've got my buddy over here who's a prophet, and I've got my buddy who speaks in tongues, we all like to talk.

[30:42] I've followed this camp a lot. We like to talk over here. We're going to talk ourselves to death. But we are completely dependent on the rest of the body. The service, the giving, the faith, so many other gifts.

[30:56] But it forces us to be interdependent, a good thing that the world is teaching is not true. Be independent, be your own, blaze your own trail, go off on your own, raise your own range of Christian.

[31:08] Paul's drawing the Corinthians in and saying, no, no, no, no, there's a diversity of gifts that you might be interdependent. Point number five is verse five, the Lord, and this is amazing. You see the Holy Spirit mentioned here is one of the triune mentions of Scripture.

[31:24] The Lord Christ sources a diversity of different ministries through gifts. Now, the reason I put Christ there is because Lord is a term here that is highly used for Jesus.

[31:36] And then if you look again, I'm going to skip really quick a second. Verse six, it says God, meaning the primary word here used for the Father. Okay, God, so you see in verse four, the Spirit, you see in verse five, Christ, you see in verse six, the Father, see the triune nature of God.

[31:51] And why is it so important to Paul that he slips in the Trinity into spiritual gifts? What are some of the markers of the Holy Trinity? Unity, harmony, perfection, a picture that he wants in the church at Corinth.

[32:06] And in every church that we would be unified, that we would be drawn together through the power of the Spirit by demonstrating our gifts together and have harmony together. Holy Spirit slipped in here, but back to verse five, Christ, the Lord, sources a diversity of different ministries through gifts.

[32:22] Here's what he says in verse five. And there are varieties of service with the same Lord. And we're building off here. So first, the Spirit gives a diversity of gifts. So we all receive our diverse gifts.

[32:34] And then verse five, what God then does through the Lord Jesus here is there are varieties of service with the same Lord. In other words, that we take our individual gifts, we bring them into the church, we organize, because Paul uses order, right?

[32:48] We organize ourselves in ways in which ministries are formed by people who have gifts in certain areas, and they do their ministry through the power of spiritual gifts.

[32:59] Then verse six, God the Father sources a diversity of spiritual fruit through different ministries. And the word here, look at verse six, says, and there are varieties of activities. I love the ESV, but I think the NASB does much better here.

[33:12] The NASB says there are a variety of effects, which captures the tone of the word much better. Effects, in other words, results from ministry. It's literally what Paul is saying.

[33:23] So first there's gifts through the Spirit, diversity. We take those gifts and we make ministries through the power of the Spirit. And out of those ministries come a varying diversity of effects or results or I would say spiritual fruits from those ministries.

[33:39] This is amazing. Verse six, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Same God does all the work through every gift in every ministry, meaning what Paul's drawing us back to this, that even in the diversity of the topic of spiritual gifts, and we get caught up in what gifts we have and we should, we get so caught up in the specificity of it all, that we're called by Paul to remember that God empowers all in everyone.

[34:11] He does it all through the unifying presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Verse seven, every believer has received spiritual gifts for the good of the church.

[34:22] Look at verse seven, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. And let's calm down here. Let's sit down and this word is used a lot and it's taken out of context and it's ripped.

[34:33] And the manifestation of the Spirit, the manifestation of the Spirit, the manifestation of the Spirit is tongues. The manifestation of the Spirit is teaching. The manifestation of the Spirit is have you ever done a miracle in someone's life? Have you ever healed them?

[34:45] This is on trial right now. This is rampant in Christian culture. That you have to manifest the spiritual gift in you right now on the spot. And if you don't, then you're not saved.

[34:58] Heresy. Wrong. We have spiritual gifts. We've been given spiritual gifts, but it is wrong to say that this verse, the manifestation of the Spirit, means that if we don't show a gift of someone else's choosing and selection on the spot, we clearly don't have the Holy Spirit.

[35:16] There's a diversity of gifts for a reason. What Paul is saying here is that to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. In other words, to each is given the experience of the Holy Spirit through gifts.

