Sunday Sermon: Concerning Spiritual Gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. I am coming to a section of 1

Corinthians today, which I'm sure we will all be in agreement on concerning spiritual gifts because the church in Corinth did so well with their agreement over these things.

Surely we can do the same. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we have this chapter divided up into two parts here, which we'll cover over the next couple of weeks.

So today we're looking at verses 1 through 11 and then next week verses 12 to the end of the chapter, which

I believe was that verse 31. So for today, we kind of get an introduction to spiritual gifts and this is going to be in chapters 12, 13, and 14.

So the next three chapters we're covering this particular topic. Let me begin by reading verses 1 through 11, which

I'll be doing from the English standard version and then we'll pray and get to our lesson. Here are the word of the

Lord. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says, Jesus is accursed and no one can say

Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same

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

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 in the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into this particular section, I pray that you will give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

Give us wisdom and give us understanding. Some challenging things set forth and some things that are here in these three chapters that, personally,

I've witnessed divide churches. So may we be reading things here that would not be cause for division among any of us lest we be speaking from our flesh, but rather let us be in the spirit that we may be united with one another and though we may have different giftings, we are in the same spirit of God that dwells in all believers in Jesus Christ.

Teach us these things, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Now, as I said, very controversial section concerning spiritual gifts.

We'll be talking about things that some people believe are still happening today.

The speaking of tongues is one that people tend to get pretty passionate about. Miraculous healings, prophecy of the future can be foretold and God gives a person a particular gift to see things before they happen.

Now I want to be clear, I want to lay all my cards out on the table as we get started with what is going to be several weeks in this particular section.

The only section of 1 Corinthians that we'll probably be spending more time in is chapter 15, which is about the resurrection of Christ.

We'll be in that section for several weeks as well. But here in these three chapters, as we're going to be talking about this for a few weeks,

I just want you to know that I am what would probably be termed a practical cessationist.

It's a big term. What does that mean exactly for me to say that I'm a practical cessationist?

Well if you're familiar with cessationism, a cessationist believes that the miraculous sign gifts that we read about, especially in the book of Acts, have come to an end.

That they are not in regular use or regular practice today. Now among all of your elders at First Baptist Church, we are all some degree of cessationist.

I don't think any one of us would be considered a continuous. A continuous is a person who believes that these miraculous sign gifts are in fact still ongoing today.

And in fact you can find them at work in various charismatic churches. I would say that most of those are acts.

They're not really doing anything genuinely in the Spirit. But there are those that believe that those spiritual gifts are actually ongoing and still practiced among believers.

That nothing was abolished, nothing came to an end, but still that outpouring of the Spirit continues even to this day.

But as I said, among your elders here at First Baptist Church, we're all some degree of cessationist. And like I said, I would be called a practical cessationist.

There's a documentary that's coming out later on this year called Cessationist. So if you didn't know where I stood on these things, you would know when you watch that documentary because I'm in it.

So it's fair for me to lay all this out at the start. To be a practical cessationist means that though I believe that these spiritual giftings are not in regular use today, that's not to say that God won't do something miraculous.

Maybe He will. Maybe He does heal a person of their diseases. If somebody's sick, pray.

But don't believe in anything called a faith healer. Faith healers are as true as the

Loch Ness Monster in Bigfoot. In fact, there's more evidence of the existence of the

Loch Ness Monster in Bigfoot than there is of the faith healer. The faith healer believes they can just at will lay their hands on somebody and heal them.

Really? Then why are there still cancer wards and hospitals? They should be in there clearing out that place.

I love Al Muller's challenge to that. If there is such thing as a faith healer, why aren't they walking around and why are they not 300 years old?

Especially don't believe somebody who claims that they can heal you if they're wearing glasses. They're lying.

The lie is as plain as the glasses on the nose on their face, okay? If they could heal you, then why are they not healing themselves of their eyesight?

So, there's no such thing as this faith healer walking around just healing everybody at will.

Benny Hinn is a liar, Todd White, Ken Copeland, all those guys who claim to be able to heal.

Ken Copeland's wife, what's her name, Gloria Copeland, she claimed Jesus is my flu shot so I don't ever need to get vaccinated against anything because I just believe in Jesus.

