Spiritual gifts are whenever the Spirit of God comes on you for the accomplishing of his purposes. It's Jesus using you as his hands or feet or mouth. It can be temporary, lasting for just a few moments, or it can be more permanent, lasting for a lifetime. Welcome back to the Summit Life podcast with J.D. Greer.
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Now, according to the Apostle Paul, God didn't establish his church as a collection of individuals, but as an interconnected body. I need you, you need me.
So where do we see that interconnectedness the most? According to Pastor JD, it's found in our spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, as we continue our march through Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. I have loved the study of this book. Have you not?
I hope so. Our cardiac surgeons in the house probably recognize the name of Dr. Alfred Blalock. In the 1940s, Dr. Blalock essentially created modern cardiac surgery and bypass operations.
He was nominated for several Nobel Prizes in medicine. Yet, by Dr. Blalock's own admission, none of that would have been possible were it not for a man who worked at his first hospital, Vanderbilt Hospital, as a janitor. a man who had never been to medical school. That man's name was Vivian Thomas.
A black man, a carpenter by trade, with an incredible knack for mechanical engineering. Dr. Bladelock noted Thomas's ingenuity and his skill, and he hired Thomas to run his lab. Thomas began to suggest new surgical procedures and then develop tools to implement those procedures. He became so pivotal to Dr.
Blaylock's work that when Dr. Blaylock moved from Vanderbilt to Johns Hopkins University, he did the unheard of thing, and that is he brought with him Vivian Thomas, the janitor, to come work alongside of him. Eventually, Thomas would go from merely helping with these groundbreaking surgeries to actually training other surgeons from all over the nation at Johns Hopkins University, hundreds of them. Sadly, when people talk about breakthrough cardiac surgery and when the Nobel Prize gets brought up, only Alfred Blaylock gets mentioned. But as is often the case with great breakthroughs like this, behind Dr.
Blalock were a lot of others whose work enabled his success. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul explains why the body of Christ is like that. God has set up the church, Paul explains, so that it is one body with many members, with no one member being complete without the others, and with each one success dependent on the others. And if one's unhealthy, it's going to make all of them unhealthy. It's a profound concept, even though it's simple, it's profound and one that will fundamentally change your attitude toward the church.
If you understand it. First Corinthians 12:1, Paul says, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers. I do not want you to be uninformed.
Now concerning... Is Paul's indication that he is turning to the next of the Corinthians questions? Remember that Paul's letter to the Corinthians is basically organized as his response to five sets of questions. Five sets of questions that either they have asked him or things that he's heard that are going on among them. And you can break down those five sections like this.
Part one were questions about divisions in the body. That was chapters one through four. Part two was questions about sex and singleness. That was chapters five through seven. Part three was questions about how to navigate controversial topics.
That was questions eight through 10. Part four, that's questions about church service stuff. That's what we're in now. Chapters 11 through 14. Part five: what's going to be questions about what's important about the resurrection, and that's the last couple of chapters.
We are going to be looking at spiritual gifts. This is going to be a lot of fun. Don't know if you know this, but there can be a little bit of controversy around spiritual gifts. Did you know that? Yo, one of the things I love, love, love about this church is how diverse we are in our backgrounds.
We don't all come from the same church tradition. And some of you have discovered that in your small groups. We got some who grew up Baptist. Like me, we got some who grew up Presbyterian.
Some of you grew up Catholic.
Some of you grew up Pentecostal.
Some of you were charismatic, some non-charismatic, some, I'm not sure what any of this means, addict. And then some actual former addicts. We got all kinds of people here, a hodgepodge. I consider myself a little bit of a theological hodgepodge. I grew up very, very Baptist, but then married a girl who was very, very Presbyterian.
Our first year of marriage was basically me baptizing her, making her stop drinking, and convincing her that it was all predestined to happen. One. Of the biggest spiritual influences on me early on in ministry was Pentecostal.
So by the time I came to this church, I had Baptist, Presbyterian, and Pentecostal all in my blood, which my friend Clayton King says means I am predestined to speak in tongues at a potluck dinner.
