Concerning Spiritual Things

And so we're going to continue in this little study of First Corinthians, Paul writing to the church. And and we're going to delve now. He's going to take a a a little turn here. Up to this point, he's talked about a lot of messy situations in the church. Divorce, remarage, uh divisions among the people, all kinds of issues that were going on with the church, issues that arise from the flesh. And he tells us that everything that he's dealt with practically to this point, it has been issues that have been caused because we are trapped in these bodies.

We're trapped in these bodies. We're this hybrid creature that God created, spirit, but flesh also. And uh that's not going to change until that day of change comes until the either the rapture of the church or we go by the way of the grave and the resurrection. Uh we are in the flesh. And there's a lot could be said about uh some of Paul's statements. He says, "You are yet carnal." Well, of course I am. I'm in the flesh. Uh that's that's just a natural thing. But it's overcome by the spirit.

Uh and and we would how many would like to be spiritual today? Anybody want to be spiritual? Well, you've got this dilemma because you're you're trapped in this body. And and Paul said, "The things that I would do, I don't do those things that I would not. Th those are the things that I do because God help me. I'm trapped in this body. And so after all the messes that he's dealt with, all of these situations from chapters 12 to 14, he is going to deal specifically with spiritual things. And that's the title of my lesson today concerning spiritual things.

I've dealt with all of your messes. I've dealt with all of your divisions. I've dealt with all of your your messy situations. He says in verse one of chapter 12, now concerning spiritual gifts. Now, if you've got a King James version of the Bible, uh you'll notice that that gifts is an ellipsus. It's an italicized word, which means that the translators put it in there for clarification of meaning primarily. So, literally, it says this. Now concerning spirituals uh plural spirituals typically spiritual things not just the gifts because Paul is going to talk about a lot of spiritual things during this discourse here.

And he says concerning these spiritual things I would not have you ignorant. Verses 4-6 says, "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God that workketh in all." And then verse 31 of this chapter says this, "But covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show unto you a more excellent way." And he segus then into chapter 13, which is the great love chapter, we understand. But all of it is about spiritual things.

He's he's going to stop talking about their their flesh and their carnality and their their messes in the flesh and start guiding them in spiritual things. Ignorance was a common concern expressed in Paul's letters. He uses this phrase in some form. 11 times in his writings, I would not have you to be ignorant. I don't want you to sit there and stew in your ignorance and remain that way. But but he also after after all of these admonitions of saying, "I don't want you to be ignorant." But in verse uh 38 of chapter 14, he says this.

But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant. It's like, I'm going to try to fix you a little bit. I'm going to try to give you some tools, but if you want to stay ignorant, that's your own choice, right? A lot of people, let me just say it very bluntly, don't make a lot of progress because they get satisfied. Like the little boy that kept falling out of bed and his mom comes in and says, "Son, what's wrong?" He said, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."

A lot of people just stay too close to where they got in and don't make any progress in the spirit. Now there there are biblical principles that we are given. And one of them is that the life of the body is in the blood. That's an Old Testament concept, right? It's why the blood was spilled. is why the blood of bulls and goats and animals was split spilled because the to get the blood out is the only way to become spiritual. Now, I'm not ad advocating suicide or cutting yourself or any of that stuff today.

So, don't don't misconrue what I'm about to say, but we are not going to be spiritual until we are raised in that resurrection. Spirituality is not going to be perfected until we are finally done with this blood, this life in the flesh. And Paul says, he addresses this in 1 Corinthians 15th chapter when he says, "You were sown a natural body that is a sucos in the Greek, a natural body, a sooulish body, but you will be raised a pneumatic, a spiritual body. You're going to be raised a spiritual body.

So, we're going to be changed at some point. But again, God help us. We struggle with this flesh. There is uh there is a a familiar saying that says ignorance is bliss. I want to correct that today. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is darkness. It is harmful. It is elucery. And it's totally unproductive to be ignorant. That means simply without knowledge. You're lacking knowledge. I'm lacking knowledge about certain things. The Lord even said this in the Old Testament in Hosea 4 and verse 6. He said, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

They are destroyed for lack of knowledge. What we don't know can kill us. What we don't know can kill us. We should remember that uh when we're looking back at these churches, these early primitive churches, we should remember that Pentecost brought a totally new experience, especially to the Gentiles who didn't have the foundation of the the writings and the prophets that the Jewish people had. And this was what largely Paul was ministering to is a bunch of people that came from a culture who had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost but now they are totally puzzled about how it all works or how it should work.

