Thanks, bro.
Would you turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 12? It is a distinct joy to be able to open God's word today and talk about spiritual gifts. Believing in the continuing and ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit through all of the spiritual gifts is one of the values that our denomination of churches in partnership with Sovereign Grace Churches holds dear. 1 Corinthians 12 is one of the reasons we believe that. So would you read with me as we go to God together?
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord.
And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and 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 healings 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.
Would you pray with me as we go to the Lord together? Lord, thank you for the gifts that you have given to your body. Give us ears to hear and hearts to understand. In Jesus' name, amen.
So if you're familiar with pop culture at all, you'll know that we're in the midst of awards season. We have seen the Oscars recently. This is the season where various academies and organizations look look at films or movies, TV shows, musicals, plays, albums to determine what the best of these are for that year. The idea behind these awards is that they reflect the general disposition of a small group of people, or of the broader group of people, a broad cross-section of culture, when in reality maybe a small group of people tries to end up driving the culture instead of reflect it, but we still watch and award with abandon. We are quick to look to movie stars, artists, directors, musicians, even athletes to comment on a multitude of issues rarely specifically related to their craft.
In America, we eat that stuff up. We're like moths to the flame of fame and influence. In this way, our culture isn't that much different from ancient Corinth. Their culture valued this stuff too. They tended to value the more impressive gifts that people were given as more important than others.
Let's imagine that we're Corinth for a second. We come into the building on a Sunday morning, and what we see is a bunch of people over in this corner fighting about gifts. They're like, "No, my gift is better." And then another's like, "No, my gift is better." But over here we have the same— we have another group of people fighting over their gifts. "No, this gift is better." Meanwhile, we have a bunch of people in the back and they're going like, "I don't think my gift is worthy of fighting about." Right? So this Corinthian church was kind of distracted in a lot of ways.
They decide who has the best gifts.
We all have a tendency to place value or meaning in a hierarchy, just like the Corinthian church did. More accurately, we place the things or people we value in a hierarchy, and we reward those of highest values, talents, gifts, and abilities with little gold statues.
Maybe this question will help our perspective this morning: When was the last time that your local dry cleaner won an Academy Award?
6 · The pastor establishes the sermon's controlling thesis: spiritual gifts are not earned rewards arranged in hierarchies but grace gifts from God, empowered by God, given for the church's common good
Today, my hope is that the Holy Spirit will help us see that in the body of Christ there is no hierarchy of gifts or people or giftedness. More than that, gifts aren't awards or rewards. We don't receive gifts based on anything that we do. We don't receive gifts, spiritual gifts from the Lord, based on our merit, anything we've done or anything we will do. So here's our idea today: every spiritual gift is from God, powered by God, and is for the common good of God's church.
By God, from God, powered by God, for the common good of God's church.
7 · The pastor unpacks Paul's rhetorical strategy in the passage: rather than diminishing impressive gifts, Paul elevates all gifts to equal importance by grounding them in the work of the Holy Spirit and the Lordship of Christ
Last week we saw, and Ricky so helpfully reminded us today, that the blood of Christ blows up any us versus them mentality. At the foot of the cross, because of the blood of Christ, the body is in us. We are unified.
The blood of Christ creates and insists on unity in the church. So Paul, as we get to our passage today, he kind of reframes a discussion. The Corinthian church is wondering, "Tell us about the gifts. We want to know about gifts." And specifically, they were wondering about tongues. They were like, "This has got to be a good one, right?" And Paul goes like this.
He says, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I don't want you to be uninformed." In his answer, Paul doesn't downplay the gift of tongues. In fact, later on he calls it what it is, a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. What he's doing is he's setting each gift in its rightful place. Rather than bringing any gifts down to level, he actually levels all the gifts up to the same level. He contrasts before he talks about the gifts what the Corinthians were versus what they are.
What were the Corinthian church? They were pagans following after mute idols. Remember we talked about that a few weeks ago with Ricky? He was talking about idols like, "Oh man, this is a great idol," right? It's a dumb, mute, worthless idol.
That was the Corinthian church. But through Christ, they can call Jesus Lord. It is only by the animating presence and power of the Holy Spirit that the Corinthians and we are able to call Jesus Lord. There's nothing that we could have done for that. Listen to what Tom Schreiner says.
We should not and must not disregard ecstatic spiritual experiences with God. At the same time, acknowledging Jesus as Lord in our hearts and in our lives is far more important than any stunning experience with the Lord. Some people claim to have had amazing experiences, but they don't live under the Lordship of Christ in their everyday lives. A person may claim to have staggering gifts, but if they aren't living in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, they're failing in the most important area.
