|
To listen to audio click
here
To save for later, right click
and ‘Save as…’
1 Corinthians 12
What does a spiritual person look like?
Long beard, or dread-locked hair, incense,
dream-catcher, sitar, far-away gaze, speaks in riddles, open to all
beliefs, they’ve reduced their carbon footprint to zero having knitted a
bicycle entirely from hemp. That’s
a spiritual person right?
The Corinthians took pride in being
spiritual. And in some senses
they were right. Look back to
chapter 1:7. Paul is thanking God
for the Corinthians and he says
“Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait
for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.”
The Corinthians had all sorts of spiritual
gifts. They’re a congregation full
of people with impressive, Spirit-empowered abilities. So in one sense they are spiritual. The Spirit of God is manifested among
them in remarkable ways.
In another sense, the Corinthians are not
spiritual at all.
Look at chapter 3:1:
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere
infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food,
for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You
are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you,
are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For
when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow
Apollos," are you not mere men?
The Corinthians thought they were so
spiritual – Paul says they are babies in the faith. The Corinthians thought they were a
world-beating church – Paul says they are still in the creche. Why?
Divisions.
V3 – jealousy, quarreling.
V4 – cliques and clubs: “I follow this church leader.” “No, no, I follow this church
leader.” These divisions were
rampant in the church and while ever the church is divided Paul says it
is anything but spiritual.
So here’s the tension at the heart of the
Corinthian church: Loads of
incredible Spirit-given abilities and loads of divisions. And do you see how the gifts might
encourage the divisions? Those
with the more impressive gifts start to look down on the others. Those with less impressive gifts start
to wonder if they even belong in
the church. And so
spiritual gifts start leading to some very unspiritual divisions.
So, chapter 12:1, Paul tackles this problem
head on:
1Now about spiritual gifts
And really he will take this chapter, chapter
13 and chapter 14 to address the problem.
And the first thing Paul does is give us a
test to determine what true spirituality looks like. Here’s the test: v3:
3Therefore 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.
Being spiritual is all about Jesus. To be spiritual is to be shaped by and
shaped like Jesus, the LORD.
Paul’s test for spirituality is emphatically
NOT that a person is open to other beliefs and mysteries – it’s about
being thoroughly fixed on Jesus as Lord.
Those three little words “Jesus is LORD” are
a summary of the Gospel message that is the heart of the Christian
faith. Let’s turn to Philippians 2
to see how Paul fleshes out the phrase “Jesus is LORD.” Keep a finger here and turn to page
1179. Here’s what Paul means by
the phrase ‘Jesus is LORD’
He’s speaking to the Philippians who are also
having problems with divisions and he says – Philippians 2:3:
3Do
nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider
others better than yourselves. 4Each
of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the
interests of others.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a
cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above
every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the
earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Here is what it means to say ‘Jesus is
LORD’. Jesus is the One who made
Himself nothing, the One who took the nature of a slave, the One who
humbled Himself and became obedient to death on a cross. And because
of this, v9, THEREFORE God exalted Him and one day, v11, every tongue
will confess Jesus Christ is LORD.
To say that Jesus is LORD is to say that the
Servant is King. It’s to say that
the Slave is Master of all. And
it’s to say that this Jesus who humbled Himself is My Master, My
Lord!
And so anyone who looks at the Servant Jesus
and says ‘He is LORD’ they are agreeing with God the Father’s verdict
and, back in 1 Corinthians 12, they are empowered by the Spirit to say
it.
True spirituality is agreeing with God the
Father about the Lordship of God the Son and Paul says you can only do
that in the power of God the Holy Spirit.
To be a spiritual person is to look at Jesus, who came and stooped
and served and suffered and died and to say “That’s divine.” Anyone who calls Jesus “LORD” has seen
what true greatness looks like.
And they’ve confessed that this Great Jesus is their Lord.
So what does a spiritual person look like?
They should look like Jesus? What
should a Spirit-filled person look like?
They should be a “Jesus is LORD” person. There’s no such thing as a
Spirit-filled person who’s not a Jesus-obsessed person. If a person is Spirit-obsessed person
and they never talk about Jesus – they’re not actually a Spirit-filled
person. A true Spirit-filled
person must be a Jesus is LORD person.
And so, what should a church look like that’s
full of the Spirit? It should be
shaped by Jesus and shaped like Jesus. It should be a church full of servants
glorifying Christ and considering others better than themselves. And that’s why Paul begins this chapter
with the reminder “Jesus is Lord”.
