The Gift Graciously Extended to Us.

You know, on a weekly basis, one of the things we do is we look up for, in Miles Stanford's quotes for growth, little quotes that would help us maybe get a handle on what we're going to study. So the one we found for this week, and I thought it was good because J.B. Stoney said this, it is always the father's way to appoint first, then to qualify. You get that? Appoint first, then to qualify. With man, it is the reverse. He requires qualification before appointment. But we may rest assured that the Father will fit us for whatever office he has destined us after he appoints us thereto.

And it fits with what we're going to talk about today, because we're going to just focus on verses 12, 6, 7, and 8. And since we have gifts that vary according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly. If prophecy according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, he who teaches in teaching, and he who exhorts in his exhortation, and he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

So I think that's why Jim read verse three, that each and every believer, and I mean every one of us, has what Romans 12, three says, the grace is given to me, I say to every man among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, and to think so as to have sound judgment. As God has allotted each a measure of faith, every believer has been allotted by God a measure of faith to be involved in the body of Christ. And it really goes back to the verse one and two, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You begin to see things differently from the viewpoint or focus of the body of Christ.

So when we come to six, it says, since we have gifts, that differ according to grace given to us, let us exercise them accordingly. Notice that they're called gifts. And that's why we can say that God appoints first and then he qualifies you for the gift he gives you. And we'll talk, we'll expand on that as we go ahead. But let us each exercise according of prophecy and it goes into four or five of them.

So as I was studying this week, I think the way to approach this verse is that the gifts are given by grace, they're not earned. You didn't earn your gift or gifts. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given. I have a different gift than Mike. Bob has a different gift than Roger. We all have a different gift. And again, we may have more than one. And that qualifies us to say not to think more highly of ourselves than we should.

Because when you get a gift, do you sit down and say, I deserve this? At Christmas time, do you say, I deserve every gift I got? No, you didn't deserve any of them. Somebody out of the love for you brought you a gift. And thinking with sound judgment, each is to exercise this gift according to what it is. Maybe say it in another way.

Everyone in the body of Christ is gifted, everybody. And I know, and you know, legions of believers who are always walking around saying, gee, I wonder what my gift is. You know, well, let's have a test. Or let's get a curriculum together that says, if you have this talent, this talent, this talent, you must have this spiritual gift. Nope. You're gifted first, then you're qualified for the gift. Gifts are given by the discretion of the Holy Spirit. He decides. He decides what gifts you're gonna have and what gift I'm gonna have. And they differ based on what his preference is, his preference.

So the church is not an earthly organization, but it's a heavenly one. And so you have to keep in mind that the gifts that God gives us is from a heavenly perspective to be involved in a heavenly organism called the church. We're not an earthly organization. The church is headed by the Holy Spirit. We talked about that in Sunday school. He's the head. He's the one that leads and decides.

And so the spiritual gifts are given by grace only. It's hard, I think, for us to not sort of think that I have a talent or that I have worked to achieve certain status. As an example, if I'm a high school teacher, when I join the church, why don't they make me a Sunday school teacher? Well, maybe you don't have the gift for Sunday school.

So having gifts different according to the grace that's given. So those parameters are really important. Each believer has some particular gift to be bestowed by the already indwelling Holy Spirit. Each one of us is indwelled by the Holy Spirit that allows each believer to directly benefit the body of Christ. None of them are for your edification. They're all designed to benefit the body of Christ. Each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit the whole body, moreover the Spirit dividing each severally as he will.

Last week we Echo covered his ears when I read that thing about the human body. But all of the parts of the human body, as you get older, maybe it's just older people that have to go to the doctor more than younger people, but you begin to find out that there are things, organs within your body and medications that if they give you a medication for this, they have to be careful that it doesn't run into a problem with something else in your body. So sometimes you're taking a medication for this and then another medication to counteract the negative effects of the first one. But your body, the way God created it, functions without medication.

It just works perfectly with every part contributing to the whole. So the various gifts bestowed by the Spirit for service to the Lord Jesus and the working in each case by God himself. Isn't it interesting that the body of Christ is such a unique organism that you need a spiritual gift to be involved in it? and you don't need to go to seminary to find out about it or to be trained for. The Spirit of God will do that.

