Well, we're starting a new series today on community and
I'm super excited about this. It's something that I have been
thinking about for quite some time.
I get the unique privilege of being up here, but also being a
pastor and overseer, being able to look into our church and
people's lives and our relationships.
And this is something that I've had on my radar for like 6
months to be able to bring to us.
And I'm so looking forward to spending some time in this
upcoming study. But for you, maybe we could just
ask the question, do you have a community or maybe what comes to
mind for you when you hear that word?
I think there is some kind of comedy TV show also called
Community. I wasn't really into that.
I tried it, it didn't, it didn't work for me.
But a community is a group of people where we belong.
We have common values. We give, we can, we take, we
enjoy, we do things together. And that's what the the church
ultimately is. It is a community.
So we're going to see in First Corinthians chapter 12 over the
next several weeks what it means for us to be a community and how
you can find your fit in this community.
Every person in the church matters, as we will see.
We don't just want the professionals and the show offs
to do everything in a community. Everybody matters and we all
pitch in and we all come together.
So if you're going to follow along today, you're going to see
in your notes that you have something to contribute.
Every person in the community has something that they can
contribute to the community itself.
I'm not sure what you think of when we mentioned the word
contribute. Maybe you think financial, or
maybe you think resources or giving or serving.
Certainly all of those things are valuable.
We will talk a little bit more specifically about what that
means as we get into our time together, but we're about to
approach the Scriptures. The Word of God and the Bible
tells us in Psalm 1/19, 1:30 that this word gives light.
The entrance of thy word giveth light.
So as we open the Scriptures, we're allowing God's Word to
shine on us. And whatever things we might
think about community, however we might feel about it, we know
also that the Scriptures, the Bible says, is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart.
So as we read and as you hear Romans 10/17, as you're given
faith through the hearing of God's Word, you're probably
going to have some light shed on to some things in your heart.
And I just want you to know that that is how the Word of God and
the Spirit of God direct you as an individual.
So before we jump into our time, I want to ask you to just take a
moment, about 60 seconds maybe, of silence.
You can have your eyes open, you can have your eyes closed, you
can pray, you can breathe. But let's just prepare ourselves
and maybe try to let our guard down and ask the Lord, would you
just speak to me tonight? So let's take just one moment.
God, our prayer today is to hear from you.
So I pray that you give us the strength to give you that
permission to speak to us and to things that are personal and to
things that you want to challenge us and call us to.
God. I pray that you'd use this time
make us better as a church, help us to love each other, make us
fruitful in Jesus name, Amen. We're going to learn in our
series in First Corinthians chapter 12 what it means to be a
community. And really, there's probably no
better place to go than the church at Corinth.
This letter, if you turn there in your Bible, is written from
the apostle Paul. He was a missionary, you could
say in the 1st century, traveling around, sharing the
gospel, that Jesus had died on the cross, was buried and rose
again. If you believe in him, you'll be
saved. And as a result of his
preaching, churches developed. And he writes back to this
church, this very long epistle. Not all of the epistles are this
long. And it's a lot of correction.
This church had a lot of things that were jacked up.
Maybe you've been in a community like that before.
Things were kind of dysfunctional.
Well, that's how this church was.
So it's interesting that we get some of our clearest teaching
around the subject today from this book.
They had issues with perversion in the church and relationships
that shouldn't have been happening.
They were, they were called carnal or fleshly.
They were acting like children. They had divisions.
They had favorite teachers. Well, I follow this guy and no,
I follow that guy. They had issues with the
spiritual gifts. As we will see today.
They were not functioning properly in the worship setting.
So we're going to go here today and learn how to be a community
together. Let's read first Corinthians
chapter 12 verses one through 11.
The Bible says. Now concerning spiritual gifts,
brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
You know that you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb
idols, even as you were led. Wherefore I give you to
understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth
Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord
but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are differences of
administrations, but the same Lord.
There are diversities of operations, but it is the same
God which worketh All in all. But the manifestation of the
Spirit is given to every man to profit with all.
