Episode 296: For the Common Good | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

We are in 1 Corinthians 12. Inside of that will be some teaching about the spiritual gifts, but this is not a thematic teaching on the gifts. That may come on another Sunday. We're really trying to walk through 1 Corinthians 12, 1 through 11.

So, help me out. If I came to you or if anyone came to you and said, hey, where in the Bible would you find passages that list the spiritual gifts—the gifts God, the Holy Spirit gives to Christians so that they can build up his church, his body, and make them healthy—where would you go?

Well, one's obvious because we're in it today. That's an easy one. Go ahead.

1 Corinthians 12

Right. Romans 12. Awesome. We're going to look at that in a second. Where else? Maybe one or two others that are smaller.

Ephesians 4. Right. And a lot of people say, well, that's not really spiritual gifts. That's offices—apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, shepherds, etcetera. I don't know, man. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck. It may be an office, but I believe it is a gift for God's body, the church.

So, we got 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4. Is anywhere else y'all can think of?

1 Peter 4, right. So, let's just take a look at a couple; we can't do them all because it's not the main point today.

Romans 12 says this, Paul speaking to Christians:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

And so, there's two important things we learn in this quick little snippet. One, we don't all have the same gift. I don't know what it is on us, but we always want people to have the gift we have. If they don't, we want to judge them. But God's designed it just the way he wants.

Just like in baseball or lacrosse or soccer, any sport, you've got to have positions. If everybody was a pitcher, that'd be awesome, but it would be incomplete. If everybody was a point guard, you'd have problems on the boards. So, God has given all these gifts and graces. And so, no matter what they are, they all come from the same Lord.

That's kind of the bottom line upfront of the whole message. God gives believers gifts to build up the bride he loves, his church. And the punchline is what? It's in bold for you.

Let us use them.

I mean, isn't it ridiculous if somebody gave you something amazing and just had it wrapped, like at Christmas? You get this amazing present. Who knows? Could be the thing you asked Santa for. It could be something really powerful and big but you just leave it under the tree all year. No. You open that sucker right on up, right? And the Lord's saying, open the gift up. Use them. My bride, the church, is not nearly as healthy as she could be because people aren't opening the packages. They're not using the gifts God the Father has given us.

Next slide. Now, a lot of you, when you hear talk about spiritual gifts, maybe you're brought up in a really Pentecostal church or maybe you weren't, but either way, you're afraid it's going to get kind of weird, right? A little weird. Sometimes, friends, I think our church needs to get a little weirder. We're stiff sometimes. We're stiff.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying we do this. However, I applaud these guys for one main reason. That may not be your style of worship, but what could we applaud about what you see in that picture? They're all joining in. They're all ministering in the name of Jesus, not sitting in the pew, bored, surfing on their iPhone. They're ministering. They're joining in.

Next slide, please.

Alright. So, Romans, another part of Romans 12 says this. Now, I've done the sign gifts, the supernatural gifts, if you will, the more charismatic Pentecostal gifts in red and the ones that Anglicans, Methodists, and other Lutherans, people like that feel more comfortable with. So, red is Holy Spirit Pentecostal and yellow is something the others seem to be okay with.

So, it is. If your gift is prophecy, use it in proportion to your faith. Now, prophecy could be like in the Old Testament where there's a prophetic word given about what's going to happen in the future.

Turn from your sins because if you don't, this will happen.

Could be prophetic like that, but in the New Testament, they tell us what prophecy is. You speak to another person to strengthen them, to encourage them, and to comfort them in the name of Jesus. Strengthen them. Encourage them. Comfort them. So, you're doing that under the power of the Spirit—that is, in fact, prophecy. Whoo.

Now, what are the other gifts? Serving. We got a lot of people in our church that serve. I think we're very high in that. Thank God for the snack fairies—and dudes, I'm sorry I call you snack fairies, but it's just a cool phrase we came up with. Thank you for serving.

Next gift: teaching. We got to see Trish Cunningham, fairly new to our church, PhD, Colson fellow, got to try teaching in front of the body today. I said, Trish, we're going to give you a trial run, and if it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us, you'll teach more.

We protect the teaching of God's word, and you should be glad because if you bring a friend or if you have your kid in a class, you want to make sure the person teaching them knows Jesus, knows his word, and is healthy.

So, there's prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation—speaking courage. Speaking courage. My wife has done this so many times for me in ministry. Satan will beat any Christian, but especially a minister of the gospel. He gets inside your head, and my wife sometimes just says, "Strike that one off your list. Don't listen to the lies." Take every thought captive. She speaks that to me.

