Spiritual Gifts 101

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. I think I start the show most often with those words. I�m going to write this down right here, �spiritual gifts.

That�s right, today we�re going to talk about spiritual gifts. You can always get in touch with me for the Israel trip, I think February 23rd, 24th, right in there, of next year, 2021. Omaha Bible Church, with Pat Abendroth and myself, Bethlehem Bible Church slash NOCO Radio.

I want to say there�s about 14 of us going now. Probably some will, you know, cancel. People drop out for lots of reasons, but 14 so far, and I think I have 10 more slots than we fill up a bus. So if you want to go, you better email me and get your deposit in so you can be guaranteed a spot.

I am a respecter of no person, therefore if you don�t have your name and money in, you don�t have a spot, assuming that we get more than 24. If you don�t have your name and number in, and we don�t have 24, I guess you can go if you pay in October.

We�re talking about spiritual gifts today for lots of reasons. One is, it�s an interesting topic, two, there�s a ladies� breakfast, and my wife wants me to talk to the ladies at this breakfast, non-breakfast.

Of course, with COVID -19, there can�t be a breakfast, and we aren�t even making coffee, but you can bring your own coffee in, and by the time this airs, I�m sure it already happened, and then we�ll have a little Q &A with Pastor Steve.

Natural Talents, Spiritual Gifts, and Grace

If you think about spiritual gifts, you get natural talents, right? Those are God-given. You get those at birth, and they�re through your parents, right? And you say, �Well, my mom was musically inclined, and now I am too.

There are certain things that you can just learn, abilities that you can learn on being a mechanic or cooking or something like that. And then there are spiritual gifts, and spiritual gifts, those are also God-given, but they don�t have anything to do with parents.

The Greek word for spiritual gift is charisma, and of course, you should be thinking about charis in there, grace, and it�s a gift by the grace of God, and it�s for serving others. So, you get a special ability at salvation, by God�s grace, it�s not earned, to serve people that Jesus died for and saved.

That�s what a spiritual gift is, in terms of simply understanding. So, if you have your Bible, maybe you want to turn to 1 Corinthians 12, and I�m just going to go through 1 Corinthians 12 with some questions, and ask some questions regarding spiritual gifts, and see how far we go.

So, Paul, of course, in this book, has been dealing with certain sins in the earlier chapters, and then he has this �but concerning, but concerning, but concerning�, or now �concerning�, as he answers questions that he probably received from Corinth, and now he�s giving answers.

And now he�s going to give the answer about how do you use spiritual gifts in public worship of the Lord Jesus. And he is going to later talk about some of the things like prophecy and tongues. But for today, we�re just going to do like Spiritual Gifts 101.

And Spiritual Gift 101, I don�t know, I guess I�m not going to phrase them in questions. Maybe I�ll do that for the breakfast, but for now. So, if I say �sway� if I say �spiritual gift there�s a lot of confusion with spiritual gifts.

What they are, what they are not, signed gifts, miraculous gifts, healing gifts, there�s a lot of confusion regarding gifts, because there are cessationists, and there are charismatics, and they debate back and forth what�s going on, which ones to believe.

And so there�s some confusion. But I want you to know, number one, that God�s Word is plain and understandable. He, Paul, writes in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1, �Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. And when it comes to Christians, he says, �Brothers, I don�t want you to be uninformed about spiritual gifts.

I�m sure the Corinthians were talking about, �Well, how spiritual must you be? What is spirituality? What�s the mark of a spiritual Christian And, you know, they, like people today, probably were tending toward, if you�ve got these special gifts, like speaking in tongues, that shows how spiritual you are.

Paul says, �I don�t want you to be ignorant of the proper use of spiritual gifts. That�s really what he�s saying here. Okay, why is that not working on my computer here? Okay, maybe they were saying, �What�s the best gift?

What�s the highest gift? What�s the most important gift And he just basically says, �You know what? I don�t want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts. You remember what it was like before the Holy Spirit changed you?

