Equipped By the Spirit

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Don Filcek; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Equipped By the Spirit

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsick preaches from his sermon series titled, 1
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Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in. Good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsick. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad that God has brought us together for another corporate gathering of worship together here in this place.
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What happens here when we gather and has already happened here this morning is an amazing work of God that I've had the opportunity to see over the last 15 years.
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He is at work through the Spirit in our midst, and we have seen that. His Spirit grants us love that overflows to us in gifts and in service and activity, as we're going to see in the text this morning.
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Service like people who arrived early to make coffee for us. Somebody swung by and picked up donuts. Gifts like musical talent used to help us to worship
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God. Activity like those who stood out in the cold to greet us all with a smiling face this morning as we walked in.
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The engine and power for the service of the church will be said in our text to be the
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Holy Spirit this morning. Here at Recast, we talk about growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service, and that service will be the central part and the central point of our message this morning.
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God has equipped each and every one of us here with at least one gift to offer to the gathering of God's people, but when it comes to the topic of spiritual gifts, which is going to be the kind of subject we're moving into here in the text in 1
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Corinthians as we've been going through that book. Those of you that are new here, you're kind of like, why is he talking about spiritual gifts? Why is he talking like this about service?
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It's where we're at in the Bible, and it's going to be the next text. When we come to this topic,
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I can't think of a topic that has as much scripture dedicated to it that is still controversial.
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So there's a lot written about spiritual gifts. We're going to see that in the coming weeks. A lot of detail given about them, but it's still controversial.
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Churches that say they want to follow the Bible take more advice, I would say, from anecdotal and personal experience on the subject of spiritual gifts than they often do from the
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Word of God. What I mean by that is if you bring up the subject with a few Christian friends and just ask them, what do you think about spiritual gifts?
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What do you think about the sign gifts? What do you think about miraculous gifts? If you bring up the subject,
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I would suggest to you, and I would almost guarantee that no one that you turn to as a Christian is going to reference 1
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Corinthians chapter 12 through 14. Like, they're not going to reference that.
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They're not going to quote something that they memorized about it. They're not going to have a ready word from the Word of God, but almost every
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Christian has a story about it. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Almost every Christian has something anecdotal that I heard from my aunt who went to a church that did this, or I had a best friend in high school who went to a church and they did this.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. You know that you've got some stories and you've heard some stories.
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I point this out to emphasize that on the subject over the coming weeks, I'm going to ask you to suspend preconceived notions about the subject altogether, regardless of what side you feel like you land on, and instead,
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I want us all to be sure that we are committed to following what Scripture has to say on this subject.
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Amen? This warning is especially for people raised like me. I was raised in a fairly conservative church.
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I grew up in a context that was a little afraid of something maybe potentially undignified happening in our gatherings.
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You know, things might get out of control, the Spirit might move, and somebody might even raise their hands in worship.
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You know what I mean? That's the way I was raised. You know, if it's going to get really wild, somebody might even get up here with their hand.
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You know what I'm saying? And so, miracles, speaking in tongues, prophetic gifts, and all of those kinds of things were pretty scary to me in my upbringing.
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But I will tell you that my experiences and upbringing have been continually over a vast swath of issues, not just spiritual gifts, but over a bunch of topics, have had to be challenged by the
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Scriptures to allow this Word to be my guide, not my experiences. Do you guys know what I'm talking about on that?
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Letting the Word guide us. The problem lies, of course, in that there are two sides to the problem when we look at miraculous spiritual gifts.
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On the one side of the issue is a skeptical, humanistic doubt that if we're not careful and if we're not mindful will creep into us that oozes into us from the culture.
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It leads us to cast our vote routinely on the side of naturalistic explanations and materialistic expectations.
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I say naturalistic explanations for things, oh, we can explain that all by nature, and materialistic expectations, just we expect
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God to just kind of do what we want Him to do. Put simply, some of us just don't leave room for the supernatural and miraculous enough.
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We don't. That's the way we're put together. Well, the opposite side is there and alive as well, and that's an overemphasis on the miraculous, making the focus of every gathering a longing for more and more radical manifestations of the
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Spirit. In other words, some will, some think that supernatural miracles are the only way that you can tell that the
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Spirit is working. The only way you can tell that the Spirit is moving is if there's something really kind of supernatural going on, miraculous going on.
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Into this, what I think is a real sharp divide within the church today, we begin to study 1 Corinthians 12 -14 this morning, and this is almost going to be a mini -series within the larger study of 1
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Corinthians. For the next several weeks, we will be on the subject of spiritual gifts going through chapters 12 -14, and I'm confident that God will have plenty to say to us from His Word that will be new to many of us, and yet I don't want this, hear me carefully church,
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I don't want this morning to be merely an educational experience. I don't want it to be an educational, like I just walk out of here knowing more about spiritual gifts.
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My hope and prayer is that God will grow us all in our service to one another as we believe
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His Word by faith and recognize that He has a role for us to play in serving each other here in this body.
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I'm convinced that God desires us to be somewhere in the middle of those extremes that I mentioned earlier, by the way. We cannot and must not rule out the possibility of God's miraculous intervention in our lives in any way, shape, or form, even in the gathering of God's people, nor should we minimize the awesome manifestation of the
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Spirit through the fruit He is working out in our midst and the gifts He is already applying in our midst. Manifestations internally.
