Serving one another with charisma

high before I get into the trenches on 1st Corinthians chapter 12, we are going to ask that if you guys have questions or you have just some things that maybe he looked at me like I didn't hear it that way or what do you think about this rather than filling my inbox this week the idea will be to send in your questions. So please send them but no we are going to do a question and answers podcast for like what we did during quarantine and so Michael and I at the end of the letter of First Corinthian, we finished chapter 15 in 5 weeks. I believe we will then put out a podcast out of the same exact style that we did before Michael and I checked out and talk and probably talk a little bit more about the Greek and wording and things like that that are just super nerdy and I totally enjoy a but I would have How do you write those questions down and then you can email them at to me and then we will compile list of those questions and we threw the ones that sound really similar and then we'll begin to tackle those and it doesn't have to be just related 1st Corinthians 12. If you have any other questions, I might be willing to tackle some of them to that sound. Does that sound good everybody? Yeah supercooled. All right. Well this thing as we get into it, we're going to ask this. Just to help us so Holy Spirit, we know that you are active and present in our moving amongst our body and in your people and we really want to invite you into this time to speak words of wisdom and knowledge and to bring Clarity where things have been muddied and that you would I continue to move in and through your body and that we would function in the ways. The Holy Spirit would have us function and that we would serve one another through the very talents and gifting that you have. Arsenic manifested through the spirit in your people until God use us or through us. We invite you into this time a man. Well if you are tracking with us, and I've been reading through 1st Corinthians, one of the things that you quickly begin to realize with any of the letters that you pick up in the scriptures, if you are he's dropping in on a one-sided conversation, in fact prior to this letter being written to the Corinthian Church Paul had already spent about a year-and-a-half with this church discipling them according to chapter one baptizing some of them teaching them training them and then Paul takes off and this church write him a letter because they have all kinds of questions for him. And that letter is not a letter we have but we do have pause. Letter to the church before us here. And he begins to answer questions that they have been asking him pertaining to all sorts of ways of what does it look like to be a church in to be the people of God and Paul also has a specific dilemma with this church and dilemma Numero Uno 1 the biggest problem that we seen throughout this letter is there not a church United but a church divided not excellent. They are a church divided now, we're popping in on this conversation and there is a lot going on that is a little bit removed from us in a westernized post industrial revolution post-enlightenment culture. All right things that we're going to hear and go How about that Paul or that doesn't really relate to me in the world that I live in and there's a lot of issues and dilemmas and problems and yet we have to first and foremost begin to put ourselves in the shoes of these people as we read this letter and as we eavesdrop and listen in and if we joined this conversation here this morning, not only do we have this dilemma of I'm not a Corinthian living in that culture in that church, but I'm a westernized America and I bring in a whole host of presuppositions some background some thoughts and ideas to this text depending on how you were raised. Whether you were raised in the church or not, I've heard that before me personally. When I first started going to church my family is a part of the AG better known as the Assemblies of God church and the church that I specifically attend. They were probably a bit more as Michael was talking about last week on that. I'm not quite charismania, but definitely very charismatic side of issues when it comes to 1st Corinthians chapter 12 after about nine or ten years in that church. My family had left that church and went to a non-denominational church that adhere to Thai hot and believed that the Holy Spirit was working and in our midst but a lot of that was just regulated to specific times that we would gather to engage in such said activity and then later on in life. I began to move towards a more just analytical approach to the Holy Spirit like I can sing. I can explain I'm comfortable with but the things I can explain. Can we just let the weirdos do that? Like like can we just can we just make sure it's comfortable and myself approaching this text has to undo 30 something years of church background in order to get at the heart of what Paul has with the Holy Spirit has for each and every one of us and so I want to do and I spent so much time this week in this text to really grasp. What is the meaning of its inventor context? How does this thing move into what it means in my heart my life our church collectively. What is the spirit saying speaking? What is the spirit want to do in this place and each and every one of you bring some kind of background? Into this morning, maybe you've been a part of what we might label that Pentecostal extreme charismatic church, and some of you have walked away from that a little bit change it you were promised Shillings and prosperity and you were promised certain gifts from the spirit. If you just asked and all of a sudden these things would happen for you and you go but it doesn't make a lot of sense for me and maybe drop it a tradition or you move to a tradition where you kind of put a straight jacket on the Holy Spirit. Like as long as I'm comfortable, we're good and let's just not move beyond that and I think both those extremes incredibly missed the heart of Paul in the situation. Two things just got really clarify. When we look at the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads us to truth teaching and testifying of Jesus. We are born of the spirit and sealed by the spirits that Ephesians chapter 1. If you are a believer in Jesus, the Holy Spirit has sealed you If you're in Christ, the spirit of God illuminates the scriptures and walking by the spirits we bear much fruit. And that's sort of the realm that a lot of people want to just