Lesson 4

The Equipment--Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 Mark 9:33-37 2 Timothy 2:20-21

At the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit equips each of us with a unique spiritual gift. Hidden in this gift are treasures God wants to give us in time and eternity. It is through our gift that we come to know God most intimately and that the world sees most clearly the evidence of God in us. God wants us to know, to understand, and to exercise our gift, because it is only through this that we can achieve the greatness for which He designed us.

The Greek word translated "gift" is charisma, the root of which is charis, " grace." Spiritual gifts proceed from the grace of God. Each gift is as unique as the person to whom it is given, yet all gifts bear the stamp of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the giver of the gifts and the power behind the exercise of the gifts, but He always works in the background, never bringing attention to Himself. His work is always to glorify the Son (John 16:14)

In the same way that the gifts are as unique as the recipients, so the outworkings of the gifts are as unique as the lives of the recipients. That outworking or "ministry" is from the word diakonos, "one who executes the commands of another." The word was used for a servant or table-waiter. In the exercise of our gift, we are the hands and feet of the Son of Man, who " came not to be served, but to serve" (Mark 10:45). The function of every gift is ministry, servitude--not forced labor, but willing service to the Lord Jesus Christ and for His glory.

When we serve in the filling of the Holy Spirit, there will be results, we will affect people. "Effects" here is from the Greek word for operational power. Energeia--from which we get the word "energy"--is used in the New Testament only of superhuman power. It is a power that makes us efficient and effective in life, and when we are effective, God the Father is glorified.

"Each one" is hekastos; it means absolutely each and every one. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is given a spiritual gift. No one ever has been or ever will be left out. "Given," from didomi, reminds us that spiritual gifts, like everything else in the Christian life, are a gift, a product of grace.

1. There is one Spirit who bestows all spiritual gifts (1 Cor.

12:4,7,1 1).

2. There is one Lord over all the gifts (1 Cor. 12:5). Out of the gift bestowed on each believer should come service, ministry. Because believers are the body of Christ, all service on the part of Christians is a continuation of the things that Jesus began to do and to teach when He was in the flesh on the earth (Acts 1:1)

3. There is one God who supplies the power and makes the gifts effective (1 Car. 12:6). Miñ~stry will produce results, effects. The Greek energeo is the root of two words used in 1 Corinthians 12:6: "effects" and "works." God is the power behind both.

4. All gifts have one goal: to edify or build up the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:7; Eph. 4:12-1 3).

5. All gifts work by one power and motivation, love (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

"Manifestation" is from phaneroo, which means "to reveal, to make clear." Phanerosis is used in the New Testament to describe appearances of God or revelations of His essence (Mark 16:12; John 2:11, 9:3; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Pet. 5:4; 1 John 3:5, 5:8). Our spiritual gift is the channel for the manifestation of God first to us and then to others. It is as we exercise our gift that God quenches our thirst, revealing Himself to us in ways that He reveals Himself to no one else. Then He reveals Himself to those around us in ways that He can through no one else.

Each person's spiritual gift is a manifestation of something invisible--the power of the Holy Spirit. Though the power itself is invisible, the evidences of the power will be clearly seen. As Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, we cannot see the wind, but when it blows, we can see its effects. The Spirit is the wind; we are the effects of the wind.

Christians are called to live for Christ, to reflect His character, to reach out with His love to others. The Holy Spirit gives to each one of us the power to display some special aspect of Jesus Christ. No one has a gift like anyone else's. There is nothing in our lives that can have impact on the world like the exercise of our special gift.

This manifestation of the Spirit is given to each of us for an immediate purpose, what Paul calls here the "common good." This phrase is a translation of one Greek word-sumphero, a compound of sun, "together," and phero, "to bear a load." It means "that which is profitable." In Ephesians 4 Paul tells us that spiritual gifts are given for the purpose of edifying-building up-the Church, the body of Christ.

If we cannot fulfill our destiny apart from the exercise of our spiritual gifts, then it is absolutely essential that we know what our gifts are. If we are serious about wanting to discover our gifts and to achieve greatness, we should set ourselves not to finding the gifts, but to waiting on the Giver. Study the Word, develop the attitude of a servant, be willing to do the tasks no one else wants to do, seek to be the last and the least. Learn the lesson that the Lord repeatedly tried to teach His disciples: In God's economy, the way up is the way down.

