201305_26 The Gift Of The Spirit 2

Picking up this morning, where we left off last week, we were looking at one Corinthians
chapter 12 in the context of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost,
and how the Holy Spirit works in your life and in my life when by faith we're joined
to Jesus. Let's read again together the first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when
you were pagans, somehow or another, you were influenced and let us stray to mute idols.
Therefore I tell you 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. There are different kinds
of gifts, but the same Spirit, there are different kinds of service, but the same Lord, there
are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to
each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is
given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge, by means
of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by
that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing
between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another,
the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and
he gives them to each one just as he determines. I'm tempted to ask you this morning how many
of you did your homework this past week, but I will resist the temptation and trust that
you did let's pray together. Lord, we bless you for your Word, and we acknowledge that
there are riches in Christ mediated to us through the Holy Spirit that are far above
and beyond what many of us have experienced. Sometimes that makes us feel insecure, sometimes
that makes us wonder if we're even Christians at all, and sometimes surely that makes us
very envious of others who seem to have more than what we have. Help us to understand
Lord that in Christ there is an inheritance for each one of us, and that you distribute
your gifts according to your own sovereign pleasure. Help us therefore to own what it is
that you've given. Help us never to bury our treasure, but to step out in faith knowing
that the body consists of many parts, and that when all the parts work together in unity
and in harmony led by the head who is Jesus. Jesus is made manifest to the world, and his
work is accomplished until that day. When the whole world will again acknowledge that
he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. So bless us in these moments together. Give me,
I pray this morning, the words that I need, and all of his Lord hearts to just lay hold
of who you are and what you have given us. Grant us the gift of faith, courage, hope,
love, boldness. May we accomplish your purposes in our generation, and we'll be careful to
give you the glory we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, to just quickly review, I pointed out last week that one of the main tasks of the
Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the exalted Jesus. Paul puts it this way, 1 Corinthians
12 verse 3, "I tell you 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." In Jesus
himself, echoing a very similar thought in John 1526, "When the counselor comes, whom
I will sent to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who goes out from the Father, he
will testify about me." The job of the Holy Spirit is to make real in your life and in
my life all the benefits that we have in the person of Jesus. And I said last week, just
very quickly to review, he does that in three ways. He points out our sin and our misery.
He shows us how we miss the mark and what the consequences of missing that mark are. And
when you look at the disasters caused by tornadoes or the grief of funerals, such as we talked
about just a few moments ago, then you get just a taste of how much pain there is in
a fallen world. But more than that, the Holy Spirit goes on beyond that to point us to
Jesus because the message of Scripture is that there is no other name given among men
under heaven whereby we can be saved but the name of Jesus when history ends. Jesus will
be the great redeemer and deliverer who delivers a whole world regained back to the authority
of God. And then the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts so that by faith in Jesus,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, our lives are renewed from the inside out. The job of
the Holy Spirit is to make real in our lives, let me say it again, in our experience, to
make real in our lives and in our experience the benefits that we have in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. And that brings us this morning, then, to the second observation that I want
to make based on this passage before us, the second job of the Holy Spirit is to empower
us for service in the kingdom of God. Listen to how Paul puts it in the verses 4, 5, and
6 of 1 Corinthians 12. He says there are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit. There
are different kinds of service, but the same Lord, there are different kinds of working,
but the same God works all of them in all men or in everybody. And we're going to take
a few minutes and look at those three verses in some detail. There are three things about
those three verses that I want to point out. The first is this, it is trinitarian, that
is to say, it makes mention of the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, makes mention of the Lord,
and that is almost without exception, though there are some exceptions, in the New Testament
a reference to the Lord Jesus, and then it talks about God. And again, there are exceptions,
typically in Scripture God refers to God the Father. Let's take a look at each of those
terms in more detail, because the second thing to note is that each of these is described
as having a particular function. And we're going to ask our technicians to keep those
slides up a little bit longer, because we're going to go through a whole bunch of them
in rapid succession. Notice, then, taking it backwards, that God, the Father, is said
to provide workings. And the Greek word for that, for working, is enter gay motto. And I thought
I'd show off my Greek for a change. I was a Greek major in college, just for the record,
not that it's done me a lot of good, but there you see what it looks like. And the word
works is enter key on. Both of those are derived from the Greek word, enter gayo. And I
mentioned that, because what English word do you think comes from that? Energy. The word
energy is used by the Apostle Paul very typically to describe the surpassing power of God at work
in the life of the believing community. Ephesians 3.7, I became a servant of this gospel
by the gift of God's grace, given me through the working energy of his power. And Colossians
126. To this end, I labor, struggling with all his energy, again, enter gay on, which
so powerfully works, enter guminane, which is a passive form of the verb, which so powerfully
works in me. And so what Paul is saying here is that God, the Father, works in the lives
of believers. And I want to expand on that for just a little bit, because the working
that he does and that Paul describes here is all the work of God's redemptive power.
