The Unity and Diversity of the Body

Now, two things are required for there to be unity, and obviously we're called, as the Church of God described, to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

And I believe unity is one of the core attributes of a true church.

So unity is a huge thing in God's mind.

And I think, politically speaking, everybody wants unity.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had unity in our country, but our country is not united.

It's very divisive, especially in today's climate.

And sometimes churches can get divisive and work against itself.

Well, we're to strive for unity, but unity takes two things.

And it's easy to think that unity is simply uniformity, that we all have to have the same gifts, the same abilities, and look the same and be the same, be little clones of one another.

And we think if we're going to be unified, we need to be identical in every way.

So sometimes unity is falsely this attempt to make us all, in some sense, all equal.

We're all identical.

And this is the false notion of Marxism, really, and the false notion of today, this pushing of equality.

It's not this notion of unity, per se.

It's the notion of having everybody having the same resources, the same outcome, everybody being identical.

As if someone has more of something, someone has less than they're going to be envy and jealousy and that's going to create problems.

And I think there's truth to that in the sense that envy does create problems.

If someone has more money and someone's poor, it's easy for the one who has rich to look down on the poor person.

And it's easy for the poor person to be envious of the rich person.

It's like, well, if we're going to have unity, we just need to eliminate wealth and eliminate poverty and redistribute all the, if you would, all the resources evenly.

And so we can all look the same, dress the same, be the same, and then we'll have peace.

Well, that's not God's plan for unity.

That's not God's plan for unity in the church, for all of us to have the same spiritual gifts and all have the same spiritual fruit, for all of us to look the same, for there to be unity in God's perspective, true unity, there has to be a measure of diversity.

There has to be the blessing of diversity, some differences among us.

Obviously, there's going to need to be some commonality.

It can't be unified if we're completely different and we don't have a common objective.

And so in this text, we'll see the unity and diversity of the church and the beauty of the diversity when it comes to establishing the unity and the common good of the whole.

So what he does is contrasting the things that we have in common, one Lord, one Spirit, one God, one confession.

But in making sure that this is what's unifying us, we have one gospel, not two gospels, one Lord, not two Lords, one objective, not two objectives.

So we're unified in some of these things, but we're going to be diversified in our spiritual giftings and callings and our workings and ministries.

And that is not a negative.

That's actually a very positive when it comes to the church of the living God.

This is not today's sermon, but in the next text, we're talking about the unity of the body, having different particular body parts.

And these body parts are not the same and they're not designed to be the same.

If everybody was an eye, we wouldn't be able to walk.

We have to have a diversity to function and we need a diversity of believers in any body.

We need to be diversified and we need to be rejoicing in our diversity so that we can function well and be united well together.

What was happening in the church, of course, was they were over elevating the importance of the revelatory gifts, which are speaking in tongues and interpretation and prophecies that is interpreting tongues.

These spiritual gifts were designed to provide temporal or provide communication from God while the New Testament was being written.

Right here in the church of Corinth in the fifties, mid fifties, they didn't have the Bible.

They didn't have the New Testament.

So God provided them a means in which he would speak to them.

And it wasn't the best means because the Bible is the best means to speak to them.

But these revelatory gifts that were signs that the apostolic position had authority, which I believe worked.

They were temporary.

They weren't to last forever.

But nevertheless, these revelatory gifts were very showy.

They were very impressive and everybody wanted to have them.

Everybody coveted them.

At least it seems that way in the church of Corinth that they elevated speaking in tongues, principally speaking in tongues as the highest and the most important spiritual gift.

And many of our charismatic friends, though we don't hold to the gifts continuing, they still do that today.

They make the importance of speaking in tongues as the litmus test if you're a Christian, you speaking tongues.

If you don't speak in tongues, you need a question if you're even filled with the Holy Spirit.

And this is what the Corinthians were doing.

They have elevated gifts to such a high extent that they wanted everybody to have the same gifting.

