I'd invite you to turn in the Bible tonight to 1 Corinthians. We're working through this book and come tonight to 1 Corinthians 12 on spiritual gifts. It's a new section in our study of Corinthians, so I believe this is such an important section that it's going to be more of an introductory sermon and segue into this really big subject as we start tackling issues like speaking in tongues and these sort of things that you probably have all been curious about. I've never heard any of you do, which I'm thankful, by the way. 1 Corinthians 12 tonight, and we're going to be looking at the first 11 verses tonight. Actually, we'll see how far we get. We're going to read the first 11 verses together. That's found on page 1219. Let's give our attention to the word of the Lord. 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 a curse. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it's 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 through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word tonight. Tonight as we transition into our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and this very significant section on spiritual gifts, it is such an extremely relevant and important section of scripture for us as a church in 2015. In fact, this is probably the section that if you pay close attention, you will wonder if any time has elapsed between the first century and ours. This could have been written yesterday, this could have been written last night, how relevant and practical this is for us. Tonight we begin our study on this all-important subject of spiritual gifts. And to introduce the study, let me begin with this introduction so that you can somehow make the connection between the first century, and I'll lead you there by looking at some of the cultural context tonight and ours. We live in a day when we are starstruck by personalities. The more eccentric, the more outlandish, the more against the status quo you can be, the more you will gain a following. Look at Hollywood. There is nothing anymore known as a normal actor. A normal actor, what does that even look like? They're all dead. a normal actor we're drawn to the extremes we're drawn to extreme personalities the one who can stand out from the crowd the most is the one who is the most vulgar he gets the greatest paycheck that's our culture what is it that makes us attracted to these people well ultimately it's their charisma it's their somewhat abilities their outward abilities that attract us that we want to follow them and we want to be like them it doesn't really matter what arena this is it comes really in the arena of sports when I was a kid everyone ran around wanting to be like Mike if you don't know what that is that was Michael Jordan we all bought his t-shirts we all bought his shoes we all practiced his moves I tried to master the crossover I just couldn't do it i could dunk occasionally but i could not dunk like that let me tell you michael jordan was my hero the tragic thing when it comes to this extreme personality and attraction to it today is that this has overtaken the church same thing it is really not so foreign to our study of first corinthians so far we've looked at this in the early chapters but i i thought about the other day i was reading on a website of a major theologian and they had a video a tribute video to this theologian of how much this man has accomplished in all of his years as a pastor and i kid you not it was nothing but a video propping all of his accomplishments and how many people how many countries how many masses this man has reached as i read the comments under the video, there was one particular comment that stood out to me. The comment was of a man who basically said, well, I'm so thankful for him. I know that my little Bible study with a few souls really isn't going to make much of a dent like this man has made a dent, but I hope people are willing to do their small part. The small part. That's what we see it as. The small parts as opposed to that the big part the same problem is really transferred into church entities and how we think about the church today itself how we think about local community churches how we think about them in other words the churches that seem to have the most going on the best programs the best buildings the best opportunities for the young people i mean you could just go right down the line here the more programs you have that's got to be where the life is of course that that's gotta be it right that's how we think and we struggle a little bit i mean let's face it i know tonight we're doing what's considered an old model of church i get that i understand that your pastor still wears a suit that's almost all but gone today you know it's no longer much about sitting and listening to sermons either is it anymore the average churchgoer asks the question well how did you feel coming out of church today did you feel uplifted did you feel good that's the question that those are the questions that that that flow was i encouraged about my week last week or the week coming up and and am i going to go out and triumph this week in all my battles and let that seat of greatness come out as everyone says feelings how did you feel this morning, how do you feel whenever there's a disciplinary process? It doesn't feel good, does it? It's painful. We're obsessed with feeling good. We're obsessed with the most dramatic. We're driven wherever our hedonism wants to go. I sit back from all this tonight and I realize that we're no different. We're no different than first century Corinth. Remember