The Corinthians were getting divided over these manifestations of
the Spirit. But Paul says “He’s
the Spirit of Jesus.” There’s no
way the Spirit of Jesus should be dividing you – if you really understood
the Spirit of Jesus, these gifts would not divide you but unite you as
you serve each other with them.”
And if you really understood the trinity –
that would help too says Paul in verses 4-6 Look at v4: There is the same
Spirit, v5: the same Lord (that is Jesus) and v6: the same God (that is
the Father). So spiritual gifts
are gifts from God the Trinity.
And if ever we are going to learn how to be united in our
different-ness – the trinity will teach us. They are different Persons who take on
different roles and yet they are utterly united in love. If you want a sentence definition of
the trinity it’s this – God is Three different Persons who are united in
love. They serve one another. They honour one another. They love one another. They work together in all things – the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the ultimate community of unity in
diversity.
It’s interesting that the name of the dance
group that won Britain’s Got Talent should be Diversity. Because Dance is a wonderful image of
how different persons can have different roles and different skills and
yet be united. Throughout church
history a major way of speaking about the trinity has been to speak about
their great dance of love. In
dance you have different persons, different roles but – when it works – a
unified flowing movement. Just
like the Trinity. And it should be
just like our churches.
But actually we have great trouble getting
both diversity and unity.
If we go for unity it becomes like a
steam-roller and all differences are flattened. Everyone must be the same – differences
go out the window.
But if we go for diversity it becomes like a
ladder and suddenly different means better or worse, higher or
lower. Suddenly we’re ranking
people and unity goes out the window.
How do we solve this? We remember Jesus – the Servant who is
LORD. And we remember the trinity
– the God who is a community of unity in diversity.
But notice something else in verses 4-6. Spiritual gifts are given three
parallel names: In v4 they are
called gifts. In v5 ‘service’. In v6 workings by God.
These are three parallel ways of viewing
spiritual gifts. First they are
‘gifts’. If I get given a million pounds I don’t expect you to praise my
financial abilities. I expect you
to say ‘You lucky son of a gun, you don’t deserve that.’ But then why do we speak in hushed
tones about “Oh she’s so gifted” as though all glory should go to
them. It’s a gift, they don’t
deserve it. So firstly remember,
they are gifts. Secondly, they’re
described as ‘service.’ The point
of the gifts is that they are to be used to serve others. That’s the point of them. Look at v7:
7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the
common good.
Verse 7 means everyone gets at least one
gift. To each one the
manifestation of the Spirit is given.
Everyone here, if you’re a Christian, has at least one gift. But these gifts are not given for your
sake, they are given for you to serve the common good.
And then finally gifts are (v6) “workings” by
God. Even as we exercise our gifts
it is God the Father working in us.
So we can’t even say “Well she was given the gift but look at how
she’s using it under her own steam.”
We don’t use gifts under our own steam, it is God working in us to
serve others.
And from v8 Paul starts talking about the
kinds of gifts he’s talking about.
Now this is not by any means an exhaustive
list. There’s another list at the
end of the chapter, there’s another one in Ephesians 4, in Romans 12 and
in 1 Peter 4. No gift shows up in
all 5 lists and many show up only once.
If you ask me these gifts lists are not giving us every kind of spiritual
ability ever given to the church, but broadly they come in two categories
as 1 Peter 4 says – there are speaking gifts and serving gifts. Gifts with words and gifts with
actions.
8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to
another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to
another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one
Spirit, 10to another miraculous powers, to another
prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking
in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the
interpretation of tongues.[b] 11All these are the
work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as
he determines.
Now what do these particular gifts refer to?
Well it can be tricky to pin them down exactly. For instance in v8 – what’s the
difference between the message of wisdom and the message of
knowledge? Is knowledge the gift
of understanding biblical teaching and wisdom the gift of applying it to
tricky situations? Maybe. It’s probably something like that. Verse 9 – what is the gift of
faith? Well it can’t be saving
faith, because Paul’s already said that you don’t have the Spirit at all
if you don’t believe that Jesus is Lord.
But perhaps this is the gift of believing God for a particular
outcome and being able to keep others looking forward in the midst of
opposition. So you’re putting on a
big mission and everything’s going wrong and you’re tempted to cancel it,
the person with the gift of faith is able to see God’s hand, trust His
sovereignty and inspire others to keep pressing on in faith. In a sense it’s a leadership gift. That’s my understanding of the gift of
faith anyway.
There’s v10 – miraculous powers, some think
they have stopped, I disagree but it’s interesting that Paul doesn’t put
them on any pedestal. According to
verses 29-31 – the speaking gifts are the greater gifts. Miracles are down the list.
