What About Spiritual Gifts?

we need to use our spiritual gifts in community and not isolation Paul starts to paint this picture in our head He shows us how the body is used in harmony with one another If we only use our hands for everything we do there's going to be a lot of things we either can't do at all or can't do very well But if you have your Bibles go ahead and flip to 1 Corinthians chap 12 1 Corinthians chapter 12 And if you've been with us uh we've been studying through the book of Corinthians and we've been kind of doing this through the lens of asking these questions of "Hey Paul," of asking the Apostle Paul who wrote this letter inspired by the Holy Spirit some really difficult spiritual questions that the first church in Corinth asked and we're asking today And and as we're going through this today we come against a topic that honestly is a lot in there as we get to talk about spiritual gifts and depending on kind of maybe what background you come from or maybe church denomination if you've kind of grown up There's a lot of different views when it comes to this topic Christians have divided over it Denominations have been started because of it And today as we approach this chapter and we come to it here's what I think we need to do in order to justice to it and to be faithful to the text is we need to ask four questions about spiritual gifts that flow out of 1 Corinthians chap 12 And as we ask these four questions about spiritual gifts it's going to enlighten us and it's going to push us in a direction of Paul is going to kind of maybe challenge some notions we have and kind of push us into a certain direction And after we ask those then we're going to have one kind of application question to leave us with a challenge as we leave today But here's our first question as we start is so simple is what is a spiritual gift and in 1 Corinthians 12 starting in verse one Paul says this Now concerning spiritual gifts you wonder how I got my topic for this week He started it right there in verse one It's so nice I'm like what's this chapter about now concerning spiritual gifts boom we're done right and he's saying "Brothers and sisters," he's writing this to the church He says "I don't want you to be unaware You know that when you were pagans you used to be enticed and you used to be led astray by mute idols Therefore because of this because Jesus has transformed your life you're no longer in that life." He said "I want you to know that no one speaking by the spirit of God says Jesus is cursed." And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit You see Paul starts this chapter right away and he thinks that he believes that we need to have a proper understanding of what spiritual gifts are all about And the first thing he wants us to understand as we dive into these first three verses is that a spiritual gift is a gift from God You see Paul is making very clear here that spiritual gifts cannot be used apart from God Verse three is an important one there because he's saying that we cannot use our spiritual gift to its full intent and be outside of his will The way he kind of makes that argument he's saying is no one can be using a spiritual gift and then said Jesus is cursed Why because the Holy Spirit can only proclaim Jesus as Lord So if it's truly a spiritual gift if we're truly using it to its fullest extent it is this gift that is from God and from him alone But he keeps going in verse four He says "Now there are different gifts I love this He says "There are different gifts but the same spirit There are different ministries but the same Lord." Verse six there are different activities but the same God works all of them in each person Paul builds on his definition as a spiritual gift is not just a gift from God but it is a gift from God that uses the power of God I just love the word play he uses here He's like "Hey there there's different gifts that we're not all wired the same We don't have all the same abilities but it's the same God behind them He says there's there's different ministries There's different parts of a church There's different parts of the way people act inside the church but it's the same God And he says there's different activities We have different interests but it's the same God behind them You see Paul is building his case very early on that the power of our gifting does not come from us It comes from God And we're going to talk about ways later that I think we can craft those and form those but ultimately this all comes from him We see this throughout scripture and more places through the New Testament In James 1:17 it says that every good and perfect gift is from God above coming down from the Father That our world has gifts for us but the ones that are good the ones that are perfect the ones that are greater are from God and God alone And see how he wraps up this definition in verse seven of what is a spiritual gift He says that there's a manifestation of the spirit that is given to each person for the common good Now I just love that verse and and one it has a really cool word in it manifestation Just use that this week All right that's a that's a pretty sweet word to use Just drop in casual conversation You'll feel really smart All right Um how to do that i don't know Just ask Chat GPT It'll help you out But he's saying a manifestation of the spirit He's saying that God working through you God providing this gift that when that happens he says what does it lead to and this is important is it leads it's given to each individual person But why for the common good When he says the common good here he's not talking about like a perfect secular utopia which does not exist He's not talking about like some perfect form of capitalism or some perfect form of