You know, they had a measles outbreak at their church because they were proclaiming that sort of thing at their church.

Yeah, doesn't work. So, yes, God will heal. I believe, I absolutely believe that God will heal.

There are still exorcisms that take place today that I believe are genuine and real. We probably all have, like, secondary stories that we've heard.

Maybe a few of you have firsthand accounts. But we have those missionary friends overseas that saw something incredibly miraculous and it's like, how could

I say that my friend is wrong? They see things that I don't see. So maybe God does still work in such a way, which is why

I would call myself a practical cessationist, but absolutely these miraculous sign gifts that we read about here are not in regular usage today.

We read in Scripture exactly what they were for. Hebrews 2 tells us that God appointed these miraculous signs to the apostles to verify that the word that they preached came from God.

The apostle Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, the signs of apostleship were clearly demonstrated among you.

If anybody claims to be able to just lay their hands on the sick and heal them or raise the dead, then they must be an apostle.

And if anybody ever comes to you claiming to be a prophet or apostle, tell them, we'll raise the dead and prove it.

And I'll believe you, because that's what the signs were for. They were to authenticate that this message that was being proclaimed came from God.

But even among the apostles, we see that it was not regular for them to always be able to do these miraculous things whenever they willed.

It was always by God's will. And we have that stated here, even in 1 Corinthians 12, the spirit apportions to each one individually as he wills.

It was even the same with the apostles. Paul could heal the sick and raise the dead.

He raised Eutychus from the dead. The guy that he put to sleep because he preached too long fell out a window and he died.

Paul raised him from the dead. But he did not always or could not always heal.

What did he say to Timothy? Mix in a little wine with your water for your frequent stomach ailments.

Why didn't Paul just heal Timothy of his stomach ailments? You know those cloths that he had that he wiped sweat from his brow with in Acts 19 and it says that they were able to take those cloths and take them around to the people in Ephesus and it healed them of all their diseases?

Why didn't Paul just drop one of those little cloths in his letter to Timothy so Timothy could rub it on his belly and would be healed from his diseases?

In Galatians, Paul talks about how it was an ailment that caused him to stop there in Galatia and preach the gospel.

And if it was not for this ailment, he would not have stopped. If Paul can just heal whenever he wants to heal, then why was he suffering from an ailment?

So again, even we see in Scripture that the apostles themselves could not do this whenever they wanted.

It was a gift of God and it was distributed according to His will. But what

Paul says here in 1 Corinthians 12 is that everybody does indeed have some kind of gift.

Don't confuse the miraculous sign gifts with all of the gifts of the

Spirit. So when I say I'm a practical cessationist, that doesn't mean you're not gifted with the Spirit. I absolutely believe you are gifted with the

Spirit. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you and you have a gift of the

Spirit to use for God's glory and for the benefit of His church. And that's absolutely demonstrated here in 1

Corinthians 12. So we're not reading something that, well, Pastor Gabe, if all of this kind of came to an end 2 ,000 years ago, then why would we even read this section?

Why would it even apply to us? It does apply to us. And even that we would come to a right understanding of those miraculous gifts and their usage when we read this particular section as well.

We'll come into that understanding also. So as I said, this chapter is divided up into two parts.

We're looking at verses 1 through 11 today, which is kind of an introduction to these instructions concerning spiritual gifts.

If you read ahead, if you go ahead and read through all of chapter 12, you'll recognize something about chapter 12.

There is not one exhortation in the whole chapter. There's not an imperative.

There's not something that Paul says for them to do. So as we go through chapter 12 between this week and next week, we're going to be looking for implied imperatives because there's not a direct imperative.

There's not a direct command. Therefore do this. So this chapter is almost entirely informative.

And we see that right from the very beginning. Look at verse 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers,

I do not want you to be what? I don't want you to be uninformed.

I don't want you to be ignorant. So he's telling them something that he wants them to know.

That's the objective with this third of the discussion.

So if we divide this into three parts, chapter 12, chapter 13, chapter 14, this third is just simply informative.

It's talking about the spiritual gifts and their usage and their application. Now in this section we're looking at here, we can even divide this up into two parts.

