According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: Today on According to the Scriptures. When you operate in your gifting and then you operate in your calling and God uses you in that way, because I'm taking my place in the body of Christ, I glory in that. And that's the attitude. We all rise together or we all fall together and there really is that spirit of all for one and one for all.

Guest (Male): In the world as we know it, certain gifts and giftings are greatly admired, others, well, yeah, not so much. Just think for a moment about how greatly admired those in the world of professional sports or how about actors, actresses, musicians. And then contrast that to the behind the scenes people, who few know their name. But from God's viewpoint, each gifting and calling is important, necessary.

He'll reward one day based on faithfulness, not on what the gift actually was. Today on According to the Scriptures, join us here in 1 Corinthians 12 as Pastor Damian Kyle focuses on verses 12 through 27.

Damian Kyle: Paul is saying that whatever gifting we have, however we might esteem it, from the vantage point of heaven and the Holy Spirit and the vantage point of the head, that is Jesus Christ, He knows that what God has gifted and called us for is necessary. So I'm not saying exactly you should get up in front of the mirror if you've got this kind of an attitude toward the gift and the place that God has called you to in the body of Christ and look in the mirror and say, "I am needed, I am needed, I am needed," until you believe it.

But something like that needs to happen and better by the Holy Spirit just speaking to our hearts here tonight. No, you are needed in the body of Christ, in the place that God has called you to. The second thing that he does in order to correct this kind of inferiority attitude is in verse 18 and powerfully corrects it. Paul writes, "God has set the members, each part of the body, each one of them in the body just as He pleased."

So our gift and calling within the body of Christ, whatever it is, has been perfectly and wisely chosen by God Almighty for us. Now that's amazing. So I may think that I know better than He does, but when you stop and realize, now all of those musings that can go on in my mind, the inferiority, whatever it might be, to realize that no, God knowing who each of us are inside and out, having made us, having prepared us for the calling that He has for our lives, has given us just the gifting we need to be successful in that calling.

There is no choice of calling, there is no choice of gift of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that you could choose for yourself that is better than the calling that God has on your life and the gifting that He has coupled then with that calling. It is impossible. So it's an exercise in frustration and vanity to enter into that kind of musing related to these things.

The time is much better spent in discovering what has God called me to do and then to grow in that gift that He's given me to make that calling supernaturally fruitful and successful. And so the better thing to do, rather than fighting it and feeling inferior, is to submit to God's calling, submit to God's gifting, and then give that gifting and calling all that we have.

Thank You, Lord. I've never known You to be wrong. You know me like I don't know myself, and You prove it every single day, and You know exactly what You were doing when You called me beyond to become a Christian but now in this area of Christian service and the gifting, and I acknowledge that. I acknowledge that and I accept that. Paul is saying in essence, in terms of the gifting and calling, if it pleases God, then it ought to please us. If it pleases Him, then let it please you.

And then second, in verses 21 to 27, we want to examine, as Paul does here, those Christians who are operating out of a sense of superiority because of God's gifting calling on their lives, God's gifting in their lives, making the point that there's no place for a spirit of superiority or pride related to God's gifts or calling in our lives. So if they are gifts, it's something that is given to us that we don't merit, we haven't earned.

They're a gift that God gives to us. So whatever gift and then, as we saw activities operations last week, and then however much He wants to use that gift to then magnify Himself in the body of Christ and in the world, that's entirely up to Him. And however much He does, no matter what that proportion might be, whether as we talked about the evangelist who operates best one on one or the evangelist who operates before a crowd of 50,000, that whatever one of those environments might be, that it is still all God.

And sometimes it's hard to keep your head on straight and to recognize it is a gift, to give God credit for leading thousands to the Lord maybe in a gigantic stadium as opposed to leading one person to the Lord in a park somewhere. But it should be viewed in the same way. And so this attitude, this superiority attitude perfectly encapsulated in the phrase that Paul repeats in verse 21, "I have no need of you." Now imagine that. "I have no need." Imagine.

So I'm just it's not that I'm incapable of it, but I'm not naturally drawn to it. Imagine having a just naturally on a human level, but then on a spiritual level to honestly gather together in a church like this and look at other members of the church and say, and mean it, believe it, "I have no need of you." I think that's rather unhealthy. Does anybody agree with me? Yes, it's a very unhealthy and I think such a person would be standing alone in the fellowship hall without anyone wanting to be around them after about three weeks of that kind of a vibe.

