Look, you might not like a lot of things Billy Graham did. outside the pulpit. Maybe, you know, meeting with certain heads of state and stuff like that. But when he stepped into that pulpit and he talked about Jesus Christ, you're not going to find a better president. creature.
of the gospel with those results. I could preach a sermon of Billy Graham to unbelievers at a funeral, and nobody will come forward. An evangelistic teacher can come up and just just say five words and you get ten people come up. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville.
Pastorik is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay tuned with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
Now, here is Pastor Rick with his continuing study of this topical message called Spiritual Gifts. Timothy cannot say, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. Barnabas could not say, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. At best, they were apostles of the church, but who were servants of Jesus Christ. Paul could say it.
Peter could say it, John could say it.
So, the two types: you have an apostle of Jesus Christ. Which are the apostles? Who had the authority of the church? They established. New Testament Christianity for them.
That's how Jesus set it up. And then you have people that the church That was established by the apostles, sent out. to establish more churches. Those were apostles. or sent on any mission for the church.
So this one has to do With, as I mentioned, Establishing churches under divine authority. Paul and Barnabas, Acts chapter 13, separate now for me, Paul and Barnabas. And they sent them out from Antioch, and they went into the regions of Galatia and they established churches, and we got the Galatian letter out of that and other things. But in that case, Paul was both an apostle of Jesus Christ and an apostle of the church. Barnabas was just an apostle of the church.
That's not an insult, it's just a fact. And if you understand these things, you can see where things are going, you know, what, you know, come out with good doctrine. The next one is the gift of teaching.
Well, this is, of course, instructing others in spiritual truth.
Now, there are gifted teachers of the world, and maybe mathematics or science or whatever it is. They just are. talented teacher. Gifted has to do with the Holy Spirit. has to do directly with God.
This one Shows up not only in Romans 12, but also Ephesians 4. He himself has given some to be apostles. prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. For the work of ministry, the edification of the body of Christ. There are a lot of Good.
Teachers, and there are a lot of carnal ones. And Christ has not always stopped the carnal ones. it continues to use them to teach and hopefully Develop them.
Some can teach, but they can't pastor. And that's a problem because you get a lot of men that say, I can teach and I want to be a pastor, and they get into the pulpit and they find out there's more to being a pastor. That being in the pulpit is the outcome of everything else that happened before you got into the pulpit. That you have to find that people are on your heart and on your mind and different with them. When they're going through a struggle and you have to confront them, everything the people are on your heart and you're on your mind.
There's no getting away from that. And if you're not built for that, Then you shouldn't do it. And I'll circle back to that because the Bible makes it clear that this one. is different from all of them. James 3.1.
makes that very clear.
Some can teach in the children's ministry. Spiritual truths. God's given that to the church.
Some are know-it-alls and they can't teach.
Some say they're teachers and they're drawing people away from churches so they can come listen to them teach. That's a big teacher. Those are Absalom's. The cessationists, they won't let this one go, though. We're teachers.
Next one is helps. I don't need to stay on some of these. I'm trying to just touch them briefly. The Helps and Service Ministry. assisting others in practical needs.
In the spirit. Not in the flesh.
Some They help others out of a guilty conscience.
Some help others because of their good upbringing. It's a decent thing to do.
Some help out of peer pressure.
Well, everybody else was doing, I gotta do it now. That's awful when that happens. Then there are those who do it out of their love for the Lord. It's almost, it just fits, it's just they're there. And they help.
And they do it well. It's like the good soil in the parable. That's them. and they do not walk around with a placard or a sandwich board I just helped everybody. They know who to help.
They know not. to help. Who not to help? Because the Spirit speaks to them.
Now, again, the cessation is God doesn't speak to you. That's blasphemy. It's all those scripturas. Canon is closed.
Now I'm saying, we're not writing new scripture when we say God speaks to us. He speaks to us according to the scriptures. As Jesus said, he who believes in me, as the scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow living water. Why can't that water also be the voice of the Lord? That still small voice Well You know, if you don't believe it, then you don't get it.
That doesn't give you the right to criticize it if it's in the scripture.
So we come now to administration. Organization Within the body, Wisdom. What makes this kind of gift special is that it shines amongst volunteers. You know, there are bookkeepers all over the place that go to church. But when you get one that knows their place So the bookkeepers get to see the books.
They get to see what's spent. A gifted bookkeeper doesn't have a problem with, I can't believe you spent that on hair products for the pastor. They don't say that. It's not their job. They know what they're supposed to do.
