1 Corinthians 12:1-8 - Part B

When it comes to your walk with God, I hope you're growing in your walk with the Lord.

I hope all of us are growing. You know, I love to discover new things in the Word and I love new experiences with the Lord. And I never want to say, yes, I know all things and I've had enough good Christian stuff.

I don't need any more. Are you kidding? The Holy Spirit sometimes confuses believers. They're unsure of who He is and what He does. Well, today on Connect with Skip Heitzen, Skip unwraps the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works in your life. Now, we want to tell you about a resource that will inspire you to shine God's love even more to the world and those around you. The most recent U.S. Census revealed that our population is much more diverse than ever before. In fact, over the past 10 years, our multiracial population increased 276%, which presents new challenges.

Here's Skip Heitzig. To say that this nation is divided would be a gross understatement, but I am not going to take sides politically. I am going to take sides morally and spiritually and biblically. I'm going to raise the conversation to a different level, to a higher level, to a biblical level, because the issue as I see it is not a skin issue as much as it's a sin issue. We want to help you understand this divisive issue from a divine perspective. When you give $20 or more today to this Bible teaching ministry, we'll send you Pastor Skip's booklet, The Church and Racism, plus his teaching featuring a conversation with Pastor Tony Clark.

Get these relevant resources today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 as we join Skip Heitzig for today's study. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. So the cessationist will interpret what we just read by saying this, gifts of the Spirit, these certain gifts are temporary. They were used only until something more perfect.

What is more perfect? The full canon of Scripture. The gifts of the Spirit were there sort of as a stopgap, sort of as a goodwill measure to carry the church over during that very volatile transitional period until they would have the full canon of all the New Testament books that constitutes that which is perfect. That is a very irresponsible interpretation. It's presupposing that Paul in his mind is thinking that he's writing Scripture and one day it's going to be fulfilled, but it isn't yet fulfilled. Keep in mind, Paul the Apostle at this time that he was writing this would quote from Old Testament Scripture.

And he's writing real letters in real time to people. And by the way, to say that that which is perfect refers to the Scripture, good scholars will disagree. Good fundamentalist scholars will disagree.

Good dispensational scholars will disagree. For instance, Charles Ryrie of the Ryrie Study Bible, who taught theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, would be considered a strict dispensationalist, not somebody who would revel in these gifts of the Spirit, says that which is perfect does not refer to the canon of Scripture, can only refer to the second coming of Christ. And that's why it could be translated, says Ryrie, when he who is perfect comes, then that which is in part will be done away with. So if that is indeed the case, like these scholars including Ryrie say, then the gifts of the Spirit should be intact in their use until the coming of Christ throughout the whole church age. So we prophesy in part, we know in part, but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away with.

So these are not gifts. The gifts of chapter 12 and chapter 14 are not just gifts to be used during the apostolic age only. Do you remember when Peter was preaching on Pentecost?

And after his message, they said, well, what should we do? And he said, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for as many as are a far off, as many that call on the Lord. So every saved person is immediately indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

And I believe the power of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit are for every generation. But you see, one of the reasons people want to be cessationists is because it's just convenient and you don't have to get in the weeds and get messy with all the weird people who want to say and do weird things and have to mop the mess up in the church when people abuse the gifts and just say, it doesn't exist, it's not for today. It's much easier.

It's so nice and clean and antiseptic. And honestly, many people who are in this camp to be truthful with you are just afraid of what might happen if they were to open themselves up to that. You know, I've even heard people say, oh, I've heard stories of people who've opened themselves up supposedly to the Holy Spirit, and I had a friend, he was like in line in the bank or at the grocery store, and he just started jabbering in a weird language, and ah! Not so. Not if they're loved by the Spirit. Not if it's a legitimate work and move of the Holy Spirit.

Not going to happen. So that's one extreme. The second extreme that I told you about is sensationalism.

That's the opposite end of the spectrum. Whereas the cessationist says these things don't exist, it was only for the Apostolic Era, those things don't happen anymore. The sensationalist isn't happy until people just go crazy and get weird. They want to see sensational stuff, and they're on the opposite end of the spectrum. They don't believe the Holy Spirit is moving unless there's chaos and tongues and prophecy. The problem with sensationalists is when they talk about the gifts of the Spirit, they're not talking about all of the gifts of the Spirit. They're only talking about a few. They want to see the fireworks of tongues and interpretation and prophecy and words of knowledge and miracles and healing. Well, great, but there's a lot of other gifts to balance it out that you've left out. But when you make a movement out of that, and that is why, though the Charismatic Movement has done a lot for the Church in highlighting the importance and need for the legitimate work of the Spirit, I do not identify with the Charismatic Movement. I believe largely they have abused the gifts of the Spirit and encouraged the abuse of gifts in the Spirit when it comes to public assemblies. That's why I say I'm a Fundamatic.

