Spiritual Gifts - Introduction To Spiritual Gifts

God Centered Theology

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Prophecy, teaching, exhortation or encouragement, serving, giving, leadership or administration, mercy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, and discernment.

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Just a quick couple of notes. Sometimes the people that will break theirs up into 12 will take number 6 and take leadership and administration as two separate gifts.

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I think you can basically combine these. I don't think there is a need to separate them. Some people get tripped up on the one, number 10, sometimes they think faith is referring to salvation faith.

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This is not salvation faith. This is a specific type of faith under trials. There were certain sign gifts that were temporary and foundational in their nature, and that they passed off the scene with the

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Apostles. Basically the line of debarkation is when the canon of the New Testament Scripture was completed, there were certain foundational things that were no longer needed to be in operation.

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And so, that's why on my list I exclude those because I don't think that they are in operation today. ...speaking

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in tongues was known languages using the common known words in those languages.

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And to me, the only debate is do you believe that it was the actual Apostles speaking in the other languages?

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Or was the miracle that the Apostles were speaking in their own language, and that the hearers were miraculously hearing it in their different language.

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And so, but to me anything that is gibberish, anything that cannot be translated, anything that is not a known language doesn't even come into the realm of what the

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Bible was even talking about. And then 1 Corinthians 14 really gets into detail about it.

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In fact the Corinthian Church which this letter was addressed to was completely abusing the spiritual gifts.

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The whole point of why Paul spends three chapters, 12, 13, and 14 discussing this subject is because the

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Corinthian Church had elevated gifts to this elite status.

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So, if you had a certain number of gifts, or if you had certain types of gifts you were elite

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Christians, you were of a special protected class. And Paul is like, no, that's not what they are for.

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In fact if you are multi -gifted, if you have a great number of spiritual gifts in operation in your life, your call is one to higher responsibility, and a higher need for you to be even more humble in your service to other

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Christians in light of the fact that the Holy Spirit has gifted you in such a way.

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There are no elite statuses among Christians. There are no elite groups.

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Simply being in a church for 50, 60 years, or being a Christian for 50, 60 years, or having served on multiple committees, or been a deacon, or been a pastor, or been a

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Sunday, whatever your description is doesn't make you any better than any other Christian.

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We are all called to serve the same Savior. And to the extent that we serve in humble submission to the

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Holy Spirit, we are able to actually not build up ourselves, but we build up other

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Christians. So, these are our spiritual gifts. And I want to note this too.

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You may have heard me say, and I'm actually starting to, just to show you that your pastor has his views, and has the way he says things changed as he studies the

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Word as well. I've very commonly said in reference to spiritual gifts many times, you know when you are saved the

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Holy Spirit gives you at least one spiritual gift. Now, that is true, but I don't think it is as fully true as it could be if I were to say it this way.

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I believe every Christian is gifted in a multiplicity of gifts, in a variety of ways, because I think that is what the

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Scripture says. I think if you say it the way I used to say it, where you would say that the

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Holy Spirit gifts you with at least one spiritual gift, you almost are adding from the get go a limit on what you could be, a limit on what you can do.

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And my experience has been that most, the majority if not 100 % of all

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Christians are gifted in a multi, multiplicity, a variety, multiple different ways, many different ways.

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They have more than one gift. Now, you will have a divinely enabled certain few, maybe one, two, or three of those that we saw that you were divinely gifted to serve specifically in those areas.

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But I'll just give you an example. When I did mine I had one that gave you a percentage breakdown. So, you know things like teaching and exhortation, stuff like that, not exhortation but teaching, and prophecy, and preaching, and things like those were 90, 89, 92.

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But then you had some that were in the 70's and 60's that you know weren't my primary gifts.

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But I could look at my life and say, okay, I see times when I do those things. But it's not the overall picture of who

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I am. Because sometimes God will use other gifts that you have. You may not be as strong in those areas as you are in other areas, but He'll use the lesser areas to supplement your greater areas that you are more gifted in.

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So, if you're say a teacher you may be also gifted with the gift of knowledge, which is a grasping and an understanding of God's Word.

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And to the extent that you spend time in God's Word that gift of knowledge will grow over time, and it will supplement or build up your gift of teaching.

