What Are the Gifts of the Holy Spirit | Holy Spirit Series

Hey, grab your Bibles if you would, and we're gonna go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. It's gonna be our primary place this morning. And we're back in our Holy Spirit series. And today and next week, we're gonna be talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And in a Baptist church, that doesn't get talked about a lot. And we're gonna dive into it for two straight weeks. And today is gonna be somewhat of an introduction to the subject of the gifts of the Spirit. And I know that in this room, because of maybe most of your background, many of you are very nervous about the subject. Some of you are very cautious or concerned, or maybe you're just uninformed about the subject. And I just wanna put your mind at ease and just say this. This is a simple truth. I think everyone should just breathe knowing this, that the Holy Spirit is not weird. Amen? Amen. The Holy Spirit, people are weird. The Holy Spirit is not weird. If you don't know a weird person, you're probably the weird person everybody knows, all right? The Holy Spirit's not weird. Listen, and whatever we're uneasy about, listen, we don't have to be uneasy about it

if it's something the Holy Spirit has for us. Now, if there's been maybe some abuses in the past, the spiritual gifts that have kind of caused you to push away from that table, understand the abuse of the gift has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. And so what we wanna do is we wanna look at the Scriptures and say, okay, what does the Bible teach on this subject? And how do we say yes to everything that the Holy Spirit has for us, even though we might be uncomfortable and uneasy? How do we let the word of God minister to us so that we don't miss out on the gifts and the blessings that God has for us as a church? And I just wanna remind you, listen, this is a fundamental fact. The Christian life is supernatural. Like the Christian life is supernatural. It's not a natural life. And this is where some of us get uncomfortable because when you start talking about spiritual gifts, you're moving into the supernatural work. But you need to understand Christianity by and large is supernatural. Let me show you how. How many of you have ever heard the command in the Bible that you should love your enemy? Raise your hand if that's you. You've heard that. How many of you would say in your own nature,

you don't want to do that? In your own nature, you don't want to do that. Hello, all right. So what does that require if we're gonna be obedient? It takes a supernatural work in our heart to produce a love that we don't possess. Like when you were saved, the Bible says that you were regenerated by the Holy Spirit. What that means is you were dead in your sin and the Holy Spirit made you alive in Christ. That is a miraculous supernatural work by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, when you go and evangelize and you share your faith and you proclaim, here's what we gotta know. Given to just our natural ability, I don't care how eloquent you are in your presentation of the gospel, if the Holy Spirit is not in the invisible realm doing the real work, our evangelism is in vain. Why? Because our words cannot make people move from death to life. Only the Holy Spirit can do it. So evangelism, listen, is a supernatural work. I love what Sam Storm says about this subject of the supernatural life. He says this, Christianity is inescapably supernatural. God is spirit. God's power, the sort of power that dwells within every born-again believer

and energizes his or her life ministry and whatever spiritual gift one possesses is not the sort of thing that you can touch or contain in a bottle. It is the very energy of the life of God himself. It is the supernatural energy that emanates from God's being. What concerns us on the subject of spiritual gifts is the glorious but often unacknowledged truth that this supernatural and divine energy or power quite literally fills and indwells the bodies and souls of every born-again believer. God does not call upon us to speculate about the nature of this power or to envision it merely as an idea. Listen to this. His desire is that we avail ourself of it to partner with him in his purposes on earth. So we've gotta recognize that if you are a believer, you've been given the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Now, whether you walk in that, whether you walk in the filling of the Holy Spirit or not, but you have been made alive in Christ. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. So here's what the Paul says, excuse me, that the resurrected life and power of Christ dwells inside of you. And this life that he's called you to live is not supposed to be lived in your flesh by your nature, but by his spirit and his power.

