Actually, what we discover as we come to chapters 12 through 14 of 1 Corinthians is that they're very much part and parcel of the development of the book as a whole. And so if you've missed what's come before, you're in hopeless trouble tonight. You'll also find, I think, that they are very much related to each other, that they are a unit.

And I'm going to be repeating a couple of the things that I've said previously, just for emphasis and to clarify as we go along. I want to take this in a number of smaller bites, but then I hope we'll see the full sweep of the passage. Let's look at the first 13 verses.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols. however you may have been moved.

Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, Jesus, be cursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. 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 inspired by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills for just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body though many are one body so it is with Christ for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and all were made to drink of one spirit.

Now if you were to take that much and write a title over it, I would suggest simply One Spirit, Many Manifestations. One Spirit, Many Manifestations. Paul begins by continuing the comparison that he developed, and I was mistaken last week, I kept referring to chapter 9, it was in chapter 8 as a matter of fact, And then last time, as we got into the whole discussion of the Lord's Supper, the comparison and the contrast between allegiance to idols and allegiance to Christ.

There are similarities and there are great differences. And he says, in the past, you may have been moved. You may have been deeply moved.

You may have been ecstatically moved. You may, in fact, have been so overcome by evil spirits that you actually spoke out of your own control. and you uttered things which were blasphemous.

That's really the background of that opening comment. But in contrast to that, he says, I want you to understand that no one, speaking by the Spirit of God, ever says, Jesus be cursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

So whereas other spirits, in other religious frenzy that you may have ever gotten involved with, led you to say other things, some of them may have even been blasphemous. I want you to understand that where the Holy Spirit is, that can't happen. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

That's a terribly important foundation stone on which everything else is going to be built. What he's saying here is that allegiance to Christ and having the Holy Spirit are one and the same thing. You can't have one without the other.

It's interesting to note that several times in the New Testament, that identification is so close, as a matter of fact, that the Holy Spirit is actually referred to as the Spirit of Jesus, or the Spirit of Christ. For instance, you find that in the book of Acts, chapter 16, and verse 7. Paul calls him the spirit of Jesus.

And again, he calls him the spirit of Christ in Romans 8. And Peter says the same thing in his first letter, the first chapter. Sometimes you hear what is really a kind of a theological shorthand when people say, I accepted Christ into my heart.

Or they say, how do I know he lives? He lives within my heart. That really is theological shorthand.

Jesus we would tend to place that geographically but it's spiritually he's at the right hand of the Father making intercession for the saints Jesus does not come and live in my heart but Jesus' spirit does and that identity is so close you see that we could say it either way I receive the spirit of Jesus into my heart the spirit of Jesus lives within me And you remember, as Jesus was explaining that to his disciples, as recorded in John's Gospel, he says, he shall glorify me. He shall take what is mine and declare it unto you. And he elaborates that at great length in John 14 to 16.

So it's perfectly legitimate to make that kind of shorthand, if you will. But let's be clear on what we're really saying. The Spirit of Christ is the one who makes us new and who indwells us.

As a matter of fact, Romans chapter 8 and verse 9 says, Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So there's no way of being a Christian except by virtue of receiving the Holy Spirit. Now clearly we're not talking in this opening paragraph about the mindless repetition of words.

We're not saying that somebody couldn't mindlessly repeat Jesus is Lord. Obviously a parrot can do that if he's taught. but what we're referring to here is intelligent confession no one can say as an intelligent confession of his real commitment and allegiance that Jesus is Lord except by the indwelling and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that's the foundation stone on which everything else is going to be built that allegiance to Christ and having the Holy Spirit inside you, making you a new creature.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all has become new.

Allegiance to Christ and having the Holy Spirit are one and the same. Romans 10 and verse 10. You might just turn to it.

Hold your finger here for just a moment. Paul's making the same sort of a statement in Romans 10. You might look at verse 9 first.

Because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It's both. It's not empty words, but it's words as an expression of a heart belief.

And then he goes on, verse 10, for man believes with his heart and so is justified and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. So I want us to really grasp that very clearly. The mark of having the Holy Spirit, the mark of having the Holy Spirit, is intelligent confession of Christ.

Are you with me so far? Nothing else is going to fit unless we get that. That is the mark.

This one Holy Spirit then manifests himself in and through us in a variety of gifts, a variety of modes of service, a variety of workings, or if you will, of ministries, or of roles within the body of Christ. One Spirit manifesting himself variously amongst us. And he says in verse 7, To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

The two operative words there. To each, for all. To each, for all.

