Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching ministry of LEMC. I'm Pastor Jonah Chitty, joined here by Pastor Jake Ends and Pastor Joe Pinner. How are you guys doing today? Doing all right. Good, good. It's really nice weather. Like somebody said, it seems like it's Florida outside, but yeah, it's really nice. I can still wear my flip flops, which is great. No snow yet. What What is the cut off for you in flip flops? Is it like a certain amount of snow?
I guess you don't really know yet. This will be your first winter. If I'm not working outside, I'm probably going to wear flip flops from the car to the office and from my house to the car. It's fine. I'm just going to wear them year round. People are going to make fun of me and that's fine. But yeah, I'm a flip flop guy. So, Joe, you preached a sermon. I don't remember the title. I did. I didn't even reference I. Think you made one up right?
I did I, I sort of just made a title because I had to. I didn't really reference it in my sermon, but it was how can I help understanding your spiritual gift, which maybe some people felt like, well, I didn't really understand it anymore after the sermon. Then I maybe it's good I. Didn't put the title on the screen that time. So your text was First Corinthians chapter 12, verses 1:00 to 11:00, right? Yeah. So why don't you give us an overview of the sermon and then
we can kind of go from there. Yeah, so again, I, I, I joke about, you know, maybe people didn't understand it anymore before than after. And I did sort of feel slightly guilty about that because I, I know that this is an area where people really struggle and they struggle to know their gift. But at the same time, like I, I can't tell you what it is, I, I can't help you find out what it is.
And, and so I, I thought there were principles in the text that we really needed to understand before we really got into the spiritual gifts. But I do feel a burden to, to help people to know their gifts the best that we can. And so. I think that I'm going to interrupt you. 1st just a second. That's fine. And maybe we can get into it later because you're doing your overview. But like, I think we we may not be able to tell them explicitly
what their gifts are. But like, like you do help me understand mine, right, by confirming things for me like as we talk and as and JQ do too, like, you know, we we like that's part of sharpening each other, I think is helping people determine what their gifts are. We can't explicitly say, yeah, you have the gift of prophecy. Well, we don't know that for sure, but if we see it, we can point out that you have tendencies towards that. Right. So I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
I just, I didn't want us to, like, make that distinction right away. Yeah, no. And it, and it is helpful, right. And, and I guess like we know each other well, right? And so, and so we're not, we're not obviously going to know everybody that well that closely. And, and I guess quite honestly, I, I don't know how much we think about serving each other and serving in church in terms
of spiritual gifts, right. We usually just look at like, here's a need in the church or here's an opportunity for someone to serve. Who do we think would best fit in that role? And so it's sort of like we're, we're talking about spiritual gifts, but not really talking about spiritual gifts. We're just looking for the people that God is gifted to serve in those roles. The best. And so the principles that I brought out in my sermon were I had three main points.
The first one was if you have the Spirit, you have a master. And so I think that's Paul's starting point where he's talking about, you know, if you have the Holy Spirit, then you recognize Jesus is your Lord. And so you're no longer of this world and you're no longer your own. And so you would use that spiritual gift now to honor your master and in service of your master. And that's sort of the starting point. And if you have this spirit, you have power was the second point.
But we need to recognize that that power is from God and it is for others. And so we do nothing about what gift we get, what gift we receive. It's from God. We don't take any credit for it and it's not for us. It's not so that I can exalt myself, but it's for the purpose of serving others. It's for the common good. Paul says that it's to build up the church. And so and then the Third Point was, if you have a gift, have the Spirit, you have a gift.