with a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit in and through your life. And that's what I want us to see as we dive into this subject. So 1 Corinthians chapter number 12 is where we're going to be. If you're there, say the Bible is true. He says in verse one, he says, now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. How many of you would raise your hand and say, if I'm honest, when it comes to the spiritual gifts, I'm uninformed, I'm pretty uninformed, right? Raise your hand. Some of you are not even telling the truth right now in church. Well, here's the great news. If you're uninformed, Paul says, hey, it's my desire that you're not uninformed. I wanna inform you. So that's what Paul is gonna do. Look what he says, verse four. He says, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but the same God, who empowers them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, where to one is given the Spirit of utterances of wisdom, to another, utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit,

to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, the 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. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. Now let's do something for about 15 seconds. I want us to pause and I just want us to ask the Holy Spirit to show us what His gifts are and to give us understanding to His Word that tells us about Him. Let's just pause right now and ask Him. Holy Spirit, we just wanna stop in this moment to recognize, Lord, the Bible says that you are the Spirit of wisdom, you're the Spirit of truth, you're not the Spirit of confusion, you're not the Spirit of concern, you're not the Spirit of chaos. So Lord, help us understand, give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear what the Spirit says to the church and help us understand your giftings that's shared in your Word for your people. We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. So what I wanna do this morning is I wanna answer four questions as a foundation today, four questions about the gifts of the Spirit that'll give us a framework and then next week we're gonna do a little more heavy lifting

and talk about some of the gifts of the Spirit that oftentimes can cause controversy and hopefully God will give us some understanding on that next week. So four questions about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here's question number one, what are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? What is a gift of the Holy Spirit? That's the first question I want us to look at. Now to answer this, we gotta do a little bit of Bible study here, all right? So we gotta dive into the scriptures because here's what we find. In 1 Corinthians 12, between verses one and seven, Paul uses five, I didn't know this until this week, five different words to describe the gifts of the Spirit. Five different Greek words with different English translations to describe the same thing, the gifts of the Spirit. Look what he has in verse one. Verse one, he says spiritual gifts concerning the spiritual gifts. This is from the Greek word where we get the word pneumatic. The idea is spirit or breath. And here's what it literally means. Some commentators will translate this concerning the spirituals. It just means spirituals.

Or spiritual things, or the idea is supernatural. That which comes from the Spirit. So that's the word number one that we have. It's pneumaticus, so it's a picture of this spiritual thing, this supernatural work. And then we see this in verse four. The other word is the word gifts. A Greek word is the word, where we get the word charisma or charismatic. So what does it mean for someone to be charismatic? To be charismatic simply means that you believe in spiritual gifts. So now, not to be confused with what I would call hyper-charismatic, where there's an abuse of the gift, which is what most of us are familiar with. Rather, we need to see that this word is from God and it describes spiritual gifts. It means the miraculous or the supernatural again. Spiritual endowment or spiritual power. That's the idea here. The next word is in verse five. It's the word services. The word services, used to describe the gifts of the Spirit. Diakonia is the word. It's where we get the word diakonos, deacon. Comes from this, the word literally means ministry or ministries. Or spiritual empowered service. So this picture of spiritual gifts is that ministers or serves people.

And then in verse six, there's another word. It's the word activities in our English language. It's the idea of energy or power. spiritual operations, so there's this energy or supernatural power that infuses us in order to allow us to operate in our ministry or our service. Make sense? Here's the last one, this is the one that really stands out to me the most. Verse seven says, manifestations of the spirit in reference to spiritual gifts. Manifestations of gifts. This Greek word means actively present, visible appearance. Now notice what he says here. So there's something that happens when a spiritual gift is used, that there is a manifestation of the spirit in that moment. So looking at these five different words, spiritual gifts, gifts, services, activities, manifestations of the spirit, I'm gonna give you a definition that's a little more comprehensive than what maybe you were wanting, but I think this is gonna be really helpful if we're gonna understand this moving forward. Look what this definition is. So a spiritual gift is when the Holy Spirit manifests his presence by imparting supernatural power to an individual, enabling them to effectively serve