Next, generosity. Now, all Christians are called to be generous, but there are some people that are just—they're just crazy generous. I remember, we ask all our missionaries, "Hey, how much do you give to the Lord? How are you taking care of what the Lord's put in your hand?" One kid who was in college had a nothing job, and his wife was in nursing school, and she had a nothing job. They send in the form because they were going to be missionaries. And I said, well, how much? The form says, how much did you give? And they said, 26%. And I said to myself, you're such a hypocrite for asking because you're not even near that. But I was blown away that this family, this young family, had this going on. They were generous, like ridiculously generous.

Next one: leading. A lot of you guys are taught leadership at an MBA school, and that's awesome. Thank God for you. We need you. But there's a spiritual gift of leading, where somebody has the anointing and the power of God to lead God's people through difficult and hard things. That's a spiritual gift.

The last one of acts is acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Next slide, please. So, from there, we go to the end of 1 Corinthians. It's not part of the passage we're actually looking at, but it is one of the few passages that talks about spiritual gifts.

Again, yellow and red. Yellow: gifts that are kind of regular and not so sensational, if you will. Not Roman candle kind of gifts. The red ones are more spectacular, sensational, sign gifts, if you will.

Let's look at it. God is appointed in the church. You notice who's doing the appointing? Not the pastor, the Lord.

God is appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, teachers, then miracles and gifts of healing, helping, and administration.

The first thing I want to say is, there are no more—I don't care what you call yourself—there are no more apostles. What was the requirement for an apostle in the New Testament? They had to be with Jesus during the time of his ministry. They had to see him be put to death. They had to see him raised from the dead. And oh yes, there's Saint Paul, who refers to himself as one untimely born. We read the words of the apostles. They're known as holy scripture. And so, anybody that appoints themselves an apostle is a fake.

However, there are people with apostolic giftings. Like, we know this man in India. He's planting like a thousand churches. I don't know how he does it. God gave him the grace and the ability to do that. So, he has an apostolic anointing.

How about prophets? Sometimes, the prophets like Nathan coming to King David and exposing his adultery and saying—tells us a little parable—and eventually, David goes, "That man deserves to die." And Nathan goes, "You are that man." So, sometimes, we see that kind of gifting.

Teachers, you know what that is. A lot of you may teach for a living. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have the spiritual gift of teaching. But if you do, how cool is that? Amazing.

Miracles. I want to be in a church where miracles happen. I don't want to chase miracles, but I think as we pray, God does what God does. C.S. Lewis says, sometimes God drops a handkerchief just to show he's God.

And you guys, we've prayed for hundreds of people here that we never see get healed. But there have been many who've come here for blindness, for other issues. We had one lady I remember—she'd tried to have a baby over and over again. They went through all these treatments. Some of y'all know this. And she said, "Would you pray for me?" And I was feeling like a hypocrite that day because I hadn't been close with Jesus that week. I'd missed my devotions half the days, and I probably yelled at my wife. And yet, this lady's here and she needs prayer. So, I have nothing really spiritual to give her. And so, out of obedience because I love Jesus, I laid hands on the woman. No emotion, no nothing, just said a prayer.

Funny thing is, we get a call. I don't know if it's three, four, five weeks later. She says, "We're pregnant." Not with one, but with two. Now, she thinks like I'm some kind of special healer. All I was that morning was just a tube. I mean, I didn't deserve any of that. God wanted to bless her, his daughter, and so he used that gift that day.

Okay, let's go to the next slide. Let's get into our passage.

The Heart of the Message

Alright, so here's the heart of the message. The Corinthians were gift chasers. They were people that seemed to love the gifts, especially the supernatural gifts, more than the giver of the gifts.

What's odd to me is that two of the things the Lord gives to unite the church—actually, three of the things God gives to unite the church—are things we fight the most over.

Number one: baptism.
Number two: holy communion and what goes on there.
And number three: the gifts of the Spirit. God's Spirit, which is meant to bring us into one, into unity.

And so he goes, now brothers—and because I love women as well as men, I'm going to say, hey, concerning spiritual gifts, y'all, y'all, I don't want you to be uninformed.

See, I think a lot of us are uninformed. If you did not grow up in a charismatic or Pentecostal church, those gifts are nice. Bless the charismatics. They can have 'em, but it makes us nervous, and we just kind of keep 'em away. And he's basically saying, hey, whatever side you're on, the far right or the far left, I don't want you to be uninformed.

