God's Free Gift to Us: Spiritual Gifts

[0:00] please turn with me. As you all know, we are in the book of Ephesians, and in case you didn't pick up on it, I had Carl refer to two passages today to get you guys to actually look at two passages today, right?

[0:14] How do you do on that? Okay, I know, it's a little bit hard. You got the thumb in there, and it didn't work so well for Carl, but let's turn to 1 Corinthians 12 as well.

[0:30] If you've been with us of late, you know that we are in this book of Ephesians. And you also know, if you're familiar with the book of Ephesians, the book of Ephesians is about God's church.

[0:44] The first three chapters are divided, or Ephesians is six chapters, first three is how God sees us as believers, as saints, what he has done for us in eternity past, and the next three chapters, it's how the world should see Christ in us today, how we as a church should be reflecting his glory, his goodness, his holiness.

[1:15] Throughout the New Testament, God uses this word picture of a body to describe the church. Christ is the head, and we all fulfill different members of the body to constitute.

[1:31] So that's what we're going to read here in 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, 15 to 25. I'm going to read these passages just to show you how real and vivid this imagery is.

[1:46] Starting in verse 15. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

[2:00] And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?

[2:12] If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.

[2:26] If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there is many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

[2:42] On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker, are indispensable. And on those parts of the body, that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor.

[2:57] And our unpresentable parts, are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts, do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

[3:19] Amen, right? So easy for us as human beings to compare one another. Just so happens today is Tailgate Sunday. So when I first got to Squamish Baptist, Tailgate Sunday, I read that in the calendar, we must be celebrating some big baseball game, or some sporting event.

[3:40] But no. Apparently it's not even associated with any sports at all right now. But what it is, is we're using this as a time to thank the body for serving as you all do.

[3:56] That's generally what we're here for. To celebrate what you've all done, thanking you for your parts in the body that we are here. Another, if you don't know, in the back is thank you cards.

[4:10] Those are for the leaders of each individual ministry. We're just asking you to add your name, just to give thanks to people who've given leadership, just a little bit of extra service.

[4:21] But everything else, we thank you. We thank you for those who serve in the ministry, who put the sound together, who prepare the men's breakfast, who prepare the times that we go to Hilltop.

[4:31] All those things aren't possible with just a mouth, which apparently I have. Right? We need feet, eyes, ears, noses.

[4:42] We need this entire body in order to serve. So that's part of the imagery that we're seeing here. Now, three things I want you to see from this passage briefly.

[4:56] One, the body is used as an imagery of the church. We see this quite clearly. The second thing we see is a need for unity. We all need one another.

[5:10] Nobody is more indispensable than anybody else. And the third part that we need to see, and I brought up this point last week, is that there needs to be maturity in the body of Christ.

[5:24] So remember our roles that we've covered from Paul in the book of Ephesians. The first part of chapter four, we talked about unity. That Christ has brought unity to us by his death on the cross.

[5:37] Because of that, we can be saints. We're Christians. We're united in him. And Paul calls us to be eager to maintain the unity. That means we are sinful people.

[5:50] And you know what? Sometimes the nose is going to get out of joint, right? Sometimes the toe is going to get stubbed. They're going to get angry. And they're not going to be on a part of that foot anymore or a part of that face.

[6:03] But we all have to work together to maintain that unity. As anybody who's lost a big toe, standing actually becomes a very hard thing to do. Right? When we lose those parts of the body, we're causing problems for our general well-being.

[6:21] So we're eager to maintain the unity that Christ has established. The second thing that our role has that we learned last week in verses 13 and 14 of Ephesians 4, until we all have attained the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood that Jesus wants us to achieve to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children.

[6:50] A good, healthy church has unity and it has maturity. So last week I defined what maturity is for us. And I named four points that we learned from the second part of this section of Ephesians.

[7:06] One, mature believers have an experienced faith. Mature believers have an experienced faith. What that means is your faith has been put under fire and you've come through.

[7:18] Some of you know this very well. Some of you are going through trials. But the true faith, the experienced faith, is able to come through understanding and knowing God closer.

[7:34] Is able to relate to God at such a deep experiential level because they've walked through the valleys of the shadow of death. The second aspect is mature believers are Christ-like.

