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Well, I hope you want to be a
contributor, that you don't come to church as a consumer, just
with your hand out, waiting to be blessed, waiting to be noticed,
waiting to be fed. But we come with our hand up,
looking to be involved, and saying, use me, plug me in. Lord, how
would you have me to serve God and others? How would you use
me to reach the lost? and to edify believers. And so
as we come with that heart, the Lord equips us, and he does that
through the topic we'll be talking about this morning and over the
next couple of weeks, and that is serving with spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts, that's an important
part of of serving. It's there on the banner you
see behind me. It is the equipping that God
gives to us to be effective and fruitful and powerful in service
for Him. And so we'll be looking into this topic. Last month,
if I understand correctly, was the driest September on record
for Indianapolis. Very little rainfall. What does
your yard look like right now? Maybe you've been watering. We
hadn't been watering in September. And we do have someone that comes
and sprays the lawn for weeds and things. They've left a note
on our door handle that says, you need to water this grass.
Because if you don't water and the grass gets dried out, it's
more susceptible to insects and other pests and diseases that
can set in when the grass, the lawn, actually goes into a state
of dormancy. your grass can grow dormant.
And it's still alive, but it's not active and all these other
bad things that can happen. And so we started to be more
conscious of that and, you know, think about watering. And now
that I'm noticing, I can drive down my street and see, oh, this
person waters. They don't water. They don't
water. This person waters. They don't water. And the lawn
technician would probably say, dormant, dormant, healthy, dormant,
Well, what about your spiritual life this morning? You know,
I could go from pew to pew and make my best guess, you know,
healthy, dormant, but the reality is you all look great, and man
looks on the outside appearance, and your other spiritual siblings
and I can see something of the fruit that's in your life, but
it's only God that looks on the heart. And what would He say
if He were to walk from pew to pew and evaluate where we are
this morning? If you're saved, you're spiritually
alive. But is there a vibrancy? Is there
a thriving? Is there a health? As you've
had the living water from the Lord Jesus to produce that life
in you, or is there dormancy? Where you'd have to say, I'm
not doing that much for God. I'm trying to keep up spiritually.
Yeah, there's sin struggles. I'd like to do better, There's
not really like a lush, beautiful vibrance that I would say I'm
thriving spiritually, and particularly when it comes to spiritual gifts.
Have you identified your gift? Are you using that? Is God using
that through you to reach the lost and to edify believers in
a way He could look at you and say, this one isn't dormant.
Here's one who's thriving for the Lord. That's His desire for
each one of us. And if you're saved, the Holy
Spirit has gifted you and God empowers you for that kind of
thriving service. But sometimes we have to stir
that up. You'll see a verse, this won't
be our text for this morning, but 2 Timothy 1.6, Paul writes
to Timothy and says, that thou stir up the gift of
God that is within you. And that's that idea of something
that has gone dormant, it's still alive, but needs to be stirred
up, to be roused to action, to be springing to new life. And
so that's our prayer this morning and over these next few weeks,
that God would just use the scriptural texts that we'll look at in the
next few Sunday mornings just to stir up the gifts that are
in us so that we can be alive and vibrant for Him. Our text
this morning is actually 1 Corinthians 12, if you'd like to go ahead
and turn there. We'll start with looking at those
first 11 verses there. 1 Corinthians 12, one of four
New Testament passages that instruct us regarding spiritual gifts.
And maybe you're familiar with those four texts. I hope over
these next few weeks you'll be reminded of those to put that
in remembrance, to stir up those gifts. that God has given you
if you're a believer. And just a survey of what we'll
be looking at these next few weeks. One, just that we would
understand spiritual gifts. This morning we'll probably raise
more questions than we answer, perhaps. But just to start to
understand, to introduce or reintroduce us to this topic. Next week,
Lord willing, we'll talk about identifying your spiritual gift. Some of you are already confident
in that regard. Others very curious, I hope.
And then third, using your gift or gifts in service to the Lord. Something we can always be put
in remembrance of, just as Timothy, a faithful believer and spiritual
leader, needed to be reminded of. Well, many questions around
spiritual gifts today, and if you go to a dozen different churches,
you might get a dozen different answers, or if you read a dozen
different authors, and the questions are those. One commentator just
opened his discussion of spiritual gifts with these questions. What
are spiritual gifts? How many are there? Does every
believer have them? Can a person know? How can a
person know which one or ones he or she has? How important
are they to individual Christian living and to the life of the
church? What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? How does that
relate to spiritual gifts? Are all of the gifts given for
every age of the church, or were some given only for a special
purpose and a limited time? Can the gifts be counterfeited?