and build up the church in ways beyond their natural ability. That's what a spiritual gift is based upon those five words that we see here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So let's kind of talk about this definition. A spiritual gift is when the Holy Spirit manifests his presence. Now notice this, I love this picture of spiritual gifts because most of the time we think of spiritual gifts as this thing that the Holy Spirit gives us and then steps away from, that he's imparted this gift and we have this thing inside of us. But spiritual gifts, if not an object that you possess, it's an expression of the Holy Spirit in your life. That's why he says the manifestation of the Spirit. So what happens is is that the Spirit through the gifts will manifest his presence through an individual to an individual. Say what do you mean? Last Wednesday night at prayer meeting there was a young lady that came forward, had a great loss in her family and was grieving. And it was just heavy on her heart and so she comes forward. And so I went and grabbed a couple of our pastor's wives and I said, hey, would y'all pray over her? This is the situation. And I watched just kind of from the side view

and here's what I saw. This lady bearing her soul out to these pastor's wives and they embraced her. You begin to see compassion, like literally you saw compassion fill their face. They extend their hands and they begin to pray over her and comfort her and hug her. And here's what I believe was happening in that moment. I believe that the spiritual gift of mercy was taking place in this moment. But what was happening in this moment was not just these pastor's wife expressing mercy. Watch this. The Holy Spirit was showing up in the moment through those pastor's wives so that the touch that this lady felt wasn't them. It was actually the Holy Spirit through them ministering to her. You see the gifts of the Holy Spirit is not about showcasing the possessor of the gift. It is about a demonstration and a manifestation of the very presence of God through the life of the person who is using their gift into the life of the person who's receiving the benefit of the gift. So whenever we operate in our spiritual gifting, it is a platform. It is a means by which the Holy Spirit shows himself into the life of another person. This is powerful.

It's amazing. So spiritual gifts is when the Holy Spirit manifests his presence. Now, how does he do this? By imparting supernatural power to an individual. Now, notice this. Spiritual gifts are not natural talents. So you have someone who's got the gift of communication. Let's say they're a great salesperson or maybe they're just really good and they can motivate crowds. Listen, just because someone has the ability to communicate in public speaking doesn't mean they have the spiritual gift of preaching. In fact, there's a lot of guys preaching because they have gift of communication, but not the spiritual gift of preaching. You say, what is the difference? The difference is the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit showing himself through that. And I'll just tell you, there've been times in my preaching where I have preached in the flesh and you wouldn't necessarily know the difference because of just the communication. But I'll tell you, a couple of weeks ago I was preaching, and this is no joke, midway through my sermon, I realized something. The Holy Spirit wasn't active right in that moment in me. my life, and as I'm preaching, I literally am praying, Holy Spirit,

I can't do this without your power. Like, if I'm just gonna talk to the people, it's gonna die in the room. Without the gift at work in my life, and I'm gonna go, but backstage, Kyle laid hands and prayed over me and just said, asking the Holy Spirit, would you stir the gift in his heart and ask you to move in my life, but why? Because what we have with preaching is the Holy Spirit showing up. The gift is not just talent, it's supernatural. And so when you operate in your spiritual gifting, understand, it's not a natural talent, it is the Holy Spirit showing up in your life, showing through your life, and giving you a supernatural ability, enabling you to effectively serve and build up the church in ways, watch this, that are beyond your natural ability. What's amazing to me is how much the church has accomplished historically without the actual tools that Jesus gave us to build the church. Because of how few believers actually walk in their spiritual gifting, and what that does is when we don't operate in our spiritual gifting, that means we're not operating in the power of the Holy Spirit when we minister and serve. Because that's what a spiritual gift is, and that's what a spiritual gift does. Let me give you the second question.

