# Introduction to Spiritual Gifts

Key Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:1
Date: June 7, 2024

Turn your mind, if you would, to First Corinthians chapter 12. We are going to do a six-week series. There will be interruptions here and there, Easter and “each one bring one,” whatnot, but it will be all together six weeks. We’ll have just a little introduction tonight, and then we’ll start taking three gifts a Sunday night. We will do that for four Sunday nights, covering three different gifts each night. It is such an important thing, and I pray that God will use it in your life.

Towards the end, we’ll give you an opportunity to take a spiritual gifts test. Trying to find out where you are gifted by God is very, very important. And by the way, I felt to mention—I wanted to mention it right before we pray—Marie Strickland has surgery on Tuesday. Pray for her, if you would, please; it is back surgery. She is in such pain. Just pray for that to be successful, that she gets out of that and it will be a blessing for her. Would you pray about that, please?

First Corinthians chapter 12. We are going to start just in verse number one to kind of get us going on this introduction to spiritual gifts tonight. I thought with ministry and involvement, we’ll just go through a little study. My glasses have been getting weak on that side. I pulled them off today and thought, I think I should just go ahead and get rid of that side there. It is about to…

These are Dollar General, just a little bit of nothing. What do you think if it just worked like that? I do not know. Actually, it is the other side that has been loose. I do not know. Dollar General—they will last at least a lifetime, right? Brother Adam sent me a little thing on the cell phone one day, and I liked it. It said, “What you think of Tennessee,” and it was just a country road, beautiful scenery. Right below it, it said what actually is in Tennessee: a country road, beautiful scenery, and it had a Dollar General on there. That is the way it really is, you know. Get your reading glasses in there, amen. An advertisement for them. I think I am just going to get rid of this side here, if it will come off. They do not want to come off now. There it goes. Well, it is coming off anyway, so we are just finishing it off. Now we can do like this. What about that? Now we are good.

First Corinthians chapter 12. We are going to start in verse number one. Would you stand if you are able? By the way, great to have the Dumpers here tonight, and glad to have been able to get out more often with his hip and whatnot. Glad to have him here tonight, both of them, the Dumpers. That is a blessing. Verse number one, the Bible says, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.”

Let us just stop there. Let us have a word of prayer. Would you pray as I pray that God will use this series to be a blessing and help to us? Father Lord, we come to you tonight. Lord, thank you for your word. You have told us of the many things that happen to us at our new birth, our second birth. Father, I pray it should make real this thing of spiritual gifts to us. Father, help us to understand ourselves better and how we fit into your kingdom, your church, better. And, Father, how we can allow or accept others as they are better. Lord, use this study to help your people. We will thank you, Lord, for what you do in Jesus’ name we ask. Amen. Thank you so much for standing. You may be seated.

Now notice he says, starting off this subject, concerning spiritual gifts. He said, I do not want you to be ignorant. I will be honest, for years and years I really did not have anyone teach me. I did not understand a lot about spiritual gifts. Sometimes us Baptists, because some have misused it—they talk about some sign gifts and say it is for our day and age, which was the apostolic age—it gets all confusing, and so it has caused some of us Baptists to shy away from this thing of spiritual gifts. But it is very biblical. God says, I do not want you to be ignorant of this thing here, spiritual gifts. It is very, very important. It will help you understand why you are wired, why you may think a little bit differently, and how you are to fit into the church of God. You can better understand yourself, be a little bit more confident that perhaps God made you this way, and there is a reason for that. You can more knowledgeably thank God how He made you that way.

Let me just say a note before we really get more into this as far as the introduction. I have made up a spiritual gifts test, and I think that is the one we will use. The main reason for that is because the vast majority of spiritual gifts tests will have in it one of the gifts of soul winning. But you will not find that in the Bible. There are different lists in the Bible of the gifts. I remember I would write four of them; none of them have in that list of gifts soul winning or evangelism. No, it is not a gift; that is a command, something God gave—that Great Commission—to all of us. You will not find that in the list of gifts. We will read through those without the study and check it. That is why we really just went ahead and made up our own, because that is not a spiritual gift. That is a command for all of us to be involved in this matter of winning souls. So just a little side note on all that.

