Manifestation a Gift of the Holy Spirit

To watch the sermon The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Manifestation

Good morning.

Hope you guys are having a blessed Shabbat this morning.

Glad to see you here.

It's been a beautiful week, a little less chaotic with the weather and today I think I saw that it's supposed to be up in the 80s and 90s.

Like no, just no.

Too soon, too soon Lord.

Well it is good to be with you again today and I'm excited about this journey that we continue to be taking together in regard to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And so I want to begin with a bit of a confession this morning and that is that some of the things I'm going to be sharing with you today I didn't really fully grasp or understand until I actually started doing this study.

So I don't want to come to you today and act like I'm the guy who's figured all this out and you should come pattern your life after me because I've known this for so long.

I am a part of this journey with you and I am learning the significance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the whole magnitude of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that I'm beginning to realize I have not fully understood nor have I fully pursued in my life as a believer.

And so this study is very relevant to me personally in my own spiritual walk and I hope that it's that way for you.

Now, a little bit of a disclaimer.

Today we've got some doctrinal things to discuss and normally when that happens our brains kind of fog over but hopefully you'll remain, you'll hang with me.

So today before we go to 1 Corinthians 12 I want to ask you to go to Hebrews chapter 12, not 1 Corinthians 12 because there's a word bridge that I think will help us in our study of the gifts of the Spirit.

Just to remember the context, you're all very familiar with the fact that Hebrews chapter 11 is the hall of fame of faith and the truth of the matter is that the end of chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews kind of lays out a rather gruesome listing of all of the horrific things that many of the heroes of faith have endured.

I mean it's one thing to kind of go through that chapter and celebrate, wow they stood strong and everything, but they're heroes of faith because of the things, the obstacles that they had to face.

This perfectly sets the stage for the writer of Hebrews in chapter 12 to call the faithful to endurance in spite of the magnitude of those difficulties.

And in verse 7 he begins an illustration using a very Jewish method which I've talked to you about so many times, juxtaposition, and he begins to lay out the case of an earthly father and a heavenly father.

That's a juxtaposition that gets used quite frequently throughout the New Testament.

Jesus used it as well.

And in this verse 7 he begins to lay out the case of the faithful father who disciplines his sons, who disciplines his children for their benefit.

How many of you are, "Oh we're going to talk about discipline, yay.

Let's go back to the taboo series, that was more fun."

So the word discipline in this verse that the writer of Hebrews uses isn't just the idea of punishment, it's the idea of discipline or punishment that brings about understanding and knowledge.

Discipline is never just, with God it's never just punitive, it's always instructive.

Remember the judgments that God poured out in Egypt, those revelatory judgments were so that they might know something, so that they might know there is one God and those things that the Egyptians were worshiping were not God.

There is always an instructive element to God's discipline.

He then emphasizes his point by saying something that's rather shocking.

If you aren't disciplined by your father, the writer of Hebrews says, you are not legitimate children and not legitimate sons.

Now that's kind of a hard thing to hear, but what does he mean?

He means if you're not disciplined by the father, you have no evidence of his working in your life, therefore you have no right to expect the father's inheritance.

If you are truly a son of the father, how he has disciplined you, how he has instructed you, how he has poured himself into you will manifest in you, and if there's no testimony of that discipline, no testimony of the receiving of that instruction, you are not considered a legitimate child worthy of the inheritance.

And then he gets to verse 10.

He says, speaking of our earthly fathers and parents, he says, "For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness."

Now again, notice the juxtaposition of our earthly parents and our heavenly father.

It is the imperfect versus the perfect.

They disciplined us for a short time on what seemed best or what they thought was best for us.

How many of you when you were growing up took exception with what your parents thought was best for you?

When it came to discipline, I had a completely different opinion of what would be helpful, instructive, and nurturing for me.

And it was not the paddle, it was not being sent to my room, it was certainly not getting what I wanted.

Of course that's what I wanted.

As parents, how many times have you looked back at the way you disciplined your children and thought to yourself, "Hmm, that seemed like a really good idea at the time."

Come on parents.

You know, okay, I know that some of the kids, most of the kids aren't in here so you can be honest.

I know you don't want to confess that in front of your kids.

But every parent looks back and goes, "Man, that really seemed like a good idea.

And in truth, I was just doing the best I could."

And that's great.

And the writer of Hebrews juxtaposes that, our imperfection, with God's perfection.

