In Canto is the story of the Madrigal family and the Madrigal family live in a house in a rural area, but it's a secret area in Columbia Hidden Village. And in the story, each member of the Madrigal family receives a special unique gift as a family, such as Super Strength or the ability to heal with food or
controlling the weather. And all of the magic that all of the magic that comes to this family comes from a candle that was given to Abuela the the mother and grandmother of the family during a difficult season of her life. And in the story, Mirabelle is the main character of the story. But the unique thing about Mirabelle is that she doesn't receive a special gift on the day that she comes for her ceremony. And so this leaves her feeling sort of left out from the family.
She feels inadequate. She feels like everybody else has a gift and and they have something to offer to the family, but she feels like she's not worthy. She doesn't have a gift to use for the family. And as the story goes along, we find out that the Mirabel house is in danger and and the power is beginning to disappear and it looks like there's fractures that are going to split up the
family. And so even though Mirabel knows she doesn't have any special abilities, she begins to try to figure out what is going on and how she can help. And in the end, Mirabelle learns that that even though she doesn't have a a magical power, she has a unique ability to bring her family together. And she actually fixes many of the issues and and causes the family that was going to be broken and fall apart to come back together in unity.
And she plays a crucial role in healing those rifts and restoring the magic. And this morning we're going to talk about spiritual gifts in the church. And, and maybe you've had similar feelings to that of Mirabel. Maybe you feel like, OK, well, this topic of spiritual gifts, I, I don't have a gift. Or maybe you think that my gift isn't, is, isn't meaningful or it isn't worth anything because that person has a better gift.
And you're comparing yourselves to other people in the church or maybe you know what your gift is, but but you think your gift is for yourself. And you're beginning to boast and in the gift that you have been given by the Spirit and whatever doubt it is that you're facing, whatever it is that you're going through in your spiritual gift or your desire to know what it is, you may not be using it. All of these things can cause you to not serve the church.
The result of that is that you and the church suffer because the church doesn't get the gift that it needs. But you don't also grow through the use of your gift. To not use your spiritual gifts is to not understand the purpose that the Holy Spirit gives them to us.
The purpose of spiritual gifts is to grow the church up into the fullness of Christ. And so if we don't have your gift, we can't do that because you have a unique gift, a unique calling on the Holy Spirit from the Holy Spirit to help the church grow. God cares so much about his church that he gives his children specific gifts to help it grow and mature into Christ. And this is exactly what Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand.
They had questions about spiritual gifts and he wanted to answer them. He said, I, I don't want you to be uninformed about these things. I want you to know. And so maybe you have questions about spiritual gifts as well. And praise be to God that we have this part of the letter to the Corinthians so that we can learn along with the Corinthians at that time of what Paul wants us to understand about spiritual gifts.
So if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 12, we're going to be in verses one through 11 today. First Corinthians chapter 12, verses one through 11. And we've been going through this letter first Corinthians, and this is a letter that Paul wrote to a church that he started in the city of Corinth. And Paul had many things to correct in this church because they had allowed worldly thinking to come into the church.
And that's exactly what Paul is addressing here as well. And last week we Jonah, Pastor Jonah talked about the fact that they had allowed the world to come in even into their Lord's Supper, where where they were segregating over over different socio economic lines. And the wealthy were, were over here getting drunk and, and eating while poor people were out there going hungry. And and Paul condemns that. He's like, what are you guys doing? This is not the sort of division.
This is not what the body of Christ is supposed to look like. And as we go through today's passage, we're going to see that Paul is going to correct some more of that fleshly thinking that focuses on self and helps them to see how they're to put others 1st and use their gift to serve one another. And So what we're going to see this morning is that if you have the Spirit, you have a Master, you have power, and you have a
gift. Let's pray for the Lord's wisdom before we dig into the text this morning. Father, we thank you for the fact that you have given us your Spirit. We thank you that that distinguishes us from the people of this world because we have Christ's own spirit dwelling inside of us. Lord, we pray that that you would fill us with a sense of the understanding of what that means today.