[35:29] That's what it means to manifest. That the Holy Spirit has come. He's indwelt in us. And now that he's indwelt, he's going to out dwell through gifts. Does that make sense?

[35:40] So as he comes in, he takes residence. He fills us with the Spirit of God, the power, the energy, the love, the life of God. And out of that, we receive our gifts through his grace.

[35:51] And now that we've received his gifts, he's going to pour himself out through us as a vessel. Why does Paul say in Romans 12 that we ought to be living sacrifices?

[36:05] Because he knows. By the way, Romans 12 is the chapter that he talks about spiritual gifts. Paul knows.

[36:16] We need to present our bodies as living sacrifices. The Holy Spirit's taken up residence, and now we lay our lives down so that God may be glorified and we're going to sacrifice us so the Spirit can do him through us.

[36:30] And then he talks about spiritual gifts. Now verse 8, or excuse me, point 8, this is where it breaks down. The 1 to 1, 1 to 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3, but 7 and 7 and then point 8.

[36:43] I'm going to read quickly over the first couple of verses here in look at verse with me 8. For to 1 is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom.

[36:54] Here's what Paul's doing. He's now introducing some of those diverse gifts. And we're going to spend way more time on the individual gifts and how they're used in the body next week. So bear with me if you're wondering what the end of this.

[37:05] He didn't even talk about the individual gifts. Well, save that for next week. But I want to look really quickly. He says each one is given the utterance through the Spirit of wisdom to another. The utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, two different gifts, wisdom and knowledge to another faith.

[37:21] There's some of us in the church that have the gift of faith, another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. Some of us have the gift of healing to another working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another ability to distinguish between spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues.

[37:35] And the point is he's starting his list. And he's going to add on to it later in chapter 12. And then in Romans and then in Ephesians and in 1 Peter, there's going to be more gifts that are added to this diversity, this well of grace through gifts.

[37:51] But look at verse 11. He says this, all of these are empowered. All of these are empowered by the one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

[38:04] Spiritual gifts are received. They're not achieved. They're received. If spiritual gifts are empowered by God, if they're a result of His work in our lives, if the power and the effects that are produced from our gifts are a result of God's power, then He gives them.

[38:30] If they were of us, they would not produce spiritual fruit. If they were of us, they would be used for ill gain. If they were of us, they would harm the church.

[38:47] Spiritual gifts are received. They're not achieved. And this isn't to say that we can't come into the church. I knew a brother a couple years ago that got saved and he came into the church here, and he wondered where are my spiritual gifts.

[39:01] How has God gifted me? And I knew him years prior to him being saved, and he was a very generous person. He paid for some kids to go to camp way before he was saved. I just want to give, and I'm like, man, this guy's not even saved, and he's out giving me.

[39:13] This is crazy, right? He's a very generous guy. He gets saved, and he says, what are my spiritual gifts? And I walked through all of this. We looked at the text, the scripture, we studied it, we prayed. What are your gifts?

[39:24] And you know what he determined, and I affirmed, and other people affirmed in him was his number one spiritual gift, giving. So can God take that which we have in our lives, the baggage we bring, the skills we even bring, and can He take those, can He redeem them and transform them and say, now it's a spiritual gift?

[39:43] Yes, but here's the difference. There is spiritual fruit being produced from His giving. There was, in some sense, early before He got saved, but now that He's saved, the spiritual fruit that is being reaped from His giving is not just for the benefactor, the person that receives the gift, but now it's for Him as well.

[40:00] His giving is to the Lord. Amazing. We need to be careful that we don't look at spiritual gifts and say, well, I think I'm a leader, so I must have the gift of leadership.

[40:14] It's a gift that's been given. And the Lord must give, irrespective of our skills at times. So, I want to look, there's four passages in Scripture.

[40:29] We're not going to look at these all today, but I just want you to see them, at least to start. Four main passages that discuss spiritual gifts. And the first is 1 Peter 4, 8 to 11. Seconds, 1 Corinthians 12 to 14.

