Spiritual Gifts (Part 1)

If you go to the back page of the introduction, you're going to see the entire bibliography. First Corinthians 1 -12 is part of it.

Spiritual gifts is many things, but what it's perceived to be is not always the case.

And so that's why I think, we think, the church leaders, Jeff thinks, it's important that we take the time to talk about spiritual gifts.

We want to understand biblically why we're studying it, and eventually understand what they are, and eventually, the major punchline is, so what?

So what? Because they're not just there to be there. It's not like waking up Christmas morning and you have a bunch of gifts, or,

I really surprised my mother -in -law the other day, about a week ago,

I had gone out to the store and I came home with a bouquet of flowers for her. Just to give her flowers.

That's not what spiritual gifts is all about. It's not this act of love and an amazing outreach that God has for us so that we can feel good.

That's not what it is. So we're going to study it. The introduction, hopefully, we're going to get through this whole thing.

Jen, you've got 2 Timothy, John 14, Rich, Bob, 1 Corinthians 4, 1

Peter 4, Kimberley. Stan, give me 1

Corinthians 12. Give me 1 Corinthians 12. Now, about spiritual gifts, brothers,

I do not want you to be ignorant. Okay. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, I don't want you to be ignorant.

Other versions, what version are you reading, Stan? American Standard. No, American Standard. Other versions are going to use the word unaware as opposed to ignorant.

It means much the same thing. So filling in my little block there concerning spiritual gifts,

I don't want you to be, you can either say ignorant or unaware. That's what we're here for. I don't want you to be unaware.

Now, it's interesting, if you go back to the Greek, pneumatico is the word that's in that verse.

It's not charismata. Charismata, if you have any insight into the

Greek, that's typically the word that when you're reading through the scriptures, that's what you will see for the word spiritual gifts.

Where we get charisma. Yes, where we get the word. But pneumaticon is here.

That's actually spiritual matters. But I believe it's germane to what we're studying because the passage immediately shifts into the concept of charismata.

In fact, that's the word that will be used for the rest of the chapter. What he's saying here is things of the spirit.

Things of the spirit. And in this case, as he goes on to it, he expands it to say things of spiritual gifts.

I don't want you to be ignorant. What message does Paul have for us in that first verse of chapter 12?

And why is that important? Why is that an important concept? Well, he says at the end there, you know,

I want you to be ignorant. So, he's going to explain, you know, what the spiritual gifts are.

He doesn't want us to be in the dark. You know, out in that field somewhere. That God Almighty has promised to give, you know, to the

Holy Spirit. Our spiritual gifts. And the Holy Spirit will give that to you. So, Paul's coming along very strongly.

He's saying, you know, everybody has it, but I don't want you to be ignorant about it. I want you to understand what it is.

He wants us to know what the gifts are. To see if we have them for the purpose of edifying the rest of the church.

Excellent. So, you guys have brought out some tremendous points so far. These are our gifts. It's important for us to know them.

And to know how we know what we have. But then to understand, why are they there in the first place?

What's the purpose? What's the function of the spiritual gifts? So, in this next three weeks, below the line now, the purpose of the class is to learn about spiritual gifts.

That's really it. 1 Timothy 3, 16 -17. So, first we're going to go to Scriptures.

If we want to learn what God wants to teach us about spiritual gifts, first we're going to go to Scriptures.

If you go to the back page, over the last month and a half, as I've been working on it, all of the various Scriptures that I've found, and I didn't find them all myself.

Some of them come from all of the references, the other references that have led me. So, in studying it, but the first thing we want to do is understand scripturally what it has to say before we sit back and look at, well, what have different authors, what have different people said about it.

John 14. Rich? John 14. John 14, 26. That's okay.

That's all right. John 14, 26. So, in addition to this, what do we have?

Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. So as we spend time in this, this is not an academic classroom.