God doesn't play any favors. He will give the manifestation of the Spirit to each one who belongs to Christ. Different manifestations to different Christians.

but to each one of them a manifestation of the Spirit who indwells them. For the common good, the purpose of the Spirit manifesting himself in gifts, is that the body of Christ might be built up. It's not private blessing primarily, but it's equipment for service, equipment for ministry, equipment for the various roles within the body of Christ.

Now we may expect, therefore, that God has already given every Christian at least one gift. That's what we just read, isn't it? Two each is given the manifestation.

We may expect that God has already, if you belong to Jesus Christ, given you at least one gift of the Holy Spirit. Now that's not to say that you're faithful with it. You may not be using it.

You may not have developed it very far. You may not even have discovered it. Okay, so you might want to qualify that and say, it's there, it's latent within you, and it's never been released.

I would say, I've said this before, I think it's worth repeating, that in a crowd of this size, I would virtually guarantee you that God has distributed some gifts of evangelism, for instance. And you may be one that he has already, right now, given a gift of evangelism, and yet you've never led anybody to Christ. As a matter of fact, you've never even shared your faith with a non-Christian because you're nervous about it.

And yet, God has given you a gift. What's the problem? The problem is you haven't done anything with it.

It's as if you received that gift and you never even unwrapped it. saw what was in the package. You will never know whether you have a gift of evangelism until you go out and try to share your faith with someone.

And probably really blow it. Make a whole bunch of mistakes. Turn people off.

Get them angry at you. Cause all manner of misunderstanding. They're going to be calling you holier than thou and whatnot.

But you try it and you learn from it. You try it again. Maybe you read a book and you take a course and you try it again and God begins to shape and develop a gift or a ministry of evangelism.

I would virtually guarantee that in a group this size, some of you have gifts of being teachers. That doesn't necessarily mean a public teacher, one up front with a large crowd, although it might. It might be a church school teacher.

It might be one who, one-on-one, could explain some of the mysteries of God. And yet again, maybe you've never, ever used that. I know very few instances with regard to any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit where they came like that, full-blown.

I do know some. I've seen some instances of that. But they are the exception to the rule.

Before you learn to run, you learn to walk. And before that, to crawl. And that's the way God's gifts typically are.

That whether it be one of the dramatic upfront gifts So whether it be one of the very quiet behind-the-scenes gifts, the generalization that I'd be prepared to make is that we begin. We try it out. We experiment with it.

We see if God blesses it. And then he begins to shape it and inform it. We begin to acquire tools that relate to that particular gift or ministry or role within the body of Christ.

And other people say, wow, when you do that, I'm blessed. And you begin to define and understand what his calling and what his anointing is within the body of Christ. We could spend a whole lot more time on that, but I need to move on.

We may expect that God has already distributed gifts like that, even though they may need a whole lot of development. I think we can also anticipate that he may want to give us additional gifts, the ones that we're already aware of, because he's the giver of good gifts. Many of you have studied it with some care.

Jesus promised that if you, being sinful fathers, mothers, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will God, our Heavenly Father, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Well, I'm quite sure that really means the Holy Spirit in His manifestation of gifts, because you wouldn't ask Him unless you already had a saving faith. So how much more will the Holy Spirit be given in gifts of ministry and service to those who seek him as such?

Now, he goes on to mention nine gifts by name. Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation you may have heard otherwise but I want to say again that these are not all the gifts of the Holy Spirit this is a representative list Paul is saying these are what the gifts are like it is not his intention to say there are only nine that's the whole list and that's all there are because by the time you get to the end of chapter 12 we find another list and it doesn't perfectly agree. It overlaps, but it doesn't quite agree.

And there's a very critically important gift mentioned at the end of the chapter that doesn't appear here at the beginning, namely apostleship, that God has appointed in his church first apostles. And then he goes on and lists some others and leaves out some of what's here. There are a couple of other major listings of gifts.

Romans 12 has one. Ephesians 4 has one, and 1 Peter 4 has one. And then scattered throughout the New Testament, there are a wide variety of other things which are mentioned as gifts of the Holy Spirit from time to time, including even martyrdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

You might pray for that one. You look at some of those other lists and begin to compare them, and what you'll see is that they do. They partially overlap each other.

But no two lists are identical. All of them have some of the gifts and leave out some others. There are such things as apostolicity, shepherding, or pastoring, if you will, evangelism, administration, teaching, contribution, exhortation, service, helps, and we could go on and on.

There may be a number of others, or there may be synonyms. I suggested a few weeks ago that by my count there are at least 20 specific things mentioned in the New Testament as gifts of the Holy Spirit, and even that will not be a complete list. Because what he's saying is, these are what the gifts are like.

And if you step back and look at all of those, we can conclude again, the definition of gift of the Holy Spirit is equipment for service. the gift of the Holy Spirit or the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is God is equipping you in some particular way to be of service and ministry within the body of Christ. It leads us then to a double conclusion.