Now let us jump down, if you would, to verse number 12—chapter 12, verse number seven, excuse me, chapter 12, look at verse number seven right there. Chapter 12, verse number seven. He says, “But the manifestation of the Spirit”—by the way, he has been talking about gifts in verse number four: “Now there are diversity of gifts, but the same Spirit.” Okay, so the context here is of gifts through the Spirit. “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” Now, he is speaking there directly to the Corinthian Church. They were babes in Christ, but they were Christians, and I believe he is talking to born-again Christians. He said, “is given to every man the manifestation of the Spirit.” The context here is of gift.

Let me just kind of put that in everyday language. When you were born, twenty-something years ago, right, for most of you out there—whenever you were born, however long ago that was—when you were born, you were gifted with some physical gifts. Some of you were gifted; you were tall. Some of you were gifted with blue eyes or brown eyes or whatever. You are gifted. Maybe you were gifted. I came in; Brother Adam was up here leading choir. He was over there hitting the notes, the chords, basically the piano. He is gifted with music. Praise the Lord for it. That is a physical gift. By the way, it is not necessarily a spiritual gift, but it is a physical gift. He was born with that. You can grow and work on these gifts, but…

Praise the Lord for John and Dina. They joined the church this morning. I know Brother John’s gift in a lot of ways; they are very enjoyable. He is a likable man; you enjoy that. But Miss Dina, I know she is gifted at cooking. She likes to cook. Praise the Lord for that. Brother John says there is a manifestation of that in Brother John’s life. That is what he is saying about her. Yeah. You are born with some gifts when you are born physically. You have some physical gifts. Some are more athletic than others, and so on and so on. Some are more book smart. Some are more just… We have a quote for the week in staff meeting, and I read one, I think it was last week. It was a quote from Benjamin Franklin. He said this: “A man can name his horse in nine different languages. He’s so smart, so wise, he can name his horse in nine different languages. He had so much sense he’d buy a cow to ride,” you know. Some people have a lot of book knowledge, but they have no common sense. And somebody here, they do not have a lot of sense when it comes to book knowledge, but they have a lot of wisdom when it comes just to everyday common sense, you know. We are all gifted a little differently.

When you are born again, when you are reborn—by the way, praise the Lord, Brother Roberts settled his salvation on Monday, and he knows that he is saved, heading to heaven now; I praise the Lord for that—when you settle that, you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, when you are born again, you are saved, you are spiritually gifted then. Just like when you are physically born, you are physically gifted with different attributes and whatnot. When you are spiritually born, God gives you some spiritual gifts, all right?

The Bible lists many of those. I do not know that it lists all of them, to be honest with you. We are going to study 12 of them in particular, specifically, but you are gifted. Sometimes the physical gift and the spiritual gift can work together. Maybe somebody is just born, talent-wise, liking to cook. One of my nieces, Amber—some of you know some of my nieces—Amber, she was just born liking to cook. I mean, she is a little girl; she was all about cooking, you know. She grew up, and she still likes to cook. Praise the Lord for that when we go see them. That is a physical gift, but she can also—maybe I do not know about Amber—but maybe she has a gift of mercy. Now you put those two together; that is a pretty good combination. A mercy shower—they just have mercy on people even if it is their own fault they are there. They just have mercy on them; they are a mercy shower. They are spiritually gifted in that area. Maybe someone has a physical gift of music, and maybe they also have the spiritual gift of exhortation. Exhortation is encouraging, but it is encouraging someone; it has to do with coming alongside someone, encouraging them, “Let us follow the Lord together,” type thing. If you study the word out, we will study these different words out. You can use that with music in that, a lot of different ways you can use your spiritual gifts and even physical gifts together.

