Spiritual Gifts 101 (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with no compromise.

The Church Is Built by Christ Through Spiritual Gifts

Why don't you turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 this morning as we continue our verse by verse study. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the Lord Christ Jesus has purchased his church, he has redeemed her with a ransom price, that is his own life and death.

God has raised him from the dead, and if he has done the best thing, that is grant us forgiveness and granting glory to God the Father, won't he give us every other thing? When it comes to thinking logically, it is the a fortiori argument where if he's done the greater, won't he give the lesser?

In particular, can you imagine if we got saved, we were forgiven, regenerated, justified, and then God just left us, and we just had to figure out how to operate in the church on our own. I know you're saved, and I just hope you figure it out, glorify me.

Can you imagine what a crazy group we would be? I mean, we already are a motley enough group, led by a motley leader, but God didn't do that. He didn't just adopt us into his family and then say, I know I've paid $50 ,000 to adopt you in my natural family, a man says, but then I don't have room for you, I don't have education for you, I don't have food for you, no, I've paid an adoption fee of $30 ,000 to adopt you, and then I'll give you everything else.

That's smaller than the adoption price. So too with God, he has adopted us into his family by Christ's precious blood, and then he gave us everything else we need so his church might be built. Christ is building the church, and the way he does it is by granting the people in the church spiritual gifts.

Today we're going to talk a little bit about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we'll turn there now to the first probably 11 verses, and I think the title today will be Spiritual Gifts 101.

Let's have a few facts for a review, and we'll get right to the new part of the passage. By the way, as I preached the first sermon this morning, people's faces looked like they were experiencing G-forces, and their faces were kind of moved back like they were sitting in front of some Bose speaker, you know, some, I don't know what Bose speakers anymore, I think the best one I used to know, Charlie, was a 901, sitting there, and it's like your hair is being blown back because this passage today, it is an amazing passage.

It is a truth where you'll say to yourself, God is great, only he could do such a thing like this, and I think you'll be stimulated, encouraged, convicted as well. So just to review, Spiritual Gifts 101, the first truth we learned last time in verses 1 and 2 of 1 Corinthians 12, is that God wants you to know about spiritual gifts, and you don't have to be confused.

Let's take a look at verses 1 and 2, now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you, he's talking to the Corinthians, of course, to be uninformed or ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however, you were led.

And so the explicit truth of this implicit passage here is for Bethlehem Bible Church, you don't have to say to yourself, I don't know, am I a charismatic? Am I a cessationist? Am I believing these spiritual gifts are for today?

Who can know? I want to have kind of a humble charity because I can't be too dogmatic, I just better kind of go with the flow if it's okay for you. Paul said to the church of Corinth, and I'll tell you, you can know.

You can know without a doubt in your mind. Is speaking in tongues for today? Is the gift of healing for today? Does everybody have a spiritual gift? You can know, and Paul's going to educate us through the scriptures.

Fact number two that we saw last time, is God wants you to extol Christ Jesus with your spiritual gifts. Verse three, remember now, before I read this, the Corinthians were like, we've got the spirit because we speak in tongues.

The apex of their spirituality was tongue speaking. Paul is going to say, no, you know what? The apex of your Christian life is, you used to say Jesus was a good teacher, you used to say he was pretty smart, you used to say he gave ethical principles on the Sermon of the Mount, but now you say he's Yahweh.

Jesus is God. He's God in the flesh. Read verse three with me, follow along, therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says, Jesus is accursed, and no one can say that is salvificly, anybody could just say it, but not with a believing heart, Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

The only way you can go from, I hate Jesus, practically, and maybe with my words too, I'll follow Jesus, is by the work of the Spirit of God. That is the epitome of spirituality. Now what gift you have, now do you speak another language, now can you heal people, not because of an office you have in the church, but can you say, with Paul, Jesus is Lord.

Can you imagine Paul before? What did Paul do before? I hate Jesus, he's not the Messiah, he's not the Anointed One, he is someone that we need to remove. This is a cancer of a man, and let's try to kill him by killing those who would follow him, and we need to extinguish and exterminate the followers of Christ.

And then on that Damascus road, Paul was interrupted, and he bowed his knee, as it were, and said, Jesus is what, Lord. And if you can say Jesus is Lord by the Spirit's working, then you ought not ever to say to yourself, oh, I'm lacking in my spiritual gifts.

