Pentecost: Who Is the Holy Spirit and What Does He Do? (1 Corinthians 12:4-13)

Hi, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning into Newsong Churches Podcast.

We're a biblically faithful, gospel-centered Anglican church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

You can learn more about us at Newsongportperry.ca.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

The New Testament reading is from 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 4 to 13.

1 Corinthians 12:4–13

And now, there are a variety 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.

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

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom.

And to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit.

To another, faith by the same Spirit.

To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit.

To another, the working of miracles.

To another, prophecy, to another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.

To another, various kinds of tongues.

To another, the interpretation of tongues.

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

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

So it is with Christ.

For in one spirit we are all baptized into one body.

Jews are Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of the one spirit.

The word of the Lord.

In one spirit we were all baptized into one body, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

Let's pray.

Enlighten with celestial fire.

Thou the anointing spirit heart, who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.

Teach us to know the Father, Son, and Thee, of both to be but one.

That through the ages all along, this may be our endless song.

Praise to thy eternal merit, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Today, friends, we celebrate Pentecost Sunday.

We read about the first Pentecost Sunday in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

A mighty rushing wind.

Why does that sound so familiar?

Filled the house where Jesus' disciples were meeting together.

And left them forever changed.

Left them forever empowered for the mission and ministry that God has appointed them for.

Think about it.

God doesn't just give us a job to do, He empowers us for that job.

He doesn't just say, try your best, kids.

He is with us even to the end of the age by his Holy Spirit.

He does not leave us as orphans.

And so, friends, just like the first, the earliest church here, this first generation of the church, wants to understand the gifts of the Holy Spirit and what his empowering means, so too do we, in our context, want to understand how the Holy Spirit empower us?

For what does he empower us?

And how do we understand him?

If we want to understand his gifts and his empowering better, if we want to understand who he is better, one place we can turn is Paul's letter to the Corinthians, Corinthians chapter 1, chapter 12, or pardon me, 1 Corinthians 1, 12, which was our New Testament reading this morning.

Corinthians is a fascinating letter, because it's one of the most dysfunctional church situations I think you can imagine.

And Paul is writing to them with such a tender heart as their pastor.

Some of the problems that this congregation is dealing with include divisions within the church, different ideas of what mission and ministry look like, uh, issues with sex, issues with kind of food generally, but more specifically, how do Christians relate to their pagan neighbors with integrity, especially as it's represented around table fellowship, that sort of thing.

And then, you know, concluding with problems around understanding the resurrection and the bodily resurrection, not just of Jesus, but the hope of our resurrection on the last day as well.

Our bodies will be raised with Jesus.

All of these problems, of course, we've figured out completely.

The church doesn't have them anymore.

Well, of course, we know how relevant these things are.

Here we find ourselves, maybe, well, this is the second to last kind of issue that Paul is working with this congregation.

With each and every problem Paul is addressing, he's calling this congregation, just like I think he would call our congregation, to look at these problems through the lens of Jesus.

Look at these problems through the lens of the gospel.

And what do we see?

We see love working through unity.

That is what the church is called to.

Love working through unity and working unity in us.

So here's the problem Paul is addressing in the text that we're reading this morning.

There are problems in the church gathering.

Seems like this very fragmented congregation is competing with one another for the spotlight, trying to outcompete one another for who's more spiritual than the other.

Paul wants to call this congregation and this problem, just like every other problem the congregation might face, to see love work, unity in their midst.

And so here's Paul's point.

And here's why he brings the Holy Spirit to bear on this problem that they're facing in their, you know, in their worship gathering.

Here's what Paul wants us to know God's Spirit works unity in and through the whole body of Christ.

God's Spirit works unity in and through the whole body of Christ.

That's Paul's point in our New Testament reading this morning.

And I want us to interrogate that point with a couple of questions.

Let's ask, who is the spirit that Paul's talking about?

Let's ask, how does the spirit empower us?

And then let's ask, for what does the spirit empower us?

Who is the spirit?

How does the spirit empower us?

For what does the spirit empower us?

Paul wants us to understand these things.

And friends, I think if we at Nuzon can understand these things today, just like the Corinthians are called to understand them, we will see ourselves better equipped for more effective ministry in Jesus' name.

Okay, let's dive in.

If you're using the Bibles in front of you and uh tucked in one of the chairs, that's page 902, or you can turn in your order of service to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we're gonna work our way through this text together.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Let's ask our first question: Who is the Spirit?