[7:47] They're Christ-like. They pursue Jesus. They want to be like Jesus. The third part is mature believers know God's truth. And where do we achieve God's truth from? From man's brilliant ideas?

[7:59] Eh. No, right? It's from God's word. So we know God's word. And the fourth aspect of mature believers is they know how to speak truth in love.

[8:11] It's really interesting that Paul puts that in there. That we speak truth in love. It's interesting. I just thought more on this subject.

[8:24] And I said this word last week, and I don't know if anybody picked up on it, but I said for you who are immature, enjoy your childhood. Enjoy your childhood.

[8:37] And for some people who don't know what I mean by that is, the fact of the matter is you can't rush maturity. I know there's parents who wish their 12-year-olds were now 22 and out of the house, right?

[8:50] We wish for them. We want them out of the house so we can do what we want or whatever. Different people have different reasons. I know some people are quite happy having their children at 32 in the house. I don't know how it all works, but I know I love having my 22-year-olds in the house.

[9:04] But anyway, the point of the matter is you can't rush childhood. You can't wish your 12-year-old was 18-year-old and expect them to act at an 18-year-old level.

[9:17] But what you can do is, and what we're meant to do in the body is we are to prepare our children for adulthood. We're not telling them they need to act like adults, but we are involved in their lives, preparing them for adulthood, preparing them for maturity.

[9:36] That means teaching them God's word, modeling Christ's likeness, speaking love and truth, all those things that Paul is calling us here.

[9:46] Because I want you to understand two things. Christian maturity is never about how much you know, and Christian maturity is never about how much you do.

[9:59] And the reason I say this is because often in life, a person becomes a new believer, and they want to mature because they see all these people who are kind of grown up and adults and are able to do things.

[10:11] You know, the one thing I wanted to do more than anything as a kid was drive a car. It's true. Ontario, we have to get a, it's called a 365. Mine was a one day, and then I got my license the next day.

[10:22] I was ready at 16 years of age in one day. I wanted to drive more than anything else in life. So we start to emulate sometimes adults. And what we do is we think, man, if I can just go to 10 Bible studies a week, I'm going to become mature.

[10:37] If I can do all these different works and volunteer all over the church, I'm going to become mature. But sadly, it doesn't work that way. What happens is we're to pursue God's knowledge, and we're supposed to serve, but we also have to let God test us and grow us through time.

[10:57] Time is a part of maturity. I remember at university, I was at University of Western Ontario, and I was in charge of the all-male residence, and we actually had a prodigy kid come in at 12 years old.

[11:13] 12, 13 years old. The kid was just brilliant. Imagine that, 12, 13 at university. And I remember we were debating with the people, how could we put this kid in with a bunch of 18-year-olds?

[11:25] Right? Because this kid was wickedly smarter than everybody else in the building, including myself. And when we put him in there, he was a mess with some aspects of life.

[11:36] He just didn't get. But what was really great is the rest of the guys kind of came around him and took care of him because he still needed kind of adults protecting him.

[11:48] Not saying those guys were the best adults to protect him, right? But they actually did a pretty good job with the kid that he felt a part of the community. But sometimes that's what happens.

[12:00] We need to be cared for. New believers need to be walked with, cared for, loved on. And sometimes what happens is when Christians aren't mature, they act with minimal knowledge.

[12:15] Sometimes they're given to dispensing wisdom, which they don't really have. And they're often unable to protect themselves. That's right. Sending this 12-year-old to university, in my mind, was like sending them to the wolves, right?

[12:29] The older teens would tear them apart, but some came around and protected him. So it's why we'll see later when we look at Christian leadership. Christian leadership has nothing to do with spiritual gifting, but everything to do with mature character.

[12:48] That's what leadership in the church is called for. When Paul lists what we should be looking for in elders, he's not looking for guys that are amazing intellects or amazing speakers or any other type of gifting, but what he's looking for is mature character, which is what we should all be striving for.

[13:10] So how do we mature? How do we grow into people that God wants us to be? The first is being more Christ-like.

[13:22] Being more Christ-like. And what's that? Nothing is more Christ-like than loving the church. Do you know that? Nothing is more Christ-like than loving the church. We are to love the body of believers.

[13:34] That's what Jesus Christ did. That's what Jesus Christ died for. So that's the first aspect. And today we're going to look at one of the other aspects.

