“People, Principles, and
Practices”
LAGRANGE BAPTIST CHURCH
February 25, 2007
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I’d like for you
to take your Bibles please and turn to 1 Corinthians Chapter 12.
One of my very practical goals in going through a book is to
help you find your way around the Bible.
The Bible is a compilation of books and letters, 66 of them.
It seems complicated at first, but, like anything else, once
you have handled it for awhile, looked at it many times, you find
that it really has one message throughout with Jesus Christ and his
Gospel being the centerpiece.
The other thing is a very practical goal of teaching you to
carry you own Bible to church.
I would like for you to have your own copy, to look at the
words. I want you to
carry your own Bible with you so when I say, “Look at verse 3 or
look at verse 4,” you begin to connect for sure what I am saying,
that it’s not an idea, but it is a thought of truth that comes out
of the Bible. Now, if you want
a Bible and you don’t have one, you write a note and we will get you
one. We will be glad to
do that for you.
I preach from, read from and teach from the English Standard
Version, which is a relatively new translation, but it is a good one
and relatively easy to read of all English translations. So, in 1
Corinthians 12, as we walk our way through this book, I think before
we begin, there are some things that are on my mind just from our
worship service that I would like to say that are not part of
today’s message. There
is part of today’s message that talks about your relationship with
God being personal. I don’t mean it in some kind of cheap, casual or
private way. There is no
such thing as a private relationship with God because He doesn’t
come for us and just Him to have fellowship and shut everybody else
out. Yes, it is
personal, yes you have private moments with Him, but if it isn’t for
the purpose of coming out and glorifying Him and doing good to
others, then it is not the God of the New Testament.
He wants to show Himself through you and me.
It was the
reading of that scripture in Hebrews 9, it was Harold’s reading of
“We should live for Him, who died for us and not for ourselves,” it
was the singing of the songs that just made me want to ask you, “Do
you have yet that sense of an open heart, an open vision to see the
historical happening of Jesus death on the cross as if God did it
for you?” Have you
grasped, have you seen anything in a personal way that “this makes
sense.” I don’t mean
just logical sense, I mean a logical sense that is spiritually
empowered by God’s spirit and He says, “This I did for you.”
Because if you don’t have that, a lot of logic may be gotten
from what we talk about, about God loving people, making a sacrifice
to save them, but it doesn’t impact your heart.
But when you see what God has done, and that he has done it
for you, and now He literally appears in the presence of God for us
because He has done away, offering Himself once for all in the
sacrifice for sins, he has done away with our sins; that will change
your life! God changed my
life as an 18-year-old university student and college football
player. I went to
college to have fun and play sports.
God had a different plan and it was a great plan.
He saved me, called me to preach and gave me a wife.
That was a lot better than football and fun.
I did graduate, too, by the way…just in case you were
wondering. But I do need
you to know something.
This is something you need to see….this relationship with God.
God is the one who does it, yes, but if you want it, go after
it. Say, “Open my eyes
to this, help me to see; I’m tired of just going to church and
having a churchy experience, going out and having some kind of moral
good and feeling like I’m a little bit better than people who don’t
go to church, God I want the real thing, the real thing!
I want to know You. Let’s look at 1
Corinthians Chapter 12.
We are going to change gears with our walk through 1
Corinthians, and we’re going to slow down just a bit.
Most of it we have flown over at about 50,000 feet, just
looking down at it and going by rather fast.
We’re going to swoop the plane down now and we’re going to
come down to several different elevations.
Today, we’re going to be just about 30,000 feet taking an
overview of the chapter, but then, as we move through it a little
bit, because of where we are as a church, because of us
understanding where we are today and how contemporary this message
is, we’re going to come down to about 10,000 feet, and, then if you
will let me, we may even do what a buddy of mine did to me, and I
vowed never to fly in an airplane with him again. I have a good
friend in So we’re going
to get alligator close on a couple of things, alright? Because God
does that for us in this passage of scripture.
Today, we’re just flying over. Chapter 12,
Verse 1: “Now
“concerning” spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be
uniformed. You know that
when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however, you
were led. Therefore, I
want you to understand 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 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 in everyone.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the
common good. 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 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.”
There is some
beauty in this passage of scripture that I think a lot of times when
it is studied is missed, and that’s where we want to start.
