I want to tell you about our cat. Our cat is named Roger – our female cat, Roger. Trey named her. It’s weird, but you get used to it. It’s funny. But Roger…she’s a nice cat. She was so cute. She actually showed up at Jason and Erica Carlson’s house a little over a year ago. A little kitten came out of the corn field and so Erica called us and said, “Hey, do you guys want a cat?” And we said sure. Maybe it would help with the mice and all that stuff. I’m kind of allergic to cats, but I can put up with it. So this little kitten came over, thanks to Jason and Erica. This little kitten came over and we fed it food right away because it was starving. It just ate two whole cans of cat food. And then later on in the night time the cat’s stomach was just packed with food. You could just see it. It had never eaten like that. It was having fun. It was so little that it wasn’t scared of Bruno. So it went up to Bruno and Bruno didn’t really care about it. Bruno’s our dog, by the way. Our male dog.
So I went downstairs and tried to get the cat used to being downstairs. It was going to be downstairs. And I was just sitting there and just for a few minutes and all of a sudden the cat came out with a mouse. This little kitten with a big mouse in its mouth. I was like “Awesome. This is what you’re supposed to do!” And I was thinking what is it going to do with this mouse now? It was dead. I thought, oh man. There’s going to be blood all over the place and I just sat there and watched it. I couldn’t look away. It just devoured the whole mouse. It just chomped it down and then the tail just went right down!! Wow! That’s awesome. It was clean. It was great. This is a wonderful cat. Roger. We’re so thankful for Roger.
Well, Roger started growing up and this fall, at the end of the summer time, something started to look funny. It was gone for a couple of days and I saw it sitting in the driveway after being gone for a couple of days and it had stuff on its face and I was thinking it was probably distemper or something. So I went online… “Distemper” and it says like some cats, some 20%, can make it through distemper. You’ve just got to really love them and really try to give them food and care. So I know a lot of you come from farming backgrounds – that would have been the end of Roger, but we couldn’t do that!
So we took Roger and we just cared for her and loved her. She got worse. So we took her to the vet and the vet said no, it wasn’t distemper. It’s something else. You know it’s bad when the vet is like, “I’ve never really seen this before. Let me know what happens, will you?” That’s what he said. She hadn’t eaten for like 15 days at this point – just skin and bones. Little Roger.
So the boys…we started praying for Roger. And so once we started praying for Roger, you know then that takes putting this cat to sleep off the table. You want to see if God is going to answer these little boys prayers. And so Roger was there. My wife was so good with Roger. Just petting her and holding her like each evening and taking her up to give her water because she couldn’t even walk at this point. I mean it was like suffering. We didn’t want the poor cat to suffer either. But we kept praying.
And sure enough Roger’s face was all swelled up. It started going back down to normal. Little by little Roger started getting better. And just yesterday (it was a nice day) Roger was outside, completely healed, running around, having fun, enjoying life once again.
Roger was sick and Roger got better. When Roger got better now we didn’t just throw Roger back down in the basement…see ya later. We let Roger come up. We let Roger go outside and have fun. Yesterday I looked out the window and Roger was jumping around and frolicking and kind of chasing after Bruno. Bruno didn’t care again, but he was kind of chasing after Bruno and having fun and living life. He came inside and we gave Roger food and Roger just eats the food so strongly. Thankful. I think she remembers those 15 days she didn’t eat food and she got better for a purpose. Another purpose is the kids love her. The boys hold her and she’s never bitten or scratched the boys. They pick her up by the tail, they hold her, and do all this stuff. They love her and God healed her. I mean, that’s in our house. We know that. God healed Roger and it’s a great thing. So Roger has a purpose in her life. She was healed. She was made well for a purpose.