I better retake that spiritual gifts inventory questionnaire, because I just feel like I don't have everything that God has for me. How many people have taken those questionnaires? Everybody who's smiling has.

Some of you, thankfully, don't even know what they are, because you've only been around this church, and we don't have those forms to fill out or fill in. Paul says, Corinthians, you want the flash, you want Madison Avenue, and I'm telling you that the pinnacle of Christianity and spiritualism is, Jesus is Lord.

The Trinity Gives a Variety of Gifts for the Church's Good

Fact number three, now we're going into some new information here. That was just a quick review. Fact number three, or exhortation three, you should marvel at God's creativity in the gifts that he gives the church.

God is creative, God gives a variety of spiritual gifts. Point to the Corinthians, he doesn't only give tongues. Varieties, varieties, varieties by the Father, by the Son, by the Spirit. Take a look at this Trinitarian passage and see if you see any words that occur regularly in chapter 12, verses 4 through 6.

These Corinthians are dividing themselves. I've got tongues you don't, and here he says in verse 4 with almost Hebrew parallelism, I know it's in Greek, but like Hebrew parallelism, one thought magnifying the other thought.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. Paul uses Lord for Christ Jesus here, as he does many times. And there are varieties of activities, not just tongues, but it is the same God of the Father who empowers them all in everyone.

Paul is telling the Corinthians, God the Spirit, God the Son, God the Father gives gifts to the local church. All kinds of gifts, and not everyone has the same gift. Chapter 1, you're trying to divide on who you follow.

I'm of Paul, I'm of Paulus. Chapter 11, you're trying to divide on you're rich and I'm poor. And now people are trying to divide themselves between we've got the highlight, we've got speaking in tongues, and you've got something else.

You've got the gift of helps, basically. You're over there. It's the catch-all ministry gift, helps. The badge of spirituality, the mark of grace is not I speak in tongues, it's Jesus is Lord. And by the way, God, based on his great, creative, generous, all-wise power, gives out gifts in a variety of ways.

You go to the botanical gardens and you think there are purple flowers, there are periwinkle flowers, there are, what's another flower that starts, there are pink flowers. All kinds of shapes and you just think evolution is wonderful.

I mean, it just is creative. No, you look at that and you go, God is a creative God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the same creative God says, you know, I know I've sent my son to die for you and to redeem you and to forgive you.

But I'm not going to stop there because Christ is now at the right hand of the Father and the bride of Christ on earth is not going to be left by herself. Satan is going to attack, people are going to attack, but I'm going to build that church up for unity, for mutual good, for edification.

So you can see there in verses four to six, varieties, varieties, varieties. What do you think the point of the passage might be? There are varieties in spiritual gifts. And if you keep thinking, I've got tongues, everybody else is over here.

First of all, you don't come up with your own gift anyway, because they're given by God. God is active, we are passive. And did you know in eternity past, God already knew what gifts he would give you?

Or what gift? It was already decided. You can't hanker after a gift. I guess you can hanker after it sinfully, but you can't get a gift. It's given to you. In eternity past, God decided to put his favor on you in Christ Jesus.

And he chose you before the foundation of the world. But he also chose to give you certain gifts before the foundation of the world. And he didn't decide to give everybody tongues. That's the context here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

He gives gifts for the good of the body and for service. Flip with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter four, just for a moment. I think this is an excellent banner verse for our lives, for our humility, for a pride killer.

This is certainly something that the Corinthians, who were boasters, needed to know. He said in chapter one that he would boast only in the Lord. But chapter four, verse seven applies to spiritual gifts as well.

For who sees, 1 Corinthians 4, 7, who sees anything different in you? Why do you have that which you, excuse me, what do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, you didn't earn it, you didn't merit it.

Why do you boast as if you did not receive it? 1 Corinthians 11 and chapter 12, rather with gifts too. If God gave someone the gift of tongues and he did, then why are you running around saying, I earned that, I deserve that, I merit that.

Verse five, go back to 1 Corinthians 12, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. Mutually beneficial, distinctly Trinitarian. By the way, this is how Paul teaches the Trinity. He never says, now let's give you a chapter and verse for systematic theology for the Trinity.

Paul is just Trinitarian in his thinking, so it flows out all the time. It's like when you just spill an ink bottle and it just goes everywhere, it just permeates, and it permeates Paul because God is triune.