So you've got this overvaluing of their calling and gifting in the body of Christ as a whole and in a local church and undervaluing the gifts and the callings of others. And so here you have the temptation and it's more than a temptation, it's a self-deception on the part of those who possess more public gifts like the gift of teaching or prophets or pastors or teachers or other speaking gifts.

Now Paul's answer to this group that thinks they're better or more important than others based solely upon God's gifting and His calling, imagine, Paul wrote elsewhere, "What do you have that you haven't received?" So it's just a fallacy to consider myself superior to any other person in the body of Christ based upon something that God alone has graciously made a part of my life. And yet it happens carnal enough for that to happen.

And so his answer to this particular group in verse 22, he said, "Those members of the body which seem," and if you're into circling words in the Bible, that's not a bad one, "seem to be weaker are necessary." So he puts in opposition to one another that word 'seem' and then that word 'necessary.' They may seem unnecessary, but they're not unnecessary no matter how weak you esteem them.

You notice that that word 'seem' there in verse 22, and we think as well that God doesn't think it, but we can think it. So God never looks at the body of Christ and says that this one is better than the other or this one is more necessary than the other. We're the ones that have the tendency to think that. God never thinks that. And so 'necessary' as he speaks of it there in expressing the life and the nature of Jesus in the world. No single individual can do that. It takes everybody and every gift.

And not only that, but related to a local church, no church, local church can be healthy at all without the representation of all of these giftings and all of these callings because it's what makes up a body and we need one another. So you've got the kidneys and you've got the liver and they work just quietly and unseen, but they're every bit as important as the hands and the eyes and the ears, Paul tells us.

So we're all mutually dependent upon one another and we are dependent upon, no matter who we are, no matter what our gifting or calling, we are dependent upon others being faithful to their gifting and their calling. Otherwise, I could do all that God has called me to do and gifted me to do and if everybody else didn't do their part, then we'd have an empty room here week in and week out. But the same thing, it goes for you. It's the whole thing working together, everybody doing their part that makes the whole thing operate and the importance of that and the dependence upon one another for that.

You notice in verses 23 and 24 that Paul makes the point that just as we give special attention to dressing the unseen parts of our bodies, we take special care of them, so and so we should do concerning those who are called to serve the Lord in quieter and unseen areas of the church. And you see this everywhere you see in life, you see this truth illustrated, that people really protect what is valuable to them.

When I used to work for the phone company and I worked as a lineman for years and then as a cable splicer, but it was mandatory that linemen would wear steel-toed boots because if you ever had a pole or something fall on your toes, that would hurt really bad. And so you would be disabled related to it. So you protected your toes in this unseen part of the body.

The recognition, even by the phone company, the recognition that if you don't take care of these unseen parts and something happens to them, you don't protect them well enough and they get hurt like something falling on your toes like a telephone pole, it'll keep the rest of the body up at night just so we can all share their pain. Of course, you have in ancient warfare, they would take and they would put their armor would be specifically built in order to protect the vital organs.

Recognition that you could lose an eye in battle, you could lose an arm in battle, you could lose an ear in battle, but you couldn't lose a heart. You couldn't lose your lungs. And so you protected. And same thing with bulletproof vests today and so forth. It's a recognition that we all have of how vital these unseen parts of our body are and why we protect them in the way that we do.

When I was growing up in high school and then into junior college and all, there was a legendary basketball coach at UCLA named John Wooden. And for those of you might remember, that was very, very beautiful basketball. I think what he won 11 championships out of 13, some kind of crazy thing there at UCLA and the athletes that went through there and how he got them.

The very first practice, he is getting the elite athletes at that time in basketball in the entire country to come to UCLA. The very first thing he would do is he took them into a locker room and he taught them how to put their socks on properly. And in those days you would wear double socks because the shoes weren't as good as they are today. But how to put your socks on properly so that you wouldn't get a blister because if you end up getting a blister, it doesn't matter how great of a shooter you are or great defender you are or great basketball player that you are and all of the other realms, everything else is going to be affected.

And so here he is a recognition of that unseen part of the body, the importance of keeping it healthy even though it's very much overlooked in a talent of a basketball player. So this group within a church needs to recognize that they're no greater than any other part of the body of Christ and it's a folly to look at any other part of the body and say, "I don't need you." We would never do it concerning the human body. We would never do it.