We’ve been having some things happen here at West Lisbon of people coming to trust in Jesus for their first time or maybe coming back to him. Actually this fall time, things have been happening. God’s been moving in people’s lives and it’s so exciting. And God saves you. He heals you from your sin disease and he saves you for a purpose. Being saved, trusting in Jesus, isn’t the end of our lives. It’s actually the beginning of our life with Christ. The beginning of what he wants to do in you and through you.
We’re in the last message here on a series about the Holy Spirit and the whole series has been about what the Holy Spirit wants to do in you; wants to do through you. He doesn’t want to just save you and then put you down in the basement or let you go back to your life and your office and your family. He wants to change you; he wants to inhabit you; he wants to live his life through you and the way that he does it is through his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s representative here on earth. He is God Almighty in us; through us; with us; for us. This whole series has been about that – getting to know who the Holy Spirit is; getting to know what your relationship with Him is. Last week was learning about the fruits of the Holy Spirit – that every Christian should be increasing in the fruits of the Holy Spirit from Galatians 5:22.
This week we’re talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit – that the Holy Spirit actually gives gifts to His people. Before we get there in I Corinthians, chapter 12, I just want to recap five things that the Holy Spirit does. And we could list way more than five things. We could go well into the afternoon with what the Holy Spirit does in Scripture, but I just want to hit five major ones. Kind of a recap as we finish up this series of what the Holy Spirit does:
1. The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. Jesus said this himself in John 16:14. He said the Holy Spirit who is to come will glorify me. So when you hear a sermon or when you hear somebody preaching or teaching or you see somebody talking about Jesus, the Holy Spirit is working in people’s lives. Maybe he’s working in you right now to point you to Jesus. So at the end of the day, the Holy Spirit is guiding your direction. He’s hopefully opening the eyes of your heart to see Jesus crucified, risen, and coming again. Because at the cross is the heart of the gospel. It’s the central message of the Bible, of God’s relationship with man. So that you see Jesus and you see that you are a sinner and that actually your sin crucified Jesus, but that if you trust in Jesus, God’s only Son, you can be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with Jesus Christ because Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross…he was wounded for our transgressions…His death on the cross absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf so that we can now be found in Jesus and we can be found not having the righteousness of our own that comes from the Law, but having a righteousness that comes from faith in Jesus Christ (the scripture says). So that’s the Holy Spirit’s job. When the Holy Spirit is moving and working, he’s pointing toward Jesus. Many of you prayed a prayer when you were a kid – maybe not even a kid – you said, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart” and he did. He did by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes into your life to fill you and to work in you – always pointing to Jesus.
2. The second thing the Holy Spirit does is that he convicts us of right and wrong. In John 16:8 it actually says of sin and righteousness…the Holy Spirit convicts us. When you become a new person in Christ, you are a new creation. You might find that some of the things that you were comfortable with before you knew Jesus, you start to be uncomfortable with. Some of the things that you do in your life which you never really gave much thought to before…once you are trusting and walking with the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and he also convicts you of righteousness. Now all of a sudden you have some affections that you didn’t have before. Now all of sudden you start to care about some people that you didn’t really care two hoots about before, but now because the Holy Spirit is living inside you he is convicting you of sin and righteousness.
3. Third thing: He fills believers. The Holy Spirit actually fills believers to live for Him and to serve Him and to know him better…to experience Him. We’ve been talking at West Lisbon during these past four weeks, it is okay to long for an experience with God. That’s not a bad thing. The gospel, our relationship with God, is more than just the facts that are written on the page. God is a real person and you can truly really experience Him. If you haven’t had an experience with Him, ask the Holy Spirit to come and to fill you. Ask Him – day by day by day that he would come because the Holy Spirit does fill people. It’s all over the New Testament, but you can go to the book of Acts starting really at Acts 1: 8. Jesus said hey wait right here for the Holy Spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you can be my witnesses.
Then you see all throughout the book of Acts that the New Testament church, the early church, people are being filled with the Holy Spirit. They are pointed toward Jesus by the Holy Spirit and then they are filled with the Holy Spirit to live for Him. Filled with the Spirit.
