Sermon Tone Analysis

The Imperfect Church – 22

The Gifted Church

Introduction

According to the Journal of State Taxation, 40% of shoppers will purchase a store gift card of some kind for friends and family.

On top of that, almost 35% will purchase a restaurant gift card for them.

However, the research shows that we do not use them like we should.

The average American has over $300 in unused gift cards in their home.

Over the last 10 years, over $40 billion have gone unused.

It is always a sad problem when we’ve been given a tremendous gift, but allow it to remain unused.

This is the truth Paul now turns to in 1 Corinthians.

He has made several lengthy arguments about different issues at the Church in Corinth, and apparently he likes to take three chapters to do it.

Unity is covered in chapters 1-3.

Sexual immorality is covered in chapters 5-7.

Food offered to idols is covered in chapters 8-10.

The final three-chapter issue he deals with is the issue of spiritual gifts, covered in chapters 12-14.

Here is his point: every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift, and to allow it to remain unused, or to use it inappropriately, is a sad reality of lost potential, people not being helped, missing out on God’s will for you, and the Church being harmed.

For the next several weeks as we walk through these three great chapters, we are tackling one of the most divisive issues even still today.

The role of spiritual gifts, specifically the miraculous gifts, continues to confuse people and separate believers into different camps.

And that really shouldn’t surprise us, because that is exactly what spiritual gifts were doing in the Church in Corinth.

The Corinthians divided over everything, including this.

Paul structures his argument quite effectively, as he has done all throughout the letter.

He will introduce the topic (first part of chapter 12), give some foundational, theological truths to guide the topic (back half of chapter 12 and chapter 13), and then get into the practical specifics of it all that really center around the gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues (chapter 14).

As we walk through this, I think the most important guiding principle is this: The Corinthian Church was getting spiritual gifts wrong.

They were practicing them in an inappropriate, unbiblical, and unhelpful manner.

This truth will help us as we attempt to bring some clarity to this hot-topic issue and correct some of the utter nonsense happening in the name of spiritual gifts.

- Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us.

I don’t want you to misunderstand this. 2 You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols.

3 So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all.

5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing.

10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy.

He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit.

Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.

11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

Let’s walk through this for the next few minutes together.

1. THE AUTHENTICITY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS (V.

1-3)

2. THE UNITY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS (V.

4-6,11)

3. THE PURPOSE OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS (V.

7)

4. THE DEFINITION OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS (V.

8-10)

1. THE AUTHENTICIITY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS

He begins by introducing the new topic in v. 1 – “special abilities the Spirit gives us.”

That phrase literally translates “the spiritual things.”

From context we know that the “things” he is talking about are spiritual gifts, so the translation makes sense.

Earlier in chapter 3 Paul has already talked about things and people being “spiritual.”

You may remember, someone saying they are “spiritual” in our world today is not what Paul means when he uses the word.

Today, people who claim to be “spiritual…but not religious” mean something like they believe in ghosts and UFO’s, pray to someone or something, and like Oprah.

When Paul talks about a person being “spiritual” he means that person possesses the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit’s presence in their life defines them.

Now the attention comes back around to what it means to be “spiritual.”

When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in their life.

What does that mean?

Part of what that means is that the Spirit brings with Him gifts for you to use to serve others.

He says at the end of v. 1 that he doesn’t want them to misunderstand this.

Literally translates, to not be unknowing, to not be ignorant.

Why?

Because they were.

They had spiritual gifts, but how they were practicing them was ignorant of how God has designed.

We will see that clearly, especially in chapter 14.

The basic problem for them was this: they were viewing those with more “showy” gifts, more “mysterious” gifts as somehow spiritually elevated and elite.

Specifically, those who had the gift of speaking in tongues, due to its miraculous and mysterious nature, were taking charge in church and thought they were more “spiritual” than those with other gifts.

Paul’s driving concern over all three of these chapters is the unity of the church and the humility of having spiritual gifts.

In v. 2 Paul reminds them of their pagan, idolatrous background.

Part of the pagan worship in their day was to get caught up in the emotion and experience of the worship.

This led to grand, highly-charged emotional environments where people got whipped up into a frenzy to show their devotion to their deity.

And the more crazy the frenzy, the more “spiritual” it was.

Included in that was what we call today “ecstatic speech or utterances.”

The deity would possess the worshiper and the worshiper would then babble in some unknown language, and it was viewed to be this incredibly “spiritual” enviable experience because that person was so close to the pagan god that they were talking the god’s language.

That experience, multiplied countless times over in the pagan temples, created a chaotic, emotionally-charged experience.

The Corinthians had been “swept along” in things like that, and what chapter 14 makes clear is that they brought those experiences into the Church.

Now Paul will clarify exactly how we can know what the presence of the Holy Spirit will produce.

V. 3 – “No one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus…” That makes sense.

While this was unlikely to be happening in their Church, statements about cursing Jesus were made in pagan temples.

Why?

Because from chapter 10 we know that those idols, though not real, were being powered by demons.

Read the Gospel accounts in the Bible.

The demons know exactly who Jesus is, and they don’t like him.

So apparently in these pagan temples, the worshipers possessed by their deity, uttering this “spiritual” babbling, were cursing Jesus.

This is a demonic practice, not Christian.

End of v. 3 – “no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.”

Of all the things to be said during times of worship, the one that is marked clearly as from the Holy Spirit is that Jesus is Lord.

So when the Holy Spirit is speaking to and through Christians, this is what He says, not some unintelligible babble.

“Jesus is Lord” is the earliest creed of the first-century Church, succinctly affirming the core of Christian doctrine.

What we know from the historical record is that at early Christian worship gatherings, guests would be asked to leave towards the end, and then the Christians would say this great statement together.

Only the Christians would say it because it isn’t true for anyone else.

Only the Christians would say it because only the Christians could say it.

Lord, Greek word kurios, was the official title of the Roman Emperor.

The cry of the Roman Empire was Caesar is Lord.

Christians would then affirm that, no Caesar is not, Jesus is Lord.

And that is a hugely theological statement.

Three short words, but eternally profound implications.

Jesus…can’t say that unless you affirm the reality of his existence, his earthly life and ministry.

Is…can’t say that unless you affirm the reality of his resurrection, which you cannot affirm unless you affirm his sacrificial death on the cross.

Lord…you cannot say that unless you affirm the Jesus deserves ultimate devotion and loyalty, meaning you must affirm Jesus’ ability to forgive sins, grant eternal life, instill hope, and his return to usher us into eternity.

All of that to say this: the true mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit is a focus on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Your faith is based on this Christian theology, not your experience, and not your emotions.

2. THE UNITY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS