Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] We've had a sermon series. We've been looking at the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit, the work that he's done out through creation right from the very start. Genesis chapter one.
[00:00:11] The author of Genesis describes all of creation as chaotic, formless and void. That it lacks purpose and definition.
[00:00:19] It says, but the Spirit of God was operating over all of creation.
[00:00:25] And all through Genesis chapter one, you see the Spirit of God forming, that is separating out light from day, the act of separating, making sense of creation and then filling it, giving purpose in life into that, into that formation, the Holy Spirit. Did you see that from the very start?
[00:00:46] And you see that all throughout the Bible.
[00:00:49] And I wanted to talk about the work of the Holy Spirit in forming and filling us in this sermon series.
[00:00:57] Spiritual formation is the Spirit driven process of forming the inner self in such a way that we become submissive to God.
[00:01:07] The fruit of the Spirit emerges from a person who is, who is spiritually formed. That is, our mind is transformed, it is renewed.
[00:01:19] The fruit that emerges from that individual, Paul says, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Not that that's supposed to be an inexhaustive list, but that's like a cloud of words. You could throw up there and say that is the mark of an individual whose life is moving from chaos to order, from insanity to sanity. These are words that describe a sane person, a person who is made, remade, reformed in the Spirit of God.
[00:01:56] But the Spirit not only forms, the Spirit fills. And that's the ongoing state of surrendering that empowers the believer to live a holy life, displaying the fruit of the Spirit.
[00:02:08] So a spirit filled person is a person who is active, who is actually doing the things that come out of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness.
[00:02:23] If you are reformed, if you're remade, then your actions are remade too. The things that you do, the way that you respond to the stimulus around you, your sense of what's natural to do in response to your environment changes, your actions change, the things that you do change.
[00:02:45] And not only does your inclination change, but the Bible says that we are given special abilities to enact those changes, to do those things. And the Bible calls those the fruit of the Spirit.
[00:03:00] I want to give a definition for that too.
[00:03:02] Those are special abilities or empowerments that the Holy Spirit gives to people, people of God, in order to make them effective in ministry, in order to do the same things.
[00:03:14] If what God does is sane, then his ministry is the act of bringing sanity into the world. And so he gives us Special abilities to help make the world a more sane place. When God's people use these gifts in service of one another, the entire church is built up in faith, hope and love.
[00:03:36] Now that definition is an abbreviation that comes out of this, I think, really beautiful explanation of the life of the Spirit filled church that Paul gives in First Corinthians, chapter 12 and 13.
[00:03:49] I don't think I've ever done this before where I just really, I literally on the screen, I'm just going to have all of chapter 12 and 13 and I know for a fact I'm not going to get to all of it. And I'm just going to quit and get back to it next week because normally I try to break up. I try to break these thoughts up, like what's deliverable in a week. I didn't want to break this idea up though, because when I looked through these two chapters, I think that they're so beautifully intertwined. The way that he is delivering this, he is delivering to the church in Corinth this information they need to have about the fruit of the Spirit in such a, such an elegant way. It doesn't make sense to divide it up. So I'm going to do the best I can to get through it all and if I don't, I'll just pick it up next week.
[00:04:35] Starting with First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 1. He says, now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding the question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us, I want to stop here and say, this is a letter.
[00:04:48] So we don't know.
[00:04:50] We don't know the other letter. We don't know either either. Somebody came from Corinth to Paul and said, hey man, we got all this stuff going on. We need this help with this stuff. Oh yeah, what do you need help with? They said, oh, we need some help with this. Or they wrote a letter saying, hey, you know, we're trying to live out this whole church thing, but here's some things that creeping up that we need some help with. We have had some problems with our worship service.
[00:05:12] We've also had some problems when it comes to like, we got some questions about the spiritual gifts thing.
[00:05:18] This is what we're seeing happening in our church. And we don't know exactly what it was.
[00:05:23] But I would say especially based on Corinthians 14, which we're not going to get to, it looks like the church had become enamored with the more crazier gifts. Like speaking in tongues was one that, like, everyone was really excited about and they Were like, everyone should try to speak in tongues. And why can't I speak in tongues? Oh, God doesn't favor you if you don't speak in tongues. Like, God highly favors you if you do. It's that kind of thing. And it seemed to be creating some division in there, trying to understand, you know, what are these gifts? What are they for?
[00:05:58] How can we determine which spirit, which gifts come from God and why all that.
[00:06:05] And he makes it clear towards the end that the He. I don't know if he's like. I don't know if he's, like, tamping it down because they lifted it up so much, but he seems to really tamp down the whole idea of the gift of tongues.
[00:06:22] He's like, look, that's kind of good just for you.
[00:06:25] And there's ministry in that for you. But the gifts that are good for everyone, those are the ones we should be pursuing. He's kind of remaking their whole idea of what spiritual gifts are about. That's what you can see happening through this whole passage. That's his. That's kind of letting you in on the question that. That Paul got in Paul's mind as he says these next two chapters. Okay, now, brothers and sisters, let me answer your questions about these special abilities from the spirit.
[00:06:55] I don't want you to misunderstand this. This is very important. And then he goes on. It seems like a tangent. He says, you know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshipping speechless idols.
[00:07:09] So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
[00:07:19] So first of all, how do we.
[00:07:21] They're asking, like, tell us what's going on with the spiritual gifts. How can we know what they are, how they're from God? He says, first of all, no one, no one would curse God if they are filled with the Spirit. And no one would say that Jesus is Lord if they weren't.
[00:07:41] Now I hear that, and I'm like, well, wait a second. Like, you know, Jesus said, not everyone that says Lord, Lord will be saved. I know for a fact people will say just about anything. Salesmen will tell me, tell me they're a monkey if it'll sell me the house. You know what I mean? Like, they'd tell me anything. Like, to say that a person won't say that Jesus is Lord.
[00:08:00] I'm confident people would say that.
[00:08:03] Well, I want you to think about what was going on in Corinth at this time. Corinth is a major hub, probably like the second next to Rome. This is like one of the. It's a massive trade route. It's a big important city in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. There's a pretty sizable Roman contingency there. And if. And if you.
[00:08:26] What you would hear often, what you would see often everywhere, what you were expected to give, offering to was that Caesar was Lord.
[00:08:38] Caesar is Lord.
[00:08:41] For you to say Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. If you say that Jesus is Lord, you are committing an act of treason.
[00:08:50] It is. If you were to stand up and say that, everyone would go. Would scoot their chair away from you. It's like you're in danger. You're putting your life in danger. Okay.
[00:09:05] It is certainly you should expect that it's going to cost you something to publicly say, caesar is not Lord. Jesus is Lord.
[00:09:15] Caesar is the guy in charge of the government, but he is not the one that dictates what's good in life. He is not the one that tells me what's right, wrong. He's not the one that I have submitted my life to, not Caesar, Jesus.
[00:09:28] From that perspective, when I usually think, oh, yeah, people will. Like people would say Jesus is Lord when it's to their benefit. They might say that that's not the context that was happening here.
[00:09:41] It was actually costing them to follow Christ.
[00:09:48] Now, I want you to imagine that it costs you something to follow Christ.
[00:09:56] I don't know if it does. It may have.
[00:10:00] It might in your workplace, it might among your family.
[00:10:06] It might in the decisions that you make with your finances. It might in terms of the way that you love your spouse or take care of your kids.
[00:10:17] I don't know if you perceive any cost associated with calling Jesus Lord of your life. I don't just mean saying it, but like, if Jesus were, in fact Lord of your life, does it cost you?
[00:10:36] Why would you say that, except that Jesus is Lord of your life? If it costs you.
[00:10:43] If it costs you to say that, why would you say it except that he is?
[00:10:50] Okay, so he wanted to. Before he gets into this discussion about the gifts that emerge out of the spirit, he's kind of directing us back to this spiritual formation. Except that you are factually formed the spirit, except that the kingdom of God is yours. Except that you are a part of the family of God, the household of God, the kingdom of God. And the analogy he's going to use here, the body of God, the body of Christ, except that you are a part of that.
[00:11:23] You would not claim to be a part of it if it's costing you to be a part of it.
[00:11:28] So as we are looking to the spiritual gifts, understanding that there is a.