Other versions of this passage say, I don't want you to be ignorant. Now, I'm kind of a southern redneck, and I love that word. Don't be ignorant. Bubba, don't be ignorant. I want you to understand about God's Holy Spirit and the gifts he gives. Don't be ignorant. Nobody likes an ignorant person. Don't be ignorant.

I don't want you to be uninformed, and he's referencing in verse two, and remember when you were pagans, how you were led astray. Ouch. So that hurt. He's like, there was a time when you were lost, you didn't have the Holy Spirit, you just chased after anything that was shiny. And he goes, guys, I've been teaching you the word. I've revealed it to you, but you're getting sucked. You're getting led astray, much like when you were pagan.

So, let's get this thing straight. Let's get it right.

Next slide, please. Okay. I'm going to show you different types of churches, and you can understand why some would gravitate more to some gifts than others.

Go, turn it up. These would be Anglicans. So, how'd that hit you? Now, maybe you go like, hey, I don't want our kids dressed up in little red and white robes and all that, but did you feel the sense of the Holy Spirit? Now, what gifts would you imagine that kind of church?

Because see, a lot of the Baptists and Pentecostals think the Holy Spirit looks like that. But what would you imagine that kind of church, what kind of gifts would they reject? Would they not use? Would they push away? The supernatural gifts, right? But they would step into other gifts. Still, part of Christ's kingdom.

Next slide, please.

This is a little weird, so stay with me. Turn her up. Okay. I know some of y'all are going to be mad saying, why did I play that in church? We have done that at Church of Holy Spirit before. There was a time in the old church, and I was a lot freer. I was 40 years old. I was just kind of go for it, and we're in the service, and it just felt tight. It just felt like a bunch of wax museum people singing when their hearts weren't engaged, and I was grieving my heart.

So, I whispered—and you've heard this— I whispered to my friend, Dave Fuller. I said, Dave, I don't know if this is the Lord or undigested beef, but I I don't know why I asked Dave. I should have asked somebody else, but I asked Dave. He's my buddy. I said, Dave, I don't know if this is the Lord or not, but I think he wants me to dance around the sanctuary. He goes, Oh yeah, man, that's the Lord. That's the Lord. It's the Lord. And so, big old guy comes down here, and I start around there, and by the time I'm about a third of the way there, I'm like, What in the world am I doing? And at that point, you're kind of committed, right? You're all in. And everybody in the church is like, wow. Wow. And so, I mean, I was fit back then, but by the time I got all the way around, the Spirit was upon me, and I was breathing heavy. I seriously could barely make it up the steps.

And J.J. Reddick, NBA fame—I think you know him—at the time, he was probably 15 years old. He leaned over to his mom and said, "Mom, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen in church." Now, was that the Lord or undigested beef? I don't know. I think he wanted to free me up anyway.

Okay. So, where were you? I totally just lost my place. Put on the next slide. We'll figure it out.

Yeah. This is another kind of weird deal here. What's happened? These charlatan people—wow—have they put people under bondage? This is one of the most disturbing things you might ever see. Some money. Put some anointing on this money. You put prosperity, I said. They mean to show his name. Sorry. The point is that while we may be a little tight and frozen and may need the Spirit to kind of free us up a little bit, there are boundaries. That is not Christian. That is pagan. It's fleshly. People come throwing money at the pastor's feet.

So, we have to use discernment. Next slide, please.

Okay. So, I was going to try to get a video of some like 1950s kind of Orthodox Presbyterian or very strict, you know, people in white shirts and black ties who are chanting or singing hymns in a very sterile setting. You—you feel the church I'm talking about. The thing is, I couldn't—an hour of searching on Google, I couldn't find it. You know why? They don't allow cameras in their church. They're serious people.

But sometimes the Lord visits and moves in a really charismatic place. Sometimes, with choristers and an English cathedral, right? And so, the Lord is working with all kinds of people and all types of settings. He's warning us to beware of unbiblical stuff, but maybe we need to be a bit more open that God's gifts are diverse. They're diverse. We should not be afraid of them.

Next, please.

Now, here's a passage. Now, there are varieties of gift, but the same Spirit. This goes on and on:

Varieties of gifts, same Spirit.
Varieties of service, same Lord.
Varieties of activities, same God.

Now, something's hidden in there. Let's see how smart y'all are. What's hidden in that passage? It's subtle—the Trinity.

What? Gives—say, Spirit, Lord, God.

