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[0:00] The letter of 1 Corinthians is a treasure. It contains more teaching on the resurrection, spiritual gifts, marriage, and the virtue of love than any other book in the Bible.

[0:12] ! But it is not cold theology. 1 Corinthians is an urgent call for us to remember the gospel. And as a result, it's a call for us to be a cross-centered, holy, and united people until He returns.

[0:26] Listen in to what God has to say to us through this inspired letter. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27. Now, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

[0:42] And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

[1:00] Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing?

[1:11] Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Do all form a word. Do all supplicant, but earnestly desire the higher gifts.

[1:23] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Hallelujah. Please be seated. In 1832, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham died.

[1:37] he gave all his money and possessions to a hospital in London with one surprising and a bit odd condition.

[1:49] He required that his body be dissected and his skeleton put back together, preserved and clothed so that he could attend all the future board meetings of the hospital.

[2:02] To this day, prior to each board meeting at the University Hospital in London, Jeremy Bentham is rolled into the meeting, decked out in his 19th century clothing.

[2:16] After he arrives, as they do the roll call like you might do at a board meeting to make sure you have a quorum, the chairman announces, Jeremy Bentham, present but not voting.

[2:29] Present but not voting. Many Christians, many so-called believers, sadly, could be characterized as present but not voting.

[2:47] Many make professions of Jesus Christ. We are in the South, right? The buckle, the core of the buckle and the belt buckle, the Bible belt. Many attend church from time to time.

[2:58] Many have the appearance of godliness. Many know how to interact in a church setting or a Christian setting, knowing the right things to do and the right things to not do, the right things to say.

[3:10] But few are truly present. Few taste the goodness of God. Few walk in the fear of the Lord. Few live by the power of the Spirit.

[3:24] Many, in fact, are present but not voting. As we've been learning the past several weeks, the dynamic and experiential power of the Spirit is meant to be the norm of the Christian life.

[3:38] The Holy Spirit is the supreme blessing of the gospel. God gave his Son to die for you. He gave his Spirit to dwell within you. You'd be assured of his love, of his presence.

[3:51] The Holy Spirit is God's empowering presence to live a Christian life. The idea is it's empowering presence to live a life you could not live on your own. After all, how can you fight sin legitimately without help from the Holy Spirit?

[4:08] The Holy Spirit gives gifts to each member of the church. So the whole church is built up in the faith, encouraged by God's presence and powers. But how do we know that we have the Holy Spirit? Or perhaps a more biblical question.

[4:22] How do we know that the Holy Spirit has us? How do we know that he has us? It's a vital question. J.I. Packer asked some years ago, Does the Holy Spirit have you?

[4:38] Does he have all of you? Or only some parts of you? Do you grieve him? He's a person after all, not a power. Or are you led by him?

[4:51] Do you rely on him to enable you for all those responses to Christ to which he prompts you? Do you reckon with the fact that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?

[5:07] That's amazing. Do you revere his work within you and cooperate with it? Or obstruct it by thoughtlessness and carelessness, indiscipline, and self-indulgence?

[5:22] In these verses, the Apostle Paul's writing to a church fully convinced that the Holy Spirit has them. They boast of all their spiritual gifts.

[5:36] They say, of course we've got the Spirit. We prophesy. We speak in tongues. It's wild out here. We've got it going on. Of course we have the Holy Spirit. But Paul's asking this question. Does the Holy Spirit have you?

[5:47] Because your obsession with the Spirit has led to all sorts of competition, comparison, arrogance, and division. But God is addressing us in these verses.

[5:58] I believe God has these verses. It has us in mind in these verses. The living Bible. Does the Holy Spirit have you? Does he have all of you? Are you led by him? Do you revere him? Do you use his gifts?

[6:08] I think what this text is trying to say, do not neglect the gift you have. Use it continually for the building up of the body. And it may seem like we've already kind of hit these types of things already in the messages we've covered in three other messages in 1 Corinthians 12.

[6:25] And yet he's underlining it again for us. Do not neglect the gift you have. Use it continually for the building up of the body. And so in helping us discern whether we have the Holy Spirit or whether the Holy Spirit has us, there's three responses I just want to underline this morning.

