[Sunday School] Holy Spirit 10

If you're looking for a church in Mount Juliet, TN, we'd love for you to come and visit us at 84 S Greenhill Rd (10:15 AM for Morning Worship and 5:00 PM for Evening Worship). For more information, please visit http://hickorygrovepca.org.

To give to the Lord's work at Hickory Grove, please text 'give' to (866) 860-7817 or visit https://www.hickorygrovepca.org/giving.

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:32

There we go. Now we're all being recorded. It's duly noted, so watch what you say. So last week we read a bunch of texts about spiritual gifts and uh stuff in 1 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. And we started to get, I wrote down some questions. We started kind of an answer of the first question. Why do we have spiritual gifts? And maybe we'll start out there. And I will try really hard to direct our conversation, but we will be moving a little more conversational this class, I think. So why do we have spiritual gifts? Build up the church. Build up the church. Very good. Um other comments or thoughts on how we might say that. Well, it's your individual way of ministering. Okay, it's your individual method of ministering. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

I would think we're kind of born in the pattern, fashion that God wanted us to be. And He wakes us up, makes us allowed we find God however you look at it. I think that gift's just kind of awake, and I think if you believe in God and you profess, and you know He's in your life and the Holy Spirit is in you, that gift will manifest whenever that.

SPEAKER_07 1:52

Okay, good. So the gift will manifest uh uh when God brings us to life in Christ. Yeah, okay. Good, so good passage just to refer back to scripture here. It's like 1 Corinthians 12, 7, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Okay, and so it's quite like building up the church, your individual way of ministering. We have those who are in Christ, who are united with Christ, are given a gift in the Spirit to minister, right? To others for the common good. Okay, well that's great and helpful, and yet it doesn't really tell me what I'm supposed to do today or tomorrow or the next day, does it, right? It tells me why I have a gift, but it doesn't really tell me how to use it or what to do with it.

SPEAKER_08 2:42

So there's times too which real long as you're not very good at, but I know there's certain things I don't want to get, I don't get into because God has not anointed me in those areas.

SPEAKER_07 2:55

Yeah, so that would be like what gift I have might not be suited to some particular kind of ministry. Well, let's let's move on. I started thinking about this question a little bit. Let's read Exodus 28 through 11. So it's kind of ground I seem, which is just the one of the Ten Commandments here. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, or your son or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth to see and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. So now let's ask this question. When can and should we or I use my spiritual gifts?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

When the Holy Spirit leads.

SPEAKER_07 3:57

When the Holy Spirit leads, okay. Alright, that's a good starting point. Am I allowed to use my spiritual gift on Monday? Yes. What about Wednesday? Only if it's raining. Only if it's raining. What about Friday? Okay. Alright, good. So when we think about our spiritual gifts, it's easy, I think, to narrow down my view of well, it's like a Sunday morning church thing, right? Am I allowed to use my spiritual gifts on Sunday morning at church? Yes. Should I? Yes, I think. But that's not the only time or place or way to use my spiritual gifts, okay? Alright. Where should I use my spiritual gifts?

SPEAKER_04 4:56

I think we're overcomplicating it. Like Jesus was a carpenter. He had the gift of carpenter. Didn't make him less Jesus, he was still moved, right? By his partner by himself. And when we become Christians, if you love God and the Holy Spirit's in you, you like somebody asked me, well, what do you think you do with your life or what do you do with your gifts a little while back? I said, Whatever you want, the Holy Spirit's in you. You feel like helping a hobo, that's what the Spirit drew you to do. Go do that. You know, see where it goes. Things will just come out of you.

SPEAKER_07 5:29

Okay. So sounds like a lot, a lot of freedom here to do what we want, and and how you're thinking about that. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

So, I mean, we'd have to go back to, I think, why we have the spiritual gift. And for me, I would say why we have the spiritual gift is because we are, because God created us with a purpose. And God created us with a purpose. He gave us the tools that we need to fulfill that purpose. So when do we use that when God needs us to fulfill our purpose?

unknown 6:10

When is that?