And the best way to describe that is to, again, just look very briefly at our circles, because
the working that God does is he takes us out of this domain of Satan, and he places us
in the kingdom of God. Remember, we are by nature slaves of Satan. We are by nature alienated
from God. We are selfish to the core. We live in conflict and confusion. The world spirals
down into what the Bible calls death. And God, from the very beginning, has destined us
for salvation, which means being restored in relationship with God, restored in relationship
with each other. And the working of which Paul speaks here is the work that God does,
both individually and corporately and across the world, to bring a fallen world back to
himself. So it involves setting us free from Satan's power. It involves reconciling
us to God through faith in the Lord Jesus. It involves getting rid of our self-centeredness,
replacing it with the heart of God. It means getting rid of the pain and the conflict and
the confusion that lives in our lives. It is God's power and work to take a fallen
humerus, filled with selfishness, filled with selfish ambition, and to restore them fully
into God's purposes in his kingdom. It is God, he says, who is it working you? Now, keep
that in mind, because we'll have occasion to come back to it and see how the person
of Jesus and the person of the Holy Spirit are all part and parcel of that process.
So Paul says the Father works, but then he says that Jesus calls us to service. The word
for service is the word deaconion from which we get one English word. Deacon, the deaconit,
all means serving, and it's a word Paul uses to describe his own ministry when he says
in 1 Timothy 1 verse 12, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength that
he considered me faithful appointing me to his service or deaconion." Why does God save
us? Why does God work his purposes of redemption in the world, in your heart and in my heart, because
he wants us to join him in his work? God is so filled with love for his children. He
doesn't need you and me. In fact, we're a bit of a liability when it comes to accomplishing
the purposes of God. We're much more like a paralyzed body than we are, a body that
is fluid and free and ready to obey and to honor God, but God wants to share the joy
of his work in redemption in your life and in my life. And so what the Lord Jesus does
is he brings us to himself, but then calls us into his service so that we can be his hands
and be his feet and be a vehicle through which the purposes of God get accomplished in
the world. And if you think that only applies to the clergy or to people like the Apostle
Paul, you're quite mistaken because listen again to this scripture Ephesians 4 11 and 12,
it was he that is the exalted Christ, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets,
some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers, for what purpose? To prepare
or to equip Cutter Titsal, God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ
may be built up. If you're in Christ and you've been joined to him by faith and God has
given you the Holy Spirit, there is a job that He has for you that only you can do. And
when the day of eternity dawns and we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we're going
to receive our reward to a large degree based on our faithfulness or the lack thereof to
His calling upon our lions. God doesn't have to use us. He could readily do it with His
angels. He has chosen to take us into His confidence so that we may share in His joy.
Some of you have heard me tell the story. Father was working in His garden with His young
children and the neighbor was watching this of what a mess the kids were making and how
they were actually hindering more than they were helping the father. They weren't watching
where they were going and they stepped on the plants. And the father looked up at the
neighbor with a scowl on the neighbor's face and he said, "I know what you're thinking."
He says, "You're wrong. It's not a garden that I'm growing. It is a family that I'm raising.