back to chapter two and three when we looked at this problem of the church in corinth they were enamored with those who could use excellency of speech they were enamored with those we even looked at what cicero would say who who could really bring it home and they would even learn how to stomp when they preached and and we had this terrible problem that we exposed in the early sections of corinthians of a worldly view of ministry a worldly view of ministry where people were looking to the power of men people were looking to how they felt people were looking to how people spoke all of the world's wisdom to use really entertainment to win the masses they were caught up in that and that was the great indictment of the early chapters of corinthians you guys are using the world's wisdom to try to win the lost and you've forgotten that what god chose is foolishness to this world he chose something so foolish in the message preached that the world will never accept it A crucified Messiah hung on a tree in the Roman Empire would have been the most ridiculous message you could have ever given. They had forgotten that. God and Paul said, well, nonetheless, that's still God's power to save. It's still His power, no matter how old it seems, through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. He loves to use that method. He loves to use that means. Well, tonight we move into one of the real big struggles of Corinth. It had to do with spiritual gifts. The problem in a nutshell was this. They were so caught up with the supernatural gifts and those who were marked out as having these special gifts and communications with God that something terrible happened in the process. Not only were they being deceived by counterfeit gifts, in other words, Satan's gifts, Paul would later say that, by the way, but you had a class structure develop in the church, the things that we've been considering, and you see the link to the table here, where they were separating out according to the haves and the have-nots. Same thing happened with gifts, the haves and the have-nots. And it developed when it came to this issue of who is useful in the life of the church, who is helpful in the life of the church, who's doing the really big stuff in the life of the church and the lesser gifts of the lesser people or of the little people or of the people who were non-existent in the life of the church meant then as they were marginalized and thrown to the side that those gifts were not being utilized and used in the body it was a tragedy a total tragedy that paul had to correct and paul had to go after under inspiration of the spirit only the super spiritual gifts were being valued and what it led to was then a whole undermining of the design of the church the design of the Lord forming and fitting a church together of every part doing its share and being useful for the prophet on the sacrifice and service of everyone else's faith so the Christ's purpose here in the church was to equip we remember from Ephesians chapter 4 to equip every member by the Spirit with gifts or gifts in the day of His power to use those gifts, as the Heidelberg says, for the enrichment of others, the benefit of others. And now you see we're not so far off. My guest here tonight, because this is a common challenge of elders when they ask the question, what are your gifts? There's a lot of blank faces. We're going to look at all this. But do you ever think that the problem is is because we too have really bought into the idea that there are the real gifts that matter and therefore I really couldn't contribute anything that would be overly useful to the body? I think that's a problem. I hope in the coming weeks, as we look through chapters 12, 13, and 14, which is a whole section on this, the Apostle's main point and that you would learn and understand more of what your gifts are, but the Apostle's whole point is to correct a corrupted view of spiritual gifts explaining that spiritual gifts are something that the Lord gives every single member for the great goal of the unity and the building up of the body of Christ the church. Every single member. Satan's counterfeits do nothing but divide and we have to be discerning on this subject and understand that all christians are called to be servants all christians are called to use their gifts all christians are called to be active in the body vital are you to the entire project and i'm talking to you the one who's listening right now vital to neglect your gift or to neglect your gifts has serious implications and consequences in the body so let's look at this tonight i want to emphasize this word unity and paul shows us the importance of spiritual gifts by addressing our unity in and this may be all that i make it through tonight that's okay unity in confession that's what i want you to think about tonight unity in confession what do i mean i want everyone want to look at verse one now concerning spiritual gifts brothers notice that i don't want you to be uninformed most likely in your translations i'm looking here um well this one isn't but maybe your little word after spiritual is in italics italicized there gifts is probably italicized in your translations that's because it's not there and it's an interesting thing to think about i don't want you to be uninformed um and notice here concerning spiritual spiritual what it could be persons or it could be things or gifts uh spiritual ones intrigues me it intrigues me it really doesn't matter at the end of the day whether he's talking about spiritual ones or gifts or