The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Okay. We are talking about the Holy Spirit still. And so I want to ask, what is one of the best gifts you've ever been given? Kellen. That was quick. No, it's just you. Is that your actual right answer? No. Do you have a different answer? [00:00:24] Speaker B: Socks is my guessing. [00:00:26] Speaker A: No, I'm not looking for one right answer. Obviously you should know. I think socks are a great gift, but. Yeah. Owen. The what? [00:00:38] Speaker B: That's a good one. [00:00:39] Speaker A: It's a baseball. What? Bat. Oh, cool. Great. Sorry, I didn't know that I don't know that much about baseball. Expose. Yes. Okay. You have one of those things. Okay. Yeah. Oh, what? What hockey game? Oh, a Stars game. That sounds fun. I've heard those games. You know, NHL games are fun. Caleb, my uncle, like, last Christmas, got us a PS5. Oh, that is. That's a good gift. That's a good gift. Yeah. [00:01:15] Speaker B: A leather bound notebook. [00:01:17] Speaker A: A leather bound notebook. Those are nice. Some nice leather. Leather is a great thing. Yes. Asher. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Oh, I got this guitar pedal, like. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Tuner thing for my birthday a couple days ago. Oh, nice. So a recent one is one of the best gifts we've ever received. Cool. Lincoln. [00:01:37] Speaker B: Mine would probably be having a chance to go to heaven with God. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Okay. That would be a good gift. I'm thinking like a gift that you've been given. But that is a great answer. It's okay if you don't. Oh, you have one off the top of your head. A swing set. That is such a great gift. We got it from our grandparents. Yeah. Yeah. Hank. My stereo. Okay. A stereo. Cool. Yeah. I feel like some of you have already gone. You haven't gone. Oh, sorry. Well, I'm not surprised. Okay. A dog. Okay, just a couple more. Katie, I got a call on you. Your car. Yeah. That was a gift. That's right. Oh, man. No, you. Darion. A couple years ago, it was my birthday, right? Then I fell asleep so excited. [00:02:39] Speaker B: And I woke up so even more excited. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Right? I went into the living room. I got nothing. Oh, you really baited us in there. Sorry about that. All right. Levi's, the last one. I once got, like, the Mamolean Falcon LEGO set. And it was pretty awesome. And then it started to break. Oh, no. All apart. And tried to rebuild it, but I lost, like, all the pieces. Okay. Why'd we end on tragedies? I don't know, bae. Thank you guys for sharing. I know there's plenty more. No, no, obviously I put socks on the title of there because I love how functional they are. Some of you guys had really fun gifts. Some of them might be functional, but I enjoy gifts that, you know, you can use. You can do things with that, you know, you wouldn't. You know, you don't have fun buying them for yourselves. And so I frequently, you know, get. Get new ones. It's a great gift. So if you ever get socks, you should be happy because you need them and you can actually use them. But, you know, those other gifts, admittedly, sounded. They all sounded much more exciting than socks. But anyway, I think it's great that you can end up using them. And so that's the sort of gift, not in a boring way, but in a functionality way that we're talking about with the gifts of the Spirit. They are gifts given to Christians that they can use that are useful. They have a function and a purpose, but they are also much more exciting than a pair of socks. So let's do some review. To start real quick. What is theology? Yes. Study of God. Okay. Anything else? [00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, the study of God's word. [00:04:39] Speaker A: Well, that is a type of theology. Studying God's word. That's right. And how to live like Christ. We want to study and have our lives changed. You know, know God, be known by him, and to live like him. That's. That's the goal of the study. Not just to know, but to do and to be. So who is the Holy Spirit? That's who we've been talking about. Who is the Holy Spirit? Yeah, the Holy Spirit is God. That's true. Yeah. That's a good answer. Yeah. He's like one of the Trinity, one of the three persons of the Trinity. The one God. There are three persons. That's right. Yeah. Those are good. So we talked about who he is. What are some of the his works? We talked about his works last week. What does he do, Lincoln? [00:05:47] Speaker B: He gives us like, a heart, like, that's not hardened, but like a. He can, like, help us through our times. [00:05:59] Speaker A: And he. [00:06:04] Speaker B: What was I going to say? [00:06:05] Speaker A: Those are both good. He gives a new heart. So he is the initiator of conversion. We call that regeneration. He makes people new, and then they turn from their sin and have faith. So you said kind of leads and guides Christians. That's also true. Levi, do you have a different answer? He does dwell in believers. That's another important one. That's one of the things we probably think of the most. And there were others we talked about, but those are good. But one of his works, which we did not talk about because I thought we could devote this whole lesson to it. Is the giving of spiritual gifts. Gifts. I think I said too many S's there. I want you guys shout out a spiritual gift that you might know of. What? No. Yeah, just say it out loud. That's not a spiritual gift, but good guess. Yeah. Also not a spiritual gift, but I see where you guys are going. These are things that can be given. Yes. Preaching. Yeah. Patience. Patience could be. It's a fruit of the Spirit. So gifts are things to be kind of used and done. They're gifts to the church. We'll talk about that. Yeah. Hospitality, I think. Yeah, that's one we know of. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Is it like, spiritual? Like the Holy Spirit gives us gifts to live out and better preach the word. Like, so it's like you're better helping the church and stuff like that. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:49] Speaker B: So one of them is like, I know God doesn't do this, but I think I heard one of them was like, interpretation. Like she said, hospitality. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Interpretation of tongues is one that we'll see listed as, well. Yeah, we'll read a couple of lists and see them. Some people kind of compile all the ones we see listed in scripture and say these are them. I don't even necessarily think it's limited to those. I think the Spirit could endow somebody with something else. Or the Spirit can restrict certain gifts at different times. I think all of that is in play. But we'll see gifts of how the Spirit has gifted Christians, at least in the early church. So here's the summary. So the summary or main idea line on there is that the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit is to foster the church's growth. So this is the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit to foster the church's growth, especially by equipping its members for ministry. All right, so let's do our major affirmations. So first, the purpose of spiritual gifts is to aid the church in its maturity. Admission. The purpose of spiritual gifts is to aid the church in its maturity and missions. How do the gifts of the Spirit, these giftings of the Spirit, how do you think they help mature the church? You could think of growing or making healthy the church. Yeah. It will make you want to have serious conversations about, like, the Bible. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Again, it can make you want to have good conversations in the church. That's right, Lincoln. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Open your eyes and point you towards the truth of the gospel. And like, if you're in church and you're like, if you're in the church and you're just running around and then you just hear A voice in your head saying, stop running or something, or something like that. And you stop running and you start listening more and you, like, mature, I think. [00:10:19] Speaker A: So these gifts of the spirit are things like teaching, hospitality, administration, giving faith, these sorts of things. And so I do think it helps us see the gospel. Like you said at the beginning of your answer, I'm not so sure about the voice in the head thing, but it helps us see, you know, for example, when I see somebody exercising, like we said, hospitality, really well, that does point me to the gospel. That gifting that that person has been given points me to the gospel. The heart of Christ is welcoming of people from all nations. You know, the gifts also help in missions. We'll kind of see this as we list them out, but it gives us the ability to proclaim Christ when people are in our church. Like we just said, it displays the gospel. It helps us. Some of the gifts help us, especially as we go and evangelize or go to plant churches, all of these things. So let's get into some passages and really kind of figure out what these are so we at least have an idea. So first go to Ephesians in the New Testament. Ephesians 4. All right, I'll give you guys a second. Ephesians 4. We're going to start reading in verse 6, 7. Ephesians 4, 7. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Here we go. Here's some things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up. Love. Okay, so according to this passage, how does God give gifts? According to verse 7, how does he give gifts? Asher? Okay, anyone know, like, in what manner does he give gifts? Lincoln? [00:13:33] Speaker B: He gives grace according to the measures of Christ's gift. [00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So to each one according to the measure of Christ's gifts. So he is doing it according to his own giving. It's by his will that he gives gifts. That's important, as we'll see in other passages. So what gifts does Paul list in this passage? You can look at verse 11. What does he give the church? Yeah. The shepherds and teachers. That's true. He gives shepherds and teachers. Anything else? Yeah. Apostles. Yeah. Prophets and evangelists. Okay. Yeah, that's right. So he gives these five offices, at least at the time. You know, there are these. Paul is an apostle. Right. There's apostles, prophets, evangelists, and then there's shepherds. Or another word we might be more familiar with is pastors. Pastors and teachers. Right. So here are some. This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some gifts that God gives to the church. Now, what is the purpose of these gifted people? We see some hints in verses 12 through 16. What's the purpose of these gifted people? Yeah. To equip the saints. Yeah. For ministries. They give them the tools