Community - You Have Something to Contribute - 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Well, we're starting a new series today on community and

I'm super excited about this. It's something that I have been

thinking about for quite some time.

I get the unique privilege of being up here, but also being a

pastor and overseer, being able to look into our church and

people's lives and our relationships.

And this is something that I've had on my radar for like 6

months to be able to bring to us.

And I'm so looking forward to spending some time in this

upcoming study. But for you, maybe we could just

ask the question, do you have a community or maybe what comes to

mind for you when you hear that word?

I think there is some kind of comedy TV show also called

Community. I wasn't really into that.

I tried it, it didn't, it didn't work for me.

But a community is a group of people where we belong.

We have common values. We give, we can, we take, we

enjoy, we do things together. And that's what the the church

ultimately is. It is a community.

So we're going to see in First Corinthians chapter 12 over the

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

next several weeks what it means for us to be a community and how

you can find your fit in this community.

Every person in the church matters, as we will see.

We don't just want the professionals and the show offs

to do everything in a community. Everybody matters and we all

pitch in and we all come together.

So if you're going to follow along today, you're going to see

in your notes that you have something to contribute.

Every person in the community has something that they can

contribute to the community itself.

I'm not sure what you think of when we mentioned the word

contribute. Maybe you think financial, or

maybe you think resources or giving or serving.

Certainly all of those things are valuable.

We will talk a little bit more specifically about what that

means as we get into our time together, but we're about to

approach the Scriptures. The Word of God and the Bible

tells us in Psalm 1/19, 1:30 that this word gives light.

The entrance of thy word giveth light.

So as we open the Scriptures, we're allowing God's Word to

shine on us. And whatever things we might

think about community, however we might feel about it, we know

also that the Scriptures, the Bible says, is a discerner of

the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So as we read and as you hear Romans 10/17, as you're given

faith through the hearing of God's Word, you're probably

going to have some light shed on to some things in your heart.

And I just want you to know that that is how the Word of God and

the Spirit of God direct you as an individual.

So before we jump into our time, I want to ask you to just take a

moment, about 60 seconds maybe, of silence.

You can have your eyes open, you can have your eyes closed, you

can pray, you can breathe. But let's just prepare ourselves

and maybe try to let our guard down and ask the Lord, would you

just speak to me tonight? So let's take just one moment.

God, our prayer today is to hear from you.

So I pray that you give us the strength to give you that

permission to speak to us and to things that are personal and to

things that you want to challenge us and call us to.

God. I pray that you'd use this time

make us better as a church, help us to love each other, make us

fruitful in Jesus name, Amen. We're going to learn in our

series in First Corinthians chapter 12 what it means to be a

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

community. And really, there's probably no

better place to go than the church at Corinth.

This letter, if you turn there in your Bible, is written from

the apostle Paul. He was a missionary, you could

say in the 1st century, traveling around, sharing the

gospel, that Jesus had died on the cross, was buried and rose

again. If you believe in him, you'll be

saved. And as a result of his

preaching, churches developed. And he writes back to this

church, this very long epistle. Not all of the epistles are this

long. And it's a lot of correction.

This church had a lot of things that were jacked up.

Maybe you've been in a community like that before.

Things were kind of dysfunctional.

Well, that's how this church was.

So it's interesting that we get some of our clearest teaching

around the subject today from this book.

They had issues with perversion in the church and relationships

that shouldn't have been happening.

They were, they were called carnal or fleshly.

They were acting like children. They had divisions.

They had favorite teachers. Well, I follow this guy and no,

I follow that guy. They had issues with the

spiritual gifts. As we will see today.

They were not functioning properly in the worship setting.

So we're going to go here today and learn how to be a community

together. Let's read first Corinthians

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 verses one through 11.

The Bible says. Now concerning spiritual gifts,

brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

You know that you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb

idols, even as you were led. Wherefore I give you to

understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth

Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord

but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of

gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are differences of

administrations, but the same Lord.

