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My dear friends, beloved in Christ, may the very grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all here this morning. It is a great pleasure for me to be with you here again, and evokes in me the happiest of memories of the other occasions which I was with you in this place some years ago. The memory of it reduces my trepidation, and now I stand before you, because I remember that no one really attacked me in any vicious way. Even the questions were put in very Christian fashion, so that I stand before you with great anticipation that today, together, as we study God's word, we may hear the voice of the shepherd guiding us into all his truth. The topic you have put before me to be addressed is facing spiritual gifts in the church. And the passage you have set me to expound is one Corinthians chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. Let's begin then by reading the opening words of chapter uh twelve of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the first letter. I am old, and I am reading from an old English translation, for which I'm sure you will forgive me. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I would not have you ignorant. You know that when you were Gentiles, you were led away unto those dumb idols, howsoever you might be led. S- wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema. And no man can say Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the same God who worketh all things in all. But to each one of us is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit with all. For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healings in the one Spirit, and to another workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to yet another discernings of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally, even as he will. For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit. And may that Holy Spirit who inspired these words be our instructor as we think about them. The topic then for our day's deliberations are the gifts of the spirit, spiritual gifts in the context of the church. These three chapters where Paul deals with this subject are actually corrective in their central drive. They are not simply a positive exposition of the matter of gifts. They are, as we shall constantly find, written to correct a false idea that had arisen in the church. Paul tells us in the first letter of this epistle how abundantly God had blessed the believers at Corinth, so that they came behind in no gift, waiting for the appearing of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. They were enriched in everything. And Paul adds to that the consideration that this is an example of the faithfulness of God. God is faithful, who has called you into the fellowship of God's dear son. When I read those words, my imagination goes back down the centuries to the story of the way Abraham sent a servant on one occasion to find a bride for his son Isaac. The servant was led by God to the appropriate young lady, and in front of the household they together put the question to this foresaid, beautiful, of course, by definition, young lady, and the question was, would she go with this man, Abram's servant, that he may conduct her to the master's son whom she was to marry? When the young lady said, I will go. That was an amazing thing, you'll see. She had, so to speak, come to love a man she had never seen, and was on a journey to meet him who should be a her bridegroom. And when she said yes, Abram's servant drew out of his pack all kinds of ornaments, beautiful bracelets and necklaces, such as ladies are said to like, do you see? Uh, well, yes, of course she had to be encouraged. She was going to be the wife of a multi-millionaire, and she was already, uh, equipped, now begun to be equipped with some of the wealth of Abram and his son. And oh, what a wonderful story it is that God has called us into the fellowship of his dear son. Ponder it, my dear brothers and sisters. Let's try to imagine the almighty glory of our God and Father. And just of it, as if if it were not sufficient for him to make us and put us in this variegated universe with all its wonders. He has called us into the fellowship of his dear Son. God, the very God, the Word of God, who in the beginning already was eternally, and was with God in harmonious fellowship with the Father, and was God and is God himself. How shall we take it in that we're called into fellowship with him? How shall we behave in his presence? How know what to say? You know, we English have a queen. I expect you've heard of that. And, uh, we all pay our taxes, and I'm in a society, in a club that maintains her racehorses. They call it the Inland Revenue. In spite of my dutiful payments, she's never asked me to tea yet, and I am a little bit relieved because, introduced into that splendor, what would you talk about? What would you say? How would you know what foot to put before the other foot, so to speak? Huh? Well, of course, you might, uh, carry it off well. I dare say you would. But I've had those feelings. We're called into the fellowship of God's Son. And God is faithful in calling us into the fellowship of God, his own dear Son. He has equipped us, of course. Even now, while we're learning our spiritual etiquette, so to speak, and how to behave. Says Paul, he's enriched you with all spiritual gifts so that you become behind in