The Lordship of Christ is central to the functioning of the local assembly, as believers must acknowledge His authority in their lives. The sermon emphasizes that the Holy Spirit provides the enabling power for spiritual gifts, while Christ Himself governs the actions of believers within the assembly. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all involved in the testimony and work of the church, with God ultimately giving the increase. Therefore, each individual believer is given a spiritual gift to be used for the profit of all, reflecting the interconnectedness of the body of Christ.
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I Corinthians chapter twelve I'm sure from our brother's prayer that he has just made most of us as believers should very deeply be very deeply conscious the coming of the Lord certainly is near for there is only one solution for the problems within the world whether it be in the church Whether it be in the nation of Israel, God's chosen people, or in the nations of the earth, the remedy for all the problems of the world is the coming of the Lord.
I often think of the words of the dear Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians about their own troubles. He made one comment at the end of one expression, the rest will I set in order when I come. For the Corinthian epistle is a corrective epistle. May I emphasize that? There are two epistles. There are only corrective, particularly in character. Where Paul himself has a right to correct that which was wrong amidst the churches. The Corinthian letter, together with the Galatian epistle.
or even the Galatian epistle. Paul had to correct the conditions that were prevailing in the churches of Galatia. And when we look at the Corinthian epistle, we have the same ministry of correction. Now may I say lovingly, as we come to our subject tonight in chapter twelve of the epistle, you find at the beginning of the whole epistle Paul made a reference regarding the gifts that the assembly had, and he made this statement, You come behind in no gifts. For in our chapter tonight in the twelfth chapter of Corinthian, Paul deals with the spiritual gifts in the Church of God, and particularly in the local assembly to which he was then rising.
We want a joy it is to remember, and please may I be reminded again, that Paul writes in this epistle to correct the things that were in common. And if you've read the epistle through and studied it, you'll find many things he needed to correct. But in the section where we are, chapter eleven, chapter twelve, and going down through chapter fourteen, And in fifteen, may I suggest to you what we had. In chapter eleven, he touches upon the assembly God with responsibility in worship, toward God, in the communion and fellowship around the Lord Jesus, when we remember him in the breaking of bread at the Lord's Supper.
And then beginning in chapter twelve through chapter fourteen, and let me emphasize this particularly. He deals with the inward conditions of the assembly in regard to the service in the assembly toward one another. It's not the outside world. It's the local testimony. And particularly as he wrote to the Corinthians. And then in chapter fifteen, you have him referring to the outward testimony of the gospel. where we know that is our responsibility to go out with the gospel to the Lord Jesus, to present the Lord Jesus as the Savior of the world.
But let me again say, chapter twelve, thirteen, fourteen, particularly covers the inward condition that should be existing, which the Apostle seeks to correct at Corinth. Now let me begin reading the twelfth chapter, please. And may I say again, referring to our theme, that I think, first of all, we began the study of the person of the Holy Spirit. We followed it by something of his works. And in our recent two weeks, we found, particularly in chapter two of First Corinthians, the Holy Spirit is the teacher the revealer of divine truth.
My beloved, let me say again with emphasis, here is the Word of God before us. Don't forget it is the Word of God. It's not the Word of man. God did use forty different authors, human men, to write the book, but by divine inspiration. So God wrote it, and let me remind you what you probably remember. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, correction, instruction in right living.
And thus we come to this epistle again to follow the teaching of the Holy Spirit regarding the divine testimony upon the earth. And here you have it locally. Please let me say, by way of contrast, if you were to read Ephesians chapter four, where you have the universal gifts relating to the church at large, it is a different presentation. This one in Corinthians is chiefly locally and should be applied locally to our heart. And may I give you the thought, then?
For you and for me, in relation to our testimony of this assembly, this particular chapter has a tremendous bearing upon the condition of the assembly and its service to the glory of the Savior. Let me read, first of all, verse one through three. Now concerning spiritual gifts, gifts are the given by the Spirit. Brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by or in the Spirit of God calleth Jesus a curses.
And then no man can say to Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now let me pause particularly for a few moments in meditation with you, to what the Apostle is directing his thoughts and his ministry in these first three verses. You may know he makes mention particularly the end of the fight in verse three of those who call Jesus a curses. Now let me give this information, which is certainly can be produced by evidence of long ago in the early days of the church. It was very often known in the early days of the church that men called Jesus anathema, which is the Greek word, for a cursive, and particularly the Jews who rejected the Lord Jesus.
