1 Corinthians 12:3-11
He Lives— to Pour Out His Spirit!
3Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. (NIV1984)
Dear fellow worshipers of our living Lord and Savior,
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Today you and I have gathered together to celebrate the Festival of Pentecost. Historically, the Festival of Pentecost is the third great festival in the Christian church year. Christmas is the Festival of God the Father. Christmas is when we celebrate the fact that God the Father loves us so very much that He sent His only-begotten Son into this world to save us from our sins. Easter is the Festival of God the Son. Easter is when we celebrate the fact that God the Son loves us so very much that He willingly suffered and died on the cross to completely pay for all of our sins and then physically rose from the dead to declare His victory over sin, death and the devil. Pentecost is the Festival of God the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is when we celebrate the fact that our risen Lord and Savior not only fulfilled the promise He made to His first disciples, but we also celebrate the fact that our risen Lord and Savior continues to fulfill that very same promise right down to this very day! With that glorious truth in mind let’s finish our sermon series entitled He Lives! by studying this text under the theme: He Lives— to Pour Out His Spirit!
What does the Festival of Pentecost mean? For God’s Old Testament children the Festival of Pentecost celebrated the gathering of the harvest. Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after the Passover— hence the name, Pentecost. In the early days of the New Testament era the Festival of Pentecost marked the birthday of what we know as the New Testament Christian Church. As we heard in our reading from the book of Acts today (Acts 2:1-21), Pentecost was the day that Jesus fulfilled His promise and poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit on His disciples. The gift of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus’ disciples with the ability to “speak in tongues.” They were instantly given the ability to speak in other languages— languages they had never known or studied— so that they could proclaim “the wonders of God” (Acts 2:11) to people who had come to Jerusalem from all across the Mediterranean world to celebrate the Festival of Pentecost. But what does the Festival of Pentecost mean for you and for me— Jesus’ disciples today? Our text for today gives us one overall answer to that question plus three ways in which that answer applies in our everyday lives.
The overall answer to the question of what does the Festival of Pentecost mean for you and for me is found in the opening verse of our text. Paul says to us, “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
How is it that you and I believe, teach and confess that “Jesus is Lord”? Did we come to that conclusion after carefully examining what people have told us about Jesus? Did we come to that conclusion because we made a conscious decision to “accept” Jesus as my Lord and Savior? No we did not. On our own we couldn’t confess “Jesus is Lord” because on our own we were born spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and spiritually an enemy of God! The only reason that we joyfully and boldly confess “Jesus is Lord” is because God the Holy Spirit has given us that ability by creating the gift of saving faith in our heart!
Our risen Lord continues to fulfill His promise to pour out His Holy Spirit through the power of His holy Word and through the power of His holy Sacraments. For most of us our living Lord fulfilled His Promise to pour out His Holy Spirit on us when our parents brought us to the baptismal font when we were still a tiny little baby. When we were baptized with water in the Name of the Triune God, when the Holy Spirit was “poured out” on us through this holy Sacrament we were given the precious gift of saving faith in our heart. That precious gift of saving faith was then strengthened and nourished as we heard and studied God’s powerful Word in church, in Sunday school and in our home devotions. Once that precious gift of saving faith was strengthened to the point that we were ready to stand before the altar of the living God and take our confirmation vow, that precious gift of saving faith is strengthened and nourished very time we receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion. So what does the Festival of Pentecost mean for you and for me? It means that by fulfilling His promise to pour out His Holy Spirit our living Lord and Savior has given to us the privilege of being able to openly proclaim “Jesus is Lord”— Jesus is my Lord!
Paul then goes on in our text to highlight three ways in which our God-given ability to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” applies in our day-to-day lives. First, look at verse four of our text. Paul tells us, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.” When the Holy Spirit created the gift of saving faith in your heart He graciously gave you at least one spiritual gift. In other words, there is no such thing as an “ungifted” Christian! But as Paul also brings out here in our text there are “different kinds” of gifts. While the spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit has given to you may be very different from the spiritual gift the Holy Spirit has given to someone else, they are all given by the “same Spirit.”
