Spiritual Gifts
Tom Shrader works through 1 Corinthians 12, explaining that every believer has been baptized with the Holy Spirit at conversion and given a spiritual gift to serve the body of Christ effectively. He uses the human body as Paul's illustration of unity within diversity, warning against both the tendency to dismiss one's own gift as unimportant and the tendency to elevate visible gifts over less prominent ones. He closes by distinguishing the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, pointing toward love in chapter 13 as the more excellent way that holds the diverse body together.
“A spiritual gift is a God-given ability received by each believer at the moment of conversion for the purpose of operating effectively and efficiently in the body of Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: spiritual gifts, holy spirit, unity, diversity, serving others, love, belonging, body of christ, new believer, feeling unworthy, unsure of calling, struggling with comparison, volunteer, church member, young adult, feeling overlooked
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:1, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, 1 Corinthians 12:28, 1 Corinthians 12:31, 2 Timothy 1:6, 2 Timothy 4:2, 2 Timothy 4:5, John 14:20, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, Galatians 5
Theological Themes: pneumatology, spirit baptism, charismatic gifts, ecclesiology, sanctification, fruit of the spirit, spiritual discernment, 1 corinthians 12
Full Transcript
Review of Last Week's Foundations
Get your Bible, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We are working our way through the book of 1 Corinthians, and we are in the 12th chapter. This section — chapters 12, 13, and 14 — is where Paul talks about spiritual gifts, and there is no way to get through it in one session, so we are building on truth week by week. We wanted to start, and for sure end, with what we have learned, so by way of summation, here is what we saw last week.
Number one, there was a lot of confusion in the Corinthian church about spiritual gifts — spiritual matters in general, and spiritual gifts in particular. If you look in your translation, in all likelihood, in chapter 12 verse 1, the word "gifts" is in italics. That means it was not in the original manuscript, but it has been added because that is the implication of that verse. Paul is writing to them about spiritual matters, particularly spiritual gifts, and they are confused about those gifts — where they come from, how they get them, who has them, and what they are.
Paul makes his intention clear right there in verse 1: he does not want them to be ignorant. In other words, he wants them to be informed. We also saw that Satan had already begun to counterfeit the gifts, and it was happening in two ways. Corinth was a very pagan place, and people who were being converted were radical pagans now in the church. In some instances, they were bringing with them some of those pagan habits and rituals. In other instances, those in the church were excited about what they saw — the fancy, dramatic, showy things going on — and so they were faking it. Paul said he wanted to clarify these things, and so he talks to them at length about this.
What We Know About Spiritual Gifts
When it came to spiritual gifts, we established three or four things from our first lesson. First, they are given by God. A spiritual gift is not something you need to sit and try to drum up on your own power — God has given you a gift. Second, they are given to each believer. If you are sitting here today as a Christian and saying, "I don't know if I have a gift — I know my wife has a gift, I know my kids have a gift, but I don't know about me" — you have a spiritual gift. Third, the gifts are varied. There is not a singular spiritual gift that God gives; He gives many gifts for the purpose of equipping believers.
That point becomes very important. Paul is very clear that the gifts He gives us are for the edification of the body. Where that becomes important is this: if something is going on that is not edifying the body, we may not know exactly what we are dealing with, but we know it is not a spiritual gift.
So when somebody says, for example, "I speak in tongues," and we start to talk further and ask what that means, and they say, "I speak in this prayer language and I exercise it by myself in isolation" — we know something already. We are not yet talking about whether it is true or not; we will get to that another time. What we know is that it does not fit in this list of gifts, because the gifts are not given for that purpose. Whether there is such a thing as a private prayer language or not — and we would say there is not — if there were, it would be separate from this. When somebody says, "I have the gift of tongues, and by that I mean I go in the corner and speak in some ecstatic utterance by myself with nobody else in the room," what we know is that it is not a spiritual gift, because the purpose of the gift is to edify the body.
The gift of tongues we see in Scripture is a known language. Someone who has never heard Swahili stands up and speaks in Swahili, and someone else stands up and interprets it, and neither one ever knew the language — that is biblical tongues. We want to make that distinction clear. The gifts are for the edification of the body, and they are essential for us to grow as a body, as a church.
A Definition of Spiritual Gifts
I put together my own definition, and there is certainly no pride of authorship here, because I have literally plagiarized from the best sources I could find. A spiritual gift is a God-given ability received by each believer at the moment of conversion for the purpose of operating effectively and efficiently in the body of Christ.
