(1 Corinthians) the Gifts of the Spirit — Brian Brodersen

The Holy Spirit Continues Jesus’ Work Through the Church

When the earthly ministry of Jesus was coming to a close, he began to prepare his disciples to receive the helper that he would send. The helper that he was referring to is the Holy Spirit, of whom Jesus said, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

He will guide you into all truth. He will tell you things to come. He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Jesus taught, in essence, that the Holy Spirit would carry on the work that he had started.

Only through the Holy Spirit, the work would expand to the uttermost parts of the earth, the work being delegated through the Spirit among a multitude of individual believers. God never intended that the church should run on human energy or ingenuity, but rather through the energy and ingenuity of the Spirit.

In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us that it was for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, that the ascended Lord gave gifts to men. The church is to be built by the power of the Holy Spirit, working through those he has gifted.

That's why the whole subject of the gifts of the Spirit is so important. And that's why Satan has put so much effort into creating confusion over the issue. Confusion that has generally led people to hold extreme views of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit rather than the true biblical view.

Our goal is to obtain a true biblical understanding of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit, and from that, to experience to the fullest the Spirit's work in our lives. Now, before we look at the gifts individually, let me make a few remarks.

The Purpose and Context of Spiritual Gifts

First of all, we need to understand the purpose of the gifts. And Paul declares to us clearly that the purpose of the gifts are for the profit of all. God has given gifts to his people so that his church might be profited.

The gifts functioning in the body are essential to its edification. I really do feel sorry for those people today who have been taught that the gifts of the Spirit that we read about here in the New Testament are no longer available to Christians today.

That is really a sad interpretation because what it does is it deprives Christian people of the very things that God has supplied so that they might live a full Christian life in the context of the church.

So the gifts are essential. They're not optional. They are essential to a full Christian experience. The context of the gifts is twofold. The context of the gifts is, first of all, the larger body of Christ.

Now, remember that we here today, we are just a small segment of the body of Christ. The body of Christ, of course, spans the entire world. And all over the world, there are people who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They are members of the same body that we are members of. And the gifts of the Spirit will function in that context of the larger body of Christ. But secondly, they will also function in the local assembly, the general gathering of God's people, the local assembly, something like what we are involved in here today.

So in other words, we can expect to experience the gifts and have the gifts in operation in and through our lives as we deal with Christians on a worldwide level and also as we relate to one another right here in our own local fellowship.

The third thing that I want to point out to you is that it is the Spirit who works all these things. And this is a very important point. It's the Spirit who works all these things. These gifts are not the permanent possession of any believer, but rather the potential experience of every believer.

Note that they're not the permanent possession of any believer, but rather the potential experience of every believer. We are all potential recipients and vessels of these gifts. We can all experience these gifts at one time or another, but they are the gifts of the Holy Spirit and are based upon the sovereignty of God, not the will of man.

I want you to keep this in mind, especially as we come to the gift of healing and the gift of prophecy, that these are the gifts of the Spirit. They're not the permanent possession of any of us, but they are the potential experience of every one of us.

Scriptural Boundaries for Understanding the Gifts

So with that, let's begin to look at the gifts themselves. Now, when we come to the gifts of the Spirit, and by the way, this is not an exhaustive list here in the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians. We could look also at the 12th chapter of Romans.

We could look at Peter's first epistle. We could look at Ephesians chapter four. There are a number of gifts that are not mentioned here in 1 Corinthians 12, but we can get a good idea about the gifts of the Spirit as we look at the ones that are mentioned here.

Now, there is a problem, though, when it comes to the whole subject of the gifts of the Spirit. And the problem is this. The Scripture does not supply us with an exhaustive description of each gift. As a matter of fact, in some cases, we have no description at all.

We just simply have a statement concerning the gift, but we have no description given to us of what the gift is. Therefore, we need to prayerfully approach these matters and always let the Scriptures be our guide.