The first thing we see is the church must have knowledge to
truly be the church, look how it opens up: “Now
concerning”…. Is a signal
that Paul is answering the letter they wrote him.
He stopped one issue, The Lord’s Supper, he’s gone to another
issue that they have questions about. It’s a sign that
the Corinthians are more on the ball than we usually give them
credit for. They were asking their founding pastor, “What do we do
about this?” They were
asking their apostle, “What does God say about this?” So he begins
with these words, “Now concerning spiritual gifts.”
That word is a different word for gifts than the other places
in the passage. This
could mean spiritual things, it could mean spiritual people, but,
because the whole context is gifts, it is usually translated that.
But the essence is, we are dealing with things of the Spirit
of God in the “You know that
when you were pagans, unbelievers, you were led astray to mute idols
[idols that couldn’t speak, idols that couldn’t do anything].
However, you were led.
What he is telling them is, something in you, something in
this world of a demonic spirit, of a social experience, something
led you into idol worship.
It may have just been your culture, but someway you were led
there. By the way, every
creature, you need to understand, everyone of us is a creature and
every created person or thing is always led into something.
We think we are independent, but we are not.
We are all dependent on a multitude of factors, God chiefly.
He could withdraw my breath or my heartbeat right now and I
would stop. I’m
dependent on Him by the word of his power, His Son holds all things
together. But then he
goes on to explain where he is headed. “Therefore, I
want you to understand….” In verse 1 he says, “I don’t you to be
uninformed,” and “Now I want you to understand that no on speaking
in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed.”
You look at me and say, “Why, why did he say that?”
There are a number of reasons why; the general reason is the
obvious one. Someone who
is of the spirit and someone who is not of the spirit are two
totally different kinds of people.
One has the life of God within him, the other does not have
the life of God within him.
Because the life of God is there, they recognize who Jesus is
and they honor him, because the life of God isn’t there, they don’t
recognize who Jesus is and they dishonor him.
Someone could have even claimed to be filled with the Spirit
of God and cursed Jesus in this day and Paul said there is no way
that could happen. But
he is also informing them they can’t stand on their own two feet and
by their own strength and say, “I am going to proclaim Jesus as my
Lord.” He says, you
can’t do that by yourself.
God is always going to take the first step to you, he
is always going to give you life through His Spirit.
He is the one who takes the initiating step.
We are dependent on him.
So, He wants us to understand that the church is His church;
he founded it, he purchased it with the blood of his son and the
Spirit of God in the church is made known by the magnification of
Christ. No on can say
“Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. Now, what’s he
got hidden here? Verse 4: “Now there are
varieties of gifts but the same spirit.
There are varieties of service but the same Lord.
There are varieties of activities but the same God who
empowers them all and everyone. “ Paul is
demonstrating the excellent method of genuine Christian teaching.
What we have to understand is there are Christian truths and
there is Christian truth.
Christian truths are all understood in the context of
Christian truth. It’s
like you have a huge circle that is the context and pieces
inside the circle that make the whole like a puzzle that are the
content. You have
the parts inside; you have the whole.
To teach the parts properly, you have to understand the
whole. There are certain
and significant core foundation stones to Christian truth.
One of those would be the Triune nature of God.
Another would be justification by faith through Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior. If
you don’t get the truth right, your little truths can get mixed up.
That’s why as we go through this chapter and we deal with the
misuse of tongues in the Corinthian church and in our day, we’ll
understand that a genuine Christian truth, a singular one, has been
out of all of Christian truth and it has become something it isn’t.
We’ll explain that in detail when we get down to look at the
alligator eyeballs, but we’re not there yet, we’re flying too high.
[Have you ever
looked at an alligator eyeball-to-eyeball?] I know one man
in here who has and it’s not me.
There’s an article in the paper about him years ago, and his
name is Duke Koenig.
Duke when he was young and a little nuts, there was an alligator who
had a name, he was so big the whole community knew him, and Duke
goes out on this big log or something and gets as close to this
alligator….it was like a 12 or 13 foot alligator, as he could get
just to see what he was going to do.
And somebody, did they get a picture, is there a picture of
you in the paper too? He
showed me the article, so, I think that’s a claim to fame.
Duke, you may have to preach the Alligator Eyeball Sermon
for me. But we have to
understand without the truth, the truths taken out of
that can stack up to error.
