In Canto is the story of the Madrigal family and the Madrigal
family live in a house in a rural area, but it's a secret
area in Columbia Hidden Village. And in the story, each member of
the Madrigal family receives a special unique gift as a family,
such as Super Strength or the ability to heal with food or
controlling the weather. And all of the magic that all of
the magic that comes to this family comes from a candle that
was given to Abuela the the mother and grandmother of the
family during a difficult season of her life.
And in the story, Mirabelle is the main character of the story.
But the unique thing about Mirabelle is that she doesn't
receive a special gift on the day that she comes for her
ceremony. And so this leaves her feeling
sort of left out from the family.
She feels inadequate. She feels like everybody else
has a gift and and they have something to offer to the
family, but she feels like she's not worthy.
She doesn't have a gift to use for the family.
And as the story goes along, we find out that the Mirabel house
is in danger and and the power is beginning to disappear and it
looks like there's fractures that are going to split up the
family. And so even though Mirabel knows
she doesn't have any special abilities, she begins to try to
figure out what is going on and how she can help.
And in the end, Mirabelle learns that that even though she
doesn't have a a magical power, she has a unique ability to
bring her family together. And she actually fixes many of
the issues and and causes the family that was going to be
broken and fall apart to come back together in unity.
And she plays a crucial role in healing those rifts and
restoring the magic. And this morning we're going to
talk about spiritual gifts in the church.
And, and maybe you've had similar feelings to that of
Mirabel. Maybe you feel like, OK, well,
this topic of spiritual gifts, I, I don't have a gift.
Or maybe you think that my gift isn't, is, isn't meaningful or
it isn't worth anything because that person has a better gift.
And you're comparing yourselves to other people in the church or
maybe you know what your gift is, but but you think your gift
is for yourself. And you're beginning to boast
and in the gift that you have been given by the Spirit and
whatever doubt it is that you're facing, whatever it is that
you're going through in your spiritual gift or your desire to
know what it is, you may not be using it.
All of these things can cause you to not serve the church.
The result of that is that you and the church suffer because
the church doesn't get the gift that it needs.
But you don't also grow through the use of your gift.
To not use your spiritual gifts is to not understand the purpose
that the Holy Spirit gives them to us.
The purpose of spiritual gifts is to grow the church up into
the fullness of Christ. And so if we don't have your
gift, we can't do that because you have a unique gift, a unique
calling on the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit to help the
church grow. God cares so much about his
church that he gives his children specific gifts to help
it grow and mature into Christ. And this is exactly what Paul
wanted the Corinthians to understand.
They had questions about spiritual gifts and he wanted to
answer them. He said, I, I don't want you to
be uninformed about these things.
I want you to know. And so maybe you have questions
about spiritual gifts as well. And praise be to God that we
have this part of the letter to the Corinthians so that we can
learn along with the Corinthians at that time of what Paul wants
us to understand about spiritual gifts.
So if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians
chapter 12, we're going to be in verses one through 11 today.
First Corinthians chapter 12, verses one through 11.
And we've been going through this letter first Corinthians,
and this is a letter that Paul wrote to a church that he
started in the city of Corinth. And Paul had many things to
correct in this church because they had allowed worldly
thinking to come into the church.
And that's exactly what Paul is addressing here as well.
And last week we Jonah, Pastor Jonah talked about the fact that
they had allowed the world to come in even into their Lord's
Supper, where where they were segregating over over different
socio economic lines. And the wealthy were, were over
here getting drunk and, and eating while poor people were
out there going hungry. And and Paul condemns that.
He's like, what are you guys doing?
This is not the sort of division.
This is not what the body of Christ is supposed to look like.
And as we go through today's passage, we're going to see that
Paul is going to correct some more of that fleshly thinking
that focuses on self and helps them to see how they're to put
others 1st and use their gift to serve one another.
And So what we're going to see this morning is that if you have
the Spirit, you have a Master, you have power, and you have a
gift. Let's pray for the Lord's wisdom
before we dig into the text this morning.