They have come uh to a uh from a culture that again we we read some of these things and and we don't really grasp what they mean in some areas of the culture. It was an honorable profession to be a thief. And so Paul says those of you who steal, you got to stop that. They came from a culture where a part of their religion was was temple prostitutes, the vestal virgins. That was the Greco Roman culture in which they lived. So their religion involved these practices. And Paul says, "Hey, you got to stop doing that kind of stuff."

But understand this was a fledgling church of people who didn't have any kind of foundation whatsoever as to how everything should work about the spirit. So in the Corinthian church apparently there was all kinds of disorder and chaos concerning these spiritual things. Spiritual things. So the question of how do I live out this new what is called walk in the spirit and we we all still have our Pentecostal vernacular. I have been Pentecostal all my life all 74 years of my life I have heard this language and this speech. And so when when we talk about walking in the spirit and and uh living in the spirit and uh having the spirit indwelling us, none of that is new to me.

That kind of vocabulary is ingrained in me. But this was a new experience for these people. How do I live this out? It could be comparable to a similar experience that Israel had when they first received the Ten Commandments. Moses comes down and already they're dancing around a calf down there. He's getting the law on the mountain and he's about to lay down the law to them. And instead, he got so frustrated that he just broke the tablets. They didn't know what to do. They had just come out of Egypt.

They had no way no way of knowing the ways of God because none of this was was uh uh foundational to them. It was all new. And so they first received these ten commandments and and they say, "How do we supposed to do all of this?" And so Moses said, "I'll be right back. I got to go back up to the mountain." Comes back down. This time he don't have 10 laws. He's got 613 laws because they ask, "How are we supposed to live this out?" And now they've got laws that are telling them how to dress, how to socialize, how to eat, civil or uh ordinances and obedience and their ceremonial religious practices.

All of this from the question of how are we supposed to do this? Now, we have the New Testament. We have all the writings of Paul and the apostles. We've got those things. They didn't have any of this. And so, they were struggling with how to be spiritual. The Corinthian church was obviously plagued with a lot of issues. And here was yet another example. And apparently Paul is answering yet another question. How do we use this new found spirituality that we have? How are we to be guided in this? Because in verse one he says now about spiritual things.

I'm going to answer your question about spiritual things. I don't want you to be without knowledge about these things. And so gifts appears later in verse four. But the broader context of this is uh order in spiritual activities. And so regarding the ministries and gifts, Paul later gave a key that protects misuse of these things. Verse 32 of chapter 14, he says this, "The spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets." I've heard preachers from the pull pit shut people down who were given a message in tongues and somebody might get offended at that.

But listen, God, as it was explained, God doesn't interrupt himself. If the anointing is upon the preacher who's preaching, he's not going to interrupt himself. Amen. And so there there is a there is a a protocol that's established even in spiritual things. And so spiritual gifts are never chaotic. God is not the author of confusion. Spiritual things are not chaotic. They are not confusing. A and so uh they are never to engender confusion. There is a structure of the usage of the gifts that is established and they are they are subjected to specific callings.

Sometimes Paul says in verse 28, "And God hath set some in the church." Watch this, first apostles. That means first. The Greeks didn't have an idea of two things being first. Only one thing could be first. And he said the first thing that God has said in the church is one thing and that's apostles. the apost the apostolic authority was overriding in the church. And so basically he was saying what the pastor should do is grab the authority not seize it but just lay hold on it the authority that is imbued into that pastor.

I still believe in pastoral authority. I believe that it is a gifting, a calling of God that the pastor has to establish. And we we sometimes get all hung up on this. And and I'm not the pastor here today, but I'm I can tell you from a pastoral experience that the pastor has the authority to establish the standards for the church. If you go to work at Chick-fil-A, you wear the uniform. If you go to work at McDonald's, the boss has the right to tell you to put on this shirt because you're being identified as a McDonald employee.

The pastor can set the standards for the church that is presenting a face to the community about what this church is all about. Amen. Stay with me. So the first means first he has set apostolic authority in the church. Second, he said there are propheties uh prophets. There are those who speak under the opaces and the inspiration of the spirit. Third, there are teachers. There are those who are specifically gifted with these gifts of revelation. God has set them in the church. They are the overriding authorities led by the spirit of God.

