The Work of the Holy Spirit

This morning.

What I'm going to do is sort of an intermediate message between the series which we are moving through, a God worth knowing and our preparation for Christology, and really I'm going to talk about the Holy Spirit, but this is not really part of the series, in that I'm not really going to talk about the person of the Spirit as much as I am going to talk to you for a few minutes about his work in the church.

So turn with me, if you have your Bibles, to the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, and I am going to attempt the impossible Speak for 30 minutes.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

You have come today to witness a miracle, but I feel owed it because I've been cheated in the previous weeks.

I'm kidding 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1 through 7.

1 Corinthians 12:1–7

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, 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 ever says Jesus is a curse to.

No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

Now, there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

Verse 7, very important verse To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Let's read verse 7 again To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Father, help us to see this morning that the body of Christ is empowered and animated by the Spirit and release in this house all of the gifts which you have deposited in the men and women in this room by the work of the Spirit.

Not only has your Spirit regenerated us, but He has graced us to share the grace gifts.

So we pray this morning for an activation of all of those activities to the glory of God, in Jesus' name, and everyone says amen.

Well, here's what's happening in this chapter.

Paul is writing to a church called Corinth.

He visited Corinth and when he was there he operated a powerful ministry by the Spirit.

There was an explosion at Corinth and the church at Corinth was born.

You can read about this in the 18th chapter of the book of Acts.

And when Paul writes to them he says I give thanks to my God always for you because of the carousel, the grace of God that was given you in Christ, that in every way you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of or the revealing of our Lord Jesus.

And one of the things that confirmed Paul's apostolic ministry is the Holy Spirit exploded at Corinth.

The church was born and it was a powerfully charismatic church.

In fact, when the Corinthians wrote Paul which we don't have that letter they were asking them a bunch of questions, and one is what in the world is happening in our midst?

because explosions of the Spirit were occurring in their gatherings.

Now, chapter 12, 13, and 14 are Paul's response to their questions.

We're not going to go into all three chapters this morning.

Perhaps sometime we'll walk through them.

Read them at your leisure.

And chapter 14 really talks about church meetings and how.

The Holy Spirit, the order of God.

I like what happened at Corinth.

Paul didn't teach on order and hope.

Something happened.

I remember years ago in my first Pentecostal church experience, there were no gifts of the Spirit manifest and my pastor taught for six months on the gifts Wonderful teaching.

If anything ever happened, we'd know what it was, but we had it a little reversed.

We thought if we teach these things, it will happen.

At Corinth, it was the reverse The things were happening in their midst by the Spirit, and now Paul is having to instruct and bring order.

Now it is deceiving, though, to say that chapter 12 is about the gifts.

It is about the gifts, but only secondarily.

Really, what Paul is dealing with in chapter 12, and I want you to hear this is teaching the church at Corinth how to live properly in the community of the redeemed, the body of Christ.

And for Paul to live properly in the body of Christ is impossible apart from the Holy Spirit and His power.

Paul is talking about more than church services, although he's talking about that as well, but he's talking about how every member must live as a responsible member of the body of Christ, and the gifts are very important.

When we talk about that, it's important to understand that in New Testament thinking, church, apostolic Christianity, there is only one way for people to know the ascended Lord of glory and to know that He is the ascended Lord of glory It is that He sent the glorified Spirit to the earth to inhabit the church and that is how the church knows that the Lord is glorified.

We of course know it because Scripture teaches it, but we know it because the Holy Spirit has come.

He's indwelling the church and there are certain manifestations occurring in the church that are evidences that Jesus is Lord.

It is not biblical to think that the only purpose the Holy Spirit comes is to round out my life or personally bring me benefits.

That's true enough, but He comes to enable us to live our lives in the body of Christ.

Maybe we should ask this question.

Let me ask it, and it's the best way to approach it What is it like for men and women to live their lives in the power of the Spirit or in the domain of the Spirit?

Well, there are two levels where the Holy Spirit is working in every life in this room, if you're in Christ.

Two levels very important.

Number one and this is the most important, i do believe it should be central and it is when the Holy Spirit comes.

