The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Lesson 27
Mike Doyle · May 8, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 60
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926192652856

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right. Lesson 26. We're a little bit more than halfway through. Lesson 26. We're on question number... We'll review a little bit here. We're wrapping up question number three. So we're studying the unity of the Spirit and specifically the gifts of the church and their roles within the stewardship of the church age. that we happen to live in.

And so we've looked at the Holy Spirit in dispensations. We know that we're in the dispensation of the church or the stewardship, the household role of God's church. We've looked at the Holy Spirit in salvation and in sanctification. So now we're looking at it within the Holy Spirit in the church and specifically the gifts of the Spirit.

So we talked about 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 11 last week and the different and diverse distributions of the gifts of the Spirit. And we notice that Paul has a reverse order in 1 Corinthians 12 that he mentions based on what he said in verse 3. And we see the triunity of God and the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And then in verse 4 he goes and reverses that order and talks about the role of gifts having been divinely distributed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each having their unique person and role in gifting you the gifts that are necessary for this church age. And so we looked at just the comparison of different distributions, different varieties, different kinds, motivating energy, and so forth, but it all comes from the same God, the triune God, and we know that because of the mention of the Spirit, the Lord, and God himself being part of distributing those different gifts.

And we notice that at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, 4-11, that he says that these are seen as operations of the Spirit with a view to the prophet of all. So these gifts were distributed by the triune God in order to build up the church for the prophet of all of those who belong to the body of Christ. So what's the role of the unity of the spirit in that? Do the gifts function without unity of the spirit and the body?

And so we talked about some of the challenges there. We said that there's some historical challenges with regards to some of those engiftments of miraculous signs, right? We talked about tongues. We talked about the healing aspect of what the gifts were during the foundational age of the church.

And so we looked at 1 Corinthians 13, we backed up a little bit, and we said that love never fails. Remember, we started with the beginning of verse 8, we said love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they'll be done away with and so forth. And then we get down to verse 13, and we said that the greatest of these gifts is love.

And so we went through each of those and said what the difference was. And so I drew up on the board, I'm not sure if you can see on Zoom, But we have this progression and it says, now these remain. So these remain at the top, has an arrow going off onto never fails. And we see that there are those that remain, but love never fails. So we have love at the top going off into eternity. And then we have faith and hope characterized together in this passage. And we see that they fall off. So we have a dotted line that says fall off underneath that. That's faith and hope.

We have prophecy and knowledge and we're told in that verse that prophecy and knowledge are done away with. And we have specifically the gift of tongues mentioned in this passage in 1 Corinthians and we see that the verb associated with tongues is ceasing, that it ceases. So it's important to understand how Paul is explaining these foundational gifts of the church to believers and what does that mean to us today, right?

So we said that tongues will cease. That's a future, middle, and date. That means that it happens at a future point in time. It absolutely will end. It will cease because the purpose of tongues will have reached its conclusion with God's stewardship of the church.

But something interesting here to me is that the bookends of all of these gifts in 1 Corinthians is love. and love never fails. And so we see that these are distinct signs and they were divinely approved by God for the founding of Christianity. But if we look at Ephesians and we start to see in Ephesians chapter 4 that these were for the purposes that certain gifts are operational and other are miraculous. And we said that the operational gifts fall in prophecy and knowledge. Prophecy and knowledge. Thank you Carol. That's right. So in question number four, we said that in this chapter, which questions should appeal to the believer today? So we have two questions.

Should we desire, given our placement, and I'm just giving a little context here, given our placement into the stewardship of the church that God has us in today, Do we covet or do we desire after gift of tongues or working of miracles? And Ryot says, or do we rather long for a fuller knowledge of the truth of God and greater wisdom and power in declaring it? That might be a little bit hard to swallow based on how we might have grown up, right? We talked about the fact that when we are impacted with these gifts that are given to the church, we instantly, what's the first, when we first learn about these gifts, what's the first thing we think about them?