Folks, we have got to have confidence that the man of God is speaking for God and the gifts of God when they are in operation. I know what we do because I'm human. Somebody gives a message in tongues and I bow my head and I look over there to see who it is. You do the same thing. That's why you're laughing. We do the same thing. We we we want to see who it is. It doesn't matter who the voice is. What matters and this is so awesome. That's the voice that God is using to speak to his congregation.

and I should receive it as that is the voice of God. We'll get into discernment in just a a few minutes, but Paul then drove a a a point home to address any doubt that may have clouded the issue of order in the church. He asks this question in verses 29 and 30 of First Corinthians. Verses 29 and 30. And he says this, "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" And in every case, brother Jury, the expected answer is no.

Not everybody's an apostle. Not everybody's a prophet. Not everybody is a miracle worker. The expected answer is we are not all of those in one person. Not everybody is all of those. But nonetheless, we are gifted. You This is so important. I encourage young ministers that I talk to, find your ministry gift. Because if you don't find your ministry gift, you will never find your identity in God. You will not find what you are supposed to do, your the place where you fit in God. And so it's an important concept to know the spiritual things and how they are to be exercised and how it all fits into God ordained cosmos or order.

And so there are nine charismata, nine gifts that are listed with a common thread. Although they are distributed to various individuals, they are divided uh to other uh different and and this means another of the same kind all uh we it it and the common thread is this even though it's a different individual it's by the same spirit by the same spirit and the ministries are under the same authority and the effects are worked by the same God. Hallelujah. It's the same God that works in all of these gifts that that are given.

Verse 11 says, "But all of these workketh that one and selfsame spirit dividing to every man individually." It says severally, but it means individually as he will. These are all gifts to the church that help to shape and maintain order within the body. It can get very chaotic if we just allow unbridled giftings to take place is what was happening at Corenth. People just speaking in tongues all the time. no interpretation and nobody gets edified by that. It was all kinds of things going on. It's it's actually the internal workings and this is where the spirit guides the spiritual things.

The internal workings. Listen, most of us are not going to die from external causes. Most of us are not going to get murdered. Most of us when we die it's going to be from internal causes. What's happening in the body? And so it's the internal workings of the body that determine the life of the body. I'm not a very good example of this. My quality of life could be better if only I ate better. If only I did certain things better, my my everything could be. But I I've said this, I don't want to be laying in the hospital bed gasping out my last last breath wondering why am I dying.

I at least know what I'm dying from. I didn't take care of myself, right? I ate that stuff that I wasn't supposed to eat. But boy, what a ride it's been. At least I'm not laying there dying and not knowing what I'm dying from. Right. The life of the body is important. A and the internal workings are what determines the life of the body. If you have internal failures in the body of doctrine, of holiness, of disobedience, there's no amount of giftings that is going to take care of that. The internal the internal workings of the spirit are what takes care of the life in the body.

Unified diversity is the hallmark of the body. God distributes the gifts. Hallelujah. I got some things to say here. Just being used by the spirit doesn't mean that you are perfect. Sometimes it doesn't even mean that you're right. It means that you are yielded. So don't be confused when you when you see maybe in other denominations the giftings of the spirit people talking in tongues and interpretations going forth in other places. And you say I don't know about all that. God uses and distributes severally individually as he will. It is a It is not a confirmation of your rightness or your righteousness.

God spoke through a donkey which was an unclean animal. And if God can speak through a donkey, surely he can use me. Amen. So the first three gifts that are mentioned are revelatory gifts. Everybody say revelatory. They they are gifts of revelation, insight, a message of wisdom. Not note how he phrases this. He says he says that it is a word of wisdom. a word of wisdom that logos as used in context here. It has a broader meaning of a message. Paul talked about the preaching of the cross. That word there, same word, it means the message of the cross.

And so here it means a message of wisdom through the means of the spirit. This is not native intellect. I don't care how smart you are. It doesn't have anything to do with IQ, common sense, or conventional wisdom. We're talking about spiritual things. This is what Paul's talking about. Spiritual things here, not things that come from your own intellect, not a uh not not something that comes from your own mind, not come because you've got a high IQ, but God inspires. YOU HAVE these aha moments sometimes. I I've talked to preachers about this and and and sometimes we speak outside of ourselves and you can tell it.

