Unity In The Church Pt 1

Raul Ries: Paul here is bringing it to the Corinthians that at one time they were idolaters and slaves to idolatry, and literally what they were doing, they were worshipping demons. But when they came to Christ, the light was turned on, and now those idols they worshipped, they're supposed to get rid of them and burn them and get rid of them completely and fully. It's very important.
Narrator: Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Today's study takes us once again to First Corinthians, and we're glad to have you with us. God gives each of us different spiritual gifts and a unique calling, but with Christ as our leader, we can all serve the Lord together. Stay with us to consider how much more you can accomplish for God's kingdom when you work in cooperation with others. Today's study is titled Unity in the Church. Here's Raul Ries in First Corinthians chapter 12.
Raul Ries: It's amazing how the book of Corinthians shares so much light concerning people within the church. One of the great problems that Paul writes about is this unity within the church, the divisions that they had, and the misuse of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Remember when we started the first letter in chapter one, he talked about divisions. Then in chapter two, he talked about the natural man, then the actual spiritual man, and the carnal man. Then he goes on to talk about the lawsuits that were going on among Christians where Paul says, "Instead of going to court, why don't you settle your issues outside of court so that the gospel is not shamed?" I think that's something that within the church, we have to learn that God is in full control and that the church needs to be united but not divided. And yet, there's a lot of churches that are totally divided when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet Paul here is going to be sharing some pretty heavy things with us this evening. Now, what he's going to do is he's going to be dealing with the proper use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The church had a real problem in Corinth concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The reason for that was an abuse of them. Remember that Paul says that these people in Corinth were very carnal people. They were dividers of the flock of God. So Paul writes now and he says, "Okay, let's deal with this issue concerning the Holy Spirit, who He is and what He intends to do within the life of each believer." He begins now in chapter 12, verse one. Now we see first of all how we confess the same Jesus, not a different Jesus, but the same one. He says, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren." First of all, the word "gifts" is not found in the original language of Greek. Literally, it should read this way: "Now concerning spirituals," not gifts. He'll use that later on. What's incredible here is he's going to be teaching concerning these spirituals to the Corinthian church. He says, "And I don't want you to be ignorant of what I'm going to teach you." The problem with the Corinthian church was they were very ignorant when it came to the things of the Holy Spirit. I think that today, people are still ignorant concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I can remember when I first got saved. I got saved and went to Costa Mesa with Chuck. Because I was being taught the word of God, when I would go to different churches to visit, I would see this order in the church, especially concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While the pastor was teaching, someone would get up and start prophesying or speaking in tongues. Then they would start shouting and yelling and then come back down. To me as a new believer, I thought it was chaotic. I thought, "Where is the order in the church?" I was just a new believer. As I began to read the Bible and study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, when I got into the New Testament, I got to the book of Corinthians, and it answered a lot of the questions that I had. I don't know how many of you have ever studied the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It's incredible that Paul the apostle, in all of his letters—for example, in the book of Romans chapter 12—speaks to us in verses six through eight about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What he does there is he gives us seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the book of Ephesians chapter four, 11 to 12, he once again gives us five more gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then in the book of First Corinthians chapter 12, which we'll see today, he's going to give us another set of gifts, nine of them, that total 21 gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us. You think how God blesses people and the way He wants to move in your life and my life. The problem with believers is they were always coveting somebody else's gift. We're not content with what God's given to us. That's a real problem. That's an issue in the church. You have these people that are contentious, and the reason for that is because they're desiring something that God hasn't given to them. You have to be content with what God has given to you. He knows what you can handle and what you cannot handle, especially in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because people get puffed up. Then people get weird. I've seen so many people weird with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They get this mentality that they're more spiritual than other people. People will know if the Spirit of God's upon you. You don't have to tell them. You don't have to tell anybody. It's really important because Satan will use that to knock you down. I think of how many people back in the Jesus People Movement, and churches that were actually abusing the gifts of the Holy Spirit by misinforming their congregations. They thought they were more spiritual than other people. Then you have the churches that are dispensationalist. Dispensationalists don't believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today. They say they stopped and ceased with the apostles. Then you have the Pentecostals, the super-spiritual, emotional people that really do everything out of order because it's all emotionalism. You have the dispensationalists over here and then the Pentecostals over there, and then right in the middle, we believe Calvary Chapel is right in the middle. Not because we're better, but because we study God's word and there has to be the balance. We believe in all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What we don't believe is the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit while the teaching is going on. That is speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophecy. There's a time and there's a place for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Calvary Chapel, when I was going to Costa Mesa many years ago, after the service, they would have these afterglow services for anybody that wanted to be baptized or anybody that wanted to be healed. They would have the elders in the fellowship hall who were qualified with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to sit down and share with