If somebody says, "I don't need that foot," and then somebody says, "Well, let me just take you up on that." No, no, no, just oh, so you're just the big mouth about not needing your foot. So nobody would do that with a physical human body. And Paul says it's a folly to do the same thing in the body of Christ, just as foolish. He said in verse 26, "If one member of the body of Christ suffers, then we all suffer." We're all adversely affected as a result.

If one member of the body is exalted, then we are all exalted. And that's the way to look at one another's giftings. When you operate in your gifting and then you operate in your calling and God uses you in that way, because I'm taking my place in the body of Christ, I glory in that. And that's the attitude. We all rise together or we all fall together and there really is that spirit of all for one and one for all.

And like the church in Corinth there, can either learn this the hard way or learn it the easy way and Paul is trying to get them to learn it the easy way. Now Paul lists some further gifts, a further list of spiritual gifts in verses 28 through 31. In 28, he said, "And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues."

And so we took a look at those things last week to some degree. And then he asks a series of rhetorical questions. And a rhetorical question is one where the obvious answer is no. And so the answer to each of these questions is no. So he says, "Are all apostles?" We just the body of Christ, so we've got a lot of Christians I assume in this room, right? I know you to be. And so how many apostles do we have here? For the sake of the recording, we do not have an apostle in the house.

So the obvious answer is no. "Are all prophets?" No. Does every Christian, are they teachers? No. "Are all workers of miracles?" No. "Do all have gifts of healings?" No. "Do all speak with tongues?" No. "Do all interpret?" No. And all of that is by God's design. And here as he makes the point that no one person has all of these gifts. And so if everyone were just one part of the body as wonderful as that part of the body might be, you wouldn't have a body at all.

And so God wouldn't be able to express Himself the way that He does through all of the gifts. And then Paul closes here with a wonderful exhortation combined with this instruction. He said, "But earnestly desire the best gifts, and yet I show you a more excellent way." And so there's that exhortation: desire earnestly the best gifts. And so what are the best gifts? It just depends upon what is your calling, what is God called you to? And what gift has He given you in order to be supernaturally successful in that calling?

And that's the best gift for you. It doesn't mean it's the best gift for somebody else, but it's the best gift for you. And I do want us to notice those two words, 'earnestly desire.' It's two words in our English Bible, but it's a single word in the original in the Greek and it means to be deeply committed to something, to be earnest, to set one's heart on, to be completely intent on.

And so clearly here the Apostle Paul is teaching us that no Christian is to have a lukewarm attitude related to spiritual gifts, to just look and say, "Well, I don't know anything about that, I'm getting along just fine and I don't not only do I not earnestly desire them, I don't desire this at all." And it's a rebuke of that attitude that can exist in the body of Christ and not only a lukewarm attitude toward spiritual gifts in general, but toward any individual spiritual gift.

Because if God has that spiritual gift for us, then we need it, whatever it is. So again, we are in a spiritual battle in this world and it is a battle where the opposing side is supernatural in its power and its abilities, the demonic realm, Satan himself is much more powerful than you and I individually as human beings, even as Christians.

And so God has given us a spiritual gifting that not only allows us to stand in that battle, but to be victorious in that battle. So what's your calling or where is God called you? You work as a nurse in an ICU unit or you work in a one of the automotive places or whatever wherever it might be and you say, "I know God has called me to do this with my life and I believe He's gifted me in this way," and then to realize He's going to you are the body of Christ in that place.

You're the body of Christ in that place. So now God is going to use your calling and your gifting in that environment and for us to expect that so that Christ can be known, He can be manifested, He can do what He wants to do through my life in that environment. And so the importance of these spiritual gifts, earnestly desiring them and not being content with any attitude short of that.

Guest (Male): Well, hopefully you're walking away from today's message from Damian Kyle encouraged. Whatever gifting or calling you've been given, it is significant and necessary. We just need to be faithful. You're listening to According to the Scriptures. Well, for resource requests like today's message on CD, reach out to us by phone. The number is 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530.

Pastor Damian Kyle's studies can also be heard online at accordingtothescriptures.com, oneplace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we also have a church app where you can listen to Damian as well. Search for Calvary Chapel Modesto in the App Store or Google Play. If you'd like to partner with us financially with a financial gift, you can do that through our website at accordingtothescriptures.com and thank you very much.

Well, let me also give you our mailing address: According to the Scriptures, 4300 American Avenue, Modesto, California, the zip code is 95356. Don't miss our next study in 1 Corinthians when Pastor Damian Kyle will again open the Word helping us live our lives according to the Scriptures. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.