You see, when we come to try to understand what the gifts are, we've only got one criteria by which to judge, and that's the Bible. And so we've got to pay close attention to what the Scriptures say. And so we begin in verse eight, for to one is given the word of wisdom.

The Word of Wisdom as God’s Answer to a Dilemma

Now, when possible, I want to try to give you a definition. And so here I would say that the word of wisdom could be defined as God's answer or solution to a dilemma. God's answer or solution to a dilemma.

Now, there are several places in Scripture where we see the word of wisdom in operation. We see the word of wisdom in operation consistently in the life of Jesus. We see the word of wisdom in operation in the life of the early church as we study the acts of the apostles.

But let me give you a few examples, first of all, from the life of Jesus himself. Remember, the word of wisdom is God's answer or solution to a dilemma. In Matthew chapter four, we have a record of the temptation of Christ.

And you remember the first thing that Satan said to Jesus was this. If you are the son of God, take these stones and turn them into bread. Now, the question is, how is Jesus going to respond to the suggestion of Satan?

And I believe that Jesus responded to him with the word of wisdom. But the word of wisdom in this particular case came as a result of God's written word. Jesus fell back on the written word of God. And you remember what he said.

He said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You see, this was God's answer to the dilemma that Jesus was in. Satan was tempting him and he brought this suggestion before him.

And in wisdom, the Lord responded. Man shall not live by bread alone, Satan said, if you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread, Jesus said, oh, but man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

In John, chapter eight, you remember the incident where there was a woman. Who they had claimed to have caught in the very act of adultery, some of the religious leaders of the time, and they brought this woman to Jesus and they were wanting Jesus to pass the death sentence on her.

And they said to Jesus, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery and Moses in the law said that she should be stoned. What do you say? They see, they were trying to trap Jesus. They were trying to get him either to contradict the law of Moses, which then they could turn around and say he couldn't be the Messiah because he's contradicting Moses, or they were trying to get him to violate the Roman law, which would have then put him in trouble with the Romans and gotten him out of the way.

So they're saying to him, Moses said that we should do this. What do you say? Jesus said, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. That was a word of wisdom. God's answer to the dilemma.

It was the ultimate response to the challenge that they had brought to Jesus. You remember, perhaps another incident that had a similar motive recorded in Matthew, chapter 22, they'd come to Jesus with a coin and they wanted to know about taxes.

And of course, they were trying to trap him. If he said you should pay taxes, then they could say, oh, look at this man. He's in support of the Romans and the Romans are our idolaters. And he certainly couldn't be the Messiah.

If he said you shouldn't pay taxes, then they could go to the Romans and say, oh, there's a man over here trying to create an insurrection. So they're saying to him, what should we do? Should we pay taxes?

Jesus responded with the word of wisdom. He said, show me a coin whose image and inscription is it? They said Caesars. He said, render, therefore, to Caesars the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God.

You see, there it was. It was the perfect answer to the problem. This is what the word of wisdom is. As we come to the early church, we find that there was a dilemma that the leadership was being faced with because there were certain members of the early church who were feeling that they were being slighted.

They were feeling that they were being discriminated against because they were Jews from a Greek culture rather than from the Hebraic culture. And so they came with this complaint that they were being shunned and slighted in the distribution of things.

And so here the leadership is faced with this problem. How do we resolve this problem? How do we help these people to understand that there is no discrimination? It was a very complicated matter, as you well know.

Racial issues are very complicated issues and people can easily misunderstand things and so forth. So here they are, they're faced with this dilemma and yet the apostles speak up and they say, seek out from among you seven men full of the Holy Spirit that we may put over this work.

They said, look, you Hellenist Jews, you're thinking that that you're being slighted. Well, look, take seven Hellenist Jews, take them from your own midst and we'll put them over it and then we'll be certain that there won't be any discrimination.

And it says, and this answer pleased the multitude to give one answer and please the multitude has to be the answer that comes from God, because there's no way to please a multitude. So you see, this is the word of wisdom in operation.