His primary purpose is not to give me boo-goose bumps, but to make me like Jesus.

Character is the primary reason the Spirit indwells you and I, and if you don't make that primary, you will not cooperate with the Holy Spirit who's always trying to lead you out of pride into humility, out of lust into purity, out of greed into generosity.

Now, one of the things about the Holy Spirit working in our lives to produce character is how many know it occurs effortlessly or sometimes we're unconscious of the process.

Many years ago I was struggling with pride.

It seemed that the Holy Spirit had turned the flashlight on my heart and was showing me incredible pockets of pride that I didn't know.

I would speak something and the Holy Spirit would say that's pride.

And I was devastated.

And right at that time this is the truth a man in our church came to me and said I just want you to know.

I see such humility in your life.

It blesses me.

And I remember under my breath saying he's a liar, He knows it's not true, he's trying.

But then I realized that I got it.

When the Holy Spirit produces fruit in your life, the fruit is not for you, it's for others.

And while I was allowing the Holy Spirit to bring me out of pride and deal with me, the fruit of humility was hanging on the tree and a brother took some of its fruit and thanked me for it.

So when I say that the fruit of the Spirit, the character of Jesus, is produced effortlessly.

I don't mean we don't cooperate.

We have to obey the dictates of the Spirit, but I mean what John 15 teaches us We abide in Christ, and He that abides in me and I in Him bears much fruit.

I have never.

When I lived in Florida, i never walked past an orange grove and heard the trees straining to produce oranges.

It happened one time and I knew they were Christian oranges.

No, the branches abide in the tree and luscious fruit is the result.

Now, when we come to the gifts or the, there's a Greek word used not in this chapter but in Romans 12, for gifts.

It's the word charisma.

It comes from the word carous, which means grace.

When we look at the gifts, i have this question Why is it in the church that when it comes to the fruit of character, we understand that that comes by resting in the vine and letting the life of God flow through us effortlessly, but when it comes to the gifts, it requires straining and sweating to work at them?

Why do we apply a different law to the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit?

One of the reasons is we properly understand that these manifestations are supernatural, that's true, but I think we associate sometimes supernatural with unnatural.

Now, i'm guilty of this because when I prophesy I sound like Ezekiel, because that's the way I learned and I admit it.

But sometimes people, when they think about moving in the Charismas, they apply a different law than the law of flowing, which occurs when character is produced and we start thinking it were.

You have to work hard and you have to be unnatural and you have to speak in King James English and quiver.

Now, i'm not saying if that's you, that's you, but remember what Jesus said when he described what happened in the Feast of Tabernacles He that believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

I love that word flow.

He could have said explode, but he likened it to the flow of a river.

Have you ever been in a river Where the river starts pulling you you?

you can resist it, but there's a point where the river is flowing and it starts pulling you and and you can't resist it, but it's, it's not violent, it's a gentle pull.

And Jesus is likening life in the spirit to a flow of a river.

I believe when he said he that believes in me, as the Scripture has said.

One of the Scriptures he was referring to, and perhaps the primary one, was Ezekiel 47, where Ezekiel sees a river flowing from the house of God and it waters the earth and it flows and when Ezekiel gets in it, you remember, it comes up to his ankles and then it comes up to his knees and then it comes up to his waist and then it's a river that can't be forded.

That river is alive and well in planet earth.

It flows in the body of Christ.

Now I want to do this.

I want to take one verse of the verses we read.

I read it in context, but there's one verse that I want us to look at And there are four things that I want to say from this verse.

And I want to do it because I want to expand our understanding of what it means to be charismatic.

We are a charismatic church and Paul here lays out, i believe, in one verse, the essence of what that means.

And in verse seven, paul says now concerning spiritual gifts but if you have a good Bible, gifts should be in italics, it's not in the text.

He literally says concerning spirituals, plural or spiritual operations.

Now, some Bibles like mine have in the margin concerning spiritual persons, and that's a possibility.

But what is evident is the term gifts is not there.

It's probably best described now concerning spiritual operations, when the Holy Spirit is operating.