They reconcile their numbers. They pass that information on? And they have served the Lord. If the pastor is up to no good, God will get him.
Now, if there's something that's blatant and desolate, of course, they're going to blow the whistle. It's what makes them gifted also. And so, this gift magnifies their ability when used in the church, in contrast to just being a bookkeeper out in the world. They come into the church. This is for God.
There's a whole nother. thing going on there. They don't put their two cents in. If their gift is administration. And you can have.
In a bigger church, you might have it in other areas, not just the offerings and the tithes section of the church. There may be other departments of the church that require administration. Maybe it's inventory for a chapel store. or something like that. Evangelism is next.
Sharing the gospel. Effectively.
Now Some are disqualified. Because of ignorance of the scriptures. If we're trying to get it right. Just blurting out the gospel.
Well, what happened in Philippi? When the girl went before Paul and Silas, these are the apostles that bring us the way of salvation. What did Paul do? He cast a demon out of her. It's just not enough to echo the scripture.
These, all Christians want to reach the lost, but there's a difference between preaching and witnessing. The evangelists can preach it. D.L. Moody or Billy Graham. Look, you might not like a lot of things Billy Graham did.
outside the pulpit. Maybe you know meeting with certain heads of state and stuff like that. But when he stepped into that pulpit and he talked about Jesus Christ, you're not going to find a better preacher. creature. of the gospel with those results.
I could preach a sermon of Billy Graham to unbelievers at a funeral, and nobody will come forward. An evangelist, a teacher can come up and just just say five words and you get ten people come up. Give their lives to the Lord. I don't get it. I've seen this happen in Greg Laurie and men, Greg Laurie, Rao Rees, I've seen them give evangelistic messages and just people come to Christ.
There's more about this one. You can't force evangelism. The basic Christian witnesses that involve this is what I've seen. This is what I've experienced. based on scripture and what I've seen.
And they share that with unbelievers, and people get saved that way. But if you try to force Christianity on somebody. It doesn't work because it's in your own strength. You're just trying to do what you want to do because Christ wants people to be saved. Granted, but there's a protocol.
So Jesus said, Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine. Lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. And how many times Christians make that rookie mistake? He's not talking about real pearls. He's talking about the word of God.
Fools go where angels fear to tread. The Christian is supposed to be spirit-led. Witnessing involves disarming the other guy.
So that they understand you're not a hostile witness. I'm stealing that phrase and it's not an accurate application, but it's good for me. Because If you're in the workplace, And you're a lousy worker. Why would you think anybody wants to hear what you have to say about their eternal soul? But if you are a good worker, you don't have to be the best, though, you should try to be.
It was hard to be sometimes, especially if you hate your job. It's really hard. But if you are good enough where you're blameless. Then you have opportunity. God brings them to us.
We save no one. But we can be used by God. And you know, I had such success. In the construction world, I got to a point where, Lord, if I go into pastoring, I'm going to lose this. And this is the way he led me to go.
But I so enjoyed Not in the initiating Any conversation about Jesus Christ. I did one time in 15 years and I regretted it. Nothing happened. And that's the problem. Nothing happened.
Every other time they initiated it. And I pounced on them. And I had the ammo. And if they had questions I didn't have answers to, I lied to them. No, I didn't.
I did not. I was ready to say, I'll get the answer, but I always I thought I had the answer. Anyway, If you want to be a witness for Christ, you've got to know your doctrine, your basic doctrines. You don't have to know Greek. They don't want to know Greek.
They want to know English in plain speak English. All right, that's that one: evangelism, pastoring.
Well, if you don't have a shepherd's heart, forget it. If you just want to teach people. That I know this and you don't. then it's not for you. God has given these to the church.
And I mentioned it as the strongest calling, and you can read James 3:1 that these men are going to answer. Double. They're going to answer for their Christian life, they're going to answer for their pastoring. Whereas every other gift outside of pastoring. You just answer for yourself.
Here's another part of pastoring: try backing out. You can back out if you have the gift of administration, you're working, you don't want to take a break from administrative in the church. Fine. Try that as a pastor. Yeah, I gotta get away from these people.
Or I gotta get away from myself. No, you better be ready Sunday, and you better be if you're in this church, Sunday and Wednesday, and some churches. Sunday's coming and that pastor better be ready. And if you can watch, there's a... It used to be on YouTube.
