"Now about Spiritual Gifts..."

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… I do not want you to be ignorant. (1Corinthians 12-14)

Paul has taken 3 chapters at least and attacked the idol worship that has taken place in the Corinthian church.
If you remember Paul made 2-3 visits to Corinth not because he was so proud of them but because the church could not establish functioning leadership in the local church stop idols and the worship of idols from drawing people away from the worship of God and His Son, Jesus.
Paul leaves that subject for the next three chapters and returns to the public and private worship of God.
Isn’t interesting that the “cure” for idols and idol worship is the use of worship and the Spiritual gift that God has given you.
All of us are Spiritual beings… This comes by virtue of accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.
Now you can do a number of things with that part of our being.
If your a Baptist or Christian Reformed you can stuff it and sit on your hands and deny that your “Spiritual” at all.
If you belong to one of the more Pentecostal denominations you tend to be much freer with expressing your “Spiritual” nature.
I realize I am speaking in generalities and there are many shades within those two groups I mentioned.
The important thing that I want you to get over the next couple of weeks is this
1 Corinthians 12:7 NIV84
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Now just in case you didn’t get this… let’s look at closely
“Now”… a connector, this could also be “and.”
“each one”… Each and everyone, as in a part of a larger body or group. Not all are hands or feet or elbows or eyes but we all fit together to form one body, the body of Christ.
“manifestation”… Is clearly revealed to, is made clear to each one [of us]
“the Spirit”… “pneuma” The Holy Spirit, the second person of the Trinity. God!
“is given”… [is granted] gr. didomi’ The tense of this word indicates a permanence. Once the Spirit is given at salvation, it is part of “our being” permanently.
“Common good”… ‘to be advantageous, to be better off, to be to someone’s advantage.’ It is a GOOD thing to be given a spiritual gift and even better when we acknowledge that is for the greater good and is to be shared and used.
PLEASE DON’T ANYONE FREAK OUT ON ME…!
There are parts of scripture that push my buttons and make me uncomfortable. Mostly I’m uncomfortable over you being uncomfortable.
We have to remember this...
2 Timothy 3:16 NIV84
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
Everything that we are reading today is found deeply in scripture and has the power of God and the Spirit behind it.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS
1 Corinthians 12:1–2 NIV
1 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.
Paul is closing that last section of his “rant” about idols. Idols continued to exist in the world then and my guess is that has always been and will always be.
In verse 2 here he is drawing a distinction between “when you were pagans” and now that you are no longer.
Verse 3 -
1 Corinthians 12:3 ESV
3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
Paul is one again speaking very clearly to everyone...
No one who is of the party that would curse in Jesus Name and curse others, or put a curse on in Jesus Names will understand what they have done.
Accept for those who can say Jesus is Lord in the Spirit.
The one is absolutely incompatible with living in the Spirit.
The next three verses form a triplet. This is a vehicle used to engage the mind listen.
1 Corinthians 12:4–6 (NIV84)
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.
6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
Different gifts, different service, different working BUT the same God and Spirit
Verse 6
The same God and the same Spirit works in all mankind [who are followers of Jesus]
All of these gifts, that we will get to eventually, are given for the common good of mankind.
Spiritual gifts are ALWAYS given to be used in such a way as to edify the whole body of believers.
An individual show, attention getter, over-spiritualization and working oneself into a frenzy DOES NOT edify the whole body of believers.
I’ll say it again because it is that important
1 Corinthians 12:7 NIV84
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Verses 8-11 give a list of gifts that were given to the Corinthians. For their use at that time to edify the whole body.
To be useful to the whole body. This is NOT one or a few people in the body who suddenly begin speaking in tongues in our service. Paul will specifically call that behavior out as wrong. Not the speaking in tongues but interrupting the service to do so.
1 Corinthians 12:8–11 ESV
8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 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. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
OK… that was a big bite. Here is a list for you,
“utterance of wisdom”
utterance of knowledge”
“faith by the same Spirit”
“gifts of healing by the one Spirit”
“the working of miracles”
“prophecy”
“the ability to distinguish between spirits”
“various kinds of tongues/the interpretation of tongues.”
As you may know this is NOT the whole list of gifts that the Holy Spirit brings to the body.
The key here and for us is this… Only the gifts useful for that body at that time are given by The Spirit.
Other list of gifts are given later on in Corinthians, in Romans and in Ephesians. But these are the ones useful for them.
Here is the BIG QUESTION FOR TODAY: Have we, the church been wrong about the Gifts of the Spirit?
It’s clearly stated in scripture. Not only here but in at least four other large passages in two other letters that Paul wrote.
Obviously the people at the time were using the gifts or Paul was instructing them to use them. But why...
Why couldn’t the people of Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome figure things out without calling on the Spirit to send gifts.