Now, look over in Romans chapter 12. How many of you here tonight say, “I am a born-again Christian”? Would you say amen if you are a born-again Christian? Good, good. So every person that said amen, you are a born-again Christian; you have at least one spiritual gift. You can have more, but you have at least one spiritual gift. By the way, I do not think anyone has all of them. Let me just add a little side note here in the introduction: just because you are not gifted in an area, it does not mean you cannot work at it. It is not right to say, “Well, that is not my gift, so I am not going to worry about it.” No, that is not right either. But you are gifted in something. Let us look at this. Romans chapter 12, and look down in verse number three right there. Verse number three: “For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”

Can I stop for just a second there? Some have said, “Boy, I know I am good; I am gifted in discernment.” I am not trying to be mean, but sometimes the pastor knows more about behind the scenes of people’s lives and whatnot. They are fooled so badly, and I think, “Well, you might not be as gifted in this thing of discernment as you think you are.” That is what is being talked about there. Sometimes this might be a good thing for spouses or even parents and children, either way. Instead of you filling out a spiritual gift test for yourself, it may be good to let someone else fill it out for you—someone who knows you very well. If you are truly good at it, those that are close to you will typically know if you are gifted at it or not. That is what is being talked about here.

He says, “For I say through the grace given to me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Now, some will say, “I think I am gifted in that.” There might not be. But some will not go to the other extreme: “Well, I do not have any gifts.” Yes, you do. For you, it may be good for someone close to you to fill out a spiritual gift test. They say, “Hey, I believe you are gifted in that.” He said, “Be sober, be serious.” Do not say, “Well, I do not have anything,” or think you are all that. Just be sober, be serious about this thing. Every man has some gift. If you are a born-again Christian, you are spiritually gifted.

Look down, if you will, at verse number six of Romans 12: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the portion of faith.” Now, it is just a fault—we ought none of us get proud about our gifts. By the way, physical or spiritual, we are talking about spiritual gifts. You are gifted with that. You did not do anything to earn it; God gave it to you. It would be wrong for me to go around and say, “Well, I have this spiritual gift right here.” You did not earn it; God gave that to you.

By that, did you notice in verse number six, He gave it to you by His grace? Grace—God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Christ earned that gift for you when He shed His blood on the Cross of Calvary, and He went through that agony and that pain He was earning. When He spent those three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, the heart of the earth in Hades, if you will—Abraham’s bosom, it would be more correct—when He spent that, He was earning that gift for you. He is the one who gave it to you. He is the one who earned it. I have no reason to be proud of that. Why in the world would I think I am better than somebody or a little snooty because I am gifted in there? I did not do a thing to earn it; Christ earned it for me, and He gave it to me. I should not get proud about gifts. I should not get proud about any of it. If you worked at something you are lacking in, you may have a little bit more of a right to get proud about it because you had to work at it. You are gifted. He gave it to you through grace. Jesus earned it for you on the cross account. I have no reason, when it comes to this matter of gifts, for me to get proud and snooty and all that. No, no, not at all. I have no reason, as it is given to me by the grace of God.

Now look over, if you would, please, in 1 Timothy chapter 4. This is Paul speaking of a gift. I do not know that it would be quite the normal gift. This gift was given—very interesting—this gift was given to him when the presbytery, the other preachers, put their hands on him. By the way, putting hands on someone to pray over is a very serious matter. The Bible talks about laying hands on no man suddenly. When we ordain deacons, if they are already ordained deacons, we do not ordain them again. Or if they are just first time getting ordained, we will lay hands on them, or sometimes we will pray over someone and we will put hands on them. That is a very serious matter. When Timothy, the presbytery, the preachers, laid hands on him, he was gifted in a special way. I want you to notice what he says about this thing here. In 1 Timothy 4, look at verse number 14, if you would please. 1 Timothy 4, verse number 14: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbytery.”