Life of Charles Spurgeon, and they capture this moment. Where the character playing Spurgeon is sitting at his desk and he's writing, and he balls it up, he throws it on the floor, and he's writing, and there's a whole bunch of paper on the floor because he's trying to figure out what am I gonna say to these people. How do I know what to say? I can't just come up and pick my favorite passage, and some of the seed fell on the soil. And that's not anointed preaching.
For that, just go buy a sermon and recite it. You want to know what God has to say to the people. Because you don't know what they need.
Well, the next one would be the gift of encouragement, exhortation. This is through spiritual prompting, uplifting others. Romans 12:8, this one shows up. Barnabas had it. Acts 11, we got to get to tongues.
I was going to do the rapture with this, but next week it might be tongues and rapture. How does that work? Anyway, Acts 11. The news of these things came to the ears of Of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas. There he is, an apostle of the church, sent out.
To go as far as Antioch. And we know when he gets to Antioch, man, they steal the show. They become the church over, they eclipse Jerusalem. He continues. When he came he had seen the grace of God.
He was glad and encouraged them He encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord, with purpose of heart. Wouldn't they just oh, just do a good job, buddy? He had been just purpose. Like, this is what we got to do. This is what you're supposed to do.
This is how it works. And he laid it out to them. And it went so well, he said, we're running out of good teachers. And he goes against Paul. He brings him back.
How does that work? Paul, I have an opportunity for you in Antioch amongst the Gentile converts. It worked. Anyway. False exhortation is false prophecy.
Well-meaning perhaps, but damaging. Which you don't have anything, but you feel like you gotta say something good. That's when you're supposed to be quiet. It's hard to do. I admit that.
Especially when someone's grieving, you know, they're wanting you to say something profound. You got nothing, especially if you're a pastor. You know, come on, pastor, give me something that's going to give me some comfort. I got nothing. This is how it is.
But you'll come through this, but You know, you just can't fake it because that's what they want to hear. When I was 13 years old, I soon turned fourteen. All right, moving on. No, kidding. When I was thirteen.
And my dad was dying of cancer. I was sitting with my mom, and another lady comes whom my mom knew, and this lady happened to also be a nurse. She's done working at this hospital, but she's there visiting. my father and mother. And she said.
After this treatment that they're Proposing his skin, his color is going to come back, and he put on weight. She's promising all this stuff. I spotted that. How does she know that? I thought you were, what are you going to say?
And I never forgot. 'Cause he died. He didn't get better. And to raise the hope up. and then have it snatched away by a reality.
is a hard lesson, but it's a lesson. If you have the gift of encouragement, You speak when the Spirit moves, and you learn that. You learn it from using it. And if you go to a church and you don't serve, you will get none of these. This is they're developed in the trenches the church is the trench And why should you get it?
It's the body of Christ. And Christ died for the church. He bought it with his blood, we're told in Acts chapter 20. He loves the church, it's a group of his people together. He's very serious about these things.
He says, it's painful. People are a pain in the neck. Yeah. Nobody can argue with that one. That just doesn't put you on base.
The next one is giving. Generously Of your resources.
Now, here's the catch. with cheerfulness.
Well, you know, they know I'm rich. I don't know how they found that Al, just because I drive a Rolls-Royce.
Now they expect me to give. That's not the gift. That is done on us a disaster. Yeah, don't give if that's your attitude. And God loves You know, we have to The men clear the furniture, the pastors clear the furniture once a month so the floors can be buffed.
We are then cheerful givers. I know. Let's get back to this.
So No, you know, the Lord, I just felt him saying, go ahead, punish them a little with some of that humor of yours, coming back to this giving. Churches with a surplus can thank that God has gifted some people.
Now, what if you're a billionaire? You can't give a tenth to the church if you're attending church every month or Sunday. They would just be they're richer than you all of a sudden. They would kill that church. You have to learn how to do that.
And spread it out, move, and be led by the Spirit, meet your obligations. But you know, this is a gift, it's something that comes out of contact with God. They know how to give a tenth. without going into debt. And they know how to go over a tenth.
without causing trouble. They know how to give. This is a big part of it. With No strings attached. Rampant in Christianity are those who give and expect to have bought a little bit of power from the pastor.
Do you know what I give? We never know the passage here. We don't want to ever know. Not even curious. We prohibit it.
Because We want a pastor whether you give a tenth Or nothing. We want you to be pastored equally. And trying to make a stumble is not going to work. But there are those that figure: okay, I've donated all this money to the church, the pastor's got to know I've done it. And now he goes up to the pastor one day and says, You know, you've been talking a lot about homosexuality, and you know I have a child struggling with that.