What do these “different kinds of gifts” include? The answer to that question is highlighted in verses eight to eleven of our text. Paul tells us, “To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophesy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.”
That’s quite a variety of gifts, isn’t it! This portion of our text reminds us that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts in different amounts in different combinations to different people at different times under different circumstances. The question now becomes— why? Why has the Holy Spirit given to you a particular gift or a particular combination of gifts? Why does He give someone else a gift or a combination of gifts that are very different from what He has given to you? There are two answers to that question of “Why?”
The first answer is found in Paul’s words, “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” God the Holy Spirit has given to you the spiritual gifts that He wants you to have— just as He gave someone else the spiritual gifts that He wanted them to have. That leads us to the second answer to the question of “Why?”— Why has the Holy Spirit given to me a particular spiritual gift? Instead of comparing my spiritual gifts to someone else’s spiritual gifts, instead of wishing we had a spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit has given to someone else, what we need to do is to ask ourselves the question, “What does the Holy Spirit want me to do with the spiritual gifts He has given to me? The answer to that question is found in verses five to seven of our text. Paul says to you and to me, “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
Whatever spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has given to you were given with the goal that you will use them to “serve” others. Whatever spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has chosen to give to you, He intends for you to use them for “the common good.” Think about how that impacts you on a very personal level. The fact that God the Holy Spirit has given you the faith that enables you to say, “Jesus is Lord,” means that you have been given the ability to “serve” an important role in God’s Kingdom here on this earth— specifically an important role right here in our congregation!
You are God’s eyes and God’s hands and God’s mouth. In other words, God works through you! Whether it is sharing God’s “wisdom” and God’s “knowledge” with a child, or striving to “heal” someone’s body or soul, whether you are using your God-given skills to accomplish something that appears mundane and ordinary or whether you accomplish something that others might see as astonishing— every time we use the gifts we have been given to “serve” others we need to remember that this is one of the ways in which God the Holy Spirit works here in this world! He works through us to “serve” others.
At the same time, we need to remember that the gifts that God the Holy Spirit has given to us are designed to be used for “the common good.” The “common good” first and foremost focuses our attention on the needs of our congregation. Ask yourself, “How can I serve my brothers and sisters in Christ right here? How can I use the time, the talents and the treasures that God has given to me in a way that will benefit the congregation where God Himself has placed me?” When we are focused on the fact that the spiritual gifts God has given to us as individuals are designed to be used for the “common good” then we will see that there is always a way for us to serve— right here in our own congregation.
The desire to use the spiritual gifts that God has given to us for the “common good” will also lead us to lift up our eyes and look for ways that we can “serve” others outside of our congregation. The spiritual gifts that God has given to you can be used to help the poor and the needy. They can be used to help the lonely and the forgotten. They can be used to help share the Good News of what God’s Son has done for us (Pointing to the cross) with people who do not yet know that Jesus loves them so much that He lived and died and rose again to rescue them from sin, death and the devil and guarantee to them a glorious perfect life in the heavenly Father’s Home. Whether that means talking with our friends and our neighbors or supporting the mission work of our Synod or a combination of both— there is no shortage of ways to use the spiritual gifts we have been given to “serve” the “common good.”
What does the Festival of Pentecost mean— to us? It means that we have the opportunity to thank God the Holy Spirit for creating and strengthening the gift of saving faith in our heart. Without His gift of saving faith we would never be able to say, “Jesus is Lord!” It means we thank God the Holy Spirit for giving us the spiritual gifts that He wants us to have. It means striving to use whatever spiritual gifts we have been given to “serve” the “common good”— both here in our own congregation as well as all across the world. It means recognizing that we are the eyes and the hands, the mouths and the feet of God. God works through our actions and our words— however mundane or majestic they may appear to our finite eyes. Our acts of service, our words of comfort and encouragement are part of the Holy Spirit’s goal to focus the hearts and eyes of more and more people on the cross of Calvary’s hill (Pointing to the cross) so that they too can confess along with us, “Jesus is Lord!”
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
To God be the glory!
Amen