1 Corinthians 12

1 Corinthians  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Introduction

I can’t remember how many times I have read to all of us Romans 8:19 NIV
19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
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This verse has been one of the driving verses of my life for years
Time and time again I will go back to this verse because it is true. All of creation is just awaiting the time when all of God’s children start to act like him.
And central to God’s character and who he is is Unity.
God is united in the Godhead. The Father, The Son and the Spirit live together in love, harmony and unity.
God always was this way, and will always be this way.
Jesus Prayed that we would experience the same unity that exists in the Trinity

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me

see what Jesus is praying for us that the community of the church would be ONE just as the Trinity is ONE…and all of this has a sort of an evangelistic effect
Its almost like, when this happens…The children of God will be revealed!
And I think that what we have to understand about unity is that it is a divine reality.
Unity in the secular world is based on who you are.
What you believe
How you vote
how much money you have
what you social and ethnic background are
Unity in the kingdom of God is built on who God is.
A God who lives in perfect unity with the trinity
A God who modeled humanity after his own image
A God who gave himself for the salvation of the world.
So today as we get into 1 Corinthians…We are getting to one of Paul’s main points for the whole letter. That through the unity of the church, Christ is revealed
The church has been trying to achieve secular unity…with their preferences, But Paul is saying…Look there is supernatural unity available!
So this next chapter we are looking at we have to remember comes right after the section on the Lord’s Supper where the church was shaming lower income members by eating and getting drunk in front of people who couldn't afford food!
That along with the stuff Paul brought up before, like their preferences surrounding their Bible teachers, people who were caught in sin, people who were in lawsuits with one another

1 Corinthians 12:1-3 NIV

12 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. 3 Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

See Paul here goes right to the fact that so many people in the church used to be pagans…and what we have to understand is that the pagan background of this church was probably rooted in some black magic and some other stuff like that...
So everyone came into the church with a different background and some of them came in with strange practices they were bringing to the time of worship...
So Paul was trying to guard this church against accepting pagan worship practices as christian
For Paul and for us, Everything must come under the Lordship of Jesus

4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

And see now Paul is establishing something really important here…He is beginning to work toward unity of the church by saying…Listen, God gives different gifts, but its all the same God for the same purpose!
That theme of unity will begin weaving its way through this chapter now!

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, r and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

So we know that first and foremost that when your life is surrendered to the Lordship of Christ then he gives gifts
And I want you to try and think of it like this…For a household to run efficiently you hand out chores…Right? Some kids get the gift of laundry, other get the gift of scrubbing the toilets, another kid might get the gift of vacuum and dusting…You might hand out the gift of doing dishes
My point with this is that everyone is working on the same house together for a unified purpose…For the common Good!
In The same way, God gives gifts to his kids…He loves you! God has uniquely made you for something to contribute to the whole community
And what I hope you will see through all of this is that you exercising your gift is for the unity of the entire community!
A message of Wisdom: This is someone who might be able to solve practical or spiritual problems. Someone in your life that you go to for wisdom.
A message of Knowledge: These are people who might have supernatural knowledge that would be relevant to a person’s life. I remember when I first started as the senior pastor here…whenever you are in leadership there are landmines that you can not see…but you have to plan carefully as to somehow not step on the landmines that you can not see…So I was navigating a big decision at the time and trying to think of the right thing to do when there was a knock on my door…And It was a guy who did not attend our church but a friend in ministry. He has this gift. He came to me and said he was just in his normal prayer time and God brought me up and he saw a picture of me really trying to think through my steps and it was Jesus placing my feet where they needed to go...
And the funny thing was that this guy is telling me this right as I am about to make a big decision so here I am crying in my office…But This guy was given this gift, he was obedient and he told me what he saw and it gave me so much confidence and peace that God was leading me in the right direction
Faith: Every believer has faith, but this is beyond what every normal believer has…This is a supernatural level of confidence that God will supply all of your needs. People who have this gift strengthen the faith of others just by being around them.
Have you ever been around someone that has made your faith stronger just because you were around them? This is probably a person with the gift of faith
Gifts of healing: For this one and the miraculous powers that we don’t see as normally. what we have to remember is that Jesus said that we would do even greater things. We have seen healing happen here in Aniko. Last year she had a tumor in her esophagus that was growing so fast and so large that everyone was very concerned about it. Our church faithfully prayed & it wasn’t just one person…But at her next appointment, the tumor had completely disappeared
Miraculous powers: in the 1960’s christian missionaries were planting churches in Indonesia, a highly muslim nation. There were reports that these missionaries turned water into wine and that dead people were raised to life through prayer. And many came to believe. I believe this is a special outpouring in the midst of prolific darkness, where God’s light breaks through.
Prophecy : Christian prophets are “those who have grasped the meaning of Scripture, perceived its powerful relevance to the life of the individual, the Church and society, and declare that message fearlessly.” There is an element of foretelling and fourth-telling involved in Prophecy. Modern prophecy is called preaching!
distinguishing between the spirits: In its most basic form, this is when someone can say, this is of God and this is not of God. This was very important in the early church. and still important today. My wife is sensitive to this, we could be flipping through things to watch or the kids might be watching Netflix or something and she will hear something I am totally oblivious to and she will have that off in a nano-second because she has this spidy - sense of when things are from God or not.
Tongues: This one gift has started entire denominations. Most of the time the way this is used in scripture is speaking in ordinary and known languages that the person speaking doesn't know. We had a husband and wife missionary team in the Wesleyan church serving in Peru when a massive earthquake hit, they were in the mountains where the natives spoke an indigenous language. unknown to the missionary couple. Well the husband and wife missionary team were medical missionaries. They started shouting directions to help with search and rescue and to triage people who had been wounded. well they were shouting in english and shockingly to everyone, everyone where they were understood and followed the directions. After the earthquake and people were safe, many people came to Christ because they heard these missionaries in their own language.
There is also an idea of tongues that it is a heavenly language. And some people speak in these tongues.
Interpretation of tongues: So there is a gift that goes along with this and that is interpretation. Paul will spend a whole chapter on this that we are not going to read.
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12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

So now Paul comes to his big point here.
You’ve got all of these gifts…Don’t separate into different groups that just specialize in that one gift. You were created to be united! to be one!
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15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

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Paul’s 4 Mai points
Members of the Body need one another (15-21)
You were created for diverse community! We are not all alike here! GOOD!
Whatever gift you have is not better that someone else's gift, its just different for a different purpose.
Dave Wilder is bound to his wheel chair. He has a plethora of physical & Medical needs, but sit with him for 10 minutes and he will encourage you! We need him here!
The weaker members are indispensable (22)
In our human wisdom people rank people…and the weak are commonly dispensable. In the Nazi Society, it wasn't just the Jews and the Gypsies they killed. The disabled and terminally ill were commonly murdered as well, they were deemed “useless eaters”
Unity based on secular knowledge excludes weaker people…
But the church is a society in of itself, We look at what the world deems “weaker” and see that God has uniquely gifted
God gives honor to the members of the body that lack honor. (24)
God gives special honor to the weaker for unity!
What affects one member of the body affects every member of the body. (26)
Why? Unity
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Church. We were created for unity. One of our missions is to be united like the trinity....And not in spite of our diversity but because of it!
We have to remember that :
19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Response

Is your life about offering unity or division?
What is it? If you are seeking to live in Unity with Jesus then bring that to our community! Bring that here!
What has God uniquely gifted you to do?
How are you investing here?
Because God has given you a gift and ability....And if your hoarding it for yourself then you are actually robbing the rest of the community of what God is doing through you!
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