us, and also to lay hands on people that wanted to get baptized by the Holy Spirit. It was so cool because everything was done decently and in order. One of the things that we don't have today is order in the church. What happens if there's somebody in the congregation that is not a Christian, and we don't have order in our fellowship or in our teaching? He will say, "Man, these people are crazy," and they will get turned off to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So there has to be order in the church. Paul sets order when it comes to the Corinthian church and says, "You guys, this is the problem. Let's solve the problem. This is the correct way to do it according to the word of God." The problem comes when we step out of the word of God and you try to do your own thing. That's why it's important for me that when I read the scriptures, I go to the Old and to the New and make sure that we have the theme that is given to us so that we don't get out of balance, especially when it comes to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul is telling us here that he's going to be speaking about the spirituals because there's an ignorance in the city and in the church of Corinth. Notice what he says also in verse two. He says, "You know that you were Gentiles," or heathens, "carried away to these dumb idols," or demons, "however you were led." He brings up the point that a lot of the Corinthians came out of heathenism. They were worshipping other gods and worshipping demons. Then they came to that place of knowledge of Jesus Christ and became born again of the Holy Spirit. When you become born again of the Holy Spirit, you're not supposed to be back where you came from. This is why a lot of times when new believers get saved and they've been on drugs, I always ask them, "Have you really got rid of everything in your room and in your house that deals with demonology or Satan? The posters or whatever it may be that you have." If you don't get rid of the stuff within your bedroom or within your house, guess what's going to happen? You're going to have harassment from Satan. He's going to harass you. A lot of people get harassed. But once you clean out your house from anything that has to do with idolatry or witchcraft, then what you do is you go and you pray for each one of the rooms in the name of Jesus, and that's nothing weird. Whenever we go to a house where somebody has been demon-possessed, what we'll do is we'll anoint the house with oil and we'll pray over the house and over the people for Satan never to rule there again. Remember, Satan is the one that is a liar and the one that brings fear to people. As believers, what does He say? The light is greater than the darkness. When you go into a room and it's dark, all you have to do in order for the darkness to go away is go to the switch and turn on the light, and that darkness is gone. The problem with people is that people want to get saved and continue with their dirty music, continue to be on their computers and go to websites that are not edifying, and read books that are not edifying. What you're doing is trying to walk one side of the road and another side of the road. You want to be in the world and you want to be in Christ, but what happens is you end up getting split, and you can't do that. You're either on one side or the other side. Make up your mind. The bottom line is, if you really want the Holy Spirit to baptize you and to empower you with power, then there can be no leaven in your life. No leaven. You have to get rid of all the leaven. Remember Paul said, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." That's why it's really important for me, not only as a pastor-teacher and an evangelist, to be able to see when people come and talk to me. I don't baby people. I just tell them what the scripture says. A lot of times, they'll go to another counselor. You know why? Because they didn't like what I said to them. They're looking for an answer for themselves that pleases them. Bottom line, they don't want to change. They want somebody to come to that place of agreement with them. But when it comes to the real gospel of Jesus Christ, we cannot agree with unrighteousness or darkness because we're children of the light. Paul here is bringing it to the Corinthians that at one time they were idolaters and slaves to idolatry, and literally what they were doing was worshipping demons. But when they came to Christ, the light was turned on, and now those idols they worshipped, they're supposed to get rid of them and burn them and get rid of them completely and fully. It's very important. But a lot of times, people want to be Christians but at the same time they want to keep their idols. You can't do that. Think of all the people within the church that were on bondage to drugs. You come out of the world but you say, "Well, you know what, I'm never going to go back to drugs," and all of a sudden Satan comes along and you start backsliding. You go for a little bit, a little more, and pretty soon you find yourself back on drugs, but this time it's worse. The Bible says it's like the pig going back to his mire. You wash him down, you put him in your bathtub, you put perfume on him, and then you release him and he goes right back to the mud because he's a pig. Think of how many people within the church are like the dog going back to his own vomit and the pig going back to his old dirty hole. It's very important that holiness unto the Lord. God desires holiness. If you want to be baptized with power, you need the baptism of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need it. The Holy Spirit is with you, in you, and upon you, the Bible says. What's really cool is He's with you when He's convicting you and bringing you to Christ. When you come to Christ, He comes into you. Then as I come to Christ, I begin to read and ask Him to give me power every day so the Holy Spirit comes upon me and He empowers me to be able to overcome sin and to stand for righteousness. A hunger and a thirst to know God's truth and not to compromise. Yet think of how many people compromise in the church. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, the Bible says. You listen to worldly music or you do whatever you want. If you had a problem with worldly music in the world and you're still listening to it, no wonder you're being oppressed. No wonder your mind's messed up. You have to get rid of all the leaven. Plus, your children will get contaminated if you're married and have children. It's like I said this morning, if you're in the home and you're a mother and father and you have children, it's not how you live in public, it's how you live in secret when nobody can see you. What are your attitudes? What is your life like? Anybody can live a goodie life in front of people. But when you're in the home, when you're with your children, when nobody can see you, what is your life and what is your attitude like? Can your children bear witness for you and say, "My mom and dad are godly in the home"? It's really important that you'll never have peace until you make peace with Jesus Christ fully and completely. So Paul wants to make sure that we understand that we need to get rid of the idols in our lives. An