Paul says this is what it looks like.

But in verse seven he says something very, very important And there are four things I want to draw from it.

Let's read it together.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

I want to talk about the scope of the gifts.

I want to talk about the nature of the gifts.

I want to talk about the realm of the gifts.

I want to talk about the realm of the gifts And, finally, i want to talk about the focus of the gifts, and you will behold a miracle.

I'm doing all this in 15 minutes.

First of all, the scope of the gifts.

Let me read it again.

Verse seven to the pastor is given.

What does it say?

What's the first three words To each one?

How many?

This is about a gifted body, not just a gifted pastor or a gifted leader.

This is about the gifted body.

The passion of God, church is to equip the body to do the things that the body only can do.

I was reading it again recently The statistics on the number of pastors resigning weekly in America.

It's astounding.

Do you know why They're trying to be the body?

Paul says the scope of the gifts is easy Each one has received them.

In fact there's a passage in 1 Peter 4 that affirms this and I'll quote it in a second.

You know, sometimes the church looks at these gifts as if there's only a few people that ever operate in them.

And when they do, we put them on TV or exalt them the national prominence and say, wow, he got a gift.

Or we bring somebody in from Africa and say we're going to teach on the gifts.

The gifts are so rare we had to fly somebody in from Europe or Africa or Asia to teach.

It is interesting that when it comes to the five-fold ministry, as it's commonly referred to in Ephesians 4.11, there's the word sum.

He says he gave sum as apostles, sum as prophets, sum as evangelists.

But here in 1 Corinthians 12, it's not sum but to each one.

It isn't true that everybody's in the five-fold ministry, but it is true that the scope of the gifts is such that God's grace has been shed abroad to the entire body.

So the five-fold ministry implies limitation, but the Charismas the Greek word for gift in most of the New Testament are to each one.

And here's what it's saying God not only saved you and put His Spirit in you, but He placed you in the body as a gifted member.

And I'm going to say something shocking There is no such thing as a non-functioning member.

We have a new function that has emerged in the church so new it wasn't in the Bible Spectator.

What is your gift, brother?

I'm blessed to receive.

I eat all the time.

No, i'm not going to use that analogy.

Thank you for catching me, lord.

Paul makes it absolutely clear that if you're in Christ, you are a member of the body and you are gifted and you have something vital to bring to the table in the body of Christ.

The problem Paul will deal with is not that we don't understand the gifts.

Everybody look up here.

That's not the problem.

The problem is what he will address in the whole of chapter 12.

If you read chapter 12, it's a little confusing, because he starts talking about these manifestations in verses 8 through 11, but then he talks about something else and never returns to discuss the gifts.

Because the problem is not that we don't understand the gifts.

The problem is.

We don't understand what functioning as the body looks like.

And Paul says things like one of the problems, brothers and sisters at Corinth, is you're making comparisons, because I'm a foot and I'm not a hand.

I have no value because I'm in ear when I want to be an eye, I don't have value.

No, we don't do that.

We don't compare ourselves to other members.

And, by the way, there is nothing in this passage that would affirm the idea that me standing here and my gift is the most important gift.

It is important, but there are gifts in this body that are as important and God wants you to function And you are gifted by God.

You didn't get it by vote.

It says God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he desired.

Now I'll be honest and tell you I went through years of wishing I was something else, praying, fasting, my calling away, until I got what the program said.

This is what I've made you to be.

Peter says it this way same words as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

I love that.

How many does Peter say As each one has received a special gift.

I had a pastor say to me hey man, are you into body ministry?

I said I hadn't heard.

Is there another kind?

Then we have the nature of the gifts.

In verse seven To each one is given.

Everybody.

Look up here.

How many know what you have.

You were given.

So I have news for you.

It's good news and bad news.

Here's the bad news Your gift says nothing about your spirituality.

You were given it as a grace from God.

It had nothing to do with you.

It says nothing about you and me.

It says a lot about the graciousness of the giver.

So this banishes the thought when I get spiritual enough, i can get a gift.

God gives them freely by His grace.

