The use and working of the spiritual gift in the body of Christ can be like a fingerprint, very individual, very stylized, very, very not like another. And even two people with the same gift of the Spirit are going to operate differently. God works in and through each believer uniquely.
Your faith won't look like another's. And today on Connect with Skip Heitig, Skip shares how God can empower you with spiritual gifts to shine Jesus' light in the world. But before we begin, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you get the most of your Bible study times. Guinness World Records has again confirmed that the Bible is the best selling book of all time.
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Observation must lead to interpretation, which must lead to application. As somebody once put it, if you want the meat, it's in the street. It's where you take the Bible truths and you put shoe leather on them.
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Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we'll be in Romans chapter 12 for today's study, so let's join Skip Heitig. Your mind matters and you should think critically and if need be, question necessarily. Even Paul the Apostle congratulated the Bereans because they were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word of God with all readiness of mind, but they searched the scriptures daily to see if these things be so. Be a Berean.
Do that. Can you imagine listening to Paul the Apostle and even having the thought, well, I don't know if that's true. And somebody go, what do you mean that's not true? That's Paul the Apostle, man. So, I want to make sure that that is in line with the scripture. I'm going to search the scriptures daily to see if what Paul just said is true. And Paul said, I like that.
They're more noble than those in Thessalonica because they did that. So, your mind matters to God. You are to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength to think through things intelligently, clearly, critically. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove. Now, we've gone through the negative and the positive. Here's the practical.
The practical part is this is where it will lead you when you do that. When you don't conform, but you are transformed, you will prove, the result will be, you'll discover what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. I don't think I've ever met a Christian who doesn't want to know the will of God. A person comes to know Christ. They're all excited that their sins are forgiven.
They have heaven waiting for them. They have purpose for life, but they quickly come to the place where they say, I wonder what God wants from my life, what he wants me to do, what area he be leading me into. What is the will of God? How do I discover the perfect will of God?
And then, unfortunately, some think, well, it must be difficult or it must be strange, weird in discovering the will of God. Maybe God will give me a sign. Maybe I'll hear a voice from heaven.
I'll see lights line up. Somebody will speak a word of prophecy to me. That's how I'll discover the will of God. God could use any of those means. But I've discovered that usually God moves supernaturally naturally.
Not supernaturally weirdly, not supernaturally strangely, but just naturally. You will just discover it. You'll walk in it. The Lord will put you in the right place. And you will discover, you will prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Now, I'm going to say something to you, but I want you to take it in this context. Love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then do what you want. Now, pick that apart.
Think critically what I just said. If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, what you will want will be the will of God. If you love him, you want to honor him, you want to glorify him, you're thinking, I want to follow the dictates of Scripture, then do what you want. Because what you want is you're going to discover what he wants. You're going to want what he wants.
He'll place those desires in your heart. You'll prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Now, let me give that part of the verse to you in the Phillips translation. This translation says, do not think of himself more highly than he ought. The Phillips translation says, don't cherish exaggerated ideas of your own importance.
Again, that's so good. Don't cherish exaggerated ideas of your own importance. Now, I've discovered this happens when God starts using a person, that the natural reaction to God using them is, wow, I must be pretty awesome.
I am pretty awesome. I mean, that was amazing what the Lord did in my life. And so you start having exaggerated ideas of your own importance. No, all that proves is God is willing to condescend and use even you and me.
God has chosen, remember what it says, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, 1 Corinthians 13. That is my life verse. If a doctor performs an operation in a surgical suite under sterile conditions with a great backup team and all the latest technology happens every day. But if a doctor can do that same operation in a primitive environment without that backup system, without that technology, and only has a little kitchen knife that he or she heats up and makes sterile, and for that operation to be successful, now that's something special. And after the operation, you don't take the knife and go, praise you, knife. You are the most awesome knife ever.
You are the most awesome knife ever. It's not the knife. It's the one who held the knife. It's the one who did the work. It's not the tool. So don't have exaggerate, I'm a knife. So who's the surgeon, man?
Who's the doc behind you? So don't think of yourself more highly than he ought to think, but think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Now he's going to go on to speak about the body of Christ and love in the body of Christ and gifts that promote unity in the church to fulfill his will among us.
And it says that God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. One thing I have discovered about God and how he uses us is the Lord is not an ogre. He doesn't call you to do something that you go, oh man, I'd hate to do that. I'd hate to do that.
I've had people say, I'd hate to go to the mission field. Chances are he's not calling you. Now he might, but if he does, he'll give you a love for it, give you a desire to do it. He'll put the will within your heart. It's not like God is so mean he twists your arm and he's going to force you to do stuff you hate to do. No, God has given you a measure of faith so that you will operate in a certain area and it's a perfect fit.