nothing, waiting for the revelation of God's dear Son. That then is the context. But it would appear from these chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen that instead of concentrating on the great array of spiritual gifts, they concentrated on just a few, and one in particular, giving it such emphasis that was now somewhat out of proportion and a little bit grotesque and not really profitable. And these chapters, therefore, are written to correct that tendency. Hence my emphasis today, because you have tied me down, being wise men and women, you have tied me down not to my own thoughts, but to expound what the inspired apostle tells us here. Let not the fact that much of this is corrective obscure from us the wonder that lies at the heart of this matter of spiritual gifts. And that is the fact that in one spirit we have been baptized into one body, and that the body of Christ. Oh, sit back a moment with me before we come to the hard grind of study, and think of the wonder. So often we take it for granted, but our salvation has introduced into the universe a series of almost inexpressible wonder. Ponder a moment the incarnation of our Lord. Absolutely unique in the universe. Never such a thing ever occurred. That God, very God, should become man. I've often tried to picture in my mind, that's the childishness that's in me, what Michael the Archangel said to Gabriel when they saw the Son of the Highest stoop Stooped down. down. And passing by angels. Became human. For humanity was made a little lower than the angels. And this morning we contemplate it again, do we not? We see him. Who for a little was made lower than the angels. What did Michael make out of it? And what did he make out of it when he saw that son crucified to a tree? God would allow creatures, sinful creatures at that, to nail his son to a tree. I'm not sure that Michael really fully understood it, are you? If he were told the reason was that he was dying there for us sinful creatures. Has heaven ever got over the wonder, my dear friend, that God's own son was delivered up for you, for your rebellion's sake, against the Almighty. That will wonder enough to fill eternity. And he not only rose from the dead, but ascended into heaven and carried humanity to the very throne of God. For when he rose, he rose bodily. He asked his disciples to handle him and touch him. It's only me, says he, a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as you see me have. Risen a man still, with a human body, a glorified body, and has gone into heaven. Oh, I wonder what Michael said and thought. To see the Son of God seated at the right hand of the majesty, that was nothing new or surprising. To see the man Christ Jesus seated at the right hand of God, above the angels. How shall I significantly describe the next wonder? But we have to try and take it in, do we not? He sits not there alone. Christ has a body. Not just his own physical body, but an entity that the New Testament calls the body of Christ. The word body may be a metaphor, it, uh, describes a reality. A new entity in the universe, of which Christ is the head, and we redeemed men and women are the members. A real entity and functioning as a body, because it is a body with the life of the head flowing through the members. The body of Christ. I say it's a new thing. You will search the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi and find no reference to the body of Christ. It's brought into existence on Pentecost. This wonderful new entity in the universe of God. It is in that context that we think today of the spiritual gifts that are given us as members of that body, that each one of us might perform the function that God has designed for us in the body of Christ. Let us not think that the body of Christ is some temporary o- o- organization. For not unto angels has God set into a subjection the world to come of which we speak, but unto man, that is Christ. And for the administration of the universe that yet shall be, under the administrative headship of Christ. His body will be his administers, his executive, not angels, whatever role they will eventually play. But the body of Christ, vastly superior to angels because they are individual creations. Some of them deserted and went over to the other side, we gather. This new administration, what a thing it shall be, where the very life of the head runs through and is shared by all the members. It is true, as Paul will remind us here in chapter thirteen, that some functions of the body will not outlast time. The body and its, its membership are eternal, of course. And we are, so to speak, though and present members of Christ, part of his body, and doing our work in this vale of tears. We are in training, so to speak, for that wonderful eternity that lies ahead. Let some of the awesome wonders and wealth of this thing grip our spirits as now we turn to practicalities, and if need be, to the correction here and there of our function as members of the body of Christ. The first major consideration that Paul mentions in this topic comes in verses one to three. And to sum it up, we are to observe that the mark of the Spirit of God, who is the giver and efficient in all true spiritual gifts, the mark and motive of the Spirit of God is always to exalt, to exalt our blessed Lord Jesus, and to make it clear that Jesus is Lord. This is exceedingly important. If that is so, I must ask about my little gift, whatever