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Hard to believe that we are most of the way through, well at least half the way through July, most of the way through summer already. Kids love that, right? But we are cruising along, and uh we are cruising along through the book of 1 Corinthians as well. Uh so excited to continue on in that this morning. But uh, if you are a guest, my name's Nick, I'm one of the pastors here at Point Community Church, and it's a real uh gift to be a part of this family of believers and uh really thankful that you're here this morning, encouraged by uh just what God's been doing among us. I was not here last week. I was out of town with my family. Um my uh father-in-law celebrated his 60th birthday, and so we went to celebrate that with him and did some July 4th parties as well, and good time. But then I also had just the opportunity to pull away for a few days uh with my wife, Jada, and do some prayer and planning, both personal, uh kind of our own time. Twice a year we try to get away and evaluate, you know, how is our spiritual life and how's our financial life and calendaring and just a really good practice to make sure that we're staying ahead and not just reacting to life, but being proactive and seeking God's will and his desire for that. And and then really spend some time praying and planning for Point Community Church and what God has for us this next year, and really excited, encouraged by what God was saying, uh, looking forward to another ministry year. We run our ministry years September 1 through August 31st. So we're wrapping up a ministry year right now. We'll start back up on September 1st. And so I would ask you guys to really be praying for us over the next few weeks. Uh, specifically this week, our staff and elders will be spending a few days together uh off-site, uh, really for the purpose of prayerful uh reflection, uh, evaluating what God's been doing, asking God to show us, and then also asking God for a vision for the future. Like where are we heading? What God do you want us to be doing? Um I say this fairly often here, but if you're new, maybe you haven't heard us say this, and I want to say it again. Uh there's only one head of this church, his name is Jesus. And so we as leadership actually come up underneath his leadership, and we want to follow his desire, his plan, his purpose for this church. Uh we don't want to just do our own thing. We want to just say, God, we're gonna do our thing and you bless it. Uh we can tend to be that way uh at times if we're not careful. We want to follow his guidance, follow his leadership, and so in order for us to do that, we've got to create space to just pray and just to listen, uh, to talk and ask God to speak to us. And so that's gonna be happening this week. And so would you would you pray for us this week while we're away? Uh, and just give up that God would give us wisdom and then he'd give us courage to do what he's asking us to do as we take steps forward. Well, uh, I want to say also while I was out, uh I got to listen to the podcast. Hartley did a great job last week speaking on a on a very, very important topic, very, very important subject. In fact, a very, very important person, uh, the name the Holy Spirit. He's not an it. Uh, he is God, he is uh he is a person, and we are thankful that God gave us the Holy Spirit. Aren't you glad that he gave you the Holy Spirit? If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, uh we are gifted the Holy Spirit as a deposit of the salvation that we've received, and also a guarantee that one day Jesus will come back and he will uh take us to be with him forever. Now, if you're not a believer, if you're uh you're a skeptic, or maybe you're just curious, uh, maybe you're in, you know, kind of processing, maybe somebody just drugged you along this morning, uh, and you're here uh by that by that purpose or that reason. We want to say thank you for being here, first off. Thank you for taking the time to come and join us, and we're glad that you're here. But some of the stuff we say at times may not fully make sense, and I get that. Um there's stuff that we're still sorting through. There's mysteries in the scripture, there's mysteries in God that we don't fully understand. But we just want to say to you, uh, this is a safe place to have questions, to have doubts, and and we we invite you to even join in the conversation that there are life groups that meet that talk about uh these different ideas and teachings that we're discussing on Sundays. There's also opportunities for you at the at the end of the service, if you just want to come up and talk to me and say, hey, I don't understand what you're talking about when you say blank. Um I would love uh to either talk to you now or set up a time to have coffee, or one of our other staff or elders would love to do that because we want to grow together. And it's a journey. We're all in it, okay? Uh, and so we all have areas of our lives where we're growing, we're deepening in our faith, and so we invite you to do that. Um but that being said, uh we have been working our way through 1 Corinthians, and 1 Corinthians has uh created some real tension for us. There's been some moments along the way where it's been very difficult, some hard conversations, you might say. We've covered some hard topics. Uh we've talked about division in the church and how that can really create problems. We've talked about idolatry and how idolatry can really rob us, uh, how really idolatry is the sin beneath all other sins. Uh, we've talked about uh sexual uh struggles and immorality. Uh that was a difficult topic for us to work through. And as we thought about how the church has many times been silent on the area of sexuality and how we really need to speak into that so that people might experience the gift of sex and the gift of marriage that God has given us in the way that he intended. And so we've tried to cover these topics with both humility but with confidence that God's word, even if we struggle to believe it, it is true. And we're gonna wrap our lives around God's word rather than trying to wrap his word and make it fit into our mold, right? And so that's that's where we've been. We've worked through this. Well, I've been anticipating since before we ever started 1 Corinthians that we were gonna get to this section, and I'm super encouraged and even excited to get to teach this section because I think this is a fun section of scripture. Now, I will tell you that there is a lot of confusion and controversy surrounding what we're about to teach on, okay? So if you're a guest with us or if you have been around the church at all, uh wherever you might find yourself in that whole gamut, um we're gonna talk about spiritual giftings over the next few weeks. And Harley set the table by talking about the person of the Holy Spirit who distributes those gifts. But the idea of spiritual gifting has created a tremendous amount of conflict and division within the church. But I see this conversation as really fun and exciting, not because I like