These certain core truth, one of them is like the centerpiece
that holds everything together, though the word Trinity is
not used in the New Testament we see it is the undergirding strength
of so much of Christian teaching.
Look at what Paul said again in Verse 4 and notice what he
does. “Now there are
varieties of gifts.” [That’s the subject]
He says they come from the same spirit.
And there are varieties of service, but it’s the same Lord,[
it is Jesus] And there
are varieties of activities, but it is the same God, [there’s the
Father.] Spirit, Son and
Father, different order than normal, but he has the Triune nature of
God. Why?
It’s the Biblical method of Christian teaching.
He undergirds the truth of the living church by the same
Spirit, the same Lord and the same God.
Paul I showing us when we understand the nature of God, we
understand all of life better.
This is how foundational the nature of God, the triune nature
of God is. If we get it
wrong, in time every other major doctrine will be corrupted.
That’s where Mormons have come from, that’s where Jehovah
Witnesses have come from.
Anytime you want to find out if someone is from orthodox
Christianity or not, you can ask them about the Deity of Christ and
the Triune nature of God.
If they fall apart there, they fall apart everywhere else.
I know you’re thinking, “Tony, this was a high fly over,
you’re about to lose me.”
Just hang with me a minute.
You see, every doctrine will become corrupted when the main
vein is not right and we will end up building a false understanding
of God, a false understanding of salvation, and a false
understanding of ourselves.
Key point: It is
impossible to properly honor God if you don’t know Him properly.”
How could you do any human being service of honoring them if
you made assumptions about their character, about their
intelligence, about their job, and you just walked up and started
carrying on a conversation, and then went out to represent them, but
you knew nothing about them.
It’s the same way it is with God, and if you are going to
trust Him, you need to know Him, because you can actually end up
dishonoring God in your efforts to honor Him if you don’t know him
truthfully. So Paul is
taking Christian truth and pulling out Christian truths to show us
how the church is to operate.
So what about
this church? The church
is about God, what He does, in, for and through His people.
The church is God’s and what he does for, in and through His
people. Chapter 12, Verse 3, we already called attention to that,
but look at it quickly: “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.
Only people who become part of the But there is a
second thing that happens that shows us this church is God’s.
He births us into the church, and then it’s about what He
does in us, Verse 4: “Now there are
varieties of gifts, what we have to serve in the church are gifts
from God, charismata, they are grace gifts, and that implies even
more that God has given those to us,
but not only has he gifted us for service, He has given us
the power to serve, look at Verse 11: “All these,
[these gifts that he has given] are empowered by one and the same
spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.” So the energy in
the church, the direction of the church, the motivation of the
church, when the church is what she should be under God, is the Holy
Spirit of God. He births
us, He gifts us, He empowers us, and then for God to show his
sovereignty over the church, follow the argument beginning there
with Verse 11: “All these
things are empowered by One and the same spirit.
God, the Spirit is over all.” Then look at
Verse 18; he is still talking about
the gifts and the body being one body but having many gifts
in it, many members, he says: “But as it is God arranged the members
in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”
That’s an important verse of scripture for both our humility
and our honor. God has
taken you, He has saved you, He has gifted you, He has empowered
you, and now He has placed you in the body of Christ for your
service. The design of
the body and the arrangement in the body are directly God’s hand.
That’s why I was talking about knowing him personally.
Do you know how you are gifted?
Do you know what your place is in the body?
Surely you know what it is to have a lame member of your
body, anything from a stumped toe to a broken finger, and how odd
that makes life. When
the church body isn’t together with all our members fulfilling their
purpose, we’re a bit lame, and it shows on the inside and the
outside. Verse 25:
Let’s read Verse 24 and 25, it talks about the different
members of the body and some are more presentable, some are not,
which our more presentable parts do not require the special
treatment. But God has
so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked
it. Why?
“That there may
be no division in the body, but the members may have the same care
for one another.”
God has arranged every member in the body so that there would be a
unity of mutual care and concern and he goes on and says, “But if
one member suffers, all suffer together, if one member is honored,
all rejoice together.” There is a newer
family in our church who just lost their residence to a fire.
I think they are sensing the body coming together and weeping
with those who are weeping, and
rejoicing with those who rejoice.