[13:45] We're going to learn in Ephesians 4, Paul says we mature through the use of our spiritual gifts, which is the topic of today's sermon. And then we're going to look at spiritual leadership.

[13:57] So maturity comes from using your gifts in the body and also coming in under good, biblical, godly, spiritual leaders. So spiritual gifts.

[14:12] No controversy in that whatsoever, by the way. Fact of the matter is, I could tell you to go read 15 different books on the subject and you're probably going to get 15 different answers as to what are the gifts, what are the gifts supposed to be.

[14:27] But personally, I don't think it's very confusing. And I'm going to introduce to you guys a couple ideas, get you guys thinking on some things that I'm sure some of you have never thought about before. But I pray more than anything else that you will be encouraged, not only to use your gifts, but also to develop your gifts.

[14:46] So there's four key textual passages in regards to using the gifts. Carl actually read two of them today. Romans 12 and 1 Peter 4.

[14:59] If you look in your bulletins, I've actually written them out at the very top in the subject heading. And by the way, those are actually written in chronological order.

[15:09] Those are written in chronological order. As Paul wrote those areas of giftings, you're going to see they're slight changing. And today, I already read to you 1 Corinthians 12.

[15:20] And today, we're also going to refer to Ephesians 4. So let's take a look at Ephesians. We're going to look at Ephesians 4, verse 7.

[15:33] It's actually a small verse, but it's actually a loaded verse with spiritual truth. Loaded verse with spiritual truth. I'll read you the verse. It says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

[15:54] Now, there's four truths I want us to understand from this verse. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

[16:05] If you'll notice, before I get into the four points, it begins with the word but. It begins with the word but. So obviously, it's an opposition to something. And what happened in the previous verses is that Paul was talking about unity.

[16:19] Unity, unity, unity. But some people start to think that unity means uniformity. You know what I mean? If we're united, we all have to wear the same team shirt, right?

[16:30] We all have to wear the same colors. We all have to look the same. We all have to have the same haircuts. Those kind of things. But what Paul is going to contrast here is we're now going to get into diversity.

[16:42] Notice how it says each one of us means we have all been individually been given a spiritual gift.

[17:03] And we're going to learn that some of the gifts are quite different. So notice we're talking unity and diversity. I don't know if you, I came from a church where pretty much everybody was expected to look the same, do the same.

[17:16] And it kind of created this really weird culture that absolutely had zero ability at reaching the world. Just unless you were just like us, you wouldn't have fit in.

[17:27] And I remember growing up thinking when I finally hit that age around 16 where I could think for myself, I started going, this is really weird. This is really weird.

[17:37] I get the gospel and I love that they teach the gospel. But I don't think we're all supposed to be the same. I think God's created us quite differently. So first of all, let's go. For the first truth is our gifts are unmerited.

[17:50] Notice it says by grace. Grace. That means our gifts are unearned, undeserved. Just like what? Our salvation. You and I have done nothing to deserve our salvation.

[18:04] So it is that none of us actually deserve the gifts that we've been given by God. They're unmerited. Why is this?

[18:15] When we study God, we know that God is a giving God. He is a giving God. The whole testimony throughout all of scripture is that God does not demand or take from us, but God is a loving, giving God.

[18:31] And he also gives us gifts. Gives us gifts. The second thing that we understand from this text, it says it's given by God.

[18:43] Notice it says according to the measure of Christ's gift. What that means is our gifts are not predetermined by our preferences.

[18:54] Our gifts aren't predetermined by our inclinations. Our gifts aren't given to us by our natural talents. And they're not given to any personal consideration at all.

[19:05] It's not as if when we get that point of save, Christ opens up to us in a dream and says, All right, Dustin, what gift do you want? He doesn't do that.

[19:16] God, in his purpose, in his wisdom, in his reasons, gives us a specific gift that is to be used in the body that we have no control over.

[19:31] Third truth that we need to understand about gifts. Notice it says, was given to each one of us. Every single person in the body of Christ who becomes saved has a gift.

[19:46] There's no one here that is giftless. There's no one here who will never have one of those gifts. Now, some gifts are less. Some gifts are more.

[19:58] Carl actually read a portion that talked about our gifts are given in accordance to our faith. What it means by that is, do you know the faith that you have is not self-generated?