And if you didn't have them, you should envy them or covet them and want them.

And so this led to all kinds of problems in the church of Corinth.

It calls them to minimize the other spiritual giftings.

We see that in Chapter 12, 4 through 11.

It calls them to elevate their independent personal experiences above the unity of the church.

We see that in 12 through 30.

The speaking in tongues become the greatest gift.

From Paul, we see in the next chapter, he says, don't all strive after speaking in tongues.

If you want one gift to strive for that we all should strive for, that we should all be unified in, if there's going to be one gift that you put at the top, choose love.

That's the higher way.

Let us all have that.

That's one gift we all should seek to have and a great abundance.

And finally, we'll see in Chapter 14 that this elevation of speaking in tongues brought such confusion to the church of Corinth that it brought a lot of disorder in their congregation and their worship service.

They begin to speak over one another and brought a lot of disorder.

It's like, you don't need to be doing this.

If best you have one or two people at a time and no more than that.

And he says, if you don't have an interpreter, you don't need to be doing it because without understanding of the mind, if you're just speaking in a language that no one can comprehend, then it does us no good.

There's no value if you don't understand what's being said.

And so here we are.

We don't necessarily at GBC struggle with that particular issue, but we may struggle in other ways with spiritual gifting.

We may struggle in thinking that you may struggle in some ways by thinking, well, I'm not that gifted.

I lack spiritual gifting and I don't understand my role in the church because of it.

I'm not a preacher or I'm not, you know, I'm not good with music or I can't do this or don't do that.

And I just don't know my place.

And I think that's a common experience between with church members.

I want to serve, but I don't know how to serve.

And I don't know my gifting.

I don't feel competent to serve the church.

So that's a common thing that we struggle with and we may elevate certain gifts to high and think, well, I don't have those gifts.

So you're envious or you're maybe discouraged or you're like confidence or we may be those who are gifted in a particular area and we elevate or evaluate others based upon our strength.

I see, I see this as I've done this.

We've all done this.

I'm sure maybe we're gifted hospitality or maybe we're, we're gifted with, with giving or maybe gifted at seeing needs and we see needs that other don't see.

We got the discernment to go, oh, that person's struggling.

And you have that gift to go and help that person.

And you wonder, why am I the only one here?

Why am I the only one doing this?

Where's everybody else at?

And you begin to become critical of why people are not doing what we're doing and we feel alone in what we're doing in the church because other people are not assisting us.

But we're looking at the whole church based upon our strength and thinking this is the way to serve the Lord.

This is the method.

This is the ministry.

This is what I'm good at.

This is what I enjoy.

Why is other people not doing likewise?

And maybe you're an eye and you think, well, I can see well, but you don't realize feet don't see very good.

But you don't walk around very well, you know, or you got other areas that you're unaware of, of your shortcomings.

And God has purposely learned this.

We're not going to go to it, but we can learn in Ephesians chapter four, God has purposely built a church where he brings in Christians and he says, he doesn't say, I'm going to give you every spiritual gift.

There's only one man who had all the spiritual giftings.

His name is Jesus.

He had them perfectly all of them.

He was the perfect man.

But the rest of us were imperfect and incomplete and we're not designed to be complete men.

If you were a perfect man, you wouldn't need the church.

She's like, well, I can do everything.

But you're made with strengths and you're made with weaknesses and order that you may have to become you.

You're interdependent upon others.

And you'll see that you're interdependent upon God's people in order to be fulfilled yourself.

That is, God has made the Christian church and God's body to be unable or unable or incompetent to function alone.

We're not able to say, I'm just going to go do home church.

I'm just going to do this by myself.

I mean, the church has got full of problems and people are they irritate me and I get upset with everybody.

I'm just going to be alone and Jesus is perfect and I'm just going to serve him by myself.

But you'll find that those who isolate themselves are not wise, but they find that they'll find that you're going to be maybe strong in the area of your strength.

