This week we’re continuing in our series, We Are the Body. I’m finding out I’m throwing people off because I didn’t set what we were going to do each week because I wanted to give it what it deserved. I was going to cover a lot more this week and I could only get a few verses going so I thought that would be enough for us to cover and then we’re going to keep going.
Last week we started in 1 Corinthians 12 and we emphasized how when Paul introduced spiritual gift he said he does not want the church to be uninformed about the spirituality part of it because a lot of things were going on in that first century church. There were people who believed they were more spiritual than others who believe they were more powerful than others and Paul at the end here says it’s by the Holy Spirit that we say Jesus is Lord connected to how in Romans 10 90 said if you believe in your heart that Jesus if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and you proclaim Jesus is Lord then you will be saved. So basically Paul is starting this off by saying hey have you received Jesus then you are spiritual then you have spiritual gifts and Peter says it like this everybody has at least one spiritual gift.
So after he goes into this these next few verses are still kind of setting up before he lists out specific spiritual gifts but they’re so key to our understanding of how this works in the body of the life of the church. When we talk about the body of Christ we’re going to talk about more specifics if you’re familiar with first Corinthians 12 he talks about the body and compares it but I just want to re-emphasize that everywhere spiritual gifts are talked about whether it’s in Romans 12 first Corinthians 12 Ephesians 4 Peter talks about it in first Peter that it’s always in the context of the body of Christ. The gifts that you are given by God are not given so you look cool to others.
The gifts that you are given by God are not given just so you can feel better about yourself. The gifts that you are given by God have a specific purpose in Jesus. Why don’t we stand as we are able we’re going to look at verses 4 through 7. Now there are a variety of gifts but the same spirit and there are a variety varieties of service but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities but it’s the same God who powers them all in everyone to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good the Word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated.
My Google Wi-Fi that we really have that much difficulty with I woke up this morning and it did not work and since I save everything on a cloud I could not print. So my son was saying his Wi-Fi wasn’t working in his room and he set it up and said it was working so I know who I’m going to talk to when I get home about where the Wi-Fi is but as we look at this I’m that’s why I’m looking at my phone I’m not looking at the time I’m not looking at text messages I mean unless they’re important. I’m just looking at the notes I have that you’ll see on the screen anyway but I like to know what’s coming next.
In 1st Corinthians 4 Paul sets this up in a way that at least for me even though as a as a pastor a lot of times I work out of my right brain with creativity and trusting the spirit to come up with new ideas I just instill no matter how you cut it naturally left brain. So when I could put together a spreadsheet for what Paul’s talking about here in 1st Corinthians 12 4 through 7 it made me feel good. I hope it makes you feel good too.
Spreadsheets just do something to the heart. He starts off by saying that there are a variety of gifts but the same spirit. The source of the spiritual gifts Paul reveals is the spirit.
The action is the gifting of gift and the resource is gifts. That seems redundant but in the Greek gifts is charismata which is close to our English rendition of charismatic. So in case you want to know Pentecostal in the church are new churches that were formed around 1900 when they had the Azusa Street revival and some of those new churches came out of their Pentecostal churches charismatic came when there were different renewal events like in the 70s and different Jesus movements that came up and charismatic was more of a renewal within the churches and the denominations and so charismata does not mean gifts that make it all clear now charismata actually is closely rendered to grace.
It is a gift but it’s God’s grace and a form of the word is also used when you talk about salvation and your salvation coming as a gift of God. The focus here is not on today is not on the particular gifts that the Holy Spirit might pour out but it’s focused on the giver of the gifts. Does anybody mind if we focused on the giver of the gifts because that is key to understanding how to utilize the gifts within the church within the body of Christ the giver of the gifts the Holy Spirit gives these things and we only hold them and we render them as gifts or the charismata because it’s God’s grace.
You didn’t get the gifts you don’t have the gifts because you are so awesome and so talented and well you are but that’s not why you have the gifts. The gifts come because God gave them to us and as Paul will say throughout this God has a plan. God has a plan for each of those gifts and spiritual gifts are not given in a vacuum but they are closely aligned to our connection with the Holy Spirit.
There are several different ways people might believe some believe we have something if you if you look through the Charles Wesley hymns he has something in there he calls the second rest. Now it doesn’t you get to take two naps especially during the worship service. It means the second rest is something that came out of the Old Testament where if you read that they talked about getting rest as in actually being at shalom at peace being able to feel that peace and that rested state that only comes with the power of God and knowing you can trust in God and knowing you have that.