4. The Holy Spirit also then seals us. This is found in the scriptures specifically in Ephesians 1:13, 14 – that the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit, as a guarantee of our future inheritance - what Eugene was talking about – about the promise of heaven and then of the new heaven and new earth that we will live with and God will live with his people – with us. The Holy Spirit is given as a guarantee that that day will come. So you have the Holy Spirit here who seals believers promising them a day that the salvation of God Almighty will be real, will be manifested and on display for all the nations.
5. The Holy Spirit gives people gifts. In I Corinthians 12 – you might as well go there because we’re going to be here today, right now. I Corinthians 12:11 says just that. 11All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. Each one. If you are a Christian, you have received – even if you don’t know it or are not aware of it yet – you have received at least one spiritual gift from God, from the Holy Spirit. And they are different than the fruits of the Spirit. The Fruits of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.,…gentleness, self-control…those are fruits of the Spirit that every believer should be cultivating and growing in their life. Gifts of the Spirit are different. They are specific gifts that God gives to his people and he blesses them with those. Everyone gets one. That’s super exciting.
Now they are not talents. The gifts that God gives are different from talents although they can be related. Let me give you the difference between talents and abilities and the spiritual gifts.
First, the source of these things. The source of talents and abilities is a natural source. It’s a common grace that God gives to all people. So if somebody has a wonderful talent, that is because God is good. And God gives talents and abilities commonly to all people, to all creation. It’s wonderful.
Spiritual gifts: The source is the Holy Spirit – a special grace of God given to His children. See the difference.
Now the difference also comes to when the time is given. A spiritual gift is given to you when you trust in Jesus as your Savior – when you come to faith in Jesus Christ. A talent or an ability is given to a person usually when they are born or when they work on it. So Labraun James has great athletic ability that was given to him when he was born. Your spiritual gift is given when you are born again – when you trust in Jesus. Gifts verses talents. You start to see the difference.
A gift is a spiritual gift. A talent is a natural ability.
What is the purpose of these things? Well, hopefully the purpose for a Christian is that all my talents and all of my abilities and my spiritual gifts are used for God’s glory, but sometimes talents or abilities can be used for many different things…for instruction, for entertainment. Labraun James…its fun to go watch somebody who is athletically gifted. But a spiritual gift is given specifically for spiritual growth and for edification which just means building up of the body of Christ – of other believers that are even seated right around you right now.
So you have a spiritual gift that you can put to use that will make a difference in somebody’s life right here. As a matter of fact, if you don’t know what your spiritual gift is and you’re not using your spiritual gift, you are actually doing a disservice to those who are seated around you because you are created to use your gift.
Now before we get to three questions that I think will help us with the gifts of the Spirit, I have to bring up a theological debate or argument, if you will. It’s called the sensationists argument. You’ll see in a moment when the gifts are listed, there are some supernatural and miraculous types of gifts. There is the gift of administration. Nobody looks at that and says, “Wow! He’s got the spiritual gift of administration. Awesome!” But that’s actually a spiritual gift and you might actually have that. But people would look at the gifts of healing so to speak and be like, “Whoa!” They are called the sign gifts. They would be the gifts of healing, speaking in tongues and interpretation, and also the gift of prophecy – to actually be able to speak a word from the Lord prophetically.
Now if you’re a cessationist you would say that those sign gifts are not around today anymore. You would say that those aren’t around and so you’d look at somebody who says, “I speak in tongues” and you’d say, “crazy charismatic.” And the gist of the argument goes to I Corinthians, chapter 13 and so you are already in 12, so look at chapter 13:8 –
8Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
Now you say what does that have to do with the passing away of these spiritual gifts? Well, some would say that what Paul is talking about here to the Corinthian church is when the perfect comes, meaning when the scripture is completed, when the Canon is done. You know in the 4th century, the Bible was completed and is the same thing as we have today. And so they would say, proponents of this would say, when the Bible was complete and finished there was no need for supernatural sign gifts anymore because we have the perfect revelation of God here in scripture and this is what the text is saying. Now you really have to do a lot to make the text say that I think because I think when the perfect comes is when…what Eugene just said…Revelation 21:4 is when there’s no more sin and there’s no more crying and there’s no more pain – when the Lord Jesus comes back and sets up His kingdom. That’s what I would say would be when the perfect comes.