Father, we thank you for the fact that you have given us your
Spirit. We thank you that that
distinguishes us from the people of this world because we have
Christ's own spirit dwelling inside of us.
Lord, we pray that that you would fill us with a sense of
the understanding of what that means today.
Maybe we have misconceptions and misunderstandings about who the
Spirit is, but today we know we will learn who the Spirit is,
Lord, And we pray that by the Spirit's power in our hearts in
our lives, as we read into this text, as we seek to understand
what Your Word has to say, Lord, would Your Spirit help us to
know that we have power, that we have a gift that we can use for
the building of Your Kingdom? Lord, would you open our eyes
and use Your word to do that? Or would you strengthen us as a
church that we can serve one another and grow into the
fullness of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray,
Amen. So let's go through First
Corinthians chapter 12, verses one through 11, First
Corinthians chapter 12, one through 11.
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 a varieties of
gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service
but the same Lord, And there are varieties of activities, but it
is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good, for to one is given the Spirit, 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,
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 1 and
the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he
wills. So the first thing that we will
see today is that if you have the spirit, you have a master.
Before we were Christians, we lived to ourselves.
We we lived the way that we thought we wanted to live,
seeking to indulge our flesh, seeking to build our our
kingdoms. But the moment we received the
Holy Spirit, we received a new heart and a new master.
Now we understand that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is our Master and
our desire is to live for him. That's because now that you have
the Spirit, you are no longer of this world.
Verse 2 says you know that when you were pagans, you were LED
astray to mute idols. However you were led, and the
Corinthians, before they came to know Christ as their savior,
they were led astray to mute idols.
We've already learned from Paul that idols are not gods at all.
They're, they're nothing. And so they can't instruct and
they can't teach anyone. They're mute.
They're, they, they are powerless.
And so the, the Corinthians had been LED astray to worshipping
these false, all these false idols, these false gods.
But they thought that they were real.
But now they understood that they weren't.
They knew that Christ, now they understood that Christ was God.
Now they had the Spirit. They recognized through the
Spirit that Jesus is Lord. And so they had a new master.
They were no longer of this world.
We also see that you have, if you have the Spirit, you are no
longer your own. Look at verse 3.
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 it seems that the Corinthians were confusing their
worship. They were bringing in the ideas
of the world into their worship. One of the highest forms of
worship in Pagan worship was a supposed superior supernatural
interaction with a deity. And so they thought that if you
could get drunk enough, and if you could go into this area and,
and have these, they had these chants and these prayers and,
and drunkenness and orgies. And they thought that through
this ecstasy they could somehow have communion with the gods.
And they were beginning to bring that into the church.
And Paul is going to address speaking in tongues a lot.
And, and maybe that's what they were doing.
Maybe this led to to speaking in tongues.
And Paul is clear to say no one ever speaking in the Spirit is
going to say Jesus is cursed. No one in the Spirit is ever
going to say that. And so he's correcting their
worship. He's making it clear that when
we acknowledge Jesus is Lord, you can only do that through the
Holy Spirit. You can only realize that you
are not your own, that you have a master through the power of
the Holy Spirit, otherwise you won't believe that.
This then is how we distinguish between believers and non
believers. If you have the Spirit, you, the
spirit in you testifies that Jesus is Lord.
And if Jesus is Lord, then you're no longer of this world
and you're no longer your own. Jesus is your master in the
Gospel according to Luke. He shares the story of the
Garricean demoniac. And once when Jesus is is
crossing over the sea, after he after he calms the storm, he
comes to the country of the Garris scenes.
And there's this demon possessed man who who comes out and meets
him. And we learn about this man that
that he was so demon possessed and the demons in him were so
powerful that he could no longer be bound.
They they tried to bind him with chains and shackles, but he was
so strong he would just RIP them apart and continue to go out.
