Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Background:

As you are well aware of, we have been studying the significant section of Spiritual gifts.

The reason for Paul’s writing of this subject is at least two fold.

Reason number one has to do with the likelihood that this was a question raised to Paul about Spiritual gifts.

Ever since chapter 7, Paul has been addressing key questions the Corinthian church has raised him.

He usually begins each new answer with the phrase now concerning… as he does here in chapter 12 concerning spiritual gifts.

The second reason he writes to them about spiritual gifts and perhaps a better understanding as to why he saved this most important topic for this late in the letter has to do with how it connects so significantly with his previous admonition.

Sure, Paul could’ve began the question and answer time with Spiritual gifts because they are soooo essential for living godly and correct church life, but they fit sooo well after talking about the issues related to the Lord’s table.

Remember with me again, what was wrong with the way the Corinthians were conducting themselves around the Lord’s table?

Going back to vs. 17-22… we see that the church was loaded with selfish, sinful people acting in their fleshly way, thinking only for themselves, indulging themselves on the food meant for the poor and even beyond that, in a larger sense where dividing themselves all while yet taking communion and recognizing the sacrifice of the Lord.

Paul gives them very harsh rebuke of their treatment of the Communion and how they acted in ways to their fellow brethren that did not line up with the Lord they claim to remember in Communion.

It was a huge issue of selfishness rather than unity.

So Paul, being the wise apostle that God granted Him to be, chose to pick up his pen and write them a most important matter in the Spiritual sense that with proper understanding and practice would bring them true unity in the Lord, Spiritual Gifts.

I. Unity within Spiritual Gifts (v.1-11)

In verse 1-4, we saw how far off there were from understanding truly what a spiritual gift was.

As you may recall from a few weeks back, the church in Corinth allowed men to say in front of the church that Jesus was accursed because that man spoke “in the Spirit”.

They didn’t question his words because they truly believed he was using some sort of special gift from God to speak these words.

They did not understand the gifts so Paul set out to set them straight.

As we say in the last three weeks.

There is unity in the Spiritual gifts as we share certain bonds.

-We Confess the Same Lord

-We Depend on the Same God

-We Minister to the Same Body

-We Experience the Same Baptism

There is unity when we properly understand the purpose of the Spiritual Gifts.

Spiritual gifts are divine enablements for ministry, characteristics of Jesus Christ that are to be manifested through the body corporate just as they were manifested through the body incarnate.

Now this week, we will look at the diversity within the Spiritual Gifts and see how it truly is for the good of the church and for us.

II.

Diversity within Spiritual Gifts (v.12-31)

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

A. Unity in Diversity (v.12-14)

Why would Paul chose to write on Diversity?

Is it that important?

After listing the some the spiritual gifts in verses 8-11, perhaps some of the Corinthians were feeling that unity is impossible with so much diversity.

I mean, it’s hard enough to get along with someone we are kind of like, let along someone who is totally different than ourselves.

And that is exactly why, Paul will now direct they minds in these next verses especially the next 3 verses how diversity and unity can and should be viewed as compatible and in fact complimentary.

They work together!

Again as we read verses 12-14, we notice that the word one is used 7 times and the words many and members and the concept of it is used at least 3-4 times.

So how does Paul relate the concept of unity and diversity so that we can comprehend the 2 working cohesively.

He Illustrates it.

1. Illustration of our Unity

The illustration Paul gives is that of our human bodies and the individual members of it.

What does he mean by members.

The greek word simply gives us the idea portrayed as a “part of the body, a limb”.

What’s amazing to me is the wonder of God’s creation.

How everything He creates has meaning and expresses His divine plan.

Not only are our bodies fearfully and wonderfully made but they function in a way and were made in such a way to bring us further learning and understanding to the created order that God expects within His church.

This was not an after the fact thing.

Paul didn’t first create the human body then later think, oooohhh, what a perfect analogy of how the church is supposed to function.

Let’s use the human body as a great metaphor.

God does not work like that.

He is sovereign, supreme, His ways are so much higher, and all He does is perfect and cohesive.

What an amazing thought to ponder that the things that cause us so much excitement and are brilliantly construed together, are all just part of who God is and how He operates.

Unity and Function of the church needs to be exactly like the unity and the function of a human body.

One body, but many different parts all working at different tasks to cause the entire body to be efficient and effective.

Will address this in more detail in a minute, but be sure to catch the important word in these verses.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and ALL the members of the body, though many, are one body....” It is all.

2. Person of our Unity

Paul is so intent on driving home the point of oneness in the church that he refers to Christ as the church: so also is Christ.

We can no more separate Christ from His church than we can separate a body from its head.

When Christ is referred to as the head of the church it is always in the sense of mind, spirit, and control.

When a body loses its mind and spirit it ceases to be a body and becomes a corpse.

It still has structure but it does not have life.

It is still organized but it is no longer a living organism.

Through another figure for the church Jesus tells us the same truth.

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” He said.

“He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

A severed branch not only is an unproductive branch but a lifeless branch.

It is for that reason that the New Testament speaks of our being in Christ and of Christ’s being in us.

He is more than simply with His church; He is in His church and His church is in Him.

They are totally identified.

The church is an organic whole, the living manifestation of Jesus Christ that pulses with the eternal life of God.

The common denominator of all believers is that they possess the very life of God.

Jesus said, “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19).

“He who has the Son has the life” (1 John 5:12), because “the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Cor.

6:17).

The church is one body because so also is Christ.

This same Christ life is possessed by every believer, and every believer therefore is part of Christ, a part of His Body, the church.

That is why we have verses like Matthew 18:5

You could also see that played out in Matthew 25: 31-46.

The beauty of this then is seen in how He Jesus forms the body of Christ.

Jesus baptized us with the Holy Spirit and made us one with Him.

That is how He forms the church.

He literally immerses us with the divine God-head.

We all drink of One Spirit the Holy Spirit himself.

One Spirit baptism establishes one church.

There are no partial Christians, no partial members of Christ’s Body.

The Lord has no halfway houses for His children, no limbo or purgatory.

All of His children are born into His household and will forever remain in His household.

That also means that just as there are no partially saved Christians there are no partially indwelt Christians.

The Spirit of God is not parceled out to us in installments.

God gives the “spirit without measure” (John 3:34).

A person who does not have the Holy Spirit does not have eternal life, because eternal life is the life of the Spirit.

Some have taught that you need a second working of Grace.... second blessing.

According to some Christian traditions, mainly in some Methodist teaching and Pentacostal teaching, a second work of grace (also second blessing) is a transforming interaction with God which may occur in the life of an individual Christian.

The defining characteristics of the second work of grace are that it is separate from and subsequent to the New Birth (the first work of grace), and that it brings about significant changes in the life of the believer.

In other words, after one is saved, forgiven from sin, a new believer works in his salvation to receive the Holy Spirit to become entirely holy and purified, to complete his sanctification.

It was an instantaneous experience.

1 Corinthians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (The Filling of the Body)

The idea of the second blessing probably originated in the Middle Ages with the teaching that a person is saved when baptized, even though as an infant, and later receives the Holy Spirit at confirmation after coming of age.