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Internally, you think about what does the Spirit do for a believer internally? It's the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control, and that those fruits show themselves outwardly.
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God's gifts are various, and His fruit in us is that, but that results in outward manifestations of gifts.
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He gives gifts as He wishes, and He gives His gifts for us to serve one another.
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We're going to see very emphatically in the text for the common good, the goal of these gifts that He gives us, these talents, these abilities, these activities, these services.
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The reason that He gives them is that we would all be blessed more together. So let's open our Bibles or your
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Scripture journals or your devices to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 1 through 11. We're going to read it, then the band's going to come to lead us in some worship, then we're going to dissect it more in depth after that.
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But again, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 1 through 11, recast this as God's holy word.
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This is what He desires to communicate to us this morning. Let's give it our respect and our attention. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers,
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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.
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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,
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Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same
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Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same
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God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the
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Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the
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Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same
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Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. To another, the workings of miracles.
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To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues.
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To another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same
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Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills.
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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in this gathering.
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I rejoice in this church. I've had a front row seat for coming on 15 years of seeing you work through broken people like me, broken people like us, who see your grace poured out on us in the gathering of people who serve one another, who love one another, who pray for one another, who lift one another up, who edify one another, who rebuke one another, who hold one another accountable, who do life together with one another.
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Seeking to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and seeking to love our neighbor as ourselves.
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Father, I've seen the fruit of the Spirit grow in people's lives. I've also seen outward giftings grow in people's lives.
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We rejoice that you are the one that gets the credit, and we give you all the honor, and we give you all the praise for the things that you are doing here, for both the love that we're able to express to others and the love that we're able to receive from others, the gifts we're able to give to others, and the gifts that we are the recipients of from others.
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What an awesome thing here in your text to highlight the way that you are working in our midst.
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Father, I pray that you would be now with our worship as we have an opportunity to praise you in singing.
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What an awesome thing, what a powerful thing. Music can be a really powerful thing, and it's such a uniting thing for our voices.
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I think there's an awesome and beautiful and perfect metaphor in various voices in this room mingled together for the praise and glory of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and for you, Father, for the one who is high and exalted, seated on the throne.
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Father, I pray that you would receive these songs as worship from hearts that are boiling over and bubbling over with gratitude for the cross that gives us hope, that gives us stability, and for your spirit that indwells to give us strength to be useful in your kingdom.
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Father, receive these songs as worship now in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, yeah, you can go to be seated, but like I say every week, if you need to get up at any time during the message, you need more coffee or juice or donut holes, or you need to use the restroom, you're not going to distract me at all.
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But it would be good, and to your benefit, to keep your Bibles open or your scripture journal or your device to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1 through 11.
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I know some of you have come in since we read that, and so that's going to be our text for this morning. And I want to point out that studying this passage without an understanding of the entirety of chapters 12 through 14 and a few other passages throughout
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Scripture could likely lead to a lot of misunderstandings about things like prophecy and miracles and healings and speaking in tongues that our passage is going to mention.
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Paul's going to mention them as gifts of the Spirit, but they come up in our text merely as examples, so they're not really – we're not going to dive into all of that quite this morning.
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I'll give you some definitions of some of those things, but by and large, that is not the point of the message here is to dive into those things.
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You're going to see in the coming weeks that there's going to be more of that coming. But it's not about the description here.
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Our text this morning is much more concerned with the unity, the unity the church is meant to experience, and the service we are called to offer to one another while recognizing the diversity of giftings that we are all given for the common good.
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So don't forget as we study this just how divided Corinth was. Sometimes it's good to – we need a reset at the start of a text to kind of remind us what we've already read so far in this letter, a very divided
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Corinth. The church there, there was all kinds of animosity. There was all kinds of frustration. They were divided over their favorite speaker.
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Some said I'm a Paul. Some said I'm of Apollos. Others said Peter was their favorite.
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They were divided. We saw last week when they came together for the Lord's Supper, they were divided by class, the rich disdaining the poor and leaving them out, all of that kind of stuff.
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Some thought by this text that it becomes clear by the time we get to chapter 14 that they were also divided over this issue of gifts of the
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Spirit. No surprise there. The division cuts across all kinds of areas of church life. And how many of you know when a church is divided, it's divided?
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You just can't get along. And some of you have had some rough church experiences like that and you've even come out of that.
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And when there's division, there's division. Some thought here what seems to be the case as we start this section on spiritual gifts is some thought they were amazing because they spoke in tongues while others did not.
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And it seems like that really by the end you're going to see that that's the hot button issue. And so Paul is writing into this divided context with a correction throughout these three chapters that are going to come to a head in chapter 14, but it builds, it's going to build.
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There he's going to put speaking in tongues on a lower plane in chapter 14 because it is not as edifying to the body, the gathered body of believers, while he is going to throughout this passage consistently begin to ramp up a elevation of prophecy because of its power to edify the body through knowledge that we all will gain from it.