Remember when you were a pagan and it just kind of led you around? Maybe they were doing some weird things like this in chapter 12, verse 2, these bizarre kind of things, doing weird things. I don�t really know, but my point today is, Paul wants them to know.

And I want you, Christian, here today to realize you can know. And it�s not going to be something you have to wait to get to heaven to figure out. Number two, Jesus is to be highlighted by spiritual gifts.

Spiritual gifts exist to extol Jesus, and so you should use your gifts to that end. It says in verse 3,. �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, �Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, I want you to know what to look for, for somebody who is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, if you show me somebody that is controlled by the Holy Spirit, what do they say? They say, �Jesus is Lord.

We�re not saying anybody can say this. Anybody, of course, could say it, but we�re saying it. It means you say it and you really mean it. Right? �Jesus is accursed. Who says that? Well, anybody who�s hung on a cross is under God�s curse, Deuteronomy 21, 23, but then after God opens your eyes, you�re able to say by the Spirit�s power, �Jesus is Lord.

Isn�t that a great creed? Isn�t that a great exclamation, �Jesus is Lord Generally, what�s my point? My point is, when it comes to spiritual gifts, you use them for not your own glory, but for the glory of Jesus Christ.

By the way, this is what happens when God saves you, right? You become a person that says, �Oh, Jesus is God. �Jesus is Lord. �Jesus is Yahweh. Right? That�s exactly right. Who do you say that I am?

That�s right. We understand that. May I remind you that the Holy Spirit, while He is God, He is not the focus of the spiritual gifts. He�s the giver of gifts, but the highlighting is of Jesus Christ. That�s the key.

Show me a church that focuses on the Holy Spirit. I won�t show you a Spirit-filled church. I will show you a church that is not Spirit-filled. Spirit-filled churches focus on who Jesus is. That�s the point.

So, we�re just going to walk through this passage, 101. Don�t forget, you can know it. There to highlight Jesus Christ, whatever you end up doing is for His glory, and that will help you for long-term.

I�m just going to write that in now, since I was thinking about that. Number three, not every spiritual gift is the same. There are a variety of spiritual gifts. You can imagine how creative God is, and therefore, there�s that creativity.

Here is well. Here as well. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts. You can imagine that the Corinthians, they were all one of tongues, speaking in languages they didn�t learn, but that�s not the focus here.

There are a variety of gifts, verse 4, but the same Spirit. Variety of service, but the same Lord. Varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. There are diversities.

One person has this gift, another person has that gift. You could probably interpret it as allotments or diversities. You want diversity? This is true diversity. Just typing that in. That�s important.

Gifts, the theological aspects of this diversity are all to go back underneath that first point to that second point of this is for Jesus�s church. You ought to be saying to yourself, well, wait a second, if they�re diversities, and they�re given by God, then why would I want to push one to the top, and why would I want to have a split, and why would I want to have a preeminence?

Why would I want to have any kind of issue in the church when it�s the Lord who does all this stuff? It�s the same God working in all the people, so if He�s working in some with tongues and some without tongues, better be careful.

Why is this making sounds? This is making a lot of sounds. Number four, spiritual gifts are for the good of others, not yourself. Verse 7 -10. This is essentially the key of the chapter, and this is what we were kind of just working toward.

�To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. This is not your own talent. This is given to you by the Holy Spirit. This is for mutual benefit. This is not for the profit of somebody else.

This is for the building up of other people. This is not for the profit of yourself, that�s what I meant to say. And then He gives us sampling of some of these gifts, and so let me just tell you what some of these are, the ones that are in 1 Corinthians.

�For to one is given the spirit of the utterance of wisdom. So, the word of wisdom. What is the word of wisdom? This is a speaking gift, and they could explain in a practical, hands-on way the disclosure of God�s mysteries when He was granting divine revelations to the church.