[00:11:35] The power that is emerging here is because you have laid something down. You've given something up, You've taken up a new identity. And from that position, here are the gifts that emerge. This is the filling that happens when the person is formed.
[00:11:51] He says, okay, there are different kinds of gifts that come to people who are in Christ, people who call Jesus Lord, but the same spirit is the source of all of them. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it's the same God who does the work in all of them. You've noticed in this church, Corinth, you've noticed that God has enabled you with certain abilities to do certain things in your group. If you notice that those have been kind of different among you, you seem to have appreciated certain of them specifically speaking in tongues above others.
[00:12:29] But you certainly notice that they've shown up differently for different people.
[00:12:33] They are different.
[00:12:36] What the spiritual gift that you're given and the spiritual gift that you're given might be very different, but they are for the same purpose.
[00:12:44] There is only.
[00:12:46] There is a unity of purpose among the diversity of.
[00:12:51] Of special abilities that are given.
[00:12:56] There's no need to view these competitively, but cooperatively. It's the same thing I see with, like, with relationship or see marriages, like the idea that a husband and wife have, you know, differences could be viewed competitively, or they can be viewed cooperatively. Like, I love the fact that Alison is good at a lot of things I'm not and not good at a lot of things that I am. We have those differences between us mean we have a much broader base of capability, the differences that exist between us. I don't need to be married to someone who is the same as me. I would like I am factually better off because there's a wide range of things that I don't have to be good at that she is good at and vice versa that I learned from her and that she learns from me. We have that as long as we view ourselves in terms of cooperation instead of competitiveness, that diversity of special abilities is unifying rather than divisive.
[00:14:02] So somehow he wants us to get across that unity is very important here. I'm assuming that there was some divisiveness that was taking place in the church of Corinth. The wrath of many Special gifts.
[00:14:12] He then goes on to say, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so that we can help each other.
[00:14:19] What is the whole point? What's the point of a spiritual gift? To do the mission of God.
[00:14:24] He says that this mission of God is that we help each other. So think about it.
[00:14:30] The mission of God is that we help each other. The mission of God, like the mission of God is to go out into the world and to save lives and to do this and to do that out there, okay?
[00:14:41] But at the end of the day, it is to help each other. It isn't that we go out into the world and do nice things for people in their sorry life and then we come back and pat ourselves in the back because we did nice things for those people out there. It is that we create an environment that is inclusive of people, that they're no longer out there, but that they are a part of the family of God, that they're a part of the kingdom of God. The goal isn't to like, make the chaotic world less chaotic. The goal is to be a part of God's kingdom that is not chaotic. When we talk about going into all the world and making disciples, it's not like going out there and making the disciples and saying, good luck to them. It is that they are now a part of the kingdom of God. And that that necessarily means that we are helping them.
[00:15:28] It's an ongoing relationship with people, not just a one time, like, good thing that we've done, passed out water bottles or whatever that one time thing is.
[00:15:38] The goal is that they are a part of God's body.
[00:15:43] And so the spiritual gifts that exist, the mission that God has and the spiritual gifts that he gives us are for the purpose of building up his kingdom, including more people in his kingdom. And that necessarily means that those gifts will be helping each other.
[00:15:59] When, when I started Horizon, I got some funding from different groups and they would have us to get everybody likes metrics. And I get that, whatever, especially if you got money attached to it. So I had to write out these forms. Like, how much stuff did you do this week? How many doors did you knock on? Or whatever? I'm like, bro, how do you count this stuff? I don't even know how to count this stuff. They were like, how many of these things did you do? And they were like, how many, how many contacts did you make outside of your church community? I was like, what's my church community like? I don't know who's a part of my church and who's not a part of my church is the lady at the coffee house that I've been talking with the last few months, she.
[00:16:40] Every time I come in, she's talking to me about this. Is she apart now? I don't know. Like, why?
[00:16:47] I'm not thinking about who's in the church and who's out of the church. I'm thinking about who needs Christ and like, who is, like, with me in Christ and who's not. I'm not thinking about, like.
[00:16:59] Like who I get to check off on my roles. You know what I'm saying? I had this, like.
[00:17:05] It was very difficult. And I would go.
[00:17:08] I went to the guy that I had to submit this stuff to, and I went to him and he's like, you're just a real problem. Like, just fill it out.