I know what I think. You read these out of 1 Corinthians, or in other cases, Ephesians, and you say, what do you ask yourself? Which one am I? That's right. It's the first thing that you think. Well, what am I? What did God give me? And you could find yourself in an environment where it's an environment of faith determines the amount, the amount of your faith determines the kind of gift that you have. Has anyone been in that situation? So when we talk about God meeting us in our faith, does God answer prayers for healing? Yes, he absolutely does. God does meet us in our faith, and he does answer our faithful prayers for the healing of those that are ill.

But, it's not our faith that's in question here. All these gifts are distributed differently, and in different varieties, and they all require faith. And they don't require more faith than another requires. The gift of prophecy, the gift of knowledge, these gifts that show themselves in the roles of evangelist, pastor, teacher, do they not all require the same faith?

They do. And if you think about what does faith need in order to operate? An object. And what does 1 Corinthians tell us about the object of faith regarding all these gifts? Their source is the same. So would these gifts have us looking and analyzing ourselves and doing what we call a little fruit inspection? What gifts do you have?

We need to get you placed right away, right? We need to make sure that you're either greeting, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with greeting. We need to get you out there knocking door to door, and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with evangelism. You seem to have an aptitude for teaching. Let's get you up there and see how you do.

It doesn't mean that the desire of executing a gift that was distributed to you is different in variety. It doesn't mean that you don't look to serve with those gifts. But if your focus is on your faith and your gift, you're missing the point of the object. The object of our faith is the same Lord for the profit of all.

Unity of the Spirit is the thing that's going on here. And oftentimes when we talk about the distribution of the gifts, we get very individual very quick. And we kind of treat it like it's a hiring process. You know, this person will be great for so and so, and this one will be great for that. Now, I don't want to replace the God-given process of him raising up individuals for the tasks that he has within the local body. That's absolutely part of our Christian growth. However, if I give you a personality test, find out generally where you fall, and then try to fit you into a certain role, I could be circumventing the entire process of unity in the Spirit. Things operate by faith and in time. The tools that God uses in spiritual growth.

I'm going to stop there because I've got a lot of curious faces. What do we think about that? You too, online. Carol, I see you. Like a body of believers the size of Holly Hills would have the appropriate gifts operational within that body of teaching and faith and administration, things like that. Well, let's look at this next question because if we all possess gifts, and based on the fact that we have what, how many people, give or take? 60, 70. 60, 70 people. That's our pool, talent, to figure out what we got. And we know that the purpose of those gifts is to be operated within the unity of the Spirit. So we know that they're operational, and not individually, but as a whole.

Let's look at Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, and then we'll roll into that question a little bit further. It says in Ephesians 4, He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting the saints to the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So, here again, the apostles and the prophets, they've done their work in laying the foundation for those gifts, for the execution of the miraculous signs. And what did the miraculous signs do? They authenticated the message, right? This says that this is not from me, this is from God. This is a message that is divinely inspired from God, and this is authenticating that message, right?

And for the prophets and the apostles, they laid a foundation that we build on top of. So, in terms of the effort to communicate the gospel to the Gentiles, what did God do? He removed the language barrier with the gift of tongues. And he gave some with the ability to speak in those languages, and some with the ability to understand those languages. All for what? The building up of the church. Right?

So we go on and we see, okay, now we have the more commonplace gifts of operational, the operation of the church, and we've got pastors, evangelists, and teachers. Ephesians kind of lays that out for us. So, what are these normal operations, or these gifts of the Spirit, They're specified in these roles a little bit more distinctly from an operations standpoint.

Evangelists, pastors and teachers. And so where does that fit in Holly Hills? Do we have the necessary operational gifts for the church in this, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets? Do we have teachers? Do we have pastor, teacher role, the shepherding function? Okay? What else do we need? Evangelists. Evangelists? Do we have evangelists?

See, that's not the point. Evangelism, maybe I should preface that by saying From my perspective, evangelism is a gift that every believer has to some degree by the way they live their life. So that if the life of the Lord Jesus is being manifested in what they do, it appeals to someone else and they will inquire. Evangelism is not, I've got a four hour plane ride and you have to sit next to me and I'm going to talk to you the whole way. know or or like you know you just think that that's your gift so every opportunity you get you're telling somebody about Christ whether whether they're you know whether you're called to do it or not yeah you know whereas I think of in a body like this if you're a teacher you know it's God has raised you up people know and They listen, you know, and you come prepared, and people are edified and grow from it. Evangelism is the recruiting arm of the church. Everything else is for building up of those that are in. Evangelists per se, yeah, I think there are people that have that gift, but I think every believer has it to some extent. just on the way they function and live their life. Peter says, be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have.