This was not the first time--and it would not be the last-that the disciples let their desire to be recognized and applauded interfere with the Lord's desire to make them great.

In Mark 9:1-32 we see the events that led to the disciples' "discussion" here. Peter, James, and John had just had a "mountain top experience." Jesus had taken them up to a high mountain and had been transfigured before them. They had seen Elijah and Moses talking with the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory. They had heard the voice of God.

At the very time that these three were seeing this marvelous sight, the other disciples were in the valley, caught up in a frustrating attempt to cast a demon out of a child. They were failing in front of an expectant crowd.

When Jesus and the three returned, the first thing they heard was the crowd's complaints against the disciples. The Lord, reminding the people that "All things are possible to him who believes" (Mark 9:23), cast the demon out of the boy Himself. Mark 9:30 tells us that Jesus and the disciples then set out to go through Galilee. On the way He begins to tell them about His coming betrayal and death and resurrection.

Picture the scene: some disciples have been given a tremendous privilege while the others were unable to accomplish a task they should have been able to accomplish. So three disciples are on a spiritual high and the rest are depressed as Jesus begins to teach the most critical lesson they could ever learn. The Lord was explaining what Paul would later say were the most important points of the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:3-5). At this moment the disciples' circumstances--their successes or their failures--did not matter. They were not the issue. Jesus Christ was the issue, and what mattered was what Jesus was trying to teach.

But the disciples were not listening; they were preoccupied. Why? Why were they not impressed with the greatness of Jesus Christ? Because they were impressed with their own greatness; they were concerned with how important they appeared to be. When we are impressed with ourselves, we will not be impressed with Jesus Christ, and we will not recognize our need to hear the Word of God.

So, Jesus, who knew all along that they were not listening to Him, asks the disciples what they have been "discussing. Dialogizomai is from a word that can refer to simple conversation or to argument and dispute among parties.

Here all the disciples were party to a dispute. The imperfect tense tells us that they kept on arguing. Over and over again they kept picking at each other. Anyone who has children can imagine what the trip was like. Jesus is walking along and He starts to teach. He is saying, "Now men, I want you to understand, I am going up to Jerusalem. I will be betrayed and I will be crucified..." and behind Him, Peter jabs John with his elbow and says, "Look, I'm the greatest." And the Lord says, "I am going to be put in the tomb and after three days I will rise again." And Matthew comes up from behind, shoves Peter and says, "Says who?"

Under their breath, thinking He doesn't know, the disciples are constantly arguing, "I'm greater than you are. I've performed more service, I've seen more amazing things, I've done this and I've done that.

The word "greatest" in the Greek is meizon, a comparative from the word megas, which means "great." Meizon is a superlative; it refers to the greatest of the great.

Is it any wonder that when the Lord was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane everyone fled? Is it any wonder that the disciples did not remember the things that were going to happen? Is it surprising that the dawning of the first Resurrection Sunday found them huddling behind locked doors, afraid, depressed, hopeless? No, it is no surprise at all. Because when Jesus was teaching, they were preoccupied, not with who He was and what He was going to do, but with their own greatness.

When a Jewish rabbi had an important lesson to impart, he would sit down, a signal to his students to take their places, that he was about to teach. So the Lord sits down and calls the twelve to Himself.

He takes the word they are using, "great," and changes it to "first." Why would He do that? Because He knew what they really wanted, just as He knows what we really want. The disciples were not asking for greatness, they were asking for prominence. They were interested in recognition. And so the Lord strikes a blow at the inordinate ambition of the disciples, while at the same time holding out to them the potential for true greatness.

"Last" is eschatos, which means "last in order, last in place." "Servant" is diakonos, the root of "ministries" in 1 Corinthians 12:5. In the ancient world the diakonos was a table-waiter, a common servant, someone whose sole purpose in life was to serve someone else. The diakonos filled his time with serving he made his living serving; he was recognized by everyone else as one whose only function was service.

Notice that Jesus does two things with the child. He reaches out and takes the child and sets him on his feet in the middle of the disciples. He lets the disciples look at the child and then He gathers him into His arms. "Gather" is from enagkalizomai, an aorist middle participle which means "to enfold or embrace." He wraps Himself around the child and then He begins to teach the lesson about greatness.

