His Gift and Our Gifts, Part 2

Today, insight from Chuck Swindoll on spiritual gifts. The same power God has given me as a pastor, teacher, He has given you as a helper. And the same power He has given her as a helper, He's given you as a counselor, as an exhorter. And the same power He's given to the exhorter, He has also given to the one who is evangelist. And with great skill and success makes Christ known.

Same source of power. Many of God's people live like proverbial sheep, ambling across the pasture, if you will, grazing here and there, eking out an existence and hoping one day to be elevated to a better place. Too often, though, we don't remember to drink from the deep pool of divine resources available to us. Are you perhaps stuck at that stagnant place right now?

Well, you're not alone. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to rise to a higher place. He's teaching from Ephesians 4, beginning at verse 7, about God's gift and our gift. Now let me understand a spiritual gift and let me understand it out loud so that we're all on the same page. A spiritual gift is a supernatural ability, a supernatural skill that Christ gives us, which enables us to perform a function in the body of Christ with effectiveness and ease. And some, as we were going to see in a few moments, have more than one gift.

I think most Christians do. These are supernaturally gifted or supernaturally provided skills and abilities, which enable us to perform functions in the body of Christ with ease and effectiveness. They keep the body healthy, they make the body whole, and they cause the body great joy. They're given by the Lord, they are spiritual in nature, and they flow easily and frequently from us. There are six places where the gifts are listed in the New Testament. I have given you a half page chart here which shows you those lists, verses 8 to 10 of chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, verse 28 of chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, and 29 and 30 is yet more. Some are duplicated, obviously.

Some are unique. Romans 12 lists another group of them, Romans 12, 6 through 8. Ephesians 4, verse 11 lists four of them. Some of them mention nowhere else in the Bible and 1 Peter 4, two of them.

See those? This is for your own study. Everything in me tempts me to go into the study of spiritual gifts. First of all, it will keep me from having to deal with verses 9 and 10 that are pretty profound, and I'm kind of dreading that, but I'll get there.

However, the spiritual gifts study is very practical, and you can go to town on these things, and we'll deal with some a little more in detail in a moment. Look briefly, and I promise you that, 1 Corinthians 12, since that's a chapter that addresses them directly. By the way, the latter half of 1 Corinthians is a letter where most of the chapters begin with now concerning.

Now concerning marriage and the remarriage issue. That's chapter 7, now concerning things offered to idols. That's chapter 8, now concerning spiritual gifts. That's chapter 12, verse 1. See how he puts it? In chapter 16, now concerning your offerings, and he talks about that.

They have written him a letter. 1 Corinthians is an answer back to them answering their questions, and that's what now concerning means, and here it's now concerning spiritual gifts. So there's a whole chapter fascinating information about the gifts. Now look down at, let me just show you in verse 7, in case you're sitting there thinking, ah Chuck, you know, maybe others have this gift, these gifts, but you don't know me. I am out to lunch when it comes to, no, no, wait a minute, look at verse 7. To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. You qualify as one of the each?

Yes, if you're in the family. You say, well that's just one verse. Look at verse 11 now that you bring that up. But one and the same Spirit works all of these things distributing to each one individually just as he wills. I love that.

As he wills. That keeps me from feeling inadequate or complaining that I don't have another gift or I don't have this gift mix. It's not about what I want, it's about what he wants me to have.

There's a difference. He didn't check in with me and say, now what is it that would make you feel fulfilled? He didn't do it like that.

If you're sovereign, you don't have to do that. You don't have to ask permission to give people certain ways, and so he does it as he wills, and you have the gifts he wanted you to have. I think Paul wrote with a little tongue in cheek when he got down to 14 and following. I think there's some humor here.

I love to get on this subject. The body is not one member, but many. I mean, that's true. You've got livers, you've got kidneys, you've got lungs, you've got heart, and we've never seen any of the above. You've got colon, I won't go any further there. You've got brain, you've got eyes, we see that. You've got a nose, we see that.

We can't smell for you, but we can see that you have that. And with those kind of things in mind, think of it if there were a mutiny. Look at verse 15. This is where I think Paul is going, hehehehe. This is good.

15. The foot, if the foot says, because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body. Is it not for this reason any of the less part of the body? I mean, can you imagine the foot saying, no, I'm not going there.

Nope, not going to cooperate. I want to be a hand all my life. I'm stuck here in this sock, and inside this shoe, and I'm sick and tired of it.

It's hot and it smells bad on top of everything else. I'm sick of being a foot, and so I want to be a hand. No, it's not like that. Look at verse 16. Here's another great one. If the ear says, because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body. Is it not for this reason any of the less a part of the body?

And while you're smiling over that, the next verse is a crack up. If the whole body were an eye, six foot, two inch eye, listen to it bat, kum, kum, kum, kum, kum. Imagine getting in your car, excuse me please, you're stepping on my eyelash, and you're trying to squeeze, you can't even drive your car. If the whole body were an eye, we'd be freaks. And look at it, if the whole body were hearing, look at this one. If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be, says verse 17.