The second rest came to be known then in the New Testament as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This all started we’re talking that we talked on Pentecost about the Holy Spirit pouring out and then it changes everything in the life of the church. Now some people believe you receive the gifts when you accept Jesus.
Some people believe you receive the Holy Spirit or the gifts when you are baptized a separate baptism of the Holy Spirit and others believe that what’s the other one. Oh at water baptism you believe the whole you receive the Holy Spirit. However you pour that in there.
These verses tend to say that as long as you are in Christ and you have Christ you’re given gifts of the Holy Spirit. So does everybody love Jesus? Do we have a Jesus loving crowd? Then you guys are gifted. Now I also like to say it like this gifts are different than our abilities or our skills or our natural things we can have.
Those are all things we’re born with and they take some development and some work. I mean a great pianist is not just born and as soon as they realize they have fingers they write symphonies. Spiritual gifts are something you’re born again with.
Once you’re born again once you have Christ once you have those and then there’s a connection that God ties those with our natural gifts. And the truth is the closer you are to God the more you are in able to connect with the gifts that God gave you. Luke 11 13 says if you then who are evil Jesus had a great way of giving warm fuzzies to the listeners.
If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. Now one of the keys with spiritual gifts is probably to ask for the Holy Spirit. Ask for more of the Holy Spirit.
Ask for the Holy Spirit to empower and equip you. Rather than specific gifts I mean you can but it’s almost more direct to say God give me more of the Holy Spirit give me more of your presence and God will equip you with what you need. The the second part of this Paul after he says you have a variety of gifts but the same spirit is in if you think of it like at Pentecost when there was a flame that came down from heaven fire came down from heaven didn’t burn the church down but fire came down and there were tongues of fire that landed on each person those tongues are specific for each person but they all come from the same spirit they all came from the fire that came down does that make sense there are a variety of gifts but the same spirit there are varieties of service but the same Lord so the source of the serving is who the Lord and who does Paul usually refer to when he refers to the Lord and most New Testament writers Jesus specifically to Jesus we just set up above in 1st Corinthians 3 Jesus is Lord so the source of the gifts the Lord the action is a calling is my interpretation in there and the resource that is given is a service as in this is the connection with the body of Christ that you have a gift but the gift isn’t just out there it’s not like you just wear a headband where you go around say I have the gift of wisdom and then and then your spouse will say oh really it means there is a place where you can serve and that’s where the church starts to become the body of Christ is where we recognize and lift up and build and encourage one another with our gifts and we all come together with those gifts and have a specific way we can serve with those gifts at the yesterday we had an ordination service for the new deacons and elders in the Heartland Conference of the global Methodist Church and part of the liturgy talked about that of a deacon now the Greek for service that we render here is diakonia now that is where the word deacon comes from and this is what the bishop read it says it belongs to the office of the deacon to share the humility and service of our Lord Jesus Christ for the strengthening of the church a deacon is called to the ministry of the word service compassion and justice and exemplifying and leading the church in the servanthood every Christian is called to in the waters of baptism as you respond to the call of this office I remind you that you are to follow Christ above all helping others to live the way of Jesus Christ carrying out the gospel to the world you are to care for the sick and needy interpret that interpret the needs of the world to the church and assist in a minute administering the sacraments now a deacon is someone who is called to serve full-time so but did you get those key words in here that it says to the ministry of servanthood every Christian is called to in the waters of baptism every one of us is called to serve if you want to argue that point then show me in the Bible where it doesn’t say we’re called to serve we are called to serve we use our gifts and those gifts are connected to where we serve and this is the beauty of a you know a functional versus a dysfunctional church is if everybody has gifts but then they’re doing something they’re not it’s not their greatest gift very gifted at then it’s hard for the church to work together or or what happens a lot today is they just step back and say hey you know I don’t want to be a part of this and that’s fine for a period of time but for the church to function everybody has to come together and serve and apply those gifts the service is how we connect those gifts and how we start seeing the body of Christ fitting together in how that works together so finally in our spreadsheet it says and there are varieties of activities but is the same God who empowers them all in everyone so the source of those is who and the action is empowers that’s God’s action in the middle and the resource is activities so all these activities all the ways we served if God is a part of it then it is you’ve probably all seen the children’s sermon where they put the batteries in the flashlight and then the flashlight works and they talk about how God is our source that God connects these together