It is God-given. When He saved you from your sin and the consequence of your sin, He gave you a special gift — an ability to function in the body of Christ. You do not need to define a long list of things; you simply need to operate effectively and efficiently. When you are operating in your area of giftedness, there is a moment where everyone around you is saying, "That is incredible — how do you do that? How did that happen? Look at all the fruit." It is amazing to people, and it is almost done with ease. Even in your own mind there is something unmistakable. Clearly there is work involved in exercising that gift, but there is an efficiency and effectiveness that is evident to everyone.
The Gifts Listed in 1 Corinthians 12
We left off at verses 7 and 8 of 1 Corinthians 12. "For to one is given a word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another a word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another works of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues."
Now skip with me to verse 28: "And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administration, varieties of tongues." We are not going to cover those verses today — we are going to skip them for now — and let me explain why.
The Spirit Distributes as He Wills
Paul is hammering the theme of diversity and unity. Here it is, verse 11: "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills." Paul has just written about all these individual gifts — not a complete list, but a partial list, a diverse list. Word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, tongues, interpretations. He is saying that one Spirit gives all these different gifts. Here are all these different diverse gifts that come together in one Spirit, and God gives them just as He wills.
This is a very important verse. Here is what it says: your gift is from God, therefore your responsibility for using your gift is to God. It is not our job to hold you accountable to use your gift. Your fiduciary relationship is with God. You are a steward of the gift He gave you. You are not responsible to Young Life or Campus Crusade or us — we will try to work with you, and in a sense perhaps try to hold you accountable and say, "Look, here is what God has done." But ultimately, your responsibility is to Him.
He distributes, as the verse says, just as He wills. You have exactly the spiritual gift God wanted you to have, the gift He desires you to have, and exactly the scope of ministry that He wants you to have. Therefore, you are supposed to be content with the gift He has given you and not straining for other people's gifts. There is gift envy going on in this church very badly, and that is what Paul is addressing. He is saying they are holding one gift higher than other gifts, perceiving some as less than others, and constantly coveting what belongs to someone else.
God gave all these diverse gifts in exactly the apportionment that He wanted, and He gave you exactly the gift that He has for you. Therefore, your effort ought to be not to find a new gift but to use the one He has given you.
Kindle the Gift You Have Been Given
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy and says, "For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God that is in you." The phrase "kindle afresh" means to stir up — literally, to keep it lit on fire. God has given you a spiritual gift, and He wants you to use that gift. Timothy becomes our model here. His gift is teaching and preaching. At the end of 2 Timothy, Paul tells him to stir up the gift, and then in chapter 4, verse 2, he says, "Preach the word. Be ready, in season, out of season, rebuke, reprove," and all that goes with it. Then in verse 5: "But you, be sober in all things, enduring hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."
That is the call on all of us, not just Timothy — fulfill your ministry. So often we look at someone on staff and concern ourselves with their calling to ministry, as though the call belongs only to them. But every person in the body of Christ has been called. It is a bit of a mischaracterization to say that some people are in full-time ministry and others are not. Some make a living at it — we understand that — but what Paul is saying is that there are gifts, you have received a gift, and the gifts are varied. Every believer is in full-time ministry.
The Illustration of the Human Body
Beginning in verse 12, Paul gives us an illustration. He uses the word "body," and the illustration is the human body. If you go through verses 12 to 27 and simply circle or underline every time you see the word "body," when you are done you will have 18 circles on that small passage. Eighteen times Paul uses the word "body." He is going to illustrate the principle of diversity and unity by drawing our attention to the human body and showing us the way it is composed and the way it functions.
"For even as the body is one, yet it has many members, and all the members are of the body, though they are many, they are one body, so also is Christ." This continues a theme running all the way through this passage, and if we miss it, we will miss understanding what Paul is saying, because he comes back to it again and again. Look at what we saw last week in verses 4 through 6. Paul said there is a variety of gifts, a variety of ministries, and a variety of effects. There is diversity — many different gifts, many different ways they manifest, and some with a great deal of fruit around them and some with less. But we should not get hung up on the diversity, because in the middle of it all Paul says they are done through the same Spirit and the same Lord and the same God.