So I found this in Macaulay's information on gifts, and I thought it was the best. composite of spiritual gifts that I could find. It's about three or four pages, but it's really pretty good, and I think it puts most spiritual gifts, and I've got a list of them towards the end that are probably not in your Bible. They're divine in origin. They're variations of gifts, varieties, but there's the same spirit.

They're varieties of ministry, but it's the same Lord. and there are varieties of effects or operations, but the same God who works all things in all persons. So all of you contribute to the well-being of the body of Christ right here. In God the Holy Spirit in 12.4, the key word is varieties and it occurs three times. The primary meaning of the word is apportionment or distribution. And the meaning, the secondary meaning is varieties, translated distributing in verse 11, and note the emphasis, the source is the Holy Spirit. And they are in God the Son because the body of Christ is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the word ministries is the broadest word in the New Testament for service of any type. The Lord Jesus is now introduced as the source of all ministries.

And God the Father, verse six, the word effective is effective. which really means in English energy, which refers to the efficient energy, which is always a divine product. To exercise the gift that God has blessed you with takes divine energy. You don't have enough of your own energy to make it work. The single aim. But to each one is given a manifestation of the spirit for the common good. or the body of Christ. The words each call attention to the fact that no believer is without at least one spiritual gift.

The teaching of verse four through seven may be set forth graphically in this way. You have a source, you have great variety, and you have one goal. The source is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The variety are gifts, ministries, and effects of ministries. And what's the goal? Common good of the body of Christ. Pretty simple. But they're diverse in nature.

To one is given the gift of wisdom through the Spirit. Another, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit, and we're not talking about faith that saves. And another is a gift of healing by one Spirit. And to another, affecting miracles. And to another, prophecy. And another, distinguishing the Spirit. and other various kinds of tongues, and to others interpretation of tongues.

But here's the key phrase, but one in the same spirit works all of these. He does, distributing to each individual as he wills. So Gis relating to the needs of the mind, this is what I liked about Macaulay. divides it up into beneficial needs to the body of Christ, the needs of the mind. For one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit.

The ability of communication. First, the communication of insight is the function of the word of wisdom. You have insight into things, a gift from God. The expression Word refers to doctrine or to the power to communicate it. Second, the communication of facts is the function of the word of knowledge. To tell other believers, if that's your gift, what are the facts? What are true of every believer? On the Wednesday night, we're studying Ephesians 4, and we've gotten to the point of put off the old man and put on the new man. So you read that and you think, oh, I better get busy.

But then you find out somebody comes along who can communicate to you about the Greek language, and they say, well, that's an aorist infinitive. Oh, that's nice. What's an aorist infinitive? It means, You already have it off and you already have it on. Your job is to believe it. You see the difference? I don't put it on, it's already on. My job is to say, okay, I accept that, I believe it. I've put off the old man. Okay, I accept that, I believe it.

Because that's what the word of God tells us. Because one of these gifted people told us that. So another faith by the same Spirit, the ability of appropriation. That's how you and I function within the church. We appropriate the things we find out. This is found in the gift of faith. What did we say in verse three? That every single member of the body of Christ is gifted by a measure of faith. For what purpose? So you can know what's yours. You know who you are and what you have.

It's not every believer to live by faith. Isn't every believer, every believer in every environment to live by faith? The answer is yeah, but this is different. In what sense then do we have some gifts of faith? The answer lies in understanding what the gift is. A spiritual gift is a God-given ability of extraordinary proportions. Certain gifts are extensions of abilities possessed and exercised by all believers. We all know people that have tremendous faith, and it's edifying to us that we know that they do, and that they have, they don't ever seem to waver. And so other gifts of healing to one spirit and to another, effecting of miracles. So now, gifts relating to the needs of your physical body. These are gifts of healing and gifts of miracles.