The church is
God’s and is about God.
He is the centerpiece, He is supreme. And it’s about what He does
for, in and through His people.
In that principle, is the fact that Christ is the Head.
The church is the body, Christ is the head.
And it tells us that Christ is supreme.
Colossians Chapter 1, Verse 18 says: “He, [that is
Jesus] is the head of the body, the church, that in everything He
might be preeminent.” What’s the next
thing we need to see about the church as we just look at this
passage of scripture? We
need to look at the people, principles and practices.
The church is made up of people; that’s you and me.
So, when God looks at His church and He saves people, yes, He
saves His people as a whole, but He saves people, individuals, in
the whole of the church.
So, within the church as a whole, you are a Christian, and there is
a dynamic balance between honoring the body and honoring the
individual. So when I
say a personal relationship, you have a unique, significant
relationship with God as your Father through Christ.
He knows you inside and out, and He has made you for a
reason, He has designed you and put you in a place in this church
for you to go to work, and when we don’t do that, we are left
handicapped, stunted, unfulfilled and unhappy, because we are not
fulfilling our design. Just a couple of
major things about people, principles and practices: There is to be
variety and unity in the church; something we always will struggle
with. Look at the
first type of variety and unity in Verse 12:
Here’s the principle: “For just as the body is one and has
many members, [you understand that, you have one body, but I’ve got
fingers and hands and toes and a head and a torso and arms and legs]
you are one body, many members.
And all the members of the one body, though many, are one
body, so it is with Christ.
You have in Christ multitudes of Christians, but you have one
body, called the Body of Christ, which is the Church and Christ is
the head. Verse 13:
“For in one spirit, [here’s the triune theology again] we
were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and
all were made to drink of one spirit.” Now that’s one
kind of unity. The
Church is made up of every social and every racial variety on the
face of the earth and the church that is uncomfortable with racial
and social diversity is not a But what Paul is
saying, he is using these extremes totally opposites, Jews and
Greeks, slaves and free, to say that every social and every racial
variety in the world is to be in the church, but she is to be one
body. Verse 11: “The
body does not consist of one member, but many.” But there’s a
second kind of variety and unity in the church.
The church is gifted with a variety of gifts.
We saw that in Verse 4,
‘there’s a variety of gifts, there’s a variety of services and a
variety of activities,” but the purpose is singular and we see that
in Verse 7, “To each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
A spiritual gift
is never for us to show off.
When our spiritual gift attracts attention to us we are
misusing it. It is a
manifestation of the
Spirit of God. If
someone should say about us, “He /she is filled with the Spirit,”
and what is the chief mark of being filled with the spirit?
The magnification of Christ.
No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Spirit of God.
That’s enough
for overview. What can
we learn about what we need to do from a simple look like this at a
passage of scripture? He
goes on and talks about the analogy of the body, of the head that
directs everything, but you have multitudes of members with
different parts. He
teaches us things like, “Well, if you are a part of the body, you
can’t say, ‘I don’t want to be a part of the body anymore, I’m going
to go over here.’” You
are already a part of the body, and if you are a part of the body,
and you don’t like another part of the body, ‘”he eye cannot say to
the foot, ‘I have no need of you.’”
One part might be a big toe, another part might be the heel.
Now, one part might be an eyeball.
Now, which would you rather be, a big toe or an eyeball?
Are you with me?
You look kind of sad this morning, kind of dreary.
Well, I heard in
one church the big toe and the eyeball got in an argument because
the big toe wanted to be the eyeball. He said, “It is not fair.
You’re on top, I’m on the bottom.
It stinks where I am, you get to see everything.
He said, ‘I want to be an eyeball.’ “
He said, “You can’t be an eyeball, God made you a big toe,
and without you I couldn’t be up here because without big toes we
fall over.’” You need to
be what you are because you are crucial for me to do what God
designed me to do. I
can’t do it without you.
He said, “I don’t care, I want to be an eyeball.”
And finally, after hours of argument and confrontation, the
eyeball got fed up and said, ’Okay, you can be an eyeball, but all
you’re ever going to see is the inside of a sock.” [Laughter] Maybe I ought to
put that in the old file!
[Laughter] What’s God made
you? Are you doing what
you’ve been designed to d? Because God is going to tell us; chiefly
we need to understand, we need each other.
