Part 1 - What Are Spiritual Gifts? Series

Spiritual Gifts Series

Part 1 – “What are Spiritual Gifts?

Rev. Bruce A. Shields – First Baptist Church Tawas City Michigan

www.TawasBaptist.org

I would like to welcome you to the First Baptist Church of Tawas City, we are very glad you are here today.

If you are visiting, please fill out a Visitor Card located in the back of the pew’s, and leave them on the pews as you leave, and someone will come by after the service and pick them up.

Scripture Reading

1 Corinthians 12:7

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal:”

PRAYER

I. What are Spiritual Gifts

I remember when I was in seminary about 4 or 5 years ago, and I had to take a course called “Pneumotology”, and I was thinking, “What in the world?”

Well I knew “Ology” is a Greek word for “the study of”. Such as;

Biology = the study of living things, bio meaning living things.

Archaeology = the study of primitive life, archaeo meaning ancient.

Come to find out, Pneumo is Greek for “breath, wind or Spirit”.

So, Pneumotology was “The study of Spirit”.

So we were going to be studying the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

Until I attended Seminary, I really didn’t know or understand too much about the Holy Spirit.

But shortly after I started my classes I discovered something that I thought was the most awesome thing in the world, the Holy Spirit and the Spiritual Gifts.

God didn’t just leave us stranded down here, He has equipped us to serve, and we need to understand what it is He has given us. Just as we discovered the Spiritual Armor of God, we need to look at the other tools He has supplied.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that we should not be ignorant about the Spiritual Gifts. We need to know about them and try to discover them because it is God’s will for us to have and use them.

1 Corinthians 12:1

“1Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.”

To understand what Spiritual Gifts are, where they come from and what they are for, we must examine what the scriptures say.

An important scripture to remember is;

Psalm 127:1

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

Only God can build us and this church. If we try to do it ourselves, we are doing it in vain, or wasting our time. Although we do have responsibilities in our Christian walk, it is of nothing we DO that causes this church or ourselves to grow in the Lord. It is only by God’s hand that we grow.

Here in the Hebrew text the word Banah (baw-naw) is used, which was translated into build. The literal translation of banah would be Establish.

Establish means to make firm or stable, to ordain.

So a more accurate translation of Psalm 127:1 would be;

“Unless God ESTABLISHES the house, they labor in vain that establish it.”

We cannot truly establish ourselves or this church. It must be done by God.

So we know that God has to establish us as a body of believers. He does this by creating unity among us.

Unity among us is the key to pleasing God and showing God’s love to others.

Remember a few weeks ago when we talked about “They will know you are mine because of your love.”

Our love and unity displays God’s love to others.

Ephesians 4:2-8

2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope when you were called– 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

7But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8This is why it[a] says: “When he ascended on high,

he led captives in his train

and gave gifts to men.”

Paul instructs us on unity, how we are to treat each other so we keep unity among us. Then Paul tells us in verse 7 what happens next, to each one of us grace has been given to us as Christ apportioned it. He gave us gifts after His ascension.

We need to remember these important points listed in Ephesians if we are to understand what Spiritual Gifts are because we MUST have unity as a body of believers if we are to understand and use our Spiritual Gifts.

1. We are 1 body of believers (The Body of Christ)

2. We have 1 Spirit (The Holy Spirit)