This is not intended to be an academic classroom. This is intended to be an opportunity to take

God's Word, which is given to us, all scriptures is given by God, okay, is profitable for, but with the help of the

Holy Spirit to be able to turn it into something that means something for us, 1 Corinthians 4.

Bob, I think you got that? Yes, yep. I'm reading the NIV. I always thank God, thank my

God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way, with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge,

God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our

Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. In addition to the scriptures, in addition to the

Holy Spirit that dwells within us, what do we have? Grace. God's grace.

God's riches at Christ's expense, if you like that little acronym, it's a good one, but it's that empowerment within us that God places there that allows us to react, to respond, to take on what it is

He's taught us, 1 Peter 4, 11. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God.

If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Why are we studying this in the first place? Why spiritual gifts in the first place?

It's God's glory. It's God's glory. So as we go through this, as we pursue this, as we seek the scriptures, as we rely on the

Holy Spirit, as grace empowers us, the intent is not for us to become more clever.

God wants us to learn. God wants us to spend time. God wants us to grow in Him, but at the end of the day, the purpose behind it all is so that we become smarter people.

It's what? It's God. It's God. It's God's glory. So as we go through these three weeks, this week the intent is to give us an understanding of the biblical concept of spiritual gifts.

This is important. There are concepts, there are expectations of what spiritual gifts that have developed either by very, very godly authors, very, very strong people, or they've been developed by denominations who have their belief of what tongues are or what cessation means and stuff like that.

And while it's not bad to pursue these things, it's important, first of all, for us to build and I was going to draw a picture, but I forgot to.

This is the foundation. This is the foundation, and that's what we're doing today. We're putting the foundation for our going forward into a study of the spiritual gifts.

Next week we're going to review the spiritual gifts that are presented in the Bible. Those are all the building blocks.

There are a lot of them. We're going to see there are a lot of them. 1 Corinthians 12,

Romans 12, Romans 13, Romans 14, Ephesians 4, 1

Peter. They are all over the place. They're an amazing number. We're going to go through, see spiritually what they are, and hopefully we'll have time to actually discuss some of the stickier ones.

That would be in week two. Week three then is we're going to learn how we can be aware of our spiritual gifts personally.

How can we each be aware of our spiritual gifts? I had a discussion with Jeff a couple of weeks ago about this lesson.

He was relieved to know that it's not my intent to use one of these psychological surveys.

That's not the intent. That's not how we're going to do it. We're going to attempt to see how biblically we can understand what our spiritual gifts are, but even more important than knowing what they are, it's the so what, and how are they to be used.

That's what we're going to do. It's going to go to the second page. That's this week's lesson. If you're interested, by the way, all of the scriptures, and I think

I chatted a couple, I apologize. All the scriptures for the three weeks are listed back here, and if you're interested in looking up books that I've used, they're listed there, but for me the most important thing are the scriptures.

So that's where we are. Time to open up with a word of prayer. Rick Thompson, would you open us up?

Father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather, and we thank you for the opportunity to learn more on the subject from your word.

We pray that you would guide John and us in his teaching and our learning, and pray that you would be glorified in all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Okay, so I'm going to start here. We did a couple at random, but I'm going to start here. You got 1 Corinthians 7, 7.

If you see on the second line, 1 Corinthians 13, 10, and Hebrews 8, 5. The definition of spiritual gifts.

Before we do that, throw it out for me. What do you think a spiritual gift is? Ability.

Ability to understand and explain God's Word in purpose of glorifying God and building up the

Church. You hit a ton of stuff. A ton of excellent stuff there.

It's going to go a little bit deeper than just explaining the Word of God because we're going to see spiritual gifts go beyond the proclamation of Word.

But you hit a really, really good ton of stuff there. How about the first passage of 1

Corinthians 7. First and foremost, spiritual gifts are something from God.

That's almost too easy to expect. But spiritual gifts are something from God. We're going to get into that.

In fact, I'm going to do that right now before I move on to the next one. The second paragraph. Galatians.

