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Lesson 10: Spiritual Gifts · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Father God, thank You for this lesson on spiritual gifts. And as we look to Your Word, I pray that You give us understanding and application that we might have a new understanding, a fresh outlook on the gifts that You've given us, and that we might use them to edify the body and build up the body of Christ. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
• 0:30
  The introductory paragraph on the first page of your lesson said this, but in the Greek, the word for gift is charisma. Okay? That means gift. Anybody know what the Greek word charis means? It means grace. Do you see a connection between gift and grace? What do you see? It's what?
• 1:06
  They both start with the letter G. Very observant, Clarence. Do you earn a gift? Can you do anything to get a gift? Can you request a gift? Well, I mean, it's not really a gift if you request it and someone gives it to you, is it? Grace. Do we earn grace? Something that we don't deserve, right? Someone's favor that they give you that you don't deserve is just given to us. We can't earn it.
• 1:38
  Grace is by someone loves you and gives you something that you didn't deserve. So there's a real connection there. That's why I see how charis is the root for charisma, a gift. It's related. But if you even drop out more, char is the word. Greek means joy. When we exercise our gifts in the body of Christ,
• 2:09
  It's a source of joy for you. It's a source of joy for the body of Christ. Because we are ministering to one another. Kind of on that first page of our lesson. I've closed mine, but you can open yours. Why did we have spiritual gifts? Where did they come from? First of all, real easy. From God. From the Holy Spirit. That's why they're called spiritual gifts. Why did He give them to us?
• 2:46
  So that we use them. Is that what you wrote down in your book? To build up other believers. To build up the body of Christ. Who has a spiritual gift? All of us? Every believer has a spiritual gift. Turn to 1 Peter 4, verse 10. Peter 4, verse 10 and 11.
• 3:28
  Can somebody read that for us, please? Okay, a couple of things I want us to see in this verse and point out is that each one has received...
• 4:08
  A gift. Note that that is in singular, not plural. And MacArthur pointed that out in the study also. Everyone has received a gift. Almost every presentation on spiritual gifts I've heard, people have always taught, well, everyone has at least one gift, and most of you have more than one. And you can have more than one gift in that. Well, Peter there says everyone has received a gift. And MacArthur,
• 4:40
  I actually pointed that out in our study, but he kind of got around that, incorporating the idea that you might have more than one, but with the analogy of an artist that has a palette of different color paints, and he kind of mixes them and blends them so he has one color in that. And so MacArthur calls that everyone has a giftedness, a giftedness which might include a mixture of combination of some of the gifts.
• 5:09
  But he did point out that it is singular. You only have one. Everyone has a gift. The common teaching is everyone has at least one gift, maybe more than one gift. I want to share with you tonight, since almost everybody did their lesson, you got what MacArthur was teaching there, a perspective that was taught to me that I learned back in 1975, a long time ago.
• 5:39
  And it's going to be a little bit different than what you've always heard. And the reason why I want to share that with you is because for me, when you see this long list of gifts, and you've got a list in 1 Corinthians 12, and you've got a list in Romans 12, and a list in Ephesians 4, it gets kind of daunting. It's like, well, which one do I have? What do I do in that? But this particular...
• 6:09
  that I'm going to just share with you very briefly tonight. I mean, this really should be a three and a half hour talk to be real convincing that, but I'm going to give you a glimpse of it. And the reason why I want to share it is it really helped me to get a handle on my spiritual gift so that I could actually use it effectively, okay? And it makes sense to me. Because I've really only heard this from one or maybe two teachers,
• 6:37
  It's not real common. I kind of go like, well, I can't really teach it like this is the only way. Because if it was, more people would be agreeing to it. But this worked for me. So that's why I'm going to share it with you. What else in 1 Peter 4? Each one has one gift. And gift is charisma. Again, as good stewards of God's grace. You notice charis is in there. And he gives.
