hello beloved welcome to our weekly Bible study and in this Bible study this week we are going to continue to look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit this is part two on the gifts of the Holy Spirit now we've already learned so far that when a person becomes a Christian God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside the believer Obviously it is through the third person of the Trinity, through God the Holy Spirit. It's God the Holy Spirit that comes and then dwells the believer. And it's God's plan that believers should glorify Him, worship Him, and serve Him. And the way that God decided that that's the way that we should do it is, for example, by giving us gifts so that at the end of the day we can serve God's church or God's people. And as we serve God's people, we are actually serving God. We glorify God as we use the gifts that he gives us so that we, at the end of the day, do what he wants us to do with it. And we glorify him through using the gifts to edify his body. And we worship him through the gifts that he gives us. Absolutely amazing. Right, before we continue though, Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we can come to you in Jesus' name. And thank you for the privilege of studying the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. And Father, I pray in Jesus' precious name, please, that you will please open up our hearts to receive your word, our minds to understand your word, so at the end of the day, you may be glorified in and through us. This is our desire, Father. And help us to understand what your word has to say so that we can take it to heart and apply it to our lives. And this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Right, now, in this week's Bible study, what we're gonna do is we're going to take a look at a few questions. Now, with regards to the gift of the Spirit. And we're gonna see if we can answer those questions. The first question is basically, what is the source of the spiritual gifts? Now, the spiritual gifts that we receive, what is the source? Now, the Bible makes it clear that it is God, the Holy Spirit, who gives spiritual gifts to his people. 1 Corinthians 12, 11 says, but one and the same Spirit works all things. or all these things now distributing to each one individually as he wills and he's talking about the the gifts the holy spirit gives to each one individually as he will so god the holy spirit is the one who decides which gift will be given to which uh individual believer to be used for the purpose of worshipping God, for the purpose of glorifying God, and for the purpose of serving God as we serve the church with the gifts that God has given us. All right. Very important. It says it's one and the same Spirit who works all these things. And he is the one who distributes the gifts to each person, each believer, individually, as he wills. So it's not one of those things where you can say, oh no, I want the gift of tongues, please. And I can go to, let's call it the spiritual shop, and I can go and purchase the gift of tongues. like what we see kind of in the charismatic movement now, where people go and everybody can speak in tongues. No, it says very clearly, it is distributed to each one individually as he wills. All right, there's no such thing as everybody can have all the gifts, it doesn't exist. Right, the Holy Spirit is the one that is in control of who gets which gift and when. And that's the amazing thing, okay? Because the Holy Spirit is also the one that's in control, in charge of regeneration. He's the one who brings a person to faith in Christ. He's the one who makes the person understand the seriousness of their sin so that they can repent of their sin, turn away from their sin and to follow Christ. So the Holy Spirit then also is the one who gives the gift that he decides, the spiritual gift that he decides to give to that person. He's the one who gives that gift. And by the way, it's actually very interesting. This is just my, I heard this from a Dutch Reformed pastor many, many years ago. We had a campaign and he explained it in a very interesting way. He says, and today it makes sense to me. He said that we don't receive the gift as a person. Right? Each person individually do not receive the gift. It's not as if I now received a gift from the Holy Spirit and I can now go and use it and dish it out the way I want to. I can now use it whatever way I want to. It's very clear that it's the Holy Spirit that dwells within us that basically uses or works His gift through us. But then it's the Holy Spirit who decides which gift he is going to work through us. Because that's why we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. If we were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit had to give us a gift from outside and let's say impute us with a gift, then it means that gift will be ours. And we can use it whenever we want to and how we feel led and whatever and sometimes even abuse it as well. The thing is, if the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and he does, from the moment of regeneration, then it means that that gift always stays the possession of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit uses it and enables us to utilize that gift whenever it's necessary. But there's another interesting thing that pastor said. He said, If there's somebody in the church, say for example, there's somebody in the church that needs a word of wisdom, for example. They really don't know what to do in their life. It's as if they're struggling to know what is the next step that they need to take. There's a lot of options they have, and they really don't know what is the next thing to do. And they pray, Lord, please help me. I need wisdom in what to do. And the interesting thing is now, another believer can come up to that person and say to that person and