And here the apostle is declaring, as you note verse three particularly, I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit or in the Spirit of God call us Jesus because, in other words, the Christian doesn't call him that. But in those early days they met opposition, particularly from the Jews, and you find it sometimes today. You'll even find an Orthodox Jew cursing a Christian in many times. And when, may I give you this all, she's often been customary by many Orthodox Jews when they hear the name of Jesus, they sit on the ground and call him a curse.
And that's because of the blindness of their heart, we know, but that's what was, that does happen. And it happened in those early days. Now the Apostle Paul is reminding them. Note in verse two particularly, before you were saved you were Gentiles. You followed the dumb idols and laid about by them. Now I want you not to be ignorant of the fact. I give you to understand in verse three. There is by and in the Spirit of God you call and you note the word, Jesus is the Lord. And that by the Holy Ghost. Now may I point out and emphasize the first thing that the Apostle mentioned.
Jesus is the Lord. Now let's take it in more seriously than perhaps we ever had. It's the Lordship of Christ in relation to the believers in the local assembly. Now may I state, first of all, There is a difference between the headship of Christ over the church and his lordship. His headship is a positional place. Inside you're reading Colossians, he's the head of all the creation, as well as the head over all things of the church.
It's his position as being the head. And you have it in Hebrews chapter three. Hand over in his own house. Whose house are we? But here's the expression. The believer calls him by the Spirit Lord and acknowledges his Lordship. Now may I refer to the fact? It's an important matter that the Apostle approaches that in the Assembly every believer who has been redeemed by the Spirit should acknowledge the Lordship of Christ.
Now may I put it in this particular way? It's acknowledging in obedience. Acknowledging His authority. The Lord of your life. The Lord of my life. The Lord Who controls every believer's life. Now may I raise the question for you as well as for myself? Does he have control over our lives? In the assembly? As well as I'll do it for that matter. But does he have control of each one of us? That's what the apostle is presenting.
The lordship of the Savior. Now maybe connect it with one verse you may well know. I quote Romans once. chapter twelve, rather, verse one and two. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your body, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world. Be ye transformed, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect, Rule of God. Let me couple it together, please.
Are you and I daily doing the will of God, pleasing the Lord? Does He have perfect, complete control? It's a searching question. So then is one the apostle begins with here, as he seeks to correct. what needed to be corrected in common regarding the use of spiritual gifts as the Spirit may give them. First of all, may I say again, let me put it in this particular expression. The condition, the power and the testimony of this little gathering of believers in this chapel depends upon every individual believer's faithfulness to the Lord.
Let me say that again. It's not the one who's in the pulpit. It's all of us. He's the Lord of the Assembly. When you have the text behind me on the wall, that in all things he might have the preeminent. And what does it involve? Well, if he's going to have it in the testimony, each individual is responsible. Is he my Lord controlling? Now, let me repeat again. Not the headship, but the Lordship of Christ. Meaning, personally, does he control my life?
That means every day. That means every moment. That does realize that. For without that, look, I'm sure of this. If every one of us in the Lord were what we ought to be in the obedience of doing, as we quoted from Romans, the perfect will of God, wouldn't that be of the greatest value and benefit for the testimony of the local assembly? Let me repeat again. You can look at the whole church if you want to, but this particularly directs the truth of it to a local one, as it was in the days of Corinth.
And they had their difficulties. Now let me go to verse four, if I may, and then go on reading. And as we read from verse four, and we have these words saying, Now there are diversities, we read through verse six, if I may. Now there are diversities or varieties of gifts. but the same spirit. There are differences or varieties of administration, but the same Lord. There are diversities or all varieties of operations. But it is the same God which works of all in all. Now I want you to notice something. Look very carefully.
Verse four, verse five, verse six. You have the mention of the Godhead. Verse four, the gifts and the Spirit giving them. Verse five, in their actions and administration and work, the Lord is to be over them. And then you have in verse six, God himself mentioned, God the Father. And let me please put before you and before myself too. In any testimony, local testimony, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are to be recognized and have a part.