The Unity of the Body
In verse 8, Paul says that one person is given a word of wisdom through the Spirit, another a word of knowledge through the same Spirit, another faith by the same Spirit, and gifts of healing by the one Spirit. He emphasizes this point again and again — there is diversity and yet union within the body. So in verse 12, he uses the human body as his illustration.
One author writes: "The human body is by far the most amazing organic creation of God. It is marvelously complex yet unified with unparalleled harmony and interrelatedness. It is a unit. It cannot be subdivided into several bodies. If it is divided, the part that is cut off ceases to function and dies, and the rest of the body loses some of its functions and effectiveness. The body is immeasurably more than the sum of its parts."
Christ's body is one. There are many Christian organizations and denominations, but there is only one church of which every true believer in Christ is a member. Paul is so intent on driving home the point of oneness in the church that he refers to Christ as the church itself, saying, "So also is Christ."
How We Enter the Body
So how did we get this way? You have all these different gifts, all these different people, different shapes and sizes, different economic backgrounds, different heritage. How did we all get into the same body? Verse 13 has the answer: "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."
This is a critical verse — both for understanding spiritual gifts and for navigating the world we live in. There is a great deal of emphasis in Christian culture today on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not uncommon for someone to call a church and ask, "Are you a Spirit-filled church?" Or perhaps someone has asked you directly, "Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?"
What they typically mean is this: have you had some experience subsequent to your conversion, often accompanied by speaking in tongues or some ecstatic language, accompanied by signs and wonders and dancing? Have you had that moment when you were simply swept away? That is what they mean when they ask if you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit.
What Scripture Actually Teaches
Here is the problem with that understanding — it is not what Scripture teaches. Notice the word in verse 13: *all*. We were all baptized by the Spirit. We were all baptized into the body. We were all made to drink of one Spirit. Jesus said in John 14:20, "You in Me, and I in you." That is exactly what we see fulfilled in this verse.
"You in Me" speaks of our baptism — we are immersed in Him. "I in you" speaks of His indwelling — not the filling, but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is the moment when the Holy Spirit comes and invades your life, takes a heart that is dead and brings it to life. You who once hated God now love God. You are now indwelt by Him. "You in Me" — baptized. "I in you" — indwelt.
This matters enormously in the culture we live in. People will come around you wanting to know if you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. You may find yourself saying, "I don't know — I don't think so. What do you mean?" And they will tell you there is something you need, something that is lacking. But there is nothing lacking if you are a Christian. You have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
There is no biblical command, suggestion, method, or support for the idea of pursuing something secondary to coming to Christ. That idea, depicted so often on television that calls itself Christian, is simply a mischaracterization of what Scripture actually says. It is not only unbiblical — it is destructive. It leads not to the unity Paul is describing here, but to confusion and division. Nowhere in this passage is Paul telling anyone to go seek something they already have. When someone asks you, "Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?" you can say: "Yes — I'm a Christian." Every person who is a Christian has been baptized with the Holy Spirit, immersed and identified with Christ through Him, and has drunk — that is, has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
It Is to Your Advantage
The night before He died, Jesus was speaking to His disciples in John chapters 14 through 17. He told them He had to go, that He would leave them. But He promised that the Father would send another Helper — and He was speaking of the Holy Spirit. At one point He said something that is, to me, mind-boggling. He said, "It is to your advantage that I go."
That strikes you when you first read it. Because if you ask what the epitome of Christian experience would be, most of us would say having Christ right here with us. Those disciples must have felt the same way — nothing could replace having Jesus present. But He said, "Stop. It is to your advantage that I go." Because if He went, He would die, be buried, and rise again — and rather than walking alongside them, He would now indwell them.
That is the power every believer carries. Most people are running around looking for power, but you already have all the power you need. And to be very clear: if someone asks whether the things depicted on Christian television are real — the answer is that they are not biblical. A person may say it is their genuine experience, and it may feel genuine to them. But the question is not whether it feels real — the question is whether it is biblical.
The Greatest Miracle
People aren't satisfied with what God has done. They want to see a miracle. So here is what I have decided to do — I am going to show you a miracle today. Ready? There is a miracle right here. I was dead. Now I am alive. My heart was dead. I was separated from God. I did not want anything to do with God. If at all I was attracted to God, it was to some God I created in my own mind and in my own image. But to the biblical God, I was repulsed. There I was, dead and separated.