We call it the anointing when someone gets anointed. I've I've sat back there and I've watched people in the pull pit and you can tell at that moment that this wasn't something that they had planned to say. It wasn't something that was in their notes necessarily, but it is a gift and and it takes you, if you've experienced this, you know that it kind of takes you a back because you go, "Whoa, where did that come from?" It's a gifting, a word, a message of wisdom that comes by means of the spirit and it is imparted through seeking God in prayer and is not necessarily always an inddwelling gift.

Words fitly spoken is what the Bible says are like apples of gold and pictures of silver. You ever run into anybody like that? Especially when you needed just that word and somebody would come up to you and speak that word to you. God knew that you I've been in I've been in situations where I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do. And and then a word from God through a man of God or a a woman of God would come and and it would be inspirational and just the very thing that I needed at the time.

That is the wisdom of God being reflected. James 3:1 15 says, "This wisdom descendeth not from uh from above." Speaking of earthly wisdom, but it's earthly and sensual and devilish, but there is a wisdom that comes from above. And and the writer said that if you lack wisdom that ask of God who gives to all men liberally, he will impart this wisdom. And so it's an imparted wisdom that comes from God, not from your own intellect or my own mind. A and uh it he went on to say there is also a word of knowledge.

It's also not a collection of data that's gleaned from your education. It's knowing through the spirit of God. And again, none of these things will ever be hurtful or harmful. They are not designed to destroy. They're designed to edify us. A word of knowledge. And so the the preposition that's used here is down from the spirit. It comes down from the spirit. And and so this is what James was clarifying. It's not a a worldly wisdom. It is a heavenly knowledge that comes down from the father of lights. One of those gifts from from him that is perfected in the spirit.

So wisdom and knowledge are two sides of the same coin. Wisdom is the judicious exercise of knowledge. Somebody well said, "You know that tomato is a fruit, but you're wise if you don't put it in a fruit salad." Right? Knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit, but wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad. it just doesn't work out. The judicious the judicious use of knowledge is wisdom. It's how it's applied. And and so uh let me go on. The discernment is the the third of these three revelatory gifts.

We so sometimes demean the aspect of judgment. If we lay aside judgment, folks, we are lost. The Bible does not even advocate that we should just lay aside judgment. We should lay aside the judgment that is condemnatory. Right? I can't put you in heaven or hell. Only God can do that. But I can tell you what the word of God says. And I can I can look at the word of God and I can adjudicate things from the perspective of the spirit by using the word of God. God doesn't want us to lay aside judgment in that respect.

In 1 John 4:1 he said, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world." 1 Timothy 4:1 says this, "Now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." How do we avoid this? Listen, we are in such a deceptive age today. You cannot believe what you read on screen. The Ukraine has a diplomatic agent. Her name is Victoria Shei. And they have to scroll across the screen.

She is their spokesman for the government. And she's not real. She is totally AI generated. And they have to scroll across the screen. I am not a real person because she is totally believable. as a person. I heard sister way talk about uh brother Ken Gurley's daughter talking about this and said 80% of what is upsetting you and you're responding to is AI generated 80%. We have got to be careful because deception is a hallmark of this age in which we live. You can't believe what you see. Thank God there is a word in which we can have confidence, a more sure word of prophecy.

And when all else fails, try the spirits. Put them to the litmus test of what thus saith the word of God. And if it fails that test, reject it. This is not an adjudication of natural outward things but supernatural spiritual things. Jesus had this discernment of the spirit. When he came to the coast of Gera, he didn't ask the man, "What prescriptions are you on? What medications are you taking for this? The demons responded in kind and fell at his feet. And Jesus recognized them for what they were. This man is plagued with demons.

Demons must have gone into hiding in the modern age because we don't see a whole lot of calling out of demons anymore. Amen. So where have they gone? They're hiding in plain sight. Amen. They saw an uncontrollable man. Jesus saw a tormented spirit. He went right to the root of the problem. Many things that manifest themselves in the flesh is rooted in the spirit and it can't be taken care of with any other methods or means gets quiet when I talk about this topic. But if we ever become so cerebral that we think we can take care of spiritual matters with our heads and our mindsets, we are lost.

We'll be lost to the spirit. The woman had a spirit of divination in Acts chapter 16. Her manager saw her as a freak for profit, but Peter and John saw her as a slave to the supernatural and turned and cast the devils out of that woman. In this era of psychologizing every human issue, we still need to see things from a spiritual perspective. Some problems are not rooted in the natural. They have their origin in the spirit and they will not be cured in any other way. Let me go on.