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If you've ever had to stand in front of a Sunday School class, or anybody and teach, and you've spent zero time preparing.

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And then if you've also spent time in front of a class, and you've spent a lot of time preparing, there is a huge difference, not only in your presentation, but also in what the audience gets from what you've done.

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There have been times where I've had more time of preparation versus less time. And the more time of preparation always lends itself to better preaching, better teaching, and also the audience gains a lot more from it.

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But what you notice here it says, because of the great variety of gifts, the number of possible combinations is great.

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Do we have any math nerds among us? I'm one. Is anybody else willing to admit it?

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We've got one. I'm not alone. Joanne is pointing at Ed, I've got two. So, we've got at least two others that are like me.

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If you are interested in doing the math on the number of possible combinations of spiritual gifts, see me after the service.

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I am not going to bore the rest among us with that right now. But 11 gifts, just start doing the math.

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You have 11 singular, but then you can have two together, three together, four together, and then you have all the different combinations.

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Who decides these combinations? The Holy Spirit. Each Christian that receives a combination.

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Yes, it is true that you will receive at least one, but I don't think that takes it far enough. I believe this is the right way to say it.

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Each and every single Christian receives a combination of spiritual gifts that the

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Holy Spirit perfectly suits these gifts to function in the

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Christian's unique ministries. Now, as we move forward, I'll be using some of these same terminologies over and over again as we delineate the differences between gifts, talents, ministries, so on and so forth, and how they all go together.

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But the understanding here is that you will have a variety of roles, a variety of ministries you will be involved in.

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And based on your unique talents and gifts you will naturally be led in certain areas and away from others.

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So, spiritual gifts, and this is an important part here, spiritual gifts are not equal to talents.

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Every single person, saved and lost, both the

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Christian and the non -Christian have talents, unique, genetic, based on your father, mother, the whole line of them.

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We have certain talents, certain abilities, and as I've been so often told, and as I am so often being reminded of, you will see who you are through your children.

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Hannah has defiance in her. She has opposition in her. She has a tendency to be disrespectful.

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And oh, how I hearken back to my mother telling me, Andy, you're being disrespectful, you're being defiant, you're being opposition.

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So, I'm getting to see myself through my child. So, and it's usually you get the good with the bad, but it seems like the sinful part keeps coming out of her.

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And you know it's amazing to me, I haven't had to teach her how to be a sinner. It seems to be very natural to her. Newsflash, it's very natural to all of us.

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We naturally want self, and fleshly desires. But spiritual gifts are unique to Christians.

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They are given by the Holy Spirit. They are divinely given. Christians are divinely enabled.

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And they are Philippians 4 .13, I can do all things through the power of Christ. They are empowered to do and live out these gifts in your unique ministries by the

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Holy Spirit. So, you do not want to make the mistake of just casting off spiritual gifts as talents.

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Here's a distinction, every single Christian has this combination of spiritual gifts.

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Now, being that there are only 11 or 12, however you break it down, I think there's 11.

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But however you break it down, being that there is only 11 of them, and there are different combinations of them, some

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Christians will have similar gifts to others. Let's just pick somebody at random, mictopic.

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You and me, if we were to go through and do this list we may find that we have two or three similar gifts.

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And let's say if, I know Jeanne and I are different, so let's say Jeanne and I do the test, we may have completely different gifts.

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And then maybe me and Dan do it, we have similar gifts. Say, well then you'd just be robotic, or we'd all be the same.

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No, that's where the talents come in. God uses our God -given talents, and our

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God -given inclinations, and He wraps it up within the spiritual gifts that He divinely gives us to lead us all in unique and different ways of service.

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So, Dan's talents are different than mine. Mick's talents are different than mine. Jeanne's talents are different than mine.

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But even if we have similar gifts, we may not use those gifts in the exact same way.

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I'll give you a great example. Encouragement. How many of you have ever been encouraged by someone either playing the piano, or singing a song?

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All of us. How many of you have been encouraged by someone that wrote you a heartfelt letter?

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How many of you have been encouraged by a great speech, or a great presentation, or even a great sermon?

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You could be encouraged by that. How many of you have been encouraged by someone simply walking up to you in the privacy of a corner or something, putting an arm around you and saying, hey, it's going to be okay?