He's always talking about the triune God. Every member has received a spiritual gift. The parallel continues, verse six, and there are varieties of activities. Not just tongues, that's what he's talking about, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone.

Everyone here has a spiritual gift. Every person here has been given at least one gift for the glory of Christ. Spirit of God giving these as he decides to promote unity. Gifts are given for the benefit of the body, not to rip it in half through, I've got the spirit and you don't.

If you have the gift of teaching, it's not for you, it's for other people. No one is better than anyone else. These Corinthians were so prideful, all kinds of issues started coming up. I was reading this week about the myth, the Greek myth of Hydra.

You know Hydra, the multi-headed reptilian creature that would belts forth poisonous fumes. And if you cut off one of the heads, it would grow back unless you cauterized it. And the only way you could kill it at the very end, I think it was Athenia's golden sword that you'd have to chop off every head, cauterize it and it would be gone.

And there's one thing after another that just keeps popping up in the life of Corinth. And Paul gets out the sword of the spirit and is just lopping off the proverbial, not heads of the people, but the problems of the people.

Spiritual Gifts Are for the Common Good, Not Self-Display

Fact number four, spiritual gifts 101. Serve others with your gifts. It's really an exhortation from the fact that spiritual gifts are for the good of others. Verses 7 through 10. He's already implied this before, but now he makes it explicit.

This is the thesis of the whole passage. Spiritual gifts are for other people. They're not to say, look, I've got this like the Corinthians were doing it. It's for other people. Let me read you verses 7 through 10.

And just the weight of these words will let you realize that there are all kinds of gifts to another, to another, to another. Now, before I read it, let me ask you this question. When Paul, excuse me, when the apostles are listed, is there an order to their listing?

When the apostles are listed, the 12 apostles, are they listed with people always at the front? Yes. Peter, James, and John inside circle. Who's always at the end of the apostle list? Judas, the one who betrayed him.

Why is that? Every list, Peter, James, and John up front, some mixture here. But then at the back end, at the bottom of the list, Judas is listed. Why is that? Because Judas is to be minimized. Out of all these spiritual gifts that we see here, they're saying tongues is the best.

Guess what is at the end of this list? Paul, when he puts the tongues here, it's at the bottom of the list. Because he's trying to de-emphasize what they're emphasizing. So let's read this. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

For to one is given through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom. To another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit. To another, by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit.

To another, the working of miracles. To another, prophecy. Notice it's not to all, to all, to all. All these gifts, all get a gift. But in particular, God allots them to people. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.

To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. Everyone gets a gift. Back to verse 7. To each. Not to a few. Not to the gnostic kind of insiders, the extra spiritual ones.

Everyone gets a gift. And they get that gift from God for mutual benefit. I think sometimes we might think, oh, only Billy Graham has the gift. Only some of the pastors and elders have the gift. I don't know if I have a gift or not.

No, every Christian has a gift. And it's to be used for other people. Now, Paul's going to give nine gifts here. Sign gifts. Revelation kind of gifts. But before we get into that, we need to have a little exercise here.

This is going to be very important. I think everything's important in the Bible. But this is particularly important when it comes to spiritual gifts. When I got this 20 years ago, my life was way better off theologically.

Some of you already know this. But this is something that you want to just hone in on and say, I need to know this information. Because then you'll understand healings, tongues, distinguishing of spirits.

You'll get it all. When you turn on TBN, you'll figure it out. When you drive past a DCU center and there's some kind of wild person on there, some faith healer, you'll have it figured out. If you get this now, what I'm going to teach you, you'll have it figured out.

If you take all the world's history and you combine all the miracles into a time frame, that time frame is going to be about 100 years. In other words, there aren't a lot of healings all throughout history.

Let's say the world is 10 ,000 years old. If you want it to be 10 million, it doesn't matter to me. Well, it matters to me, but not for the sake of this argument. You have to be careful what you say when you're a preacher, don't you?

The good news is if this one bombs, I tell them to put the first sermon on the internet. If you take one of those books that's colorful, but doesn't seem to show you anything, but you stare at it and you stare through it, they're actually called stereogram books.

Remember, they were big 10 years ago. And pretty soon you can see shapes. That's a dog. That's a cat. That's a dog chasing a cat. You can see things. If you take all the miracles in the world and plot them on a little statistical graph, and you start looking at it in a stereogram, you know what you're going to see?