And if so, how can believers tell the true ones from the false? These are just some of the questions.
Maybe you come with others of your own. And admittedly, as
we look at the Scriptures, there's not really a structured, formal,
bullet-pointed answer to each question in a single text. But
the Lord has given us what we need to know. And it's a little
bit more organic than that simple, didactic, structured form of
answers. But as we search the Scriptures,
the Lord has given us these answers, and He wants us to seek His will
in this regard, and He wants us to come to accurate conclusions. Because again, these questions
are answered differently by different groups, and so we can't all be
following the Bible if the Bible gives specific answers, which
I believe it does. And so just humbly, we want to
approach the text and say, Lord, instruct me to approach this
topic in a submissive way to whatever your Holy Spirit has
actually provided in my life and how he wants to use it here
in the church. So we'll start with that first
one, number one, understanding spiritual gifts. Our Bibles are
open to 1 Corinthians 12, and the first line of that chapter
reads this way, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I
would not have you ignorant. So God's desire for us, just
as Paul's desire for those first century Corinthian believers,
is that we wouldn't be ignorant when it comes to spiritual gifts.
He says brethren, he's writing to believers, people who are
spiritually gifted, who have the indwelling Holy Spirit, but
there's an ignorance there in Corinth. There's some disputing
going on there in Corinth. There's an unhealthy elevation
of certain gifts, particularly apparently the gift of tongues
that was really something that they focused on and people were
trying to have it or get it when they didn't and looking down
at others who did not have that gift. And unhealthy churches
are a symptom of spiritual gifted dormancy or misuse of spiritual
gifts. And so Paul writes and says,
I would not have you ignorant. We ought to understand spiritual
gifts. And we ought to know how to verify
genuine spiritual gifts and refute counterfeit spiritual gifts.
And that's how we'll start in verse two when he says, you know,
that you were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even
as you were led." He knows that in Corinth, he's writing to believers,
but to believers who came from a pagan background. Some of them. Some of them a Jewish background,
but had been surrounded by idols, or had themselves not worshipped
God, the true God, alone. People who lived in a very secular,
a very fleshly, a very worldly culture. And he says, you've been saved
out of that. You used to be Gentiles, carried away to idols, who are
mute, who cannot speak, even as they were led. Wherefore I
give you to understand. Here's a formula for identifying
true spiritual gifts. No man speaking by the Spirit
of God calleth Jesus accursed. and that no man can say that
Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." So if you're trying
to tell whether or not someone's speaking by the Spirit of the
Lord, which was particularly important in the first century
when the New Testament writing had not been completed and distributed,
It's actually a fairly simple formula. If someone says, Jesus
Christ is anathema. He is cursed. Don't follow Jesus
Christ. He hung on a tree. Cursed is
anyone who hung on a tree. Don't follow him. You can be
very certain that that person is not speaking by the Spirit
of the Lord. Because the life and death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis for our salvation.
He is the blessed one. And no man who says Jesus is
the Lord can say so but by the Spirit. That doesn't mean that
you can't utter those words, Jesus is Lord, unless the Holy
Spirit is within you. But just as we saw last week
in Romans 10, that a genuine confession of the mouth is a
reflection of a true belief in the heart. And when someone comes
to that point in their life, which by the way would separate
them in stark contrast from a very worldly culture there in Corinth,
to come forth in a culture where many pagan false gods were worshipped,
and to come forth and say, I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And
that's a genuine confession as a reflection of a true belief
of the heart. Paul says, no one gets there without the work of
the Holy Spirit. To have that genuine confession
of the Lordship of Jesus, that's the work of the Holy Spirit.
