Life Lived Trhough The GIfts Of The Spirit

It is the uniqueness of these gifts given by the Holy Spirit, by grace, with a measure of faith to every individual believer. That’s the emphasis here. And in verse 12, that is the reason, though the body is one, it has many members, and these members have many, many functions. Now, some of those gifts, as you know, were sign gifts that were unique to the apostolic error, miracles, healing, speaking foreign languages that were unlearned, and having the ability to interpret or translate foreign languages without knowing the language. Those were temporary sign gifts.

There are other gifts that are permanent gifts, and some of those are indicated here as well. One other passage in 1 Peter 4, the discussion of those differences is for another time. But 1 Peter 4 gives us another look at this issue of giftedness, and it comes back again to the same kind of language. We are called, according to verse 8, to fervent love for one another, fervent love for one another. The word there is fervent, ektanis. It’s a word that refers to the stretching of a muscle to its limits. We are to love to the extreme of our capacity to love.

That’s how we’re to love one another. That kind of love will cover a multitude of sins. And then in verse 10, again, we’re back to this individual emphasis, as each one has received a gift. As each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Again, the grace of God is the source of this gift. It is a gift of grace unearned. It is given by God uniquely to each individual. He divides these gifts into two categories. Whoever speaks, do it as one who is speaking the utterance of God.

Whoever serves, do it as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. So there are speaking gifts and serving gifts. There are verbal gifts and nonverbal gifts in that sense. Every one of us is given a gift. This gift is a gift of grace. This gift is accompanied by the measure of faith so that it can operate. We can believe in the use of that gift because we are granted the faith for the measure of that gift. How are we to understand this? If you compare Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, they’re different categories mentioned, which means they’re not hard and fast gifts.

In the past, there have been people who have tried to identify these gifts as kind of fixed gifts, and they’ve even put out tests that you can take, surveys you can run through, to find out precisely and exactly what gift you have. That’s not the way to understand them. The fact that Peter writes and doesn’t even define the categories. Paul defines the categories very loosely and even throws in some apostolic gifts. Does that in writing to the Corinthians? But in Romans there’s even a different list. Let’s you know that these are not very tight categories, but rather broad areas of giftedness in serving and speaking.

And the best way to understand it is this, that the gift that you have is uniquely yours. It’s as if these categories are colours on a palette, and God dips his brush and paints you with a mix of the colours available on the palette. If somebody would say to me, what is your gift? I would say the gift that’s given to me is the combination of abilities in the spirit that enabled me to minister to the body of Christ. It isn’t one thing. Sometimes it’s preaching, sometimes it’s teaching, sometimes it’s leading.

And there are other things that are fit into that, that make my kind of preaching and my kind of teaching have an emphasis different than someone else’s preaching and teaching. This is the gift that is given to me, and in that sense, I’m a spiritual snowflake, and so are you. God blends together these categories so that you are uniquely you, and God has painted you exactly the colour that he wants you to be, to fit into the beauty of the picture that he’s painting of his church. Another way to understand that would be to say, if you don’t do what you’ve been gifted to do, what you’ve been gifted to do doesn’t get done, because this isn’t all about sticking anybody in where you might be.

Categories of giftedness, broad categories of giftedness, and speaking and serving blended together into individual gifts. We’re not talking about talents, we’re not talking about abilities, we’re not talking about natural capability, we’re talking about supernatural abilities granted by the Holy Spirit to function with a spiritual impact in the body of Christ to the benefit of others. You have to see that as your life. We talked about spiritual snowflakes. How about fingerprints? Every one of us have different fingerprints. God has marked us out and identified us uniquely by our fingerprints, and so has he by our giftedness.

You cannot develop a test that can in a hard and fast way discern a gift. I want to give my life to the church, using the gifts that I possess by the Holy Spirit, as a way in which, really the premier way, in which individually, I can give honour to the giver of my gift, to the giver. You say, well, how do I know what my gift is? It’s not difficult. You don’t need to analyse it. What spiritual ministry do you do? And when you do it is blessed by God, and you find in it joy and satisfaction.

That’s the kind of question you ask. And some of you would have a hard time asking and answering that, because you’re not doing anything. All right, number two. We should be motivated to use our gifts because of the source from which they come. And secondly, because of the cost by which they were provided, the cost. Come down into Ephesians chapter four, and a very powerful portion of Scripture will pick it up in verse eight. Therefore it says, he who, when he ascended on high, he led captive, a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.

Then it goes on to talk about, he ascended, he descended. What is this about? Well, it’s at first a little bit obscure, I admit. Paul is using a kind of parenthetical analogy here, and he’s drawing his words from Psalm 68, from Psalm 68, so that verse eight is kind of a general illusion to the Old Testament verse from Psalm 68, that is a victory hymn composed by David to celebrate God’s conquest of the Jebusite city that became Jerusalem, and the triumphant and ascent of God to Jerusalem represented by the Ark up on Mount Zion.

In other words, it’s a picture of God’s triumph in the past. After a king won a victory, he would bring home the spoils, and he would ascend to the highest hill in front of his people. He would be paraded, and he would bring with him the recovered captives that his enemies had captured, bringing home the POWs, if you will, the recaptured captives, prisoners who had been taken, and now were brought back to their homeland. This kind of imagery borrowed from the Psalm suits the Apostle, who pictures a triumphant Christ returning from his battle on earth to the glory of the heavenly city, and he’s brought with him the trophies of his great triumph and his great victory.

What he’s talking about in the fact that he descended is that Christ came to earth and that he then ascended, that he went back into glory. He’s looking at his incarnation, his death, his resurrection, in which he conquers Satan, conquers sin, conquers death, as indicated in Colossians 2.15. And by that triumphant victory, he goes back into glory. He ascends on high, verse 8, and leads captive, a host of captives. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of life lived through the gifts of the Spirit. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world.

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