This gift, he said, do not neglect it. If God has gifted you in a certain way, use it. Do not neglect it; put it to use. We will talk—I think maybe next Sunday night, I am not sure of the order we will do it, but we will talk one of these Wednesday or Sunday nights—about the gift of a prophet. That is the only gift that is listed in all the different lists; it shows you its importance. We need that gift. If you have a gift of a prophet, you have to be very wise with that, but use it. If you have the gift of helps, oh, that can be such a helpful gift. Amen. We will talk about what that means, but boy, use that gift. If you have the gift of shepherding, oh, that is so important for a Sunday school teacher to have that gift. You say, “I am not gifted.” Oh, I need to develop that. You have the gift of teaching, you have the gift of ministry, the gift of ruling—all kinds of gifts the Bible lists—and wherever you are gifted, use that gift. Mercy showers. There are a whole lot of people in 2024 that need a mercy shower in their life. Use it. He said, “Do not neglect the gift that is in thee.” Let me say this: God has put you in Rutherford County Baptist Church, and He chose which member you are to be here, gifted the way you are. Use it in the church. God knew who needs the help; He knows who He needs, and He puts you here to use your gifts for the Lord. Jesus bought it on the cross, so do not waste it. He shed His blood for you to have that. By His grace you have it, so use it. Do not waste what He earned for you. Do not neglect it, all right? Do not neglect the gift that is given to you.

Now let us go back over to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We have already jumped ahead a little bit, but I want you to see it biblically. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, look in verse number 18, if you would please, verse number 18. You are there, 1 Corinthians 12:18, amen? Good, here we go: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.” God says, I like that—the body. By the way, one day we will have a unified body of Christ when we are raptured out of here. Remember that over there, first lesson only: “Dead in Christ arise, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together.” That is the bride of Christ coming together. What is the big thing about that day? To meet the Lord in the air. That is when the bride, the body of Christ, will be assembled. Right now we are meeting in local bodies of Christ. The majority of the time, the Bible used the word church or ecclesia—some form of that word—about 11, 11, 11, 18 times. More often than not, it was talking about a local church at Corinth or whatever, maybe the church at Ephesus and whatnot. You use these gifts in the local bodies of Christ. God has put you—we have already mentioned—God has put you in this local body of Christ to be used for the Lord. You say, “It has pleased this church to make someone gifted like that.” It has pleased Him.

Look down in verse number 27, verse number 28: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then the gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues,” and so on and so on. God has put them in the church. It is amazing how God provides for His bride. A good husband meets the needs of his bride. A good husband works—I mean, he has to work two jobs, he will work two jobs—but he wants to provide for his bride, and Christ provides. It has been amazing over the years. I just have a little bit of a tiny part, and God does all the work, but to watch God provide for this local church. He brings just the people we need at the right time. What a blessing. I am so thankful for that. It has been amazing to see God do that over the years. What a wonderful thing. It has pleased Him; He brings them to the church.

Now look down verse number 15 there. You are in chapter 12. Look down verse number 15, if you would please, here. We will start in 14, please. Verse 14: “For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, ‘Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body?” Sure, it is still part of the body. “If the ear shall say, ‘Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body?” If the whole body were an eye, would not that be weird? One big eyeball walking around here, you know? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? And if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? You can say so much about this, but let me just make a little note here. So far, if I am viewing it right, all these things are part of the head. You look at someone; typically, the first thing you will see is their head. It is those that are in the light. Somebody has to be there; God leads them to be there. It is funny sometimes how positions can change people. Just because they get little people looking at them, they think, “Well, you know, I am just the hearing; I am not the smelling,” or “I am the eye.” It is funny; all these so far have been part of the head, and they are so careful of that. I wonder sometimes what it would take for us or for me to get proud. All these were in the head here, and they are like, “Well, I am not of this.” The hand was one of them, not part of the head there, you know. But hands, of course, He used a lot. Be careful of that. He is talking about these different parts of the body. Let me say this: Do not seek to fulfill or get called upon somebody else’s role. That is where God has me, and I want to fulfill my role. If you get a church where everybody is concerned about everybody else’s role, you have a church full of trouble. No, no. That is where God put me. I am not the ear; I am the eye, or I am not the hand; I am the foot. This is where I am, and I am going to be content where I am at. I am not going to be fighting over where everybody is. No, I am just content where God has me, and there is contentment there. This is how God has wired me. This is where God wants me. I want to be right where I am supposed to be, and it is such a good thing.

