September 16, 2025 • 29 mins
Have you ever wondered why some churches focus obsessively on spiritual gifts while others barely acknowledge their existence? In this enlightening episode, we dive deep into what spiritual gifts truly are and how they function within God's family.
The conversation begins with a powerful insight from 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul states, "Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant." Yet ignorance about spiritual gifts remains widespread in the church today. We explore how God desires to speak not only to us but through us, using our unique gifts as His chosen vessels for communication.
One of the most profound revelations discussed is the test for determining whether something is truly from the Holy Spirit: Does it glorify Jesus? The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus, never drawing attention to Himself or elevating human vessels. When we see gatherings excessively focused on the Spirit rather than Jesus, something has gone amiss. As Jesus Himself said, "When the Helper comes... He will testify of Me."
We unpack the nature of spiritual gifts as freely given expressions of grace that cannot be earned through education, good behavior, or spiritual practices. Every believer has received at least one gift, thoughtfully chosen by Jesus Himself for their specific contribution to His kingdom. The only limitation to how powerfully God can work through your gifts is how much of your heart remains unsurrendered.
The episode categorizes gifts into three types: miraculous gifts (tongues, healing), enabling gifts (wisdom, knowledge, discernment), and team gifts (teaching, mercy, giving, administration). Each serves a vital function in God's family, with no gift being more important than another.
Ready to discover your unique spiritual design? Take the spiritual gifts test mentioned in the episode and join us next week as we explore each gift in greater detail. Your purpose in God's kingdom is waiting to be unwrapped.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
So don't miss that part.
Okay, so let's pray and getstarted.
Father, we thank you thatthroughout the ages, lord, your
church has been gathering forthe past 2,000 years, every week
, to study your word, to loveeach other and to come to you to
bring all our burdens, all ourneeds, directly to you.
(00:50):
Bring all our burdens, all ourneeds, directly to you, father.
We had so many things happenthis week, and it's been a long
week, I think, for everybody,and it's worth it to our souls
to spend our time right nowfocused on you, because, jesus,
you are life, you are the way,the truth and the life, and
(01:15):
there is no other way except you, and we believe that.
But, lord, our souls arethirsty for you, and you
promised that anyone who thirstscan cry out to you, and you
would pour out your rivers ofliving water.
And you have a name for thoserivers, jesus, and that name is
your Holy Spirit.
So, father, we cry out to youto bring healing, to bring peace
(01:41):
, to bring all the wonderfulgifts that you bring.
But we cry out to you, jesus,we seek you first and we give
our hearts fresh to you.
We surrender everything to youIn this place, jesus, in your
name, we pray Amen.
What are spiritual gifts?
(02:04):
Speaking of gifts, sometimes atChristmas I give my wife those
lottery scratchers.
You guys do that, do you guysdo that?
Like, in the stocking it'sloaded with scratchers.
Alright, gamblers, no, justkidding Sinners.
I always thought it was kind offunny.
(02:29):
You know, here's a 99% chancethat you're being disappointed.
Hope you remember me, aww.
Okay, so let's dive in and readour text here.
In 1 Corinthians 12, it says Now, concerning spiritual gifts,
(02:50):
brethren, I do not want you tobe ignorant.
So Paul just dives right in andhe says it's really important
that you understand spiritualgifts.
But it's really funny thatthat's like one of the areas in
the church that seems likethere's the most confusion.
Like you have certain churchesthat don't believe spiritual
gifts exist at all.
You have certain churches thatall they do is talk about
(03:14):
spiritual gifts and try to seespiritual gifts happen, and so
it's like either no emphasis atall or a complete overemphasis,
and Paul's like it's really Idon't want you to be ignorant,
it's something that we shouldunderstand, because what are
they about?
God wants to lead us, he wantsto be our leader and he wants to
(03:40):
lead us by speaking to us.
By speaking to us.
He wants to speak to us throughus.
So he wants to speak to you,but he also wants to speak
through you.
It's like we are his mouthpiecethat he wants, but also his
hands, and there's going to be alot of things that we learn
about this.
(04:00):
But look at the next verse.
Here it says now you know thatyou were Gentiles and you were
carried away by these dumb idols.
However, you were led.
Now it doesn't mean dumb likehow we think of dumb, like
stupid, right.
It means incapable of speaking.
So what he's saying here isthat the people before they knew
Jesus, they worshipped theseidols, and these idols were just
(04:23):
statues, and the statues couldnot lead you.
They couldn't speak to you,they had nothing to say to you.
They just said worship me andhopefully your life is better.
And the people fell for it.
That's what idolatry is.
Worship me, spend time with me,give me your time and attention
.
Maybe your life will be alittle bit better.
That's what idols offer us.
(04:45):
But God says they're stupid,they're dumb, they can't speak
to you, they can't truly speakto you.
God wants to actually speak toyou through His Holy Spirit.
He loves to spend time with you.
No other God can.
They're all dumb and it'sreally hard to be led by
(05:06):
something that's dumb.
You can hear his voice, you canhear God's voice.
Now, that sounds creepy, itsounds weird at the beginning
and I agree with you.
Okay, but God wants tocommunicate his heart and his
love to you and he loves tospeak through people and his
(05:28):
word.
Okay, he chooses to use hischurch, the people and his word.
Okay, he chooses to use hischurch, the people, not the
organization of the church, butthe people in the church.
That's his chosen vessel tospeak through.
He wants to speak to youthrough the people of the church
.
He wants to communicate.
What does he want to say to you?
He wants to say here's life,here's my life and I want you to
(05:51):
know it, I want you to feel it,I want you to know what I think
about you.
Listen to this verse in Isaiah,chapter 31, verse 21.
It says you shall hear a wordbehind you saying this is the
way.
Walk in it whenever you turn tothe right hand or whenever you
turn to the left.
