Gifted, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer clarifies a confusing topic. A New Testament worship service is when three things are manifestly present.

The Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the people of God. What if you came to church just bubbling up, I got this word, I got the Spirit, I got this gift that God has given me, I got to look for somewhere to use it. You know what would happen? It wouldn't be a preaching show, it'd be a spirit explosion. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. So what's the difference between attending, say, a Christian movie or a concert and being part of a church? They both involve a bunch of people listening to someone talk about Jesus and chances are a lot of the people there are Christians, but that's not all church is supposed to be. Today Pastor J.D. reminds us that we're called to be so much more than just an audience at church. We've all been given spiritual gifts and we're supposed to use them. Pastor J.D. titled today's message Gifted and it's part of our study of the Holy Spirit titled Rushing Wind.

Let's get started. First Corinthians 12 one. Now concerning pneumaticon is the word in Greek. It is translated in your Bible spiritual gifts.

That's an okay translation. It's really, you really, the most literal translation would be spirituals. It's just spiritual manifestations, the essence of the spirit.

Now concerning spirituals, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. Verse four, now there are varieties of gifts, charismata. Charis is where we get the word grace from.

Mata is where you have the idea of gifts. So there are a variety of grace gifts, graces you might say, but the same spirit. There are varieties of diakonia, which is where we get our word deacon. It just means servanthood. So varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of energema, energema where we get our word energy from.

It means energies, activities, right? But it is the same God who empowers them all for everyone. So you see what he's doing?

He's kind of stumbling through trying to describe what these are. He's like, well, they're like manifestations, they're spirituals, they're energies, they're serving, but it's the same God doing all of them. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. To whom? To whom? To each.

That's right. Who's an each in here? Everybody's an each, right? Look at the person on your right.

Look at the person on your left. That's an each. There's an each. You're an each. Everyone an each, each. We're just all each, okay? So to each is given a manifestation of the spirit for the common good, okay?

That's our text. Now I've got, you know, pastors always seem to do things in threes. It's like, you know, the Trinity's threes, so therefore all of our sermons should have three points, right?

I got six for y'all this morning, so boom, all right? Number one. Number one, a spiritual gift very simply is Jesus pursuing his mission through the members of his church. Number two, every believer has one.

Every believer has one. Verse seven, to each, to each one of you that is a believer in Jesus, to each is given. Number three, the gifts are given for the common good of the church. One of the many problems that the Corinthians had is that they thought that their spiritual gifts made them like spiritual superheroes, manifestations of their own personal awesomeness, and so they were proud about their spiritual gifts, and they boasted in their spiritual gifts. They seemed to look at spiritual gifts almost like spiritual X-Men powers, you know, where you kind of identify yourself by this awesome gift you have, or like you get zapped with spiritual Spider-Man powers. That's how the Corinthians looked at this, is they thought that their spiritual gifts gave them an elevated status above everybody else, and Paul's going to tell them that not only does that show that they are unbelievably immature, it shows that they neither understand the gospel or the purpose of the gifts.

Let's keep moving here. Number four, no believer has them all. No believer has them all. You see in verse seven, to each was given something that everybody else needed. God didn't give all the gifts to anybody. Jesus had all the gifts. Jesus had them all.

He did, but nobody else after him got them all. Down in verse 12, Paul's going to use an analogy, a metaphor to press this home. Every member of the body, he says.

You can look down your Bible and see it. Every member is unique. Every member performs a different function. If the eye suddenly decides that it's more important than the foot, and you could see how the eye would think that, right? I mean, the eyes are a pretty delicate piece of equipment. I mean, it does some things that no other part of the body can do. The foot, not so much. It's kind of a clumsy instrument, you think. I know I'll have a podiatrist over here with a diagram later, but you know what I'm saying. It doesn't have the sophistication of an eye. The foot produces odor. The eye kind of takes care of itself.

I mean, it's just, you know. But if the eye decides that it's more important than the foot, and the eye decides to get rid of the foot, then the eye, yeah, it can do some pretty amazing things, but without the foot, it's going to be seeing the same thing all the time because it can't go anywhere and see anything new. And Paul says it's all the members of the body that end up creating the body.