that might be, and you ask about yours. What is the major aim of your gift? You say to help my fellow believers. Excellent, ten marks out of ten for that observation. What else? And why would you want to help your fellow believers? You said to build up the body. Oh, you've got it right again. And why would you want to build up the body? That we all might grow up unto him who is the head, says Paul in the sister epistle to the Ephesians. Oh, we have a lot of growing up to do, haven't we? To come to those dimensions that are suitable for us as members of the body of Christ, a body grown up in all its members, to be a fit body commensurate with that head. Seeing he is the head, the mark of all s- true spiritual gift is to emphasize that Jesus is Lord. Before our Lord left, he told the apostles that he was going, they weren't to be sad because he would send another comforter. And among the functions of that other comforter would be this: he shall convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on me. Notice that. Of sin, not because they get debauched every now and again, particularly, but the arch sin of refusal to believe in God's dear son. That is arch rebellion in the universe. Holy Spirit come to convict people of sin for not believing in Jesus. And of judgment, of course. Because of righteousness, because I go to the Father. His ascension to the right hand of God demonstrates that Jesus was right and is right. And the world that crucified him, therefore, is wrong. And because that is so, inevitable judgment will follow. The Holy Spirit's ministry in the world. He exercises it still through his members. But he shall glorify me, said our Lord. He shall take of my things and show them unto you. All that blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit. And he gives us our varied gifts, but whatever their immediate purpose, their end and object is to glorify the Lord Jesus and establish him in our thinking and practice as Lord. And when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost and exhibited his presence, Peter summed up the i- implication of it. He said to the crowd that had murdered Jesus, God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. We are, says the Apostle John, to test the spirits. How should we test them? You test the spirits by their doctrinal utterances. Every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ, the Christ come in flesh, is not of God. Who is the liar, says John, save he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? Jesus is Lord. We are to test the spirits. And as you will see from this, if you are going to test the spirit, whether it is of God or not, you'll have to know what the person moved by that spirit is saying doctrinally. We must not ultimately be content with anything that does not say explicitly that Jesus is Lord. The second major consideration in these chapters is, as we noticed in our reading, Paul comes immediately to it in verses four to eleven, that the gifts of the Spirit are diverse. That is the first emphasis he, he, he lays down, as we shall presently see, because he's thinking of the disproportion that has occurred in Corinth. They're concentrating on one or two gifts and blowing them all out of proportion, forgetting that the gifts of the Spirit are diverse. And he makes the point here in these verses, you'll see, verses four, five, and six. and makes the point that the diversity of spiritual gifts are an expression of the diversity of persons within the unity of the Godhead. One gift from the Spirit, another here from the Lord, ministration, and it's God. Do you see the Trinity? The wonder of God that is revealed to us through Christ. God is a triunity. Now I must speak with bated breath, metaphorically have the shoes off my feet. In the Trinity, God is inviting us to consider not merely what God has said or what God has done. We are invited into this most holy place to be allowed to look as far as mortal eyes can see into what God is in himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That he was and always will be, and was long before the universe existed. A divine fellowship. And of course, the different persons, as we call them, in the Godhead, with their different, uh, functions, their diversity, are yet one, one in three, and three in one. And the gifts that the Holy Spirit, that the Godhead gives his people, are similarly diverse. Not all have the same gift. That diversity is their wealth and their richness, and reflects and is an expression of the diversity of persons within the Godhead. The third major consideration is that the spiritual gifts given us and their exercise are functions of the body of Christ, and hence the emphasis on their diversity. Paul is about to argue that a human body that only had one member would be so grotesque as not to be a body at all. By definition, a body is diverse in its functions and therefore in its gifts. And yet here is the marvel, that the human body, though it has many members, is a unity, a plurality in unity, and a unity in plurality. Hence now, that is important that we come to consider this analogy. For as the human body, is what Paul is saying, is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, that is true of the human body. So also is, now strictly translated it would be, so also is the Christ. For here we're not thinking merely personally of our Lord Jesus, but the Christ, which is the head and his body. Paul is