We don't need, necessarily, healing miracles today, but God heals people. He just does, because he's gracious. But I can't say that one of you has the spiritual gift of miracles and you can go around healing people, because you can't. But that doesn't mean that God isn't, if we pray or we let God do what he's gonna do, that you won't be healed, because your mission on the earth may require you to be around a little longer.

So to another prophecy, to another, the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, another interpretation of tongues, which we don't really need anymore because we've got the word of God. So gifts related to the needs of the spirit in verse 10. The revelation is gained by a gift of prophecy.

If you don't have a prophet, you don't know what's going on. You don't have communication. The need for protection by the gift of distinguishing the spirits. Talking about Sunday school, this Sunday, yes, today, how do you know a false teacher from a real one?

Well, God has gifted certain people within the body of Christ who can distinguish that and teach the rest of us and we can see it. The need for edification by the gifts of tongues and interpretation. Adapted all of that from Chester Macaulay. Now, verses for today.

And since we have gifts differing according to the grace, let us each exercise them according. accordingly if prophecy according to the proportion of his faith. So as God is allotted each a measure of faith, the difference between each gift according to the grace given. Paul speaks here of grace given unto him and to each believer that their gifts differ by faith. given to each for the particular service in which God calls him. They all have to do with service.

No gift is for you to go in a closet and be by yourself. No gift. You know, you hear from charismatic churches, well, I have a prayer language. Well, what good does it do the person sitting next to me if he can't understand what you're talking about? It doesn't work that way.

Every single gift is for the service of the body of Christ. There's not a gift of the person of the Spirit, but it's a gift communicated by the Spirit. Why isn't it a gift of the person of the Spirit? Because we already have him. I mean, can you get more of the Holy Spirit tomorrow than you already have today? No, you have them all, all of them.

For receiving and using these gifts, there's a need of the element of faith which is conferred by God in exact accordance with the gift given to each one. That little gift of faith that he gave each one of us is so that we can recognize and exercise the gift he gave us for the benefit of the body of Christ. If prophecy, then according to the proportion of his faith. Notice how it's all tied to proportion of your faith. Paul's exhortation, as we shall see here, devoted to the believers exercising any gift that he has according to the proportion of his God-given confidence or his faith to exercise the gift.

And it's interesting how he says back in three, don't overestimate yourself, but be sober, estimating and thus proceeding. Why do you think that he would put that little phrase, not to think of yourself any higher than you should in verse three? Because he recognizes that for you to exercise a gift, it isn't that, oh, I'm better than somebody else. It's humbly understanding and not overestimating this gift from God.

It's just an amazing thing that he would even gift all of us. It is taken for granted, of course, that all are fully willing to exercise any gift. Is that a true statement as I look around? Can I take for granted that all of you are willing to exercise any gifts that God gives you? Sure. Sure you will. It will not, through unbelief or false humility, hold back your exercise.

So he defines the prophetic gifts in 1 Corinthians 14.3, but one who prophesies speaks to men of building up, of encouragement and comfort.

So if you have the gift of prophecy, Primarily what your gift does within the body of Christ is you build other believers up because you know things, you encourage them, and you comfort them. That's really what the gift of prophecy is all about. If we lived in the first century when the church was first founded, a prophet would be a really important guy because they don't have the Bible yet. And for this man to show up and have this kind of ability, built up the body of Christ, encouraged them and comforted them. Well, that's true today, if you have that gift.

The New Testament prophets and apostles laid the foundation of the church, the prophets speaking directly by inspiration from God. But while the early apostles and prophets had their peculiar ministry in the foundational way, yet this gift remains in the church. Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, along with evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Prophets are still here. They're not going around revealing new doctrine. What they're doing is they're taking the existing doctrine and using it to build up believers and to encourage them and to comfort them. That's a prophet. Now, since a prophet speaks under the moving of the Spirit, if he does so according to his faith, if service in his serving, or if he teaches in his teaching.

Personal serving ministry. What a great ministry that is. Let us occupy ourselves with ministering to the material needs of the saints. God graciously places this word ministering, I thought this was kind of neat, between prophesying and teaching. You've got prophesying here, then you have personal service, and then you have teaching. Look how important personal service is to meet the physical needs of one another.