Maybe we have misconceptions and misunderstandings about who the Spirit is, but today we know we will learn who the Spirit is, Lord, And we pray that by the Spirit's power in our hearts in our lives, as we read into this text, as we seek to understand what Your Word has to say, Lord, would Your Spirit help us to know that we have power, that we have a gift that we can use for the building of Your Kingdom? Lord, would you open our eyes
and use Your word to do that? Or would you strengthen us as a church that we can serve one another and grow into the fullness of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen. So let's go through First Corinthians chapter 12, verses one through 11, First Corinthians chapter 12, one through 11. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were LED astray to mute idols.
However you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are a 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, for to one is given the Spirit, for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same spirit, to another faith, by the same spirit, to another gifts, 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 1 and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. So the first thing that we will see today is that if you have the spirit, you have a master. Before we were Christians, we lived to ourselves. We we lived the way that we thought we wanted to live, seeking to indulge our flesh, seeking to build our our
kingdoms. But the moment we received the Holy Spirit, we received a new heart and a new master. Now we understand that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is our Master and our desire is to live for him. That's because now that you have the Spirit, you are no longer of this world. Verse 2 says you know that when you were pagans, you were LED astray to mute idols. However you were led, and the Corinthians, before they came to know Christ as their savior, they were led astray to mute idols.
We've already learned from Paul that idols are not gods at all. They're, they're nothing. And so they can't instruct and they can't teach anyone. They're mute. They're, they, they are powerless. And so the, the Corinthians had been LED astray to worshipping these false, all these false idols, these false gods. But they thought that they were real. But now they understood that they weren't. They knew that Christ, now they understood that Christ was God.
Now they had the Spirit. They recognized through the Spirit that Jesus is Lord. And so they had a new master. They were no longer of this world. We also see that you have, if you have the Spirit, you are no longer your own. Look at verse 3. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now it seems that the Corinthians were confusing their
worship. They were bringing in the ideas of the world into their worship. One of the highest forms of worship in Pagan worship was a supposed superior supernatural interaction with a deity. And so they thought that if you could get drunk enough, and if you could go into this area and, and have these, they had these chants and these prayers and, and drunkenness and orgies. And they thought that through this ecstasy they could somehow have communion with the gods.
And they were beginning to bring that into the church. And Paul is going to address speaking in tongues a lot. And, and maybe that's what they were doing. Maybe this led to to speaking in tongues. And Paul is clear to say no one ever speaking in the Spirit is going to say Jesus is cursed. No one in the Spirit is ever going to say that. And so he's correcting their
worship. He's making it clear that when we acknowledge Jesus is Lord, you can only do that through the Holy Spirit. You can only realize that you are not your own, that you have a master through the power of the Holy Spirit, otherwise you won't believe that. This then is how we distinguish between believers and non believers. If you have the Spirit, you, the spirit in you testifies that Jesus is Lord. And if Jesus is Lord, then you're no longer of this world
and you're no longer your own. Jesus is your master in the Gospel according to Luke. He shares the story of the Garricean demoniac. And once when Jesus is is crossing over the sea, after he after he calms the storm, he comes to the country of the Garris scenes. And there's this demon possessed man who who comes out and meets him. And we learn about this man that that he was so demon possessed and the demons in him were so powerful that he could no longer be bound.
They they tried to bind him with chains and shackles, but he was so strong he would just RIP them apart and continue to go out. And so they stopped even trying and he would just wander about screaming in the wilderness. And when he comes to Jesus, through an amazing display of Jesus power, he casts out the demons and they go into a herd of pigs and they rush over the Cliff. And then Luke 835 tells us.
Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And so this man, after being delivered from the power of the enemy to Jesus, begged Jesus to follow him. But Jesus said, no, stay here, go to your home and tell everyone what God has done for you. And so he did. He went into the city, and he told everyone what Jesus had
done for him. Well, brothers and sisters, before we were in Christ, we were in bondage to sin and to the things of this world. We were in bondage. We were led astray through the world, through the flesh and through the devil. But now that we have been freed through the power of Christ, we have been saved. We have been set free from that bondage. Those shackles have been torn off and we are now free in Christ. Now, through the Holy Spirit, we recognize that Jesus is our Lord.
He is our Master. Do you desire to sit at the feet of your Savior and learn from Him as this man did who was freed from the power of Christ? We should wake up every day with grateful, joyful, Worshipful hearts for all that Christ has done for us and come and sit at the feet of Christ and and immerse ourselves in His Word so that we can experience His grace in our lives, coming to His Word daily.