For to 1 is given by the Spirit, the Word of wisdom to another,
the Word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by
the same Spirit, to another, the gifts of healing, by the same
spirit to another, the working of miracles to another, prophecy
to another, discerning of spirits, to another, divers
kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
But all these worketh that one and the same, the self, same
Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
So let's begin following along with our notes today.
The first 3 verses we see that we need to start where we're
going to contribute. Let's start with figuring out
who our community is. Who is your community?
Today we see a spiritual sense in investing in people, and
we're going to get into spiritual gifts that God gives
every believer something to contribute to the body as a
whole. But this community has a way in
which it needs to function just like other communities.
Maybe you are a member at a gym. Maybe there are some rules and
regulations around the gym. I used to go to a gym that you
were not allowed to work out in blue jeans.
I don't know who or why that was a rule.
I am from backwoods Ohio, so maybe, you know, we just really
needed to be reminded to leave the Wranglers at home.
But every community has some kind of guidelines that where we
say, if we're going to be here, we function together in this
particular kind of way. Maybe it's a school or some
online forum. Maybe maybe you've been kicked
out of a group for not adhering to the guidelines.
What we all want to contribute and we're all looking for
community, but we're talking specifically about the church
and finding a way to develop in our Christian relationships one
with another. And I think in the first 3
verses there are three good things guidelines for us to see
how this community needs to function.
First, there is a common salvation.
The church community should have a common salvation In verse.
Verse #2 the Bible says, you know that ye were Gentiles
carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were LED.
Now it's kind of a strange time for Paul to mention this
particular thing. No doubt he's contrasting the
gifts of the Spirit that God enables us.
As we heard last week, when you're born again, when you're
saved, God gives you his Holy Spirit to live inside of you.
You now have a power that you did not have before when you
were lost. In comparison to idols, idols
have no power. They they have ears and eyes and
mouths, but none of it works. And so we're contrasting these
two things. But notice that there's a past
tense. Ye were and ye were.
He also writes, the apostle Paul does to another church in
Ephesus. And he says when you were dead
in sins, that God hath quickened us together in Christ.
When you believe that Jesus died for you, you are quick and you
are made alive. You were given the Holy Spirit
of God in that moment, and by grace are you saved.
So our contribution is intended for a local church community.
This is the context of this chapter in the subsequent weeks.
And no doubt we can serve others.
Man, you should serve in the workplace and do all those
things. But today, when we get into a
more specific spiritual gifts context, these things are
designed for the body. So our community needs to have a
common salvation. We also see that it needs to
have a common submission verse #3 is an interesting verse.
It says no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus
accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by
the Holy Ghost. I think Austin's wearing that
shirt tonight, aren't you? Says Jesus is the Lord.
It's one of my favorite. That's a gym shirt of mine, so
that we put that on real big on the back so anybody in the room
can just see Jesus is the Lord. But this community, the church
community comes together around submission, that somebody else
is in charge of the church, and I'm not talking about me, that
Jesus is the Lord. This is the outcome of people
that are following the Spirit of God.
So our community needs to be submitted to Christ.
We're saved, we're following Jesus and if anybody comes in
with some strange and weird messages, especially as we get
further into our text today, we're reminded believe not every
spirit. There's already the trying of
spirits just a few verses into our outline today.
Try the spirits, whether they are of God because there are
many false prophets gone out into the world, especially the
context is that Jesus is the Lord.
Anybody that would say Jesus is not the part of the triune God
is not a part of our community, and anybody is welcome to
attend. We want lost people to come and
hear from the word of God and choose Christ, but our community
has this as a common guideline. Thirdly, we see there's a common
standard in verse #1 the Bible says Now concerning spiritual
gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
Now ignorant is a word you maybe you've heard before or you've
used as an insult, like you're just an ignoramus or you're just
ignorant, but it means to be unlearned.
You, you literally don't know about something.
Ignorance isn't necessarily a bad thing, as some people would
say. Ignorance is bliss, right?