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Every time He needs us, which is any time He needs us. It could be today, tomorrow, it could be in the morning, it could be in the evening. It's just going, I guess, along with what Jim was saying, it's when we're we're called by God.

SPEAKER_07 6:30

And that could be any time. What's invert the question? When is the time that we're not supposed to be? When we're unconscious. When we're sleeping. Okay, so while while we're it's not a good answer. It's pretty hard to use our spiritual gifts when we're sleeping, but what about dreams?

SPEAKER_08 6:53

Well, first of all, spiritual gifts are not for us.

SPEAKER_07 6:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 6:56

They're for us to give, to service, to do ministry. In other words, it is for other people. And it's the way we minister to other people. Okay, so and there's 22 different gifts. So each one of them, every one of us knows there's one area that's better than the others when you're dealing with it. You don't have to go through any kind of test. But I think every one of us knows at times when they're sharing their faith. And understand, and then multitude of ways and situations. And um, there's times when I've been amazed that God has used me at times. And uh so it's I think sometimes we we have a tendency to think it's for us. It's not for us, it's the way we minister to other people. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 7:54

Well that's good. Um so that's back to the why question. Why do we have these? We have these to build up other people, not to benefit ourselves. Okay. Sounded like we're not forbidden from using them, say, any day of the week. Right. Um we'll skip over the where for a second, we'll come back. Who should I use them for? If we have them for other people, which is, I think, what scripture has pointing us toward. You know, we've been given gifts for the common good, right? To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Let's look at these two passages in Galatians. Galatians 6.10, Galatians 5, 14. Who should I use them for? 6.10. We'll start at 6.10. We might end up coming back and reading a little bit more of this, because there's this is kind of sandwiched in a bunch of stuff about the Spirit, actually. But 6.10. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. And then earlier in this letter, Paul says, For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So who should I use my spiritual gifts for? We have them for the common good, but who is in that common good? So here's maybe a more pointed way of asking a question. Um we're a particular group of people meeting on the Sabbath, on Sunday, whatever you want to refer to it as. So we certainly, it seems like we ought to be using our gifts among each other, right? To minister to each other. But what about my neighbor? Or what about the church across the street? You know, who who should be the benefactor of the gifts that God has given to me?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Well, if you're speaking of love, there love is the greatest. There are two things that God has commanded us. First, to love him above all others, so our gifts should go to praise him first and foremost.

unknown 10:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

And then love others, as this person says too. So I would say, who are these for? They're for the glory of God and for loving others.

unknown 10:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 10:39

They're for the glory of God and for loving others. Let me drill down a little bit further. It says we should do especially do good to those who are in the household of faith. Who are those folks and who are not those folks?

SPEAKER_04 10:50

I was about to say it's for those for which the Father had given him. Jesus talks in one passage and he says he prays for those which the Father gave him. I don't know who they are. Right? So I might be at a grocery store, and that's why I say the gift's innate. It's just always there. And you're talking to people. They can't be a recipient of the gift if they don't know what they're hearing, right? But those which the Father gave him know. You know what I'm saying? I know that sounds weird, but it's kind of like God knows who his people are.

