Spiritual gifts can very easily become about us. What gift do I have? What can I do? How does what I have compare to somebody else? That was part of what had happened at Corinth. They were taking the truth of the Holy Spirit and interpreting it through their past paganism, and their experiences had become so important that truth was being diminished. Paul brings them back to something we have to keep straight: experience can never replace truth. And when it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit, the attention is always being turned toward Christ. The Spirit never gifts an individual to draw attention to that individual. He gifts an individual to draw attention to Christ.
So when Paul gets to 1 Corinthians 12:4–11, the point is not, “Here is a list of spiritual gifts. Go figure out which one you have.” Look at what Paul keeps repeating: the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. There are different gifts, different ministries, and different results, but he does not shine the spotlight on the gift itself. He shines the spotlight on the gift giver. And then Paul tells us why those gifts are given: “to profit withal.” They're not given for our exalting or for making a name for ourselves. They're given to benefit the body. Even the results don't belong to us. Paul could plant. Apollos could water. But God had to give the increase.
That changes how we ought to think about serving the Lord. There's a place for everybody in the church, and God has not equipped us so we can say, “Well, look what I got.” He has given those enablements because we need each other and because He intends to build up His people in Christ. You can't make the growth happen. You don't have to. It's His work and not ours. Our responsibility is to depend on the Spirit, use what He has graciously given, and keep the attention where it belongs—on Christ. If spiritual gifts have ever caused you to start by asking, “Which one is mine?” this passage gives us some more important questions to ask first: Who's the source? What's the purpose? Hear the full message as Pastor Jake works through 1 Corinthians 12 and shows why the answer turns our attention away from ourselves and back to the Spirit of God and the Savior He magnifies.