The next group of three are dynamic power gifts. Faith in the same spirit. Not by or through but in the same spirit has as many applications as it may encounter. You can have faith for all kinds of things. There are many. It's all in the same spirit. I've used this analogy before, but in your house, hopefully you've got electricity running water, too. You know, modern era, you got electricity in your house. We got these outlets up here. They power different things. This this this keyboard is plugged into the same outlet as the organ is plugged in.

Those guitars and and all of those things are plugged in to the same thing. You got things in your house that range from your a your air conditioner, which is a 220 volt, right, power, and and it goes all the way down to when you plug your phone charger in to milliamps and and and short small voltages, right? But it's the same power you plug into the same outlet. And there all those devices are being powered by the same source of power. And so it is with faith. Faith has many many applications.

Somebody might need faith for a financial miracle. Somebody might need faith for healing. Somebody might need faith for a family situation. But it's all the same power that we plug into to receive the things that we need. So faith is an outlet into which we plug and we find the exact power we need for every situation. A word of faith, we get on this sometimes scared off. A word of faith is not necessarily predictive. It's not always about the future, about what is coming down the pike, but it also can serve to inspire or instill faith in the hear.

Romans 10:17 says, "So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God." We let Let me just admonish us today. We have been scared off by thinking, "What if I'm wrong?" We don't say things sometimes that we should say. I have seen I have known of preachers who have gone into deep depression because what they said didn't come to pass. It's a misunderstanding that sometimes faith is just a word of faith that is to inspire faith in the one that's hearing it. Don't reserve that faith. Don't hold back on speaking a word of faith because they might be taken as predictive.

You're trying sometimes just to get a person's faith built up to the point because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And so when we hold back, we reinforce fears and we resist faith. Isn't it ironic that we go to the doctor and we believe every word he tells us and we go to church and we sit as skeptics when the word of God comes forth, right? You might as well nod your head because it's the truth. We'll believe every we'll sit there and swallow everything that doctor gives us.

Every word must be true. And the preacher gets up and says, "God will heal you if you've got the faith for healing." And we go, "I'm not sure about that in my case anyway." You know, hello. Faith is given to all of us. You got faith today. According to Romans 12 verse three, he says, "God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." You've got faith. It don't have to be big. We quantify faith, but all God is looking for is faith. Speak a word of faith. It's saving faith, but it's also dynamic faith.

Faith to believe when needed. The next two gifts are based in that same power source. Healings in the same spirit. And so, healings, all healings are not miraculous. Let me just say that. All healings are not miraculous. There are some healings that are not miraculous. They're just they're healings over a period of time. And so James said in verse uh verses 14 and 15 of chapter 5, is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And now our skeptics are all going, "Yeah, that works for some people, but not not for me." No, it works. There is a connectivity. This is it's passed from human to human. This this faith that one has can be generated in another person. I I firmly believe that that's why we are admonished to put our hands on the problem. lay hands on the sick and your faith has the kind of power that they shall recover.

Amen. Miracles inexplicable by any natural wisdom. I am very careful when I use the term miraculous because if I have used exercise any other means that can be disputed then I just don't use the term miracle. Hello miracles defy natural norms established norms natural principles circumvent all of that. They don't follow convention. Every barrier, listen to me, every barrier that we face, every obstacle that we have has the seeds of the miraculous in it. If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. That does not speak of inevitability.

It speaks of possibility. Every situation we faith contains the seeds of the miraculous if we can believe. The last group of three are romatic. They are utterances, prophecy, unknown tongues, interpretation of tongues. I still believe that these gifts are in operation. I am not of the the group of cessationists who believes that all these things have passed away. They're still in the church. The church still needs the gifts in operation. Let's stand together. This should not be some esoteric alien idea for anyone who walks in the spirit. The gifts are available.

Paul says on the heels of this, but covet earn earnestly the best gifts. Covet zealously desire zealously desire the best gifts. And yet I as we launch into the next chapter, he says, "I'm going to show you the best thing." The best thing. This church was impressed by showy gifts. And Paul says, "You got to strive for the greater gifts. Strive for the greater gifts." And this is a segue into the following chapter that says, "The greatest of these is what?" love, charity, love. You can't supersede love because God is love. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for your attentiveness. And you can take a little break here.