Number one, no one Christian is to have all the gifts. You may have heard, again, contrary teaching to that. I've heard in certain circles it said that it's God's will for me to have all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a single individual.

I think that is diametrically opposed to what we're reading here. No one Christian is to have all the gifts because God has made us mutually dependent upon each other. That's the purpose.

He said, I need what you have to contribute to me, and that's obviously going to be different from what I have to contribute to you. We need each other, like it or not. We're stuck with each other, okay?

That's the way it is. And no one gift for all the Christians. See how those two things go together.

He's not elevating as the be-all and end-all any one of these gifts. He said there's a wide variety of gifts, and God is eager to distribute his gifts, but there's no one of them that is for all Christians. Now, you might suppose that faith is, but he's using the word faith here in a rather more particular sense.

He's not talking about saving faith. Obviously, all Christians have to have saving faith or they're not going to be Christians. But when he's speaking of it as a gift of the Holy Spirit, What he means is the faith to believe God for a particular thing.

Perhaps you've had the experience sometime of praying for something, perhaps praying for someone, and suddenly you just knew there was a deep, inexplicable conviction in your heart that God was answering that prayer even before you saw the evidence of it. And no longer were you able to go on saying please, but you had to say thank you even before you saw it. That's a gift of faith.

so no one gift for all the Christians we need each other the body of Christ is mutually interdependent I said last time that my left foot all by itself isn't a whole lot of good but boy do I need it it isn't going anywhere without me but neither am I going very far without it my left foot needs the rest of me my right hand needs the rest of me My eyes need each other and need my ears and so on. We need each other. And that's the metaphor which Paul is going to elaborate now for the rest of this section.

We are individual organs or members of the body of Christ. The gifts that God would give us are like the different functions played by heart, liver, lungs, spleen, appendix, little toe, what have you. Okay, let's push on.

Fourteen to the end of the chapter. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part.

If the body should say, Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of The body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If he were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

but as it is God arranged the organs in the body each one of them as he chose this is a statement of his sovereign pleasure be careful about that you may very much desire to be a certain sort of person in the body of Christ and that may not be God's will for you what he has is always better but it may not be initially attractive to you. Be careful about that. There's a right kind of desiring and there's a wrong kind of desiring.

Desiring that's based on spiritual jealousy or pride is wrong. A desiring that wants to be more available to God and more available to serve the other members of the body of Christ, that's a good kind of desiring and I suspect God will end up blessing that prayer abundantly than you ever imagined sooner or later sooner or later there may be a need for some patience but God arranges the organs of the body each one of them as he chooses if all were a single organ where would the body be as it is there are many parts yet one body the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you on the contrary the parts of the body which seem to be weaker get this are indispensable and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty which our more presentable parts do not require but God has so composed the body giving the greater honor to the inferior part that there may be no discord in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together.

If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you, and that's plural. It's a trouble with English. It doesn't come across.

It's a plural you. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, than workers of miracles, than healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues?

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?

Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues?

Do all interpret? The answer implied is clearly no to every one of those questions. Different gifts for different Christians.

Different functions within the body of Christ. but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. I think that's a very straightforward passage.

I want us particularly to notice two verses. There are two illegitimate attitudes that we could have within the body of Christ. The first is mentioned in verse 16, and the second in verse 21.

They're equal opposites of each other. Verse 16, you don't need me. And verse 21, I don't need you.

You see that? Both of those are illegitimate attitudes. For the person to say, oh, well, I don't have anything to contribute.

I'm a nobody. I mean, I can't get up and give a sermon. I can't lead anybody to Christ.

I can't even sing on tune. You know, I fumble. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. you don't need me.

Wrong. We need you. And the other, far worse, because it's so much prouder and arrogant, I don't need you.

You're absolutely right. I'm perfectly self-sufficient. I'm not.

I may think so, and let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. I need you. We need each other, That's the way God arranged it.

We not only need each other, we need to honor each other. Particularly those whose role in the body of Christ are not in the limelight. I had a friend a number of years ago who was just a marvelous preacher.

Just eloquent. He would open his mouth and just, there was never a word misplaced. And he made the comment one time, and I never forgot it.

He said, it may be that God gives some of us the upfront public role because we need the affirmation so badly. Don't ever think it's because we've arrived. That's a gift.

If it is of any use whatsoever, it's a gift from God. And if it's a gift from God, we can't take credit for it. If we take credit for it, we're stealing it away from him, and he can't bless it.

So, there are those who are called to the role of leadership and to the upfront public limelight, and they get all the stroking most of the time. They also get all the criticism when things go wrong. You know, there's a certain trade-off.

