1 Corinthians 12:4-11;
14:1-5
Listen Link: http://www.firstcovenantcadillac.org/#!this-weeks-sermon/c20mw
Gifts is a nice word. Everyone likes to receive gifts. So we tend to focus in that word in these texts and we can miss something really important. I want to zoom in on this line in verse 7 of 1 Cor. 12, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
I have heard people talk a lot about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but not so much about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Could it be because gifts are something we own and we control? Are we really innately that selfish? Let’s be honest and humbly admit that the answer is yes. We like to receive gifts and we want to be in charge of what we do with them.
But manifestations are different. “Manifestation” is not a synonym for “gift.” Manifestation has synonyms like appearance, display, exhibition, sign, and demonstration. That would mean that it is not us, but it is the Holy Spirit using us. The verse does not say that there are manifestations of gifted people. Again the exact quote is: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
I am laboring this point to emphasize that what we call the gifts of the Spirit are actually things that the Holy Spirit does, making use of our bodies for his good and divine purposes. God asks us to cooperate with that, offering ourselves as living sacrifices, as it says in Romans 12:1. We surrender. God moves. It looks like we’re doing some good work, but really it’s God.
Now I want to give you a personal example of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my life. The Holy Spirit gets the credit. I am just a vessel, so I am not bragging. I want you to know that in my ministry, at least for me personally, sermon preparation is the hardest part of what I do and it takes me the most time. But lately, time is something I seem to be short of. So I regularly ask for God’s help and inspiration. Many times, early in the morning, while I am really still asleep but sort of being waked up by God, I have thoughts and ideas just come to me and I say, “Thank you God, I can use that!”
But that’s not God just blessing me. That’s God blessing you! God is making sure you get a good message, or at least a better message than what I could do on my own. That is why it says, “The manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
The question each of you ought to be able to answer is, “What manifestation of the Holy Spirit shows up in your life and how do you use it for the common good?” I can’t answer that one for you. All I can do today is talk about the various kinds of manifestations that occur in Christians, with the hope that you will discover what is going on in your life for which you have to give the credit to the Holy Spirit. And since the Holy Spirit is supernatural, we are not talking about the natural talents and abilities that you were born with or that developed as you grew. We are specifically talking about what evidence is there in your life that God is doing something you could not or would not do without him?
A lot of Pentecostal type churches have historically answered that question simply by pointing at the gift of tongues as an obvious manifestation of the Holy Spirit that you could not or would not do without God at work in you. I believe that is exactly why Paul had to write about it in these chapters of 1 Corinthians so I am going to take a little time to explain my position and teaching about the gift of tongues.
I have been in worship services where Christians all over the sanctuary were singing in tongues all at the same time, and it was beautiful, sort of like listening to birds in the woods, orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. It didn’t happen to me. I listened with wonder, but I did not participate. I have had people who wanted to pray for me to receive the gift of tongues. I let them pray. I welcomed it. It was kind of them to care. But I did not begin to pray in tongues after those prayers. I am not afraid of it. It just doesn’t happen in me. At one point I had the thought that God was telling me, “You do good enough in English.”
With Paul, I also say that not everyone speaks in tongues and those who don’t are no less Christian, no less spirit filled than those who do, as long as they are receiving their own manifestations of the Holy Spirit and letting him operate through them. I myself have desired to pray in tongues, but I have no reason to require it. I have occasionally done a form of praying that seems like maybe I do pray in tongues. But I am still not sure if it’s really the Spirit doing that, or if it’s me. But I am not scared of it.
Following mostly from what Paul says about this particular gift in these chapters written to the Corinthians I summarize as follows: Tongues speaking is still real and many Christians today use this gift for the common good by praying for others. In addition, by edifying themselves while praying in tongues they mature in Christ and that also serves the common good as they offer themselves, serving God and serving the church. Do any of you here today pray in another tongue? That’s good if you do. What a blessing! Paul said, “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.” That means it is a very good manifestation of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in Scripture to tell us that the gift of tongues will stop being a manifestation of the Holy Spirit before Jesus comes again.