You'd hear everything, but you couldn't see where you're going, and you couldn't smell anything. The body is made up of all of these members. Eye, nose, ear, mouth, organs, most of these are organs we never have ever seen. Oh, we see them on an x-ray, but we kind of see through them. We've never actually seen them. I've talked to surgeons who, after opening the body, say it is incredible to look at the scheme of things inside the body.

They're even colored different things. I want to say to surgeons, show me back up, quit looking around at everything, just get the job done. But it must be fascinating to be able to open the body and to look inside and see all of this stuff. Now, I'm on the human body, which is the analogy here, but we've got a spiritual body. Some of you are hands and some of you are ears, and some of you are vocal cords, and some of you are lungs, to stay with the analogy. Now, before you go any further, understand that if you're a lung, you're not going to hear, or you're not going to speak.

That's not your realm. You're going to breathe. Don't stop, because we need you in the body for it to be healthy and wholesome. These gifts are given by the Lord, they are spiritual in nature, and they are things that flow simply and easily, because that's our function.

The lung does what a lung does, because it's made to be a lung. Now, back to Ephesians chapter 4. Let me tell you four things, okay? Then I'll go to those two verses you're wondering about. Look for a moment at the verse, he gave gifts to men. Number one, each one of you has a gift, probably more than one. Number two, the gifts are not the same as the gift of salvation. They're more than that.

They're beyond salvation. Salvation gets you into the body, and now the gifts go to work as you discover which one or ones are yours. Number three, these gifts are varied. Some are more noticeable and public than others, none more important than another. Like saying my nose is more important than my throat, or my lung is more important than my heart.

Ridiculous. You need it all. For the body to be healthy and to function correctly, you need it all. So these gifts are varied. Number four, the gifts have the same source of power. Regardless of the gift, the pool of power is the power of the resurrection.

If you wonder if you could be effective in the exercise of your gift, you have the resurrection power of Christ at work in you, child of God. Ray Stedman says this, gifts are specialized functions, the God-endowed ability to do certain specific ministries such as teaching, preaching, administering, helping, leading, and so forth. These gifts are like so many electrical appliances. Go to any department store and you will find a myriad of electrical appliances from microwave ovens to computers to VCRs to electrical tooth brushes to electric tooth brushes.

All these appliances have one thing in common, a cord with a plug that must be inserted into an electrical outlet regardless of what the appliance looks like or how it performs its function. The power that drives it is the same. The same power God has given me as a pastor teacher, He has given you as a helper. And the same power He has given her as a helper, He has given you as a counselor, as an exhorter. And the same power He has given to the exhorter, He has also given to the one who is evangelist. And with great skill and success makes Christ known as a member of the body of Christ.

Same source of power. Now back to verse 8. He led captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men.

At the ascension He did those two things and then He also filled all things. Verse 10 concludes. Look at verse 9.

When He mentions He led captives, He's reminded not only of the Psalm, Psalm 68, but He decides now, Paul does, to go into greater detail. Look at verse 9. This expression, He ascended, what does it mean except He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens so that He might fill all things. I think there are a couple of possibilities for the interpretation of verse 9. Some very fine New Testament students teach one or fine students of the scriptures teach another.

You're left to make a decision on your own through further study. One possibility would say that Jesus leaving the Father's presence when He came to this earth, He descended to this place of enormous depravity and spiritual death. In His descent to this earth, He paid the price for sins and He led us into His own captivity, freeing us from the bondage to Satan that was once our experience. In doing so, you've got to handle the word lower parts, the terms lower parts of the earth.

Some interpret that to mean to the depths of this kind of depraved condition. There's another possibility and that is when Christ came and paid the price for sin and died, He descended into the nether world, Sheol, S-H-E-O-L, Sheol, the place of death, the place of the grave. And while there, He made a victorious proclamation to the saints as well as to the adversaries of the cross saying, I have paid the price for sins, I will be raised from the dead, and I will ascend to the Father as triumphant King and Lord.

He made a triumphant proclamation. 1 Peter 3.19 would be used in defending that position. You remember when you were in a church where they used the Apostles Creed? Remember this and it says He descended into hell?

Remember thinking, how can I say that? It comes from that rendering of verse 9 and 1 Peter 3.19 that He went to the very internals where the spirits of the departed saved and lost or housed and when He went to heaven, He took the saved with Him and transferred them to the third heaven where they await the final resurrection. I remember as a little boy, we visited a church down the street from where we lived. My dad was working seven days a week in the Second World War and the only place we'd go to church is where we could walk. It happened to be a Methodist church and every Sunday we would repeat the Apostles Creed. It reminds me, I remember sitting by my father on a few occasions there and you know it says I believe in the Catholic church and it means universal, but my dad thought it meant the Roman Catholic and he would lean over and say to me, don't say that.

