Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress.

And right now, your generous gift will have twice the impact, thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge, active now through July 6th. To give a special matching challenge gift, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's word with every day on this Bible teaching program.

Speaker 3

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, those who are apostles and prophets and music ministers and evangelists and whatever else in the church, our job is to do what?

To equip the saints. That would be you, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, a healthy body requires every part to function properly. And the same principle applies to Christ's body, the church.

So how can we ensure that every member is working together effectively? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress describes the power of spiritual gifts and their role in building a thriving church.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome to the Monday edition of Pathway to Victory as we continue our series called Shine the Light. Jesus said you are the light of.

Speaker 3

The world, so let your light shine.

Speaker 2

In this special series, we're taking a deep dive into this powerful metaphor from Jesus so that we truly understand what it means to become a beacon of light for him. At the same time, we're excited about the Salt and Light Matching Challenge that's in its final stages right now. Several families have come together with their resources and established a record-breaking matching challenge in the staggering amount of million.

So between now and July 6th, our friends will match every dollar you give to Pathway to Victory. Until we reach the goal, whatever God leads you to give will be automatically matched and therefore doubled in size because of this Salt and Light Matching Challenge. Let me encourage you to join in this urgent cause. Every single generous gift matters, including yours. And if we all come together, we have the opportunity to receive a total of $2 million to bring light into the darkness and to push back against the evil that's pervading in our country and our world.

Immediately following my message today, we'll describe my thank you gift for your generous gift to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. It's an exclusive book I've written for this purpose and for this series called Shine the Light.

But right now, let's open our Bible to Ephesians, chapter 4. Most Christians don't realize that we have a special superpower given by God himself. And so today, we're going to uncover the spiritual gifts that make each believer an essential part of the church. I titled today's message bodybuilding.

Speaker 3

Ira Yates was a sheep herder in West Texas. Toward the turn of the 20th century, he was very concerned that he wasn't going to be able to make his mortgage payments on the ranch. Not only that, he was concerned about even placing food on the table for his family. So one day, he took a risk and engaged a geologist to see if there just might be some of that black gold Texas tea oil. That is, if some of that might be running underneath.

And so on October 28, 1926, they drilled their first well. They called it Yates 1A. And at 992 feet, they hit a gusher, producing 450 barrels of oil each day. So they thought they'd try again. A couple of months later, they drilled Yates 2A. That well produced 3,400 barrels a day of oil. Two years later, they drilled Yates 30A. It produced, get this, I had to write it down: 8,528 barrels of oil an hour, 204,000 barrels a day. By 1929, the Yates field had produced 41 million barrels of oil.

You know, Ira Yates made the mistake of thinking the value of his land was limited to what was visible—what was on the top, the grass to feed his sheep. But his real wealth was that endless reserve of wealth that was underneath the ground. You know, Christians are like that when you think about it. Most of us think we're limited in life to what we can do for ourselves, what's visible. We try to scratch out an existence, if you will, until we die and go to heaven. We live our lives unaware of the tremendous spiritual wealth that God has given to us.

We might not realize that wealth, but the apostle Paul did. And that's why he wrote the letter to the Christians at Ephesus, to remind them of their great spiritual wealth. And remember, in the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul gives an inventory of the spiritual wealth you and I have. If we're Christians, think of all that God has done for you. He has chosen you. He's predestined you. He has saved you. He's redeemed you. He's adopted you into his very own family. In light of all of that wealth, we have inside through the Holy Spirit of God, it ought to affect the way we walk, affect every area of our life.

And that's what chapters four through six are about in Ephesians. Not our wealth from Christ—he's already talked about that—but our walk with Christ. Specifically, Paul is going to discuss four areas that our spiritual wealth ought to impact in our everyday life. Interestingly, Paul talks first of all about our walk with other Christians, our walk in the church. Now, why in the world would he start talking about the church? Isn't the family more important? Or our work life or our moral life? Why the church?

