Transcription
When I spoke last time, I spoke on the gift of prophecy, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And it's just really come to my heart that there's a real danger that we face in the body of Christ where we get things ballack third. We we turn things upside down and we value something that we shouldn't be valuing, and we evaluate by that, and we esteem others by that same thing. And so I wanted to look first of all, before I go into the message, at what the gifts of the Spirit are.
So those are listed in 1 Corinthians 12. It's in verse 1, it says this: "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols, where however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one's speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministry, but the same Lord. And that and there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another a word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills."
So that's the gifts of the Spirit. Let's flip to Galatians 5:22, and this is the fruit of the Spirit. "But the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law." There's a first is my Lutheran boy, I haven't it down where it's from, but it says, "By your fruit, by their fruits you will know them." I can't believe I didn't write that one down, the reference. But it, we in the body of Christ have a danger that we think we know people by their gifting. We look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a person's life and we think, ah, let's let's appraise and esteem this one because he has the platform of an evangelist, or he has the authority and calling of a pastor. So you have the gifts and the calling are irrevocable. And it says that in Romans 11:29, that the gifts are calling on your life are irrevocable. But the fruit of the Spirit is a different thing, and it's by the fruit of the Spirit that we know people, not by their gifts, and not by their cause.
And we have a, we have a danger, not only do we esteem others by their gifts and their cause, but we judge and evaluate ourselves by the gifts that God has given. And it's said in that scripture, as he wills, he's made a choice as to what call of God he has placed upon us. It's the call of God, right? It is not the call of us. We don't get to pick what giftings we have. We don't get to pick what call we have. He is the one, he wills it. So that isn't a way to evaluate our own life. It's by his choice and his will that he has given each one of us the gifts and calls that we have. The thing that we do have a choice over, and the way that we can evaluate ourselves and look at and know other people, is by the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, and that's where our focus needs to be.
I mean, I I know that all of us in in any kind of church, well, if they hear a famous preacher or a famous worship leader is coming, there is an excitement, there's an anticipation over that. But it's the anointing of God that breaks the yoke. It's not the gifts of God. It's not the call of God that breaks the yoke in people's lives. If we want to see changes happen for eternity, it comes to the anointing of God present. It doesn't come through us, and doesn't come through our gifts and our cool.
In Ephesians 4, at verse 12, it says the purpose of gifts. Gifts are given for the edification of the body and for the equipping of the body for ministry. Okay. So it says this is where it talks about the call. It says in verse 11 of Ephesians 4, "And he gave himself some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men and in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ."
So that's where the call of God on people's lives, the purpose of it, and the gifts come under the same category. The gifts and call of God are for these purposes, for the equipping of the saints. So anyone that has given their life to Jesus is by biblical definition a saint. I'm not talking about Catholic saints, I'm talking about the biblical definition of a saint is a believer who is following after Jesus. So that's that is the purpose of a gift and a call. It is for the equipping of fellow believers, and it's equipping them for the work of ministry. So when when Pastor Gary preaches on a Sunday, he's using his pastoral gifting to encourage the people in your community, in your church, to motivate you for acts of ministry, acts of service unto the Lord. It's not to give himself a platform or to draw attention to his gifting.
And then the second reason is for the maturity of believers. It says for the edifying of the body of Christ. So as you use the gifts that God has given you, make sure your heart is right before the Lord as you do it. That it's never about focus upon you, upon your gifting. It is for the purpose of equipping others to serve Jesus, and the purpose of bringing us all into a greater place of maturity. The gifts are given for the edification of the body and the equipping of the body for ministry, not for us to justify ourselves by or identify others by.
And we see the absolute concern that we should have over this when we look at Matthew 7:22, when Jesus says, "In that day many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not do all these things in your name?" This is a gift identification perspective. Our focus is on the gift. Those that say that to Jesus at the end of time have got their focus on what they do, on how they've used their gift. But that's not what Jesus is after, because he says, "Depart from me, I didn't know you." So this is where we need to have our focus also. It's not on the use of our gifts. Yes, we need to use them well. We know all of the scriptures about how the talents about using things for God's glory, you will give us more if we use the what we have well, we know that. But if our focus is only in what we do and not in who we are in Christ, we really are missing it massively.
In Jesus's words, when we know and abide in Jesus, that's when we bear the fruit. In John 15:5, it says, "I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." So there's a big difference here. Gifts have a giver, and fruit has a root. And so I want to look at that today. Right, a gift is given by God for others. It's not given for ourselves. We don't sit there with a a gift and just revel in it and just enjoy it in ourselves. We have to be diligent in the use of it, but it is for others. That's why we're given a gift. But fruit has a root, and so we need to look at the roots in determining the fruit.
I'm sure you're all aware of that scripture. It says, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." So therefore, the fruit that comes out of our mouth is coming from the root that's in our heart. In Hebrews 11:15, it gives an example of that, and it says, "Therefore, by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name." So if you want to assess your root system, one of the first things you can do is look at the fruit that's coming out of your mouth. That's a great thing to look at.
But roots, let's look at roots. There's so much pictures that are given in Scripture that makes sense to us on a spiritual level, that are here in nature around us. There are roots that abide outside of the soil, but there's not masses of them. Roots as a standard are hidden, they are surrendered, and they pursue water. They hold resources for the plant. Your roots will determine the fruit of the Spirit in your life. If your roots are anchored in the in the water pursuing of water, are you pursuing the Holy Spirit in the secret place? And with the roots as well, because they're hidden, we need to look within us at the hidden things. We need to look at our habits, we need to look at our thoughts, we need to look at those small things. You've heard me say a million times, it's the secret, they're hidden in the small. That's where all of your victory will come from, and that's where all of your failure can come from. It's from that, the secret, the hidden, and the small. And it's the same with a root system. What is our hidden life like? Is our greatest strength or our greatest weakness?
So I would love you to just assess before the Lord and let the Holy Spirit speak to you if you have been gift-focused in your evaluation of others, or if you have justified yourself by the gifts that God has given you. Because we don't have, we can't stand before a Tony and say, "I did this in your name," because we hear Jesus's word say that's not a value to him. It's when his words abide in us and we abide in him and we bear fruit, that's how we know God and that's how we walk with Him. So if there's any place where you have esteemed others solely based on gifting, it's a danger zone. Because if people fall because they're just gifting and they're not fruit, we will get discouraged. We've all heard stories of people who have great giftings, we have great big ministries, but they fall because the fruit of God in their life was not there. So they stumbled and they fell, and they will potat people down with them. More than ever, if people are esteeming the gifting and not knowing them through their fruit, because it is by their fruit that we know people.