And then Paul goes on to say, “but I would rather have you prophesy.” That doesn’t mean he thinks tongues are bad, just that prophesy is better! And indeed his explanation for why it is better is that prophesy has a more immediate use in worship because everyone can understand what is said in prophesy and sometimes even unbelievers are moved toward faith in Jesus when the prophetic word speaks to them about something only God would know. Just before I fully committed my life to Christ, several times in the church I attended I thought the preacher was talking specifically about me! That’s the gift of prophecy at work through that preacher, and he himself may never have even known what God was using him to do to me. “The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.”
And sometimes we do become aware of specific manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I know I have the gift of helps. It is the most wonderful thing. I know it is not me trying to help people but God using me. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit in this case is putting me in the right place at the right time so that I can help someone else. My favorite story is of the time I was walking by a bocce ball court. You know what bocce ball is? It’s kind of like horseshoes. There’s a long narrow throwing range and you toss the bocce ball to the other end. Then the bocce ball becomes the target and the object is to toss other balls, like we toss horseshoes, trying to land them as close to the bocce ball as you can.
So anyway, this little kid at the far end I was walking toward hurled the ball and it flew out of bounds, but that’s ok because it landed in my hand. I mean, I did see it coming, so I made the effort to catch it, but I really didn’t have to reach for it. It just came to my hand as I walked toward the kid’s end of the bocce court. It didn’t get lost. It got returned immediately. I was literally in the right place at the right time, by mere seconds and inches.
That’s my favorite story. But mostly it’s things like seeing a short person trying to reach the top shelf in the grocery store and being there at the right time to help get it down. And I am sure others of you have done things like that. Or picking things up for people before they have time to react to the fact that they dropped it. But God is always the one who works out the timing. I’m just playing along, surrendered to his Spirit in me prompting me to help. And I love doing it!
What does God do with you? It could be almost any good way that God uses you to bless other people. The Scripture says, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.” So think about this, what evidence is there in your life that God is doing something you could not or would not do without him? “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”
Since there are different kinds, it’s a little more complicated than saying, well if you speak in tongues we know you have the spirit. We also know that speaking in tongues is not always from the Spirit. People can fake it, and many are tempted to do so when they don’t really have the gift but they worship in churches that have set up that expectation that everyone should speak in tongues.
The key to knowing its real will be in how you use it. If you’re just proud you speak in tongues and think that those who don’t are less spiritual than you, then your “gift” is not begin used for the common good is it?
“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Many of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are about telling the truth: Message of wisdom, message of knowledge and interpretations of tongues are in the list Paul gives in the text we read this morning. Other lists elsewhere in Scripture include preaching and teaching. This all makes sense since our faith is all based on the Word of God.
But other manifestations of the Holy Spirit get some work done in the body. Those are the manifestations of faith, healing, and miraculous powers. In other lists in Scripture there are included things like; acts of service, generosity, mercy and leadership. The more miraculous sounding, “acting” gifts seem really rare these days. At least, they seem to be rare among us here in America and other Western cultures. But in the rest of the world, where the church is really growing, these manifestations of the Holy Spirit are much more common, so that even some of our American missionaries have stories about God working his wonders for the sake of spreading the gospel in the darker parts of the world.
But perhaps another reason they seem rare in America is that we just don’t believe in them. We are so scientifically oriented that even if we say we believe in miracles we still tend to be more ready to explain things away than to believe in miracles. Let us look upon the world with a child-like faith that does not stop accepting natural explanations for many wonderful things and yet can also still marvel at supernatural events that God has wrought for our benefit.
The more ordinary sounding gifts like generosity, service and leadership may sound like they are not spiritual gifts at all, but they are if they are things you would not or could not do without God’s help. But again I say, the real point of this message is to create in each of you a higher awareness of the fact that the Holy Spirit wants to be manifest in your life as you surrender to his will. I want you to even hunger for it and pray to God about it. Tell him you offer yourself to him and his service. Ask him to use you in ways that you could not or would not do on your own. Tell him that you want to be a blessing to the church for the common good. And be open to obey him when he gives you opportunity.