8 · The pastor applies Paul's leveling logic directly to the congregation, using pointed questions to probe whether they are pursuing Christ's Lordship or merely seeking impressive spiritual experiences
What Paul does here is he levels the playing field for the Corinthian church.
He reminds them and us today that we can't take pride in the things we didn't earn in the first place. He reminds us of the preeminent place of Christ in the life of the Christian. So a couple questions as we go through this today: how is your relationship with the Lord? As we seek to discover gifts, as we seek to see where the Lord would have us serve, how is your relationship with the Lord? Are you living in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ?
Or are you chasing the next dopamine-like hit of the Jesus experience?
9 · The pastor pauses the argument to directly shepherd the congregation, reminding them of their spiritual deadness and God's unmerited grace in making them alive
Church, be reminded even now of the grace poured out on us through Christ. If you were in Christ, you were dead spiritually, unable to come to the Lord through any work of your own. But God, because of the great love with which he loved us, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ. If I may hear, you weren't mostly dead, you were all dead before the Lord made you alive through Christ. He made you alive by his grace and his mercy.
You may have heard it said that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and that is completely, unequivocally, 100% true. And before we talk about any gifts, Paul wants us to understand our place before Christ.
10 · The pastor signals a structural shift from foundational theology to the specific treatment of gifts, warning against the temptation to rush to gift taxonomy before establishing proper theological context
So as we move into the gift portion of the text, we need to understand first where we are, but then also that our gifts, any gifts that we receive, are from God. Say, "From God." It'd be easy for us to fall into the Corinthian trap of saying, "I'm going to label each one of the gifts in a hierarchy. I'm going to do a list." But I think that would place certain gifts in an undue focus. That is to say, even assuming we understand that gifts are given, even if we understand that we're drawn to Christ through no act of our own, even if we understand that there's nothing we can do to earn or merit awards or gifts, we still may be prone to want to get the specifics of the gifts before placing them in their appropriate context. Context.
11 · The pastor exposits verses 4-6, highlighting Paul's Trinitarian framing of spiritual gifts and citing Stephen Um to show how the inner life of the Godhead models self-giving service rather than self-promotion
If we were to jump right into the specifics of the gifts, we would be kind of ignoring what Paul is trying to do in leveling the playing field of the importance of each of these gifts. Remember, what Paul is doing here is he's placing each gift in an area of vital importance. He directs our focus away from specific gifts to the giver of the gifts. So read with me verses 4 through 6. "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but the same God who empowers them all in everyone." Do you notice what Paul's language is here? Paul's language here is beautifully Trinitarian. The Spirit, the Lord Jesus, God. Listen to what Stephen Um says here.
He's trying to— Paul is trying to emphasize the inner life of the Godhead. The Spirit gives, the Son serves, and God the Father energizes his people with great power to serve the common good. The Son sends the Spirit, the Father sends the Son, the Spirit gives life and also gives gifts. So it's no longer about gift grabbing because Jesus Christ did not consider his gifts or abilities something to be held onto tightly. He wasn't involved in gift grabbing, gift grasping, or gift exploiting, but he gave up his life.
Listen, church, after Jesus Christ sacrificed his life through his service to sinners, the Spirit gave grace gifts to each member of Christ's church.
What a beautiful picture of the gospel.
12 · The pastor draws a parallel between unearned salvation and unearned spiritual gifts, arguing that understanding gifts as grace liberates believers to use them in Christlike, self-sacrificial ways
These gifts we get, we didn't earn them. Just like we have been given new life in Christ that we also didn't earn, this can be freeing if we understand it rightly. This puts spiritual gifts in perspective, but also gives us a motivation and encouragement. If we've been given these things freely, then we can use them and give them in a Christlike way, not in a self-serving way, but a self-sacrificial way.
Again, look at the grace poured out on us by God if you're in Christ.
13 · The pastor exposits the repeated word "varieties" in verses 4-6, arguing that the diversity of gifts reflects both the diversity within the triune God and the diverse needs of God's people, revealing God's kindness
While our first focus in these couple of verses is rightly the triune God, the next focus in these verses— so we said same Spirit, Same Lord, same God. The next focus is varieties. Look at the text there. It says varieties of gifts, services, activities. One commenter speaks of variety as diversity.