And as we come each and every day to God's Word to sit at the feet of our Savior and to learn and to listen to Him, His Spirit will transform us through His Word into the image of Christ. Brothers and sisters, if Jesus is your master, if Jesus is your Lord, then you're no longer of this world. You're no longer even your own. Your desire should be to honor and glorify your Master who saved you and freed you from
bondage to sin. The next thing that we see is if you have the Spirit, you have power. Paul has has laid the foundation. We first need to understand if you have the Spirit, and if you do, you acknowledge that Jesus is your Lord, He is your Master. You truly do have His Spirit. And now that you have His Spirit, you must recognize that He has given you power through His Spirit. But what you need to know first is that your power is from God. Look at verses 4 through 6.
Now there are a varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are a varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are a varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Paul here teaches that that there are many different kinds of gifts, there are many different kinds of service, there are many different kinds of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all. And notice the Trinity here,
that that's not by accident. We see the Spirit, we see the Lord which is referring to Jesus, and we see God the Father. The Trinity is intricately involved in giving power to His people for the for the purpose of using that power to grow the church. God's church is going to be full of people who have His spirit and therefore have His power. But that power doesn't come from you. It's not an ability that you have. It's not a natural talent.
It's not a natural gift. It is a unique power that comes from God. Next, Paul shows us that your power is for others. Look at verse 7. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Rather than seeing that their power was for the good of others, the Corinthians were beginning to see their power as a way to exalt themselves and to benefit themselves. They definitely saw that in our text last week, right as Pastor Jonah talked about, they were
indulging themselves. Hey, all this blessing, all this joy. Hey, we receive all these blessings from Christ and I'm going to enjoy them with me and my friends and not see them as a benefit to the whole church. That's what the Corinthians were doing. They were messed up. This led to division in the church. And, and Jake is going to talk about the, the rest of chapter 12 next week.
And what we're going to see next week is that there were some people who said, man, I, I, I don't have that gift, so I must be meaningless. And then there were other people who said, Hey, I, I don't need you. There was their spiritual gifts. Their power was actually creating divisions rather than bringing them together into one body. But Paul wanted them to understand, and he wants us to understand that if you have the spirit, you have power. That power is from God, but it
is for others. In the book of Acts we learn about Simon the sorcerer. He was a magician who for many years he he amazed the people with his power so much so that they thought he was God. And after hearing the gospel Phil this Simon the sorcerer believed in Jesus and he followed Philip everywhere he went. And one day as the as the apostles came from Jerusalem to to lay hands on people, they received the Holy Spirit.
And Simon said in Acts chapter 19 verse, Acts chapter 8, verses 19 through 24, give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the
bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, Pray to me for them, for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have said may come upon me now it it seems that Simon had a repentant hearted we, but we don't hear about him from here. So we don't really know what happened to him. But we do learn from Peter's rebuke that he had sin in his heart. He had a sinful attitude. He had a desire to use the power of God for selfishness. There's actually a word that we have that's based on his name.
It's called simony and it's using religion as a means of profit. Brothers and sisters, we have to be so careful of this as well that we don't seek to use our religion. We don't seek to use our power for ourselves, for our own benefit, for our own profit. This is so easy to do in our day and age because the second we think that we have a marketable skill or a marketable product or a marketable service, we right away begin thinking about, well, how can I use this to to become wealthy?
How can I use this to bring an income? And I'm not saying that's bad in and of itself. We, we need to find ways to to earn a living and earn an income. But when it comes to religion, when it comes to the things of God, we should never seek to become wealthy. We should never seek to use the power and the gifts of God for our own benefit. We must recognize that that power we have is from God, but for others, it's not for us. It's not for our profit.
We can take no credit for the power that we have from God. And our power is not for our benefit. It's for the benefit of others, the church. And how we might ask, how does our power, how does the power that the Holy Spirit has given us, how does it benefit the church? Well, Paul teaches the Ephesians that Christ gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists,
the shepherds and teachers. Why did he give the church those people to equip the Saints for the work of ministry so that the Saints would build up the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I will say as a pastoral team, this section of Scripture has shaped our vision for this
church. You may come from a background where the pastor sits at the front of the stage and and you come here to hear what the pastor has to say. And when you go out, you don't go back to the Word of God. You don't go learn for yourself. You just simply listen to what the pastor says and you don't question anything. You don't read the word of God because you don't learn more because you don't want to be held accountable for more. Brothers and sisters, that is wrong.
