What Makes My Gift a Spiritual Gift?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:05.560 | On Monday, we took a look at what distinguishes our lives from the lives of non-Christians
00:00:10.500 | around us.
00:00:11.500 | There, in APJ 1858, we touched on spiritual gifts a little bit, and then in the episode
00:00:18.240 | before that, we asked, "What are my skills worth?"
00:00:22.080 | That was APJ 1857, which was a fascinating discussion because in many churches, you have
00:00:29.760 | a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber, a carpenter, an auto mechanic, someone who makes money
00:00:35.560 | from their skills.
00:00:37.360 | Sometimes those skills can be exploited by people in the local church for free.
00:00:44.080 | Maybe you've experienced that very thing yourself.
00:00:47.200 | The conclusion was, "Be willing to pay for the service," Piper said, "and if the skilled
00:00:52.000 | person wants to make a special gift to you, that's his or her to decide, not yours to
00:00:56.960 | expect."
00:00:57.960 | It's a good summary.
00:01:01.000 | If skilled Christians in the church share the same skills you will find among non-Christians
00:01:06.520 | outside the church, what makes a spiritual gift spiritual?
00:01:11.880 | Because as we'll hear today, many unbelievers have great abilities, abilities to lead and
00:01:16.240 | administrate and teach, but those gifts are not automatically spiritual gifts, obviously.
00:01:23.480 | What makes a spiritual gift spiritual?
00:01:27.560 | In a sermon, Pastor John turned to Paul's testimony in Romans 1 for the answer.
00:01:32.280 | There Paul writes, "For I long to see you, the church in Rome, that I may impart to you
00:01:37.560 | some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by
00:01:42.640 | each other's faith, both yours and mine."
00:01:46.240 | That's Romans 1 verses 11 to 12.
00:01:49.000 | Here's Pastor John to unpack it and to apply it.
00:01:53.440 | So the basic problem is becoming the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and
00:02:01.040 | thanks God for life and for salvation and then says, "Lord, oh, how I want to strengthen
00:02:08.760 | people's faith today at work.
00:02:11.800 | Lord, let me come to the end of this day and be able to look back and say, 'Somebody
00:02:18.840 | has more confidence in your promises today because I crossed their path.
00:02:24.680 | Somebody is more happy in your grace because I crossed their path.'"
00:02:32.000 | That's the main problem, waking up and being that kind of person.
00:02:37.760 | The reason I say that's the basic problem and not the discovery of spiritual gifts is
00:02:42.360 | because if there were 550 people in this church waking up and saying that and praying
00:02:50.080 | that and meaning that, the Holy Spirit would not leave you frustrated in finding ways to
00:02:56.600 | do that.
00:02:58.640 | He will not let a person whose heart is earnestly desirous of building other people up go without
00:03:03.800 | building them up.
00:03:04.920 | He will help you find those ways and the finding of those ways will be the discovering of your
00:03:11.120 | gifts.
00:03:12.120 | It doesn't matter whether you can find a name for it or not.
00:03:16.440 | So let's apply ourselves to becoming the kind of people who more and more long to build
00:03:25.040 | up each other's faith, to make each other happier in the Lord, to make each other more
00:03:29.720 | confident in his promises.
00:03:32.560 | Now next verse, really interesting insights that come from comparing these two verses.
00:03:38.280 | Verse 12, Paul restates verse 11 in different words.
00:03:43.240 | That's what you do when you start a sentence with "that is."
00:03:46.560 | You're restating what you just said.
00:03:49.520 | I want to strengthen you by my spiritual gift.
00:03:51.840 | That is, I want us to mutually encourage or be mutually encouraged by each other's faith,
00:04:01.080 | both yours and mine.
00:04:04.280 | Now Paul does two things here.
00:04:05.680 | This is really interesting.
00:04:06.960 | The first thing he does is the old "it's my pleasure" tactic.
00:04:11.480 | You remember that sermon back in the fall that I preached called "It's My Pleasure,
00:04:16.680 | Christian Hedonism and Humility."
00:04:20.080 | Paul is doing that right here.
00:04:22.320 | Notice, when we say, "Oh, it's my pleasure," after we do a benefit for somebody, a favor,
00:04:28.720 | what we're doing is trying to be humble.
00:04:31.200 | We're saying, "Well, don't get too worked up about my self-sacrifice because I just did
00:04:34.760 | what I wanted to do."
00:04:36.360 | So you cut off too much praise.
00:04:39.440 | You try to humble yourself after having done a good deed.
00:04:42.760 | Now that's what Paul is doing here, I think.
00:04:46.000 | Paul re-reads verse 11.
00:04:47.240 | He says, "Hmm, I sure don't want to give the impression that I'm coming on strong there
00:04:53.640 | as the great benefactor who's going to do them all this good and get no benefit."
00:05:00.040 | So he backs off and he restates his goal to say, "It's going to be two-way street in Rome.
00:05:06.920 | I'm going to get encouraged and you're going to get encouraged.
