Bliss Is Not Ignorance
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. 2 Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. 3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accurseda: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.[1]
I. Ignored
A. Vocal
B. Voiceless
II. Invited
A. Wisdom
B. Witness
III. Enabled
A. Protection
B. Projection
Introduction: Traditionally, this is the third Sunday following Pentecost. If I said last Sunday was the third Sunday I was confused. I may be trying to take us through this series too quickly. We have more Sundays to talk about the Holy Spirit’s pouring out to the church. It is for this reason since we are in this season that we are carrying on with the series of messages that deal with the Holy Spirit.
It is important that we understand the person of the Holy Spirit because He is one third part of the Triune Godhead. It is by no coincidence that every so often, there is a spiritual awakening of the church that can be observed down through history.
Back when the King James Bible was translated, there was a new land that had been discovered which caused turmoil among the existing nations as well as in the Americas. During this time, the Roman Church was doing battle with those who wanted to make the scriptures free to all who wanted to read the Bible in their native tongue. This battle still rages on and will until all can hear the Bible in the language that they can understand.
Back during this nation’s internal War Between the States, circuit riding preachers from many denominations were bringing the message to newly made free people and the Salvation Army came to be. The messages preached in that day are as alive as they were then. Many Methodist Churches bear the name of some of those who rode through the many byways bringing God’s truth.
Back in the 1960s with all the civil unrest again, there was a movement afoot known as the Charismatic Movement. Attendance in some of the Pentecostal churches increased as people wanted to know what all this “being filled with the Holy Spirit” was all about.
Strange isn’t it that Jesus told the disciples that this was going to happen and it did happen but yet there is still much division about what happened and what is still happening today.
The apostle Paul, and yes I think that Paul was and still is most certainly an apostle, that Paul who was transformed from the Saul who persecuted the church was changed in an instant when he had an encounter with the ascended Jesus one day on a walk down a road. The church will never be the same again!
He saw the confusion even back in the church in Corinth about what we should know concerning the Holy Spirit but choose to ignore. We covered ever so briefly the most important of the gifts that we cannot possess without the Holy Spirit. Love is so important that we covered 1 Corinthians thirteen before we discussed twelve. Love must be foremost because true love is all that will survive.
My prayer is that we here in Merry Oaks Baptist Church will be a little less ignorant about the gifts of the Holy Spirit than when we came here today.
Scripture: The scripture is 1 Corinthians 12:1-3. When you have found it please rise to your feet for the reading of God’s written word.
Prayer: Please be seated
Message: I was ready to bring a message concerning Spiritual gifts but He prevented me. We’re not ready. He stopped me at verse three because it is vitally important that we understand The Holy Spirit before we attempt to understand the gifts He brings. This actually probably should be the first of the series on Who The Holy Spirit really is.
He is Spirit. Even the secular Webster’s Dictionary Thesaurus gives spirit these synonyms; soul, essence, life, inner-self, life force. Without spirit there is none of this. Russel last week spoke of the confusion between conscience and the Holy Spirit. To be a person means that you have a conscience but who guides your conscience is up to you. To be alive means that there is some spirit present. What spirit is up to the person. That is the decision that God totally leaves up to you.
Another synonym that I have often heard for spirit is wind as when the air moves. Dead air has no life. If there is no air movement, no power. Wind turbines don’t make electricity. So much for renewable energy.
Still another idea of spirit is breath. Without breath there is no life even in animals.
Paul knew that as Gentiles, people without knowledge of God would make up ideas of what they thought they would want a god to be. They made lifeless statues and things that they could carry with them to worship because they had not had the privilege of being God’s chosen people who, in times past, had intimate relationships with their creator. Therefore the only god Gentiles knew was those who someone else had created for them or the god they created for themselves.
Now as Christians, we no longer have the excuse of not knowing the truth. If they or we continue to pursue those things that are un-Godly, we choose to ignore God. That’s never a good thing and it always ends up badly.