He says, "Because He disciplines us in perfection for our good."

God's good always leads to God's perfection or completion in us.

In God's instructional discipline, there's no wishful thinking.

There's no second guessing.

There's no seeming what seemed right at the time.

God never looks back and goes, "Oh man, I was a little too harsh there.

Oh man, I gave them way too much rope."

You know?

God doesn't do that.

His discipline is for our perfection, our completion.

And the writer of Hebrews says, tells us why he does it.

So that you and I, are you ready for this?

So that we can share in His holiness.

Would you just run that sentence through your mind?

So that I can share in His holiness.

I don't know about you, but that makes me just want to run out of the door screaming.

I mean, I'm just overwhelmed by that.

That I would be invited to share in God's holiness?

I mean, I spend most of my life beating myself up for how unholy I am.

Can I get a "mmm"?

And the writer of Hebrews is saying, "But that's why he disciplines me.

That's why he teaches me.

That's why he instructs me.

Because the heart of God is for me to experience and to share everything that he is, which is His holiness."

Now before we pray, I want to lay out this kind of a spiritual paradigm for you.

We are spending a lot of time building a foundation for why the spiritual, the why of the spiritual gifts before we actually get to the delineation and discussion of those gifts.

Why am I doing that?

Because Paul does it, so get over it.

You know I'm going to teach it to you the way that Paul does.

He is the hand-picked, Holy Spirit-filled apostle, and I'm going to pay very careful attention to how he does it.

So here's the paradigm.

God's holiness always manifest, shows itself in acts of righteousness, which are always manifested in His giving of grace, which are grace gifts.

So let me walk you through that again.

The very holiness that God wants me to share in is manifested through His righteousness, meaning His willingness to give, and His willingness to give always comes forth in the grace gifts that He gives.

That's the paradigm.

Holiness manifests as righteousness, righteousness manifests as grace giving.

That's how it works with God.

If His desire for me as His child is to share in His holiness, and He calls me to seek His righteousness and lavishes His grace upon me, please hear this, it is not possible for me to share in His holiness if I do not participate in His grace.

Did you hear that?

It is not possible for me to share in His holiness if I don't have an intimate relationship with His grace, meaning His charismata, His grace giving.

Now before your minds run off to misunderstanding, "Oh, well then you're heading down that path that if I don't have this gift, I don't have grace."

Absolutely not.

Paul's going to make it very clear that God is going to manifest His grace in many different ways in different peoples.

But at some place in our lives, if there is no manifestation of His grace, the way we speak to people, the way we care about people, in the utilization of the gifts of the Spirit, if there's no manifestation of the grace, how can we say we are connected to His holiness?

Do you see the problem?

Do you see, do you understand the paradigm?

Which means, man, I want to get connected to God's grace.

If the undisciplined son has no inheritance in the father because he doesn't bear the testimony of the father's discipline in his life, how much more is it true that if the father manifests himself in every way through grace, how can grace not be found in my life?

How can I share His holiness if the manifestation of that holiness isn't witnessed in me?

And I hear this, and if I don't desire to seek it.

Because the gifts of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is one of those topics that many of us, we think it's a great idea, and we just kind of set it over there because it seems too big, too scary, too complicated, too divisive.

And yet, it's an invitation to partake of His holiness.

Will you join me right now in asking the Lord to make our moments here together in this place, and for those who are watching online today or at some time in the future, we're going to be praying not only for ourselves but for you, that when, however you come across this moment, that will be your moment where you will hear what the Spirit is saying, the invitation to share in His holiness.

Will you pray with me?

Abba Father, I come to you in the name of Yeshua the Messiah, and I want to share in your holiness, Lord, and everything in my flesh just rises up and screams, "No stinking way!"

And yet, you say from heaven, "Yes way."

So God, I'm asking not only in this moment, in this place, for these people, but wherever the people that may be watching online either today or in a hotel, in a home, in a truck, wherever they may be driving down the road, Father, wherever it may be, whenever it may be, will you make this a grace moment in their lives?

Will you help us be honest about whether or not we actually have a desire to share in your holiness?

Lord, I, I give this time to you.

I'm not the expert.

I'm just your servant.

So use me for your glory.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So one more thing before we turn to 1 Corinthians 12.

Let me point out that in Hebrews chapter 12, 10, there is a word that helps us build another bridge.