Okay? But what it has given me, what it has given me, I believe, is an appreciation for how different traditions approach these questions.
Now, I'm not saying everybody's equally right. It would be ridiculous, but I do think we can all learn something from each other. And so here's the deal we'll make. Let's ask God to open our minds. And look into his word with clear eyes and expectant hearts because what his word teaches is always best.
whether it goes with what we are familiar with or not. Amen? Amen. Again, verse one.
Now concerning spiritual gifts. Brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. The word translated spiritual gift there is the word pneumaticone. Spiritual gifts is honestly probably not the best translation. Because there's another word that Paul could have used that actually means gifts.
This word pneumaticone is a bit ambiguous. It basically just translates as spirituals. Or it'd be like saying spirit stuff. Verse 4, regarding the spirit stuff. There are varieties of gifts.
There's your word for gifts right there. In Greek, the word charismata, that's the word for gifts. But the same spirit. And there are varieties of service. but the same Lord.
And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. for the common good.
Now, watch, look at this. Paul uses four different words to describe the spirit stuff. Four different words. Gifts is one of them. Charismatot.
That's one of the words, but then there's three other words. There's what he says: empowerment for service. That's the word diaconia, where we get our word deacons from. There are varieties of energies in our gama where we get our word energies from. And then he says spiritual manifestations.
Then in verses 8 through 11, Paul's going to list out a handful of examples of these things: prophecy, utterances of wisdom and knowledge, miracles, healing, the discernment of spirits, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. That is not supposed to be an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts. There are, in fact, six different lists in the New Testament of spiritual gifts. They combine total of 22 different gifts that Paul lists out. No one, Paul and Peter, no one list contains all of them, and each list has.
ones on it that are left out on the others. What all of that shows us. with the ambiguous wording and the hodgepodge list is that spiritual gifts are not like some catalog of items that you get one or two of, like an assigned spiritual Enneagram number or a profile on a strength finders test. I point that out because a lot of people see spiritual gifts only this way, and it's just the wrong way of looking at them. They think of spiritual gifts like something that you discover that is now an inextricable part of your personality that defines who you are and what you do for the rest of your life.
They can include that. I will show you that in a minute. But the ambiguous way that Paul talks about them shows us that a spiritual gift is simply when the spirit of Jesus comes on you to accomplish something he wants done in the world. Which leads me to my first point. Number one, spiritual gifts are how Jesus continues his ministry on earth.
Jesus promised that after he was gone, He would continue to build his church by his spirit through his disciples. It's not that when Jesus was physically here on earth, he did the work by his power. And now that he's gone, we do the work for him. No, just like Jesus was doing the work when he walked around Jerusalem. In a physical body.
So now he's doing the work through us, his physical body, by the spirit. Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, makes this point. In a very interesting way, in his opening to the book of Acts. Acts, you might recall, if you remember when we studied it a few years ago, Acts is the second volume of a two-part work that Luke wrote about the life of Jesus. The first was the Gospel of Luke itself, which is basically Luke's biography of the three years of Jesus' ministry.
Luke then opens the book of Acts, volume two of his anthology. He opens it this way, and I love this. And the first book, that is the Gospel of Luke, Old Theophilus, some dude he addressed the books to. I have dealt with all that Jesus, see this word? began to do and to teach.
You see the word began, right? The first volume, the Gospel of Luke, is about what Jesus began to do and to teach, which means. That the second volume, the book of Acts. is about what Jesus continues to do and to teach. The only deal is Jesus leaves in Acts chapter 1 and from there on out it's the church.
So, in other words, it's not that when Jesus was physically here on earth, he did the work, and now that he's gone, we do the work for him. No, the same power. The same power. that was at work in the physical body of Jesus is now at work through us. And whenever Jesus, through this Spirit, empowers you to do his work in the world.
That's what we call a spiritual gift, manifestation, pneumatic cona, you know, spirit stuff. Empowerment for service and energy. Which leads me to number two. A spiritual gift can either be a lifelong calling or it could be a temporary empowerment. It's also verses four through seven.