idol is something that possesses you and controls your life, and you've got to get rid of it. Look what else he says in verse three. He says, "Therefore," because of this, what I just told you, "I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God can call Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." I love that verse because what he's telling you here is bringing you back to this area where there's a lot of people that say, "Well, I heard somebody say this or say that." If they really have the Spirit of God, they cannot ever curse God. The Holy Spirit won't do that. It is very important to understand. That's why he says, "Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Holy Spirit of God can call Jesus accursed." It's very important because there are a lot of times people will say, "Well, I heard this person say this or say that." No. He says, "And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Who's the Holy Spirit? The one that brings you to conviction and the one that makes you be born again of the Holy Spirit of God. Very beautiful how he says that here. It is very important that we understand that. This is the affirmation of the Holy Spirit that God is on the throne and that the Spirit of God convicts us of our sins. It's not you and I convicting each other. The Holy Spirit is the one that tests you first when you're thinking of sinning against God. What does He do? He says, "Don't do it." Then He gives you the opportunity, because we have free will, to say, "Should I obey or should I disobey?" That's where your will comes in. Of course, Satan on one side says, "Oh, don't listen to God. Go ahead and do it. You'll enjoy it." But when you take up the cross of Jesus Christ and you die to yourself, you know what you're going to do? You're going to obey. You're going to obey God. You're going to die to yourself and you're going to die to those desires. The reason for that is not for myself, but what I want to do is please God in what I do. That's the bottom line when it comes to Christianity. Yet think of all the people that do not please or obey God's word, but they do whatever they want and then they expect God to bless them. They expect God to do mighty works in their lives when yet Paul says what? You've grieved the Holy Spirit of God. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit of God because the Holy Spirit's a person. The word "to grieve" means to bring pain. To bring pain to the work of the Holy Spirit, to that person of the Holy Spirit, which means that the Holy Spirit is hurt in what you're doing. Because God loves you and God cares for you, yet He's given you that will to make decisions. The decisions that I make, I want to make sure that I make them according to the word of God, not according to my philosophy, not according to what I've learned in the world. I want to make sure that it pleases the Lord in what I'm going to do: the movie that I watch, the music that I listen to, and the things that I do. Why? Because if I'm not doing those things, then the Holy Spirit is going to be grieved and He can't work in me and through my life the way He wants to. Whose fault is it? My fault, because I disobeyed. I didn't obey God's word, and that's why it's really important to understand that. Look what else he says now in verses four to six, how we depend on God. Here Paul is showing that while there is a variety of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the church, notice there is a basic need. Look what he says: "There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit." Unity. Christ is the head and the body of Christ includes fingers, toes, nose, ears, and mouth—the whole thing. Every part of my body is needed to operate my body, but who's the leader? The head. I mean, think in the Old Testament times in the book of Judges chapter one, because they used to have warfare with bows, arrows, spears, and swords, and they would ride horses and chariots. When some king or some army would be captured by the enemy, the first thing they would do when they would take them prisoner was cut off their right thumbs and their right toes. Do you know why? You can't pull the bow anymore. You can't hold onto things, and you can't really walk; you lose your balance. The big toe and the right thumb are important in my body. A lot of times people don't want to be a toe because you're always in darkness and smelly, but yet somebody has to be a toe, right? You have to be content in the body of Christ wherever God has called you to serve, whether a toe or a thumb or a finger or an eye or an ear, whatever it may be. Every part of the body is needed, and the head leading in order for the body to be balanced and to operate fully the way God intended it to operate. The problem in the church is that everybody wants to be an eye or everybody wants to be a mouth or everybody wants to be the best part in the body. Yet in the scripture when you read right now, he's going to tell you that God gives to people what He sees is best for you. Yet, why is it that we're always looking to other people and we're covetous to have their gifts when we're not content with our own gifts that God's given to us? That creates problems in the body of Christ. You have to really be careful.
Narrator: Comparing ourselves to others is a natural part of being human, but as we've seen today, when it comes to serving the Lord, we all need to focus solely on obeying His call on our lives. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. If you'd like to hear today's lesson in its complete form, just call us at 800-634-9165 and for a donation of five dollars or more, we'll send you a copy of the study "Unity in the Church." And to equip you with more insight into how you can honor God in your daily decisions, we'd like to tell you about Raul's 11-part series "Unity, Holiness, and Love." It's available on CD and thumb drive. Every lesson in this series zeroes in on a unique aspect of the Christian walk, providing biblical direction for handling conflict, confronting others' sins with grace, managing finances, and much more. Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's 11-lesson series titled "Unity, Holiness, and Love." We'll send you the CD set for $23 or the flash drive for just $14. That's 800-634-9165. Or you can write to Somebody Loves You Radio, PO Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California 91765. Whether you're taking a break at work or enjoying an end-of-the-summer trip, you can easily access our full library of free resources. Download our Somebody Loves You app to keep God's word at your fingertips. You'll find live-streamed Bible teaching, an easy reading plan to help direct your personal devotion time, and much more. For podcasts of all of these programs, browse iTunes and Spotify, or simply visit the Somebody Loves You Worldwide YouTube channel. This is a listener-supported ministry and we're grateful for your partnership. Your donations help us keep sharing the eternal truths of God's word. Be sure and join us again next time as we return to the pages of God's word for more verse-by-verse study to learn how we can more faithfully walk with the Lord Jesus. This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.