When we first started this message we showed a clip of Benny Hinn and if you weren’t here it was a clip of Benny Hinn just taking off his suit coat and whacking people. They were just falling over and there were just piles of people. It was ridiculous. But I use that to say that in a lot of circles that I’ve been around there was such a reaction against the craziness I think too far the other way to want to put the Holy Spirit in our box and say that he doesn’t do this anymore. And I think that can be the tendency even if we look at a passage like I Corinthians 13 to not do proper exegesis – not Jesus the Lord – it’s spelled different. Exojesus is just critical interpretation of the text. Instead what we do is eisegesis. Eisegesis means we read into the text what we would like to read into it. It’s David Koresh reading that Jesus is coming again and “I think I might be Jesus. This is talking about me.” And he’s reading into the text. We do it in so many different areas of our life. We can do it. It’s the guy that told his wife to keep her mouth shut and then he goes and looks in scripture and says, “mmm…my wife should learn in quietness and submissiveness. I think I was right.” No, you’re not right. That’s Eisegesis. And I think that’s what’s happened here. It doesn’t mean that these gifts are gone necessarily. God can do whatever he wants. It’s actually very interesting to note that in places where the gospel is going out for the first time – for people who are hearing the Word of Jesus, the Name of Jesus – these sign gifts are more commonplace. In northern India there are documented resurrections that have happened. My dad goes to India and he works with the Native Missionary Movement of India there and they see miracles there all the time. So I would be hesitant to say that those gifts aren’t around, but at the same time, I would be careful of the craziness. Just kind of land somewhere in the middle.
So let me ask three questions and this will help us in our discussion of spiritual gifts. We’ll see what they are in a second. First, why does the Holy Spirit give us gifts? Well, we read in I Corinthians 12 – this is Paul writing to the church in Corinth. They evidently wrote him a letter asking him to explain some things and one of the things it seems that they were asking him to explain spiritual gifts. And specifically the gift of speaking in tongues. Look at chapter 12:1 –
1Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
So he’s starting to answer their question whatever it was about the spiritual gifts. He says, “I don’t want you to be uninformed about the spiritual gifts.” And then verse 7:
7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
So the reason that God gives his people spiritual gifts is for the common good – for the good of others that we just talked about. For the good of those seated around. If you have the gift of teaching, you are to use that spiritual gift of teaching to edify and to build up the other members of the body of Christ that you are in. So the Holy Spirit is given for the common good. The Holy Spirit’s gifts are given for the common good and it’s not for the person’s own glory.
We’ve already mentioned Benny Hinn and Stephanie and I…were we married or was it before we were married? We were married…we went to…If I took you to Benny Hinn before we were married you wouldn’t have married me! We went into Chicago and went to one of the healing crusades. If he genuinely has the gifts of healing (I think its gifts of healing in the text; it’s not just somebody has a gift of healing, they can walk into a hospital and cure everyone…I mean, he’s said that before, but that’s not really what the text is saying. Gifts of healing – it is certain times that people have the ability to pray for someone and the Holy Spirit heals a person.) If he genuinely has that, I don’t think he would have opened up the service the way that he did with everybody singing their hearts out “How Great Thou Art” and all of a sudden here comes Benny Hinn dressed in an all white suit. I was thinking to myself, “I know that song is about God, but I have a feeling it is more about him.” By the way, if anybody knows of a good white suit, I’d like to get one of those.