things uh his point here is i don't want you to be ignorant he's dealing with a specific problem in Corinth having to do with what they consider the super-spiritual ones who have the super-spiritual gifts. If you would have traveled to first century Corinth, as we have already studied, you know there were a variety of temples there. Worship was common in the first century of many different cult practices. And you had a variety of different temples. And as we looked at last time, pagan feasts going on there. Corinth was full of spirituality. Corinth was a leading spiritual city. At these temples were priests and there were priestesses and sacrifices were performed. Nothing to do with Christianity. And because of these mystery cult religions going on, they had a host of what the Old Testament calls diviners, soothsayers. you might call them sorcerers in our day they would be like palm readers or people who claim certain things claim to have supernatural powers and claim to be able to somehow contact their god and have some kind of communication with their god they claim to have in these these leaders in these cults they claim to have direct open lines of communication with god very important and lo and behold they all claim these occultists to have supernatural powers now it's important to say that when we come across many of the things that paul addresses here especially like tongue speaking or glossolalia as it's called that was not something only known to the biblical writers that's not a new testament phenomenon only every major religion at some point has claimed this ability. In fact, there were two large phenomenons going on in Corinth at the time when Paul's writing this particular book that they would have known all about. The first was known as ecstasy, not the drug that people talk about today. It was known as ecstasy, and Corinth were major cults, one of them being the Dionysian cult and the cult of Apollo. I quote one author, listen to this. The mystery cults of the empire were designed to induce both higher and lower forms of ecstatic feeling. Notice that, feeling. I want to really emphasize that. The expression of the ecstatic state took various forms, such as gnashing one's flesh, dancing nude in a frenzy, and speaking in ecstatic utterance. Fascinating. And then the latter, this author says, was the means whereby the devotee sought to have communion with the saving deity. To speak with tongues was not invented by New Testament writers, but borrowed from ordinary speech. The other common phenomenon was known as enthusiasm. Listen again to another writer. Not every man can be a miracle worker or seer, But the most are susceptible to ecstasy, especially as members of a great crowd which draws the individual along with it and generates in him the sense of being filled with a higher divine power. That is the literal meaning of the Greek word enthusiasm, the state in which God is in man. The rising tide of religious feeling seeks to surmount the barrier which separates man from God. it strives to enter into the divine did you get that it's very important tonight they're removing the barrier they're getting direct access god is coming down in man god is speaking that way well notice that to have an understanding this that this was their culture they were caught up the church in corinth with this kind of phenomenon this is what they knew This is what they were exposed to. They have direct connection with the gods. What does the average tongue speaker or the average faith healer today claim? Same thing. Benny Hens claimed it for years. He claims that God speaks to him. We have a host of these guys in that movement telling us God speaks to them. To which I remember hearing years ago, Charles Spurgeon, a student, came up and said, you know, I'm called to the ministry to Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon said, well, how do you know? God told me. Spurgeon said, that's funny, he didn't tell me. It's a really wise comment. Why does God tell you and not somebody else? And this is the problem that Paul is here warning about. later on in second uh corinthians he would say i'm afraid that as the spirit deceived the serpent deceived eve by his cunning your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to christ for if someone comes now listen to this if someone comes and proclaims another jesus then the one we proclaim if you receive a different spirit from the one you receive or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted you put up with it wow here's what satan was doing in corinth counterfeiting lying signs and lying wonders to lure the people away from the simplicity of the gospel and it all had to do with this arena of spiritual gifts the corinthians had a huge problem with tongue speaking in fact that really does drive this whole section and they had problems with dreams and visions but tongue speaking dominated the real problem that paul is dealing with and the prevailing opinion was this whoever is able to speak with this kind of inspired ecstatic utterance they are the truly spiritual ones among us there are the ones they are the ones who have who have attained a true knowledge true understanding true spiritual enlightenment and so we see that this was a continued problem in corinth with a worldly view of ministry a worldly view of gifts and an elitist conception that some people in the church are way more spiritual than others and that sets the stage tonight for what paul's doing the first thing he does tonight is provide the ultimate test to expose what is going on and confront what they are accepting as true and this is all I'm going with tonight so just stay with me for a few more minutes look at verse two you know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols however you were led that's a rebuke you guys know that when you were outside of Jesus you followed around dumb idols you went around you did and you were led whatever way you were led. In other words, whatever your feelings led you, whatever you wanted to do in your own flesh, you went around and you did. You know you did that. Wherever you felt led, you were not led according to the truth. You were led according to your own, you might say, lusts because that's idolatry. But then comes something that immediately may seem confusing. 