Text: 1 Cor 12:7-11, Title: Spiritual Gifts Round 1, Date/Place: NRBC, 10.29.11, AM
A. Opening illustration: Slowly, the barber’s business began to dwindle. He just couldn’t compete. In a last ditch effort to save his business, he hired a business consultant. The consultant spent a day pouring over the barber’s books asking many questions. At the end of the day the barber asked the consultant, “So what do you think ? Should I close up shop ?” The consultant said, “Not yet. I’ll be back tomorrow.” The next day the consultant showed up with a huge banner that he hung in front of the barber shop that said, “We Fix $3.00 Haircuts!”
B. Background to passage: although Paul’s point is not to define all the spiritual gifts, he makes a certain amount of assumption that the church knows about these gifts enough that he doesn’t have to define them. Or maybe they indicated in their letter their understanding. But either way, we need to elaborate on them a little more. And we will cover the others spiritual gifts not mentioned in these verses in the coming weeks.
C. Main thought: today we are dealing with 4 of the 5 non-miraculous gifts in this text. Saving prophecy for later, and going to deal with the miraculous gifts (tongues, miracles, and healing) in a different sermon.
A. Word of Wisdom (v. 8)
1. One thing to note about both of these first two gifts, this is the only mention of these gifts in the NT. And no other writings in the in the early church mentioned them either, other than lists I suppose. So we are limited in our firmness to the conclusions here. That being said, we have the actual words, the context, and the discussion of other gifts to help us. Logos is the word used for “word,” and it has spiritual significance in some passages, but in many others, it is simply a common term. The same applies to sophia for “wisdom.” It was a word that meant to have special skill in applying biblical principle or truth to life situations. It is interesting that they were clamoring and dividing over wisdom in the early chapters. So a word of wisdom means: a spoken word or utterance that is characterized by wisdom skillfully applying biblical principles.
2. Acts 6:1-5
3. Illustration: those exercising the gift of word of wisdom are like sharp scapels or sutures in the hands of a capable surgeon to heal and protect, “Marines are still being taught to fight. They are gifted in heavy weaponry and with the tools to use them effectively; but in order to diffuse hostility borne of suspicion they are being taught to ask questions first and shoot later.” –Wall Street Journal
4. If you have this gift, it would manifest itself in the consistent (not flawless) application of truth and wise solutions on the fly to real life problems. This is a gift that probably will be recognized in you rather than by you. Which BTW is probably the main way that are spiritual gifts are found (inventories are helpful), you serving others and others seeing the Spirit’s activity in you and the results of that applied wisdom. If you have this gift, you would serve well on committees that deal with significant issues regarding the future or present ministries and decisions of the church. Do people consistently note your abilities to solve issues that arise biblically and effectively? Sometimes people look on committee assignments as drudgery, but those who serve within their gifting will not be as mentally/spiritually wearied. And you will be providing a great service to build up the body. Not a lot of us like conflict resolution either, but that is a huge need in Baptist churches. What if we had those gifted of the Spirit who regularly smoothed over conflicts between members? What if we had members serving as marriage or family counselors informally so that marriage could be strengthened? You can see the need/applications for this gift.
B. Word of Knowledge (v. 8)
1. Differentiate between prophesy and these two gifts. Some (especially in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements) have considered these two gifts revelatory. And even though we don’t have much info about their exact operation, we do have plenty of info about prophecy. And most of these occurrences of this gift are said to come straight from God through others to others. But this is exactly what prophecy includes, and so it is not a duplicate gift. Again, normal word for knowledge. So the meaning of this gift is: a spirit-empowered ability to understand deep truths and relate/explain them to others. This isn’t necessarily limited to biblical truth, but other disciplines as well—apologetics, law enforcement, archeology, philosophy, farming, science, coaching, etc.