• 7:05
  And then in verse 11, he points out that there's two classifications of gifts. There's speaking gifts and serving gifts. That's one way that some people talk about and present their study in spiritual gifts, is their speaking gifts and their serving gifts. Everyone has a gift, okay? Let's turn now to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
• 7:44
  Gift was his singular in 1 Peter. 1 Corinthians 12. And I'm going to look, first of all, at verses 4 to 6. Okay? Does anyone want to read that verse for us? Clarence has already read once. Danielle? Okay.
• 8:17
  Diversities of activities. The teaching that I have heard says that there are gifts. There are ministries. What's the next one, right? Different ministries. And what was the last one? Activities. Okay. Any other words that your translations have? Workings.
• 9:02
  workings, or I will also say manifestations. What this is, is he defined these as a gift is a basic motivation. When do we get our spiritual gift? When you reach your maturity, when you've been a Christian for six years and three months and two days, or when do you get your spiritual gift? You're born with it, aren't you? You're born with it? Immediately when what?
• 9:40
  What were you going to say, Danny? Okay. Where does the spiritual gift come from? God or the Holy Spirit. When do you receive the Holy Spirit? I know different churches have a different opinion, but according to the Scripture... Right. It is the Holy Spirit that gives you new birth. The Holy Spirit conceived Jesus in Mary. The Holy Spirit...
• 10:13
  really conceives Jesus in you and places you in the body of Christ at the moment of salvation. You have the Holy Spirit. Romans 8 says anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, you don't belong to God. Okay? So when you were saved, you received the Holy Spirit. At that point when the Holy Spirit came into your life, He gave you a gift so that you can minister to the whole body and help build up the body.
• 10:42
  And that's necessary. If you only have a pastor in the church, it's the only one that's exercising his spiritual gift, that is going to be an anemic church. And it's not going to be growing. Certainly the pastor's in front. And he's done study and preparation and preaches God's Word. But there's a lot of other things that need to go on to grow the body of Christ, help us to all mature in that.
• 11:15
  We need a Bob Jones who will go and sit with you in the hospital and pray for you. We need that stuff going on. So we need to exercise our gifts. But we receive this gift when we're saved. It's different than natural abilities. God might give you a natural ability, like you're running fast.
• 11:45
  Like, oh, I'm seeing your moment on the runner. Eric Little is what I was thinking of, who said, God made me fast. And when I run fast, I feel His smile. I feel God's pleasure. That's a natural ability God gave me, not a spiritual gift. But we have natural abilities, but the spiritual gift is given to us to minister to one another. Not to make me proud and say, oh, I've got this.
• 12:15
  I can do this for the Lord. I do this in the church. No. It is to help our brothers and sisters in the church. Other believers. This is why He gave us spiritual gifts. We have different ministries. Turn to Ephesians 4. And let's see. I think it starts in verse 7. That's where I want to start at. Yeah. 7 through...
• 12:56
  Twelve. We have different ministries, positions in the church, ways that we operate our spiritual gift in. Somebody read verses 7 and 8 and skip the parenthesis in 9 and 10 and go to 11 and 12.
• 13:29
  And He gave gifts to men. In verse 11 or 12? And 11 says, And He gave them prophets, evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Okay. This is a key verse in what I would consider church doctrine and how a church is supposed to function. Notice again, He gave Christ's gift, charisma,
• 14:01
  And it started off according to His grace. He gave it, each of us, according to charis. He gave it. So grace and gifts are always linked together, you see. He appointed some. Some translations say He appointed some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. He appointed, He gave. These are positions.
• 14:30
  In the church. There are offices in the church. And you can have a certain gift. I'm going to get to those in a minute. But we have different positions in the church. Whereas we can exercise our gift through our position. Now some of them are directly correlated. For example, if you had the gift of prophecy. And how is prophecy defined? According to the book. According to the lesson.
• 14:59
  You remember it. You can cheat and look if you want, but what is prophecy, the gift of prophecy? No one knows what the gift of prophecy is? Preaching. Okay, to tell forth, preach, or I will say proclaim God's truth. Okay? Declaring God's truth. Most people, only the first thing that comes to my mind is foretelling, telling something in the future.