That's how God approaches you and me as He calls us to participate with Him in the work
of leading people to faith and in the work of bringing people to maturity in Christ."
So God the Father calls us at work in this whole process of redemption. Jesus, who made
a redemption possible, now calls us into service and then to equip us further, the Holy
Spirit gives us gifts. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit. And
the spiritual gifts, as we call them, that are the subject of Paul's message here in
one Corinthians chapter 12. Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be
uninformed or I don't want you to be ignorant. Now spiritual gifts are divine and navelings
given by the Holy Spirit so that we can do the work of Jesus. Setting captives free,
helping people see the bondage of sin, helping people understand how they can overcome
the gravity of a fallen human condition. I tell you, it doesn't matter how smart you
are, it doesn't matter how clever you are, it is impossible simply in human strength and
human wisdom. Bill Heibos tells us a story years ago, his church was invited to do a presentation
at the Harvard School of Business and he was explaining how their motto as a church was
to turn irrelegious people into fully devoted followers of Jesus. And one of the kids
in the class raised the hand and said something to the effect that that had to be the most
difficult calling in the world to take people from a position of unbelief to bring them
to a position of being a devoted follower of the Lord Jesus. So of course that's true.
And no amount of human persuasion or human wisdom can make that happen. That's why we
need the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual giftings that break through
the spiritual powers that enable sinners to repent of their sin, come to faith in Jesus and
to grow up to maturity in Christ. And so the emphasis here is on spiritual gifts that
are the equipment they are, as I said before, the power tools of the kingdom. And if you read
on in the passage as we did earlier, then you get some examples of what the spiritual gifts
are. To one he says is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom that refers to an
ability to discern what is happening in a certain person's life and to speak into it in
such a way that it really helps. All of us have been the beneficiaries of being in difficult
situations. We share our need perhaps with somebody else and somebody knows just what
we need to know and hear in order for us to get beyond where we are. Another gift that
is mentioned there is the gift of faith. Now the gift of faith here is different from the
generic gift of faith that all of God's people have. You can come to salvation without faith
that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. But there is a special anointing
with the gift of faith. The kind of faith that comes upon you in a given situation and says,
"I will not accept this present situation. I will not accept this illness. I will not
accept this brokenness. I will not accept this tragedy in the name of Jesus, barastored
and healed. Faith can move mountains, but you can't make it happen yourself. And God
assigns according to Scripture a measure of faith to each of His people. Some people
have much more faith for very specific things than other people do. And you will have in
your life a measure of faith." He goes on to talk about gifts of healing. That is to say He
gives some people the ability to pray in faith to minister in faith so that the lame walk,
the blind sea, and the deaf hear. And as I've said before, the greater the oppression of the
enemy, the greater is the outpouring of God's grace and God's power. I shared last time I've
been reading this book, The Insanity of God, how the persecuted church in Russia, in China,
and in Middle Eastern countries, continues to thrive despite decades of oppression. And it's
because the miracle power of God is there. There are stories not only of miraculous
healings, miraculous dreams, miraculous visions. I described one of those two last time, but
even stories of people literally being raised from the dead. And at the end of the day,
it is the power of God that equips God's people for works of service. And as I've said
before, if that sort of thing doesn't happen in our lives or in North America, the way
that it does in the mission field or in persecuted countries, it's partly because when the enemy
comes in like a flood, God raises up a banner and demonstrates that at the end of the day,
Jesus is Lord. And that of His kingdom, there will be no end. I mean, isn't it amazing
that in countries like China, you know, China, when the communists took over, had a limited
number of Christians after decades and decades of Christian ministry. And yet after the
communist government took over and did everything they possibly could to suppress faith, the
number of believers in China today is estimated at numbering close to a hundred million people.