Now, is he saying that you'regoing to actually hear a word
(06:13):
behind you?
Is that what this actuallymeans?
That's a really good question,because I grew up thinking I
hear people say all the time Godspoke to me.
This, god told me you need togive me $1,000.
Sounds like something he'd sayright, yeah, of course, right.
(06:37):
Ever wondered why some peoplesay they hear God all the time?
I mean, maybe they're faking itand they're really being
deceived, or they're just tryingto deceive you.
Well, that all sucks right.
Or maybe they're truly hearingwhat God has for them.
How can we know?
How can we know?
Can we speak for God?
What are the rules about this?
Can a man just say somethingthat disagrees with God's Word
(07:01):
and say thus says the Lord, andwe listen to Him instead of
God's Word?
Like this is really importantthat we understand how this
whole speaking works.
And so Paul here.
He says we're supposed to testwhat's being heard.
We're supposed to test it,we're supposed to understand
(07:22):
that not everyone speaks theword of God.
And so what is the test?
He says?
Therefore, I make known to youthat no one speaking by the
Spirit of God calls Jesusaccursed and no one can say that
Jesus is Lord except by theHoly Spirit.
So this is really interesting.
He says the test is very, verysimple.
(07:44):
The test is Jesus.
It's like a scratch and sniffsticker.
Just scratch it.
If it smells like Jesus, you'regood.
It's like what do you mean?
The test is Jesus.
Does the message glorify Jesus?
Does the message glorify Jesus?
Does the message reinforce thesacrifice and love of Jesus for
(08:06):
his people and for the world?
Does the message say Jesus isLord?
Does the message submit toJesus in every part of my life?
That's how you can know that itis the Word of God speaking
through the Spirit, or it's not.
Is it submitted to everythingJesus already taught us, or am I
(08:27):
disagreeing with something thatJesus has already said in the
Bible?
If I'm disagreeing with whatthe Bible says, I'm not speaking
by the Spirit.
That's just something else, adifferent spirit.
Maybe that's the big one.
Does it disagree with what'salready been said in the Bible?
If it's new, it's not true.
(08:49):
If it's new, it's not going tobe true.
Okay, if it's not in the Bible,that's a big problem.
If it's not in the book, don'tgive it a second.
Look that one I made up myself.
Let's look at John 15, 26 andsee what Jesus says Jesus said.
(09:11):
Let's look at John 15, 26 andsee what Jesus says Jesus said
but when the helper comes, whomI shall send to you from the
Father, the Spirit of truth whoproceeds from the Father, he
will testify of me.
He will testify of me.
The Holy Spirit isn't a gimmick.
The Holy Spirit isn't a force.
The Holy Spirit isn't a magicpower, isn't a gimmick.
(09:33):
The Holy Spirit isn't a force.
The Holy Spirit isn't a magicpower.
It's a person.
It's the Spirit of Jesus.
He's a person and he has onemain calling card.
You could say he always pointspeople towards Jesus, he's
always talking about Jesus.
So if you see a gathering andit's all focused on the Holy
Spirit's, all focused on theHoly Spirit, all focused on the
(09:56):
Holy Spirit, overly focused onthe Holy Spirit, what you can
know is that the Holy Spiritprobably isn't involved much in
that, because when the HolySpirit is involved, you know who
the focus is Jesus.
Jesus is the focus.
He is lifted up Because theSpirit will testify of Jesus.
Jesus is the focus.
He is lifted up because theSpirit will testify of Jesus and
the Spirit will connect peopleto Jesus.
(10:18):
It's never about the personthat he's using, but God does
love to use people.
He loves it.
Every single believer has atleast one spiritual gift, if not
more.
So you, every person in thisroom, every believer that
(10:38):
believes in Jesus, has beengiven at least one spiritual
gift, and you're going to knowyours.
God is inviting us to bepartners with Him in His kingdom
work.
That's why he gives you a gift.
He gives you a gift so you canbe part of the family business.
What is the family business ofGod?
His kingdom is to make Jesusglorified, the center of
(11:04):
attention, and then people wouldbe saved.
What does Jesus say?
If I am lifted up, I can drawall men to me.
So it doesn't matter what yourgift is.
The only thing that matters isthat you lift up Jesus with your
gift.
We're going to see.
There's different kinds ofgifts.
There's speaking gifts, there'sserving gifts.
(11:24):
There's different kinds ofgifts, but all of them this is
what we have to test them by Dothey lift Jesus up?
It's Jesus' kingdom, not ourkingdom.
We're just part of His kingdom.
So people can hear what Jesusis saying to them and what Jesus
(11:44):
does for them, through usserving them and loving them and
encouraging them in all thespiritual gifts that God has
given us.
It's important.
This is an important thing.
The Holy Spirit doesn't possessyou like a demon.
Okay, he already lives insideyou, but he does not force you
(12:05):
to do anything.
Why?
Because the Holy Spirit's agentleman, he loves you and the
invitation is that he says Iwant you to invite me to run
your life.
You have an invitation forJesus to live through you and
say Jesus says invite me.
Say Jesus, here I am, I presentmyself to you.
(12:28):
You can live through me.
What do we have to have to dothat?
A surrendered heart, the onlypart of your heart that Jesus
can't live through, is the partthat you haven't surrendered to
him.
That's the only limitation inthe power that God will give you
to serve him and to do his will.
How do you surrender to God?
(12:49):
Well, we've been talking aboutit a lot.
It's humility and faith.
Humility says God, I need you.
And faith says I'm going totrust in you.
Your word, jesus, who you sent,I'm you.
And faith says I'm going totrust in you, your word, jesus,
who you sent.
I'm going to trust in Jesus,I'm going to trust in you.
So, humility and faith.
Now look at what Jesus says inthe next chapter, john 16, verse
14.