You're not going to see a mountain peak, a mountain ridge rather. You're going to see three peaks start emerging. There are only three times in all of the world's history where miracle signs and wonders and healings happened a lot.

Three time periods. Moses and Joshua's day, Elisha and Elijah's day, and Jesus and the apostles day. That's it. Those three times. Compress them all together. About 100 years. Oh, there's a few little sprinkled ones here or there, but those are the three times.

What's the same for all these? What's the common denominator? Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the apostles. What's the common denominator? Answer. Those are the three times that God's word is being inscripturated.

Where God's word is being put together. Moses and Joshua, the prophets, Jesus and the apostles. Now, why would that happen? Why does God, when the scriptures are being written, need to punctuate it with a miracle?

Why does God need to say, you know what? I'm going to highlight a miracle while the scriptures are being written. Answer so that you believe who's writing and you believe what they say. How do you know if I'm teaching the Bible today, by the way?

Well, if you're a Berean, you say, well, he's just going verse by verse. He's showing the context. He's showing what's happening. I see with my own eyes. You know what a privilege it is to have a Bible?

Holding a Bible. Do you know the bigger privilege of having the iPad? It has a Greek Bible in it and everything else. That you have your Bible. How would you know if I was telling you the truth? If you didn't have a Bible and I didn't have the Bible?

How would you know? How would you know I was trustworthy? But if I could take someone who has no legs and say, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk and legs grow on instantly and walk away. And then I tell you something, I think you'll listen.

So here's what we're going to do. Let's look up three passages that show, miracles are designed to confirm the messenger and the message. Ready? Let's go to Exodus chapter 4 to start. Exodus chapter 4.

This is going to relate to 1 Corinthians directly. But right now I want to try to establish the point that when you have signs and tongues and miracles and wonders, they aren't the norm. And they aren't the norm because they are directly tied with affirming the message and the messenger.

They are not something that is the goal themselves. I said to first service, when you're driving on the five freeway in the grapevine, and it says Sacramento, 300 miles, you don't pull off to the side of the road and say, kids, we've arrived.

Go hug the sign. Go, you know, bring around the rosy around the sign. What do you do? You say 300 more miles before we get to a blistering hot Sacramento. It's a sign pointing to something. Miracles and gifts and healings and wonders.

We're doing what? Pointing to something, pointing to the message and the messenger. Exodus chapter 4. Here's one of the time periods in all of world's history where there were a lot of miracles. Exodus 4.

Then Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice. For they will say, the Lord did not appear to you. The Lord Yahweh said to him, what is in your hand? A staff. Throw it on the ground.

So he threw it on the ground and it became like a serpent. And Moses did what you would do. And Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, put your hand. Put out your hand and catch it by the tail.

So he put out his hand and caught it. And it became a staff in his hand. Listen, that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you to affirm and to confirm the messenger.

Again, the Lord said to him, put your hand inside your cloak. He put his hand inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, the hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, put your hand back inside your cloak.

So he put his hand back inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.

Miracles were done in three time periods mainly. And they were done to confirm the message and the messenger. Time period two, Elijah and the prophets. Turn your Bibles to first Kings 17. You're going to see the same thing.

That's why if you go down to the DCU center and there's a big healing ministry and there's no Bible teaching, which there hardly is a few verses out of context. What's the healing ministry pointing to?

I'll tell you what the healing ministry is pointing to. The teacher. So he can point to the big popcorn bucket so you can put money in it. But we'll get to that in a second. First Kings chapter 17. Signs and wonders were done in a day and an age where the canon wasn't complete and the messenger needed to be confirmed.

The message needed to be confirmed as from God. So first Kings chapter 17. We have the passage you're probably familiar with with Elijah and the widow. First Kings 17. Let's pick it up in verse 19. And he said to her, give me your son.

And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord Yahweh. Oh, Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourned by killing her son?

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord. Oh, Lord, my God, let this child's life come into him again. And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah and the life of the child came into him again and he revived.

And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, see, your son lives. Verse 24. And the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth, that is in your mouth is truth.

Who does these things? It's easy to say, thus saith the Lord. It's harder to raise somebody from the dead. And if I meet somebody who can raise someone from the dead, I will listen to them, won't you?

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 830 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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