Now, concerning the spiritual gifts, brethren, I would
not have you to be ignorant.
An interesting statement of Paul, because I think
that in the Church, one of the areas
where the greatest ignorance does exist today is
in the area of spiritual gifts and their
operation within the Church.
And this ignorance is on both sides of
the fence.
Within the Pentecostal churches, there's a lot of
abuse of the gifts of the Spirit, because
people are ignorant of their true operation within
the Church.
On the other side of the fence, among
some of the fundamental churches, there's a lot
of ignorance of the gifts of the Spirit
as they dismiss them to another age and
do not see any validity for them today.
And so, where Paul says, I would not
have you to be ignorant, sad but true,
there's a great deal of ignorance today.
Now, you know that you were Gentiles carried
away unto these dumb idols even as you
were led.
So, I give you to understand that no
man speaking by the Spirit of God calls
Jesus accursed.
And that no man can say that Jesus
is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit.
Evidently, there was a rumor in Paul's day
that someone speaking in tongues was overheard
by someone who understood the language that he
was speaking in and he was actually blaspheming
God.
Paul said, impossible.
No man by the Spirit calls Jesus accursed.
Now, that rumor probably started in Corinth, but
it hasn't died yet.
I often today hear people say, oh, well,
there was a meeting.
You know, my aunt knew a woman who
attended a service.
Never will you ever hear a first-hand
evidence of that rumor.
It's always someone who knew somebody somewhere.
And there was this meeting and someone got
up and spoke in tongues and someone was
there from Egypt, understood the language, and they
were blaspheming God and all.
And that rumor persists to the present day.
However, know this.
No man by the Spirit calls Jesus accursed.
Impossible.
Also, if you have a son who comes
to you and asks for bread, you're not
going to give him a stone.
If he asks for a fish, you're not
going to give him a scorpion.
If he asks for an egg, you're not
going to give him a serpent.
Now, if you earthly fathers know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much
more will your heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to those that ask Him?
I'm tired of these boogeyman stories.
You better be careful when you yield yourself
and open up yourself to God because you
don't know what Spirit might come in.
False.
Your heavenly Father is much more gracious than
we are as earthly fathers.
And if I, as a sincere child of
God, am seeking the fullness of God's Spirit
and asking Him to give me more of
His Spirit indwelling me and empowering me, it
would be blasphemous to say that God would
allow some false or evil spirit to come
in and to take control of my life.
That is an extremely blasphemous concept of God
that I utterly reject.
The second part of this is also interesting.
No man can call Jesus Lord except by
the Holy Spirit.
If I really confess Jesus Christ is Lord,
I can only do that as the result
of the work of the Holy Spirit within
my life.
If you have made that confession, it's because
of the work of the Holy Spirit within
your life.
You can't do it apart from the work
of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot make a genuine confession that Jesus
is Lord except the Holy Spirit has done
His work within your life.
Now there are diversities of gifts but the
same Spirit.
There are many different gifts.
There is a partial listing here.
Paul gives another listing in Romans 12 in
which he adds some that are not here.
There are diversities of gifts.
Many different gifts but there is just one
Spirit.
The same Spirit.
There are differences of administrations.
Now he speaks about governments and helps and
things of this nature and there are different
administrations.
And yet it is the same Lord.
There are diversities of operations but it is
the same God which worketh all in all.
So even with the diversities of gifts, then
there are diversities of the operations of that
gift.
I may possess a certain gift of the
Spirit and you may possess the same gift
of the Spirit but it may operate in
my life differently than it operates in your
life.
And one thing about God is that He
will not be pigeonholed by us.
He refuses to be conformed to our patterns
and to our mindsets.
He allows Himself that liberty of working as
He wills and as He desires.
And it doesn't always follow my patterns.
Therefore, it is wrong to seek to receive
the same kind of an experience that someone
else received.
God may work differently in your life.
A mistake that we often make when we
hear a person give a glorious testimony of
how they received the baptism of the Holy
Spirit or how they received some gift of
the Spirit in their lives.