There are diversities of operations, but it is the same

God which worketh All in all. But the manifestation of the

Spirit is given to every man to profit with all.

For to 1 is given by the Spirit, the Word of wisdom to another,

the Word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by

the same Spirit, to another, the gifts of healing, by the same

spirit to another, the working of miracles to another, prophecy

to another, discerning of spirits, to another, divers

kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

But all these worketh that one and the same, the self, same

Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

So let's begin following along with our notes today.

The first 3 verses we see that we need to start where we're

going to contribute. Let's start with figuring out

who our community is. Who is your community?

Today we see a spiritual sense in investing in people, and

we're going to get into spiritual gifts that God gives

every believer something to contribute to the body as a

whole. But this community has a way in

which it needs to function just like other communities.

Maybe you are a member at a gym. Maybe there are some rules and

regulations around the gym. I used to go to a gym that you

were not allowed to work out in blue jeans.

I don't know who or why that was a rule.

I am from backwoods Ohio, so maybe, you know, we just really

needed to be reminded to leave the Wranglers at home.

But every community has some kind of guidelines that where we

say, if we're going to be here, we function together in this

particular kind of way. Maybe it's a school or some

online forum. Maybe maybe you've been kicked

out of a group for not adhering to the guidelines.

What we all want to contribute and we're all looking for

community, but we're talking specifically about the church

and finding a way to develop in our Christian relationships one

with another. And I think in the first 3

verses there are three good things guidelines for us to see

how this community needs to function.

First, there is a common salvation.

The church community should have a common salvation In verse.

Verse #2 the Bible says, you know that ye were Gentiles

carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were LED.

Now it's kind of a strange time for Paul to mention this

particular thing. No doubt he's contrasting the

gifts of the Spirit that God enables us.

As we heard last week, when you're born again, when you're

saved, God gives you his Holy Spirit to live inside of you.

You now have a power that you did not have before when you

were lost. In comparison to idols, idols

have no power. They they have ears and eyes and

mouths, but none of it works. And so we're contrasting these

two things. But notice that there's a past

tense. Ye were and ye were.

He also writes, the apostle Paul does to another church in

Ephesus. And he says when you were dead

in sins, that God hath quickened us together in Christ.

When you believe that Jesus died for you, you are quick and you

are made alive. You were given the Holy Spirit

of God in that moment, and by grace are you saved.

So our contribution is intended for a local church community.

This is the context of this chapter in the subsequent weeks.

And no doubt we can serve others.

Man, you should serve in the workplace and do all those

things. But today, when we get into a

more specific spiritual gifts context, these things are

designed for the body. So our community needs to have a

common salvation. We also see that it needs to

have a common submission verse #3 is an interesting verse.

It says no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus

accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by

the Holy Ghost. I think Austin's wearing that

shirt tonight, aren't you? Says Jesus is the Lord.

It's one of my favorite. That's a gym shirt of mine, so

that we put that on real big on the back so anybody in the room

can just see Jesus is the Lord. But this community, the church

community comes together around submission, that somebody else

is in charge of the church, and I'm not talking about me, that

Jesus is the Lord. This is the outcome of people

that are following the Spirit of God.

So our community needs to be submitted to Christ.

We're saved, we're following Jesus and if anybody comes in

with some strange and weird messages, especially as we get

further into our text today, we're reminded believe not every

spirit. There's already the trying of

spirits just a few verses into our outline today.

Try the spirits, whether they are of God because there are

many false prophets gone out into the world, especially the

context is that Jesus is the Lord.

Anybody that would say Jesus is not the part of the triune God

is not a part of our community, and anybody is welcome to

attend. We want lost people to come and

hear from the word of God and choose Christ, but our community

has this as a common guideline. Thirdly, we see there's a common

standard in verse #1 the Bible says Now concerning spiritual

gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

Now ignorant is a word you maybe you've heard before or you've

used as an insult, like you're just an ignoramus or you're just

ignorant, but it means to be unlearned.

You, you literally don't know about something.