We saw the lesson last week. We saw why the church. The church is, first of all, God's representation in the world. You know, the fact is, most people, especially unbelievers, can't see Jesus. The only Jesus they see is the body of Christ called the Church. Many people's opinions are formed about Christ by what they see in the church. Is it any wonder that people are turned off to Christ today when they see so many churches fussing and fighting and bickering? God is very intent that we be diligent, as Paul said, to preserve the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace.

But the church is also the Christian source of power. We need the power that comes from being in a united body of believers. We can't make it on our own. We need to be connected to the church. And when churches start to fight and show disunity, it first of all alienates people from the church. They just exit out. Once they're alienated, they're isolated from God's people. And once they're all alone, that's when Satan loves to attack them. And so that's why Paul is very diligent about talking about the unity of spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1 says, "Let us walk in a way worthy, literally of equal weight with who we are in Christ," first of all in the church. Now, after talking about unity, beginning in verse seven, Paul is going to make sure we don't misunderstand unity. Now listen to this: Unity does not mean uniformity. To be unified doesn't mean we all have to be the same. There is diversity in the church. There's diversity among Christians, and diversity is a good thing in the church. In fact, the only way we can truly be unified is if we understand the diversity in the body of Christ, just like there is in the physical body.

Samuel Bringle wrote, "The best neighbors I know anything about are my two hands. They have lived on opposite sides of the street for many, many years, and they've never had a row. If my left hand is hurt, my right hand immediately drops all other business and rushes across the way to comfort it and help it out of its trouble. My two hands are members of one another." And Christians should be like that. They are members of Christ's body. They should be living and as forgiving and as sympathetic and helpful toward each other as are my two hands. That's a great illustration.

Now, to carry it one step further. Those two hands can be nice to one another because they're alike. But just imagine, one day the left hand says to your pancreas, "What in the world do you do all day? I mean, we're up here working. When dinnertime comes, we're busy preparing the meal. But you do nothing. What value are you?" The pancreas would probably say, "I've got a different function than you do. And without me, you wouldn't be able to do what you do." It's the same with us in appreciating other Christians. We are not all the same.

And that's what Paul's going to talk about, beginning in verse 7 of Ephesians 4. We are different, meaning we have different spiritual gifts. What is a spiritual gift? Let's look. Beginning at verse 7, Paul talks about the reality of spiritual gifts. And we're going to look at a definition of spiritual gifts. Verse 7 states, "But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift."

Now, Paul loves the word grace. Remember he said in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith"? In that context, grace is God's undeserved favor. We are saved by grace. But also beginning in verse 7, here grace has a different meaning. It's about God's undeserved enablement. Let me explain it this way: There is an inseparable link between God's grace that saved us and our spiritual gift. It's the same word. Basically, grace is the Greek word "charis" (C-H-A-R-I-S). The word for gift is "charismaton," which has "charis" and a "matan" at the end.

Why is there a link between grace and our spiritual gift? Listen to this: When you were born into this world physically, you were born with certain natural abilities and interests. But when you were born again into the family of God, when you became a Christian, God's grace brought you not only the gift of the Holy Spirit but a spiritual gift as well to use in spreading God's message to other people. There's an inseparable link between God's gift and our grace.

This leads to a definition of a spiritual gift: A spiritual gift is the unique desire and the power God gives you to share his message with other people. It's first of all a desire; it's something you enjoy doing, something you're drawn to do. But it's also a divine enablement; it's something, when you do, God uniquely blesses. A spiritual gift is a desire and a power—not to work at the Kiwanis Club or at the Red Cross, but...

Speaker 2

To serve in the body of Christ.

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To spread God's message. Now hold your place here and turn over to Romans 12:6,8. You'll find a list of seven gifts. And did you know you've got one of these gifts whether you know it or not? Paul writes in Romans 12:6, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. If prophecy according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

Let me explain it this way. There are some people right in this church who have the gift of serving. That's meeting the practical needs of other people, and that's the way they express Christ's message to others. I think about Susie Jennings in our church. Susie heads up a ministry she created called Operation Care. And once a year she rents out the Dallas Convention Center and invites thousands of homeless people to come in. She and the team who works with her, and we help with that, provide blankets, clothing, and food for the homeless. But that's an entree for us on that day to share the gospel with them and their children. That is her way of sharing the message of Christ with others.