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Are all those the same? Do all those involved have a gift of encouragement?

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Yes. God is not limited to our finite way of understanding things.

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He is an infinite God, with an infinite amount of combinations of talents, and giftedness, and the

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Holy Spirit's influence on a person's heart. The only thing that limits you and your ability to grow, develop, and use your spiritual gift is you.

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How willing are you to be submitted to the Holy Spirit's influence in your life, obey

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Christ, and walk out in faith? That's it. So, let's look at this in earnest if you have your

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Bibles, or if you just want to follow along on the screen. 1 Corinthians 12 starting in verse 4 notice that it says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same

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Spirit. Varieties, 11 gifts, varieties of gifts, a varieties of combination of gifts, all from the same

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Holy Spirit. We do not get our gifts from anything in existence other than the eternal third person of the

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Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Verse 5, and there are varieties of ministries, and the same

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Lord. Now this is a difference, this is not gifts, this is a varieties of ministries. Does Calvary Baptist Church look and operate exactly the same as Main Street Baptist Church?

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No. Pick out a church in Richmond. I don't know all of them off, but I'm sure there is at least a

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First Baptist somewhere in Richmond. There might even be a Calvary Baptist. I know there is a Calvary Baptist in Roanoke Rapids.

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The Calvary Baptist in Roanoke Rapids does not look, does not have the same people, does not operate exactly the same as Calvary Baptist Church in Emporia, Virginia.

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Why? Because the ministries are different. There is a different pastor. There are different people. They have different kids programs.

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They have different types of choir, and singing, and we do shoe boxes a big emphasis here.

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Whereas another church may have a different ministry that is a big difference. The ministries are different.

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There are varieties of ministries, because there is a variety of unique Christians in each and every single local body of believers.

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But it is all under the same Lord. See if this is ringing a bell right now in your minds and hearts.

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Have you ever heard me reference anything that sounds like this, unity in Christ? There it is again, unity in Christ.

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I don't care if you are in Uganda. I don't care if, bless your heart, if you are in Moscow, Russia.

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Lord help you, but if you are a Christian in Moscow, Russia, or China, North Korea, or Emporia, Virginia, your

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Christian life, your Christian walk, and the way in which you are able to use your gifts may look different there versus here.

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But we all have the same Lord, the same Savior, the same

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Jesus the Christ. I like how Ray puts that, because that is actually the most accurate way to put it in terms of how the

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Bible puts it. He is Jesus the Christ. That is His title. He is the Messiah, the

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Anointed One, the Coming One. He is now the One that has came. He is the Christ, the only

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Christ, the monogamist, the unique, the one and only begotten

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Son of the Father. It is Him we serve. It is Him we use our gifts for.

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It is through Him that we find out what our ministries are, what our roles are, how we are to operate and serve in the

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Church. And it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are divinely enabled, and we are divinely empowered to live out and use our gifts in the varieties of ministries that we find before us, but all under the same

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Lord. Beautiful. And notice in verse 6, there are varieties of effects, varieties of effects.

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When I used the illustration earlier about the different ways to encourage someone, not only is there different ways of encouraging someone, but the person on the receiving end is encouraged differently by say if someone from this side of the room, someone from this side of the room were both to come and encourage me, the effect of encouragement they would have on me would be different, because they are unique Christians.

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So, the effect that we have on different people that we encounter will have variety.

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How wonderful, how great a God we serve, that things are not just black and white.

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Things are not just cookie cutter one way. You don't go into every place, every church, or every place you go and say, well, you have to.

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That is fundamentalism 101, my friends. Fundamentalism. You have to eat like me. You have to look like me.

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You have to dress like me. You have to do worship like me. You have to sing like me. You have to preach like me.

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You have to do every single thing in your life just like I tell you or you are lost. That verse says fundamentalism is error.

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It is heresy, because there is a Holy Spirit that divinely enables us and empowers us to have a variety of effects, variety of gifts, variety of ministries.

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God, our Holy Spirit loves uniqueness.

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Whatever it is about you that is unique, whatever it is about you that is different, we want that.