Like I said. The ambiguity in how Paul talks about spiritual stuff is intentional. The spirit stuff, the spirit manifestations. Paul is showing you that he's not only talking about life callings, personality-defining life callings.
Sometimes, y'all, they're just energies for the moment. And here's why I am at pains to point that out for you. When you think of a spiritual gift only in the lifelong calling category, You might miss out on something Jesus wants to use you for in a moment. The gift of prophecy, for example, is where God speaks through someone in the moment, to somebody else. That can happen to you without you feeling like you got the permanent gifting of prophecy.
In fact, some of the most dangerous people in the church can be those who think they have the gift of prophecy, who feel like everything they think is what God says.
Sometimes God just puts something on your heart, and you're supposed to say, listen, I'm not sure if this is from God or not. You need to prayerfully discern this, and then you tell them what's on your heart. I do this all the time. That's called a pneumaticone. It's a spirit manifestation.
I had this sense when I'm praying or when I'm studying scripture. This is how this applies to you right now. or take the gift of faith. The gift of faith that Paul refers to is where somebody perceives what God wants to do in a situation. And then they pray that back to God in faith, believing Jesus for it.
Y'all, that can happen to any of us in prayer. When the friends of the lame man in Mark 2 lowered the lame man through the roof to Jesus' feet. Mark very clearly says that it was when Jesus saw their faith. That is the faith of the friends that were lowering down the man to Jesus' feet. That's when he healed the guy.
He said, I'm doing this because of your faith. They had been given the gift of faith in that moment, perceiving. that Jesus was ready and willing to provide that healing. That can happen to any of us when we pray.
Now, if those two things occur in your life repeatedly Fulfilled words of prophecy or the bestowal of an unusual faith, you might see those as part of your personal life calling. But I want you to see that spiritual gifts are not only that. Spiritual gifts are whenever the Spirit of God comes on you for the accomplishing of his purposes. It's Jesus using you as his hands or feet or mouth. It can be temporary, lasting for just a few moments, or it can be more permanent, lasting for a lifetime.
Paul talks about the spirituals, the pneumatic cone, not just his gifts. The energies, manifestations, and empowerment. You got it? Number three, here's your third conclusion. You got one.
You got one. Verse 7, 2. Each Is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good to each, to each. What? to each believer.
Who in here is a Nietzsche? Raise your hand if you're a Nietzsche. If your hand is up, you have a spiritual gift. God has given you something for the common good of his body. He's got a special role in the church for you.
In verse 14, Paul explains that because of that, if you don't use your gift, The whole body suffers because of you. For the body, he says, verse 14, the body does not consist of one member, but many members. If the whole body, verse 17, were an eye. Where would the sense of hearing be? The eye cannot say to the hand, hey, hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I've got no need of you.
On the contrary, verse 22: even the parts of the body that seem to be weaker and smaller are indispensable. Verse 26: If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, All rejoice together if my little toes says, well. I'm not as glorious as the tongue. The tongue of this body speaks such wonderful things to the summit church every weekend.
The tongue is kind of famous.
So many are blessed by that tongue. It's not me, though. Nobody ever even sees me. I always have shoes on me. JD's embarrassed of me, I got no importance at all.
Okay, fair enough. What happens when your pinky toe is hurt? Y'all, when I get up at night to go to the bathroom, and somehow my pinky toe finds that edge of the dresser every single time. It's like it has a homing beacon in it, I swear. That brings my whole body down and causes my tongue to say all kinds of non-wonderful things.
Am I right? It's always funny to me when you're watching football, and some 300-pound lineman gets taken out of the game because his pinky toe gets hurt. You football fans know this is a really bad year for toe injuries in the NFL. Julio Jones and A.J. Green and eventual Super Bowl winner Matthew Stafford all taken down this season by toe injuries.
Every part is connected to the whole. Listen, every week there is a group of people who love and serve our church by taking care of our kids. Not only did they disciple them. They enable us to experience what we experience in here. I think of our kids' department like the liver of this church.
Nobody sees it, nobody thinks about it, but if it stopped working. This mouth up here wouldn't have a chance to speak because those ears out there wouldn't be able to hear. Right.