But the spiritual gifts are not given for somebody to get glory out of. Now I’ve ripped on Benny Hinn a little bit, so this makes me cringe to share this. It does, but I will because I just want to be real with you. We went through the book of Philippians – it was one of my first year and half here. I remember one message and I shared it with a small group that we had. We had a couple of small groups at the time and I told them and it hurt me to tell them. It hurts me to tell you this, but there was one message and I was really fired up and I was really emotional at the end and just pointing to Jesus kind of loud and at the end of the message, I got several “Amens” and from this crowd that’s a miracle in itself. But it’s terrible and I was going to walk to the back. And I was walking down just like this and right when I got here I thought, “Man, you’re good.” And about 3 more steps…and the rest of the way…just repenting of that feeling. “Forgive me God. You’re good. You’ve gifted me with that. It’s for you and your glory – not for me.” And it kills me to think that I would even think that right here. I don’t know if it was the enemy putting the thought in my head. I don’t have to blame him. It’s my own heart – prideful. And see the spiritual gifts are not given for the people to get praise out of. It’s given for God to get praise as you serve others. So that’s why the Holy Spirit gives us gifts.
Well, what are the gifts of the Spirit? Good question. The gifts of the Spirit are mentioned in six passages in the New Testament. Not one of the six passages have all the gifts of the Spirit listed. It doesn’t seem like Paul and the other writers of the New Testament wanted to give a definitive list “these are the gifts of the Spirit”. Some lists have some of them; some other lists have others; and some of them overlap. So we don’t have an exhaustive list of the spiritual gifts necessarily, but several passages mentioned many of them and one of the lists is right here in I Corinthians 12:8:
8For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
So this list has some of them. Let’s just talk about some of them. This is just a conversation. How about speaking in tongues? Let’s talk about that. Speaking in tongues is talked about more in chapter 14 so it must have been an issue in the church. Chapter 14 lays out really what you would do if you speak in tongues and it seems to be two different things – actually three different things. The first time that people spoke in tongues was the disciples in the Upper Room in Acts 2. When the Holy Spirit came, they spoke in tongues. They spoke in tongues of other nations. So it wasn’t just the blah, blah, blah. It was actual language of the gospel in different languages of the people that were in the area so that different people could hear and understand the gospel in their own native tongue. That was the first time that tongues happened.
And then Paul speaks of tongues that are spoken as a heavenly language. It would be like a prayer language. It’s like you don’t even know the right words to say and the Spirit of God within you gives you words and utterances and you speak in a heavenly language with God. I’ve never done that by the way. I’ve asked, but I’ve never gotten that gift. And that’s one thing.
Another one – the third and final – is when someone would speak in tongues for it to be a blessing to other people to serve the common good, there would have to be interpretation. So if someone would get up and speak in tongues to people in a group setting such as this, there would have to be somebody who would interpret or else it would be worthless. Paul goes onto to say I can speak a thousand words in some heavenly language. If nobody is getting anything out of it, it’s worthless. It’s the same as Sam coming up and banging on the drums, on the cymbal. It’s totally worthless.
That’s why…and I always pick on TV guys, but they are up there and preaching and then they just go off on a couple of sentences speaking in tongues. Everybody is sitting there and nobody is interpreting, so that’s worthless. It makes you look like an idiot to some visitor who is coming in, who doesn’t know anything about God. That’s what Paul’s whole point was with the Corinthian churches is that if you have public gatherings and you’re inviting people in and people are blabbing, what does that do? Nothing. It actually makes you look like what you’re saying about the gospel might be off. But, speaking in tongues according to scripture demands an interpretation if in a group setting for someone and if it’s a heavenly language, then that’s fine. That’s just between you and the Lord.
In our new Members Class here, I say if you speak in tongues, that’s wonderful. That’s great! And you are encouraged to use that gift if you feel that God has given that to you. However, just in our church setting, in our service, we’re not a church that has people speaking in tongues so we just ask that you just keep that at home because we’re not of that stripe or tradition so nobody would really know what to do. I don’t know if anybody has the gift of interpretation so, just…that’s for you. That’s how we deal with that.
