Title: You Are Gifted
Series: Discovering God’s Special Gifts
Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Romans 12:6-8
Theme: Every child of God is gifted for service.
Introduction: Our Gifted Son
When our son, Steven, first enrolled in K3, Kay and I weren’t really sure what his day consisted of. His communication about how his day had gone was usually, “I eat. I play.” So we were a little worried when we got a note from his teacher one day requesting our presence at a parent/teacher meeting. Notes home often have bad connotations, and we were perplexed at what he could have done. After all, he was only three years old.
We were somewhat apprehensive, to say the least, when the meeting began. But our apprehension was short-lived.
“Does Steven tell you what he does at school,” the teacher asked us.
“No,” we replied. “We always ask him about his day at school, but he doesn’t say too much about it.”
“Well,” she said, “Steven is an unusual child. We have found that he gets bored very easy in class, so we have had to make some adjustments. Are you aware of the fact that Steven knows more than 70 Bible verses from memory? He has also learned more than 90 different songs, and he knows 120 catechisms by heart.”
We were stunned. Here was our little three-year-old son who never had much to say, and they were telling us about mental abilities that many adults would long to possess.
She went on to explain that the adjustments she had made were quite phenomenal. When they were learning the alphabet, for example, she would explain the letter A, by saying, “A stands for apple.” That was sufficient for most of the class. But with Steven, she would say, “A stands for astronaut. An astronaut is someone who works in outer space. He blasts off from earth in a rocket, and rides through space in a space capsule.”
“That,” she explained, “is how we keep Steven interested in learning. Of course it’s much too early to make any kind of decision, but we feel that Steven may be gifted.”
Needless to say, we were very proud parents. From that point on we set out to find whether or not Steven really was a gifted child, and what we would have to do to prepare for his future. If he were truly gifted, we wanted to make sure that he would find the right places to use his God-given abilities.
With Steven, there was a question about his abilities, and whether or not he was truly gifted. But every believer can say with confidence, “I am a gifted child.” You see, God gives us all special gifts by His Holy Spirit that we can use to build His kingdom. So it’s not a question of “if” we are gifted, but rather what gifts has God given us. In this series we will study the spiritual gifts, find the areas in which we are gifted, and find ways we can use those gifts in His service.
Recently, God has given me an interpretation to a recurring dream that I have had for many years. In this dream, I find that I am living in a huge house. Then one day, I discover a room, or sometimes many rooms, that I didn’t realize existed. On some occasions, I will discover an entire second or third story to this house that I never new about.
While preparing for this series, God has revealed to me that the unused rooms represent those spiritual gifts that we don’t even realize He has given us. While we are thoroughly satisfied with what we have, there is so much more that we could experience if only we would search out and enter the hidden rooms of our lives. It’s not enough just to find them, but we have to open the door before we can experience what’s inside.
I. GOD HAS GIVEN EVERY BELIEVER VARIOUS GIFTS, TALENTS, AND ABILITIES (1-6)
Isn’t it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings
And common people like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools
A shapeless mass, a book of rules;
And each must make ‘ere life is flown
A stumbling block or a stepping stone. (source unknown)
A. Spiritual Gifts Are Not To Be Ignored. (1 Corinthians 12:1)
Note: Spiritual gifts are divine enablements for ministry that the Holy Spirit gives in some measure to all believers and that are to be completely under His control and used for the building of the church to Christ’s glory. These had to be distinguished from the mystical experiences called “ecstasy” (supernatural, sensuous communion with a deity) and “enthusiasm” (divination, dreams, revelations, visions) that were found in the pagan religions of Corinth. (John F. MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible, (Dallas: Word Publishing) 1997.)
1. The Corinthian believers were not ignorant of the existence of the spiritual gifts, they were actively using many of them.
2. They were ignorant of the use and purpose of the gifts.
3. Today, we must not ignore their presence, but actively pursue their development and use in building the kingdom of God.
B. Spiritual Gifts Are Not To Be Misused. (1 Corinthians 12:2-3)
1. Incredibly, some church members were mimicking certain dramatic and bizarre practices of the mystery religions in which they had been formerly involved.
2. The practice of ecstasy, considered to be the highest expression of religious experience, involved supposed supernatural interaction with a deity, induced through frenzied hypnotic chants and ceremonies.
3. The practice frequently included drunkenness and sexual orgies, to which the devotees willfully yielded themselves to be led into gross sin. (John F. MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible, (Dallas: Word Publishing) 1997.)
4. The misuse of spiritual gifts today, such as speaking in tongues, is not acceptable.
C. All Spiritual Gifts Come From The Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, NKJV)
Illustration: Talent On Loan From God
Rush Limbaugh has this phrase as part of his self introduction. "Talent on loan from God." It might sound arrogant, but it really isn’t. It’s humble. I’ve heard him explain it too. He knows that whatever he is able to do is a gift from God with which he is to do his best for God. Your talent, too, is on loan from God. (Scott Weber, SermonCentral.com.)
1. These categories of giftedness are not natural talents, skills, or abilities, such as are possessed by believers and unbelievers alike.
2. They are sovereignly and supernaturally bestowed by the Holy Spirit on all believers (vv. 7, 11), enabling them to spiritually edify each other effectively and thus honor the Lord.
II. THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS (1 Corinthians 12:7-11; Romans 12:6-8)
A. Functional, Or Service Gifts
Note: These gifts fall into two general types, speaking and serving. These are all permanent gifts that will operate throughout the church age, and are absolutely essential for the church to function as the body of Christ in our world. Their purpose is to edify the church and glorify God.