So everybody's got a part. Number four. Number four is a big one. You want to know God's will for you? Discover your gift.
Y'all, if God's given you a part to play in this body. Then, isn't it fair to assume that you will never really know his will for your life? Until you know what that gift is. The way that you discover his will. Is by looking at the gift that he's put in your hands.
I love the scene. And C.S. Lewis is The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrop. Where Father Christmas, a kind of mysterious figure that you never really hear from again in the entire Chronicles and Arnea that I can remember. Shows up and gives each of the four children a mysterious gift from Aslan, who is the lion that represents Jesus in the Chronicles of Narnia.
The gifts are mysterious. And all the time. The children are getting these gifts. They can't figure out why they've been given these mysterious gifts, but in the midst of their battle with the white witch later, Lucy realizes that her gift, which was a healing ointment, had been given to her so that she could bind up the wounded in battle. Peter realizes that he'd been given a sword.
so that he could lead an assault on the forces of the White Witch. And what C.S. Lewis was trying to communicate in his usual creative way is that one of the ways that you and I figure out what Aslan wants from us. is by looking at the gifts he's placed into our hands.
So it's a fair question for me to ask, do you know what yours is? I would go so far as to say that you cannot walk with the spirit if you are wholly unfamiliar with the gifts that he's given you for service in his kingdom. How could you? You say, well, this sounds great, Pastor J.D., but how do I figure out what mine are? There are lots of angles we could come at from this and talk about it for several weeks, just this.
But the best practical counsel I could give to you is just to get in there and try stuff out. And as you're obeying, you will find that there are certain things that just fit you. I almost start to feel natural. And other people recognize that God is in you in those things, and He's using you, and they'll start telling you that. This, by the way, was how I discovered that I had the gift of exhortation and teaching.
People told me, they're like, when you teach the Bible, I understand things I've never understood before, and my life changes. It's one of the reasons that you and I need to speak encouragement to each other and call those gifts out. Because usually you are the last person to recognize a spiritual gift. Other people see it first. It's also one of the main benefits of being in a small group.
It allows people to be up close enough to you to see those things and call them out. Here is a tool that I have found helpful over the years. for discerning your gift. It's a Venn diagram with three circles. First circle is ability.
Ability just means what you're good at. What you're naturally good at, affinity. Is what you're passionate about, what you get up thinking about, what your mind and your heart go to in prayer. Affirmation, the third A, is whatever people in the church tell you, tell you that God is using you in. Where all three of those circles converge is typically the place of a spiritual gift: ability, affinity, affirmation.
Often, spiritual gifts are going to coincide with natural abilities you already have. A lot of times, God just takes some natural talent you have and he supercharges it for his purposes. For example, my gift of exhortation coincides with a natural ability that I have for public speaking and persuasion. Evidently, Paul was a great thinker and a leader before he became a Christian. We know that because he had been selected to apprentice under Gamaliel, which was like going to the Campbell University of his day, going to the Harvard of his day.
The point is, Paul's special calling as an apostle coincided with his natural abilities to think and to write.
So often spiritual gifts coincide with natural abilities we already have. But, but. There are exceptions.
Sometimes God bestows spiritual gifts that have nothing to do with natural abilities. For example, I know a young lady in our church who is terribly shy around people. Yet God has given her an incredible ability in evangelism. She's one of our most effective evangelists here. It makes no sense, naturally speaking.
Because you see her in the room, you never even notice her. But God has just anointed her so that when she shares Christ, people get saved.
Sometimes God does it that way just to demonstrate that the power comes from Him and it's not owing to our natural talents at all.
So my point is, start with your natural talents, but don't limit it to that, okay? Right, so number five, the gifts are for service, not for show. The gifts are for service, not for show. Again, verse 7, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for. The common good.
Why are they given? Not for others to admire how spiritual you are. But so that you can work or be used by Jesus in somebody else's life for their good. One of the many problems. the Corinthians had is that they felt proud about their spiritual gifts.
Using them as a reason to think of themselves as spiritually superior to others. I. see and experience things that you don't experience.