So we have the introduction concerning spiritual gifts, that's verses 1 through 3. And then we have diversity yet unity in spiritual gifts, verses 4 through 11.

We're going to read there that spiritual gifts have the same source, that's verses 4 through 6.

Spiritual gifts have the same purpose, that's verses 7 through 10. And spiritual gifts are purposed by the same spirit, that's verse 11.

So once again, they have the same source, they have the same purpose, and they are purposed by the same spirit.

So let's look at this again together, verses 1 through 3. Paul says, I don't want you to be ignorant,

I don't want you to be uninformed. Verse 2, you know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols however you were led.

We've talked about idols previously in 1 Corinthians, back in chapter 8, where Paul talked about how an idol is an empty thing.

There's nothing to an idol. And Dad, you weren't here for that, but when we talked about that in chapter 8,

I used an illustration I remember you giving in a sermon years ago, where you took your jacket off and you set it on a microphone stand, and you said, there's an idol.

It's just an empty suit. There's nothing in it. Thanks for the illustration, Dad. So see,

I was listening in all those sermons you gave all those years ago. So mute idols, they don't say anything, they don't tell anybody anything.

There's nothing to an idol. But it's very interesting to consider that Paul describes them here as mute idols.

He doesn't just say idol, he says a mute idol. So the pagans have their gods, right?

And the Corinthians would have remembered this. Every one of them there, except for the Jews that had been converted to Christianity, every one of those

Gentile believers, which was most of the church in Corinth, they had all previously been in paganism before they became

Christians. They had all worshipped in those pagan temples. And they all knew their gods don't say anything to them.

Now, even those Greeks and those Romans that believed in these pagan gods, even those that believed these gods existed, they still didn't believe that the gods said anything to them.

You realize that? Like, we read the Bible, which is what?

God's word, right? It's God speaking to us through the prophets and apostles that he gave these words to.

Praise God for that. We get to hear from the creator of the universe when we read the

Bible. But these pagans did not believe that their gods communicated with them in any way.

Like, the most communication you would get would be the...

Oh, I can't remember his name now. It left my head. It was on the tip of my tongue. It was the guy that stole fire from the gods and gave it to people.

Anybody remember who that was? Prometheus. Yeah, that's who it was. Right. Yeah, so that's like the closest that they got to believing that the gods actually communicated with mankind.

Prometheus steals fire from the gods, and he gives it to people. But they're not telling...

Like, the gods are not talking to people saying, Here's how you should live your life. The gods are not saying,

You've sinned against me, so you need to live your life this way in order to satisfy my wrath that's going to come against you.

They're not telling you how to have a blessed life. They're not telling you what love means and what wickedness is.

None of these things. None of that was coming from the gods. The best that a person could hope for was to go into one of these pagan temples and sacrifice and hope that that sacrifice pleased that god so he won't strike me down today.

That was the best that they could hope for. Somebody who believed in Poseidon, the god of the sea, might load their goods onto a ship in Ephesus and send that ship to Athens for those goods to be traded.

And after loading those goods on a ship, he goes to Poseidon's temple and he sacrifices to Poseidon, so hopefully

Poseidon won't cause a storm to come up on the sea and all my goods will be lost. And that's what the pagans believed about the gods.

So the gods weren't saying anything to them. The pagans were doing anything that they could to try to get the gods' attention.

But they're so high and above us, they're not even listening to us or paying attention to us. The Greeks did not believe that when they died, they went to Mount Olympus to live with their gods.

They just believed that when you died, you died. That was it. The person just ceased to exist. The gods were a certain being, people were another being, but there was no relationship between the two.

Hence why Paul refers to these idols as mute. They're not even talking to you.

Yes, an idol is an empty thing, but the gods that you believed in didn't speak anyway. Didn't even care about these people.

If you remember the story of Elijah, when Elijah had challenged the priests of Baal to a sacrifice off.

I'm going to sacrifice, you're going to sacrifice your bull and call upon your god. I'm going to sacrifice my bull and call upon my god.

Whichever one answers from heaven with fire, that's who the true god is. And we know this story, right?

Priests of Baal danced around their altar. They cut on themselves because asceticism was a common thing among pagans as well.

Maybe if I cut on myself, then the god will recognize me and will answer my plea.