Now it can come either through the written word or through a spoken word. We saw in the first incident it came from the written word. Jesus fell back on the scriptures and he quoted directly from the scriptures.

But then on these other occasions, we find that Jesus was speaking the word of wisdom, not necessarily giving a direct quotation from scripture. And I think that that same thing is also true in our experience.

Sometimes when we are faced with a dilemma. We will open the scriptures and there the very word of God that is written will be the solution to our problem. It will be the ultimate answer to the thing that we're facing.

But on the other hand, there are times when there's not going to be a specific declaration in scripture that's going to give me the answer that I need. And this is where God will impart wisdom, perhaps to you directly or through someone else to you or through you to someone else.

The Word of Wisdom in Pastoral Ministry

Now, I've had many times the experience of the word of wisdom working through my life towards someone else, being a pastor and being involved in years and years of counseling and advising people and so forth.

There have been times when I have seen the word of wisdom work so beautifully. I've been at times sitting with people and they're sharing with me their problems. And they're faced with some great difficulty, some great dilemma, and they've been racking their their brains to try to come up with a solution.

And there just doesn't seem to be any solution. And as they're pouring out their heart to me and asking me for counsel, I'm thinking in my own mind, oh, my, why did they come to me? I wish they were talking to somebody else because I don't know any more than they do about this.

I'm as perplexed as they are about it. But yet suddenly, as I've been in these kinds of situations, suddenly the Lord would give me something. And it would be so obviously the perfect solution to the problem.

And as I would go on to tell them what God was putting on my heart, they begin to rejoice. Oh, that's so wonderful. How did you come up with that? Well, quite honestly, I didn't. I was as clueless as you were two minutes ago.

But the Lord just gave this word of wisdom. Now we can expect that kind of thing to take place among us as God's people. That's the function of the word of wisdom. Let's move on to the word of knowledge.

The Word of Knowledge Reveals What Was Previously Unknown

The word of knowledge, a definition would be the God given ability to instantly know something previously unknown. The God given ability to instantly know something previously unknown. Again, we have examples, many examples from the scripture.

Let me give you just a couple. Jesus was speaking to Nathanael. This is recorded in John chapter one. And Jesus said to Nathanael, they had just met one another. And Jesus said to Nathanael. Because Jesus said to Nathanael, he said, an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile.

He just met him, and that's what he said about him. You are an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile. And Nathanael responded. And he said, how do you know me? We've never met before. And Jesus said before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

You see, Jesus knew what Nathanael was doing before he ever met him. And so he told him that he informed him of that. Nathanael said, oh, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. That's so impressed him.

That was a word of knowledge. Peter to Ananias, you remember, perhaps the story in Acts chapter five, a man named Ananias, along with his wife, Sapphira. They had a piece of property. They sold it. And they decided to withhold some of the money.

And yet they went to the apostles, giving the impression that they were giving to them all that they had gained from the sale of the property. Now, Peter. Spoke a word of knowledge, he said to Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?

You see, Peter knew something that he as a as a man did not actually have the capacity of knowing. He knew that Ananias was being deceptive. He had a word of knowledge. There are many other places in Scripture that we could point you to, but I think you get the idea again with that definition that God give an ability to instantly know something previously unknown.

Special Faith as a Sovereign Gift

I remember one incident in my own life not all that long ago where God gave to me a word of knowledge and it had to do with the condition of my oldest son. And what had happened is he had he had come come down with some really strange symptoms and he had a rash all over his body and he was really fatigued and had sort of a low grade fever and he was just nothing like his his normal self.

And so we took him to the doctor and the doctor looked at him and said, oh, I think it might be allergy to this or it might be, you know, just some vague diagnosis is really what we got and take him home and, you know, don't don't allow him to eat this anymore.

And, you know, so so we went home and tried to apply what the doctor said. But yet it was obvious that there was there was no change in his condition. And one day I looked at him and it was apparent that he was actually getting worse.

