Gifted by the Spirit

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. It's great to be here today, and yeah, Phil's right. We're going to have to be short, I guess. That's what happens when room reservations are done. Once in a while, we have that happen. So we're going to be going through 1 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 11. Now, if you happen to have on your phone or iPad or something the Bible in the U version, we have notes for this, and in fact, quite a few. You can just look up under Live. When you go under More, then you look under Live, and you'll get all sorts of notes, because there's stuff that I can't say today because of the time limit that will give you more information there. So our passage today is 1 Corinthians 12, 1 through 11, and I'll read that to you right now. 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 variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are a variety of services, but the same Lord. And there are a variety of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 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 of healing by the one Spirit. To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between Spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one in the same Spirit who apportions to each one accordingly, individually, as he wills. Yeah, the irony is there. Of all the Sundays to have a short message, this one's the tough one. There is so much to share. And that's why in the U version we have, under Thrive Community Church, Gifted by the Spirit, all sorts of extra notes. And in it you'll find a link to a great article by Tim Keller, who will go into more details on the gifts, as well as you'll find out the variety of definitions for the different gifts that are listed here in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, and three different versions of spiritual gift inventories that you can take online for free and find out, maybe start exploring, what maybe are my gifts and how do they fit into the body of Christ? But we're going to focus on one verse today. And maybe I'll be short because of that. And that is verse 7. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. That one verse. Now, what amazes me when I was reading this passage is something that hit me for the first time when I read it is just before that verse, in verse 4 through 6, if you look at that, three times, hmm, three times Paul mentions something about gifts. The first he says is there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit. The next time he says there are a variety of service but the same Lord. And the third is there are a variety of activities but the same God. And at first you think that's just redundancy, but it isn't. What's amazing is this, the varieties of gifts, same Spirit, the varieties of service and the same Lord, that's Jesus, and the varieties of manifestations of powers or workings, the same God, the Father. You end up, there's a Trinitarian character already at the beginning of this passage that says, more or less, this is what the gifts are. And you know what's going on there? Do you realize the gifts that God gives you and me, whatever they happen to be, are the same gifts, the same workings, the same manifestations, the same things He uses inter-Trinitarianly. Can you say that word? In other words, in between the three persons of the Trinity as they exalt and praise and glorify and honor and love and serve one another in this amazing. God is a God of community. God is a God of love. He understands love and community because that's who He is from the beginning, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the way that He ministers to each one of the persons within that, from one to the next, is the way He ministers to us and then through us. You get the same gifts. You become part of that Trinitarian community. So let's look at that passage then when it says simply in verse 7, and take it apart. To each, the first words. To each. To each. That's you. There's no excuses. There's no exclusions. It says to each. It's not like to some. But it's to each. Everyone is a minister. Everyone is given gifts for the sake of others and for the sake of ministry. God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the call. He has called you into His kingdom, and He gives you gifts for service....