It doesn't matter where you go. God's people are turning to faith in Jesus. And many of
those because they encounter the living Christ. So not to belabor the point, God the Father
is working. Jesus calls us to a service. The Holy Spirit equips us. And then the third
thing in this set of verses that I want us to notice and that, which is really the focal
point of all of this, the emphasis lies on the diversity of God's working. Listen again,
carefully now, note the parallel structure in this verse. There are different kinds
of gifts, but the same spirit, different kinds of service, but the same Lord, different
kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in every one. The whole focus of
what Paul is talking about here is God's diversity within unity. It's the same spirit
it's the same Lord. It is the same God and Father, but they work in different ways in different
people. And just as there are no two snowflakes alike in the world, and just as the fingerprints
of even identical twins, I understand are not identical. And just as there is an incredible
variety in the created order, so God's working among His people varies immensely from one
person to another. It is the same spirit, but different gifts. It is the same Lord, but
different service. It is the same God, but different workings. Now why do I make a point
of that? And why do I belabor it the way that I'm belaboring it this morning? I'll tell
you why. Because depending on our maturity in Christ, and because the work of the Holy
Spirit is so experiential, we have a tendency to use our experience of God or the lack of
our experience of God as the measuring stick by which we measure everybody else. And so
let's suppose that I'm the kind of individual who is never really in a personal way experienced
the Holy Spirit in my life. And now I run into somebody, maybe a new convert, maybe somebody
who has been recently baptized in the Holy Spirit, somebody who is filled with zeal
and enthusiasm for God. And every other word is God told me this and God told me that.
And I look at myself and what do I do? Well, the first thing I will probably do is look
at the other person and judge them to be slightly insane, because I have no reference for
the experiences that they're talking about in that trip. Come on, be real. Then when
that doesn't wear off and they continue that kind of insanity, especially if it starts
to spread, then I start to look at myself and I begin to question, "Well, what about
me? Am I even a Christian?" Now, that's not a bad thing, by the way, to do, because
the Bible says, "Test yourself to see if you are in the faith." And it's perfectly
well possible that if we don't experience the reality of God ever in our own lives,
we may never have come to the cross. We may never have bent the knee before the Lord Jesus,
and that will then be an opportunity for us to reevaluate life and repentance and submission
to God. My experience is that how much you experience of the Holy Spirit in your life
is not unrelated to the degree to which we have learned to bend the knee to the Lordship
of Jesus, and it's not uncommon that it's not until we deal with particular sins or
particular strongholds or particular areas of life that we're just holding onto so dearly
that we experience the presence and the power of God in an unprecedented way. But all
of those caveats aside, the same God works in different ways, the same Lord calls to
different service, the same Holy Spirit gives different gifts. Your life will not parallel
somebody else's life. Your life may be unique because you are unique and God gives you
what you need and not what somebody else needs. Very important to understand that so that
we can bloom where we're planted. Let me give you another example of that. Let's suppose
that you're the kind of person you pray and your prayer sort of bounce off the ceiling,
but then there are other people they pray and all heaven moves. Then again, it's very easy
on the one hand to become judgmental. On the other hand, it's very easy to become introverted
and to say, "Well, what's wrong with me?" Again, it's always a good question to ask. But
if all you do is ask that question without getting answers to that question, you'll just
spiral down into hopelessness, confusion, and, "Well, what's the use anyway? God may love
everybody else, but He doesn't love me." No, no. Different gifts, same Spirit, different
service, same Lord, different workings, but the same God who works them all in everyone.
Still one more example. Let's suppose you're the kind of person and you have caught the
vision of some Christian activity that you really think just really matters. Currently,
a lot of young people across North America, they're really incensed about the sex trade.