There's a wonderful diversity of gifts, works, and services poured out on the people of God that reflect our triune God, the wonderful diversity in our triune God, and also that there is variety and diversity in the gifts that he pours out. Means that there must be variety and diversity in the needs of his people.
The kindness of the Lord is on display in the gifts that he gives.
14 · The pastor transitions to verse 7, emphasizing that indwelling by the Holy Spirit should produce humility and gratitude because the Spirit's presence itself is undeserved grace
We are called to Christ. When we are called to Christ, we're called and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the presence of God. That we are indwelt with the presence of God must lead us to humility and gratefulness for the grace undeserved.
Look at verse 7.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
15 · The pastor exposits the phrase "to each" in verse 7, establishing the universal distribution of spiritual gifts to all believers and contrasting God's eternal gifts with temporary cultural awards
A necessary pause here. So we've kind of set the stage so far. I know everybody's like, can we get to the gifts? Can we define the gifts for a second? But look what Paul does.
Who gets gifts? Look at the text. If you're in Christ, who gets gifts? It's two words: to each. Say, "To each." This means that if you have confessed and believed in Jesus as Lord, you get a gift, and you get a gift, and you get a gift, and you get two or three or ten gifts.
Everybody in Christ gets a gift. The good news is that And these gifts aren't man-made finite objects given out by a relatively popular TV host that will pass away. These gifts are chosen by God, given by the Spirit of God to you specifically for you to meet a need in the body.
What a beautiful gift this is. And those gifts aren't going to pass away.
16 · The pastor unpacks the phrase "for the common good" as Paul's corrective to the Corinthian factionalism, establishing that the purpose of every gift is the edification of the entire body rather than individual status
"to each" means to each. This is a direct challenge to the Corinthian mindset. Remember what we talked about earlier?
The Corinthian church, the divisions in the Corinthian church, everybody's got their own factions and their own fighting groups and their own stuff going on. Paul's like, "No, none of that matters because you all matter, not because of you, but because of what Christ has given you." Here's where Paul gets to the meat of his argument. He's saying, Corinthians, you are neglecting gifts. You are placing things in undue positions of priority. What does the end of verse 7 say?
To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for what? Answer that for me. For what is a manifestation of the Spirit given to each? Common good. Say common good.
It's not a trick question. Not only does this mean everybody gets a gift, a miraculous manifestation of the Spirit, that means that every gift matters in the life of the church.
17 · The pastor applies the Corinthian church's failure to the contemporary congregation, arguing that elevating certain gifts above others cripples the church's ability to function according to God's plan
The Corinthian church, by propping up the gifts that they deemed more important or more impressive, was hamstringing themselves. They were crippling themselves from being able to walk fully in what the Lord had planned for them. They were making themselves an anemic version of what they could be through the plan of God, through the use of the spiritual gifts in their church.
So how might we do this today?
18 · The pastor uses a cultural values pyramid illustration to show how COVID-19 temporarily inverted cultural hierarchies by revealing the importance of unglamorous essential work, only for culture to quickly revert to valuing fame and influence once the crisis passed
Let's just, let's take our church hats off for a second and let's look at culture. I put a silly little illustration together here, but let's look at this culture for a second. This is what I could come up with for cultural values, hashtag normal life edition. At the top of the pyramid The pinnacle of existence: fame, celebrity, wealth, power, influence.
Do we kind of agree? That's like generally in culture what we prop up. And then in no particular order, blue-collar jobs, hourly employees, teachers, dirty jobs like Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs, unseen professions, transportation, delivery drivers. The culture is like, we're not going to give them awards. They can do what they do.
So then, this is like culture pre-COVID. Then it was like COVID, something else happened. All of a sudden, fame, influence, wealth, celebrity, power had nothing, had no place. They were like, what are our skills?
We can't— and we had notes that said essential workers, you don't get stopped by the cops, you can go outside of your work because we have to figure out how to get food and toiletries. And remember when we like ran out of toilet paper? We realized that trucking companies were really, really, really important during COVID right? And then post-COVID, here's our hierarchy.
It's the same thing. How quick we are to replace status and impressive gifts above the things that we deem not as important.
19 · The pastor applies the cultural pyramid illustration to church life, showing how churches create their own hierarchies of gifts, then contrasts this with a flat model where all gifts come equally from God to serve the church and glorify him
Now let's apply this to the church. We in the church move the gift pyramid around all the time. We put things all over the place. Maybe discernment is like the pinnacle of our existence. Maybe emotional experiences with God are the pinnacle of our existence.