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 by the Holy Spirit. What is that? Well, it's pretty straightforward. No one has ever by the Holy Spirit cursed Jesus, right? A curse means to put him under condemnation. If you have the Spirit of God, you would never run around doing that. You agree with that? You agree with that. Of course you agree with that, right? That's not so difficult. Jesus is accursed or given to condemnation would be the greatest blasphemy. Well, he's the Son of God, but he's risen today. He's seated today. It would be blasphemy to say that about our Savior, says Paul. No one would say that if they have the Holy Spirit. You say, okay, get it. What does that have to do with anything? That's a given. You can't speak blasphemies like that. That would be a telltale evidence that the Holy Spirit is having nothing to do with that person, right? If they're speaking like that. Here's the point. Almost everyone recognizes there were teachers in Corinth saying that. there were teachers in Corinth saying that. You say, how did the world get away with that without discipline? Right? Why would anyone allow that? You want to know why? They were the spiritual ones. Here's what happened. The Corinthians had become so used to ecstasy and enthusiasm and had believed that certain spiritual people had communication with the gods. They believed that this about certain persons in the church. They believed this, that their gifts and their wisdom, and wow, and I bet they said it with eloquence, man. They had true communication with God, they thought. Here's what happened. Truth no longer mattered. The feeling was that great. Truth no longer mattered. they could do it with such power and such utterance and such unction and such wow factor, X factor, whatever you want to call it. Who would dare question that that couldn't be from God? Look at the charisma. Look at the abilities. This got so bad that there were teachers standing up saying Jesus is accursed, and no one questioned it. They were the spiritual ones. now you say you gotta be kidding me nope that's what's so monstrous about this and then i say you know this happens all the time today some powerful speaker gets up it doesn't really matter what he says anymore it's accepted because it's church right i'm going to give you an example i have a friend in the ministry and in his town a very charismatic leader in his organization moved into town this woman attends a woman attends my friend's church and her non-church son got involved with this movement he had been raised in the church left the church this new outfit comes in gets involved in it and the pastor criticizes it from the pulpit and criticized it because this group openly teaches false teaching. But it was making such an impact in the community. I mean, a real impact in the community. And she was furious. She was furious and she comes up and I understand this struggle, by the way. I totally understand this struggle. She says, my son hasn't been to church in years and here you are criticizing this. I'm so thankful he's finally even heading back in that direction. Parents hurt when this happens. And if we can just get them back into something, show some spiritual interest. And somebody was standing by, this pastor told me, and this lady walked off and another lady said to him, Pastor, these people are hurting. These people are hurting. So I totally sympathize. However, the feeling today is, the struggle today is, is you can't criticize anything. That's the culture we live in. We've been all but silenced and it's happened in the church. And it's so hard today as people are hurting with their children and these seem to be, and this is the hardship. These people, they seem to be running away from Christianity and when they come back to Christianity, they run into that stuff. And the parents say, well, they're in church. They're in church. We're not happy about it, but they're in church. But what if it's false? You could have all the energy and excitement and enthusiasm for it. And you can get up and you can do this. What if it's false? We do that with music. What governs us about music, I almost universally hear people say, well, the worship is about how hot the music was today, you know? Man, those chords really got to me. They really tugged on my heartstrings. It was really powerful. What if you were singing heresy? Would that have mattered at that moment? I wonder. I saw it when people were singing America the Beautiful, which is not a Christian song. And I saw this. I was so filled with the Spirit. Enthusiasm, warps sound judgment. Feeling can overrule truth. Do we realize that's a problem? All that mattered is that what was done felt powerful today. And the content was gone. this got so bad teachers were saying in Corinth Jesus is accursed and everyone's hands were