conflict, but because I love the fact that we as the people of God have been gifted supernatural abilities to accomplish the work he has for us. And the thought that every single one of you in this room who is a child of God, who has Jesus Christ living inside of you, the Holy Spirit living inside of you, is gifted by God. And so we're gonna talk about that this morning. But before we get to the spiritual gifts and before we even get to the text that I want to read together, normally we read the text pretty quickly into the message, but I want to I want to just give you a couple of thoughts on the front end to frame up what's really important as we have a discussion about spiritual gifts, okay? Uh you'll ex you'll understand why in just a minute. The first thing is this the mission of the church is to glorify God by making disciples. Okay? The mission of the church. Um that's the big C church, that's the body of Christ. You know, our sermon series called the Body of Christ. That's the family of believers, those who call themselves Christians, who call themselves children of God because they have put their trust in Jesus Christ and now collectively are working out their faith together, working out this mission. We have this mission, we have this purpose that God gave us. We didn't come up with it on our own, okay? We have a mission that God has given us. And that mission is to glorify God and to make disciples. The glorifying God piece is taught all through Scripture this idea that we exist individually and collectively for God's glory, for God's fame. Okay? We don't exist for our own personal glory, because that's fleeting anyway, don't you know that, right? People trash your trophies, life, you get glory and it's it's it's here and it's gone. God's glory will last forever, okay? And we exist for God's glory. We exist to point people to Him. That's the way we like to say that around here is we point people to life in Christ. We point people to Jesus. He is good, He is the famous one, He is the glorious creator of all things who deserves all worship and all praise and all adoration, all honor. All those words, right? So that's what we exist for individually and collectively. Now that maybe seem really foundational and simple to you, but I think this is really, really important because if you get off base from that reality that we exist first and foremost for God's glory, we will tend to use everything in our lives for our own glory. Are you with me? Like there's really only two options. This kind of goes back a little bit to our idolatry conversation, where you either worship God or you worship yourself. And you prop up all these little gods that are really just things you've given worship to, but it's really about you at the end of the day. That's the only real option, is what the Bible tells us. And so the reason I'm making this point on the front end is because even in this issue of spiritual gifting, if you aren't careful, if I'm not careful, we could take spiritual gifts and we can make them all about us. And we can make them about our glory. And people see us. We want people to acknowledge us, to ex, to uh praise us. And the goal of spiritual gifts, as we'll talk about, is to honor and glorify God, which is the mission of the church, by making disciples. Uh we want to make disciples. That means we want to make more followers of Jesus. It's not that I can force people to follow Jesus, but I can invite them to follow Jesus, and I can help them follow Jesus, right? I can support them in that, I can encourage them in that, I can teach people in that, I can help you can do that too, but we can make disciples of Jesus. We can help people know who Jesus is, we can help people believe in Jesus, although the per the per the Holy Spirit, like Harley talked about last week, is the only one who can truly convert us to become a child of God. The Holy Spirit will guide us to encourage other people to believe in the Holy Spirit and believe in the person of Jesus, to believe in the work of God, and then we will obey Jesus together. We will follow Jesus' instructions, we will follow Jesus' commands. And so we as the church exist to glorify God by making disciples. That means helping people who don't know who Jesus is, know who Jesus is. And helping people that know who Jesus is, follow Jesus, obey Jesus. Um, learn more about how to live out a life that is honoring to Jesus. And that's what we want to do as a church, because every church you go to that's preaching the Bible, okay, that's preaching the Bible, that is their mission. That should be their mission. If it's something other than that, then they're off base from the Bible. So when we come to a Christian church, we might say it different ways, we might have a bunch of subpoints of strategies about how we do it, but ultimately we should be about glorifying God and making disciples. That's that's what the church exists for. Are you with me? Okay. That being said, spiritual gifts help us accomplish this mission. They aid in accomplishing this mission. They help us glorify God and make disciples. So they are tools, they are resources that God has given us, they are abilities God has given us to make disciples, to glorify Jesus. Um, and so as we read the text today and as we talk about spiritual gifts, that is really, really key that we remember what is the point of these gifts, what is the purpose of the church, the mission of the church. Um, there are many definitions of spiritual gifts that are out there. Um, I've heard a lot of them. Uh J.I. Packer, a theologian who's really had a huge impact on many pastors and teachers in our day, he has this definition. It's gonna sound like a mouthful. I'll try to read it slowly. Um, and then I'm gonna try to give us a little bit more succinct version of what I think he's trying to say through this definition. But here's here's what J.I. Packer says. He says, Spiritual gifts uh is an ability divinely bestowed and sustained to grasp and express the realities of the spiritual world and the knowledge of God in Christ for the edifying both of others and of oneself. Got that? Ever got it got it memorized? Okay. Um that is a mouthful, like I said, but that is a really helpful, extensive definition of spiritual gifts. I want to give us a much more uh palatable definition, uh, maybe, maybe an easier definition for many of us in the room who might not find ourselves as intellectually uh capable as J.I. Packer, okay? Uh I want to I want to give us something that's a little simpler to understand this morning, but in order to do that, let's read the text. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. I'm gonna back up and read the same verses that Harley read last week because they fit within the context, and I'll make a couple of just notes about these as I read them, okay? First, here's what he says. Now concerning spiritual gifts, what comes, and now concerning what comes from the Spirit, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware. Um just one note on that, unaware. Uh, this is the word that some translations may even say ignorant. I don't want you to be ignorant, I don't want you to be a foolish. Uh this is the word in the in the original language, we actually get the word agnostic. Um so I don't want you to be fuzzy, unclear, confused, uncertain. Paul's trying to drive this home. This is not the first time he's used this phrase. It's been a common phrase Paul uses because he feels like one of his jobs is to help clarify what the churches believe, especially the immature believers, the new believers that he's been teaching the gospel to. So he says, I don't want you to be unaware. And I would say the same thing to us today, even though this was written a long time ago. There's a lot of confusion about these spiritual gifts, and so I don't want us to be unaware. I don't want us to be ignorant of what God has to say about these things. Verse 2 you know that when you were pagans, you used to be led off to the idols that could not speak. Paul wants to make uh absolutely certain that these Corinthians are not led off to worship false gods. Okay. Now, that's an interesting thought in light of what the context is here about spiritual gifts that are designed, again, to help us be the church God's called us to be. Why is that? Because when you get into these spiritual things, there's a mysticism, there's a mysterious part of it, there's a mystical part of it, there's uh there's a part of it that feels well, because it's supernatural, it can feel like that there's this there's this draw, this attraction to the mystery of it. And again, you can get out into the weeds, you can get away from its purpose, you can get away from the point of what these spiritual gifts are called to. In fact, apparently in Corinth, they were using these spiritual gifts, and some of them were reflecting much of what the culture was doing in their false worship, in their pagan worship. Okay? They were doing some crazy stuff, and it still goes on today, by the way. Uh, there are things that are that are still tied to uh what may sound like, or the people are using language that sounds Christian, but doing things that are actually tied more to a mystical religion or to false gods. It's a very weird thing that happens in the human heart. Now, the reason why this doesn't surprise us, though, is because going all the way back to Genesis chapter 11, the first book of the Bible, we find a definition or even like some instructions and some explanations of what pagan worship looked like. And from the very beginning, two primary things were always part of pagan worship. One, sexual immorality, which Corinth was like at the top of that pile. They had tons of sexual immorality going on within the worship of their gods, their false gods. And two, uh, was these ecstasy kind of experiences where it's this experiential thing and it's all about how do I get the next experiential high? Okay? That still happens today, guys. And there are Christian churches or churches that are calling themselves Christian that are all about the experience. This is very, very dangerous, and we'll talk more about this later on, and then even in the coming weeks. But he says, I don't want you to get let off to that. He says, Therefore, I am informing you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is cursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't want to get into all the specifics of this, but let me simply say this. He is reminding us again that the goal of all of our spiritual life is to come under the submission of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit we can do that. Because my flesh resists giving Jesus lordship of my life. My flesh, my natural tendency is to reject Jesus' uh leadership in my life. But by the Spirit of God, we can come up underneath his authority and we can even declare Jesus is Lord. And that's a gift to be able to do that from the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and in your life. Now I'm going to finish the passage for us. There are different gifts, but the same spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. There are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial. To one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit. To another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of languages, to another interpretation of languages. But one and the same spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills. Did you notice some repetitiveness in there about the spirit? Notice that in the text it's also Capital S spirit. We're talking about the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who we talked about last week. This is important because there are many spirits, and you might not realize this, there are many spirits in the world. And there's only one Holy Spirit. There are many demonic, evil spirits at work in the world in which we live. If you haven't been uh overseas on any kind of a mission trip uh into a different environment or maybe been in a setting before where you've been around demonic spirits, it's a very unusual, odd thing. I've encountered it uh in my life, and just to say it's very unsettling, but it's a reminder that there are many spirits in this world at work. For some of you, they're like, what? I I know, I get it. It's a very mysterious, weird thing, but they are very much real. The Bible tells us that they are, and we see them at work. And apparently, even in Corinth, there are many demonic spirits at work in all these false religions, all these pagan religions. I believe that all these false gods are represented by demonic spirits. Okay, they're they're they're up, they're propped up even in by their demonic spirits. And so there's a lot in that that we're not gonna get into today. But just know that Paul says we are about the spirit, the Holy Spirit, God, and God is the one who we are honoring, and God is the one who we are focusing on, who's given these gifts, so that we can then worship God more fully. We can glorify God and make disciples. Um, I want to give us, like I said, an abbreviated definition that these spiritual gifts are these abilities that, number one, are given by God. They're given by God. Now that may seem super, again, um foundational, elementary, basic, and you're like, yes, I get that, Nick. But I think it's important to understand that God is the one who bestows these gifts. In fact, this text even says that to us. It uses the word distributes in verse 11 and other places within this text, and that we remember that God is the one who determines what gifts we have. We don't determine that. We don't get to decide, hey, uh, I'm gonna have this gift. Now, um, we could probably, you know, convince ourselves we had certain gifts, or we could we could, you know, kind of make up a gift and say, oh, this is my gift. Um, we could kind of do the American Idol thing and say we could sing and then couldn't, but I mean we we we can do this, we could we could come up with different ways uh to convince ourselves of gifts, but God is the one who bestows gifts, okay? God is the one who gives the gifts as he wills, as he desires. And these gifts are not gifts