Westtown Church
Westtown Church
Holy Spirit & The Church
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Have you ever contemplated the intricate dynamics of the Holy Spirit within the Christian community? We reflect on the power of unity and interdependence within the body of Christ, inviting you to embrace the harmony that comes from supporting and honoring one another in our collective journey under Christ.
The Work of the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1Everybody's doing well . This morning it's May . Toward the end of May You're like yeah , that's obvious . Thanks , cj .
Speaker 1You know , may's kind of like a little bit like a mini December . Sometimes you think of how busy December is , with Christmas and holidays and all this other stuff . May is sort of a kind of small , a little bit less than that , but it's a busy month . You know , you have preschool graduations and we had worship . You know all the students moved to the next . You know age level . We had the event on Friday with the dunk take and all that stuff and the water slides and all those things . And then , of course , if you're a senior in high school or if you have a senior in high school , you've got graduation and all sorts of other stuff going on and there's a lot of interesting and sometimes tiring things going on in the month of May . It's good stuff , though . Kind of a promotion month almost Today's Pentecost , sunday .
Speaker 1Like Morgan said , pentecost is 50 days after Easter . Essentially it's after the Sabbath that comes after Passover . It's 50 days from that which lands today . Pentecost is also sort of a promotion day , right , and we'll talk a little bit about that today . We're going to be in 1 Corinthians 12 . Morgan started last week the beginning of chapter 12 . That section in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 kind of covers spiritual gifts and their role in worship , and we're going to keep talking about that some today . But first let's go to the Lord , shall we ? Heavenly Father , lord , I thank you so much for all that you've given us , I think especially for your Son , jesus Christ , and the salvation we find in his name . I thank you for this time , lord , that you've given us together to come and be about your business , to worship and praise you , lord , to congregate together with the saints to hear your word , to speak your word , and I pray that you would build us up , lord , strengthen our hearts that we might glorify you , for you are worthy of glory . It's in Jesus' name we pray , amen . So we're in 1 Corinthians 12 . We're going to pick it up in verse 12 .
Speaker 1For as the body is one and has many members , but all the members of that one body , being many , are one body , so also is Christ the body . Is it therefore not of the body ? And if the ear should say because I am not an eye , I am not of the body ? Is it therefore not of the body ? And if the whole body were an eye , where would be the hearing If the whole were hearing ? Where would be the smelling ? But now God has set the members , each one of them , in the body , just as he pleased . And if they were all one member , where would the body be ?
Speaker 1But now , indeed , there are many members , yet one body and the eye cannot say to the hand , I have no need of you . Nor again the head to the feet , I have no need of you . No , much rather , those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary , and those members of the body which we think to be weaker or necessary , and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable . On these we bestow greater honor , and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty . But our presentable parts have no need . But God composed the body , having given greater honor to that part which lacks it , that there may be no schism in the body , but that the members should have the same care for one another , and if one member suffers , all the members suffer with it . Or if one member is honored , all the members rejoice with it . Now you are the body of Christ and members individually , and God has appointed these in the church first apostles , second prophets , third teachers , after that miracles , then gifts of healings , helps administrations , varieties of tongues . Are all apostles , are all prophets , are all teachers , are all workers of miracles , do all have gifts of healing , do all speak with tongues , do all interpret , but earnestly desire the best gifts . And yet I show you a more excellent way . So we see how the Holy Spirit works together in the body of Christ for His purposes . You know , you see , a couple things in here about the Holy Spirit's work . In 13 , it says for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . There's a unity in the work of the Holy Spirit as he works through the church . There's also the sovereignty of God as he works through the church . In 18 , it says God has set the members , each one of them , in the body just as he pleased . God brings the body into a unity and he sovereignly dispenses with gifts as he sees fit . I think it's helpful to kind of think about the work of the Holy Spirit in general as we talk about His passage today .
Speaker 1The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Godhead . Right , he's a person . He's the third person of the Godhead . Jesus in John 16 says I am believing and I will send Him to you . He's the third person of the Godhead . Jesus in John 16 says I'm leaving and I will send him to you . He's a person , right . He's also fully God . If you read Acts , chapter 5 , ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit and Peter says you haven't lied to men , but you've lied to God . He's fully God . He's the third person of the Godhead .