And as they're dancing around calling upon Baal to answer with fire, Elijah's standing over there to the side mocking them.

It's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. What's wrong with your god? Where is he at? Is he asleep? Maybe he's going to the bathroom.

That's actually an insult that he gives them. Maybe he's relieving himself. He can't hear you while he's off doing that.

So the gods don't answer, the gods don't respond, they don't communicate with the people. Elijah calls upon the true god and of course,

Yahweh incinerates the entire thing, the whole altar and everything with fire. Completely burns it up.

God does speak. God does care about us.

The God who created the universe, who's even greater than the expan... What is the universe?

The 13 billion light years across or whatever it is. And the God who created all of this cares about you and me.

And he speaks to us. And not only that, my friends, he dwells with us.

The Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside you and me. What a wonderful thing.

And Paul sets this contrast before the Corinthians.

You were once led astray by mute idols. But now you worship the true and living

God. And he says in verse 3, Now what's behind this statement exactly?

That's a really curious thing to say. And you've probably heard some people say something like,

Well, if a person says Jesus is Lord, then you know that they're really a believer. Because a person can't even say that.

Paul says right here, they can't even say that unless they have the Spirit of God. And if a person says

Jesus is a curse, well, then we know they're an unbeliever. And I remember hearing this in the charismatic circles that I used to be in from about the age of 18 to 28.

I was attending almost exclusively charismatic churches. And so the charismatics in those churches would say something like,

You know, if a person is demon possessed, then they can't say Jesus is Lord. So if they say Jesus is

Lord, then they don't have a demon. But if they have a demon, then they won't be able to say the phrase. They won't be able to get it out.

That's not what Paul's talking about here. That's not the statement. So what does this mean then? I want you to understand, no one speaking in the

Spirit of God ever says Jesus is a curse and no one can say

Jesus is Lord. But anybody can read that and therefore say Jesus is Lord, even if they don't believe it.

So what does Paul mean by this exactly? There's a couple of possibilities.

And maybe both of these apply. Number one, it could be that there were certain Judaizers that were saying in Corinth that Jesus is a curse.

They were saying if you truly want to be a follower of God, if you want to be saved, you have to do all these things.

Because remember the Judaizers believed in salvation by works. So here's all these works that you have to do in order to be saved.

But those same Judaizers would also say that Jesus is a curse.

And they would say that because in Deuteronomy, it says curse it is everyone who hangs on a tree.

Jesus was hung on a cross. So the Judaizers would be saying you shouldn't be following that Jesus.

He's not the real Messiah. He's a curse because it says right here in the law. Now, we who know the

Gospel understand how that rightly applies. Was Jesus cursed on that tree? Yes, He was.

The wrath of God pouring out upon Him for us. Our sins imputed to Christ.

And now that He has taken the wrath of God for us, His righteousness is imputed to us.

So in that sense that He took our sins upon Himself, He was cursed on that tree.

2 Corinthians 5 .21 For our sake He became sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

So that's how that would apply from Deuteronomy. But that's not what the Judaizers meant. They meant that Jesus is not the

Messiah because He was hung on a tree. So that's one possibility. Don't believe them.

They cannot be of God because if they truly had the Spirit of God, they would not be able to say Jesus is accursed.

The second possibility is that when people would speak in tongues, or they would imitate the gift of speaking in tongues, but they're not really speaking in tongues, they might accidentally be saying in another language something to the effect of, or something that could be translated,

Jesus is accursed. Now if they were truly speaking in the Spirit of God with this gift of tongues, would they be saying that?

No. So if you catch somebody speaking in tongues, are they really speaking in tongues?

Well, if they say that Jesus is accursed, they can't really have the Spirit of God. So that's the other possibility.

And it could be that both of those things apply when Paul is making that statement here in verse 3.

But no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. We can understand that this way. No one can say

Jesus is Lord and mean it. No one can say Jesus is Lord in such a way that it's actually pleasing to God and praise to Him unless they have the

Spirit of God. Paul says in Romans 8, those who do not have the

Spirit of Christ do not belong to Him. If you are of the flesh, then you cannot please

God. So you could say Jesus is Lord and that be of the flesh and it not mean anything.