1. The speaking, or verbal, gifts include:
a. Prophecy.
b. Knowledge.
c. Wisdom.
d. Teaching.
e. Exhortation.
2. The serving, or nonverbal gifts include:
a. Leadership.
b. Helps.
c. Giving.
d. Mercy.
e. Faith.
f. Discernment.
B. Foundational, Or Sign Gifts.
1. The sign gifts include:
a. Miracles.
b. Healings.
c. Tongues.
d. The interpretation of tongues.
2. These were temporary sign gifts, miraculous in nature, limited to the apostolic age and have, therefore, ceased.
a. Their purpose was to authenticate the apostles and their message as the true Word of God, until God’s written Word was completed and became self-authenticating.
b. They gave the new church a strong foundation in a short period of time since the New Testament had not yet been written.
III. WHY ARE THERE NO SIGN GIFTS TODAY? (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)
Note: The apostles, Paul and the twelve, each possessed these miraculous sign gifts and were able to confer them to others by laying their hands on them. Thus, when Paul and Barnabas went about starting churches on their missionary journeys, they were able to select leaders for those churches, lay hands on them, and give them these gifts, even though they had been Christians only a short time. This proved to be a great blessing to the early church for two reasons:
A. We Have A Sufficient Number Of Trained Leaders For The Church Today.
1. The apostles could only be in one place at a time.
2. By leaving men in these churches with these foundational gifts, they could move on rapidly to start other congregation.
3. Even though Christianity was a new religion, churches could be given a fast and firm foundation through these gifts.
B. We Have A Complete New Testament To Refer To For Answers To Spiritual Matters.
1. The words of the apostles as recorded in Scripture, serve as the foundation of our life and faith.
2. In that day, each apostle, each church, and each prophet, only had a part of God’s total message.
3. Today, that message is completely revealed in the New Testament, rendering the sign gifts of little value.
4. Even Paul, who had the gift of healing (Acts 14:9; 28:8), instructed Timothy to drink wine for his stomach troubles (1 Timothy 5:23), thus clearly illustrating the cessation of the sign gifts at the end of the apostolic age.
IV. IF TONGUES HAVE CEASED, WHY NOT PROPHECY AND KNOWLEDGE?
Note: The phrase love never fails refers to love’s lastingness or permanence as a divine quality. Love outlasts all failures (cf. 1 Pet. 4:8; 1 John 4:16). Paul strengthens his point on the permanence of love by comparing it to the spiritual gifts which the Corinthians so highly prized: prophecy, knowledge, and tongues, all of which will have an end.
A. Prophecy And Knowledge Will End Differently Than Tongues.
1. This is indicated by the Gr. verb forms used.
“fail, vanish away” - NT:2673 katargeo (kat-arg-eh’-o); from NT:2596 and NT:691; to be (render) entirely idle (useless), literally or figuratively:
2. In the case of prophecy and knowledge, they are both said to “be abolished” (in both cases the verb indicates that something will put an end to those two functions.
3. Verses 9 and 10 indicate that what will abolish knowledge and prophecy is “that which is perfect.”
4. When that occurs, those gifts will be rendered inoperative.
a. “That which is perfect” is not the completion of Scripture, since there is still the operation of those two gifts and will be in the future kingdom. (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17; Revelation 11:3)
b. The Scriptures do not allow us to see “face to face” or have perfect knowledge as God does. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
c. “That which is perfect” is not the rapture of the church or the second coming of Christ, since the kingdom to follow these events will have an abundance of preachers and teachers (cf. Is. 29:18; 32:3, 4; Joel 2:28; Rev. 11:3).
d. “That which is perfect” can only be the eternal state, when we see God face to face in glory (Rev. 22:4) and have full knowledge in the eternal new heavens and new earth.
e. Just as a child grows to full understanding, believers will come to perfect knowledge and no such gifts will be necessary.
B. The Gift Of Tongues Will “Cease” By Itself.
“cease” - NT:3973 - pauo (pow’-o); a primary verb ("pause"); to stop (transitively or intransitively), i.e. restrain, quit, desist, come to an end:
1. This occurred at the end of the apostolic age.
2. It will not end by the coming of the “perfect,” for it will already have ceased.
a. The uniqueness of the gift of languages and its interpretations was, as all sign gifts, to authenticate the message and messages of the gospel before the NT was completed. (Hebrews 2:3-4)
b. “Tongues” were not a sign to believers, but unbelievers, specifically those unbelieving Jews. (1 Corinthians 1:22)
3. Tongues ceased because there was no need to verify the true messages from God once the Scriptures were given.
4. The Scriptures became the standard by which all are to be deemed true.
a. That tongues have ceased should be clear from their absence from any other books in the NT, except Acts.
b. Tongues ceased to be an issue of record or practice in the early church, as the Scripture was being written.
c. That tongues has ceased should be clear also from its absence through church history since the first century, appearing only sporadically and then only in questionable groups.
Conclusion: Discarded And Decayed
The great violinist, Nicole Pagannini, willed his marvelous violin to Genoa, the city of his birth, only on the condition that it not be played. It is a peculiar wood in that as long as the violin is used and handled, it shows little wear. As soon as it is discarded, the wood begins to decay. The exquisite, mellow-toned violin has become worm-eaten in its beautiful case, valueless except as a relic. The moldering instrument is a reminder that life, withdrawn from all service to others, loses its meaning. Jesus taught this in a dramatic and unforgettable way. He said, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will find it.” (Mk 10:45) If a life is to remain useful, it must be lived in service to others. (Gene Barron, SermonCentral.com.)
What spiritual gifts do you possess?
Are you using them, or leaving them on the shelf?