Verse 4.

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.

Okay, let's pause there.

If we're gonna ask this question, who is the spirit?

Maybe this is the first thing that might jump out to us.

I wonder if it jumped out to you.

When Paul is describing the Spirit, he cannot help but describe the Lord Jesus and God the Father as well.

Do you see that triune uh not pairing, but grouping?

Yeah.

We see the same Spirit, the same Lord, that's a reference to the Lord Jesus, and the same God, that's understanding God the Father.

When we're talking about the Holy Spirit, we can't talk about the Holy Spirit apart from talking about the Trinity, our triune God.

And I think it's no accident of the church calendar that Trinity Sunday immediately follows Pentecost Sunday.

We'll be celebrating Trinity Sunday next Sunday.

So, what's Paul trying to say about the Spirit?

Immediately, the first thing I think Paul has to say is that the Holy Spirit participates in the divine unity of God's being.

The Holy Spirit shares the same being, even while being a different person than God the Father and God the Son.

Because the Holy Spirit is fully God, we can affirm with Scripture that the Holy Spirit accomplishes God's work.

The Spirit first shows up, of course, in the creation account, that the Spirit hovers over the waters that God is forming into our world, right?

And then elsewhere in Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit communicates God's revelation.

He accomplishes God's work.

And in 2 Peter chapter 1, we see the Holy Spirit is the one who speaks God's word to his people.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

He's the one who's inspired the words of Holy Scripture.

You ever wonder why we read Scripture week for week for week and we don't just, I don't know, grab a C.

S.

Lewis text or something like that and talk about that on a Sunday?

I love C.

Lewis, of course.

But we read these words in Scripture because we believe the Holy Spirit has inspired them.

He's breathed them out, he's spoken them to his church, and they therefore have authority.

They're true and they're life-giving.

And if we want to come to know who God is, we need to go to his word, right?

This is where he's revealing himself to us.

So the Holy Spirit accomplishes God's work, communicates God's revelation.

We see the Holy Spirit saves, uh shares this same divine being even while being his own person in the life of the Trinity.

So here's a really succinct answer.

This comes from to be a Christian, which is our Anglican catechism.

The question is, who is the Holy Spirit?

And the answer is this God the Holy Spirit is the third person and the one being of the Holy Trinity, coequal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son, and equally worthy of our honor and worship.

Isn't that what we just confessed in the Nicene Creed together?

We say this creed that was written in the fourth century with the church through the ages and around the world, and it proclaims who God is and who he is for us.

We get to uh we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.

He gives us life.

Who proceeds from the Father, we say, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, right?

Now, uh we've talked about how next Sunday we're going to be introducing a few liturgical changes into our Sunday morning service.

And you're going to notice that one of those changes is a confession about who the Spirit is, who proceeds from the Father.

And we're going to include an additional clause, which is this proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Now, are we changing the creed?

No, we don't have permission to do that.

This is what Christians everywhere have professed.

But you will find in church history two versions of this creed, one that emerges in the East, which is what we're saying today, and one which emerges in the West, which includes the phrase and the Son.

I'll save you the thousand years worth of theological debate over this one, and simply say this: that in our prayer book heritage and in our Western Christian heritage, this is a way of affirming the equal divinity of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, right?

Just as the Spirit with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, we say he proceeds from the Father and the Son.

That's the bottom line there, and that's why we're going to be confessing the creed as such beginning next Sunday.

So I need to emphasize this.

The Lord, the Holy Spirit, is the third person of the Trinity.

The thing he is not is a thing.

And he is certainly not something like the force from Star Wars, which I find to be the most frequent kind of illustration that we sort of hack around the Holy Spirit, right?

If you know Star Wars and you know I love Star Wars because I talk about it all the time, uh, you know that the force is this kind of impersonal, mystical power that Jedi Knights kind of manipulate.

Yeah, that's not the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not some vague, mystical, impersonal power.

He's the one who empowers us.

He's a God, the third person, who indwells us and draws us to himself.

He's not the one to be manipulated, he is the one who empowers us for mission.

As much as I love Star Wars, it's got some funky theology.

I love this note from John chapter 14, by the way, because we read John as our gospel reading this morning.

John 14 · chapter mention

The thing Jesus wants us to understand is that the Holy Spirit is a person.

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, right?

Or some translations might say a paraclete, advocate, counselor.

He'll be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

This is a person, a helper, an advocate, a counselor that Jesus is sending us.

