According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: Today on According to the Scriptures, a primer on the Holy Spirit. Specifically in this realm of spiritual gifts. Some Christians are very comfortable with God the Father and they're very comfortable with Jesus, but they're a little less comfortable with God the Holy Spirit. He's kind of like the strange uncle in the Godhead. And Paul wants to let us know that nothing at all like that is true of the Holy Spirit.

Guest (Male): Some of us find it difficult to ask for help, don't we? And that stubbornness can get us into real trouble. Whether we realize it or not, we all need help, especially as it relates to the Christian life. Today on According to the Scriptures, Pastor Damian Kyle will show us how the Holy Spirit wants to be our helper.

One thing is for certain: we can't live this Christian life in our own strength. Damian is currently leading us through 1 Corinthians. We're in chapter 12, join us.

Damian Kyle: As we come into chapter 12 in 1 Corinthians, we come to a new section of the book, Paul's letter to the church at Corinth. This new section includes chapter 12, chapter 13, and chapter 14. What Paul is going to address here, he's going to address for our instruction and our edification.

But it is just one more area that Paul found it necessary to correct the church at Corinth. Because of their selfishness, because of their carnality and their competitiveness spiritually with one another, he's been addressing that all throughout the entire letter. But now all of that has carried itself into the worship service, into the public worship service, in the exercise of spiritual gifts within those services.

So that's become something that people are really out of control at this point. As we'll see, God gives His gifts of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of uniting us as a church and producing an interdependence upon one another. Some within the church at Corinth had, out of pride, made them a source of division.

Paul does something interesting, at least it is for me, before he heads straight into the subject of spiritual gifts. He lays a very, very needed foundation to introduce the spiritual gifts in verses 1 through 3. The Apostle Paul in verse 1 introduces the subject of spiritual gifts, how they're to be operated in a local church by declaring his desire that we would not as Christians—not one of us—be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts.

So 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 is the cure for ignorance concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the life of any Christian. I think Paul is being very, very polite in doing so. He plainly declares them to be ignorant on the subject and in the one area that they probably considered themselves to be experts in, and that is in spirituals or in spiritual gifts—the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

How they were to be exercised within the church, they clearly thought that they were the group of people in the know about all of this and how the gifts were to be used as a means of edification not only for the church but toward other Christians. That they possessed all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that Paul lists here in this chapter, in the verses we've read and then the gifts that are listed at the end of the chapter, is clear.

Paul makes it clear in the introduction of his letter to them in chapter 1, verse 4. I'll read it to you. He says, "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Jesus Christ; that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But the church at Corinth reveals to us that the possession of spiritual gifts within our lives as Christians, the exercise of spiritual gifts within a local church or by an individual Christian, does not mean that they cannot also be both carnal and ignorant concerning spiritual gifts as well. Much less, consider themselves to be experts on spiritual gifts by simply virtue of being open to these gifts and then exercising their gifts.

Concerning the carnality of the church there in Corinth, Paul wrote in chapter 3 of this letter, "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ." So the possession of spiritual gifts is not an indication of hyper-spirituality or any indication of deep spirituality. They were very, very carnal and yet the gifts were operating within the church.

Concerning their ignorance, here he speaks to it in verse 1 of chapter 12. I'll never forget, and I think in our Christian life we tend to remember always like the very first time that something happens to you and you encounter it as a Christian. Then everything like it that happens after kind of bleeds together after you walk with the Lord for decades.

But I'll never forget when the church was still downtown, having a young man—he attended the church that evening—and he attended a Pentecostal charismatic church in town. After the service, he really got into my face and he was accusing me of grieving the Holy Spirit, quenching the Holy Spirit, because I did not encourage the entire congregation to sing out and to pray out corporately in tongues as part of the worship service.

He's there with his girlfriend and he's absolutely livid. I tried from 1 Corinthians chapter 14 to explain that I was right on this biblically and that he was wrong. He wouldn't let me get two sentences out before he stormed off. Because in his mind, he was the expert and I was the ignoramus. I was the one that was ignorant concerning spiritual gifts because he attended a Pentecostal church and I didn't, which in his mind made him an expert on spiritual gifts as a result and automatically an expert.

But it's one thing to have all of the spiritual gifts operating in a church and it's another thing to operate them in a way that God intends. I want to be very, very quick to add that I don't consider even remotely that every charismatic or Pentecostal carries the kind of chip on their shoulder that this young man carried on his shoulder at all. They're a beloved part of the body of Christ and I have great respect for them related to spiritual gifts in many ways.