[00:17:14] I just have to have something. I just have to have something to submit.
[00:17:19] So the best I could do without lying, I just kind of filled these numbers out. But the end of the day, I had to. They made me separate out all these things that I didn't think should be separated.
[00:17:34] I thought that the people that I was with were the people that I was helping and the people that were helping me draw closer to God.
[00:17:46] Those were the people, and I didn't know whatever they considered themselves.
[00:17:51] That was the mission, he says, towards this end, towards this mission of helping one another.
[00:18:00] To one person, the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice.
[00:18:09] To another, the same spirit gives the message of special knowledge.
[00:18:12] The same spirit gives faith to another and to someone else.
[00:18:17] One spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, another the ability to perform prophecy. He gives someone else the ability to discern when a message is from the Spirit or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what he said.
[00:18:36] It is the one. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gifts each person should have.
[00:18:45] Next week, I'm going to go a little bit into kind of the diversity of these. I'll look more into the diversity of the gifts that exist inside of our church that I've seen exist inside of our church that will correspond with this. But for now, just the idea that the Holy Spirit, not through our like talents or because of anything that we've, like, worked towards, embeds in you certain things that come easier to you that are good for everyone else.
[00:19:24] Now, this list isn't exhaustive. It's never pause lists are never supposed to be exhaustive. But. But I want you to think about this in your own language, right?
[00:19:35] I want you to think about someone in this church, someone in this. I want you to think of someone in this room right now, like an actual physical person in this room.
[00:19:45] And I want you to think of a moment where something that they did was actually like, tangibly helpful for you in making Jesus Lord of your life. That when you saw what they did or heard what they said or emulated them or something, there was something in them that you saw Christ in them, and it led you to think, yes, I would like to follow Christ in that way. I can see Christ better now as a result of them.
[00:20:22] And it's easier for me now to call Jesus Lord of my life because they're a part of my life. Because you are in my life, it is easier for me for Jesus to be a part of. That's. You help me submit to Christ.
[00:20:38] I am more easily formed to Christ because you are following Christ.
[00:20:43] Can you think of anyone that's done that for you?
[00:21:00] I remember a time I was super irritated at this guy because he was irritating and he wouldn't quit talking about something so incredibly trivial that it felt like I was, like, stuck on paper. Like, I felt like he had me trapped. You know? I mean, like, he's in a conversation that doesn't mean anything and he won't quit talking about it. You know what I mean? I was about to lose my mind, and there were other people there. I was like, I feel like.
[00:21:41] I feel like I've been listening to this guy. I don't think Jesus would keep us listening to this guy. I was. At that point, I was like, I don't know. Nobody would still be listening to this person, right?
[00:21:53] And I was like, I got to figure out how to shake this guy loose. And then across the room, I'm not going to say who, but across the room, somebody that he wasn't even talking to, Somebody not trapped, Somebody who was not obligated to be listening to this thing at all.
[00:22:10] From. Across from somebody else that asked a question, like, clearly pertinent to what he had been talking about. And I went, what in the world? Like, I'm desperately trying to figure out how to quit listening to this person over here is somebody who. Because he just cared about him.
[00:22:33] He wasn't trying to, like, get. He was just listening. He wasn't. He wasn't assessing whether or not it was valuable to listening to. He just. He literally just dropped everything and just listened to him, clearly, because that question that he asked meant that he had to have been listening the whole time. And I.
[00:22:48] I remember, look, it was so funny because when he asked that question, it was like I just went, like, okay, I don't. What am I doing? Like, I had me getting ramped up, like, feeling like I was the victim or something. You know, I hate that. I hate acknowledging that I felt that way, like I was the victim. And here's this guy in total freedom, choosing to pay attention to this person that I had decided wasn't worth paying attention to.
[00:23:23] That was.
[00:23:26] That was one of the most helpful things anybody's ever done for me.
[00:23:31] It wasn't for me. Like, that person wasn't thinking about me at all when he did it. But I happened to be there when somebody else was using a gift of patient listening, like applying it into the room. And I happened to be there, and I happened to see it happening.
[00:23:48] And I happened to be able to contrast it against my obvious lack of spiritual formation in that moment.