I'm a Charismentalist. When I was a kid, my dad had a couple of really cool toys. We saw them as toys. One of the things he had was this cool brass cannon. It had red wheels, but it was just really detailed. If memory serves, it may not, but if memory serves, I think it even came with little balls, little metal balls, that went into the cannon and little wicks that you could put in that exploded and shot the ball.

Not far, but as a kid, that was just so cool. But he also had something else. He had a little plug-in steam engine.

This I remember well. And what you would do is you'd put water in it. It was made out of metal, had little metal wheels on it, and you'd plug it in, and the water would heat up and create steam. And it would actually move the steam engine on the table wherever it was plugged in. It wouldn't go far because the cord wasn't very long.

It could only go about as long as this little cord. So it would kind of chug along. We thought it was cool to see the steam engine being propelled, but it could do something else. You could pull a little string, and it would blow a little whistle on top. And we just thought, oh, that's so cool. Listen to that. Now, it only had a reservoir for just enough water to create just enough steam that would propel it a little ways or blow the whistle.

So you kind of had a choice. Do you want it to move or do you want it to make a lot of noise? When it comes to the movement of the Holy Spirit, it seems like there are movements of people who just want to make a lot of noise. They don't really want to move forward and use the Holy Spirit to make a dynamic that moves them ahead and forward in their Christian walk. So they're not really growing. It's not really equipping them to grow, but they're making a whole lot of noise.

They're content to let all the power go out the whistle. That's sensationalism. So concerning spiritual gifts, I don't want you ignorant. So we've covered a verse. I told you, Bible from three feet. You okay with that?

Okay. Verse two, you know that you were Gentiles, and by Gentiles he means non-Jewish, but in the sense that you were unbelieving Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, dumb here meaning lifeless, inanimate, insensate, not stupid, lame, dumb, that would fit, dumb idols. You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Now get this, in the Gentile pagan worship system in many of the temples, and I've been in some of these temples throughout Asia Minor and had the guides explain, part of the worship in these pagan temples of the Gentiles that Paul has in mind he's referring to, was the belief that the spirit of the god or goddess, the idol itself, would come in and inhabit the worshiper, and the evidence of that would be ecstatic speech, kind of out of control speech, kind of non-intelligent, emotional, ecstatic experience. Paul says, that used to be you.

You were carried away with these stupid, dumb idols, insensate, unempowering idols, however you were led. Now he's going to talk about the Holy Spirit, and you know the Bible does talk about being led by the Holy Spirit. And he's trying to segue to them and say, look, I know your background, I know how you were led, I know what you were into, now we're talking about gifts used in the church, some of them will be verbal gifts, some of them will be gifts of utterance, but I want you to be led and filled and controlled, that's the idea, by the Holy Spirit. Okay, the New Testament talks about three different phases, let's say that three different stages of how the Holy Spirit works in a saved person. Jesus said in the gospels, the Holy Spirit will be with you, and the Holy Spirit will be in you. Then in the book of Acts chapter 1 he said, stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

So we have three words, within and upon, all prepositions that tell how the noun functions. The Holy Spirit will be para in Greek, with you. When does that happen? That happens before you're saved. Holy Spirit is with you, comes alongside of you, convicts you of sin, righteousness, and judgment, lets you know you're empty, you're a creep, you need help, and when you go, yeah I do, and you repent, great, he's done his job, he's been with you to get you there.

Then we move into stage two. He said, and the Holy Spirit will be in you, the Greek preposition en, he'll come inside of you, he'll indwell you, he'll inhabit you. Right now, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit is occupying your physical body. What good news is that?

That's so good. So he'll be with you, he'll be in you. So that happens when you're saved. Before you're saved, when you're saved. But then, in Acts chapter one, he said, wait, stay in Jerusalem, saying this to save disciples, tell the Holy Spirit, come para, that's with, come epi, upon you, and then you will be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, et cetera. So that's sort of the third phase. These saved disciples are told to wait until the Holy Spirit fills them and empowers them, comes upon them, so that they could be witnesses in Jerusalem.

So those three are very important. And let me encourage you, on a personal note, when it comes to your walk with God, I hope you're growing in your walk with the Lord. I hope all of us are growing. You know, I love to discover new things in the Word and I love new experiences with the Lord. And I never want to say, yes, I know all things and I've had enough good Christian stuff, I don't need any more.

Are you kidding? I want everything I can get a hold of. And not so much as I want more of the Holy Spirit, as I want the Holy Spirit to have more of me. I want Him to control my life and move so I can move ahead.

I don't want to just blow the whistle, I want to move ahead. So, in John chapter 7, Jesus made a promise. Do you remember the promise? He stood up on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and He said, whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And John adds a footnote and said, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit who was not yet given. Now, wouldn't you agree that it's one thing to have water in a reservoir kind of nicely kept, it's always there if you need it, you can tap into it, take a drink when you want, it's in the cistern, it's in the reservoir. It's quite another thing to have water that gushes out of you, a river, a stream of living water, so that not only do you have something, if you need it, whenever you choose at your discretion, but there's so much of it, not only are you refreshed, but everybody who's around you gets a splash. This, He spoke of His Holy Spirit. That's the kind of relationship I want with God. So, it's not like, man, I'm just at my end, I'm just like burnt out.