And so that should be very basic, but something the Corinthians
needed to hear. Now, verse 4, he says, but the same Spirit. And there
are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there
are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which
worketh all in all." And here's our memory verse for the month
of October, verse 7, but the manifestation, the expression,
the demonstration of the Holy Spirit is given to every man
to profit with all. So the first thing we recognize
here as we seek to understand spiritual gifts is that a spiritual
gift is a divine enablement for service. As we talk about serving,
and each one of us ought to be involved in serving, as we come
to church as a contributor and say, yes, Lord, I want to always
abound in the work of the Lord, we have to first find our, or
an important part of that is going to be to discover our divine
enablement for service. Here's how we see that it's divinely
enabled. Verse 4 says that your spiritual
gift comes from the Holy Spirit. Verse 5 says that the way that
that gift is used is of the Lord. And that name there, used by
itself, typically we're going to understand that to be a reference
to God the Son, the Lord Jesus. In verse 6, there are diversities
of operations. There's going to be different
fruits, different ways that those gifts express themselves, and
different results of different outcomes of that. But it's the
same God which worketh all in all. Did you notice that each
member of the Trinity there is mentioned in connection with
your giftedness and your use of your spiritual gift, God the
Holy Spirit, God the Son, and God the Father, and verse six
tells us specifically that it's God that worketh. That's a word
for the empowering, that it's God the Father that gives power
to that gift that the Holy Spirit has presented to us to work,
and we do that as the hands and feet of Jesus. He's gonna go
later on in this passage and talk about how the giftedness
has to do with our function as the body of Christ. And so really
it's about just as Jesus in His earthly ministry expressed all
of these areas of giftedness, well, none of us can do that,
but each of us can be a member of that body and as a conglomerate,
a corporate group, come together in unity and do the work of Jesus
and continue what He did when He was on this earth. Not in
the same expressions, of course, not with the miracles, not with
the perfection of life, but with the ministry goals that Jesus
had. It's a divine enablement for service. We recognize humbly
that it's a gift from the Holy Spirit. You can't be proud of
a gift. A gift is something you received
from no merit of your own, nor can we be proud of using those
gifts. It is God, verse 6, that works through us for the operation
of those gifts. He empowers that. And it's what,
verse 7, the manifestation of the Spirit. So it's not showing
anything great about us. It's not showing how talented
we are. No, it's a manifestation of the
Holy Spirit's power and helps us point to Him, helps us point
to God. So it's a divine enablement for
service. And then verse 7 tells us it's
to the benefit of the church. Verse 7, the manifestation of
the Spirit is given to every man, not to profit himself, not
to look good himself, not even to grow spiritually himself,
but to profit with all. Or we could say that gift is
given for the common good. So the gift that the Holy Spirit
gives to you is to profit those you see around you in the pews
today. As this location, this local assembly as a representative
of the body of Christ, your spiritual gift is to profit me and all
these other people here and those that are part of our church not
with us today. So a divine enablement for service
to the benefit of the church. And that giftedness might include,
and you see that word including there, that we're going to now
try to classify, to list the spiritual gifts mentioned in
Scripture. But before we do that, We'll stay here in 1 Corinthians
12 for now, but behind me you'll see, or you can turn here if
you wish, a couple of verses from 1 Peter. And 1 Peter 4 is
one of those four texts that deals with spiritual gifts. Peter's
going to be the most succinct, and he generalizes. And so it's
going to be helpful when it comes to classifying that we kind of
start with how Peter classifies. He says, 1 Peter 4.10, As every
man hath received the gift, He's talking to believers. So now
we know every believer receives a gift, just as we read in 1
Corinthians 12. That means if you're saved, you
have at least one spiritual gift, a primary spiritual gift. As
every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one
to another. So that reinforces what Paul
said again, that the purpose of that gift is to profit with
all. It's primarily to serve my brothers
and sisters in Christ for their edification. It's to minister,
Peter says, and that is the word serve. It's our fourth focus
of our core values here of our 2020 vision, to serve. We could
very accurately see it. Even so, serve the same one to
another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. It's God's
grace. It all comes from Him. It's not
from anything good about us. We're merely stewards of that.
And then he's going to categorize the gifts with two categories
here. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.
If any man minister, let him do it as the ability which God
giveth. So instead of listing gifts,
Peter just gives us two categories, and the first is to speak, and
the second is to serve, to minister, speaking gifts. and serving gifts. If anyone has a speaking gift,
he should speak as the oracle of God. Those who have a serving
gift, and really a speaking gift is serving too, but he's going
to make this category of serving gifts, ought to do so as the
ability that God gives. Then he'll give us the ultimate
purpose of all this in verse 11, that God in all things may
be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion
forever and ever. Okay, so are you kind of distilling
this and helping to bolster your understanding of where we're
going with an understanding of spiritual gifts, that it is something
that God gives, the Holy Spirit gifts, God empowers, the purpose
of that gift is to benefit the church, I'm serving my brothers
and sisters in this local body, And the ultimate outcome of that,
verse 11, is that God is glorified. God is glorified. God is glorified
when the people He saved and gifted serve each other to make
us more like Jesus Christ. Okay, now back in 1 Corinthians
12. This is the earliest account.
Paul writes to the Corinthians in maybe 54 AD. He's going to
give this first inspired list. It's not a complete list. It's
not intended to be. Some will actually repeat a couple
of them later in the chapter. Let's begin reading in verse
8. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom. All right, so let's look on our
list. We've got two categories, speaking gifts and serving gifts. The first is the word of wisdom. We're going to go ahead and put
that under speaking gifts because it has to do with a word, the
word of wisdom. We're maybe talking about here
someone who God has gifted Maybe to give good counsel, to give
good advice to others. Someone who's gifted with taking
the revealed truth of Scripture and applying it to life choices. The gift of the Word of Wisdom.
