III

serve

HOMEWORK:

Read and pray over

1 Corinthians 13

III

living the Kingdom life

Acts 2:41-42 the Message

1 Corinthians 12:12

Be generous with the different things

God gave you, passing them around

so all get in on it:

if words, let it be God’s words;

if help, let it be God’s hearty help.

That way, God’s bright presence will be

evident in everything through Jesus, and

he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty

in everything— encores to the end of time.

Oh, yes!

That day about 3000 took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up.

They committed themselves to

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body.

Ephesians 4:11-13

the teaching of the apostles,

the life together,

the common meal,

and the prayers.

He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church,

1 Peter 4:10-11 the Message

1 Corinthians 12:14

1 Corinthians 12:27-31

until we’re all moving rhythmically

and easily with each other, efficient

and graceful in response to

God’s Son, fully mature adults,

fully developed within and without,

fully alive like Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:1-3

But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, uni dimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together.

What I want to talk about

now is the various ways

God’s Spirit gets worked

into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood,

but I want you to be

informed and knowledgeable.

Remember how you were

when you didn’t know God,

led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it?

But now I want to lay out

a far better way for you.

It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be cursed!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.

That is what the Son of Man has done:

He came to serve,

not be served—

and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.”

Matthew 20:28 the Message