But what Paul is saying here is, you know, the body of Christ doesn't just function with its mouth. You know, there are all those behind-the-scenes things, like preparing the food out in the kitchen, cleaning up afterwards, a gift of hospitality, a gift of help, a gift of service. Where is the body of Christ if nobody has enough time to do that?

And he goes even beyond that. what he's saying is, you know, we put on a great banquet when the bishop comes to town. Maybe we ought to put on a great banquet for the sexton.

Those whose roles within the body of Christ are less conspicuous, we ought to go out of our way to affirm and honor. So another conclusion emerges from all of that, namely, that we're not to covet each other's calling, but to compliment. in both senses of that word.

To compliment in both senses of the word. I need you. You compliment my role in that sense.

We also need to take pains to affirm each other and to praise each other for the things that are blessings to us. Again, not that it's my doing if you're blessed, but I'm faithful if you're blessed. It's not your doing if I'm blessed, but you're being faithful to what God would give me through you.

so I need to express that appreciation. Notice something here, that the last phrase of chapter 12 and the first phrase of chapter 14 fit right together, and that the argument or the development really is a continuous whole. You could drop chapter 13 out altogether and the discussion of gifts would flow perfectly well from chapter 12 right on into chapter 14.

He says, but earnestly desire the higher gifts and then he repeats himself, earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy. And then he goes on. It's as if chapter 13 were a great parenthesis and there's a certain irony in that because there is no better known or better loved passage in the whole Bible than chapter 13.

It's been carved into more blocks of marble and woven into more samplers and written on more walls than any other single passage in the scripture. It's been set to more pieces of music memorized by more church school classes and yet invariably what we do lift it out of context as if it stood on its own. It doesn't really stand on its own.

There's a comparison and contrast running throughout the whole thing between what he's just been talking about and what he's about to return to in chapter 14, namely the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and what he now turns to address, which we would have to call the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Not to say we can't get a great deal out of chapter 13 just by looking at it but in context it it comes with a totally different kind of an impact it's as if paul interrupted himself as if he said i can't go on any further talking about the gift of the holy spirit without reminding you yet again of the context within which the whole operation of service and ministry has to take place namely the context of love. Now most of you are aware that the two major operations of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian are in terms of these two categories that we've been throwing around.

Gifts and fruit. Let's just define what we mean by that. Gifts we've already spoken about. Gifts are God's empowerment or anointing or equipment for service.

And we've already said no one gift for all Christians, no one Christian to have all the gifts. Different gifts for different Christians. The fruit of the Spirit, and note by the way it's fruit singular, it's all the fruit even though we can identify different aspects of it.

The fruit of the Spirit, I'd define this way: the character traits of disciplined faith. That's worth writing down. It's really the character of Jesus himself being reproduced in the life of his followers.

The fruit of the Spirit. Character traits that our character is being remolded, refashioned after his so that we literally become little Christs. The most familiar passage in which that's discussed is what?

Close. Galatians 5. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and so on.

He goes on and gives a list. Interestingly enough, once again, it's nine particular things that he mentions as fruit of the Spirit. It's not the only list.

You can turn to Colossians 3 and get a very similar phenomenon. Two lists which partially overlap, but not completely. And once again, we draw an identical conclusion.

He's not saying, this is all the fruit of the Spirit, nine fruits, that's all there are, there aren't any more. It's not reset. So this is what the fruit of the Spirit is like.

Love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, meekness, and over in Colossians he adds, faithfulness, self-control, forbearance, forgiveness, thankfulness, and so on. He's describing the character of Jesus, isn't he? And he's saying the fruit of the Spirit is that we are going to have character more and more and more resembling his.

Now the contrast is this. Whereas no one gift for all Christians, no one Christian to have all the gifts, different gifts for different Christians, when you come to the fruit, All the fruit for all the Christians. It's God's will that we become completely likened unto Christ in our character.

Not that we do all the different aspects of the ministry, but our character is fashioned after his. So all the fruit for all the Christians. The principal fruit of the Spirit is love, And everything else really is just an elaboration on that thing.

If you have love, everything else emanates from it. The old word charity. The giving of yourself as a present to others.

So what he's saying here is whilst we're talking about gifts, namely different kinds of service and ministry within the body of Christ, I've got to stop myself because I can't even go any farther without reminding you that the whole context within which that's to take place is the context of the fruit of the Spirit, namely the character of Christ being reproduced in us, and particularly that of love. Love is the fabric out of which all the patterns of ministry are going to be woven. And there you see the contrast.

If I speak in tongues, there's a gift. of men and even of angels, but have not love. What's my gift like?

Noisy gong, clanging cymbal, just making a lot of racket. If I have prophetic powers, there's a gift of the Holy Spirit. If I'm able to prophesy, okay?