But in all the other areas that you need to correct it in and help in those areas are just going to get worse and worse in your life.

You need an eye.

We all need one another and God has made us different.

So we will be unified.

It's our diversity that helps the unity.

It's our weaknesses that make us dependent upon one another and there's our strengths is not to be used for ourself.

You know, your spiritual fruit that God has given you and the spiritual discernment or wisdom or kindness or faith.

Whatever God is spiritually gifted you with, that's not for yourself.

Your gifting was made for the church to serve his bride.

And so in this we see the unity and diversity and we see this.

He wants us not to be verse one.

He says now concerning spiritual gifts.

Brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

That is we have a wrong print.

The Corinthians at least had a wrong understanding of spiritual gifting and they were basing their unity on these gifts rather than upon the gospel.

And so he's going to give us several things in which we're different and several things in which were similar.

He's going to show us that there are some things that all of us have in common and he's going to show us there's some things that we have that are uniquely different from one another.

And one says, first of all, verses two and three, we see that we all have different backgrounds, but we have one same profession.

We all may have served different idols.

Not all of us serve the same idols, but now we all serve the same Lord.

You know, we didn't come from the same place, but we have ended up with the same profession of faith.

Now it does seem according to verse two and three that the Corinthians were using the spiritual gifts, especially speaking in tongues and as a like a litmus test, like, okay, you're spiritually minded.

You're filled with the spirit or you're a Christian.

We know you're a Christian because look, you're able to do these things that are observable.

I see observable clear evidence that you're filled with the spirit and you know, some of the spiritual giftings are not that observable.

I mean, if you're a prayer warrior and you close your door in the closet and you're praying for the church and no one's aware of it, that's not as observable.

Is it?

So it's easier to think about the spiritual gifts that you can see and demonstrate.

All those are the important ones.

And this is seems to be going on and and and what we see in verse two and three, what Paul is saying is, you know, the litmus test that you're Christian is not that you speak in tongues.

The litmus test that you're Christian is that you say Jesus is Lord.

Look what it says.

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 cursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

Now how do they come out of this paganism?

I mean, what is the evidence?

Paul said to the Thessalonians, I know your election and I know it because you used to be serving all these idols.

And you've turned from serving these dumb idols, these idols that can't speak.

These mute idols.

You turn from that to serving the living God.

This is the evidence of your salvation.

This is what Paul is basically saying here.

I see the evidence that you're filled with the Holy Spirit, not because you speak in tongues, but because you confess Jesus is Christ.

He talks about how our formal lives just doesn't make sense.

It says you were pagans and all of us were pagans in this room.

We do have that in common, but we had different idols.

You know, we didn't all serve the same models.

Some of us worship football.

Some of us worshiped our careers.

Some of us worshiped ourselves.

Some of us worship pleasure.

Some of us worship education.

I mean, we all had different bits and heat.

Whatever bit we were bent towards or whatever idol that we served.

Paul says, I don't even know how you were led down that path.

It's like it doesn't make sense that you were led to worship idols.

I mean, as he thinks about the Corinthians, like what led you to bow down and worship an object that's made out of stone or wood?

Hebrews two, eighties four in making trust in his own creation.

He makes idols that cannot speak.

Psalm 115 tells us in verse five, they have mouths, but they cannot speak.

They have eyes, but they cannot see.

You know, Isaiah 44 talks about a man who has some wood and he builds a fire and he warms themselves, cooks his fish on it, goes, Oh, that was good.

And then what I do with a leftover stick.

Oh, I know what I'll do.

I'll make an idol out of it and then I'll worship it.

And he's making fun of that process.

It's like how foolish, how naive, how crazy must you be?

It's easy for us who may have never had a wooden object or a metal object that we prayed to.

Maybe we've never done that.

But think about your own former life.

Was your life any more sane?

Can you tell any more wisdom because you worship yourself rather than God?