[20:13] Do you know that? You don't have a really strong faith because you really believe or you have a really strong faith. You have faith because God has given you that faith.

[20:24] Do you know that? He's given you that understanding, that ability to believe. And it's the same thing with these gifts. He has given to you not, and it's totally a measure of his grace.

[20:40] The fourth point I want you to understand is every gift is diverse. Think about it. God gives you a gift. You add in your personality.

[20:54] Add in your background. Add in your education. Add in the influences you had in life. Add in your strengths.

[21:05] Add in your weaknesses. Guess what? You've got incredible diversity. I remember previously at my former church, one of the biggest things that happened when I first got hired is people complained that I wasn't like the previous pastor.

[21:27] Like in any way, right? Like he's 80 years old. I'm coming in at 40. Like massive difference, right? Just our education was different.

[21:38] Our background was different. Everything. But people wanted me just to be just like him, to like the same things as him, to pursue the same things as him. And I remember just telling someone, I am not him.

[21:50] God has created me to be me. And guess what? He has created you to be you. Amen? And that's a good thing. So here we are. We have these four aspects to this gift.

[22:03] One, we don't deserve it. Two, God gave it to us. Three, everyone has it. And four, they're all different.

[22:17] So if we have a gift, which we do, it's a gift from God. Now think about it. If God were to give you something that you're supposed to use, do you just put it on the mantle of the fireplace and let it be?

[22:35] Do you put it in a storage container and just let it go? No, right? God has given you something that's individualistic, that's just for you.

[22:47] You got to do something with it. And that's what he's talking about. He's given you a gift in a way that he intended. Tended. So if we look back at 1 Corinthians 12, it tells us that we are all an important part of the body of Christ.

[23:08] And if one of us or some of us stop using that gift in the body, what happens? We become disabled, right?

[23:22] It causes problems for the rest of the body. If one of the body parts fails to do its job, the whole body suffers for it.

[23:35] That's a sobering thought. That if God had put you in a place for a reason, and you're not functioning in the way that God created you, you could be robbing the rest of the people around you.

[23:53] That you would be crippling another person because you are not engaging your gift.

[24:08] As I said before, what is the reason for spiritual gifts? Paul is quite clear. To be like Christ. To be like Christ.

[24:21] To reach the fullness of Christ. Full maturity. If this is the image of Christ, and Christ wants us to look like him, he's going to give us his part, right?

[24:39] He knows not one individual can do it. So he brings together the many so that we can reflect who Jesus is in our culture.

[24:49] And I believe that the gifts are not random. I believe we are together here at, whether you want to call it Squamish Bible Church or Squamish Baptist Church, God has a purpose for us being here.

[25:05] For a very reason to reflect his glory to the people in Squamish. Do we believe Jesus Christ wants to reach the people of Squamish? Yes or no? Yes, he does.

[25:16] And he does that best by us reflecting him. And there's this aspect of these gifts. As we use our gifts, we are blessed by Jesus Christ because we are being obedient.

[25:32] So today I'm going to take a look at what some of these passages say. And we're going to look at what some of these verses say on spiritual gifts. So going back to 1 Corinthians 12, Paul has this passage here.

[25:48] And he's talking specifically about spiritual gifts. First one, it says, Now concerning spiritual gift, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

[26:00] So if you're sitting here thinking, this isn't important, guess what? Paul is telling you the exact opposite right here. He doesn't want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts.

[26:12] He wants you to know about them because they're so important for the blessing and obedience in the growth of this church. He says, You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray by mute idols, however you were led.

[26:27] Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is a curse. And no one says Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

[26:39] Verse 4. This is specifically what I was talking about. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. So we're seeing the diversity in unity.

[26:51] But, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

[27:08] To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. For the one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom. And to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit.

[27:21] To another, faith by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing by one spirit. To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.

[27:34] To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

[27:51] So again, we're seeing source is God. The purpose, to build up the church and to serve one another. What's problem with man is that sometimes we go off the rails on things.

[28:08] Some people will emphasize the miraculous gifts. If I don't have a very public miraculous gift, I don't really care about the gifts. Some people want to ignore the edifying gifts.

[28:22] We know that there's certain segments of Christianity that put a priority on tongues and giftings that are sensational as opposed to some of them, one of the, say, the quieter gifts.