He says he, the Spirit, willglorify me, for he will take
(13:12):
what is mine and declare it toyou.
So spiritual gifts comestraight from Jesus.
Jesus thought about you.
He took a moment.
He's like, hey, bob, whatshould I do with Bob?
And he thought about you.
And he thought about how hewould make you and what gift he
(13:34):
would give you.
That would be really special,or a combination of gifts that
would be usable in your life, inyour time for his kingdom.
Jesus thinks about you that wayand I think that's really
special.
These gifts that we're going totalk about today, they're a part
of the grace that he gives hischurch, and so that means
(13:56):
they're always free.
They're a part of the gracethat he gives his church, and so
that means they're always free.
You can never earn or work fora spiritual gift.
They're all free.
They're just gifts.
They're never earned.
You can't convince God to givethem to you, and you can't lose
them by doing something stupid.
You don't lose your gifts bydoing something wrong.
(14:18):
It's a gift it is yours to usefor Him.
They are really free.
You can't go to school to learnthem.
There's no seminary, no Bibleschool.
If you think about the peoplein this church that he's writing
to.
Most of them couldn't even read.
(14:40):
It was not part of the culturethat they were just like reading
all the time.
So you can't earn, you can'tfigure out spiritual gifts.
They are given to you as freegifts from God and he's given
them to you so that you canserve him.
So what do we know about them?
They will always be in linewith his will, okay, with his
(15:00):
heart.
In other words, when we serveGod, we serve in his name.
That means with his heart, forhis purposes, not for us, right?
There's no selfishness involvedin serving the Lord.
They will always be to helppeople receive the grace of
(15:21):
Jesus.
They're not there for us toserve ourselves or to make our
lives more comfortable or better, but to see Jesus and connect
with Jesus.
His death and his resurrectionare freely offered to all men
right, and so all the gifts hegives us are to be to exalt that
idea.
The purpose of the gifts is tohelp people believe that and to
(15:42):
receive it.
So we'll talk about all thespecific gifts next week.
We're not going to get into whatall the specific gifts are this
week, but I want you to take atest.
Do you know they actually make?
There's like lots of tests outthere.
Did I send you?
Did you get that QR code, isaac?
You go and throw it up on thescreen.
So if you want to, here's atest.
(16:05):
You can just scan it and youcan just take it.
It will ask for your name andemail address.
You can just push unsubscribewhen they send you an email.
Okay, it's a cool organization,but I want you guys to take your
spiritual gifts test and then Iwant you to tell me what it
says Like.
What are your top three?
It'll give you like a top three.
You can read about them if youwant.
(16:26):
It'll be cool, because nextweek we'll talk about all the
individual ones and then you canlearn more about your specific
ones.
I encourage you to do this orfind your own test.
If you don't like this test, doa different test.
There's ones.
You can download the piece ofpaper and actually fill it all
by hand and then add up all thescores and it'll tell you how to
(16:47):
do it.
But this one's easy.
It does it all for you rightonline.
So that's your homework forthis week.
You come to church, you gethomework.
How about that?
You love that?
All right, but we're onlyhalfway through.
We're still learning, but goahead and we'll put this back up
at the end of church.
All right, in John 14, 26,.
(17:08):
John 14, 26, it says but theHelper, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name,he will teach you all things
and bring to remembrance all thethings I said to you.
So again, the Holy Spirit andhis gifts.
They have a purpose ofconnecting you to Jesus and his
word.
(17:28):
That's the connection.
Jesus promises us that his wordis life.
So believing his word andtaking his word inside us and
believing it, that is life.
So believing His Word andtaking His Word inside us and
believing it, that is life.
So our job coming to church andbeing Christians is to believe
the Word, believe His Words.
That fills us with the Spirit.
(17:49):
Believing His Words is beingfilled with the Spirit, and the
Holy Spirit is only.
He's working now to assistevery single one of us to
believe the words of Jesus.
So he's helping you all thetime to believe and understand
and remember the truth of whoJesus is, what Jesus did for you
and what that means about you,your identity.
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Jesus died for you on the cross.
That means your sin can becompletely eliminated and paid
for by simply believing in Jesus.
Jesus rose again from the dead,meaning his new life is now
shareable with you so he canfill you with his spirit, so
that you live a new life that isnot a slave to sin, but a slave
(18:32):
to righteousness.
You want to do God's will.
You're not a slave to doselfishness, you're a slave to
love.
You want to love people.
That's what a Christian is, andwhen we believe those things,
we have life.
Our job is always the believingpart.
His job is doing everything forus and empowering us to serve
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him.
All right back in our text itsays there are diversities of
gifts, but the same spirit.
There are differences ofministries, but the same Lord.
There are diversities ofactivities but the same God who
works.
All in all.
The word diversities,differences, diversities.
It's all the same word in Greek.
So he says but it's cool, didyou see that Paul snuck in the
(19:21):
Trinity right there?
He says the Spirit, the Lordwhich is the Lord, jesus, and
God who's the Father.
He just snuck it in that oneverse, which is pretty cool.
They're all the same person,but they all have one heart to
lift up Jesus and what he didfor you so you can be connected
to your Heavenly Father throughthe work of the Holy Spirit.
(19:41):
God is involved in this entireprocess of the gospel.
The big picture is that Godgives his Spirit and the gifts
of the Spirit to each person inhis family to benefit the whole
family.
Your purpose is to benefit thefamily.
It's pretty special.
There are no two people thatare alike, just like snowflakes.
(20:03):
There's no two that are alike,and God is directly responsible
for creating us with suchawesome diversity of gifts and
he wants to lead people throughthese gifts.
He wants to speak to his churchthrough you, using your gifts.
(20:23):
He wants to encourage all thepeople in the church to trust in
Jesus more, so that they canuse their gifts to encourage the
whole church again to trust inJesus more, so that they can use
their gifts.