I mean, that may be a little bit better than worshiping a stick, but is that really an insane act, a sane act to worship yourself?

No.

So he said, I don't know how you were led.

What motivated you to worship these things?

But now what you do have in common is now that you all say Christ is Lord.

He says in verse three, I want you to understand that no one's speaking in the spirit of God ever since Jesus is a curse and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

And this is one thing you can say, well, am I a Christian?

Well, put this test to you.

Now you can say the words.

Paul pinned the words.

And I just read the words.

So it's not just saying the words, it's meaning it in your heart.

Anyone here, could you say curse Christ?

Think about it for a minute.

This is, you know, I mean, think about saying that for a second in your conscience.

Think about it.

Could you say that?

If you can, you're not a Christian.

It's that simple.

But for the Christian who has the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not going to allow you to do that.

I mean, you could be put under torture.

You can you can I mean, if they caught you and capture you say, hey, tell me where they're at.

Well, I'll tell you they're here.

They're there.

You might be able to get some information out of you.

But you know what?

One thing they can't get out of you.

They've never done it throughout church history.

They persecuted us.

They put us to the rack.

They have imprisoned us.

I mean, our Christian forefathers and not once has a true child of God ever said curse Christ.

In fact, they marbled at the early church.

So in fact, they couldn't get them to do it.

And you can't even contemplate the thought of doing it because it's repulsive to say curse Christ.

He's your salvation.

He's your life.

He's your all.

He's your God.

Well, why do you say that?

Because you say it in the flesh because you're strong because you're intelligent.

You don't do it because of you.

You do it because you have the Holy Spirit and you who are filled with all the spirit, you cannot curse Christ and anyone who without the Holy Spirit in the same way.

If you don't have the Holy Spirit, you can't bow down to Jesus is Lord.

You cannot confess Christ is Lord and mean it in your heart.

This is what we have in common.

So what is like we are all different and we have our unique giftings and personalities and workings and ministries.

We'll talk about that in a second.

But here's one thing you we all have in common is we all have battled the need to the Lord Jesus Christ because all true Christians have the Holy Spirit.

So that is a common thing in even in our diversity.

We may all have weird backgrounds, educated, uneducated from this way.

That way we don't we don't unify because we come from the same place.

We're unified because we have the same Lord.

Finally verse four, we have different gifts, but we have the same spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit.

This word gifts here literally was where we get the word charismatic.

The Greek word means cares us, Maddock, which means a grace gift, a gift that received by grace.

The gifts that we have are not natural dispositions.

We're not born with them.

They're not something that belong to us.

They come by the working of the Holy Spirit.

They're gifts of the spirit.

And when you're saved, the spirit has gifted you.

He's given you by grace.

You didn't earn it.

You didn't deserve it, but it's a part of being filled with the spirit that you have been gifted.

Well, how have I been gifted?

Well, you've been gifted differently and uniquely by the spirit, as we'll see, as he has chosen to give you gifts.

We all have different gifts and all these gifts are necessary and important, but they are different.

It says a diversity of gifts or a variety of gifts.

Now think about and I love the story of Exodus 35 when Moses is building the tabernacle and he's got to build this tabernacle and Moses.

I mean, when's he going to build it?

He's not necessarily gifted at carpentry.

So what the Bible tells us is that he raised up a man, a particular man and gifted that man to build the tabernacle.

And chapter 35 of Exodus, verse 30 says, then Moses said to the people of Israel, see the Lord has called by name, Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah.

And he has filled him with the spirit of God and with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge and with craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold and silver and bronze and cutting stones for setting and the carving of wood for work and ever skilled craft.

This is amazing thing.

God raised up this man and he must have been the carpenter of all carpenters because his skill set was given to him by the Holy Spirit.

He says, I put intelligence in him.

I put wisdom.

I gave his hands the skill to do all these artistic things to work with silver and gold.

I would have loved to seen his work, but isn't it amazing?