I want to encourage you, as we go through these gifts, and we're
going to identify 18 of them this morning. Other writers will
recognize anywhere from 10 to 20 plus. But we're just going
to try to, and you follow along and see where you might want
to look at further study if you would recognize these slightly
different. But the more important goal,
especially if you are curious about what your spiritual gift
might be, is that as we talk about each of these gifts, that
you would start to search your heart, you would ask God, look
at the way that He's used you or given you desires for service,
and say, Lord, is this my area of giftedness? I could see you
using me in this way. The word of wisdom, verse 8.
To another, the word of knowledge by the same spirit. So we'll
go ahead and categorize those separately. The word of knowledge.
Knowledge is slightly different from wisdom. The knowledge of
knowing the truth. Wisdom may be having more to
do with applying that truth. And so people that God gives
an ability to just absorb scriptural truth and to systematize that
into fields of study and theology. Someone maybe who you could ask
about a topic, and a verse comes to mind for that person, maybe
a spiritual gift of knowledge. Verse 9, to another, faith. by the same Spirit, the same
Spirit giving different gifts, a variety of gifts, and some
people have the spiritual gift of faith. Now, we're all to have
knowledge, we're all to have wisdom, we're all to have faith,
and it's not talking specifically about saving faith here, but
some have an extra spiritual gift of faith, where have you
known believers like this where maybe your faith wavers all of
us at times our faith wavers God never wavers but as frail
humans ours does sometimes but you talk to some people and they're
going through very hard things but they just have such a cheerful
spirit and such a confidence that God's going to work things
out and that everything's all right and Maybe that's the spiritual
gift of faith. Maybe you can identify that in
someone you think of in our church body or even in your own life.
That's verse 9, the third gift, another by faith, by the same
Spirit. To another, the gifts of healing. by the same spirit. So faith
and healing, we'll put under the category of serving gifts. It doesn't mean that people don't
speak if they have these gifts, or that they only speak if they
have the other gifts. But the gift of healing, people
who are sick, and you read about, especially in the book of Acts,
the apostles laying their hands on someone, that person being
healed. We'll talk more about that. I
don't encourage you to look for that gift in your own life. We'll
talk about why later. Verse 10, to another, the working
of miracles. Same category, that's going to
go under serving gifts that we'll come back to. To another, prophecy. Prophecy is a speaking gift.
This is one of the more debatable ones. I'll just say that I'm
referring here, when I put it under speaking gifts, to the
office of a prophet. and prophecy that is revelatory. In other words, it's not someone
telling others what's in the Bible, but fresh revelation from
God. Others will identify prophecy
as just saying what God said, forth-telling, telling the Word
of God to others. More on that after a bit here.
Okay, that's gift number six. Number seven, it says, to another,
discerning of spirits. So the spiritual gift of discernment,
we'll put that under the serving gifts, and it has to do with
evaluating the speaking ministry of others. So when someone claims
to be proclaiming the Word of God, there are people in each
church that God has gifted through the Holy Spirit to be able to
discern the accuracy of that message. So maybe sometime you've
heard someone preach, maybe on the radio, or on TV, or at church,
here or somewhere else you've been, or read something that
someone wrote, and there's that alarm in your mind that says,
this doesn't quite seem to square with scripture. Maybe that is
the gift of discernment. Number eight, there in the middle
of verse 10, to another, diverse kinds of tongues. Okay, the gift
of tongues, we'll put under the speaking gift category. That's
one, again, that we'll come back to later. To another, the interpretation
of tongues. We're gonna go ahead and put
that under the serving category. So even though interpretation
certainly involves speaking, really it's supportive to that
tongues gift. And so we'll call that a serving
gift. Okay, not inspired. The list behind me is just if
it's helpful for you in classifying these things. Verse 11, And all the members of that one
body being many are one body, so also is Christ. So we're starting
to recognize there's a broad diversity here of gifts. It's
not so that we can compare and make different strata of levels
of hierarchy or anything like that. Paul's writing to combat
that in the Corinthian church and let us know it all comes
from God. Does one person have a better Holy Spirit than the
other person has? Anyone serve a better God the Father than
someone else's God the Father that they serve? No, God is the
one who by His will, by His grace, by His master plan, gives the
church in various areas, and that's healthy, that's appropriate,
that is to help the church to thrive. Let's drop down to the
end of the chapter now. And we'll see a few more gifts
or perhaps offices listed beginning in verse 28. And God hath set
some in the church, first apostles. We're going to go ahead and call
apostleship the tenth spiritual gift, and that would be a speaking
gift. Secondarily, Prophets. And here's
where you could differ between the Office of Prophets and Prophecy. You won't see a new title come
up on the screen now, because we already have Prophecy up there,
just for our purposes this morning. I believe that we can combine
those. Thirdly, teachers. So that's
going to be gift number 11, the gift of teaching. Someone with
the gift of teaching has the desire to explain biblical
truth to others and is gifted to be able to communicate God's
truth to others. It doesn't mean that you love
public speaking, It doesn't mean that in the secular world you
would necessarily make a good school teacher or work orientation
instructor or anything else. It just means that when it comes
to spiritual things, in the context of the church, that God has given
you a desire and propensity to be able to explain spiritual
truths, biblical content to others. After that, miracles. That's
already on our list under the serving category. Then gifts
of healings. Again, that's already on our
list. But the twelfth is helps. We'll call that the gift of helping.
