The Ministry of Spirirual Gifts Part 2
Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Last week we started looking at what Paul says about spiritual gifts and how we must have the right attitude which is one of humility, and the proper relationship with is Diversity.
No one represents Christ when they are full of pride and arrogance. We must walk in a life of humility and be lead by the Spirit.
We must also realize that we must have the proper relationship when it comes to each other.
We have unity when we are all using our own talents and gifts to serve the church.
We each have different talents but we have the same goal, bringing people and Glory to God.
After having the proper attitude and proper relationship Paul then goes on to talk about doing the proper Service.
The Proper Service (vv 6-8)
The Proper Service (vv 6-8)
No gift or ability, spiritual or otherwise is of value if it is not used.
(Canadian violin collector)
What is even more tragic than that is when a Christian has a natural gift or ability and does not use it, weather it is because of fear or lack of confidence the result is the same the death of a gift.
Under Gods sovereign grace which all believers share, we have gifts that differ according to the specific ways in which He (God) individually endows us.
Here in verse 6 Paul is not talking about saving grace but Gods Favor.
This type of Grace is unmerited kindness on His part, which is the only source of all spiritual enablements.
These gifts are not earned or won or merited but are given freely and lovingly for us to use.
Each gift if given to us personally and sovereignly.
We must each therefore exercise His gifts accordingly.
3 Types of Gifts
3 Types of Gifts
Speaking Gifts
Prophecy
Teaching
Exhortation
Serving Gifts
Giving
Learship
Showing Mercy
Sign Gifts
Healing
miracles
speaking in tongues
interpreting tongues
Prophecy
Prophecy
This is not the same gift given to the prophets of the Old Testament or the Apostles of the New Testament.
This is the gift that allows people to see and to hear the word of God.
It allows their eyes to be open to the truth that they are a sinner and they need Christ for salvation.
The word Propheteia means to speak forth.
The gift of prophecy is the gift of being Gods public spokesman, primarily to Gods own people.
To instruct admonish, warn, rebuke, correct, challenge, comfort, and encourage.
Service
Service
This spiritual gift is that of service, a general term for ministry.
Service translates from the word Diakonia from which we also get deacon and deaconess which means those who serve.
Some people are simply born with or given a servants heart.
They will do anything the church or a member needs them to do.
Teaching
Teaching
Those who teach are divinely gifted with a special ability to interpret and present Gods truth understandably.
The primary difference between teaching and prophesying is not in content but in the distinction between the ability to proclaim and the ability to give systematic and regular instruction in Gods word.
Teaching allows people to break down the word of God on a personal level to people often in the same situations or experiencing the same things in their life at that time.
Good teaching is reproducible. 2 Tim 2:2
2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
Preaching or Prophecy is a sledge hammer while teaching is a scalpel.
Exhortation
Exhortation
This encompasses the ideas of advising, pleading, encouraging, warning, strengthening, and comforting.
This is the person who tells you what you need to hear when you need to hear it.
The example of this is Heb 10:24-25
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
This is the person speaking good and encouraging things into your life.
They send a card when you miss a few weeks of church.
They are a cheerleader for the faithful, and a help to the needy.
Giving
Giving
The fifth category of giftedness is that of giving.
The usual Greek verb for giving is didōmi, but the word here is the intensified metadidōmi.
It carries the additional meanings of sharing and imparting that which is one’s own.
The one who exercises this gift gives sacrificially of himself.
A person does not need to be rich to give like this.
This is the person that only has 100.00 dollars to get by for the rest of the month and gives 50.00 of it to the church.
It is beyond what we are called to give in our tithe, this is giving out of love and giving over and above what is called for.
Leadership
Leadership
Although it is not limited to those offices, the gift of church leadership clearly belongs to elders, deacons, and deaconesses.
It is significant that Paul makes no mention of leaders in his first letter to Corinth.
Lack of a functioning leadership would help explain its serious moral and spiritual problems, which certainly would have been exacerbated by that deficiency.
“Free-for-all” democracy amounts to anarchy and is disastrous in any society, including the church.
The absence of leaders results in everyone doing what is “right in his own eyes,” as the Israelites did under the judges.
Effective leadership must be done with diligence and with earnestness and zeal.
Showing Mercy
Showing Mercy
Eleeō (shows mercy) carries the joint idea of actively demonstrating sympathy for someone else and of having the necessary resources to successfully comfort and strengthen that person.
The gifted Christian who shows mercy is divinely endowed with special sensitivity to suffering and sorrow, with the ability to notice misery and distress that may go unnoticed by others, and with the desire and means to help alleviate such afflictions.
This gift involves much more than sympathetic feeling.
It is feeling put into action.
The Christian with this gift always finds a way to express his feelings of concern in practical help.
He shows his mercy by what he says to and what he does for the one in need.
Although we obviously must pay attention to our gift, we can never faithfully exercise it by focusing on the gift itself.
They can be used fully of the Lord only as “with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
We can serve Christ only as we become like Christ, and we can exercise the Spirit’s gifts only as we present ourselves as living sacrifices and submit to His continuing transformation and sanctification of our lives.