Have you ever been impressed when you see someone that knows what they're doing and that can do things that like, man, I wouldn't want to touch that one time.

Tommy and I, Tommy Walls were working.

I mean, working like in the sense of construction work in a house.

And I was, I mean, I can handle my screwdriver and a hammer and I can be a golfer.

I can do some things, but we got to a problem with this big beam that was put across the ceiling and I thought we're going to have to call someone.

You know, that's what I do when I run into problems.

I got to call someone.

Everybody knows how often I've called Elvis up to help.

I mean, I, however, I was sitting there looking at this beam.

I'm like, who are we going to call?

Well, Tommy's not thinking that Tommy looked at it for about 10 minutes.

Like, okay, we got to do this.

And five minutes later, he had the thing.

He made a particular brace.

He made a brace out of wood first to do this thing.

And then it just fit right in place.

I was like, how did he know to do that?

Where did he get that wisdom?

You know, how did he figure that out on the spot like that?

It's like, that's a gift.

And I mean, obviously, God skipped over me when he was passing out those gifts.

You know, another gift he skipped over me on and I'm somewhat upset about.

I mean, I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding.

God lined us all up in eternity past, you know, and one of the greatest gifts, I mean, I'm trying to tell you there's no, there's all gifts are important, but just lay that aside for a second.

One of the greatest gifts is singing.

Don't you think, don't you love to hear a good voice?

And it's like, here's what we're all lined up in.

God's like, you get a lot.

You get some, you get a some, you get more, you get some.

And here I am.

And he's like, walks around me and I'm like, Hey, I want some just a little back.

Can I hold a tune at least, you know, something, you know, but we're all, but I do, I do really appreciate those who can see or keep timing, hold a tune at least, you know, I appreciate it.

But we're not all gifted the same.

Are we?

We have weaknesses.

We have areas that were not that good in, you know, ever met someone that loves everybody, but it's a little naive.

Doesn't have the discernment, but they outstrip us all and love because they think the best of everybody.

It's like, wow, that's a, that's good.

It comes with a weakness, but yet there's some strength there that we can learn from.

And we, we tend to, you know, we're always evaluating one another, aren't we?

And often that's again, we're evaluating other strengths and we're like, Oh, you're good here, but we're critical of this.

But maybe God's put that deficit see there in them for a reason and we don't need to be critical because they can't sing or they can't build things or they can't have all the discernment that they need.

You know, maybe that's why God's designed us to have weaknesses and strengths.

You know, some of us have the gift of service.

Some of you have the gift of encouragement.

I could tell you, I can know all the people in here that have the gift of encouragement.

It's like, I think that's what keeps this place going.

You know, there wasn't people coming by and going, Hey, appreciate that.

Thank you for that.

Keep that up.

I really am encouraged by what you're doing there.

If you hadn't got some people just kind of building you up and applauding you some, it's like, well, I don't want to make you proud.

Listen, you need to tell people that they're doing a good job.

Take about your own kids.

What happened if you didn't tell your kids, Hey, I'm proud of you.

Keep that up.

Keep going.

Keep striving in that area.

That's a gift of encouragement.

Some people have it.

Thank the Lord.

Some have the gift of hospitality.

Some people have the gift of sacrificially giving and just giving, giving, give.

But we're all different.

We all have different giftings, but you know, one thing we all have the same.

It says now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit.

This is what makes the gift.

Wonderful is because it comes from the Holy Spirit.

That's the unity.

The bond is the fact that there's one spirit.

Now look, it goes on to the third thing we see here in verse five that there are different services, but the same Lord look, verse five says, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord.

One version says there's a variety of ministries.

That's a good way of looking at this way.

Service.

We all serve or to serve the church.

We have different ways of serving.

We have we go.

Well, that's my ministry.

Well, what's your ministry?

Well, this is what I do.

This is where I'm uniquely gifted.

This is what I enjoy doing.

This is where I find some fulfillment in.