This is why it's to our advantage that Jesus ascends to heaven, because he's sending us something even better.

Not just God who lives with us by proximity, but God who indwells us and empowers us.

So who is the Spirit?

He is God's personal, empowering presence who indwells his people.

And this is hugely significant because what we have to celebrate today, what we are celebrating when we read Acts chapter 2, is that God doesn't just come to hang out with his church, he comes to live and dwell with them forever.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

There will never be a day where we are separated from God because the Holy Spirit unites us to the very life and love of God Himself.

So a good understanding of the Holy Spirit makes a huge difference, doesn't it?

It's the difference between the life and love of God being something we strive to achieve through our own moralism or whatever else, versus understanding that the life and love of God has been poured into us and we receive it like a gift.

That's what Paul says in Romans 5.5.

God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Is the life and love of God something to be achieved, or is it something to be received?

That's a gift of grace, and that's who the Holy Spirit is.

God's personal, empowering presence indwelling us, his people.

That's who the Holy Spirit is.

Okay, if he's here to empower us with his presence, then how does the Holy Spirit empower us, Paul?

He's got an answer for us.

Verse 7.

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

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

So how does the Holy Spirit empower us, Paul?

Well, first answer, by his gifts.

Did you notice these key words?

Verse 4, gifts, verse 5, service, verse 6, activities, verse 7, manifestation.

These are all ways we're trying to describe the Holy Spirit's work in our lives and through our lives.

And notice verse 7.

Let's not overlook how verse 7 starts.

To each is given.

That includes everyone.

So it's a myth that the Holy Spirit only uses, let's say, pastors or really capable, skilled ministry leaders or really well-trained whoever.

No, if you are a Christian, if you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit has gifts for you.

He has a ministry in mind for you.

It includes everyone, right?

And these gifts include things like wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation.

I mean, any one of those things deserves a sermon all on its own.

But let's make two notes about these gifts.

Number one, the list that Paul gives, I want to suggest, is not an exhaustive list, right?

We can look elsewhere in Scripture, Romans chapter 12, Ephesians chapter 4, 1 Peter chapter 4, and we can see similar lists of spiritual gifts that include other gifts and omit some that Paul lists here.

Romans 12 · chapter mention Ephesians 4 · chapter mention 1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

This is not an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts.

This is a suggestive list.

It's a sampling of spiritual gifts, meant to suggest that the whole activity of the church is something that's empowered by the Spirit.

That's note number one.

Note number two would be something like this.

Is Paul, let's ask this question, is Paul describing supernatural gifts, what we might call supernatural gifts, or is he describing something ordinary, something that happens every day?

And the answer I think is yes.

Sometimes I think we have this idea that Holy Spirit and power gifts are something that just dazzle, you know, or are spectacular.

And there's, you know, it's it's as if, you know, human agency has been suspended and something, you know, utterly overwhelming has occurred.

I mean, sometimes that might happen, sure.

But sometimes I wonder if we overlook the power that the ordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit has.

Let's just take an example or two here.

Paul lists healing as one of those gifts.

And I don't know about you, but immediately what comes to my mind is those late-night kind of televangelist sessions where, you know, someone supposedly gets healed.

And I hope that someone gets healed.

I do believe that the Holy Spirit can miraculously heal someone.

Of course, you hear stories about how sometimes that's more theater than anything else, and that's kind of heartbreaking and uh and a real dishonest service to the Lord.

But um, but this gift of healing, does the Holy Spirit heal miraculously, spontaneously?

I believe he does.

In fact, I've I've got a good friend who has a uh, I think a real gift, a ministry for this sort of prayerful healing.

Healing both of the body, but also, he would say, uh, there's there's need for deep healing in the soul.

I once asked him, um, what do you pray for?

Like in like when you you know go to minister someone, you're ministering healing.

Uh you know, you're working.

What is it, what's the most frequent, uh, how did I say this, thing that needs to be healed or something you pray for?

This was really interesting.

You know what his answer was?

Unforgiveness.

I was expecting, I don't know, crutches go flying or something.

Unforgiveness is the number one thing we need healing from, he says.

And that's what we I pray about most frequently.

I mean, there are gifts of healing for the body, yes, there's healing for the soul as well.

But there's also gifts, I'm convinced the Holy Spirit can work miraculously, spontaneously.

But, you know, if you're a parent who's, you know, ministered healing gifts to your children, if you are, you know, perhaps a doctor or you work in the medical field and you care for others, there are particular types of healing that the Spirit has empowered you to administer as well.