So tongues. Tongues can be weird. Here’s the abuse of it. There are certain Christians that say that if you haven’t spoken in tongues, you’re not a Christian. Well, that’s clearly not true from scripture at all. So be careful if someone says, “You haven’t spoken in tongues? Well, do you want to speak in tongues? If you haven’t spoken in tongues, then you are probably not a Christian. You probably don’t have the Holy Spirit.” You have the Holy Spirit living inside you when you confess Jesus as Lord. You believe in him. So be careful when people want to go that route.
Prophecy. There are some people, pretty much the Sensationists, who want to say that the gift of prophecy is proclamation. So what I’m doing is proclaiming God’s Word. That’s in a sense prophetic. And while the word “prophecy” does have that in it (I mean, that’s part of it) there is also the supernatural prophetic word of the future in prophecy. I’ll give you a good example. Acts 21. Agabus is his name. He’s a prophet. Agabus comes and he prophesies to Paul- that Paul if you go to this city, you’re going to be arrested. If you go to Rome, you’re going to be arrested. Taken to Rome in chains and Paul hears him and it is of the Lord because that’s actually what happens. Then Paul says, “This is what I’ve got to do. God’s telling me to go there so thank you for the prophecy. We don’t know if it’s true yet or not, but I have to follow God.”
If somebody comes up to you and says I have a word from the Lord to you and in my circles that happens sometimes. You know, I just say, “Okay.” And receive it. If it’s contrary to anything in the scripture, then you know that it’s not from the Lord for sure because it can’t contradict scripture. And if it’s vague in nature, fine. If it’s more specific, fine. You have to live with the conviction of the Holy Spirit in your life. So thank him for it, but don’t live according to it because you don’t know for sure if what they are saying is out of their imagination or if from the Spirit of God. If he convicts you that what is true, then you believe it. But you follow the Lord first with His Word first and those other things that are maybe sketchy, you look for conviction of the Holy Spirit in your own heart. Prophecy.
The gift of faith. I Corinthians 12:9 says this: That this is a actually a gift. All Christians have faith – faith in Jesus, but there’s actually a gift of faith meaning that someone has the extraordinary gift to be able to trust God in all things, in all circumstances. I’ll bet you’ve met somebody who has had the gift of faith. They’ve been diagnosed with cancer and they trust in Jesus. They don’t even question it. They’ve lost their job. Their families have been torn apart. Anything and everything can happen to that person and they have simple faith and trust in God. Well, God’s Word says…yeah, but do you know the Greek? No, but I believe. Get off my back. They have the gift of faith. See you can go through all these gifts. They are great and wonderful. I picked those two sign gifts just to talk about a little bit because they are the hot button ones, but most of the gifts aren’t some spectacular display of the supernatural, but they are awesome gifts of the Holy Spirit when used can encourage others, build up others in the body of Christ. Faith being that example.
There’s the gift of encouragement. I have a friend, Nick. He’s actually been here before. He’s a pastor up in Minneapolis in Emmaus Lutheran. One of my closest friends and he’s got the spiritual gift of encouragement. You can’t spend two minutes around the guy and you just feel encouraged. Everything he says about everybody. He’s encouraging. That is refreshing to be around. Nick’s got the spiritual gift of encouragement.
There are a lot of you here that have the spiritual gift of hospitality and the spiritual gift of service. Those are strong gifts here. Hospitality – making people feel welcome, sharing food with them. Service: setting up, tearing down, doing the work in the gym (we had the service over there). Service. There are some of you that have the gift of teaching too and God wants to use you for his Kingdom.
So the third question: How do I know what my spiritual gifts are? Great question because we want to know what they are so we can use them. Amen? Self-examination. That’s where it starts. Ask yourself a couple of questions. First, ask yourself what am I passionate about? What do I have a passion for? What do I want to see happen here for God?