And I looked at him and as I looked at him, just like a flash, it came into my mind. He has Lyme's disease. And I suddenly thought he has Lyme's disease. And then I I remembered we had gone camping up into the mountains and you get Lyme's disease from a from a tick and he was, you know, playing out in the brush and everything.

And it just it seemed like, yes, this this could be a real possibility. But it was just so so clear to me. He has Lyme's disease. So I phoned the doctor and I said, I want to bring my son in for testing.

He has Lyme's disease. He said, oh, how do you know? What do you mean he has Lyme's disease? He doesn't have Lyme's disease. I said, yes, he does. I want to bring him in for testing. So how do you know?

He's a Christian, by the way, the doctor was. And I said, I said, look, as the Lord spoke to me, it is Lyme's disease. He says, all right, well, bring him in. And so he runs a blood test on. He comes back.

Guess what? Your son has Lyme's disease. And thank God we caught it in the initial stage, because if it goes beyond the initial stage, it becomes chronic and there's nothing you can do about it after a certain point.

So we put him on the antibiotics and, you know, he's recovered just fine. But that was one of those just an instant where God just in a flash spoke and revealed something to me that I certainly could not have known in any other way.

So that's a contemporary example of the word of knowledge in operation. Now, moving on to the next gift, and that is to another faith is given by the same spirit. Now, the faith that's referred to here by the apostle is not the same faith that you have as a believer in Christ.

It's not that initial faith that brings you into salvation. Of course, Paul is writing to people who are saved and he's talking about some some something that's additional to that. These people already have faith, so he's not talking about the faith that saves, but he's talking about a faith beyond that.

And I would define this as special faith or faith for the moment. Or you could also define it, I think, as extraordinary faith. It's where you suddenly have such confidence in God that you can do anything.

And, of course, it's a gift from God. It operates, again, under the sovereignty of God, and he will impart the gift of faith at times when it's needed. A couple of examples from the scripture going back to the Old Testament, back in 1 Samuel chapter 14, we have the story of Jonathan, the son of Saul and his armor bearer, suddenly being filled with faith and realizing, as he said, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.

Jonathan one day looked out at the army of the Philistines and he said, you know, I do not need a whole army to defeat these men. God is not limited. He could actually defeat them through just one man.

And so he said to his armor bearer, let's go and see if the Lord will do this. They went, they took that step of faith, and God did deliver the Philistines into the hand of Jonathan. And there was a great victory for Israel that day.

But you see, it was the gift of faith that came upon Jonathan. He had just this confidence in God. He knew that as he stepped out, God would be with him. I think we see something similar in Peter when he stepped out of the boat and he began to walk on the water to Jesus.

There was that gift of faith. Jesus said, come to me. And Peter said, OK, and he stepped out of the boat and he began to walk to the Lord on the water. Now, of course, he suddenly realized what he was doing and he said, I can't do this.

And he began to sink and Jesus reached out his hand and he saved him. I think there's another example of the gift of faith. And then we also see it once again demonstrated in Peter recorded in Acts chapter three as Peter's walking by this this lame man.

Who's sitting there begging by the gate of the temple? And Jesus, Peter turns to him and he says, silver and gold, I do not have, but what I do have, I'll give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he reached out and he took the man by the hand and he pulled him up onto his feet. The man had been in that condition for 38 years. And yet Peter, experiencing the gift of faith, is confident that as he reaches out in the name of Jesus and pulls this man up, the man is going to stand to his feet.

He's going to be whole. That, I think, is an example of the gift of faith. And so working in our lives today, it would be extraordinary faith. It would be faith for the moment. You're suddenly faced with something and it seems impossible, but yet at the same time, you have this absolute confidence God is going to do this and you just step out and God does indeed do it.

There are probably some really great examples of this, but I just couldn't think of a single one last night. And it's not because there aren't plenty, but it's just, you know, you sit, you pray, you think, and yet it just doesn't come.

But if you study the lives of missionaries, if you look at even, you know, currently what what's happening with different Christians throughout the world, you would see that this gift of faith is operating in the lives of God's people frequently today.

