Gifts of the Spirit // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 4

God is a supernatural God – God goes ahead of us – God knows all things – God is all powerful – God is all loving and God pours out gifts through His people into other people’s lives. And that’s the powerful truth we’re going to share in today!

 

A Loving Dad

Let’s imagine just for a moment, that there is a father who has some children – he is their dad - in a very real sense, he created them. He loves them as a father loves his children but well, they’ve been separated from one another for a long time. He has never stopped loving them; he has never stopped thinking about them and one day they come back to him. They are reunited as a family and the father is just overjoyed. He goes to the airport to meet them; his heart is in his throat, there are tears in his eyes and like any father in that situation, he takes with him some gifts to give to these children – beautifully wrapped and especially chosen for each of them.

To give a gift in that circumstance would be completely in character for a father to do because that is what dads do because there would be love and a joy – and it just makes us want to give gifts. And since we are made in God’s image then it would be entirely reasonable to expect that God our Father would be exactly the same.

Over the last three weeks we have been working our way through a series that I’ve called “The Holy Spirit and Me”. Three weeks ago we began looking at how Jesus promised to give each person who believed in Him the Holy Spirit – another Comforter; another counsellor, just like Jesus. And then the next week we looked at the fact that, when that happens; when we accept Jesus and we are filled with His Spirit, then He begins to deal with our sin.

The Spirit is called the Holy Spirit and part of what He does in us is to help us take that rubbish out from our former life and throw it out so that we can be free to live the life that God always intended. And last week we looked at the fact that God knows each one of us intimately. He looks at you and knows you just the way you are. He looks at me and He knows me just the way I am. And so He approaches us in different ways - in ways that He chooses to build a relationship with us through His Holy Spirit.

This week we are going to finish this series off looking at the gifts of the Spirit. It turns out that the New Testament talks about three different types of gifts of the Spirit. Now I’m no Greek scholar but the Greek word that is used in the New Testament for "gift" is "charisma" – we know that word fairly well – and the Greek word that is used for ‘joy’ is almost the same word, it’s "charis" – the same sort of derivative. So they are free gifts that come from God that give joy at being reunited with Him as His children – they are free gifts and they are gifts of joy.

Let’s take a bit of time today, if you can hang around with me for a few minutes today, just to look at some of those gifts and just to get a sense of what God is doing. We can’t go through them all in detail, but just to kind of expose them and unpack them a little bit and be aware of them so that we can eagerly desire those gifts.

A gift by definition is free but we need to be ready to receive. So it is given as a gift not only to us but for the potential benefit of other people. The first lot of gifts that are talked about in the Bible happened in Romans chapter 12, verses 3 to 8 – it’s written by Paul. Let me read it to you.

For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, don’t think of yourself more highly than you should but think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as one body we have many members and not all of the members have the same function. So we who are many are one in Christ and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us – prophesy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

Now, none of those are kind of spooky, airy-fairy gifts – they are pretty straight forward gifts – to prophesy means to speak God’s will; to speak what God is thinking into a situation. We sometimes think of it as predicting the future, but most often, it’s about speaking God’s will, encouraging, admonishing into a situation. Some people have that gift.

Other people have the gift just to minister to other people. Some people have the gift of teaching. Other people have the gift of exhortation, of encouraging, of lifting them up. Other people are motivated to be givers – they are just really good at giving of their own things and wealth into other situations. Some people we know; we meet them and we go, "There is a natural gifted leader." And some people are gifted in compassion, in mercy; they are pastorally gifted. They are the ones who will hang with someone who is sick over time.

Each one of us has one or two, or maybe even three of those in our makeup:

According to the grace that is given to each one of us, to be used for other people.

You and I have been crafted in our mother’s womb and isn’t it exciting to know, there is a gift or two or three been put into our DNA; into the fibre of who we are by God.

I encourage you to spend some time thinking about that because each one of us has some motivation – that’s why these are called motivational gifts – some motivation to speak out God’s will or to minister to others or to teach or to encourage or to give or to lead or just to show compassion. And those gifts aren’t gifts for us to hang on to; they are gifts for us to use in the lives of other people. They are gifts through which God flows into the lives of other people.

You might think, "Well, you know, I don’t have any real gift. Well, I don’t think so." God has gifted you from the time that you were in your mother’s womb, with one of those gifts that you can use to take the blessing of God into someone else’s life – that’s what this is about. We are going to look at some of the other gifts that the Bible talks about next.

 

Motivational and Leadership Gifts

We are talking today in our last programme of the series “The Holy Spirit and Me” about the gifts; the spiritual gifts that God gives us through the Holy Spirit. The first lot that we looked at were what are called "motivational" gifts. They are kind of in our DNA – we all have a bent in a certain direction. For some people it is speaking out God’s will; for some people it’s encouraging; for others it’s teaching; for others it’s serving; for others it’s hanging with people in compassion and pastoring them.