So I'm on a different class than you. They thought of spiritual gifts like Christian Marvel superhero powers. I got tongues. I'm prophecy man. I got, you know, Jesus fighty sense about your needs.
What do you have? Oh, you only got the gift of administration? That's boring. Doesn't feel very spectacular. I'm clearly more important in the body of Christ than you are.
I'll pray for you not to be depressed about what a loser gift you have because luckily for you, I got a powerful dose of the gift of faith too. And Paul just shakes his head. He's like. What is there to be proud of? When it comes to a spiritual gift, it's not your power, it's God's.
The boxing glove does not boast of its power to punch. The hand in it has the power. It's not my ability to stand up here and persuade you that is effective in your life at all. I'm just the glove that God wears for his work in your life. If you're thankful for how God used me, yes, you can say a quick little thank you to me, but say a long thank you to God.
The gift that God gave to you was not to puff you up before others. It was to enable you to lift them up above you. The gifts are for service, not for show. Ah! For many people, the book of Revelation feels mysterious, confusing, and maybe even a little intimidating.
It's filled with vivid imagery, difficult passages, and questions about the future that can leave us wondering where to even begin. But what if Revelation wasn't meant to leave us fearful or confused? What if its primary purpose is to help us see Jesus more clearly? That's the heart behind Pastor J.D. Greer's newest Bible study, the Book of Revelation.
In this 12-week printed study, you'll walk through one of the Bible's most talked about books and discover a powerful message of hope, endurance, and confidence in Christ. Rather than focusing on speculation or trying to decode every symbol, this study helps you understand the big picture of Revelation and why its message matters for your everyday life. You'll discover how the book of Revelation encourages believers to remain faithful in difficult seasons, stand firm in a changing culture, and trust that God is still in control no matter what is happening around them. Most importantly, you'll gain a clearer vision of Jesus, his power, his presence, and his ultimate victory. Whether you're studying on your own, with a small group, or alongside your family, Revelation will help you fix your eyes on the one who is sovereign over history, faithful in suffering, and victorious in the end.
We will mail you a printed copy of the Book of Revelation Bible Study when you give a gift of $45 or more to support the ministry of Summit Life. Give us a call at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or go to jdgreer.com and request your copy today. In verse 13, Paul tells them that their pride in their gifts shows that not only do they understand the nature of the spiritual gifts, they don't even really understand the gospel itself. See verse 13?
By one spirit, you were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks. Slaves or free? Right, we were all equal. And all were made to drink of one spirit. We were all equally lost.
We all needed the same salvation. The Spirit and his gifts were not given to you as a reward for your awesomeness. The Spirit was a free gift that God gave to all of us as a part of salvation. All of us, Jew, Greek, slave, or free, we were all hopelessly condemned when God made us his children. And so if you're looking for something to boast in, boast in that.
Luke chapter 10, the disciples just come back from a preaching tour. Man, they're all bragging like guys do when they get together after something, trying to one-up each other.
Well, I cast out a demon with my eyes closed. And Jesus shakes his head and he's like, Don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you. Rejoice that your names are written down in the Lamb's book of life because the greatest gift that God ever gave. It was not the ability to cast out a demon. It was forgiveness of sins and sonship in him.
And your identity is now based on Christ and Christ alone, not how many gifts you have.
Now I'll tell you human nature is always trying to find something that sets us up above others. That's what's happening. I mean, we do it. I'm smarter than you, I'm more athletic than you. We're always trying to find something that makes me just a little bit, you know, head and shoulders above you.
So now the Corinthians are finding that significance in their spiritual gifts. Is that not ironic? I'm valuable. I'm worth something. Because I can do this.
And Paul says, no, your value is because Christ has made you his son or daughter. Your gifts are now to serve others and to lift them up, not to lift you up above them. I'm gonna say that's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of Christian self-help material. that seems to be only focused on helping you discover your inner awesomeness. As if that's where all your value lies.
You're unique, you're special, you're snowflake, there's nobody like you. Be a narcissist. Yeah. God made you special. I get that.