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But our outline of our text this morning looks like this. The prereq for service, verses one through three, the answer to the prereq for service is the
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Spirit. The power for service, the Spirit. The provider of service, the
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Spirit. So you can see those divisions there. And we're going to start with the prereq for service, which is of course the
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Holy Spirit that you're going to see Spirit mentioned so many times in this passage and it's all with great emphasis.
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So verses one through three, the prereq for service. Many have identified that the first three verses are often rushed over in any study, barely even given a glance because people who read about the spiritual gifts want to get to the, they want to get to the really kind of, you know, controversial part.
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People want to move quickly past them because they can be confusing. These first three verses are a bit hard to reconcile with the rest of the passage.
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If you don't understand them, then you just can quickly, you have a temptation at least to quickly breeze over them.
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But Paul is here indicating that he has reason to believe that the Corinthians, the church in Corinth has a deficient understanding of spiritual things.
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Spiritual things are spiritual people. Now, I can understand why many translations, even the ESV uses spiritual gifts in verse one, but it's at least worth mentioning that the
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Greek word is much more generic. It doesn't have the word gifts in it. He is addressing spiritual things or even spiritual people.
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But what it would be is things of the Spirit would be the way that I would understand that phrase. Things of the
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Spirit. And I don't want you to be ignorant, church, regarding things of the Spirit. I have no interest in nitpicking, but the problem
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Paul is addressing is a more broad problem than just merely spiritual gifts as to come down to what do they define as spiritual?
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How do they think about spiritual? And they were putting into practice, even the way that they were putting into practice what they understood the
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Spirit did in their midst. It's quite likely that some in Corinth thought of themselves as closer to the
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Spirit, more spiritual. We might use that phrase nowadays as like, you know, close to God.
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Oh, he's a really spiritual guy. She's a really spiritual lady. Well, what do you mean by that? Oh, she's closer to God than me, or he's closer to God than me.
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We might think that way. The Corinthians were thinking that way. Some prided themselves in being quite gifted and quite upfront.
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They were overowning those gifts that God was giving to them, letting their prominent upfront ministry roles get to their head, or the miraculous things that God was doing through them get to their head.
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But Paul doesn't want them to remain ignorant about these things. Here comes Paul again with a bit of a backhanded statement, a way of saying, you are ignorant about the subject, and I don't want you to stay that way.
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Okay, okay. How many of you know that's a little like, is that a compliment? That's not a compliment. You're ignorant, and I don't want you to stay that way.
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I'm going to teach you. I'm going to educate you. I'm going to bring you up to speed. And verses two through three, he is killing two birds with one stone.
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He is reminding them, reminding them of their past lives being led into the service of mute and dead idols.
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He says, in the past, you had to be led in that. You weren't even active in that role. Like, I mean, you were led by spirits, and I mean, implication might even be demonic influence, but you were led into this worship of idolatry and all of these things.
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Also emphasizing in the second part of this, killing the other bird with one stone while emphasizing that it is only through the spirit that any of them have come into the truth.
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A double humbling. Back in the past, you worshipped dead stuff and rocks and sticks and statues and things like that.
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And, I mean, that's not, that's a humbling thing to say you worshipped that which was mute and incapable. And then, not only that, but now that you've been brought into the truth, you had to be brought there.
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You had to be carried there. The spirit is what has brought you into the knowledge of the truth.
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He's humbling them as to their past. You once were easily led to false gods and goddesses, and now you have been led to a confession of truth.
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And that is what the spirit has done, first and foremost, for any of us, church. The first thing that the spirit acted on us with is to lead us into conviction that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. As far as a prerequisite, before we even begin talking about spiritual in the church, spiritual things, spiritual people, oh, he's spiritual, she's spiritual, we need to define that.
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We need to understand what does it mean to be spiritual? We have to speak of the ministry of the Holy Spirit's service to us before we will ever talk about us serving each other in the spirit.
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Get what I'm saying? What has he done for you? What has he done for us? We were once lost in the darkest of nights, and we thought we knew the way.
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We sing that song. We were dead in trespasses and sins, even on the road to only understanding or maybe even sitting in the only understanding about Jesus as him being cursed.
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Now it seems like a dramatic statement. No one can say Jesus is cursed and be of the spirit. But this is not merely a test, this is not some kind of test for authority or authenticity in teaching, no.
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What is, think about this from another perspective, to understand what Paul's getting at here. What is Jesus to a world that doesn't believe in resurrection?
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You believe he was a historical figure, just imagine it. You believe Jesus is an historical figure, but there is no resurrection, nobody comes back from the dead.
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What's the best that can be said of him? My goodness, he died a pretty cursed life.
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You know what I'm saying? What is he to a world that doesn't believe in resurrection? What is Jesus to a world that does not believe he is the risen
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Lord? He's a tragic figure, church, do you see that? Extremely tragic figure, who died on the cross, cursed, tortured for his false estimation of himself.
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The distinction in verse 3 is that there are two types of people, church, people who can only ever really reasonably and logically call him cursed.
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They don't believe him to be Lord, they don't believe him to be raised, therefore they believe him to be crucified, dead, buried, cursed, done.
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Do you get what I'm saying? What is Jesus to the world? Really, they use it in accordance with what they believe, a curse word, right?