SPEAKER_07 11:23

I I don't necessarily. No, that's a good point. God knows, so one way to put it in our kind of framework of this church is we talk about the elect sometimes, right? Yes, yes, there are those who God foreknew and chose, right? Those are the elect. And those seem like they ought to be members of the household of faith, I think, when I look at scripture. But that line of division uh is not around this particular church. Like, and I might not know who those people are. So the point I'm I'm raising this question because I'll just give an example personally for me. So the I walk almost every day, I take a break from work. I sit at work at home, and I my back starts to hurt or whatever. I'm like, I gotta get up and like move around. And my neighbor was driving by a few weeks ago and just kind of pulled over and said, Hey, you know, I see you walking all the time, and I've just never met you, and I wanted to say hi, and and it turns out he's a Christian, and so then we started going on walks together, like kind of once a week, and then we spent some time praying together, right? He doesn't go to this church. He lives two houses, three houses down from me in my neighborhood. And um, you know, that seems like a pretty it's been a great thing. It's been really good to just walk with my neighbor and then spend some time praying together. I think he's in the member of the household of faith, right? But he doesn't go to this particular church. And it's sort of shifted my mindset, just that interaction with him, which I think he kind of, if you, if I he's not here to say this, but the impression I got from how he was talking about his I mean he was driving down the road, just like stopped his car and started talking to me, right? And I think he really was prompted by the Holy Spirit to do that. If if that's how he would categorize that activity, right? He really felt like I need to stop. And so I think that was God through the Holy Spirit making connection to members of the household of faith. And the reason I bring it up, oh yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

Jeremy, I think maybe in kind of support of that, you know. So in Galatians 5.14, you know what you have out there, you know, Paul says, he quotes, you know, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You know, I mean, and you know, when Jesus uses, you know, styts this temporary commandment, the more famous parable is, you know, is the Samaritan. And this example of if this is the whole law, you know, it's not the Samaritan showing Christian love helping someone beaten up in his community. It's the Samaritan who the Jews seemed as these uh racial hybrid outsiders who's helping a random guy who doesn't even know. You know, that Jesus is an example of like this is your neighbor. It's like this is what it looks like, you know, to love your neighbor. And it says, you know, additionally the Jesus, this is what greater love. He says, is those people, is that someone who laid down their life, you know, to die from something. He says we might do that for a good man. He was like, but that's that that's that extreme Christian love, that going out to love your neighbor, the that very broad definition of neighbor, you know, not just Jake, because I've known him a long time. Um but just the the person I know at kind of Jim Moses in the grocery store who I would see walking, because I don't I don't know their spiritual state, but you know, I might have a spiritual appointment with them today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 15:16

Yeah, that's good. So this for those in here, I think the a summary is that kind of Jesus points to loving our neighbor is a very broad thing in the passage about the good Samaritan who's sort of these outcasts of society. The Samaritan was the one who showed love, right? Um, and Jesus asks, who's our neighbor? We're asking an analogous question, right? Who is a member of the household of faith? It's not who's my neighbor exactly, but partly. And that's really good, thanks, Jason. Okay, so one thing I'm driving, I am driving at a point here, and I'm not not put it out explicitly. Well, I'll put it out explicitly. I think for me, and I I'm not gonna, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to teach this class because I wanted to learn about this stuff, and so I don't consider myself an expert on any of these things, and I'm kind of learning along with you. But one thing that I've started to learn through the interaction with my neighbor through this class, it's interesting that I was teaching the class when that interaction interaction happened, right? Was just that my view, and I don't know about your view, I don't know what your views are, but my view of the church and the use of the gifts was actually very narrow before I started studying this. And I was like, if it's like, how do I serve Sunday morning? Um, who, you know, even this question of who's a member of the household of faith, and I can tell you, my neighbor and I do not have the same views on theology, right? And those are interesting conversations when we're trying to wrestle, talk about, you know, I've I've my wife and I go to this church, and our son, we baptized our church, our son here before he professed faith. Well, that's an interesting conversation with my neighbor who goes to a Baptist church, right? Um, you got your response. No, so anyway, I think the point for me is it's ex- it's ex uh I feel I feel like I'm growing or or um moving to have a wider view of what it means every day of the week to use my gifts and how might I do that, and who would I do that with? And I don't even here's a weird a weird thing for me when I think about the elect is I don't really know, at least not with a high degree of certainty for each of you, which ones of you are elect, right? We come here, we meet Sunday morning, I don't know. At the end of the day, so it could be that there are people here who are not members of a household of faith in a certain way. I don't know, but in another way, I think my view is that in a different way, we're all kind of called to treat anybody who claims Jesus as Lord and Savior as a member of the household of faith. Right? I don't, it's not up to me to judge. You know, it doesn't mean they're that I agree with their theology or all those other things, but yeah, Rick.

