Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: In our last broadcast we began a journey, a very specific journey to itemize and clarify the meaning of each spiritual gift in the New Testament. Today my prayer is you're going to hear a gift described and realize bang, that's me. So stay with me.

Dave Druey: Welcome to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. In our series called You Were Made for More, Chip has explained that you were made to walk in good works. God prepared in advance for you. And that includes specific spiritual gifts he deposited in you.

Now to help you do that today we're walking through the full list of New Testament ministry gifts and gaining a practical action plan for how to discover, develop, and deploy your own. If you've missed any part of our study so far, just go online to livingontheedge.org. Well now here's Chip Ingram with today's message.

Chip Ingram: To develop your gifts it demands a basic understanding of the New Testament gifts. What I want to do is I want to as best I can give you a quick snapshot of these because what will happen I'm praying that even in this room the spirit of God as you begin to narrow down your motivational gift to maybe the top two then you'll begin to see as I describe some of these maybe this is an arena for my ministry gift. Maybe this is why these certain effects happen.

So with that are you ready? Apostleship, definition. It's the divine enablement to start churches or other ministries and oversee their development. It's the ability to minister cross-culturally with the goal of planting churches. Do you resonate with that? Could that be one of your ministry gifts?

The second gift here is prophecy, the divine enablement to proclaim God's truth with power and clarity in a timely and culturally sensitive fashion. Notice the focus for correction, repentance or edification. It's the ability to reveal God's word accurately.

Evangelism is the third gift. It's the ability to be unusually effective instrument in leading unbelievers to a saving knowledge of Christ. Some with this gift are most effective in personal evangelism while others are more used by God in group evangelism or cross-cultural evangelism.

Notice as we move on. Next gift is pastor teacher. It's the only dual gift in the New Testament. Pastor teacher is a person with this spiritual gift has the ability to lead, nourish, protect, and personally care for the needs of a flock of believers. And by the way, this is not gender specific. The spiritual gifts see we have gotten so used to the office of pastor we think of the pastor as a role or office. This is a gift.

The gift of teaching, the divine enablement to understand and give detailed explanation of biblical truth. It's the ability to search out and validate truth which has been presented. Notice healing, 1st Corinthians 12:9, 28 and then 30. It's the ability to serve as a human instrument through which God cures illnesses and restores health.

The possessor of this gift is not the source but the vessel who can heal only those diseases the Lord chooses to heal. I mean we all know there's times where people were healed and times when they're not. This spiritual gift should not be confused with signs and wonders performed by Jesus and the apostles and it should not be discredited because of the abuses of grandstanding and faith healers.

Administration/leadership. This word different from the word in leadership appears only once in the New Testament and is used outside of scripture for the helmsman who steers a ship to its destination. This suggests that the spiritual gift of administration is the ability to steer a church or Christian organization toward the fulfillment of its goals by managing its affairs and implementing necessary plans.

The gift of wisdom, it's the ability to apply the principles of God's word in a practical way to specific situations and then to recommend the best course of action at the best time. The exercise of this gift skillfully distills insight and discernment into excellent advice.

As a young pastor there was a guy named Bill Carter and he traveled a lot and had the gift of teaching. I learned probably more from him than I did in any seminary class. And often I would come with my if you ever felt like your life is like a ball of twine that's gotten just totally all messed up and no matter what you do you just can't unwind it. I would take my ball of twine issues and I would bring them to Bill.

And I would just lay out all this junk and I don't know what to do and I know part is my attitude and maybe it's the season and whine whine whine moan moan moan. And he was a godly older man and he said Chip it would seem to me and he would just open the word and say you know there's a timeless principle here and then he would describe it.

And then little by little about 45 minutes later he'd taken my ball of string and he would deliver six pieces of string nicely laid out about what to do, why to do it, God's character, issues in my life, how to respond. And it was just like whoo.

And Prof as we called him he's 81 years old and so I said Prof do you have plans for breakfast? He said no. I said could I eat with you? He said well sure and so we made a time and and so we ate breakfast and he's a very direct guy so we did little small talk for about 45 seconds.

And and then I basically I thought of you know how many times will I get this and I laid out here's my season of marriage and grown kids and this is different and I know these are my insecurities you know me for 25 years and blop. And here's this other really big issue that I don't know what to do with. And man I'll tell you what then I eat my eggs.

And I came back and told Theresa what he shared about how you love grown kids and in-law issues and what happens in your 50s and what happens in your 60s and what you need to do now so you finish well. And Theresa said Chip you better go write that down. And so I did. It's the gift of wisdom.

Knowledge, the ability to discover and analyze and systematize truth for the benefit of others. Just amazing knowledge. With this gift one speaks with understanding and penetration but the word of knowledge can also involve supernatural perception and discernment for the purpose of ministering to others.