Now, let us keep going. Look what he says in verse number four about this. Look at verse number four, if you would, please. He says, “Now there are diversity of gifts, but the same Spirit.” Look down in verse number 11: “But all these worketh that one and selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.” Ephesians 4:3 says this: “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

If we were to have—I know of a church, I think they have four pianos in there. We do not have that; we do not need that. I am talking about it on a platform. But if we were to have, you know, six or seven pianos, and you said, “Boy, we have to have them all tuned to each other, and each are trying to play.” All right, you get over here on my side, get in tune with me here; you get to me. It would not work; it would be just chaos. What do we have? We have our piano tuned every couple of years, whatnot, by the technician. Often he will come out—I do not know if they always do, but used to always—he will get that tuning fork, and that technician will get all those different pianos, and he will tune those pianos to that tuning fork, and then all those pianos are tuned alike. That is what it is when I am sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I let the Holy Spirit lead and guide, and as He leads and guides, and I am in tune with Him, and so-and-so is in tune with Him, and so-and-so is in tune with Him, and so-and-so is in tune with Him, there is unity in the church. There is peace. The Holy Spirit has led them over there and over here, and He has gifted us all differently, and we are all tuned to the same person. Is it not amazing? The Bible—at least 40 different men that God used to pen the Word of God over 12, 14, some will even say 1,600 different years, 1,600 years. They lived in different parts of the world; many of them did not know each other. Yet the Bible, if you study it out, it is a wonderful jigsaw puzzle that fits together amazingly. How did that happen? Because there is one author: the Holy Spirit. Those holy men of God moved as the Spirit spoke through them. The same thing is true in the church. When everybody just says, “Boy, I want to be tuned to the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God has gifted me this way. This is what He wants for me.” As everybody does it, it brings wonderful harmony to this unity found. There is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Now, let us go back. We have already looked at it, just very, very quickly here. Look in verse number seven. We are going to be done with the introduction to this thing. Look at verse number seven, chapter 12, verse number seven: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given”—what does it say?—“to every man to profit withal.” Notice that: “to profit withal.” This church has all kinds of different gifts. Every one of you is a born-again Christian; you are gifted uniquely. God, as it has pleased Him, has put people in this church gifted this way and this way and this way and this way and this way. Here is the thing: it is to profit all. See?

So here is the thing. Let us say someone comes, they get saved. By the way, praise the Lord, one of the teenage boys sat down front here; Brother Chip got to lead him to the Lord this morning. Praise the Lord for that. Now that boy—he is 16, I think it is. I should not call him boy; this young man, whatever it is, this boy—he is not here tonight, amen, so we will say boy. But this boy, this young man, if he—and I have seen this at a very large church—if a bus worker (not at our church, but at a very large church) would bring someone, they would just pull that person off to themselves, maybe to a couple of people, but not the whole church. It is always a mistake to do that. When that bus teenager had it out with that one individual that left the church, if it had been known to the whole church, it would have stayed. But here is what I am getting at: When someone comes to our church and gets saved, they do not need just one or two people disciplining them, if you will, because they just get a couple of gifts. They need so-and-so. Oh, they have the gift of a prophet, and they need to see someone who is just concerned about truth. Truth, truth, true, true. Do not care whose feelings they hurt—truth, truth, truth. But they do not just need that blend put in their life. They need someone over here that shows mercy. By the way, that is a pretty tough blend to be in the same person; he has to work at it. But they need somebody over there who is gifted with faith. If somebody has faith, I wish I was gifted. I like to be around people gifted with the gift of faith. I think you can gain and learn a little bit from that. They just believe God; they just have an extra amount of faith. I want that right there; we all need that. That young person needs to be around that person. Then somebody over here has the gift of ruling, and they need to see that. Maybe that is the way they are gifted, and they kind of need to see, “All right, I am wired like that.” But they need the whole church family. That is why cliques are such a bad thing for the church. Earlier in this book of 1 Corinthians 3, he said, “You are babes in Christ.” Do you know why they are babies in Christ? Because they said, “Well, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas”—just cliques. Cliques make baby Christians. That is why we have not grown; it is just cliques. No, no. He said, look, this gift—we are gifted in a certain way. They need to see Brother Patterson was gifted, this person with this gift, and this person with this gift, and they get a blend of all that. That is part of a church family. God says, as it has pleased Him, He put them in that church, and they are gifted in special ways, and they can profit themselves, yet others also can get profit from that because He has gifted them that certain way.