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: have you ever listened to someone who has coached college level sports discuss strategy? Talking with Anna Harkey on our trip back from Peru about Peruvian archeology and the Xauxa-Inca transition in Jauja and the surrounding areas,
4. Obviously many academic applications for those of you who teach. Do you have a special ability to grasp knowledge and understanding about particular topics? There are lots of you who may not “teach” but have a vast knowledge of particular things. And those can have kingdom impacts through the ministry of New River in the community. You can build up New River by witnessing and promotion of the church in fields and activities in which you earn respect because of your knowledge/experience. And we don’t normally think of these things as “spiritual” but actually all wisdom and knowledge is given by God, and supervised by him, but just because things come more natural to you in certain areas, doesn’t make them any less spiritual or useful. Another place you can see this is training others. Mack and Noel have been working training our security team at NR because of their expertise. Those of you with this gift can also build up the church discipling others by leading ministries, triads, and mission projects. You can do it!
C. Gift of Faith (v. 9)
1. All faith is a gift. And all have to have faith to be born again. And we all walk by faith. Come on Sunday nights. But this gift of faith is of the extraordinary kind. This gift is defined as: the spirit-empowered ability to trust God and believe His promises through the most difficult circumstances. These people believe God against unfathomable odds. These are the mountain movers (name of the prayer ministry at our church in Maine). These are those optimistic visionaries who can see potential even in disaster, and hope beyond explanation. This is not necessarily a speaking gift.
2. Rom 12:3, Mark 11:23, 1 Cor 13:2,
3. Illustration: Ronnie Owens, Martine Hill, the church planter’s wife who would believe for them both,
4. In those of you who have this gift, it is primarily expressed through prayer and personal testimony. Ever meet those people who just always see great things even in the rubble? If you are one of these people, you are the one the rest of us cling to because you are there. You are the one who has the uplifting spirit in crisis for your family. You are the encourager to those who are struggling. You are the one who sees the brighter day and rejoices during the calm of the eye of the hurricane. You can help people overcome despondency and depression. You are the business meeting savers not the critics. You are the proposal makers, and the idea-hatchers. We need you in the church, in our lives!
D. Discernment of Spirits (v. 10)
1. Differentiate between this and word of wisdom. W of W is wisdom applied in crises. This has more to do with spiritual warfare and the recognition the spiritual picture that is going on behind the scenes. This gift is: a spirit-empowered ability to evaluate genuine from imitation, of the Spirit from of the demonic, and accurate prophecy from inaccurate. This can have to do with judging prophecy because of its relation prophecy in the list (like tongues and interpretation). But it also has other applications. It requires a great deal of knowledge, but as you know, some really smart folks are really gullible. It requires a deep walk with the Lord as well. And you can imagine the exercise of this gift, especially if it was well recognized in the church, would save a lot of grief.
2. Acts 5:3, 1 John 4:1, Rev 2:2
3. Illustration: maybe similar to women’s intuition, but not just that, "Discernment is Gods call to intercession, never to fault finding."
4. Some of you have a strong sense when things aren’t right. I don’t mean simply, “I got a bad feeling about this,” (we all have that related to worry and fear), but a impression or illumination from the Spirit of God that this decision or this person or this idea is not from God. And realize that this is a serious thing, and many times we are prone to project our own personal agendas and opinions into our feelings of uneasiness. And we want to exercise great caution in doing harm to the advancement of the gospel because of our uneasiness. But this gift is so helpful. Sometimes it is just a cautionary impression, sometimes it is a clear feeling of demonic influence, and sometimes we are just letting our minds get the better of us. But if as a church we could recognize the people who have this gift, and listen to them, we would do well. Maybe you know you have that gift. Share that, and test it and prove it. And New River, we must be quicker to listen to those individuals when they speak, instead of always siding with our preferences.
A. Closing illustration: During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch.
With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all.
The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief.
A multimillionaire living in poverty.
The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.
Many Christians live in spiritual poverty.
They are entitled to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his energizing power, but they are not aware of their birthright.
• Word about natural talent
• Word about gifting vs. maturity
• Word about level of giftedness
• Reminder about superiority complexes
• Reminder about purpose/source of gifts
• Reminder about the gospel