And so they stopped even trying and he would just wander about
screaming in the wilderness. And when he comes to Jesus,
through an amazing display of Jesus power, he casts out the
demons and they go into a herd of pigs and they rush over the
Cliff. And then Luke 835 tells us.
Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to
Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting
at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they
were afraid. And so this man, after being
delivered from the power of the enemy to Jesus, begged Jesus to
follow him. But Jesus said, no, stay here,
go to your home and tell everyone what God has done for
you. And so he did.
He went into the city, and he told everyone what Jesus had
done for him. Well, brothers and sisters,
before we were in Christ, we were in bondage to sin and to
the things of this world. We were in bondage.
We were led astray through the world, through the flesh and
through the devil. But now that we have been freed
through the power of Christ, we have been saved.
We have been set free from that bondage.
Those shackles have been torn off and we are now free in
Christ. Now, through the Holy Spirit, we
recognize that Jesus is our Lord.
He is our Master. Do you desire to sit at the feet
of your Savior and learn from Him as this man did who was
freed from the power of Christ? We should wake up every day with
grateful, joyful, Worshipful hearts for all that Christ has
done for us and come and sit at the feet of Christ and and
immerse ourselves in His Word so that we can experience His grace
in our lives, coming to His Word daily.
And as we come each and every day to God's Word to sit at the
feet of our Savior and to learn and to listen to Him, His Spirit
will transform us through His Word into the image of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, if Jesus is your master, if Jesus is your
Lord, then you're no longer of this world.
You're no longer even your own. Your desire should be to honor
and glorify your Master who saved you and freed you from
bondage to sin. The next thing that we see is if
you have the Spirit, you have power.
Paul has has laid the foundation.
We first need to understand if you have the Spirit, and if you
do, you acknowledge that Jesus is your Lord, He is your Master.
You truly do have His Spirit. And now that you have His
Spirit, you must recognize that He has given you power through
His Spirit. But what you need to know first
is that your power is from God. Look at verses 4 through 6.
Now there are a varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are a varieties of service, but the same Lord.
There are a varieties of activities, but it is the same
God who empowers them all in everyone.
Paul here teaches that that there are many different kinds
of gifts, there are many different kinds of service,
there are many different kinds of activities, but it's the same
God who empowers them all. And notice the Trinity here,
that that's not by accident. We see the Spirit, we see the
Lord which is referring to Jesus, and we see God the
Father. The Trinity is intricately
involved in giving power to His people for the for the purpose
of using that power to grow the church.
God's church is going to be full of people who have His spirit
and therefore have His power. But that power doesn't come from
you. It's not an ability that you
have. It's not a natural talent.
It's not a natural gift. It is a unique power that comes
from God. Next, Paul shows us that your
power is for others. Look at verse 7.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good. Rather than seeing that their
power was for the good of others, the Corinthians were
beginning to see their power as a way to exalt themselves and to
benefit themselves. They definitely saw that in our
text last week, right as Pastor Jonah talked about, they were
indulging themselves. Hey, all this blessing, all this
joy. Hey, we receive all these
blessings from Christ and I'm going to enjoy them with me and
my friends and not see them as a benefit to the whole church.
That's what the Corinthians were doing.
They were messed up. This led to division in the
church. And, and Jake is going to talk
about the, the rest of chapter 12 next week.
And what we're going to see next week is that there were some
people who said, man, I, I, I don't have that gift, so I must
be meaningless. And then there were other people
who said, Hey, I, I don't need you.
There was their spiritual gifts. Their power was actually
creating divisions rather than bringing them together into one
body. But Paul wanted them to
understand, and he wants us to understand that if you have the
spirit, you have power. That power is from God, but it
is for others. In the book of Acts we learn
about Simon the sorcerer. He was a magician who for many
years he he amazed the people with his power so much so that
they thought he was God. And after hearing the gospel
Phil this Simon the sorcerer believed in Jesus and he
followed Philip everywhere he went.
And one day as the as the apostles came from Jerusalem to
to lay hands on people, they received the Holy Spirit.