Speaker 1I think sometimes we think of Him less , not think less about Him , but we just tend to think less of Him because His role is not one of glorifying Himself as one . His role is one of glorifying Christ , kind of in the background , almost , so to speak . But you look through how he's worked in Scripture and you see that he has a purpose to everything that he's doing . If you look at the way he works in the Old Testament , you see he's referred to there as the Spirit of God . Generally in the Old Testament you see him working all the way from day one . You go back to Genesis 1 , god's doing creation and he says the Spirit of God hovers over the face of the deep right . He's been active ever since the beginning of creation . You see Him showing up , perhaps a little bit more noticeably in a lot of the lessons we learned in Sunday school . Right , you see this phrase thrown out there from time to time .
Speaker 1The Spirit of God came upon somebody to give them the ability to do something , and most of us are familiar with quite a few of these stories . He comes upon Gideon , says the Spirit of God came upon Gideon . Gideon's given the ability to go and defeat the Midianites , says . The Spirit of God comes upon Samson . Samson picks up a jawbone of a donkey and kills a thousand men . The Spirit of God comes upon Saul Read that story . A guy named Nahash , the Ammonite , says I'm going to come , I'm going to pluck out all the right eyes of all the Israelites . And the Spirit of God comes upon Saul in his early days as king and he goes and defeats the Ammonites . Then David you see him come upon David . 1 Samuel 16 , says that is anointing . The Spirit of God came upon David and he didn't depart from him for the rest of his life .
Speaker 1And you read those and you're like , wow , okay . So I guess the Spirit of God is really interested in making people really good at fighting battles , and certainly that's true . David says that God has made his hands , he's trained his hands for war , he's made his arms able to bend bronze and his feet have been made swift as a deer . Certainly , david attributes all of his military success to God's working through him . But then you think David just wrote a psalm . He wrote that in a psalm , the Spirit of God not only gave him the ability to fight battles against people , it gave him the ability to praise him and to worship him . And you think , well , maybe that's just David , david's kind of a special guy . Right , he's given a lot of gifts because of who ? He is right .
Speaker 1But obviously Dave is not the only person that wrote Psalms , not the only person that gave inspired hymns . I mean , you read through the book of Psalms . There's all sorts of people that write inspired Psalms that the Spirit of God would have come and inspired . You see the sons of Korah writing Psalms . You see Asaph writing Psalms . You see a guy named Ethan the Elkanite writing Psalms , even one of the Psalms attributed to Moses . I think it's Psalm 90 .
Speaker 1Okay , well , not only does he make people really good at fighting battles , he makes people good at singing praises and writing songs . Okay , but that's not the only thing he does . He also comes to a guy named Azariah says the Spirit of God came to Azariah , the prophet , and he gave him the ability to go step to the king . The king was doing some foolishness and the Spirit of God gives him the ability to step to the king and call him back to the covenant . Right , and you go back into their period in the wilderness and you see the Spirit of God come upon 70 elders and they're given the ability to prophesy , and prophecy in Scripture certainly there's instances of what you would call predictive prophecy , right , Like Isaiah says a virgin is going to conceive and she will have a son and we will call him Emmanuel . It's predictive , it's saying this is going to happen . But oftentimes , the majority of time , even in the Old Testament , prophecy was just proclaiming the truth about God . That's what he gifts these elders in the wilderness to do .
Speaker 1And then he also the Spirit of God in fact , the first time that phrase is used the Spirit of God coming upon somebody . He comes upon a guy named Bezalel and Aholiab . I'm sure we're all familiar with those guys , right , bezalel and Aholiab . Those guys are gifted to build and decorate the tabernacle . They're artisans . That's what the Spirit of God gives them the ability to do and you look at what he does throughout the Old Testament and you recognize well he's giving His people what is needed for the time period in which they find themselves when they come out of Egypt . They've been stuck in idolatry for 400 years . Probably very few of them , if any , had any kind of real understanding of who the God of Abraham is . You know what they need . They need the proclaimed truth about God . They need a visible manifestation of God's presence in the tabernacle , and the Spirit of God gives them the ability to carry that out . It gives them what they needed during that time frame .