Stan, if you look at Galatians 5, 22 and 23, you might know this offhand, who the spirits are.

So if you need to look it up, go ahead. I have to sing it. Do you see it green?

See it green, do you have one on that? Yeah. Okay, there you go. So can you sing it for me? I'm a spirit.

Stan, I don't think you have to read it. What is the difference between a gift and a fruit?

A gift is given and a fruit grows. Okay. The fruit is the result of the gift.

A fruit is definitely the result of a gift, but it's the result of a spiritual life. I think it's...

I was going to say, you know, so Bronsberg says that each of us has been given a specific gift, and some may have more than others, but we are all to reflect the fruit of the

Spirit, because we're enthralled by the Spirit. We either do that well, or we, like we say, we have to grow.

We're still ripening or maturing in maybe some of the fruits, but there's going to come more. Absolutely. That's exactly it.

We don't know... I don't know necessarily what your spiritual gift is, but I do know that you're supposed to have all nine of the fruits.

What's the difference between a gift and a passion or a talent?

I mean, clearly not everybody has the same talent, or not everybody has the same passion. Let me ask it this way.

Is youth ministry a gift, a talent, or a passion?

A combination. I think talent, it can be...

It doesn't have to be spiritual. Anybody can have a talent. They don't have to be Christians to have a talent.

You could play the guitar and use that talent to glorify God by... You can have a talent at even teaching, like being an educator, but that's not a spiritual gift of teaching

Scripture. Excellent. Excellent. Youth ministry, if I had made that entire thing, is not a gift.

Youth ministry is a passion. Ministry might be a gift.

There's no word in Scripture that says, I am a teacher of youth. It says, I am a teacher. So you may have a youth or a talent towards reaching a specific age group, but scripturally, you're absolutely right.

God gives talents and passions to people in general. God gives spiritual gifts to those who

He would give them to from God's passage. Spiritual gifts are first and foremost a gift from God.

That's what they are. 1 Corinthians 13, tense? When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

And then Hebrews 8, 5. This isn't in the middle of a passage?

It says, Who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things? That's what I wanted. What we have as a spiritual gift is just a shadow of the perfect.

As awesome as it may be to have the gift of discernment, or to have the gift of helps, it's a shadow.

Everything that we have in the here and now is a shadow of the more perfect to come to be. So don't take an expectation that Jeff has the gift of prophecy.

We'll get into that one. He has the gift of teaching. We'll get into that one. Foretelling, foretelling.

Okay, whatever. But as amazing as somebody might have a gift, it's a foreshadow because what's going to come is going to be even better.

So let's not overstate, but we've got to be careful to not understate. I'm going to hold off the third point there because it is an author's definition, and I want to hold that off to the end.

The role of the Holy Spirit. If we're talking about gifts, we're talking about learning through the

Scripture, but clearly the role of the Holy Spirit. We're only going to look at Acts 5.

Stan, you've got Acts 1 -5. The rest of them are actually basically saying the same thing.

John 15, Rick. Acts 1 -8, Arlene, if you would get those.

And then Romans 8 -26, Peter, if you would get that. Go ahead, Stan. For John is baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the

Holy Spirit. We have been what? Baptized.

What does it mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit? Anointed. Okay.

That's another great 25 -cent Christian word. What does it mean? What does it mean?

What's the word? Baptized. He used the word anointed. Holy Spirit inside of you?

Filled? We have a dwelling. We have an identity.

We talk about baptism. You're baptized. You're brought out. It's an identity. We have an identity.

That's who we are. That's what our essence now is. It's the Holy Spirit. As we move forward, we're talking about spiritual gifts.

The Holy Spirit, that's our identity. It's who we are. Which is to say that this is not a topic for non -believers.

This is not a lesson that really would make any sense to a non -believer because they're not going to experience spiritual gifts until they have the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. Rick, how about yours? But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the

Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

We're going to learn everything we need to know when the Holy Spirit comes. That's our teacher.

