InterACTive

1 Corinthians 12:1-12

1st (v1) Paul tells them he does not want them to be ignorant of spiritual gifts.

2nd (v2) He reminds them of something they already know

1. •That in life, up until this time, they had been idol worshippers; so they were not ignorant of an unseen world of the spirit (world-view not secular post-modern).
   

2. •However, they had become completely familiar with dumb idols; that is, their spiritual world was passive, not interactive – there was no voice.
   

3. •Psalm 115:4-8
   

3rd (v3) Having mentioned the “voicelessness” of the spirit realm as they had known it, Paul, about to introduce to them the interactive realm of the Holy Spirit, first warns them:

1. •(from the original Living Bible) But now you are meeting people who claim to speak messages from the Spirit of God. How can you know they are really inspired by God or whether they are fakes? Here is the test: no one speaking by the power of the Spirit of God can curse Jesus, and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” and really mean it, unless the Holy Spirit is helping him.
   

Here’s what we learn:

1. -God wants to bring us into the interactive realm of the Holy Spirit. This is normal Christianity.
   

2. -This was Jesus’ normal world, in constant interaction with the heavenly realm, doing nothing of himself, but what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19)
   

3. -It’s a realm of speaking, seeing, hearing, sensing, touching, and going  (taken from Psalm 115 – the opposite of dumb idols who can’t speak, see, hear, smell, handle or walk)
   

4th (v4-7) This whole realm of Charisma (gifts), Dikonia (service / ministries), and Energema (activities / operations) through which the Holy Spirit is Phanerosis (manifested) – the same Spirit; same Lord; same God. In other words, it’s God’s realm given to each one for the profit of all.

1. •What if I just want my Christianity with Charisma but not Dikonia or Energema?
   

2. •What if I’m uncomfortable with Charisma, and only want Dikonia and Energema?
   

3. •What if I don’t like some of the ways the Holy Spirit Phaneroos?
   

4. •… here’s the answer – change!
   

5th (v8-10) Here Paul writes nine examples that show that we’re no longer in a voiceless spirit realm, but a wonderfully interactive space where …

1. 1.the wisdom of God comes rushing in when perplexing decisions and situations are being faced (the word of wisdom)
   

2. 2.things only God could know about us are revealed in order to release a faith in us that He is in control and is poised to breakthrough for us (the word of knowledge)
   

3. 3.when a miracle needs to be unlocked for us, faith of the kind that unlocks miracles is released (faith by the same Spirit)
   

4. 4.healing can be accessed for all kinds of disease and aliment, the pain, debilitation and waste of sickness powerfully overcome (gifts of healing)
   

5. 5.when a nothing but the power of God invading a human life will turn an adverse tide, God himself works with dunamis (the working of miracles)
   

6. 6.God speaks to people in New Zealand in 2010; all kinds of people hearing from God through all kinds of people (prophecy)
   

7. 7.complete clarity concerning who’s who and what’s what in the unseen heavenly realm, so that all that is good and Godly can touch people (discerning of spirits)
   

8. 8.and God communicating his love to people, even by giving someone a language supernaturally with which to be his life-giving voice (different kinds of tongues)
   

9. 9.and foreign languages being interpreted supernaturally, so that there’s not a person on the planet to whom God cannot speak intimately and powerfully (interpretation of tongues)
   

6th (v11-12) Here’s the purpose-line:

1. •the reason why God brings us out of a passive, voiceless realm (even if it’s ‘Christian’)
   

2. •and brings us into an interactive realm of hearing and seeing and sensing and speaking and touching and going
   

3. •where demonstrates himself authentically and intimately and uniquely to every human life
   

4. •it’s because the body is connected to the head! It’s not just hanging passively at the neck: singing inspiring songs, listening to good sermons, doing it’s bit to help … NO!
   

5. •the body is as alive as the head – a living, breathing, expression of the head
   

6. •Jesus is Christ the head / the Church is Christ the body
   

This Church that’s been ushered into the realm of the Spirit is present in every nation to be a dynamic reproduction of 3 ½ years of history.

1. •the history of a man of whom Acts 10:38 records God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
   

2. •Others called Jesus ‘the Son of God’, he called himself ‘the Son of Man’. He didn’t come to show us what God could do, he came to show us what man could do.
   

3. •And man being Christ is what all creation is longing to see revealed.
   

So Paul, this great apostle, writes to a local church and says:

Now concerning spiritual gifts … I do not want you to be ignorant