I do not have this in notes, but it is just on my mind, and maybe the Lord would have me say it. Something else about gifts: it helps us. I mentioned just briefly, kind of touched on it as I was going. Another good thing about gifts is that as you learn that you are gifted a certain way, it allows you to let other people be different. If it is a situation, the prophet sees it, and they are going to be like, “Well, let us lay the law down right there.” That is how they are wired; that is very needed. But then a mercy shower—they are going to be totally on the other end of the spectrum; they need mercy. A mercy shower needs to let a prophet be a prophet, and a prophet needs to let a mercy shower be a mercy shower. We are all wired a little differently. We have got to allow for that. I cannot expect everyone to be like me because I am really wired weird. I tell you what, I am just totally weird, you know. That is part of it also. Here is the thing. Look over in 1 Peter chapter 4, if you would, please.

By the way, I am looking for next Sunday night, Lord willing, we are going to start talking about three different specific gifts every Sunday night. We will study them out. We will look tonight at 1 Peter chapter 4, and look in verse number 10. First Peter 4, verse number 10, right there. He says, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” God has gifted you; use it for the Lord. Imagine you go to a cemetery, and they were born in 1925 and went into eternity? That little dash represents 50 years. Would it not be a shame for us, in that dash, not to use our gifts for the Lord for eternity? He has gifted us that way. Yes, I had physical gifts. When I was born, I was born with those physical gifts. But when I was born again, and the Spirit moved in and I became a new creature, I am gifted spiritually. Every person that is saved here, you are gifted spiritually. During that dash, we want to use these gifts that the Lord has given us for His glory and to help His people reach the lost.

Oh, yeah, use it. Our military recently did some airstrikes on Hezbollah, you know, the northern part up there of Israel. They have attacked, and I think three of our military men passed. It has been ongoing, and Israel—it looks like Israel soon will not just be Gaza down; they have been up there at Hezbollah and whatnot. Those planes, some have been drones, but those planes—when they take off from that aircraft carrier wherever—realize all the man hours that had worked went into that. Brother Kevin was a crew chief; he got that F-16 all ready to go. By that, it means that he put the Dunkin’ Donut coffee right there by the pilots. That is what it means right there; that is what their job is. If it was Miss Melissa, it would be Dutch Brothers, you know, but anyway. They made sure mechanically that plane… Wouldn’t it be bad if they were flying over there to run an airstrike, and he said, “Man, I’m about out of fuel. This is not good. I am about to have to land in the sea here,” the Mediterranean Sea, because so-and-so did not do their job? They did not put fuel in this thing. Would it not be bad if they went to shoot off one of those missiles there, and they pushed the button, and it is not there? They forgot to load that thing. Or maybe the navigation—they had it planned out, and they fell asleep. They did not have their coffee. They fell asleep trying to navigate that mission. There are so many man hours that go into something like that, to drop that missile, that bomb, and be effective. The same thing is true in the kingdom of God. Praise the Lord.