• 15:29
  Most of the prophets in the Bible did that, but that was a minor part of their job. Their basic job was to tell the people what God said. To foretell, not foretell. I mean, foretell is included. So, a prophet might have the gift of prophecy. Well, obviously a really good office to exercise that in would be a pastor or teacher. To tell God's word.
• 15:58
  And that's an activity, or that's the office. And we have different offices listed there in Ephesians 4. Now, go back to 1 Corinthians 12. I guess I could have told you to keep your finger in there, huh? But I didn't. So we read verses 4 through 6. Now, there's varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There's varieties of service or ministries, but the same Lord.
• 16:35
  There are varieties of activities or effects or workings, some translations say, but it's the same God who empowers them all and everyone. Now, verse 7. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. And he goes on and lists things that are called the gifts of the Spirit. One's given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom. To another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit.
• 17:06
  The gift of faith. MacArthur talked about the gift of faith. Someone that gets healing in response. Someone who is healed in response to someone's prayer of faith is really the gift of faith. Not really the gift of healing. God's the healer. And you'll remember that from the sermon. There's gifts of healing by one's spirit. To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another, the ability.
• 17:34
  To distinguish between spirits. The gift of discernment. The church really needs that today. Because there's a lot of flaky teachings flying around the airwaves. The gift of discernment is an important one. Various kinds of tongues. Which MacArthur said is really talking about languages. The word is language. Glossolalia.
• 17:58
  To another, interpretations of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. Paul in here calls those manifestations. And I'll put that 1 Corinthians 12. What did I just read? 7 through what? 11? Okay. So, when we use our basic motivation gift, and I'm going to get to those next.
• 18:32
  In whatever job or function we have within the church, whether it is serving others by doing visitation or helps like through the Helping Hands ministry, that's a position in the church that we encourage the body of Christ and help build it up. That is our ministry or a job we have. The Holy Spirit will work a different manifestation. Something will work out in people's lives when we do that.
• 19:02
  Do you see that connection there? Okay. Now, let's turn and look at what are the basic motivational gifts. And let's turn to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. And I'm going to start reading in verse 3 through... For by the grace, grace is always a key element in the gifts.
• 20:00
  It's not only the root for the same word, charisma, but they're always married up. There's nothing you can do to earn a gift. There's nothing you do to deserve it. It's by God's grace. It's just a gift of the Spirit that we don't earn. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, because it's by grace, right? He's no source of pride there.
• 20:27
  But to think with sober judgment. What does sober judgment mean to say to you when he says that? I don't think he's talking about don't have a beer before you do this. That's not what he means by sober judgment. Have a sane or correct view of yourself. Some people think of themselves as lowly worms. I don't deserve anything in that. Don't think too lowly of yourself. Don't think too highly of yourself. Okay?
• 21:06
  Have a sober, a sane judgment, a correct judgment of yourself. Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. God has given us faith. For as in one body, we have many members. And the members do not all have the same function. He goes into great detail later on in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
• 21:30
  with the analogy of the body, which I'm sure every one of you have heard. We can't all be the eye, we can't all be the head, but the body needs every part of the body to function properly. And that's spelled out very plainly in 1 Corinthians 12, the second half of that chapter. And Paul uses that analogy here in Romans 12. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,
• 22:00
  So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. We all belong to one another. We're one functioning body. So we have gifts, charismatia, that differ according to the grace, charis, given to us. So let us use them. He's saying each one has a gift. And they're different according to what grace God has given you. So use them. In a way, he's saying,
• 22:30
  and we'll see as the grammatical construction here on these gifts that he lists, he tells you to focus on that gift. Concentrate on that gift. He says, if you have the gift of prophecy in the proportion to your faith, if service in your serving, one who teaches, focus on his teaching.
• 22:57
  The one who exhorts in his exhortation. The one who contributes in generosity. This is a gift of giving. The one who leads with zeal. That's sometimes called administration. Leadership or administration. The one who does acts of mercy. Do it cheerfully. There are seven gifts there. That he lists in Romans 12. That according to his teaching is your basic motivation. And he holds that every one.