[00:23:58] And him using that gift of listening and caring, like the way that he was able to patiently listen helped strengthen me, helped change, helped form me. It helped me think again about what it means to follow Christ because of the way that he used that gift.
[00:24:18] Now it's very possible that God just built him in a way that it didn't cost him nearly as much for him to listen to that guy, for the way that God wired him. He may all be like, yeah, that's fine. I do that stuff all the time. Not a big deal. For me, it's a big deal. But you know what? God gave him that gift and not me because I need to pay attention to him and I need to learn to be more like him. Even though that's not a gift, maybe that God gave me. God did give him that gift to form me so that I could be more like that.
[00:24:46] That thing that maybe either came easy to him or that he has formed previously in a spiritual formation. I don't know how he got there. However he got there, however God laid that in his life, it isn't just for him. And I don't just go like, oh, I'm off the hook. Because God gave him the spiritual gift of that patient listening, not me.
[00:25:06] I get to go talk to these other people. No, that wouldn't help me. That spiritual gift was given to help each other. That gift helps me reform my spirit to think more like him, to do more like him. Even though if that's not my gift, that's his gift. That's still something I need to learn from.
[00:25:26] Do you see how this works? That gift isn't just like, oh, nice, you do that. I'm off the hook now. No, that gift is, you do that. You teach me. You're actually leading me. We are a church full of leaders. Every time somebody leads you to be formed in Christ through the use of their spiritual gift as they are filled with the Spirit and they are applying the gifts that God gives them in their spirit, and you see them and hope. Probably feel.
[00:25:56] I would say I felt ashamed.
[00:26:00] I definitely repented. I definitely was like, that was wrong.
[00:26:04] I was in the wrong. You know, I needed to repent. I needed to be faced with that, and I needed to, like, think again about how I could listen better. Does that make sense? And every time somebody does that, they're leading you. They are the leader of the church when they apply their spiritual gift.
[00:26:24] We have a church full of leaders when we have a church full of people that are formed in the Spirit, filled by the Spirit, applying the Spirit in the way that they live their life, and we all get to benefit from it.
[00:26:40] You help me when you are this way. I.
[00:26:44] I need you to be formed by the Spirit.
[00:26:48] Otherwise, I'm going to listen to that guy and just think he's annoying and walk away thinking I was fine there.
[00:26:54] Like, I need you to apply your gifts.
[00:26:59] And it says he alone decides which gifts each person can have. This is really important because, Like, we don't get to judge. Like, oh, that. Well, that person's a leader. That person's not a leader.
[00:27:16] Like, that's not.
[00:27:18] You didn't have anything to do with it. God gave it to you. God made God put that in you. God's the leader. God decided for his mission it would be good for you to have that. God decided it would be good for you to be able to do this.
[00:27:29] Who am I? I'm gonna tell God. Like, yeah, I think that gift you put in that person is more important or better than the gift you gave that person. God's like, oh, you do, huh? Okay, that's great. Like, who were you to. Who am I to judge who in this body is more important than the other one? Like, literally all of you were being. Are given as you are filled with the Spirit. You are formed by the Spirit.
[00:27:57] You are.
[00:27:59] You are given gifts by God that he has decided are good for this body.
[00:28:06] How am I going to decide that? That gift that he's given you isn't that big a deal.
[00:28:11] That's absurd.
[00:28:14] That gift has been given alone by God. And it is necessarily important if he's decided to place the gift that he's put inside of you within this body.
[00:28:27] Okay, at this point, he actually does switch this analogy of body that I've already been talking about. He says, the human body has many parts. This is the first time he's actually brought up body. The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with us, with the body of Christ.
[00:28:43] He says, some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, some are free. But we've all been baptized into one body by one spirit, and we all share the same spirit. Whatever way that you divided yourself before you submitted yourself to God was poorly separated.
[00:29:00] Formation does mean separation, separation light from dark, you know, whatever.
[00:29:05] But to separate yourself out because of how rich you are or what race you are or what sex you are, like, if God has placed you in your body, in this body, that is not. There's no separation between us.
[00:29:21] It would be like say, well, actually, he's going to forget it.
[00:29:24] He's going to talk about this and I'll wait. He says, yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part.