Listen Link: http://www.firstcovenantcadillac.org/#!this-weeks-sermon/c20mw
Gifts is a nice word. Everyone likes to receive gifts. So we tend to focus in that word in these texts and we can miss something really important. I want to zoom in on this line in verse 7 of 1 Cor. 12, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
I have heard people talk a lot about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but not so much about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Could it be because gifts are something we own and we control? Are we really innately that selfish? Let’s be honest and humbly admit that the answer is yes. We like to receive gifts and we want to be in charge of what we do with them.
But manifestations are different. “Manifestation” is not a synonym for “gift.” Manifestation has synonyms like appearance, display, exhibition, sign, and demonstration. That would mean that it is not us, but it is the Holy Spirit using us. The verse does not say that there are manifestations of gifted people. Again the exact quote is: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
I am laboring this point to emphasize that what we call the gifts of the Spirit are actually things that the Holy Spirit does, making use of our bodies for his good and divine purposes. God asks us to cooperate with that, offering ourselves as living sacrifices, as it says in Romans 12:1. We surrender. God moves. It looks like we’re doing some good work, but really it’s God.
Now I want to give you a personal example of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my life. The Holy Spirit gets the credit. I am just a vessel, so I am not bragging. I want you to know that in my ministry, at least for me personally, sermon preparation is the hardest part of what I do and it takes me the most time. But lately, time is something I seem to be short of. So I regularly ask for God’s help and inspiration. Many times, early in the morning, while I am really still asleep but sort of being waked up by God, I have thoughts and ideas just come to me and I say, “Thank you God, I can use that!”
But that’s not God just blessing me. That’s God blessing you! God is making sure you get a good message, or at least a better message than what I could do on my own. That is why it says, “The manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
The question each of you ought to be able to answer is, “What manifestation of the Holy Spirit shows up in your life and how do you use it for the common good?” I can’t answer that one for you. All I can do today is talk about the various kinds of manifestations that occur in Christians, with the hope that you will discover what is going on in your life for which you have to give the credit to the Holy Spirit. And since the Holy Spirit is supernatural, we are not talking about the natural talents and abilities that you were born with or that developed as you grew. We are specifically talking about what evidence is there in your life that God is doing something you could not or would not do without him?
A lot of Pentecostal type churches have historically answered that question simply by pointing at the gift of tongues as an obvious manifestation of the Holy Spirit that you could not or would not do without God at work in you. I believe that is exactly why Paul had to write about it in these chapters of 1 Corinthians so I am going to take a little time to explain my position and teaching about the gift of tongues.
I have been in worship services where Christians all over the sanctuary were singing in tongues all at the same time, and it was beautiful, sort of like listening to birds in the woods, orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. It didn’t happen to me. I listened with wonder, but I did not participate. I have had people who wanted to pray for me to receive the gift of tongues. I let them pray. I welcomed it. It was kind of them to care. But I did not begin to pray in tongues after those prayers. I am not afraid of it. It just doesn’t happen in me. At one point I had the thought that God was telling me, “You do good enough in English.”
With Paul, I also say that not everyone speaks in tongues and those who don’t are no less Christian, no less spirit filled than those who do, as long as they are receiving their own manifestations of the Holy Spirit and letting him operate through them. I myself have desired to pray in tongues, but I have no reason to require it. I have occasionally done a form of praying that seems like maybe I do pray in tongues. But I am still not sure if it’s really the Spirit doing that, or if it’s me. But I am not scared of it.
Following mostly from what Paul says about this particular gift in these chapters written to the Corinthians I summarize as follows: Tongues speaking is still real and many Christians today use this gift for the common good by praying for others. In addition, by edifying themselves while praying in tongues they mature in Christ and that also serves the common good as they offer themselves, serving God and serving the church. Do any of you here today pray in another tongue? That’s good if you do. What a blessing! Paul said, “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.” That means it is a very good manifestation of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in Scripture to tell us that the gift of tongues will stop being a manifestation of the Holy Spirit before Jesus comes again.