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What is Jesus Christ to the average person out there who doesn't believe? A fodder for cursing, right?
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But the second group of people are brought into the second category through the awesome and glorious work of the
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Spirit. These are people who can say Jesus is present tense
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Lord. He is Lord, not he was Lord and then he died and he's gone.
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No, Jesus Christ is Lord, there is a category of people, us church, who can say
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Jesus Christ is present tense Lord, amen?
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But he was crucified. How can he be present tense Lord? Through resurrection and our faith and trust is placed in a resurrected
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Lord. The Spirit transforms us from a life that can only ever see
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Jesus as cursed to a confession that Jesus is the crucified one who bore the curse for us, who became the curse for us and is now elevated and raised and vindicated through resurrection.
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He is now the risen Lord. Only the Spirit gives this confession of faith as a gift to anyone.
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One important way to tell that a person has the Spirit of God alive in them is that they truly wholeheartedly, genuinely believe that Jesus Christ is currently the resurrected
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Lord. Thus, the conclusion that all Christians, what he's driving for here, is all
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Christians are spiritual. You came through the
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Spirit. One might even say that all Christians who have genuine faith in Christ have been born again by the
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Spirit. His work in our lives is what initiates us and brings us into this confession of truth.
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He has already acted on your life in a powerful way if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. Verse three doesn't serve as a test for authentic messaging, that would be a super low bar, right?
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Well, I didn't curse Jesus, so I guess, you know, probably okay. Is that a good test for a false teacher?
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Well, they just didn't say bad things about Jesus, so they must be true. That would be a low bar. No, what we're seeing here in verse three is a test for spiritual heartbeat.
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One who doesn't pass this test is not merely a false teacher. They are dead in their trespasses and sins and bound for eternal condemnation.
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They're not even initiated into the family if they are saying, Jesus is cursed, he's not raised.
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The prerequisite to spiritual service to one another in the church, this is a prereq that is required and we need to process, is spiritual life, the life of the
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Spirit given to us, which comes to us by the Spirit, granting us faith in the confession that Jesus Christ is
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Lord. These first three verses center everything on God's work, on God's work first and foremost in giving us usefulness to the church, usefulness to His body, usefulness to Him.
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The confession is that Jesus is Lord, He is alive, and He now reigns over me.
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Say that? This would be a good place to interject an application for all of us to consider and take a pause and think, have
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I placed my trust in Jesus Christ as the current and eternally reigning
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Lord and King? I don't know what day the Spirit is going to awaken someone, so I mention it often here, but when
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He's going to awaken someone who thinks of Jesus merely as a good guy who died for a cause, and when in some way cursed, you know, believing that he's cursed by a life cut short in his prime, you know, he was young, he died a brutal death.
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Maybe today someone here has only ever thought of Jesus in those kinds of terms, but maybe today the
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Spirit is opening your eyes to see Jesus Christ as the risen Lord, the Son of God who came to pay the price for your sins.
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Come and talk with me if your understanding of Jesus is shifting from one who is cursed to one who is
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Lord, to one who is King. I would love to talk with you about that. But do you have the prerequisite to spiritual service?
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Everyone in the room, every single person in the room should ask yourself that question. Do I have the prerequisite to spiritual service?
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The prerequisite is the Spirit Himself granting you a heartfelt confession that Jesus is currently
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Lord. He is alive and He is your Lord. Not a Lord, not somebody else's
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King, but He's your King. The second thing is the power then for service.
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So once we establish that we are in the faith through the power of the Spirit giving us that powerful confession, then we get to the power for service in verses four through seven.
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And verses four through seven make me happy. I smiled a lot this week as I was studying this. This just gives me joy. I mean, all of Scripture is supposed to have a profound impact on us, but some are like heavy texts.
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Some are like kind of weight and some of them kind of are like, whoa, this is heavy stuff. This one's light.
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This one was just joy filled and like giving me a swing in my step. These are verses crafted in a way that puts me over the moon for this church.
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It makes me delight in you. It makes me glad for Recast Church. It reignites within me a joy for what
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I've seen here and even kind of like when I was praying earlier about the past 15 years of things that I have seen over years and years made up of weeks and hours of people serving one another.
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I have seen, and I don't think I'm being over dramatic, I have seen the
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Spirit here. I've seen the Spirit here. And let me start backwards through the passage and point verses 4 through 7.
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Starting in verse 7, I want to point to a word in verse 7 here in this text. To each is given the manifestation of the
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Spirit for the common good. The word manifestation there. This is when something formerly invisible, formerly unseen becomes present and seen.
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It's made manifest. A manifestation of the wind can be known by the trees moving. A manifestation of the
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Spirit can be seen by people serving for the common good of each other. To say
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I have seen the Spirit seems like an extreme statement, but it is absolutely true. According to this passage, I have seen manifestations of the
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Spirit in our service and love for one another. Where we have seen a variety of gifts in practice for the common good of the church, there the
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Holy Spirit is at work. Where we have seen services rendered toward God's people, there the
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Holy Spirit is at work. Where we have seen activities done by flesh and blood people for the common good of God's people, there the
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Spirit of God is at work. There He is made manifest, made seen, made visible.