[00:29:31] If the foot says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not the hand, does that make the foot any less a part of the body? And if the ear says, well, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not the eye, would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if the whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?
[00:29:50] You don't get to say that you are insignificant to the body. If God has placed you in the body, you don't get to say that you're insignificant. You don't get to say, I don't really need.
[00:30:04] We have leaders in the church who are doing things.
[00:30:07] I don't really.
[00:30:09] I'm here to learn. I'm here to like, to grow, to like, you know, get.
[00:30:17] And he's like, that's not. That's wrong.
[00:30:20] That's. That whole. There's the. I've heard. Have you ever heard, like, the 80, 20 rule? Like, 80, 20% of the people do 80% of whatever in any organization.
[00:30:29] He's like, that's. That's really dumb.
[00:30:31] For you to think that you are off the hook for whatever reason means that you are stealing a gift that God has given you to use for this body.
[00:30:45] You think that.
[00:30:46] You think it's not going to hurt anybody.
[00:30:50] That you are lazy about your spiritual formation and that you haven't been applying your spiritual gifts to help other people out.
[00:31:00] You think it's not a big deal.
[00:31:04] You're literally deforming the body. It's like you're cutting off pieces of the body and making it less functional.
[00:31:11] Likewise, he says, our body has many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it only had one part. Yes, there are many parts. The eye can never say to the hand, I don't need you. The head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. Just like we can't say, it's okay for me to like, to step back and to be lazy about it. I can't tell you that it's okay for you to step back and be lazy. I can't tell you that it's okay for you to not be useful.
[00:31:46] That would be wrong. That would be like. That would be like the hand telling the foot. Oh, that's cool. Don't be useful. I'll figure it out without you.
[00:31:56] No, what you do is you say, foot. You're really important. Start working like a foot. You know, like, do your foot thing. I need.
[00:32:04] I need you to do your foot thing because that's. You're part of the body, right?
[00:32:09] You don't get to think you're not important. I don't get to think you're not important.
[00:32:13] Because if God has placed you in the body and he has given you gifts, who am I to say who is important, who's not important? He's got something figured out that he wants us to do.
[00:32:25] Now, I don't get to say what that is. He does. And we get to generate that. We get to live in that.
[00:32:32] We get to benefit each other when we are formed and we are filled and we are living out of these spiritual gifts together.
[00:32:39] Get that?
[00:32:41] You don't get to decide you're not important. I don't get to decide you're not important. Just the opposite. It's important for me to tell you. You don't get to be lazy about it. You're hurting all of us.
[00:32:52] That's what Paul's saying here.
[00:32:57] Now, this is a turn I wouldn't have seen coming, this thing that he says next. But it's like, literally the most beautiful part of this whole passage to me.
[00:33:06] In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as least honorable are those we clothe with greatest care.
[00:33:18] So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require special care.
[00:33:26] So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity.
[00:33:34] This makes for harmony among the members so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the part suffers with it. And if one part is honored, all the parts are. Glad he's still using this analogy of the body, and he's saying, like, think about your body and think about, like, how obvious. Like, the hands and the feet, all the parts we've been talking about, those are obvious parts because we know what they do.
[00:33:57] But your body has all these internal parts that are really important. And we know that your body stops working if they stop working, and they're kind of like in the trunk.
[00:34:05] We protect them, we cover them up. They're not as obvious. Like, you see my hand doing this. You don't see my liver doing that. You know, whatever the liver does, nurse can tell me later. Like, I don't even know. But, like, I don't want to go anywhere. Like, I. I'm pretty sure I need it, you know, Like, I want to take care of it. I want to make sure it's okay.
[00:34:32] I need to protect it.
[00:34:35] There are parts of our body that people are like, oh, look at that.
[00:34:40] Like, I think in Corinth, it was like, oh, speaking in tongues. Like, oh, it's a very dynamic thing that's taking place. Or in our church maybe, like, oh, I wish I could play guitar. Or I wish I could speak. Whatever the thing. Whatever the thing is. Probably no one's thinking they wish they could speak. But whatever the thing is that you're thinking you wish you could do, we're like, oh, that's really cool.
[00:34:58] Like, he's like, it's not a big. That's. That's not.