[28:38] Now, the reason why I'm teaching this is because unless you understand the gifts of the spirit and how they are properly used and understood, I believe you are hampering the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

[28:51] I believe God wants you to understand these things and God wants to work through you in the power of the spirit. So what is the definition of a spirit gift, spiritual gift?

[29:03] Let me give it to you here. It's a channel through which the Holy Spirit ministers to the church. Or, they have been given to us to equip the church to carry out its ministry until Christ returns.

[29:24] All right? This is very important for us to understand. Scripture tells us that every single believer has a spiritual gift regardless of maturity.

[29:37] Now, how serious is this? Well, it's interesting. Paul gives us two warnings. First, Timothy 4.14 says, Do not neglect the gift you have.

[29:51] Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. This is Paul admonishing Timothy. Don't neglect the gift you have.

[30:04] And then later on in 2 Timothy writes, For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on my hands.

[30:16] So he's telling us that we all have a gift and we have to use it. We need to fan the flames to get it to be used. Pretty clear?

[30:28] God's with us on this? All right. So, one other warning before I get into what some of the gifts are. One, a lot of people confuse spiritual gifts with natural abilities. Let me tell you what three things that are not spiritual gifts.

[30:43] Spiritual gift is not pie making. It's not a spiritual gift. Spiritual gift, believe it or not, is not mountain biking. It's not. Spiritual gift is not working with cars.

[30:56] It's not a spiritual gift. Okay? But, God uses these talents. Pie bacon can easily be used for hospitality, right?

[31:08] Helping people. There we go. Mountain biking can be used as a way to connect and evangelize with the lost. Amen? And working with cars can be used to show a gift of mercy to serve others who don't have that ability.

[31:26] So, God can use our talents within these abilities of spiritual gifts. How incredible is that? So, we're going to get down to some spiritual gifts.

[31:38] And I'm going to guess today I'm actually going to rustle a few feathers. I already gave Carl the warning. You guys might be calling for a vote of a new senior pastor today. All right?

[31:48] So, I believe that there's two types of gift that exist. I believe in the permanent and the unpermanent gifts. To put it another way, I do believe that certain gifts have ceased and certain gifts continue to this day.

[32:08] Now, the elders might think completely different. Some of you guys might think completely different than me on this. And that's okay. I will still love you. I just think you need to learn more. But that's all right. Right?

[32:19] And now, I'm going to argue a little bit why that I believe certain gifts are temporary gifts. And there's a reason why I wrote out where we find the gifts in a chronological fashion on the beginning of our bulletin.

[32:39] And the reason I believe that certain gifts are temporary is we're going to read that certain gifts were called confirmation gifts.

[32:49] when the early church started, they didn't have a Bible. Right? You would have heard the word, so say I'm in Ephesus, I hear Paul talk, I go back to Colossians and I start a church there.

[33:04] And I only have my memory or a few letters of what Paul might have written. Remember, a lot of the epistles came before the Gospels. Right? So you had a group of believers who understood from the Old Testament what God was saying.

[33:20] And that's what Paul and we read a lot about in Acts. They were teaching the truths of the Old Testament and how they mean today. So these people, they come together, they hear the story of Jesus Christ, they believe, and they start growing.

[33:36] Now what happens if I showed up the very next day and I started teaching something completely different? You'd be sitting there saying, well, you know, there's BK saying one thing and there's Dave Nannery saying something else.

[33:52] We don't have the Bible to actually go back and to authenticate who's right and who's not right. So God gave them some special gifts in order to do it.

[34:07] These are the gifts that I call like the gift of miracles that I would be able to go and heal someone and you'd be able to say, man, the Spirit of God is on BK. I'm going to listen to his gifts.

[34:19] All right? Dave touched someone and they died, right? So that's not working so well. Right? But that's kind of what would happen. So people would be talking in false spirits.

[34:32] One would be able to discern what those spirits were. Others could not. So what they were was they're called authenticating gifts. These were gifts given primarily to the apostles.

[34:46] The apostles who were to found the church. So when the apostles came to town like Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ's authority, people don't believe because of miracles, right? They don't.

[34:56] No one believed, but you believed who Jesus Christ was because of the miracles that he did, right? You would listen up. This guy's doing some incredible things. I want to listen to him.