And Simon said in Acts chapter 19 verse, Acts chapter 8, verses
19 through 24, give me this power also, so that anyone on
whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because
you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is
not right before God. Repent therefore, of this
wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, that, if possible, the
intent of your heart may be forgiven.
For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the
bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, Pray to me
for them, for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have
said may come upon me now it it seems that Simon had a repentant
hearted we, but we don't hear about him from here.
So we don't really know what happened to him.
But we do learn from Peter's rebuke that he had sin in his
heart. He had a sinful attitude.
He had a desire to use the power of God for selfishness.
There's actually a word that we have that's based on his name.
It's called simony and it's using religion as a means of
profit. Brothers and sisters, we have to
be so careful of this as well that we don't seek to use our
religion. We don't seek to use our power
for ourselves, for our own benefit, for our own profit.
This is so easy to do in our day and age because the second we
think that we have a marketable skill or a marketable product or
a marketable service, we right away begin thinking about, well,
how can I use this to to become wealthy?
How can I use this to bring an income?
And I'm not saying that's bad in and of itself.
We, we need to find ways to to earn a living and earn an
income. But when it comes to religion,
when it comes to the things of God, we should never seek to
become wealthy. We should never seek to use the
power and the gifts of God for our own benefit.
We must recognize that that power we have is from God, but
for others, it's not for us. It's not for our profit.
We can take no credit for the power that we have from God.
And our power is not for our benefit.
It's for the benefit of others, the church.
And how we might ask, how does our power, how does the power
that the Holy Spirit has given us, how does it benefit the
church? Well, Paul teaches the Ephesians
that Christ gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists,
the shepherds and teachers. Why did he give the church those
people to equip the Saints for the work of ministry so that the
Saints would build up the body of Christ until we all attain
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God
to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. I will say as a pastoral team,
this section of Scripture has shaped our vision for this
church. You may come from a background
where the pastor sits at the front of the stage and and you
come here to hear what the pastor has to say.
And when you go out, you don't go back to the Word of God.
You don't go learn for yourself. You just simply listen to what
the pastor says and you don't question anything.
You don't read the word of God because you don't learn more
because you don't want to be held accountable for more.
Brothers and sisters, that is wrong.
That is false. This section of scripture shapes
our vision for our church because we as leaders are not
here to bottle feed. You come to the church so that
you can grow. No, we as pastors, we as leaders
are here to help you grow up in your faith so that you are doing
the work of ministry in the church.
Brothers and sisters, you help the church to grow to the full
stature and the fullness of Christ, Not me.
All of us working together through the power that Christ
has given to us, work together to build up the church.
And this brings glory to Christ. And that's why the Holy Spirit
came to bring glory to Christ. It is the Spirit's joy to bring
glory to Christ and so bring glory to the Father.
Jesus said this when speaking to his disciples.
When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all
truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever
He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things
that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will
take what is mine and declare it to you.
The Spirit longs to bring glory to Christ, and so He empowers us
so that the church becomes more like Jesus.
And so you must find ways to use the power that you have to help
the church grow in maturity. Next, we see that if you have
the Spirit, you have a gift. Those who have Christ's Spirit
recognize that he's their Lord, He's their master.
They have received power from him through his Spirit, and they
use that power to grow the church.
And the way they do that is through the unique gifts that
the Spirit has given them. And so as Paul begins to list
some of these gifts, I want to emphasize 2 principles.
We will talk a little bit about the gifts themselves, but I want
to emphasize 2 principles that Paul shows us in these gifts.
First, the Spirit gets the glory.
Paul is going to list the gifts, but look at the emphasis.
I want you to listen as I, as I read this section, listen to the
emphasis on the Holy Spirit. For to one this is verse eight
and eight through 10. For to one is given through the
Spirit. The utterance of wisdom 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.
And so Paul doesn't go into the details of what these gifts are
and what they mean and how they manifest himself.
He simply names some of them. But what he wants to be
abundantly clear is that they all come from the Spirit.