Let's suppose you're that kind of individual, or you've gone on a short-term mission, you've
seen what happens in thrill-to-roll countries and you just think, "Everybody you want to
get on board and you can figure out why would you are so excited about leave somebody
else cold?" You know what I'm talking about? Or you're really burning for a cause like
Christian education and you can't figure out why other people keep sending their kids
to public school. Or you're really caught up in evangelism and you can't understand why
everybody isn't inviting the neighbors over to their house and to your church. Again,
kinds of gifts, different same spirit, different kinds of service, same Lord, different kinds
of workings, same God. And I'll tell you another reason why I elaborate upon this, because
one of the things that God does among Christians and in Christian community, when a Christian
community comes to life, he brings to life the gifts among God's people. And years ago,
I would have thought that would be an exciting thing in Christian community and I never
imagined the kind of problems it would create. Because as I said, the more immature we are,
the more we measure one another by ourselves, by our experience, or the lack of it, and
the hardest thing that I have discovered over the years for God's people to accept is
ministry from one another. You know what? Like, who do you think you are that you might
have something to contribute to me, particularly if you're going to speak truth into my life?
See, it's hard enough for us to accept this from trained people or from educated clergy
or from people who have a proven track record. It's much harder to believe that Saul is
also among the prophets, isn't it? But I'll tell you something, if God can speak through
bail him through a donkey's voice, he can speak to any one of us through anybody. And
part of coming to maturity is to learn to recognize that God is at work in his own way
in different people's lives. That's what occasions this whole letter here to the Corinthians,
you may remember. The Corinthians were a people who were incredibly gifted spiritually,
earlier Paul says, that God has blessed them with amazing gifts of speech and knowledge.
These people were just a bubbling over with gifts of the spirit, but they were incredibly
immature. And their immaturity was causing strife and confusion. Listen to how he puts
it in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, the first three verses, "Brothers, I could not address
you as spiritual but as worldly, mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk and not solid food
for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed you are still not ready. You are still worldly.
For since there is jealousy and quarrel among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting
like mere men? Are you not acting like mere men?" And his implication obviously is that
if you are in Christ, you ought to be different from the kind of jealousy, the kind of envy,
the kind of immaturity that characterise those who are not yet grown up in Christ. So let
me ask you this morning, what kinds of gifts of the Holy Spirit has the Holy Spirit
lost in your life? And when you see in somebody else's life what you don't have, what does
that do to you on the inside? Because the biblical antidote is to recognize, as I said so many
times now, it's the same God, different workings. It's the same Lord, but different service.
It's the same Spirit, but different gifts. And Paul nails it at the conclusion of this passage
in verse 11 when he says all these, referring to all the things that have gone before, are
all these are the work of one and the same Spirit. And he gives them to each one just
as he determines. He gives them to each one just as he determines. I believe with all my
heart, the Lord is calling us to move forward into releasing and setting free the gifts that
God has given to his people. And that brings along with it plenty of challenges, but also
plenty of opportunity. Because as each part of the body does its work, Jesus manifests
Himself in ways that we cannot imagine. And He brings life and light in healing in ways
that we generally cannot imagine. And just to put some flesh on those bones, I've
divided Karen Elraffi to come up this morning and share some of her thoughts. Karen sent
me an email a couple of days before Mother's Day last week telling of something that was
birthing in her that she felt that she needed to share. And Mother's Day would have been
the perfect opportunity for that except by that time we already had so many elements
in the service we couldn't add it. But I've asked her to share that with you today just
as a testimony to God's faithfulness and a model of what it is that we're talking about.
Here's you B. Give her a hand. She's pretty nervous about this.
God had given me this story a long time ago as you'll hear, but finally he was impressing
on me to write it down and that's when I finally wrote it down and sent it to Pastor John.
See, I'm listening. I get it eventually. So anyhow, it's about a time in my life from
'96 to 2002 that I was really powerfully learning some truths of God and they were really
difficult years spiritually. But it started, my husband and I, my husband Muhammad, and
I wanted to have a baby. And for almost seven years we tried to have a baby and it just
wasn't happening. At times I was really full of faith and I was so sure that God had told
me that I'd have a child and I even had some dreams and scriptures and I felt that God
was confirming this truth to me. And I was even went as far as to share this with some
of my close friends and a few relatives and I think that kind of made them nervous actually.
But then by about the fourth, fifth year I was getting a little discouraged, obviously.