Maybe they spread out to otherchurches and all the church is
being used to help people totrust in Jesus.
(20:43):
You are going to have a maingift that God has given you.
You might even have more thanone main gift, but you'll have
at least one main gift and nogift is more important or less
important than any other gift.
If I die tomorrow, this churchwill go on just fine.
(21:05):
The Lord will raise up somebodyto take care of his people.
The church will be fine withoutme, but while I'm on earth, I'm
going to spend every momentwalking in the Spirit to serve
God's people.
With the gift I know that he'sgiven me, and we can all do the
exact same thing.
(21:28):
What does it mean if I have agift?
Well, god has pre-planned you.
He has designed you, he has putforethought into your life
where you would be born, who youwould be born to, how they
would form you, how you wouldgrow up, the things you would go
through, the things you'dstruggle with, the things that
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would hurt you and all thosethings, and then how his gift
would be brought forth in yourlife through going through those
things.
He thought all of this throughand the wisdom of it is
incalculable.
What's that word?
Incalculable?
(22:11):
I failed that word.
It's not because he doesn'tvalue your freedom and to choose
what you want, or your freewill.
He loves.
He's given you freedom.
He's given you free will.
It's because he super valuesyou and he desires to partner
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with you in His perfect plan forredeeming the world.
That's why he's given you thespecific gift he's given you.
It's because he looked throughall time and eternity and he
said this is how I'm going tomake this child.
And when you think of your kids,do you think, man, I wish they
were, you know, a little bittaller.
I wish they were better atbasketball so they could take
(22:58):
care of me.
No, you, little bit taller, Iwish they were better at
basketball so they could takecare of me.
No, you just love them.
You love how special and uniqueeach one is, and that's how God
thinks about us.
And God wants to communicatehis love, his heart, his plan,
through your gift.
So it's pretty amazing todiscover your gift and to walk
(23:21):
in it with faith and humility.
So I'm going to give you just alittle insight into the types
of gifts that there are.
First, there's miraculous gifts.
Okay, do we have this slide,the miraculous gifts Slide.
(23:45):
Gifts Okay, do we have thisslide, the miraculous gifts
Slide, the three that I madeOkay, anyway, there's for next
week.
We'll have this because we'regoing to focus on it more.
But basically, there'smiraculous gifts, there's
enabling gifts and there's teamgifts.
There's enabling gifts andthere's team gifts, teamwork
gifts.
So the miraculous gifts aregift of tongues, miracles,
(24:06):
healings, interpretation oftongues and apostles.
Those are the miraculous gifts,and they're wild and crazy when
they happen.
Okay, can they happen?
Sure, they can happen.
I don't think any one of thoseis probably going to be your
main gift, so they're notincluded in the test usually.
Then there's enabling gifts, andthese are gifts like faith,
(24:27):
discernment, wisdom andknowledge, and so these are
gifts that can be given to youat various times in your life
when you need a special amountof faith or you need some
discernment or you need someknowledge.
God will just give you someinsight into something that's
going to happen or somethingthat's going on.
There you go, and then you havethe group of team gifts, and
(24:50):
these are evangelism, prophecy,teaching, exhortation,
shepherding, serving, mercy,showing, giving and
administrating, and all thoseare team gifts.
That's how God puts togetherHis church through those.
So you're definitely going tohave at least one, if not two or
three, of those things, andthose should give you some
(25:12):
guidance into, maybe, how youcan serve the church in general.
So I'm not going to dive intoall these things right now.
We're going to do that moredeeply next week.
But the purpose of all thesegifts is to build up the body of
Jesus, which is his church.
God wants to speak hislife-giving word into his family
(25:35):
and he wants you to do it.
So John 6, 63 says it's thespirit who gives life.
The flesh profits nothing.
The words I speak to you, theyare spirit and they are life, so
we can speak life with ourgifts.
You guys heard that song byToby Mac Speak life, speak life
(25:57):
to the deadest.
Dark is night.
It's awesome, right, it's agood song.
When you serve God through yourgift, you're speaking his life
into the people that areimpacted by how you serve.
Someone comes early and takesout the trash.
Did you guys know that here?
Someone comes early and doesthat and never wants to be
(26:19):
thanked and never wants to.
You know he doesn't want anyattention for it or she doesn't
want any attention for it.
But you guys have a little bitmore life in you because of that
little thing that happens thatsomeone does.
That's thinking about you andloving you.
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Before you.
You know, while you're still inyour jammy jams in the morning,
people are thinking about youand loving you.
You communicate how valuablepeople are.
When you use your gift, likewhen I'm shepherding you, I'm
thinking about you.
That's my gift to shepherd,teacher, and I'm thinking about
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you and what's best for you.
And so what's best for thechurch is to study the Word of
God and to know the Bible.
And so every week we studythrough the Bible, verse by
verse, and I really believe thatwhat's best for the church is
to learn the entire Bible, notjust parts here or there.
And sometimes I have to teachthings that I don't understand,
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that I'm like, wow, what is thepurpose of this, what's the
point of this?
And I promise you I will do mybest to teach it the way I
believe it's supposed to betaught.
But I also want to havehumility and say I could get it
wrong.
But I pray that the spirit Iteach with is lifting Jesus up.
Right, I'm not perfect, but Ido want to lift Jesus up in
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everything that I do.
Got it, got it.
How do I live in the spirit anduse my gift?
It's simple.
First, you just believe thatyou died with Christ and that
you've been raised with Him.
This is called becoming aChristian, being born again.
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And if anyone in here has neverbecome a Christian been born
again, all you do is you believethat Jesus was God, he died on
the cross for your sins and thathe rose from the dead with the
new life of resurrection so thathe could share that new life
with you.