[35:08] So that's what we would see. We see these things called authenticating miracles. So I fall into this position called a cessationist. I believe those gifts aren't happening.

[35:20] Why? Because I don't believe apostles walk among us today. I believe the last apostle was John and he passed away around 90 AD. We don't have any more of those guys walking around with us.

[35:32] Now listen to me really clearly. I believe God does miracles. Amen? God still heals. God can give someone to understand or to speak tongues in a very specific situation.

[35:48] But the gifts we're talking about in the Bible spiritual gifts were gifts that an individual had all the time. It's not like they could heal and couldn't heal or do miracles and couldn't do miracles.

[36:00] Okay, you with me on that one? Because the position of cessationist gets a bad rap. They'll think, you know what, BK doesn't believe God does miracles. He does. I just don't believe apostles are walking amongst us today doing the things that apostles needed to do which was to establish the truth.

[36:20] Now the other position to cessationist is called a continuous. continuous. They believe some of those gifts are going on today.

[36:32] Now what's interesting is they find most people, I usually put a lot of those people in called the open but cautious. They believe what I believe but they don't want to close the door on what God can do.

[36:46] You know, God still might give someone that gift so I'm going to theologically call myself a continuous but practically I'm a cessationist.

[36:58] I really don't believe that there's apostles walking today but if God wants to make apostles walk around so be it. That's what they think. I think they're wrong but we see this diminishing of signs in the book of Hebrews.

[37:13] Hebrews 2, 3, 4 and not so much the diminishing but we're going to see how they lay testimony. Just the writer of Hebrews says it was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard.

[37:28] So we don't know who the writers of Hebrews is but he was obviously taught by one of the apostles and he says while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various gifts and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

[37:46] What he's saying is I heard the truth from someone who was able to do these things and that's why I know they're true. You with me on that one? Can I get an amen? All right.

[37:56] I know it's kind of confusing but I want to try to make it as unconfusing as possible. People always say what about Acts? And I think that's a perfect example of the church being established and a lot of miracles and the apostles were able to do many great things.

[38:13] I also believe the book of Acts is descriptive. You will notice it's describing history. It's not telling us to do these things.

[38:25] So I can say and someone might say you know what BK there is no single explicitly clear biblical statement that specifies whether miracles through men and temporary gifts cease with the apostles.

[38:42] It's true. There's no command that says anywhere in scripture that says they've all ceased. But there's no biblical statement that says these gifts are going to continue on forever either.

[38:55] So what we do is rely on the testimony of scripture and also the testimony of history. So we read in Acts 2.22 Romans 15 2 Corinthians 12 and Hebrews 2 to indicate that God gave signed miracles in order to authenticate the messenger of God but now that we have the completion of God's word in the Bible we no longer need those signs.

[39:24] So I'm just going to read you off what some of those gifts would be. One, apostleship. I don't believe we need any apostles. These were men directly commissioned by the risen Christ and sent out to found the church.

[39:38] Church is founded. We've got a Bible. We're fine. Number two, there was the gift called the gift of distinguishing between spirits and this was the divine enablement to discern truth from false statements that God would use in the early church who was speaking truth, who was speaking falsehood.

[39:58] Healing would be one. They denied an enablement to restore the sick to immediate health. Now maybe you're a Benny Hinn fan or you watch televangelists and you say, BK, I know someone who was healed.

[40:14] And if you notice a lot of those people who were healed, sore back, migraine headaches, they're on their way. When we read the testimony of Scripture when God healed someone, guess what?

[40:25] It was immediate and perfect. You know that? It's not like someone was in a wheelchair and they got up and limped after. No, no. They were able to jump for joy. Now I'm not saying that God doesn't do healings today, but we're talking about the ability to heal at will as a spiritual gift.

[40:43] So to make it more clear, if Benny Hinn had the gift of healing, he wouldn't be doing crusades raising money. He would be in hospitals. He would physically be able to move himself room to room healing people of every sort of gift.

[40:58] And here's the other thing that we read without Scripture. Healing happened without faith. You know that? Many of the people that Jesus Christ healed didn't even know who he was.

[41:09] Like a lot of people will tell you, the reason you're not healed is because you don't believe enough. Hogwash. That's not what Scripture says whatsoever. If God's going to heal, he's going to heal.