And there's two things that are drawn from this The fact that they're charisma's grace gifts sovereignly given to you by God.

Number one it destroys boasting of any type.

How can I boast when what I have was grace to me by God?

How can I stand here and go?

look at me, i'm great.

It's what Paul says earlier to the Corinthians.

He says this what have you that you did not receive?

And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not, as if you had earned it.

And the second thing that happens when you understand this it completely destroys the possibility of jealousy.

I mean, think about it for a moment.

I'm a beggar And what I've received I've received as a gift from God, but you're a beggar too and you receive something different.

How can I be jealous?

We're both beggars.

And this is where Paul's teaching becomes so important When he says can you imagine my eye being jealous of my ear or my foot being jealous of my hand?

This is what Peter means in his verse and I'm quoting from 1 Peter, i think it's 410, because he tells us and says each one has received a special gift and he says employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold, of the manifold.

Grace of God, does everybody know what a steward is?

A steward is a manager who is appointed to oversee the affairs and the goods of another.

You don't own it, you're not an owner, you're a steward.

Someone else owns it.

But he appoints it to you And, by grace, says manage this for me.

And I'd like to say lovingly that all of us will give an account to the Lord one day, not only for our stewardship of money, which is biblical, but you will also and so will I, stand before the Lord and give an account for the stewardship of grace in your life.

If you were called to teach and you sat on it, if you're a prophet, if you are an evangelist, if you have the gift of mercy, if you have the gift of giving, if you have the gift of working of miracles, if you sit on those things, if you don't do it, if you say I don't like my gift, i want to be this or I don't feel there's room for it, or whatever, god wants to stir it.

And these things are stewarded by us to the glory of God, and we'll give an account for what we did with it.

It's called responsibility.

I really remember the time when I took responsibility for my gift and started getting serious about developing it because I didn't want to be it.

Number three wow, i might make it The realm of the gifts, verse seven again to each one.

That's the scope of the gifts.

Everybody is given their grace.

We don't earn them.

The manifestation of the Spirit Now, here Paul uses the Greek word phanaros, and it's a simple word, everybody will know it.

It's openness, it's visibility.

These gifts do not.

The manifestation of the Spirit here means that in the body of Christ there is an open and visible display of the Spirit's presence through these operations.

If you're receiving this morning, i don't want to, i'm not trying to boast, i'm not.

But if you're really receiving, it's Christ the teacher feeding the church, not Neil Silverberg, i'm just the donkey he chose to ride in on this morning, and boy do I feel like it.

That means these gifts don't operate in secret.

Now, having said that, i don't mean they're all for the platform.

I have a real problem with how shall I say it?

the showiness that churches often display.

But what it means is these are manifest through the body, by the operation of the Spirit.

They're visible, they're open, they're not hidden.

They're not all on the platform, but they're also in the body.

In fact, they're not only for church meetings, but they build up the body in other ways.

Did you know that?

I have seen businesses struggling be transformed by someone having a word of wisdom?

But the most exciting thing I want to say today as well is these gifts and these open manifestations of the Spirit are for evangelism.

You remember when Jesus Philip came to him and Jesus said I'm sorry.

Nathaniel came to him and Philip brought him and Jesus said an Israelite, indeed, is human, is no guile.

And he said well, how do you know me?

You never met me.

He said well, before Philip called you, when you were sitting under the fig tree, i saw you And that's all he needed.

He said Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.

A word of knowledge.

Jesus depended on the Spirit for everything He did And that word opened up in Nathaniel's life.

He was never the same.

Sometimes I think we want miracles just in church services because we're bored.

But let me give you an occlude as something that changed my life.

Every miracle in Acts, except for one, happened in the marketplace.

There was one in church.

God killed two people.

And not to say we don't want things happening in the service, but the thing is, these gifts can change lives.

I remember I was with some brothers on my way to a conference and we stopped at a convenience store and I got out.

I think I might have told you this, but I can't remember what I did Monday, so bear with it.

And I was walking towards the store and the two other brothers were in the car and I turned around.

I said do you want something to drink.