That is false. This section of scripture shapes our vision for our church because we as leaders are not here to bottle feed. You come to the church so that you can grow. No, we as pastors, we as leaders are here to help you grow up in your faith so that you are doing the work of ministry in the church. Brothers and sisters, you help the church to grow to the full stature and the fullness of Christ, Not me.
All of us working together through the power that Christ has given to us, work together to build up the church. And this brings glory to Christ. And that's why the Holy Spirit came to bring glory to Christ. It is the Spirit's joy to bring glory to Christ and so bring glory to the Father. Jesus said this when speaking to his disciples.
When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. The Spirit longs to bring glory to Christ, and so He empowers us so that the church becomes more like Jesus. And so you must find ways to use the power that you have to help
the church grow in maturity. Next, we see that if you have the Spirit, you have a gift. Those who have Christ's Spirit recognize that he's their Lord, He's their master. They have received power from him through his Spirit, and they use that power to grow the church. And the way they do that is through the unique gifts that the Spirit has given them. And so as Paul begins to list some of these gifts, I want to emphasize 2 principles.
We will talk a little bit about the gifts themselves, but I want to emphasize 2 principles that Paul shows us in these gifts. First, the Spirit gets the glory. Paul is going to list the gifts, but look at the emphasis.
I want you to listen as I, as I read this section, listen to the emphasis on the Holy Spirit. For to one this is verse eight and eight through 10. For to one is given through the Spirit. The utterance of wisdom to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another, faith by the same spirit to another, gifts of healing by the one spirit to another, 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. And so Paul doesn't go into the details of what these gifts are and what they mean and how they manifest himself. He simply names some of them. But what he wants to be abundantly clear is that they all come from the Spirit. The Spirit gets the glory for your gift. Nobody can take credit for the gift they have. No one can boast in the gift they have.
They did nothing to get it. And again, what I want us to understand is it's spiritual gifts are not natural gifts and talents and abilities you don't have. The spiritual gift is not being able to to bake pie really well. Although I heard listen to the sermon from John MacArthur this week, he said it's not it's not the ability to make pie. But I'd be more than happy to verify if you, if you're good at making pie, but that's not the point.
It's not a natural ability. And that's quite honestly, brothers and sisters, I kind of wanted to, to give a, a spiritual gifts assessment to you all that, hey, we're coming into this section on spiritual gifts. I wonder if we could give them a test so that they could take this test and they would know what gifts they have.
But as I began researching and I I listened to one guy and he had this article and he said the problem with spiritual gift assessments is that they're usually based on a Myers Briggs. So they're based on your temperament, your personality, your character traits. And he said the problem with that is a non believer and a believer can both take that same test and have the same results. How can a non believer have a spiritual gift? They can't.
A spiritual gift is something that if you took this test the day before you came to Christ and took a spiritual gifts test the day after you came to Christ, there would be a vast difference because now you have a unique spiritual gift that is unique to you. It's something you didn't have before you came to Christ. So it's not your personality, it's not your character, it's not natural abilities.
It's a unique gift that God has given to you to build up the church, but we can't take any credit for that. And we can't coerce the Holy Spirit to try giving us a certain gift either. Like Simon the sorcerer, I came to like, well, I'll, I'll serve you for the rest of my life if you just give me that gift. Or hey, I'll pay for that. No, you can't do that because the next thing we learn is that the Spirit gets to choose. Look at verse 11.
All these are empowered by one in the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. God the Holy Spirit, equally. God with God the Son and God the Father uses His wisdom to give gifts to whoever He chooses in His sovereign will. He makes that decision, and there's nothing that you can do to influence that decision.
We are all saved into one body, Christ's church, and yet each one of us individually is gifted by the Spirit for the purpose of growing up the church into the fullness of Christ. Now, the fact that the Spirit chooses all the gifts shows that there should be unity. The Spirit who chooses every gift that each person is going to have is not going to give gifts that cause tension, that cause division.