Second question that I wanna answer this morning is this. Who has spiritual gifts? Who has spiritual gifts? Like, that's a fair question to ask. If this is what spiritual gifts are, then who possesses them? Look at what he says in verse number seven. He says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Everybody say everybody. Everybody. All right, to each is given. So here's the answer to the question. The Holy Spirit, listen to this, spiritual gifts have been given to every believer. Spiritual gifts have been given to every believer. Look what he goes on to say in this passage. I love this. Look what he says in verse eight. He says, 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 same Spirit. To another, do you see the pattern here? To another, to another, to another, to another, implying that there's a gift for everybody or multiple gifts for people. He says, having gifts that differ.

I'd rather go back to verse number 10. He says, to another the working of miracles, to another tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. Now watch this. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one. Everybody say everybody. Individually as he wills. Brothers and sisters, don't miss this. If you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit, and if you have the Holy Spirit, you have a spiritual gift. Whether you are operating in it or not. Whether you are using it or not. I think sometimes if we start looking at our life, we'll start noticing as you grow in your understanding of spiritual gifts that you actually use your spiritual gifts at times and don't even know it. But when you begin to discover your spiritual gifts and begin to walk in them, God begins to use you in ways beyond your imagination. You have a spiritual gift. Every believer has a spiritual gift, and we need to embrace those gifts. Look what he says in Romans. Romans, Paul talks about this. Romans chapter 12 verse four. He says, for as one body, we have many members. So many individuals.

And the members do not all have the same function. What does he mean when he says we're many members but different function? Word function there is another way of saying spiritual gifting. So we're multiple members, but we also have multiple functions because we have different gifts. Everybody has a place and a part. He says, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individual members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace God has given to us. Let us then, if prophecy, in proportion with our faith. If service, then serving. If the one who teaches in his teaching, if the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in his generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. The point is this. Every believer has a spiritual gift, and every believer, listen to this, has a calling on their life. You have a calling on your life. One of the values that we have at New Beginnings that every believer is called, and listen to this, because every believer is called, every believer has spiritual gifting that God has equipped you with.

with supernatural power for you to walk in your calling. Isn't this beautiful? You have a part to play. And one of the great weaknesses of the church is that we, by and large, don't operate in our spiritual gifting and we don't operate in our spiritual calling. And because of that, there's a few handful of people that are serving and working like crazy and the body of Christ has limited in its spiritual growth and its numeric growth because God's intention was not for a few to do the most, it was for everybody to do their part. Not in their power, but in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and in the gifting that he has given you. Paul uses this analogy in 1 Corinthians 12, he goes on to talk about the value of every gift. He uses the picture, he says that some people feel like their spiritual gift isn't as valuable as somebody else's spiritual gift or, man, my gift is, man, it's really an awesome gift. Your gift, I don't know so much if it's an awesome, so I'm really better than you. And that's really the problem that you have in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. You have immature people who are gifted like crazy who have gotta grow into maturity of how to use their gifting. So Paul paints a picture. You know what he does?

He says, look, it's like the human body. He says the human body is one body, but it's made up of several different parts. If every part of the human body was a foot, we'd be in trouble. If every body part was an eye, he says, where would your sense of smell be? If every part of the body was a nose, then where would your sense of hearing be? In other words, every part is needed for the body to function to its fullest capacity. And wherever you have a body part in the human body not functioning properly, you have a, listen to this, you have a body with limitations. And it's gonna be hindered in its function. So some of you are like, man, I go to my life group, man, my teacher is so incredible, and they just teach God's word and they expound on God's word. Like, I can never do that. Like, what do you do? Man, I just really love serving people. I just get joy out of God using me, knowing I'm ministering to needs. Can I just help you? Like, if everybody was a teacher, nothing would get done. But if everybody was a helper, nothing would get taught. Every part is needed. You have a gift if you are in Christ.