• 23:27
  of us have one of those seven gifts. Okay, what was the first one? I'm going to write them up here. Prophecy. Okay. Next one. Ministry. I'm sorry, what? Ministering. Is there another word? Service? It didn't sound quite right in my mind. Okay, prophecy. Okay.
• 24:05
  Prophecy, I'll use serving. That's what ESV has. Serving. Prophecy, we'll call it service. We'll just make it a noun. Okay, the third one? Encouragement or exhortation. Okay. The fourth one? Teaching. Fifth one? Giving. The gift that everyone hopes someone else has, right?
• 24:58
  No. And then mercy. There's one other one, I think, before that that we missed. Leading. Okay. Mercy. Administrations are leading. So I got that out. Or leadership. Now, there are seven listed there. And my teacher that was teaching that says, everyone has one of those seven.
• 25:31
  And he uses this as an example. Now, really this helped me to function better instead of this big list of 23 gifts or something that so many times people just lump them all into one thing. If I have the gift of mercy, whatever job I'm doing within the church, and this can change.
• 25:59
  I can have different times, I can have different positions within the church, the body of Christ. But if I always, whatever I'm doing, if I do it with the motivation to show mercy to people, then the Holy Spirit will give different manifestations in that. Some people will just feel loved, built up, and others encouraged. If my gift is exhortation,
• 26:27
  I'm always trying to encourage others. I want to say a word that would encourage people. I can have different positions within the church. I could be an elder. I might be a pastor. I could be a pastor's wife, a science school teacher. But if whatever activity and ministry I'm doing within the church, if I do it with, okay, I've got to remember, my gift is exhorting others, encouraging them.
• 26:55
  then I should always be trying to encourage them with whatever job I'm doing within the church. When I'm not in helping hands, okay? Yes, the activity always encourages our care receivers, you know. But if whatever I say to them should always be saying words of encouragement or exhortation when I'm there too, and the Holy Spirit will use that to produce a different manifestation.
• 27:24
  In our relationship. You got kind of understanding that? Any questions on that? I just probably did like an hour and a half presentation down to a half an hour there. Here's some neat things about that. First of all, there are verses that we are all commanded to do this. At some time or another, everyone's supposed to teach others. Tell others about God, right?
• 27:59
  Particularly if you had kids, there's a good place to start. You had to teach your kids. You're supposed to tell your neighbors, proclaim God's truth to your neighbors. We're all commanded to do all of these. There's commandments for us to encourage others. We should always be encouraging one another to teach. We're commanded to give. But if I really want to learn how to do any of these effectively,
• 28:27
  I should go to someone that has that spiritual gift or observe them doing that. Okay? And that teaches me how to do that. For example, I think what's kind of hard for me to say, I think of, let's say, Al Martinez. Y'all know Al Martinez. His exhortation, he may just...
• 28:56
  had the gift of mercy. He's always so friendly. Always just encouraging people and loving on everybody. And I'm not so outgoing as Al Martinez is. But I know I need to be more like that. So I observe him and try to copy him a little bit. I learn from Al. And Bob Jones does that too. Bob Jones is really good at that.
• 29:20
  So we are all commanded to do these kind of activities and we can learn how to do that best from someone that has that gift. Here's another principle. Whatever position or service I'm doing within the church, whenever I exercise my spiritual gift in that particular ministry and the Holy Spirit produces a particular manifestation,
• 29:52
  That's the most joy. I get joy from it, and it is easy. It is not very tiring. If I'm doing my position and trying to copy someone else's gift that I don't have, it's a drudgery. It becomes a task. And it's not so fun anymore. I'm just doing that job, okay? And that's why if we focus in Romans 12, the way that's constructed, he tells us,
• 30:25
  If you have focus on that gift, no matter what job you're doing or position you're filling in the church, which can change from time to time, but if you're doing it through your basic motivation, you will expend the least amount of energy. You will seem to be able to go on continuously and do that, and it'll be less of a drudgery. It'll be a great joy in that. Does that make sense, kind of? Like that.
