This is God's word. 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. 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 and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit. To another faith, by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. I read that far from God's Word. Today, in chapter 12, Paul began with these two words, now concerning, signaling his answer to the next question. So it's a change of topic, change of chapter, a new page, if you will. Back in the previous chapter, chapter 11, their question was about the Lord's Supper and worship, which he thoroughly answered. He now moves to other aspects of worship. just spiritual gifts, even speaking in tongues, not quite as much today as we'll get to in chapter 14. But Paul shares here first his logical reasoning, demonstrating how Christians should approach complex issues such as speaking in tongues, the spiritual gifts. You know that legalists approach a complex topic and tend to oversimplify and quickly take an unwavering position, but here Paul graciously and patiently provides an understanding that the Christians in Corinth needed to more thoroughly and more wisely adopt their own viewpoint. So today we'll see him lay down first and important principles that will guide the church in Corinth to absorb chapter 14 where he more in-depth covers. speaking in tongues. So our main point today is across the top of your outline in the bulletin, everyone benefits from the gifts that God gives to the church. So we'll see it under the topic of pure gifts, point one, group gifts, point two, and various gifts, point three, working our way through the passage. So again, we start verse one, Paul wrote, now concerning spiritual or spiritual things, it's fine to translate it spiritual gifts, it's the topic of spiritual matters, and that within worship. And he calls them brothers, often when he uses the word brothers, he is indicating that this is something serious, he may have to do some correction with them, and that's what he's writing. And then when he writes this phrase, I do not want you to be uninformed, often he's writing that phrase when it's something that they need to especially pay attention to. So here he devotes three chapters, the next three chapters, 12, 13, 14, to this topic. Perhaps because it takes more time to unravel something that is complex, but also perhaps because in his shorter earlier letter to the Galatians and his shorter earlier letters to First and Second Thessalonians to the church in Thessalonica, he had not covered this topic at all. So it seems to be the one place where Paul most goes into it. And like the issue of idolatry earlier, Three chapters, 8, 9, and 10. Here Paul takes three chapters, 12, 13, and 14 to cover it. So let's dig into it. Verse two, Paul started them off with something they knew, even though he just said, verse one, I don't want you to be uninformed. He then says, verse two, what they do know, what they are informed about. So he's starting with what they know and moving towards things that they don't know, something they knew. was that the spirit rescued them from darkness. Look how he writes it in verse two, you know that. When you were pagans, you were led astray. They remember that. It happened fairly recently. They remember what it was like to be unbelievers and to be pagans and to be led astray. And so he's taking them back to that time when they were in darkness and he's gonna walk down through their lives chronologically to remind them of what God has done so far and therefore how they need to approach this topic. So he would next go on to write about the gifts of the spirit but it was important for them first to be reminded of the initial work of the Spirit. The initial work of the Spirit bringing them from darkness to home with the true God. They used to be in bondage to these idols. Idols, as he now mentions, that could not speak. And he's highlighting that in terms of irony. Here you are, people made in the image of God, people who are able to speak. who are led astray to follow gods that cannot speak. You're more able than the gods that you're serving. And it's not just the statues. It's also the gods the statues pointed to, the false gods themselves had nothing to say either. So to be led astray, he's finding ironic, people whose false gods couldn't speak and they themselves can speak seem silly on the surface. And what's worse is that it became spiritual bondage to them, the people who should have known better than needed to be set free from spiritual bondage. So based on that first step, that truth grounding now, Paul then sequentially taught them further in such a way as to build on their base of knowledge. Verse three, look how he wrote verse three. Therefore, and again, whenever you see Paul writing the word therefore, he's connecting the prior content with what he's about to say next. He's building on their logic and their knowledge. Therefore, I want you to understand that. Okay, so they already knew that it had taken the actions of the Spirit of God in order for them to be converted, but what else did they need to realize in addition to build on that? In addition, they needed to grasp another truth that he now states in two inverse ways. So before I present again and unpack verse three, I'll have an illustration. Let's say you're putting your socks on and you notice that you see stitching. That tells you that you have your sock on inside out. We could say the same thing in an inverse way. You notice that you're putting your sock on and you do not see stitching. You've done it correctly. So it's two ways of saying the same thing. That's all he's doing in verse three. Stating the same truth in two inverse ways. A, no one speaking in the spirit ever says Jesus is accursed. B, same thing said in an inverse way. and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. So what he's doing here is he's adding to what he's already done. He's reminding them that when they were pagans, they were led astray in temples of idols, they had heard with their own ears