Here's the third question we've gotta answer. How are gifts given? How are gifts given? Look what he says in verse 11, very straightforward. All these, the spiritual gifts, are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. So how do you receive a gift of the Holy Spirit? You receive, or how do you get the gift of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit gives it to you. He apportions it. So the Holy Spirit is the giver of spiritual gifts. Now, this is important because, and this is, by the way, I wanna put a nuance on this. This is a simple answer, and I'm gonna make it complex in a minute because I gotta show you what Scripture says about this. But just take Scripture for what it says. One of the things we gotta remember is that the Holy Spirit knows you better than you know you. The Holy Spirit knows the church better than you know the church. The Holy Spirit knows the needs of the church better than any of us. The Holy Spirit loves the church more than we love the church. The Holy Spirit's vision for the church is greater than our vision for the church. And I could go on and on and on. Would you all agree?

Say amen. You know what that means? It means that the Holy Spirit, who is the giver of the gifts and the one who empowers the gift, has the wisdom to discern and to know who needs what gifts and how many of those gifts a particular body needs. Because of the will and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, there may be seasons of church life where God has a certain gift and the Holy Spirit imparts that gift and it's used more in a congregation than another gift. There may be other gifts that are not used in a congregation as much. There may be seasons of life where God decides to use all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Listen to this. I love this about my own life. There have been seasons of life where because of the calling and the season that I'm in, the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual gifts for certain tasks that he's given me. There have been seasons where all of a sudden, I'm recognizing, man, the Lord has given me a gift here that I didn't have, at least I didn't recognize before, but now I sense this spiritual power to do this thing that I really couldn't do before. And then I realize that there are other gifts that I've once operated in

that because of where I'm in ministry, the Holy Spirit doesn't see the value in that right now in my life and so he didn't use it as much. The point is this. If the Holy Spirit is the giver of the gift, we've gotta trust him, which means we steward what he does give us and we don't get disappointed because we want another gift. Now, here's the nuance that's a little different. Holy Spirit is the giver of the spiritual gifts, and I say amen. But we're also commanded in the scriptures to desire and earnestly seek spiritual gifts. So while we trust the Holy Spirit to give us what we need, when we need it, our responsibility is to use it in His power and strength for His glory, there is this command that we have. Paul says it two times in these passages that we're looking at. Notice what he says in chapter 12, verse 31. He says, but earnestly desire the higher, excuse me, the higher gifts. I'm not gonna get into all of the higher gifts. Next week, we're gonna talk about this a little bit, higher gifts versus lower gifts. Just know that when he says the higher gifts, he's not diminishing someone's gifts. He's just saying that in the corporate context, there are some gifts of the Spirit that have greater value

and they edify the church in greater ways than others. But here's what he is saying. But earnestly desire. So then he says it again in chapter 14, verse one. Chapter 14, verse one, he says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. So there is this command to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. And again, we're gonna talk about why next week. But the point is this. We are commanded, both of this in chapter 12 and chapter 14 is present active imperative. That means it's continual command that we are to do. So let me just explain what that means. How many of you know that God has commanded us to love our enemies and pray for them? It's a command Jesus gives us here on the mount. Everybody believe that? So if Jesus gives us the command, would you also agree that it's a sin not to do that? Amen? Why would it be a sin? Because if God, if Jesus commands us to do something and we willfully say no to that, that's disobedience. The scriptures commands us to earnestly desire spiritual gifts. And if we're not earnestly desiring spiritual gifts on the basis of the fact that it's a command, listen, we're being disobedient.

And so what does that mean to earnestly desire? I just personally think according to this context is that we pray for it. If the Holy Spirit is the giver of the gift and he says earnestly desire the gift, what does it mean to earnestly desire? It means to talk to the Holy Spirit about the gifts that you desire. Now, does that mean the Holy Spirit's gonna give you whatever you desire? No, he's gonna give an apportion according to his will. But there are times when the Holy Spirit gives you the gift that you're desiring because he's choosing prayer to be the means by which you receive it. And so he's still sovereign over it, but he wants you to ask for it. There are other places in the Scripture and I'm gonna show you in a moment where this desire for gifts or the giving of gifts that the Holy Spirit gives, he doesn't just do privately or quietly or he doesn't just do because they prayed for it, he does it because somebody else prayed for it. Let me show you what I mean. We've been reading in our Bible reading plan, encourage you to be following along. We went through 1 Timothy already, but 1 Timothy chapter four, verse 14 says this, this is Paul's word to Timothy, listen to this.