up do you know the devil's tactic is to do that listen to you know when Paul was recounting his conversion and he told his own personal story about what happened do you know what he said he tried to do to Christians before he came to Jesus and Jesus struck him down and said do you know what he said about himself listen to this paul said this he describes his behavior under the direction of the devil before his conversion and he says this in acts 26 verse 11 i oppose the name of jesus of nazareth do you know how here's his confession i tried to make the saints blaspheme i tried to make the saints blaspheme you can go look at it one of saints satan's designs is under of the enthusiasm gets you to blaspheme. That's his goal. You say, what does that have to do with spiritual gifts? What does that have to do anything with spiritual gifts? Why is Paul starting there tonight? Well, it's this. Gifts can become so divorced from the Word of God and their intention, they become means to control your feelings and drown out the truth. In other words, the first test of all true spiritual gifts is a doctrinal one the very thing we don't think about what are those gifts promoting are they promoting the truth as it is in jesus or are they promoting promoting division what do all the charismatic leaders today cast aside the word is not central they're pandering to people's sicknesses and playing off their diseases and claiming to have some kind of supernatural power to be able to heal them when that solely belongs to the risen Lord and the power of His resurrection to give it at the end when our bodies are raised. They're playing on people. The charismatic movement is alive and well today and we're often attracted in some way looking over the fence to the upbeat life of it all. I know that. The first test of all spiritual gifts is doctrinal. Where does it lead you? No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit. Your confession that Jesus is Lord is manifest and evidenced by the work of the Holy Spirit in your lives. Your true teaching, your true understanding is something the Spirit is working to unite you in first. Concerning spiritual gifts, all of it should lead us to a unity in the truth of what we believe about Jesus. and a unity of confession as the truth is in Jesus. And I close with this tonight. That was my first point and I'm axing the second one. Did you know that? I'm just not even going to look at it, okay? We'll come back to it next time. But I want you to think about this in closing. I was struck by John 7 this morning and this is what struck me. jesus in john 7 is not coming out openly to do all these wonderful signs and this is what we read after this jesus went about galilee he would not go about in judea because the jews were seeking to kill him now the jews feast of booths was at hand well this is a big big opportunity for jesus to show how great he is i mean it's swelling with people the feast of booze you would have had people everywhere out in the community and notice what the brothers say to him leave here so his brother said to him leave here and go to judea that your disciples may also see the works that you're doing for no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly if you do these things show yourself to the world show your greatness show how show how really spiritual and powerful you are with these wonderful works you're doing get out there jesus don't hide yourself and then it says verse 5 for not even his brothers believed in him jesus says my time has not yet come your time's always here look down about the middle of the feast verse 14 jesus went up to the temple and began teaching the jews therefore marveled saying how is it that this man has learning he's never been studied jesus answered them my teachings not mine but his who sent me if anyone's will is to do god's will here it is he will know whether the teaching is from god or whether i'm speaking on my own authority you'll know by the doctrine what is he teaching the one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent me is true in him there's no falsehood that's the problem in first corinthians they're all seeking their own glory and they're not doing the will of the father and their doctrine proves it see it and i hope that encourages us tonight to be good students of god's word to love the truth to know the truth and start there and then we're going to start looking at very carefully how the lord has given you all you all spiritual gifts for the enrichment and common good of the body not to divide out being superheroes for the common good of the body that we would be built up in the faith unified in the gospel of jesus christ let's pray together gracious heavenly father we realize how much the truth matters. And it's the last thing people study or take seriously today. We're all about how we feel. And that's why we're on this rollercoaster of emotions and we hit highs and we hit lows and we can't figure out why nothing's steady. And so I pray that tonight we would be unified in our confession and love that. Seeking in all that we do to make sure it corresponds with what we believe and is it promoting the unity of the body and that Your truth would be deep in our hearts and cherished and then we would become servants of one another as You taught us to be. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for teaching us and instructing us in Your glorious Word. Change our hearts by it and let us be as You want us to be children of the living God. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Thank you.