BR Wk 9 1 Cor 12-14

One Body, One Spirit: Love at the Center

Focus

The Holy Spirit empowers every believer with gifts — not to elevate individuals, but to build a unified, loving, Christ‑shaped church.

Introduction

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We are going to take a look at a Part of a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church that he had planted with some friends around 50 AD. He stayed there for about a 18 months and then left to go and minister in Ephesus , but he left some people in charge before he set off maybe he should have left some better leaders because word gets back to him 2 or three years later, and things are a bit chaotic in Corinth. Let’s get a brief overview of the whole letter and specifically the section we are going to talk about today.

Edited version of Bible Project video 0:04-1:21 and 5:09-7:01 Total 3:09

So we see a group of people who want very badly to experience the power and the presence of God, but they are focused on their own experience and so Paul is going to unpack the whole meaning of why the church exists, why we meet together and he is going to weave the theme of loving others through the conversation as he does for the whole of the letter.

1 Corinthians 12:1–3 “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray 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.”

Before we get into this, I want you to know that I don’t want you to take my word for anything , yes I believe you can trust what we teach here, but you should always go and search it out for yourself. Paul states here and we say. We don’t want you to be ignorant, we don’t want you to blindly follow every new teaching, everything we see on the instagram or youtube. We don’t pick and choose what we want to teach here. We are responsible to teach the whole of scripture, even the parts that are hard to hear some times.

And that is what Paul is doing.

Paul’s authority as the founding Pastor was in question, there had been a lot of false teachers that were coming by and amazing the Corinthian church saying that they knew more than Paul and that Paul wasn’t even from God.

Before Paul can have a difficult conversation he has to first remind them that He says “Jesus is Lord” and that can only happen by the leading of the Holy Spirit. So if someone is trying to lead you away from the teachings of Jesus, saying they don’t agree with Him or He is wrong…they are not speaking by the Spirit of God.

There are a lot of people on social media claiming to be christian but saying those things about Jesus, they are not speaking with the Spirit of God. So Paul is reminding them hey

They used to be pagans but now you are saved

When I speak, I will glorify Jesus, not myself, and I am speaking from the Spirit.

You see because of these false teachers and false apostles Corinth had become divided and self involved

Corinth had gifts, but lacked love and unity and for Paul that was far more important.

We can get caught up in all sorts of things as a church. We can get caught up in the production, we can get caught up in the worship, we can get caught up in all of the lights and glitter and power and presence but if we aren’t careful that can begin to become a distraction and overshadow what is really important.

Paul is going to take these next few chapters to help guide this church that he started just 3-5 years previous back to what is important.

It took them just 3-5 years to drift from who they were supposed to be.

The first thing Paul wants them to understand is that

1) The Spirit Gives Gifts to Every Believer (1 Cor 12:7)

Every believer receives gifts - no one is left out. If you believe in Jesus God has given you a gift. Not so that you can be powerful or important, not so that you can have an impact in the Kingdom. God gave you a gift so you could use it for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

We saw in our message on Pentecost a couple of weeks ago that God’s plan all along was to pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not an unusual option thing it is a normal and necessary part of our faith. It is how God reveals His grace to our faith community.

And we should all be seeking to allow God to use the gifts in each of us.

2) The Gift is for Others

Paul says that they are given FOR THE COMMON GOOD

The Christians in Corinth had become self-abosorbed. They believed that certain gifts made certain people more important than others. We will see Paul shred this idea over the next couple of chapter. But the whole point of God giving Spiritual gifts to people is for them to use them for other people.

3) The Giver of the Gift is Greater Than the Gift.

One thing that Paul is introducing to us is the fact that each gift is given by the same Spirit - why is that so important

Because if the same Spirit gave them and as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:11 “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” Then the gift isn’t the important thing - the Spirit that gave the gift (all of the gifts) is important because He chooses who gets what and for what reason.

But we do this all the time - if someone has a gift of preaching they become more important or we think that they are more spiritual or there is something better about them. They aren’t special the Holy Spirit is special and He gave them that gift.

If someone heals someone else now all of a sudden that person becomes famous for healing or another person prophecies over someone and now they are important and everyone is in awe of them

What Paul is saying is, no one is more important than anyone else. God is most important because it is His Spirit that gives the gifts and determines how they should be used. And He chose in His infinite wisdom that they should be used to serve our fellow believers.

4) Every Person Counts

1 Corinthians 12:12–13 “The 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. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

Because the Corinthian Church had become so self-absorbed they started to view certain people who demonstrated certain gifts as more important that others.

To communicate this, Paul uses, as our video shows us, a body as a metaphor.

Each part is crucial because each part is important to the whole body.

Each person is important and each gift is important not because one is better than any of the others but because they are all important to the body.

You were baptized into the Spirit of prophecy or healing or teaching or preaching. You weren’t baptized into the white church or the black church, or the Jewish church or the Gentile church. You were baptized by one Spirit into one body and each one of us, regardless of how the Spirit is revealed in each one of us (the gift) it is still the same Spirit that empowers all of it.

Every part is important but every part serves the whole body in the way that God has commanded it to serve. It is God that provides the power, it is God’s Spirit that empowers us, gifts us, and brings us together.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:24–26 “while 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, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

God has combined the members

And every person counts - it is the world that props up certain people, the charismatic, the good looking, the “talented” but the Bible says something different. God sees value in every person that plays a role in His Kingdom. No one person is more important than anyone else. If you are running a camera so that people at our other campus or people all over the world can hear the Gospel you are just as important as any person that stands on the this platform and preaches or leads worship.

God says that there are those that are highly visable to the world, but God gives GREATER honor to those that are unseen who are loving people, serving faithfully and quietly serving God and His people.

• Gifts without love = noise

• Love is Spirit‑formed character, not emotion

• Checklist: love is patient, kind, humble, forgiving

• Pentecostal emphasis: power must look like Jesus

Spiritual maturity is measured by love.

3) One Body, Many Parts (1 Cor 12:12‑27)

• Church is a body, not an audience

• No useless parts, no superior parts

• Spirit builds interdependence, not independence

• Celebrate ‘quiet gifts’ as much as visible ones

Illustration: Eye and foot — each needed

4) Spirit + Order = Edification (1 Cor 14)

• Paul doesn’t limit gifts — he orders them

• Purpose: build up the church

• Tongues? Yes — with interpretation

• Prophecy? Yes — tested and weighed

• Spirit brings clarity, not chaos

Spirit‑filled doesn’t mean disorderly.

Closing

• Christ loved us first

• Christ unites us

• Christ fills us with His Spirit

Response:

1) Lord, give me a heart of love

2) Empower me to serve

3) Use my gifts for your church