I don't want you to hit that anymore. See, he thinks he bought the pastor, and in many cases, he has. Where he would be asking me not to preach that anymore, and he would then be asking me, Why are you taking off your belt? Because you're about to get a spanking.
So The gift of giving is a big deal. Leadership is next. Did we cover that? I don't know. I'm just enjoying the whole belt thing.
I thought we covered leadership. And no, okay.
So maybe on their apostleship, well, leadership. Guiding others diligently.
Now, there's a difference between management and leadership. You can have them both. Or you just have one. Management is administration. Usually things, numbers, books, things, inventories.
Leadership is people. You're making people want to follow you.
So yeah, he messed up last time. But I love that guy so much, I'm gonna follow him nonetheless. I mean, that's what you want. It's just sort of like, I'll follow you off a cliff if that's what the mission calls for, because. have proven to be that kind of person.
And when you have somebody like that in your life, isn't it not a joy? when you I'm not to follow him off a cliff. But you know, just to be able to commit. To give them the benefit, if someone badmouths them and says, Look, I don't know what you're talking about. But did you see what I did to the guy who tried to buy power?
The belt thing. It's loyalty. And it's the ability to Get things done the right way. And you cannot be incompetent. And a good Manager or a good leader in the church, and expect there to be fruit from that.
Military and corporate individuals have to be sort of filtered. Because they may come in and not understand. No, these are sheep. They're not employees and they're not indentured servants. They're sheep.
They're volunteers, most of them. And they're God's people. And you know, that's a different world. And they're surprised usually because they think, well, corporate America works in the church. Corporate America kills the church.
We both like stewardship. But we go about it differently. Verse next, mercy.
Well, let's end the message here. That would be mercy. This is insightful compassion that is ready. to care, to show itself. That is not indifferent.
To what's going on, and also does not rush in where not sent. And it shines brightest around those Who are not overly stern. You know, if you just have a person's too rigid, too legalistic. They're not good you're not going to find mercy from them. Maybe they give a good Bible study, but When you got problems, they're not the guy to go to.
The pastors try to be both of those. He's got to give the good teaching and also make the flock feel comfortable enough that when they have a problem, they can come to him. But if they feel like they're going to play him, They know that guy is going to see that. He's going to discern that. And that's not going to go well for us.
Samuel Rutherford, said grace grows best in winter. And that would include mercy. When you have had hard times yourself, You know, it just takes a little bit. Of hard times to understand to be a little bit more kind to those. who are struggling.
Maybe they're not so smart. I mentioned, well, we've gotten to tongues yet, but you know, there have been people in my ministry here in Virginia, two, maybe three, that have been illiterate.
So they're not going to get a lot out of, you know, and the Greek word for that one, they're having a hard time with English. And more of than not most of us So You know, there there are other ways to that God can minister to them. Passionately and enthusiastically, and that would be tongues.
So that brings us now, well, back to the mercy. They know how to dispense compassion without overdoing it. Without sending the wrong signals. These are gifts, they don't come naturally. Interpretation of tongues.
That's the public interpretation, not translation.
So, tongues can go on a little bit, and the translation can be relatively short. Because it's not word-for-word translation, it's interpretation. And that would explain if you've ever been part of that.
Soon as the interpreter of tongues says, Thus says the Lord. They've just demonstrated they don't have the gift. Tongues is never a thus says the Lord. Tongues is a praise you, Lord. It is praise directed to God.
It does not instruct the church. It does not. Prophesy. And this is where we really part with denominations such as the Assemblies of God.
Somebody will get up and speak in tongues, and if nobody else gets up, the pastor will get do it. And it will give thus says the Lord.
Well, that's not what it was, so we're coming to tongues. At the end of this, now it's the cessationist versus the continuation. Continuationism. And I think we'll probably leave it there because it's just too much stuff to go over, too many people to pounce on. You don't want to just take cheap shots.
You want to aim a little bit. And we got a lot of quotes.
So We're going to stop this. Uh I think I entitled it. What irritates the pastor? No. Spiritual gifts We'll make it part one.
Do the gifts continue? Yes, I believe they do. We'll talk about that in tongues, and maybe we'll squeeze the rapture in, too.
Well Then we won't be here. for the next session. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, so much information you've given to us. It really To know these things, to apply them, takes up a lot of time and I think that's just what you want.
Like any boot camp, too busy to think about home. Too busy. And may you find us too busy with your word. and looking to serve you. In Jesus' name.
Amen. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast. Just go to your favorite podcast app and look for Cross Reference Radio.
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