This is when God reveals something to someone that they couldn't know in a natural way. And by the way this is one of the most abused gifts in the body of Christ you know turn on the TV and you'll see how not to do this.

But Peter, right? Ananias and Sapphira come up. Peter doesn't know anything. And he says hey we sold the field for this amount of money and and Peter goes Ananias why have you conspired to lie to the Holy Spirit? He knew exactly what was happening, he knew his heart, he knew the situation. Well how? He got a word of knowledge.

God sometimes to prepare you for ministry may give you insight into things that you couldn't know. This is it's now okay I'm going to go out on a little limb here some of you need to either relax and some of you don't get too excited depending on your background. All right?

But you know this is really abused when people get all this God revealed that you're supposed to divorce your wife, take this job, do this, do that. You know what? If God wants to speak to you he probably will call you on your phone instead of on someone else's.

And when it's used in these vague I know somewhere somehow someone someday in some part of America has this issue and God's healing it right now. I mean I'm looking at that and going hello. But you know sometimes we throw out the baby with the bathwater. What if God needs to prepare you for ministry, it doesn't violate scripture, it equips you to do what God wants you to do?

And I think this is kind of rare. I don't understand this gift. By the way a lot of these gifts I don't understand. I mean I'm giving you my best explanation some of them are just a mystery. But I can tell you before I ever heard anything about gifts I was a Christian about three years old in the Lord.

And I'm down on spring break my senior year, went down with a couple buddies and and since I was a believer I just played outdoor basketball every day and really thought I had a good time and went to Florida to do it and then jumped in the water.

And then we we spent some time I remember being on the beach completely clear just reading my Bible the sun's going down. And I don't know about you but I wish that every time I prayed I had the sweet intimate times with God but I don't. But that was one of those times where it was just like I could reach out and touch God and the ocean was there and the sun coming down and I was a growing Christian and I just sensed and felt his presence.

And in the far far distance just I looked like a little stick man he was really far away a guy was walking down the beach. And this thought comes this clear in my mind the guy walking toward you is a homosexual he's going to come and sit down I want you to tell him about me. And I'm thinking did I have enchiladas last night?

I mean what I mean what's going on here and I'm thinking well I'm you know I'm making stuff up in my mind and so you know I keep reading my Bible he gets closer and closer and I look up at him again the guy walking up here is a homosexual. He's in desperate need I want you to tell him about my love.

Now by the way this has happened to me very rarely. I'm just telling you I don't know why or how. So long story short the guy walks walks walks he gets right to the edge I'm thinking keep going you know you know keep going. And think about 30 years ago.

And this guy turns and walks up and I'm going you gotta be kidding me. And then he sits down and you can tell his eyes are all red. And God prepared me. And he said you know I just broke up with my life partner and I noticed you had a Bible here and I just need somebody to talk to. And 45 minutes later we both prayed and he received the Lord as a savior.

All I'm saying is you know I don't know how God works all this but it's not for show, it's not to impress people, it's not to say all the mystical stuff is really way out there. Has that happened a lot to me since? Not a whole lot. Now and then I get a prompting.

You know have you ever been driving and you know just a couple three four weeks ago I had a prompting there was a guy in the rain walking and you know in our day and age you think I don't know if I want to pick up this guy he's probably an axe murderer or something you know and and you know I drive by him and I get the strong prompting picking up and take him where he needs to go.

And I'm thinking you know I got a wife I got kids Ingram slain side of the road not really a good you know and I and you know and I get to the next exit pick him up okay so I get the exit turn around go back pull in front of him and he was a guy from a totally different world and background than mine and and I said do you need a ride? And he looked at me like you know are you some weird guy that's going to kill me?

And he got in and I took him and I'd love to say he prayed you know all I did is I think God I I did a good work that God prepared me for. He didn't pray to receive Christ he didn't say oh Jesus is the answer to all my world. I just got to love him in the name of Jesus and you know there happened to be a Bible there and I was listening to something that I needed to listen to and he got to hear five or 10 minutes of it.

But a word of knowledge maybe something God does now and then but you always check it with scripture. But I would say if you ever get what I call a good nudge a nudge to love someone, care, be sacrificial, something that lifts someone up and doesn't bring attention to yourself, something that means a sacrifice Christ's name is honored it's probably not from you. That's a product pretty good test that it's probably from the Lord.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and part two of our message is coming up next. Remember the place to go for all of these daily messages is over on our website livingontheedge.org.