statements that pagan worshipers were making, Jesus is accursed. And Paul's helping them to think back and reinterpret their own past experiences in those pagan temples. Whenever they had previously heard that statement or such statements, what must they now properly conclude about those statements? The only proper and warranted conclusion that those persons who made that statement were not speaking in the Holy Spirit of God. Instead, the people who said that statement, Jesus is accursed, were giving clear evidence they were speaking on the side of demons. They're against Jesus. That's pretty obvious, right? In fact, some of these believers in Corinth to whom he's writing were themselves the one who previously had gone so far astray as they themselves were the ones who were shouting curses of Jesus. You see that he's writing to people who were converted out of that. So here's his single point of truth in verse three. It required actions of the Spirit of God for the change. It was not simply your action, believer, believer in Corinth. It was not simply you who brought yourself out of that bondage, brought yourself back home out of being led astray. It was not simply your own action to provide yourself with spiritual life, provide yourself with spiritual gifts or some sort of awakening. The Corinthians had not decided to change directions on their own. They had not suddenly surveyed all of their religious options and worldviews and studied them all and arrived at a new and informed and intellectual decision. It's probably best if we change and follow Jesus instead. That's not what happened at all. How did each of them reach the point of saying something drastically different, actually the opposite? to say and believe the fundamental identity of a Christian summarized by these three words by Paul, Jesus is Lord. That's diametrically opposed to what they used to say, cursed be Jesus. Now they're saying Jesus is Lord. Every single person who ever identified as a Christian says that. He's my Lord, he's my Savior, he's my Master, he's the King, Lord of Lords. Jesus is Lord is a convenient and accurate summary of that. How did that person get that way? Every single person who ever got that way, got that way by the activity of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's saying in verse three. Isn't it fascinating that we're about to launch a study of the speaking in tongues and the spiritual gifts of God, and he's hammering home the fact that conversions only happen by the work of the Holy Spirit. It's an interesting place to start. Let's follow Paul. Paul's guiding us through their initial conversions or their spiritual influx of life was itself a gift by the Spirit. First of all, life itself, spiritual life itself is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Before we talk about other spiritual gifts, let's remind ourselves the initial, first, life-giving gift of the Holy Spirit is conversion. So it follows then that all subsequent spiritual activity will also be a gift of that same Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is also the gift-giving Spirit. It's just helpful, as Paul sees it, to remind them first of that basic truth. Then in verse four, their gifts were given by the Spirit. Verse five, their spiritual service was all done under orders of the same Lord and His Spirit. Verse six, their activities were all done in the power given by God, verse six, in fact, we read who gets the credit for all of their spiritual operations, all of their spiritual activities. It says this, quote, verse six, God empowers them all in everyone. This word empowers, you could say whatever the operations are, he's the one operating. Whatever the powers are, he empowers them. It's the same word that's used. It's giving all credit back to God and God alone. So consequently, he's already saying to them, there's no room for them in Corinth to be boasting. The believers in Corinth who had one gift or another ought to never base their Christian identity on their ability or lack of ability, on their skill or lack of skill, their intellect or lack of intellect, education, lack of education, training degrees. All the gifts, all the skills, all the abilities were endowments that had been received through the Spirit of Christ. There's no room for someone who has gifts to boast about them. There's no room for someone who doesn't have a particular gift to feel down in the dumps about not having that gift. That sets all things straight so far in their thinking. He's actually calling them to undergo a complete change of thinking about spiritual gifts at a foundational level before he builds on this truth. Their first step of correction is to remember and constantly remember that all spiritual gifts are pure gifts. That's my first point, pure gifts. What does that mean? Pure gifts from the Spirit. Spiritual gifts were not something they could expect to receive from false gods, of course. They're pure gifts from the true God, the living and true Spirit of God. Spiritual gifts are pure gifts in that sense, but they're also pure gifts in the sense that you don't earn it. Pure gifts in the sense that you haven't done something to put yourself in a position to be more likely to receive it. It's just given by God. Think of how rare pure gifts are, I struggle to even illustrate. Wedding gifts are only given to people getting married. Birthday gifts, you kind of have to have a birthday to get a birthday gift. Retirement gifts are not given until one is retired. And even graduation gifts are only given to graduates, aren't they? So those aren't even pure gifts. They're gifts that surround circumstances and life, maybe some sort of accomplishments. But these spiritual gifts we have to have in a different category. Spiritual gifts from God are pure gifts. They're just given by God. How do I illustrate that? The Marines have a motto. Their motto is, not given, earned. And they have it across their big semi-trucks. the giant sort of curved sword that they have fits the whole 40-foot semi-truck, and then they