They think, oh, well that's the way it
happens and so, you know, I try to
look for the same kind of sensations, the
same kind of feelings as some people are
very, the sanguine especially, can describe things so
vividly, you know.
And I was under the piano and I
began to get this warm feeling that started
at the top of my head, you know,
and it was just like it came right
on down through me and my whole body
was just tingling with these and they can
go on.
And so, I am waiting upon God.
I say, oh Lord, I want to receive
more of Your Spirit and then I wait
for this warm glow to start in the
top of my head and nothing happens.
I wait and wait and wait and I
don't get this warm glow.
And I think, well, maybe another night, you
know.
Because I'm looking to imitate someone else's experience.
But we all of us relate to God
in our own ways and God relates to
us in His own way and our experiences
can vary dramatically though we do have and
can be exercising the same gift of the
Spirit.
The way it works in me is different
than the way it works in you.
The sensations that I may feel would be
different from the sensations that you may feel.
And thus, we should not be trying to
receive some experience or predicate the fact that
I've received the experience because I've had a
warm glow or I felt like a bath
or felt like this or felt like that.
The faith should never be in the feelings
that I receive because I may not have
any feelings at all that I can describe.
All I've got is pure faith in the
promise of God.
Oh, what a shame.
No, what a blessing.
I've got God's Word and I stand upon
the Word of God.
Same in salvation.
You know, people describe these marvelous feelings when
they receive Jesus Christ.
And so people are looking for some kind
of a feeling rather than just taking the
Word of God at face value.
God has said it.
He has promised it.
I put my faith in the Word and
the promise of God and establish it there
rather than, you know, well, brother, let me
tell you, this is how it happened to
me.
And so it's important that our faith be
established in the Word because it doesn't change,
my feelings do.
My feelings can change radically from tonight to
tomorrow morning.
But the Word of God doesn't change.
Thus, when my faith is established upon the
Word, then I have a solid relationship.
Diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
The same Lord.
The same God.
And of course, here you have the Father,
Son, and the Spirit.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given
to every man for the profit of all.
If God does give to me a gift
of the Spirit, it isn't for my own
personal pleasure.
It isn't a toy for me to play
with.
It's for the profit of the whole body
of Christ.
There is only one gift spoken of that
is to be used in one's personal devotion
and is for their personal benefit and that
is the gift of tongues.
And we'll get to that next Sunday night
as we study the 14th chapter, the proper
use of tongues in the life of the
believer.
So, the gifts are given for the profit
of the whole body of Christ to one
is given by the Spirit, the Word of
Wisdom.
This Word of Wisdom is exercised in, of
course, different ways.
Diversities of operations.
In the early church, there arose a dispute
between the Hellenists, the Grecians, and the Hebrews.
Some of the Jews were following the Hellenistic
culture.
Some were following the Hebrew culture.
Those that were following the Hellenist culture felt
that their widows were getting a second-rate
treatment from the church's welfare program.
So they came to the apostles with their
complaint.
Our widows are getting second-class treatment over
there at the welfare tables.
And so the apostles got together.
The Word of Wisdom.
Let us appoint seven men of good reputation,
filled with the Holy Spirit, that they might
take the duty of administering the church's welfare
in order that we might continue to give
ourselves to fasting and to prayer and to
the Word of God.
For it isn't right that we should leave
our ministry to take care of distributing of
the church's welfare program.
Word of Wisdom.
Further wisdom is manifested probably in the fact
that seven of the seven men, five of
them have Grecian names, which means they probably
came from a Hellenistic culture.
When certain brethren came to the church of
Antioch and saw the Gentiles and their liberty
in Christ, they said, hey, wait a minute.
You can't be saved unless you're circumcised.
You keep the law of Moses.
And so Paul and Barnabas gathered these guys
together and they went on to go right
down to Jerusalem.
We'll settle this right now once and for
all.
So they came to the church in Jerusalem
and there was a big division over this.