Interesting. Yes? Yes. This is in the context of revelation, revealing Himself. �To another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit. I think this is a signed gift as well, what you have, there�s some kind of understanding, and this is a special ability to, as Dr. Thomas said, to grasp objective data that results from special revelation connected with the word of wisdom, and to systematize it and extend its implications to new situation.

Interesting. �To another faith by the same Spirit verse 12. This is not just, I can trust the Lord, because everybody needs to trust in the Lord. This is not the first time you trust the Lord, right?

You're believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved. No, no, this is in the midst of everything, this complete catastrophe is going on, a specialized trust that only some Christians had, enormous obstacles, as some writers would talk about.

You can think about Paul on the boat. This is extraordinary belief, so that the word was confirmed. Here again with a bunch of signed gifts, �another by the healing of the Spirit, one Spirit and this is plural, there's lots of healings that need to get done, and so how were these healings done?

They were done spectacularly, they were done undeniably, they were done anything but selectively, they weren't selectively done, and they confirmed the message and the messenger. Number five, there's miracles here, �to another working of miracles 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10.

What are we doing today? We're talking about spiritual gifts. Every Christian's got one, at least, it's for other people, it's to highlight Jesus, and here it's miracles. Expect a miracle today, modern day miracles, I believe in miracles, miracle catch, a miracle on 34th Street, miracle victories.

What is this? This is a unique, ordinary, no, extraordinary event, and it is wrought by divine power, according to one theologian, accomplishing some practical and benevolent work, authenticating the messenger and the message as from God.

You will see miraculous powers in the New Testament when demons are exercised, physical disabilities are given, blinding, death, and even people getting sick. God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hand of Paul, that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried back to the body of the sick, and diseases left them, and evil spirits went out.

So that's a miraculous power, elements got blinded, that would be the gift of miracles. These authenticate the message. Number six, prophecy, New Testament prophecies. We don't have the canon yet, we don't have all the Bible.

They were always flawless, they were always as authoritative as the Old Testament or the New Testament as it was coming together. God, I think, has shown that this is a revelation gift as well, along with the next one, distinguishing of spirits.

You're able to tell and to judge and evaluate prophecies and teachings so you know which one's right. Tongues, it means language. Speak languages that you never learned by regular means. Try to look at who speaks in tongues these days, who spoke in tongues in non-Christian groups like Muslims, and Eskimos, and Quakers, and Mormons, and monks, and Tibetan monks.

Those who were in the cults, interpretation of tongues. Somebody spoke a tongue that they never learned, a language, and then somebody else interprets. And those are the sign gifts there. Now there are other gifts, but he doesn't put those in this section quite yet.

We should probably add some of those other spiritual gifts here so that we can kind of go over it a little bit. They're for others and not self. So Paul is writing to the Corinthians, they're all about tongues and prophecies, but he's giving other relevatory gifts.

I have to have some coffee. You can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Who knows when you're going to listen to this show? I think I've had better shows before. Good thing I'm practicing this before the ladies' breakfast.

There are other gifts in other passages, and I'm going to add those for the ladies' breakfast. First Peter 4, there's some gifts. Ephesians 4, there's some gifts. And then Romans chapter 12, there's some gifts.

So remember 12, 12, 4, 4. First Corinthians 12, Romans 12. Ephesians 4, first Peter 4. 12, 12, 4, 4. And then there are some other non-speaking gifts, non-special gifts, just serving gifts. And I'm going to have to add those in.

All right, what else do we know here? They're sovereignly given. You can't just get your own. That's what happens, you know, you're going to teach you to speak in tongues. They're sovereignly given. Verse 11, and these are empowered by one in the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

You get a spiritual gift that God decided to give you before he made you, right? This is determined in eternity. He's the one. And then he talks about serving. This is why we end up using our spiritual gifts.

And he's going to give us lots of reasons why you use your spiritual gifts for unity in the body in first Corinthians chapter 12, to highlight diversity, because there's a lot of different people here and they have different needs, reparations, reciprocity.