Ignorance isn't necessarily a bad thing, as some people would

say. Ignorance is bliss, right?

I'd rather not know. Just don't tell me.

I don't. I'd rather I don't want to know.

I want to be dumb. And Paul says, hey, you guys,

this church in Corinth, you guys have this thing jacked up.

I you need to not be ignorant. Let's talk about these things

and they will verse their chapters 12 through 14 are all

very specific in this kind of context.

But ignorance means that the church also cannot function in

ignorance to what God says in his work.

God does not want us to be ignorant.

Paul writes later in chapter 14 of the same book, and he says

God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in

all churches of the Saints. So we see that Corinth is a

church, Ephesus is a church. There are a bunch of churches

planted all over the world. And in all of the churches there

should be peace. And we see that there is a

standard from the word of God that all churches should

function according to. And if it seems confusing, if

things are disoriented or out of order, who's talking or what's

happening, that is not from the Spirit of God.

And so our community is is settled around salvation that

were born again, that we're submitted that Jesus is Lord and

that we have a standard and that is the word of God.

So our contribution to the community must align with the

scripture. Man, I hope that you will find

creative ways to serve each other.

That would be great. But it all must be aligned with

what we see in God's word. So let's we start with your

community. Who is my community?

Here are some guidelines around where I want to invest.

Everybody wants to be important and have a place and be able to

be a part of something. But now let's let's realize your

importance. We probably need to balance

this. Some people feel like they are

really important and others maybe feel like, well, I could

never do that. That's The Who am I?

And there certainly is a balance somewhere in between.

But remember, our big idea for today is that you have something

to contribute. Like you, not just me, I'm glad

to contribute, but each one of you, each one of us, we all

contribute. And did you know that you have a

gift? You have a gift.

Turn to your neighbor and say I'm gifted.

That's right. Do you believe it?

You are Look at verse #7 in First Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man.

And verse 84 to 1 is given by the Spirit to to manifest is to

be made known. Something is revealed.

It is revealed that God is working through people in in

such a way that it's not the natural person.

It's not how that person would behave, especially when they

were dead in their trespasses and sins.

Now they're operating under the influence of the Spirit of God.

And it says every man is given this kind of gift.

This gift, though, is not like a natural talent.

You know, like some people are like like Rain Man, they have

like the brilliant IQ thing or some people they have a perfect

pitch. They say, what is it like one in

10,000 people has perfect pitch and they can just hear music and

they know how it all works. I don't identify with any of

that. I don't feel like I have a whole

lot of skills in my natural man. But spiritual gifts are not

something that you had from birth.

It's not a personality trait. It's not a working hard at

developing something like the instrument.

We want to use all of our inclinations, man, whatever God

gives us, we want to use all of those things.

But as we'll see, they're very specific and these are things

that come at the time that you're saved.

God gives you something that you did not have before you were

saved. Peter says it this way, as every

man hath received the gift. Even so, minister, so you have

something to contribute. Maybe you don't have platform

skills, but you have something that God gave you to contribute

to the community, so you have a gift.

Secondly, what God gives you is for others.

It's not about you. You didn't earn it.

You didn't deserve it. You might need to go back a

couple weeks and just see in our gospel course series that we're

saved by grace through faith. Jesus didn't love you more than

other people. You weren't like so good at

something that he said, I need you in my Kingdom.

You had no value until you were born again and then you had

Christ's righteousness applied to you.

So what God gives you in your spiritual gift, Look at verse 7.

It says to profit with all, but the manifestation of the Spirit

is given to every man to profit withal.

So turn to your neighbor and say you have something I need.

You guys aren't very good at this.

We're going to have to try. We'll have to practice talking

to each other. You could talk in church when I

give you permission. You can talk at church.

It's OK, it's all good. But it's true.

Your neighbor has something that they can contribute that you

need. The word profit means to benefit

or to advantage. So the the gifts that God gives

us are really to make other people better to advantage

somebody else. But check this out.

There's a caveat. You see, you must be in

community to be able to contribute well.