Then, in a moment in time, the Holy Spirit invaded my body and took me from death to life. That is a miracle. And it is not just me — there are miracles all over this building. If you are here today and you too are a miracle, raise your hand. See, there are miracles all over this place.
Yet our desire is not to be satisfied with that. God has given you all you need. Why would you settle for something dramatic and showy when He has said, "I am going to give you the real thing"? Why run to the counterfeit? The fruit of that is division, hurt, and pain.
Go to the hospital and talk to someone lying there who has been victimized by the teaching that says, "If you had enough faith, you would be healed." There they sit with cancer eating their body. And not just the physical torment — through false teaching, guilt and confusion have been heaped on them as well. This is serious. That teaching is not true.
If you are a Christian, you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. God has done a miracle. He brought you from death to life. God's plan is enough.
The Body Needs Every Part
Paul gives us an illustration in verses 14 through 17 — the illustration of diversity within unity. Paul knows us. He knows what we are like. With all these diverse gifts, each one different, the human tendency is to elevate one above another. When that happens, people respond in one of two ways. Either someone says, "I don't have much of a gift — you don't need me, you can get along without me," or someone else says, "I don't need you." Paul addresses the first group here.
Verse 14: "For the body is not one member but many members. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body, it is not for this reason any less part of the body, is it? And if an ear should say, because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body, it is not for this reason any less part of the body, is it?"
Then Paul applies common sense in verse 17: "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?"
Here is what is going on. You have someone saying, "I am just a foot. I will never amount to much. I wish I were a hand. Look at hands — they are beautiful. You can play instruments with them, throw a football, write. I am just a foot, a big old foot. I stink. I have disease. Put a sock over me inside a shoe." That is exactly what is being said. "I only have this gift. It does not even matter." And Paul's point is that saying it does not make it true. Or consider the ear saying, "I am not an eye. I just hang here, flopping around. I wish I were an eye. Eyes are beautiful. Eyes can see." Paul says — think about that for a moment.
Every Part Makes the Others Valuable
I spent a good deal of time pondering verse 17. If the whole body were an eye, what would that actually be like? The initial thought is, well, at least we would see very well. But think it through. If the entire body were just one eye, we would not see very well at all. We would see in one direction only. We could not even turn to look around.
Take the eye — and let us all agree the eye is supremely important. But that eye on its own cannot move, cannot turn, cannot smell, cannot eat, cannot walk. It is profoundly limited. Part of what makes the eye so valuable is that it sits in a skull, on a neck that can turn, connected to a torso with legs that can move. That is what He is saying. Do not fall into the trap of saying, "They don't need me because I am just a foot, just an ear."
This brings us to verse 18: "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body." This takes us back to verse 11 and the phrase "just as He desired." God has done this. "If all the members were one member, where would the body be?" That is his point. God put this together just as He desired.
Discover Your Gift and Be Content With It
Your mission, then, is to discover your gift and be content with that gift. As we move into verses 13 and 14 and begin talking about tongues and related matters, we must keep in mind what Paul is dealing with. He is dealing with a group of disobedient people.
The Problem of Discontentment with Your Gift
Paul is saying you already know this. But the problem is not intellectual — it is spiritual. You are not content. You have been given a ministry and you do not want it. Can you imagine that? When you are unhappy with your gift, here is what you are saying: "God, I cannot argue with Scripture. You gave me this. You gave me the apportionment of what You gave. You gave me this. But I have to tell You, I am not that happy with it."
Lack of productivity in your life? Not seeing spiritual things happening? Here is why: disobedience. It has to be. He has done it all — what else would it be? So often when we hit that point in life where we are just dry or just hurting, I hope you understand that you are the problem.
One Body, Many Members
He says it again simply. Look at verse 20: "But now there are many members, but one body." Here it is again. We live — I do, you do — in this country, the good old U.S.A. I am something of a capitalist; put me down for yes on that. Part of our national fabric is rugged individualism: free markets, buyer beware, supply and demand, let the market fix itself. I am all for that.
In the body of Christ, however, there is no place for rugged individualism. No place for it here. In fact, I know this is a strong statement, but I do not think you can even be a Christian in isolation — certainly not much of one, certainly not a fulfilled one. You cannot fulfill either the Great Commission or the Great Commandment. You cannot love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself if you are not in contact with other people.