God designed the church like that so that each member is dependent on the others. When God wants to work in the world, he rarely does it directly. He does it through the members of his body. That's what the whole analogy is for.

Here's the way I always explain it. You know, if you, if your left elbow itches, right, and so it sends a little message up to the brain, how does your brain fix that? Does it send down like magical brain power to, you know, just, you know, blast the itch and dissolve it? Is that what it does? No, your brain sends a message over here to your right fingers and say to your right fingers, brother elbow has an itch.

You need to go fix that. And then, you know, brother fingers here, brother right fingers, through no self-interest of its own, it's not itching, goes over and relieves the itch. Brother elbow says thank you and everybody's happy because the way that the brain resolved the problem in the elbow was through the fingers. When God wants to work in the church, he does it through the members of his church, which means that when you separate yourself all from intimate connection with your church, you separate yourself all from access to the power of God. That's what that means. And it means that you've got no right to sit around and ask for God's power if you have disconnected yourself from an intimate connection with the local church. You're sitting around going, God, I need guidance in this area. And God, I'm gonna show you this in a minute, God's like, I put guidance in the spirit, I put it in the body of Christ, and if you're not connected to them, you're not gonna get my guidance. Well, God, my marriage is all messed up. My wife, she lost her mind and I don't know what to do, right? And you're disconnected from a church, God's gonna say, of course, your marriage is all messed up.

My means for communicating and healing was my local church. You're like, well, I don't know, should I date this person? Should I be going over here?

Should I do that? I got this temptation I can't seem to overcome, I can't shake, I can't break it, I got this addiction. God's like, my power for all those things is rarely going to just come down as a laser beam from heaven where I just fix that. I distribute myself, my power, my gifts into the local church so that when you, listen, when you separate yourself from the local church and ask God for his power, that's what the Jewish people would have called chutzpah. You know what that word means, chutzpah? And yes, you pronounce it by hockering, chutzpah. Chutzpah, it's like a brawny self-confidence, it's totally unaware of how brazen and rude it's been. I've always heard it like the guy who kills his mom and dad and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.

You're like, that's, you can't do that. That's chutzpah. For you to ask God for his power and his work in your life and then separate yourself from his means of giving you that power is chutzpah. There is no lone ranger spirituality, period. There is no, I am complete in Christ and therefore I don't need the church. You are complete in Christ. But the way God continues to work in your life is through intimate connection with his body, the local church. No believer has given them all. He distributed them to make us dependent on one another. Hey, give you one other angle on this.

I know I'm making this on a long point, but number two was so quick, I got some time on this one, all right. You know what this does when you recognize that God has given individual different gifts? Listen, this applies to about 10% of you, but this 10%, this is gonna help. This sets you free from the tyranny of always feeling like you're never doing enough for God. There's a certain personality type I'm talking to right now.

I was his personality type. After I got right with God, it was like everybody that came along had an agenda. I'm like, well, real Christians care about that.

Therefore, I gotta be involved in that. Real Christians do missions. I took 25 mission trips in 10 years, no joke. Real Christians do evangelism. I was out Friday nights, walking up and down Hillsboro Street at one point, sharing Christ. Real Christians do that kind of evangelism. Real Christians care about the poor. Real Christians care about racial reconciliation. Real Christians are not children. Real Christians are involved in fostering. Real Christians want to be involved in the public schools.

Real Christians care about political action. Just any number of things, and no matter what happened, I was always like, it's never enough. I just got something else. Every new agenda came along.

It's like, I gotta do that. You know where you were released from that tyranny is when you understand this concept of spiritual gifts. Listen, not everything that comes from heaven has your name on it. Not everything that comes from heaven has your name on it. They're God's agenda, and you should be sympathetic to that agenda.

In your own way, you should support that agenda, but that doesn't mean that it becomes your agenda, because you are a creature of limited bandwidth. God knows that, and God knows that you're not Jesus, and you're not him. Therefore, he did not lay all these things on your shoulder and say, go fix the world. What he gave you is a gift, and you operate out of that gift. You know how one of the ways God taught me this?