I'd rather not know. Just don't tell me.
I don't. I'd rather I don't want to know.
I want to be dumb. And Paul says, hey, you guys,
this church in Corinth, you guys have this thing jacked up.
I you need to not be ignorant. Let's talk about these things
and they will verse their chapters 12 through 14 are all
very specific in this kind of context.
But ignorance means that the church also cannot function in
ignorance to what God says in his work.
God does not want us to be ignorant.
Paul writes later in chapter 14 of the same book, and he says
God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in
all churches of the Saints. So we see that Corinth is a
church, Ephesus is a church. There are a bunch of churches
planted all over the world. And in all of the churches there
should be peace. And we see that there is a
standard from the word of God that all churches should
function according to. And if it seems confusing, if
things are disoriented or out of order, who's talking or what's
happening, that is not from the Spirit of God.
And so our community is is settled around salvation that
were born again, that we're submitted that Jesus is Lord and
that we have a standard and that is the word of God.
So our contribution to the community must align with the
scripture. Man, I hope that you will find
creative ways to serve each other.
That would be great. But it all must be aligned with
what we see in God's word. So let's we start with your
community. Who is my community?
Here are some guidelines around where I want to invest.
Everybody wants to be important and have a place and be able to
be a part of something. But now let's let's realize your
importance. We probably need to balance
this. Some people feel like they are
really important and others maybe feel like, well, I could
never do that. That's The Who am I?
And there certainly is a balance somewhere in between.
But remember, our big idea for today is that you have something
to contribute. Like you, not just me, I'm glad
to contribute, but each one of you, each one of us, we all
contribute. And did you know that you have a
gift? You have a gift.
Turn to your neighbor and say I'm gifted.
That's right. Do you believe it?
You are Look at verse #7 in First Corinthians chapter 12.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man.
And verse 84 to 1 is given by the Spirit to to manifest is to
be made known. Something is revealed.
It is revealed that God is working through people in in
such a way that it's not the natural person.
It's not how that person would behave, especially when they
were dead in their trespasses and sins.
Now they're operating under the influence of the Spirit of God.
And it says every man is given this kind of gift.
This gift, though, is not like a natural talent.
You know, like some people are like like Rain Man, they have
like the brilliant IQ thing or some people they have a perfect
pitch. They say, what is it like one in
10,000 people has perfect pitch and they can just hear music and
they know how it all works. I don't identify with any of
that. I don't feel like I have a whole
lot of skills in my natural man. But spiritual gifts are not
something that you had from birth.
It's not a personality trait. It's not a working hard at
developing something like the instrument.
We want to use all of our inclinations, man, whatever God
gives us, we want to use all of those things.
But as we'll see, they're very specific and these are things
that come at the time that you're saved.
God gives you something that you did not have before you were
saved. Peter says it this way, as every
man hath received the gift. Even so, minister, so you have
something to contribute. Maybe you don't have platform
skills, but you have something that God gave you to contribute
to the community, so you have a gift.
Secondly, what God gives you is for others.
It's not about you. You didn't earn it.
You didn't deserve it. You might need to go back a
couple weeks and just see in our gospel course series that we're
saved by grace through faith. Jesus didn't love you more than
other people. You weren't like so good at
something that he said, I need you in my Kingdom.
You had no value until you were born again and then you had
Christ's righteousness applied to you.
So what God gives you in your spiritual gift, Look at verse 7.
It says to profit with all, but the manifestation of the Spirit
is given to every man to profit withal.
So turn to your neighbor and say you have something I need.
You guys aren't very good at this.
We're going to have to try. We'll have to practice talking
to each other. You could talk in church when I
give you permission. You can talk at church.
It's OK, it's all good. But it's true.
Your neighbor has something that they can contribute that you
need. The word profit means to benefit
or to advantage. So the the gifts that God gives
us are really to make other people better to advantage
somebody else. But check this out.
There's a caveat. You see, you must be in
community to be able to contribute well.