But chapters 12 through 14 were written to rectify this condition of ignorance concerning spiritual gifts, not related to the world but related to God's people. And yet today, as will become clear as we study all the way through the passage, people in my opinion remain as ignorant or not knowing concerning spiritual gifts as Corinth was 2,000 years ago.

Typically, heavily populated on the two extremes that exist within the body of Christ concerning spiritual gifts. You have those who abuse the spiritual gifts contrary to the teaching that Paul gives here, and then you have those that want nothing to do with this part of the Christian life at all. Or worse, they use these chapters that are intended to instruct us concerning spiritual gifts to try and build a case that the spiritual gifts—some of them—don't exist for today, that they died out in the first century.

And here we have to give credit I think where credit is due and credit to the church in Corinth and credit to the early church in that for all of the mistakes that the church at Corinth was making concerning spiritual gifts, they earnestly desired spiritual gifts. They expected the supernatural dynamic to operate in their lives as Christians. The motives weren't the greatest, the methodology wasn't the greatest, but they believed in these things and they wanted their Christian lives to be supernaturally fruitful.

There's the recognition that we are in a spiritual battle as Christians. The opposition that comes against us in the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the opposition that we face is supernatural; it is demonic. And we need spiritual gifts in our lives that are greater than what the devil imparts to his people in order to make a dent in that kingdom of darkness.

And so they recognized that much about the Christian life and they expected God to speak to them by means of spiritual gifts and to do the miraculous. They really, really wholeheartedly embraced that Christian life in the supernaturalness of it. Now in verse 2, Paul tells us further that the God that we serve is a speaking God. He's a communicating God. He's a revelatory God.

Most of the Christians there in Corinth were Gentiles who came to Christ not out of a background of atheism, but they came to become Christians out of a background of idolatry. But these idols, Paul tells them, couldn't speak or they couldn't communicate. That's what he's saying when they were dumb, they were mute, they were incapable of communicating and they couldn't communicate anything to their worshipers.

Paul is saying in essence that the God of the Bible does speak to His children and He is a speaking God. And so Christianity is supernatural, the Christian life is a supernatural life, but in becoming a Christian from an idolatrous background given over to the worship of all of these idols that couldn't speak, they had no experience with an intelligent deity. They had no experience with a God who is able to speak and reveal Himself to them and so they needed instruction.

Temple idol worship in the ancient world often included the kind of ecstatic speech and the chanting of ritual prayers as well as the worshipers there going into trances and engaging in all of this frenzied activity. Like we see with the prophets of Baal up on Mount Carmel, all this frenzied activity and cutting themselves and whatever in an attempt to connect with their deity.

Remember that Corinth was a center for idol worship in the ancient world. So it isn't unlikely that Paul is communicating something like: God doesn't operate in His church or anywhere like what you have experienced at the pagan temples where the silence of the idols forced their worshipers to make up for the silence of those idols with frantic speaking, chanting, or activity on their own. Don't bring any of that idolatrous baggage into the church or into your Christian life.

Now in verse 3, the Apostle Paul comforts us with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit, who is the originator of this supernatural in our lives as Christians, is safe. That He can be trusted in all ways but specifically in this realm of spiritual gifts. Some Christians are very comfortable with God the Father and they're very comfortable with Jesus, but they're a little less comfortable with God the Holy Spirit. He's kind of like the strange uncle in the Godhead.

Paul wants to let us know that nothing at all like that is true of the Holy Spirit. He informs us, you notice, that no one can say that Jesus is Lord and mean it except by the Holy Spirit. So for you to call Jesus Lord and not merely just mouth the words but to really mean it, for it to be a reality from our lives to be born again, is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives—the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

You already have a long history with the Holy Spirit operating in your life whether we recognize it or not. Conversely, he tells us, Paul does, that no one speaking by the Holy Spirit can ever call Jesus accursed. In other words, the Holy Spirit will never cause a person to curse Jesus or to diminish Jesus in any way.

So Paul is communicating that the Holy Spirit is safe. He will always glorify Jesus. He can be trusted; don't be afraid of the Holy Spirit. Don't be afraid to surrender to him; don't be afraid of his spiritual gifts. And how trustworthy is he? The Bible teaches that he will always testify of Jesus. He will always cause a person to come to a proper conclusion concerning the person of Jesus as Savior and as Lord.