Peter got up and said, well, he said,
God called me to the Gentiles and while
I was speaking, the Holy Spirit came and
bought them.
Who was I to resist the Word of
God?
I don't think that we ought to try
and put a yoke of bondage on them
that we've never been able to keep.
Then others of them, Paul and Barnabas, told
the work that God had done, the miracles
that were accomplished among their ministry of the
Gentiles.
Then James with a word of wisdom said,
I suggest let's just write to them and
tell them keep themselves from fornication and things
that were offered to idols or things that
were strangled.
They do that.
They do well.
Let's not lay the whole thing on them,
just the essentials.
Word of wisdom.
Everybody's happy.
Yeah, that's good.
That's right.
And so often when there are differences, disagreements,
there's the possibility of people polarizing.
The word of wisdom so often can just
come in and someone will speak up and
say, well, I think we ought to do
that.
And everybody will say, hey, yeah, that's a
good idea.
How did you ever think of that?
And really it's just the word of wisdom
coming forth.
And so there are some that God just
gifts this way.
It isn't a reservoir of wisdom that I
can just tap on at any time and
it's there.
But in a situation that arises, the Lord
just gives that word of wisdom that is
satisfying to everybody.
The second that he lists here or speaks
about is the word of knowledge.
Now this is how that you intuitively or
somehow inwardly just have knowledge of something that
is going on and you can't tell how
you know it.
It's just the Spirit has revealed it and
you have from the Spirit knowledge of a
situation, knowledge of a person's circumstance.
I've looked at people sometimes and the Lord
just gave me all kinds of understanding of
the problems that that person was going through,
things that were happening in their lives.
I can't tell you where I received it
or how, but it was just there.
The word of knowledge was probably exercised by
Peter when this fellow Simon was seeking to
buy the power that whosoever he laid his
hands on, they might receive also the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
Peter said, your money perishes with you.
I perceive that in your heart there's bitterness,
there's jealousy, there's envy that is there.
You better pray and repent.
Peter was reading the fellow.
And so this word of knowledge is interesting.
I'm not really always aware when it's being
exercised.
Many times in the pulpit ministry the word
of knowledge is exercised and I'm not even
aware of it.
One time, you know, every once in a
while I get on these kicks of these
evangelists or these men who have a paper
ministry.
It's all in letters.
They go out and take pictures, you know,
this is my great meeting here.
And, you know, continue to send in your
support for God's work to go on.
And they're doing nothing but sitting and typing
these pitiful letters to their constituents and to
their mailing list.
And they really do no service for God.
And I was going on about these kind
of people one night and I said, you
know, they live down on Lido Island.
They drive white Cadillacs.
And I go on and on.
I was going on describing, you know, this
scenario.
Monday morning I received an irate call because
these services are broadcast.
I received an irate call from a guy
who lives down on Lido Island, drives a
white Cadillac, who has a mailing ministry.
He said, you have no right speaking about
my ministry.
You don't know what I'm doing for the
Lord.
And I said, well, I really don't.
Who are you?
He said, you were talking about me last
night, talking about, you know, my home here
on Lido and my white Cadillac and all.
I said, sir, I don't know anything about
you.
I've never heard of you in my life.
I said, I was just making up an
example and because Lido's sort of a plush
area, I just named Lido and, you know,
a white Cadillac, sort of endemic for these
guys.
I said, but I don't know you.
But I said, if I were you, I
would sure examine myself.
The word of knowledge.
Now, it does happen sometimes in very peculiar
circumstances.
I mean, weird kind of things.
I was at a Rose Bowl game.
SC and Ohio State.
SC had the ball down on their own
15-yard line.
And so this friend that I was at
the game with, I said, watch, on this
next play, Davis is going to take the
ball around the left end and he's going
to go all the way in one play.
And my wife says that my voice carries.
She always says, honey, talk softer.
You're in a restaurant.
Everybody can hear you, you know.
And so people around me heard me, you
know.
The very next play, ball was given to
Davis, around left end, ran all the way
for a touchdown.