SPEAKER_10 18:03

Well, I mean, in Galatians 16, it says do good. So we're we're connecting that with spiritual gifts. So we're assuming you know, spiritual gifts are good, and doing doing spiritual gifts are good. That doesn't, if I don't have the gift of service, let's say, that doesn't mean I can't do service. You know, it just might not be that, that might not be a spiritual gifting, but yeah, but I do think it's that's a very interesting scripture because he's saying, do good to everybody, but especially to the household of faith. So he's giving a priority in how we use these gifts. Say the priority is to the household of faith, because if we don't build up the household of faith, we're all done. So his church, Christ's church, is the priority. Keeping that pure, keeping that alive, keeping that healthy. Uh so I want to be very focused on making sure if God's giving me a gift, I want to find out how I can use that in my church. That's a priority. That we we need to use our gifts here. That doesn't mean we're excluded from using them in other places, and God wants us to. But He's just given us a priority. The first priority is taking care of the church, and that's what the gifts are for, to building up the body, and then also to doing good to everyone. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_07 19:34

Yeah, let's unpack it though. So let's say you said we're prior, I mean, uh scripture seems clear, we're to do good, especially to the household of faith. But on the gift use, it's an interesting practical question for all of us to wrestle with. We come to church on Sundays. Uh is your suggestion that during the Sunday service we're all supposed to be finding ways to use our gifts? Or is it something?

SPEAKER_10 20:00

I'll give you an example, just as a filmmaker. So there's all these, and I'll I'll I'll yell and scream about this in these film conference, these film gathering conference things. So they have this thing that's called faith adjacent, right? That's a title of a film. It's faith adjacent, right? If I'm adjacent to something, by definition, I'm not that thing. I'm kind of close to it. I'm next to it, but I'm not in it. So we have these talented filmmakers, and they're all, this is what everyone's doing. The whole community of Christian filmmakers are doing faith adjacent because they want to reach the world and they want to, you know, get it, get a film that's going to do$10 million a box office, right? And so I'm going to get the big budget, I'm going to get all that. So I want to get to everybody. I'm going to I want to do good for everyone. And then they forget the household of faith. They say, well, Christian films for Christians are just kind of cheesy. So they're not, so they don't use the gift. They don't make films for the household of faith, right? So when the Roman brothers do make one for the household of faith called Jesus Revolution, it's the most proper film they've ever made, ever. But for some reason, that, you know, the thought is, well, we want to, you know, not be too Christian. We're going to be adjacent to faith. So that's just one area, you know, of someone who's gifted as a filmmaker. That's just one thing. We all have these things that God's gifted us in. And the world will put carrots in front of us that we can chase after. And it's great to do good and to there's nothing wrong with making money selling genes or whatever it is you're doing, but I want to be sure my priority with whatever I'm doing is going to be benefiting the household of faith. I want to be sure that is a, so if I'm making a lot of money selling genes, I want to make sure I'm benefiting the household of faith with that. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_08 21:53

Yeah. But also, there's people that God brings into your life. And most of my witnessing have been the people who I have no idea what their background is or who or their religion even. But I can share with them what Jesus Christ is. And I was on a flight between Amsterdam and Bangkok, Thailand, and uh uh we were actually head to ear when they uh first got forward. Started, which was when they were bombing, we were flying in the Bangkok. And I had a Japanese, a Chinese guy sitting next to me. And he said, You're so calm. Why are you calm? And I said, Well, his opportunity to share, I said, Do you are you do you know are you a Christian? And he says, I'm nothing. And so I thought I spent the whole night witnessing to this guy, and he kept going back to his wife, sharing with her on our way to Taiwan. I tried to follow up on him, I don't know what it did, but at least I sparked the life of Jesus Christ in him. My strongest gift is teaching. And it's not preaching, it's teaching. And so it gave me an opportunity to use my gift at that particular time. Other people have other gifts. And God will put somebody in your life so that you can share your faith with them and whatever it is that your gift is.