socialism And depending on where you lie you're like neither of those are right And honestly the truth is neither of those make sense regardless But instead when he says common good he is not talking about the perfect government or country He is saying a perfect good in the sense that we this is common good is for those people who love and care for one another through the power and through the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ And what he's telling us right off the bat is that our po our our gifts that we have they should all point to God This past Wednesday uh was my birthday Um anyone want to guess how old I am i heard a lot of twelves All right Uh rude No Okay Uh someone actually said it up here I think you know so you cheated But I'm 34 And that was actually a big deal for me cuz um a lot of great people in history died at 33 All right Alexander the Great Jesus Um so I was a little scared and then history was like "You ain't gonna be Andrew the Great so you fine All right Uh you're gonna go on." But as I turned last week and and on my birthday I was you know 34 My my mother-in-law she's like super generous super nice She's like "What do you want for your birthday?" And I was like "Cash." All right That's the But you didn't help me You didn't Let me tell you why All right I said cash because I was like you know as an adult you buy what you want But I'm like sometimes you know buying something for my spell specifically is I've been looking online at different deals and I want to continue to buy more Nike Devon Booker Chapter 1 shoes It's what I'm actually wearing right now Okay And and my goal is to have there's a ton of different colors of these things Like I'm just going to own a lot of them and it's pretty much my exclusive preaching shoe Okay Um but so I was like I want cash cuz I want to buy my book chapter 1's All right And there's two more coming in the mail So to be concluded you know you're going to see them later Anyway uh but in that I was thinking about it I was like you know I bought myself the gift but the money I used to buy it was Apple Pay that my my mother-in-law sent me so that I could use that gift And I was like technically I didn't get the gift for myself Technically all the resources all the capital used to purchase was from my in-laws And when it comes to our spiritual gifts is the same way is you don't manifest it You don't just work hard and develop it It is from God It is given to you by God It uses the power of God to give glory to God And when we define a spiritual gift that way it is the first step in making sure is this truly a spiritual gift or is it something we're using to build ourselves up that is outside of him But Paul continues on and he asks our second question Not only is what is a spiritual gift but then he talks about what kind of spiritual gifts are there and and you ready for this we're going to pick up in verse 8 and I don't think these verses won't be on the screen because we'll just kind of talk through them as they come But we're about to open a big can of worms here All right cuz Paul gets into it right here starting in verse 8 And he starts to talk about some of the different kinds of spiritual gifts that are out there And he first starts here He says "To one is given a message of wisdom through the spirit." One of the spiritual gifts that we see is there are gifts of wisdom And when you talk about wisdom this isn't you just being smart and you being wise on your own This is supernatural wisdom where God gives you an ability to see things differently We see this throughout scripture in the Old Testament Solomon prayed for wisdom and Solomon became the wisest man on in the world at that time It was a supernatural type wisdom something that goes inside with this He says to another a message of knowledge by the same spirit You you probably noticed that not all of us are the same form of knowledge especially when it comes to God and his word and his truth When we started our church in Phoenix our campus over there a couple from here Scott and Donna Dansky they came over they were in this congregation they moved over to Phoenix to help my wife and I plant that church and they're still here to this day But Scott Weldansky had a Bible knowledge and a truth knowledge like no one else Every time I preach he'd be flipping through his Bible and I'm like I hope he's he's looking up verses that compliment my message and not go against it right i was like am I going to have a conversation after that i'm a heretic But he he was coming in his but his head He just had so much scripture in his head He would just look that compliments and sees and he would come and encourage after But he had a gift of knowledge like I've rarely seen in other people Paul continues in verse 9 He says to another faith by the same spirit Do you know there's a spiritual gift of faith all of us get that to some degree But if we're honest there are some who have a stronger faith who have a deeper faith who trust God more in the trials than some of us And some naturally just have a faith in God that we wish we could aspire to He says to another all right here's here's where the charismatics come All right to another gifts of healing by the one spirit We're going to break these down and talk about this a little more but here Paul says that that God heals And we see this throughout scripture that Jesus healed the apostles here There was healings in that way He says to another the performing of miracles when when he talks about these miracles as he was speaking about some of the miracles of Jesus like turning water into wine of Jesus when they ran out of food and and a boy came and brought his loaves and his fish to Jesus His disciples brought he broke it and he and all of