Everybody in five rows turned around and looked
at me.
And they said, what's going to happen next?
I don't know why I said it.
I've never said anything like that in my
life.
But it was just something that came out.
And then when it happened, I was as
amazed as everybody.
Word of knowledge is a very interesting thing.
Just how it operates, a person doesn't really
know.
You know, I think that one thing is
that the supernatural often operates so naturally that
we fail to recognize it as the supernatural.
There's an awful lot of supernatural happening around
us that we are totally oblivious to.
We're not even aware of it because it
happens so naturally.
I expect if God speaks to me that
there's going to be the Chuck!
You know.
Your hair's standing on end.
Oh, God's talking, you know.
I mean, you can tell His voice.
It's got that shake to it, you know.
And so we're looking for some type of
supernatural phenomena in order to recognize the work
of God or the voice of God.
But it oftentimes happens in a very still,
small voice.
An inner awareness.
A sudden thought or inspiration.
A sudden desire.
As God speaks to our hearts and plants
His truth within our hearts.
And so I have learned not to look
for the fire, not to look for the
earthquake, not to look for the rushing wind,
but to listen to that still, small voice
as God speaks to our hearts.
The Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit.
To another faith.
Now, we are told, to every man is
given a measure of faith.
That faith by which I believed in Jesus
Christ was a gift of God.
For by grace are we saved through faith
and that not of ourselves, it is a
gift of God.
The faith to believe in Jesus Christ was
given to me by God.
When Peter was going with John into the
temple and the man was seeking alms and
Peter said, silver and gold I don't have,
but what I have I'll be glad to
give to you.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
stand to your feet and walk.
And he took the man, lifted him to
his feet.
That was an act of faith on Peter's
part.
Lifting a lame man to his feet.
And immediately he received strength.
And he began to run and leap and
praise God.
And then as he made his circuit through
the temple, people said, isn't that the lame
man who's been out there for so many
years?
Yeah, it sure looks like him.
What's he doing running?
I don't know.
Let's find out.
And so as he came back out to
Solomon's porch where Peter was still standing, he
took hold of Peter.
Began to hug him.
And all of the people began to relate
the miracle to Peter.
And so Peter said, Hey, you men of
Israel.
About 5,000 had gathered.
Why marvel ye at this?
Or why look upon me or upon us
as though we through our own righteousness have
done this good deed to this lame man?
Be it made known unto you that it
is by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth that this man stand before you whole.
He is the stone that was set of
naught by your builders, but he has become
the chief cornerstone.
And it is through the faith of him
that this man has his perfect soundness in
the presence of you all.
Peter didn't say, Hey, it's my faith.
My great faith.
I fasted and prayed for years and God
finally gave this to me.
But he said it is through the faith
of him, the gift of faith, the faith
of him that this man has his perfect
soundness in the presence of you all.
So Peter recognized that this wasn't just some
faith that I have.
I can go around and lift every lame
man to his feet.
But the Lord gave him faith in that
particular instance and he had that gift of
faith for that instance and he lifted the
man to the feet by faith and God
healed him.
And so the gift of faith, and that's
a special faith in a special situation, it
isn't that you have faith in every situation.
Men of faith oftentimes have great times of
failure.
Abraham, the father of those who believe.
God said, I'm going to give you a
son, Abraham.
God kept saying, I'm going to give you
a son, Abraham, the older he got.
Sarah went through menopause.
God said, I'm going to give you a
son, Abraham.
Sarah said, Abraham, let's quit fooling ourselves.
God needs help.
It's obvious.
He wants to give you a son.
So you take my handmaiden, Hagar, going unto
her.
And then when the child is born, I'll
be the midwife and I'll take the child
from her womb and it'll be like my
child and it'll be your son.
And we'll help God out because at this
point, you know, we've got to be practical.
So Ishmael was born.
And one day when Ishmael was about 13
years old, playing outside, Abraham said, I mean,
the Lord said, Abraham, Abraham, I'm going to
bless you and give you a son.