Or if I understand all mysteries, I have a gift of knowledge and wisdom. Or if I have such faith that I can exercise the power to move mountains, but I have not love. Nothing.

Nothing. If I give away all that I have, there's a gift of contributions, generosity, or perhaps hospitality. Give away all that I have, and even deliver my body to be burned, which might be by implication the gift of martyrdom once again.

I gain nothing. You see the contrast. I can exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit without the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

It does not deny that the gift is real. But this is the point. Because the point was to edify, to build up, to affirm the other members of the body of Christ.

And if I just trumpet out my gift, Okay, without regard for you, I'm indulging myself in a display rather than edifying. And a prophet's life. A prophet's life.

Notice that love is not anywhere in this passage, or for that matter anywhere in the New Testament, defined in terms of emotion or feeling. that ought to surprise us because our whole culture has identified love with feeling, hasn't it? But it's not here.

It's defined in terms of attitude and action or commitment again. It's really saying this is how love behaves. Love bears all things.

It believes all things. It hopes all things. It endures all things.

It never ends. Prophecies will end. They'll pass away, verse 8.

Tongues will cease. Knowledge will pass away. Love will endure.

If we had the time, I think we could go through. There are 13 synonyms for love used in this chapter. And I think that at least 11 of them are also synonyms for patience.

I won't take the time to do that but you might have fun with that yourself that would lead you to the conclusion that love is at least 11 thirteenths patience and that's a whole lot easier to measure than feelings let me tell you notice what that has to say about our relationships with each other you know, you fail me, you disappoint me, and what am I called to do? To be patient with you. God isn't finished with you yet.

But how about my attitude toward myself? You know, I'm encouraged here to be patient with myself. God isn't finished with me yet either, praise God.

Please be patient with me. God isn't finished with me yet. Somebody said, the man who does not love himself has a neighbor who's in deep trouble.

If I'm to love my neighbor as I love myself and I don't love myself, my neighbor's in trouble. And what does that mean? Let's get really practical.

It means being patient, believing that God is working a work of wonder and redemption in my life. It's going to take time. You know, we want to be all glittery, gold, silver, and studded with emeralds.

And he says, "I remember your frame, that you're made of dust." That may surprise you, but it doesn't surprise him. He knows what he's working with.

He's the kind of God who can make a vessel of beauty out of dust. But the mark of maturity is that the fruit of the Spirit would be developed in us. Bishop Festo Cavenger. Mark of maturity. I want to reemphasize that. The fact that a little child of a rich man has piles and piles of gifts tells you nothing whatsoever about the maturity of that child, does it?

It's how he deals with what he has that may be a factor of his maturity. But having a gift is no measure of maturity. You may speak in tongues, or interpret, or prophesy, or heal, or work miracles, or do any of the rest of it, and that doesn't prove that you're a mature Christian.

In fact, if you do that without love, it may prove just the opposite. It may prove you're immaturity. The mark of maturity is the fruit of the Spirit, not the gifts of the Spirit.

You with me? That's the contrast. It's not to say we don't need gifts.

We need gifts to minister. But the mark of maturity is that the fruit of the Spirit would be developed in us. Bishop Festo Covengeri said, You know, a tree, when it's young, immature, green, stands up proud.

And as it gets mature and bears heavy fruit, the fruit humbles the truth. Good picture, isn't it? The message then is seek the gifts with the motive of love or in the context of love.

It's not either or. He's not saying, well, we've been talking about the gifts, now let's leave that behind and go on to something much more important. That's not what he's saying.

He's saying, I'll show you a more excellent way in which to seek and exercise the gifts. And chapter 14 begins, earnestly desire the spiritual gifts in the context of making love your aim. It's not either or, it's both and.

Again, I want to just mention in passing that the gifts are transitory, the fruit eternal. The gifts are several places referred to as an earnest, that's the King James word, or a down payment or a guarantee of the fullness of our inheritance. When Christ returns and we see him as he is, or when we're caught up with him into the heavenlies, then these little paltry gifts will pass away and be subsumed in something so infinitely more glorious that it's almost beyond imagining.

You might jot down a couple of references. We won't take the time to look at them. 2 Corinthians 1.22 and 5.5 and Ephesians 1.14 all speak of the Holy Spirit's manifesting himself in gifts in that way.

We move then into chapter 14, and the topic becomes specifically tongues and prophecy. I'm not going to read it all. I'm going to leave you to do that, but simply call your attention to a number of specific things.

Verse 1, seek especially prophecy. Seek especially prophecies saying, earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, okay, all of them. It's good to desire gifts so long as your motives are right.

It's good to desire gifts. God wants you not to hang back and say, he's got to zap me, but to be looking for opportunity to serve and to minister. earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, and especially that you have a connection of things to happen in the future.