that we can earn. They're grace gifts. In fact, the actual word used for spiritual gifts is charismata, which is the idea of grace, caris, uh, and and so it's it's a gift from the Holy Spirit that is a grace gift. The fact that that we have these gifts is a is a grace gift. It's a grace, gracious act of God. Okay, and and as God distributes them through the Holy Spirit, uh there is clearly a supernatural component to this because God is the one who is driving these gifts, who gives them, and and as in Packer's words, he not only gives them, but then he sustains them. Okay? So God is behind the gifts that are given to his people. Uh one of the questions that comes up a lot when I'm talking to people about spiritual gifts is well, what's the difference between a spiritual gift and a natural ability? Right? What's the difference between I'm talented in something, I have this, you know, I have this natural uh, you know, uh what people would call, you know, ability, or maybe they even use the word gift, but what's the difference between that and and a true spiritual gift? Well, it can be a little bit difficult to discern, I'll be honest with you, because um, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christ follower, uh you might have some different natural skills or things you've even developed over time through practice or through uh working on those things. But uh I would say that the distinguishing difference between spiritual gifts and natural abilities or talents is the blessing, the anointing, and the spiritual impact of God that when it when it's used. Okay? Now, again, that takes some spiritual discernment to see the difference between. But if you've been in a place where someone has used a spiritual gift, a person who is a believer who used a spiritual gift, um, you will see the impact, the influence of that gift. You will even sense God's spirit working on that person using that person. And so this is an important part of it because um, as I said, the spirit gives them, and the spirit also provides this influence, this impact, this power when that gift is employed. And I think that for for us, that's exciting to think that God could use us in our, you know, maybe we sometimes feel like I can't be used for anything great or I can't do anything really significant. God's like, I've given you a supernatural gift that can be used. For my glory, for the kingdom, to build up others to do great things. And so I encourage you, just know that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts and provides a blessing and an impact through you when it's used. The second part of this is the spiritual gifts are these abilities given by God to every believer. To every believer. So if you are a believer in Jesus, that's a key piece of this. If you have put your trust in Jesus, you have a spiritual gift. In fact, don't say it this way: every child of God, every believer and follower of Jesus has at least one.

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You have at least one. Some people in the room are like, I don't know. I don't think I have any. You have at least one. Okay? I'm telling you. If the Spirit is in you, you have at least one gift that God has given you. Now, let me burst your bubble, some people in the room. No believer has all of them. Okay? There's no one in here who can stand up and say, I got all of them. You don't. That doesn't exist, okay? No one in the room has all of these different gifts. And that's actually a really good thing, right? But we can't be arrogant and proud. And because we don't get to pick them, because we didn't get to like, we can't just develop them and cultivate them on our own, because they truly are grace gifts, we know that God has chosen to spread these gifts out and to give them to different people and to let everybody participate and be a part of this thing. And so no believer has them all. One other word that I would add here that I think is important in this context, because as I said, there's some confusion and there's some conflict that has arisen in the church, come controversy, is this. There is no gift that everyone has. Okay? There is no gift that everyone has. Now you say, well, why does that matter, Nick? What are you talking about? Because there are some of the sign gifts that we're going to talk about in a second. And I just want to go ahead and tell you on the front end, I'm not going to resolve the issue of speaking in tongues today for you. Okay? So we're going to talk about in a couple weeks some of the signed gifts and a few more parts to that discussion. But let me just simply say this: there are some groups of people who believe that true believers all speak in tongues. That if you're a true follower of Jesus, then that is an automatic deal. You speak in tongues. The Bible doesn't teach that, just so you know. Okay? I do not believe that you can make a case biblically that that is reality, that that is truth. Okay? So that's why I would say there's no gift that everyone has if you're a believer in Jesus. Okay. And that's an important reminder to us today to be careful when people start to say, well, if you're genuinely a Christian, then you'll have this gift. You say, nope. That's not what the Bible teaches. Okay? There are some gifts that are distributed amongst people, and there are gifts that you might see in multiple people, but there's not one gift that every single believer, child of God, has that then signifies them as a child of God. Okay? And that's really, really key. Now, what is the purpose of this gift? Well, it's ability given by God to every believer to serve others. To serve others. Um, this is where, as I said earlier, spiritual gifts can become dangerous because we can take the gifts and we can make them all about us. But every time you see spiritual gifts in Scripture, it's about what can we do to serve others? What can we do to build others up? What can we do to care for the needs of others? Now, do we get a blessing when we use it? When we involve ourselves, invest ourselves through and use these gifts, do we get blessed by that? Absolutely. Like when I get to use my spiritual gifts, um, it's fun. There is a kickback, if you will, because as I serve others, I feel this like, wow, how cool is that to see God at work? But the purpose of the gift is not to get the kickback, the purpose is to bless others. Purpose is to serve others and to minister to others. And if the church comes together collectively and looks for ways to serve others' needs, think about the beauty of that in the community of the followers of Jesus. How everybody gets ministered to and blessed because we're all using these different gifts to serve one another. And we would say specifically to show each other the love of God, as 1 Corinthians 13 is going to remind us in the middle of this section on gifts that love is what should be driving our motivation as we serve each other, as we minister to and serve each other with these different kind of kinds of gifts. So, spiritual gifts are these abilities given by God to every believer to serve others. And in