Do not neglect the gift you have, the spiritual gift you have, which was given you by prophecy, this is spiritual gift being exercised in Timothy's life, when the council of elders laid their hands on you. So notice this, notice what he says, he says, practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. So in other words, growing in our ability to operate in our spiritual gift, it takes practice. Immerse yourself, practice them, like ask the Holy Spirit to show you because when you walk in your spiritual gifting, especially if it's brand new for you, there's gonna be a learning, there's gonna be a process of maturity that you have to grow in. But I want you to go back and listen to what Paul says in verse 14. He says in verse 14, do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. So here's what we know according to this. Paul is telling Timothy, through the gift of prophecy, there was something that God revealed about you through someone else to you about what the ways that he was gonna use you. And the elders laid hands on you and you received spiritual gifting to do that.

And here's what Paul is saying, don't neglect that. What does that mean? It means that in Timothy's life in this moment, there was the receiving of the gift given by the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Now, does it all like that? No, but there are times, so where does this come from? It could be that there's a desire in our heart that we're praying for and the Holy Spirit tells us, go ask the spiritual leaders in your life to lay hands on you and pray over you that you might receive that. And there are times where God was gonna use that, say, why would he do that? I don't know. You can ask him when you get to heaven. But apparently in Timothy's life, that's how God wanted to impart Timothy's gift. It could be that the spiritual leaders recognized there was a word of prophecy and recognized a spiritual gift that maybe God wanted to do. Now, did they know for a fact? No, they just sensed that God was doing this. They laid hands and God gave that spiritual gift. The point is this, who is the giver of the gift? The Holy Spirit. And what he tells us is this, earnestly desire, so pray for gifts of the Holy Spirit. And then there are times,

there is going to be moments where the Holy Spirit will have hands laid on you by spiritual leaders for you to receive the gift that he wants you to have. But make no mistake, it's from him. You can't will yourself into a spiritual gift. You can't be taught, I wanna learn how to have this spiritual gift. And it works. So churches that practice say, let me come teach you how to have this spiritual gift, no. And oh, by the way, I didn't say this earlier. I wanna make sure that I make this clear. Every believer will have a or multiple spiritual gifts, but not every believer will have every spiritual gift. Amen. Paul makes this very clear. So for a church context that says, well, listen, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're gonna speak in tongues. Paul would object to that. Paul says, I wish all of you spoke in tongues and we'll see this next week. But Paul acknowledges that not all will speak in tongues. But there are other spiritual gifts that God gives you that you should walk in. So the point is this, is that we should not let certain sects of maybe hyper charismatic movement put us in a pigeonhole where we speak

what Scripture doesn't speak. Not every gift will be given to every person. And there's not one gift, listen to this, that every believer will have. But you will have the gift that the Holy Spirit chooses to give you. And you can participate in that by praying and seeking it. And maybe he will, maybe he won't, just be obedient and faithful. And there are times maybe it will be received by the laying on of hands. But here's what we gotta remember. The Holy Spirit gives the gift. So here's the question then, if the Holy Spirit gives the gift, question number four. What is the purpose of spiritual gifts? What's the purpose of spiritual gifts? I'm glad you asked. First Corinthians 12, seven. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for the common good. Now listen to what he says in Ephesians 4, verse 11. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, not an exhaustive list of spiritual giftings, but some of them. To equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. So the spiritual gifts are given for the building up of the body of Christ.

From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it's equipped when each part is working properly. What does it mean when each part is working properly? When every member is operating in their spiritual gifting. Here's what happens. It makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. So as we operate in our spiritual gifting, as I operate in my spiritual gifting, as you operate in your spiritual gifting, here's what Paul says. The body builds itself up. We mature one another. We allow because of this, the body expands and more people are introduced. So, you know, I got all kinds of friends in the room. I'm gonna pick on Daniel for a second. Daniel is very gifted and very in tune to the spirit of God. He encourages me. Like very few people in my life have encouraged me. And there is a spiritual gifting that he has. And listen to this. I desperately need that in my life. And God has, I am a better pastor, better husband and a better father because of Daniel Norris's use of his spiritual gift in my life. And prayerfully, God is using my spiritual gifts in his life.

You see, what happens is as he walks in his gift and I walk in my gift, guess what? The body builds itself up. That part of the body builds this part of the body up. Now multiply that across the congregation. Do you see the beauty of what could happen if we discover and deploy our spiritual gifting? See, and this is where I think the confusion of the charismatic movement that has hurt many churches and believers from operating and cause them not to operate in this, it's this. It's that whenever we see abuses of the gifts of the spirit, there are two things most likely happening. Number one, they are using it outside of the boundaries that God has put in place in his word. That's number one. Number two, the gift is being used for self-exaltation rather than for the common good of the people. I watched a guy online who is a televangelist and he apparently had a bunch of sick people and he had them on the stage. on gurneys, I don't know why you'd put them in gurneys unless you want more effect on the stage. So he put them in hospital beds and talking about, hey, these people need to be healed. You believe God can do a miracle and he's getting the crowd worked up and talking about faith healing and all of a sudden he's got the hype person over there and she's on the mic and she's like, you know,

what, what, trying to get everybody all fired up. And I'm looking at this thing, I'm like, I feel like I'm at a and one, like that's old school. I feel like I'm at a, you know, I don't even know what to call it. Like, like pep rally or something for Jesus. And this guy, all of a sudden he's walking around the stage and he turns around and he looks at all the people and he's like, do you believe God? And he just does this thing right here and all of a sudden everybody gets out of their bed and I'm like, give me a break. Let me tell you what that's about. That's about a manipulation of something genuine that God wants to do. And how do I know that? Because in that moment, that person wanted the attention. When it's genuine, you want God to get the attention. It is not for self-exaltation. It is for the glory of Christ and Christ alone. It is not about us. You see, this is where we begin to see the manifestation of the spirit. I've watched this, I've watched this in our church. I've watched this, I've watched this in our church over the past couple of months. God has worked in our church, giving us many of these gifts that we're gonna talk about. You know, what's interesting about the times that I've seen it, very authentic.

There has been such humility. There has been such humility and quietness of spirit. And there's something beautiful. When someone steps out in faith and goes pastor or to the elders, I sense the Lord doing X. Would you discern that with me? And then we talk to it, we pray through it, and we go, man, that is definitely, and then you see it work in someone's life. Listen to me, there's something beautiful. The body of Christ, when the supernatural Jesus shows up. You say, well, how do I discover my gift? Now, there's a number of ways that you can do this. You can take a spiritual gifts inventory. In our next steps class that we're offering, you can take them, and I just wanna say to you, that's gonna be helpful to you, but that's not the answer. Hear me say this. Because what many of us do is we do this, we sit on the sidelines of ministry and we go, I gotta find out my spiritual gift, and so what do we do? Introspective, me, me, me, I'm gonna do the test, and again, I'm not against the test, we're gonna offer the test, but the test is gonna be insufficient. It's gonna give you categories and maybe a direction or a bent, but here's what we do. We look in ourself and go, okay, what's in there? That's not the way. You wanna know the best way to discover your spiritual gift?