He died for you, he rose foryou, he's in heaven and he says
(28:33):
I can live through you, andthat's the Holy Spirit.
So we invite Him to livethrough us.
So if you haven't done that,that's the first way to serve
God with your gift.
Secondly, just ask Jesus tolive through you.
So believe and then ask Jesusto live through you and then
just live your life.
Step forward to love people howyou have specifically been
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created and designed by God.
You are special and I hope thattaking the spiritual gifts test
will encourage you that youhave a role to play in building
God's kingdom, in building thischurch.
I was having a conversationwith someone right before church
and they were talking about howmuch they cared about this
church and the building of thischurch and they were a part of
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it, and I was like that is sucha beautiful, beautiful thing,
and so that's the purpose of
So don't miss that part.
Okay, so let's pray and getstarted.
Father, we thank you thatthroughout the ages, lord, your
church has been gathering forthe past 2,000 years, every week
, to study your word, to loveeach other and to come to you to
bring all our burdens, all ourneeds, directly to you.
(00:50):
Bring all our burdens, all ourneeds, directly to you, father.
We had so many things happenthis week, and it's been a long
week, I think, for everybody,and it's worth it to our souls
to spend our time right nowfocused on you, because, jesus,
you are life, you are the way,the truth and the life, and
(01:15):
there is no other way except you, and we believe that.
But, lord, our souls arethirsty for you, and you
promised that anyone who thirstscan cry out to you, and you
would pour out your rivers ofliving water.
And you have a name for thoserivers, jesus, and that name is
your Holy Spirit.
So, father, we cry out to youto bring healing, to bring peace
(01:41):
, to bring all the wonderfulgifts that you bring.
But we cry out to you, jesus,we seek you first and we give
our hearts fresh to you.
We surrender everything to youIn this place, jesus, in your
name, we pray Amen.
What are spiritual gifts?
(02:04):
Speaking of gifts, sometimes atChristmas I give my wife those
lottery scratchers.
You guys do that, do you guysdo that?
Like, in the stocking it'sloaded with scratchers.
Alright, gamblers, no, justkidding Sinners.
I always thought it was kind offunny.
(02:29):
You know, here's a 99% chancethat you're being disappointed.
Hope you remember me, aww.
Okay, so let's dive in and readour text here.
In 1 Corinthians 12, it says Now, concerning spiritual gifts,
(02:50):
brethren, I do not want you tobe ignorant.
So Paul just dives right in andhe says it's really important
that you understand spiritualgifts.
But it's really funny thatthat's like one of the areas in
the church that seems likethere's the most confusion.
Like you have certain churchesthat don't believe spiritual
gifts exist at all.
You have certain churches thatall they do is talk about
(03:14):
spiritual gifts and try to seespiritual gifts happen, and so
it's like either no emphasis atall or a complete overemphasis,
and Paul's like it's really Idon't want you to be ignorant,
it's something that we shouldunderstand, because what are
they about?
God wants to lead us, he wantsto be our leader and he wants to
(03:40):
lead us by speaking to us.
By speaking to us.
He wants to speak to us throughus.
So he wants to speak to you,but he also wants to speak
through you.
It's like we are his mouthpiecethat he wants, but also his
hands, and there's going to be alot of things that we learn
about this.
(04:00):
But look at the next verse.
Here it says now you know thatyou were Gentiles and you were
carried away by these dumb idols.
However, you were led.
Now it doesn't mean dumb likehow we think of dumb, like
stupid, right.
It means incapable of speaking.
So what he's saying here isthat the people before they knew
Jesus, they worshipped theseidols, and these idols were just
(04:23):
statues, and the statues couldnot lead you.
They couldn't speak to you,they had nothing to say to you.
They just said worship me andhopefully your life is better.
And the people fell for it.
That's what idolatry is.
Worship me, spend time with me,give me your time and attention
.
Maybe your life will be alittle bit better.
That's what idols offer us.
(04:45):
But God says they're stupid,they're dumb, they can't speak
to you, they can't truly speakto you.
God wants to actually speak toyou through His Holy Spirit.
He loves to spend time with you.
No other God can.
They're all dumb and it'sreally hard to be led by
(05:06):
something that's dumb.
You can hear his voice, you canhear God's voice.
Now, that sounds creepy, itsounds weird at the beginning
and I agree with you.
Okay, but God wants tocommunicate his heart and his
love to you and he loves tospeak through people and his
(05:28):
word.
Okay, he chooses to use hischurch, the people and his word.
Okay, he chooses to use hischurch, the people, not the
organization of the church, butthe people in the church.
That's his chosen vessel tospeak through.
He wants to speak to youthrough the people of the church
.
He wants to communicate.
What does he want to say to you?
He wants to say here's life,here's my life and I want you to
(05:51):
know it, I want you to feel it,I want you to know what I think
about you.
Listen to this verse in Isaiah,chapter 31, verse 21.
It says you shall hear a wordbehind you saying this is the
way.
Walk in it whenever you turn tothe right hand or whenever you
turn to the left.
Now, is he saying that you'regoing to actually hear a word
(06:13):
behind you?
Is that what this actuallymeans?
That's a really good question,because I grew up thinking I
hear people say all the time Godspoke to me.
This, god told me you need togive me $1,000.
Sounds like something he'd sayright, yeah, of course, right.
(06:37):
Ever wondered why some peoplesay they hear God all the time?
I mean, maybe they're faking itand they're really being
deceived, or they're just tryingto deceive you.
Well, that all sucks right.
Or maybe they're truly hearingwhat God has for them.
How can we know?
How can we know?
Can we speak for God?
What are the rules about this?
Can a man just say somethingthat disagrees with God's Word
(07:01):
and say thus says the Lord, andwe listen to Him instead of
God's Word?
Like this is really importantthat we understand how this
whole speaking works.
And so Paul here.