There you go. That's not a gift, by the way. No, it's just the way the life is. That's right. It's being prepared with the knowledge of what? The gospel. And we're the epistles of Christ. Okay. So in that sense, we all are evangelists. But there are some that have a desire to to engage in mission efforts, right? And what we don't do is we don't go through and check, this is what qualifies somebody to be an evangelist. But there are those that naturally are drawn to the sharing of God's word on a regular basis.

There's folks that, you know, I don't know Hal Malloy. I never knew him, but I know a lot about him. And I know one of the things about him is that He loved talking about the Lord to anyone and everyone that he engaged with in his life. And one of the stories that I've been told is that even when he was sick, he was still sharing the gospel message with those that were caring for him in the hospital.

And I think that The gift of evangelism just has an awareness, right, that I might be talking to an unbeliever. And in that situation where I know that, my heart's desire is to love them in such a way that I tell them the truth. And I think that's one of the things that we get confused about with evangelism is we think about Bible thumping, you know. I can't wait to just tell them the truth and see if they accept it or reject it, and then I know where they stand. You know, sometimes we kind of get in that way of thinking.

But to love somebody to the degree that you want them to understand what God says is necessary for salvation is to love them in the most deep and important way. Because without salvation, without the Lord, what are they left to? Yeah, Mike. You know, in 2 Corinthians, I think it's five, says, talked about the reverential fear of God.

And for that reason, we preach to every man because we know. I think that verse sometimes is, well boy, if I'm afraid that I become fearful that you're going to go to the great white throne judgment, do I operate out of fear or do you operate out of, boy, you know, this I want this person to know Christ and be with us for all eternity. The motivation story, I don't remember this guy's name, but the guy in the Titanic that was an evangelist. I'm sorry, we thought you meant the movie.

But this guy knew he was going to die. And he went around to people on the boats and on the ship and talked to them about Christ because he knew they were going to die. And he was even in the water swimming up to other people asking them if they knew Christ. Knowing that he was going to die, and so were they. And he would warn them and say, this is your life, this is it. Do you know Christ?

Right. Now there's a guy that's got the gift of evangelism. Right. And did anybody really, I mean, the fact that we know this is interesting, but was he doing that for, you know, the record of, I'm an evangelist. And so this is, I want to make sure that everyone knows that I'm swimming around and telling. Yeah.

I think it was that reverential fear of like, if you don't accept Christ, That's right. And I think that oftentimes when we get into a situation where we feel like the Lord's tugging on our hearts to share the gospel message, and we've all been there, and sometimes we get a little skittish. We're like, ah, do I cross this boundary right now? Maybe it's a co-worker or a neighbor or even just a distant family member that you've been wanting to get that opportunity. It comes and you're wondering, do I step out I know that this could cause division, right? This could affect our relationship.

Because I'm talking about something that the topic is their ultimate destiny, right? Where they're headed. And that's personal. And one of the things that I took a lot of comfort in understanding, having done mission work, is that the joy of sharing the gospel is that it is not your message. It's not yours. It's your creator's message. And guess what? You're given the privilege of being able to share that message with someone else. You're an ambassador.

And so if someone takes issue and it does affect your relationship, it's happened to me, it definitely can create a division. But the intention is not to do that, right? The intention is to tell the truth about something that matters eternally to them. And it can cause that kind of division, but you have to recognize that you are a messenger and that ultimately if they reject, they don't reject you. Who do they reject? Christ. And that also says, you know, there may be some staying power that you have with those folks even when they reject. Oftentimes it takes a lot of mental wrestling after the baggage. Romans talks about the kind of baggage that we create, the hardening of the heart that we engage in. And we've been there.