And by the sixth year I was just at one of the lowest points I've been spiritually. I was
confused. I didn't know what was going on or why had God told me that or I felt God had
told me that and why wasn't it happening. And I really didn't, I didn't know which way
it was up to be quite honest. But the whole time God was really radically changing my view
of Him. And it started with Bible study that I just started and to be quite honest I don't
even know why I started it. It was about the attributes and character of God. And I really
knew I had certain assumptions of who God was and then I realized he really wanted to
tell me who he was. So the discoveries over the course of those years were just so life
changing for me. And I know I'm still getting some of it. But I really did, you know, he brought
me to the verse Psalm 103. And I really finally got that God was not my accuser and he wasn't
keeping records of wrongs. And my sins were as far as the east is from the west and that
he's my rock through these struggles, that he was my comforter in this suffering and
he's sovereign and that his timing would be perfect. And he is faithful. So the last that
last one took me a while to figure out. And in April of 2002, we found out we were expecting
our son, Aiman. So we were overjoyed. You just can't imagine how excited we were. And
but the whole time that we that I knew that I was pregnant, I kept saying to God, you
know, why did you choose this time? You know, it would have been so great had you have,
if we had had the baby or we had gotten pregnant when I was so full of faith when I was telling
everybody and I was so excited, you would look so great God if you had it done it then.
And you know, to brought you so much glory and you know, I'm saying all these things. And
for two years, I could not figure it out. I was just like, why didn't you do it then?
So finally, one day really, quite out of the blue, I just felt like the spirit whispered
to me, you know, I am faithful, even if you are not. And that just hit me. I mean, I had
read that those verses, I knew that that was this character and that was his attribute,
but I just couldn't, I didn't really figure it out. And I just felt like he was saying,
I am who I say I am. And it was really one of the milestone lessons for me in my life.
And you know, I understand the actions have consequences, but that really doesn't change
the character of God. He is still faithful. And he gave me this beautiful verse, second
Timothy 2, 13, if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful for he cannot deny who he is. And
I think I had read that and never really truly got it. And in the back of my mind, I think
I always doubted, you know, his goodness, his redeeming power and his grace in my life.
And I'd sing those songs and read the scriptures, but I think I really didn't get the concept
of the faithfulness of God until that point, that I cannot change his character. He is who
he says he is. And no matter what I do or what I think, it doesn't change who God is,
he is faithful. And I think I can really sing those words now. I trust your heart and
I trust your name because I know he is. He's really faithful. And by the way, in 2003,
welcomed a second son, Kenan. So not only do I know he's faithful, but his blessings
are abundant. Thank you, Karen. When I end this morning with a quotation that I heard
on the word for you today with Bob Gas on UCB this morning. It's a quotation from the poem
from the poet William Arthur Ward,
who is one of the most quoted inspirational writers
in our contemporary time.
And here is what he says, "I will do more than belong.
I will participate.
I will do more than care.
I will help.
I will do more than believe.
I will practice.
I will do more than be fair.
I will be kind.
I will do more than forgive.
I will forget.
I will do more than dream.
I will work.
I will do more than teach.
I will inspire.
I will do more than learn.
I will enrich.
I will do more than give.
I will serve.
I will do more than leave.
I will grow.
And I will do more than suffer.
I will triumph."
That's God's call on the church
through faith in Christ
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
♪ Take my life and let it be ♪
♪ Consecrate and love to thee ♪
♪ Take my own hands and my days ♪
♪ Let them flow within this break ♪
♪ Take my hands and let them move ♪
♪ At the end of so thy love ♪
♪ Take my dream and let them move ♪
♪ Swift and beautiful for thee ♪
♪ Take my voice and let me sing ♪
♪ Always only for my king ♪
♪ Take my lives and let them be ♪
♪ Filled with messages from thee ♪
♪ Take my will and make it high ♪
♪ It shall be no longer mine ♪
♪ Take my heart and it is idle ♪
♪ It shall be the royal home ♪
♪ Take my love, my Lord, I bow ♪
♪ Have life in its treasure store ♪
♪ Take myself and I will be ♪
♪ Ever only for thee ♪
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