SPEAKER_12 23:51

Yeah, I think we tend to, when it says uh the household of faith, that's bigger than this church. It's anybody who has been born again by God, right? And who knows who you're gonna run into that fits that narrative or you know that thing, being a part of God's power, huh? Criteria. Yeah, criteria. Um and so when it says in scripture we should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, you know, uh, that can be, you know, that can be anybody, Christian or non-Christian, but it can be, you know, uh encouraging a brother or sister in Christ that may be who knows where else, you know, I mean outside the wall, these four walls. I think we tend to think too small about what is the household of God.

SPEAKER_07 25:01

You know. Agreed, yeah. That was what I was trying to drive at, just this idea, I think, or I think I thought too small about that, and I'll put it about in the first person, because I don't, again, I don't know what you folks think or do most of the time. Um I thought too small about who, how to think about who was in the household of faith, and I tied it too close to a particular church rather than just the church, and then I thought too small about when and how it would look, could look like to be led by the Spirit, to use, to be moved, empowered by the Spirit to do good work that God has created for me. Sorry, I hate it. Yeah. Oh.

SPEAKER_09 25:48

Um, so we're trying to uh understand this passage in 21st century America, and it might help us understand the situation back in Paul's day. In the Greco-Roman world, the family was the focus. You invested everything in your family, all your money was to be used to elevate your family, uh, and the same focus was in Judaism as well. So that's why the Christian church stuck out in that culture because people gave, uh in the church, they gave to people. You had rich people and poor people rubbing shoulders uh in their services, uh, you had people selling property so that uh other people might have money to live on. Uh, and it was such a countercultural thing in their day. Um, whereas we're looking at living in the echoes of Christendom, uh, and everybody accepts the idea that you're helping other people. That was radical when Jesus said that in the book. And I think it's helpful for us to understand that that's the culture in which Paul was speaking.

SPEAKER_07 27:06

Make the point one more time for me. I'm trying to make sure I understand it.

SPEAKER_09 27:10

So for today, we accept this idea that help everybody. Everybody help everybody. It helps with the wealthiest culture that has ever existed, you know, we have no shortages. But the whole idea comes from Jesus Christ and was expressed by the church in a countercultural way in the first century. Okay, you didn't do that. All your money was to help your brother, you know, or your sister. Um, and I mean blood. That's what you're that's what all the family resources were for. And so today, as we look at that, we can make it very broad and say, of course, we're supposed to help everybody. Um we say that because we have so much wealth and we can do that. We get America gives money to everybody. You know, and that's a wonderful great thing. It's it's certainly good, yay. But but I think it's an important distinction to understand. That's that's what Paul made when he wrote this. You know, take care of the family. Because there were lots of poor Christians, lots of female Christians in the early days, you know, and these two groups did not have resources. And of and, you know, they invented the phrase that rich get richer.

SPEAKER_07 28:34

Yeah. That's it. It's powerful to read these texts about the body of Christ and to think about the culture of times. One way, let me, I don't know. There's a lot of scripture swimming in my head right now. But let's look at, we'll just go back to this stuff in 1 Corinthians for a second. Because I think touching on something important is that in the household of faith, nobody is more important than anybody else in a certain way, right?

SPEAKER_09 29:06

Can I make a request before we finish today? Would you just draw out a little more for us what the word manifest means in 1 Corinthians 12?

