Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

This morning we are continuing on through 1 Corinthians in a letter Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

We’re starting a very important section concerning spiritual gifts and we’ll spend a few weeks walking through it together.

We’re going to be in the 12th chapter, if you don’t know where that is, it falls right between chapters 11 and 13.

Anytime we talk about spiritual gifts, We all come at this from different backgrounds that have caused us to form opinions that we will bring with us into this examination.

I want to try to take a step back from all that.

I’ve just finished taking a class on Pneumatology, well I will finish tonight at midnight if I finish my final research paper this afternoon.

Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit and with that, all the spiritual gifts that we will read about here and elsewhere in the Bible.

Studying all of the different theological theories concerning the gifts and the different camps that exist within the church today.

There are those that call themselves cessationists.

They primarily believe that most of these gifts ceased during the apostolic age, so when the Apostles died, so did the gifts.

God can still do miracles, but he no longer does them through people.

So the things that we will read about here, particularly what people call the sign gifts.

Tongues, visions, prophecy, healings, gone and passed away.

Then there are those in a completely different camp that we might call the continuationists.

Continuationists believe that all of the gifts we read about in the Scriptures are still available to us today.

Not just available, but needed and necessary for the proper functioning of the church and for power and strength in ministering to one another.

These differences are part of what have formed denominational differences between the churches.

But I want to step back from that even.

Step back from theology, step back from division and opinion, and just read the Bible as if we were just taking a simple read for the very first time.

Like we are out in the middle of the pacific, somewhere where it’s warm, on an uncharted island and we come across a bible for the first time, in our own language and we simply read it.

What makes the most sense.

So this is not going to be taught from the position of this is what Calvary Chapel doctrine says, so this is how we interpret the Bible.

No, I’m a Calvary Chapel Pastor, because when I read the Bible, and look at what it actually says, what it means, and how it applies to us in the church today, the closest fit is Calvary Chapel.

Paul started this letter saying...

So this church that was messed up, right?

We know this is a corrective letter and right after this he addresses divisions among them, but it says that they came short in no gift.

Meaning all of the gifts mentioned here and in different areas in the New Testament were functioning in the church and they weren’t missing a thing!

I bring that up because lots of us come to this table thinking that gifts are a sign of spirituality, or a sign of maturity, or maybe even superiority.

Well if you have this gift or that gift, you must be something special.

Some denominations teach that certain manifestations of the gifts are the proof that you have been baptised with the Holy Spirit.

So those without certain gifts feel like they are somehow less spiritual.

So we are just going to look at it to see what it says, whether that’s what we grew up believing or not, whether we’re totally comfortable with it or not, or if it fits our personal theology....because we shouldn’t be trying to make the Bible say what we believe, we should believe what the Bible says…even if we don’t really know what to do with it.

In verse 1 he writes...

Lets pray together…Paul writes concerning spirituals, the word gifts in my Bible is in italics which means it was added by the translators, and looking at the language I think it fits, but what he writes is concerning spirituals, brethren, or Christians, brothers and sisters, so he is writing to believers here.

And that is important to know.

What Paul is writing here is for Christians.

Not church goers, or spiritual people, or people that think of themselves as religious, not friends of Christians, but Christians.

Those that can say, I have decided to follow Jesus.

Let me take that a step further.

Because just deciding you’re going to try to follow the rules is not enough.

Those that believe Jesus.

That He is God the Son, who came to this earth to be born a man, lived a sinless life, unlike any of us, or anyone you know, and then died on a cross, because your sin and mine had to be paid for because the wages of sin is death, separation from God forever.

So believing Jesus means I get that you are Holy and I am not.

That in order to be saved by a Holy God, someone has to pay the price because God is a God of Justice.

Unlike our court systems today, that even in the best counties in the world can be corrupt, God is Holy, and righteous, so justice says that sin must be paid for.

Believing in Jesus means admitting that I’m a sinner and not good enough to go to Heaven, unless, unless I ask God to forgive me.

To accept the perfect sacrifice that Jesus made for my sins instead of judging me based on how I’ve done.

And I ask Him to be my Savior and make Him Lord, or the Boss of my life.

And I’m trusting in what He did on the cross, paying the price for my sins, and died, and then defeated death and rose on the third day, and is alive in Heaven today and coming back again as he promised.

If you have done that, then what Paul is writing here applies to you.