He says we're supposed to testwhat's being heard.
We're supposed to test it,we're supposed to understand
(07:22):
that not everyone speaks theword of God.
And so what is the test?
He says?
Therefore, I make known to youthat no one speaking by the
Spirit of God calls Jesusaccursed and no one can say that
Jesus is Lord except by theHoly Spirit.
So this is really interesting.
He says the test is very, verysimple.
(07:44):
The test is Jesus.
It's like a scratch and sniffsticker.
Just scratch it.
If it smells like Jesus, you'regood.
It's like what do you mean?
The test is Jesus.
Does the message glorify Jesus?
Does the message glorify Jesus?
Does the message reinforce thesacrifice and love of Jesus for
(08:06):
his people and for the world?
Does the message say Jesus isLord?
Does the message submit toJesus in every part of my life?
That's how you can know that itis the Word of God speaking
through the Spirit, or it's not.
Is it submitted to everythingJesus already taught us, or am I
(08:27):
disagreeing with something thatJesus has already said in the
Bible?
If I'm disagreeing with whatthe Bible says, I'm not speaking
by the Spirit.
That's just something else, adifferent spirit.
Maybe that's the big one.
Does it disagree with what'salready been said in the Bible?
If it's new, it's not true.
(08:49):
If it's new, it's not going tobe true.
Okay, if it's not in the Bible,that's a big problem.
If it's not in the book, don'tgive it a second.
Look that one I made up myself.
Let's look at John 15, 26 andsee what Jesus says Jesus said.
(09:11):
Let's look at John 15, 26 andsee what Jesus says Jesus said
but when the helper comes, whomI shall send to you from the
Father, the Spirit of truth whoproceeds from the Father, he
will testify of me.
He will testify of me.
The Holy Spirit isn't a gimmick.
The Holy Spirit isn't a force.
The Holy Spirit isn't a magicpower, isn't a gimmick.
(09:33):
The Holy Spirit isn't a force.
The Holy Spirit isn't a magicpower.
It's a person.
It's the Spirit of Jesus.
He's a person and he has onemain calling card.
You could say he always pointspeople towards Jesus, he's
always talking about Jesus.
So if you see a gathering andit's all focused on the Holy
Spirit's, all focused on theHoly Spirit, all focused on the
(09:56):
Holy Spirit, overly focused onthe Holy Spirit, what you can
know is that the Holy Spiritprobably isn't involved much in
that, because when the HolySpirit is involved, you know who
the focus is Jesus.
Jesus is the focus.
He is lifted up Because theSpirit will testify of Jesus.
Jesus is the focus.
He is lifted up because theSpirit will testify of Jesus and
the Spirit will connect peopleto Jesus.
(10:18):
It's never about the personthat he's using, but God does
love to use people.
He loves it.
Every single believer has atleast one spiritual gift, if not
more.
So you, every person in thisroom, every believer that
(10:38):
believes in Jesus, has beengiven at least one spiritual
gift, and you're going to knowyours.
God is inviting us to bepartners with Him in His kingdom
work.
That's why he gives you a gift.
He gives you a gift so you canbe part of the family business.
What is the family business ofGod?
His kingdom is to make Jesusglorified, the center of
(11:04):
attention, and then people wouldbe saved.
What does Jesus say?
If I am lifted up, I can drawall men to me.
So it doesn't matter what yourgift is.
The only thing that matters isthat you lift up Jesus with your
gift.
We're going to see.
There's different kinds ofgifts.
There's speaking gifts, there'sserving gifts.
(11:24):
There's different kinds ofgifts, but all of them this is
what we have to test them by Dothey lift Jesus up?
It's Jesus' kingdom, not ourkingdom.
We're just part of His kingdom.
So people can hear what Jesusis saying to them and what Jesus
(11:44):
does for them, through usserving them and loving them and
encouraging them in all thespiritual gifts that God has
given us.
It's important.
This is an important thing.
The Holy Spirit doesn't possessyou like a demon.
Okay, he already lives insideyou, but he does not force you
(12:05):
to do anything.
Why?
Because the Holy Spirit's agentleman, he loves you and the
invitation is that he says Iwant you to invite me to run
your life.
You have an invitation forJesus to live through you and
say Jesus says invite me.
Say Jesus, here I am, I presentmyself to you.
(12:28):
You can live through me.
What do we have to have to dothat?
A surrendered heart, the onlypart of your heart that Jesus
can't live through, is the partthat you haven't surrendered to
him.
That's the only limitation inthe power that God will give you
to serve him and to do his will.
How do you surrender to God?
(12:49):
Well, we've been talking aboutit a lot.
It's humility and faith.
Humility says God, I need you.
And faith says I'm going totrust in you.
Your word, jesus, who you sent,I'm you.
And faith says I'm going totrust in you, your word, jesus,
who you sent.
I'm going to trust in Jesus,I'm going to trust in you.
So, humility and faith.
Now look at what Jesus says inthe next chapter, john 16, verse
14.
He says he, the Spirit, willglorify me, for he will take
(13:12):
what is mine and declare it toyou.
So spiritual gifts comestraight from Jesus.
Jesus thought about you.
He took a moment.
He's like, hey, bob, whatshould I do with Bob?
And he thought about you.
And he thought about how hewould make you and what gift he
(13:34):
would give you.
That would be really special,or a combination of gifts that
would be usable in your life, inyour time for his kingdom.
Jesus thinks about you that wayand I think that's really
special.
These gifts that we're going totalk about today, they're a part
of the grace that he gives hischurch, and so that means
(13:56):
they're always free.
They're a part of the gracethat he gives his church, and so
that means they're always free.
You can never earn or work fora spiritual gift.
They're all free.
They're just gifts.
They're never earned.
You can't convince God to givethem to you, and you can't lose
them by doing something stupid.