Let me repeat it again without apology for the repetition. The Spirit of God, the Lord Himself, together with God the Father. And what do you have? Well, when it comes in verse four, it's the same spirit ministering the gifts. But who enables the believer to carry out the gifts? The Holy Spirit is the enabling power. Let me quote the words I think I mentioned before. In prayer, if I'm not mistaken. When we read in Zechariah chapter four and verse six, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord.
And in that particular chapter, in the days of Israel, it was God, the Spirit, giving him the power to finish the rebuilding of the temple in that day. And may I humbly say, the enabling power of the Spirit is needed. May I humbly present it to you in this particular fashion, and I say it humbly, but I seek by the grace of God to come and minister this word tonight, not in my own power, God ever forbid, but by the help of the Holy Spirit.
Read the whole book of the Acts, and there you read that the presence and the operation of the Holy Spirit was the power of the only church. My beloved, let me put it in this way. Let me put it bluntly. The power for this assembly to be a testimony of any group of believers to be a testimony of the Lord. It's got to be the Holy Spirit, not the preacher. The Holy Spirit. We shall see. He gives the gift. And then on the other hand, as you may go to verse five, There are differences of administration or actions, but the same law.
The Holy Spirit gives the enabling power. The Lord Himself governs the actions. May I put it in another expression. The Spirit gives the enablement. The Lord controls the actions. And that's the necessity of what we emphasize with the opening of the chapter. Acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. Let me give you this thought from the book of the Acts in chapter nine. Remember when Paul was saved on the road of Damascus? And when he was saved, he said, Lord, not spirit, but Lord, what will thou have me to do?
And you read in chapter thirteen, it was the Lord that sent them out. giving the gospel. In other words, in, well, you've often heard the statement, well, let me quote particularly from an Old Testament chapter. First book of, second book of Kings, chapter two, where Elijah is on his last journey before he goes to heaven. He goes from one place to another. He starts at Gilgal. He goes to Bethel. And he goes then... And then he goes to Jericho. Then he goes to Jordan. And then into the wilderness. But you notice, as he talks to his servant, Elijah, Elijah says, The Lord has sent me to Bethel.
The Lord has sent me to Jericho. The Lord has sent me on every occasion. In other words, sent by the Lord. And the Lord... governs the action of his servants. And my beloved, may I say, Oh, then it's perfect. Raise the question. What Paul said. Lord, what will thou have me to do? And from the announcement our brother made, regarding what may be God's dealing with our dear brother St.
John's, You and I should be saying, Lord, what will thou have me to do? When we read our chapter, we'll read as we go down to chapter that not one of us are free from working. But to every one believer, God has given something to do. And for you and me to find out, under his guidance, But we can say with Paul, what would thou have me to do? Then when you go to verse six, there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which works us all in all.
Now let me repeat these three things. First of all, the enabling of the Spirit. Second, the control of the Lord in the actions that we may do. But third, What do you have here? Well, let me say this. It's the Spirit that gives the enablement. It's the Lord Jesus who controls us in the actions we carry out and direct us by the Spirit. But it's God who blesses. Look at me in chapter three of this same book, I believe it is. Chapter three. There's a good thought in this third chapter.
And I'd like to emphasize it. As Paul mentioned it, let me go to verse six. Oh, let me go back furthermore. In verse five, as Paul takes the correction for following, Apollos and Paul and Seepers. Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos? But ministers, and that word minister means servants, by whom you believe, even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, upon us watered, but God gave the increase. Go to verse seven. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
Now let me put it in this form. Here am I as God's servant, and hope by the enabling of the Spirit, ministering the word to his glory and the honor of God, and the Lord Jesus directing the word as I sit to minister for him. But it's God that give us the increase. Apollos meant nothing. Pardon, Paul? Nothing. They were slaves, soldiers, servants. Paul may have planted, and Apollos did water the word in Corinth, too, amongst the saints.
But Paul said, anything that was not God gave the increase. God gave the increase. And my beloved, when it comes to the increase and blessing of God in the assembly, remember that. The enablement of the Spirit of God. and the authority and control of the Lord in his lordship over us. And if it's obeyed, God will give the increase for that and will be so. So now let's go back to our chapter twelve. And I'd like particularly to touch in verse seven before we close tonight by his grace.