"Receive," dechomai, means "to welcome." The word never carries the connotation of mere toleration; it always has the idea of receiving to oneself with an embrace. The Lord has just illustrated what He is now teaching with words. He is telling the disciples--and He is telling us--not just to accept, but to warmly welcome, the smallest and the apparently least important.

Note that He says not only to receive the child, but to do it in "My name." Our motivation should be desire to serve the person of Jesus Christ. Think about what this implies in the smallest functions of life. What we do for His sake, because of our love for Him, we have actually done to Him.

Each of us chooses whether we will have the attitude of service. Then we choose how far our service will go. God allows us to define the boundaries of our own growth in time and of our own greatness in eternity. The farther down we are willing to go now, the more we are willing to serve unnoticed and without acclaim in time, the greater we will be in eternity in heaven.

Any large Jewish household would have had a great number of vessels, some made of gold and silver, many more made of wood and earthenware or clay. The gold and silver were very valuable and would be used for special purposes. The wood and clay were common and would be used for common tasks.

The great house Paul is talking about here is the house of God, built on the firm foundation of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). Every believer is a vessel in that house.

God gives all of us the option of choosing what kind of vessels we will be. If we choose to be common, God will have for us only common tasks. If we choose to pursue spiritual quality, God will have wonderful tasks for us.

Exactly how are we to go about becoming vessels of honor? Through cleansing. In 1 John 1:9 God promises that if we confess our sins, He will always forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If any man cleanses himself, Paul says, "he will be a vessel for honor." This is the assurance of the future tense which indicates the normal, sequential action of a person moving from the point of salvation forward, using confession continually.

At some point after we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and become members of the royal family of God, we sin again. But, the moment we confess our sin, we are restored to fellowship with God and are set back on the upward path. As we take in the milk of the Word, we grow. Eventually we are able to take in the meat of advanced doctrine. For the rest of our lives on earth, we will commit sins. But as we grow, we learn to confess more quickly and we learn to stay in fellowship for longer and longer periods of time. As we constantly take those upward steps, Pressing on to the high ground of spiritual maturity, we will become special vessels that Cod will use in magnificent ways.

"Sanctified, useful, prepared" are the three results of our continuous cleansing. The Person who applies cleansing repeatedly, day by day, will eventually be sanctified, useful, and prepared.

"Sanctified" means "set apart" to God. Paul uses the perfect Passive participle of hagiazo. The perfect tense indicates past action with continuous results. The passive voice means that we do not produce this action. Paul is saying that somewhere in the past we were cleansed with the result that we keep on being cleansed. We live daily in the light of the cross, in fellowship with the Lord. And because we are doing this, we are going to be set apart to God.

"Useful" is euchrestos, meaning "functional, serviceable." What makes us functional in life? Confession and cleansing followed by growth. The formula for usefulness is this: confess; study the Word; apply the Word.

"Prepared" is the perfect passive participle of hetoimazo and it means "to be properly equipped and qualified for a task."

We, cannot sanctify ourselves; we cannot prepare ourselves. All we can do is choose to be available to God, choose to humble ourselves before Him in simple confession of our sins. if we want to be sanctified, useful, and prepared for God, we have only to be available.

7. Paul (2 Tim. 4:16). Though at his last trial everyone deserted him, Paul remained available to God. Throughout his ministry Paul had poured out his life for the people to whom he took the Gospel (1 Thess. 2:8), and because all along the line he had made decisions for service, he knew at the end that reward was waiting (2 Tim. 4:6-8).

A five-pound bag of iron made into horseshoe nails is worth $5.5o. Made into needles it is worth $3,000. Made into main springs for watches, it is worth $250,000. We are raw material in the hands of God. What will be our worth in heaven? The answer depends on how much refining we all God to do in our lives on earth.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7

Unit 2, Lesson 4

2. What does "manifestation" mean?

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3. Who chooses a believer’s spiritual gift?

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4. Who gives spiritual gifts?

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5. How important are spiritual gifts in the life of a believer?

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6. How can we discover our spiritual gift?

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7. What did Jesus say is the number-one requirement for attaining greatnes?

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8. What does it mean to be, and how can we become, "vessels of honor"?

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9. How does a person cleanse himself?

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10. What does "sanctified" mean?

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11. List at least five reasons why humility is important.

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12. How would you explain spritual gifts and the ministry of the believer to a friend? What Scriptures would you use to back your claims?

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