This is a broader category, maybe one that's very common in the
church, and that's just the supportive giftedness to be able to supplement,
equip, succor, to lift up others to be able to perform their gifts
better. Or someone who is hurting that you're able to come alongside
and be a helper or a servant to. Maybe you can think of people
in our church body that you say, that person has the gift of helping.
Or maybe as I think about the way that God is working in my
heart, that perhaps I have the gift of helping. Verse 28 continues, the last
line. Governments. It's a spiritual
gift, and up on the screen we'll call it administration. It's
a leadership role. And to this type of believer
in the church, God has given the capacity to be able to organize
others or to organize programs in such a way to help facilitate
a healthy function of the body. Maybe you can identify that in
others or yourself. We'll spend a little more time
on each gift individually next week. And then finally, at the
end of verse 28, diversities of tongues. Tongues is already
on our list. Alright, so that's what Paul
gives in 1 Corinthians 12. Let's keep our fingers there
because we will come back to this passage. But the four passages
that deal with spiritual gifts are two 12s and two 4s. We've
got 1st Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and we've already
been to 1st Peter 4. That was on the screen earlier.
So let's go next to the other 12, and that's going to be Romans
12. You want to go back just one book. Chronologically, it
comes a little bit after Corinthians, but in your Bible, it's organized
the book before. Romans chapter 12. And we're
just building our list here, and we continue in verse six. Okay, you're still plugged in,
you're kind of with this, we're looking for our spiritual gift,
we're looking to stir that up, to fan that flame, to water that
dormant grass so that we can thrive for Christ. All right,
is this exciting? Yes, all right, verse six. Having
then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to
us. Everyone has a different gift. Not exactly the same. You might have the same primary
gift as someone else. It's not going to be serving exactly the same way.
Remember 1 Corinthians 12 says it's the same spirit but different
manifestations, different operations, different ways that that is expressed.
And now he's going to start listing, whether prophecy, let us prophesy
according to the proportion of faith. We've already got that
one on the screen. Or ministry, let us wait on our
ministering. I'm going to consider that to
be synonymous with that gift of helping. The word ministry,
once again, is the word serving, has the same idea as that helping
gift. So for our purposes, we'll categorize that, just lump that
in with the helping gift. Or, he that teacheth on teaching,
the end of verse 7. We already have that on our list.
We see that Paul's lists are going to be overlapping. He's
going to include some things for Romans that he didn't in
Corinthians, and vice versa. So none of these lists is exhaustive.
In fact, we might get through all four passages and still not
have an exhaustive list. But the Holy Spirit is showing
us the kinds of ways, at least, that He has gifted believers.
And as we look at at least those that are listed in Scripture,
it seems to be pretty comprehensive in the sense that, yeah, these
are all the areas that we need for healthy church ministry.
Verse 8, we'll look at the 14th gift, and that is, He that exhorteth. on exhortation. If you have the
spiritual gift of exhorting, you have to focus on exhortation. We don't use that word very often,
and so it might be helpful to use the word encouragement or
the gift of encouraging. So we'll go ahead and put that
on our list under the serving gifts. Someone has the gift of
encouraging, specifically encouraging people to follow what the Bible
says. So this gifted person might see
someone who's hurting, their hands are hanging down, and come
alongside and say, keep going. I'm praying for you. That's the
gift of encouragement. Or I might see someone who hasn't
been to church in a few weeks and comes alongside and says,
you know the Bible says not to forsake the assembly and we need
to gather and I miss you and I want to see you back there.
That's the gift of exhortation or the gift of Encouragement.