It may include that, excuse me, but more frequently and more consistently, it's foretelling than it is foretelling. In other words, speaking God's Word into a given situation. Thus says the Lord to you.

Do this. Don't do that. That's prophecy.

Speaking the Word of God. Not preparing a sermon. Not reading the Word of God as written.

But being inspired by the Holy Spirit to say, this is God's Word to you. Right now. Right here.

To you corporately or possibly even to you individually. That's speaking a word of prophecy. That's a dangerous thing, isn't it?

Who am I to say what God's word is to you? Well, we'll come back to that in a few minutes. But he's saying that's the very top of the list.

Why? Think about it. Because if the purpose of all the gifts is to build you up and edify you and make you what God wants you to be, what could do that more profoundly than having a word from God directly to you hot off the griddle?

Huh? we used to worship in Connecticut in a church where they had a number of lay elders and a couple of ordained clergy, and one of the clergymen in particular had an unusually profound gift of prophecy. And at the end of the service, just as we've begun doing here, there was always opportunity for people to go forward for private prayer.

And most every Sunday, a lot of people did. and I used to drive a busload of students to this church and frequently many of them would go forward for private prayer. Of course, I knew exactly what they were going forward for because I'd been counseling with them all week.

And this particular clergyman did not simply go down the row like some of the others did. Some would just go and, you know, they'd say, what have you come for and how may I pray for you? You know, that would be a very effective and lovely ministry.

But he didn't do that. He would wait until God would direct him to one particular person or to another. And he would go and he wouldn't say, what have you come for?

He would come and he'd lay his hands on your head and he would speak. Thus says God. Thus says the Lord to you.

Sunday after Sunday, I had the experience of sitting in the front row close enough to hear what he was saying. And I knew what half a dozen different students had gone forward for, and he had no idea. And he'd get it right on target.

And let me tell you, when somebody comes who doesn't even know you, has never counseled with you, and speaks specifically to your situation, you know you're being dealt with by God. And that's life changing. And I've been on the receiving end of that.

And that's a story in itself, which I won't take the time to tell you. When God speaks a word of prophecy in that way, it really does. What all the gifts are intended to do, namely, it builds you up.

So that's why he says, especially prophecy. Then he goes on to make a contrast. that tongues by themselves are at the other extreme.

Prophecy is the most edifying, tongues all by themselves are the least edifying. Tongues is speaking in a language that I've never studied, in which I don't even understand. What half a dozen different students had gone forward for, And he had no idea. And he'd get it right out of time. Not recognizably a human language and may fall into the category of angelic speech. But the point is, whatever he's given, I don't understand it. I don't know what I'm saying.

He said, well, what good is that? no good to anybody else. And that's his point.

He who speaks in a tongue, verse 4, edifies himself, period. In contrast to he who prophesies and thereby edifies the church, edifies others. There are nonetheless at least three identifiable uses and reasons why God would give the gift of tongues.

And I want to elaborate on that for just a moment. There's a lot of controversy around tongues. I want to say again that it's not the be-all and end-all, but it's a good gift of God.

God doesn't give bad gifts to his children. It's a good gift, and it has some very specific functions to play, at least three that I'm aware of. Number one, it's a vehicle of praise.

I don't know if you've ever tried to praise God at some leisure and some length of time. I find that when I do that in English, it doesn't take me very long to run out of words. You know, after I've said the te deum, I've about finished.

We glorify thee, we praise thee, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. What more is that? We magnify thee.

We exalt thee, we lift thee up, and I'm done. But just think, if God were to give me a language which was not confined in that way, that he could just keep supplying words of praise, as long as I wanted to go on using them. Psalm 22 in verse 3 says that the Lord is enthroned on the praises of Israel.

And we know that he's everywhere. But in a special way, he comes to where he's being praised. And if you've ever praised him really freely in the spirit and at length, you know that that's true.

He comes in a powerful, palpable way that isn't true anywhere else. when he's just being praised. You get down in the dumps.

The surest cure for spiritual depression is praise God. It's one thing to praise him when you're on a high. Then it's easy.

The cure for being on a low is praise him. Praise him when you least feel like him. And he will come to you, make his presence known, and your spirits will begin to lift.

So that's the first thing. It's a vehicle of unhindered, unlimited praise. Secondly, it's a vehicle of intercession You might just flip back to Romans one more time To the twelfth chapter Sorry, the eighth chapter, I think Yes, eight And verse 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs or groanings in King James too deep for words.

Have you ever tried to pray for somebody and you just really you just want to support that person and be involved in meeting his or her need and yet you don't know how to pray. You don't know what to pray. You don't even clearly know what the need is.

