How is the church actually united?

All of us naturally want to be important. We want to be noticed, want to be thought well of. And that desire, that need, is what splits and divides us.

The church in Corinth was horribly divided. They were marked by factions, pride, comparison, moral failures, lawsuits, abuses of the Lord’s Supper. And like so many churches today this was expressed in competition over spiritual gifts.

“I want an important job to do. I want that role or office. I have a gift—I need to express it. You need to see how important I am.”

Paul writes chapters 12-14 as a direct response to those problems. He has three Law-Gospel lessons for us:

1) You can’t produce true faith—the Spirit gives you Christ through other people (v. 3)

2) The One in the Three God gives you Christ through people who are different to you (vv. 4-6)

3) We turn gifts into competition—but the Spirit turns gifts into service (vv. 7-11)

First, You can’t produce true faith—the Spirit gives you Christ through other people

When encouraged to actually attend church, so many people reply “Well, I have my Bible, I don’t need anything else.”

This is because they’re confused about how God speaks to me today.

Look at v. 3:

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Paul obviously doesn’t mean “You can’t physically say the words ‘Jesus is Lord’ without the Holy Spirit.”

He obviously means: “You can’t trust Jesus as Lord, or confess him to be your Lord, without the work of the Holy Spirit.”

But, why does Paul begin three chapters on spiritual gifts in the church in this way, by saying that it is only the Holy Spirit who can give us this faith?

Because—the Spirit does this work in us through other people, that’s what he’ll spend three chapters explaining.

We are always being spiritually led by someone. Immediately before, in v. 2, Paul says this:

You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

I am a social creature. I need to be led. I need to be helped. That’s why I need other people.

Everybody is led by somebody—if I’m on my own, who am I being led by?

Paul immediately goes on to talk about the church for a reason. Because, I need to be united with God’s people. I need the church. I need the Spirit to lead me through other people.

You can’t produce true faith—the Spirit gives you Christ

That’s the problem with this statement: “Well, I have my Bible, I don’t need anything else.”—It is entirely self-reliant, independent. It is self-oriented.

But God has built us to be God-reliant, interdependent. And to be other-person oriented.

The Spirit gives you faith—and Paul says that at the beginning of three chapters on spiritual gifts, because this is where and how the Spirit works, through other people speaking the word to me.

I go through our catechism with everyone before they become a member of Manchester Lutheran Church.

Our catechism is just Luther’s Small Catechism, with a few extra topics that people are often confused about today.

And one of those extra topics is the gift of the Keys to the church.

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus said this to every Christian:

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Why? Why did Jesus do this? Because the way God speaks to me today is not through myself, on my own, just reading. It is through other people speaking the Word to me.

It is the Spirit who gives me faith—how? Through other people using gifts he’s given them for my benefit.

Which leads us to Paul’s second point about the Trinity:

2) The One in the Three God gives you Christ through people who are different to you

Look at verses 4-6. Paul shows us how God is One in Three, who gives the same grace through different people:

In v. 4, Paul describes how the one Spirit gives each of us different inward abilities, for the sake of others:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

In v. 5 he describes how the one Jesus gives each of us different offices or outward forms of church service, for the sake of others:

and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;

In v. 6 he describes how the one Father gives us all different outcomes, or effective results, of our gifts working through our offices:

and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

God is One God who exists as Three people. God is not solitary. God is love.

And he has created you to trust him and love others. And you need other people for both of these things. The Spirit creates faith in us as other people give us the Gospel.

Take the office of the pastor and teacher as an obvious example. God gives us a pastor, because we all need one. But a pastor needs the whole church, because he needs them.

The Spirit gives someone the inward gift of understanding the Word. Jesus gives that person the outward office of pastor to explain the Word. The Father works to bring the effect of the Word in the life of the church.

But the Spirit needs to give everyone faith to recognise what the pastor says from scripture is true. Jesus needs to work through the church to call the pastor. The Father needs to actually create the supernatural effects of this all working together.

You can’t just sit down on your own and say: “Well, I have my Bible, I don’t need anything else.”

And neither can the pastor sit down on his own and say: “I have my Bible, I don’t need anything else”.

Christ has not designed Christian life to depend on anyone alone figuring everything out from themself.

Different gifts, different offices, with different effects: One church.

But it’s no accident Paul explains that by describing the Trinity, Because God himself is one God who is three different people.

The One in the Three God gives you Christ through people who are different to you

Which leads us to Paul’s list of Spiritual gifts, where he starts to show the Corinthians what it truly means to be a Christian: To live not for yourself, but for others.

3) We turn gifts into competition—the Spirit turns gifts into service

Look at v. 7:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

The Corinthians turned the Christian life from a life of serving others’ needs to a life of getting what I need.

They used gifts that God had given them to prove they were right, they were the good ones, or they were better.

The Spirit cares more about you than that. He loves you. And he loves the rest of us.

He has given you gives for the common good. To serve all of us.

When someone says “It doesn’t matter if I come to church.” or “It doesn’t matter if I turn up on time.” They express such a low, unimportant, view of themselves.

Here’s what the Spirit says: “You matter far more than that to me!”

God is in a good mood with you. He wants you to know it, be assured of it, as he speaks through others at church to you.

And he’s in a good mood with everyone else, and want them to know it as he speaks through you to them.

Look at v. 8:

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,

You can’t utter wisdom and utter knowledge to yourself while reading your Bible.

God wants to assure you by uttering wisdom and knowledge to you through the mouths of your brothers and sisters.

That’s why Paul then lists gifts the Corinthians were using to promote themselves, vv. 9-10:

to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

Enduring hardship with faith, healing, working miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation. These all sound really impressive.

That’s why the Corinthians wanted them—to be impressive. Well, the Spirit thinks more highly of you than that. He cares more about you than that. He loves you more than that. He doesn’t want you to be narcissistic and impressive. He wants to make you essential. V. 11:

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

And the Spirit wills to turn you into an essential servant of others.

So, How is the church actually united?

Last week we heard Peter tell us that forgiveness is the essential glue that keeps a community together.

But this week, Paul tells us that the Spirit gives us that glue through other people.

This is how the church is united: we need each other.

You can’t produce true faith—the Spirit gives you Christ through other people

The One in the Three God gives you Christ through people who are different to you

And while We turn gifts into competition—the Spirit turns them into service

Christian unity is serving each other with the Gospel. You matter more than you think you do. Christ has not called you merely to attend church.

He has united you to people who need the Gospel from your mouth—and he has united you to people from whose mouths you need the Gospel too.