they need to spread the gospel to all nations. That's right. Anything else? Speak the truth in love that we may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ. Yeah, that's right. So they help the church grow up into Christ so they can be like Him. Other things we see is that they grow to mature. You see, mature manhood. You can kind of just understand that as growing into maturity into a more mature church. Yeah. Do you have a different answer? [00:15:33] Speaker B: They attain the Genevieve of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So it helps us know God. It helps us be unified as a church. We see this idea of a church being like a body, and there's a whole bunch of different parts that work together. You know, just like each of you has a body and you have different body parts that all have different purposes, the people of the church are gifted as if they are different body parts. And the church needs all of those body parts to function well. And so we see that the church is matured by these gifted people. So that's one of the purposes of these gifts. Now, let's go to 1 Corinthians. So that's just a little to the left of where you are. Now, first, make sure you're not in. Second, 1 Corinthians. We're going to look at a couple places in chapters 12 through 14. We're not going to read all of that, of course, but we're going to start in chapter 12. 1 Corinthians 12, starting in verse 4, says, now these are. So here are some more gifts that are going to be listed and kind of some other info about them. So now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all. And everyone to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom, and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit. To another, faith by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit to another, the working of miracles to another prophecy to another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues. Okay, so what gifts are listed here? Kind of especially at the end the last three verses. Yeah, yeah. Speaking different languages. That's one. What else? Yes, Prophecy. Prophecy. Okay. Yeah. Healing, correct, huh? Yeah. Wisdom. And then along with that, you know, uttering knowledge. So knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom can be special gifts of the spirit. I don't know where you're looking. Yeah, yeah. Brothers. He's referring to the church members there. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. Were there others in there? Yeah, there was also. We mentioned faith. Yeah. We also mentioned earlier the interpretation of these tongues, or tongues are just other languages. So the ability to speak other languages and then the ability to interpret. There's also this one about distinguishing between spirits. It's kind of discerning, maybe even true and false. Teachers, who is representing the Holy Spirit correctly or not? That gift of discernment, it's sometimes called. Okay, so according to verse seven, what is the purpose of these gifts? What is the purpose? Yeah, the common good. That's right. So these are for the good of the church. It's specifically we say corporate for the church. He's not saying it's for your personal or individual good. It's for the common. So that means public, multiple people. The common good, what is good for everybody. So that's important to remember. These are not individualistic things. These are church things. Now go down to Same chapter, verse 27. Look at these last few verses. Paul says, now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret but earnestly desire the higher gifts? And I will show you a still more excellent way. So we see again, some gifts listed. We see apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, healing, helping. I think that's a new one. Administration, I'm not sure we've seen. Maybe we have seen that one. We see again, kinds of tongues and interpretation of those tongues. So we see a lot repeated. But again, these lists are not always exactly the same. And I think that's showing us that there is a little flexibility. So the point that he's making here by asking all of these rhetorical questions is he's trying to show that the church has benefited by having people with different gifts. He says there are some that are more prominent. That's why he calls some a higher gift. So you'll see someone who's gifted at teaching or preaching. Today, Pastor Ryan is going to preach, and he is more prominent than some people who are helping administratively in the office that you don't get to see day to day. You don't see what they're doing. But we need both of those types of gifts, right? So he's saying it. It's not a bad thing to want to grow in some of these specific gifts. But the church needs everything. They need people that can help, people that can give, people that have faith, people that are wise, people that can teach. They need all of these things so that we can grow and be matured. So that's kind of the explanation there. But there's something crucial to the practice of spiritual gifts that people in the early church and today kind of struggle with. And Paul addresses it in chapter 13. So chapter 13, just right below this verse, one says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not loved, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. So according to Paul, what is crucial about the practice of spiritual gifts? Yes. Speaking the truth in love. He says