Wouldn't it be a marvelous thing if God were able to pray through you and not be limited to your understanding. It's exactly what we just read. The gift of tongues is a vehicle for intercession.

As you focus your mind on the person or on the need, but you begin to pray in other than your own language as the Spirit supplies utterances, you don't know what you're saying. You don't need to know because God himself is meeting that need and you're participating in it via the gift of tongues. And thirdly, in a certain sense, I'd suggest to you that tongues may be a kind of training ground for some of the other gifts.

If you begin to speak in tongues and that becomes a genuine reality in your experience, you know that God is doing something in you quite distinct from what you do yourself. And on the basis of that experience, you begin to be able to distinguish what is of him from what is of me. I wonder if you've ever had the experience of somebody sharing a problem with you and you just had this deep gut feeling of what you ought to say and you thought it was from God but you weren't sure and so you didn't say anything.

Has anybody ever had that experience? Now, I suspect that may have been the promptings to prophecy at least some of the time. God, remember how we defined it, speaking his word, thus says the Lord, to you.

But you're nervous about that because that's a very dicey thing. Again, who am I to say what God's word is to you? And so you're reticent.

You don't want to take the risk of being wrong. I mean, you might do great damage. Worse than that, you might be laughed at.

How do you distinguish what is your gut reaction from what is a genuine inspiration from the Lord? Well, as you exercise the gift of tongues, you begin to develop a sensitivity. It won't be infallible.

But you begin to develop a background for making precisely that distinction. I know of few people who have publicly prophesied who haven't previously had experience of tongues. I do know some.

But I know of relatively few. So in a certain sense, it's a training ground for distinguishing prophecy and perhaps knowledge and wisdom and some of the other gifts as well. Verse 5, notice that having, in a sense, devalued tongues when it's all by itself because its influence, its edification, is only for the person speaking, he then turns right around and in verse 5 says that when it's linked to the gift of interpretation, it moves from the bottom end of the list right up next to prophecy now what is he talking about perhaps some of you have been in a meeting where somebody has gotten up and spoken a message in tongues and somebody else on the other side of the room has immediately responded with an interpretation in English that becomes a form of prophecy you might say well why didn't God just give the prophecy because he has a great sense of humor.

And because that demonstrates beautifully the lesson that we're trying to see with regard to all of the gifts, namely that they operate together. We need each other. And the guy who has a gift of interpretation isn't going to go anywhere with that unless somebody speaks in tongues first.

so for public use neither the gift of tongues nor the gift of interpretation are any good whatsoever unless they're linked together so he then goes on to say that he who speaks in tongues should pray for the ability to interpret in verse 13 the power to interpret so that it becomes more useful so it's not just edifying myself but it's edifying others as well. Verse 15, it's both and. Again, not just praying with my mind, that is forming my own prayers in my own language and understanding what I'm praying, nor just praying in tongues, which he calls praying with my spirit, but both.

Therefore I'll pray with my spirit and I'll pray with my mind also. I'll sing with the spirit, and I'll sing with the mind also. Let's skip down to verse 21.

He quotes something from Isaiah and enters into the most difficult part of the whole passage. He quotes from Isaiah 28. and verses 11 and 12.

By men of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people and even then they will not listen to me says the Lord. Now if you were to go back and look at that in Isaiah 28 the context is one of God unleashing his wrath on the people of Israel through the Assyrian army which is about to dominate and overtake them because of their pride and faithlessness. So its original context is, by a people of strange language, foreigners, I'm going to speak to my people, yet they won't heed me.

They won't listen to me. I'm going to use them to humble and to punish and to discipline my people. Paul takes that and now uses it as a backdrop for rather a different kind of a statement.

And it's very confusing the way it reads in English. Verse 22, thus tongues are assigned not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers. It seems to most people as if he turns right around and contradicts himself in the next verse.

If, therefore, the whole church assembles and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. Now you'd have to ask, in what sense are tongues assigned for unbelievers?

You would suppose, I think, that he would mean tongues are a sign that will convert unbelievers. But he turns right around and says the opposite. You would suppose when he says that prophecy is a sign for believers, that he would never draw the conclusion that he goes on to draw, that if unbelievers hear it, they're going to be converted and fall on their faces.

Let me paraphrase that, verse 22, for you. Tongues are a sign of the Holy Spirit that will not produce belief but unbelief. Whereas prophecy is a sign that will produce belief, not unbelief.

The sense in which they're a sign. Is there a sign that will just cause them to think you're crazy? You're mad. What in the world is all this going on?

If they hear a language which they can't understand and there's no interpretation and they don't believe anyway. But if they come in and God begins to speak as we've already described, words specifically to them fall on their knees and be converted. Maybe you've known people who have had that happen to them.

I have. Unbelievers who have come in and God spoke a specific word to them. They knew it was unmistakably for them.

It was too specific to be ignored. God is real. and they knew they were dealing with it.

Well, therefore, verse 26, he says, Come to worship prepared to be available to the Holy Spirit and prepared to share something verbal. What then, brethren, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Come to public worship prepared to let the Holy Spirit manifest himself through each one of us as he sees fit. When you come, some services are not particularly geared for that. Some are much more open to it.

I think especially of our Friday evening services. When you come, are you prepared to have God give a message through your lips? Speak a prophecy.

Give a word of wisdom or of knowledge. Give a tongue or an interpretation. Or are you going to hold back and say, well, it's somebody else.

That's not me. There's no spectator sports here. Come prepared.

Come prepared to give a lesson, to share a witness, to share a testimony, to share an insight, to lead a hymn. Come prepared. But, once again, bear in mind the motive and the context in which that is to be done.

Let all things be done for edification. Final part, then, of the chapter, he makes the point over and over and over that tongues in particular and all the gifts generally are under our control and to be disciplined by us. He says it in verse 27, verse 28, verse 29, verse 30, 31, 32.

And that's in sharp contrast to the opening paragraph of chapter 12. It may have been your experience in some other religious ecstasy or spiritual frenzy that you got worked up into that some spirit came over you and dominated you and you had no control. That is not the way God's spirit works.

God does not manipulate. He does not cast people into trances. He does not take you over and begin to use you like a marionette or a robot.

If you have tongues, you are in control of the tongues. If you have prophecy, you are in control of the prophecy. And it won't escape your lips unless you want it to and allow it to.

And in fact, the surest sign that it's an evil spirit rather than the Holy Spirit is when somebody does go into some kind of fit or he loses control. The evil one can duplicate, or not duplicate, but can counterfeit any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But that's one of the surest signals to us that he's doing so.

So he says, If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or three at most, and each in turn, and let one interpret. If there's no one to interpret, let each of them keep silence in church, speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak.

Let the others weigh what is said. Remember, we've acknowledged at least twice that there's a risk in presuming to say, thus says the Lord. But there's a check and balance system here.

Let the other prophets weigh it. Say, yeah, I confirm. God is saying that.

That's a word from God. Or, no, sorry, nice try, but you missed it. We need to support each other in love in that regard.

You see the general conclusion that we draw here. They're under our control, and we're to control them, and we're to discipline them. One final thing, and then we conclude.

The business in verses 34 to 36 about women's silence in church. You didn't think I was going to duck that, did you? This is an opinion area, and I admit it, and I can't prove it irrefutably, but it is my opinion that this, like the business of the length of your hair and whether or not your head should be covered, is a concession to the culture of the time.

It was absolutely scandalous that women would even be admitted to public worship. Neither the Jews did it, nor did the Romans, nor did the Greeks. And yet here the Christians were having women and men gathering together in public worship.

The overwhelming majority of them were not well educated and certainly were not trained in the business of public worship. You can just picture the scene. What's going on?

What's he saying? Why are they doing that? And Paul says, if they have any questions, let them ask their husbands when they get home.

Now, I offer you that opinion because, and again, we don't have the time to go through all the relevant scriptures, but it is absolutely clear that you can't make that, you can't make it an absolute. There were prophetesses. Where did they exercise their gift of prophecy if not in the church?

Obviously. There were any number of roles that women could play. But the generalization is, don't create yet a further scandal.

Let things be done decently and in good order. My opinion, that's a statement of the culture of the time. I'm going to leave it at that, and you can argue with me afterward.

The summary, then, for the whole passage comes in the very last comment. Verse 39. So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues, but all things should be done decently and in order.

and one other verse from the middle of the passage, verse 12. Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

One Spirit many manifestations. Seek the gifts God wants to give them. Seek them out of a desire to be of greater availability to Him and to each other.

Seek them in the context of love. No one gift for all the Christians, but all the Christians to have all the fruit. Let all things be done decently and in good order.

And so may the body of Christ be built up, equipped for every good work. Let's stand and pray together. Let's have two or three people lead us in a prayer. Oh, Lord, how grateful we are that you love us so much, that you send your Spirit to abide with us, that you give us these gifts, that through these gifts we receive power, that we might glorify you and do your work, your honor. Unworthy as we are, we thank you for this, Father. Lord fill us with your love and so Lord help us to understand what you have said to believe your promises to us to begin to be excited about what you would do with us, to anxiously desire all that you would have for us, to become more and more conformed to the nature and character of Christ and more available to serve the other members of his body. that those who come into our midst would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is here he is alive he is real he is powerful he is Lord and he is infinitely attractive because He is love. We do ask it in His name. Amen. .