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God wants that. He doesn't want you to be like everybody else, because if He wanted you to be like everybody else,

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He would have made you just like everybody else. Sometimes I wish that parts of me were a little more like other people.

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Sometimes my wife wishes that parts of me were more like other people. And there, you know it doesn't mean there are parts of us that can't be improved over time.

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It doesn't mean that there aren't changes we should make about our lives, and make about ourselves. But notice now in verse 7, but to each one, each

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Christian is given the manifestation of the Spirit, for what?

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The common good. Why do we have spiritual gifts? For the common good.

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The common good of what? 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27,

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Now you are Christ's body, and we will touch on this in later sermons as we move through 1

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Corinthians 12, what the body and the members that make up, and all that good stuff. Now you are

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Christ's body, individually members of it. There is only one head.

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One head in this metaphorical illustration of the body. There is only one head on the body, and that is

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Jesus Christ. The pastor is not the head of the body. The Sunday School teacher is not the head of the body. No Christian, nothing created has died for humanity.

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Only Jesus Christ died. Only Jesus Christ was buried. Only Jesus Christ rose again.

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He is the only person that has the right to claim to be the head of the Church, period.

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No one can take that place as the head of the body. But we all are individually members of that body under the same

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Lord, under the headship of Christ. So, it is for the common good of the body of believers.

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So, you remember the slide a couple of slides ago when it said that spiritual gifts do not equal talents?

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Here is another distinction between spiritual gifts and talents. Talents can be used for selfish means.

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And not all selfish ways we use our talents are necessarily sinful. We go into a certain line of work because that is our talent, and so on and so forth, because you want to make money.

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You want to feed your family. Those are inward selfish looking reasons, not necessarily sinful.

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But they can also be used for sinfully selfish reasons. So, talents can have an inward selfish bent to them.

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Spiritual gifts only have one idea or person in mind, everybody else.

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Self is excluded. You want to start bringing in the scriptures that talk about dying to self?

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You can combine them with the way we are to use our spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts has no one else on the mind except everybody else.

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Spiritual gifts are never to be used for self. They are never to be used to promote self, to build up ourselves.

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They are for the building up of the body, the common good of the body of believers, the common good of the

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Church, the common good of the totality of Christians. They are not for self.

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Lastly this morning, number two, you have to know what your spiritual gift is, which we will develop and unpack over time.

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And hopefully by the time this series is over you will know what yours are, and you will have some way of knowing how to start using them.

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But also in conjunction with this number two we have to develop and use our spiritual gifts.

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It's no good to, you know, after hours of searching in that shed to finally find the tool you need.

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It does you no good if you don't use it. If you have to dig a hole in the ground, you can have the shovel.

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But if you do not pick up the shovel and dig the hole, guess what has not happened? There is no hole dug in the ground.

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I don't care if it is supposed to be a six foot hole, ten foot hole, it really doesn't matter. If you don't pick up your shovel and dig the hole, there's no hole.

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Very elementary example to describe the fact that it does you no good to have a spiritual gift if you don't use it.

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And it will never be good other than the elementary, or the initial stages of it if you don't develop it.

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Now, for the rest of our time, if you are with me in your Bibles, turn over to Ephesians chapter 4, and we'll have it on the screen as well starting here in verse 11.

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Ephesians chapter 4, I want to speak just a few brief moments on this idea of developing and using your gift.

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And I'm going to revisit this passage in more detail at a later date. But I want to kind of skim over the surface in the last few minutes that we have.

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Verse 11 in chapter 4 says, and He gave some as Apostles, some as Prophets, some as Evangelists, some as Pastors and Teachers.

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Now, more detail to come later, but for now understand that Apostles and Prophets have passed off the scene.

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There are no Apostles today, there are no Prophets. And these Prophets, especially when you think of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and ones that would actively involve predicting the future, we have no need of that.

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Why? We have the full revealed Word of God. There is no new revelation.

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I'm sorry Joseph Smith and the Mormons, but your golden tablets are not scriptural. And that goes for anybody that dares to stand up and say,

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I have new revelation from God. It just hit me in my mind and my heart.

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Here's what you all need to know. No, here's what I need to know. I don't need to know what you want to tell me in addition to this.

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Prophets, Apostles they were unique, they were foundational, they were very necessary to authenticate the message.