a sudden they fed 5,000 people Uh yesterday I had a 7-year-old's birthday My son he had a Pokemon birthday which Pokemon still being cool is weird for me because it was cool when I was a kid I'm like I know the OG Pokemon All right Um but he we we had a mishap with Costco and they messed up our order So we got way less pizza than we were supposed to And we're bringing this pizza and there's like 50 people and I just like prayed over I'm like "God multiply this pizza." All right And he did No I'm just kidding Uh we took leftovers home So either people didn't eat or was a miracle of God Who's to say i don't know Um it could have been just Costco has a lot of pizza and they're really really big But he continues He says to miracles Uh but but he also continues on there He says to another prophecy The prophecy he speaks here is a prophecy we see throughout scripture of the Old Testament prophets but also John the Baptist is saying this is what God is going to do This is what is coming He says to another distinguishing between spirits I love this one is there is a gifts of discernment that are in our church And when we say discernment here this is spiritual discernment We watched a video earlier about a church being uh planted in Utah surrounded by Mormonism And Mormons is one of those religion where they think they're in Christianity but everyone is as a Christian like no bro you ain't the same Right and there's discernment there of saying like this is right This is not right When you use another book that discernment says us like besides the Bible that's usually not on the same track But there's gifts of discernment that we need inside our church and with one another to walk that right direction He he continues on and he says to another different kinds of tongues All his baptisms got a little uncomfortable right that there are gifts of tongues and and some say is this whether it's foreign tongues that all of a sudden people speaking in different languages that are human language Some say this is angelic tongue But here Paul couples this with which scripture often does that there's an interpretation of tongues There's an interpreter that knows what's happening in that But here's what I love in verse 11 He says "One and the same spirit is active in all of these distributing to each person as he wills." You see he's saying there's all these different kind of gifts that God's giving us these different gifts in all these different ways But then even skip down to verse 31 I love this He gives us another category But desire the greater gifts and I will show you an even better way is there are greater gifts that that Paul lays out that God provides that are moving these spiritual gifts And when we look at this list we see gifts of wisdom of knowledge of faith of healing of miracles of prophecy of discernment of tongues interpretation and the greater gifts If you flip over to Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 and you can note those down for later study but Paul adds to this list gifts like serving and teaching and encouraging and giving and leadership and mercy and more And when you look at all this it can be a little overwhelming to see it all and be like "Okay like where am I gifted in?" And then where are we going to get into with this and where where does this lead how do we see all these in the church today what is this starting to how does this like show up in 2025 but before we get there and we'll dive into that a second here is what Paul is trying to start to drill into their head is that there's a lot of different giftings but the mission does not change On Black Friday last year I don't know why um but for some reason my wife said "Let's get all the kids in the van all four of them and let's go to Home Depot on Black Friday." Okay and actually I think the reason was because we had to buy paint because I had to do a project that I got sprung on me later All right But as I'm at Home Depot I see like a toolbox And we had just moved into our new house in Nor Surprise a month before this And I was like I need some tool space I'm like the kids have taken all my space in my life Okay Um they're filling literally every bedroom in our house All right And I was like I need something for me And I'm looking at this toolbox I'm like that can totally fit in our minivan It did not All right Um found that out But while I was there I ran into Don And Don Meesman is an amazing man He's actually right over here um in our church And Don works at Home Depot and he is like the tool guy and he's like he's like "Hey did it fit?" I'm like "Nope." He's like "Just put a note on it put my name and I'll deliver it to your house." Don got off work after a shift I gave him his address Literally the best service Home Depot has ever given He unloaded it off his truck wheeled it right into my garage and put it there beautifully That toolbox now is full of a bunch of tools that all have the same job in my house Is to fix the things that my kids break All right or I break But but here's the thing All of them have the same goal They're all different To to make our home better The church is full of a lot of tools Don't take that statement out of context All right But the church is full of tools that God uses to build and shape his kingdom And they are different They have different activities different ministries different gift setting And Paul is drilling into this head of this Corin church who use like hierarchies of gifts to think some are better and some are not He's going to get in this illustration just saying he's saying all of you are important in order to build the kingdom of God And as we get into this what we see is that these gifts they come from God They use the power of God They glorify God That they