The Hebrew writer is going to use a word that Paul is going to use in his letter to the Corinthians as he's teaching us about grace gifts.

The Hebrew writer said that God gives, disciplines his children and he uses this Greek word "sumferon" which is made up of two, like all Greek words, a preposition and another word.

"Sum" which we often spell sin like to synchronize or something like that, which means together with and "pharaoh" which means to bring or to carry along.

So the word that the writer of Hebrews actually uses to describe the benefit of God's instructive discipline in our lives actually creates a word picture of what benefit God actually has in mind.

It is our benefit when we are brought together and when we are carried along together by the Holy Spirit.

Now I don't want you to think that there's no individual blessing or ministry because each one is going to get a gift, but the ultimate blessing that this word implies is that God is doing these things and He's doing it individually for the sake of the collective benefit that we all be carried along together in the Holy Spirit.

Now let's see what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7.

"But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."

Now in 1 Corinthians we translate the exact same word that Paul, or the writer of Hebrews uses in Hebrews 12, that we translate "benefits" or "benefiting" here for some reason we're going to translate it as "the common good."

And this word here, "common good" has the same idea of this benefit.

Here it's the way it's translated in most English translations really pulls out that commonality, the common good.

And I've talked to you so much about this word "good" that whatever God says is good, good is the destination, good is telos, good is the thing that when it's created and it's functioning in the purpose for which it was created, that is good.

Now there's evil, which takes us away from the good, away from the completion, and then there's good.

So God does all these things in us and through us for the common good.

Now how does Paul say that the common good, the shared benefit, and that journey happens?

It happens when each one of us is given a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, the one who is given to carry us along.

So I just want just to, as we're trying to build this kind of framework for how and why I would want to pursue the gifts of the Holy Spirit or the understanding of grace, is that I have to understand that I'm never going to pursue it solely for my benefit.

Are you with me?

Because even the word "benefit" has to do not just with what's happening in me, but with what's happening in me that affects you.

And if we're going to get to that place where we're going to seek to be connected to the sharing of God's holiness, selfishness is just not going to be there.

The topic of the gifts of the Spirit, in the topics of the gifts of the Spirit we're talking about things which are manifestations of God's holiness that He expects to find within His children.

Now why does the Father have the right to, have the right to that expectation?

Because if we are of the Father, that which is of the Father will be found in us.

It all sources to the revelation of God.

God's revealing Himself, the holiness.

Now this source for the gifts is a high priority in the gifts of, in Paul's explanation of the gifts of the Spirit.

Now I want you to think about something.

If you don't have your physical Bible in front of you, you can go home and do this at home.

But go home and look at how many verses there are in chapter 12, and then notice how many verses Paul spends talking about the purpose, the oneness, the source, the benefit of the gifts versus how much time, how many verses, if you want to count the number of verses, how many verses he actually uses to delineate the specific gifts.

So this is why I'm sure you're like, "Brent, I want to know about the gift of wisdom.

I want to know about the word of God."

We'll get there as soon as Paul does.

Because Paul understands, and we need to understand, that before we get to the manifestation of the gifts, we have to understand that these are manifestations of God's purpose for our life, for our life.

Read with me and focus on how important the source of these manifestations are.

First Corinthians chapter 12, verses 4 through 7.

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

There are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord.

There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works in all things, in all persons.

Persons is supplied.

It could just say God who works in all things, works all things in all.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Now Paul's going to lay out three manifestations, and he attaches these three descriptions to the Godhead.

Does this sound familiar?

No?

Well, that's just hurtful.

Maybe this will jog your memory.

Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be clung to or grasp, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men.

Do you remember our series, The Doctrine and the Dugma?

Remember the doctrine that we were looking at in Philippians chapter 2 is how Paul is going to use Jesus' relationship as the Word of God, which became flesh, who was the Word, who was with God, who is God, who is now the Son of God in the flesh, and how he relates to God the Father.

He subordinates his will to the will of the Father.

He doesn't subordinate his identity, but he limits himself so that the testimony that is seen in him is seen as having come from God.

It is God's testimony.

Jesus says, "I'm only going to do what I see and hear the Father doing."

That doesn't mean he's not God.

It means that he's subordinating what he's doing so that he's not testifying about himself, but the testimony is coming from God.

If you'll remember the whole point, the dugma of that, which means illustration or example, is that Paul uses that doctrine of the deity of Christ and his relationship with God.