going in the rest of this chapter to draw out the significance that the gifts are diverse because it's, they are gifts, they're members of a body, and a body by definition has many members. And the Christian body must remember that though it's many members and many gifts, yet it is a unity. And of course, the use of gift to destroy and divide and separate the members of the body would be a sad denial of the very purpose and existence of the members of the body of Christ. But let us once more, it's good, isn't it, sometimes, at least I'm of that sort, you know, self-indulgent, you may think it. I like to think, uh, to sit back sometimes from hard doctrine and think about the wonder and the wealth of salvation. And if my gift is because I'm in the body of Christ, let me ask myself, how did I get into the body of Christ in the first place? Was it that God looked around his universe and spotted Gooding and, uh, said to himself, now that man Gooding has a little bit of a gift in this direction. Now, if he improves his gift and develops it and gets a bit expert at doing what Gooding is meant to do, I will consider putting him in the body. I could do with the likes of him in the body of Christ. And I have met some people who now get that sort of thought. You have to qualify by having a gift, and then if you get a gift, then you can be put into the body. But that's got it the cart before the horse, hasn't it? Ha. When I was born, so I'm told, so I- I- I'm not particularly aware of it, uh, I just say, at least I've forgotten, uh, the thing. It wasn't that my parents looked around and said, where could we get a good hand or two? We're thinking of having a new son in this family. Uh, let me see if we can find a good hand that would be suitable for our son. Oh, we'll need a couple of feet as well. No, no, no, of course, that was grotesque nonsense. And the body of Christ? How did we get into it? By double process, Paul reminds us. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit. Did you pick that up? We get into the body of Christ by a double process. Baptized in one spirit, made to drink of one spirit. And in a moment or two, we shall consider why that dual process has to be true of us. Why that dual process is necessary for the formation of the body. But let us look now carefully at the very term used. In one spirit, you are baptized into one body. We are friends enough in Christ, aren't we, to know without s- attacking each other with baseball bats. And the matter of baptism in the Holy Spirit has been a controversy amongst God's people. I my fi- myself find it helpful to go back to where this topic is first mentioned in the New Testament. For John Baptist, being asked whether he were the Messiah or not, made it at once plain that he was not the Messiah. I'm not worthy to carry his sandals, he said. I baptize you in water. He, that is the Messiah, shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit. This is the great distinctive of our blessed Lord. Distinguishing him from John, the Baptist, greatest of all the prophets. Distinguishing him, of course, from even his own apostles. It is the distinctive mark of Christ that he it is that baptizes in the Holy Spirit. And to get our thinking clear, we shall notice that the phrase sometimes in our Bibles, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, should not be understood as meaning it's the Spirit that baptizes us. The Spirit is not the baptizer. Our Lord is the baptizer. Listen to John again. I baptize you in water. He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit. When John baptized anyone, John took hold of them, put them in the Jordan, uh, put b- brought them into Jordan, baptized them in Jordan. John was the baptizer. He took hold of the person. He put them in water. That's what I do, says John. And the Messiah? How is he different from me? Well, he shall baptize you. So Christ is the baptizer. And he takes us who put our faith in him. And Christ puts us in the Holy Spirit. How shall I talk of it suitably? The Holy Spirit is not so much stuff. He isn't mere impersonal force, like electricity or energy. He is a divine person. Who else could put us in the Spirit of God? Save one who is himself God. Christ it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. Indeed, when at Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down, believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Peter eventually drew the implication of it and the significance of it. He said, you see, talking to the crowd, the Holy Spirit has not just come after Jesus ascended, one thing after another. It is the Lord Jesus who has poured out the Holy Spirit. Having received the promise of the Father, he has poured out what you now see and hear. And the deduction Peter drew from it? If it is Jesus who has poured out the Holy Spirit of God, then let Israel know this, that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord, in the highest sense of that term, and Christ. Who else could send forth the Holy Spirit? Who else could put his redeemed people in the Holy Spirit? Christ it is then that baptizes in the Holy Spirit. How many of his people? You say that's a silly question to ask. No, I ask it on purpose, just to draw our attention to the actual wordage. In one spirit, were we, some of us. No, that won't do it. In one spirit, were we all baptized into one body? You'll never find a true believer on earth anywhere. If he or she