[41:22] And it's never based on the person whether they can get enough faith because why? We also know faith is a gift of God. What kind of horrible God would be the person, you don't have enough faith because I didn't give it to you so ha ha, you're stuck, right?

[41:37] It's not how it works. Prophecy. And it's the divine enable to receive and communicate direct verbal revelation from God. Utterance of knowledge, utterance of wisdom.

[41:49] We're going to talk about those in a little bit. And the last one that seems to exist today is tongues. How many people have heard about people who speak in tongues? Happens all the time, right?

[42:02] Tell you what, next week I'm going to speak specifically all about tongues. I don't think tongues is much of an issue in the Baptist crowd, right? And if you have Pentecostal friends, they're going to say, you know what, those are our Baptist brothers, they're just a little less blessed than us, right?

[42:18] That's kind of how it says. They're really not into the Spirit as much. But I'm going to tell you as we study the Holy Spirit, we're just as much into the Spirit, but we're going to talk about what the Bible actually has to say on the gift of tongues because I want you guys to understand how to communicate on that subject.

[42:38] So next week, we're actually going to look at every specific view of tongues. I know I might be warning some of you guys you're going to take the next week off to go mountain biking or whatever, but it's actually quite interesting and I find it quite affirming when we actually open up God's Word.

[42:55] We don't have to rely on man's wisdom. God's given us all the wisdom and I guarantee you'll be able to give a definitive, solid biblical answer to someone who's telling you, hey, I'm speaking in tongues.

[43:07] All right, now we're going to get to the permanent gifts. Permanent gifts divided into two things. Speaking gifts, serving gifts, all right? Those are pretty much the two gifts. One evangelist, we see this in Ephesians 4.11, it's the divine enablement to effectively explain, exhort, and apply the gospel to the unsaved.

[43:27] Do any of you guys know any real gifted evangelists at all? We're all called to evangelize, you know that? But there's some people that we know have an incredible ease to be able to identify where that person needs to hear the gospel and can relate.

[43:45] My friend Corey, I've seen this guy lead waitresses to Christ, people in lines to going to sporting events to Christ. He just has this gift and enablement to create this real relationship within two minutes with someone.

[44:01] It's beautiful. And he's got this friend, and I might have told you, he does the exact same thing as him, like he will follow Corey's words word for word.

[44:12] People think he's weird. It just, and he is sincere. He wants to see people come to Christ as much as my friend Corey. But God has touched Corey's life in such a way that he just has that beautiful ability to evangelize in a way that he sees people come to Christ.

[44:32] Number two, exhortation. This is the divine enablement to effectively incite practical holiness in heart and action through encouragement, comfort.

[44:44] What that means is, you know how some people can just make us feel great and encouraged? We like these people as friends, right? They're the type of person who's been given a gift to just come and encourage us.

[44:57] We see faith. It is the divine enablement to trust God in all details of his work, even when the outcome seems uncertain. Most people that I know that have the gift of faith are incredible prayer warriors.

[45:12] They just have this ability to know God's going to do something, and the first thing they do is they say to you, hey, let's pray right here, right now. And when you pray with them, you know God's in there like nothing else.

[45:24] There's just the spiritual presence that you get to experience. The fourth one is we see giving. It's the enablement to give generously, joyfully, and sacrificially of your earthly possessions for the furtherance of the kingdom.

[45:40] Some people just have that ability. It's a joy. Friends of mine, his dad, I did not know how wealthy he was until I was found out. They don't live quite wealthy. They're actually multi-multi-millionaires, which they give probably 90% to 95%, everything away to missions and to their church.

[45:58] And they're just wonderful, and that's what he lives. People ask, why he's still working? He's close to 80%, so I can have continuously more to give. It's just a wonderful picture. It's something that he lives for.

[46:10] Helping, serving. We see a lot of those gifts here today at our church. We're going to see them being manifested before us today. People, there are certain people that love to help, love to serve.

[46:21] There are certain people here that love to organize. That's a curse to me, right? But they love to organize, right? They just love to make things easy for us.

[46:33] And they just do it with absolutely complete ease. And it's a joy for them to do it. There's those who lead and administer well. There's a zealousness to give leadership toward the goal of accomplishing the will of God.