I read Psalm 139. But your awesomeness comes not from the gifts you possess. Your awesomeness comes from the fact that the giver of those gifts possesses you. The purpose of a spiritual gift is never to boast, it's only to bless. Never to show, only to serve.
Now, I will admit. Possessing that mentality is way more easily said than done. My own fallen heart is constantly gravitating. for ways to feel special. And sometimes, yes, my preaching gives me an inflated sense of importance.
That's just quite frankly stupid. Because I'm just a glove. I've told you, for example, if somebody on the way out. A church said to me, Pastor, that was a phenomenal sermon. And you do this every week.
Pastor, you are truly a great man. On the way home in the car, I'm still kind of basking in the glow of that affirmation. And I'm like, why did I say to my wife, I'm my babe? How many truly great men do you feel like there are in the world? She responds, probably one less than you think.
That's how many there are. I know, I know my gifts are not. Given to me to distinguish me or make me special. I got all of the specialness I could ever need in Christ. These gifts are for service, not for show.
to bless and not to boast. And if you Corinthians... Could ever get that, Paul says. You'd stop feeling proud about your gifts and acting like jerks to one another. I'll just go ahead and say this right now.
When your gifts cause division with others, you know you're using them in the wrong way.
Okay. Number of Six, is this right? I've lost count. Number six, God works in your life. To the spiritual gifts of others.
Verse 25. Paul says members care for one another. Each member of the body is taken care of by other members of the body. I've used this example before because Paul uses it all the time.
So don't hate on me, okay? You're like, you only got six illustrations. Paul had like three, so I'm coming back to one of his. When my left elbow itches on my body right here. What happens?
It sends a message out to my brain and the message says, hey, I'm dying over here. I can't literally live another second. I itch, please help. What does my brain do? Does my brain send out a magic, you know, brain power zap?
The fixed The itch on my left elbow? No, it sends a message to the fingers on my right hand. They're like, hey, man, go take care of your brother left elbow. It's not a difficult analogy in the same way, yet, so many people miss this. In the same way.
When we pray about a need in our lives, God does not usually zap power straight down from heaven to fix it. I don't think you understand it. When you pray about a need in your life, God does not typically answer it by sending down a zap of power from heaven. Yet that's how you expect him to do it. No, he moves a member of his body to do the work.
By means of a spiritual gift. We, the members of that body, are literally his hands and his feet and his mouth.
So you're like, God, I need direction in my life. And God says, oh, the wisdom that you're looking for comes from the spirit, and that spirit speaks through members of my body. God, I need help in my marriage. It's falling apart. He's like, I put the resources to heal your marriage into members of my body.
You're like, God, I am lonely. I'm confused. And God says, I put all the help for all those things into members of my body. If you want God to work in your life, you got to be part of the church. And when you disconnect yourself from the church, you disconnect yourself from the power of God.
I'm not trying to be a jerk or self-servant in this, but stop asking God to work in your life if you're not willing to put yourself in the portal of his power. You see, this church. Like a lot of churches. has a problem with what I call ninja Christians. No, you slip in silently, unnoticed.
You sit right along the aisles. I'm not trying to call anybody out, but you sit right along the aisles. And the reason you do that is because when I bow for prayer at the close of the service. You call him. Right, you take off out of this place like a horse out of the gates of the Kentucky derby.
You should stand outside in the lobby sometime. And just watch, when I say let's pray. We still got 10 minutes left in the service. And you got people trucking out, you know, so they're like heading to the parking lot. I don't know, trying to get to the restaurant faster than everybody.
I don't know what it is, but you never get to know anybody. You're not really involved in anything. You barely know my name. I mean, you definitely don't know how to spell it. I mean, at least my last name.
My first name is easy, but my last name.
Somebody asked you where do you go do you go to church? You're like, some, some.
Some mountain, mountain, I don't know, summit maybe. They're like, cool, who's the pastor there? And you're like, D-L-D-J, Nicholas Cage, I'm not sure. By the way, a little pro tip here: whenever I talk to somebody on a plane and ask them if they go to church, if they say yes, my second question is always: what's the pastor's name? Because if they don't know that I know they're not serious at all.