Some people have the gift of serving. Some people have the gift of teaching. The gift of teaching. You may have a Sunday school teacher like this who wants to parse every Greek word and the tense of what that Greek word is and the stem of that Greek word and do so. Doug, you're laughing, but you're one of them. That's their way of expressing Christ's message to other people. Other people have the gift of exhortation. You know, exhortation means to come alongside somebody. Their interest is in the practical application of scripture. How does Scripture help people get out of the problems they're facing, either as non-Christians or Christians?

I think about June Hunt. I think about my own daughter, Julia, when I look at June Hunt. Now, June's the most polite, nice, and encouraging person you'll ever know. And when I preached my series on the end times, she sat there and took notes and smiled. But I knew she didn't care one thing about it. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but she's not interested in theory. She's interested in the practical ways Scripture helps people deal with bitterness or anxiety or depression. And that's the ministry she's developed, Hope for the Heart.

Well, different people have different gifts, and all the gifts are important in the body of Christ. And let me just say, if you don't know what your spiritual gift is, I think next to salvation, the most important thing a Christian can understand is his spiritual gift and how to use it. The Bible says we each have one of these gifts. Now, a natural question when we come to Ephesians 4 is, well, why does Ephesians 4 give a different list of gifts? In fact, if you look in the Scripture, there are three separate lists of spiritual gifts. Some include things the other list includes, some are omitted. Why do we have three lists of gifts?

I believe the reason is there are three categories of spiritual gifts. We refer to all of them as gifts, but there are really three categories of gifts. And there's a popular Bible teacher who teaches that. But I think he is right for the most part about that. This is actually given to us by the Apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians 12, verses 4 through 6, Paul said, There are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit. There are a variety of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are a variety of effects or manifestations, but the same spirit.

When we talk about finding our spiritual gift, we're talking about Romans 12, the passage we just looked at. You have one of those gifts, and I believe you have only one of those gifts. 1 Peter 4:10 says, as each one has received the gift singular, let him use it in serving one another. But there's another list that we're finding in our passage today, Ephesians 4. Those are ministries, Paul says, opportunities to use our gift. We each have a basic gift. There are a variety of ministries that we'll look at in a moment we can serve in. And then finally, there are effects found in First Corinthians 12. Those are the results in other people's lives when we use our gift.

Let's just say, for example, June is teaching at Discipleship University, which she does, and she teaches a message on forgiveness. That's a popular theme of hers. And she's in the office of a church. She's teaching on Sunday night on forgiveness. And somebody out in the audience receives a word of knowledge. They've never known how to forgive before, but the Holy Spirit uses June to teach them how to forgive. Another person says, well, I know I should forgive, but I just don't know why I ought to forgive. That person gets a word of wisdom. Maybe somebody applies June's teaching on forgiveness from the Bible, and they experience healing, emotional healing, maybe even physical healing. That's the Holy Spirit producing effects in other people. But we're all to discover our unique gift and use it in a place of ministry.

Now, that's the reality of spiritual gifts. Let's look at the disbursement of spiritual gifts. When were our gifts given to us? Well, from our vantage point, it happened at the time of our salvation. But God has a different perspective. It happened much earlier. And Paul alludes to that beginning in Ephesians 4:8. Therefore it says. And then he quotes Psalm 68, verse 18. When he ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. And then in parenthesis, verses 9 and 10, here's Paul chasing his rabbit again. Now, this expression, he ascended, what does it mean, except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is in himself also he who ascended far above all heavens, so that he might fill all things.