Also in v10 – prophesy. Rev 19:10 says the spirit of prophecy
is testimony to Jesus. It’s not
basically about predicting the future.
A very small percentage of what the OT prophets said was
predicting the future. Essentially
they spoke the reality of the LORD into people’s lives there and then. I think being prophetic is speaking
Christ into another’s life. I
think preaching is a prophetic kind of thing, but even something like an
encouraging text message could be prophetic – if you testify to Jesus and
speak Him into another person’s life.
This is prophesy.
Distinguishing between spirits seems to be
about spiritual discernment and that’s especially important when there’s
false teaching around (1 John 4:1-3).
And then the really contentious one – speaking in tongues. Does this mean the ability to speak
foreign languages or is it speaking about a private prayer language
between you and God. I think, given what Paul says in chapter 14 that
tongues are the gift of a private prayer language to God. Just flick over and read chapter
14:2-5:
2For anyone who speaks in a tongue[a] does not speak to men but to God.
Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.[b] 3But everyone who
prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and
comfort. 4He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself,
but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5I would like
every one of you to speak in tongues,[c] but I would rather have you prophesy.
He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues,[d] unless he interprets, so that the
church may be edified.
Tongues does seem to be a private prayer
language. And Paul says back in
chapter 12:10 the Spirit also gifts interpreters of this for the sake of
building up the church.
Just for the sake of completeneness we’ll
look at the list at the end of chapter 12 and then we’ll finish by
thinking of the body analogy.
So chapter 12:28:
28And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second
prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having
gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of
administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.
First: apostles. Now when the word ‘apostle’ refers to a
role, it usually means the 12 who were with Jesus from the
beginning. In that sense there are
no apostles around today. But a
person can have the gift of being apostolic. The word Apostle means ‘Sent one’. In English the word ‘missionary’ also
means ‘Sent one’. It’s the gift of
being missionary minded, wired for cross-cultural ministry.
We’ve thought about prophesy. The teaching gift – the ability to open
the bible and have people understand.
Then miracle workers,
and gifts of healing. Right next
to them Paul lists those able to help others and those with gifts of
administration. Miracle workers
and admin buffs – both supernaturally empowered by the Spirit to serve
the church. And again tongues comes last in Paul’s list.
That’s an idea of what some of these gifts
are but remember there are many others. The point is that they are GIFTS,
to be used to SERVE others and empowered by God’s WORKING.
And if you want to think about how these
different gifts fit together, Paul says – think about the body.
That’s the illustration Paul uses in the
second half of this chapter and he uses it as well in Romans 12. And it’s very interesting.
Because it picks up exactly this unity in
diversity point.
12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many
parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is
with Christ.
So it is with Christ – note Damascus Road “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?” (Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14). Hurt the church and you hurt
Jesus. Because the church is His
body.
And Paul says think about the body
image. Many parts working
together.
13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews
or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
It doesn’t matter your past – one Spirit has
united us into one body and we all drink from that one Spirit. This means no-one is more spiritual
than anyone else. The Spirit
defines our identity, the Spirit defines our experience as
Christians. If you are united to
Jesus – if you are a Christian – then you are as spiritual as anyone else
– no matter what manifestation of
the Spirit is peculiar to you.
Whether you speak in tongues or are good at administration,
whether you are an apostle or have hospitality gifts – you are all as
spiritual as one another.
But here are two problems the Corinthians
have. One kind of person (from
v14-20) says ‘I don’t belong’
(I’m not spiritual enough).
Another kind of person (from v21-26) says to others ‘I don’t need you’ (you’re not
spiritual enough).
See v14:
14Now the body is not made up of one part
but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I
am not a hand, I do not belong to
the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the
body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am
not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that
reason cease to be part of the body. 17If 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?
Here’s the person with the inferiority
complex. And notice the
illustration – the foot feels inferiority to the hand. And the ear to the eye. We often feel jealous of those who are
quite similarly gifted don’t we.
The foot’s not jealous of the large intestine – but it is jealous
of the hand. And we’re not jealous
of those whose gifts are very different.
I am not jealous of someone with administrative gifts, I am in
AWE. Truly. I think they must be angels. They are out of this world, their
talents don’t threaten me, I just think they’re supernatural and I
rejoice that they’re around to pick up my mess. But someone else with a speaking
gift. I’m a foot – they’re a hand
(slightly better surely). I’m an
ear – they’re an eye (again slightly better surely). And I start to think – why bother. I don’t belong here. I need to be an eye or I’m
worthless. Paul says – it would be
monstrous if everyone were an eye.