Jesus said in John 15, "But when the Helper," speaking about the Holy Spirit, "comes, whom I send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me." Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as a Helper. He will never do anything in our Christian lives except to help us in our personal relationship with God and in living our Christian life.

And so the Helper is one of the titles of the Holy Spirit—parakletos—one who comes alongside us to help. That is what the word means and you picture this absolute hulk of a man, for instance, in your mind helping a little old lady across the street in a busy city street. You have a sense of what the Holy Spirit is doing all day and every day with us crossing this street called the Christian life, one block at a time. In other words, we're not in this alone in the Christian life; the Holy Spirit helps us.

The Bible teaches further that when the Holy Spirit works, whatever He does, it'll always look like Jesus and it will always sound like Jesus would do or say as He's revealed in the Gospels. One of my favorite names for the Holy Spirit is given by Paul in Romans chapter 8 where he describes the Holy Spirit rather as the Spirit of Christ.

And then Jesus described the Holy Spirit as another Helper, and there's a reason I'm saying all of this—to become comfortable with the person of the Holy Spirit. In John chapter 14, Jesus said, "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, and that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth."

Jesus not only calls the Holy Spirit the Helper, as he did also in John chapter 15, but here in John chapter 14, verse 16, he calls the Holy Spirit another Helper. And the word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit there for "another," speaking about the Holy Spirit as a Helper, is an important one. It's "allon" in the Greek and it means "another of the same kind."

There's a different Greek word that Jesus could have used or could have been used here in the passage that means another of a different kind. Jesus could have said a Helper is coming and he's another of a different kind. He didn't say that. He said, "I'm sending you a Helper who is of the same kind."

And when Jesus declares him to be another Helper, he's saying, "I'm sending you in My absence a Helper that is exactly like Me." He will not function or operate in your life any differently than you might imagine from the Gospels that I would operate in and around your life. Jesus was the first Helper and the another Helper is the Holy Spirit.

And so Jesus was sufficient for every need that the disciples ran into in their lives and the Holy Spirit accomplishes the same thing in our lives and in the fullness of our Christian lives, including the operating within the spiritual gifts. Any legitimate operation of the Holy Spirit in a church service or in a person's life will always look like Christ.

And if it doesn't sound like something he would say, tested by the scriptures, or doesn't look how he conducted himself among people, then we have reason to be suspect that the Holy Spirit is operating in that. When I was a boy—and here's one of the reasons this is important to me—periodically as my mother was able, she took us to church.

And she took us to a little church that had tremendous respect for the word of God, and a tremendous respect for the word of God was implanted in my heart from those intermittent experiences at that church and with the people in that church. They loved the Lord. But some within that church were a little less than comfortable with the Holy Spirit, at least in terms of the fullness of the Holy Spirit with which he's described in the Bible.

And my mother had a friend who attended the church—wonderful, wonderful woman and her name is gold in my heart to this day—but she would warn me against the different things that other Christians believed about the Holy Spirit that was different from the church that we would go to. And talk about different things and excesses and then she even declared that the spiritual gift of tongues or a prayer language was not only not for today, but taught that it was of the devil.

So when I reached adult life and I finally committed my life to the Lord at that time, I needed to be reassured in the same way that Paul is reassuring us here that the Holy Spirit was safe. That the Holy Spirit wouldn't do any of those crazy things that my mother's friend told me that people were saying that the Holy Spirit was doing in them and through them.

And so the Lord used these three verses I've spending some time on here this evening to kind of set my heart at ease concerning the Holy Spirit and to let me know that I could trust the Holy Spirit as fully as I trust Jesus himself. And once I realized that, I realized that the Holy Spirit was safe to surrender to for his full influence in my life, which is what Paul is wanting to have accomplished in each of our lives here in this three-verse introduction to the entire section—that we are comfortable and recognize the trustworthiness of the Holy Spirit on anything including these things.

Guest (Male): We're getting to know the Holy Spirit today on According to the Scriptures, just part of Damian Kyle's new study in 1 Corinthians. If you're interested in a CD copy of today's message, you can reach out to us by calling 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530.

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It never grows old hearing from you, our listeners, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what He's doing on the radio. You can email us at atts@ccmodesto.com and include your prayer requests as well. That's atts@ccmodesto.com. According to the Scriptures with Damian Kyle is presented by Calvary Chapel Modesto. We'll catch you back here next time when we'll get back to our helpful series in 1 Corinthians.