You have to have relationships. If God gave you a gift and it's
intended to edify others, then that means you have to be with
others. We can't just be out doing our
own thing. I'm I'm a solo Christian.
I mean, I'd, I'd say show me where you see that again, you
have something that we need. We need to be together because
we need each other. We need what each other brings
to the table. Oh yeah, I forgot to put this in
here. So I'm not a LeBron James fan.
I just want to let you know. I know they say he set the most
records for point scoring and all of the things.
They call him King James and all that sort of thing.
I got King James right here, man.
I'm not worried about King James up there on the screen.
Let me give you some context. I'm from Ohio.
LeBron James was born in Akron, OH.
He went to play for the Cavs. He spent a lot of time at the
Cavs. He got famous there, almost won
a championship, didn't pull it off and decided to leave when an
assembled a dream team, won a few championships, decided now
maybe I guess I'll come back and throw one at the Cavs.
And eventually he did. That's fine, whatever.
But I lived in Ohio, whenever LeBron was in Cleveland and
there were big posters on city buildings with his face and Nike
and all the things. King James, you know, he was
great. But LeBron wasn't a team player.
He wasn't there for the team or for the community.
He went off on his own to be able to win a championship.
That's what he wanted to do. And, and he did.
He was successful. But I'm forever a little salty
because to me it just feels like I'm going to do my thing.
And that's how many Christians treat this contribution.
If they think they're gifted or if they have something to
contribute, they might pick, well, I want a bigger stage.
I want a better platform. I don't want to serve in this
little thing. I I want to be important.
And what we find out with spiritual gifts is that they're
not really about you to begin with.
They're for others, Philippians says, Look, not every man on his
own things, but every man also on the things of others, Roman
says, and the things wherewith one may edify another.
So with this, we could ask questions like, what does the
community need? Like if you look around our
church, you don't have to look very hard.
What do we need? What would make us better what
the individuals need or what is our service missing or what it
what do we need to do midweek or how could we grow?
Or is there a way you could contribute?
How am I gifted? What can I do?
And once you do that, let's learn how you can contribute.
So we, we start with our community.
We define that God's gifted us to do particular things in the
church, the community. We realize the importance that
everybody has something to offer.
And now we need to define what are these gifts?
How does that work? Maybe you've heard things about
these. There's a lot of teaching.
This is kind of a hot button subject.
I just want to let you know right away, I think in your
notes, I gave you a link in the bottom of the little.
I try to do the notes different this time.
So let me know what you think. We're playing around with
learning stuff, but to our website, I wrote commentary on
the whole book of First Corinthians.
So if you have questions about some of the stuff we're talking
about, it's a lot more detailed if you want to go read it for
yourself online. But let's talk about these
gifts. Let's figure out how to discover
your unique gift because we need it.
You have something to contribute.
Let's discover what that is. See we look at First Corinthians
chapter 12 and verses 4 to 6 and it says that there are
diversities and there are differences of administrations
and operations. In verse 8 it says to 1 is given
by the Spirit a gift, and then it goes on to say to another is
given by the Spirit another gift in that word to another.
That phrase, rather, is used eight times to another, to
another, to another, all describing different functions
that when we come together, as we'll see in the following
weeks, as a body we need all the components functioning together
in the way that they're supposed to.
Romans 12 says, having been gifts differing according to the
grace that it's given us. See, our gifts are about God's
grace. It's not about our deserving.
He gives them to us. So there's there's a list there.
There are actually three places in the Bible that lists
spiritual gifts here in First Corinthians chapter 12, Romans
chapter 12, and Ephesians chapter 4.
And when you put those lists together, we get about 19 or so
unique gifts. And I have simplified them for
you because maybe you would ask which ones are for today.
There are a lot of miraculous ones lifted here.
Maybe you've seen some pretty strange things, or maybe you've
seen people fake some pretty strange things.
So I have listed the ones for you for today.
I don't know if they're in your, I don't know.
I didn't give you any blanks today.