this serving others, 1 Peter 4 10 says this based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others as good managers of the varied grace of God. These gifts are God's grace gifts. And Paul has even said in this verse 7, in the section we read, a demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial. And what is beneficial is for us to use the gifts to serve and bless others. That's a beneficial thing for the church. I would say to you this morning that one of the best ways that we can serve others is to lift up Jesus Christ before each other, to continue to point each other to the person of Jesus, to continue to remind each other of the gospel, the good news about Jesus. And so all of our gifts again should ultimately point us back to the person and work of Jesus. This is really key here because I want you to understand that church should not be a spectator sport, right? You heard that before? Check, church is not a spectator sport. Church is not a place where we show up and we sit in the stands and we clap. Way to go, guys. A few people out on the field doing everything and a few and everybody else is in the stands just clapping and basically supporting the few people who are doing the work. Church is very much a participant kind of thing that we all play. We are all out there. We are not fans in the stands, right? We are players on the field. We are all part of this thing. I realize that sometimes in the American church, we've actually established settings, just like this one, for example, where if this was all that the church was, was a Sunday morning service, you would start to think, well, maybe it's only built around a few people. I mean, we have a stage, there's a spotlight shining in my eyes. Okay, it's all about these few people who stand on the stage. Everybody else, you know, they're just peripheral. They're just, you know, they're just consumers of this product. That's not the idea of the church. The church is actually, we all are participating. We're all collectively working together to grow, build up the kingdom, and ultimately, again, like I said on the front end, to glorify God and make disciples. So we're all a part of that. And we, I want to, I want to be honest with you, we're still asking God as leaders, we're asking God, how do we continue to help the church be participatory? How do we help the church continue to collectively do this work together? Because sometimes it can feel like, again, it's built around just a few core gifts, a few core people, and then everybody else is just sitting back enjoying the show. That's not what the church is intended to be, okay? It was and and I believe that in the early church, one of the benefits that they had is because of the way that they would gather in their homes daily and in smaller groups, they were able to implore uh their gifts. They would actually to actually be able to participate more because of the environment and the context that they were in. Sometimes the larger the church gets, the harder it is for people to participate in using their spiritual gifts. Not always, if that church is intentional, but a lot of times that's the case. And my hope is to help you even today, and this is why I'm so excited, is because I want to help each one of you take the next step of using your gifts. Using what God has gifted you with to serve and build up his family. God intends our ministry not to simply happen to us, but through us. Okay? Not that ministry would not just happen to us, but it would happen through our lives. Some of you are like, well, I'm not ready to do that. I don't feel like I have anything to offer. If you're a child of God, you have a spiritual gift. I said that earlier, right? And so God wants to use that gift. We'll help you get there. Uh believe God will help us get there, and we'll talk some on the back end of the conversation today. So, a few things just to note as we've read through this passage now, I want to draw ourselves to uh back to a few things that I think are important. Number one is this spiritual gifts are not the primary way to display spiritual maturity. The fruit of the Spirit is. Um there is also in the church this idea that if you are spiritually gifted, that that automatically means that you're mature. Now, biblically there's a problem with that because what's Paul addressing in 1 Corinthians? He's addressing a very immature church who's using spiritual gifts inappropriately. Are you hearing me? So these are very immature believers, apparently. There's a lot of division, there's sexual immorality, there's idolatry, there's all these issues that are going on in the church. And and Paul says, hey, look, um, in fact, this is what's cool. He doesn't say stop using the gifts, he says use them right in the right way. Use them rightly. Use them in the way that they were intended to be used. Uh there are some people who believe that again, the more spiritually gifted you are, the more spiritually mature that you are. And that is not true. Spiritual giftedness does not necessarily mean spiritual mature. So sometimes in the church, just because someone can talk really well, they are very eloquent in their speech, we say, well, they must be spiritually mature. Not necessarily. In fact, I would even say that I have watched very gifted, very talented, very spiritually gifted leaders use their spiritual gift, but their giftedness outran their maturity. And the result was a lot of pain, a lot of problems, a lot of suffering, a lot of people got hurt by them. You know what I'm talking about? You've seen these stories on the news, you've heard and seen situations where leaders were very gifted, very capable communicators, and yet there was immaturity in their life, in their submission to God and the Holy Spirit. And as a result, when they fell or when they struggled with the sinfulness that was under the surface, a lot of people went down with them. A lot of people were hurt, a lot of people were wounded, a lot of people walked away from their faith, saying, Well, if that's a maturity, I don't want any part of that. Just remember that not every person who's gifted is really mature. And in that, in fact, all of us have areas of immaturity in our life, right? I know I do. There's areas in my life where I'm immature and I'm still growing. So here's the thing: we need to ask God to help us. We need to ask God to help us so that we use spiritual gifts with spiritual fruit as guidelines, as guardrails. What are the spiritual fruit? What are the fruit of the spirit? In Galatians, Paul lists me. He says, love, joy, peace. Yeah, good deal, good deal. I thought some of you were gonna say fruit of the spirit's a coconut, but y'all didn't. Um anybody know that song? Yes, okay, I see it. Yeah, you do. All right, so here's the deal: uh fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. All right, that's that's the fruit of the spirit Paul lists for us. Why is that important? Because think about those. Those are things that the Holy Spirit produces in us that are character, and those characters give us rails to then use the gifts