SPEAKER_07 29:15

I don't, not now, but but before we go. I'll try. I don't know if I know the answer, but I certainly can think about it more for next week, too. So 1 Corinthians 12. 12. For just as the body is one and has many members, all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. The body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our present unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are more presentable, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, the miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles, do all possess gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. And Paul goes on to speak about love. Okay, so I think what can happen, at least in my own thinking sometimes, is um well, I just partiality, right? I just think some things are better or more important than other things, and so I will diminish other things in my own thinking, right? And that's wrong. Paul is saying that every member, and I do this not on the basis of people. This is kind of sneaky how it works for me, is I won't look at somebody else, I won't look at Rick and I won't think explicitly like Rick is less than me or less than Kenny or whatever, right? That's not really how it works. It works on the basis of sort of, well, you know, like preaching is this very public sort of thing, so that must be more important than other kinds of things. Well, Kenny happens to preach, and so maybe Kenny's role is more important in the church than somebody else's role, okay? And this is, I think, your point about that. What's radical about the church, and particularly in that period of time, but also this period of time, is that in one spirit we all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. So there's this unity in the spirit. We all have the same Holy Spirit, we're all united into the same body of Christ. The body does not consist of one member, but of many. The foot can't say to the hand, I don't belong to the body, right? So if you're in Christ and you're a member of the Spirit, you belong to the body of Christ.

SPEAKER_09 33:40

You yeah, gotta say something. Sure. One of the things that I so appreciate about this church is that it is very counter-cultural. Our society silos us by groups, it stratifies us and says, you stay here and you stay there. And I'm just in this room, I'm seeing people from different generations. I live in a 55-plus community. You know, across the street is a group of, well, I call them civilians, you know, and once in a while they walk on our streets. Um but that, this church, this experience that I'm having this morning is countercultural. And I and I think it is a gift, a very attractive gift to the to the world.

SPEAKER_07 34:25

Yeah, it's important. I, you know, sometimes I think, and no offense to anyone here, but were it not for Christ, I wouldn't hang out with some of you, you know? Like, and I don't mean that in a mean way, it's just like I I think that's a powerful thing that the message of the gospel unites people who are so different. And in some ways you might look at us and think we're not that different. Um it's a manifestation of the spirit. It's a manifestation of the spirit, right?

SPEAKER_09 35:00

I think you're wrong on the passage.

SPEAKER_08 35:02

It's a lot better where it says that there are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit distributes them. There is a gift. But the same Lord. But there are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone, the same God is at work. Now, to the one, to each one has been manifested of the spirit. Now, this is a building of a church. These are basically what you need to have a healthy church. To one has been given the spirit of wisdom. So correct the pastor, you know, you've got to have a pastor, you've got to have a leader of it. To another is the spirit's a gifts of healing. Another is miraculous power of philosophy, of distinguishing between spirits, to others speaking in tongues. And all of these are the works of the one spirit. So if you're actually following that Romans 12 passage, you're giving a combination of what a church should consist of is the people that can preach, people who can serve, people who can teach, people who can serve. And the one that doesn't have a comparison in there is encouraging. Every one of us has a gift of encouraging another person. And that's the key one out of that whole passage. That's why I like to go back to the Roman school.

SPEAKER_07 36:39

That's good. Yeah, it's all good stuff. It's hard, it's hard to figure out how to untangle it. So I wanted to try to offer some practical guidance as best I can, recognizing that I am but a fallible human. And the you know, the maybe the last question was been how do I use them? And do I have to know the name of my spiritual gift to use it, right? Do I have to have a name for it to know what it is? And there are different gifts named and listed in scripture, and there is apparently uh a debate among theologians as to whether that list is exhaustive and complete, or if it's just a list, and there are more gifts that are not named and enumerated. Um I think it seems like several uh people much more knowledgeable than I are kind of of the mindset that the list is not exhaustive. It's not the full list necessarily, or at least there's no convincing argument for why we should take that number of gifts that are named specifically to be the complete and total, exact and only gifts of the Spirit, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

I mean, I don't I can't really base the scripture on this, so I don't take it for the fact. But I'm just thinking, you know, God can give you a gift at one time in your life and then give you a different one later. So I don't think you just have the same gift the whole time. It's like, well, I'm gonna have to, you know, God may say no, now you you know, once you have this one, now we're gonna I'm gonna grow you into this one.