Acts 6.1, we have the word twice spoken applied. First, physical things.

Acts 6.1 has to do with the apostles deciding that they were, The widows weren't getting enough food and attention, so they picked out some men who were spirit-filled men to administer to the daily needs and overlook the widow's needs within their body of believers. And also, the apostles were to continue in the ministry of the word. So what do you have? Men who are paying attention to God's word and you have other men just as filled with the spirit who are meeting the physical needs of people. We have that in here. We have those people in our body. Notice one of the men chosen happened to be Stephen. And what the word says about Stephen was he was a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Guess what? It's also talking about you and me.

We are people full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and because we have a gift, we know that's true. It is a wholehearted exercise of this gift when it is given, perhaps. There's no gift so liable to lapse into unreliable exercise as this gift. We somehow forget that our neighbor needs help somehow. And he'll talk a little bit later on what the attitude of a servant is. Teacher and his teaching. One of the things Holly Hills is noted for is having teachers, a lot of them. Which is, I think, we don't have an overabundance of them, we have just about the right amount of them. We have people who can teach.

And we're not talking about just Bible study. How many of you know people say, oh yeah, I'm in a Bible study, and then you start talking to them about, well, what do you study? And they study politics and favors and sports, but they never talk about God's word. A clear explanation, direct to the believer's hearts of Christ's work for us. That's what a Bible study's about.

Plus, the Pauline officials that directly concern the church of God. as the body of Christ and dwelt by the Spirit, one with him. I don't know if you've noticed around here over the years that there is a focus and an emphasis on Paul's epistles. Why?

Because he's the apostle to the church. And the information about the church is pretty much his epistles. Now that doesn't preclude studying the Old Testament. It doesn't preclude any other teaching of God's word. But Paul is the church guy. He's the one that knows about the church and how it functions and what it is.

We should see that the saints become familiar with the wonders of the word of God. That's the teacher's job. That every true Christian teacher should be able to say, it was the good pleasure of God to reveal his son in me that I might preach him. Or could say in all things Christ might have the preeminence or that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. That's the focus. Any of you who teach know that it isn't whether you get it, it's that every man that you talk to, every woman that you talk to can be presented perfect in Christ Jesus. That's your goal. That's why you teach.

And he that exhorts, in verse eight, The gift of exhortation is distinct from that of teaching, though the same person may have both of them. Exhortation appeals to your will. Teaching appeals to your mind. See the difference? Teaching appeals to your mind. The person who is an exhorter, he's appealing to your will.

It's an invaluable precious gift to have that gift because where the Holy Spirit directly persuades the hearing heart into submission to the truth which he has heard. The teacher lays out the truth. The exhorter has an ability to persuade the person who's hearing the truth, that it belongs to them, and they need to submit to it, and they willingly do that. A true exhorter also must be walking in the path he calls others to follow.

You know, what's interesting about that, because we, in the First Timothy class, and before that we were studying Titus, there's a list of criterias, if you want to be a leader, or whatever you want to do, And what you find out is that gifted people within the body of Christ can't talk about exhorting you if they're not living the life themselves. You see how important that is? How the body of Christ works that way? I can't invite you to listen and understand if I'm not listening and understanding.

And he who gives gives liberal blah blah. Liberality. Singleness of heart towards God. When you realize that whatever you have physically was a gift to you and you're just the steward of it, it makes it a lot easier to give it away if God wants you to give it to somebody. Because it isn't yours to start with, you're just the holder of it. The literal meaning here is imparting of or sharing our substance with others, and the manner of such giving is to be without secret reluctance.

For God loves a cheerful giver. Also, without false pretense. Arm behind your back, somebody's twisting it as Ananias and Sapphira, you know. I'm gonna sell property and give the church half, but I want them to think I gave it all to them. Finally, that your eye, if you're a giver, you have this gift as single. towards God.

He who leads with diligence. This is interesting because diligence really means thoughtfulness and attention to detail. You can't be a leader in any circumstance if you're not thoughtful about what's going on and you don't pay attention to the details. And in the body of Christ you pay, the details are the people. pay attention to that, because you need to know who to pray for.