But the only person who can say it and actually mean it as praise unto God is the person who has the

Holy Spirit. And so this is how Paul begins.

This is how he starts here on this section regarding spiritual gifts. He does not want them to be ignorant, verses 1 and 2.

He wants them to understand, verse 3. And now we get into this next section where we're reading about diversity yet unity in spiritual gifts.

Now before I go on to that, before I go on to verses 4 through 11, any questions about anything I've said so far, even questions about my cessationism that you might happen to have?

I want to comment about my cessationism and I agree with you exactly because knowing early on in Cuba, I saw many things that were unexplained by the

Spirit of God. And I am not, so I would say that people,

I would just say that I agree with your partial, whatever you call it.

Practical, yeah, practical cessationism. Partial cessationism works too. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

All right, let's go on to the next part, verses 4 to 11.

In the first section, verses 4 to 6, Paul says spiritual gifts have the same source.

Let's look at this, verse 4. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same

Spirit. Now I don't want to make the mistake that Michael made last week. Michael is a lesson ahead of me in his class,

Michael Pettit. And he made the mistake of saying that these gifts are not ranked.

They're all the same. There's not like a ranking of gifts like this one's more important than the other. And then he said that was a serious mistake because when

I read ahead and saw at the end of chapter 12, Paul actually ranks the gifts at the end of chapter 12.

So there is going to be a list coming up here in which Paul is going to say, these gifts actually are more important than the other ones or they have a certain importance that's greater than these.

So we'll wait until next week until we get there on that. But at least for now, we read in verse 4, there are varieties of gifts, but there is the same

Spirit. No matter what the spiritual gift is, it is the same Spirit that gives whatever gift it might be.

Verse 5, there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. Verse 6, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same

God who empowers them all in everyone. Now, I want to focus on something here for just a moment.

So we've heard there are varieties of gifts, there are varieties of service, there are varieties of activities. How many of you have a

Legacy Standard Bible or the New American Standard Bible that you're using this morning? Okay, we got a few hands. So look back up at verse 1.

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, what can you tell me about that word gifts? It's italicized.

If you have the New American Standard and you have the Legacy Standard, it's italicized. What does italics mean?

What does it mean when it's italicized? Yeah, it's inserted, right? It's implied, yeah. That word is not in the original

Greek. So really, it's now concerning spiritual, you might say, things, but there's really not a qualifying word in there.

Concerning the spiritual, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. Now, so whenever, therefore, we have the word gifts that's inserted in there because gifts is implied, and that's where Paul goes in verse 4.

There are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. Now, I want to make a point about this.

When we're talking about these things, we tend to get hung up on that label, spiritual gifts.

We're hung up on that label because that word will be inserted there. But notice that really, literally,

Paul says now concerning spiritual things, it would be more accurately to say spiritual things there in verse 1 because then in verse 4, you have different spiritual things.

You have gifts, you have service, and you have activities. And all of those things, my friends, all of those things are of the

Spirit. So be careful that you're not just caught up in this mentality of this concept of spiritual gifts, and so everything has to be some supernatural manifestation of some gifting.

It's not really where Paul goes with this. You might be given a spiritual activity or a spiritual service, and that is, for all intents and purposes of the term, a spiritual gift that has been given to you.

It may not be flashy. It may not be that spunky thing that everybody's looking for, and, oh, wow, you've got that gift.

That's awesome. Maybe your spiritual gift is, I mean, it's service. It's meeting the needs of the sick.

It's cleaning the floors. It's like the sons of Korah in Psalm 86.

They're the janitors of the temple. They manage everything and take care of everything. Maybe that is what the

Spirit's calling you to. It's not that thing that everybody wants to do, but do it to the glory of God.

There are varieties of gifts. There's varieties of activities. There's varieties of service.

But there is the same Spirit, verse 4, the same Lord, verse 5, the same

God, verse 6, who empowers them all in everyone.

Right? So it can be different things, different gifts, different service.

We'll explain what that means. And different varieties of activities. But all of these things are given by the

Spirit of God. Now, that's important for us to recognize for a couple of reasons.

First of all, that you understand this calling, if we can call it that, if we're going to call it a calling, not that God spoke from the heavens and said, you're going to do this, and that's therefore what you do.