• 30:59
  I'm thinking that there's another principle. Let's just stop. Any questions or just comment on that as you're processing on that? Has anyone ever heard this type of presentation before? It's very rare. Like I said, I've only heard it once or twice. But it helped me get a handle on it. So I focused on which one of these I have. And then no matter what position I've had, whether I'm a Sunday school teacher or serving in helping hands,
• 31:33
  serving on the worship team, whatever, if I keep in mind I'm going to be encouraging people or exhorting them, then it will be much more of a joy to me and it won't be drudgery and I won't get so tired and exhausted doing it. But if I'm trying to copy someone else's gift that I don't have, it will not be as fun. It will be kind of a chore. Do you think that...
• 32:00
  Whatever job you have in the church, you may be employing every one of those. At some point, using... I can see what you're saying. Let me go back to what I said. Scripture commands all of us, all of us, to do these as activities. Okay? From time to time. But that's not my basic motivational spiritual gift. So in whatever job I have, yes, I should employ doing those.
• 32:32
  But I'm not quite as joyous at giving as the person that has the spiritual gift of giving. That's a spiritual gift. They just love to give and help out. Now, I don't give drudgingly. I give with a happy heart and that. But God will give some people the gift of giving. And that doesn't have to be just money or finances either. Some people give a lot of their time.
• 33:04
  Some people go over and spend time with a disabled person and take them to Bible study or something. Okay? That's giving. Did that answer your question or not really? I kind of see it, but it seems like I think my gift is service personally. But in some of the things I do for the church, it seems like I'm doing a lot of this other too. Sure. I'm not doing it.
• 33:46
  I'm not a great teacher. I know that. Sometimes I need to work on encouraging others or motivating others. So I've asked you to teach my class before. I've asked you to lead it. And you do these. But if you're particularly... Like when you were asked to fill in for somebody like that. And if you're gifted service, just...
• 34:18
  Do it from that attitude, that basic motivation. I'm serving the body and doing that, which you always have. And God blesses that and uses that. But you're still, your basic motivation is service. Yeah, yeah, you could be.
• 35:05
  Very good. That's a perfect example of what I was trying to say. Here's another principle that this teacher shared, and I thought about it, and I haven't really done any research to confirm it or not. I'm just going to say probably so. These gifts come from the Holy Spirit.
• 35:28
  If the Holy Spirit draws the body together, you might even say a small group of people. You're all committed to being a small group. Let's just say you're a small group here. We're a small group. And we're not going to do this, but let's just say we felt called to go start another church somewhere. Just a church plant as Highland is the mother church. And just say we felt like doing that. The odds are this teacher felt, and again I can't confirm it,
• 36:00
  every one of these gifts would be present in that group, in someone. Because, I mean, the Holy Spirit gives these gifts to build up the body, and we need all those in the body. So, let's just say, if the Lord put it in our heart, this group right here, the elders said, we want to start a church community in blah, blah, blah, someplace. Will you go be the starting group of that? If this theory works out, then, at least,
• 36:32
  one person in a group, all seven of these gifts would be present because God uses those seven to build up the body. You know, as I think about that, that makes a lot of sense. It would be interesting to do research, but I don't know how to do research on that. I don't know how, but I think that it would probably be true that the Holy Spirit would call different people into that group.
• 37:01
  so that every gift is present, so that we could build up the body. Questions or comments? If that's really new to you, you know, you've got to chew on that for a while and see. Butch? Okay.
• 37:53
  Sure. It's our source of joy when we use our gift with the grace of God. It's a source of joy to you and the rest of the body. I thought that was going to take me a lot longer to get through all of that than that.
• 38:27
  I listed, oh, I know what I was going to say. How many of you have done a spiritual gifts inventory, filled out a test? I know a lot of you that have been at Highland for quite a while have done that. Did you fill one out, Brenda? Don't remember? Like I did my first one here at Highland about 15, 18 years ago. I think they still have them around. That inventory...