And of course, the point is not you knowing my name. The point is knowing and being known by others enough that God uses you in their lives and He uses them in yours. Y'all ninjas are cool. But they make bad church members. And the tragedy is that ninja Christians miss out on the majority of what God wants to do in their lives and through them in the lives of others.
You might make it out to the Mexican restaurant first after church. But you're missing out on some of the best things God wants to do in your life. God does his work through the church. Sitting on the sidelines of this church. Or continuing to stay home even if you could be here.
And I know, I want to say this very clearly. I know that some of you have to be home for medical reasons. I'm only talking to those of you who are doing everything else. Going to ball games and going to the mall and to the movies, just not in the house of God. I'm telling you that even if you are hearing the best sermons in the world, and you were not, but even if you were.
You are only experiencing a small fraction of what God wants you to know. You got to be involved, very involved. There are so many times in my life when God has spoken a life-saving word of encouragement to me through a member of this church. or a word of warning. People have spoken into my marriage.
They've spoken into my parenting. They've spoken into my kids' lives. They've given me direction and counsel when I needed it. Y'all, I would not have half the walk with God that I have today if it were not for members of this church. Could be like, oh, me and God are great.
You know, I listen to great messages and I'm really growing. You cannot be a Lone Ranger Christian and be spiritually healthy. God puts the spiritual stuff. Right, the pneumaticone, the spiritual stuff, he puts it in the members of his church. And you're like a big toe lying over there in the corner somewhere, and that's not going to go well.
Okay, number seven. Which one have you experienced? Which one have you experienced? I want to conclude this message with a special. Message to our church.
I've told you that all in all in the New Testament, there are six different spiritual gift lists containing 22 different gifts. Let me just list them out for you. Here they are. They are Apostle. Profit.
Teacher. Miracles, healings. Helps. Administration. Tongues, the interpretation of tongues, utterances of wisdom, utterances of knowledge, world of warcraft.
Just kidding. I just want to see if y'all are paying attention.
Okay, that's not really on the list. Faith. distinguishing between spirits. Evangelist, pastor-teacher, serving, encouraging, generosity, leadership, mercy, marriage, and everybody's favorite: celibacy.
Now, like I said, this is not an exhaustive list. The Apostle Peter lumps all the spiritual gifts. He was a little bit more of a broad thinker. He just lumps them all into two categories, those who speak for Jesus, those who serve for Jesus. That's it.
You got to be at least one of these. You are at least one of these. My hope is that you're going to plunge yourself in and figure out what yours is. And the best way to do that, y'all, is just to start serving. God steers moving ships.
He guides pedaling bikes or whatever, however you want to think about it.
Now, before I close, I want to at least bring up the gifts that Paul lists out in chapter 12. because that will really set us up for the next few weeks and because I would really love to see us grow in these. I think in general, the ones Paul lists out in 1 Corinthians 12, we're pretty unfamiliar with. and quite frankly a little scared of. And that's in large part my fault.
Let's take a minute and at least familiarize ourselves with them since Paul introduces us to them in this chapter, and we'll get into them in future weeks. Verse 8: For the one is given, he says, to the spirit. The utterance of wisdom. The utterance of wisdom is when the Spirit of God gives you insight into His will in an area not directly spelled out in Scripture. To another, the utterances of knowledge according to the same spirit, the utterance of knowledge, a word of knowledge.
Is a special knowledge from the Holy Spirit about somebody's life directing you to pray or speak into their lives. Jesus in John 4. Like when you knew about the five marriages of previous marriages of the woman and the fact that the guy she was living with now was not her husband. That's an example of a type of word of knowledge. Paul refers to that in 1 Corinthians 14.
We'll see that. Verse 9, to another faith by the same Spirit. That's a special bestowal. All Christians have faith. But to some God gives a special bestowal of faith.
at a certain time when he wants to do something miraculous through you. He gives you the ability to perceive what he wants, like the men, you know, lowering down the layman at Jesus' feet. You get this perception of what he wants, and then the urge to ask him for it.