This is such a sweet, kind of ironic way. When I first really drilled this home to me, I realized that he had given me a part of my day every single day where he was supposed to be teaching me this. It's called sleep, because you know, I go to sleep, and I'm so type A. I'm like, if I didn't have to sleep, I could just get so much done, and it's like God whispering in heaven. It's like, yep, and that's why I make you go to sleep, because you're not me, and I never want you to think that you are, so I don't ever sleep. God doesn't sleep. He never slumbers, so God puts me on my back for eight hours just to remind me I'm not him.

I need sleep. Therefore, I'm not the creator. He's the creator, and ultimately, he's the one that blesses his church, and I've got a few gifts, and I'm going to work in those gifts, and I'm going to be sympathetic to your gifts, and we're going to support one another in our gifts, but I understand that there's a limited bandwidth I have and a few gifts, and I'm going to build my life around those gifts and that calling.

Does that make sense? Not everything that comes from heaven has your name on it, okay? All right, let's keep going.

Now, by the way, 10% of you, the other 9% of you are lazy, and you need to get busier with something, all right? Number five, number five, real church only happens when all are contributing. Real church, real church only happens when all are contributing.

Let me jump ahead to our text for next week. 1 Corinthians 14, 26, when you come together like this, church, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. Listen very closely, Paul's expectation of a worship service is that everybody come with something to give.

Let me ask you something, be very honest. Was that your expectation coming in this morning? Oh, God has given me a word of exhortation. God's given me an insight. God's given me a word for somebody. I'm just going to be walking around kind of looking for who it is I'm supposed to speak this into.

God, I need to be here praying over somebody, because God has put this on my spirit and my heart. Is that how you came to church? I would say probably many of you, that's not how you came to church, just being honest, right?

I mean, you came to church, and here's what your mentality is. You come, we sit, he gives. This is what you pay me for. I'm the giver. You're the receiver. Our worship team gives in their way. You sit there, and you receive. That's what this time is for.

Can I tell you something I'm very burdened about? Something is how weak we are in this. According to Paul, a New Testament worship service is when three things are manifestly present. The word of God, the spirit of God, and the people of God.

The word of God, the spirit of God, and the people of God. Churches like ours, mega churches, baptismic churches, we really get the word of God thing, right? So you have a 50-minute sermon, and the word of God, and you sit, and you take notes, and that's awesome.

That needs to be there, right? But then the spirit of God, you're like, where does that come in? I guess the spirit's kind of working in the preacher a little bit, telling them what to say.

I hope that's happening. People of God, well, people of God just sit there. That's not a New Testament worship service. A New Testament worship service is when the whole place is contributing. They're all filled with the spirit, and they are all contributing to what's happening there. I'll tell you one of the times recently that this really was driven home is our team took a trip to one of these mega churches that's just like, I mean, extraordinary in their production. I mean, it's just like, I mean, they got their stuff together. Everything's on a glossy brochure when the preacher smiles, pyrotechnics fly out of his teeth.

I mean, it's awesome. And we're there, but one of our guys afterwards made the reflection. I thought it was so insightful, and I don't want to tell you the name of the church because I'm not trying to be critical. He said, when? He said, the thing was, he said, in that worship service, if the audience had, nobody had been there, the worship service would not have gone any differently. It was like, okay, the moment came in, the lights went down, spotlight comes on, the guy gets up with his guitar, he's backed up by the band. There probably was an instruction like, stand to your feet, they go through their songs, everybody sits down, the preacher gets up, gives a funny, engaging sermon.

He does it, there's an announcement, a video, and boom, they all go home. He's like, there could have been not a soul in that room, and it all would have gone exactly the same. He said, and for that matter, if there was no God, it could have all gone exactly the same. That is so different, you see, from what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 14, 26. Do you see that?