Part of the answer is this… For the same reason that the believers in Sunnyside, Grandview, Prosser and Yakima couldn’t figure it out.
THAT IS COMPLETELY THE WRONG WAY TO LOOK AT THE GIFTS THE SPIRIT.
What is the purpose of the gifts?
IF you haven’t learned by now, let’s try this again. Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
The Jews rejected him and crucified Him.
Because the Jews rejected the Messiah,
Jesus used Paul and Peter and many other others to bring his message to Jews, gentiles, Mexicans, the Dutch, the Germans, the Irish, and for the couple thousand other people groups in the world.
For Jesus, for Paul and for Peter it was all about the Gospel. Paul would do anything to win another soul to Christ.
Jesus would send His Holy Spirit to do all of those MIRACULOUS things to win people to Christ.
He will do more… including really moving mountains and changing the flow of rivers (in the end-times) to show His power to defeat satan and bring others to Christ in the tribulation.
That is the purpose of the gifts!
TO WIN ONE MORE SOUL FOR CHRIST!
What is the difference from the first century and 21st century?
In other words what is the context...
We can go through the whole list of gifts that I put together… Or we can think about the list in total. The whole idea of God sending his Spirit on all believers… From Acts 2
Acts 2:1 NIV
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
-------------------
And after the whole Pentecost experience is explained AT LENGTH...
Go clear down to Acts 2.41
Acts 2:41 NIV84
41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
3000 people saw the Holy Spirit come and saw men speaking in their own tongue but being plainly understood by others who previously could not understand… AND THEY WERE BAPTIZED RIGHT THEN AND THERE!
The Holy Spirit did His work that day in driving 3000 people to Christ.
I’ll ask again
What is the difference from the first century and 21st century?
In the United States, in the first world countries, we have lost all sensitivity to the total working of the Holy Spirit.
We have witnessed fraudsters, hooligans, con men take our money, take our dignity and take people’s sense of basic faith and destroy it with flat out fake spirituality.
God help them… It may get very uncomfortable for them in the final days.
God wanted his Gifts to used to draw people to Christ… not to fill someone’s pocket book and buy them a G7 Lear Jet.
Because of our sin, because what we have let “world do” “Gifts of the Spirit” have been corrupted.
In the 3rd world… Across China, South America, Africa, and the 10-30 window the power of the Holy Spirit is being exhibited each and every day and thousands are being saved by it.
Don’t get me wrong there are several Gifts of the Spirit that we witness each day.
God sent the Holy Spirit to bring healing… The first world has the best of medicine and people are being healed by the 10,000’s each day. Our knowledge of medicine, nursing, physical therapy, psychology and a hundred other medical and psycho-social specialities is a gift from God. I know many are won to Christ through these gifts.
We are praying for a miracle, just that kind of miracle for Janette Pettey. We know that God still does miracles. We know it is possible that she could have the next scan and the cancer could be gone. Why we ask, why does God do this. That question I cannot answer. But will still pray for Healing, Healing only that God can do.
We have accumulated massive amounts of knowledge and much wisdom. Frequently, those in charge ignore most of that and go their own way.
and our proficiency with languages is unmatched. Our communication is worldwide and nearly universal.
I think we collectively misuse the term speaking in tongues!
There exists among the Gifts of the Spirit, the gift of tongues, Paul even says it is very rare and should be asked for but is rarely given.
GLOSSOLALIA Refers to the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues, especially speaking in a language that one has not learned in order to present the gospel to those who speak the language.
This spiritual gift along with all of the others is not used to create a feeling of euphoria during worship, not used in public without an interpretation and should NEVER be used as a condition of being saved.
As the definition says this gift as well as all of the others are used to bring people to Faith in Christ.
I also believe that in our quest to speak in tongues we sometimes just babble… I have also witnessed genuine and sincere Christians speaking in tongues and heard an interpretation. In our first world, American culture today this rarely used correctly.
I believe that we can and do have a PRIVATE PRAYER LANGUAGE that we use in our deepest darkest pain. The groans of Spirit reach out to God and He understands our pain.
Worship should be orderly as Paul says later in Chapter 14
1 Corinthians 14:40 NIV84
40 But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
Honestly, this message was not meant as a “tongues message.” This message, like message like many and most others have and must focus on the Gospel.
It’s a big Pastor secret but our only job is to educate, remind, encourage, preach, disciple and to help people understand who they are in Christ and what their sole focus is… To win others for Christ.
Today, it was NOT my intention to spend an extended period of time on this one gift.
It does serve as an example of how we have flat out misused and mis applied the Gospel message throughout our time here on earth.
We have lost the Gospel message and instead replaced it with this “human spirituality” that we define and ignore God Spirit in our lives.
Next week we will begin in 1Co 12.12 and pay attention to Paul’s purpose and quickly move to 1Cor 13, The “Love” chapter.
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