he needs to have love. He's saying if I have tongues. And then he says something which I think he's kind of, you know, exaggerating, not necessarily something that is a real thing. He says, if I speak of tongues of men, and even if I speak tongues of angels, but I have not love, it doesn't matter what I can do. It's useless. I'm a clinging gong. I'm just an annoying gong that's just going off, not helping anybody. We need to have love. These things must be practiced in love for the church. We can never forget that again. This was very early church. They were already kind of missing the point there. And trying to one up each other by having greater gifts and boasting about what they can do versus what other people can do. And when you do that, you've lost love, you've lost the purpose of these gifts to begin with, you know, and there's a lot more. So if you read just chapters 12 through 14, you'll get a lot of information. But let's go to Romans now. Romans is right before 1 Corinthians 12, so you don't have to go too far to the left. Romans 12. Look at verses 4 through 8. Paul again writes, for as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. So what are some gifts that are mentioned here real quick? Yeah, generosity. Generosity, that's right. Yes again, Lincoln, Mercy. I think so, Yeah. I mean what we see all these listed here, we see prophecy, faith, service, teaching, exhortation, leadership. I think leadership hasn't been listed before. So all of these are other gifts that you could see given to people in the church for the sake of the churches maturity. Its growing up in Christ and its mission, its spreading of Christ. So in sum, the gifts are to help the church grow or pursue its mission. And now what is the mission of the church? Yes, yeah. To spread the gospel. Right. To make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. So going and finding them, evangelizing, teaching, baptizing, all of this is the mission of the church. And that's what these are for. Therefore, we have no reason to believe that any gifts, I think, are to be used for your own benefit. First Corinthians 14, which we did not read, says at length that using a gift, he uses tongues as an example without building up others is pointless. That's not the point. We want to build up others in the church. You may have also noticed again that these lists are overlapped, but they're different. Again, I think the takeaway is that the Holy Spirit can employ whatever gifts he wants to give his people for the sake of their growing up in Christ and for the sake of their mission. And so perhaps there might be something not even listed here that the Spirit could give to somebody to build up the church. Now there's a common debate which I'll try to go through rather quickly. You know, how do we think about these gifts? Are all of these gifts given to people actively today or not? So this is just a big debate. You know, you may not have encountered it, but you probably will at one point. So I'm going to teach primarily what I believe, but I just want to say great Christians have different opinions on this. This is not an indicator of a real Christian or not. But you know, if you want believes, this is called continuation, or you could do continuationism. It just means that all the gifts are actively being distributed to Christians today. So to clarify a biblical continuationist, this long word, they're not, you know, they don't run around the room hollering and convulsing on the floor. They don't shout things in an unknown language. That's not a biblical. Continuationists. Churches or Christians that do this are sinning according to First Corinthians 14, which teaches that they should be practiced orderly. And Paul gives guidelines for that. The other view is the opposite of continuation, which is ceasing cessation. Again, this does not mean that there are no more spiritual gifts or that the Holy Spirit is inactive. Cessationists, no one believes that the Holy Spirit is inactive, that there are no gifts at all. Nobody believes that. No orthodox right believing Christian does anyway. The view is that these certain sign gifts like prophecy, tongues, miracles and healing have ceased to be distributed regularly to Christians. So this view even allows that, you know, some sorts of works can still happen, but people aren't typically walking around with these gifts. I think of an example during a summer I spent in the nation of India. One of my friends, while we were out talking to people for the sake of evangelism, saw a couple of people signing to one another. They were deaf and he doesn't know sign language, but he went up and signed the gospel to them in Hindi sign language. And I think the Spirit gave him the ability to do that, but he's never done anything since like that. So I think that's a good example of how the Spirit can give people gifts whenever he chooses. Yeah. Do you have a question? No. He knew how to say, like, hi, my name is Matt, or whatever in asl American Sign Language. And so I think he initially went over there and did that to see if they knew what he meant, but then he just continued. He said he didn't. He said he was understanding the conversation, but he doesn't know what he did. He could. He couldn't recreate it later when he was telling us about it. There are a couple of my friends that were with him. That's a good question. So First Corinthians 13:10 is, I think, helpful. He