Ruling first is, it's first a gift and then it's an office. Understand what I mean by that? You're a gifted man, but if you occupy and are using that gift, you're in an office like elders and deacons. They must first be able to rule their own house well. Interesting that Paul would tell Timothy, I want you to look around and see if God has raised anybody up to be an elder. And if he has, go check them out, but make sure that they conduct their home, their family, well. Because if you can't conduct your family well, how are you possibly gonna lead the church in like manner?

The work of elders and deacons were offices. If any man seek the office of bishop, or overseer, or called an elder, as being maybe more mature Christian in the faith and experience, or he's just been around longer. Romans 12.3. Same, I keep repeating this verse because it goes to the heart of the matter in terms of how a believer thinks about himself and about his environment. Not to think higher of yourself than you should, but to think and have sound judgment as God has allotted to you a measure of faith. The term bishop designates the duties of the office to oversee. Rulers, leaders, overseers.

Here's an interesting point. They're confined to one single location. Roger and I are elders. We're here. But if you were an evangelist or a prophet, you could be anywhere. You're not stuck here. Do you see the difference? When God calls you to be one of the leaders, it's usually with a group that he designates for you. But if he calls you to be an evangelist, you might be in another country. You aren't necessarily here.

But an elder at Deaconry will hold his own office in his own church only. That's what he does. Oh, and by the way, Roger and I don't get to have a meeting and decide one of us is gonna go to another church. We're here, because that's just where God called us. In other words, when you have a denomination like I came out of, they decided when they were gonna send a new elder to you, or a new pastor or something, who probably didn't know anybody in the church.

But the Lord doesn't do it that way. When he calls a man to lead, he's got a flock and he's there with them. The elders among you, I exhort, tend the flock of God, which is among you. This is their business, to take care of the Lord's sheep in the assembly where they were, exercising the oversight and not of constraint, but willingly doing it. They were to watch, to be ready at any sacrifice of personal comfort to look after the needs of the sheep, free from the love of money.

It's cool the way God does things. Lastly, an eight, show mercy with cheerfulness. Showing mercy is a spiritual responsibility of those whom God has shown mercy to. And I think that one of the ways you Understand this gift of mercy is that you understand how merciful God was and is to you. Mercy towards others may be shown with a long somber face of one driven by a duty in which he's not very happy about. Yet the joyfulness of spirit in which one helps another is often the more real blessing than the help itself.

I'm glad you showed up. I'm glad you showed up with whatever you were giving me, but I'm glad you showed up. O'Day says that the words, he that shows mercy, donate the believer who feels called to devote himself to the visiting of sick people and afflicted. There is a gift of sympathy that is the key to open the heart of the sufferer. The phrase with cheerfulness really means hilarity.

There's, you know, there are people in our congregation, if somebody's sick, they're the first ones to go see them. And they keep going back. So in summing this up, it's interesting that, just to repeat myself, the body of Christ is such an interesting and unique organism heavenly designated by the Lord that allows for its functioning by being gifted, every single person and every body of believers is gifted by God to be a member and to serve in some capacity.

Do you think being a dad is a spiritual gift? How about being a mom? I think they are, because God calls you to be a dad. He calls you to be a mom, and he gifts you to be those. These things you see around it in the life that we live, there's so many little things that we don't, we can't elevate them to the spiritual gifts level. I think you can. Because if God has called you just to be a dad, he gifts you to do that.

If he calls you to be a mom, he gifts you to be a mom. A Christian mom who has a love for their kids. And if we're missing anything in our society today, it's moms and dads. Those are the two people that are missing the most. The family is going south because moms and dads are not appreciated for who they really are. They're gifts from God to the family. So let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the fact that you have control of us as a body of believers. We ask that if we don't know or haven't thought about or prayed about how we can be a gift to the body we belong to, we ask that we would pray, that you would reveal to us, however small it is, if it's just a smile, that's enough. So we thank you, Father, for the grace that we live under. We pray in your Son's name, amen.