Have you ever tried to live without your big toe?
I broke mine playing football once.
That’s not fun because there is not a thing you can do for
it, except let it heal.
I couldn’t walk, I had to use crutches.
It’s awful. One
ugly big toe broken! And
my body was severely handicapped. So, let’s just
look at a few things: Understanding
and knowledge are vital
to true Christian experience. We can develop
religious and spiritual experience.
Just go on Oprah and read The Secret; you can have all you
want. Right?
Cause Oprah just feels this is the way to go.
Since when did Oprah’s feelings begin to guide Do feelings tell
us anything? No, they
don’t, and true Christianity and true Christian experience comes
from understanding and knowledge like we have in this passage of
scripture. It’s all
rooted in the Word of God.
Think of it this
way: The more we elevate
the individual person, which is what our society loves to do, the
less we value the body. Interesting if you read a lot of business
books these days, you’ll find that those who seem to be those who
move from good to great are the CEOs who honor the company and not
themselves.
But that has nothing to do with the Church other than it
happens to be reflecting a truth about the Church.
The more we elevate the individual person, the less we value
the body.
However, according to the scriptures, the more we elevate the body,
the greater value we
give the individual. Look with me and
we’ll just pick this out:
Verse 21: “The eye cannot
say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’
[That’s elevating the individual. My eye… I don’t need a
hand. Well how are you
going to see what you’re going to pick up then?
Alright you’re going to pick up what you’re going to see.”
Nor, again, the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.’
On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker
are indispensable and on those parts of the body that we think less
honorable, we bestow the greater honor, Why?
Because we are honoring the body and the head of the body,
Christ. And our
unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more
presentable parts do not require.”
But God so composed the body, look at this, giving greater
honor to the part that lacked it, that there be no division in the
body. The more you make
of the Body of Christ, the more the individual is exalted and cared
for and given proper due.
The more you elevate the individual, the less the proper
attention they get, and the lower the body gets. Three more quick
thoughts: Christ being
supreme in the church is the No. 1 key to church unity.
The sweetness of a church, the unified body of the church,
will be true and it will be truer the more Christ is seen as Lord
and supreme. The more we
submit to Him the more we are enabled to serve one another because
when Christ is not central, which is primary, the church cannot be
unified, which is secondary.
Therefore, the church is unhealthy, God is not honored and
people are not helped.
We are here to worship Christ, not us!
1.
Your gift
and mine are called Gifts of the Spirit.
They are, therefore, like the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.
So how does that mean we use our gifts?
Just like the Spirit acts, by bringing attention to the work
of Christ and building unity among the people of Christ.
Verse 7 says, “These gifts are manifestations of the Spirit”;
they are not manifestations of the self.
2.
What you
are, where you are and what you are gifted with are all from God, so
be humbled and be honored.
3.
Finally, is
your experience with Christ and His Church a personal and a
particular one? Or is this just kind of a nice little talk that
tells you things you already knew, or can you imagine having a
direct connection to Heaven because Heaven made a direct connection
to earth through Christ, who died in our place on the cross, went to
the very throne room of God, laid his sacrifice down which the
Father accepted, and in accepting his Son’s perfect sacrifice, He
accepted us. Now, through
Christ, who has left us and sent His Spirit to be not only with us,
but in us, we have a direct connection with God and we call him,
Father. And our Father
and our Creator has not only made us but saved us through His Son
and he has given us gifts and skills to use in His body so his
children can be helped and served and so the world who hasn’t yet
heard can hear about Christ. When I saw the
Cross of Christ, and Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection as an
18-year-old college student, it wasn’t something I did.
God did something that day that will not stop, it was
personal and it was particular.
I did not want to be the pastor of a church because it scared
me to death to get up in front of people and talk.
You can shake my hands afterward, they are cold right now.
It’s called anxiety.
I know the Bible says, “Be anxious for nothing, ” but Paul
says he was anxious about some things, so I get a little grace
there. Is your
experience with Christ personal and particular?
Do you know he died for you? Because when you know that and
by His Spirit you can say, “Jesus is Lord,” the cross takes on a
whole new light. The
church takes on a whole new life, and you have a whole new purpose.
Can you imagine the sense of knowing God designed you, God
saved you, He has re-designed you, He has given you a purpose to
fulfill. That is life! |