00:05:10.040 | It's my pleasure.
00:05:11.880 | Don't give me too much praise.
00:05:13.160 | I'm just doing what I like to do when I go around preaching and get encouraged by other
00:05:18.800 | people's faith as well as encouraging them."
00:05:21.840 | That's the first thing he does in this text.
00:05:23.960 | Now the second thing he does is to show that the way he's going to strengthen their faith
00:05:29.360 | by using his spiritual gift is by encouraging them with his faith.
00:05:35.640 | Now notice the parallel between the two verses.
00:05:38.680 | In verse 11, he aims to strengthen them.
00:05:42.040 | In verse 12, he aims to encourage them.
00:05:45.600 | So those two words are parallel.
00:05:47.840 | In verse 11, he aims to strengthen them by his spiritual gift.
00:05:54.040 | In verse 12, he aims to encourage them by his faith.
00:05:59.560 | Now I think you can draw the conclusion, therefore, this definition of spiritual gifts.
00:06:07.200 | A spiritual gift is an expression of faith that aims to strengthen faith.
00:06:15.320 | Wouldn't that be a fair definition, having put those two verses together and seeing that
00:06:21.800 | verse 12 is an explanation of verse 11?
00:06:26.840 | A spiritual gift is activated by faith and aims to produce more faith in another person.
00:06:35.320 | Or another way to put it would be this.
00:06:37.000 | A spiritual gift is an ability given by the Holy Spirit to express our faith effectively
00:06:45.080 | for the up-building of another's faith.
00:06:47.600 | That's what a spiritual gift is, I think, from these two verses.
00:06:51.760 | Now that to me is very helpful because it helps me distinguish and keep separate natural
00:07:02.560 | abilities and spiritual gifts.
00:07:06.040 | They aren't the same.
00:07:08.640 | Many, many unbelievers have great abilities—administration, teaching, for example, to name a couple.
00:07:17.720 | And these are given by God.
00:07:19.840 | He has what he has from God, whether they acknowledge it or not.
00:07:24.520 | But they're not spiritual gifts in the New Testament sense, are they?
00:07:29.560 | Why?
00:07:30.920 | Because they do not come from faith, they're not expressions of faith, and they're not
00:07:36.600 | aiming to strengthen faith.
00:07:41.240 | Our faith is the channel through which the Holy Spirit flows on his way to building up
00:07:47.440 | another person's faith.
00:07:49.680 | And therefore, for any ability that we have to be a channel for the Spirit and therefore
00:07:55.560 | spiritual, it has to flow from faith in him and aim towards faith in another person.
00:08:04.600 | So no matter what abilities we have, if we're not relying on God—that is, having faith—and
00:08:12.720 | we're not aiming to help others rely on God, produce faith, our ability is not spiritual.
00:08:20.120 | It's not a spiritual gift because the Holy Spirit is not flowing through it from faith
00:08:26.480 | to faith.
00:08:28.000 | Now, that has tremendous implications for a church in the selection of its staff, the
00:08:35.320 | choice of its officers, and its board members.
00:08:39.320 | The implication is this, it means that we will never simply say, "Who has the ability
00:08:47.680 | to efficiently do this job?"
00:08:50.600 | Never.
00:08:51.600 | That's a wholly inadequate criterion for determining a person's suitability for staff
00:08:58.460 | or for office in the church.
00:09:00.640 | We will go on and ask, "Does this person use his skill or her ability to express their
00:09:12.040 | lively and hearty dependence on the Lord?"
00:09:17.920 | And we will ask, "Does the exercise of that skill aim always to be helping other people
00:09:27.060 | believe more, or does the way they go about doing their work always manage to put people
00:09:33.920 | down or make people feel unbelieving rather than believing?"
00:09:41.680 | A church where the Holy Spirit is alive and powerful will always be sensitive to the difference
00:09:48.600 | between natural abilities and spiritual gifts.
00:09:53.400 | So good, a spiritual gift is an expression of faith that aims to strengthen faith.
00:10:00.880 | That's helpful.
00:10:01.880 | This clip was taken from John Piper's message on spiritual gifts, simply titled "Spiritual
00:10:05.720 | Gifts," and preached on March 15, 1981.
00:10:09.560 | The whole message is online.
00:10:12.920 | Have a sermon clip for me?
00:10:14.440 | Send me an email.
00:10:15.440 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in
00:10:19.160 | the audio, and make a note of what stands out to you.
00:10:20.960 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:26.840 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:32.280 | Well speaking of spiritual gifts, what do we do when we don't have one?
00:10:37.400 | Or we don't think we have one?
00:10:39.720 | What are some practical steps to finding our spiritual gifts?
00:10:43.240 | Pastor John will explain next time.
00:10:44.800 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:46.120 | We'll see you on Friday.
00:10:47.320 | [END]
00:10:49.320 | 1. What are some practical steps to finding your spiritual gifts?
00:10:51.320 | 2. What are some practical steps to finding your spiritual gifts?
00:10:53.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]