We're using calling in a very generic sense here. But that calling that has been given to you by God, that you are doing that to the glory of His name.

Because it's what God has appointed me for. Now, you've got to be very careful, though, with understanding what that calling is and what you're supposed to do.

Because I can tell you, I've had many, many experiences as a pastor where somebody has told me, I think God is calling me to do this.

And when we examine that person and test them on it, we come to find, I really don't think that's your gift.

There was a couple that came to me, this was right after I became senior pastor of the church that I was pastor of in Kansas.

This couple came to me, and they said, we were members of this church up in Washington State. We moved here to Kansas.

While we were there in that church, the elders laid hands on us, and they prayed for us to receive this gift.

This is our gifting, and this is what we want to do in the church. Now, I had not known this couple for very long, but I had known them long enough to know they did not have a gifting in that area that they claimed to be able to be gifted in.

But now, what do you do? Like, this couple, they absolutely believe,

God gave me this gift. The elders laid hands on me and prayed for us to receive the gift. So he gave us the gift.

So we need to be doing that gift, and if you won't let us do that gift, then we need to be able to go to a church that will let us do that gift.

What do you think I did? I said, Godspeed. I mean,

I had to. What could I do? There was no talking them out of what they had believed they had received from the

Spirit of God. So we have to be careful about those things. It's not a thing where I've had a revelation that this is what

I'm supposed to be able to do, and so therefore you need to be able to let me do it. You need to trust other brothers and sisters in the

Lord to examine you and test you in those things and see if that truly is your gifting. Or maybe you don't know what your gifting is.

How can I serve? I don't know. How can I serve here at this church? I want to do something, but I don't know how the

Spirit might be gifting me. That's another way that you can be relying on your brothers and sisters to test and examine you to see what your gifting might be and what area of service in the church might be good for you to serve in.

So we need each other's help in those things, right? We're not leaving it up to a revelation from God that this is what you're supposed to do.

The Spirit is never going to contradict Himself, first of all. So if something in Scripture says only this person can do this and not this person, well then you can't say, well,

I heard the Spirit of God tell me contrary to that. No. That doesn't work. Like the number of women today that are claiming, the

Spirit gave me the gift to be a pastor, so I need to be able to stand up and preach. The Holy Spirit's not going to contradict

His Word. Women are not called to be pastors. Or God gave me the gift of healing, well, prove it.

We'll see that. We'll see if that's really the case. So the Spirit's not going to contradict Himself, but we do recognize that each is given a manifestation of the

Spirit. Look again at verse 7. For the common good. So this is the next part.

Spiritual gifts have the same purpose. Spiritual gifts have the same source. They have the same purpose. Verse 7.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Now what do we mean by for the common good?

What does that mean? Glory of God's kingdom. The church.

Yes, all of those are true. Wanted to see if anybody else wanted to throw any of that. It's for the kingdom.

It's for the purpose of the church. This is not a gift that you are therefore given that you're going to go out into other people in the community and use that particular gift on them.

Now maybe your gift is evangelism. Maybe it's going out and preaching the good news. Amen. You're absolutely going to go outside the church to do that.

But it is still, what we're reading here for the common good, we're talking more specifically about the church.

And so the spiritual gift that you have is for the benefit of the church. Now even with regards to evangelism, though evangelism is something that we go out into the world and do, yet Paul said in Ephesians 4 .11

that God gave the prophets and the apostles, the evangelists, and the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

So the work of the evangelist is not simply meant to go out and to unbelievers and proclaim the gospel to unbelievers.

We're hoping that that evangelist helps to bring those unbelievers into the church.

That they would become believers, right? So there's still something that's being done there for the common good of the church.

That's really the context that we're considering here. So verse 8, 4 -1 is given through the

Spirit, the utterance of wisdom. Now we're going to have in this chapter in 1

Corinthians 12, two times we'll have lists of spiritual gifts. And that list starts here and then we're going to see it again at the end of the chapter.

Now there are really very few places in the New Testament where spiritual gifts are listed.

1 Corinthians 12 comes up twice. Ephesians 4 I just mentioned to you. And then also

Romans 12. That's really the only few places that a list of spiritual gifts is given.