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There God is empowering. Amen? It's a glorious thing. It makes me happy.
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And trust me when I say I have seen a lot of the Spirit making Himself known in our midst.
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Glorious service rendered. The power of the Spirit by people who have the confession that Jesus is their
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Lord. Now, I haven't seen miracles. I haven't heard speaking in tongues here.
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I've seen some healings. Those healings have come through chemotherapy. Those healings have come through a lot of medicine.
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They've come through a variety of different things. I think maybe at one point there might be somebody who was healed through some prayer, but it was all in conjunction with medical attention, right?
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I mean, how does God work? He does all kinds of healings, right? Amen? I haven't seen a lot of miracles here, but man, oh man, have
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I seen a lot of gifts being practiced, lots of service rendered, lots of activities done for the common good of the body of Christ here at Recast Church.
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The emphasis of verses four through six are a diversity, a variety.
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He uses different words for these things. Now, there are a variety of gifts. Now, there are a variety of service. Now, there are a variety of activities, service, gifts, activities.
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While each verse ends in four through six with a reminder that we have a common God who shows himself in three persons,
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Spirit, Lord, and God. Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the
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Father. We have them in common. The three words used to describe and define the activities,
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I use the word activities as one of them, but it's gifts, services, and activities. Those words that God is empowering within his church cover such a broad swath of activities as to encapsulate anything
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I can think of that we do together in the Spirit. And the reason this is important is that we have,
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I think we have in our minds, very narrow views of spiritual gifts, too narrow. But there are times when
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I'm talking to a person and a verse comes to mind to give them encouragement, and I believe that is a gift from God.
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I have been able to offer a word of knowledge from time to time, or a word of wisdom from time to time, but also there is a time when
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I have taken a meal to someone, and I have been blessed to offer an act of service to them.
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While at other times, I've shoveled sidewalks or vacuumed the floors, and I have offered an activity for the
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Lord. And for all of these things, we are to give thanks to God and give him credit for manifesting his grace gifts to the betterment of everybody through us among his people.
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All activity in the service to one another is spiritual as it all comes from who?
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It all comes from God. We tend to think that the word spiritual means miraculous or means supernatural.
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But not all gifts, not all service, not all activity within the church looks miraculous or supernatural.
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But when the Spirit moves, we know that when the Spirit moves in us and in a person's heart through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control through the fruit of the
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Spirit working within us, and this fundamental activity of the Spirit within us produces activities, spiritual gifts, strengths, we call them gifts, and service, which often looks like fairly routine and fairly human acts of service to one another.
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By the way, none of this that I'm saying here is meant to oppose the fact that God can and does do miraculous things among his people.
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It is not one or the other. We need not choose as a church between miraculous manifestations of the
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Spirit or common everyday manifestations of the Spirit. How many of you know it can be both?
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It can be both. But one often overlooked and highly misteaching is that the Spirit gives these gifts.
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He gives these acts of service. He gives these activities to each one of us for the common good, according to verse 7.
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So, let me ask you a question to hopefully set your mind at ease about the direction of our church regarding the more supernatural gifts we're about to dive into in the coming verses.
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Is there – here's the question I want you to ask, and I want you to think about it. Is there anything that our church needs,
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Recast, that the Spirit isn't supplying? Did he overlook us? Is there something that we have to have here?
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Is there something that we need here that the Spirit just kind of forgot to give? Is he forgetting to give us gifts or service or activities that we're supposed to have?
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Has he somehow overlooked us and given all the – you know, he's overlooked Recast, but he's given all of the really good gifts to those other churches that have a more charismatic or Pentecostal approach?
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And we're left out. We've just been left out. If there's anything that this passage ought to engender from beginning to end, these first 11 verses, if there's anything that ought to well up in us as we read these, it is a trust in the
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Spirit to give to his church and even to individuals within the church exactly what the church needs.
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He's given us what we need. He is the one giving us the power for service. He is the one who is dispensing these gifts according to his will.
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Jump ahead to verse 11 and look at it on the page with me for a second. Stated directly, all these are empowered by one and the same
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Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
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Whose will is behind the dispensing of gifts? The Spirit's. A good application runs in two directions then.
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Can we thank God the Spirit for the gifts, the service, and the activities he has given to this church to offer to one another?
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Can we be thankful for one another? Can we be thankful to the Spirit for the things that he's doing in our midst? I'm thankful to the
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Spirit for the way he has manifested himself in the many acts of service rendered here in the past several years. So much has been done for the common good of us, by us, through the power of the
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Spirit. But even if I am not the direct beneficiary of applications of specific gifts, I still can give thanks here at Recast.
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I'm still crazy thankful. My youngest just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, and yet I am so thankful this morning for people applying their spiritual gifts in the service of children back there this morning in Recast Kids.
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I'm not the direct beneficiary of that anymore. Still really grateful. Still thankful.
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You guys know what I'm talking about? It's not just, now, it's not like I turn all the thanks over to Ben now that, you know,
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I've had high schoolers in college and career age. Offer thanks, church.
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Be a thankful church for the simple manifestations of the Spirit among us.
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But also, accept the conviction of the Spirit if you are not applying your spiritual gift, if you're not serving, if you're not performing any activity for the common good of the church.