You have to have relationships. If God gave you a gift and it's

intended to edify others, then that means you have to be with

others. We can't just be out doing our

own thing. I'm I'm a solo Christian.

I mean, I'd, I'd say show me where you see that again, you

have something that we need. We need to be together because

we need each other. We need what each other brings

to the table. Oh yeah, I forgot to put this in

here. So I'm not a LeBron James fan.

I just want to let you know. I know they say he set the most

records for point scoring and all of the things.

They call him King James and all that sort of thing.

I got King James right here, man.

I'm not worried about King James up there on the screen.

Let me give you some context. I'm from Ohio.

LeBron James was born in Akron, OH.

He went to play for the Cavs. He spent a lot of time at the

Cavs. He got famous there, almost won

a championship, didn't pull it off and decided to leave when an

assembled a dream team, won a few championships, decided now

maybe I guess I'll come back and throw one at the Cavs.

And eventually he did. That's fine, whatever.

But I lived in Ohio, whenever LeBron was in Cleveland and

there were big posters on city buildings with his face and Nike

and all the things. King James, you know, he was

great. But LeBron wasn't a team player.

He wasn't there for the team or for the community.

He went off on his own to be able to win a championship.

That's what he wanted to do. And, and he did.

He was successful. But I'm forever a little salty

because to me it just feels like I'm going to do my thing.

And that's how many Christians treat this contribution.

If they think they're gifted or if they have something to

contribute, they might pick, well, I want a bigger stage.

I want a better platform. I don't want to serve in this

little thing. I I want to be important.

And what we find out with spiritual gifts is that they're

not really about you to begin with.

They're for others, Philippians says, Look, not every man on his

own things, but every man also on the things of others, Roman

says, and the things wherewith one may edify another.

So with this, we could ask questions like, what does the

community need? Like if you look around our

church, you don't have to look very hard.

What do we need? What would make us better what

the individuals need or what is our service missing or what it

what do we need to do midweek or how could we grow?

Or is there a way you could contribute?

How am I gifted? What can I do?

And once you do that, let's learn how you can contribute.

So we, we start with our community.

We define that God's gifted us to do particular things in the

church, the community. We realize the importance that

everybody has something to offer.

And now we need to define what are these gifts?

How does that work? Maybe you've heard things about

these. There's a lot of teaching.

This is kind of a hot button subject.

I just want to let you know right away, I think in your

notes, I gave you a link in the bottom of the little.

I try to do the notes different this time.

So let me know what you think. We're playing around with

learning stuff, but to our website, I wrote commentary on

the whole book of First Corinthians.

So if you have questions about some of the stuff we're talking

about, it's a lot more detailed if you want to go read it for

yourself online. But let's talk about these

gifts. Let's figure out how to discover

your unique gift because we need it.

You have something to contribute.

Let's discover what that is. See we look at First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 and verses 4 to 6 and it says that there are

diversities and there are differences of administrations

and operations. In verse 8 it says to 1 is given

by the Spirit a gift, and then it goes on to say to another is

given by the Spirit another gift in that word to another.

That phrase, rather, is used eight times to another, to

another, to another, all describing different functions

that when we come together, as we'll see in the following

weeks, as a body we need all the components functioning together

in the way that they're supposed to.

Romans 12 says, having been gifts differing according to the

grace that it's given us. See, our gifts are about God's

grace. It's not about our deserving.

He gives them to us. So there's there's a list there.

There are actually three places in the Bible that lists

spiritual gifts here in First Corinthians chapter 12, Romans

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, and Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And when you put those lists together, we get about 19 or so

unique gifts. And I have simplified them for

you because maybe you would ask which ones are for today.

There are a lot of miraculous ones lifted here.

Maybe you've seen some pretty strange things, or maybe you've

seen people fake some pretty strange things.

So I have listed the ones for you for today.

I don't know if they're in your, I don't know.

I didn't give you any blanks today.

But Peter in first Peter chapter 4 kind of identifies them in two

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

columns as serving gifts and as speaking gifts.

So on the serving end, we have, did you know faith is a

spiritual gift? Like some people have the

ability to just trust God for really big things, to just

believe him. Some people are supernaturally

gifted to give and be benevolent and just love it and just love

giving stuff away. Maybe that's my wife.

She's always, if you know my wife, she's always like looking

at my closet. Like, what are you not wearing?

Let's give that away. I don't know if that's the same

kind of giving, but it seems like it's always happening.

Helps in in ministry or like behind the scenes.

People that just want to slug it out, man, I just love setting up

and just doing stuff. Governments and ruling or people

that are going to oversee, They love spreadsheets and tasks and

keeping things organized. I think Lauren Mccaig is really

good at keeping things organized.

Mercy, man. I think my pastor in Georgia, he

doesn't love hearing this, but I think he has the spiritual gift

of mercy because he's just so gracious and just so

long-suffering with people. It's just incredible.

Then we have the speaking gifts, the ones that get the limelight

out upfront. What most people probably want

is prophecy, teaching, being a pastor, being an evangelist.

Exhortation is really similar to preaching.

It is a coming alongside with the truth and encouragement.

Barnabas is a good example of that.

Philip is a good example of an evangelist.

So here at this church, we we believe that some of those gifts

are no longer operable today. If you have questions, I'd love

to talk to you about why we believe that.

I mean, just two things briefly and then go read.

My commentary is in chapter 13 of this book.

The Bible says that tongues will cease.

So we have that pretty clearly. When that happens is a second

question as well. But secondly, also the Bible

says that there is a foundational time.

The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and

the prophets, and they laid a groundwork for us that we do not

have to continue unto this day. So there are several other

reasons, but that's where we are.

But let's talk about which ones are for today and then you

stewarding the gift that God has given you.

If I truly believe maybe you don't understand which one they

are. Maybe about me talking about

spiritual gifts. You can't hear anything else

because I didn't say it the way you would want it to be said.

But let's just say for sure you definitely have one.

Verse 11 says dividing to every man severally as he will.

So we are responsible then with what God has given us.

But also check this out as he will.

This isn't a la carte like I'm going to go pick out the ones.

Oh, I like that one. I'm going to do that.

Oh, maybe I want to do that one. It says that God's the one that

gave it to you and it wasn't your deserving.

I can tell you when I trusted Christ, I wasn't worthy of being

a pastor. It wasn't a thought in my mind.

I just wanted to not go to hell. I believe that Jesus died for

me. I wanted in on that and it took

me some time to develop into how has God wired me and what what

should I do to serve him. It's OK if you don't know that

right away. But Peter says as every man hath

received the gift, Even so minister the same one to another

as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

So if we're going to come together in our community, we're

going to believe that everybody has something to contribute.

We want you to steward well. We maybe don't fully know what

that looks like, but I'm down to try to figure out how to help

you steward the way God has gifted you.

There's a proverb in Proverbs 17 that says as a gift, a gift is

as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it.

This is what good stewardship says, I have something valuable

I can contribute, man I I have God has given me something

precious, and it says in the eyes of him that hath it

whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth.

When you know that you have something valuable, you want to

see it succeed and thrive and use your gift to the profit and

benefit of others. But I do want to give just a

brief warning that the community needs to function together and

we're not all just going to get to do whatever we want to do.

Psalm 75 says that promotion cometh neither from the east or

the West. It goes on to say, but God is

the judge who setteth up 1 and putteth down another.

So as it concerns speaking gifts or, or some kind of prominence

or hey, I'm, I'm gifted in a certain way.

I want to contribute. Just know that you cannot

promote yourself in this particular way.

I'm I'm up here saying I want to work with you and work together

for us to figure out how to do that.

But I don't want you to just get up in the front of the room and

start talking. Let's discuss, let's meet, let's

talk. Let's figure that out.

For me to become a pastor, I think it was about 10 years or

so before I was ordained that I had figured out I want to do

that. I want to start training.