hang in when it comes to the holy spirit with the reality is the holy spirit is not just there to make you a better version of yourself, but actually empowers and manifest certain working in order to actually serve and care for one another and this is what Paul is getting out in this chapter. He's not going to get it as Michael talked about here's your gift has your gift. Here's your gift. Now you just go hang on to that and serve in that is getting at this idea that if the church comes together the Holy Spirit manifest himself in a way that didn't use his gifts as we typically understand or grew up understanding in order to serve and care for one another. So let me read this to you and then we're going to do some hard work and I'm going to apply this to our lives here. So in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 Pull up right there at verse 1 now concerning spirituals. Should we read the next word there? No, we shouldn't you're here last week that word is not in any translation or excuse me should be in any translation because the word is concerning spiritual Michael talked about this last week. And so you can go ahead and listen to that if you missed it Brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were LED astray to mute Idols. However, you were LED therefore. I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God says Jesus is a curse. No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now, there are a variety of gifts. Carismatica is the word there. But the same spirit that was interesting there are varieties of services how many you've ever heard a sermon on spiritual services? Wow, that's the only person that's intriguing how many giver her teaching on spiritual gifts. Interesting, huh. Now he's going to stay there are what activities how many never heard teaching on spiritual activities? For some reason what we have done is replying to this idea a spiritual and attaching it to the word gifts in order to explain everything that Paul is going to talk about here, but we don't want to do that with any of the other words there. I'm going to argue that that has actually been a wrong than understanding of spiritual gifts because it's actually not the way that Paul intended for us to read it. What he wants to see is that there's a lot of these features not as there's a lot of these gifts. There's a lot of services for the same Lord. There's a variety of activities that the same God who empowers them all in everyone interesting to each is given here is what you're given talked about gifts. And now we each is given what the manifestation another word you might read in there is the Revelation are the review lean or the opening the understanding Richard given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good for the one is given to the spirit the other words of wisdom to know the address of knowledge according to the Same Spirit to another by The Same Spirit to another Gifts of healing by the one Spirit to another the working of Miracles to another prophecy to another the ability to distinguish between spirits to another various kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the Same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he Wills first 12, we're just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body. The many are the one body. So it is with Christ born one Spirit. We are baptized into one body used or Greek slave or free and all were made to drink of wine beer and Paul is going to continue to go on and talk about the necessity of the unit. Of the body of Christ and he moves someone away from just the specific ideas of gifts. And he said the heart of this text the heart of this passage is it you guys are using whatever the spirit is manifesting in your Gatherings to promote yourself to exalt yourself to make oneself better than the person next to you, which should not be happening. This is causing Division and it should not be so do some hard work some background work when we consider the world. That Paul was writing to versus our world. We have two very different understandings reality. Here's what I mean by that because of the Enlightenment are Western Scientific world. We can have a bit of a gag reflex anytime somebody comes to us and talk about something now. I don't like this word but considers super natural. Somebody goes. Oh man. There is a supernatural thing that happened in real life. I don't know about that. Somebody comes to us or overhearing a conversation at coffee and somebody's talking to the Holy Spirit. I don't know if I want to hear that have pushed back because we live in a world that really want to deal with naturalistic have naturalistic solutions to every single problem historically Supernatural Powers have been invoked to explain phenomena as diverse as Lightning seasons in human scenes, which now, we understand scientifically so innocent in our world things that are spiritual to people outside of any kind of religious tradition. They're going to go. Yeah, we don't know about that. You guys are a little bit weird. That's the kind of world that we live in but if you think Consider the people in Paul's day almost every single person was religious. They even had a category 4 in which the gods would come down and walk amongst them. Do they not grab Paul and Barnabas and try to call them Zeus and Apollo. The god should come down. They were a highly religious heightened awareness to religiosity. And so there is a thump Shin that spiritual thing would happen among human beings because there is something bigger Grande or greater whether you believed in Yahweh or you believed in the palestra and abundance of gods that there was something else at work and culture and Society the vast majority of people then either worshiped and fully participated in worship of the gods or at least and do a word and put up with it in order to continue with their relationships and promote their business is kind of like being in a Christian in Texas. What you did who you are y'all are Christians because you were born there. So y'all were religious because you were born in a highly religious piety. So inspirational words about didn't stop or mock them or look at them in disgust. They said of course, there's going to be super natural science courses going to be spirituals. Of course God In the Flesh would walk on water, storms. He'll raise the Dead with set free captives from bonded with cast out demons, of course that stuff would happen. She going to some Churches today and we're like, yeah.