And so Paul does mention gifts, but I sort of brought up that it's the Spirit who gets the glory and the Spirit gets to choose. And so the Spirit is the one who gives the gifts as he wills. And so he gets the glory for those gifts. We don't get to take any credit for them. We don't get to boast in and of ourselves. They're they're for the church. And so, but the Spirit is getting the glory because the
Spirit is choosing. And then I spoke, spoke briefly on each gift that Paul mentions here. And, and, and really ended like with a with a story of a conclude or a made-up thing at the end with Austin Matthews, right. And I really just wanted to get this at this idea that like in our world, you know, I used Austin Matthews getting paid $16.7 million a year just to sit on the bench. You know, that's ridiculous, right? Like no hockey team would ever
do that. No business would hire an employee and pay him 50 thousand $60,000 a year to just do nothing. Like, that's ridiculous, you know, And in the same way, the Spirit doesn't come into your heart to give you power and to give you a gift for you just to do nothing, to just sit on the bench, you know, the purpose of that gift is to edify and strengthen the church and to
help it grow. And until we're all doing that and all working together, the church will not be built up as it should be. Yes, it was, it was really that illustration at the end was very impactful to think about. And, and when you think about like, OK, I mean, even if you don't know what your gift is there, you, you, you should realize that you're supposed to be doing something right. We're not just meant to, to come and to to to take.
They're supposed to be some, some form of, of action on our part to go out. I think it was a really helpful illustration. I would have used a football illustration or, or a baseball one. I thought about like the entire payroll of the Detroit or not Detroit Lions. Detroit Tigers, Yeah, that one baseball team that doesn't exist. Yeah. Anyway, that was less than, almost, almost less than what Austin Matthews makes in like one season, which is insane to me.
So, yeah, I would. But the idea on that, that illustration is really good. Yeah. And then you went to John, the end of John. And I was thinking about that, too. John and the disciples are just fishing. So, So. OK, So Jesus came and spent three years of his life with you, disciple you one-on-one, and then you're just going to be out fishing. You're going to go back to the exact same thing that you were doing before. And it's almost the same
illustration, right? He's, he's empowered them with, with these gifts like they, they now have, I don't know, maybe they didn't have the spirit just now. He's, he's going to give it to them, right? This is before the ascension. So but they're sitting around, they've they've experienced the Lord Jesus and they're they go back to what they were doing before he came and found them. And he says, no, you're going to follow me. You know, I thought it was such a good.
We're not meant to go back to do what we were doing before. Maybe maybe your maybe your job. Yeah, but there's something different about you now. There's something that you have to do, right? That's that's that you're compelled to do by the Spirit living inside you. So it was really good. I thought it was a good illustration. Your purpose for existence changes. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah.
Yeah, really good. Yeah. So now you you go. Maybe you go back to that same job you were doing before, but now you're looking for opportunities to to give glory to Christ by sharing the gospel. Or I've commented on this before and different people. That one guy went and told me that when he started out in ministry, it was basically church. Always got in the way of everything, he said. But then eventually he said it changed. Now everything gets in the way of church.
It can't feel that way when you're not going, when you're not doing things with the right attitude, when you have your priorities out of alignment. And often, I mean, I think we can all fall prey to that trap, right? Like we feel, oh, I just wish I could have a, a minute to myself, you know, we could fall. I think we all can fall prey to that. So. Yeah, I think there's also another element. When Jesus talks to Peter, Jesus does warn him.
There'll come a day when others will lead you and somebody else will do this and that for you. And, and it was not necessarily OK, you're going to have this gift. You're going to, you're going to feed my sheep and all the wine and roses that was not there. And so the, the living out of the gift is not an easy task. It's not an easy, easy journey. Yeah, I think when I was listening to your sermon, the, the idea that that the, that the Spirit is who gives the gifts,
right? They're from God. And then like, and then the reason for the gifts that they're for, they're for the edification of the church. But then and then also Paul doesn't explicitly mention it though, but like, but because he keeps saying this, this gift of the Spirit, it's also to to glorify the sun, right. So I think it's like I just wrote, I I drew a picture in my mind or on my paper so I could remember this.
So they come to us like the spirit gives us gifts for us to give them away, like to give our our to use our gifts to help it build up the church. And then and then what does that do? Well, it points back to Jesus, right. And so because we can't take the credit, you know, it's they're from the spirit. We don't get to choose all that stuff. It's just a really helpful, just just a helpful dissection of the passage. You did a really good job.
I think like the breaking the passage into different pieces so that we can understand the gifts are from God for God, right?