I want to minister. I ministered for free for a long

time before I was ever like sent to plant a church.

So some of the things that God, if God's called you truly called

you to them, they might require some figuring out specifically

for the pastor at first Timothy chapter 3 says a requirement to

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

being a pastor is not a novice. So this isn't something that we

can just step up and say I'm in charge.

I got a gift, I'm going to do it.

We prove these things. Remember, we go back to the the

guidelines in the beginning. We try the spirits, we test, we

function together, and we'll see as we continue in our series in

our 4th week that there is a structure in the church.

God has given us an order to follow.

An order is good. So let's wrap up our time.

Do you feel like you're contributing?

Well, I don't mean by the way, I don't mean any of this about any

of you in any kind of way. This is just for all of us.

I'm going to give you some examples in a moment, in

practical ways and how you can contribute.

Do you know how God's gifted you?

One of the best ways to find out is to ask somebody who's

spiritually mature, that knows you, that cares about you, that

reads and studies the Bible. Hey, what qualities do you see

in me? How do you think?

What do you think God has for me?

It's a great idea. There's a bunch of spiritual

gifts, tests out there, man, Some of that, it is what it is.

But how can you help others in this church?

I'm going to give us some just the time to respond to that.

I think at the bottom of your notes, there's some take away

lines. If you haven't written anything

yet, maybe that's a good way for you to say, what's a next step I

can take towards figuring out how I can contribute?

You don't have to like, write I want to be a pastor in the

blank. You can just say I want to

figure that out, but also I have a few practical ways for you.

Sometimes with these gifts, people get really excited about

them. And every Christian is also

called to serve, even in things that we may not be gifted at.

We have children's ministry, we have tech team.

There's all kinds of things that happened that you maybe aren't

like excellent at, but we need to do.

Sometimes that's the case. So here are a few practical ways

right now that you can contribute.

No matter how you're wired, anybody can give.

You should start with that. the AV team in the back, if you look

in the back, just look in the back of the room right now.

Look back in the computer. No one's at the wheel.

OK, I'm at the wheel right here. OK, so be great if we had

somebody at the wheel all the time during this service.

We had a camera turn off while we're doing this.

David went back and fixed it. There's but there's no one back

there managing any of that stuff.

There's 2 ladies serving in children's ministry right now

that are about every 3rd week missing a church service.

We could have more bodies, you know, more laborers, less work,

some of our web graphic bullets and things.

I make a lot of that stuff. I probably need to not do it.

Somebody else probably needs to help me do that.

What about coffee, food, snacks? Man, if you just think about

what would make this community better, there's so many things

that we could do together that don't have to be big, fancy,

crazy things, practical ways. But secondarily, maybe you want

to think about the future, a way that I could grow into something

I want to do seriously in ministry.

Maybe you want to disciple somebody one day.

That's a really specific thing for us.

We, we don't just let anybody do that.

We have people get discipled and then they can disciple somebody

else. We could multiply our Bible

studies if we had enough people. We got University of Portland,

man. We got other places, PCC,

there's we could spread out and have Bible studies all over the

place. But me and David can only do so

many Bible studies. So if we all grow, man, let us

know the things you're interested in.

We we want to develop you to be able to do that.

We don't have any Sunday school classes or extra teaching times.

Maybe that God will give us teachers that we can have more

than one thing happening at a time.

Maybe you don't even have to like teach.

You could just lead a the tech team or lead some kind of

service. And I leave the bottom one on

there on purpose because God has called some people to serve him

in a very specific and serious way.

And I think every male should consider, what does God want to

do with my life and why should I not give it to the gospel?

And the Lord will shut you down if you're not called to it.

It's OK, Don't worry about it. But those are just some

practical ways for you to figure out how to serve.

So what do we need? How has God wired you?

Let's take one more moment to pray.

I want to give you another minute of silence.

I said a lot of things, so let's let you just breathe, take it to

the Lord, and then we're going to sing one more song.