He's a gracious and loving God. So, for as we have many members in one body, this is the human body as an analogy, but all the members do not have the same function, right? First Corinthians chapter 12, if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the seeing? There's different parts in the human body.
So, we being many, that is, we as the body of Christ's church members, we being many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. I mentioned a doctor and I mentioned a kitchen knife or a spoon or a knife, and I mentioned a kitchen knife or a scalpel. That's just one tool. The doctor has needles, different gauges of needles, different shapes of needles, different kinds of suture, different tools like retractors and hemostats and blades, etc., to do what he does besides a number of other tools. Every tool is important. A mechanic doesn't just have a screwdriver but has a screwdriver and pliers and a bunch of other tools to do a job. When somebody comes to me and says, well, what is the best spiritual gift to have? That's like asking what's the best tool in your toolbox or what is the best implement for the doctor to use?
And the answer, of course, would be, well, it depends on what job you want to do. You know, if you want to weld something, a hammer is not your best tool. In fact, you can beat something all day long and it won't help, won't accomplish the job. If you're trying to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, a screwdriver is not your best tool.
A hammer would be. So when the Bible says, covet the best gifts, and it does say that, desire the best gifts of the Spirit. What is the best gift? Well, it depends on what God has called you to do. And the best gift for you will be given by God to you to accomplish the work He's called you to do.
You can be rest assured of that. So He's given you a measure of faith and He's given you whatever gift is needed to fulfill and to bless the body of Christ. Okay, in Romans chapter 12, He mentions some spiritual gifts. He mentions seven spiritual gifts. That's not how many spiritual gifts there are. If you were to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, He lists 17 spiritual gifts. If you look at the book of Ephesians, He mentions five spiritual gifts. So, and I've read so many books on this, some will say when it comes to gifts of the Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit, there are 22 gifts, or some will say 21 gifts, or the number floats depending on how you read the words. But it doesn't matter, right?
I don't think the number matters. I think that it's the same Spirit who works all of these things, all and in all, Paul said. So you can have a person with one gift, or two gifts, or three gifts of the Spirit, and then you'll have somebody else with one of those gifts, but a couple of other gifts, so that the combination is pretty endless, and so that the use and working of the spiritual gift in the body of Christ can be like a fingerprint, very individual, very stylized, very not like another. And even two people with the same gift of the Spirit are going to operate differently.
They're going to have their own personality. So you get two, let's say, pastor-teachers, and they are given the same passage of Scripture. I guarantee you, you're going to have two different sermons, two different ways of looking at it. Same truths, but different styles. Okay, enough said on that.
Let's kind of go through this. Having been gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. I'm not going to go through all these gifts and describe all the use of them. I have done that.
I've done that in depth. I've done that with every gift of the Spirit. I will say this, and there is dispute as to if prophecy means preaching the Word, or if it means something more specific. In the Old Testament, prophets often foretold the future, yes? They predicted. Sometimes they didn't predict. Sometimes it was not foretelling.
Sometimes it was just forthtelling. They were just saying, thus says the Lord. It was God speaking into a situation or to an event happening in the country or in the city with the kingdom, with the king, and it wasn't a prediction per se. It was just God's Word, God's will for that moment.
The idea of New Testament prophecy, and there were prophets in the New Testament, seemed to be more local than universal. That is, it's not like a thus saith the Lord in Isaiah that will be carried on throughout all of history as a part of Scripture, but rather more like the prophet Agabus, who when Paul went to Caesarea on his way to Jerusalem, Agabus, it says, was a prophet, and he took Paul's sash or his belt, and he bound himself with it. And then he stood up in the midst of the little assembly gathered in Caesarea, held up his hands with the sash of Paul wrapped around it, and says, thus says the Lord, the one who owns this belt will be bound in Jerusalem. And Paul said, well, that's my belt. And they all looked at Paul and said, well, you're the dude that's going to get arrested then.
You're going to be bound. And he was. So they took that to mean God doesn't want you to go to Jerusalem, and they begged him, Paul, don't go. Because the prophecy that faithful prophet just spoke said you're going to get arrested. Well, Paul didn't see that as a prohibition.
Paul saw that as a confirmation. He said, okay, so I'm going to get arrested. He goes, what do you mean weeping and breaking my heart? This is Paul speaking.
What do you mean weeping and breaking my heart? I'm ready not only to be arrested, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Okay, a man like that is unstoppable.
A man who is ready to get arrested and die, what do you do? Well, you let him go. And he did. But it was Agabus, the prophet, who gave that very specific prophecy. So, if prophecy, let us prophesy, speak forth in proportion to our faith. Perhaps a better translation would be in proportion to the faith, the faith, like we talked about this last weekend, the body of Christian truth, or ministry. Let us use it in our ministering. Now, this word ministry, this spiritual gift, means the gift of practical service. The word Paul uses here is diaconia.