is a true believer, you'll never find a believer anywhere that has not been baptized by the risen Lord in the Holy Spirit. In one spirit were we all baptized into one body. Why then this other process? In one spirit we were all baptized into one body and were all made to drink of one spirit. Well, that's very good, of course, but, um, what's that got to do with the formation of the body of Christ? Well, let me, um, draw aside a bit. Let's consider these processes of, uh, Josie being, uh, demonstration. Here's me, you see. I'm about to baptize, uh, me in water, and you see what happens, don't you? If I baptize, well, I, this is my pen really, so let's be honest. If I baptize my pen in water, the pen goes into the water. Yes? If I am baptized in the Holy Spirit, I go into the Holy Spirit. That's one process. If I drink of the water, the water goes into me. Ponder the marvelous sight. Oh. So there are two sort of complementary processes. It's true of this matter of the Holy Spirit. When Christ puts us, baptizes us in the Spirit, we go into the Holy Spirit. And when we're made to drink of the Spirit, it's the converse complementary process, the Holy Spirit goes into us. Yes? That's simple, isn't it? You say, what's that got to do with the body? Here I must, uh, invite you, mm, uh, to consider what may not be aesthetically a happy experience. But look at the body that stands in front of you, this human body, if you can, for a moment, and then you can turn away and pretend you're writing notes or something to ease the strain and the distress. But look at this body for a moment. Mm. It's one body, and it has many members. What keeps all these members, fingers and things, all together in one body? And some wise man says, well, my dear man, that's the, that's your bones and the muscles and the tendons that do that. I understand what you mean, but it isn't really true. Because if you put a bullet, bullet through my brain and laid me out on the floor and came back in ten years time, you will find that some of the members had dropped off. In spite of the bones and the muscles and the tendons. The thing that keeps all the members in my body together as one body, to put it simply, is because I am in the air and the air is in me. That's true, isn't it? I need the air, you'll see, to supply oxygen right to the remotest part of my body. And if the oxygen supply is cut off, my body begins to disintegrate. Does, doesn't it? Hmm. Mm, eh, eh, eh, eh, you see, uh, if you got hold of me here and the oxygen and the air is all around me, and then it's filling my lungs and oxygenating my blood, and the blood is carrying it to all the muscles and I don't know where, keeping me together. And if you came up in one indignation against an Englishman and throttled me, don't be encouraged to do it. This is only an illustration, not a suggestion, but if you came and throttled me, I should still be in the air, but the air wouldn't be in me. I should go black in the face. If, conversely, you took me to NASA and said, Gooding, we're going to send you up into space, but we want to do an experiment. We're going to put you not inside the shuttle, but outside it, and strap you on the outside of the shuttle, you'll see. Now, Gooding, you're about to blast off. Now take a deep breath, my boy. And they put me out into space. Now the air would be in me, but I shouldn't be in the air. I should go pop. It's a funny thing, this body standing in front of you. You say it's a very simple thing. Yeah, I know, but it does require that dual thing. I must be in the air, and the air must be in me. You can't have one at a time, the air in me for five years, but I not in the air. That's no good. Both have to be simultaneous. Because the body depends on it. You can't have a body without it. And the body of Christ. How do we get into it, and how is it maintained? In one spirit. You have been baptized into the one body. Christ has put you in the spirit, and you are made to drink of one spirit. He puts the spirit in you. I in the spirit, and the spirit in me. Unless you should think I am talking of some fanciful doctrine that I thought up in the confines of my own study or something. Listen to what Paul says in his epistle to the Romans in chapter eight. You'll see. And he says, but you are not in the flesh, Romans eight and verse nine. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. You are in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Do you see the double thing? In the Spirit, and the Spirit in you. Ah, that's enough for hard thinking for the moment. Let's pause. Ponder the wonder of it. It's not dependent on feelings, though it may lead on times to very deep-seated feelings. But the dear saint of God who's lying in bed riddled with arthritis or terminal cancer, the mind filled with the pain of it, it is still true of her. If she is a believer, she is in the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is in her. Oh, what a magnificent salvation it is. Who other but God could ever have devised it or been willing to. Shout a hallelujah in your heart, but do it reverently in case you upset somebody. Uh, but shout hallelujah to God for such a magnificent, God thought out salvation. Enough to get us through life and all the way home to glory, as the servant took Rebecca and equipped her and led her all the way home till he presented her to Isaac. But if we are one body, the very fact that we are a body and not one