You cannot fulfill the Great Commission — you cannot go and make disciples, baptize, and teach — without other people around you. You are not designed to go through life alone. That is why the church is so important.
Why You Cannot Replace the Church
That is why when somebody says, "I do not really need the church — I can think about God on the golf course, I can contemplate Him at the Grand Canyon," I have a response. I do not know if you have ever been to the Grand Canyon, but — and since they are both here I will chastise them — we drove up there, the girls and I, Ed and Susan. I am not really outdoorsy. We got to the edge, I said, "My golly, what a gully," and we were out of there. They said, "Where is the gift shop?" That was our entire experience with the Grand Canyon. I said to Susan, "You got anything more you want to see?" She said, "Let's get out of here." The highlight was the IMAX — we stopped at the IMAX, and that was great.
The point is this: yes, you can experience God out in nature, you can contemplate Him there. But that is why you have still got to be in the church. Nothing makes a stronger case for the church than what is right here in this passage. Paul is saying you have got to be in here together.
No Room for "I Don't Need You"
Now in verse 21 he goes the other direction. This is the group that has it all figured out and thinks they do not need anyone else: "And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you; or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you." The first error was thinking others do not need us. Now it is thinking we do not need others. Just because you are an eye, or just because you are a head, you do not say, "I am more important than you." Do not overestimate yourself.
He says, "On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary." Stay with the body for a moment. I was at the gym yesterday, and there was this guy — enormous. Evidently he was so big he could not even get a shirt in his size; the thing was painted on him. He goes over to the end of the rack and picks up a 100-pound dumbbell, then goes back and gets another one. He brings them over, sits on the bench next to me, gets the dumbbells up to his knees, lays back, and starts doing butterflies with them. I am working up to the 100-pound butterflies myself. But I am looking at this guy thinking, that is incredible.
And then this illustration came to me, because that is exactly what Paul is saying. We look at someone like that and say, "Look at those biceps" — but nobody says, "I bet that guy has great kidneys. Look at the kidneys on that guy." Yet he is going to go a lot longer and further in life with those kidneys than he ever will without that arm. That is precisely Paul's point.
Visible Gifts Versus Necessary Gifts
We have a human tendency — and to me this all comes together when we begin to understand it — to look at certain gifts and say, "Man, that is really something." But a more visible gift is no more important than the gift of helps. It is more visible, and consequently we tend to place more value on it. That is why those of us who have gifts that are a little more high-profile are continually burdened with the charge to deflect any admiration and say, "This is of God — and do not forget all these other gifts, because they are just as important, and more important."
The Secret to Spiritual Power
The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, is a man every seminary student has to study. If you go to Spurgeon and ask, "What's the secret? How come when you're in the pulpit on Sunday, people are being converted and lives are being changed?" — you don't have to guess, because Spurgeon gave us the secret to his power. He said, "The secret to the power is in the furnace." By the furnace, he meant a group of people who prayed continually the entire time he was in the pulpit, that the Holy Spirit would use his word. There are volumes written about Spurgeon, but I don't think there has ever been a book written about the furnace. That's just the way we are, and Paul is saying that's not good — don't fall into that trap.
Honoring Every Part of the Body
Verses 23 and 24 are ones I struggle with, but I think I know what Paul is trying to say. He says, "Members of the body which we deem less honorable, on those we bestow more abundant honor, and our unseemly members come to have more abundant seemliness, whereas our seemly members have no need of it." He is talking about the human body. The idea of "less honorable" means less attractive, not particularly attractive. MacArthur says it seems best to see this as referring to the torso in general — the part on which we hang clothes — which may include flabby thighs and a paunch, but is usually covered and considered less attractive. We spend more money and time clothing those parts of the body than the ones that are already presentable, like the eyes or hands.
Paul is saying we tend to give all this praise to one part and ignore the other, and it ought not be that way. That word "bestow" literally means "to put around." Those gifts that are prominent tend to have attention drawn to them — even if you are not drawing it yourself, attention naturally follows. Verse 24b says, "But God has so composed the body, giving abundant honor to that member which lacked, that there should be no division in the body, that the members should have the same care for one another."
Think about heaven in this light. Jesus told His disciples, "The first will be last, the last will be first." Is the Prince of Preachers serving the people who were in the furnace? I don't know for certain, but here is what Paul is saying: you have been given a gift, and every gift is of equal importance to the body. Don't reach the point where you say, "They don't need me," and don't reach the point where you say, "I don't need them." Serve one another.