Lo and behold, that doctrine is not just for theological debate.

When we look at it, you and I learn how to be disciples.

You and I learn how we relate to Christ.

As Christ related to God, we relate to Christ, and pretty soon that doctrine of God isn't just some big, high, lofty theological concept.

It's actually the very model that we look at so I can learn how to follow Christ the way I'm supposed to.

Now does that jog a memory?

Paul has used this doctrine of God to teach us discipleship, and now he's going to use the doctrine of God to teach us about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Are you beginning to sense a trend?

That the very thing that we set aside, "We'll let the scholars, we'll let those," this is supposed to be the foundation of our lives, who God is, how he reveals himself, teaches me how I can relate to you and how I relate to him.

It's not an irrelevant topic.

Now look at how Paul introduces the gifts of the Spirit.

He lays them out in the context of the Godhead or the Trinity.

He starts off with gifts from the Spirit, ministries from the Lord, Jesus Christ, all things coming from God.

Again, the doctrine of God is essential to our understanding.

How we understand God is one, yet works and reveals and manifests himself as three is inseparably related to how we are to understand how the Holy Spirit manifests within us the body of Christ.

Once again, we're going to look to who God is to understand how he's working in us.

Now that shouldn't surprise us, because what did the writer of Hebrews tell us?

He does all this so that we can share in his holiness.

So when he begins to work in us, it is going to be a reflection of his own reality.

Now is that too deep?

I don't think so.

It's that oneness of God that is going to be the context of how the gifts of the Spirit are given so that we can function with those gifts in the one body.

The word here for varieties can also be understood or translated as distributions.

The word emphasizes that which is distributed by choice.

When we translate varieties, it emphasizes that there are different divisions and distinctions, and that's absolutely true.

Paul opened his letter to the Corinthians by telling them how rich they were in the Holy Spirit because he had enriched them in all speech, in all knowledge, in all confirming testimony of Christ's presence within them.

Now he lays out the distribution and the distinctions in the gifts, but they all source to one God, yet Paul has no problem identifying God as Spirit, Lord, and Father, God.

Again, don't, I mean you're probably not impressed with me on that, but don't be.

I'm not the cook, I'm the waiter.

And quite honestly, I haven't been paying much attention to what's on the plate.

And once I start paying attention to what's on the plate, suddenly all this makes sense.

Now let me just sidestep from my notes and just say to you, why is this so personally relevant to me?

Because the more I study the context in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given and how that is revealed in the nature of the unity of the Godhead and how he gives them for the unity of the body of Christ, suddenly I have an aha moment going, "Oh, these are pretty important."

And I haven't been paying attention.

I haven't put the same price tag on the grace gifts of God that he does.

By the way, this isn't just a one and done.

If you want to read about this, go read Romans 8 through 9, chapters 8 and 9.

Go read, well the whole book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 4, Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit.

I mean, over and over and over again, you're going to see Paul come back to this focus of how essential our relationship to the grace giving presence of the Holy Spirit actually is in our lives because that's the mechanism by which you and I share in his holiness.

Now how is that ever going to be ... how are we ever going to experience that?

If it doesn't become a priority, a passion, a pursuit, something that dawns on us as we're ... in our prayer life, in our interactions with one another.

So now he lays out these distributions and distinctions and focuses again on the source, one God.

Yet he focuses on the reality of those distinctions and divisions and distributions that exist within God himself, for there are varieties of distributions but the same Spirit.

There are varieties of distributions of ministries but the same Lord.

For there are varieties of distributions of effects or workings but the same God who works all in all.

It's all getting distributed by the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God.

Did you remember the parable of the prodigal son, Luke chapter 15?

The younger son demands that the father give him his portion of the inheritance.

Luke writes that the father divided his wealth and distributed it to his son.

My friends, God has been doing the same thing throughout history though not because of the petulant demands of his children but because we need his grace.

And we have needed God's grace from the moment he created us.

The moment he created us was a manifestation of his grace giving.

He breathed the ruach, the breath of life into us and man became a living being.

Why?

Because his holiness manifests his righteousness which manifests as grace giving which always comes through the Holy Spirit.

I love this verse in John chapter 1 verse 16 and 17.

It's come to mean so much to me.

For of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law, the Torah came, was given through Moses.

Now let me parenthetically add, that's a euphemism for given to Moses by God to give to us.