Can you think of someone in our church body, some people who
have these gifts? As I go through these and meditate
on these this week, I'm thinking of names that come up with several
of these that I would... I can't know what spiritual gifts
people have, but sometimes that fruit makes it very obvious.
Maybe you're thinking of some people in connection with these
gifts. Verse 8, he that exhorteth on exhortation, here's the next
one, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. So our
15th gift is a serving gift and it's the gift of giving. Now,
don't make the mistake of thinking that that gift is only for rich
people. The gift of giving just sees
needs and desires and decides to use my resources for the Lord
in helping to meet that need within the context of the church,
both for evangelism and for edification, the gift of giving. Now, again,
we are all to give, but some God is specifically enabled to
have that as a spiritual gift that in a primary way would go
over and above what is maybe ordinary. to do that with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence,
that gift of ruling, we'll consider synonymous with that gift of
administration. Okay, that's already on the list
under serving gifts, and certainly administrator is someone who
speaks, that involves speaking, so you could put that under gifts
of speaking, but the gift of ruling, or governments, or leadership,
we'll call it administration. Final line of verse eight, he
that showeth mercy to do so with cheerfulness. So here's a gift
of showing mercy, a spiritual gift. And we'll put that under
serving gifts as our 16th spiritual gift. And that's someone who's
able to sense or observe when others are struggling. is probably
gonna show that person hospitality, help to meet needs, often physical
needs, food, shelter, clothing, transportation even, someone
who is going to open their home. Others would call it the gift
of hospitality. But Paul calls it here in Romans,
a gift of showing mercy. Maybe you can see that in your
life or in others here in our church body. Alright, so those
are the two 12s. 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12.
Now the two 4s. We've already been to 1 Peter
4, so just one more passage this morning, and that's Ephesians
chapter 4. If you'd turn there, please. Ephesians chapter 4. just introducing these gifts
this morning and helping us to understand, get a big picture
of the framework, a little different type of message, a little more
informative to really set us up for the next couple of weeks,
getting ready to stir up that gift and start to thrive. The
end of verse 8 in Ephesians chapter 4, says that the Holy Spirit,
or the Lord Jesus Christ, gave gifts unto men. Okay, and so
we're talking here about these gifts. Skip down to verse 11.
He gave some apostles. We already have apostleship on
our list. And some prophets. We do have prophecy on our list.
And some, here's 17th gift, evangelists. I could be referring to an office
here, but I think it's safe to categorize a spiritual gift of
evangelism. Now remember, gifts in certain
areas don't negate the responsibility of people with other gifts from
serving in those areas. So we can never say, oh, I don't
have the spiritual gift of evangelism, I don't have the responsibility
to share the gospel. No, we all have the responsibility
to be a light, to be salt, to share the gospel. But God has
gifted some people with the Holy Spirit's gift of evangelism. And this is the person that just
can't keep from sharing the gospel with those they meet. Sometimes
from place to place as an evangelist or a missionary might do. Sometimes
just within the context of a church body and its community or your
co-workers and so forth. sharing the gospel and a zealous
passion for doing so, even a giftedness for doing so, the gift of evangelism. And then finally, and some pastors
and teachers. They're lumped together there
in the original language, probably making reference to a pastor
hyphen teacher. We'll put those together under
the speaking gifts. Every pastor probably ought to
have the gift of teaching. Not everyone with the gift of
teaching is going to have the spiritual gift of shepherding
or being a pastor, so we've got those separate on our list. All
right. Hope that's helpful. Those are the four passages that
delineate spiritual gifts, and we've kind of compiled them there
on the screen behind me, but now what we're going to do is
take one-third of those and talk about a third category of gifts,
and that is the sign gift. So you see that sign category
come up? And what's going to happen is
a few from each of those speaking and serving categories is going
to go over, so we're going this way, over into the sign category. And those are the gifts. And
I'll just very briefly defend why, and we'll be done this morning.
that we believe at Thompson Road have passed away, have ceased.
The official name for our teaching is cessationalist. That means
we believe that revelatory sign gifts have ceased. You can go
to other churches here in town where some of these gifts will
be at least attempted. Tongues especially, but those
who claim to be apostles or claim to have the office of prophet
with revelation from God. So how do we, from Scripture,
put those into a separate category as revelatory sign gifts? Just
very quickly, here's kind of the history of it. We remember
that as Paul is writing to these churches, that the New Testament
canon has not been completed. That they don't have a written,
inspired instruction manual for the church that we have today.