And so when it comes to evangelism, we're all ambassadors. We're all called to be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have. And so for that, as believers, as Bereans, we should be in the Word. We should be able to communicate the truth of the gospel to those that don't have the fullness of understanding about it. But we can't control their faith. Right? And so, and that's between them and God. Our role is to communicate the message. Yes. You see, people within the body of Christ resist gifts sometimes. Do members of the body of Christ resist the gift that they believe they're given? Yeah. I'll say that someone thinks, well, you know, I may be given the gift of teaching.

But I don't want to get up in front of people. I might be embarrassed or whatever. You know, I maybe ask a question I can't answer. Or I'm not, you know, they dismiss it when in fact that's what they should be doing. Right. What do you think? I think there are some that do. Out of some other fear in their life, maybe, or whatever, that they say, well, I'm not a teacher.

You know, I stand next to some of the really good teachers, like Hal Molloy was, but Hal Molloy viewed himself as a guy who stumbled over words and that kind of thing, you know, but he was, like we listened on Tuesday to Arnold Vorkenbaum. Arnold Vorkenbaum is just boring to listen to. until you start listening to what he's saying. That's right. And when you start listening there, this guy is amazing. This is funny to me. Yeah.

So let's talk about resistance of your gifts for a minute. I think that there's two things that can happen. There can be pressure from the church on an individual member of the body, right? And that pressure can be one that is kind of similar to the corporate life. It's like, we're ready to promote you. Are you ready to be promoted? And so you kind of get this pressure from one angle. And then the other side is, you get this hesitancy sometimes to Am I ready for this? Is this the right time for this? And those are valid concerns. Sometimes there's just flat-out denial of it, right?

But I can only speak from having gone through this in some ways with what we believe we were called to missions, right? And so you're going to need to do all these things as a missionary. You're going to need to raise support. And here's how you're going to do it. Right? So what does the scripture say about raising support as a missionary? I've got to learn that stuff.

I need to understand it because we're going to up, we're going to unplan ourselves from Texas, you know, place we were born and raised. And we're going to move up there with miles, you know, and what happened, you know, you have no skills in farming.

There's a lot of stories about that. But, um, at any rate, What we experienced, and I believe that it falls in line with scripture, God works on each individual believer's heart towards their gift. And can you harden your heart towards it? Absolutely.

But I think that when you recognize that God is leading you and placing you into an area where he has distributed a gift that he needs, to operate in a certain location at a certain time, things come together in a way that is divinely organized. It's not orchestrated by the pastor of the church. It's not orchestrated by the individual raising their hand and saying, I'm available. Ultimately, it's orchestrated by the God who has given you those gifts and determined exactly how you'll use them and where you'll use them.

And for us, we didn't experience this arm-twisting kind of a thing going on where it's like, you know, we're going to keep beating you with the Word of God until you eventually submit and you up and move. For us, it was a physical move. But what we did is, as believers, we said, we're available. Miles, we talked about this recently.

We're available. And if the Lord wants to do that, I'm available to be used in that way. And I think that's where the gifts that are being used to establish on the foundation of what the prophets and the apostles laid for us, operate initially out of an understanding of what the gift is and an availability towards what God is going to do in terms of ministering through you with that gift. Are you available? Number one. Number two, is the Lord orchestrating it in such a way that that's the direction that you should go?

And for us, it wasn't arm-twisting. It was just piece after piece after piece. And I think that that's one of the ways that that the body grows in terms of its execution of the gifts within itself. And so, I don't think God twists arms, but he can work to convince. And what's, who's the person of the triune God that works to convince, convict you of the word? The Holy Spirit. It's not us twisting your arm to do something.

It's the Holy Spirit that says, you are gifted here. This is what I've given to you. I've distributed this variety of gift to you. for the establishing of the body of Christ. And as a believer, I'm available, Lord, to the direction that you would have me go here. And it's almost as miraculous that God puts those things in place in order for those things to happen.