Are you with me?

Moses didn't invent the Torah.

It wasn't Moses' gift to the world.

It was God's gift to Israel through Moses.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were fully realized, brought to the fullness through Jesus Christ.

First from his fullness of who he is, his holiness, we have all received karos, grace upon grace.

I just want to ...

The reason I'm talking about this verse is because I just want you to ...

Honestly, when I was growing up ...

Man, this stage is driving me crazy.

Can you hear that little crack every time I walk over here?

Someone needs to lose some weight I think or they need to buoy up this stage.

Anyway, I grew up kind of thinking that grace was a New Testament concept.

Anybody else?

I mean, in the Old Testament, God was all about law, all about rules, all about justice.

Then God got saved.

Then he decided to be nice and give us grace.

But John says God has been giving grace upon grace upon grace from the very beginning.

Here's the thing I want to say to you this morning about that.

Grace giving has always been how God reveals himself, but he always reveals his grace in the right time, in the right way, in the right manner for where the people are.

He gives us grace that we need.

Now, the reason I want to say that to you is I could easily stand up here and just beat myself up because I'm 61 years old and I haven't spent as much time really pursuing and understanding the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I could kick myself and you could probably do the same thing.

The point of this message isn't to make you feel bad about what you don't know about the gifts of the Holy Spirit or what you haven't done because it may very well be that God is carrying us along together to this moment for a reason.

Because it's not just me.

I am not the only person in this generation of the ever increasing sin and wickedness in this world that suddenly needs to get slapped around a little bit by my father and say, "Hey son, get your nose back in the book.

I've been saying something to you all along."

I'm not the only one that needs to be carried along by the Holy Spirit.

We are together to be carried.

The benefit is for the body of Christ to come together in the manifestation and the giving of His grace.

Why?

Because we're His children.

If we share in His holiness, there should be evidence of that holiness in our lives.

God's grace comes along at just the right time.

You may have been functioning quite well in your spiritual life.

You may have, "I don't really feel like I'm lacking anything."

And I'm not up here to tell you you're lacking something.

I'm just up here to tell you what the Father says in the Word of God.

His grace keeps giving.

When the world needed the grace of the law, He gave it.

And when the world needed the ultimate grace and redemption in Jesus Christ, He gave it.

There are a couple things I want to emphasize about how Paul makes this point.

First of all, he says, "There are."

Okay, just hang tough here for a minute.

Present tense indicative action.

I know you can't wait to run to lunch and say, "Oh my gosh, present tense indicative action.

Wow, my life has changed."

But it matters.

It's a Greek grammatical rule, and it simply means that when Paul uses present tense indicative action, it means there are and there will continue to be.

We started our study with, you know, these two extremes of cessationism, where God stops giving.

That's not possible.

And I kind of jumped over, and I want to apologize for just going to sensationalism, because sensationalism is just an exaggeration of continuationism.

And I am a continuationist.

I believe God keeps on giving.

Why?

Present tense indicative action.

There are, see it matters, there are gifts of the Spirit, there will be gifts of the Spirit until those gifts are no longer needed, and Paul's even going to talk about that in 1 Corinthians 13.

But until that time comes, there are and there will be.

Secondly, Paul uses an interesting construction where you and I read in our English translations the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God, Paul uses a manner that intensifies so that it literally means the self-same Spirit, the self-same Lord, the self-same God.

Now, how many of you usually use that terminology in your daily life?

No, because you're not Greek.

But in the Greek, it intensifies that Paul is focusing us on the same Lord, the same Spirit, the same God who is all in all.

The grace gifts continue because God is constantly revealing His holiness.

And the grace gifts flow from one source, and yet they are identified as being connected to different manifestations of God's identity.

Now I have to do a little warning, a little clarification moment.

Because when I use the term manifestations of God's identity, there are those of you who are aware of the different ways that the Trinity has been understood in Christian history.

And Chris did a whole building blocks lesson on that, and I would encourage you to go back and watch that.

But the Trinity idea was corrupted by a thing called modalism.

And the easiest way to remember that is the model.

That's where modalism comes from.

And I want to make sure you understand that when I use the term manifestations of God, I'm not endorsing modalism.

Modalism says that God does not exist in three persons, but manifest in three ways, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But these are only manifestations of Himself.

There is part of that that is true, and there's a huge part of it that's not.