It's like, man, are you kidding? If it's living water, it keeps flowing to me and I want it to flow through me to everybody else. So, that's the kind of experience, I think that Paul is fleshing out for the church, bringing all these scriptures together, he's explaining to them how these things work in the context of Christian community. So, we've covered two verses. Therefore, therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, I think Paul is referring to the experience of unsaved Gentiles being controlled by demons in their worship system speaking things under the influence of a demon power that are blatantly wrong. I think that's the reference in the first part of the verse I make known to you, no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed.

Only somebody in a pagan worship system under the influence of a demon would say that, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, something you need to know about the gifts of the Spirit, especially the vocal gifts, tongues, interpretation, prophecy, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, these are verbal gifts, they're speaking gifts. I guess you could divide it up into three categories. If you looked at all the gifts of the Spirit and you wonder, well, how many are there?

I'll touch that in a minute. You could divide them up into speaking gifts, serving gifts, and signifying gifts, sign gifts, like miracles, faith, et cetera. When it comes to the speaking gifts, a Christian is never out of control. So if you're ever worried about, gosh, if I open myself up to this and go to an afterglow, which by the way, Kevin is going to be leading in a few weeks, we're going to do that for the church at believers' meetings to experience these things in the context of assembly, if you ever wonder, gosh, I would just be afraid to open myself because I think that something might happen where I lose control and say weird stuff.

Not going to happen, as I mentioned. You're always in control. Now, I want to show that to you. I think you need to see it because, again, I don't want you to be ignorant, brother, concerning pneumatico and spirituals, right? So turn over, turn right to chapter 14 because I want you to see this. This is all sort of introductory.

I promise you in weeks ahead, we'll move a little faster. But I want you to see it. Important to get this under your spiritual belt.

Chapter 14, verse 27. If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three each in turn and let one interpret. All of those instructions imply control. You can count.

Okay, there's been three, stop. Now we need an interpretation. So all of this implies control of the user of the gift. But if there is no interpretation, let him keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God. Now, we'll explain that as we get to it. Let two or three prophets speak and let the others judge. If anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.

Now watch this. And the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets. In other words, you never lose control. Any manifestation of God, supposed manifestation of God where a person loses control is not of God. The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace as in all the churches of the saints.

How do I know this to be true? I know this because not only of these verses and the others that we're studying, but I know this because Galatians tells me the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's a manifestation of the spirit in the fruit of the spirit. So the gifts of the spirit don't ever operate independently from the fruit of the spirit.

So I'm like, man, I just like lost control and fell backwards and hit somebody as I did, but I couldn't help it. Whatever. Now look at the second part of verse three. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

That's also a very key idea that anybody who is under the influence of the Holy Spirit in any kind of manifestation is gonna glorify Jesus Christ because that's what the Holy Spirit does. He's gonna make a lot. He's gonna make much of Jesus. It's gonna all be about Jesus.

It's not gonna be about myself and exercising my gift. Do you know who I am? We don't care who you are because none of us are as important as Jesus is.

We make much of Him. And Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit comes, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, He, the Holy Spirit, will testify of Me. The Holy Spirit's gonna make it all about Me. So that's why Paul includes that. So three verses. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I don't want you ignorant.

You know you were Gentiles carried away to those dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, now he gets into the gifts. Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one, that is each member of the body of Christ, each Christian individual, to each one for the profit of all. We learn a few things about spiritual gifts. Before he even names them, he's summarizing their usage.

What do we learn? First of all, we learn they're varied. They're varied. There's not just one gift. There's not just one manifestation.

There's several. So they're varied. They're not monotone.

They're not monolithic. And this is what I love about God. He loves variety.

He loves variety. I mean, it's pretty obvious. Look around our country. Go in one direction. You'll go past mountains. You'll see just sort of flat prairie.

Go the other direction long enough, you'll see a lot of water, ocean. It's just the world is filled with such variety. And then people are different. We're all different. We're all unique. Our faces are unique. It's why you can have that security device on your little phone that looks at your face and says, oh, that's you. Okay, I'll open up. You can get somebody that looks like you.

It won't open up. Because there's facial recognition software that's pretty accurate that can detect the subtleties. You are unique. And so there's variety, not only in creation, not only in different people, but they're also in the church. There are diversities of gifts. There are differences of ministries.

There's diversities of activities. That's Skip Heintzeck with a message from the series Expound First Corinthians. Now, here's Skip to share how you can help keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and others around the world with God's word. As believers, we've received the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. But we're also a gift from the Father to Jesus, His eternal ornaments, so to speak. We want to reach more people around the world and bring them into God's family.

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That number again is 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Your generosity helps keep this biblical encouragement coming your way and going out around the world to help change more lives. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heintzeck shares about how the Holy Spirit equips you and all believers with certain spiritual gifts. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heintzeck is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.