that benefit others and glorify God rather than making it about us, right? And becoming dangerous and and and uh divisive. I I I would go as far as to say, remember that this issue of spiritual maturity and spiritual giftedness are very important because Jesus says in Matthew 7, verse 22, something that's very almost, I would say almost scary. In fact, I would say it is scary. He says this in Matthew chapter 7. He says, On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name? Then I will announce to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers. What I read in that verse is that there are people who are doing miraculous things, but their connection with Christ is not there. That's that's concerning. So it just is a reminder to us today that those two things are uh very it's very possible to divorce those two things, and it becomes very dangerous when you do. Second thing, there are a variety of gifts, but not but but all those gifts are valuable valuable to us. Uh there are a variety of gifts, but but not uh but all of them, not I keep trying to say not for some reason, but they're all valuable. Now, I put these over here so you wouldn't be distracted by them ahead of time. Any golfers in the room? A few? This is just to distract you for a few minutes. Um so they're these are my dirty golf clubs that never get used anymore. Um but here's the deal. These are these are golf clubs that come out of my bag. Uh and this is a butter, and does anybody know what this one is? It's a little harder. It's an iron, but it's a sandwich, right? Uh you can see the S right there, but y'all can't see that, but that's okay. And then this is a driver, all right? The driver's made for the T-Box, this is made for the sand traps and like 100 yards in or so. Uh, and this is for the green, the putting green. Now, the reason I even hold these up is because each of these clubs are very valuable to my golf game, which is very bad. But if if I was a good golfer and I knew how to use each of these clubs, I could be good and I would know how to use each of these really, really well. But this this driver is made for the T-Box, this is made for the sand trap, and this is made for the putting green. And if I try to use these clubs in the wrong context, the wrong setting, it's not gonna go as well for me, okay? Um, they're just not made for that. They each have a purpose, they each have a point, they each they're in my bag. And there's a diversity of the clubs. In fact, I don't have all the rest of my clubs here, but I've got multiple types of wedges. Um, I've got clubs that basically have different distances that I can I can hit. And the point that I'm making to you is that when I think about the church, we all have a different role and different opportunity to play our part and to have an impact. And though there's a diversity in that, we're all moving the same direction, okay? Now, my golf clubs, for some reason, they don't always collaborate with me and work well, so they don't move the same direction. But here's the thing we all we all have a job, a role, and a responsibility, and it's diverse, but God uses that within the body. They're all valuable. So next week, I don't want to get into this a lot, but next week, um, Harley's gonna talk a little bit about this unity within the body and even using the metaphor of the body, the human body, the physical body, to talk about how that we have different roles and responsibilities, but it's all valuable and we all come together. Um I think that in our lives there is a danger, again, to think not just about spiritual gifts, but again, anything, to think that we are more important than others. And I would just caution us, I'd caution myself to be very careful not to do that. And also, on the flip side of it, to not elevate particular gifts and say, well, if that person's got that gift, therefore that's they're more important than me. Or they're more important in that gift, in that role. Um that's not the case. Let me make this even more clear to you as a pastor. Um, I know that I stand up on Sunday mornings, or one of our pastors will stand up on Sunday mornings and teach, and and again, being on stage, being in the front of the room, it's like, okay, well, that's important, that's a really important gift. My gift's really not that important. I don't buy that. I think every gift is extremely important. And when we exercise those gifts, when we use those gifts, we have the opportunity to help other people grow in their knowledge of God and help people grow in their faith and belief in Christ and obedience to Him. And so uh I think that even though there are certain gifts that get more publicity, they get more attention, they get more focus, uh, we gotta be very careful. Those gifts are not more important. They're not more important. I am not more important just because I'm standing up here uh on the stage this morning. I I want every one of us to know that and to believe that and to understand that. Um I would say to you this morning as well that um well, just we'll stop there because I think that next week, as Harley gets into this, you're gonna see the value of each person and their role and their responsibility within the body. But moving to this last, one of these last key statements here is this uh there are multiple lists of gifts in the scripture. Uh there's really five core lists of gifts in scripture. But I would say when the lists of spiritual gifts, they're not exhaustive. They're not comp they're not they don't cover every single gift that exists. Uh anybody who's really studied the Bible or studied spiritual gifts will tell you that there are gifts that are not listed in the scripture because it can actually go outside of this. Um it's when this, again, remember what we said earlier, the difference between a talent or ability is when God shows up and gives a special influence or he gives a special blessing, and the word anointing we use sometimes on that ability for influencing people towards Christ. And so there are other things that can be used, can show up. Um But that being said, there are some lists that we have, and I thought it'd be interesting just to kind of put some of them out for you guys today. But first, saying, here's the passages. There's uh there's there's some passages here in Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, which is where we are right now, verses 8 through 10, and then verse 28 is later in the same chapter. So this week, I encourage you guys to read these. Uh there are some of them in your reading plan already for the week on the back of your worship guide. But 1 Corinthians 12, 8 through 10, and 28, Romans 12, 6 through 8, Ephesians 4, 11, 1 Peter 4, 11. Okay? And those are some places where you can find spiritual gifts listed out. What you'll notice is that there, again, is a variety of gifts. You'll also notice that they're not all the same. The lists are not all the same. There's some overlap, but they don't all include the exact same gifts. And I think that it's helpful to remember that in the context of each of those lists, the