But Peter in first Peter chapter 4 kind of identifies them in two
columns as serving gifts and as speaking gifts.
So on the serving end, we have, did you know faith is a
spiritual gift? Like some people have the
ability to just trust God for really big things, to just
believe him. Some people are supernaturally
gifted to give and be benevolent and just love it and just love
giving stuff away. Maybe that's my wife.
She's always, if you know my wife, she's always like looking
at my closet. Like, what are you not wearing?
Let's give that away. I don't know if that's the same
kind of giving, but it seems like it's always happening.
Helps in in ministry or like behind the scenes.
People that just want to slug it out, man, I just love setting up
and just doing stuff. Governments and ruling or people
that are going to oversee, They love spreadsheets and tasks and
keeping things organized. I think Lauren Mccaig is really
good at keeping things organized.
Mercy, man. I think my pastor in Georgia, he
doesn't love hearing this, but I think he has the spiritual gift
of mercy because he's just so gracious and just so
long-suffering with people. It's just incredible.
Then we have the speaking gifts, the ones that get the limelight
out upfront. What most people probably want
is prophecy, teaching, being a pastor, being an evangelist.
Exhortation is really similar to preaching.
It is a coming alongside with the truth and encouragement.
Barnabas is a good example of that.
Philip is a good example of an evangelist.
So here at this church, we we believe that some of those gifts
are no longer operable today. If you have questions, I'd love
to talk to you about why we believe that.
I mean, just two things briefly and then go read.
My commentary is in chapter 13 of this book.
The Bible says that tongues will cease.
So we have that pretty clearly. When that happens is a second
question as well. But secondly, also the Bible
says that there is a foundational time.
The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and
the prophets, and they laid a groundwork for us that we do not
have to continue unto this day. So there are several other
reasons, but that's where we are.
But let's talk about which ones are for today and then you
stewarding the gift that God has given you.
If I truly believe maybe you don't understand which one they
are. Maybe about me talking about
spiritual gifts. You can't hear anything else
because I didn't say it the way you would want it to be said.
But let's just say for sure you definitely have one.
Verse 11 says dividing to every man severally as he will.
So we are responsible then with what God has given us.
But also check this out as he will.
This isn't a la carte like I'm going to go pick out the ones.
Oh, I like that one. I'm going to do that.
Oh, maybe I want to do that one. It says that God's the one that
gave it to you and it wasn't your deserving.
I can tell you when I trusted Christ, I wasn't worthy of being
a pastor. It wasn't a thought in my mind.
I just wanted to not go to hell. I believe that Jesus died for
me. I wanted in on that and it took
me some time to develop into how has God wired me and what what
should I do to serve him. It's OK if you don't know that
right away. But Peter says as every man hath
received the gift, Even so minister the same one to another
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
So if we're going to come together in our community, we're
going to believe that everybody has something to contribute.
We want you to steward well. We maybe don't fully know what
that looks like, but I'm down to try to figure out how to help
you steward the way God has gifted you.
There's a proverb in Proverbs 17 that says as a gift, a gift is
as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it.
This is what good stewardship says, I have something valuable
I can contribute, man I I have God has given me something
precious, and it says in the eyes of him that hath it
whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth.
When you know that you have something valuable, you want to
see it succeed and thrive and use your gift to the profit and
benefit of others. But I do want to give just a
brief warning that the community needs to function together and
we're not all just going to get to do whatever we want to do.
Psalm 75 says that promotion cometh neither from the east or
the West. It goes on to say, but God is
the judge who setteth up 1 and putteth down another.
So as it concerns speaking gifts or, or some kind of prominence
or hey, I'm, I'm gifted in a certain way.
I want to contribute. Just know that you cannot
promote yourself in this particular way.
I'm I'm up here saying I want to work with you and work together
for us to figure out how to do that.
But I don't want you to just get up in the front of the room and
start talking. Let's discuss, let's meet, let's
talk. Let's figure that out.
For me to become a pastor, I think it was about 10 years or
so before I was ordained that I had figured out I want to do
that. I want to start training.