He said, let Ishmael live before you forever,
Lord.
That's all right, Lord.
There he is.
I accept it.
And the Lord said, no, through Sarah shall
your seed be called.
So here's a man of faith, but he
had a lapse of faith.
It wasn't faith in every situation.
He said, hey, Sarah, you're so beautiful.
You know, they'll kill me to take you
away from me.
So when we get out there, you just
say you're my sister.
Don't tell me you're my wife.
The man of faith, pawning off his wife
as his sister.
You see, sometimes we're discouraged because the faith
isn't always there.
Men of faith often have lapses of faith.
Elijah, right after his contest with the prophets
of Baal, when he said, hey, you build
your altar.
I'll build my altar.
We'll pray to God and the God who
answers by fire.
Let him be the God.
They said, fair enough.
They built their altar.
They prayed all morning.
Nothing happened.
And Elijah came to him and said, hey
guys, I'll bet your God's asleep.
You ever thought of that?
You probably have to cry louder to wake
him up.
Or it could be he's off on a
vacation.
That'd be a shame.
Or it could be he's gone to the
restroom and relieving himself.
That's what he said.
He's a crude guy.
And so these guys began to jump up
and down and slash themselves with knives and
throw themselves on the altar.
Still nothing happened.
So then Elijah said, all right, now bring
some water.
Pour it on my sacrifice there.
They brought the water.
Pour on more.
Finally the whole thing was just sopped.
They dug a trench around full of water.
He said, okay God, now show these guys.
And the fire came, consumed the sacrifice, burned
up the rocks upon which the altar was
built, licked up all the water.
Great man of faith.
While he had the roll going, he took
the 400 prophets of Bel down to the
stream.
The brook Kidron killed them all.
And then that wicked queen Jezebel came back
and she heard what Elijah did and she
said, God help me if I don't have
that guy's head by tomorrow afternoon.
And Elijah heard Jezebel's after you and he
took off running.
This great man of faith ran over a
hundred miles down to the Sinai where he
hid in a cave.
Great man of faith hiding in a cave
from Jezebel.
You see, man of faith can have lapses
of faith.
And if you have the gift of faith,
it doesn't mean it's going to operate all
the time.
Hey, I've got finally the little genie here
and any time I want to rub it,
you know, Shazam.
Alakazam.
Here it is, you know.
But God gives to you in certain situations
special faith and it's glorious when God gives
you the faith that He's going to work
and you just have that confidence and that
faith and that trust and rest in God.
Beautiful experience.
Doesn't happen in every case, but it's glorious
when it does happen.
To another, the gifts of healing by the
same Spirit operates much as the gift of
faith.
To another, the working of miracles.
Again, not in every situation, but a lot
of miracles happening.
To another, prophecy which is really speaking forth
the truth of God through the anointing of
the Spirit.
To another, the discerning of spirits.
For there are many spirits that have gone
out into the world and not all are
of God.
To another, the various kinds of tongues.
And to another, the interpretation of tongues.
And we'll save our commentary on this until
next Sunday night when we get into chapter
14.
But all of these are working by the
One and Self-Same Spirit or that the
One and Self-Same Spirit dividing to every
man severally as He wills.
So, these gifts of the Spirit are something
that are wrapped up in the sovereignty of
the Spirit of God.
I cannot demand that a particular gift be
operating in my life.
The Spirit is sovereign in the dispensing of
these gifts.
Now, as the body is one and has
many members, and all the members of that
one body being many are one body, so
also is Christ.
So, we are the body of Christ.
Now, in your body you have many different
parts to your body.
You have your fingers, you have your hands,
you have your arms, you have your wrists,
you have your eyes, your ears, your nose,
your mouth, your legs, your feet, your toes,
various parts of your body, many parts of
your body, but yet you're one body.
Now, if you drop a lead pipe on
your toe, where do you hurt?
You hurt all over.
One member is suffering, the whole body suffers.
It's hard to divide the areas of pain
when I'm hurting.