He overseas all of the gifts and so he gives the gifts so that there's cohesion, there's unity, there's togetherness in Christ. They all are meant to work together for the good of everyone. If you have the Spirit, you have a gift and the Spirit gets the glory because the Spirit gets to
choose who gets what gift. Now in John, in John's Gospel just before Jesus ascension, he shares the story that that no other gospel writer shares of after Jesus resurrection that that Peter went out to go fishing. He there was lots of things going through his mind and he goes out to go fishing and there were six other disciples who followed him. And so they, they go out and they begin fishing, but they don't catch anything. And then Jesus is standing on the shore.
They don't know it's Jesus, but he says, cast the net on the other side of the boat. And so they do and, and they can barely haul in this net. It's about to tear. They're surprised that it didn't tear, but they can barely haul it in. And, and then they go on the the beach and, and they enjoy this communion, this fellowship, this breakfast with Jesus around the fire. And as they're eating, we, we know this question that Jesus continually asks Peter, do you love me?
And Peter says, yes, three times he asks the question and three times Peter says, yes, I love you, Lord. And then as Jesus begins to talk about Peter's life, he says he predicts Peter's death and he says, follow me. But then Peter turns to John and says, when when Peter saw him, he he, he turned, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. Now what Jesus is saying is
don't worry about that guy. Don't worry about other people, don't worry what gift they have. Don't worry what I'm calling him to do. It's none of your business what I'm calling him to do. You just worry about yourself and you follow me. Now he's not saying that in a way that we shouldn't worry about the church and the body, but he's saying it's not your business how God gifts someone
else. It's not your business what God calls someone else to. You need to worry about yourself and maybe you're fixated on other people, whether that's insecurity and doubt for yourself. Maybe you feel like I don't, I don't have a meaningful gift. Or maybe I don't have a gift at all. And man, I wish I had that gift. But what you're failing to understand is that that God is calling you to use your gift. He's not asking you to account for why you don't have someone
else's gift. The beauty of the gifts is that we work together. I can serve you through the use of my gift of teaching you the word of God, but you can serve me with your gifts in ways that I need help, that I need growth. Brothers and sisters, I can lack faith at times. Some of you have a faith that that that is incredible to me. And it's shown in your prayer because you pray and you pray and you pray and you are so persistent in your prayer.
You have a faith that teaches me and when we all work together and use our gifts for one another, that is the beauty of the church growing together in the fullness of Christ. Well, on the other side, maybe you are boasting in your gift. Maybe you think that your gift is so much better than everyone else is that you don't need everyone else. You need to recognize your need for the body.
You have blind spots that you don't know about, and you need the body to help you to grow into the fullness of Christ. And so we need to recognize and thank God for the gifts that other people have because they serve us. And so we should thank God for other people, but we should also seek to know our gift and how we can serve the body so that it
grows. Now I just want to sort of briefly go over some of these spiritual gifts that then maybe you would pray through it and, and seek the Lord's wisdom on whether you have these gifts or not. I'll just sort of briefly go over them. Paul mentions wisdom. Maybe you have a, a unique ability to take God's word and to apply it to everyday life. Maybe you have knowledge, which may be a, a deep insight into God's Word that doesn't just come from human understanding.
It comes from the Spirit. And that's what we need to recognize about these spiritual gifts. They're not just things that we just conjure up in our flesh. These are gifts that are unique to the Holy Spirit. They're Holy Spirit empowered. Maybe you have faith, a deep trust in God that allows you to pray fervently and to pray persistently. Now Paul mentions healing and miracles and tongues and, and there are some people who believe that that these gifts exist specifically today.
And there are others who believe that that these gifts were given to the church for a specific set of time and then they ceased. And the purpose of those gifts was to validate the church that the Christ was in his church through his power. Now I do believe that God can and does do miracles today through faith, through prayers of faith, but I do lean towards that, that those gifts were were for a specific season, for a specific time. And the reason for that is what
we've just learned today. If the Holy Spirit is the one who gets to choose, then I would ask the question, why don't we have someone with the gift of healing? Because it's a, it's a Holy Spirit given gift. And if we don't have people in our church or in our churches or around the world who have those gifts, then the Holy Spirit is not giving that gift to the church.