Gifts of Healings and the Sovereignty of God

Now, moving on and, you know, we're trying to get through all these, so we do have to go rather quickly, could probably spend an entire hour on each one of these if we if we wanted to. But let's move on to gifts of healings, gifts of healings.

It's pretty self-explanatory. The Bible, of course, is full of examples of healing. Matthew 11. You remember the report that was brought to John the Baptist, the blind see the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear.

These are all examples of healing taking place. Now, of course, they were all examples from the ministry of Jesus. If we go into the book of Acts, we find that there are plenty of examples there of the apostles being used to heal people.

People, and as we go on in the history of church of the church, we can find examples also of people being healed. This is a vital question. Is the gift of healing still in operation today? An important question is the gift of healing still in operation today?

There's nothing in Scripture to indicate that it's not. As a matter of fact, everything in Scripture would indicate that it is the gift of healing is still in operation today. Now, the next question is this, who has the gift of healing?

And this is where I want you to remember the point that I made earlier. The answer to that is no one has it permanently. No one has the gift of healing permanently, therefore, never waste your time going to a faith healer because there's no such thing.

There is no such thing. You cannot find a single example in all of the Bible of anyone having a permanent gift of healing apart from Jesus Christ himself. Jesus was the only one who could. Use any of the gifts of the spirit at any given time, Jesus, of course, did not receive the spirit in measure like we do.

The fullness of the spirit was upon Jesus. He's the Messiah. He's the son of God. So the gifts of the spirit were always active in his ministry and they were active upon his will. But we never find that same thing in the ministry of any of the apostles.

And if it wasn't in the ministry of the apostles, I can assure you that it's not in anybody else's ministry today. You just don't find it. You don't find the apostles being able to heal at will. The case we mentioned a moment ago, Peter lifting up that lame man.

How many times do you think they walked by that man? He had sat there for years and years and years. But you see, there was a moment. There was this occasion where he was healed. But you can be certain there were many people that were never healed.

As a matter of fact, Paul, the apostle, makes it clear, although he did at times have the gift of healing in operation through his ministry. He talks about people that were sick. And to Timothy, who had an ongoing sort of a chronic kind of a problem, Paul advised him.

Medicinally, really, he said, take some wine for your often infirmities. He talked about a papyrus who he left in a certain place sick. They see if the apostles could heal at will, we have to wonder why they didn't do it.

Well, the answer is they couldn't. No one can. The gift of healing is something that any believer can potentially experience in and through their life. But yet again, this is something that is dependent on the sovereignty of God, is dependent on the sovereignty of God.

So how does the gift work? There's a person who is sick. God decides he's going to heal this person. And sometimes he uses another individual to do it. There are times when he doesn't use an individual to do it.

He just simply intervenes and does it directly. And the person who is healed, in a sense, does receive to receive a gift of healing. But there is also those times when a human instrument is involved. And let me say this.

There are people who have the experience of these gifts more frequently than others. But nevertheless, none of them have the power to exercise these size, these gifts at will. So there might be someone who actually does have a frequent experience of, let's say, the word of knowledge.

But yet it's not within their control. They can't simply know something about somebody that couldn't otherwise be known. God has to reveal that. And likewise, with healing, there might be a person who is used frequently by God to heal someone else.

The gift of healing works and flows through them frequently. But it's not something that they can just do at will. You know, you hear all of the stories about these great men of faith and their healing crusades and all of this.

My question is simply this. Why don't you go down to the local hospital and why don't you just clear it out? If you have the gift of healing, let's see it in action. Well, the fact of the matter is they don't.

And so much of what they're saying is nothing but it's just nonsense. And whenever you look for any documentation or whenever you look for any substantiation for their reports, you find that there isn't any at all.

But yet, nevertheless, although there are not faith healers, there is a true gift of healing and God can use any believer to be the vehicle through which he might heal someone else. God has used me in this area.