focus, again, is on glorifying God and serving others. Okay? Each context is the same idea, the same driving force behind these spiritual gifts. Now, for me, it kind of helped me to put these in some categories. This is not biblical, by the way. It's arbitrary. You can take it, you could re-shuffle them however you wanted, but these are some categories of the gifts that I see. Uh, gifts of serving. Uh, these are gifts that where you've got the actual gift of service is listed. Giving, mercy, uh, gifts of helps is one that's listed in the text. There's the gift of teaching. Uh, so you've got teaching, wisdom, evangelism, prophecy. Uh, those are some gifts. Some people might move some of these around into the other categories, again, depending on how they're being deployed used. And so I would just encourage you to think about that. Uh, leadership gifts, pastor, administration, faith, apostleship, discernment. Those are some of the gifts that kind of fall in that category. And then sign gifts, which I mentioned earlier: healing, prophecy, word of knowledge, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues. I'm not going to resolve that for you today, but those are some of the gifts that are even listed in the text we talked about today. Um, I think the idea here is that there's again a variety of gifts. They kind of fall into some of these categories. It helps my my mind uh process them. I would say on this last one, sign gifts, healing, prophecy, word of knowledge, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, uh, one word on this that I will tell you. There are some churches that believe that the sign gifts are no longer in function, they're no longer in use, that they have ceased. They call them cessationists, okay? Uh, there is a group of people who are Christians, they believe in Jesus, but they would say that the gifts are no longer in use. I want you to know that I do not believe you can make a biblical case that those gifts are are have ceased to be uh in existence today. That I believe they still are alive and well. I think there's a lot of confusion, and I think there's a lot of misuse and abuse of those gifts. But I'm not a believer that in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that kind of mentality, like that just because these gifts have been abused or have been misused, that we should therefore say they don't exist. I actually do believe that they do exist still today in the church. They still can be used, but remember what I said earlier, if you take these spiritual gifts and you give them to a spiritually immature person, they can be dangerous. Or if you start to exercise gifts in such a way that's unbiblical, ungodly, and points people to somebody else, that's a problem. Or uh, as we said even earlier, like if you take a gift and you don't give it the rails of the fruit of the spirit. So, bottom line is we believe these gifts do exist and that they can be used today in the church, and but the goal is again to point people to Jesus, not to just have some sort of experience, not to just get people hyped up about supernatural things. It's about the pointing people to the person of Jesus. In fact, all the sign gifts were used to support evangelism, to support the work of the apostles, to share the gospel so that people would know Jesus and follow Jesus. You still with me? Okay. A lot of stuff here. Um remember that these gifts are present in this room today. I don't want to just make this some conversations that's like pie in the sky far off, theoretical. Right now in this room, spiritual gifts are in the lives of you who are sitting here. Some of you may not know what your gift is. And so I'm glad you asked that question. How do I find it? How do I discover it? Uh, I want to just give you a couple thoughts on this. How do you actually discover what your spiritual gift is? Well, the number one thing you can do is pray about it. Now, don't don't do the Christian thing that we sometimes do, like I I'm going to pray about it. That's kind of our way of hiding from it. And we just say that's to get people off our back, you know? Well, let me pray about it. And then three months later, it's like, what are you even doing? I'm still praying about it, you know. No, that don't do that, okay? But seriously, do. We get to pray about it. We get to say, God, what have you gifted me with? Would you show that to me so that I can use that for your glory? And to the for the good of the church, for the good of other people around me. I want to use that gift. God help me, show me, lead me, guide me into that understanding. Two, look for needs. Look for the needs around you, for people who have needs around you. And say, God, what are the things around me that I could do to help? That I could serve other people in? That's the one practical way you can do it. Three, talk to leaders. Talk to pastors, talk to ministry leads, talk to elders, talk to the leaders in the church and say, hey, how can I get involved? What are the things that need to be done? How can I serve? Remember what I said earlier. Church is not supposed to be a consumer's sport. It's supposed to be something you come and you participate and ask the question: how can I get involved? How can I serve? How can I invest here? And then here's the fourth and final thing, but it's also the main point that I want to drive home, and that is this. We discover our gifts by serving others. We discover our gifts by serving others. The best way for you to discover what your spiritual gifts are is to get involved and to do something. And you know what? Sometimes in the church, because we want to keep everything nice and neat and packaged and control it, we don't let people serve and kind of work that out. Now, there's a good reason for some of that. Like, we don't want people who uh do not have a gift with children to go work with our children, okay? Uh that's not a good thing. Uh we've seen that happen before. All right? The other thing is we don't want people to stay in a ministry area where they're not gifted because you'll burn out. If you're in an area where you do not have a spiritual gifting, pretty soon you're like, I'm out of here. And what happens a lot of times in church, because we have this mentality of uh when we recruit you to a ministry area, you're gonna you're either gonna have to leave the church or die before you can leave it. Um like sometimes that's kind of implied. People are like, well, I'm I'm gone. I gotta I gotta leave because they won't let me out of this ministry area. Listen, our goal here as a church is not to lock you away into a ministry area that you're not gifted in. The goal is to help you discover your gifts and to use those gifts. Now, all of us have to serve in some way and do things we don't like to do. Hopefully, we're like not coming into a room on Sunday morning where we had a situation where we're gonna have to move the chairs and tables and we got people standing against the wall and saying, My gift's teaching, not serving. Okay? That's not how the church should be, right? It's not what we do. You know, just