have that phrase emblazoned across there, you know, not given, earned. The church has the exact opposite motto. Not earned, given. All gifts, all gifts across the whole church, any gift is given. It's a pure gift, not earned. That person doesn't receive more or better honor than another. Everyone benefits from the pure gifts that God gives to the church, which we'll get to in our second point. Pure gifts, point one. Now let's move to verse seven. Stand alone, point two from verse seven, because of the importance of this teaching next. Building on that fact that they're pure gifts, now the fact that they're group gifts. They're group gifts, distributed to each person, yet for the common good. That means everybody benefits, the title of the sermon. What was the purpose of the pure gifts that God had given to each of the believers in Corinth? The purpose of the gifts was for the whole church. They're group gifts. Pure gifts were given in order that God would give something to the whole group through each individual. Each of them would become then a giver, a recipient of a pure gift. And receiving the pure gifts makes you a giver. It inherently and automatically makes each person a giver. Each of them would become a giver so that each believer has something to give to everyone else. Their spiritual gifts are for giving away. Giving away what? giving away God's grace to God's people with you as the conduit, you as the channel, you as the pipeline. God gives you a gift of grace so that you give it away. God's blessing His people through you. That's what verse seven says. Listen again. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. When any one person in the church in Corinth, had been given a spiritual gift, everyone in the church benefited from that gift. It's always the nature of spiritual gifts. They're for the whole family of God. They're for the entire community. Each of them had something to contribute to the whole church, therefore, something to offer to everyone in the church. His or her spiritual gift is not restricted or reserved for only building up himself, only building up herself, If you have the gift of humor, you don't lock yourself in your closet and tell yourself jokes and laugh at your own jokes all day long. That's not the nature of spiritual gifts. If you have a gift of humor to cheer people, you go find other people and cheer them with your good humor. That's how the spiritual gifts work. It's revealed and granted to him or to her in order to put him or her to use to build up others, to build up everyone else. So if any one of them is saying to himself, if any one of them in Corinth was saying to herself, oh, I'm not gifted. Other people are gifted, so thankful, but I don't have anything to offer to the church in Corinth. then that person would need to stand corrected by focusing on the first words of verse seven. To each is given. That's what the word of God says. To each is given. Every single believer in Corinth had a gift that was intended by God to be used for the common good. What an encouragement that is. But along with it being encouragement, it's a challenge. it contains a challenge, because the rest of the verse says, the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The challenge is, each person must figure out how to utilize their gift for the whole church, for the common good. If they don't, they're depriving the rest of the body of some good gift from God given to the church body. We could say that those Christians who were not using their gifts were withholding. We could say it more starkly if you'd like. We could say they were being stingy with their gifts by not using them. So it's an encouragement on one hand and it's a challenge On the other, each individual believer had a responsibility to bless the greater community with his or her gift mix so that everyone benefited. It moves us to our third point, various gifts. We've seen pure gifts, we've seen group gifts, everyone benefits, and now various gifts, assorted abilities apportioned individually as God wills. So here Paul gives the examples. I know you're excited about the examples, because it mentions speaking in tongues, and as I've said, we're gonna cover that more in chapter 14, but he does include it here in his list of examples. Verse eight, the gifts of utterances of wisdom and knowledge. Verse nine, the gifts of faith and gifts of healing. Verse 10, the gifts of miracles, of prophecy, of the ability to distinguish between the spirits, of various kinds of tongues, and the gifts of interpretation of tongues. And this is not even a complete list. This whole point is showing the variety, the variety of gifts, the various types of gifts. It's meant to give praise and honor to God, the beautiful variety of the gifts of God extended beyond the list here of spiritual gifts, the lists in Romans 12 that we read earlier. We find in the Bible various lists, but they're not exhaustive, complete lists. God is able to make a zillion types of fish, a zillion types of birds, and a zillion types of flowers and plants. Of course, he's able to give a lot of different kinds of spiritual giftedness and abilities to his church. Think about it first as creator. As creator, he's given gifts to people. There's people who have blessed all of us by having treatments for cancer. There's people who have blessed all of us with advancements in business, advancements in in engineering, advancements in science. We all benefit from that. They're just people who God created, and down through the ages, those people have used those gifts to bless humanity. But then within the church, you're gonna add on that, and what Paul's talking about here is more specifically in the church for every converted Christian. In addition to the basic gifts that you have as a human being and part of the human race, you also have, in addition to that, possessing in yourself certain abilities, talents, and competency that God has uniquely designed you for to bless other people. Jesus is Lord. is also something that is at play in this