Speaker 1Then you think about the period of the judges and the period of the beginnings of the monarchy . He says hey , I want you to go into Canaan and I want you to conquer , I want you to wipe out all this idolatrous peoples that are here . And what do you need to do that ? Right , you need people who can fight . You need people who can lead in military situations , and that's what he gives them to do . But then what do you need ? You need people . Now you move into the period of the monarchy . You've got a temple built , you've got worship going on . You need people inspired to bring praise and glory to God , who has brought you in to your own land and established you there . He gives them the ability to do that and then , unfortunately , as time goes on and you see Israel kind of veer away from their covenant with God . He inspires prophets to stand up and say , hey , you need to turn around , king , you need to turn around and stop what you're doing because you're leading us all into ruin . He inspires and gifts his people to do exactly what is needed during that time frame . And you think about the way he does that . Not only does he come to us in the period in which we're in to give us the ability to do what's needed , then he's always had , like , the long view right , he's always had the long game in view . God always had that . Holy Spirit has always had that as he works with them .
Speaker 1And you think about our kids , right , promotion Sunday , kids are getting ready to graduate and , of course , depending on what season your kids are in , there's different stuff that you're going to be teaching your kids , right . When they're in preschool , you want to teach them the alphabet and teach them numbers and all that stuff . Teach them how to count . When you get into elementary , you got to teach them . You know multiplication tables and talk about vertebraes and invertebrates and all these other . You know science facts , different types of animals and different . You know biology groups and things like that . But then you move into middle school and it's other stuff . You're moving on into diff stuff . You got to teach them . And then you get to high school and you teach them to drive and then you get to where they're graduating Okay , I got to teach you to . You need to learn how to make your own daughter's appointments and you need to learn how to schedule your own appointments . You need to learn how to , you know , take care of your dorm room when you get there and all these different things that you got to teach them for that period of life in which they're in .
Unity and Diversity in the Church
Speaker 1But most of us , if we have the ability already in day one , we're looking at the long view . When you have a kid right , when you have a baby , even though it's going to be 18 years before they might use it , you're probably thinking , oh well , let's get the Florida prepaid thing for college . It'll be a lot cheaper if I pay it now than if I wait until they're 18 , especially the way the economy's going Can't afford all that . Right , you're already setting things aside , even when they're this big , planning for what's going to happen when they're 18 and they're taller than you and they think they know everything . Right , we have the long view as parents . Well , you know what God and His work through the Holy Spirit is . Exactly the same . He's always had the long view .
Speaker 1And you think about Pentecost .
Speaker 1It's Pentecost Sunday . What happens at Pentecost ? Holy Spirit descends . Right , he comes down in fire , cloven tongues of fire sitting on the heads of the apostles and they start speaking in tongues , and all these people from these different nations hear their own language being spoken , comes down like a mighty Russian wind . You think of that situation and how that would have played out . I mean , imagine if you're in your neighborhood one day on a religious day because that's what it was , it was Pentecost , it was the Pentecost day , it was the day the Jews celebrated the Feast of Shavuot right , you're hanging out in your neighborhood one day , on Christmas morning or something , and all of a sudden a hurricane lands on one of your neighbor's houses , except nothing's destroyed and your neighbors come out speaking all sorts of foreign languages , with like glowing fire over their head . You'd be like oh my goodness , something is going on here , right , testifying to the legitimacy of Christ and His work on a cross .
Speaker 1But you think about Pentecost . It's 50 days , 50 days after Passover . I mean , that's a picture . You go back into the Old Testament . You go back into Exodus and the day in which Moses went up the mountain and received the law from God . You know when that was ? That was 50 days after Passover . He comes up the mountain and God gives him the law and oftentimes we can think , oh , he's getting the law . He's getting a bunch of rules . We've got to follow these rules . Man , this is no fun . No man . God is entering into a covenant with his people . That's what's happening . Right , moses goes up and receives the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on it , right ?
Speaker 1But you go even further back to that and you think about the Tower of Babel and you read Genesis 11 , and what happens there ? What do you have there ? You have a unity of people in rebellion against God and they want to build a tower to reach to the heavens , so they can make a name for themselves . They're opposed to what God has called them to do . God said I want you to spread out and have dominion over the whole earth and say , no , we're going to stay right here , we're going to build a big tower just to make sure everybody knows we're important . You know , there's some Jewish teaching that teaches that the Tower of Babel occurred at the beginning of the third month of the Jewish calendar , which is the same time that Moses went up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments , which is the same time that the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost in Acts , chapter 2 .
Speaker 1God's always working , right from day one , to build His people into what he wants them to be . He works in a pattern so we can recognize what he's doing . And you see the way in which these incidents are connected . He comes down at Babylon . They're unified , unified in the wrong way , unified against Him . He comes down at Babylon . He changes all their tongues , smites them with confusion and everybody's speaking these weird languages and they can't understand each other . Then you go to Exodus and you see him coming down with the law and of course Moses gets the law and he comes down and there's just chaos and idolatry and all sorts of bad stuff going on at the bottom of the mountain and Moses breaks the tablets and he calls for the Levites and the Levites go and they kill 3,000 people . 3,000 idolaters are slain that day .