That's our teacher. Acts 1 -8? It's page 26 and 27.

I'm sorry, Acts 1 -8? Oh, Acts 1 -8. No, no, Arlene's got that.

Okay. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all

Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth. There can be a perception of a gifting of the

Holy Spirit that humility is really godliness. I can't put myself in front.

I can't do this. It's not right for me. No, that's not true.

When the Holy Spirit comes, we are going to receive what? Power.

So the expectation is when a gift has been given to you and you are obedient and utilizing it for God's glory, and we're going to see for the unity of the church, this is not going to be putting

Gen up on a pedestal, which I love to do, by the way. This is not going to be any of that.

This is God's power, not your power. What happens if God has given you a gift, and the

Holy Spirit is entwelling you, and you receive power after the Holy Spirit comes, and you go, I just don't think

I should. What are you doing? Putting your light under a bushel.

Putting your light under a bushel. You know, a good example of that Holy Spirit is right there in Acts, when he empowered

Peter in the very, very beginning, when 3 ,000 people became converted. Peter was not known to be a leader, but at that time he was empowered with the

Holy Spirit. And what he spoke, people heard, and that is the power of the

Holy Spirit, how it used, how it allowed Peter to emphasize, you know, that Jesus had risen in 3 ,000 in Belize.

I think a good example of this is, you talk about the cowering, you think back to when God sent the spies into Israel, and Joshua and Caleb are like,

God has given to us, like, let's go take what God has given us. And then the others are the more cowering, like, oh, no, they're going to hurt us.

They're not believing in the word that God had given them. Absolutely. Romans 8.

Now it's my turn. Yes. Romans 8, 26 and 27, it says,

Just like wise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for us, but the

Spirit himself makes intercession for us, the groaning which cannot be uttered.

Now he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Often this passage is used in discussing prayer and how the Holy Spirit helps us pray. But at the beginning of it, it flat out says that we are helped in our weaknesses.

The reality of the role of the Holy Spirit is to transition this concept of what about holy spiritual gifts, what about our role, to transition from me, to transition from what

I'm going to bring to the table to what God has brought to the table through me and my weakness.

For those who are going to be challenged in a couple of weeks to look at spiritual gifts, there might be this uncomfortableness that I don't know,

I don't know. Okay, good, that's a great place to be. You don't know, the

Holy Spirit will help you in your weakness. A good example of that is Moses. He said,

I can't speak. So he got his brother Aaron to speak for him. You know, sometimes we have a gift, but sometimes we don't utilize it, and we use the person sitting next to us that may have a stronger gift in that sense, and they utilize it.

So how do we obtain our spiritual abilities? Now, using a word there carefully, we get spiritual gifts through the

Holy Spirit. The fact that you've been given a spiritual gift doesn't mean you've developed it yet.

We have a role. We have a role to play. Somebody here may have the gift of teaching and has not yet been put in a position to teach.

You have to be part of that. You have to be co -responsible with the

Holy Spirit to develop and to work on it. But the first step of developing the spiritual ability on top of the spiritual gift,

Kimberly Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 4. Bob, if you would get that. For by the grace given me,

I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith

God has given you. Yeah, Bob. 1 Corinthians 4, 6 -7.

Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying,

Do not go beyond what is written. Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other for who makes you different from anyone else.

What do you have that you did not receive? If you did not receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

The first step is don't do what? Think more highly of yourself. Stay humble.

Stay humble. It's tough sometimes to take a position.

I would imagine for Jeff, it has to be difficult. Satan would be always on the attack.

Always on the attack. He's up front. He's the shepherd. He is the teacher.

He has to remain humble. He can't think more highly of himself. The minute you start thinking highly of yourself, what are you relying on?

Yourself. We are told to rely on God. I think that is for all of us.

That involves everybody. Absolutely. One of the means of God being able to use us is to be humble and to allow the

Holy Spirit to bring about in our lives those gifts that He wants us to use within the church setting.