And a guy, a total stranger, said yeah, i do, will you buy me something?

And before I could stop it, i said sure, i'll buy you something.

After all, you're a backslidden Christian who was called to ministry and you've been running from God for years.

What would you like?

I mean, it came out that fast, unpremeditated, wow, and he stood in the.

By that time we were about up at the doorway of the convenience store.

He stood, his mouth opened, his jaw, and I realized that what just came out of my mouth was the Spirit of God.

And I don't know what he's doing.

I didn't keep in touch with him, but I bet he'll never forget that encounter where a word of knowledge arrested him on his way to get a drink.

Don't make a theology out of this.

It just happened once, but why not?

I mean, there are so many ways that I remember I think it was Jim Cater called the gifts the dinner bells to salvation.

It's not that we're just looking to wow people and they don't have to believe the gospel, but our God is a living God And when he does things like that, it gets people's attentions.

Finally, the focus of the gifts verse 7.

We saw the scope to each one.

We saw the nature is given.

They are grace gifts.

We saw the realm manifestation.

It's open, visible.

This happens and God is at work and we see it.

And finally, the focus of the gifts to each one is given the manifestation For the common good.

I am not given a gift to show off, to impress you, to make you like me, and I used to use my gift and I still struggle with it.

If you're insecure, you can hide behind your gift and I have done that, but the gift is not to So I feel better.

How many know?

And don't get me wrong when you're moving in your gift there's life and power and release, and that should be.

But the gifts are for the common good, they're for others, they're for the good of the body.

The word common is the root word from which the word community is derived and formed.

These gifts are for the community.

In fact, there's a statement in this chapter I wish I had time and maybe we'll unfold it a later date but he says that the members should have the same care for one another.

I'm not an expert on these gifts, but I can tell you this that I believe, if you were to ask me what's the key to the manifestation of the Spirit, to the gifts.

I'll tell you what it is Compassion.

How many times in the gospels did Jesus have compassion on someone and the result was a work of power healing, resurrection, cleansing lepers, even as disciples, calming a storm.

It was all by compassion.

And God Christ, rather His heart was filled with compassion and it was manifested in a work of power.

If you want God to use you in the manifestation of the Spirit, be a man or a woman who looks around at hurting people and is compassionate.

Your heart breaks for what you see And then, as your heart is filled with His love, ask Him for the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

There is one other text I close with and hallelujah, i made it Verse 1 of chapter 14.

Turn to it and then look up here and don't look at it.

Anybody interested in gifts?

you shouldn't ask for them.

You should just wait on God and if He wants to give it to you, he will Just take my teaching and you can pray about it if you want, but don't pursue.

Is that what Paul says?

No, look at verse 1.

Pursue love.

What's primary Character?

Love.

Pursue love, make that primary And earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

So, putting it in perspective, don't be a man or a woman who says I'm going to choose character over gifts or I like gifts.

I'm not big on character.

Everybody must be big on character.

But God is visibly working in the domain of the Spirit, in the body of Christ, in these two realms Character and power, character and open display of the ministry of Jesus.

You see, every one of us is called not only to be like Jesus in character but to be like Jesus in ministry.

I'll tell you the most exciting thing for me about Trinity, it's all the gifts.

There are pastors in this room, there are teachers, there are evangelists, there are prophets, there are gifts of mercy and healing and tongues.

There are so many gifts and I encourage you to take verse 1 seriously Earnestly desire, pray, seek.

Now the thing is, you may be moving in a spiritual gift and not know what it is.

How many know that often happens and somebody comes along and says because when I started teaching, my denomination didn't have teachers, and so people said you're a teacher and I remember saying I am Because no one told me what I was.

You don't have to know what you are to move in it, just be a man or a woman filled with the spirit and pursue and desire.

Pursue love and desire Spiritual gifts.

Paul will stop in chapter 12 and say let me show you a more excellent way.

He is not pitting character love against spiritual gifts, but he's saying if you're not a man or a woman who loves and is doing these things from love, you're a bunch of noise, and how many know there's a lot of noise in the body of Christ.

Well, we need these gifts as well.