Right? About the same time, I went to another friend of mine's church that I had the privilege of speaking at, and when, I'm telling you, that service, it was big, it was about this size, but I mean, the whole congregation was there. I mean, they were, I mean, they were praying over one another, and they showed up early to pray, and they were praying over the same, they were praying this, they were, of course, they were responsive in worship, they were at points in the service, some of them would give a word of exhortation to the congregation, the Spirit of God was alive, he was moving, I felt like I was in a congregation of people. The Word of God, the people of God, the Spirit of God, and this is an area that we really need to grow in, because I'm telling you, I don't think most of you, I don't think, what if you came to church just bubbling up, I got this word, I got the Spirit, I got this, I got this gift that God has given me, I gotta look for somewhere to use it, you know what would happen? It wouldn't be a preaching show, it'd be a Spirit explosion, but that's not how most of you come, most of you come, and you sit there, and you're like, give it to his pastor, and I hope you're a good preacher, because if you get three weeks to be off, and then I go to another church, because that's what this is about, this is about you entertaining me, and you feeding me, and this is you, I'll prove it to you, this is gonna, all right, ready? I'll prove it to you, when I say, at the end of the message, let's all bow our heads for prayer, there is no less than 50 of you that stand up and walk out.

You wanna know why you do that? You do that because you came to hear and to receive, and because that's done, because that part's done, you got your Jesus McNuggets, you're gonna head home. Now, let me just be very clear with you, okay? You are welcome to come to church here and do that, you really are. Our ushers are trained not to look at you judgmentally when you walk out.

They will divert their head, because, I mean, you know, we know that you might have an emergency every single week, we know that, that you might have, we understand that, and you're welcome to do that, you really are. I realize you're probably not gonna do it today, because you're like, oh, that guy is so sneaky, new levels of sneakiness all the time. Yeah, I realize you're not gonna do it today, but you're welcome to do that, but do you realize what that says about your mentality to God? What a miserable Christian experience, what a miserable Christian experience, because you haven't even gotten the first elements of discipleship that it's more blessed to give than to receive.

The joy of the Christian life is not when you come like a reservoir and receive, the joy in the Christian life is when you are giving and operating in the Spirit so that you are contributing as well as receiving. All right, so you guys, you didn't think I saw you, I see you, because when I pray, I pray with one eye open, I'm like, same guy. I can see, and I know that you guys at other campuses, by the way, I know that I cannot see you at all, you could all get up and leave, and I would never have any idea, but Jesus sees you, and it hurts his heart, it really does.

All right, let's keep going, let's keep going. Paul says this, verse 8, for the one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom. I'm gonna explain these really, really quickly, and then next week we're gonna spend the whole week on these, okay, so don't feel like, oh, he cheated us out, I don't wanna know what that means, I'll tell you what they mean, but then next week we're gonna dive more into them. Wisdom is insight into the will of God about things that are not necessarily clear, right? I mean, there's a lot of things in the will of God that are very clear, do not murder.

You come to me like, you know, I'm thinking about murdering this person, should I do that or not? I'm gonna be like, do not murder, it's right there, okay, so wisdom, though, is all those areas where there's not really a chapter and verse, you know, should I marry this person, should I go to school here, what's the best way to handle this situation? That is the spiritual gift of wisdom that God gives, not to everybody, but to some people in his church to be able to ascertain his will and to be able to speak it in. That's the spiritual gift of wisdom, to some he gives that, to another utterances of knowledge.

Think of that with Jesus when he's talking to the woman at the well, and he's like, hey, go get your husband and bring him here, and the woman's like, I don't have no husband, and all of a sudden, boom, light goes off in Jesus' mind, that's the Holy Spirit, and he says, that's right, you don't have a husband, you've had five husbands. That's a supernatural insight, that happens in the church, it oughta happen more here, where God gives somebody insight into somebody else's life and to say, I know exactly what to pray for in you. And I'm not claiming to be some kind of weird gypsy prophet, I'm just telling you that God put this on my heart, and I'm gonna ask you, is this true?

And if it's true, I just wanna pray for you. That's the utterance of knowledge to another faith by the same Spirit. That's not like believe in Jesus for salvation kind of faith, because we all get that. That's faith to perceive what God wants to do in a situation and to ask him to do it. I've got the faith to believe that he wants to do this, and I'm going to ask, that's where you see miracles and healings.