Out of those four lists, only one spiritual gift is consistent in all four.

Does anybody know what spiritual gift that is? Teaching sort of, yeah, pretty close.

It's prophecy. Prophecy is the only spiritual gift that's consistent in all four of those lists.

So which spiritual gift do you think is the most important when Paul gets to that ranking later on?

Hold on to that thought. We'll get to that next week. So he mentions here as he goes through this list, he says to each one is given the spirit, through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom, rest of verse 8, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit.

Now what would be the differences between those two? What's the difference between wisdom and knowledge? Yeah, wisdom's application.

What's knowledge? Yeah, facts and information, right. So some have that ability to just retain information.

You know those people? You probably hate those people. You just remember everything you're told, everything you hear, everything you read.

It's like they have photographic memory. They just are a wealth of all kinds of information and knowledge.

Does anybody know the answer to this question? Well, ask him. He knows. He's got all that wisdom. Not wisdom, but knowledge.

He's got all that knowledge that's built up. He's able to store information. Wisdom is different.

Wisdom is knowing how to take that knowledge and apply it. And the person who has wisdom may not necessarily be given the gift of knowledge.

They may not have that ability to just store up information, but when they are given that information, they have that ability to know how to apply it.

This is how you live according to those things. I would say that I have more a gift of knowledge and less a gift of wisdom.

Now, Tom probably excels in both. He's a wealth of all kinds of knowledge, and Tom is great at knowing how to apply those things as well.

And if Tom doesn't know how, if he doesn't know something or doesn't know how to apply it, he's wise enough to say,

I don't know, and let's go find somebody who does. So I can store up a lot of information.

Applying it is where I tend to have trouble. And whenever I do my sermon prep, the knowledge is, it just pours right out of me.

I can write the same sermon on the passage that I just did five times, and it would be different every time just because I have that much knowledge stored up about that passage.

But the application of it, that's where I find it to be quite a challenge. So I'll read from other teachers how do

I apply this now. How do I exhort the people of God, therefore go and live out what we've just heard.

So some have a gift of knowledge, some have a gift of wisdom. Verse 9, to another, faith by the same

Spirit, and to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. Now, faith is kind of interesting.

What do we mean by faith there? Because aren't we all supposed to have faith? So how are some people gifted in faith, and others are not gifted in that faith?

What do we mean by faith? Anybody know or have a guess?

Degrees. Degrees of faith, yeah. Like in Romans 12, 3, Paul says that God apportions the measure of faith that each person has.

So yeah, there's going to be like things that, or maturity rather, in the

Spirit. Some people are going to be more mature than others. Yeah.

Right, yeah. More of a maturity thing. Were you mentioning something? Security in your faith.

Security in your faith, that's really good too. Yeah, like assurance of faith. Trust. Yeah, trust.

Absolutely. Now see, now taking that one, taking trust. Let's say that one of our friends, a brother or a sister in the

Lord, has gone through something tragic. They're mourning the loss of a loved one. And they're struggling in those moments to see where is

God in the midst of this situation? Where is He in this circumstance? Maybe they've received a serious diagnosis or something like that.

They're struggling to see how God could be in the midst of this. I'm looking for God but I just don't see

Him. That person who has that gift of faith has that ability to come alongside that brother or sister and say, well let's see

Him together in the midst of this circumstance. And take them through Scripture and show them

God. And then that person is all the more encouraged in the midst of their hardship to know that God is indeed with them through that.

See how a person that might have that gifting of faith can be a benefit to others in the church.

Amen? So a gifting of faith by the same Spirit to another gifts of healing by the

Spirit. I don't think that one needs any explanation. Of course we're talking about something miraculous there.

A person having an ability to heal someone of their diseases. And there may be varying degrees of healing also.

It could be like psychological healing. Like somebody's very, very troubled in their mind.

And so a person had an ability at this particular time had an ability to heal a person of their depression or their anxiety or something to that degree.

And then it could also be like actual physical ailment in the body. Having an ability to miraculously heal somebody of that sickness.

Verse 10, to another the working of miracles. Now if we're talking about healing as being something miraculous, what would the working of miracles be?