There you'll find Chip's full teaching library along with even more content like Chip's free daily discipleship tool to help you grow all week long. You can also download the Chip Ingram app absolutely free through any App Store on your smart device. Now let's get back to today's message from Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: Gift of faith, the ability to have a vision for what God wants done and to believe confidently that it will be accomplished in spite of circumstances and appearance to the contrary. The gift of faith transforms vision into reality.

By the way notice if in those three columns when someone teaches or preaches motivationally here out of a ministry gift it could be pastor teacher or prophet as people are listening often then the gift of faith bang oh I get it.

There was a lady listening on the radio. She was listening and at the very end we prayed you need to believe God. God is sovereign, God is big you need to believe him. And it's a long story her name is Brooke she brought not only her her brother, her husband, her sister-in-law all these witnesses and she said nothing's ever happened like this I was listening to you on the radio and at the very end it was on prayer and you said you need to believe God.

You need to ask him and believe that the God is not the God of the past that he answers prayer, greats ones today. And she told about this long illness and she could only take about six breaths and they couldn't find a cure and she had to quit her job she was home and going you know couldn't even get up and move around and she said I heard that and it was like God gave me faith to believe I prayed I went to the doctor the next day all my symptoms were gone.

Now are we in a healing ministry? Are you kidding me? How that happened I don't have a clue. It's a manifestation. See when you are using your motivational gift in the ministry he's called you to, when you minister someone will get a word of wisdom. This is what to do. Or knowledge about oh you mean you're supposed to give the first portion of your money to God? I didn't know that and get your priorities aligned. Yeah.

Or someone gets a word of knowledge. This is what I want you to do. Or someone gets like in this case a manifestation she was healed. Can't God do whatever? See I think when we study all these gifts we divide camps. This group believes these are this way, this group believes these are that way. This group gets over enamored with these and I think we miss the point.

I think you have a grace gift and I think you're a paintbrush in the hand of God and I think you focus on on the left column. What are you motivated to do? And then you discern the outlets or the ministry and you leave the right column up to how God wants to work.

Gift of faith. Distinguishing of spirits or discernment, 1st Corinthians 12:10. It's the ability to discern the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. With this gift one may distinguish reality versus counterfeits, the divine versus the demonic and true versus false teaching in some cases spiritual versus carnal motives.

God as you soak your mind in the scripture, as you're doing what he wants you to do will give some people ability to discern. When you're in a group and need to make big decisions for a ministry, for a board, for a church, for a family, you want this gift in the room. Discernment. Is this from God?

And these people I mean you know you've had it. Have you ever had that little everything seems right but you had that little something down deep in your gut that you know there's something smells here but I can't put my finger on it?

And then you find out later it really stunk and you could not put your finger on it you could put your whole hand on it. Often that may be God teaching you or wanting to confront hey there's some discernment here check that out. Check that out.

Here the gift of tongues. It's the ability to receive and impart spiritual message in a language the recipient has never learned. For other members of the body to be edified. This message must be interpreted either by the recipient or by another person with the gift of interpretation.

Now this is one that could take people lots of directions. The word tongues, glossolalia. It's used also as a dialect in Acts 2. It is a known language. You know French, Swahili, some known language.

The second thing is is that much of the teaching and the confusion about tongues is taking tongues this gift and and then mixing it with spiritual growth or holiness or spiritual power. What I can tell you is the gift of tongues is a known language. The gift of tongues doesn't have anything to do with spiritual growth or sanctification. It is a gift of a speaking a language you've never known.

And of course then the gift of interpretation is if someone is speaking French or Swahili and for some reason God is going to supernaturally intervene and give you understanding to translate a language that you haven't known.

Now can God do this? Has it happened in New Tribe missions and some other situations? Sure. Did he do it in the early church as a sign for unbelievers? There's a whole teaching on tongues. Our purpose is let's define what they are.

With that are you ready? Take a deep breath. I did talk fast. If you're going to develop your spiritual gift one you gotta get clear really clear about the paradigm and how it works. Second you need to understand I think a quick definition and hopefully you know there's more material and a lot that can go under that but I wanted to give you a quick snapshot of each gift so you could at least say hmm you know what maybe now I can do a little more research on my own.

But the third thing we need to do to develop your spiritual gift it demands you exercise them by involvement. And let me give you four areas of involvement and then we'll really develop these as we continue.

First of all involvement in people's lives and needs. Spiritual gifts are about loving people. You have to get involved in people's lives. What's that mean? It means ministry. And even if you're not sure even if you don't know you don't have to sign up for like five years or like until Jesus comes back.

Go to your church or find a ministry and say you know something I'm not sure what my gifts are but I'll give you three months in this area. At the end of three months I'm going to pray evaluate and then you need to know I have permission to step out of that ministry.