Maybe teaching is like, man, that is the best of all the gifts. Let's put that guy on YouTube, right? Like, this is what we do all the time. Or maybe like, I don't care about teaching, just give me the Spirit, man. Like, just give me worship, that's all I want.
We move this around all the time in the church, but here's another silly illustration. No gift is more from God than other gifts. They're all from God. So in my mind, in my reading of Scripture, here's what the picture actually looks like.
We have God who gives all the gifts to individuals Maybe 1, maybe 2, maybe 10, for the benefit of the church.
And then if I could— I missed an arrow there— you could put it back up to God, to give glory to God. Right, there's no glory that goes back to the individual. God gives gifts to his people for the benefit of the church and his own glory.
20 · The pastor establishes that spiritual gifts are not only given by God but also powered by God, citing Sam Storms to define spiritual gifts as the Spirit enabling believers to exceed human limitations for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, not personal glory
Gifts given by God in his grace and mercy. Are also powered by God.
Say, "Powered by God." Sam Storm says this: "A spiritual gift is when the Holy Spirit manifests his presence and imparts his power into and through individual believers to enable them to exceed the limitations of their finite humanity so that they might faithfully and effectively fulfill certain ministry tasks for building up the body of Christ." Did you catch that? The Holy Spirit enables the believer to exceed the limitations of their finite humanity. But why? So they can fulfill the necessary tasks for building up the body of Christ.
Is it so you can be Superman, Wonder Woman? Absolutely not. So you can fulfill your task to bring glory to God? Absolutely.
21 · The pastor issues a warning against self-serving use of gifts, emphasizing that Paul's corrective context must not be ignored and that the passage is deliberately framed by themes of unity to guard against the very temptations the Corinthian church faced
As exciting as this is, there's also an implicit warning.
I think it's really important. We can get into this text and want to get right to spiritual gifts and how to use them, but we got to remember the context. Paul is correcting the Corinthian church.
He's saying, guys, let's think about these gifts. And I think it's also interesting that it's bookended. The bumpers on this text are both about unity. Unity and communion, and one body, many members. Right?
Like, so this is put there on purpose in Paul's letter.
The warning to the Corinthian church, remembering that we struggle with a lot of the same mindset, same temptations as the Corinthian church, the things that we need to be on the lookout for are these: self-service, self-aggrandizing, building our own hierarchy of gifts, And we need to remember the source and power behind each gift.
22 · The pastor uses an analogy comparing cars with and without fuel to illustrate that the power source behind spiritual gifts matters more than the impressiveness of the gifts themselves
Think about it this way. I've got a car. I have a car. I have a comfortable car.
I have a pretty average car. So if I decided I'm going to take my average car and I want to put it in a race and I put it up against a sports car, you name your sports car, you fuel them both up, boop, boop, boop, go. Who wins that race? The sports car every time. Not a trick question.
My car is very average. Now, let's think about it this way. You put me on the starting line in my average car, and you put the sports car right next to me, but you take all the fuel out of it. And that pit crew for that sports car goes to the driver, you got this. You are the best driver of all the drivers.
I believe in you.
Green light, who wins that race? I do. Why? It's not about my car, it's about the fact that one car has fuel, one car is dry. It doesn't matter how big the engine is if it's got nothing to make it go.
It's not about how flashy or powerful the gifts are, it's about what or who fuels the gift.
23 · The pastor signals the transition to the gift catalog, establishing hermeneutical parameters: the list is representative not exhaustive, applicable today, and united by the common purpose of edifying others rather than self-glorification
We're about to see a list of gifts. Paul gives us a list of gifts. This is not a comprehensive list, but it is a representative list. It's a purposeful list. It's representative of the gifts of God that— the gifts that God gave and still gives today.
The thing they all have in common is that they are to be for the edification of others. That doesn't necessarily mean at the expense of our own edification. You can look at Jude 20 for this, right? But it does mean that at no point should any glory be sought for ourselves in the walking out of the gifts that God has freely given.
We don't view this list as exhaustive, but again, it's representative. In other words, there's nothing in this text or the ones that follow that would seem to support viewing this list of gifts as unique only to the Corinthian church, or these are the only gifts that are available. So we see this list as inclusive for us today and instructive representative for us today while also looking through the rest of Scripture and seeing that whole list of gifts that I saw up there, that I wrote up there, like helps, administration, teaching, service, hospitality, faith, evangelism.