give that person what the Bible calls a word of wisdom, which means the Holy Spirit in that moment gives the person to utter a word of wisdom to this person that was praying and asking for wisdom. And it is exactly what that person needed to hear. Now, that pastor asked the question, who needed the gift? The one who was in need of wisdom or the person that was sharing the word of wisdom? obviously the person that is in need of the wisdom at that specific stage. And he says that's how the gifts work. We are like postmen or postwomen that takes the parcel and delivers it to the person, but the person who needs the parcel is the person that will receive the parcel. The same thing with if somebody needs wisdom and I am the one that the Holy Spirit is going to use to give that person a word of wisdom, I will go to that person, give that person the word of wisdom, but the person receives the gift because that person needed the word of wisdom. I hope that makes sense. So we just instruments in the hands of the living almighty God, the third person of the Trinity, to basically distribute his gifts, what he wants people to be edified with whenever he wants us to do it. We need to be open and obedient to him to be able to be used by the Holy Spirit to then give the gifts. The gift of teaching, for example. Why do I need the gift of teaching? I don't need it. There are obviously times that I need it, but the congregation that I'm going to teach, if I have the gift of teaching, they need that gift. They need to be taught. So I am the one that will be, let's say, teaching, but it's the Holy Spirit that enables me to teach and to edify the body of Christ. So at the end of the day, it's the Holy Spirit teaching through me in a sense and let me tell you I've experienced that before in the years that I've been preaching the gospel and preaching from the pulpit. There are times where I've heard words out of my mouth that I did not prepare and it just came out at that specific stage and it was necessary for that moment. You see that's the Holy Spirit teaching Using me as an instrument, but those who need the gift are the recipients, the people that are waiting to hear and those who needed a teaching on a specific subject. There are obviously, let's say there are times where I don't understand something. There's something that I need to understand. There's something that I really wrestle with. Lord, How do I understand this specific issue in scripture? Or it could be something that happened in my life or whatever, and then somebody comes and shares a teaching with me, teaches me about certain things, and it is edifying, and it answers my questions, and I am so blessed. That means that I've received the gift of teaching. Obviously, that person was used by the Holy Spirit to teach, but I received the gift of teaching. And it edified me because it came from the Holy Spirit that dwells within the other person. But the Holy Spirit dwells within me as well. So I've become a recipient of the word of the Holy Spirit or the teaching of the Holy Spirit to me. And I am receptive of it because the Holy Spirit dwells within me and makes it possible for me to understand the word that comes to me. I hope that makes sense. All right so one thing that is for sure is we need to understand this is that the source of our spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is the source of the spiritual gifts. And who are the recipients of the spiritual gifts? Who are the recipients? And I think it's clear in what I've said already up to this point that every believer in Jesus Christ receives the gift in the sense of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us uses his gifts in and through us, okay? We have this special ability and we know that it's not something that comes from ourselves. Remember, it's not like a talent or a natural ability. A spiritual gift is spiritual. It's an ability received through the Holy Spirit where we are enabled to edify the body of Christ, where we are able to minister to the body of Christ, and it is supernatural. All right, 1 Peter 4.10 says, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good shepherds of the manifold grace of God. Because the gift of the Spirit is also a grace of God. It is something that God gives us. It's something that is given by the grace of God. All right. How long does the spiritual gifts basically last is another question. Now the Bible teaches us that God gave certain gifts for a specific time. God used certain people, all right, and as long as those people were alive, God used those people with those specific kind of gifts or he basically did those specific or worked those specific gifts through them until that which God wanted accomplished was accomplished. Let me give you a passage of scripture that explains it. Ephesians chapter two, we read from verse 19. Ephesians chapter two verse 19 says, now therefore, You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So we become the one household of God. You remember when we did Ephesians chapter 2? Now verse 20 says, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And remember that the apostles and the prophets are gifts to the church. Those men that are gifted in certain areas, they were gifts to the church. That's how it's seen. A pastor today is a gift to the church. An evangelist is a gift to the church, all right? We need to remember that. Now, let's read verse 20 again. It says, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. So the apostles had, how can I say, the Holy Spirit worked through them to do miracles, to do all kinds of things that were, how can I say, that acknowledged that they were truly apostles laying the foundation of the church when they prophesied and all these kind of things. Those gifts worked through them as they were establishing the foundation of the church. But once the foundation