• 38:55
  It comes from the perspective that everyone has at least one gift. You probably have more than one. And when you do that inventory and you just do a checklist, you kind of rate how you... Well, you know, you've all done personality tests or something, and it asks you the same question about five different ways, and so that it helps pinpoint where you're at. That's a nice tool to give you a feel for what your spiritual gift is. And when I took that...
• 39:25
  When I answered those questions, it said that I had two. I had the gift of teaching and exhortation. Okay? Or encouragement. But, yeah, according to this teaching here, I really only have one. But you might be good. And maybe I'm using exhortation through the position of teaching because I have a position of teaching in the church and teach a science school class and occasionally on Wednesdays.
• 40:02
  Questions or comments? How many of you think you know what your spiritual gift is? Jill goes... Why? People hold you to it? Is that what you're saying? Be an encourager. There's a lot of ways to encourage people. I used to say, particularly in the wintertime when it's nasty out,
• 40:47
  And Laura Moore came to church. I go, Laura, you encourage me so much. Because so many people use that as an excuse to not come to church. But here she's in that wheelchair and struggles and she's still come to church. So you can be an encourager just by what you do, not necessarily even say anything. When you use your spiritual gift through whatever...
• 41:26
  job you're doing in the church or ministry, it's a real joy. God gives you joy and it ministers, has another manifestation to those that you minister to. Mm-hmm. Okay. Anybody else? We look at this and it's laid out in this way and you think of your spiritual gift as anyone kind of a light comes on at all or you go like, oh yeah, I just kind of see that in my life.
• 42:09
  Butch? Because you're here at the church all the time serving. I know. Or at least you used to be. Your hip slowed you down a little bit, I know. You had real joy doing that. Yeah. Anyone else want to share something? Okay.
• 42:46
  Uh-huh. Myself. Helping others. But, yeah. Receiving. Let me just say that if the church was full of givers and no one was receiving, who are you going to give to? There's somebody in this church that I've always been... You can't give them anything because he's always giving you something back. You know, don't steal my joy from giving to you by repaying me, you know?
• 43:20
  I get joy from ministering to you. Don't cancel that out. You've got to receive. Okay? And I'll just say, I was thinking of Dale Jackson. Okay? Because he's always doing that. And the Lord taught him how to receive when he couldn't give back. You know how he did that? Put him flat on his back for six months. And he couldn't give back. And people were coming to minister to him.
• 43:49
  He's kind of had to learn to receive, and he kind of felt bad about that. And I go like, hey, don't steal our joy. God gives us joy when we come minister mercy to you, even if we have a different gift expressing that. Some people's got to receive. And if you refuse to receive from somebody, you're stealing their blessing.
• 44:32
  Does anybody not know what their spiritual gift is, but would like to know what it is? Because I think they probably have some... Okay, you're curious and you would like to know. I think the church still has some of those spiritual gift inventories around, which is a good place to start. You just fill that out.
• 44:55
  And then it helps you score it. And you're like, okay. You can at least narrow it to two of them at least usually by taking that inventory. Let me see if I can come up with one and get it to you. Olivia, right? Okay. Yeah. Going through this teaching, I had determined what I had. But I took that test inventory anyway. And it confirmed it. So, okay. I'll see if we still got a couple of them around the church. I think we probably do.
• 45:26
  Any other questions or comments? Okay. Yeah, I really strayed from MacArthur's lesson, but I trust if most of you did that, then you've got his teaching down and it wasn't too difficult. Was there any questions on his lesson, by the way, that anyone had? Any problems with anything that I can discuss? Okay, well, let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word.
• 46:02
  What a blessing it is to be part of a body where Your Holy Spirit has not just placed us in the body like orphans, but You've given each one of us the gift that we can serve one another so that the body would be built up and that we would all be building up the body and doing the work of the church. And thank You for Your gift. Lord, we thank You for using us in that way.
• 46:32
  And may we be good stewards and faithful in using that gift, not hiding it in a napkin until you come back. But may you come back and find us each using your gift to build up the body. And knowing that that is our source of joy as we use the gift you've given us. Thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.