[40:41] Romans 12, 3 to 10, and Ephesians 4, 7 to 16. These are the four passages that deal with spiritual gifts in Scripture. And there's other places that mention a gift or gifts, but these are the ones that have dedicated time to spiritual gifts.

[40:53] And what I would encourage every person in here to do, if you have time, if you are interested about this topic and you want to be someone that promotes unity in the church, write those four references down.

[41:05] At some point this week, read all of them. It is so encouraging. Every time I read all four of these, I just walk away going, man, our church is so...

[41:16] I can't believe we got that guy doing that. I walk away pointing at people in my mind saying, he does that. He does that. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. It causes us to have attitudes of gratitude for the body of Christ.

[41:29] It is so encouraging. But read those sections. Pray over them. Allow the Lord to reveal to you where you may be gifted. So, a couple more things here.

[41:40] Sorry. A couple more things here. A couple points that we pull away from as Paul talks about this section in Scripture, and he goes through and he walks through all of those eight points that we already went over.

[41:52] There's other parts of Scripture that I want to come to quickly about spiritual gifts. So, I'm going to give you some more points here. We're going to work even quicker through these. Okay, A, spiritual gifts are primarily purpose to edify the church.

[42:07] Ephesians 4, 11 to 12. I'm going to give you a bevy of Scripture. So, bear with me. Write these references down or just listen and take it in. Ephesians 4, 11 to 12, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

[42:26] What is the point of those gifts? The body of Christ would be built up. 1 Peter 4, 10, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.

[42:38] We're edifying one another through the service of our gifts. 1 Corinthians 14, 12. So, with yourselves, since you were eager for a manifestation of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

[42:50] Amazing. Strive to excel at this with your gifts. B, spiritual gifts are means by which the gospel is proclaimed in the world.

[43:02] 1 Corinthians 14, 23 to 25. Check this out. Here's what Paul says. If the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders and unbelievers enter, will they not say that you were out of your minds? Reasonable.

[43:13] But if all prophesy and an unbeliever and an outsider hears, he is convicted by all and called account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

[43:27] In other words, prophecy for Paul is the foretelling and foretelling of God's word, that God's word comes to somebody and they speak it in power. And he says, unbelievers that come in are going to hear the word spoken in power and fall on their face before God and embrace Christ.

[43:40] But Acts 4, 29 to 31. Paul, excuse me, Peter and John are speaking to a crowd and here's what they say. To the Lord, they're praying to him. Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

[43:52] While you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your Holy Servant Jesus, check it out. And when they had prayed, the place in which they gathered together was shaken.

[44:04] And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continue to speak the word of God with boldness. Peter and John pray, Lord, would you use the gifts of healing and speaking and boldness? All these things, would you use them to make your name known and people come to Christ?

[44:18] Furthermore, you look at the book of Acts, you look at Paul's missionary journeys. Paul, a man who has many gifts. Some of the primary ones are teaching, shepherding, leadership, evangelism.

[44:31] Those are four gifts. He has all those for sure. He goes across the world and he spreads the gospel. He plans churches, he disciples churches, and he starts with the help of some of his friends and the other disciples and apostles.

[44:42] The known church, his best friend and ministry, a man named Barnabas. What does Barnabas' name mean? Son of consolation or son of encouragement. Did you know that encouragement is one of the seven, excuse me, one of the 20 gifts mentioned by Paul?

[44:57] You have a man named Barnabas who, as he comes to Christ, he is named, son of encouragement. Your name is your spiritual gift. I vote that we start calling someone, Shelly, you're going to be known as Administrator Paulson, because you're so good at administration.

[45:15] No, we're not really going to do that. We love you, Shelly. But I love that his name means the very gift that he has been gifted with, encouragement. So the gospels proclaim through our spiritual gifts.

[45:27] See, excuse me, spiritual gifts are to be earnestly desired among believers. Both of these verses, 12, 31, and 14, 1, Paul says the same sentence. He says, but yet earnestly desire the gifts.