And then Paul goes on to say, “but I would rather have you prophesy.” That doesn’t mean he thinks tongues are bad, just that prophesy is better! And indeed his explanation for why it is better is that prophesy has a more immediate use in worship because everyone can understand what is said in prophesy and sometimes even unbelievers are moved toward faith in Jesus when the prophetic word speaks to them about something only God would know. Just before I fully committed my life to Christ, several times in the church I attended I thought the preacher was talking specifically about me! That’s the gift of prophecy at work through that preacher, and he himself may never have even known what God was using him to do to me. “The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.”
And sometimes we do become aware of specific manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I know I have the gift of helps. It is the most wonderful thing. I know it is not me trying to help people but God using me. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit in this case is putting me in the right place at the right time so that I can help someone else. My favorite story is of the time I was walking by a bocce ball court. You know what bocce ball is? It’s kind of like horseshoes. There’s a long narrow throwing range and you toss the bocce ball to the other end. Then the bocce ball becomes the target and the object is to toss other balls, like we toss horseshoes, trying to land them as close to the bocce ball as you can.
So anyway, this little kid at the far end I was walking toward hurled the ball and it flew out of bounds, but that’s ok because it landed in my hand. I mean, I did see it coming, so I made the effort to catch it, but I really didn’t have to reach for it. It just came to my hand as I walked toward the kid’s end of the bocce court. It didn’t get lost. It got returned immediately. I was literally in the right place at the right time, by mere seconds and inches.
That’s my favorite story. But mostly it’s things like seeing a short person trying to reach the top shelf in the grocery store and being there at the right time to help get it down. And I am sure others of you have done things like that. Or picking things up for people before they have time to react to the fact that they dropped it. But God is always the one who works out the timing. I’m just playing along, surrendered to his Spirit in me prompting me to help. And I love doing it!
What does God do with you? It could be almost any good way that God uses you to bless other people. The Scripture says, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.” So think about this, what evidence is there in your life that God is doing something you could not or would not do without him? “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”
Since there are different kinds, it’s a little more complicated than saying, well if you speak in tongues we know you have the spirit. We also know that speaking in tongues is not always from the Spirit. People can fake it, and many are tempted to do so when they don’t really have the gift but they worship in churches that have set up that expectation that everyone should speak in tongues.
The key to knowing its real will be in how you use it. If you’re just proud you speak in tongues and think that those who don’t are less spiritual than you, then your “gift” is not begin used for the common good is it?
“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Many of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are about telling the truth: Message of wisdom, message of knowledge and interpretations of tongues are in the list Paul gives in the text we read this morning. Other lists elsewhere in Scripture include preaching and teaching. This all makes sense since our faith is all based on the Word of God.
But other manifestations of the Holy Spirit get some work done in the body. Those are the manifestations of faith, healing, and miraculous powers. In other lists in Scripture there are included things like; acts of service, generosity, mercy and leadership. The more miraculous sounding, “acting” gifts seem really rare these days. At least, they seem to be rare among us here in America and other Western cultures. But in the rest of the world, where the church is really growing, these manifestations of the Holy Spirit are much more common, so that even some of our American missionaries have stories about God working his wonders for the sake of spreading the gospel in the darker parts of the world.
But perhaps another reason they seem rare in America is that we just don’t believe in them. We are so scientifically oriented that even if we say we believe in miracles we still tend to be more ready to explain things away than to believe in miracles. Let us look upon the world with a child-like faith that does not stop accepting natural explanations for many wonderful things and yet can also still marvel at supernatural events that God has wrought for our benefit.
The more ordinary sounding gifts like generosity, service and leadership may sound like they are not spiritual gifts at all, but they are if they are things you would not or could not do without God’s help. But again I say, the real point of this message is to create in each of you a higher awareness of the fact that the Holy Spirit wants to be manifest in your life as you surrender to his will. I want you to even hunger for it and pray to God about it. Tell him you offer yourself to him and his service. Ask him to use you in ways that you could not or would not do on your own. Tell him that you want to be a blessing to the church for the common good. And be open to obey him when he gives you opportunity.
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