I have experienced through my life the gift of healing imparted to another person. Now, the funny thing about it is I didn't even know it was happening when it happened. I really didn't. I'll tell you the story real quickly.

I was called upon to visit a man in the hospital who was, according to his doctor, going to die within the hour. A man whose body was wracked with cancer. He battled cancer for many years. And now this was the end.

And I was called upon as a young pastor to come and just basically pray for him as he departed this world. And so I got to the hospital as quick as I could. I came in and here's the man lying in the bed.

I remember to this day, this is years ago, 15 years ago, probably. But I remember, you know, he was in very, very sad condition. He was actually unconscious at the time. And I just, along with a friend, laid my hand on his foot.

It was sticking out of the end of his bed and just prayed that the Lord would touch him and have mercy on him and just minister to him. And the end. We left and I never thought any more about it. About a week and a half or so later, some people came to the church office looking for me and they said, are you the one who went down to the hospital and prayed and that?

Oh, yeah, I think. Yeah, I did. As a matter of fact, I remember doing that. They said, well, we want to tell you something. We want to tell you something, first of all, that you didn't know. The person you prayed for was filled with cancer and was I didn't know at the time, you know, was going to expire any moment, according to the doctor.

They said, but that person is completely whole today. And that person is praising God for his healing and sharing the gospel of Christ. And I said, well, what do you know? I mean, I was I was absolutely amazed.

Because I wasn't even aware that that was happening when I was praying for him. So you see that the gift of healing is. It's more like that. You know, anyone who puts up a big banner, you know, come to my healing crusade, I've got the power and all that right away.

Please know that this person is. Is off and don't be part of anything like that, because it's all deception and the underlying factor and all that, of course, is money. But yet let's not be so foolish as to say that the gift of healing doesn't exist because of what we see in these charlatans, whatever they are, that's their problem.

And they'll stand before God. But let us not react to the extreme that we say, oh, there is no gift of healing for today. There is a gift of healing today. There's nothing in scripture to indicate that the gift of healing is not in operation.

Miracles as Signs of God’s Continuing Work

Now, moving on to the next one, the working of miracles. The working of miracles, a few examples real quickly, turning water to wine, multiplying loaves and fish, raising the dead. These are miracles.

The Bible is full of examples of miracles from both testaments, of course. Now, again, the question arises, do miracles still happen? The answer is yes. And the answer isn't yes, because I've seen them happen.

The answer is yes, because the Bible never would for a moment indicate that they ceased. You see, in the problem that people run into is that they they make a determination upon their own experience. They say, well, you know, miracles don't happen today.

Well, how do you know? Because I've never seen one. Well, if you were omnipresent, then I might, you know, put a little bit of stock in what you're saying. But since you're not. Since you are limited to your locality, I I'm not going to buy that.

Do we know one one thousandth or one one millionth of all that's going on in the world today, all that's going on in the lives of individual people, all that's going on in the Church of Jesus Christ? We don't know.

And again, this is where the Bible has to be our authority. The Bible never indicates that miracles would cease just because I've never seen a miracle doesn't mean that miracles don't happen. Now, I say I've never seen a miracle.

I've never seen a miracle in the sense of I've never seen water being turned into wine. I've never seen a few fish and a couple of bread multitude to be multiplied to feed thousands of people and so forth.

But yet, I must say, I've seen plenty of miracles in the sense of what God has done in the lives of people and especially the miracle of the new birth, which is not a cop out, but in reality is probably the greatest miracle of all.

To take a sinner, a man who or a woman who has lived a life of rebellion against God and hostility and hatred toward him, and then to see them become a worshiper and a lover of God, that is the ultimate miracle right there.

I heard one man say when he was being challenged about the validity of miracles, I read this. Actually, he said, well, yeah, miracles do happen in my house. Beer has been turned into furniture and drugs have been turned into food.

That's a miracle, truly, because what he used to do is spend all of his money on beer and drugs. But now, because of what Christ has done in his life, he's taking care of his family. And that's a miracle to see that kind of transformation take place.