The young man got saved this morning. There are a lot of man hours that went into that. There is bus visitation. There are people working on the bus, buying batteries and putting batteries in that bus. There are people paying the insurance on that thing, people gassing that thing up, people ministering to the bus workers themselves, people putting money in the offering plate to have the building, the house for that young man. You could not have a bus ministry without Sunday school teachers all over the place teaching them in Sunday school—just all the man hours. People are gifted in so many different areas. It was not just prayer warriors. Amen, I never got saved, but all the different people gifted in so many different ways—it is a team. It is not one shining life: “Oh, look at me.” Oh, no, no, no, no. You realize the head could not be up there if there were not feet down there. I was thinking about feet. They do not get much attention, and they do kind of stink, that is for sure, you know. I was listening to someone; I think maybe they watched a little bit of the Super Bowl at the end, and they were talking about the footwork of one of the quarterbacks or something. They said, “They have good-looking feet.” I thought, “They know feet look good? I do not know.” You have problems there, buddy. I mean, I do not know about that. Think about your feet; they carry your weight all day long. They are so important. I do not know if I ever told this—I think I have told it from the pulpit before—but after one of my last surgeries, they said, “Hey, we can take your big toe off and put it on your thumb.” My comment was, “I want to see somebody who has had it done.” I did; I met with the man they had done it to. I thought, “Well, I could make money off of that. I bet I can eat with my big toe,” you know. They would not believe me; I would make money off that thing. Your preacher thinks awfully weird. I am gifted that way, amen. I am wired that way, you know. But now, where was I going with that? Oh! There is a chance it would not be successful, and I could have pain with every step I took. Can you imagine that? They are not beautiful; they stink, but they sure are important every step you take. All these gifts—some of them are not beautiful and are not in the limelight, but they are so vital. Lawn maintenance—I think my wife is important—and all these things. Why? So a young man can miss hell and go to heaven forever. That is the purpose of it all. It takes a whole lot of people wired and gifted in different ways, following the tuning fork, the Spirit of God, and that brings unity. The Spirit of God works, Psalm 133, and God just works, if you will. The bombs get dropped; people get saved.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes, please? Would you take these six Sunday nights? Would you ask the Lord, “Lord, would you show me where I am gifted at?” I am Your child; You are my Father. You regenerated me, redeemed me. Would You show me how and where You gifted me? Then would You show me how and where You want me to use my gift? Would You show me that? Lord, maybe use me to help other people find and use their gifts also. Would You do that? Would you stand right there where you are? We are going to have a word of prayer. Just be obedient to the Lord. Maybe you want to come to an old-fashioned altar. Say, “Lord, show me where I am gifted. Show me where and how You can use me with my gift. Help me to help others find and use their gifts also.” Would you do that? We will pray. You will be obedient to the Lord. Father, thank You. Sometimes we get discouraged and might think, “I am not gifted.” Thank You, Lord, You have made it clear: we all are. Help us not to compare; help us to accept where and what we are and who we are. Lord, help us to use the gift You have gifted us with for Your glory, Lord, and for others to profit withal. Lord, thank You for using Rutherford County Baptist Church. Would You continue to do that in a great way? We will thank You for what You do. Bless these series; use them to help Your people. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen. Would you be obedient as the Lord guides you? Would you do that?

It is just wonderful. It is just wonderful to be a part of the team. It is not my choice; He gifts us as it has pleased Him. I said, “All right, thank You, Lord. You have gifted me like this. I am going to accept that. I am going to try to use that.” I have some weak areas I can work out. This is how You gifted me, and I do not want to neglect that. I want to use that for the good of the church and for the glory of God. I hope you come these Sunday nights. I think you will enjoy it. We will study out the specific gifts, try to get a better understanding of them all, and just how God has gifted us all for His glory. I think it will be an encouragement to you. Do not forget about “Each One Bring One.” We will only have two weeks now. If ladies, if you get a visitor, for “Each One Bring One,” we have a shirt for you there for the ladies. I think you enjoy that. Men, if you get to bring a visitor, work at it. Do your best at it; you get a shirt there. I brought one, “Each One Bring One,” or other Academy of Baptist Church. Amen, I like that. Get your T-shirt. Sometimes maybe just a little something to prod us, a reward. Let us just do our best on that. Maybe you could use that, or say, “Hey, I want to get one of those T-shirts,” or maybe say, “Hey, I will give you my T-shirt.” Let us just come, if you can, just get somebody in church, and just use it however you can for the glory of God. Be a great, great blessing. Glad to have you on Sunday night. I appreciate you being faithful to the house of the Lord. What a blessing, what a blessing.

Original File: Pastor Paul Chisgar - Introduction to Spiritual Gifts - Sunday PM 02182024