Spiritual Gifts Special Teaching

Spiritual Gifts Special Teaching

LaFayette Baptist Church

Various texts Including: Romans 12, 1 Cor 12, and Eph 4

12/29/2024

By: Jacob Winters

Introduction

Good Morning Everyone, and welcome to all of our guests with us today. Just as a quick point of order, today we are not doing a typical sermon, as we do usually. Rather, we will be doing a special teaching on the topic that the majority of the church expressed interest in learning more about. This topic is of course, a topic that may be odd, or unusual for you, but with today’s teaching I hope will have some light shed on it and you will come to a greater understanding of them, this is the Spiritual Gifts. Just so you know to prepare, next week will hop back into our regular sermon serious through the book of Acts, so it would be good for you this week to revisit Acts 21 in your personal bible reading time, as we will finally finish going through this chapter.

As a point of knowing where we will be today, today’s special teaching will begin with an explanation of what I mean by and what is the “Spiritual Gifts.” Then, we follow that with a look at several scriptures that directly speak about the Spiritual gifts and the implications that give to you a believer and us as gathering of believers, that is The Church. We will then discuss more on the spiritual gifts survey that we completed during Sunday School. After this I will discuss how we and you are to use your spiritual gift(s). Then, if time allows, I will open the floor to questions you may have and try to answer them to the best of my ability. Also, during this time, let me urge you to not spend any time looking at or focusing on your own personal survey results until you are told to, I don’t want you to miss out on everything being said, as I will probably answer most of your questions during the teaching.

What are the Spiritual Gifts?

Let me begin with defining and describing what the Spiritual Gifts are and are not, and provide you with a definition of what they are. It is worth noting that their are many good definitions and explanations of what they are that exists, but for us I chose the one that after prayer and consideration I found to be most helpful.

Before I jump into that, I want to make something very clear. Today’s teaching is not about and will not touch much on what is often referred to as the “Signs and Wonders” or “Miraculous Gifts.” It is my understanding that in the past, this church body has had both division and damage done to itself and others because of proclamations and beliefs on these gifts. I will quickly say though, that to myself in my own study, it seems wise to approach the existence of or use of these particular gifts with cautious skepticism to a person who claims to have one of these gifts, but at the same time to be open to the idea that could exist in certain contexts. That is, there are two schools of thoughts regarding these gifts, one is that that they continue today (called continueists) and one is that they ceased after the completion of the biblical cannon (called cessationists). After multiple days of study, reading theological journals and books, looking at the original languages, and having to write papers and opinions on the topic in seminary, I can say that I see validity in both sides arguments, and I am not prepared to definitely state that one is true and one is not, and I feel that this is a very wise place to be for myself, that is I conclude that the truth is somewhere in the murky middle.

But anyways, enough about that. Today we are going to discuss the gifts that by in large are not debated by a large sect of Christians. Either way, the belief in the Spiritual Gifts is not what we would call a primary doctrine issue, that is a person can either believe they exist or don’t and still be a Christian or even belong within the Baptist denomination, but I would argue are missing out on some of the joy that Christ has given us in service to Him.

Towards the end of today’s lesson, you will be given a sheet that gives a brief list and description of each of the spiritual gifts and gives several very good definitions of what they are. It also lists the gifts in intentionally broad categories and explains them and they are: Leadership, Administration, Teaching, Knowledge, Wisdom, Prophecy, Discernment, Exhortation, Shepherding, Faith, Evangelism, Apostleship, Service/Helps, Mercy, Giving, and Hospitality. Of course, many of these gifts go hand in hand with one another, and all of them can have many sub-categories under neath them.

Furthermore, it gives definitions of what they are saying: “Ken Hemphill defines a spiritual gift as “an individual manifestation of grace from the Father that enables you to serve Him and thus play a vital role in His plan for the redemption of the world.”1 Peter Wagner defines a spiritual gift as “a special attribute given by the Holy Spirit to every member of the Body of Christ according to God’s grace for use within the context of the Body.”2 Gene Wilkes defines the gifts in these terms: A spiritual gift is an expression of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers which empowers them to serve the body of Christ, the church.” Let me simplify that for you and give you my definition. “A Spiritual Gift is a talent or disposition from God that is given to a believer for the sake of building up the church body.” With that definition in mind, let’s see what the scriptures say about these gifts.

The Scriptures

First, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans about the spiritual gifts in Romans 12, here he said: 6 According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; 7 if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; 8 if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

Just so you know, nowhere in scripture do we find a complete list of all the spiritual gifts in one place, rather, we will have to see them mentioned in a few places in scripture, and understand that Miraculous or Signs/Wonders gifts often in their because these did matter to the churches that were first receiving these letters from Paul. Now, in this text, a large implication we are to take away is that: There are different gifts, with varying degrees of strength, and we are to use them with them to the best of our ability for the good of the church. Furthermore, if these gifts exists in varying degrees, it means that God has purposely given each person their gifts, so that a church body can unite with them for the purpose of furthering our great commandments and commission, to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples in the context that our unique and particular body is in.

