The Bible reveals how the early church experienced and gracefully endured severe persecutions.
And today, we're also seeing a growing wave of hostility against Christians. In his new book, God's Final Call, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you to the compelling and comforting words of Jesus in the book of Revelation. Get your copy of God's Final Call by Dr. Youssef, on the way to you when you give a gift of any amount to the ongoing ministry of leading the way today. Learn more about this special offer and the powerful content in God's Final Call at ltw.org. Welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, the author of more than 50 books, including his most recent, God's Final Call. Thank you for joining Dr. Youssef for the continuation of his series called, Who Me?
Gifted? on Leading the Way. Now, he's bringing a challenging reminder that if you're a believer, you are uniquely gifted with all you need for a life of gospel impact and service.
Hey, do remember that Leading the Way is listener supported. Dr. Youssef and his leadership team rely on God's provision through God's people who are blessed by the ministry impact of Leading the Way. So stand with Dr. Youssef when you call 866-626-4356, or when you visit us at ltw.org. Now, listen along as Dr. Youssef begins his message called, Who Me? Gifted? Listen with me to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 8. Jesus did not only give us spiritual gifts, Jesus gave us himself. He did not give us part of himself.
He did not give us a token of himself. He gave us himself. He gave us his kingdom. He gave us his inheritance. He gave us his spirit. He gave us his throne. He gave us his wisdom. He gave us his love. He gave us his power. He gave us his peace. He gave us his glory. In fact, Paul said he gave us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You see, the Lord has measured exactly the gift that he has for you, and it is not and will not work for somebody else.
It is tailor-made for you. It is apportioned specifically for each believer. And that is why we neither seek the gift nor let our gift go unused. Since all gifts come from him, from his sovereign hand, from his sovereign love, from his sovereign grace, therefore no gift is to be exalted and no gift is to be despised. Even within the one gift, there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of different expressions of that one gift. And each one of those expressions are tailor-made for each of you individually. There are no two expressions of the gift the same as there are no two snowflakes the same. Each expression of a gift is unique for each person. God does not see his children as an assembly production line. Every unit should be looking like the other unit.
No! God has an individualized gift, an individualized expression of that gift for you individually. Not the person next to you. You cannot even duplicate it. Why? Because we are not interchangeable parts in the body of Christ. And that is why when an individual believer does not use his or her gift as God's stewards, God's work suffers greatly.
Why? Because God has not gifted another Christian in exactly the same way that he has gifted you. It's just that simple. And that is why I emphasized in the last message that there is no true Christian who can be spectated. We have churches are packed with spectators across the land. But that is not what the body of Christ is all about.
There's even more to it than this. Listen carefully. Not using your gift is an affront to the wisdom of God. Not using your gift is a rebuff to his love and his grace. And it's a great loss for his church. Now look with me to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 8.
You can spend a long time just on that one verse. When he, Jesus, ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives and gave gifts to men. What does Paul mean here? There's an image here that was known throughout the Roman world. It's a great image of a great victorious general who has defeated his foes, who has defeated his enemy. These are the captives that were captured by this victorious general. And this is an image here that the apostle Paul is giving us.
He is saying, when Jesus went to that cross, then he rose again and ascended into heaven. He took his enemies, all captives, who are the enemies of Jesus, Satan and sin and death. These are all his enemies. He took them captive and then, like a great conquering hero, he apportioned to his subjects gifts from his trophies.
He apportioned each one to his. That is why we have power and authority over the enemies, over the enemies of Jesus. Fathom this with me. Your spiritual gifts is Jesus' trophy for his victory, for what he has done.
You haven't done anything for it. That our spiritual gifts are Jesus' reward for his death and resurrection. That your spiritual gifts are Jesus' own possessions and yet he chooses out of his sovereign will, out of his sovereign plan, out of his graciousness. He chooses, as Paul said in 4.8 of Ephesians, he chooses to give us those gifts. In fact, Paul uses another word. We looked at the word charismatic in the last message and here he uses another word, domata. And in a sense, the word actually expresses the fact that these gifts are comprehensive.
No one is left out. These gifts are his gracious provisions. When our Lord Jesus Christ walked the earth, he promised, in fact repeatedly told the disciples, when I go to the Father, I send you my Spirit. It is better for you that I go to the Father because once I go to heaven, I'll send you my Holy Spirit, the Comforter. He's going to reveal to you the truth. And you see, when the Holy Spirit came exactly 50 days after the resurrection, when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, he came from heaven loaded with gifts for his children.
He did not come empty handed. Then Paul goes on to give us a partial list here in Ephesians of the gifts. But you have to add the list in Romans 12, 3 to 8, 1 Corinthians 12, 8, 10, 28 to 30, and then Ephesians 4 beginning at verse 11.
Here are the questions people ask. Question number one, are the spiritual gifts the same as natural talents? I alluded to that question very briefly in the last message knowing that I will deal with it more in details today. Every human being, Christians, non-Christians, every human being is created in God's own image. And by the virtue of being created in God's own image, we all have natural talents. We're born with natural talents. These talents are what gives us our personality. They are different from spiritual gifts.