SPEAKER_06 38:18

So we just made it to the main gifts that are supernatural and and some are not supernatural. No, for instance.

SPEAKER_07 38:35

Go ahead, sorry. I said no, but go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_06 38:39

That's fine.

SPEAKER_07 38:40

No, ask your question because I think it's a good one.

SPEAKER_06 38:42

You know, some people are good at turning rough stones into beautiful stones for something like lavender. Uh that's not a supernatural gift. However, it is a gift from God.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

But like it could be a spiritual gift because Bethel in the Old Testament makes the temple, and it says he's filled with the spirit for craftsmanship to make the temple.

SPEAKER_06 39:06

Agreed, in the Old Testament, that is true. However, whether that's true in the New Testament times, I don't know. But we can take other things. I'm good at testing software, but only because I've been doing it for so long. That doesn't mean that God has given me a supernatural gift of testing software. He has equipped me naturally with the talents that he gave me at birth and developed those through years and years of work.

SPEAKER_07 39:35

So let me ask it this way. So if God has given me a talent, is anything that God do not supernatural?

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Yeah, I don't know that we would use supernatural. Like I think there's spiritual kind of natural, because 1 Corinthians 2 says the natural man cannot understand the things of God because they're spiritually discerned. So I think you don't see in scripture people laying on hands and someone to receive a gift of plumbing. You do see laying on hands to receive a gift, a spiritual gift. So I don't think, I think with Bezalel, you have a spirit of intelligence and wisdom to be applied to a practical natural gift. And they're both given by God, one is spiritual, one is natural. That's how I would.

SPEAKER_09 40:17

Don't we say we talk about inspiration in the area of art and creativity? Inspiration.

SPEAKER_10 40:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 40:23

That has the spirit in it.

SPEAKER_10 40:25

Mozart had a gift, you know, when he was given something outside of himself, you know, that God gave him, whether he recognized that or not, you know, was his thing. But there was something in Mozart that came from God that was, you know, different. But I don't know that when we're talking about spiritual gifts here, that that's the same thing. I think this is a different kind of what Tony is is is uh saying that God gives us gifts and then there's spiritual gifts, it's it's a different kind of gift.

SPEAKER_08 40:58

Is that is that I think you need to separate talent from gifts. Every one of us is have some kind of a talent that we use. But we can use that talent to benefit the church. I think we're and God is leading you into that direction by using what He the talent that He's giving you so that you can lead others to Christ.

SPEAKER_06 41:22

Right. And the context of this passage of Scripture is supernatural, not a talent.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

The spiritual is just behind the physical, the spirit is the force behind this man's big brain to make him make robots. And that's okay. So he has the spiritual gift of robots, but it manifests through his physical body. Well is it screwed?

SPEAKER_07 41:42

All right, yeah, let's try it in for a thing. So um these are I don't think these are easy questions to answer, actually.

SPEAKER_11 41:49

No.