look different There's different forms and different kinds of these But then comes our third question So how do we use these spiritual gifts and Paul here gives us a pretty long uh metaphor as he starts here And we we pick this up in verse 12 And he says this "For just as the body is one and the body has many parts and all the parts of that body though many are one body so also is Christ For we are all baptized by one spirit into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free and we're all given one spirit to drink." He says "Indeed the body is not one part but it is many." He said "If the foot should say because I'm not a hand I don't belong to the body." Is it not for that reason any less part of the body and if an ear should say "Because I'm not an eye I don't belong to the body is it not for that reason any less a part of the body?" If the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be if the whole body were an ear where would the sense of smell be but as it is God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted Oh a powerful verse And if they were all the same part where would the body be as it is there are many parts but there is one body The eye cannot say to the hand "I don't need you." Or again the head cannot say to the feet "I don't need you." On the contrary those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable Here's where Paul starts as he unpacks this metaphor of this body that is just so beautiful and and so practical here The first thing he kind of shows us when we ask this question of how do we use our spiritual gifts is we need to use our spiritual gifts in community and not isolation You see as Paul starts to paint this picture in our head he shows us how the body is is used in harmony with one another For example if we only use our hands for everything we do there's going to be a lot of things we either can't do at all or can't do very well Yesterday uh we kicked off our soccer season here at Cross Church and um and Friday night Saturday we had a bunch of games It was fun And I signed up three of my kids because there's no one-year-old team Can you believe that right It's just crazy All right but I have a three-year-old and then my two older seven and eight And my three-year-old uh we got him all ready and we were so excited like and and he I'm like "Put on your cleats bud." And he like you know have you ever seen a toddler put on shoes all right like hold their foot out and like trying to like throw it on I'm like "Dude what are you doing?" Okay I'm like "Bend your knee." And I'm like "Go on the ground and try it." And then he just starts stomping on the ground I'm like "You got to use your hands too." And it's like they just don't know how to use in conjunction of themselves cuz they're an awkward toddler So finally we got him all dressed up and cute and he had his soccer outfit his jersey tucked into his shirt We did all this work to get there at 8:00 a.m and he was on the field for 15 seconds of the entire game So next week our goal is 30 seconds and we're going to move in that direction But Paul here is like hey the church can't be like a toddler putting on their shoes Is the church needs to recognize the differences and recognizes that you can't do things in isolation but you need to do things in community one another And when we do that that's the beauty of the church that he comes out and the beauty of church that is effective But he keeps going and he builds on this analogy this metaphor in verse 23 And he says "In those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we clothe these with greater honor and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect which our respectable parts do not need." Paul is addressing we kind of hinted at this the heresy that had gone in the Corinthian church as they were saying "No no no my gifts are more important than your gifts So you're down here and I'm up here." And they created a hierarchy of their church members And and then we even saw that last week when they took Lord's supper is they were taking Lord's supper in factions based on kind of their net worth or based on their status within their cultural context And Paul like stopped He's like dude that's all heresy He's like that's nonsense He's like we're the same body We are one in Christ And he continues in verse 24 He says instead God has put the body together giving greater honor to the less honorable so that listen to this there would be no division in the body but that the members would have the same concern for each other So if one member suffers all the members suffer with it If one member is honored all the members rejoice with it Now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it And and oh we'll stop right there I'm getting ahead of myself And you are listen 27 You are the body of Christ and you are all individual members a part of this So here's the second part of this is how do we use our spiritual gifts we use it in community not isolation But he also shows us we use it in unity and not division I I I love this because I think here's what I'm grateful for is we have the exact opposite culture in our church The church at Corinth had that here we see people who have all different kind of gift sets who serve in all different kind of ways who use their gifts in many different ways but we don't put hierarchy scales to them We just celebrate how people serve in their own unique gifting I mean think about this Some are gifted in helping in children's ministry in watching kids I I got four of my own okay i'm not always the most patient person when it comes to children I can barely be patient with my own kids I'm not watching your kids All right um I did that as I was coming up through ministry Like they assigned me kids