[46:49] It's not an ability to want to dominate, but leading is influencing. We see that the Bible talks about the gift of mercy. It's the divine enablement to cheerfully detect, empathize with, and assist in meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of other people.

[47:10] There's many of you here who have that gift here. When one of your friends is out, you're over there, whether it's with a meal, with a caring heart, an exhorting word.

[47:21] That is the gift of mercy at work in you. There's also the gift of preaching, prophesying. When I say prophesying, I'm not talking about foretelling, but proclaiming God's truth.

[47:36] There's the gift of shepherd, teacher, which we're going to learn about in the next couple of weeks. That's the divine enablement to shepherd Christians by leading, providing, feeding, protecting, and otherwise caring for them in a deep way.

[47:52] I believe Dave Nannery has that gift just with his ability to counsel. I think that's all a part of that thing. He just has extra insight that I love about Dave.

[48:03] We see spiritual discernment. It's divine enablement to identify forms of doctrinal error and religious deception. I think this is one of Carl's gifts.

[48:15] He just has that. He can cut through to the chase pretty quick on things. God brings apart together all these people to bless his church.

[48:31] Amen? And he does so so that we might be made more mature. So I'm just going to ask, I'm going to answer a few questions that come up that I'm going to let us go because we've got a tailgate party to attend to apparently.

[48:51] All right? Can Christians have more than one gift? Scripture actually doesn't say, but I think because some people just in their personalities, their education in areas of influence, sometimes they learn from other people or there's a unique blend of several gifts that kind of might be one, but they look like there are other ones.

[49:18] So the answer to say that one is, I don't know. I think we can have more than one. How's that? We believe Paul had more than one, so maybe we do too. I grew up in a background that said you only had one gift, one gift for all time.

[49:30] I do believe they're permanent, but some might have more. How do I identify my spiritual gifts? BK, I bought in, I'm all into this, how do I know?

[49:42] Ask your friends. Ask your friends what they see in you which brings joy. That's the best way. Ask your family members. What is something that you're able to do spiritually that takes very minimal effort that you are excited about?

[50:00] What is it? It's kind of interesting. I just, like when it comes to preaching, I have some friends that have dropped out of ministry because they hate preaching.

[50:11] They find it's a very burdensome thing. I actually love preaching. I didn't start out being a preacher. I was an athlete. The only thing I read was Sports Illustrated growing up, right? I didn't want to read anything else.

[50:22] I didn't care. And then when I found out you have to read all these books, if you would have told me that I had to read all these books and understand these various things, it was not in my DNA. But God did something within that ability that all of a sudden I just got asked to teach more and more and it's kind of grown into this whole pastoral thing.

[50:42] So mine was, my pastor actually from one of my church said, hey, the kids are enjoying your Bible study, how about you come and preach one day? And then it just kind of grew.

[50:54] So ask those, your small group members, your small group leaders, where do they see an area where you're able to maximize a particular ministry with minimal effort and where do we see the greatest fruit in your life?

[51:15] where should Christians use their spiritual giftedness? Three things to understand.

[51:26] Your spiritual gift is not meant to edify yourself. You know that? It's not meant to edify yourself. By the way, when I read all those spiritual gifts, there's far more than that. There's far more.

[51:38] We don't have a complete list. So, but it's meant to edify the church, not yourself. Right? It's meant to grow you.

[51:52] I grow. I'm blessed by using my gift, but it's not meant for a means for me to make money. It's not meant for me to make prestige or to make me famous.

[52:06] Our gifts are meant to bless others. And the other thing we need to understand, there's errors of, and I just talked about this, we know we're in trouble when we're trying to exalt self rather than using our gifts to bring God's glory in exalting others.

[52:26] Right? So, people always ask me, and if you guys want, we can give you a spiritual gift test. I don't always believe in those things. It's just kind of, it's like a personality profile and you kind of figure out where you lean.

[52:40] But I always say, do what you love. When people, you come to me and say, BK, I want to use my gifts. I want to use it in the church. I'm going to simply ask you, do what you love. Where do you see a complete ease and natural fit for you in the church?

[52:53] Talk to people around you and encourage you to get to know those who are more mature, stronger in the faith, to pray for you, to submit yourself to God and ask God to fill you with his spirit so that your gifts can be used and done in love.

[53:11] Amen? All right, let me pray for you.