Because wouldn't healing fall under that category? Okay, yeah.

Yeah, sure, okay. There's no natural explanation for that. But yeah, there's some sort of miraculous thing that has taken place.

The greatest likelihood here in context is that working of miracles is casting out demons.

That could be what Paul is referring to it as. I like Bob's explanation too. That's just something that cannot be defined by nature.

Something supernatural that's taking place. And the casting out of demons would fall into that category because there's something supernatural that's taking place there.

And then the other, the rest of the gifts, to another prophecy. To another the ability to distinguish between spirits.

We'll get to that one here in a moment. So first of all, with regard to prophecy, we tend to think of prophecy as predicting the future.

But prophecy is actually, it's quite a bit deeper than that. And maybe we'll talk about this a little bit later.

Especially when we get into chapter 14 and Paul is talking about prophecy there. But prophecy is having revealed that which has already been decided.

So God has already decided. He's already purposed. And then a prophet reveals what

God has already decided or purposed. So it's not, it's more than just predicting the future.

See that's more like soothsaying. Somebody looking down the tunnel of time and seeing future events and fortune telling.

Oh here's my crystal ball. Here's what's going to happen for you. Read the lines in your hand or whatever else.

That's not what we're talking about with regard to prophecy. Prophecy is more than that. Prophecy is God has already determined what's going to take place and it's being revealed to you what

God has already decided. And take the story of Micaiah in 1 Kings.

At the end of 1 Kings for example. So Ahab is going to go into battle. He consults with Jehoshaphat.

Jehoshaphat says look I'm not just automatically going to go into battle with you. We've got to consult your wise men. The wise men tell

Ahab yeah you're going to go into battle and you're going to be successful and you know praise be to your name.

And Jehoshaphat goes I don't really agree with these guys. They seem like they're just kissing your behind. Is there another prophet out there that we can consult?

And the king goes yeah there's Micaiah but he always, you know he always says bad things about me.

So Micaiah comes in and he says what's going to happen. And actually what Micaiah reveals to these two kings the king of Israel and the king of Judah.

He reveals to them that this heavenly council has already taken place in which God has said who's going to go be a lying spirit in the king's prophets to tell him to go into battle so that he will die.

And one of the spirits steps forward and goes I'll do it. And so what Micaiah is revealing is something that's already been decided.

Yes it does have future implications to it. The king is going to go into battle and he's going to die. But it's more than just revealing the future.

Right? It's revealing something that God has already decided. In fact at some times prophecy is even revealing something in the past that has future implications.

When you go to the book of Revelation there are things in Revelation. Revelation is not exclusively something that's going to happen in the future.

There's also things in the present that are going on in Revelation and there's references to things that have already happened in the past like back in Genesis in Revelation.

So it's something that's already been decided certainly has future implications but that's what we're having revealed to us in prophecy.

Right? Does that make sense? So we have to another prophecy to another the ability to distinguish between spirits some of you might have this down as discernment it's being discerning knowing you know some people just have that ability to know whether a person is a true teacher or a false teacher.

They can just automatically tell. That person's teaching the truth comes from the word of God that person is not.

And when a person has that gift they don't have that gift to go start an online blog to warn people about false teachers.

Again all of this is for the common good. It's to benefit the church. And then to another various kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues.

Interesting that those two things are separate. One has an ability to speak it. The other has an ability to interpret it. But finally we conclude in verse 11 all these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

So we have to come to a close there and we'll pick up chapter 12 next week where Paul gives a little bit more application to these things.

But first of all we've started with this just very informative right at the very beginning. That there are different gifts there's different activities there's different service.

All of this by the same spirit who gives to each one. And remember my friends that we have these spiritual gifts and I pray that you know what yours is and you're using it to the glory of God's kingdom and to the benefit of the church.

We have these gifts that we may serve one another and help build one another up in the

Lord as we are doing. Amen. Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father we thank you for what we've read here and may we understand how these things apply and live according to them.

We thank you for your goodness and your grace to us. Help us to be patient with each other.

Help us to love one another and just as we are guided in these things we help to guide one another into all truth in service of the spirit of God who dwells within each and every one of us.

Thank you for your mercy and your grace and for your spirit. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray.