Striving for the Work of the Spirit While Avoiding Weird Stuff

The Holy Spirit

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Nov. 28, 2021

Striving for the Work of the Spirit While Avoiding Weird Stuff

If you have your Bible, turn with me to 1 Cor. 14. The title of the message this morning, Striving for the Work of the Spirit While Avoiding Weird Stuff. We want to encourage a deeper faith and desire for the Spirit’s work while at the same time avoiding getting weird. Over the years I’ve observed that sometimes sincere people striving for the work of the Spirit end up getting a little weird. No other way to put it.

By “weird” I don’t mean unusual. The Holy Spirit, like Jesus, will sometimes do things that are unexpected, unpredicted, and unusual. By weird I am thinking of things that sound spiritual but actually hurt the church’s credibility and hinder the Spirit’s work of building up the church in Christ.

14 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. ² For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. ³ On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. ⁴ The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. ⁵ Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. 1 Cor. 12:1-5

1. Striving for the work of the Spirit

The Corinthian church was guilty of misusing and even abusing the spiritual gifts and it was doing significant damage inside the church and outside the church. If I were consulting with the Corinthian church I might advise them to lay off the spiritual gifts entirely.

But Paul knows the problem in the Corinthian church isn’t the gifts, the problem is their spiritual immaturity. The remedy isn’t “stop doing it”, the remedy is “do it correctly”. Keep desiring the gifts, keep pursuing the gifts, but remember the purpose of the gifts and the power of the Spirit is to build up the church. Look at verse 12:

So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. 1 Cor. 14:12

Since you are eager for the manifestations of the Spirit, [therefore] strive to excel in building up the church. No contradiction there. The Spirit is all about building up the church. The gifts are given to build up the church. Therefore we should strive to see more of the Spirit’s manifestation through the gifts, not less.

We should never think, “the Spirit’s going to do whatever He’s going to do, no matter what I do.” That’s not true. What the Spirit does or doesn’t do largely depends on whether we provide an atmosphere of faith and expectation or of doubt and unbelief.

• There were towns where Jesus could do little or no miracles because of a lack of faith (Matt 13:58) and there were environments where the power of the Spirit was present to do great things through Jesus. When Jesus was in the house where the men lowered the paralytic, Luke 5:17 says the power of the Lord (Spirit) was with Jesus to heal.
• Paul looked and saw that a lame man had faith to be healed and he called out “stand up on your feet!” Acts 14:9
• Paul tells Timothy to “fan into flame” the gift (2 Tim 1:6)
• Paul encourages the Corinthians to eagerly pursue the gifts, and commends them for being eager for manifestations of the Spirit.

The Bible is consistent and clear: we shouldn’t be passive when it comes to our experience of the Holy Spirit, we are to strive for a greater, deeper experience of the work of the Spirit. We are to pray for the power of the Spirit. We are to pursue and fan the gifts of the Spirit in us.

But we want to do that in a way that isn’t weird.

2. Avoiding weird stuff

The result of the Corinthian’s misuse and abuse of the gifts was a spirit of disorder and chaos. Rather than believers being built up and unbelievers drawn to Christ, believers were leaving the services confused and abused, and any unbeliever who happened to visit left thinking the church was crazy. And Paul cares what unbelievers think:

²³ If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? ²⁴ But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, ²⁵ the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. Vv. 23-25

The desired effect of the Spirit’s work in the church isn’t that unbelievers leaving thinking those guys are nuts! Our prayer and hope is that the Spirit might speak deeply to their hearts and minds leading them to Christ. A prophetic word that discloses something going on in their life that no one in the room knew about convinces them that God is really in our midst.

That’s unusual, but it’s not weird. Paul reminds us that God isn’t the God of weird:

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. Vs. 33

But all things should be done decently and in order. Vs 40

So how do we steward the gifts in a way that invites the supernatural work of the Spirit without stepping into the weird?

1. Be zealous AND be realistic

I want to start with this point because I think it frames the use of gifts in the church with wisdom. When it comes to using our spiritual gift, the Bible tells us to be zealous, but it also encourages us to be realistic.

⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our

faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Rom. 12:6-8

Paul is saying, God has given each of us a measure of grace and a measure of faith which determines the level of our gifting. If God has gifted you to teach, start out small. Don’t feel like you need to book an arena for your first teaching seminar. Teach a small group and teach that group passionately. Don’t be afraid to start out small – that’s not a lack of faith, that’s real faith.

If God has called you to lead (leadership is a spiritual gift) – Paul says do it with zeal. Don’t mail it in. But start with smaller leadership opportunities that allows you to develop that gift. If God has gifted you with a heart to give, give generously but in accordance to your ability.

The point is, there is a “super spiritual” mindset that says, “the bigger the better! I’ll step out so big, do something so crazy, it will need to be God!” I’ve been around long enough to see that doesn’t always work out well. Most of the time it’s not so crazy it needs to be God. It’s just crazy. Go for zeal but keep it real.

One thing we need to keep an eye on if we’re going to keep it real is our language. We can get careless about our words. One of the things I want to caution us about is saying

God told me to…(fill in the blank)

I want to credit an article by Carey Nieuwhof for his insights on this point. It’s a precious truth that God speaks to His people, but we should be really careful before we claim God told us to do something.

Recently I’ve met a couple women who co-pastor together. They’re sweet ladies and I have no doubt they love Jesus, but I’ve noticed they attribute pretty much everything they do to God telling them to do it. They don’t have a pre-planned order for their Sunday service, they wait for God to tell them who’s going to speak when and what they’re going to say. And everything they say they attribute to God saying it through them. I appreciate their openness to receiving the Lord’s guidance but I think we should be a bit more cautious in using the phrase God told me to.

I’ve heard Christians say things like

• God told me to buy that house or build that building for which I don’t have the money and puts me or our ministry deep in debt.
• God told me to marry that person even though he/she isn’t a Christian
• God told me to leave that church over a conflict without trying first to resolve it

I think often we’re just doing what we want and passing it off as God’s idea. Sometimes we pull out the God told me to just to end debate. If God told you to do something, who can argue with that? End of debate. End of discussion

I am not denying that God speaks to us. I know God has spoken to me. But let’s be slow to use that phrase. Nieuwhof suggests a better course is to say something like, “based on what I know from scripture, I believe this is the best/boldest/wisest course of action.”

That keeps it real. People can relate to that process and it doesn’t shut down intelligent discussion. Unbelievers don’t get the idea that you’re using God-talk to justify doing whatever it is you want to do (and yes, a lot of unbelievers are better at detecting phoniness than some believers are!) Most importantly, it’s biblical. When faced with important decisions and choices, the Bible stresses seeking wisdom far more than seeking divine revelation before making a decision.

This applies to prophetic words as well. If someone gives you a prophecy, don’t ignore it but don’t guide your life by it either. Put it on a shelf and see if God confirms it through other means. When I was 21 years old someone prophesied over me that I would be a successful businessman. It’d better happen soon cause I’m running out of runway.

If someone prophesies over you that you’re to quit your job, move to Timbuktu, marry someone you just met, give them a thousand dollars, or anything else like that, don’t just do it. That would be weird. Let God guide you through wisdom and His word, and if that prophetic word confirms it, so much the better!

2. Impressive isn’t the goal, building others up in Christ is

If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. ²⁸ But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Vv. 27-28

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹ Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. Vv. 18-19

It might look impressive to walk into a church where everyone is speaking in tongues. But Paul says, that’s not going to build anyone up. For something to build us up it needs to be intelligible. It needs to speak of Christ. Paul has an impressive gift of tongues – he speaks in tongues more than all of them – but in church his goal isn’t to impress with his incredible gift, it’s to build up. Five words to instruct them in Christ will benefit them more than ten thousand words they don’t understand. So Paul will submit his incredible gift to the higher purposes of the Spirit: to build up the church in Christ.

As we eagerly desire the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, let’s remember that His passion is to lift up and glorify Christ in our midst – so that believers draw nearer to Christ and unbelievers might come to know Jesus and be saved.

I want to close with a brief story that maybe illustrates this point.

When I was the pastor at Lamb’s Chapel one time during our worship time a visitor began doing what charismatics call “singing in the Spirit”. She was singing something like “come unto Jesus, come unto me” and just kept going. But her voice, the intonation of it, the melody, was scary. Eerie. It sounded more like a song from the Conjuring than a song from the Spirit. It was weird in a creepy way. All I could think was, this will scare anyone who’s not a Christian, and a lot of people who are!

I can’t judge her heart, but what she was doing was weird. It was repelling rather than attracting. We want to do everything we can (strive) for the Spirit’s work in our midst, and to make sure that work doesn’t push people away from Jesus but draws them to him. That’s the heart of the Spirit and the heart of love. Let’s pray.

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. 1 Cor 12:3