[00:35:03] That thing doesn't need special. Everyone looks at that and thinks, that's really cool.
[00:35:10] And so it's.
[00:35:11] Don't worry about it. Like, it's not a big deal.
[00:35:14] The gifts that are quieter, less noticed, less appreciated, those are the things that we really need to care for, that we need to pay attention to. Again, all that guy did was just listen to that other dude.
[00:35:34] That was annoying me.
[00:35:36] Like, that was a spiritual gift taking place. It made such an impact on my life, you know, I doubt he recognized that that was actually a spiritual gift that he was exhibiting. He probably when he thought. When you think of spiritual gifts, you're probably thinking of something that's, like, dynamic and powerful and making this, like, difference in the world.
[00:35:57] That made a difference in my life, you know, that a person just cared enough to listen. Cared more than me for sure.
[00:36:06] Anyway, we need to really value, lift up, extol those gifts that make a difference in our life that people don't appreciate very often.
[00:36:26] Other things like that. For me, I've seen people who I knew were exhausted when somebody asks for help. They're like, sure, I can help you. And there's. They don't say, like, you know, I'm tired, but okay. And they just. They have this way of generosity.
[00:36:48] Even in the way that they're generous. Like, they're. They're generous. And even in the way that they're generous, they don't put a burden on the other person. The way that they're being generous, that really strikes me, like, I gotta learn how to do that better. Like, there are things for me, probably for you, the things that I'm calling are like, oh, yeah, that's not a big. For me, that's easy for you, something else is hard, that's fine, whatever it is.
[00:37:11] But I think it's helpful for us to valorize. To speak up about the things that are less.
[00:37:21] That usually are given less dignity, that are less talked up. You know, anything that has helped you grow in your faith that other people don't recognize maybe as really important, it's very helpful to talk about them, because I think.
[00:37:39] I don't. I just think there's a lot of spiritual gifts taking place in this body, and people don't know it because we don't talk about how much they helped us.
[00:37:48] Okay.
[00:37:49] I really appreciate this. The way that he.
[00:37:52] I am the kind of person who.
[00:37:56] A lot of the things that I. A lot of things that I do. I think if I were in a traditional church, they would. Oh, yeah, that would be a pastor type. Like, things that I'm good at, right?
[00:38:05] So according to Paul, like, that's not really a big deal. Like, that's not.
[00:38:12] That doesn't matter. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, the thing that everybody else sees already, that already it's been given its dignity by the world. In this body among us, we have at least as much dignity and care and appreciation for the things that other people might overlook.
[00:38:35] And we honor them.
[00:38:38] All right?
[00:38:41] Okay. Remember, I told you we're going to find a stopping point. This is a good stopping point. But the next part's my favorite because it gets into. In First Corinthians chapter 13, people call it the love chapter. You probably heard that, like in a wedding or something, man. When you get it in the context of where he's been going with spiritual gifts, it is so beautiful. It is so cool what he's done here in First Corinthians 12 and 13. And I want to finish that up next week, but just to close out this week, I just want to say, in as much as you can take seriously being formed by God, that you would let your mind be renewed by him in a way that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, that the spirit of God starts to direct your path. I want you to start looking for things that come out of you, things that.
[00:39:43] Ways that. Ways that you are interacting in the world that maybe help other people that seems to be, I don't know, maybe difficult for them or not as natural for them as it is for you.
[00:39:55] And start asking yourself, like, is this a gift that God has given me to benefit others as a part of his mission?
[00:40:04] Is this a gift that God has placed in my care so that I can be a functional, working part of his body?
[00:40:14] Just look for that in your life.
[00:40:16] Let's pray.
[00:40:19] Father God, I thank you for the wisdom as Paul delved deeply into the scriptures, into his faith, and seeing the application of the Holy Spirit in this early church. I thank you so much for the.
[00:40:33] For the beauty and wisdom and the words that you placed in his care that he could share with all of us what it means to be a part of your Holy Spirit, God, as your spirit forms and fills us and makes us into your dynamic church, that is living this other kind of kingdom, this other kind of way of life. Lord, I pray that it does bring us great joy, Lord, that it is good for all of us.
[00:41:00] We feel the goodness of being in your midst, God.
[00:41:05] We love you, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