I mean, let's not get this idea that the material world is somehow divorced from what's spiritual here.

Let's not overlook the ordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Prophecy would be another good example.

Sometimes prophetic words can be uh astounding, they can be hard to explain, they can come, it seems, out of nowhere.

A lot of times, like right now, what we're doing is opening up God's word together to see what it is he has to say to us, right?

Let's not overlook the ordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit, nor despair if we feel like the spiritual gifts that he's given us seem very ordinary.

You know?

God works in the ordinary.

We come and receive bread and wine because God wants to communicate himself through the things that are ordinary.

Let's not overlook the power that these ordinary gifts can have.

How does the Holy Spirit empower us?

By his gifts, number one, and number two, by his purpose.

We've seen this in verse seven.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit.

Why or for what?

For the common good.

This means our spiritual gifts are not meant to be in competition with one another.

That's how the Corinthians understood, right?

They understand Understood that some gifts are just more spiritual and of a higher sort than others.

So if I'm gifted in what I understand to be a higher sort of gift, well then I'm just at the top of the food chain, I suppose.

Pride and ego develop and divisions start to develop within the church.

No, these gifts are not given in order to divide the church against itself.

It's meant to harmonize the church.

It's meant to come together as one living, breathing organism, right?

Churches break apart in heartbreaking ways when we see our gifts as something to be used to outdo one another, right?

Maybe we've seen that happen.

It breaks God's heart.

He gives his gifts for his purpose, right?

To work unity and harmony, and he gives his purpose as he wills.

God gives us gifts through his Holy Spirit.

Not in accordance with our purposes, but in accordance with his.

This is why I love J.I.

Packer's definition of a spiritual gift.

He says, spiritual gifts are actualized powers of showing forth Christ.

Actualized powers of showing forth Christ.

I love that.

Right?

Because I think one of the spiritual gifts I had affirmed pretty early in my life and in my ministry was you've got a gift of teaching and preaching, and that's why I'm up here humbly trying to do my best for the Lord, right?

I could hear that word, you've got a spiritual gift of preaching, and think, okay, God, you've given me an actualized power here.

It's time to get out there and show him how great a preacher I am.

No, that's not its purpose.

It's not to elevate us or platform us.

God's given me a spiritual gift, and he's given you a spiritual gift to show forth Christ.

So if your gift is preaching and teaching, then preach and teach in such a way that you show forth Christ.

If your gift is mercy and compassion, be merciful and compassionate in a way that shows Christ forth.

If your gift is prayer, if your gift is service, if your gift is administration, use all of these things to show forth Christ.

That will bring harmony to the church.

It will empower the church.

Do you see how the Holy Spirit empowers us by his gifts and accordance with his purposes?

So often the question is, well, how do I understand my spiritual gifts?

How do I discover my spiritual gifts?

It's a great question.

There are lots of surveys online you can take to help you discover your spiritual gifts, and many of them are very fine.

But, friends, I think we overlook perhaps I think the most important way to discover our spiritual gifts, which is a very vulnerable thing, but I think it's the most effective thing, and it's this.

Find a trusted brother or sister in Christ and ask them, how do you see Christ shown forth in me?

What has God given me, do you think, that can show him forth?

Because a trusted friend will be able to speak honestly to you, I think, in a way that an impersonal survey, you know, just basically reflects the answers that we give.

Don't get me wrong, those can be very helpful, but don't overlook asking a trusted friend to speak that truth into your life.

You could do it over coffee today.

And then, having received that, then prayerfully discern, Lord, how is it that you could be calling me to use this gift to your glory and to serve others?

That's how the Spirit empowers us.

He gives us gifts for his purpose.

Lord, how can I use the gifts that are recognized?

So who's the Holy Spirit?

It's God's empowering presence with us.

How does God empower us?

He empowers us through his gifts as he purposes.

But for what does the Holy Spirit empower us?

That's the last question we want to ask.

What's the goal here?

What's the intended outcome of these spiritual gifts?

Paul's got an answer for us, verse 12.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

What's the purpose?

What's the goal?

What's the outcome of the Holy Spirit's empowering?

It's to be the body of Christ.

Just as our bodies are one, so too would the corporate body of Christ, the church, be one.

Last Sunday we touched on this.

We celebrated Ascension Sunday, right?