The next scripture we will look at is in 1st Cor 12, Paul writes to the Corinthians at length about the spiritual gifts, because this church body had a big problem of using their gifts wrongly, using them for personal gain, attention seeking, to the damage of the church body. In one spot in 1st Cor 12 Paul writes, 7 A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good: 8 to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit, to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit, 9 to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, to another, interpretation of tongues. 11 One and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills. Here we can clearly see that each and every person who is a follower of Jesus, receives from the Holy Spirit a gift of some kind for the empowerment and building up the entire church body. If a person does not have a spiritual gift, then they are either: not a believer, disobedient and not using it, or has not yet had the time to discover what it is just yet (a good example of person like this would be young Clayton who was just baptised this morning). With that, it is each believers responsibility to discover what their gift or gifts are, and then find ways that they can use that gifting in a good, uniting, and kingdom further way.

Paul also wrote to the Corinthians later on this chapter, “27 Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it. 28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, leading, various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.” Here we see the clear description that all of the gifts are important in their use and purpose. Every one of them is needed. Not everyone has every gift, and that is ok. We are all important parts in a machine or important members of a team. So, don’t be envious if someone else gets the gift that you want and certainly don’t try to fake having one if you don’t (this was a big problem in the Corinthian church, many wanted the ones that got them focus, acclaim, and attention). Rather, desire that your gifts will benefit others and not yourself.

Now, let’s look at a final scripture section, found in Ephesians 4 that says, “11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.” Here, we see that Christ himself gave the church gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors/teachers. Now, we know their are no people who exists in the office of apostle today (as they all passed away), but their are people who are given the gift of being like those apostles, who are called out from their church bodies to go and share the gospel and make new believers and new churches in places that their were not ones, we often see this gift strongly in missionaries, the gift of prophecy does not mean you utter new words or revelations from God that are cannon or equal to your bible, no it means that regularly God gives you a message that God’s people and the world needs to hear, this gift most often manifests itself to the pastor in His duty of preaching. Evangelists, are people that have a particular gifting at communicating The Gospel with a non-believer, it’s important to note with this gift that, that even though some are more gifted at evangelism than others, all followers of Jesus are still expected to participate in the act of evangelism, as we saw play out time and time again in the book of Acts. All of that to say, and as we can clearly know for the pastor teacher, Jesus gave these gifts to a particular gift to the church body, so that we can all be edified and put into action to Love God, Love People, and Make disciples.

Survey

So, with that in mind, you can go ahead and take back out your spiritual gift survey. While you are doing that, I am going to pass out this page of description of the gifts. When we are done here, I would also like to get a copy of your results for the sake of me knowing that are, making a record of it, and praying over your gift and asking God to help us put them into action. You can do this either by taking a picture on your phone and sending it to me, or handing me a copy of your results page. I won’t hold on to this forever, I will give it back to you.

I want to say with these surveys, their is no way they can be 100%. So, you have to see this survey as a starting point, and also ask the opinion of your believing friends, church leadership, teachers, and pastor to see if they concur. Also, perhaps for you need to do some exploring of other things, or maybe you need a little time developing your gifts. Don’t let the numbers discourage you and certainly by no means discourage yourself by comparing your numbers to another person’s. God gave you that gift for a particular reason so that you can serve Him in a particular way that noone else can.

How we use them.

As I just stated, this survey is not an end all and be all. You will likely find that in certain stages in your life and in different locations, God will gift you a little differently than He did before. Keep in mind, these gifts are for your context that you are serving in at that time. Also, your gifts may or may not line up with your occupation and hobbies. Again, it’s about kingdom growth, not secular growth. Furthemore, just because you are weak in an area does not mean that you are exempt from serving in those areas when a need arises; as inevitably (especially in small church context like ours) this will occur.

So, what then are you to do with this knowledge. Let me give you a list.

1. Ask God to confirm to you what your Spiritual Gifts are. If you are unsure, try serving the church in ways you never have before.

2. Once you have a good idea, ask your Christian Friends, Church Leaders, Bible Teachers, and Pastors to confirm if they can see that indeed being a gift of yours.

3. Put your gifts into action

a. This can include: volunteering and participating in various ministry activities, looking for new ways to use your gifts, and asking me for ideas of how you can use your gift to help the church body become the one God is revealing to Him we are to become.

What i’m saying is, find out what your gifts are, confirm them, and then use them and hone them in with practice and training.

So, let’s pray for God to show us then enable us to use His gifts, and then if time allows i’ll answer any particular questions you may have.