We have all different types of ministries.

You know, as a church at GBC, we want to be a simple church, but we want to be a simple church that has a lot of complexities when it comes to the individual ministries of the body.

There is as many members, there's that many ministries.

How many ministries that GBC have?

Well, we just do this.

We only have a simple thing.

We do this, this and this, this.

Well, how many ministers do you have?

Well, we have as many ministers as we have members.

How many ministries do we have?

We have as many ministries as we have family units in the church.

And these ministries are often behind the scenes.

They're not getting advertised.

There's not announcements saying this is going on.

And as some of the, a lot of these ministries, a lot of times I hear, can you announce my ministry?

Can you announce that?

I mean, listen, there's so many ministries.

You can't answer them all.

They're kind of organic.

They're just happening underneath the surface or they're happening behind the scenes.

They're happening with all the one another's just taking place every day.

And we don't see them.

God sometimes hides these things from us.

Sometimes you've ever felt like, Hey, I'm only one working around here.

And you don't realize this a bunch of more people that are working.

You just don't see it.

And you don't know what they're doing because they're not advertising it.

They're not bringing attention to it.

I mean, I know so many people that are praying, praying and praying, but I don't know all the people are praying because it's a lot of people are praying and they don't ever tell anybody they're praying because they don't want to their left hand to know what their right hand is doing.

And they're just, they're just doing what they're doing behind the scenes and they're serving God, serving the church, and they're holding the church together by their ministries, but we're unaware of what's happening.

And I'm thankful for every one of you.

God is thankful for what you're doing.

I mean, think about all of the ministries in this church.

We have evangelism ministries.

We have nursing home ministries.

We have prayer ministries.

We have outreach ministries.

We have giving ministries.

I mean, these are diversities, right?

They said diversity of services that's going on.

We have people that love cleaning and putting up things.

So we just, I had a guy come over the other day.

I had, well, my lawnmower broke.

And what do you do?

Do I get the ratchet out?

No, I use my cell phone.

That's my, that's my tool.

And I called my friend up and said, listen, I got a problem here.

He says, I'll be, I mean, listen, this, he said, I'll be right there.

I didn't mean for him to break away.

What he was doing is last Saturday, I'll be right there.

I was like, well, I feel bad about that because I was in the middle of mowing my yard and it just broke.

He came and he tried to fix it on the spot.

He says, well, I'm going to have to take this in and I'm going to take it to my shop.

He says, but I'm going to come back and mow your yard so you don't have to wait.

I was like, don't do that.

Don't do that.

I don't mind it.

Moat and grow it.

No, I'm going to mow it for you.

Don't worry about it.

And he comes and mows my yard last Saturday and then he fixes it and brings it back and it runs like new.

I was like, who does that?

I mean, it's a spiritual gifting.

It's a serve.

It's a ministry of service.

It's serving the body and I can tell you I've seen you.

I've seen, I mean, I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I see your, I mean, I don't see God sees it.

Who cares if pastor Jeff sees it.

If I don't do it to be safe, but God sees what you're doing.

We don't all see what each other's doing.

But God does it.

It's not, you know, if you just give a cup of cold water, just a cup of cold water is all you have to do to be recognized by God and that cup of cold water given to another church member for anything to help them out, encourage them.

That cup of cold water is not forgotten by God.

So remember, we all do different things, but look, but we all have the same Lord.

What's driving us to serve the body is not that the body is the ultimate object of our worship.

We're doing it as unto the Lord.

I love how the Lord says, if you want to love me, you love my body.

But in giving a cup of cold water to one of my members, you're doing it as unto me.

The day of judgment, when he rewards us, he's going, hey, when I was hungry, you fed me.

And when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.

When I was in prison, you came and visited me.

Well, I was at the nursing home.

You came and sit next to me.

When I was sick, you came by my bedside.

When I was struggling, you gave me a word of encouragement.

When I needed you, you sent me a text message.