Christ's exaltation, his enthronement, and we recognize the implications that this has for the church as we looked at Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 and 23.

Ephesians 1:22

We read, God the Father put all things under Christ's feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Very interesting, isn't it?

That we are filled with Christ, and that we therefore become the fullness of Christ, is enabled only by the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

He unites us to one another and unites us to Christ in such a way that we can be Christ's hands and feet here in earth.

So one Bible commentator connects this to the ascension.

He says, How then does the Holy Spirit of God underwrite and spell out all the fundamental, pardon me, spell out the fundamental fact that Jesus is Lord by enabling the church to embody his presence in the world in a variety of ways through each individual member, but always pointing to Jesus as Lord.

This is why I think Paul immediately signals baptism here.

See that in verse 13?

In one spirit, we were all baptized.

This is the um this is the sacramental rite of our initiation into the life of the church.

We are baptized into one body.

We are all members of it.

Doesn't matter our denomination, if we are baptized with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then we are in Christ and we belong to him.

We are with Christ and we are in Christ.

And thus, verse 13, when Paul says, all were made to drink of one spirit, this should emphasize the shared fullness and shared unity of the church.

It shouldn't suggest what some interpreters have said, that there's some kind of second-class Christians who've been baptized with water but have yet to drink of the Spirit.

No, God doesn't withhold his good gifts from us.

Right?

If we are in Christ, we are in the Spirit.

And yes, though that manifestation of the Spirit may show up from person to person in different ways, but we are all of us united in that same spirit for that one common purpose, to be the body of Christ.

But not just the body of Christ, we are called to be the unified body of Christ.

We're meant to be one.

That means different parts of the body all working together, right?

This is the illustration that Paul uses.

It's literally on our own body.

We know our hands are very unlike our feet, right?

Our eyes are very unlike our nose, and yet all of these things we depend on to get by.

To do the work we have to do, to live life, right?

We see another example.

I think it's so appropriate we have our choir singing on Pentecost Sunday, because here we have all these parts coming together to do something greater than they could do on their own.

No section of the choir should compete for who's superior to one another, right?

No commentary there.

No one's ever thought that, right?

We all come together as one body to harmonize with one another and become something greater than the mere sum of our parts to the glory of God.

Different parts are animated by love.

That's why 1 Corinthians 13 follows 1 Corinthians 12.

And you know 1 Corinthians 13, even if it doesn't come to mind, love is patient, love is kind.

This is the greater way, is love.

And this is a chapter that we often quote, and yet often don't notice that surrounding this chapter is all about spiritual gifts.

What animates our gifts?

It's love.

Love working unity with one another.

So, for what does the Spirit empower us?

To be the unified body of Christ.

That's Paul's answer.

So let's consider the purpose of spiritual gifts.

They're not for you.

Mine aren't for me.

They are for your brothers and sisters.

And they are for the glory of God.

Thus, number one, you have no need to despair of your gifting.

If you ever feel like my gifting has just loaned me to be some kind of second-class Christian, I hope you can release that today.

God does not have second-class Christians in mind.

He has given you gifts specifically to his glory and for the good of his body, and we would be less of a body without you in it.

Don't despair of your gifts.

To each has been given the manifestation of the Spirit.

But number two, if we each of us have a gift from the Spirit, or many gifts of the Spirit, from time to time we need to check our motives against God, the Holy Spirit's purposes.

Do I use my gifts from time to time to platform my own ego?

My sinful flesh sure does.

I need to check my own motives against, Lord, how do you want to work in and through my gifts to your glory and to the good of my brothers and sisters?

Otherwise, churches spiral into division and competition.

And the enemy loves that.

Consider that this unity that the Holy Spirit works when our gifts harmonize with one another in love, empowers us, enables our mission as a church.

We've articulated our mission like this, Nusong.

We're here to proclaim the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

And friends, this is not a mission that is possible for us to do.

Not on our own.

It is only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit who indwells us and who empowers us.

And it is only possible when each and every one of us, with our own gifting, with our own enabling, says yes to the call of Christ.

Says yes to showing him forth in the way that he has equipped us to do, and to do so out of love for one another and for him.

Friends, we have much to celebrate on Pentecost Sunday, don't we?

God has given us good gifts.

Chiefly He has given us Himself, who dwells with us, and who is among us presently, and who will draw us to the very throne room of God as we come to the supper together.

God's Spirit works unity in and through the whole body of Christ.

For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.

If you live in the area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 AM.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at Newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

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If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.