Paul explained to them that there was something new. People were doing miraculous works and those who were not so equipped were jealous to the point of sometimes making believe that they had acquired the gifts though they had not. Wanting something that you don’t have, that someone else does have, never ends up well either. That’s the last of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not covet…
Anyway, Paul did not want the new believers to ignore the Holy Spirit’s gifts. Neither do I want that for anyone. The gifts are real. Since they are spiritual, they are alive. If He, The Holy Spirit that is, if He wants to give a gift to you, it is totally up to you whether or not you want to accept and use it.
It is a very scary thing to not have it and act as if you do. You see, it is not a man made or man given thing. It is God made and man accepted. It is not an inanimate or speechless thing like power from money or prominence. It turns the voiceless into the vocal because without it you cannot give witness to Jesus. Therefore it is a very wasteful thing to have the gift available and to decide not to accept it. That is a very stupid thing to do. Yeah I know. I said stupid. Believe it or not Agur in Proverbs 30 called people stupid before I did. The NKJV is my favorite translation because I believe it to be more close to the original manuscripts even than the KJV which we have in the pews and you like to hear me preach from. In the KJV Agur is said to use the word brutish. Here it is from the NKJV,
Proverbs 30:1
”The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, his utterance. This man declared to Ithiel—to Ithiel and Ucal:
2 aSurely I am more stupid than any man,
And do not have the understanding of a man.
3 I neither learned wisdom
Nor have bknowledge of the Holy One." [2]
See, way back then this guy knew how stupid it is to ignore God. How stupid it is to ignore any of the three persons of the Godhead!
Well that pretty much covers how easy it is to ignore or be ignorant of the Spiritual Gifts. Now on to how to and what Paul was inviting them and us to receive. Paul was explaining to them or attempting to share his wisdom so that they might have knowledge of the gifts so that they could no longer say that they had no knowledge. Actions due to lack of knowledge is the thing that Jesus asked His Heavenly Father to forgive. Ignorance does not mean that you do not know. Ignorance is an active choice of choosing to act as if something is untrue while knowing the thing is true.
Now if they with Paul or we today choose to turn away from the truth that the Holy Spirit is, they and we decide theirs and our own ignorance. It is up to you to accept truth and it is up to you to deny truth. It is up to me to tell you the truth or He will take me out of this pulpit.
If we accept Jesus then the Holy Spirit is available. If we accept the Holy Spirit once we have the wisdom to accept Him, then He will witness through us whom Jesus Christ is and we will do that which we are here to do.
Paul went on to explain that we are protected from blaspheming Jesus. No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. To say that would be a lie against Jesus and the Holy Spirit will not let that happen if we give our self-control over to Him.
Paul went further to explain how the idea of Jesus as the Christ and as Lord can be projected to the world. No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit. Why do people not give Christ the credit He is due? They do not have the Holy Spirit! If you call Him Lord, you must have the Holy Spirit otherwise you could not even do that. If The Holy Spirit gives you that power, what else is He able to do through you?
Prayer:
Invitation: As we continue on in our attention to the Holy Spirit, we will discover what gifts are available and how He plans to use them through us. Are you ready for that?
Are you comfortable where you are here in this place or are you ready to do that which God saved you to do in this life? Yes Jesus died that you might live eternally but He has you here now. For what? So you can come here each time to be fed and never feed? Please do not think I am speaking of physical food! There is way too much emphasis on that here already. We are here to feed the lost spiritually.
We have already heard from 1 Corinthians 13, “The Love Chapter”, but we went through the whole thing much too quickly. To love someone means that you care for their eternity. Anything else is not love. Anything else is a man-made excuse for love because true love is that gift from God through the Holy Spirit.
Are you ready for LOVE? Are you ready said the Master? Please respond to His call for His purpose as we sing…
a accursed: or, anathema
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (1995). (electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of the 1611 Authorized Version., 1 Co 12:1–3). Bellingham WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
a Ps. 73:22; Prov. 12:1
b [Prov. 9:10]
[2] The New King James Version. (1982). (Pr 30:1–3). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