There's a commonality, mutual need of people that need to be served here at a local body. Dignity, every gift is good. You don't have to say they've got special gifts. I don't. And then finally, in first Corinthians chapter 12, we have, okay, where's the finally?

I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling. Sovereignty. God's sovereign over these members. So that's pretty much an overview of spiritual gifts. By the way, if you say, you know what? I need to know my spiritual gift.

Okay. That might be good. This is a good way to get to know it. Just serve. There's an opportunity on the bulletin. Something goes out on an email and you see something with your own eyes that could be done.

Just serve. You don't have to know what your spiritual gift is. That's number one. Number two, matter of fact, I'm just going to write these down because as I think about them, maybe I'll use them for later.

Number one, look for opportunities. Number two, ask yourself, do I enjoy this? I think God will match that up, don't you? God's going to match up what you enjoy doing because he's made you especially like for that.

And so if you have a natural ability to play the piano and then you've acquired some ability and then you play it and then you're like, I actually enjoy that. I'm not talking about when you're 12 and you're forced to do it.

Um, number three, don't take spiritual, um, spiritual gifts, online questionnaire. Typically what happens is when you go online and they're like, well, I'm going to take a little survey and see which one I have.

They who give these tests, they don't understand. Signed gifts are gone because it pointed to the canyon, canyon, canyon. Canyons are nice bicycles and therefore they don't really understand. If you just think to yourself, generally there are signed gifts, there are speaking gifts and there are serving gifts.

Well, you're either going to speak because signed gifts have already pointed to the sign. So we don't need to do that anymore. We've got the new Testament canon. I mean, they're going to speak or serve.

And there's the, uh, helping gifts and other things, uh, that you could use, uh, for the glory of God. And you don't need to know if you just say, I have the gift of helps. I just like helping people.

That's great. That's, that's all you need to know is you just think, oh, I, I just, I just enjoy helping people. Um, I just enjoy teaching people. Um, the teachers, by the way, uh, teachers, uh, if you have people above you like elders and deacons, and they say, oh, you're a really good teacher and people below you, that is the people you're teaching.

They're not below you, obviously, but people who you, you know, maybe have authority over as you teach. Um, they say, oh, you're a great teacher that, that, that will help. But I think, I think when it comes to spiritual gifts, uh, people are petrified.

So they don't serve unless they know what their gifts are. They don't know why they have their gifts for God's glory, the son's glory, and the body's good. And I think they, they need to know exactly what their gifts are when we don't, you don't need to, you've been given a gift, sovereignly given.

First Corinthians is telling us you just because you have some kind of greater gifts doesn't mean you're any better. And to use that analogy for today, just because you're a teacher doesn't mean you're better than somebody that serves behind the scenes.

Come on. How can you teach unless people serve behind the scenes? So anyway, my name is Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And, uh, I guess I could teach before I became a Christian, but there's a special grace given ability.

That's what you should think about. Sovereignly given by the Holy Spirit, uh, grace given so that people might learn and grow and be mature as the Lord Jesus is proclaimed. Spiritual gifts. You don't need a survey.

You don't need a Q and A. You don't need to fill in things. Just need to look around and say, you know what? That old slogan holds true. God doesn't care about my ability. He cares about my availability.

And, uh, can you get better at certain things? Yeah, I think you can. By the way, there's no gift of music here. Did you notice that? Where's the gift of music? Is music a gift? Yes. But is there a spiritual gift of music?

Also, if you have certain show topics that you want me to talk about, I might be able to do that. I might refer you to an old show, although I think my theological maturation has become evident to some.

When we do the Friday shows, you probably hear, oh, what was that guy doing? Have I done 11 years of this show? 11 years of daily radio? No wonder I'm so old. No wonder I'm so sick. No wonder I'm sick of being old.

My name is Mike Abendroth. It's No Compromise Radio. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends. 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 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.