1 Corinthians 12:9-10 - Part A

Natural talents you get as a result of natural birth. Spiritual gifts come as a result of being born again, the spiritual birth, spiritual regeneration. So we're talking about spiritual capacities or enablements beyond the fruit of the Spirit, beyond natural talents. Spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit equips the church with and how your gifts matter to the body. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will inspire you to shine God's love even more to the world and those around you. The most recent US Census revealed that our population is much more diverse than ever before. In fact, over the past 10 years, our multiracial population increased 276%, which presents new challenges.

Here's Skip Heitzig. The question is divided would be a gross understatement, but I am not going to take sides politically. I am going to take sides morally and spiritually and biblically. I'm going to raise the conversation to a different level, to a higher level, to a biblical level, because the issue as I see it is not a skin issue as much as it's a sin issue. We want to help you understand this divisive issue from a divine perspective. When you give $20 or more today to this Bible teaching ministry, we'll send you Pastor Skip's booklet, The Church and Racism, plus his teaching featuring a conversation with Pastor Tony Clark.

Get these relevant resources today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now, we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 as we join Skip Heitzig for today's message. We're dealing with an area where not only is there a lot of lack of understanding or misunderstanding, I believe confusion. Paul would call it ignorance, as we'll see in verse 1 again. But also because some of the gifts of the Spirit that we are dealing with have no supplemental material.

Some of them do. Prophecy and tongues and interpretation are given lots of material in chapter 14 as to their proper usage. And some of the other ones, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, gift of faith, healings, miracles, aren't given the same amount of material as if it would be understood by the Corinthian church. So I have found it necessary to compare Scripture with Scripture. That's what I did last week when we talked about two gifts in particular, the gifts of the word of wisdom and the gift of the word of knowledge. Trying to show you what I believe the Bible says about those two entities, those two gifts in particular, and how they're used in the church.

So that's why I'm slowing down. And I'm also slowing down because I do understand that not everyone who is a saved individual, who's a born-again Christian, believes in these gifts as being for today. They believe that whatever they were, they existed back then and they're not valid in usage in the contemporary church. And I showed you the first night why I believe that to be wrong and why I believe they are in the right place to be continued in the proper environment and proper balance. So if you fall into the camp that says, I think that God worked in that way in times past but not presently, I acknowledge you, though I disagree with you, would be happy to discuss it with you if that's something you want to do after our study tonight. But I'll say this. It's very convenient to just say whatever they were, they existed back then but they're not valid for today because if you say that, then you don't have to deal with it. Because these things can become messy.

And some of us just don't want to get messy and we just dismiss it and don't deal with it. But I don't think that really honors the text and I don't think it honors the Lord. So I happen to believe in the perpetuity of spiritual gifts but I believe that they should be in their proper context and in the proper environment. And usually they are for believers in a believers only meeting. Now, verse one again, even though we've already covered it, concerning spirituals, remember what we said, gifts, you'll notice in your Bible is in italics, means it was not in the original autographs, the original Greek manuscript does not have the word gifts in it.

It's just pneumaticoi in the Greek. Now concerning spirituals, brothers, gifts are added because gifts are mentioned, spiritual gifts are enumerated in the following verses. So the translators, and I believe rightly, chose the word gifts so we would understand the context that Paul is introducing. Concerning spirituals or concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be agnaeo. Agnaeo sounds like uh-oh, but agnaeo is where we get our word agnostic, without knowledge, uninformed, or here translated ignorant. Let me give you modern parlance. Brethren, concerning spiritual gifts, I don't want you to stay spiritual ignoramuses.

I want you to get with it. I want you to have a broad, full understanding of what these things are and how they are to be used in the church. So concerning spirituals, I don't want you to be ignorant. I remember reading years ago something that John Lloyd Ogilvy said. John Lloyd Ogilvy was a minister in California in Hollywood. He then became chaplain for the United States Senate, but he wrote a book where he made this statement. He said, sadly, many Christians are content with only two-thirds of God. And he said they acknowledge God as their Father, they acknowledge Jesus as their Savior, but when it comes to the daily relationship with the Holy Spirit, it is lacking. They're content with two-thirds of God, and yet Jesus, our Savior, promised the Holy Spirit would come and He would be our helper.

He would be called alongside, come alongside to help us in a variety of ways. If you remember a few weeks ago, I noted that there were three Greek prepositions, en para and epi, in or with, in and upon, and I said those kind of represent three stages of the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives. He's with us, He's in us, He comes in us at salvation, and then He comes upon us.

So think of it this way. The Holy Spirit comes after us to save us. The Holy Spirit then comes inside of us to sanctify us. Then the Holy Spirit comes upon us to supercharge us.

So the first one, He comes after us to save us. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, of sin because they do not believe in Me. That's the job of the Holy Spirit, to convince you you need help, you need salvation.