We don't believe that. He didn't understand that I believe in the universal church, the whole, the Catholic church. The word means the whole, the universal church. And descended into hell, he goes, I mean it was like I am not saying that either. Who knows where this church is going to lead us if we keep saying stuff like that. Both are very safe and both have been a part of the creed of the Christians for years and that would be the teaching that He went to Sheol, another word for it is often rendered hell, into the hellish part of earth or the depth of the earth, the place where the departed are housed and reside. And then when He ascended, He took with Him those saints and they now await the final resurrection when the Lord Jesus will return for His own in the church. I lean toward the latter, even though my dad would probably say don't believe that but I do.

I'm sorry dad, you're there and you know the truth so we'll both know it all someday. This parenthesis is fascinating to me. Paul is a master at coming to a word or a phrase and then putting the brakes on and going into it a little deeper because he is by training and by gift, he is a keen thinking theologian, finest theologian, of course save Jesus Christ himself, who ever lived and his teaching shapes the church. Here's an example, it becomes a part of the creed that the church quotes for centuries to this day. Verse 10, he who descended is himself also the one who ascended. By the way, notice something, far above all the heavens, remember in an earlier teaching I had clarified that the demonic realm is below the third heaven but above our heavens, our atmosphere, he penetrated the demonic realm on his ascension and in doing so made it clear to them in that realm I am victorious over all powers. What a great thought that is and that's why it says he fills all, all in all, he is the supreme preeminent one. That's why all of our praise goes to Christ and why we lift him up and exalt him as savoring God. That's why I love that song, Lord and King and life and God, great theology.

It just gets me so excited I just want to scream sometime. Now, verse 11, get control of yourself Chuck, it's just a sermon. Verse 11, please observe he now amplifies he gave gifts to men. Remember it ties in with verse 8, he gave gifts to men, verse 11, he gave some, this is not all the gifts, but he gave to some these four gifts.

Let's look at them since they're the ones that the Spirit of God led Paul to mention. First he mentions the gift of apostleship. The word apostolo, we get the word apostle from the Greek verb apostolo, it means to send forth. If I send someone forth, I am, in the words of the Greek, I am apposeling them. Interesting, the Latin term is the word from which we get our word missionary, isn't that fascinating? Study of words, I'm a word vulture, I warned you about that. You get to the word apostle and it's fascinating.

This would refer to the 12, the original 12. To be an apostle one must have absolute authority under Christ, possess gifts of a miraculous nature, have great wisdom and devotion, and I would link the word of wisdom to the gift of apostleship. They are spiritual pioneers who found churches, they are those who established the doctrinal truths that shaped the early church, and they have seen the resurrected Christ.

Do you get the list? That's why there are no apostles today. I don't care what the Mormon Church teaches, I don't care what any of the other cults would teach, there are not apostolos today, apostolos. They were in the first century and were essential for the founding and establishing of the church, and he gave some gifted to be apostles. They could, under the authority of Christ, perform miracles at will, and they had gifts and abilities that were supernatural and were essentially so to win the credibility and hearts of believers who needed such to verify the message, and he gave some as prophets. If the apostle is the one sent forth and a prophet is the one who foretells and forthtells, the word means to speak forth. Prophets, in the technical sense of the word, were those who served as inspired spokesmen for God.

They were the very oracle of God. You're listening to Insight for Living and the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. Today Chuck has presented a message called His Gift and Our Gifts. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. It's been encouraging to focus our attention on a book like Ephesians during a season in world history marked by fear and uncertainty.

2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the coronavirus, civil unrest in major cities around the world, and a politically charged election, the likes of which we've never seen until now. So how much better to focus our complete attention on Paul's letter and becoming a people of grace? Along those lines, Chuck picked out an inspirational book that's going to keep your eyes looking vertically rather than horizontally. It's written by a colleague in ministry, pastor and Bible teacher Philip de Courcy.

Before entering the ministry, Philip served on the police force in Belfast, Northern Ireland during intense political upheaval. His book Take Cover addresses so many of the issues we're facing today. The book is very entertaining as well, but better yet, it's firmly grounded in God's Word with teaching points you can employ in your life right now. To purchase a copy of Take Cover, Finding Peace in God's Protection, call us if you're listening in the U.S. Dial 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash store. In closing, let me say a word of thanks to our monthly companions and all those who give generously. You're accomplishing far more than you'll ever know because your gift not only allows us to provide these daily visits with Chuck, a small portion is multiplied overseas in our ongoing pursuit of Vision 195. Vision 195 is our stated mission to reach all 195 countries of the world with God's amazing grace. So to become a monthly companion, go to insight.org slash monthly companion or to give a one-time donation today, call us if you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888.

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Tomorrow, Chuck Swindoll continues his study in Ephesians called Becoming a People of Grace, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, his gift, and our gifts, was copyrighted in 2000, 2001, and 2009. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.