There are some people who have a bizarre interpretation of these verses. They'll teach you that between Christ's death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Sunday, he made a trip down to Sheol, where not only were there unbelievers in Hades, but there were believing Old Testament saints in Abraham's bosom, they call it. And Jesus came down to rescue them and to take them to heaven. Now, I can give you all kinds of reasons why that's wrong. First of all, the Old Testament saints aren't waiting for anything. When they die, they go immediately into the presence of the Lord. They are caught up to be gathered together with their family. But I don't think that's what this is talking about.

I think the best way to interpret this is the way the psalmist interpreted it. He was saying that when a military leader conquers the enemy, one of the things he does is he rescues the hostages that enemy has taken captive, and he takes them back to be with him. And not only that, a military leader will take the spoils of victory and disperse them among his own people. What I think he's simply talking about here is when Christ died for our sins and was raised again from the dead, he was like a conquering hero, and he took those of us who were being held captive by Satan. He rescued us and took us to be with him, and he dispersed some of the spoils, which are spiritual gifts. That's what he's talking about here.

But that's not the main part of what he's saying. He's saying we have all received the gift. Now let's look at a description of the gifts, beginning in verse 11. Remember, these are ministries that God may open the door of opportunity for you to use your gift. It's not an exhaustive list of ministries; it's just some of the offices in the church. And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and others as evangelists and some as pastor-teachers. Let's unpack those just for a moment.

Apostles. The word means one sent forth. In a literal sense, there were only 12 apostles. You remember one of them flamed out, and so they were replaced. Judas was replaced in Acts 1 with Matthias, and he was the 12th apostle. And then God added a 13th apostle named the apostle Paul. To be an apostle, you had to have been chosen by Jesus Christ, and you've had to see Jesus in his resurrected body. All of those qualified to be an apostle. Now, I believe there are no more apostles today. They were temporary. They were here to serve as a building block for the Christian faith to receive divine instruction. So in the strictest sense, there are no more apostles. The faith has been once forever delivered to the saints, Jude tells us. But I think you can, in a broader sense, say that missionaries are a kind of apostles, taking the gospel to where it's never been before. And so if you want to expand it to that, that's fine. But just don't call yourself an apostle.

Speaker 2

In the body of Christ, your age is not a factor in God's family. Every single member plays a part. All of us are equipped by God to shine His light. Let me illustrate. Not long ago, I heard from somebody in our listening family who told his personal story. This gentleman from Florida is 91 years young, having served the Lord as a pastor for more than 50 years.

He said, "Pastor Jeffress, for many years I've relied on your books as pastoral tools. I use them to disciple young men. Your books and messages are the best tools I have outside the Bible to do just that." That's quite an endorsement. This dear retired pastor continues to mentor and influence others as a true light in the darkness.

When you give generously to Pathway to Victory, your gift is leveraged many times over due to the multiplying impact of listeners like this man. Plus, when you give today, your generous gift is automatically doubled in size because of the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. So please take advantage of this opportunity while there's still time to leverage your gift. The deadline is July 6th. Until then, your generous gift of $100 would be matched until it became $200. A $500 gift would become $1,000. There's no limit to what you can give that will be matched during this special time.

Today, when you invest your generous gift in the matching challenge, I'm going to say thank you by sending a copy of my new book, *Shine the Light*. In my new book, I'll show you how your acts of kindness and compassion will be used by God to renew Christian values in your family, your community, and even your nation.

Here's David to explain how you can get in touch right now.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. You're invited to request a copy of the brand new book by Dr. Jeffress, *Shine the Light*. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, simply call 866-999-2965 or visit our website. That's at ptv.org now. When you give an especially generous gift of $100 or more, we'll also include the complete *Shine the Light* teaching series on audio and video discs. Remember, your gift right now will have twice the impact, and that's because of our Salt and Light Matching Challenge. So be sure to get in touch today. Call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could write to us at this address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. One more time, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. A healthy body requires every part to function properly, and the same principle applies to Christ's body, the church. So how can we ensure that each member is working together effectively? Join us for part two of the message titled *Bodybuilding* Tuesday on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

And right now, your ministry gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on July 6th. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.