So He comes after you to save you. Once you stop and yield and say yes, Lord, and you ask Jesus to come into your life as Savior, the Holy Spirit also comes inside of you to sanctify you. And so Paul said by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body by the same Spirit.

He works inside of us, cleans us up. But then the Holy Spirit comes upon us to supercharge us. I, a few weeks ago, quoted to you John chapter 7 where Jesus said that there would be like rivers of living waters that come out of you, that not only satisfy you but pour forth from you. And John gave a footnote in John chapter 7 and said this He spoke concerning His Holy Spirit who was not yet given. So the Spirit comes after us to save us, inside of us to sanctify us, upon us to supercharge us. And we looked at how the Holy Spirit works in part in these spiritual gifts in the first seven verses of chapter 12. So I'm not going to go through those first seven verses again.

But I will remind you of something. We're talking about spiritual gifts and don't confuse those once again with two things. Don't confuse spiritual gifts with spiritual fruit.

Very, very different. Spiritual fruit, that's part of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. He comes inside of you to sanctify you, to make you holy.

So He works on you, on your character traits. That's the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that Jesus is your Savior and that you're filled with the Spirit. The evidence is really the fruit of the Spirit, not speaking in tongues, not gifts of the Spirit or the fact that you could prophesy or teach or whatever.

But it's fruit. Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So spiritual gifts, they're not the same as spiritual fruit. Also, as we noted I think last time or the time before, I forget, but spiritual gifts are not the same as natural talents.

You might have an aptitude toward art or music or math or mechanics. Unbelievers can have that. Believers can have that.

Unsaved people can play the piano and paint pictures like saved people can play the piano and paint pictures. Those are natural talents. Natural talents you get as a result of natural birth. Spiritual gifts come as a result of being born again, the spiritual birth, spiritual regeneration.

So we're talking about spiritual capacities or enablements beyond the fruit of the Spirit, beyond natural talents. And we covered a couple of them last time, the word of wisdom. We said it's not a reservoir of wisdom. It's not like you're the wisest person in the world or the word of knowledge. I know anything about everything.

Ask me any question. But it's specific instances where the Lord gives you wisdom or knowledge for a specific purpose. And we tried to outline that last time. Now we continue in verse 9. To another, faith by the same Spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the same Spirit. To another, the working of miracles.

To another, prophecy. To another, discerning of spirits. To another, different kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of tongues.

It will be interesting to find out how many of those we get through tonight. But one and the same Spirit, Holy Spirit, works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. In verse 9, faith is mentioned. Not just faith, saving faith, but the gift of faith.

Again, the context is spiritual gifts. So to another, faith. It doesn't mean that one person in the church has saving faith and another doesn't have saving faith. All Christians have saving faith. Every one of us has some kind of faith.

Every one of us does. We all have faith. It says in Romans chapter 12, God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Now it's funny because sometimes people will say, well, I'm not a person of faith like you are.

And I will say, actually, you are a person of faith. Well, what do you mean? Well, do you completely understand the internal combustion engine?

Well, no, I don't. I know a few things. I know that I put gas in my car. Yes, but you have faith that when you sit in your seat and put the key in the ignition and turn it a certain way or push the button, depending on how old your car is, that your car will start. Or if you have an electric car, you might not know all the ins and outs of electronics or electricity, but you believe that when you push that button, something's going to happen, whether you understand it or not. That's a measure of faith. When you go to a restaurant, it takes faith. Some restaurants require a lot of faith.

Because you just don't know what they're dishing up. But you believe that it was according to the health standards, you believe it's according to a certain recipe, you believe that it's going to nourish you, you believe that you're not going to get sick. That's faith.

That's a measure of faith. If you go to the bank with a little piece of paper, they call it a check, but it's just you got numbers and a signature on it. But there's no value in that little piece of paper.

Intrinsically, there's no value. But you have a measure of faith that the institution that wrote you the check and the institution of the bank that is going to cash your check is going to make good on it, you'll receive the funds. And so when you drive away from the bank and they give you a little receipt, they say that they put the money in your account, but did they? Did they really? Well, you believe they did.

You're living by faith. When my son was just a baby, I used to love to toss him up in the air. I'd throw him up in the air really, really high, like five feet past my arms, and I'd see the look in his face, and it was a big smile, and then he'd laugh, and I'd do it again. And if somebody saw that, which sometimes they did, they would shudder at it.

Well, you shouldn't do that. And I would say, well, tell him, because he thinks it's pretty cool. And the reason he thinks it's pretty cool is because I've done it before, and he has some kind of faith that I'm going to catch him.

I don't remember slipping and dropping him to any recollection. If I had, he probably wouldn't have that kind of faith. But we all have a certain measure of faith. Here, in this verse, it is referring to a specific gift of faith. Now, the gift of faith is special faith for a special situation. It's God-given faith for that God is going to do something remarkable, and you have the faith for that to happen. It's a special gift of faith for a special situation or circumstance. One Greek scholar translates this verse, wonder working faith. Wonder working faith. I'm going to give you a definition. I had to write it down so I could read it to you from one of the, I told you I had 64 books on this stuff on the gifts of the Spirit or on the Holy Spirit last week. So one working definition that I thought would be helpful is this. The gift of faith is a Spirit-given ability to see something that God wants done and to sustain unwavering confidence that God will do it regardless of the obstacles.