24 · The pastor reads the gift catalog from verses 8-11, emphasizing the repeated phrase "by the same Spirit" to keep the focus on the Spirit's sovereignty in gift distribution
So let's look now at this representative list in 1 Corinthians 12. Notice I want to keep us anchored to the text here very specifically. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, and 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 individually as he wills.
25 · The pastor begins walking through the gift list with utterance of wisdom and knowledge, defining them as Holy Spirit-empowered speech and illustrating with a recent personal experience of spontaneous Spirit-given wisdom
So we have 9 gifts there, a representative list of 9 gifts.
And remember again the corrective that Paul is bringing to the church. Don't get obsessed with the more impressive ones. Remember that all gifts are poured out by God for the edification of the body. So here's how I think it'd be helpful for us to see how we might see these gifts edify the body in our context. Utterance of wisdom and utterance of knowledge.
These things benefit the body because this wisdom is Holy Spirit empowered. As words are spoken, they're made effective by the Holy Spirit. The church is built in wisdom. Just last week, I had a friend— this is before I knew I was preaching, actually— we had a friend share an experience of a situation where the Lord allowed him to speak something he had never thought of before. He was very clear, he's like, "There's no way I would have thought about this.
I just started talking and it came out." And not only did this, this wisdom benefit the people he was with, there was a group of us he was kind of just talking through this with, and it benefited us as well. It built us up as a result of the wisdom he was given by the Lord supernaturally.
26 · The pastor defines the spiritual gift of faith as distinct from saving faith and illustrates it with personal testimony about Pastor Joe Alcantar's gift of faith-filled vision that consistently proves accurate
Faith. This is different from a saving faith. We all have a saving faith if you're in Christ, but the spiritual gift of faith is different from saving faith. It's a unique measure of faith that's fanned into flame by the Spirit in a unique way. One of our pastors, Joe Alcantar, has a beautiful gift of faith that the Lord has used to build the faith of many who interact with him.
I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in with Joe where he says something in faith just we think is outlandish, and then a few months later it's like, "Oh, that actually happened." It's such a gift. So if you need your faith to be built, go talk to Joe Alcantar for a little bit.
27 · The pastor works through healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and tongues, providing definitions, contemporary illustrations, and theological framing for each gift while consistently emphasizing God's sovereignty, the purpose of edification, and proper order in the use of gifts
Healing and working of miracles.
These gifts could be categorized as circumstantial gifts. These gifts, like the others, are brought about according to God's sovereign will and purpose. What this is not is, I have the gift of healing, so I'm going to go to Fort Bliss, to Beaumont Medical Center, and heal everybody. God distributes the gifts of healings according to His sovereign will and purpose. We pray for healing and miracles, and as the Lord sees fit to allow these gifts to be on display, the faith and courage of the church can be built.
Can I just say for a moment, we want to do this regularly at our church. If you have— you know, over the last few weeks we had the opportunity to pray for a few people, gather around them at the end of service or between services and and pray for them, pray for healing, and trust the Lord with His work. If that's you, if you have something that has been ailing you for a long time, come be prayed for. Let's ask the Lord together. And remember that wherever the outcome, the Lord is glorified.
Now, prophecy. Prophecy, we think of, "Thus saith the Lord." Right, like I'm going to just say things and the future will be predicted. It's not what prophecy is. New Testament prophecy is telling something that the Lord spontaneously brought to mind. I want to share a story that happened this morning.
We're singing, "Yet not I, but through Christ in me." We get to that second verse.
I don't want to get it wrong, so I want to make sure I see it. We get to the second verse. "I labor on in weakness and rejoicing, for in my need his power is displayed." Immediately the Lord brought to mind a category for encouragement. It broke me. And as I was praying through that, Andrew said what I was thinking.
He didn't plan that. I didn't plan that. The Lord spontaneously brought the same thought to both of our minds for encouragement for you. So let me also— let me just say this for a moment. We've experienced this gift this morning.
If you would be in that category that Andrew said this morning, let's talk about it. We want to pray for you. We want to walk alongside you. We want you to know that your power, your power isn't what's on display here. It's the power of Christ on display.
If you've been here for, you know, any number of years, usually they're in the second service now, but Marianne Wheeler and Drew Parrish, over the years have had a number of opportunities to encourage the church with something that the Lord has spontaneously brought to mind to encourage a group of people and tied to God's Word and what He's doing actively ministering in the Spirit and in our service.
These— when we exercise the New Testament gift of prophecy, this is to build up the body of Christ and to point us back to Jesus. In no way is this meant to be a, hey, look at us kind of thing.