Speaker 1And then you get to Pentecost and what happens ? The Spirit comes down in power . He unifies the people , not against them , like it was at Babel , he unifies his people for him , brings them back together , gives them the ability to speak languages that they didn't know . Other people hear the gospel spoken in their own language and you know what happens . You get 3,000 people that come to faith and are baptized . And you see the way he's just continuing to work , always for God's purpose to build the kingdom . Everything he does has a purpose to it . God doesn't do things that are random . He always does things according to a plan , and that's what you see the Spirit doing .
Speaker 1And now we get to this period and we see that he's also doing the same things , not randomly , but in unity and for His purpose . You know , when you read through chapter 12 here at the top of verse 12 , for me , you know a lot of Bibles have these little you know headings at the beginning of passages . You read at the top of verse 12 , for me , you know a lot of Bibles have these little you know , headings at the beginning of passages you read at the top of verse 12 , for me it says unity and diversity in one body , right , and that's really what he's describing here , right ? How is he working with us right now ? How does that relate to what he's been doing this whole time ? He's gifting people for what is needed at the time , always with the long view , right , always with the long game in view , and he's still doing the same thing . You see how he's working through the body and the body's very different . Right , you got a head , you got hands , you got feet , you got all this stuff , but all of them work together and if they're not working together , then they don't work at all . They're not effective , right ? You know ?
Speaker 1You see this kind of phrase where you hear this phrase every once in a while thrown out like diversity , diversity makes us stronger . That's like a half truth , really . Diversity of ability is good . You want diversity of ability , you want people that can do a lot of different things , but if you have diversity of purpose , then nothing's going to work . If I think we should be doing one thing and you think we should be doing something else , we're , else neither one of us probably will accomplish what we're trying to do . How can two or three walk together unless they're in agreement ? Right , what you need is unity of purpose and diversity of ability , which is what the Holy Spirit gives us in the church . You know kind of my favorite illustration of unity and diversity as a football team , right ?
Speaker 1I mean , think about all the different abilities you need on a football team . You need some guys that are , you know , 300 pounds and bench press a car to be able to play offensive line , right , you need some guys that are really tall and really fast , that can jump really high to get downfield and make the receptions . You need some guys that are kind of strong and kind of fast to do the running and some of the backfield blocking . And then you need a guy who's a good leader , he's cool under fire and he can throw the ball 60 yards . Right , you need all of these differing gifts . But if they're not on the same page , it's not going to work . If the quarterback calls a pass but all the linemen run block , you're going to get a flag . It's not going to work . If everybody's not on the same page , it's not effective , right , and you think about the way every point of that team is important .
Speaker 1You know , when you think about somebody like an offensive lineman , not many of us probably could pull an offensive lineman's name off the top of our head If we're a football fan . There's probably not a lot of offensive linemen that we know right off the top of our head , right , because you don't notice them . You never notice them until something's going wrong , until the quarterback's getting sacked or they can't get , you know , one yard past the line of scrimmage . You don't notice the offensive line until bad stuff's happening . But you know , you read sometimes in the NFL or even in college how the quarterback on certain teams will like take his offensive line out to dinner every week or like Christmas time to buy him a bunch of extravagant gifts because he recognizes that if these guys aren't doing their job , I can't do mine .
Speaker 1Everybody has to work together or it's not effective . I mean even you think about our body , our physical body , right ? You see some of these athletes that get sidelined for like a sprained thumb or like a sprained toe or something you know and I'll see this on like an injury report , and part of me is like you got a sprained thumb , like put some tape on it . Man , quit being a ninny , get back on the field , right , but the truth is , if they're not operating at top level , they're not going to be effective to what they're called to do , and every little element of their body is important in that . And you know , the church is exactly the same . Certainly there's elements of the church . I mean think even just in a worship service there's elements of the body which stand out a little bit more than others do . Right ? I mean , everybody in here sees the preacher right now . If you're not , you're sleeping . Somebody wake him up . Right ? Everybody in here sees the worship team . Everybody in here sees certain elements of the worship service .