As we will see in 1 Corinthians 12, we will be able to see that we are part of a body and each one of us has a gift that we can use for the edifying of the church.

A gift that is going to be for the glorifying of God within the church.

Absolutely. So humbleness is a means to get there. Absolutely. By the way, it has been really kind of cool some of the things that God has spoken for me and I hope as you.

I never realized what a powerful portion of the discussion of spiritual gifts 1

Corinthians 13 is. A love chapter, yes it is. And you are going to see that.

Not only humility, love. It is the package of love. Do not think more highly of yourself.

Do not think more highly of yourself. The next one I am going to skip just for time. We talked about it. It says that understanding spiritual gifts comes from God.

That is 1 Peter 4, 10 and Ephesians 4. But 1 Corinthians 12, 11. I apologize,

I do not know your name. Sue. Sue, thank you. I will try to remember. If you can get 1

Corinthians 12, 11. I left my Bible in the car. I ran in here. That is okay. How about you?

1 Corinthians 12, 11. All these are empowered by one in the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

As he wills. So as God has given gifts, we are going to get into that.

It is his plan. It is his gain. It is his choice. It is his will for you to have a certain gift.

And we get into week 3 and we start to pursue and we start to maybe feel a little uncomfortable about that gift because it does not...

Well, no. It is God's will. Or maybe,

I really wish I could have the gift of such and such. It is

God's will that you are who you are. Romans 12, 1 and 2.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God in which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, not by any testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable to God.

What I am pulling out of that is don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the

Holy Spirit. If you want to understand spiritual gifts, don't be led by the world's thoughts.

Be surrendered to God. Be transformed to Him. If you feel that the world is encouraging you in a certain way, if the world makes it seem attractive to have this gift, don't be motivated by what the world says.

Be transformed by the thinking of God. Then you will be empowered to do what He wants you to do. One body, one spirit.

1st Corinthians 12, verses 4 -6. Jen, if you would get that. The question as we go through this is how does the concept of one body impact your understanding of spiritual gifts?

There's a lot of teaching in the Scripture about one body, one spirit, one God. Go ahead. There are different kinds of gifts with the same spirit.

There are different kinds of service with the same Lord. There are different kinds of working but the same

God works all of them in all men. There's various gifts but they all come from God, one spirit.

All of them come from one spirit. There are those authors, and I'll express things that I've read that I may or may not agree with, but there are those authors who, when you go into some of the passages, kind of sound like the ones that are listed first on the list or the most important and it works its way down the list.

There's too much teaching that talks about the equality of every member of the body for that to be true.

Everything we got came from one God, the same gift. If you have the gift of encouragement, it's no more important or less important than somebody who might have the gift of discernment.

It's all one God. We're all serving one God. Isn't that like when he describes the functions of the body and the hand and the eye?

We're going to actually read that in just a second. It's a good lead -in though. Romans 12, 4 -8.

Ron? We start there with this. Go ahead. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.

So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

We're one body. There's various gifts, but we're all one body. That's kind of expressed more in depth in 1

Corinthians 12. 12 -26, but for time we're going to read 12 -15.

And then verse 20. 19. For just as the body is one, it has many members, and all members of the body.

Though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body.

Jews and Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many.

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 part of the body.

And then 19 -20. If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The fact that somebody is a left pinky finger, and somebody else is an elbow.

One body. One body. If you read through that whole passage in its entirety, it teaches us through the analogy of the body, that we all depend on one another.

And, all members are to be honored equally. All of them.

Well, I mean, I know you know the passage in 1 Corinthians 12, 31, but earnest in desire are the higher gifts.

Yes. It seems to be counted as doing it to some of us. Yes. And I appreciate you taking that.

I was actually going to get to there next week. The higher gifts. I don't want to spend a lot of time on that, but what do you think that means,

Rick? I was waiting for you to...