But you gotta get involved in people's lives and needs. The second level of involvement is a small group community. A small group community. You know authentic relationships. The gifts are what? They're designed so that the presence of Christ and the power of Christ and the love of Christ that resides in you through your gift and through the spirit as he works through the word in you touches other people.

That can't happen if your quote Christian experience is yeah I go to church on Sunday. I sit in row 73. I listen to that guy he's really good. Listen listen listen. Sing sing sing. Leave leave leave. Then I come back next week. Listen listen listen. Sing sing sing. Leave leave leave. You know I just don't understand why I don't have joy in my life.

I just don't understand why God isn't using me. You have to be in some community where people know you, you know them, you understand one another, you share hearts, you're vulnerable increasingly or you know what you'll never know. The people that will recognize your gift will be people who love you, who see you in the context of community and ministry.

The third level of involvement is ongoing training and education. Think of a gift is like a muscle. God gives you the gift of the muscle but there's little muscles, medium-sized muscles, and big muscles. And like any gift like a muscle how does a muscle get stronger and better? By practice.

So you need to have ongoing training and ongoing education. Time, practice, maturity, feedback, training. I mean if you have the gift of teaching you know how you know how you develop it? You teach, you read, you study.

I've gone for years I'm almost never in my car where I'm not listening sometime in the week to teaching tapes of great teachers that have profoundly impacted my life. And the first thing as I'm in my car it's like wow God how do you want me to respond?

And then the next is what makes this guy so good? What in the what is it about how he shares or what he shares or his preparation or his vulnerability or or how he delivers it? God I want to get better. And the only way I'm going to develop my gift is I want to learn from other people. And so you dig in and you figure out, you read books, you go to training, you do whatever it takes because your gift is serious business, right? It is to God. It is to the church.

Final thing is regular risk-taking opportunities. You can look at all these charts, you can go for coffee and say to others you know I think mine is either probably teaching or exhortation but I'm not really not sure. Why don't we sit around and talk over coffee about what we might be someday somehow someway.

I'll tell you what. After you see what we see you just gotta flat jump in the water and say I don't know what gift for sure I have, I've done some study but I'm going to jump in the water of life and people and need and ministry and I'm scared to death. Oh God help me. And just start loving people. And start doing what you feel most passionate about doing.

And I'm going to tell you something. You'll not only get wet you'll get strong, you'll have joy, people will get loved. And I mean you will no longer be one of those Christians who sit sit sing sing leave leave. You will be a paintbrush in the hand of the master dipping into the multi-colors of grace.

And in your spiritual lineage you see people's lives this is the before, this is the after and you will be a part of God's extreme makeover. And I'm telling you there's not enough letters behind your name, there's not enough zeros at the end of your portfolio that can ever match the joy and the fulfillment that comes with doing what God made you to do. To walk in the good works that he preordained just for you.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message titled How to Develop Your Spiritual Gift for Kingdom Impact. Chip closed today with a clear action plan. Commit, pray, study, get counsel, test the waters, examine fulfillment and watch for God's evident blessing.

That's clearly not a passive list. Instead it's an invitation to jump in. The people who discover the double F fulfillment and fruitfulness are the ones who stopped waiting for the perfect moment and started moving now.

A great first step in doing that is taking our free online assessment called the Real You. A biblically grounded tool that helps you understand how God has uniquely wired you. Your personality, your strengths, your spiritual design. Take it free by going to therealyou.org.

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And if you haven't already be sure to subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast or check out the full length versions of every message on the Chip Ingram sermon podcast. Either way we hope you'll like and share these messages with friends and family. Well now here's Chip.

Chip Ingram: You can become an expert on each of the spiritual gifts know what they mean, give a definition and absolutely nothing will happen unless you jump into the deep end and begin to test the waters.

In other words you don't have to know for sure what your spiritual gift or gifts are but they don't do anything unless you start to use them, unless you test them out. And I would remind you and remind me your spiritual gift to serve, to love, to care, to exhort, to call, to pray, to give, to lead all of those things can happen in your neighborhood with believers and unbelievers. All those things can happen in a small group and it may be harder but through Zoom.

What I want you to know is the real issue is are you willing to take some time to explore what are my gifts and then are you willing to say okay Lord if it's exhortation then I guess you want me to encourage people. I'm going to call three people today.

Or if it's service I'm going to go door to door to three of my neighbors that I don't know that well and say I'm going to the grocery store what could I get for you? Here's the deal. The Holy Spirit will show you what to do. Here's my admonition: jump in. Do something today. You'll be glad you did.

Dave Druey: Spiritual gift abuse is real and next time Chip Ingram lays out the warning signs so you can recognize it, avoid it, and keep your gifts operating in the grace God intended. I'm Dave Druey and we'll see you back here next time for Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.