The Spirit gets the glory for your gift.
Nobody can take credit for the gift they have.
No one can boast in the gift they have.
They did nothing to get it. And again, what I want us to
understand is it's spiritual gifts are not natural gifts and
talents and abilities you don't have.
The spiritual gift is not being able to to bake pie really well.
Although I heard listen to the sermon from John MacArthur this
week, he said it's not it's not the ability to make pie.
But I'd be more than happy to verify if you, if you're good at
making pie, but that's not the point.
It's not a natural ability. And that's quite honestly,
brothers and sisters, I kind of wanted to, to give a, a
spiritual gifts assessment to you all that, hey, we're coming
into this section on spiritual gifts.
I wonder if we could give them a test so that they could take
this test and they would know what gifts they have.
But as I began researching and I I listened to one guy and he had
this article and he said the problem with spiritual gift
assessments is that they're usually based on a Myers Briggs.
So they're based on your temperament, your personality,
your character traits. And he said the problem with
that is a non believer and a believer can both take that same
test and have the same results. How can a non believer have a
spiritual gift? They can't.
A spiritual gift is something that if you took this test the
day before you came to Christ and took a spiritual gifts test
the day after you came to Christ, there would be a vast
difference because now you have a unique spiritual gift that is
unique to you. It's something you didn't have
before you came to Christ. So it's not your personality,
it's not your character, it's not natural abilities.
It's a unique gift that God has given to you to build up the
church, but we can't take any credit for that.
And we can't coerce the Holy Spirit to try giving us a
certain gift either. Like Simon the sorcerer, I came
to like, well, I'll, I'll serve you for the rest of my life if
you just give me that gift. Or hey, I'll pay for that.
No, you can't do that because the next thing we learn is that
the Spirit gets to choose. Look at verse 11.
All these are empowered by one in the same Spirit, who
apportions to each one individually as he wills.
God the Holy Spirit, equally. God with God the Son and God the
Father uses His wisdom to give gifts to whoever He chooses in
His sovereign will. He makes that decision, and
there's nothing that you can do to influence that decision.
We are all saved into one body, Christ's church, and yet each
one of us individually is gifted by the Spirit for the purpose of
growing up the church into the fullness of Christ.
Now, the fact that the Spirit chooses all the gifts shows that
there should be unity. The Spirit who chooses every
gift that each person is going to have is not going to give
gifts that cause tension, that cause division.
He overseas all of the gifts and so he gives the gifts so that
there's cohesion, there's unity, there's togetherness in Christ.
They all are meant to work together for the good of
everyone. If you have the Spirit, you have
a gift and the Spirit gets the glory because the Spirit gets to
choose who gets what gift. Now in John, in John's Gospel
just before Jesus ascension, he shares the story that that no
other gospel writer shares of after Jesus resurrection that
that Peter went out to go fishing.
He there was lots of things going through his mind and he
goes out to go fishing and there were six other disciples who
followed him. And so they, they go out and
they begin fishing, but they don't catch anything.
And then Jesus is standing on the shore.
They don't know it's Jesus, but he says, cast the net on the
other side of the boat. And so they do and, and they can
barely haul in this net. It's about to tear.
They're surprised that it didn't tear, but they can barely haul
it in. And, and then they go on the the
beach and, and they enjoy this communion, this fellowship, this
breakfast with Jesus around the fire.
And as they're eating, we, we know this question that Jesus
continually asks Peter, do you love me?
And Peter says, yes, three times he asks the question and three
times Peter says, yes, I love you, Lord.
And then as Jesus begins to talk about Peter's life, he says he
predicts Peter's death and he says, follow me.
But then Peter turns to John and says, when when Peter saw him,
he he, he turned, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this
man? Jesus said to him, if it is my
will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?