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Think about this, at the time the book of Acts is actually going on in history, what did they not have in their hands, completed at that time?

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One of these. They need this. The Bible authenticates the message of Jesus Christ.

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At that time they needed these miracles, they needed healings, they needed signs, they needed wonders.

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Apostles, the disciples and those that followed them that were gifted in these areas needed to be.

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And these Apostles and Prophets were specific offices in the Church at the time. They were passed off the scene.

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But notice it also says, evangelists and pastors, teachers. This Greek word that is translated, and could also be translated in particular.

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So, it is best to understand pastors and teachers as one office. And that is the only leadership office in the

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Church as it exists today is the oversight, the shepherding, pastor, teacher. What this means is that a pastor and a teacher is synonymous.

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A pastor has to have the gift of teaching. But not all teachers will necessarily be pastors.

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But this verse in view here has specifically in mind, in its view, the office of pastor, teacher.

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And these are those that He gave to the Church, these uniquely qualified men that He gifts to the

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Church. Why? Verse 12, for the equipping of the saints.

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Equipping means a preparing, a perfecting to bring to completion.

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Pastors can help believers go from sin to obedience, from a level of pride and help them see the need for humbleness.

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We can help train. We can help educate. We can help edify in those ways. We can help provide opportunities.

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There are many ways in which opportunities are provided to you that don't even involve me. It may involve another

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Christian coming to you and providing those opportunities. But primarily, God uses

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His pastors and His teachers to teach the Word of God, to articulate the Word of God, to grasp it, understand it, and explain it so that Christians can soak it in, and then go out and apply it.

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Notice it says, equipping of the saints for the work of service, this spiritually required service that is by all

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Christians, not just by leaders. Notice it also says, to the building up of the body of Christ, spiritual edification, this maturing, this developing of our gifts.

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Verse 13, until we attain to the unity of the faith, once again a unity around the

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Gospel, unity in Christ. One thing I want to note here, oneness and harmony, this unity in Christ, this unity that we so desperately seek, this oneness, this harmony among believers is possible when built upon the foundation of God's Word, and on the chief cornerstone that is

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Christ Jesus. This is why you see so many churches that build their whole identity and their unity around a man, a pastor, or some charismatic preacher.

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They fail every time. And then they sit back and wonder why they failed, because their unity was in the wrong person.

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Your pastor is only as good as he continually points you to the cross that is in that corner over there, and the humble submission that we give not to a pastor, but to the

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Holy Spirit, His revealed Word, and the commands of God that we are to obey. Verse 14,

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I'm sorry verse 13 continuing on, and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature, to the measure which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

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We've covered this in earnest in the book of Colossians in 14, 15, and 16, and so on in the first chapter of Colossians.

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Notice with me now in verse 14 it says, "'As a result we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

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

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Head, even Christ. We are expected by God to grow. We are expected by God to develop our gifts, and to be using them, and growing in our ability to use them.

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We are not to stay children. My little girl is growing up every day.

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She will eventually be an adult. We don't stay in diapers. We don't stay in children's clothes.

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We don't continue to do children's things. Some adults find this transition harder than others.

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Some of us need more help doing the adulting of life. I'm in that boat sometimes,

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I'll admit. But we are supposed to grow up into Christ, grow up in all aspects.

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Lastly, we need to answer the question of why. Verse 15 and 16. I'm sorry, verse 16, the last verse for today.

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It says, From whom? From Christ. The whole body, no one excluded, the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

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What does this verse mean? I want to give you a quote from John MacArthur, one of my favorite Bible teachers. In his study notes he says on this verse, that,

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Godly, biblical growth results from every believer in the body using their gift in submission to the

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Holy Spirit, and in cooperation with each other. Notice it says,

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By what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of every individual part.

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A body is not whole unless it has hands, and arms, and feet, and legs, and internal organs, and muscles, and veins, and blood, and a brain, and go on, and on, and on.

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Every single joint, every single part is equally important.

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Can you live and have some function without one leg? Yes. Are you whole?

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No. We need every single person at Calvary Baptist Church.

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Every single joint, every single individual part makes up the whole of who we are is equally important.

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Because without that we can't have the proper working of each individual part, which causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.