Get off the sidelines. Get in ministry. Start serving people. You know why? Because when you're doing that, when you get off the sidelines and you get in ministry and you start serving, and you're like, man, I feel compelled to this, and I'm gonna begin to serve in this way, and I'm gonna jump in and try to figure this thing out. So now what's happening is, is that you're rolling your sleeves up and you're engaging in ministry, and while you're engaging in ministry, you're praying because you recognize that spiritual gifting is not natural talent, so now you're praying, Holy Spirit, what gifts have you given me to respond to the need that I have and to do this thing that you called me to do, and so you're asking, and all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit is gonna begin to work in your life in a supernatural way. So for instance, let's say you have a friend that is burdened down because they've got financial trouble and problems, and they don't know what to do, and the money is running short, and they're just, so you go to coffee with them, and as you're sitting there, you're listening, and you're just caring for them,

and you're ministering to them, but while you're doing that, you're praying, and you're asking, Holy Spirit, what have you given me that can help them in this season? And all of a sudden, as you're praying, there may be a moment where just emotion begins to surface in your life, and you sense this deep compassion for them, and maybe you begin to cry with them, and maybe you just begin to encourage and console them, and ask them how you can serve them, and you walk away from that, and you recognize, that wasn't me, that was the Holy Spirit. It might be that you just discovered that you have the spiritual gift of mercy. There's a joy in your heart because you saw God use you in a supernatural way to bring comfort where it was needed. It might be in that same conversation, if that's not your gift, that you're praying and asking the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden, in that moment, there's just wisdom that he gives you to help them create a pathway, like supernatural wisdom that you know is from him, and you share that, and all of a sudden, they go, yeah, I could do that. I could do that, and now you're praying about it. It could be that God has given you the spiritual gift of mercy. gift of wisdom. And now God is using that in their life. You walk away full of joy,

go maybe God has given me that spiritual gift. I wanna start leaning into that more. Maybe you're sitting there and as you're doing that, the Holy Spirit shows you something about them that they've never told you. And as you're praying and you're listening and you're sympathizing, the Holy Spirit just says, ask them about their gambling habit. And they haven't told you. You ask them and all of a sudden conviction falls in their heart and they're like, how did you know? Could be that the Holy Spirit has given you the gift of prophecy or knowledge. And now you walk away and you realize that wasn't from you. You see, here's the thing, here's what we know. Sam Storm says this, you don't discover your spiritual gift by looking inward, merely looking inward. You discover your spiritual gift by looking outward. Because when you step into ministry and service, which is where spiritual gifts are primarily used. When you stepped into ministry and service, dependent upon the Holy Spirit, watch this, you won't have to find your spiritual gift, your spiritual gift will find you. And it changes everything. So here's what I'm gonna do,

I'm gonna close this in prayer and I'm gonna say, number one, if you were in this place this morning and you're not a follower of Jesus, the message for you is not look for your spiritual gift. The message for you is receive spiritual life. Jesus lived and he died for your sins. He was resurrected on the third day and in him and him alone can we be forgiven of our sin and made brand new. And that work of being made brand new is a supernatural work of God. And I wanna say this, I wanna say this, I wanna say this, I wanna say this, being made brand new is a supernatural work of the spirit of God, and you cannot have the gifts or the blessings of the life of the spirit until you have been made alive by the spirit by placing your faith and trust in Christ. If that's never happened to you in your life, here's what I want you to know, we would like to help you with that. When we dismiss you can go to our next steps booth and go tell one of our volunteers, hey, I wanna know what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and receive him as my Lord and savior.

But for those of you who know Christ, what if you begin a journey today of simply obeying the command, desire. Desire earnestly the spiritual gifts and ask the Holy Spirit what he's given you or what he wants to give you. And next week we're gonna come back and keep talking about the subject. Father, I ask right now in the name of Jesus that you would use your word to make much of you and to build your church. Show us in this room who needs you. Bring salvation to their life. For those of you who, those in this room who do, God, show them the gifts that you've given them by the power of the spirit in Jesus name, amen. Hey, you guys put your hands together.