So if someone comes to you today and says, why do you do this
at that church? Why is this that way in your
life? Why do you believe this? We can say because the inspired
Word of God that's preserved for us tells us to. This is our
platform of authority, the foundation we stand on, the authority we
stand under. In the New Testament church, the first century, before
they had that in their hands to be able to claim that authority,
God gave apostles and prophets, and he gave fresh revelation
through those apostles and prophets. Really, they were taking the
things that Jesus taught And before the gospel writers wrote
all those things that Jesus taught, and before the apostles codified
the implications for the church of all those things that Jesus
taught, they were going from city to city, they were planting
churches, they were saying, this is what Jesus said. This is how
we ought to structure the church. This is how we ought to pattern
our lives. And if anyone said, well, how
can we believe what you say? They couldn't say, because it's
in the Bible that hadn't been written yet, it was in the process
of being written. Instead, the Lord gave them sign
gifts to authenticate that message. So they could say, like Peter
and John in Acts chapter 3, as they're sharing the gospel and
the news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, people's need
to repent and to turn to Jesus in faith. And when the religious
leaders would question, hey, what is your authority? Why are
you saying this? It doesn't seem to square with what we believe.
They could say, oh, look at this man who sat at the beautiful
gate, who was lame for 40 years, and Peter touched him in the
name of Jesus Christ, and that man didn't hobble up, that man
leaped up. and praised God. Remember, the
spiritual leaders were befuddled. They couldn't do anything to
Peter and John because their message of the gospel had been
authenticated by this miraculous sign gift. All right, and we
have chapter 2. At the day of Pentecost, when
the Holy Spirit first comes and indwells believers, And he gives
to some of them, to some of them, the spiritual gift of speaking
in tongues. And the way that gift was manifested is that they
proclaimed the gospel and everyone of the multitude that was gathered
there could hear that gospel presentation in their own mother
tongue, languages that the apostles proclaiming these truths had
not studied. It was a miraculous gift given
by God so that people could say, wow, this must really be from
God. You're hearing it in your language, I'm hearing it in mine.
This is something that is set apart. Now, if you had a finger
in 1 Corinthians 12, you notice at the very end of that chapter,
that Paul, as he seeks to settle some of the squabbling that's
going on among these people and a misunderstanding specifically
of the gift of tongues, he says, verse 29, 1 Corinthians 12, 29,
are all apostles? The obvious answer is no. Are all prophets? No. Some are
apostles, some are prophets, but not all, certainly. Are all
teachers? No. Are all workers of miracles?
No. Have all the gifts of healing?
No. Do all speak with tongues? The assumed and obvious answer
there is no. And so there are churches today
that suggest if you're saved and you truly have the Holy Spirit,
that the manifestation of that will be that you will speak in
tongues. And if you say that you're becoming a Christian,
they'll try to encourage you to start speaking in tongues.
But the Bible says not everyone has that gift. It strongly indicates
that we should not expect each believer, even in that first
century context, to have that gift. 1 Corinthians 12, 12, you
can just listen, or sorry, this is 2 Corinthians 12, 12, I'm
sorry. Truly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you
in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Paul
wrote to the Corinthians in the second epistle and says, the
message that the apostles gave you was confirmed by signs, miracles,
these spiritual gifts. Mark 16 and verse 20, just as
Jesus ascended, After he ascended, the apostles, those original
11, we'll add to that Matthias and Paul, went forth and preached
everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the
word with signs, following, confirming their message with these revelatory
sign gifts. And then we've studied recently
on Sunday night Hebrews chapter 2. Remember chapter 1 says, And
then he expounds on that in chapter 2 and verses 3 and 4 when he
says, and was confirmed by those that
heard him. And verse four says, God also
bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders and with diverse
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will.
So there's kind of some of the scriptural basis for saying some
of the gifts were given specifically to reveal God's truth to that
first century church and to confirm the message and the messengers
of that revelation. You have the list with these
gifts, specifically miracles, tongues, healings, in 1 Corinthians
12, written about 54 AD. By about 58 AD, when he writes
to Romans, none of those gifts are in the list. Nor are they
in Ephesians or Peter, written several years later. By the time
you get to Peter, Peter just says they're speaking gifts and
serving gifts and doesn't seem to have a category for signed
gifts. Just maybe a subtle testimony there. But we don't see in church
history a consistent record of people trying to practice tongues
or healings from the 2nd century up to the 19th. It's here recently
in the 20th century that there's been kind of a resurgence with
people reading the Bible and seeing the gift of tongues in
specific, and saying, oh, we ought to start exercising that
gift. Maybe missing Mark 16, 20, not reading that, or maybe
not studying Hebrews 2, verses 3 and 4, or missing 2 Corinthians
12, 12, and just focusing maybe on 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and
14, and seeing all this description about tongues and saying, hey,
we ought to do that. But what you don't see, at least that
I'm unaware of in our melu of churches and practices, specifically
Pentecostal, Apostolic, Charismatic, is it practiced in a biblical
way. One, starting with, remember if tongues first came, it was
a real language understood by those who heard it. And there
may be various kinds of tongues, but what we do see, as you continue
reading in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14, is that Paul gives the
instruction that when tongues were used, and they were to be
used there in the first century church, that it should be two
people speaking in tongues, one or two, or at the most, three.