Now, we know that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God. But there—that's a whispering, like Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus, and Father God. So, that's there. But the main point of this, and the main point of 1 Corinthians 12, is that there are a whole bunch of gifts that God gives to his church, and we thank God we don't have them all. Much like some on a ball team, you wouldn't want everybody to have the exact same gift. It would be a disaster. Same with the church.

There are varieties of gifts. So, because somebody doesn't have your gift or they have one, do you think maybe it's a little relaxed? Everybody's given a gift for the common good. Varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. God himself is birthing, giving you these gifts.

Next slide. Now, I—I capitalized this, and I put one in red so you won't forget. What does this say?

To each.

That means every Christian, not every person in the world, every Christian. To each, the manifestation of the Spirit is given.

Why?

See, when I started learning about the Holy Spirit, I couldn't care less about the common good. I just wanted it. I had a couple of friends in seminary tell me they spoke in tongues and raised their hands. I'm like, we don't do that in my church, man. That's weird. But then I started to see the fruit in their life, and I saw the power of God in their life. They told me that I need to get the gift of tongues. So, for like three nights in seminary, I didn't know anything, man. I'm on my bed just trying to speak in tongues for three days, and nothing happened.

And what I realized, I was more enamored with the gift than the giver of the gift. Oh, about a month or two later, when I stopped chasing the gift, I was at the Church of the Apostles in a service, and they're playing music. And all of a sudden, I felt the power of God come down. Now, you can't manipulate that. You can't make it happen. It just did.

And then, in the midst of that prayer language, words came out. And this other lady had a tongue, and I didn't even know what the spiritual gifts were really at that point. But as she was praying in this unknown language, all of a sudden, it wasn't like I was overtaken, but out of my mouth started coming an interpretation. I didn't even know about the interpretation of tongues, but it just happened. God did it to strengthen the body.

And I have to say, it definitely strengthened my faith. So, to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The real question is not what their gifts are, but what is your gift? What gift has God given you? If you're a believer, you’ve got a gift. Maybe more than one, but you have one.

Do you know it? Everybody's like, I need to take a spiritual gifts test. No, you don't. There's a hundred of them online. Talk to the people that are believers in your life and ask them, where do you see? What kind of anointing do you see in my life?

If you have the gift of teaching, somebody's going to see it. If you have the gift of administration, or mercy, or helps, somebody in the body of Christ is going to see it and say, Amen to it.

But I want you to know, you each have a gift of the Spirit, and if you're not aware of it, and if you're not using it, you are starving the bride of Christ, and you are depriving yourself of such great joy. Such great joy.

Next slide.

So, verse eight. For to one is given through the Spirit—the emphasis keeps coming here—you keep seeing the same thing—they want to emphasize. The Lord is doing this. He's sovereign. He's God. He decides.

To one is given through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom; to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit; and to another, faith.

Now, you see those, and you go, well, Quigg, I mean, a lot of people have wisdom, right? They aren't even Christians. I remember a non-Christian told me how to use a knife when I was six years old. He says, "Widow, when you're whittling, cut away from your hand." That's wisdom, right?

I remember somebody else who wasn't a believer saying, "Don't stick your fingers in a light socket." I remember somebody else saying, "Look both ways before you cross the street." So, that's wisdom, but in terms of godly wisdom, there's a special anointing that God gives to a believer to build up his bride, the church, to help them be strong and healthy, and to advance the kingdom.

That's a wisdom that's not of this world. And knowledge—same thing. There are a lot of smart people. You retain a lot of facts, but knowledge—where God gives a word of knowledge. I must think like when Nathan went to King David. I don't think Nathan knew anything about David's affair till the Lord just gave him that word. Then, at great cost, he went to David, told a parable, and David says, "Who is this man? He deserves to die." And Nathan looks right at the king who could have cut his head off and goes, "You are that man." Word of knowledge.

And then, King David repented. You see how it works? It wasn't just a gift for the gift's sake; it was so David could confess his sin and be healed. And then, the last one is faith. All people have faith. All Christians have faith. I think all people have faith.

Did you get a car coming here this morning? Did you? Oh, did you check the brakes in your car? Did you? Well, how did you know when you stuck your foot on the brake that your car was going to stop? How did you know?

You have faith. Everybody has faith in something, but there's a special faith given as a charismatic gift. I remember when we were trying to build this sanctuary, it was 2007, and a lot of people said, Quigg, that's the stupidest idea. And maybe I said, Lord, is this my idea? Is this something you're birthing? And we prayed more and more, and it became clear, no, this is something the Lord is asking us to do. But after this, no more building here. We're going to build elsewhere.