The Spirit is a manifestation of God.

Christ is a manifestation of God.

But the Godhead is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now why is modalism considered heresy?

Because it is one of the pathways that leads to Gnosticism, which I spoke about last week.

Remember the idea that God couldn't actually come and dwell in the flesh because all flesh corporeal world is evil, and He's Spirit, therefore they can't come together.

If you reduce the Spirit and the Son to simply manifestations, then you fall into that potential trap of saying, "Well, Jesus didn't actually have to come in the flesh.

He only had to manifest or model God in the flesh."

Do you see the problem?

So I'm using biblical terms that throughout history have been corrupted, and I just want to make sure that you understand that that's not the context of how I'm using those words.

So I use the word cautiously when I see the word manifestations.

But in Paul's case, his use of the term doesn't teach modalism, but it is framed in quite the opposite.

That God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, though all are God, are identified as being relevant to the distribution and divisions of the gifts.

So the distinct persons of the Trinity are identified as having distinct roles in gifting of the saints.

So why does Paul employ the Trinitarian reality of the Godhead to teach us about the gifts of the Spirit?

It is because Paul is once again, as I've already said, going to use the doctrine of the Godhead and the relationship of the Godhead within himself, his Trinity, to emphasize how we the church are one body.

Notice Paul will take four verses to list the gifts of the Spirit.

Then he shifts his emphasis to the one body example of why the gifts are given for the common good.

So let's pick up in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 20.

The chapter goes on, but this is the only part we're going to touch just to make the point.

"For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we are all made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot says, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,' it is not for this reason any less part of the body.

And if the ear says, 'Because I'm not an eye, I am not part of the body,' it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But God has now placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he desired."

You understand what he just said?

God has distributed you in the body just like he distributes gifts to you in the body, just as he desired.

Remember what I said about that distribution?

It's the distribution by choice, his choice.

If we are all one member, what would the body be?

Now there are many members, but one body.

He continues with that emphasis for 11 more verses.

If you want to walk in the gifts of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit believes that it is more essential for you and I to understand their source in the Godhead than it is to give a detailed explanation of the nine gifts.

Now we're going to take time to go through those.

We're going to go back to the section we just skipped.

Starting next week, we'll spend the rest of our time looking at those gifts.

Why does Paul do this?

Because if we do not pursue the gifts for the same purpose and with the same context that God gives them, which are the unity of his own existence and the unity of his own people, one body, then we can pursue from now to kingdom come, but the kingdom won't manifest in us if we do not share in the passion and purpose of why they're given in the first place.

I'm asking you today, do you want to share in his holiness?

That's the point.

You say, "Well, yeah, Brent, but isn't that obvious?"

No, it's not because quite honestly ...

Forgive me, I'm off notes.

So, many of us are so impacted by what we've seen on TV as the definition of what it means to walk in the gifts of the spirit.

Not all of it has been wrong and not all of it has been bad, but there's been such sensationalism that most of us don't want to have anything to do with it.

Come on, tell me I'm wrong.

We don't want to talk about it, but how can we not talk about it if it's how God invites us to share in his holiness?

You see, I'm trying to do what Paul is trying to do, which is to build a framework for our desire and also to protect our understanding of the context in which we pursue it.

If grace gifts are manifestations of his righteousness, grace gifts, hear me, will never manifest because of our selfishness.

Come on, church.

Now, you look around at the American church.

Do we see an overwhelming manifestation of the Holy Spirit here and there?

Why?

Because so many times the pursuit of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is for the glorification and self-aggrandization of self.

And quite honestly, even churches who want to be known as the Holy Spirit gifted church.

Okay.

I mean, I certainly want to be a part of a body that wants to be sharing in the holiness of God, but I'll tell you what I don't want to be.

I don't want to be the braggart church that runs around going, "Well, we believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit."

You want to really get spiritual, you just come on over here to us.

No thank you.

You see, I'm tired of the riff-raff.

I'm tired of the clown show.

God is telling me something in the scripture I haven't been paying attention to and I want it for us.

For us.

Because he placed you here, and this is true for those who are watching, wherever you're watching, whatever fellowship you're a part of.

And by the way, if you're only watching online and you have the physical capacity to be somewhere, get somewhere.

Do I need to say it again?

If you have the physical capacity to be somewhere, then you get somewhere.

Because God didn't create technology, he created relationships.