Unity achieved through uniformity is
monstrous. To wish to have the
exact same gifting as others in the body would be like verse 17 – if the
whole body were an ear. We would stop being a body and start being a
monster.
BUT – v18:
18But in fact God has arranged the
parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
We are not a random group of people. We are put together by God the Father,
arranged just how He wants.
You’re a foot and he’s a hand, you’re an ear
and she’s an eye for a reason.
We’re in a congregation where people
are going through some quite particular and quite intense suffering right
now. Do you think you have what it
takes to comfort those suffering right now? You do, the Father has put us all
together to help one another...
19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As
it is, there are many parts, but one body.
So don’t ever feel inferior. But neither, v21, should you feel
superior.
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet,
"I don't need you!"
You see these body parts are quite different
to one another. And here the
spirit of superiority is taking over.
We prize our own gifts and despise the gifts of others.
But Paul says, v22
22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker
are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are
less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are
unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while
our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given
greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but
that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers,
every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices
with it.
Verse 23 means we should be actively
encouraging those who don’t ordinarily receive it. The person who cleans the church when
no-one’s looking, who visits a sick church member and no-one knows about
it, who helps with the children or the youth while the grown ups do their
grown up things, who prays through the church directory behind the scenes,
who simply helps others with their gardening or moving house – they
should have special honour. If
that’s you – thank you so much. We
need you. The body has many
unpresentable parts, but if your unpresentable body parts have ever gone
wrong, you know how much you need them.
Quite simply we need all of you – we are one body. And the less up-front members should
get extra special honour.
But v24, the guy up front with the microphone
and the shiny green guitar doesn’t need a lot of public praise. If you encourage the guy with the
microphone, make sure you go and doubly encourage the one who picks up
the mop and who teaches the Sunday School and who brings less mobile
members to church.
27Now you are
the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
As I close, this body imagery is so
important. Often we think of gifts
as something like – we are all computers but we’ve just had slightly
different software packages installed.
That’s often how we think of gifts. We think outwardly we’ll be basically
the same but there are these quite separate and separable gifts implanted
within us.
But Paul says our different giftedness is
like the different giftedness of our different body parts. In other
words, they are differences that shape everything about us from the
inside out.
Sometimes we think of gifts as these things
unrelated to our passions, our personalities, the abilities we’ve had
since birth – but I think that would be a mistake.
The same Spirit by Whom you were born is the
same Spirit by Whom you were reborn.
If you were a born teacher.
Then when you’re born again, it’s not ludicrous to think you might
have the spiritual gift of teaching the bible – even though you will have
to re-learn the use of this ability in a hundred different ways. But don’t think of your gifts as
divorced from your natural talents and don’t think of your gifts as
things that are incidental to you as a person.
Those with the gift of (v28) ‘able to help
others’ that won’t just be something you do – it will be who you
are. It’s interesting in Ephesians
when it talks about gifts it talks about the people themselves as gifts –
Christ gave evangelists to the church.
He doesn’t just give evangelism-gifts to individuals, He gives
people who are wired in these ways AS gifts to the church. You and your gifts are not really
separable things.
So to discover your gifts ask yourself about
what you are passionate about, about where you draw encouragement and
energy, about what inspires you, about your deepest passions. And usually you can diagnose your gifts
by asking the question: What do
you feel to be the biggest needs here in this body? If you think the church is completely
disorganized and what it needs are some proper systems in place – you
probably have the gift of administration.
The tragedy is that usually we see these needs and rather than
diagnosing ourselves as the solution, we stop short at diagnosing the
problem and the church goes on being disorganized and the organizer just
gets frustrated.
Instead we should be asking two
questions: What needs doing here
in this body? That’s the question
that a ‘Jesus is Lord’ person asks?
Where can I serve? That’s
the first question.
Secondly, what are my gifts? And can those gifts be turned into
ministry?
First ask – what needs doing? Forget about what my dream job is for a
second – the Christ-like thing to do is to set aside my desires and
serve. But if service is my first
impulse, if that’s my mentality, then I can ask the second question:
What are my gifts? What am I good at? And if you’re not using them, tell
us. Say “I’m good at this. God has gifted me in this area – can All
Souls use that?
And when we bring our servant hearts and our
gifts together there will be a wonderful unity.
So remember: being spiritual means being a
Jesus is Lord person. We model
ourselves on the unity and diversity of God the Trinity. We have received spiritual gifts. And we employ them with servant hearts
like members of a body rejoicing in the gifts of others and working
together.
Let’s pray,
Back
to sermons...
|