And it doesn't feel like it's contrived, maybe. If it's contrived, I think in some ways, it doesn't mean that we don't create meetings and we get together and we fellowship and we talk about those things. But it's a spiritual growth question. Because you have to be prepared to give the reason for the hope that you have. In the case of what Peter was talking about in evangelism. And I think that same vein of thought applies to every gift. Are you prepared to be a shepherd? Right? Are you prepared to be an evangelist? Are you prepared? And how do you get prepared? And it's not just by reading the Word of God. It's the result of reading the Word of God that you behold Lord Jesus himself. So as your intimacy grows with Christ, those gifts show themselves in more unique ways because who's doing the living? You see where I'm going with that? Mike? Two questions.

One is, how do you distinguish between a human talent and a spiritual gift? And the other question, would you think, do you think being a missionary is a spiritual gift? Okay, question number one. Human gift versus? Human talents. Human talent. Yeah, like I'm a secular teacher in a high school and I become a person that automatically qualifies me to teach Sunday school? I would say that Talents can be a little bit confusing, right? Because they represent the bent that a person has.

If your personality is very organizational, you're going to naturally want to execute those organizational gifts within the church. Maybe you are responsible for getting the kitchen and the library, all the things, the classes and the schedules. Productivity is something that you really thrive at. Bill, you're phenomenal with helping create spaces for us to actually learn, to grow, and to fellowship within. And there's a lot of background efforts with those gifts. I'm actually a professional tap dancer. And if you stay after class today, you'll see Bill do a tap dance.

But there's talents, but where those talents execute themselves is for the edifying of the church. And so the question is, are the talents, are those talents, even though they may closely relate to the gifts, are they used for edifying the body? Are they used for edifying you? Hey JD, I've had a thought on that recently, is that I think the more that you're, the way the Lord uses you through a gift, that doesn't match your talents, the more he's glorified. When people look at him like, well, he's an awesome teacher, they tend to focus on the man. When they look at you and they're like, wow, the Lord's really teaching me through him, but he's not an amazing orator or whatever, then he gets the glory. But just a thought.

No, absolutely. And what edifies the body more? You getting edified at the pulpit? I think that's really good. When I'm weak, He is strong. The purpose is not for you to get glory for the gifts that you've been distributed and given what we said in 1 Corinthians there, that you're energized by the Spirit to do that. He's given you everything you need to execute that for His glory, for the purpose and profit of all.

So the second question, do we feel like we answered that to a degree? Yeah. And the second question was what, again? Do you think that being called to be a missionary is a spiritual gift? That's a little personal. I know, that's why I asked. No, I do not. What my thought was is that if you're called to be a missionary, if God calls you, and I've and they're gone. Yeah. It's almost an evangelistic gift because that's what missionaries do. Yes. And what's interesting is that, I'm going to avoid my soapbox there, I think what's important is that, remember that, I think Dennis Roxer and Duluth have a very accurate way of looking at this.

They raise people within the body of Christ with the knowledge of the scripture. accurate knowledge of the scripture. And remember, mission is about establishing the church in a new location. It's not about sharing the gospel anywhere and everywhere to that end. The end and the purpose of that is establishing a local body.

That's the purpose. And so Duluth establishes those in their body with the Word of God, the knowledge of the Word of God, and then those that believe that they have the gift of evangelism, are then planted and through the gift of evangelism and pastor and teaching, they're establishing, just like Paul, a new church in a new location. It could be Papua New Guinea or it could be Minnesota or Olds Alberta.

I don't know, right? But his heart is to establish the church and edify the church. And so when a mission organization loses focus on that, they're losing focus on what we're talking about here. Is that fair to say? Okay. So then question number six. How do the general gifts of a more public character serve the purpose of perfecting and preparing saints for their work? How do the general gifts, so what are the general gifts that we've been talking about? Evangelism, pastor, teacher. That's right. So I've used the illustration, you know, the church is kind of like rebuilding a city. We've seen a lot of this on the news, right? So you've got an entire city just devastated, right? The church starts in an environment like that.

And it needs a foundation. So we've got to remove some rubble and create a new foundation. Whose role is that? Paul and the apostles. So they clear out the rubble, they lay a new foundation. Then you have Apollos coming in and saying, okay, we've got little seeds of thought that have been communicated from God's word to you, and now I'm going to nurture and water those. And you start getting the walls, right, to use the analogy. And there starts to be this general purpose. So now there's already a foundation.