I want to minister. I ministered for free for a long
time before I was ever like sent to plant a church.
So some of the things that God, if God's called you truly called
you to them, they might require some figuring out specifically
for the pastor at first Timothy chapter 3 says a requirement to
being a pastor is not a novice. So this isn't something that we
can just step up and say I'm in charge.
I got a gift, I'm going to do it.
We prove these things. Remember, we go back to the the
guidelines in the beginning. We try the spirits, we test, we
function together, and we'll see as we continue in our series in
our 4th week that there is a structure in the church.
God has given us an order to follow.
An order is good. So let's wrap up our time.
Do you feel like you're contributing?
Well, I don't mean by the way, I don't mean any of this about any
of you in any kind of way. This is just for all of us.
I'm going to give you some examples in a moment, in
practical ways and how you can contribute.
Do you know how God's gifted you?
One of the best ways to find out is to ask somebody who's
spiritually mature, that knows you, that cares about you, that
reads and studies the Bible. Hey, what qualities do you see
in me? How do you think?
What do you think God has for me?
It's a great idea. There's a bunch of spiritual
gifts, tests out there, man, Some of that, it is what it is.
But how can you help others in this church?
I'm going to give us some just the time to respond to that.
I think at the bottom of your notes, there's some take away
lines. If you haven't written anything
yet, maybe that's a good way for you to say, what's a next step I
can take towards figuring out how I can contribute?
You don't have to like, write I want to be a pastor in the
blank. You can just say I want to
figure that out, but also I have a few practical ways for you.
Sometimes with these gifts, people get really excited about
them. And every Christian is also
called to serve, even in things that we may not be gifted at.
We have children's ministry, we have tech team.
There's all kinds of things that happened that you maybe aren't
like excellent at, but we need to do.
Sometimes that's the case. So here are a few practical ways
right now that you can contribute.
No matter how you're wired, anybody can give.
You should start with that. the AV team in the back, if you look
in the back, just look in the back of the room right now.
Look back in the computer. No one's at the wheel.
OK, I'm at the wheel right here. OK, so be great if we had
somebody at the wheel all the time during this service.
We had a camera turn off while we're doing this.
David went back and fixed it. There's but there's no one back
there managing any of that stuff.
There's 2 ladies serving in children's ministry right now
that are about every 3rd week missing a church service.
We could have more bodies, you know, more laborers, less work,
some of our web graphic bullets and things.
I make a lot of that stuff. I probably need to not do it.
Somebody else probably needs to help me do that.
What about coffee, food, snacks? Man, if you just think about
what would make this community better, there's so many things
that we could do together that don't have to be big, fancy,
crazy things, practical ways. But secondarily, maybe you want
to think about the future, a way that I could grow into something
I want to do seriously in ministry.
Maybe you want to disciple somebody one day.
That's a really specific thing for us.
We, we don't just let anybody do that.
We have people get discipled and then they can disciple somebody
else. We could multiply our Bible
studies if we had enough people. We got University of Portland,
man. We got other places, PCC,
there's we could spread out and have Bible studies all over the
place. But me and David can only do so
many Bible studies. So if we all grow, man, let us
know the things you're interested in.
We we want to develop you to be able to do that.
We don't have any Sunday school classes or extra teaching times.
Maybe that God will give us teachers that we can have more
than one thing happening at a time.
Maybe you don't even have to like teach.
You could just lead a the tech team or lead some kind of
service. And I leave the bottom one on
there on purpose because God has called some people to serve him
in a very specific and serious way.
And I think every male should consider, what does God want to
do with my life and why should I not give it to the gospel?
And the Lord will shut you down if you're not called to it.
It's OK, Don't worry about it. But those are just some
practical ways for you to figure out how to serve.
So what do we need? How has God wired you?
Let's take one more moment to pray.
I want to give you another minute of silence.
I said a lot of things, so let's let you just breathe, take it to
the Lord, and then we're going to sing one more song.