member, for instance, but many members. And if the foot, uh, should one day develop a kind of perverse logic, feet can sometimes. Uh, if the foot should say, because I am not the hand, I am not the body. It is not therefore not of the body. Of course it isn't. How did it become a foot if it wasn't in the body? You don't find odd feet lying about the place, except they're artificial ones. It had to be in the body to start with, to be a foot. Stupid foot. But then feet can get that kind of idea in the head. I'm not a heart, I'm not a brain, therefore I'm not of the body. That's got it all the wrong way round. You don't get into the body by qualifying as a foot. Degree in footery. You get in the body first, and then find out that I, you are perhaps a foot. Yes? So if the foot shall say, I am not a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, I'm not a hand, and therefore I'm not of the body, it's talking illogical nonsense. It's got it the wrong way round. Pity feet, because they have not a lot of brains inside them, and they do fall to thinking like that sometimes, you'll see. And if he says, uh, uh, uh, uh, and if the ears shall say, because I'm not the eye, I am not of the body, it is, is not therefore not of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? The thing would be grotesque if it was all one body. We mustn't insist, must we, that all believers have one and the same gift. What determines what gift I have? Well, verse uh eighteen says, but now hath God set the members, each one of them, in the body, even as it pleased him. Once upon a time, some years ago, ten years ago or so, the BBC ran a series of things, and eminent people or others were brought before the cameras, you'll see, and they were given this, uh, very direct question. If you weren't you, who would you like to be? It was very interesting what people said if they weren't, if they weren't themselves, who would they like to be? I had no hopes of being interviewed by the BBC, of course, but I pondered the question. I said to myself, Gooding, if you weren't you, who would you like to be? And one can get all sorts of wild ideas in one set, come on, I mean, aspirations far beyond any possibility. I said to myself, I would like to be Billy Graham, I would. Marvelous, you'll see. And then I thought of various others I'd like to be. Ashamed to tell you. But when I thought about it a lot and a lot and a lot, I came to this conclusion. If I weren't David Gooding, I would prefer to be David Gooding. If I had the possibility, that is, to be somebody else. And I were asked, would you prefer to be somebody else, or would you like to go back to being Gooding, just ordinary Gooding? I decided I'd like to be ordinary Gooding. And you say that shows a fantastic opinion of yourself. It doesn't at all. I didn't choose to be me. And I'm in the body of Christ. It was God who decided what gift I should have and what I should be. On what ground did he decide it? He decided it as it pleased him. Marvelous. And it dawned on me then, mere unknown me beyond the little rabbit circle in which I move, you know, munching my grass. Me, I can do, indeed, Billy Graham himself couldn't do more. In this respect, he exercises his God-given gifts to please God. And you, my dear sister, and you, my dear brother, whatever gift you have, whether you think it great or small, you can do what the biggest gift in the body can do. You're there to please God. It pleases God that you be the gift he has decided you shall be. Not the archangel himself has a bigger office than that, to please God. That is to say, it pleases God that you are the member he has made you. What bigger ambition could you have? It follows, of course, that other spectacular gifts, as we may count them in the body, cannot turn round and say to you, I have no need of you. In my darker moments, that comforts me. When I give way to inferiority complexes, you know, and think of myself as a little worm and all those things. Mm. You don't know that feeling. And I say to myself, the very giants, not even the Apostle Paul, could turn round and say, I don't need gooding. I smile all over my face. Ha. It's Paul, and he has to acknowledge that he, well, he can't do without me. Nor will he for all eternity, I might say. Have you got it? All wonder is not that you're, you're have have got a gift, that the wonder is you're in the body of Christ at all. And there by divine appointment, to be and to serve as it has pleased God. And just as it is in the human body, so is it. At least it ought to be, in the body of Christ, that each member should have the same care for the other members. If one member suffers in the human body, all suffer with it. They have no choice, do they? Because they're in one body, same nervous system. It is true, but sometimes the grit of unpolished personalities gets in the way, and we're not yet what we should be, are we? And instead of if one member suffer, all actually suffer with it, sometimes we cause suffering to the other members. God help me. God help me, lest this very topic of gifts in the church leads to division and hurting of the body. So then, for our first study, and we've had enough, haven't we? That we might think and ponder and digest and to worship and pray God that the realities we have studied... may God- by God's spirits be implanted in our minds, in our hearts, in the depths of our soul, and conform our spirits to the spirit of God. Shall we pray?