Some of you are going to feel that way about the men's conference. You're going to be like, this is what God wants to do, and you're going to start praying it. And that's the gift of faith. To another, gifts of healing by one spirit. To another, the working of miracles.
That's pretty straightforward, praying and asking God for healing and him granting it. You say, does this work just like it did in Acts? I don't think any of it ceased. I think you can, and I'll try to show you this. You can show that there were different times when God would highlight and elevate certain gifts.
Hebrews indicates that, but there's nothing that says that these things have gone away. to another prophecy. Prophecy verse 10: Prophecy is the ability to speak God's will into a situation at just the right time. Or to know how to apply scripture to somebody in just the right way. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.
That's the ability to know whether what somebody is saying is really from God or not. To another, various kinds of tongues, to another, the interpretation of tongues. The word for tongues is glossolalia. But it sounds like you're speaking in tongues.
Well, what it means is that you give praise to God in a language other than Hebrew. That's what it means. We'll unpack that more in the coming weeks. This should be a really fun message. For now, Surf.
So that's what you need to know.
Okay, that's what we walk in. What do I need to know? Serve. First time guest surveys consistently note here. That the joyfulness and helpfulness of our great guest services teams are a primary reason people want to return to Summit for a second time.
That's why we say the sermon starts in the parking lot. Before they ever get in here and listen to me, you got a sense of who Jesus is by how they're greeted in the parking lot. Our kids' volunteers, both the weekend volunteers and our volunteers, they play a significant role in every single child that comes to faith here. Same with our student volunteers. Just two weeks ago at our Chapel Hill campus, one of our small group leaders there led two girls in her small group to faith in Christ.
Every week, every week, during every service at the Summit Church, we got a team of people. Who stand in the gap for us and pray during the entire service that the Lord would speak to people through preaching and worship? We call that the boiler room. Those are people, a lot of times, with the gift of faith. This church is what it is because of people who say, God, I just want to be used by you wherever you want.
JD's not the only minister. All of us are. I'm thinking of Malik at our Chapel Hill campus. A man serves wherever, and I mean wherever. He single-handedly led the relaunch of our kids' ministry there.
He's a small group leader and serves in men's ministry, or Kelby and Connie at our North Durham campus, who asked. They descend. One of the campus pastors said, where can we serve with the most lost people? And they figured that the greatest percentage of lost people at the Summit Church were in the kids' area.
So now they serve as elementary leaders there working among the unreached people group known as your children, okay? Listen, I want you to serve not just because it makes a difference in others' lives, which it does. I want you to serve because it makes a difference in yours also. Our church engagement survey, we do this once a year. We know that people who serve on the weekend, are the ones who feel most connected here.
And the ones who say they're most growing in their faith. Did you hear that? What is the best indicator for us that you are growing in your faith? that you will self-identify you're going into faith and that you feel connected It's not those of you who do your quiet time, not even those who are in a small group, as important as those are. The most common characteristic are the ones who are serving.
They're the ones who feel known by the pastoral team. People say, wow, I just don't know anybody here. It's so big. I can't. Whenever somebody says that to me, And listen, I I'm not Trying to be sarcastic.
But just know that when you say that to me, my first question, my very first question back to you, you'll be like, okay, where are you serving? Inevitably. They were like, well, I don't want to serve anywhere. Listen, I'm not trying to come down on you, but how do you think people get to know you? Stop staring at your belly button, wondering why nobody's ministering to you, and start focusing on ministering to others.
And you'll find that a lot of people start knowing and ministering to you. If you weren't focused on yourself all the time, you find that God takes care of your needs as you start to take care of others. Is that mean? I didn't mean that to be mean. It sounded like a jerk.
I didn't mean that to be like a jerk, but it's true, okay? Seriously, you will find that nothing helps you grow in your relationship with Jesus like helping somebody else with theirs. How are you using your spiritual gifts to serve others? Don't miss out on the deep, meaningful connection God wants us to have within a local church. And don't forget that all the resources and information heard about in this episode can be found at jdgreer.com.
We'll see you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Um