Next week. Next week. But let me give you this as a tease. There are certain gifts that have a level of accountability in front of God for how we administer it more than others.

The gift of teaching has a higher accountability in front of God. Pastors has a higher accountability in front of God.

Rick, that's about as far as I'm ready to go today, and that's kind of as far as I've gotten to it, because 1

Corinthians 12 does talk about the co -equality and dependency of everybody on everything.

But, there are certain gifts that God has called out for a special honor. Does that make sense?

But with greater responsibility. With greater responsibility, yes. Ephesians 4.

Who's next? As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wave of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even

Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body through the building up of itself in love.

A healthy body is what? Mature. Not only mature. There's a word that she had in there a couple of times.

But mature is true. A growing body. A healthy body is a growing body.

If a certain piece of the body is growing, while the piece next to it is atrophying, what happens?

Problems. Problems. Absolutely problems. There cannot be, within the body of Christ, people who have been given a clear gift of the

Holy Spirit and who deny usage of that Spirit. There can't be full health within that body.

We each depend on each other. A healthy body is a growing body. A body that's not growing is doing what?

It's got problems. Leave it at that. Towards the end, and this is an important part, the purpose behind the spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12, 7. Now to each one the manifestation of the

Spirit is given for the common good. Why are gifts given?

So that I can write it on my membership application when I go to my next church.

Isn't that? Why are they given? To build up the body of Christ.

Build up the body of Christ. What are you saying? Glorify God. Glorify God, yes. And this passage particularly is for the common good.

And again, what happens when not all the gifts that God has called into that body are not being used?

Suffering. Something is missing. Something is suffering. 1

Corinthians 4, 10. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.

Would it be used in what? For the service of others.

And I love the way the passage uses the word steward.

What does that imply about our use of the gifts? It's an instruction to us.

It's not really ours. What God, it's actually

God being in service to everybody else through us because he's given it to us and we're to be stewards and use it in service to everybody else.

Do you ever think about the concept of taking your spiritual gift, using it within the body?

What you're actually doing is allowing God to be used through you in that way.

And it puts another perspective to it. I think that goes back to the verse 2, John, that you mentioned about it. It's a shadow of what's the common good.

And we're displaying a small portion of what God's going to be when we're in heaven with God.

Yeah, that's an interesting thought. When we're in Jerusalem, are we going to have spiritual gifts?

I don't know. Maybe in the millennium. Huh? In the millennium. The millennium, that's an interesting, that's a fascinating time.

If you go to the end of the millennium, because if you go to the end of the millennium, what happens at the end of the millennium?

This is a rabbit trail. What happens at the end of the millennium? You return to the eternal state. No. What happens at the end of the millennium?

Satan gets released. Satan gets released and gets another chance. That means that there are people born during the millennium who have not yet accepted

Christ. Which says that probably spiritual gifts are there. Yeah. Which says probably they're there.

Anyway, Ephesians 4. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the

Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning or craftiness in deceitful schemes.

There are three concepts in it. I'll give them to you. If we're equipping, the body needs to be fully equipped because there are forces out there that are attempting to put the wrong stuff in place.

Equipping for building up, for those who need spiritual help, for those who need encouragement, for those who need protection, for the building up.

By the way, that says that we need to allow others to build us up. We need to be transparent and willing to let others help build us up.

And for the unity of the body, within the diversity of the gifts, is to be one body.

Unity. In what way? How should we be exhibiting unity?

In a protection of our faith in everything. That's what the gifts are going to be doing for us.

They're going to equip us, build us, and ultimately, 1 Peter 4 .11. 1 Peter 4 .11

says, If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which

God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

Ultimately, the gifts are for God. I have some questions in the back.

You can take time. We have just a couple of minutes, but I wanted to ask a question. I have a definition.

I've read a lot of different books, and there are different definitions of the spiritual gifts.

So now, we're going outside of what the scripture specifically said. We're trying to summarize it or comprehend it.