That’s one lot of gifts – we all have one or two of those gifts that are wired into our DNA and I would really encourage you to get before God and say, "Lord, I’m looking at this list of gifts that You have put there in Romans chapter 12 – which one is me? God I want You to use what You have put into the fibre of my being to bless other people and to encourage other people, because God I want to be used by You.

Well, the second lot of gifts we are going to look at today come from Ephesians chapter 4 – if you have a Bible let’s go there – we are looking at Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 13. These gifts are what are called "leadership" gifts – not everybody is going to be a leader but you know, sometimes we kind of sit there and we think, "Well, you know, I’m not a leader. I look around all these other people in my church and they all seem so important and special and I don’t really have anything to be a leader."

God picks the strangest people to be leaders – God really does! You know, I look back on my walk with Jesus and I think, "Why did God ever pick me to do what I’m doing? I never expected Him too." He comes and picks little black sheep and little ugly ducklings and little nobodies and uses them in the most powerful way. We should never kid ourselves that God doesn’t mean for us to be doing something that He has planned for us to do.

So we are here in Ephesians chapter 4, beginning at verse 11 – looking at the five leadership gifts - it says this:

The gifts we gave were that some would be apostles, some would be prophets, some would be evangelists, some would be pastors and others would be teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

So there are five gifts: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. An apostle is simply someone who gets sent out by the body of Christ; by the church to go and do a new work. The twelve Apostles were Jesus disciples who were then ‘sent out’ to build the church – to plant new churches. Paul was an apostle, someone who was sent out and he planted a lot of new churches. Have to be a special sort of person to be one who is happy to be sent out from the group to do something new. It is a really special gifting and it’s a gifting that comes from the Holy Spirit. We don’t choose this for ourselves – God chooses it – God chooses to make someone an apostle and when you are you just know and you have a motivation to do something new and you go out and do it.

Then there are prophets – a prophet is someone who speaks God’s will into people’s lives. It’s a gifting that God has given me – not one that I chose (we’ll talk about that later) it’s not one that I chose for myself, it’s the one that God chose for me – to speak God’s will. To go to God in prayer and say, "Lord, what are You doing today" and to hear Him really clearly and then to go and speak that into peoples’ lives because that’s what God has anointed me to do.

Other people are evangelists. I have these friends Peter and Ruth and Peter and Ruth are just born evangelists and they can’t help it. They sit at a bus stop and they are talking to someone about Jesus – that’s just how they are wired – it’s how God has made them. You would never pick them as evangelists – they don’t look like Billy Graham but God has blessed them to go and do that and praise God, they do it every opportunity they get.

Some people are called to be pastors. I was having a cup of coffee yesterday with a dear friend of mine Peter Watson, who is a pastor not far from where I live and Pete was talking to me and he said "You know, I just love what I’m doing and I’m here for the long haul and doing this, doing that." I said to Peter, "I’d die if I had to do what you do." I’m not called to be a pastor but Pete is and a whole bunch of other people are and churches are full of people who are gifted to be pastors. And I don’t mean by that the "minister of the church" – I mean by that the sort of person who just pulls along and hangs with people for the long term and just hangs there and is with them and walks with them; who pastors them – as a shepherd pastors a flock. There is a real gifting; it’s a real calling; it’s a real anointing and a lot of times pastors don’t look to be anything special and they’re the most important people in my view, in the body of Christ.

And then some people are called to be teachers – that’s what I am doing now. My two gifting are in the area of prophesy and teaching. If we were all teachers it would be boring – fortunately God only picks a few.

These are the leadership giftings – they are not for all – but their role is to build the body of Christ. We are now going to look at the last grouping of giftings which are called spiritual giftings. If you have a Bible, go and grab it, open it at First Corinthians chapter 12 and we will read it together.

We are talking today about spiritual gifts and God is a Dad; He is our Dad and His heart is to give good gifts to His children. If we, who are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to our kids, how much more will our Dad in heaven give the Holy Spirit to us when we ask Him? And with the Holy Spirit come gifts – gifts that are about who we are but they are what God does through us to bless other people.

We have talked about the motivational gifts in Romans chapter 12; we have talked about the leadership giftings in Ephesians chapter 4 and now we are moving on to the spiritual gifts – these are supernatural gifts – not magic – these gifts come from the Holy Spirit. Flick with me, if you have a Bible, to First Corinthians chapter 12.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, (First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 1), brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray by idols who couldn’t speak, therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed’ and no can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there is a variety of gifts of the same Spirit and there are a variety of services but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities but the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom, 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 working of miracles, to another prophesy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues. All of these are activated by one and the same Spirit who allots to each one individually, just as the Spirit chooses.

These are spiritual gifts that come from the Holy Spirit and they are not for super Christians, they are not for special Christians – it says here:

To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Believe in Jesus? God’s plan is to manifest His Spiritual gifts in you and through you just as His plan is to do that with me.