say, well, I'm an apostle, so I will pick up the trash when that becomes my service, my gift. Or there's the gift of giving listed. You don't say, well, I'll start tithing when God gives me the gift of giving. All right. That's not how it works. Okay, these are there's certain things we do because we're Christ's followers and we're obeying Christ and we're serving, we're fine, we're we're sacrificing. But there are things that you will do that you will naturally find yourself energized by. And you should lean into those things. You should use, you should be excited and you should use those gifts. And we want to help you with that. So if you feel like you're doing something, if you're ministering in such a way and it's just draining the life out of you, one, it could be really good for you because you're learning how to press through and persevere and trust Jesus, but it could also be you need to move to a different ministry area. Find a different place to use your gifts. Okay? So we want to encourage you in those things. My hope today is that we would see Point Communion Church be a place where we are all participating in some way. Spiritual gifts, as you will see throughout these texts over the next few weeks, are about building up God's body to accomplish the work he has for us. And every one of us have a role to play. Every one of us have a part we can play. Every one of us have a place. Now, I know some of you guys think, well, here he comes. He's getting us all set up so that he can say, everybody needs to go serve in children's ministry. All right? Uh, because it's always a need, right? It's always this huge need we have. Listen, we we aren't trying to set you up to manipulate you, strong arm you to do something, okay? We are asking you to personally ask God to help you grow into serving others and using your spiritual gifts as you do it. Okay? And so, yes, there are needs that the church always has that we're gonna be asking you to be a part of and to participate in. And we want you to be able to do it joyfully. I mean, it's terrible. Have you ever seen people try to serve when they're not joyful about it? It's terrible. Okay, it's terrible. They look like their faces are all like contorted, like they look like they're in pain and suffering. Like, really? Like, is it that bad? I hope you know that serving is a get-to thing, not a have to thing. Because Jesus has served us. He's blessed us, he's given us everything we need. In the gospel, we have life. We have eternal life. So we get to serve. But let's let's think about ways that we can do that and serve others for the glory of God and for the benefit of the body. I can guarantee you this, and I will challenge you with this. If you will choose to serve in the body and not just come and sit in the crowd, and I'm not saying that to try to offend you or be mean to you. I'm saying if you will choose to serve, if you will get involved, you will get invested, you will grow spiritually. You will mature, you will grow. That is a given. You will you will find that you will grow. It may be hard, it may be a challenge, it may be unsettling and uncomfortable, but you will grow spiritually. And the cool thing is, is that the whole body will benefit. I hear people sometimes say, Well, I want to be a Christian, I don't need the church, though, to be a Christian. That's actually unbiblical. Um, you do. We need each other. The church needs you, and you need the church, and we have an opportunity to participate in it. So my hope is that we will be the beautiful body of Christ in using these amazing supernatural abilities that God has given us to serve others. One final word. If you're not a believer, if you're not a follower of Jesus, I just want to make sure that I close the loop with you here, because I said on the front end, some of you are not believers, you're exploring faith. And what I mean by that specifically, just to be crystal clear here, is that if you have never personally put your trust in the person of Jesus, like his death on the cross for your sins, if you've never done that and you've received the gift of forgiveness that he offers you, by his grace, through faith, exercised in that gift. If you've never done that, you're you're not a child of God yet. You were created by God, you were loved by God, but you're not a child of God yet. So you don't have these spiritual gifts to participate. You can serve, you can, you can you can be a part of do it using different abilities you may have, but spiritual gifts are, again, for believers. My hope is that you would first know that if you're here as an unbeliever, that you would receive the gift of salvation. That you would receive the gift that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. And that you don't have to work yourself to be a good enough person to get God to love you or to approve of you or to accept you into his kingdom. He's already done that for you. You get to receive it by faith. And when you receive that gift, we're gonna be ready to help you start to use your spiritual gifts. Until then, we hope we can serve you. We hope you feel welcome here. We hope you find that we can minister to you. But our hope is that when you receive Christ, that you will use those spiritual gifts that God gives you within his church. Again, believers, let's let's use what God's given us for his glory. Let's minister God's grace in its various forms. Let's serve one another out of love. I want to pray for us. God, I just thank you for this conversation. I maybe I'm weird, but I get super excited, God, when I think about what would church look like if everybody actually participated. Not just in singing or listening, but actually participated in serving each other. And I know that can look a lot of different ways. I know that doesn't necessarily mean just serving on a ministry team on Sunday morning in a particular uh role, but I pray, God, that you would help us as a church to all use these gifts, these gifts uh of teaching, of these gifts of serving and helps, of ministration, uh, these gifts of mercy, giving, faith. Uh, God, these different gifts that you've given us, even the sign gifts that that are there, we believe that are there, that you might you might bring healing to people, that you might you might bring words of of insight and knowledge to people uh in times where they're struggling. I pray that we would see your body be the beautiful body that it can be under the Lordship of Jesus, under the headship of Jesus. Um, I just pray, God, today, that you would use us uh by your by your grace, by your goodness, through your spirit to serve others. Um and I do pray that you would help every person in this room that that maybe doesn't know whether or not they're your child, whether or not they're actually uh their sins have been forgiven, or that they are going to spend eternity in heaven. I pray that today that they might know that by putting their faith and trust in you, Jesus, to save and to rest of them. Just like you did in my own life and my own heart. And I just pray this all in your strong name. Amen.