The ability to distinguish between spirits. This is an interesting one. Simply put, this is a unique ability to see what is of the Lord and what is not of the Lord. My friend Jonathan has an incredible gift in this area. We've talked a bunch lately about how, for whatever reason, he's got this ability to ask the the exact right question at the prompting of the Holy Spirit to discern whether somebody is actually saved or not.
He's been in membership interviews and gone like, "I think I need to ask a question," and people have gotten saved in membership interviews. That's incredible. And it's not his gift. It's not his acumen. It's not his— anything to do with himself.
It's just a gift that the Lord has given to him. You could think of this kind of as discernment.
Being sensitive to the nudge of the Holy Spirit to ask the right questions at the right times. Tongues. This is another fun one. Now, rest assured, we're going to get into 12 through 14 in 1 Corinthians is the opportunity to go deep on this stuff. Okay, so my job is just to frame the discussion.
Okay, but tongues, Wayne Grudem says is this: speaking in tongues is prayer or praise spoken in syllables not understood by the speaker. I was a cessationist for a long time. I didn't believe in these— in the ongoing gifts of the Holy Spirit like this. And one of the texts that the Lord used to kind of bring me to a different understanding is 1 Corinthians 12. And tongues was one of those ones that I was confused about for a long time.
But Paul is clear in 1 Corinthians 14 that if no one's available to interpret a tongue, then we're to stay silent in the church, speaking to ourself and to God. But also— I'm going to come back to that story in a second— but God also gives a spiritual gift of the interpretation of tongues, which is reporting to the church the general meaning of something spoken in tongues. Paul is also clear in 1 Corinthians 14 that if a tongue is given in the gathering, then it must be interpreted that the church might be built up. So first I got on board with, like, okay, a tongue and an interpretation, as long as that's good, we're good to go. But then if you recognize what I just read, 14:27, Paul says, if you have a tongue but nobody's available to interpret it, you're to stay silent, speaking to ourselves and to God.
So there's a kind of unique personal thing that the Lord uses to build up, like Jude 20 says, the believer, but also the body. All of these gifts are meant to be done in orderly fashion that give glory to God, not to ourselves.
28 · The pastor illustrates multiple spiritual gifts in action during the current service, highlighting the service of Laura Zavala, Cherry Wilkins, Carla Key, and the worship team, while distinguishing between natural talents and spiritual gifts
We've actually benefited from people using their gifts today. Andrew, we just talked about the Lord using that. Did you walk into a clean building this morning?
The answer is yes. Spiritual gift of service. Laura Zavala is gifted in this area. If you're either about to enjoy donuts or you have enjoyed donuts or coffee, these are the gifts of the hospitality team on display.
Most of you would have no idea that Cherry Wilkins and Carla Key who even today, they don't like to be drawn attention to, but they're up there serving in this way right now. Every Thursday, make a Costco run and come to the church and make sure that all of the ministries— Grief Share, Alpha, the kids ministry, the youth ministry, our membership classes, any of our classes— have food and refreshments in the area of hospitality. Service, service, service. Beautiful gifts like this. The band and the AV team.
This is an interesting one because we don't want to confuse talents and gifts, right? The band and AV team have been given talents to steward, but a gift of leading us in song. Here's what I tell the band all the time: our job is not to put ourselves on display, but to accompany the choir of the congregation. So that's the stewardship of the gift, and that's been on display this morning as we glorify Christ.
29 · The pastor establishes the threefold theological framework governing all spiritual gifts: they glorify the giver (God), operate by the Spirit's power, and serve the common good—any gift used outside this framework requires correction
The purpose of any spiritual gift, say this to me, is to bring glory to the giver.
Say, "Glory to the giver." God. Through the power of the Spirit. Say, "Power of the Spirit." God. Say, "For the common good." Good. This is building up God's church.
Any gift that is out of order or done for selfish ambition is not appropriate, not to be commended, and in some cases will need correction. This is what Paul is doing in this text.
30 · The pastor signals a shift from exposition to application, moving the focus from the text to the congregation's personal responsibility to discover and use their gifts
So now let's talk about you. Using spiritual gifts. I want to share just a couple of questions and share one story from a former member of our church.
Remembering, every spiritual gift is from God, powered by God, and is for the common good of God's church.