And then, you know, about a third of the church was with me, about a third couldn't care less, and a third was angry. We had people leave the church. We had staff leave the church. Then, the recession happens, and all of a sudden, like nobody has any money. But I said, no, I know that I know that God has called us to do this. And I was like out there on the gangplank, but I knew because God had given me this gift of faith for this particular event that he wanted to have happen.

Next slide, because we're over. So, are two ditches when it comes to spiritual gifts, right? There are two ditches. One: you can just love the gifts more than the giver. Just like there are people that say, instead of asking, "Are you a believer?" they'll say, "Are you reformed?" Right? There's some people who are more concerned about whether you have the gifts of the Spirit than if you're a believer. They're focused all the time on the gifts. The books they read, the tapes, all about the gifts—not so much about the giver. Don't get in that ditch.

But what's the other ditch? And this is one I think that as a church, we are most likely to fall into. Like, we see those guys doing all that stuff, and we think, "That's weird, man. I don't want to open Pandora's box." Let's just keep that tucked over there.

And so, we throw the baby out with a proverbial bathwater. Those are the two ditches.

Next slide.

Yeah. So, I want to encourage you to use a spiritual gift. You don't have to do that.

Next slide.

Sometimes, a spiritual gift looks more like this. The amazing thing—and we're a little late, but just hang with it because it's overtime. It's beautiful. The amazing thing is Mother Teresa said she did not hear the Lord's voice for forty years, but she knew the Lord. And so, she went on what the Lord had given her, and she was just steadfast. She loved the leper and those with AIDS and the poorest of the poor.

And if you look at her feet online, it's gross, but you can look at it. The reason her feet were so deformed is because she always took the last pairs of shoes, whether they fit or not.

Next slide.

Sometimes, a gift of the Spirit looks like this. This doesn't look very fancy, does it? Doesn't look very exciting. But you know what? This man and his wife—they have faith, they have mercy, they have hospitality. Seventy-four kids now that are orphans have their last name and live in their home. They're building—I might try to show this the week after next—a house for up to 500 kids. Is that charismatic? You bet it is.

Next slide.

This is Tom Katina. If you want to Google him, it would be awesome if you're bored today or tonight. Go watch The Heart of Nuba. Lights out. You'll want to watch it again. He was a Division One football player, about 60. He knew he wanted to serve the Lord. He knew the Lord had called him. So, when he finished with D1 football, he went into the navy. The reason? Because they'll pay for him to go to medical school, and he won't have any debt.

And he did that so that he could go to the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. He is the only doctor for 1.5 million people. And as Russian jets fly over, bombing daily, you see him in there doing orthopedic surgery—though he's not even trained in orthopedics. I think he's a family practice doctor. He's doing it with a handheld gizmo, sometimes with a battery-operated light on his head. He's removing a liver from a small child. He’s administering chemo. Does this look like a gift of the Spirit? You betcha.

Next and last slide, I believe.

Next to last. So, verse 11 says this:

All these gifts are empowered by one and the same Spirit and are a portion to each Christian—each one individually—as the Lord wills.

So, you don't have to chase the gift. Just ask the Lord, "Give me whatever gift you want me to have so I can serve you and so your name could be made great."

Application

Last slide. So, here's the touchdown. What is your spiritual gift? You know, if I ask you, like, what is your—come on, ladies, help me with that—what's the thing everybody's doing now? It's not Tiger and Bear. What's a new thing? Enneagram. Right? Everybody knows if you're a seven. And funny about sevens is we only know what we are. We could care less. I don't care about Enneagram right now. I don't care. I like Myers-Briggs, but I don't care about that right now.

What I'm focused on today is, what is your spiritual gift? Do you know? A lot of you know your Enneagram number. You don't know your spiritual gift. And what I'm telling you is, the body of Christ is weaker because you don't know.

And if you don't know, it's simple. Say, Lord, what is my gift? How can I serve you? So, what is your spiritual gift? Number two: how often do you use it? I used to use them, but it's not really my thing anymore. I've kind of—are you using your gift?

So, what is your gift? How often do you use it? Last question: where do we land? What's preventing you? What's preventing you? Fear? Pride? Indifference? I want to invite you back to the party—to use the gift that your Father in heaven has purposed before the foundation of the earth to give to you as a son or daughter—to make his name great.

Hi.