was laid, it was no longer necessary. So those gifts were limited. But there are other gifts that are not limited. The gift of giving, for example, or the gift of service. Those gifts are gifts that doesn't have an end. Because you will always find people who are empowered by the Holy Spirit, enabled by the Holy Spirit to really serve God's people. And when you are served by somebody that's got the gift of serving, the gift of servanthood, if you are ministered to by somebody that's got the gift and God is working that gift through them. It's such a blessing. You just know that you've been served. All right? It's just absolutely, absolutely amazing. Verse 21 says, In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grow into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. All right, so there are gifts that are not permanent. It was used for a specific purpose, for a specific period of time. And once the purpose was accomplished by God, the gifts was no longer necessary. And there are gifts like that. When we get to the gifts and we're gonna talk about the gifts, I will expand on that and I will say more about it. All right. So not all gifts would last forever, we can say in a certain sense. All right? And then it seems as if some spectacular gifts did not continue after the first generation of believers, after they passed away. It was no longer necessary because we received God's revelation. Your revelation gifts was no longer necessary. because we had the revelation of God. What is God's revelation? God's revelation is His word. So once we received God's word, we don't need any more revelation from God. All right? But now what we need is, we now need teachers who can teach God's word. And we now need people with the gift of prophecy that can now take God's word and say, thus saith the Lord, but take it from God's word and to preach it. But we'll get there when we look at each of the gifts, when we go through some of them. So the last one is, how are the gifts developed? How are the gifts developed? Now, beloved, I do believe because we have the Holy Spirit in His fullness, it is His gift and He's the one who works that gift through us. But I believe as time goes on, And it becomes clear that as time goes on and we use the gift that God wants us to use in his church to edify the church, the more we use that gift, the more beautiful its manifestation. the better it's edification. It is like somebody that's got the gift of teaching. You can hear right from the beginning that they have the gift of teaching. They can just take a concept in scripture and just break it into open, you know, open it up in such a way that it is understandable. It becomes clear. You can hear this person has the ability to really open up God's word. and break it up into smaller pieces that are completely, perfectly understandable. But you also see, as time goes on, that there are people when the gifts that they have, those gifts become, how can I say, just more streamlined. Yeah, just more awesome when you listen to a person. If you've got somebody that came to Christ at a certain time, and let's say 40, 50 years later, and they've got the gift of teaching, 40 years, 50 years later, when you listen to their teaching, you can just hear, this is just absolutely amazing. Because it's... time has lapsed and that person has grown so much in the use of the gift and God is just using that person more and more and it's obviously got to do with vocabulary, understanding of scripture, the depth of studying God's word and all that kind of thing. Obviously, it's still the Holy Spirit that works that gift through the person, but at the end of the day, that gift basically, how can I say, develops to something that is absolutely beautiful. And it just becomes more and more effective. It becomes more and more effective as time goes on. Somebody that's just started ministry and started preaching the gospel as a, how can I say, as an evangelist, and it's got the gift of evangelism, you will find that person 10, 20 years down the line. They've just become so much more effective when it comes to evangelism. It doesn't mean that they didn't have a gift in its fullness from the beginning. It just means that they've grown, right? And the Holy Spirit is the one who enabled them to grow in the use of that gift. I hope this makes sense because at the end of the day, beloved, the gifts of the spirit is something that is there for edification. It is something that is there so that you and I as believers can enjoy it and enjoy the fact that we are being used by the living almighty God to glorify himself, to worship him. And God working through us to be able to serve Him. Absolutely amazing. Beloved, may the Lord really enable us to understand the gifts of the Spirit. And never allow it to become a self-centered, egocentric, me, myself and I driven thing, but rather We becoming more and more of an open vessel in the hands of the living God to work His gift through or gifts through us as His people. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much that we can come to you in Jesus' name and thank you that through your Holy Spirit that you work your gifts in and through us. That you not only enable us, but you actually, you are the one that works that gift and that your church may be edified. because God the Spirit is working through us, through each one of His children. I pray, Father, please, please, please help us to understand. Make it clear to us, we pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Beloved, thank you very much for listening. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May His face shine upon you and may He give you His peace. as you go out and use the gift that God has given you for the edification of the church to the glory of God in worship of God and in his service in Jesus name God willing until next time bye-bye