[45:39] So it's actually not okay for a believer in the church to be like, I just, what I said earlier, I love God and I don't need to know all that. I'll just serve Christ. That's not earnestly desiring the last time I checked.

[45:51] Paul says earnestly desire them. Spiritual gifts are to be vessels of great help or harm in the church, Luke 24, 40, 60, 49. This is what Jesus says to his disciples before he leaves.

[46:05] This is amazing. He says, it is written that Christ would suffer and rise from it on the third day. And that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things and listen to this.

[46:18] Jesus, and behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you. You are to stay in the city until you are clothed with what? Power from on high.

[46:29] And what does the word power mean? It's dynamite. I think this is, we can all figure out what that word, the connotation of that word is. Dynamize the word power. Dynamite. Explosive in nature.

[46:42] God is going to give you an explosive in nature power from on high. The Holy Spirit comes out and it is explosive at Pentecost. But the point here is this, that this explosive power of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts can be used to explode in a bad way, in a harmful way, the church or explode a good way in love.

[47:04] We need to be careful with our gifts. And the Corinthians are demonstrating what happens when it explodes negatively. E, spiritual gifts are received, not achieved. We already talked about that. F, spiritual gifts are an abundance of diversity for spiritual unity.

[47:18] Every single big section of spiritual gifts, Paul dedicates at some point time to saying what? You're the body and you've worked together on this.

[47:29] And then G, spiritual gifts are categorized into two major branches, speaking and service. I'm going to read 1 Peter 4, 8 and then we'll close up.

[47:40] This is what Peter says, as each is received a gift, verse 10, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Now here's the two categories for Peter. 11, whoever speaks as one who speaks the miracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves with the strength that God supplies.

[47:57] In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to bring him glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. I love Peter here. He wrote his epistle, 1 Peter, after Paul had already written 1 Corinthians and Romans and Ephesians.

[48:09] All those books are already written. He's already done the legwork. This is like one theologian coming behind the foot of another and saying, you already did all this work on this topic. Okay, I'm just going to make a note in my footnote in my Bible or my book.

[48:21] Read this person's book. They did this. This is what Peter does. He knows, he's good friends with Paul. He knows everything Paul's written and he says in his letter basically a couple sentences. Okay, use your gifts to serve one another.

[48:33] Yes, Paul's already said that, but I'm just going to say this. There's two categories of gifts. I'm grateful Peter does this. There's the speakers and there's the servers. And there's two giant categories of gifts and branches of spiritual gifts that we need to be aware of.

[48:46] And I love this because it lines up with Paul's theology. In Paul's theology, there are elders and there's deacons as leaders of the church. These two are presented together and the elders and the deacons are specifically rolled in the church for what purpose?

[49:02] The elders to speak, to lead, to shepherd. They're more on that speaking side. The deacons are to serve. They're more on the serving side that Peter points out here.

[49:13] And then you see in the book of Acts chapter 6 that it says that the twelve summon the full number of the disciples. It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. The elders, we, service is not bad, but we're not called to that.

[49:25] We're called to speak the word of God. So what do they say? Find those to dispute this matter. Brothers, pick up from yourselves seven men full of good repute so that we can devote ourselves to prayer and ministry of the word. Speaking, we're going to devote ourselves to this.

[49:37] Deacons, you devote yourselves to service. It doesn't mean we can't cross over, right elders? You should never pick up a chair. If you're an elder in here, pick up a chair. You've broken Paul's categories. No, that's not right. But generally it lines up with what Paul's already taught.

[49:50] There's the speakers and the servers. And Peter says, same thing with gifts. There are those that have the gifts of speaking. There are those that have the gifts of service both are needed. They're perfect together. They're needed together.

[50:02] I love that. We will talk about the giant list of spiritual gifts next week. But I want to end with this one. H. Spiritual gifts are only profitable if ministered in love.

[50:14] What's the illustration? Paul's literal illustration is so culturally relevant. If you don't have love and you're practicing your gifts, you know what you sound and look like.

[50:27] Imagine two giant symbols, you know, the marching band. I love all of you. I want to encourage as I'm clashing my symbols. You want a word of encouragement?

[50:39] Can I pick up chairs? Can I give? I have faith. I have faith. I have faith. I have faith. I have faith. Can I give? I have faith.

[50:50] Let's pray. Spiritual gifts are an obnoxious disturbance in the church if they're not done in love. Every passage that deals with spiritual gifts in Scripture.

[51:01] 1 Peter 4-8, keep on loving one another. Right before he talks about spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 13, we already went over that. Romans 12-9-10, let love be genuine. Love one another with brotherly affection.

[51:12] Now I'm going to talk about spiritual gifts. Ephesians 4-1, bear with one other in love. Excuse me, so she'll just read this. Rather speak the truth in love so that the church builds itself up in love.

[51:23] Now let's talk about spiritual gifts. Every time love is attached to spiritual gifts. So, how do I discover my gifts, Eric? This is great, but I need some practical tools.

[51:35] Well, how do I discover my gifts? First, ask of the Holy Spirit to reveal what gifts you've been given. Remember, received and not achieved. Nothing can replace prayer when it comes to discerning anything spiritual, especially what your gifts are.

[51:50] They're called spiritual gifts for a reason. Spirit and charisma, free gift. How has the spirit gifted me? How has God uniquely oriented me in the body of Christ to serve others, to equip others?

[52:04] Spirit, teach me in this. That's a request I guarantee you God will honor. To assess what gifts you may have through study. Let's look at these pastors, let's read them, let's see the gifts displayed.

[52:17] I believe there's 20 of them, some people disagree, but 20 is what I see. What gifts do I have? Does this give a line with who I am, my personality, my desires, my spiritual temperament?

[52:28] Third, affirm gifts with friends, family and the church. After assessing, maybe I have that gift, I've been studying this. Go to those and seek affirmation, leaders in the church, your friends, your family, the people that know you well.

[52:43] Do you see this in me? Let's be honest with one another. I believe honesty is the best way to discern truly where we can fit in the body of Christ.

[52:54] So lovingly, obviously. And then lastly, authenticate gifts through experience. It's not enough that we would say, I think I have this gift, do you see this? Yes, I do. I say, wow, everyone, they're referring me, that's powerful, but now go practice that gift.

[53:07] Volunteer in a ministry. Learn to teach, learn to serve, learn to encourage, learn to evangelize. Go out and do it, because here's the reality. If it is a spiritual gift gifted by the Holy Spirit, what is the Holy Spirit going to do?

[53:23] It's going to produce fruit. If you have been gifted a gift, the Holy Spirit will use it for His glory. And you will feel spiritual satisfaction, because you're right where you need to be.

[53:38] Let me just finish with this. Spiritual gifts exist so that God's people would have direction and how and where to serve the church. Church bodies have finally tuned machine.

[53:50] Each gift and each person make up a different piece of the machine or the body. We must serve where we are gifted by the Spirit, so that we can have maximum spiritual harvest and joy.

[54:03] That's my challenge to you. Go study these passages, pray, assess, affirm, authenticate. And if you are here and you don't know your gift and you haven't found a way to serve yet, we miss you, we need you, and we want you.

[54:17] Talk to our staff, talk to our leaders. We have so many areas of need and we want nothing more than to equip you to serve the body of Christ.

[54:28] You are needed. Let's pray. God, thank you for your Spirit.

[54:39] Thank you for the gifts we have received. I pray anyone in here who may not know their gifts, pray that you would reveal those to them, Lord, that they may better serve the body, that we may be aware as Paul's desire was for the Corinthians.

[54:58] For your glory, serving the church, building each other up, give us the strength to serve through your power, as Paul says, through your words.

[55:09] Lord, thank you just for this body and the way in which you've equipped each and every one of us to serve in our specific ways. And let me pray.

[55:20] Thank you.