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Note in verse 7 the phrase, to each, and then it's going to be said again in verse 11 that I just read, to each, individually.
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He's interested in the individual and the specific gift he's given to you. To each one. No one is left out.
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If you are indeed spiritual, as in the Spirit has given you that conviction and that confession that Jesus Christ is
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Lord, then you have a gift to give. Each is given some way to be a blessing for the common good of his church.
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Now, we're a diverse people with a variety of gifts, and each one has a role to play, a role to contribute.
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Each one has a gift to offer for the common good. And I would just point you toward the sign up to serve form that's available on the app.
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And this is for your spiritual benefit. This is not just me as a pastor going, get busy, get to work. This is growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service is what we believe that God has designed us for.
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That without service, we are missing a component of the way that God desires us to draw closer to him in applying those spiritual gifts within the body.
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So there's that sign up to serve form. It's available on the app. It's linked to every week in the weekly e -cast.
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There's a link there to fill that out. But some of you may be even unaware of the variety and the whole host of ways that there are to serve here in the body.
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And I'm confident that whatever gift God has given to you, it can be applied here. And maybe some of you are recognizing the spirit's nudge by conviction.
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I probably ought to get involved in serving the body for the common good. And even if you don't know what your spiritual gift might be, set up a time.
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I'd love to talk with you. One of the elders would love to talk with you. Ben would love to talk with you, Pastor Ben. And we would love to meet with you and talk with you about how
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God's designed you, how he's put you together. So, third point in the text is starting in verse 8, 8 through 11, the last one, the provider of service is the spirit as well.
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Verses 8 through 10 grants us a quite narrow sampling of gifts that the spirit gives to his people.
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I think it's more narrow than other lists in the New Testament for a particular reason here. I think the
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Corinthians were really moving and shaking in these supernatural things. I think the Corinthians are caught up on one particular gift in the
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New Testament. Specific that they had elevated above all the other speaking in tongues. Paul is going to really take it to those who are elevating that in the gathering.
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But these verses serve as a sampling of gifts which the church in Corinth would have recognized as spiritual gifts right away.
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But notice that the spirit is given credit for each gift. And here is the list.
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And I will give just an ever so slight definition for each. But again, the emphasis throughout this text is on spirit, spirit, spirit.
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The spirit gives, the spirit gives, the spirit gives. He gives to some the word of wisdom. I believe that this is just, it seems quite natural, normal, and you may not even know when it's gone out from you.
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You might not even know when you've been used to give and offer a word of wisdom. But when God grants someone an extra wise insight to offer to a person in a timely manner that meets them right where they're at.
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A word of wisdom, wisdom being distinct from knowledge in that it's got more application orientation to it.
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Of course, knowledge ought to be applied too. But once it's applied, it's wisdom. So sometimes a person is given a word of knowledge.
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The second one, when God brings to mind a verse, a truth, or some pertinent fact that matches the need of the moment in a conversation.
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Any of you ever have that? Because it's kind of like, I wasn't thinking about that at all. And boom, there's just a thought that's planted in your head to offer to somebody the word of knowledge.
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Faith is an extra dose of trusting God. Obviously, all of us come into the Christian life by faith.
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All of us walk by faith and not by sight. But to some, they are given a contagious, I would even, it's not in the definition that's up there and it needs to be.
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And it is kind of a, the gift of faith is more contagious because it is to the service of the body.
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And any of you ever been around somebody who has a contagious faith? A contagious faith that it's like, where you're like doubtful and you're brought into a place of like, man, is
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God really good? How in the world can we see God as good in this situation? And they're just there cheerleading for God's goodness.
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And it's just overflowing from them to a way that you're like, yeah, I guess God is good. You're starting to move in that direction because they're contagious in that way.
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I believe that that's what that faith is. And the gift of faith maybe even sometimes is best shown when we don't get what we want.
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We tend to think faith is like, trust firmly that God's going to give me what I want. Now, how many of you know that the seasons that you need the most faith is when he doesn't give you what you want?
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When you're in the darkness and you can't sleep at night and everything seems to be pressing in and the stresses and the worries and all of that.
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And you need a person of faith in your life that's encouraging you in those dark seasons to keep trusting God, keep trusting
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God. One way or another, he's going to get you out of this. We need that.
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So the gift of faith, the gifts of healing. And this is interesting because it matters so much.
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And I haven't seen this. I haven't paid attention to it before. But the fact that this is plural, gifts of healing, it matters significantly in the way that we understand this gifting.
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And I think we miss it. This shows that gifts of miraculous healings tie to events and not to persons.
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I was reading a commentary this week, actually a book, a chapter in a book by D .A. Carson on this subject. And he said, he and a couple other, even
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Gordon Fee, who goes to and attends a charismatic church that practices these things, said, there is no indication in Scripture that a healing ministry should ever be started by an individual, ever.
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Never. No such thing as a healing ministry according to the New Testament.
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It's not a healing ministry. It's gifts of healing. Gifts, like plural, like it might happen through you.
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You might be used to do that and someone else might be used to do it next time. And it's discrete events of healing that are often
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God gives and He heals physical infirmity through the agency of a person, usually through prayer.