31 · The pastor applies Paul's corrective directly to the congregation, asking them to examine whether they have created their own hierarchies of spiritual gifts
So my first question is this: have you built an unhelpful or false hierarchy of gifts in your mind? Do you tend to value some gifts over others? This is Paul's correction to the Corinthian church, so we must Allow it to be corrective for us today.
32 · The pastor asks the congregation to consider their own giftedness and presents a visual model showing the flat structure of God giving diverse gifts to individuals for the church's benefit
Number 2, do you have an idea of where you might be gifted? Let's look at this flowchart again.
We have God, we have a list of gifts, and the church. This represents 21 spiritual gifts explicitly mentioned in Scripture.
33 · The pastor quotes Sam Storms to reframe gift discernment from introspective analysis to outward service, arguing that believers discover their gifts by meeting needs rather than taking inventories
We're going to leave this up while I read this definition.
Sam Storms again is super helpful on discerning your gift. Instead of first asking, "What is my gift?" ask the question, "Who is in need?" If God's people would look outward before they look inward, they'll encounter the charismatic and empowering presence of the Spirit to equip them for every good deed. If you're still bewildered by what may or may not be your spiritual gift, act first and ask later. If we would devote ourselves to praying giving, helping, teaching, serving, and exhorting those around us, the likelihood greatly increases that we will walk headlong into our gifting without ever knowing what happened. God will more likely meet us with his gifts in the midst of trying to help his children than he ever would while we're taking a spiritual gifts analysis test.
Is that good? Basically, who can I love? Where's a need? Let me stumble into my gifting. Beautiful.
34 · The pastor shares Angela's extended testimony of discovering her teaching gift through reluctant service in children's ministry during a painful season, illustrating how meeting needs leads to gift discovery and deep spiritual fulfillment
Let me tell you a story about this happening in our church. In November of last year, Janelle and I got an email, and this story is Angela's story, and it's shared with her permission, and a cool update from this week. This is the email from Angela. I felt led to begin serving last year at Cross of Grace while going through a very difficult divorce. And I felt led to kids ministry.
Though I drug my feet on it, I love kids, but I'm not a mom. Being a mom was a very strong desire in my heart that felt so empty and overwhelming at times, especially in light of what I was going through, and I'm not getting younger. I thought serving with children would exacerbate that emptiness for me, and I was afraid of that. But I followed his leading anyway, and I started helping earlier in 2022. At first, as a helper, I thought I could never teach a 2- and 3-year-old class, and I just admired Abby Cordero as I watched her teach them effortlessly, taking my adult understanding of a Bible story and putting into words understandable for a little mind.
I remember talking to Kathy Osmus about switching classes back then to an older age group. I enjoyed playing with the little kids, but teaching them was another story. Then came the text from Janelle late Saturday evening in early May asking me to teach since Abby was sick. My eyes were as big as baseballs while staring at my phone thinking, I can't do this. Janelle so easily said, just play the video and read the story.
And Crystal reassured me and said, they're the most forgiving group of kids. So fast forward 7 months, I absolutely love every Sunday I get with those kids teaching. I leave so fulfilled every time and my heart is never left empty. God is filling that desire in my heart in ways I never expected through this ministry. And it's been such a blessing.
And oftentimes I wonder to myself, what if I didn't follow the Lord's leading? What a blessing I would have missed out on. I have no idea if the kids remember anything I say. Sometimes I get blank stares and I can't figure out if they can even say King Solomon or Ecclesiastes. I debated about not going to the training that we had that month because I didn't know when I was moving, but I went anyway and it was the best training I've had.
It pushed me to dig into the word more as I'm preparing for the story to tell, and asking them all to look at my nose to get their attention is probably the best strategy because it worked. I had everyone's attention and we accomplished the goal. I was so proud of them all. I have since heard stories from some of the parents of the kids in my class. I was one of those, and my heart is so full of joy for each kiddo.
She closes with this: I've realized that the most important thing in my life this season has been teaching these kids. I've reached out to a Sovereign Grace Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. And here's why I want to bring two things to mind. When she was leaving, she reached out to a church and said, I'm moving, I want to make sure I find a body of Christ to join with. And right now, she texted me back, she said, would you believe I'm actually serving in another Sovereign Grace Church teaching first grade, and I've shared this story a million times.
35 · The pastor interprets Angela's story theologically, showing how the body functioned as designed—members building up members through their gifts—and how God used gift discovery to minister to Angela's deepest needs during suffering
Here's what I love about this story. This is a picture of someone who felt a leading from the Lord in a really painful season of her life. The Lord used specific members of the body to build her up: Janelle, Krystal, Abby, Kathy.