concept. Remember how we studied in verse three, Jesus is Lord, that all who are in the spirit say Jesus is Lord, he's head of the church, he's master over me, he's master over us. So because he's giving gifts, we're to use those gifts to bless all in the spiritual realm, we understand he's Lord over his church in that exact way. Whatever the Lord wants someone in this church to receive spiritual encouragement, Paul writes to Corinth, the Lord would send a person with a spiritual gift of encouragement precisely in order to lift up that person. He's head of his church, he's the great shepherd, and he governs and blesses the distribution of gifts so that the needs are met. That's how Christ governs as Lord over his church in that way. In the spiritual realm, what we're finding is that none of us are just consumers of services. Everybody's here to serve me. Can't be. Our motto, everyone is a distributor. You. are a distributor of God's grace to others. How could a believer in Corinth figure that out? How could a believer in Corinth apply that to his own, her own life? In that day, what is my spiritual gift? How do I distribute God's grace to others in the church in Corinth? In order to discover their gifts, they're expected to serve. Figure it out. Find the needs. Respond to needs. What's needed? What do you love to do? What are you gifted at? Which needs could you meet? The spiritual gifts that come from Jesus, our head, can be categorized as he does here in this mini list. through the work of Jesus Christ himself, and we've since then quantified it in the terms that we use in our Westminster Confession, larger and shorter catechisms, the offices of Christ, prophet, priest, and king, and you see them in these verses 8, 9, and 10, categorized as prophetic gifts. Prophetic gifts are spiritual abilities to express and articulate truth. Then you have priestly gifts. Priestly gifts are to pray for people and be concerned about their healing and being built up, spiritually perceiving the needs of people and supplying certain basic needs. Then you have kingly gifts. Kingly gifts are the abilities to see what direction the church body is going in and providing leadership to the group, whether you keep going or change course. Prophetic gifts and priestly gifts and kingly gifts. Those are categorized and talked about more elsewhere, but they're mentioned here in verses eight, nine, and 10. In order to maintain that serving culture, the Lord slows down and stops people in Corinth who were trying to compete and outdo others and push themselves forward. In order to highlight the truth that each person had spiritual giftedness, then the Lord would take those who were inactive and thought they had nothing to contribute to the group. And he activated them and motivated them and launched them into serving rather than always holding themselves back. See the genius of Jesus overseeing his church in this way and ministering through his spirit in this way. How did the Lord Jesus through his Holy Spirit in the ancient church in Corinth tamp down self-promoters in the church and raise up self-demoters in the church? The answer is in our last verse, verse 11. Verse 11 repeats and emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in managing the use of spiritual gifts. Listen again. All these spiritual gifts he's been mentioning, all these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. As who wills? The spirit of Christ. As he wills in his church, distribute according to whose desire? The spirit of Christ. Empowered by whom? One and the same spirit of Christ. Where did each person get their gifts? Spirit. Who had a master plan for the church in Corinth and saw to it that each person had that contribution to make and understood that they had that contribution to make? The Spirit of Christ, who is leading Paul to write these exact words. Who's interested in stopping people who squelch others? The Spirit. Who's interested in activating the inactive? The Spirit of Christ. So what have we seen in our study? Everyone benefits from the gifts that God gives to the church, pure gifts, group gifts so that everyone benefits, and various gifts. In our conclusion today, at the center of it all, Jesus gave up his life for the church. Jesus then created this church culture that continues to today. The culture in his church is giving because the start of it all is him giving himself unto the death at his cross. Each person is then to follow him in the sense of giving self, giving of self, sacrificial giving. A person who's giving of self doesn't remain a spectator. A person who's giving of self is not trying to take over. Christ is a giver and so he sets the tone that it manages and keeps back our sins in either direction. He is the giver, the chief giver, the initial giver. Everyone benefits from his gifts, and the more he gives, then we each benefit from all the other gifts that are given. It just becomes a beautiful symphony of his gifts. The community of Christ's people is intended to be this way, to reflect the self-giving nature of Christ within his community worldwide, so that everyone benefits. We each receive from Christ. We receive forgiveness, we receive eternal life, we receive our identity as children of God who are deeply loved. We're freed up from attempts to find our identity in our position or status, our fight for position or status, because we receive from Christ, we don't need to take from others. And since we receive from Christ, we become givers to others. Jesus gave up his life on the cross and rose again. He ascended to heaven and was coronated as king of all and head of the church. And what did he do then? He gave again. He poured out, giving out his own Holy Spirit, the very spirit we've been studying in this whole message. He gave again. And then the Spirit gives and gives. Christ gives and gives. His Spirit gives and gives. He's the head of the church. He's a giver. Everyone benefits. And the people of Christ are givers. And everyone benefits. Let's pray. Father, grant to us hearts of willing service.