maybe the gift of getting that might happen. Yeah, that one's there. Maybe the gift of me being a really good speaker. That might happen. Yeah. Yeah, that one might be there some of this other stuff. I don't think so. They're too out of the ordinary for American Western thinking mindset is what I want to do is I want to recapture this idea that if you come from a tradition that looked at these things and goes. Oh, no, no way heck no could not happen. That would be in to push you a little bit towards this middle ground that says maybe the spirits would want to manifest different things amongst our body. I want to see somebody his way over here and it's ready for the Gold Dust to fall down from heaven and to view these things. That's my talent my gift from my prosperity to begin to understand what Paul is preaching here saying actually that's not your thing. The gift of the Holy Spirit has been given to you and he's been going to manifest these gifts in order to benefit and teach and help and serve the body not simply you personally. It is the spirit pleases you will move in that capacity and when we look at these things. They definitely understood the spirituals as Paul would say in 1st Corinthians 12:1 the spirituals to exist. Let me read you this excerpt comes from Wikipedia. So take it for what it's worth, but it was commonplace idea within the Greco-Roman world.

That Divine beans spoken languages differ from Human languages and historians of religion and identify two references to esoteric speech in Greco-Roman literature that resembles La Sicilia or as we know it a question that word language is an example and account of The Testament of jovic the non-canonical elaboration of the Book of Job where the daughters of described as being given sassy and seeing in according to Dale B. Martin Garcia, according High status accorded High status and the ancient world due to the association with the Divine here is their belief And here lies the problem chords. If you spoke. In other religions and their traditions in an unknown tongue it elevated you and made you more important spiritually. That's what they thought process was. If you had this capacity, if you have this ability, all of a sudden you were acquainted what we considered a megachurch pastor who must have the divine blessing on God and whatever he or she may say that goes you are important you are valuable because you have this gift you see how divisive that could be in this church in Corinth when the spirit manifested himself through the literal. Idea of tongue happening in their Gathering and some people win. Pretty Elite where the stuff we got fish already down. You better listen to us and Paul says this should not it's causing dilemmas and problems divisions and schisms in your Gatherings. So knock it off. Do not Elevate. The reality of the spirit is manifesting a gift through you to be your Marcus spirituality and declare you as better as somebody else do not use it to get what you get privilege but use it to build up the church. So he says concerning spirituals concerning not verse 1 the brothers and sisters that are doing this stop.