They built her faith. The Lord helped reveal an area of giftedness, but not only that, through this she found an area of distinct joy in a part of her heart that had been empty and overwhelming. Interaction after interaction for her, experience after experience was the Lord pressing in and saying, hey, your gift is from me.
And he cared for her in that. That's not her unique story, by the way. I bet I could go down in each section and find a story like that from any number of us.
36 · The pastor applies the doctrine of gifts-from-God directly to those who feel their gifts are unimpressive or who are unsure of their giftedness, releasing them from pressure to be impressive and urging them to press in
So let's remember these things together. Every spiritual gift is from God.
If you are here and you're a Christian— I'll do the nose thing, everybody look at my nose.
If you're here and you're a Christian, your gift matters. It matters to the church and it matters to God. It matters not because of anything you can put in, but because it is from God. There's no gift that's more important to God or His church than any other. If you've been unsure about where you're gifted or shy about it because your gift doesn't seem impressive, be released from that pressure.
Press in. It's from God and it matters.
37 · The pastor applies the doctrine of Spirit-powered gifts to those who feel too exhausted to serve, offering pastoral care while reminding them that the power source is God, not their own reserves
Your spiritual gift is powered by God. If you're here and you're exhausted, you're like, I don't have energy to serve, there's just too much going on in my life. One, let us pray for you. But two, if you think that your exhaustion will be a detriment to the body rather than a help, be reminded of this: the power behind your gift isn't yours anyway. It's the power of the Spirit.
It's God's supernatural power. Press in.
38 · The pastor applies the doctrine of gifts-for-the-common-good by making the need concrete and personal, declaring his own need for their gifts and asking pointed questions about whom they are called to serve
And it is for the common good of God's church. Simply put, I need your gifts. My kids need your gifts.
My wife needs your gifts. You need their gifts. And you need their gifts. And you need their gifts. God has given us to one another and gifts for each of us for one another to bring glory to himself.
So who is the Lord calling you to love today? Where has the Lord called you to share the grace gift or gifts you've been given with others for the common good?
39 · The pastor closes by reading the Sovereign Grace Churches statement of faith on spiritual gifts, anchoring the sermon's teaching in the church's confessional position and establishing continuationist belief as denominational orthodoxy
I want to end this way. Our statement of faith in Sovereign Grace Churches is a beautiful declaration document. I'd encourage you to go read it because it puts truths kind of in a systematic way, and we can read scriptures about them. But here's what the church— here's what the Statement of Faith for Sovereign Grace Churches says about the gifts of the Spirit. Christ loves the church, his body, and provides for its health and growth through the Holy Spirit.
In addition to giving new life, the Spirit sovereignly bestows gifts on every believer. Spiritual gifts are those abilities and expressions of God's power given by his grace for the glory of Christ and the building up of the church. The variety of these gifts, some permanent and some occasional, some more natural and some more remarkable, reflects the diversity of the members of Christ's body and demonstrates our need for one another. The gifts are not to be exercised with apprehension, pride, or disorder, but with faith, love, and order, and always in submission to the authority of the scripture as the final revelation of God. With the exception of those among the apostles who were commissioned as eyewitnesses of Christ and made recipients of normative revelation, the full range of spiritual gifts remain at work in the church and are given for the good of the church and its witness to the world.
We are therefore to earnestly desire and practice them until Christ returns.
40 · The pastor concludes the sermon by reading 1 Peter 4:10-11 as a charge, reinforcing the sermon's thesis that all gifts come from God, are powered by God, and exist for God's glory through service to the body
As we close, would you stand as we receive this charge from the Lord's Word. We're going to read from the Word, we're going to pray, and we're going to sing a prayer asking for the Lord's help. 1 Peter 4:10 says this: As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Christ Jesus. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.
And the church says,
41 · The pastor leads a closing prayer asking God to help the congregation avoid the Corinthian error, discover their gifts through service, and rely on the Spirit's power rather than their own strength
Heavenly Father, help us. Help us to not be like the Corinthian church, putting things in unnatural divisions or hierarchies. Lord, help us lean into our giftings. Help us, Lord, if we don't know where our giftings are, to ask, who can I love today?
Where is there a need? And help us stumble headlong into our giftings. Help us to never feel like our gifts are dependent on our power or lack thereof, but only on the power of the Holy Spirit. You are good and you are faithful to help us use and steward the gifts you have given for the body and for the building up of your church. It's in your name we pray.
Amen.