And so it seems most practical to me that that those gifts were for a season during Jesus's ministry and during the life of the early church to validate who Jesus was and that he truly was God the Son. Again, I'm not saying God doesn't do miracles today. He absolutely does through prayers of faith. Maybe you have the gift of prophecy, which is preaching and teaching God's Word, or the the ability to distinguish between spirits, which is a special discernment. Some people have that special
discernment. You know those people, they, they, they can read into a situation in a way that you can't. And more often than not, they're right. What gift has the Spirit given you for the purpose of benefiting the church? Now, some of you may know Austin Matthews. He's a hockey player on the Toronto Maple Leafs. This year, Austin Matthews is set to make $16.7 million, and rightfully so because he's incredibly valuable to the team. Do do you know what his ability is?
Do you know what his gift is? He sits on the bench and he sits on the bench like nobody you've ever seen before. Let me tell you. He sits there and he takes that space, and then when he moves over, that space is nice and warm for the next guy who slides over. And he is just gifted at sitting on the bench like nobody, you know? Now, if that sounds ridiculous, it is ridiculous because I made that up.
Obviously, the Toronto Maple Leafs would never pay somebody $16.7 million to sit on the bench. They're giving him that money because he's incredibly gifted as a hockey player and he's going to use that gift to help the team hopefully one day win a Stanley Cup. Some some of us shaking their heads or there's a lot of hope there. Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit didn't give you the gift to sit on the bench. He didn't give you the gift to sit down and let everybody else
do the work. You have a gift to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ. It may not be the way that I do it. It may not be the way that somebody else do it does it. But you have a specific gift to strengthen the church, to help it grow into the fullness of Christ, and it's not going to get there until you start helping. We are missing out on your gift
if you don't serve. And so I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, to prayerfully discern where God is calling you, where God has gifted you to serve the church. Pray this week through these gifts and ask the Lord if one of them is yours. Maybe ask other people that know you and say, is there anything that you see in my life, spiritual gifting that you would say that I'm uniquely gifted and
I should begin to pursue? Maybe there's an area of church that you say I, I think maybe I could serve there. Don't be scared to jump in. We, we don't want people to come in and serve. And then we're going to lock you in and oh, now you have to do this for the rest of your life. We want you to find an area to serve that empowers you because once you're that you'll know you'll get in there and you'll be like, you know what? I, I just don't get anything out
of this. All right, then tell your leader and say, I got to try something else. We'll fill that spot with somebody else and then go to the thing. We want you to find the area of service in the church that empowers you. And the beautiful thing about a gift that empowers is that no matter what sacrifice it requires, you're willing to do it because you get a sense of joy, a sense of blessing out of of doing something that God has gifted you to do.
Brothers and sisters, the church will never grow into the fullness of Christ until we are all working together to build the body of Christ. And I want to take a moment to speak specifically to those in the room who maybe don't recognize Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Maybe you're like the Corinthians at at the beginning where Paul says you once were LED astray to idols and you didn't know Jesus as your Savior. Maybe you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but you've
heard about him. You've heard about what he has done for you, that that he came down in the form of man, God in the form of man, to live a perfectly righteous life, to die as a sacrifice for our sins, and then die and be buried and raised again and ascended to the throne. All so that through faith in Him, your sins could be forgiven. And as we've learned today, look at the care and the love that he has for His church, for his body, to gift it, to care for it, and to help it to grow.
Maybe you would consider giving your life to the Lord today.
Maybe you're sensing that call of the Lord on your life, to trust in Jesus as your Master, to surrender your life and to become a part of his body so that you grow into the fullness of Christ. We would encourage you to talk with one of us pastors or or even just someone around you, someone that you know is a believer, and ask them what it means to follow Christ. What a joy it is to be a part of a body that God himself cares for and grows.
And would we serve together as we grow into the fullness of Christ, that we may bring glory and honor to Him. Let's bow for prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the gift of your Spirit. What a wonderful privilege it is to have your spirit dwelling in us.
This is this is a down payment. It is a guarantee that that we know that we are yours, that we can be guaranteed that we are going to go to heaven one day because of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. But this is the Holy Spirit is not just for some future date and hopefully one day we'll get to just experience heaven forever, but it is the Holy Spirit has given to us now that we might have power and a gift to help the church grow into all that you want it to be.
Lord, we pray for that you would fill us with your Spirit. I pray that that you would help us to understand how you've gifted us so that we can serve one another and grow together so that we may bring glory and honor to our Savior who is worthy of all praise. We thank you in Jesus name, Amen.