says when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. Seems to indicate at some point some of these gifts he's talking about might pass away. 2nd Corinthians 12:12 says, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. So it kind of seems here that maybe these special gifts a lot of times were to help validate that someone was a true apostle, as many of the early Christians couldn't. Didn't exactly know who is a real apostle because so many people were claiming to be one. Right. Paul in second Corinthians is debating these fake apostles are calling him a fake. And so that was a huge problem. You know, a lot of the sign gifts, especially prophecy, have to do with giving revelation. But now we have the whole Bible. At the time, it was still being written. So it's just a different time. And historically, we've just seen fewer appearances of these gifts in the proper context. So I think those are reasons why I believe this. But again, good Christians can disagree with me. Let's do a few errors to avoid while we have time. So the first one, we must never think. Yeah, I guess it's on the back. We must never think that only the officers and leaders of the church are equipped for ministry. So Paul does list these offices, you know, like pastors and teachers. But the Spirit gifts, all Christians, everybody. It's not just the. The people that are leaders that are to do ministry. The ministry of the church should be done by everybody. Everybody has the responsibility to pursue the maturity of the church, and everybody has the responsibility to pursue the church's mission together. Nobody has a greater load of that than another. We do it together. Number two, we must never exercise spiritual gifts in unbiblical ways. So you can put down 1 Corinthians 14, as he kind of gives examples of how to keep the church orderly, honoring Christ. And then third, we must deny that speaking in tongues is a necessary sign of salvation. So this is a heresy taught by Pentecost, many Pentecostals, and radical charismatics. This is as to salvation, it is a work to be performed, to be saved. And 1 Corinthians 12:14 clearly indicates that not everyone spoke in tongues even then. And so it doesn't make sense biblically, but it is nonetheless a popular view, even especially where we live. And so we must always deny that enacting the doctrine, how can we live this out? Let's think about that for a minute. First, I think gifts must be practiced in love. So whatever you do for the sake of the church, you must do it in love. This is what 1 Corinthians 13 was emphasizing. No matter what gift you have or how powerful or high it is, if you don't love, your gift's worthless, your work is worthless. You must love your gift or gifts are only as useful as you are loving. So remember that. Second, we should seek to grow in gifting. We should seek to grow. You know, don't throw up your hands and think, I have no gift. If you've trusted in the Lord, he will equip you for ministry. You know, I've had that attitude before. Oh, I don't have this gift. You just need to work out what you might be gifted in doing. Now, some people take tests like a gift inventory. I think those are maybe fine. I don't think you need to do that either, though. So I'm not necessarily saying you should go do this. I think sometimes they don't take into account all how the Holy Spirit can gift as he wants, because they just really have to work with things that are listed. And people debate what those things that are listed, like prophecy, what does that really even mean or look like? So practice and look for things that you might actually be good at. If you want to grow in something, like being hospitable, ask how I can help. Start doing it now. You don't have to wait for yourself to be, oh, I'm gifted at hospitality. You, you can go and welcome people. Hand out bulletin information guides before you work that out. If you want to be a teacher one day, you can practice and have men that are teachers help you get better. These are things you can grow in, and the Spirit can help you grow in them. And then finally, the last point of application, don't be discouraged if you lack gift. You know, again, seek to grow. Don't be discouraged. You can get better. You know, I teach, obviously I'm doing it Right now, I've been told that I can teach, that I'm gifted at it, but there's a time where I wasn't very good at it at all, I don't think. And it doesn't mean you can't get better. You can always improve in these things. And if you're wondering, how am I gifted, maybe ask a pastor, ask your parents, how do you think been gifted? If you are a Christian, that is. You can ask because typically we find out what we're good at because other people tell us. That's another great thing about the church, people point out what you're good at. So if you have any other questions, we're out of time. You can ask me afterward, or you can hold on to it until next week, but I'll see you guys then. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your spirit that you've given to all who trust in Christ, and that the many gifts you give are given out according to your perfect wisdom and will so that the church may grow up into Christ and succeed in the mission you have given for us to do. Lord, help us to find out how we can best serve the church. Lord, guide us, equip us for the work of ministry as we know you'll do. We pray this in your son's name, Amen.