Now, the body of Christ, here we are,
many members, but we're not the whole body
of Christ.
The many members of the body of Christ
include the Presbyterian church down the street, the
Lutheran church over in Mesa Verde, the Baptist
church down on Baker.
We are all members of the body of
Christ.
We're all then a part of each other,
a part of that one body.
And God help us to come to this
awareness and realization.
There are always those who seek to want
to divide the body of Christ, the recognition
of themselves to the exclusion of other parts.
Or there are always those who think that
they are the most important part of the
body of Christ, but every part is necessary
for the other.
And if the whole body were just an
ear, then where would be the seeing?
And if the whole body were just an
eye, then how could you hear?
So, God has brought the body of Christ,
of many members, brought them together.
We are all one body.
And in recognition of this, if one member
of the body is suffering, then we should
all be feeling it.
If one member of the body is being
exalted, then we should all rejoice in the
exaltation of that part of the body.
And so Paul teaches this beautiful lesson of
the oneness of the body of Jesus Christ.
An important lesson that I pray that God
by His Holy Spirit will help us to
all grasp and to put into practice in
our own mental concepts, in our own thinking
processes, that we will not be guilty of
just thinking of ourselves exclusively or looking for
our own benefits exclusively or just one segment
of the body of Christ to the exclusion
of others.
We have not yet heard on Channel 30
whether or not the interim license will be
given to us.
We're supposed to hear any day, but it's
a government agency and there's not always the
most, well, they're not always the most dependable.
They were supposed to have issued it by
the 4th, by their previous declarations, but they're
no doubt deliberating it and whatever decision they
come up with we will surely abide with.
But we do intend, if they grant to
us that permit for Channel 30, I intend
to immediately call Chuck Swindoll, James Dobson, Dave
over in Santa Ana at the Calvary Church,
Hawkins, John MacArthur and get these fellows
together and say, look, here's what God has
laid in our laps.
Let's pray together and seek the Lord on
how to best use this facility for His
glory and get many different representatives from the
body of Christ, giving them exposure, giving their
ministries exposure on television rather than just representing
one small spectrum of the Christian body on
television.
I'd like to see all of the spectrums
of the Christian body represented, the true body
of Christ, those who own to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ.
And so John and I disagree in some
areas, but we are still brothers in Christ
Jesus and one in Him.
And that oneness that we share in Christ
is far greater than any disagreement that we
might have concerning the issues that we're talking
about tonight.
So we need to have that awareness that
when we get to heaven, there's not going
to be a section for Methodists and another
one for Presbyterians, another for Baptists, but in
Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian,
Scythian, bond or free, Baptist or Methodist, Presbyterian
or Nazarene, or Church of God or Church
of Christ, but they are all one in
Him.
Beautiful lessons here that Paul teaches concerning the
oneness of the body.
So for by one Spirit we are all
baptized into one body, whether we are Jews
or Gentiles, Baptists or Presbyterians, whether we be
bond or free, we have been all made
to drink into one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but
many.
Can you imagine if the body was just...
What a weird world this would be if
your body had just one member and each
of us were just a different part.
Look at that big toe going down the
street.
Isn't that weird looking?
If the foot shall say, because I am
not the hand, I am not of the
body, is it therefore not of the body?
Now if any part of your body had
a right to complain, it would probably be
your foot.
Lives in the dark most of the time.
Stuffy and smelly.
Environment.
Yeah, never complain.
Well, it does complain sometimes, I guess at
night if you work too hard, but I
mean it's just there and it just functions.
It's just part of your whole body.
Doesn't seek to exalt itself and move up
and become a pendant to your knee or
something.
I'm going to get out of this dirty,
smelly place, you know.
I want to be something different.
If the ears shall say, because I am
not the eye, I am not of the
body, is it therefore not of the body?
There are those that say, hey, you know,
we're this, we're that, and we're not part
of the whole body, or they don't see
it.
If the whole body were an eye, it
would be weird.
Where would be the hearing?
If the whole were hearing, where would be
the smelling?