Speaker 1But there's so many other little points that are going on in here , even today , just in a service , which , if they're not running correctly , the service is not going to run right . If we don't have the people serving in Kidstown , it's not going to run right . If we don't have the people serving in all the other various capacities here today , it's not going to run right . I got here this morning and I go to get my microphone you know to preach and I get it and I'm like okay , is this ready to go ? It's good . And Dave says you got to turn the power on Right , like thankfully we got guys that do that stuff . Right , it takes everybody working together and that's just for a worship service .
Speaker 1And of course a worship service is very important in the life of a church . We're called to assemble together and praise God , but that's just one part of what the church is . The church is the body of Christ that goes and reaches out to others in the community , to our neighbors and our friends and our family members , and shares the gospel and builds people up . And you know , you think about the way in which the church operates If you go to Ephesians , chapter 4 , right , paul says that we've been given apostles and evangelists and pastors and teachers and prophets . We've been given these , you know , religious sounding jobs . Right , we've been given them for what ? For the equipping of the saints . Who's the saints ? For what ? For the equipping of the saints ? Who's the saints ? It's everybody . And more specifically in that passage , it's the congregation . We've been given pastors and teachers to equip the congregation . To do what ? To do the work of the ministry .
Speaker 1You know , most professional Christians chaplains or pastors or whatever I mean a high percentage of our time we talk to nobody but other Christians . It's people that work in the secular world , that are involved in the secular world , that have a greater opportunity really to share the gospel with people that don't know Jesus . And if that's not happening , the church is not effective , not the way it's supposed to be . We're all called to serve and one part is not effective , not the way it's supposed to be . We're all called to serve and one part is no more important than the other . You know we have Vision Night tonight and I don't know all that will be talked about in Vision Night . Obviously it's vision for the church , stuff , right . But you know what that vision . You know what it's going to take to have that vision carried out . All of us , everybody that's a member of this congregation , is going to have some kind of role to carry out what God has called us to do .
Speaker 1He says down here you get to verse 28, . He says God has appointed these in the church first , apostles . Second , prophets , teachers , miracles , gifts of healings , all these other things . Certainly some of those seem pretty outlandish or impressive . I mean , you think about the apostles or some of the miracle workings . You read through Acts and you see some of that stuff . Peter's walking around Jerusalem and people are like if I could just fall into a shadow . Just let me get in Peter's shadow , I'll be healed , right , paul ? You read about Paul .
Miracles and Ministry in Ephesus
Speaker 1Paul goes to Ephesus and it says Paul worked unusual miracles in Ephesus . You know , like unusual miracles , is it a miracle ? Unusual , unusual miracles . You read what's going on there and there's , you see , as you read through it , there's a large occult presence in Ephesus . There's already demonic stuff going on which is supernatural to a certain degree . God says you know what ? I'm going to up the ante in Ephesus , I'm going to make it so blatant that I'm God that nobody's going to be able to deny it . And you see that stuff and you're like , wow , that's impressive , these guys walking around doing all these craziness . But they can't do it on their own . If you read through all the New Testament letters right , all of Paul's letters , and you get to the end of them and what he does , at the end of each one he says , hey , thank this person , or send this person here , or tell this person that , or ask this person to come help me out , every single one . There's a whole list of people that Paul says hey , I need these people , these people help me in ministry , these people are doing their own ministry . It's not just him , it's the whole body , and the whole body is what we're called to . The whole body is called to serve for our effectiveness .
Speaker 1Now you think about you know , you go back to the child illustration , right . You teach them different things at different points in time . Eventually you get them to be 18 . You're like all right , get out man , go get a job . Right ? When you think of us as the body , we're sort of in that last stage . We're at that graduation stage . He's built us for thousands of years . He's been working and building the church .
Speaker 1You know what you read Hebrews , hebrews , chapter 1 , it says in time has passed , god spoke to the fathers in various ways , but in these last days he's spoken to us by his son , meaning that's the completion of what needs to occur is in Christ and his resurrection and his crucifixion and all that stuff and giving the Holy Spirit . Right , that's the last piece really of the puzzle . The next thing that's coming is the consummation of the kingdom as a church . We're sort of at graduation . God willing , it'll be sooner rather than later that that consummation comes , and we don't know when it'll come , but we do know that it's coming and we're called to serve him up until that day . We're called to be reaching out and making disciples . We're called to be sharing the gospel with people who don't know it . We're called to be building up the saints within the church that takes every single one of us . None is more important than the other , and God sees what each and every single one of us does and recognizes our value . Let's go to the Lord .