How would you define a spiritual gift at this point in time? A divine empowerment for service given to believers to build up the body of Christ to the glory of God.

Okay, so I had here, Spiritual gifts, any ability as empowered by the Holy Spirit for use in any ministry of the church.

That's my fill in the blank. Thank you, Kimberly. I find that to be very, very close.

We're going to talk about a nuance to that, because this particular author, and I like this almost, it said to be used in any ministry of the church.

The difficulty on that one is tongues, and we'll get into that, because tongues are almost a private.

But anyway, we'll get into that. Another one I had heard, which I thought was interesting, but it didn't quite make it for me, but then it did, was that gifts are an empowerment, not a position.

Now the concept that was behind there was, a gift is not to be set into the position of being a teacher, or into the position of being a pastor.

But then you go into the scriptures, and it's listed there. I gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets. So you've got to go into that.

And in reality, I think what the author of that one meant, is that it's not so much the position as what the position does.

That's what the position does. So if you read into some of these, and we'll be looking at them next week, and they look like it's a position, the position of an overseer.

Well that's true, but it's not for the self -glorification, it's for the glorification of God.

And how do you glorify God? By doing what you're supposed to be doing, when you're where you're supposed to be. The gifts of the

Spirit are things, abilities, talents, whatever. Things the

Holy Spirit has given us, so that we can be of service to the church, and of glory to God.

Next week we're going to start looking at what some of those gifts are. Any thoughts? Actually, I've got one minute left.

I think one of the emphasis too, that is the emphasis for the body.

As far as our spiritual gifts for the world, they will know we are

Christians that are in love with one another, if we are exercising the gifts properly within those without.

Hopefully we'll see that evidence. Yes, yes. Salt and light. Yes. Just a little insight.

We read there in Romans 12, 3 and 1 Corinthians 4, 6, and 7. Don't think more highly of yourself.

I was thinking of Chuck Colson and the prison ministry. He was to speak with a bunch of prisoners, women prisoners.

And that night we watched the TV and on came Mother Teresa, and really showed how humble she was when she was using her spiritual gift.

There was two guys that were released from prison, had AIDS, were going to die. This was over in Indiana.

They were on TV with her, and she embraced them because they were God's creation.

Just like you and I are. She was no better than they were in her eyes. And it humbled

Chuck Colson. He went into the prison ministry the next day, and he gave his little talk, and then the chaplain of the prison said,

Hey Chuck, I want you to go meet Bessie. She has AIDS and she's dying, and I told her that I would bring a

Christmas gift to her, and you are her Christmas gift. But Chuck didn't want anything to do with AIDS.

He was like, that's a disease, I don't want to be a part of it. But God took him and broke him down.

And he went down to see Bessie, and when he was there, he gave her the opportunity to accept

Christ as her Savior, which she did. Three weeks later she dies. But it shows us that let the

Holy Spirit guide and direct you and humble you down. Chuck didn't want to be humbled, but he said at that point that God really humbled him to the point that he's no better than Bessie before the eyes of God.

And that's where we are here. The Holy Spirit is going to take each one of us and give us a gift.

Don't think of yourself more highly. Let the Spirit make us all equal, all part of the body, working with one another.

Time to close. Carrie Meyer, would you close us in prayer today? Lord, we just thank you for this time.

Thank you that you allowed each one of us to get here this morning, even though sometimes it's hard to get up and get going.

I thank you for John, who has led us well this morning, who has prepared so much, who you've given a gift of teaching.

So we appreciate that, Lord, to build us up. We just pray as we go through today, we go through the week, we go through the study, that you would empower us with your

Holy Spirit, that he would be reigning supreme in our life, that we would see the ways that we can be used for your glory.

We pray that you would make those spiritual gifts evident in our lives so that we can use them to build each other up.

We thank you for Jesus. Thank you. Do me a favor. The folding chairs need to go in the office.