We don't need to rebuild a foundation. We don't need to re-authenticate the message of God's Word. It's complete. We have everything we need for building the church. And the foundation's set. Don't go get me another concrete pour on this thing, because it's already founded. Now there's operational stuff. We've got a house that's built, but we've got to keep this house moving and functioning and operating. We've got electricity and all the things. And I'm not talking about physical electricity. I'm talking about the things that make the body work.

And that's people. Those are believers with different distributions and varieties of gifts empowered by the Holy Spirit. And so they come in and they start to work operationally with those gifts. Now we're functional. So we have these evangelists. When used of God in the salvation of a soul, the church begins to grow through evangelism. Not because the music's amazing, but because souls are being saved. So we have the gift of evangelism and salvation in that regard. And then you have the role of the pastor, who then says, I've got these babes in Christ. I'm coming along now, and I'm going to shepherd them and care for them. Because what does sheep do? Miles knows he was a sheep. He raised sheep. They need shepherding.

Otherwise, there's chaos. Absolute chaos. We can't function, even though our foundation is built, we can't function in the household of the body without that shepherding. It's a necessary thing. Maybe you find yourself on the phone all the time utilizing the gift of shepherding. I don't know. Or maybe you're on text, or maybe you're Snapchatting. I don't know what you're doing, but you're caring for the sheep some way.

And then you have teachers coming in. And they're unfolding God's Word and putting the key into the other believers' hands to unlock the truths of God's Word. And they're passing on these precious things to the body. So you have the three functional operations of the Spirit in evangelists, pastors, and teachers that keep the body edified and growing for the purpose of what God is doing, and that is profit of all to the glory of himself. So we have this scene of activity. It's a beautiful scene. It's all actuated and controlled by the Spirit of God.

And love is the very bond of perfectness knitting saints to saints into eternity in love. And we talked about that. That's a statement from Rideout, by the way. Love remains. Why does faith and hope, why does it fall off? When does it fall off? the moment we're out of here. Our faith is reality now, but it's reality in the face-to-face presence of the Lord Jesus. Faith and hope are realized. Prophecy and knowledge are done away with. Everything is complete in terms of that. It's just a matter of fulfillment now. Tongues cease.

They have their foundational purpose along with the miraculous engiftments. So now we're operating all for the purposes of the prophet of all and to the unity of the spirit. Yes sir. In that Ephesians passage where towards the end where it says purpose for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ we have a tendency to divide that up into three separate events and it's all one event. What's really going on with these gifted people is that they are perfecting the saints for what purpose? So that they can eventually work in the ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ.

Everybody who's in the position of pastor, teacher, evangelist, what they're really working towards is replacing themselves. Yes. That's what they're really doing is that they're raising up the body so that So that not only can they replace themselves, but maybe they can plant another place. Right. And that's what it's all about. It's the edification of the body of Christ so it will grow.

Not so that you have to have a fun drive to create a bigger building and say, well, I think we want to go over here and we've got these few people, we'll move them over there and we'll start another body of believers and they'll grow. Because I don't think the church was ever designed by God to be in a big building. I mean, once you get over a certain number, which is not a very big number, the function of the gifted people, there's too many people to take care of. How many sheep can one shepherd handle?

Awesome, let's pray. Father Howie, thank you for just the divine distribution of the gifts to those of us as believers. And Lord, we thank you for the foundation that you've laid for the body for this time, this household rule of the church age. And Father, we pray that we would consistently look to your word and look to your direction on the placement of those that would fulfill their gifts in the service to the church and ultimately to you for your edification, for our edification. Lord, we pray that we would be wise and that we would look to your timing and as we think about the roles within Holly Hills and the pastor teaching roles that we've been praying about, Lord, we continue to just recognize that you are at work there and in your perfect timing and in a way you will give us direction and understanding as to how that will work within the Holy Ghost body. And so we pray that that would all be to your glory. And we thank you for the fact that you've continued to cause us to spend time in your Word in such a way that we are just enamored with intimacy with you. And we thank you for that reality. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.