I don't know. It's probably 10 months ago. I sat down with my friend Bill and he loves words and language and all sorts of stuff so much more. You should get to know him. He's a great guy and I was sitting down I said, what do you think about all this stuff? And he sent me a bunch of these academic articles gifts and one of the things that kept coming up in these articles is they didn't use the word they called them Grace expressions. They called them service expressions and activity Expressions. Essentially the stuff the Holy Spirit Doug and this is the expression is manifestation of that. Here's the deal. If I am angry right now. You wouldn't know you wouldn't know. But if I punch you in the face, that would be an expression of my anger of what's inside of me. That's what Paul is talking about here when he's talking about this idea of services activities and charismatic gifts of the holy spirit that is in you and these are the things the holy spirit. Will you amongst you get tracking that it's not once again dealing the cards out. Here's the gift. It's saying here are gifts. Here's a variety of junk drawer terms and ideas and stuff the spirit does and it's the spirit sees fit. He will move and press upon people that are gathered in the name of Jesus to function and operate Within These. expressions because the spirit isn't getting any head not that make a little bit more sense because if you grew up in my tradition you got saved and you got handed something and that was the thing you had to walk in and use them. How do you throw up a slide here? It comes from a commentator. I really like it's kind of a commentary is last name is Garland comes from the baker series of commentaries and he says things like this notice. I did not say you were giving a spiritual gift but opportunity for the spirit to work through you the manifestation of the spirit should not be construed as a particular gift that belongs to or is possessed by an individual Christian at 10 to postulate a separate gift distinct from the action of The Giver rather the spirit of God in Christ expresses himself in a variety of ways for the unified purpose of bringing together the people of God in a common Unity community. And as you look at these gifts that he lists here. He says there's a distributions of gifts. But the Same Spirit there's a distribution of service for Sprint service expressions with the same Lord that were in the Lord. There is Kairos which is often used to refer to Christ and then he says there's a different distributions of expressions of working negativity, but the same day off All these gifts are not Gifts of just the spirit alone. They are gifting at the Triune God. The trinity in that passage to the best thing that we can actually do is not call them. Guess but trinitarian gift jeans because we receive the gift of the spirit that's in the spirit Works through his people. Hope that makes sense to you. I hope that shift begins to work in our heart and work on our life. So practical what we are not saying we are not staying there are no working or manifestations of the spirit is at Ealing prophecy tongues. Teaching generosity Etc. What I am saying is the spirit is the gift you receive the Holy Spirit, you're a Believer you have the spirit of God in you and submission to the spirits and you can Quench and even ignore the spirits there for the spirit can manifest disease Give scares modest through you to the benefit of the body of Christ This Is The Stuff the spirit. And it's never just for an individual but it's always for the building up the church. So what does it mean? How does it apply to ask quickly and we're out of here sing. Some songs will take communion wait on the Lord, but for me, this is what this kind of relates to and applies to each and everyone of us in the tradition that I grew up Teresa's famous. Lima tester always sad and it's stuck with me. I think it's incredibly valuable hear the best ability is availability. Best ability is availability Corinth was on the note that the best ability was tongues. The best ability is Haley. The best ability was this thing that maybe I got said it was causing division know what this is teaching is are you available? Are you willing to wait to sit to listen to be with the people of God? It's why we believe in real time real estate people gathered together in order for the spirit to actually move amongst one. Another even in this room. Are you available availability is often throughout the structure of the kinds of people he use it. It's rarely the most talented gifted but it's the Moses's who can't even speak who have murdered someone never ran away from their home and their people have done outside of everything hit ever known and God says you you Availability is available and we see this throughout the scriptures and we see this even in history R A Torrey wrote the holy spirit is not just a power that we in our weakness and ignorant person how to get a hold and use but the holy spirit is a personal being infinitely wise infinitely. Holy infinitely tender who get a hold of us and use it.

Mike lost a question last week. Who wants to be used by the spirits? The question is how many of you actually asked and pleaded and petitioned and then waited on Holy Spirit use me. Use me. I know I pray a lot of my life Holy Spirit change me and of the Holy Spirit Works in that way. What would it look like to be a church that says holy spirit use me. Give me eyes to see the marginalized. Give me eyes to see the displaced. Give me a heart of compassion in this moment when it can be such a terrifying world and all we can be consumed with an all we can think about is the protection and safety of my family right now with everything no matter what side of the argument whatever side of the discussion you currently sit on in light of what's going on in Oltorf are countries with fires with political agenda and everything else the Austin thing that I hear it. I'm just so terrified and scared and we insulate we should chat but what if we ask the Holy Spirit how would you move in and manifest yourself that you actually care for the people around me? We need that Grace right now of the spear to do that in our lives to get our eyes off ourselves and that has to be a move of the spirit because as humans are first inclination is to protect Garden take care of What is ours not to give of ourselves?

surviving evil spirits a manifest himself in many ways policy Don't suppress ignore. But he might press on each and every heart in here. Look at this. I don't want us to see the tree and miss the forest. I can name Romans First Corinthians Galatians Philemon and a section of Philippians. The Paul is specifically dealing with the division in the church and why he's writing letters. And we can do is go kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss of all I can see the big issue here because they lived in a world. That was Gordon quotes spiritual Supernatural those things. What happened? Little confused on how they were using those in terms of promotion and self-promotion. And so will we get to the section? Like, I don't know about any of that stuff. I don't want to focus on that, but I wanted to see how people have to be unified and then that the spirit begins to work through us. Just really I'm intruding section in Mark chapter 9 the disciples tried to cast out this demon and Jesus have just been transfigured on the mountain and he comes down and he's going to guys have you not learned anything and Jesus cast out this demon and then just a few verses maybe even one later that I'm Jesus Jesus. There's a guy over there and he cast out demons in your name.