Now there are a variety of gifts. Sometimes it is an utterance of wisdom, sometimes it is walking into a situation and discerning what is going on and you just feel God give you this wisdom that you never had and you speak it and everyone goes "Man, that’s amazing." And sometimes it’s a word of knowledge – sometimes we can’t know what is going on in someone’s life but the Holy Spirit just leads us to speak something and it's bang on. Sometimes it is the most supernatural faith in the most difficult of circumstances.

Sometimes God says, “Go and heal that person because I am healing them – go and put your hands on them – go and pray for them.” The Spirit is about healing lives. Sometimes it’s working in miracles – sometimes it’s a prophesy; it’s a word from God that people just know has come from God. Sometimes it is discerning spirits – the devil is alive and well. And sometimes it’s praying in tongues – one of the very common gifts.

Now they are wonderful, wonderful gifts but the most important thing, if you read the next couple of chapters of First Corinthians, which we are not going to, is that we should pursue love. We should – yes, strive for spiritual gifts because God wants to give them to each one – but the most important thing is that we walk in love.

If you flick over to chapter 14 and verse 12, it says this:

So with yourselves, since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for the building up of the church.

Now I am challenged by this; I am a very right-brained, analytical kind of guy and I had a prophesy given to me by telephone from a friend. She rang one Saturday morning and said ‘God has just given me Romans chapter 12, verse 6 and that says:

Prophesy according to your faith.

Now the night before I had been at Bible College and one of our lecturers Dr Barry Chant, whom I have just so much time for, said "Today we are going do prophesy." And I’m thinking, "Barry, it doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t work like this. Hang on a minute." So I challenged him and he smiled at me knowingly and he sat me down with a young man and he said, "Prophesy into this man’s life." I thought, "Barry, come on." Barry said, "just start praying for him" and so I did and God led me in a direction to pray for this young man and I opened my eyes when I finished praying and he was sobbing – he was in tears because I prayed and spoke something into his life that I couldn’t have known, that was the biggest issue in his life right then. And Barry put his hand on my shoulder and had this knowing smile.

God gave me that day, even though I didn’t ask for it, the gift of prophesy and prophesy for me is never easy. It’s not something that comes lightly; not something that I open my mouth over easily, but when God calls me to prophesy; to speak His very specific will into some situation into someone’s life, I just know. And so I go and do that and I see how God does the most amazing things. I have seen people blessed time and time again. That’s the spiritual gift that God seems to give to me most often.

Now, I would really like one of the flashy gifts like healing – that would be good. I’d love to be able to go along and lay my hands on people and heal them all the time but it just seems that the place God calls me into, being who I am and how He has made me, is in this area of prophesy. And it is so wonderful to see that step of faith – and that’s what it is for me each time because it’s always a bit scary to do – to prophesy into people’s lives and see God use that and see lives touched and changed.

This is not the gift I had planned for myself, yet, we don’t get to choose.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. All of these are activated by the one and the same Spirit who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

This is a gift from God and if we start taking gifts on ourselves saying, "I’m going to be a healer," and God hasn’t put that in us, then, we are going to abuse that, we are going to make mistakes and we are going to hurt people.

God is a good God – God is a supernatural God – God goes ahead of us – God knows all things – God is all-powerful – God is all loving and God pours out gifts through His people into other people’s lives. Sometimes they are unusual; sometimes they are scary; sometimes it’s a huge step of faith to lay your hands on someone and pray for their healing.

But when God is doing something; when God has shown up, you know something? You and I had better be there along with Him otherwise He will use someone else. Our Father is a Father of joy; He’s a good Father. He wants to give us good gifts – they are free gifts – to each one of us – you! You believe in Jesus? God means to use you supernaturally in other people’s lives – it’s a fabulous plan. And, yes, you know something? It takes a bit of faith but God knows that too and He knows where we are at in our faith.

Prophesy happens according to faith – my gift is a faith gift and I just believe that when I open my mouth, I am only doing it in His power. I won’t open my mouth in my own strength and God, time and time again has done that. What if God plans to use you to heal people’s lives? What if God plans to use you to put words of knowledge or words of wisdom into other people’s lives? You know, if we are not co-operating with God, it’s not going to happen – He is not going to drag us kicking and screaming.

It says here that we should ‘eagerly desire’ spiritual gifts and excel in those spiritual gifts. We have looked at three types of gifts today – motivational gifts, Romans chapter 12, verses 3 to 7; leadership gifts, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 13; spiritual gifts, First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 1 to 11.

God is a good God – God wants to bless people. You know He sent Jesus to this planet not just to speak but to walk on water, to heal people, to give sight to the blind, to cast demons out, to die and rise again – God is a supernatural God – God touches lives supernaturally.

Father I pray for each person listening that You would give us a desire for Your spiritual gifts; a desire for Your Spirit to flow through us; a desire for this world to be blessed by Your Spirit through us. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.