I'm going to explain in a minute. There are some who are talented mechanics. There are some who are talented cooks. There are some who are talented sportsmen.
There are some who are talented painters. The second question, can the spiritual gifts be used without the fruit of the Spirit? Can one use the gift of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit?
Now just to refresh your memory, the fruit of the Spirit is, a lot of people get that mixed up. From Galatians chapter 5, Paul makes it clear, he said, the fruit of the Spirit is, the works of the flesh are in the plural, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is to be practiced daily by all believers. But not all the gifts are given to all the believers. The fruit of the Spirit is not to be discovered.
It is to be obeyed and lived. But the gifts of the Spirit are, they need to be discovered. The fruit of the Spirit defines what a believer is. But the gifts of the Spirit define what a believer does. The fruit of the Spirit is a state of being, who I am. But the gifts of the Spirit is a state of doing.
Here's the bottom line, listen carefully. Without the fruit of the Spirit, your gifts of the Spirit are neutralized. You see, in other words, the fruit of the Spirit is a prerequisite for effectiveness in the use of the gifts of the Spirit. Amen? The gifts without the fruit, ineffective.
What you're doing, you could have all the gifts in the world. Without the fruit of the Spirit, you're spinning your wheels. You're going through the motions. And you say, Michael, well, how come?
I'm going to tell you. There is no use having a foul-tempered person to be a teacher of the Word of God, right? There is no use having a vengeful, bitter person to be discipling others.
It doesn't work. Sure, there are churches that are loaded with people who have the gifts of the Spirit, but no fruit of the Spirit. Like the church in Corinth, it had all of the gifts that you can think, all of the gifts of the Spirit were there. And they were filled with these gifts, but they're also filled with the works of the flesh.
They were angry, they were bitter, they were immoral, they were living lifestyles that are not glorifying to God, and all the rest of it. When the fruit of the Spirit is absent, gifts lose their effectiveness. Without the fruit of the Spirit, the effectiveness of the gifts are neutralized in your life and in mine. The lack of the fruit of the Spirit renders the results of the use of the fruits to be null and void. And that is why Paul warns the Corinthians in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, that chapter that is so familiar to most people, even non-Christians.
And he said that if you have the gift of tongues, if you have the gift of prophecy, if you have the gift of knowledge, if you have the gift of faith, if you have the gift of even voluntarily poverty or even martyrdom. But without the fruit, which is love, is nothing. The gifts without the fruit is like the tires in your car without air. I don't care how expensive your car is. I don't care how top of the line Michelin tires you might have in your car. If there is no air in your tires, you're not going nowhere.
Flat tires cannot get you very far. The gifts are temporal, but the fruit are eternal. The gifts are task-oriented, but the fruit is God-oriented. And that is why it is of vital importance to understand that in the use of the gift, you must have the fruit of the Spirit. Amen belongs here.
Third question. Are the gifts of the Spirit the same as my Christian role? For example, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ must tithe, that's at least 10%, and give offering on top of that. And yet, giving is listed as a gift of the Spirit. So I'm sure some of you are going to sit back and say, I'm so relieved to hear that the giving is a gift of the Spirit. I am just going to sit on my blessed assurance and give nothing. Let the people who have the gift of the Spirit give.
No, not so fast. You're missing out on the great blessings that comes from being a faithful tither to the work of God. But there are some in the body who have been given a specific gift of being hilarious givers. And that's why the Bible said that the Lord has a soft spot. That's why it said He loves a cheerful giver.
He has a soft spot toward those people. Those people don't give 10% or 20% or 30%. They don't think about that. That's not an issue for them.
Why? Because God uses them to abundantly bless His work. And that is why you find that often God shovels it back to them faster than they can shovel it out. It's like I told somebody years ago, I said, because God has a bigger shovel than yours. Another example, the Bible commands all Christians to be faithful witnesses to their faith.
And it's a very simple thing. I was a sinner heading for hell. Jesus came into my life, forgave my sins. Now I'm on my way to heaven.
Can you get any simpler than that? Every one of us with the opportunity, we must witness for Christ. But again, the Holy Spirit has given some people the gift of evangelism. Again, somebody will sit back and say, I don't have the gift of evangelism. I don't have to tell.
Not so fast. You would be disobedient if you don't share your testimony. Yet again, the Holy Spirit gives the gift of evangelism to some, and these people are constantly leading people to Christ. That's how the gift is used. The same with the gift of prophecy. Every one of us must know the word of God enough to bring a word from the word to a given situation.
Every one of us. But then there are some who are given the gift of bringing the scripture to light to everyone for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. Another example. We are all to show mercy.
I know this is a challenge to some of us more than others, but we all are to show mercy, and yet the Holy Spirit again has given the gift of mercy to some. I was thinking about this, and the best illustration that I can think of, it comes from the world of baseball. Every member of the team in the baseball team is expected to line up and bat and go to base, right?
But then within the team, there are some who are gifted pitchers and some who are fielders, and everybody has a different strength and different gift. It's the same thing with the body of Christ. Question number four. What about counterfeit gifts? Counterfeit gifts, I mean, really, is there such a thing?