Now God has set the members, every one
of them, in the body as it has
pleased Him.
Again, as it has pleased Him.
An important phrase in the New Testament.
Follow it through in your concordance.
As it has pleased Him.
God gives us a body as pleases Him.
Our new bodies.
And if they were all one member, then
where were the body?
But now are they many members, yet one
body.
And the eye cannot say unto the hand,
I have no need of you.
Nor again the head to the feet, I
have no need of you.
Nay, much more those members of the body,
which seem to be sort of insignificant, are
necessary.
And those members of the body, which we
think to be less honorable, upon these we
bestow the more abundant honor and our uncomely
parts, the more abundant comeliness.
For our comely parts have no need.
But God hath tempered the body together, having
given more abundant honor to that part which
lacked.
And so God creating the body of Christ.
And those parts that we sometimes look down
upon, sort of look down our nose, well,
you know, they are.
Yet God has chosen to bless and exalt
them, to bestow upon them honor.
That there should be no schism in the
body, but that the members should have the
same care one for another.
And whether one member suffers, then all members
suffer with it.
If one member is honored, all the members
rejoice with it.
Now, you are the body of Christ and
members in particular.
You are all important.
You all have a vital part to play
in the body, a vital part to fill
in the body.
A ministry that the body might be whole
and complete.
And if you don't fill your part, then
the body is missing in that area.
So each of you have been placed in
the body of Christ to fulfill your area
of ministry there within the body.
And God has set some in the church.
First of all, the apostles.
Secondly, the prophets.
Thirdly, the teachers.
And after that, the miracles and the gifts
of healing and the helps from the governments
and the diversities of tongues.
Rhetorical questions.
Are all apostles?
No.
Are all prophets?
No.
Are all teachers?
No.
Do all work miracles?
No.
Have all the gifts of healing?
No.
Do all speak with tongues?
No.
Do all interpret?
No.
Therefore, covet earnestly the best gifts.
And yet, I will show you a more
excellent way.
A more excellent way than having these gifts
of miracles or healings or whatever operating in
your life.
God has something even better for you.
You'll get to it next Sunday as we
move along.
So, for these last few verses, this morning's
sermon is an exposition of this latter portion.
And so, I would refer you to this
morning's sermon for the exposition of this portion
from verse 28 on.
And next week, we'll move into that 13th
chapter of Corinthians, which has to be one
of the greatest chapters in the entire Bible.
As Paul defines for us this interesting, intriguing
Greek word agape or agapo.
And we get the definition for this kind
of love that originates with God and that
He wants to flow through our lives.
And then in chapter 14, the proper use
of the gift of tongues and interpretation of
tongues.
So, interesting study next Sunday night.
Never think I'm unimportant.
It doesn't really matter if I am there
or not.
It does.
God has placed you in the body.
And God has chosen to place the greater
honor on some of the more insignificant or
parts that aren't as obvious or as noticed
as others.
In a sense, I guess God has made
me a mouth.
But if the whole body were a mouth,
what a mess it would be.
So, we each take our place within the
body.
Opening our hearts to God that the Holy
Spirit might cause us to function in a
well-coordinated way.
That God then might use us for His
glory.
One of the problems with the church is
that so often we find the church body
spastic.
Because each part of the body is wanting
to do its own thing.
And we're not really sensitive and yielded to
the Holy Spirit who is the one who
coordinates the movement of the body.
And so, the church has not had as
strong a testimony before the world as it
should.
Because the body fighting against itself.
Now, what if your body did that?
What if your hand had a different idea
than your arm of what it wanted to
do?
Or your legs, each of them had separate
desires of where they wanted to go.
And you get a picture of what the
body of Christ looks like before the world
many times as, you know, everyone wants to
do their own thing and not surrender to
the Holy Spirit.
How we need to be yielded to the
Spirit that He might coordinate the activities of
the church.
The body of Jesus Christ.
And thus may you be sensitive to the
Spirit.
Open to the Spirit.
Used by the Spirit.
In Jesus name.