SPEAKER_07 41:49

Um the distinction between talent and spiritual gift. And it's one reason that it's important for us to think about whether or not the gifts, as enumerated as spiritual gifts, is the exhaustive list of them or not, right? So I think, and back, maybe back, we'll circle back to the word manifestation, right? How does God's goodness made manifest through the power of the Spirit? Um, one thing that's hard to wrestle with is that there are a lot of people who don't believe in God whatsoever who are very kind and have lots of talents and abilities and skills and whatever, right? Now, we have a doctrine of common grace, which means that God shows grace to everyone. And I don't know what when as I wrestle with this sometimes, I really think, you know, when just an unbeliever, I mean Paul talks about being a law into themselves, right? People don't have the law or whatever. I think God is so good and kind to us that even unbelievers, he works through an end. You know? Um, even to the point that he brings some of them to himself, right? Uh so again, back to this for me as I wrestle this stuff, is like how limited is my view of God's work in the world. It's very limited a lot of times. My view of what God is up to and how he works and how he does it is very limited. Now, I do think it's an important distinction that Tony is driving at here. Paul doesn't call them spiritual gifts for no reason, right? He's not trying to. If everything was a spiritual gift, there's sort of no reason for calling it a spiritual gift. Like you sort of lose the power of the language at some point if he's like giving it a name and then, but he's like, but everything's a spiritual gift. It's like, well, why call it a spiritual gift? You know, it's not any different than anything else, right? So I do think there's something about the spiritual gifts, and I as I've wrestled, I don't have a great answer, and I'll we'll keep wrestling. We've got a couple more weeks of class, maybe we'll answer by then. But I think a lot of it comes back to the why question. Why do I have this gift? And it's to benefit the church, it's to build up the church, right? So the spiritual gifts, I think, um are maybe distinct from skills or talents. Uh maybe they're supernatural, maybe that's one way to talk about, but in other ways, um, maybe related is just the purpose of them, right? And and how they're what they enable me to do. They enable me to. Do good for the church. Okay. Yeah, and to bear witness to Christ, to glorify God in ways that I wouldn't be able to do without those gifts. That doesn't really answer the question with as much confidence as I would want to, but that's okay. I mean, I wish I had, I just sometimes, I don't know. I some I just wrestle with this stuff, and I it's not always easy for me. And I wish I could just kind of button it up nicely and give you some clean-cut answer, but I want to end up we're we're out of time. But I think that for me and for us, there's a really good scripture here as we think about how do we widen our scope of where is the spirit at work and how is it working? Is it just on Sundays? No, it's Wednesday. It's all every day, right? And how do I discern for myself how God has gifted me? I've started to wonder about that. And I we'll just read a passage from Galatians and then we'll end. So in chapter 5, verses 16. Actually, I'll start in verse 15 because Paul talks about love your neighbor as yourself, and he gives this important bit of information that I think should be action-guiding for us in thinking about our attitudes and our hearts where we are with respect to other people. And uh the charge, we'll just end it then, but the charge before I read it is just like let's walk by the spirit, because I think that's the only way I know how to find out the spiritual gift, I think, is to walk, to do the best I can to walk by the spirit and to trust that God will work that He's already given me gifts, like I don't have to, you know, go buy one or something. Um, I have to figure out what it is and figure out how to use it. And how do I figure out what it is and how to use it? And I think that's by learning how to walk by the spirit. Paul says, if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. He follows that up by you should love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, so I think the biting and devouring is well, that's a pretty good example of not loving your neighbor as yourself. But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. I'll stop there. Lord, we thank you for your word and your chance to study it, and um, we ask you to enlighten us, to teach us, to help us understand. It's easy to read the words, and it's um it's hard sometimes to know how to apply them in my life, in our life. And so we ask that you would help us to do that together, to wrestle with us, to know what it means to walk by the Spirit. Help us to answer questions like Is the fruit of the Spirit a gift of the Spirit? Or is that the gift of the Spirit some other thing? And help us to know how you have made manifest your Spirit in us, each as individual members of a body of Christ, with um uniquely given manifestations of the Spirit to encourage and lift one another up, to do ministry, to do good, especially to the household of faith. But help us remember to do good to all, to love our neighbors, to see every day how we can use the gifts that you've given us for the good of those around us and especially for the good of your church. Encourage us to shed falsehoods in our thinking, to be humble. Help us to be humble, Lord. We don't pick our gifts, we don't even pick our talents, we don't pick our skills. Um these are things that you've given to us. We thank you that uh you love us so much to give good things to us. Help us to love others. In Jesus' name, amen.