But the manifestation of the Spirit That is, the gifts of the Spirit is given to everyone to profit with all. Now, beloved brother and sister, let me bluntly say, and frankly, everyone in the assembly is given a gift. When you are saved, you are saved not only because of deliverance from judgment. But if you acknowledge him as Lord, you're safe to do his will and obey his word and glorify his name.
Now what the gift is, it's for you and for me personally to let the Lord show us. Let me emphasize one thing before we close. Everyone has been given a gift. You might give out hymn books or raffer gifts if you feel led of the Lord to do that. Or whatever it may be. Further down in the chapter we'll see enumerated many things. But the whole thing is this. The whole point is this. Does everyone in this assembly realize that God has given them a spiritual gift to be used? For him?
And particularly in connection with the local testimony within the assembly toward one another, as we shall see. For as we go on, we'll see that the assembly as well as the whole church is likened to a body, an organism. And that body has its members. And you can't do without any members. Let me close with a little statement of what happened one time. Many, many years ago when I was up in northern Michigan at a conference at a certain lake in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Every morning I used to rise early and take a walk around that lake, maybe about three or four miles. And one morning that week I remember early in the morning coming through the woods, and it was all woods. As I was whistling and singing to myself, going down a little grade and up another grade, on one occasion I came, and as I looked up this little grade that I was headed for, I saw a big mother bear signing up direct looking at me with two little cubs. And I knew I was in for trouble unless I was careful.
And I didn't know whether to start running back, go where and come from, the other way. But the Lord seemed to tell me, keep going. Well, I'll tell you one thing. My eyes were on that bear, and my feet were going the other way, anyway. But two little cubs ran in a brush. The mother sent them in quickly. And she went in a little bit, stood up again looking at me to see what I would do. And I know I was into trouble. For on that very time, that very... month there. Some have been beaten by bears in that very area. And you know I thought of the brush. The head can't say to the feet, I have no need of thee. I knew what I said to myself, John, feet do your stuff if you have to.
But I'm glad to say that there did that three or four times going a little further in the brush and then look standing up to see if I was coming. And I made believe I didn't care about her at all. I was scared to death. But I kept going on, and that's all that happened. Well, I tell you what, I thought of that by some charm. See, do your stuff if you have some. Well, look, you can't say to your brother, and sister, I know neither can I. Neither can I. You know, Paul's trying to tell us. The Lord is over each one of us.
And here we are, with the divine Trinity, participating in our testimony. The Spirit enabling, and the Lord himself is personally controlling the believer. And the fruit of it, God is the increase. That's right. You know, let me give you something to think about as we leave. Did you ever thought, and do I ever think of it, we are to be here representing the Great Gordes. I'd tell you that better than representing the United States government.
The Great Gordes? My beloved, let me say, oh, I wish I could say to many, dear Christians, wherever they are, that in their gatherings, what an honor. to be representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And thus, by his grace and enablement, do our part. My beloved, please let me say, don't depend upon one man. You've got to go at him. I think of dear L. Moody, bless his heart. Before he was ever an evangelist preaching out there in the world, He was in a local church up in Northfield, Massachusetts.
And he was very interested in preaching the gospel in the open air. On one occasion when he went to church, one of the brethren said to him, Brother Moody, do you have an open air meeting yesterday? Last night? Yes, we did. How many did you have? Oh, there was five of us. Five. That was a good help, wasn't it? Yeah. Who were they? He said, Well, he said, I'll tell you who was there. God the Father was there. God the Son was there. God the Holy Spirit was there. And the devil was there. And myself. You got the thought.
He was all alone as far as preaching. But he knew he had the help of the Godhead. And you, the devil, was there to make trouble if he could. What did you... No. Whatever the situation, thanks be to God, we can turn to the God. Shall we pray? Oh, beloved Father, we confess with shame the outward failure that we give evidence of. Lord, it's so evident in many, many ways. and many places, but we pray for each other. And we pray particularly, as one of our brethren pray, that not only ourselves here tonight, but the absent members of the testimony, may be brought closer to thee, and that each one of us may do what we have just been reading.
Find out what God would have us to do, and that depends upon making the Lord Jesus the Lord of our lives, and doing the perfect will of God. Sanctify the truth to our hearts, our souls, our consciences, and in our minds and for the blessing, Lord. Lord Jesus, we pray for thy blessing on this little assembly. We are weak, but thou art mighty. In the Savior's precious name as we commend each other, in separating and bring us again together in thy will.