Then ask yourself, what am I fruitful in? What things do I do that bear fruit for God? I mean, when I get up and teach I see people (you could say this. I’m not saying this about me.)
When I get up and teach I see light bulbs going off in people’s minds. They are understanding the scripture. Maybe I should pursue that.
When I serve others, I see that I can do a great deal of help to them. Maybe it’s that. Ask yourself. What are you fruitful in?
Then thirdly, self-examination…what kind of confirmation do you get from other people? Other Christian people…what do they talk to you about and confirm in you something that you do for the Lord that they see? Then ask God.
Kind of the theme that is above all of these messages about the Holy Spirit is to ask, to ask, to ask. Centered around Jesus’ words – to ask for the Holy Spirit. One of the examples that we always talk about is Jesus said how many of you fathers here, if you son asks for bread you give him a viper (not a car, the snake). You give him a snake. None of you do. So how much more…you’re sinful…how much more will our Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for him? So ask God to reveal and ask with the right motives not so you will be noticed in a group of people, but that you can serve a group of people.
Another tool that I’ve got available for you today if you would like to pick it up on the way out is a Spiritual Gifts test. There are a bunch of different ones around. This one I found is pretty good. There are maybe a couple of questions that are maybe a little bit on the crazy side, but not too much. They’re really not that crazy but, it’s very good. You can take this. It’s just a man-made test so it’s not going to say “Oh, I have the spiritual gift of…BAM!” But it will show you some areas of your life that you would want to experiment with and start to see if you can use whatever its drawing attention to. All these questions, 135 questions. Then what it is pointing to, you can start to…and then this is the last thing you can do, start to experiment and use the gifts. Experiment and see if you might have a gift in the area. Get involved in a ministry somewhere where you can try to encourage; where you can use your administrative gifts. The spiritual gifts are specific gifts given to a person, but sometimes they are very closely related to natural talents and abilities. All of these things are to be used in the body of Christ for God’s glory to serve others for the common good.
There are only 20 of them. I would be pumped if all 20 were gone. It’s on the back table back there. Just pick it up and it’s an explanation of all the gifts listed in scripture in the back and scripture references. It’s a very good tool that will help you. So pick that up on the way out.
I Corinthians 14:1 – closing verse:
1 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. I’ve never read that verse I don’t think. It never sunk in until I was in my mid-twenties. Earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Desire the gifts that God gives to his people to make a difference for Him. To make a difference in other people’s lives. Don’t do a disservice to those seated in this room around you by not using the gifts that he’s given you because each one (and we didn’t have time to go to this, but this is the second part of chapter 12) each one, a member of the body, has their own unique purpose and job and set of skills and gifting. If each part does its part to help and aid the other and we’re all interconnected in the body of Christ and if you’re not doing or using the spiritual gifts that God has given to you, you are actually doing a disservice to the rest of the body.
Last week we got a new toilet and I put it in myself. So I installed it and contrary to what some people think, I am pretty handy with tools. There were two screws in the back of this thing. It was in the corner and I’m down there. It’s taking me forever because it’s like up in there and I’m just trying to get it. I found like some pliers and I’m turning it and I’m just dripping with sweat and I’m just down in the corner where the toilet is. It’s taking forever. I said, “What in the world? This is terrible.” So I get done with one whole side and I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got to do the other side. This is going to take forever.” And then I looked in the box and there’s a little tool in there that you are supposed to use for it. It took me like two minutes for the other side. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t use the tool.
God gives his people gifts for ministry, for the church, for his people, to see the Kingdom come, to see lives be changed and transformed by the gospel. He has given us gifts. The Holy Spirit – you are good, Holy Spirit. He has given us gifts to use for Him. He says earnestly desire those things so that we can be more effective for the Kingdom, for the gospel, for what the Holy Spirit does, for pointing people to Jesus.
So will you discover your spiritual gift and then use it? Let’s pray.