And this is 1 Corinthians 14, 27 and 28, that those speakers
should take turns and that one should interpret between those
turns. And if there was no interpreter present, then anyone with the
gift of tongue should remain silent. So how it was practiced
in the first century church is that if no one was there that
understood that language, or if perhaps it was not a regular
human language, there's some debate there, but regardless,
that those who heard it can only be edified if they either understand
the speech or if there's somewhere to interpret that for them. And
in 1 Corinthians 14, it's emphasized over and over again, the purpose
of these spiritual gifts is to edify. And if I'm speaking in tongues
and no one translates or interprets, I'm not edified. And he makes
that point clearly in chapter 14. So if someone's going to
use that gift, they should take turns, one at a time. Not everyone,
at the most three. There should always be an interpreter.
And if that's not the case, they should remain silent. So you
go places, you see people standing in circles, holding hands and
taking turns praying in tongues, or the whole congregation's trying
to do it all at once. It just, what people are trying
to practice today certainly doesn't seem to square with what Paul
had instructed to be practiced here in the first century church.
And so those are some things you could read. We could spend
weeks on talking about. Hopefully that's something helpful
for you. And the purpose of that is so that when you look at this
list, You can say, okay, as I seek to identify my spiritual gift,
as I seek for the Lord to stir that up within me and help me
thrive in serving Him, I can hone in on maybe where He's gifted
me, and I can go ahead and probably just go ahead and assume that
it's not any of these six. And again, these can be categorized
a little bit differently. Maybe the word of knowledge or
wisdom was a revelatory gift. Maybe the gift of discernment
was for discerning revelation, and so it's a gift that's passed.
Maybe the gift of prophecy, you could say, if it's just speaking
what God has spoken, using scripture to encourage others, could be
over on this side. But at least something that would be helpful
for you, where you could say, okay, here's several that no one today
has. Here's several that some people
have that I don't really think I'm gifted in that area. I don't
see God working that way in my life. Here's three or four or
five or six where maybe, maybe God has gifted me in that area,
and I don't know it because it's dormant, it hasn't been stirred
up. But it could manifest itself as we start to explore how to
identify that and how to use that. So I hope you're at least
there this morning. I hope no one is just disinterested. Oh, this is kind of mystical.
Let's move on. As you start to pray this week,
it's not about striking a yoga pose or going off and meditating
somewhere and your gift being revealed. Just study these passages
of Scripture. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12,
Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4. Pray and ask the Lord to start
to show you where He wants you to serve and how He's gifted
you for that. Talk to your spouse, your family, or people here at
church about helping to identify your spiritual gift, and then
just come ready these next couple weeks to let God show you and
start to fill you and stir that up and use you in those ways. We want to glorify God. We want
to thrive spiritually. We want to help others in the
church to thrive. We want to bring more people
to Him so that He can be glorified. Now, if you're not saved, you
don't have a spiritual gift. The Lord gives a spiritual gift
to one in whom the Holy Spirit indwells. When you get saved
and trust Christ as Savior, the Bible teaches the Holy Spirit
comes within you. You're baptized by the Holy Spirit, sealed, indwelt. and gifted for spiritual service. So if you're not saved, you don't
look for a spiritual gift, you don't have one. But I believe
that the Holy Spirit would like to give you one if you will decide,
if you will, by faith, as you sense the convicting of that
Holy Spirit, you don't have the giftedness of the Holy Spirit,
you don't have Him indwelling you if you're not saved, but
He can tug at your heart. He can convict you and tell you
that this is a decision that you need to make. to trust Christ
as Savior, to by faith believe that Jesus died on the cross
to pay for your sins, the only payment that can be made apart
from your eternal separation from Him. And by God's grace,
the perfect blood of Christ can be applied to you to cleanse
your sin and give you Christ's righteousness. And the Holy Spirit
will gift you to serve this church, to glorify Him, to be part of
His body, and to be part of something big.
Serve with Spiritual Gifts (Pt. 1)
Series Serve
| Sermon ID | 101320204611387 |
| Duration | 49:30 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 |
| Language | English |
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