You follow me. Now what Jesus is saying is
don't worry about that guy. Don't worry about other people,
don't worry what gift they have. Don't worry what I'm calling him
to do. It's none of your business what
I'm calling him to do. You just worry about yourself
and you follow me. Now he's not saying that in a
way that we shouldn't worry about the church and the body,
but he's saying it's not your business how God gifts someone
else. It's not your business what God
calls someone else to. You need to worry about yourself
and maybe you're fixated on other people, whether that's
insecurity and doubt for yourself.
Maybe you feel like I don't, I don't have a meaningful gift.
Or maybe I don't have a gift at all.
And man, I wish I had that gift. But what you're failing to
understand is that that God is calling you to use your gift.
He's not asking you to account for why you don't have someone
else's gift. The beauty of the gifts is that
we work together. I can serve you through the use
of my gift of teaching you the word of God, but you can serve
me with your gifts in ways that I need help, that I need growth.
Brothers and sisters, I can lack faith at times.
Some of you have a faith that that that is incredible to me.
And it's shown in your prayer because you pray and you pray
and you pray and you are so persistent in your prayer.
You have a faith that teaches me and when we all work together
and use our gifts for one another, that is the beauty of
the church growing together in the fullness of Christ.
Well, on the other side, maybe you are boasting in your gift.
Maybe you think that your gift is so much better than everyone
else is that you don't need everyone else.
You need to recognize your need for the body.
You have blind spots that you don't know about, and you need
the body to help you to grow into the fullness of Christ.
And so we need to recognize and thank God for the gifts that
other people have because they serve us.
And so we should thank God for other people, but we should also
seek to know our gift and how we can serve the body so that it
grows. Now I just want to sort of
briefly go over some of these spiritual gifts that then maybe
you would pray through it and, and seek the Lord's wisdom on
whether you have these gifts or not.
I'll just sort of briefly go over them.
Paul mentions wisdom. Maybe you have a, a unique
ability to take God's word and to apply it to everyday life.
Maybe you have knowledge, which may be a, a deep insight into
God's Word that doesn't just come from human understanding.
It comes from the Spirit. And that's what we need to
recognize about these spiritual gifts.
They're not just things that we just conjure up in our flesh.
These are gifts that are unique to the Holy Spirit.
They're Holy Spirit empowered. Maybe you have faith, a deep
trust in God that allows you to pray fervently and to pray
persistently. Now Paul mentions healing and
miracles and tongues and, and there are some people who
believe that that these gifts exist specifically today.
And there are others who believe that that these gifts were given
to the church for a specific set of time and then they ceased.
And the purpose of those gifts was to validate the church that
the Christ was in his church through his power.
Now I do believe that God can and does do miracles today
through faith, through prayers of faith, but I do lean towards
that, that those gifts were were for a specific season, for a
specific time. And the reason for that is what
we've just learned today. If the Holy Spirit is the one
who gets to choose, then I would ask the question, why don't we
have someone with the gift of healing?
Because it's a, it's a Holy Spirit given gift.
And if we don't have people in our church or in our churches or
around the world who have those gifts, then the Holy Spirit is
not giving that gift to the church.
And so it seems most practical to me that that those gifts were
for a season during Jesus's ministry and during the life of
the early church to validate who Jesus was and that he truly was
God the Son. Again, I'm not saying God
doesn't do miracles today. He absolutely does through
prayers of faith. Maybe you have the gift of
prophecy, which is preaching and teaching God's Word, or the the
ability to distinguish between spirits, which is a special
discernment. Some people have that special
discernment. You know those people, they,
they, they can read into a situation in a way that you
can't. And more often than not, they're
right. What gift has the Spirit given
you for the purpose of benefiting the church?
Now, some of you may know Austin Matthews.
He's a hockey player on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This year, Austin Matthews is set to make $16.7 million, and
rightfully so because he's incredibly valuable to the team.
Do do you know what his ability is?
Do you know what his gift is? He sits on the bench and he sits
on the bench like nobody you've ever seen before.
Let me tell you. He sits there and he takes that
space, and then when he moves over, that space is nice and
warm for the next guy who slides over.