now the interesting thing is in a few were verses it says all these are empowered by one and the same spirit so when we look at this before in our in our beautiful spreadsheet if you want to put that full spreadsheet up there so everyone can feel good that Paul gives us a spreadsheet I’m just interpreting a spreadsheet if you look under the source the spirit is whom what kind of spirit Holy Spirit the Lord is whom Jesus and God is God is God God the Father so Paul gives us a Trinitarian sourcing of the spiritual gifts and the serving and the activities in the life of the church and the whole Trinity is involved in that now God and Holy Spirit can be in interchanged Father and Holy Spirit those can be interchanged pretty easily Lord and Jesus and Lord and God can be interchanged pretty easily it’s just a way to take a step back and know that the source of the gifts is God Father Son and Holy Spirit and it is through God in God’s fullness that he brings to life things within the church now Randy Clark and Mary Healy wrote a book called the spiritual gifts handbook and in here they say this God’s grace and power are like like these are not meant to be rare in the life of the church they are part of the normal Christian life from the day of Pentecost onward Christ has been pouring out his Holy Spirit to equip all believers with supernatural gifts for their mission of spreading the gospel and building up the church these gifts are not just for specially qualified people or extraordinary holy people they are for every member of the body of Christ every little old me they are available to all who are willing to let the Lord use them however he chooses to be the instruments of his love in a needy world so if you ever ask the question even little old me God gives those gifts to everyone not just a few not just to A.B. playing the piano but he did but to all of us he gives gifts that equip the body looking at our Ephesians for quit the body build up the body strengthen the body the whole point of that is the body now some of you may know last month.
My youngest call and turned eleven and when he asked for presents he always asked for the same thing he says he wants Legos and he wants hot wheels and so he always ends up getting cars that are Legos so people mix put those two things together and he has so many Legos that he has special shelves and they’re full he has on his dresser it’s covered so what he does is he puts the Legos together and then he gives them to his mom and dad and he said OK you have this car and when he gets duplicates he said OK I’m going to give mom this car this time because I gave it to you last time and he takes it I mean he is a natural regifter he takes his gift he puts it together and then he gives it to someone else some of that is because of the room thing and the other part is he just loves getting that assembling it all and then letting us I have Legos displayed on the shelf in the office in my room about everywhere you go you’d think I was making those things but I didn’t make any of them Paul says to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good God gives us the manifestation of the spirit for the common good why does the spirit manifest within us yes the spirit gives us peace yes the spirit gives us the presence of God yes the spirit makes us feel more connected to God yes the spirit enlivens and quickens and strengthens us but he does all that so that we can help the common good which means for the good of the church for the good of the body for the good of others God gives you gifts so that you can build something in them and give them to others so next week I’m going to start interpreting that as God gives you Legos so you can assemble them put them together and give it to others that is what God has in store for all of us here we get those gifts for the common good for the purpose of the body of Christ for strengthening each other now one of the things we’re going to look at and I’m hoping to do this in our grace groups in the summer I haven’t told the leaders this yet but to do a spiritual gifts inventory which is not perfect and some of you have done that before and you can certainly compare it to others maybe you have some gifts you didn’t know then maybe you had some gifts that you haven’t been using and that’ll show up but also in those in our hope builders groups if you’re not in a hope builders group we invite you to join them but if you’re not in one all give you those things individually and we can look at it and talk about it too but I think it’s important as we go through First Corinthians 12 that we don’t assume you know every one of your spiritual gifts and you’re working in all of your spiritual gifts as we do this let’s pray Almighty God we just ask that you would be with us that you would give us strength give us more of your Holy Spirit help us to receive what you have to offer what you are giving us what you are blessing us with help us to use those gifts to share with others to trust in you to know that you have a great plan help us to be the body of Christ so we have things in place to utilize gifts people yes we use abilities and we use things that that we’re good at and we developed but we also want to tap into our spiritual gifts to be a church where everyone understands that we are children of God and because we are children of God because we are disciples of Jesus Christ that we have supernatural gifts to offer to the body for the common good that we can share with others that we can draw them closer into God that through our words and our actions people will know you and see you working through us may your light shine in us may you give us the strength we need to be a people of the Holy Spirit and God Father Son and Holy Spirit we invite you into our hearts and into our lives and especially into the life of the church so that we can serve as you have called us in Jesus name