So when I do that, I didn't ever saw it.

I didn't ask.

He says, when you've done it to these, you've done it to my body.

Here's another side note.

This is just for us to take home with this little extra note is and I think about this because I've hurt people.

I've wounded Christians before.

I've hurt people.

I might have hurt some of you.

It's like, man, if you hurt someone, you're hurting God.

If you help someone, you're helping God.

If you hurt one of God's people, you're hurting God.

But here in the positive, as we're serving the body, you're doing it as unto the Lord.

So love the body.

Love one another.

Don't be critical to one another.

Build up one another.

There's plenty of default funding.

There's plenty of that to find.

But I think God would be more pleased with us if we're finding the good and lifting one another up encouragement rather than through criticism.

Look forcefully, different activities, but the same God, let's look at verse 16.

He says basically the same thing in another way.

And there are varieties of activities, but the same God who empowers them all and everyone.

These word activities literally means a grace felt, a grace empowered work.

The working of energy that comes from the grace of God.

That's the meaning of the word, these activities.

It's the word using cautions 129 to this in I also labor or I have the energy, I work striving according to his working, which he works in me, modally.

So here it is.

The spirit that gives us in is the it's God who empowers us.

What do we get the power to minister?

What are we get the shrink to serve?

It doesn't come from selfishness.

It doesn't come from self.

It comes from God.

God working in you mightily.

Jesus says greater works than these you will do.

You were going to do good works.

You're saved to do good work.

You're saved to work.

You're saved to serve and your spiritual fruit is designed to benefit the body designed to help and assist the growth of the body.

And this comes from power from God in our lives.

But you see there's different variety of activities at different levels of energy.

Some of us are high energy.

We have we could produce hundred fold.

Some of us are 60 fold.

Others are 40 fold, but we're all working.

We may not do the same amount of work.

We may not do the same type of work, but we're all if you're a Christian you're working.

If you're saved you're serving.

If you're born again you have a spiritual gift or have multiple spiritual gifts because God's designed you to be a benefit to the whole body.

There's no just like your human body.

There's really no part that's not needed.

There's no member that's not needed.

There's no member needed.

Same God who empowers them all in every one.

Fifthly different.

Not only there.

Here's another diversity thing.

There are different manifestations of the spirit, but the same objective.

Look at verse seven to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

Now it's not just speaking in tongues.

Some people didn't speak in tongues.

In fact, I would say in the first church of the first century most people did.

But he lists a lot of different gifts.

Verse eight.

For to one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit to another faith by the same spirit to another gifts of healing by this one spirit to another by the working of miracles to another prophecy to another ability to distinguish between spirits another various kinds of tongues another the interpretation of tongues and he's just given a sampling of the spiritual gifting that God has given the church.

He's not trying to give us an exhaustive list.

But not everybody is doing the same thing.

Everybody has the same gifting.

But we see here the diversity of manifestation.

That is how do you see the spirit in your life?

You see it in the spiritual gifting in your life.

And the diversity of manifestation is in accordance with the spirits will look at verse 11.

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

That is it really was the Holy Spirit after Christ accomplished the work of our salvation and all the fruit that we would produce at the cross by dying for us.

The Bible says in Ephesians four that he ascended to heaven and he dispersed out gifts to man and he gave apostles prophets evangelist teachers and so forth for the benefit in the working of the building of the body and it's the Holy Spirit his sovereign will the Holy Spirit the person of the Holy Spirit.

He's the one who decides who gets what and how much of what he gives and he's the one that says you get this you get this you get this.

I'm giving you this every one of us has something.

So well I didn't get to choose no the spirit shows for you what you've got and it's learning to be content with the gifting that you're called with and to serve with the energy that God gives you.

But why did he each gift us not for ourselves.

He's called us not to be using our our gifts talents.

Ministries for self exaltation look at me for building up a cell or for isolation is called you to use it for the building up of the body.

Look at us what it says it going back to verse seven to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

The diversity brings in unity the fact that we don't have if you would perfect equality we all have the same wealth we all have the same resources we all have the same.

No some of us are rich some of us are poor some of us have some over here some of us don't have that.

It's God's decision to diversify the giftings and not to be envious or discontent with what we have where to be content is satisfied with what we have and we're to use what we have for the common good of the body.

First Peter four put it this way verse ten as each one has received a gift minister it to one another as God stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If anyone speaks let him speak as the oracles of God if anyone ministers let him do it as with the ability which God supplies then in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom being the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Just do what you have with what you got and it's like well people are not going to be satisfied with that just do what you can't.

Older minister of mind a friend of mine North Carolina East twenty years above me and he asked talking to him like how do you handle criticism people that like your preaching want this you to change here want that to change how do you handle all that.

He goes well it helped me he said you know when you're young you have these ambitions of being a great preacher and you're going to be the next Spurgeon or you're going to be this person or that person.

He says value kind of settle into where your giftings are and who you are you realize you're no one else but yourself.

He says I'm just going to give my best and that's all that God requires of me.

That's all he requires of any of us.

He's not overly scrutinizing your service.

It's been covered by the blood of Christ.

He's happy with it.

He's pleased with it.

Romans twelve four says for as we have many members in one body but all the members do not have the same function.

So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.

Prophecy let us prophesy in proportion to our faith our ministry let us use it to our ministry he who teaches in teaching he who exhorts and exhortation he gives with Liberty he leads with diligence he who shows mercy with cheerfulness I mean we're all going to have a role to play.

And sometimes we're not good at other things.

But it's the body is love.

It's love that should motivate us to serve one another.

Finally I don't want to get into verses twelve through fourteen too much because I think I'm going to handle that more fully in the next message but he carries on the idea at least that there are different members but one body for just as their 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 all are baptized into one body Jews are Greek slaves are free all were made to drink of one spirit for the body does not consist of many members.

It does not consist of one member but many say that is going back to this unity and diversity there you're not made to be alone.

You are not the body of Christ.

We are the body of Christ though we're many we've been unified if you're Jew or Greek bond or slave we've been unified in Christ Jesus.

So our unity unity is not human uniformity is some kind of cold that wants to make us all look the same make us all gifted the same that that would be a cult leader that's trying to force you into a pigeonhole of what your Christian service looks like.

Unity is not individual equality.

There are some who are gifted more or have different unique gifts others are gifted less.

Some are gifted in different ways but they're all every gift is essential for the function of the body.

You see unity has a common objective common purpose for the building up you can read Ephesians for we're going to get into this more in detail next time when the eye cannot say to the hand I don't need you you cannot say hey I don't need the other gifts I'm self-sufficient or nor should you say everyone should look like me and everyone should have the same ministry or the same gifting or race need to evangelize the same way I've been July as everybody needs to do hospitality ministry the way I do it everybody needs to give a certain percentage money that I give you know thank the Lord that we're all different.

We should not an application we should not despise or envy those who are gifted differently than us.

We should rather be thankful for the diversity of the body.

You should also remember that we need others for our own spiritual growth remember that you're deficient in some areas and you need others it wasn't the church I mean the church needs that I like the thought that if God brings members to our churches because we needed that and we were deficient in that area.

So now the Lord has provided something we needed also others need us don't ever believe this is one of my last applying principles here don't believe the lie from Satan that you're not needed or you're not useful or you don't have a role to play that you have nothing to contribute or to give or to help to assist we need you the saints need you therefore we all should seek to use whatever we have what energy we have what gifts we have to serve God's people for the good of the whole for the glory of the one we serve let's pray.

The Lord thank you for the body and how you arranged it how you have equipped us uniquely and differently but you brought us in by the same spirit given us a same confession of faith that Jesus is Lord that we would serve the one God and that we be built up together this we pray in your son's name.

Amen.

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