Absolutely. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24, 24. For there shall rise false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders so much so that if possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Satan is a supernatural being, and he has some supernatural power. It does not rival the power of our Lord, but he has some supernatural power, and some of that power is going to be used to deceive. You remember Moses going there in front of Pharaoh, and he started performing a miracle? Well, the Egyptian magicians were able to do just as much, but the power of God overcame them.
You see, this is one way. Satan and the Antichrist are going to be deceived. They're going to be deceiving the elect in the last days, but when you are under God's protective custody, he's going to protect you with even a temporary gift of discernment if you don't have it as a permanent gift, and that is one gift that you can pray for at a given time, and the Holy Spirit is going to give it to you on a temporary basis to help you discern truth from falsehoods. The Holy Spirit will do that for you.
In fact, we have biblical examples of this. I know that it's true in my own experience, but in the Bible, in the book of Acts chapter 5, there, I think before I even get there, most of you who know anything about the apostle Peter, you have to agree that he did not have a permanent gift of discernment, but then the Holy Spirit gave it to him in Acts chapter 5 in order that he may discern the deception of Ananias and Sapphira, and again, in the chapter 8, Acts 24, the Holy Spirit gives it to him temporarily as a gift to discern and uncover the wicked motives of Simon the magician. He'll give it to you when you ask for it, because the Holy Spirit wants us all to be discerning, to know when somebody is preaching the truth or teaching the truth and somebody is not. Sadly, it is not a gift that's in abundance in our generation, and we need to pray for it.
That is the one gift that when you ask for it, he's going to give it to you on a temporary basis. The final question, question number five, how do I discover my spiritual gifts? I went to the Lord in prayer. I fasted and I prayed, and I would encourage you to do the same thing. Do the test, but go to the Lord in prayer. Go to the Lord in fasting.
Go to the Lord in humility. If you don't know your gift yet, because when you do, he's going to place a certain desire in your heart. No, no, not your own desire, not what you want to do. You're going to know it is from God, because that desire is to exercise a certain gift, and then that gift will soon become easily confirmed by others, by your discipleship group, by your small group, by your mentors. When that desire is from God and God is giving it to you because that is your birthday gift, it's going to soon be confirmed by the whole church. For example, others could not really confirm that somebody has a gift of mercy when their heart is nails, and they can't empathize or sympathize with others. If I try to say that I have a gift of singing, okay, as much as you love me, you're not going to confirm that gift.
You're going to say, Michael, you're in fantasy world. So my general advice to young believers, try every area of the gifts. Try your hand in everything if you don't know yet, and that which is going to come to you with joy and with excitement when you can't wait to get out of bed to go and do what God laid on your heart, you know that's your spiritual gift. If you have a gift of evangelism, you'll be leading people to Christ. If you have the gift of leadership, people will be following you. If you have a gift of teaching, you will not see teaching as a drudgery or a burden. You will see others growing in their walk with Christ and not being conformed to the image of Christ under your teaching.
It's been so clear. If your gift is that of hospitality, you will not feel being put upon when you are exercising the gift of hospitality, and the list goes on. Oh, I realize that no matter what your gift is, it doesn't mean that at times you get tired, you get worn out in the use of the gift, and you need a break, and you need rest.
We all do. But then after a break, you find yourself, you can't wait to get back to the exercise of your gift. One last thing, that we all must have the humility to be evaluated for our effectiveness by others. We all must have the humility to be evaluated in the use of our gift. Remember I told you in the last message, because it's a gift.
It's not you. It's a gift that's given to you, and therefore, criticism or praise will be equal. The only reason criticism or praise can get to us is when we forget that it's a gift from his hand. It has nothing to do with us. That's the only time we mess up, and therefore, you're not going to be concerned by others evaluating you. If it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the results will be evident, and you know when the gifts of the Holy Spirit are operating in a body, you're going to find the work of God.
Jesus is going to be honored and glorified, and people's lives are going to be changed, and things are going to be happening. Now for those of you who know your gift, and you kind of put it on the shelf, I want to challenge you today. If you're taking a rest, that's understandable. That's different. Get it out.
Use it again. God wants to bless others through you. International pastor and Bible teacher Dr. Michael Youssef with his message called, Who Me? Gifted, right here on Leading the Way. You can get in touch with Leading the Way for any reason when you call the ministry call center.
That number is 866-626-4356. Leading the Way is not only heard in your neighborhood, but Dr. Youssef is a respected Bible teacher, heard in neighborhoods all around the world. In fact, listen now and hear how Dr. Youssef in Leading the Way is introduced to listeners in the United Kingdom.
With Dr. Michael Youssef. We're not serving a weakling, defeated, dead hero. We are the soldiers of the conquering Lord. When you stand with Dr. Youssef, you are standing with Leading the Way teams all around the world, teams who are passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth to listeners of all ages and backgrounds, penetrating hearts with the Gospel. Get the details about how you can participate. Give us a call, 866-626-4356 or online at ltw.org. ltw.org. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.