classes I'm like can I get out of here as soon as possible and go do something else all right But some have a gifting for that helping shaping the next generation helping putting Christ into the hearts of people around us in teaching them the Bible Some are gifted in worship in music that ain't me right and in leading that charge Some have the gift of hospitality in making people who are far and feel like an outsider feel welcome into the family of what God has created Others work behind the scenes with technology or we have people in administration We have so many volunteers who come in the middle of our week I'm always astounded I'm like who are these people in our office but they're just doing all these amazing things so that we can pull off all that we're doing in our church to reach our community And you see all of these things all of these gifts are essential for our church to function properly And I think the bottom line that Paul is trying to get us to see is that spiritual gifts were never meant to be exercised in isolation They only function properly when they're connected to the body of Christ When they're working in harmony to serve one another in love and when those gifts are uniting and not dividing us which leads us to our very final question for today from the text that has for us is are all spiritual gifts active today Now this is a question that has caused significant debate in the church And when we ask this and we think about this is are all these gifts active are all these gifts being used are all these gifts still alive well Paul starts to kind of answer some of this question in verse 28 And he says this "And God has appointed these in the church First apostles second prophets third teachers next miracles and gifts of healing helping leading various kinds of tongues." And he asked these rhetorical questions Are all apostles are all prophets are all teachers do all do miracles do all have the gifts of healing do all speak in tongues do all interpret and the answer to those is obviously no Verse 31 that we read earlier but desire the greater gifts And I will show you an even better way And here I want to skip over to 13:8 because it kind of connects into this where Paul says "But love never ends but as for prophecies they will come to an end As for tongues they will seize As for knowledge it will come to an end For we know in part and we prophesy in part But when the perfect comes the partial will come to an end You see in verses 28-30 Paul lists some various roles and gifts inside the church and he includes in that apostles and and prophets and teachers and miracles and healings and tongues and interpretation Then in chapter 13 8-12 he mentions that some of the gifts he just said will eventually seize and stop Now this has led to different perspectives I think among Christians and within the church at large that some believe certain miraculous gifts or what we would call sign gifts uh have seized with the apostolic age or some say that it is continuing and keep on going But here's and and before we get into this and we're going to kind of talk about where we stand as a church but also where we're commanded to as a result of either side is I want to say is I have friends on both sides of this I've been in churches where they're speaking in tongues Uh I don't have the gift of interpretation is what I found out really quickly in that All right I' I've been in very charismatic churches where you know that some of those ministries just look different and they are brothers and sisters in Christ And just as I've also been in churches where it's like you mention the Holy Spirit and they're running away They're like "Hey be careful what you say right there." Right um like don't don't say too much or um we're going to make us uncomfortable But here's what I think is often we can get focused on the things that divide us instead of the things that we agree on as these gifts glorify God But here's the first way to answer this as we ask this question is are all spiritual gifts active today let me give you a first a little argument that that an argument that some of these have seized There's two big ways of how you interpret spiritual gifts when you come to scripture and and two big ways that people kind of make this argumentation One is called cessationism It sounds like a big word but it just comes from the word of seized That some spiritual gifts they believe have seized That meaning what no longer does a sign gift be needed because all of a sudden we have the scripture So those gifts don't continue on in the same way we saw Jesus do or the apostles do The other side of it is what is called continuism which meaning those gifts are continuing And in that continuism and here's the thing that's funny about this is when you come to cessationism it's actually really hard to prove theologically There's no verse that just says these are over That one makes things so much easier All right like God can we be clear on that right um it's hard to prove theologically but it's pretty easy to prove practically And I would say on the flip side is it's easy to prove theologically like oh he didn't say they're ended so they're all continuing But it's hard to prove practically Here's what I mean by this And here's where I'll give my opinion as Paul does in the text and where kind of most of our church stands but also show you that we're not running you out the door Is I'm a practical cessationist meaning where we have the word of God that I don't believe we need gifts that point to ourselves or that point to God to say God said this so look here what I mean by that is Paul they're like he was preaching about the Bible and they're like why should we trust Paul he gets bit by a venomous snake shakes it off