Stop cuz you're not with us. You're not part of your crew. She was goes. Hey anyone that's not against us is for us. Why do I bring this up? Because he was using a manifestation of the spirit casting out these demons and over here are Jesus's 12 and they're super jealous. Why is that guy ministering? Why is God blessing that? Why is God doing that? And I know I know that is not just a church leadership issue that looks around the town and goes why do they have in that? And why are they doing that? But the reality is why can't we celebrate how God is manifesting himself throughout the Christian Community in Redmond and Beyond? All right. Why can't we get behind when somebody else is doing something great and safe, let's support them. Why is the first inclination one? Another church is doing a drive for example Mission which I just heard has plenty plenty of stuff right now, but there's this part is like maybe we should have done that. We should have been known for that. Why can't we just go, cool and awesome and team Jesus is amazing and is using gift in that church to show The Compassion to Grace and the mercy of God to people who are displaced in our own local church. Do we go? Hey Brad, why is there another person getting delete a prayer group or a Bible study artista? Kurriculum. I'm the one that gets to do that.

Get as many gifts of the Spirit is manifesting in his people in this church, and he's biting inviting all of us to participate in that. The only tragic thing to do just sit on the outside brother to get involved and be working in the ways that he wants you to the most tragic thing of Christianity is just a Sunday Worship Christian Brothers understanding that I asking and pleading with the spirit to work and move through you. He actually can Will and Das.

Examples number three the church needs to be flexible Spirit blows. Like the wind goes where the spirit once and will do as he pleases and to be willing to be flexible in to see moves of God and then to see sometimes when that is feeling like it's not happening in the same way and finally to serve one another through the gifts to my final example of this. I was hoping to explain each and every one of those things coming up. I'm going to pass on that today, but here's what I mean by this to serve one another how through the spirit the Triune God is the source. God is the one as we see God the Father God the son God the holy spirit is the one who gives these gift. I guess you've seen a cent owns and possesses. Then we act more like a transporter or like FedEx and for like an hour or 5 hours 20 days depending on what you ordered FedEx has hands, but what's the intention intentions to get it out there to benefit and blessed somebody else. That's what the holy spirit is doing The Giver of those things moving through you the people in order to build up one another one of each one of those things look like That's next week. We're going to talk next week about healing which only believe God still heals moves and works in that way. We're not talk about prophecy tongue that can be part of chapter 14 red talk about words of wisdom words of knowledge space in order for these things to actually happen in our church. But what I hope we've done is it taking you either from a position of I don't think so or way way over here to yep. Yep. And this is my thing to what does it look like to be the people of God to come together to actually wait on the spirit to move through his church to build one another up in Christ. Jesus mission requires that you individually we corporately be filled with the Holy Spirit. We can't be who Jesus has made us to be we can't do what Jesus has called us to do unless we are filled with the she's me weakness. We are filled by the power and the presence of the person of the holy spirit's fusions 5 do not be drunk with wine which leads to debauchery but be filled with the holy spirit's it's already said your seal verse in chapter 1 verse 13 now, he says the Dell by the Holy Spirit, how ask Google Cup this morning instead of Holy Spirit fill me so I can come to the Gathering to see your Works manifested amongst your people.

Bram Jesus thank you for your kindness your love and your generosity and giving yourself for us. And also as you told your disciples you had to go away. So the Holy Spirit would come not even better hard for us to Adam or imagined and that you worked through your people to bring about your king to make you continue and further the story of Jesus invites you to work in that way Holy Spirit. We come to you with a posture Open Hearts open hands. In order to receive what you want to do in this next 15 to 20 minutes in our church. Hill people with words of knowledge with words of wisdom still people with understanding and discernment because each person in here is facing something different but together you brought us together to serve and care for one another through the manifesting of these gifts that you have given each and everyone of us. So maybe we use them to build up the body of Christ. We invite you into this place this time in Jesus name. Amen.