You don't lose your gifts bydoing something wrong.
(14:18):
It's a gift it is yours to usefor Him.
They are really free.
You can't go to school to learnthem.
There's no seminary, no Bibleschool.
If you think about the peoplein this church that he's writing
to.
Most of them couldn't even read.
(14:40):
It was not part of the culturethat they were just like reading
all the time.
So you can't earn, you can'tfigure out spiritual gifts.
They are given to you as freegifts from God and he's given
them to you so that you canserve him.
So what do we know about them?
They will always be in linewith his will, okay, with his
(15:00):
heart.
In other words, when we serveGod, we serve in his name.
That means with his heart, forhis purposes, not for us, right?
There's no selfishness involvedin serving the Lord.
They will always be to helppeople receive the grace of
(15:21):
Jesus.
They're not there for us toserve ourselves or to make our
lives more comfortable or better, but to see Jesus and connect
with Jesus.
His death and his resurrectionare freely offered to all men
right, and so all the gifts hegives us are to be to exalt that
idea.
The purpose of the gifts is tohelp people believe that and to
(15:42):
receive it.
So we'll talk about all thespecific gifts next week.
We're not going to get into whatall the specific gifts are this
week, but I want you to take atest.
Do you know they actually make?
There's like lots of tests outthere.
Did I send you?
Did you get that QR code, isaac?
You go and throw it up on thescreen.
So if you want to, here's atest.
(16:05):
You can just scan it and youcan just take it.
It will ask for your name andemail address.
You can just push unsubscribewhen they send you an email.
Okay, it's a cool organization,but I want you guys to take your
spiritual gifts test and then Iwant you to tell me what it
says Like.
What are your top three?
It'll give you like a top three.
You can read about them if youwant.
(16:26):
It'll be cool, because nextweek we'll talk about all the
individual ones and then you canlearn more about your specific
ones.
I encourage you to do this orfind your own test.
If you don't like this test, doa different test.
There's ones.
You can download the piece ofpaper and actually fill it all
by hand and then add up all thescores and it'll tell you how to
(16:47):
do it.
But this one's easy.
It does it all for you rightonline.
So that's your homework forthis week.
You come to church, you gethomework.
How about that?
You love that?
All right, but we're onlyhalfway through.
We're still learning, but goahead and we'll put this back up
at the end of church.
All right, in John 14, 26,.
(17:08):
John 14, 26, it says but theHelper, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name,he will teach you all things
and bring to remembrance all thethings I said to you.
So again, the Holy Spirit andhis gifts.
They have a purpose ofconnecting you to Jesus and his
word.
(17:28):
That's the connection.
Jesus promises us that his wordis life.
So believing his word andtaking his word inside us and
believing it, that is life.
So believing His Word andtaking His Word inside us and
believing it, that is life.
So our job coming to church andbeing Christians is to believe
the Word, believe His Words.
That fills us with the Spirit.
(17:49):
Believing His Words is beingfilled with the Spirit, and the
Holy Spirit is only.
He's working now to assistevery single one of us to
believe the words of Jesus.
So he's helping you all thetime to believe and understand
and remember the truth of whoJesus is, what Jesus did for you
and what that means about you,your identity.
(18:11):
Jesus died for you on the cross.
That means your sin can becompletely eliminated and paid
for by simply believing in Jesus.
Jesus rose again from the dead,meaning his new life is now
shareable with you so he canfill you with his spirit, so
that you live a new life that isnot a slave to sin, but a slave
(18:32):
to righteousness.
You want to do God's will.
You're not a slave to doselfishness, you're a slave to
love.
You want to love people.
That's what a Christian is, andwhen we believe those things,
we have life.
Our job is always the believingpart.
His job is doing everything forus and empowering us to serve
(18:56):
him.
All right back in our text itsays there are diversities of
gifts, but the same spirit.
There are differences ofministries, but the same Lord.
There are diversities ofactivities but the same God who
works.
All in all.
The word diversities,differences, diversities.
It's all the same word in Greek.
So he says but it's cool, didyou see that Paul snuck in the
(19:21):
Trinity right there?
He says the Spirit, the Lordwhich is the Lord, jesus, and
God who's the Father.
He just snuck it in that oneverse, which is pretty cool.
They're all the same person,but they all have one heart to
lift up Jesus and what he didfor you so you can be connected
to your Heavenly Father throughthe work of the Holy Spirit.
(19:41):
God is involved in this entireprocess of the gospel.
The big picture is that Godgives his Spirit and the gifts
of the Spirit to each person inhis family to benefit the whole
family.
Your purpose is to benefit thefamily.
It's pretty special.
There are no two people thatare alike, just like snowflakes.
(20:03):
There's no two that are alike,and God is directly responsible
for creating us with suchawesome diversity of gifts and
he wants to lead people throughthese gifts.
He wants to speak to his churchthrough you, using your gifts.
(20:23):
He wants to encourage all thepeople in the church to trust in
Jesus more, so that they canuse their gifts to encourage the
whole church again to trust inJesus more, so that they can use
their gifts.
Maybe they spread out to otherchurches and all the church is
being used to help people totrust in Jesus.
(20:43):
You are going to have a maingift that God has given you.
You might even have more thanone main gift, but you'll have
at least one main gift and nogift is more important or less
important than any other gift.
If I die tomorrow, this churchwill go on just fine.
(21:05):
The Lord will raise up somebodyto take care of his people.
The church will be fine withoutme, but while I'm on earth, I'm
going to spend every momentwalking in the Spirit to serve
God's people.
With the gift I know that he'sgiven me, and we can all do the
exact same thing.
(21:28):
What does it mean if I have agift?
Well, god has pre-planned you.
He has designed you, he has putforethought into your life
where you would be born, who youwould be born to, how they
would form you, how you wouldgrow up, the things you would go
through, the things you'dstruggle with, the things that
(21:50):
would hurt you and all thosethings, and then how his gift
would be brought forth in yourlife through going through those
things.
He thought all of this throughand the wisdom of it is
incalculable.
What's that word?
Incalculable?
(22:11):
I failed that word.
It's not because he doesn'tvalue your freedom and to choose
what you want, or your freewill.
He loves.
He's given you freedom.
He's given you free will.
It's because he super valuesyou and he desires to partner
(22:37):
with you in His perfect plan forredeeming the world.
That's why he's given you thespecific gift he's given you.
It's because he looked throughall time and eternity and he
said this is how I'm going tomake this child.
And when you think of your kids,do you think, man, I wish they
were, you know, a little bittaller.
I wish they were better atbasketball so they could take
(22:58):
care of me.
No, you, little bit taller, Iwish they were better at
basketball so they could takecare of me.
No, you just love them.
You love how special and uniqueeach one is, and that's how God
thinks about us.
And God wants to communicatehis love, his heart, his plan,
through your gift.
So it's pretty amazing todiscover your gift and to walk
(23:21):
in it with faith and humility.
So I'm going to give you just alittle insight into the types
of gifts that there are.
First, there's miraculous gifts.
Okay, do we have this slide,the miraculous gifts Slide.
(23:45):
Gifts Okay, do we have thisslide, the miraculous gifts
Slide, the three that I madeOkay, anyway, there's for next
week.
We'll have this because we'regoing to focus on it more.
But basically, there'smiraculous gifts, there's
enabling gifts and there's teamgifts.
There's enabling gifts andthere's team gifts, teamwork
gifts.
So the miraculous gifts aregift of tongues, miracles,
(24:06):
healings, interpretation oftongues and apostles.
Those are the miraculous gifts,and they're wild and crazy when
they happen.
Okay, can they happen?
Sure, they can happen.
I don't think any one of thoseis probably going to be your
main gift, so they're notincluded in the test usually.
Then there's enabling gifts, andthese are gifts like faith,
(24:27):
discernment, wisdom andknowledge, and so these are
gifts that can be given to youat various times in your life
when you need a special amountof faith or you need some
discernment or you need someknowledge.
God will just give you someinsight into something that's
going to happen or somethingthat's going on.
There you go, and then you havethe group of team gifts, and
(24:50):
these are evangelism, prophecy,teaching, exhortation,
shepherding, serving, mercy,showing, giving and
administrating, and all thoseare team gifts.
That's how God puts togetherHis church through those.
So you're definitely going tohave at least one, if not two or
three, of those things, andthose should give you some
(25:12):
guidance into, maybe, how youcan serve the church in general.
So I'm not going to dive intoall these things right now.
We're going to do that moredeeply next week.
But the purpose of all thesegifts is to build up the body of
Jesus, which is his church.
God wants to speak hislife-giving word into his family
(25:35):
and he wants you to do it.
So John 6, 63 says it's thespirit who gives life.
The flesh profits nothing.
The words I speak to you, theyare spirit and they are life, so
we can speak life with ourgifts.
You guys heard that song byToby Mac Speak life, speak life
(25:57):
to the deadest.
Dark is night.
It's awesome, right, it's agood song.
When you serve God through yourgift, you're speaking his life
into the people that areimpacted by how you serve.
Someone comes early and takesout the trash.
Did you guys know that here?
Someone comes early and doesthat and never wants to be
(26:19):
thanked and never wants to.
You know he doesn't want anyattention for it or she doesn't
want any attention for it.
But you guys have a little bitmore life in you because of that
little thing that happens thatsomeone does.
That's thinking about you andloving you.
(26:41):
Before you.
You know, while you're still inyour jammy jams in the morning,
people are thinking about youand loving you.
You communicate how valuablepeople are.
When you use your gift, likewhen I'm shepherding you, I'm
thinking about you.
That's my gift to shepherd,teacher, and I'm thinking about
(27:05):
you and what's best for you.
And so what's best for thechurch is to study the Word of
God and to know the Bible.
And so every week we studythrough the Bible, verse by
verse, and I really believe thatwhat's best for the church is
to learn the entire Bible, notjust parts here or there.
And sometimes I have to teachthings that I don't understand,
(27:26):
that I'm like, wow, what is thepurpose of this, what's the
point of this?
And I promise you I will do mybest to teach it the way I
believe it's supposed to betaught.
But I also want to havehumility and say I could get it
wrong.
But I pray that the spirit Iteach with is lifting Jesus up.
Right, I'm not perfect, but Ido want to lift Jesus up in
(27:48):
everything that I do.
Got it, got it.
How do I live in the spirit anduse my gift?
It's simple.
First, you just believe thatyou died with Christ and that
you've been raised with Him.
This is called becoming aChristian, being born again.
(28:09):
And if anyone in here has neverbecome a Christian been born
again, all you do is you believethat Jesus was God, he died on
the cross for your sins and thathe rose from the dead with the
new life of resurrection so thathe could share that new life
with you.
He died for you, he rose foryou, he's in heaven and he says
(28:33):
I can live through you, andthat's the Holy Spirit.
So we invite Him to livethrough us.
So if you haven't done that,that's the first way to serve
God with your gift.
Secondly, just ask Jesus tolive through you.
So believe and then ask Jesusto live through you and then
just live your life.
Step forward to love people howyou have specifically been
(28:54):
created and designed by God.
You are special and I hope thattaking the spiritual gifts test
will encourage you that youhave a role to play in building
God's kingdom, in building thischurch.
I was having a conversationwith someone right before church
and they were talking about howmuch they cared about this
church and the building of thischurch and they were a part of
(29:15):
it, and I was like that is sucha beautiful, beautiful thing,
and so that's the purpose of
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