And he is just gifted at sitting on the bench like nobody, you
know? Now, if that sounds ridiculous,
it is ridiculous because I made that up.
Obviously, the Toronto Maple Leafs would never pay somebody
$16.7 million to sit on the bench.
They're giving him that money because he's incredibly gifted
as a hockey player and he's going to use that gift to help
the team hopefully one day win a Stanley Cup.
Some some of us shaking their heads or there's a lot of hope
there. Brothers and sisters, the Holy
Spirit didn't give you the gift to sit on the bench.
He didn't give you the gift to sit down and let everybody else
do the work. You have a gift to serve your
brothers and sisters in Christ. It may not be the way that I do
it. It may not be the way that
somebody else do it does it. But you have a specific gift to
strengthen the church, to help it grow into the fullness of
Christ, and it's not going to get there until you start
helping. We are missing out on your gift
if you don't serve. And so I want to encourage you,
brothers and sisters, to prayerfully discern where God is
calling you, where God has gifted you to serve the church.
Pray this week through these gifts and ask the Lord if one of
them is yours. Maybe ask other people that know
you and say, is there anything that you see in my life,
spiritual gifting that you would say that I'm uniquely gifted and
I should begin to pursue? Maybe there's an area of church
that you say I, I think maybe I could serve there.
Don't be scared to jump in. We, we don't want people to come
in and serve. And then we're going to lock you
in and oh, now you have to do this for the rest of your life.
We want you to find an area to serve that empowers you because
once you're that you'll know you'll get in there and you'll
be like, you know what? I, I just don't get anything out
of this. All right, then tell your leader
and say, I got to try something else.
We'll fill that spot with somebody else and then go to the
thing. We want you to find the area of
service in the church that empowers you.
And the beautiful thing about a gift that empowers is that no
matter what sacrifice it requires, you're willing to do
it because you get a sense of joy, a sense of blessing out of
of doing something that God has gifted you to do.
Brothers and sisters, the church will never grow into the
fullness of Christ until we are all working together to build
the body of Christ. And I want to take a moment to
speak specifically to those in the room who maybe don't
recognize Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Maybe you're like the Corinthians at at the beginning
where Paul says you once were LED astray to idols and you
didn't know Jesus as your Savior.
Maybe you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but you've
heard about him. You've heard about what he has
done for you, that that he came down in the form of man, God in
the form of man, to live a perfectly righteous life, to die
as a sacrifice for our sins, and then die and be buried and
raised again and ascended to the throne.
All so that through faith in Him, your sins could be
forgiven. And as we've learned today, look
at the care and the love that he has for His church, for his
body, to gift it, to care for it, and to help it to grow.
Maybe you would consider giving your life to the Lord today.
Maybe you're sensing that call of the Lord on your life, to
trust in Jesus as your Master, to surrender your life and to
become a part of his body so that you grow into the fullness
of Christ. We would encourage you to talk
with one of us pastors or or even just someone around you,
someone that you know is a believer, and ask them what it
means to follow Christ. What a joy it is to be a part of
a body that God himself cares for and grows.
And would we serve together as we grow into the fullness of
Christ, that we may bring glory and honor to Him.
Let's bow for prayer. Father, we thank you so much for
the gift of your Spirit. What a wonderful privilege it is
to have your spirit dwelling in us.
This is this is a down payment. It is a guarantee that that we
know that we are yours, that we can be guaranteed that we are
going to go to heaven one day because of the Holy Spirit
dwelling in us. But this is the Holy Spirit is
not just for some future date and hopefully one day we'll get
to just experience heaven forever, but it is the Holy
Spirit has given to us now that we might have power and a gift
to help the church grow into all that you want it to be.
Lord, we pray for that you would fill us with your Spirit.
I pray that that you would help us to understand how you've
gifted us so that we can serve one another and grow together so
that we may bring glory and honor to our Savior who is
worthy of all praise. We thank you in Jesus name,
Amen.