I Corinthians 12:12-33
Notes
Transcript
I Corinthians 12:12-33
Intro slide -
Big Idea - God has called me to get on the field and use the gifting that God has given me...oneness, glory ...?
Jump right into the teaching - use the first illustration as a late opener.
1. Oneness, The Body of Christ only works when I am unified with other Believers.
Or, I must work for unity.
Illustration of Oneness -
-Live cover songs.
-Have you ever heard a live band cover your favorite song from when you were in high school? Or had a live band play your favorite worship song?
-When the band is together and playing well, it’s great. You relax - you’re into it. You love it. It speaks to you.
-When the band hasn’t practiced and is not together they just don’t do justice to the song. You kind of wince when they play it. Maybe you’re a little embarrassed for them.
-When they are on - you sing along.
-You can tell when skilled musicians have practiced together.
What is created is beautiful.
-Why, because they are together.
-There is musical oneness.
God calls His church to be one. To be together. To play in unison.
He calls you and I to play in unison with other Christ followers.
In the United States we have a big cultural challenge.
We are the most individualized nation in the world. In the U.S. we do not think team, group, family.
We think me, I, self.
When making a decision we ask the question, What is best for me.
In highly group focused cultures (especially in Asia) the first question is not, What is best for me. It is - what is best for my group, team, family, my church.
-Why is this important?
It is important to know that our own American culture of individualism pushes against and blinds us to the biblical view of oneness. So, you and I have to work extra hard to get it right.
You and I have a cultural bias against oneness.
We see in verse 13, Those who are united are not all the same kinds of people.
Jesus brought us ALL together into one body.
The focus us unity.
What does it mean that Jews, Greeks, slaves, and free became unified?
It means that these groups put down their agenda’s and rallied around a few basic issues of focus:
Glorifying God, Reaching the lost, growing in becoming disciples of Jesus.
vs. 13, All kinds of people being brought into one body
Read, vs 13
It is common in the New Testament for the word “all” to mean all kinds of people.
Part of this is a fight against the natural sinful human tendency to classify ourselves into groups.
-In the US we see this in racism.
-We see also see this in our cultural groupings:
Wealthy, poor
Cool kids, the normies
White collar, blue collar
The stylish, The plane
God saved all kinds of people. Not just the kinds of people we like.
The challenge is doing ministry shoulder to shoulder with people that are different than us.
Do you realize that today, 7-8 hours ago in Israel, there were Christian Palestinians (who have friends and family in the Gaza Strip), and Jewish Christians who were worshiping in together in churches in Israel.
-2 groups who were diametrically opposed in many ways together in Christ.
Not just together in worship, but together in ministering to others with their spiritual gifts.
People who are politically very different.
People who nationalistically and historically very different worshiping together.
I don’t know of a more different 2 groups of Christian people.
Coming together to love one another, minister together and bring glory to God together.
-That is a miracle of The Spirit of God.
How did these Jews and Palestinians become unified? The same way the Corinthians became unified. Verse 13 tells us.
vs. 13 (read)
“Drink the Spirit” We have all together been through the same process of salvation and receiving the Spirit.
-If you are a Christ Follower, you received the Holy Spirit in your soul at the moment of salvation.
-The Spirit of God was deposited inside of you.
-We call this Baptist of the Holy Spirit.
-We really are better and stronger together.
-We only come together by the perfect miraculous power of the Holy Spirit.
-By the indwelling of God Himself which happens to every person when they become saved.
Aristotle said - The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
-When we are unified in our spiritual giftedness we are much more effective than if we tried to do ministry on our own.
GOSPEL???
Transition - One of the many problems the Corinthians had was thinking that there were some spiritual gifts that were more important than others.
-They fell into the trap of the 11th Commandment.
-You shall not compare yourself to others.
verses 14-26, speak to this
II. vs. 14-26, The spiritual gift God gave me is important.
Each and every gift that God has given is needed and important in the body of Christ. Especially the gift that you have been given.
Illustration -
Graduates - All of our graduates are heading to college.
Once out of college most will be hired by a company or a small business.
That company will have many parts.
-Production (making the product or providing a service), Quality Control, Legal, Technology Support, Human Resources, Accounting, Maintenance.
-Every one of these areas and skills is needed for that company to be successful.
-When one area begins to be ineffective, is absent or is short handed, the whole company suffers.
-You think you don’t need the legal department, and you can get away with it for a little while, but when it all hits the fan and you don’t have legal help - you are sunk.
-I personally would not want to work in accounting, but if you don’t have accounting, you don’t have paychecks and your don’t have taxes paid.
-All these areas are so necessary.
-The whole company feels the stress of not having one of the teams that they need.
-If you are a Christ Follower, and most people here would say that they are, you have been given at east one Spiritual Gift. Your gift is needed.
-You are very needed.
What Spiritual Gift Do I Have?
Where do I go from here?
Look at your spiritual gifts sheet.
-Everyone didn’t see this last week because it was Mother’s Day.
This is a list of Spiritual Gifts that are found in the New Testament.
Take this sheet home.
Ask the Lord to help you understand what your spiritual gift is.
Find a mature Christian that knows you well. Ask them, Will you watch my life and help me figure out what Spiritual gift I have?
When you are working in it you will enjoy what you are doing.
You will begin to feel a bit of a draw toward certain areas of ministry.
Take you Spiritual Gifts paper - Read it. Pray over it.
Step out - Start trying some different ministries.
Start looking for areas to serve in.
Pause - FUNNY
There is one important verse I want you to look at … verse 17
17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
If the whole body were an eye? If the whole body were an eye?
You see Paul was way ahead of his time. He is the one who gave Pixar the idea for this guy - Mike Wazowski.
-With spiritual gifts, Our tendency is to fall into what Psychologists call
diffusion of responsibility.
When a task is placed before a group of people, there's a strong tendency for each individual to assume someone else will take responsibility for it—so no one does.
Paul says, no - every single person has a roll to play.
In Corinth, the youngest, poorest, dirtiest slave girl had an important part to play in the body of Christ. Her roll to play may be right next to the wealthiest, most educated, best groomed and dress, Philosopher.
See, both the slave and the wealthy could be given the same gift as the spirit or complimenting gifts that caused them to be in need of each other.
What kind of God is this that has Kings and Paupers serving and ministering right next to each other?
-We serve a God not of human invention, but of eternal beauty.
-Pause
Teaching - intro into the next point.
Transition - In Corinth there was not only beauty, but brokenness.
In the broken Church at Corinth church members wanted spiritual gifts that would impress others.
Many were not looking for God to be glorified. They were looking to their own honor.
The showiest gift of all to the Corinthians was the gift of speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is when someone speaks in an unknown language and then someone with the gift of interpreting tongues tells you what that person just said.
The Corinthians had over emphasized this gift of speaking in tongues.
The lie that they believed is that the spiritual elite, the most special people spoke in tongues.
Look what Paul does in verses 27-31
Paul gives them a list of gifts. Read verse 27-31.
Look what gift is last.
Paul gives this gift last to say, this is the least important - you have made it the most important. You have ruined and made it for yourself.
We are to desire gifts that, vs. 31 are higher or greater.
What are those gifts
vs. 27-31, Desire the gifts that build up the body.
The point of having spiritual gifts is to serve the Body Christ.
Paul brings the focus back from individualism to glorifying God through strengthening each other.
Closing Question
1. What gift do you have?
-If you don’t know, will you go to God for Him to show you? Will you search it out?
2. In what way has God called you to get out of the stands, get on to the field and participate in the body of Christ?