And sometimes it's just your presence here that is an encouragement to me, and to Chris, and to any preacher.

No preacher wants to preach to an empty room.

You say, "Well, what role do I play?"

You keep me from being depressed.

Preachers go, "Nobody likes me.

No one showed up today."

Yeah, you don't believe it?

Call your preacher on Monday.

We call that an Ezekiel Monday.

Now if you think I'm overstating how important this is, that the starting point for everything we do as believers, consider again the starting confession that Israel had as a part of God's covenant chosen people.

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

It seems like this oneness has been a pretty consistent theme in how God brings grace to his people.

The pursuit of God's grace gifts in that context is the most Hebraic thing you may ever do as a non-Jewish, non-Hebraic believer.

First Corinthians 12, 7, "But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."

In verses four through six, Paul is going to identify three distributions that God will use to equip and empower Christ's body, the church.

These are the charismata, the grace gifts.

Notice the ...

I've already talked about John, so I'm going to skip over that.

I'm going to go out on a little bit of a faith limb here.

I believe because of what I've been reading in the Word of God, that we are living in a time where the body of Christ that believes in the Word of God has the right to expect an increase of grace.

I'm not saying that we are lacking anything.

In fact, remember what Paul says at the beginning of Corinthians, that this carnal church lacked nothing in the Spirit.

They were wealthy.

They didn't lack one gift.

But Paul has made this clear in Romans 5 where sin increases, grace increases all the more.

I'm seeing the body of Christ being torn apart and torn asunder, and numbers decreasing, and people getting discouraged and being given up and giving up.

Quite honestly, I just have to go ...

I just have to be honest.

People don't love the body of Christ.

We have a whole generation of people that just don't think church matters.

They have defined church as an organized religion, as an organized assembly, and they don't like all the drama that exists.

Neither do I.

But God put me here to do something for you, and He put you here to be something for me.

And I need you.

And I can't promise that the body life of any congregation you attend is not going to be fraught with narcissism and self-centered things and petty grumbling.

Yeah, it's going to be filled with a whole lot of people just like you.

That wasn't in the notes, so I'm going to assume it was the Holy Spirit.

And here's the crazy thing.

I don't need you because you're perfect.

I need you because you're you.

And I need you to be a person who is pursuing the grace gifts, who is pursuing the holiness of God, because you matter in the collective oneness that is the body of Christ.

And because I see what's going on in the world, my expectation is growing daily, exponentially of what I believe could happen in the body of Christ.

There is one body and one spirit.

This is what Paul writes in Ephesians 4.

Just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all, but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led captive, host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

Worship team, you can come back.

A few verses down in verse 11 of chapter 4, Paul then lists the gifts.

And he gave some to be apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints and for the works of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Let me edit that, till we're sharing in the inheritance and the holiness of God the way he intended.

Paul lists those as callings.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is going to list nine gifts of the Spirit, but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

For to one is given a word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another a word 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 effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, and to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

Nine manifestations of God's holiness coming forth in righteousness, showing up in our lives as grace gifts.

But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing them individually just as he wills.

One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One body in whom are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers, miracle workers.

One body that manifests who he is with words of wisdom and knowledge and prophecy.

Tongues that need to be interpreted, tongues that don't need to be interpreted.

Wisdoms, blessings, miracles.

Why?

Because that's what exists in God, and that's what he wants to exist in us.

If we want to be the one body, it is the reflection of his oneness.

That's what it's going to look like.

Now understand that that grace isn't going to just manifest in supernatural gifts.

It's going to manifest in faith, in love, in hope, in kindness, in goodness, in faithfulness, in gentleness, in patience.

It's going to manifest in love, within the context of this body.

As we come to this time of response, this is what I want to ask you to do this morning.

I want you to get real honest with yourself about your desire and your passion.

I just want you to use this time to just really say, confess whatever needs to be confessed.

Lord, you know Lord, I, maybe I've just, I've kind of been making this church thing all about me.

Maybe it's time I make it all about something else.

Maybe I've been complaining about what you haven't given me because I haven't really learned to walk in what you have given me.

Look, I'm not here to be your judge, your heart, your mind, the Holy Spirit, He'll tell you what you need to hear, but just know this.

Present tense indicative action.

There are gifts of grace, and there will always be gifts of grace available and flowing in the body that looks like the Father.

Amen. (dramatic guitar music)