Diaconia is the word, the Greek word, whereby we get our word deacon, a servant, a practical servant in the church. So, if God has given you that measure of faith and the ministry of practical serving, meeting, needs, practically in people's lives, then do it. He who teaches in teaching. That's what I feel my primary gift is. I think I have other gifts of the spirit, but primarily this is the gift of the spirit that I exercise here for this local body most frequently. And a gift of teaching is the ability to interpret the text and to clarify its meaning, to be able to explain the meaning clearly to people. Like in the book of Nehemiah, when Ezra the priest stood up on a platform of wood, read the text of scripture, and it says, gave the sense, gave the sense, explained the meaning, made the application to the hearts of the people. Now, as a teacher, I will just say, I believe, and I might be biased on this, I believe the gift of teaching and the use of teaching is one of the most needed gifts in the church.
And let me explain. In my view, many pulpits lack teaching. They have preaching, they have exhorting, they have entertaining, but few have preaching. In fact, in many churches, and I've seen many of them, when a pulpit committee looks for a pastor, they rarely look for a teacher, especially an expository teacher. They want somebody who has other gifts, somebody who can raise the budget, somebody who can meet with donors, somebody who can be nice and visit all the people all the time. And thus, he may not have time to prepare a message, but the message is, yeah, it's incidental, it's not as important. I believe it's dire.
I believe it's very important. God has given us a book, and a teacher will explain clearly, simply, the meaning of that. So, he who teaches in teaching, so that's my little bias, that's my little soapbox, but I qualified it, I warned you. Verse eight, he who exhorts, and that is a spiritual gift, in exhortation. The word in Greek for exhort or exhortation is parakaleo, and parakaleo is better translated, encouraging. You know, we think of somebody who exhorts, you know, and they kind of get in your grill, and they, you know, have a furrowed brow, and they tell you what to do, and actually, an exhorter encourages you to do it.
And it might have a firmness to it. That gift might be expressed that way, but it's going to, you know, teaching lays the foundation, and exhortation is the gentle prod that uses the gift of teaching and instruction, and motivates a person. See, so here's an example. Let's say I hold up a skateboard, since we have a skate park here, and I hold up a skateboard and go, man, first of all, let me tell you about this skateboard. This skateboard is a longboard, and I'm only going by what I have at home. So a longboard is different than a shorter skateboard.
It turns, it's smoother, but it doesn't turn as well, but the wheels are a little bit bigger, so they're softer. And I start explaining all the parts, and the bearings, and the trucks, and how it operates, and the tape on top that gives you grip. And so you're getting all this instruction.
All that's good. Now you know how it operates, but somebody with the gift of exhortation is the guy who gives you a push on the skateboard. It's one thing to have the instruction, but it's another thing to get the push and get some momentum. Now you need both. You need instruction, because you don't want somebody just putting somebody who knows nothing about this on a skateboard just pushes them down a hill.
That'd be cruel. So you need instruction. But if you just get instruction, but you don't have somebody to help you put it into practice, it's just head knowledge. So teaching and exhortation are two gifts that often operate together. So many times the teacher will also be a preacher, and vice versa. He who exhorts and exhortation, he who gives with liberality. There is a gift of giving. All of us are called to give and support the Lord's work, but some people God gives a special enabling to see a need and the financial wherewithal and the heart to meet that need. He who leads with diligence. I believe this leadership gift referred to here is known as in 1 Corinthians 12 the gift of administration.
The ability to administrate and to lead that way. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness, another spiritual gift. Thank God for those who have the gift of mercy when we need it. Verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Now here's what I want you to notice as we go through the rest of this chapter. There are 30 short little commands.
Just sort of one strong upon another. Little staccato exhortations. Do this, do that, you know this, that.
30 of them. And they all primarily deal with love. How we love the family of God. How we love hostility or the world even in the midst of hostility and how we love even our enemies.
So let love be without hypocrisy. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from his series Expound Romans. Now here's Skip to share how you can help keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to the Lord. You know you can never be out of Jesus' reach.
No matter what you've done, no matter where you've come from, no matter where you're going, He loves you and He's ready to welcome you when you come to Him. That's great news that the world needs to hear, and you can help share that news and keep these teachings coming to you through your support today. Your gift helps connect more people with the love of Jesus. Here's how you can give right now. Give us a call at 800-922-1888 to give a gift. 800-922-1888 or give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Your support is vital to continue encouraging you and many others with messages like this one today.
So thank you for giving generously. Before we close, we invite you to check out the Connect with Skip mobile app. You'll have access to a treasure trove of Skip's messages right at your fingertips. Find more information at connectwithskip.com slash app. And come back next week as Skip Heitzig shares how you can show God's love to others through your forgiveness and compassion. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-03-26 22:04:45 / 2023-03-26 22:14:00 / 9