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Workings of miracles, examples in the New Testament that are not healing, and again, it's plural again, same idea, like as if you're not a miracle worker able…
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Because let me back up and say why I'm saying this about gifts of healing. I challenged a friend who's from a
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Pentecostal background who just doesn't think we have enough of the Spirit here. I just asked, if you have the gift of healing as you purport to, why don't you give everybody down at Bronson ER a break because they could use a day off?
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Just head down there tonight and just say, everybody go home. I'm going to meet everybody in the waiting room when they show up and I'm just going to send them home healed.
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We know that that's… I mean, nobody's ever done that, has anybody? If you've got a testimony of somebody actually doing that,
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I want to hear about it. And I'm not saying that God's incapable of that, but I'm also saying, whoa, why are you hiding that under a bushel?
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You know, you got that ability and it is an ability that the gift, singular, you have the gift of healing, then by all means, you better get busy.
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You know what I mean? And there are places to go to just apply that gift all day long. So anyways, it's gifts of healing and it makes more sense of it to me.
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The same with workings of miracles here. Workings of miracles and examples of this are not that Paul went around and did a miracle every time he wanted to.
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It was a gift from the Holy Spirit, a unique occurrence. There are exorcisms. There's striking a man blind.
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I don't think we quite acknowledge some of the twisted miracles like Ananias and Sapphira at the point when they're convicted and found out in their lie what happens.
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That coincidence? They just happened to die that day? That's miraculous. And it says the whole church was in awe and fear.
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Like it produced something within the church. A prophecy, it's going to get a lot more attention later. This might be an insufficient definition for you.
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I'm going to take exactly verbatim Wayne Grudem's very thoroughly researched definition of prophecy.
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And if you have, if you're interested in this kind of stuff and you want to dig in, chapter 35 of the systematic theology book.
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We've got a class that's going through systematic theology. They're going to be using that book. But chapter 35 really emphasizes, he spends the first,
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I read the first 10 pages just in this definition of prophecy. And this is his definition. Telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.
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Really generic definition with intention. When we get to chapter 14, you're going to see why. New Testament prophecy is telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.
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I would also add to it that it comes with a conviction that it comes from God. It comes with the weight of saying, God, I really believe
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God's told me to tell you this. You need to test it. You need to see if it's right. But I believe that God has told me this.
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The distinguishing between spirits. Some people are just given a gift to smell out truth from falsehood.
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They can recognize wolves really quickly. This is that kind of gift. Somebody has the ability to just kind of like discern truth readily.
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Tongues. This is some kind of, I've shifted in my view of what tongues is based on deeper study of chapter 12 through 14 here.
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Yes, I've looked into acts. Yes, I know all the things. This is some kind of private communication between a person and God.
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It's going to say at the start of chapter 14, you're the only one edified by it when you apply it. You're the only one. It's between you and God.
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When you do this between you and God, it is you're the only one edified and it doesn't really help the body.
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So don't do it together. This will be, don't routinely do it together. This will be the way that Paul argues in chapter 14 and what he says about tongues there makes no sense if it's a really good knack for duolingo.
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Like you're just acing that thing and you're good at it. Or even merely an ability to speak an unstudied real language.
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I thought for years I would have just kind of camped on that without much study. It's probably just an unknown language, but I've leaned away from that now.
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One reason I would distinguish this from the tongue spoken at Pentecost and Acts is that these tongues need an interpreter.
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Those did not. And then that's the next one. Interpreting tongues. The ability to translate what
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God says through a person who speaks in tongues in the assembly. So if you look back through verses 8 through 10, the spirit of God is without question the provider of these gifts.
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The notion that we can produce these in our midst would run so utterly counter to this passage that it would probably bring a very stern rebuke from Paul if I were to stand up here and say, we need to start doing these things.
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We need to start acting on these things. We need to start practicing these things. I had a long and helpful conversation this week.
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I literally was at the coffee shop getting ready to manuscript my first draft of this message when a guy walked through that's another local pastor and he planted a church around here.
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He came from a reformed church and his church is now very heavily involved in speaking in tongues and healing ministry and deliverance from demons.
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And he's taking a pretty radical turn from a very conservative church that sent him out to now practicing all of these things.
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Borderline Pentecostal, he would say. And he says that these things are manifestations of the spirit that happen most
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Sundays as they gather together. And yet he was quick to tell me and I said, sit down, man. I want to talk with you.
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You don't mind if I pick your brain about these things? We don't see eye to eye on it, but I would just love to hear what you think.
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And we talked for about a half an hour before I sat down and I wrote this. And his answer to me was that if I wanted these things to happen here, if I wanted these kind of miracles to happen here,
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I need, and then he gave me a roadmap for that. I need to study more. I need to attend a charismatic conference.
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He could recommend a couple. I need to attach myself to a charismatic teacher, a mentor who would guide me in tongues and healings and all of those kinds of things.
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But here's the point that I want to make. In my discussion with him over the course of that half an hour, there was nothing in there that was like, if the spirit wants you to have it, you will have it.
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Everything in that discussion was do these things to get the spirit to do for you.
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I need to do things in order to get the spirit to give us certain gifts, he's saying, which suddenly sounds a lot less like gifts and more like wages.