Again, the Spirit-given ability to see something that God wants done and to sustain unwavering confidence that God will do it regardless of the obstacles. I worked in radiology with a gal in my department years ago named Kathy. Sweet gal, Christian gal, loved the Lord. Her husband was an unbeliever.

Her husband had an affair, and her husband got the other girl pregnant, and the husband divorced his wife, Kathy. And I saw her every day with that broken heart just weeping her way through that horrible situation in life. But she came to work one day and she said, I believe the Lord is going to reunite me with my husband. And I'm thinking, reunite you with that creep?

I mean, do you want him back? She said, yes, I'm willing to forgive him. And I believe that the Lord is going to save him and that he's going to come back and we're going to get remarried and then I'll raise that child.

I went, wow, okay, and she would, weeks would go by, months would go by, a year went by, and I remember saying to her one day, Kathy, you may want to just give up on that whole idea, you know, move on. She goes, nope, the Lord's going to do it. Well, I got to tell you, not only did the Lord do it, but I performed their wedding. After they divorced, he came to Christ, he's walking with the Lord today, and the Lord gave her this particular gift. It is going to happen and I am unwavering in it, and the Lord did that. Now, are there biblical examples of this gift?

Well, I believe there are. In Acts chapter 3, Peter and John are going into the temple to worship. They go by one of the gates, they see a man who's been lame from birth, he's begging alms, and you remember Peter said to him, hey, silver and gold I don't have, but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he lifted him up. It's one thing to say you're healed or to say in the name of Jesus Christ.

I mean, you and I could say that, but we would probably then walk on. The faith comes when you take a person who's been lame from birth and you pick him up, and you have the faith that he's going to be able to stand. And you know the story, he was healed. And all the people marveled in Solomon's porch, and Peter had to say, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why do you look at us as though we, through our own godliness or power, made this man walk?

And then he gives an explanation. This is through the name of Jesus, listen, and faith that comes by him. Faith that comes by him. It was a gift of faith given to Peter for that to happen in Acts chapter 3.

When we get to Acts chapter 6, we see there's a dispute in the early church over widows and the care of these women in the church. And the apostles say, look, we're going to give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. You choose seven men full of good reputation, filled with the Holy Spirit, whom we can set over this business.

So, seven are named. Among them is a man by the name of Stephen. It says, a man full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. And then it continues a few verses later and says that Stephen is a man filled with power and the Holy Spirit, and he was able to do wonders and signs among the people. And Stephen was a man of faith. Now, Stephen had the kind of faith not only to do signs and wonders among the people, and we're not told what those are, but he was a man of faith. It's described as faith. And he has the faith, we read in the very next chapter, to give a testimony before the Jewish people that is a very powerful, historic testimony.

And we know what happened to Stephen. He became the first martyr in the church. Now, you're hearing about the gift of faith, and you're saying, okay, so this doesn't sound like it's very exciting if it means that you could get killed for your faith.

There's this man living boldly in faith and speaking out by faith and doing wonders and signs by faith. In the next chapter, by the end of it, he gets killed, and they take his clothes and lay it at the feet of a young man named Saul. You say, why would God give him the faith to be a martyr? Because of what it did to the church. The church was in Jerusalem, and they were content to be in Jerusalem. They wanted to stay in Jerusalem.

You want to stay under the spout where the glory comes out. I mean, it's good in Jerusalem. There's lots of activity, 3,000 souls and 5,000.

It's just a great move. But Jesus said, you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. But they weren't going anywhere until Stephen's martyrdom. After Stephen was martyred, it says a great persecution came to the church, and the disciples were scattered in Judea and Samaria. So the Lord used the faith of Stephen for him to give not only a bold witness, but to be martyred that caused persecution in the church that caused the church to be scattered so that by being scattered, the message could spread to the rest of the world. But the gift of faith was being exercised. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound 1 Corinthians. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep these teachings coming to you while connecting others to God's Word. I love the fact that Jesus was called the friend of sinners. Instead of spending time with the religious elite of his day, he reached out to the lost and the outcast.

His love is for everyone. That's amazing news, and we want to share with the entire world God's love. You can be part of it when you partner with this ministry. Here's how you can give today to change lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give your gift today. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate, or call 800-922-1888.

Again, that's 800-922-1888. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heitzig shines much needed light on how God works through spiritual gifts of faith and healing. We all are subject to deterioration. We're all subject to disease, illness, denigration, and eventually death.

And every now and then throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, you see God punctuating history with healings, intruding into that human consequence of what sin brings, that deterioration, and he intercepts with works of healing. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.