I know that he wants to heal, I know he wants to do this miracle, and I'm gonna believe God for it. To another prophecy, prophecy is when you speak the word of God or the will of God into somebody's life. Sometimes it's with the chapter and verse, sometimes it's more like what I said a minute ago with wisdom, where you're perceiving this and saying, I think God wants you to know this.

We'll get into that more next week, but that's the gift of prophecy. Doesn't mean, by the way, that when you do that latter thing, where you say, I think God wants you to know this, that you're claiming to speak Scripture. It's not on the level of Scripture, but it's just you're saying, I think God's Spirit might be urging me to guide you in this way. To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. That's the ability to know when somebody's speaking for God, if they're telling the truth or not. To another, various kinds of tongues. To another, the interpretation of those tongues. Glossalia is that word. A definition of tongues is when you worship God in a language that is unfamiliar to you.

Glossalia is when you worship God in a language that's unfamiliar to you. We'll get into that next week, the interpretation of those tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. Now, real quick, this is one of six different spiritual gift lists found in the New Testament. These three verses here, that's one list. There are two more lists found in 1 Corinthians.

There is one in Ephesians one in Romans and one in 1 Peter. Here's the thing, none of them, none of them give the same list. There are some overlaps, but there are at least 22 different gifts noted and no list exhaustively covers them all. There is the gift of, don't try to write this down, there is the gift of the apostle, the prophet, the teacher, miracles, healings, helps, administration, tongues, interpretation of tongues, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, distinguishing between spirits, gift of the evangelist, pastor, teacher, servant, encouraging, contributing, leadership, mercy, marriage, and everyone's favorite, celibacy. Okay, those are the 22 gifts. 22 gifts, six different lists, everyone giving different gifts, no list containing all of them. What does that mean? Why did I just point all that out to you? There is no exhaustive list and you think about it wrong when you think about a chart like an alphabet where you got like you got these letters and you've got only this set of letters and you're giving them out.

You got a B, you got a C, you got D, you got A. That's the wrong way to approach spiritual gifts. A spiritual gift is whatever God wants to do in the world through His church. There may not be an exhaustive checklist of spiritual gifts, but we know the Spirit empowers us so that we can be part of the mission of Jesus using both our natural gifts and our spiritual gifts from God. This is Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. To catch up on previous messages in our study of the Holy Spirit, visit us online at jdgreer.com. We have a new resource from Pastor J.D. It's a 20-day devotional guide called Rushing Wind, Understanding the Holy Spirit, and it goes right along with our current teaching series. And J.D., I know you have a specific aim in mind with this study, so what do you hope listeners will take away? Yeah, using an interactive devotional like this will help you by directing you just a little bit of time each day to better understand the Holy Spirit, to not just take concepts that you're hearing, but then applying them. I heard one time, Molly, that people forget almost 80 percent of what they hear in a sermon.

Now, I know our Summit Life listeners, they are a cut above, and they're like, I'm at least, you know, I'm remembering 40 percent at least, double. That's great, but having something that daily takes you into the Bible and that asks you a couple of reflection questions, and maybe most importantly, leads you to pray the things you're learning back to God, to ask His Spirit for help in applying them. That's what this devotional is designed to do. It covers 20 weeks.

You can take it at whatever pace works for you. Each part is going to have a short scripture passage, a devotional, a reflection, and a prayer prompt to guide you with the goal of creating consistency and facilitating intimacy. Take a look at it at jdgrier.com. When you call us, you'll have the option of donating to support this ministry so we can continue to equip people with Gospel-centered teaching every day on your radio station. When you give the suggested level of $25 or more, we'll say thanks by sending you Pastor JD's newest resource. It's our 20-day devotional that's all about the Holy Spirit. It includes teaching from Pastor JD, reflection questions, and a prayer guide for each day. You can ask for a copy of this book called Rushing Wind, Understanding the Holy Spirit when you donate by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or go online to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Thanks for being with us this week. I'd like to invite you to join us again next week when Pastor JD actually helps us discover what our spiritual gifts are. So we'll see you then right here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.