An Illustration of Mutual Honor
One Friday, someone came into my office and asked if I would come over and pray for lunch. I said sure. When I got there, the maintenance staff — eight people — were present. What had happened was that four of the other ladies on staff had put together this lunch. They were in the back cooking, and there were beautiful cloth table covers, china, goblets, and decorations all over. They had done it to honor those people. They had no idea I would ever talk about it, and the majority of the staff didn't even know it was happening — I didn't even know what was going on. That is exactly what Paul is saying: you honor each other.
If one suffers, they all suffer. If one rejoices, they all rejoice. You are now Christ's body, individual members of it. As long as we see the body of Christ this way, we will see the church as Christ sees the church. When you lose this mutual love and mutual concern, you will have rivalry and competition, malice — it will be ugly and awful.
Earnestly Desiring the Greater Gifts
Verse 31 is an important verse, and I think it is easily misunderstood: "Earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way." Not long ago, in a meeting where I was trying to make the point that I didn't think you should be out desiring gifts, someone got all over me quoting this verse. But this verse is not saying, "Desire a different gift." That makes absolutely no sense in the context of chapter 12. The whole point is that you don't go out pursuing gifts — you have been given a gift. God has given you the gift He wants you to have, as He wills, as He desires.
You don't start praying to God saying, "I've got my gift and I want a different one." That cannot be right. What Paul is giving them here is condemnation, not a command. He is saying, "You guys are all messed up. You are out there desiring gifts that aren't yours. You are putting value on one gift over another — knock it off." If you want to see a better way, he will show you a more excellent way.
What is that more excellent way? It is 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Paul is not going to say, "I'm going to show you a more excellent gift." All the gifts are important. Don't be out there desiring other gifts. Desire the gift God has given you, and don't think for a moment that one gift is somehow better than another. The gifts are sovereignly given by God. We are mutually dependent, and we are responsible to Him.
Love: What Holds the Body Together
Paul says, "I'll show you a thing that will make this diverse body work." Think about it: here is a body with all these different parts, yet it is one body. What pulls it all together, energizes it, keeps it together, and keeps it moving in one direction? What keeps the body of Christ moving in one direction is one thing — love. So Paul naturally begins to talk about love.
The Gift, the Gifts, and the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
There is a very big difference between the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your life at the point of conversion. That is the moment in time when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and changes you from sinner to saint — when you were dead, now you are alive. When He says, "John baptized with water, I will baptize with the Holy Spirit," that is what He is talking about.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are all the things we have talked about throughout this series — discerning spirits, prophecy, and all the different areas we have looked at. You have been given at least one of those for the purpose of operating efficiently and effectively in the body of Christ. And then there is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, found in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
So let us put them in sequence. You receive the Holy Spirit at the point you are baptized — you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and placed into the body of Christ. When that gift of the Holy Spirit comes into your life, you are given a spiritual gift, an ability to operate supernaturally with effectiveness and efficiency in the body of Christ. And the evidence of that Holy Spirit is that there will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in your life.
What We Have Learned
Here is what we have learned as we have worked our way through the balance of chapter 12. Every believer has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Let me say it again: when somebody comes up to you and implies you are lacking something — when they say to you, "Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?" — you say, "Yes, I am a Christian."
There is one body of Christ and many diverse members of that body, but in the midst of that diversity, we have unity. Part of the tension here is that diversity. There are varied gifts, and even within the same gift, there is varied effectiveness. It is all given by God as He wills and He desires, and each member is a valuable, needed member of the body.
And there is a more excellent way — more excellent than desiring more gifts, or bigger gifts, or different gifts. That more excellent way is love. That is what we will talk about in a couple of weeks.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us see this. Help us understand this truth. Help us see that we have, if we are Christians, received the gift of the Holy Spirit — that we no longer have You alongside us, but in us, and that all who are Christian have been baptized.
Father, help us pursue the things that You desire for us and the gift that You have given us. God, let us resist the game where we say, "Shucks, I am nothing," or, "I am something and I do not need You." Help us resist all of that and simply follow You and love You.
We pray that we would be a body held together by Your Spirit and fueled by love — love for You and love for one another. God, we pray Your Holy Spirit would fill our hearts. That is what we desire. We offer it to You in Jesus' name, amen.