in the fire and they're like oh that dude's legit right like God is moving through him I should listen to him whereas today when we say God said this what you get to do especially here in America is you get to open the Bible and say "Is Andrew telling the truth or is he a heretic?" And when we have the word of God we don't necessarily need a spiritual gift to stamp our approval on it Now what that means is sometimes we go to third world countries and you maybe you've been on a mission trip and you've seen some things that are crazy that you can't explain And I would say in areas where the gospel is less active the word of God is less available I think sometimes God might move in a way that we don't see as much here in the in this area where we have the word of God so available But here's the point in that whether God is speaking just through scripture where God is doing miraculous things we never put a lid on what God can do All of the point of what Paul is trying to point to is whether gifts have ceased or continued We can disagree on that and still be brothers and sisters in Christ He does give us a command that all those gifts glorify him You see the fact is that this is a secondary issue where faithful Christians can come to different conclusions while still as Paul says maintain unity in Christ What matters most is what Paul emphasizes in verse 31 He says "But desire greater gifts." And what he says "I will show you a better way." The better way he's going to get to in chapter 13 is love And he's saying "Using our gifts without love makes them worthless Using our gifts to not glorify God is ridiculous." And that's what makes us when we go into this thing of where do we go from here how do we act on here we need to see that God has all gifted us differently but how are we using those gifts to point to him in the appropriate way and as we take this and maybe you hear all this you're like "How do I attempt to apply this how do I attempt to then live this out Monday through Saturday?" Well here is my question for you that doesn't necessarily come from Paul but I think comes from us as we exposit this text is are you using your unique gifting to bring glory to God and his church you see you may hear this whole passage you're like man I think I'm more confused about spiritual gifts than I was when we started Because here's what we do is often we want like a questionnaire and say like hey fill out this form It'll tell you your spiritual gift or your inagram or your personality test and it will show you how you're wired and how you can perfectly serve inside the church But you see God didn't give us a manual like that in the Bible God said to do the hard work of seeing is our spiritual gift of asking of it Hey is this gifting that I think I have does it come from God am I reliant on the power of God and the Holy Spirit for it to be active and then ultimately is it glorifying him and then as I start to use that gift am I using it within his church in community not in isolation am I using it to unify people not divide people and when are we are doing those things here's the hard work of prayer and serving inside the church We're going to see how God has gifted us in miraculous ways and in amazing ways that make us unique to build up the church at our Phoenix campus that I got to spend nine years at that we started and gone through there The one of the couples that I always think about who are so amazing when I think about this topic of spiritual gifts is Wayne and Nicole And Wayne and Nicole were this couple in our church is Wayne He's literally a a pit master a pit boss in his full-time job So every time I was like "Wayne I want to feed people." He's like "All right I can get 50 bucks worth of meat and we can feed about 150 200 people." I'm like "Sold Do it." Right and then Nicole she'd show up every Sunday morning way before most people would She'd prep coffee she'd prep donuts She'd lead our hospitality team Anytime there was someone calling out or someone sick or someone hurting Nicole's like "I'll go watch the babies I'll go into that classroom I'll go do this I'll help in that way." Every time we had someone hurting in our church she's like "I'll love on them I'll talk to them I'll see if I have any resources And what was crystal clear for Wayne and Nicole is they had a gift of serving and hospitality that just didn't lapse around so many people I've seen in my life But they used those gifts inside God's church to build the body but then to bleed outside those walls to reach more people for Christ and bring more people in And as we get to this topic where we can get lost in some of the semantics of it we can get lost in is this still going or is that going what if we were just to pray to practically serve and to ask God to use us to build up his church and to reach more people for Christ And maybe today if you're like I don't even know where to start man start by coming up and just serving in his church You're going to find out really quickly if you love telling little children about Jesus or if you don't You're going to find out real quickly if you love helping make worship something beautiful or that's not your gift set You're going to find out really quickly if you love hosting people in your home and it is something that comes natural or something that you're going to have to work a little bit harder at is we're all wired and gifted in some way But ultimately this gifting is to bring glory to God and to make Jesus known in our families in our communities and in the city of surprise around us and to the ends of the earth outside these walls And my prayer is that we can be the church that embraces that that leans into that and watches how God supernaturally changes the lives around us [Music]