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Do you get what I'm saying? If I would only follow the proper protocol to do the right things, the right work, then
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I would have a miracle working church. Oh, that is not what this text is saying, church.
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Matter of fact, it's counter to this. I don't point this out to be negative toward that other pastor. I only point it out to highlight how utterly dependent
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I want to be on the spirit to do what he wills in our midst. I have absolutely no desire to manufacture a certain type of church experience that includes miraculous healings and speaking in tongues and predictive prophecy.
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Instead, I want to trust this passage explicitly, and to trust this passage explicitly is to trust that the spirit is in charge and has given to this body exactly what we need to honor
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Christ together. I am, by the way, when we came over from Berean, when we had a launch team and there were 14 of us and me and two other guys that came over from that church, provisional leadership of the church, we read a book about the miraculous sign gifts.
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Are they for today? We actually ticked up a notch from that. Like, just a more open position to it.
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Like, just open because we just can't see room to say God can't or won't.
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Because he can and he will and he'll do what he desires. I'm very open to that. Very open to the spirit choosing to do something miraculous in our midst, but I will never be comfortable diminishing the works he routinely does in us, or think of the work that he's already done here as less than because we don't see healings, because we don't see tongues, because we don't see some kind of foretelling prophecy, or just simply because God hasn't done flashy enough things for us yet.
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He's done amazing things among us in these 15 years without speaking in tongues, without angels' feathers falling from the rafters, without people falling over and passing out in the spirit, and I can barely speak my thanks to the glorious, glorious, glorious Way Church that he has moved in and through this body.
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I am so very thankful, so very thankful to the spirit for what he has done and continues to do in us and through us.
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Despite this list being a sampling, there are so many gifts, there are acts of service, there are activities done in the church, and those three words are what make me conclude the gifts, the service, the activities in verses 4 through 6.
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Those words are so all -encompassing and move outside of the realm of just merely spiritual gifts to say that God is doing a work that goes beyond the list that we see here.
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If you were to take every passage that lists where Paul actually calls something a spiritual gift, compile that list,
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I don't think we have an exhaustive list. None of them even mention music. That's a gift. That is a gift to Jews to serve the body.
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Like, he's just giving examples of empowerings of the spirit, but it says in the
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Old Testament even that he empowered Basil to build the stuff in the tabernacle.
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You probably haven't even heard that name before. And this dude was, like, empowered to be able to, like, craft gold tables and make the
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Ark of the Covenant and do all of these things. And it says he was even given by the spirit the ability to make incense and to weave the fabric in the curtains.
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And I'm like, okay, that dude was, like, we're talking about a Renaissance man. He's got, like, a needle in one hand and a hammer in the other, and he's, you know, smelting gold and all this stuff.
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So, all kinds of things that the spirit does. And the place we need to land on this church, because Paul is emphatic throughout this text, is that each one of us has a gift.
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Those gifts are empowered by the spirit, and he hands them out according to each one individually as he wills.
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Look at the last three words of our text this morning, at least in the English Standard Version, as he wills.
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Who am I to say he has it wrong by not giving us healings? Who am I to say that he has it wrong by not giving us manifestations of tongues or miracles?
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So, let's end this message by coming back to communion again. Let's come to the together and remember celebration.
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We come to the tables to remember that he has saved us together by the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
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And as an aid to our togetherness that we talked about last week, as an aid to our togetherness this morning, would you be willing to take an added step, maybe even before you get out of your seat and go to the tables, and offer thanks to the spirit for saving someone else here in our gathering?
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To think outside of yourself. Thanks for saving me, and thanks for saving fill in the blank.
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And I would love it if it was a real name. There must be someone who you can give thanks to God for, that has ministered in your life, that God has used in your life.
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Someone who has been a manifestation of the spirit to you. Don't muddy this, of course, with the thanks you offer to Christ for his sacrifice for you.
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But these are not opposites, but rather just part of the same thing. He who died for us also sent his spirit to empower us to serve one another.
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Be thankful for what God is doing in the church. Let's offer thanks this morning. Thanks for his sacrifice that takes away our sins.
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Thanks for the way he has used others to help us along in our journey. And thanks for the way that he has gifted us to be a blessing to one another for the common good.
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We have a gracious father who sent his son. We have a gracious Lord who bled and died for us.
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And we have a gracious spirit who is empowering his people to be a blessing. Father, I thank you so much for the way that you have empowered this church in so many ways to love and to care and to serve with activities and gifts and service to one another.
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Just, I can't even imagine what it will look like on that day as rewards are being given out and that great
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Bema Seat judgment of Jesus where that which was rendered to you will be made manifest on that day.
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It will be made known. So many well -done, good and faithful servants.
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And I pray that you would help us to work for that day, to work with glad hearts and joy with a backwards look to what you have done for us as we come to the tables of communion, remembering the sacrifice that brings us wholeness, that brings us complete forgiveness in Christ, that is the stable ground from which we launch out to serve one another, and the spirit empowering.
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Father, I thank you for the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. And I pray that all who come to these tables reflect deeply on that glorious, glorious sacrifice and also resurrection, and that we serve a living