[6:39] Three words to know that the Holy Spirit has you. The first is thankfulness. Thankfulness. Now perhaps when I read these verses, you didn't immediately think thankfulness.

[6:54] But it's critical to see what the Apostle Paul has been doing throughout this chapter. This is Holy Scripture and yet God inspired the Apostle Paul. Paul, that Paul, to write these verses.

[7:07] These verses turn our attention from gifts to the giver. That's what he's doing in these verses in so many ways. He's turning the attention of the Corinthians who are kind of enamored with prophecy and tongues and these things.

[7:18] He's turning their attention away from the gifts they possess to the giver of the gifts. Verses 4 through 6 teach us that there's a variety of gifts, but it's God who gives them all. They come from the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God, the idea.

[7:33] All three persons of the Trinity give forth these gifts. Verses 14 to 26 taught us that all the varieties of gifts are ordered according to his designs. They're not merely given by him, but he is the head of the church.

[7:46] He structures, he gives all these gifts such that no gift is unimportant and no gift is more important. And they are gifts, right?

[8:02] Underlining the giver. Now, when you give your mom a gift, she often is blown away and says, It's not the gift, it's the thought that matters, honey. I don't go wrapping up sticky notes saying, Thinking of you, thanking God for you this Christmas, it might not go well.

[8:19] But what do folks mean when they say, It's not the gift that matters, it's the thought that counts. They're saying what's most meaningful is that you would be thinking of me, kind of me, purposeful and generous.

[8:33] And so too, spiritual gifts are not meant to leave us strutting around. Like we possess something. But humbled and amazed that God would give a gift. That he would be so kind to us.

[8:46] These verses turn our attention from the gifts to the giver, but also from the gifts to their purpose. Spiritual gifts are not isolated expressions of power for personal enjoyment.

[8:59] Spiritual gifts are given for a purpose. They're given for the common good, for building up the body. That's where this image of the body comes from. And so he says in verse 27, Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

[9:13] I know we covered a bit of that last week, but there's more meat on the bone. And so we've got to hit it. Again, the church is a body of Christ. And you're a part of that body. You're a member in this body.

[9:25] Now my guess is when I read that just a moment ago or read it last week, you probably weren't blown away. Your jaw probably didn't hit the floor. But you should be.

[9:40] We're not taken aback by verse 27 in my understanding because we often read verses like you are the body of Christ and we think that's right. I need community.

[9:53] I need friends. It's better for me not to go alone. It's better for me to find my tribe. Or my people. That's what a popular song I've heard says.

[10:04] You've got to find your people. You've got to find your people. You can't go it alone. Everybody needs help. You've got to find your people. Then you'll find yourself. That's right. Right?

[10:17] But there are dozens of problems wrong with it. Swingers find their people. Cults find their people. Dipsticks find their people. You can find people who accept you and affirm you in all the ways you should not be accepted and affirmed.

[10:35] But there's another thing wrong. When you set out to find your people, the accent remains on you. Who you like. Who you want to be with.

[10:45] Maybe who you want to be seen with. Who helps you. Your people, therefore, could just be a click. And that's exactly what's going on in Corinth. You're kind of boasting, strutting around.

[10:56] The prophetic over here. The tongue speakers over here. The power encounter people over here. And you're missing the fact that God has called you into his people. It's incredible.

[11:09] And so Paul, all throughout this letter, he's kind of slamming this home. Not slamming home in a bad way. But he's making a point all throughout this letter. When the people pick sides, thinking they're better than one another, saying, I follow Paul.

[11:19] I follow Paul. Paul says, knock it off. You're all God's field. Right? The point is not Apollos watered here. Or Paul watered here.

[11:30] The point is God worked here. You're God's field. He takes it to the next level. He says, you're all God's temple. Right? You've been drawn together. God dwells with his church.

[11:42] And in his church. He's underlining. And so when the people are divided by spiritual gifts, some think they're better than others. Worse than others. More impressive than others. All these things. Paul says, you are all the body of Christ.

[11:56] And individually members of it. Now there's so much going on. I could preach another sermon here. Because the field and the temple are not new. In the Old Testament, Paul said, I mean the Lord said, my people will be a vineyard.

[12:11] They'll be my vine. I'll make them grow. They'll be planted in my field. I'll do all this work. He also said, you know, he made his dwelling place among his people. Right? In the tent. The tabernacle. Then the temple.

[12:22] Right? And then when the people strayed from him. When the vine got mixed. And they strayed from him. He brought down judgment. He tore down the temple. He drove them off the land. But Jeremiah said, my God's going to come back to build and to plant.

[12:35] Why? Because those images are there. He's gathering together people. A vine to be his own. He's gathering together a temple. A place for him to dwell. And Paul has said right here in these verses, that's what God is doing in the church.

[12:46] But the body is completely new. The body is completely new. As far as I can understand.

[12:59] But it accents this new life. It's not merely like a temple we go into on Sunday mornings. It's not merely a field in which God invests in us.

[13:14] It's a corporate community. So intertwined, it functions like the joints and bones and muscles of a body. That's amazing.

[13:30] Our jaw should be on the floor. So instead of comparison and competition, we give thanks for being a part of the body.

[13:41] We don't need to find our people. We need to find ourselves numbered among the people of God. Caught up in the plan and purpose of God. We give thanks because if we found ourselves among the people in the body of Christ, it's all by grace.

[13:58] That's what Paul says at the beginning of this letter. I thank God for the grace that has come to you.

[14:16] That's my story. I had to get down on my knees in that last song of corporate worship, All I Have is Christ, because I was running as far from the people of God as possible.

[14:31] And God apprehended me by grace. That's my prayer for everyone who's here this morning. I think you would enjoy the service.

[14:42] I hope you will. But my bigger question is, have you encountered the grace of God such that you realize that all was lost, but God had mercy?

[14:56] Recognize that it's a reality that happens when the gospel comes to bear. On the one hand, we see how desperate our situation is. Like we've never seen it before. That's what happened to me. The gospel came to bear. I saw how dead in trespasses and sins I was.

[15:09] Saw no hope. Suddenly the glimmer of hope in the gospel that God had sent forth him to die in my place, to reconcile me to God so that I might live forever.

[15:20] He dies and I live for him. It's the most amazing news the world has ever heard. I long for you to hear it with the ears of faith. It's all by grace.

[15:30] We give thanks for spiritual gifts because they're charismata, literally freely given gifts. They accent, these spiritual gifts are meant to accent God, not us.

[15:45] You know, sometimes we take those spiritual gift surveys. Like, man, I got to identify, you know, Strength Finder 2.0 for the Christian version or something. I got to find my gift or something. That takes the accent so quickly.

[15:56] It's not really about you finding your gifts. It's about you finding your place and serving the next person in line. Thankfulness is appropriate because it turns our attention from the gifts to the giver, from our expressions to his exaltation, from our power to his purpose.

[16:11] Thankfulness directs all the focus and all the glory to Christ. So when we're thankful, we can't be thankful for something we possessed. We're thankful for gifts and it directs all the glory to Christ. Gordon Fee says it like this, the presence of the Spirit and power and gifts makes it easy for God's people to consider the power and gifts as the real evidence of the Spirit's presence.

[16:31] It's thankfulness. Not so for Paul. The ultimate criterion of the Spirit's activity is the exaltation of Jesus as Lord. Whatever takes away from that, even if they be legitimate expressions of the Spirit, begins to move away.

[16:45] That's what Paul doesn't want us to do, to move away from the giver to the gifts. And even more critically, move to a more pagan fascination with spiritual activity as an end in itself.

[16:59] thanksgiving is the proper response. Don't neglect the gift you have. Give thanks. Use it for God's glory. Point, yeah, word to, stewardship.

[17:11] So, thankfulness, you know, we should respond to the Spirit with thankfulness and with stewardship. If you didn't see thankfulness, I guarantee you you didn't see stewardship.

[17:23] But it's there. I'll explain. God appointed, look at verse 28. He goes to this list. He got appointed in the church, first apostles, prophets, teachers, then miracles, gifts of healings, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

[17:40] This list is spiritual gifts. There's four other ones, or three other ones in the New Testament. Earlier in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 8 to 10. Romans 12 includes quite a list.

[17:52] 1 Peter 4 includes a few. And Ephesians 4 famously includes the four-fold or five-fold gift of the risen Christ. Some gifts occur on multiple lists.

[18:05] The gift of prophecy occurs on almost every list. But none of the lists are exactly the same. And the reason is that none of the lists include all the lists.

[18:17] Or none of the lists include all the gifts. Trying to accent something. This list, though, teaches us that no member has all the gifts. Now, you may, read, or having just read that a moment ago, you may be surprised.

[18:33] I was surprised reading first apostles, second prophets, third teachers. Surprising, because Paul has been saying no gift is unimportant, and no gift is more important.

[18:47] So is he going back on what he said? Talking about two sides of his mouth. No, it seems to me these gifts are listed first, second, and third because they're the gifts that derive at the beginning of a church.

[19:02] That's what Paul said. Paul planted Apollos watered. Paul was the apostle. Planted this church. I think he's saying first, second, third, not in hierarchy, but in origin.

[19:15] In the foundation of the church. And so God did these things. And he raised up teachers after apostles and prophets came. But this gift makes it further clear by emphasizing a variety.

[19:27] It begins with these foundational gifts, apostles, prophets, teachers. It includes gifts often associated with being supernatural, even though all the gifts are supernatural. Miracles and gifts of healing.

[19:38] Then it adds helping and administrating and concludes with tongues. And if you follow what's going on in 1 Corinthians, tongues is listed last, not because it's least, but because it's the problem.

[19:49] It's the occasion of the problem. The use of tongues and how it's done in that church is the problem. What's the point of all that? No member has all the gifts.

[20:01] There's a diversity and variety of the gifts. It's meant to broaden our understanding of spiritual gifts and resist narrowing spiritual gifts to what may be, what may seem spectacular or unspectacular or supernatural or unsupernatural.

[20:16] Those would be unbiblical measures for spiritual activity. Our statement of faith says the variety of these gifts, some permanent and some occasional, some more natural and some more remarkable, reflects the diversity of the members of Christ's body and demonstrates our need for one another.

[20:41] Now these gifts are just listed alongside one another. Some are not supernatural and others not. Some are not temporary and others not.

[20:53] Some not temporary like at the foundation of the church and others not. They're all listed together which is one of the reasons I believe they all continue.

[21:05] I'll say more of that in a couple weeks. If you want to separate between the gifts, perhaps the only appropriate separation would be gifts of speaking and gifts of serving.

[21:21] Paul mentions the gift of teaching and so it's not surprising that the gift of teaching develops by the power of the Spirit in the context of a local church. This gift is mentioned in Ephesians 4 as well.

[21:33] You know, we want to be careful importing what we understand about teaching in the 21st century and to what is going on here. It seems though that the gift of teaching was made known through someone especially gifted in unpacking and explaining the Scriptures, teaching the right use of the Scriptures.

[21:50] Obviously, the Spirit helps us understand the things that a natural man cannot understand so it's not surprising that the Spirit would empower the explanation, would ensure that the teaching resonates with the Scriptures.

[22:06] And so he gives the gift of teaching. He mentions the gift of miracles. Now, the idea is not miracle workers here. The gift of miracles is the idea.

[22:20] Miracles, plural. The focus is on the gift, not on the recipient. The idea is that God can cause clear, extraordinary things to happen for which there is no other explanation but God.

[22:31] The turning of water into wine. The freeing of Peter from prison. Perhaps, crossing the Delaware by Washington.

[22:43] These miracles are not limited to a certain day. God meant, or Paul mentions gifts of healing. Again, the focus is not on the recipient but on God. I don't think these verses would commend a healing clinic or a healing service.

[22:58] but they would definitely commend prayer for healing. Prayer for God to work. Prayer for God to give foretaste.

[23:09] The Bible says, Isaiah 53, he heals all our diseases so we wonderfully believe we're going to receive a new transformed body healed of every sickness and disease. Praise God.

[23:20] And so what he's healing now is a foretaste of the healing that comes in that day. Obviously, it's not universal healing because we still die. then he mentions the gift of help.

[23:35] Now that seems like a total strikeout. You know, imagine Christmas morning in the spiritual gift household and unwrapping your gift to get the gift of helps.

[23:46] Man, whiff, you know, that's what it feels like and yet, Isaiah 41 says, I am the one who helps you. Oh, man.

[23:59] The great helper is God in the Bible and so what a wonderful gift. You get to be like God and help and what a help people are who have a mind like this eager to help.

[24:14] Paul mentions the gift of administrating. Now, sometimes we think about the gift of administrating and we think of someone who's like a spreadsheet PowerPoint Jedi. You know those people. They know all the formulas.

[24:26] You're so confused hopping in one of those spreadsheets. But that's not the word. I mean, obviously, Excel is not in Paul's mind, but the word is for a pilot who navigates a ship.

[24:45] What is that getting at? It's not a numbers guy. It's getting at someone who's wise and discerning, able to navigate. Yesterday morning, I met with all of our leaders, our deacons and our community group leaders and these would be men.

[25:02] You know, we are led by a team of elders and yet, these men are trusted navigators. And there's more than that in this church. Guys have a heart for this church and are wise.

[25:14] Man, I benefit so much from, I go ask for counsel all the time. I want to walk in wisdom and I don't have all the wisdom I need and that gift of administrating.

[25:24] You know, we believe all these gifts continue today. We're continuationists. Why? Because the accent is on the continuation of God's activity in the new covenant age. and gifts of the spirit.

[25:36] There's one exception we have, the gift of apostles. That's not uncommon in charismatic and Pentecostal circles to use the word apostle, like Apostle Jim or Apostle Joan or something like that.

[25:50] The office of apostles in the New Testament were limited to men who had seen the Lord, been commissioned by the Lord and wrote authoritative revelation, wrote the Holy Scripture.

[26:01] It may be true that God uses similar men to function in ways like apostles, to plant churches, to advance mission. The guy we prayed for this morning, Brian Kiyama in Nairobi, it's an apostolic type work to go into a country that you haven't been in with the gospel.

[26:22] And it may be true that there's similar gifting to first century apostles, but we don't believe the office of apostle continues. We don't believe anyone should be referred to as an apostle.

[26:39] Our statement of faith says it like this, with the exception of those among the apostles who were commissioned as eyewitnesses of Christ and made recipients of normative revelation, the full range of spiritual gifts remain at work in the church and are given for the good of the body and its witness to the world.

[26:54] So, what's the point of all this? Well, no member has all the gifts to the diversity and variety. Spiritual gifts in the local church meant to be like Christmas morning where there's just different gifts or diversity and variety.

[27:09] But Paul continues to say, not only does no member have all the gifts, no gift is given to every member. That's the point of these rhetorical questions. In verse 29 and 30, all apostles are all prophets, teachers, miracles, possessing, gifts of healing.

[27:25] Do all speak in tongues or do all interpret? In English, those read just like normal questions. In the original language, no answer is implied. It's in there.

[27:39] No, all are not apostles. So contrary to sometimes the way spiritual gifts are talked about, the evidence that you've been spilled with the Spirit is not tongues.

[27:54] According to the Apostle Paul, Spirit-filled believers may be Spirit-filled and yet not speak in tongues.

[28:04] things. So this accent of not all member has, no member has all the gifts and no gift is given to every member is meant to lead to interdependence.

[28:17] No member has all the gifts, no gift is given to every member so that we would depend on one another, that we'd work together so that we would play as a team. You know, sometimes I watch these post-game interviews and I think football coaches have their own vocabulary.

[28:32] vocabulary, you know, things that just kind of phrases that are largely benign or largely meaningless and they just kind of say complimentary football is one of them, right?

[28:43] I mean, of course we want to play complimentary football. I'm sure Heifel said it last night. Well, the idea is the whole team works together. The defense and the offense work together towards the same goal. It doesn't work if the defense is great and the offense isn't.

[28:55] Well, the same thing is going on in the local church. The idea is all these gifts are meant to play complimentary football. Complimentary Spirit works in so many ways. The idea is you don't just need gifts of supernatural gifts like, or what we would call supernatural gifts like prophecy and tongues or something like that with no administration.

[29:14] That's just a recipe for chaos, a chaotic meeting, poorly led, poorly stewarded. So the idea is that each of us have a responsibility to steward the gifts together.

[29:26] There's our word, stewardship. We don't just need to steward money or time or relationships. We need to steward the spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians says we are stewards of the mysteries of God.

[29:36] 1 Peter 4 says each has received a gift. Use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. God does not give all the gifts the same. Uniformity is not the goal of the church.

[29:48] The idea is we steward it together by having different gifts used in different ways for the building up of the body. Romans 12, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

[30:00] So we steward gifts by using them, by cultivating the gifts, stepping out in the power of the Spirit to use them. That's where the accent is in Romans 12 when it lists all these wonderful gifts of the Spirit.

[30:11] The accent is on using them. If you prophesy, prophesy in accordance with your faith. If you serve and you're serving, what does that mean? You don't have the gift of service if you're not serving, right?

[30:26] Who talks about that? Or the gift of hospitality and you never open your doors? The idea is you steward the gifts by serving it. The idea, you know, the church quickly becomes a church where 20% do 80% of the work if we're not stewarding these gifts together.

[30:39] If we're not all stepping up to the line and doing the work we need to do and so we steward them together, walking together, pressing on together. The exhortation to keep using spiritual gifts implies that it's easy to neglect them.

[30:55] It's easy to love hospitality, feel like you have the gift of hospitality and yet let other things crowd it out. It's easy to have a gift of encouragement, maybe prophetic encouragement and yet let the burdens of life drown it out.

[31:14] Paul even anticipates this. He commands Timothy, do not neglect the gift you have which was given to you by prophecy in 1 Timothy 4 and then 2 Timothy 1 and he says, fan into flame the gift.

[31:29] What does that mean? Well, on the one hand it reminds us that we might have this gift and it needs to be fanned into flame. That means it needs to be cultivated, pursued.

[31:44] It's helpful because it reminds us that just because it's a spiritual gift doesn't mean it doesn't involve work and sacrifice. Setting aside time, effort.

[31:56] We know that, right? The best teachers don't rely on their charisma. They rely in large part on their work, on their effort. They don't wing it.

[32:08] The best servants, the most hospitable, don't neglect the gift you have. Use it continually for the building up of the body of Christ and flowing from that third word, pursuit.

[32:24] Thankfulness, stewardship, pursuit. Paul concludes this section and you notice that I read only the first part of verse 31.

[32:40] I think verse 31b flows with chapter 13. includes this command but earnestly desire the higher gifts.

[32:55] This is a surprising conclusion to what he said because he's just said as I've said no gift is unimportant no gift is more important. So what can he mean by higher gifts?

[33:07] What are the higher gifts? It seems to me the higher gifts is not just me.

[33:18] It's not just kind of it seems to me in the line with other thinkers. Higher gifts is a reference to those gifts that are intelligible versus those that are unintelligible.

[33:32] Those gifts that are intelligible are able to build up versus those gifts that are not intelligible and able to build up. And the way he's argued against tongues it was listed last in the list of gifts in verses 8-10 and it was listed last in these gifts along with interpretation I think that's where this command comes from.

[33:55] So on the one hand he's not saying it's the least gift tongues but he's saying it should not be elevated. It's not a higher gift. Now you may be bored to tears on all this stuff because there's just so much going on.

[34:11] There's another way it's surprising though to me is after helping us to see that we've been given gifts of the spirit and to be thankful for him he urges us to pursue more gifts. Now you can imagine if you bought your 16 year old a car and he turns to you and says that's nice what else you got for me?

[34:29] What have you done for me lately? Only a scoundrel would say that. One of the things we're supposed to learn as kids is to be thankful and to be content but that type of contentment is not commended biblically.

[34:51] When it comes to spiritual things there's supposed to be a spiritual discontentment we're supposed to be discontent with past experiences past expression past exercises of God's gifts we're supposed to be discontent with present understanding present expressions our present sense of power I think so often we get discontentment wrong we're discontent with our possessions our work our relationships our income but we're content with a pretty lackluster spiritual life that's turning the head on the tail that's turning things upside down we can be content with prayer carelessness content with selfishness content with compromise content with disobedience content with the lack of self control content with an overall godlessness doesn't mean you're kind of worshiping no god but god doesn't factor into the equation of life what is he urging he's urging us to pursue the spirit in such a way that we're led by the spirit but what about you is your discontentment largely focused on temporal things is your discontent largely fleshly where you measure out the pecking order of this society or something like that have you grown satisfied with yesterday's grace you know one of the prayers I pray all the time is lord

[36:37] I don't want to fake it there's no such thing as faking it till you make it you fake it until you drift away and deny the faith completely that's what happened lord help me help me empower me search me know me see if there's any unclean way in me lead me in the way everlasting that's not just a prayer I pray in the morning it's all day long my heart is so prone to wander you know so you can do that by asking for more of the spirit's power some people argue should you pray to be filled with the spirit I think you command it to in Ephesians 5 18 be continually filled but even if you kind of disagree with that overwhelmingly the bible commends us to be hungry and thirsty after god overwhelmingly it urges us jesus is divine we're not divine if we don't abide in the vine we bear no fruit bless those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied pray with earnestness when it comes to spiritual gifts and to the spirit we should be zealous earnestly desiring you see the command us command in scripture striving for fullness it will not work for us to say I'm open but cautious you know if I say that to my wife I'm open but a little cautious about my affections for you there would be consequences it would not go well so why should I treat the third person of the trinity that way no the idea is earnestly seek after the spirit

[38:19] I want more of you I want to be like you the spirit is not this weird uncle he is the third person of the trinity driven to bring Christ to bear in your heart to make you more like him who doesn't want more of Christ so seek the spiritual gifts and this desperation in so many ways is the prelude or is the beginning of dependence and fulfillment and deliverance I love this Gordon P says again seek earnestly the better gifts the higher gifts for the edification of the body is an imperative not a polite invitation so open but cautious will not work my own experience in the church is that there is a clear correlation between our hunger after God on the one hand and our experience of God on the other God does not give more of himself to the self satisfied so maybe your biggest problem is not what you think it is maybe the biggest problem in your life was put there so that you would be desperate for God maybe your biggest problem is your biggest help annoying boss or hard marriage maybe God has designed it so you would stop living on your own strength and live on his right he's the one with inexhaustible strength not you and me step out in the spirit use the gifts the idea is if you kind of trim down your life to what you can do then you will not be dependent on the spirit commit to do more than you can do commit to live a life that could only be powered by the spirit and then use the gift step out get comfortable whatever the gift is remember complimentary football so many so called believers can be characterized as present but not voting making professions attending church time to time having the appearance few truly present does the holy spirit have you does he still have you well let's throw our lives into what he's doing we're in the body of Christ let's not neglect the gifts we have use it continually for the building up of the body amen pray for us father in heaven we thank you for every word of scriptures god breathed and profitable for teaching for correcting for training in godliness the man of god will be thoroughly equipped for every good work and so we thank you for this word text we might not often take up yet we pray that it would have its intended effect a wonderful leveling of the ground and an eagerness to serve in this church we pray that it would produce ministries and opportunities that we've never even dreamed of god don't we don't want to be stuck in the few things we do or whatever it is wherever we need to be trimmed wherever we need to be expanded lord do that work pray that it would produce a wonderful spiritual discontent in our lives a ruthlessness to do whatever is necessary in order to sort things out spiritually thank you lord that you give more grace that no one in this room wherever they might respond to this message is not here by the sign

[42:20]  of god and because you want to send forth a word to help them so lord we just humble ourselves before you we offer ourselves to you again sincerely and completely we don't want to play fast and loose with our lives because you bought them so help us god we pray we thank you in jesus name amen you've been listening to a message on first corinthians during a sunday service at trinity grace church for more information please visit us at trinitygraceathens.com