If you haven’t done that, and you’ve been coming for a while, or you’ve been checking us out on line, you need to know that perfect attendance is not enough, you have to decide what you are going to do with Jesus.

I want to move on with our chapter this morning, but some of you have held out long enough.

Will you all bow your heads with me for just a minute?

I am going to lead you in a very simple prayer.

If you have not yet asked Jesus to be your Savior, you can pray the words that I pray quietly at your seat or pray them in your head, it’s between you and God.

These words or use your own.

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner.

I believe You died for my sins.

Right now, I turn away from my sins and turn to you.

Please forgive me, save me, come into my heart and life.

I confess You as my personal Lord and Savior.

Thank You for saving me.

In Jesus name, Amen.”

If you did that with us this morning please let me know, or someone else, after the service, we want to serve you and help you grow in your faith.

What happens in us when we do that?

When we confess Jesus as our Lord?

The Bible tells us, Jesus tells us, that the Holy Spirit comes inside of us.

In John 14 Jesus says...

Earlier in the Gospel of John Jesus said....

If you’ve been with us on Wednesday nights, we’ve talked about in the Old Testament God was among his people in the Tabernacle, in the New Testament, Jesus came, was born of a virgin, and grew to be a man, and was among the people, today, the presence of God is with us, and in us Christians, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

This is what was prophesied about in the Old Testament book of Joel…where God said...

These are the things that were going on in the Corinthian church and these are the things that Paul says he doesn’t want us to be ignorant of.

He doesn’t want us to not know about it, to not understand spiritual gifts.

There are only a few things that Paul says that about, back in chapter 10 he said...

I don’t want you to be unaware or ignorant of the Old Testament testimonies, the lessons, the typologies, the prophecies.

In the context of that passage, I don’t want you guys to be ignorant concerning the rapture of the church.

The rapture, is that that second coming of Christ, which one comes first, are they the same thing???

We are told to put on the full armor of God, to resist the devil so we won’t be ignorant, or not know about his devices, and one more

I don’t want you to be ignorant about God’s future plan for Israel.

That Israel has not been replaced by the church, God is not done with them as a people.

So, The devices of the devil, God’s plan for Israel, the rapture of the church, the Old Testament testimonies and typologies, and Spiritual gifts, don’t be ignorant of these things.

What are the things that the church today is the most ignorant of and the most divided over, these things!

So out of obedience Christians, lets dig in and get rid of our excuses, get rid of our ignorance or our not knowing, and learn together…This is 25 years past Pentecost.

Paul doesn’t say knock that stuff off, he says learn what you should know, so you’re doing it right.

Now when Paul says dumb idols, that’s not dumb dumbs, or idiot idols, it’s back before you were Christians, you believed all kinds of garbage.

You followed pagan Gods, that were dumb, mute, because they were dead wood made by human hands, that’s why they could go eat the cheap meat at the pagan taco truck.

Even Apollos who was thought to have inspired utterances during pagan worship was a nothing false idol.

But Paul is acknowledging, hey you’re coming into these spiritual gifts with a messed up background and bringing that into the church, so there’s some problems here.

You’ll see when we get to chapter 13 he tells them that love is way more important than any of these other gifts that you guys may have.

Way more important than if you prophecy, pray in an unknown tongue, or have a gift of healing.

Any of those gifts exercised or manifest without love are worthless!

In chapter 14 he then reigns them in and sets up some boundaries on how the gifts should be used when they gather together.

So, it doesn’t matter how you used to do some of these things in the pagan temple, here’s what it’s supposed to look like in the church.

In verse 3, I think he’s responding to a rumor that started back then that hasn’t gone away.

Something like, oh, I heard about this guy that was speaking in tongues, No my Aunt Myrtle was in a church in Saskatchewan with my Uncle Fred visiting my third cousin Bub, and a guy started speaking on tongues during the worship time, and there was no one there to interpret, but my Aunt Myrtle speaks perfect pig Latin, and that what this guy was speaking and he was saying the most wicked and vile things about Jesus that it was just disgusting evil coming out of his mouth.

Paul’s saying, yeah, I don’t think so…no one speaking by the Spirit of God is going to curse Jesus...

and no one can say that Jesus is Lord, and mean it except by the Holy Spirit.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, even that faith was a gift of the Holy Spirit for you to be able to confess that Jesus is Lord.

So in verse 3 Paul gives us sort of a litmus test to see if something is ligit of the Holy Spirit or not.