Ultimately, they're for him. So, yeah, and I and I think that that ties into like, like our vision, like we talk about that as pastors that, you know, we want every ministry of this church to point to Christ. You know, we would never want anyone to leave church service or a Wednesday night study or anything that we do here as a church feeling like we were that it's it's self help or it's just picking up, picking yourself up
by your bootstraps. Like no, we want the gospel to saturate everything that we do that everything is empowered and fueled by Christ. Everything is for the purpose of glorifying Christ and, and everything should point to him so that people leave here feeling like they need to draw closer to Christ. Not to us as pastors, not to us as a church, but everything that we do is pushing people to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, and that use the Ephesians passage there.
I think you're right to show like our what did you call it? You said I forget exactly how you said it, but it's the equip the Saints for the work of the Church. Yeah, but I think that would be our purpose statement, right. Like if if we had to pick something that was like just a verse, I think that would be like we would all agree that that that is what we're here to do. We're not, we're not here to like to take on all the work for the church and to do all the work for the church.
We're here to like to empower other people to use their God-given gift. I think there's a challenge there for us to to consider. I remember years ago at a meeting, we were debating in the service, not this church, but in a different church. We're talking about what we need so and so or such and such to do this and this and this ministry.
All of a sudden one of our leaders got up and he said if we want, if it was a youth pastor in particular, he said if we want a youth pastor or a different another pastor just so we can do less than we want him for the wrong reason. I thought that was so deep and so profound, it never left me. So the point is not to get this and that kind of help so that someone who can sit on the bench.
Right. Yeah. And I, I remember hearing a pastor share a story like that years ago where he said, you know, people will come up to me and they have a burden on their heart for a specific ministry. And they go, we ought to be doing this. And then he's like, oh, great, when are you starting? You know, because I think there is this perception that it's like, yeah, it would be great if the church did that.
It's like, it's like, it's like I remove my burden and I just hate the church needs to do this. It's like, well, first of all, no, you are the church. And so you, if you have a burden, you ought to be doing it. But it's like, it's so sort of that idea that like if you're burdened by it, why would you put delegate it to the church? Because the church is not going to do as good a job. Someone in the church is not going to do as good of a job trying to stir up the passion
and emotion that you already. Have. To do this ministry, it's like you need to be the one to do it because you're the one that's going to do it with energy and excitement and you're passionate. You're fueled by that. And so that's what we would say as a church. We want to empower people to to use their gifts to serve. And then if it has happened in my case where I've talked to an individual, somebody talked to
me, we should be doing XYZ. And then if I kind of push it on them a little bit, we quickly find out how serious or how genuine it really is. Yep. Yeah, right. Because if the fire goes out and you say OK, take it. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. Wow, this is an interesting thing. So what are you thinking about? What? What would you be doing? So when can you what you talk about when to start? How can we do this and kind of make it their job, right. All of a sudden some and some
are doing very well. They have, I have this thought, I have this plan. And then you just roll with it and you just affirm them and you just support them others. No, no, I wasn't thinking about myself so much. I think the church. Should. Yeah, I've had that too. Right. Yeah. And then you know it's not going to go. Anywhere. Yeah, exactly. Joe, you also taught us a new word. Simony Yeah, yeah. I. Thought it was really good. I I I I learned that this week. I'd I'd never knew that.
That was interesting. It was really cool. I think I've heard it before, but I have not for years. Just something right Again, yeah. Using religion as a means of gain. We had a question that didn't come in from to be on Sunday, but I found it on a child's notes as we were as I was cleaning up. They wanted to know like what works? So there for those of you don't know, like if your kids are in the service, we're putting out these like little sheets for taking notes for the kids.
They're on the in the foyer for you to grab. And on there it's got a little section for a word that you that you found that you don't, you don't understand. And then like a question that you have from the sermon. So this one had like, what is a Pagan? Can you explain what a Pagan is Joe? What is a Pagan? Pagan is is my least for my research. Basically someone like who worships like idols. Anybody other than God. Yeah, there's not necessarily like the one true God.
It's like sort of like a plurality of of gods that they worship sort of thing. And then this one's a little more serious, but it came from the same paper. And it also was one that I that I had. And maybe it ties into your title a little bit is, you know, how do we, how do we assess? Are there things that we can use
not tools. I know that you you had a, a harsh thing to say about all these like tools that we use or that you can find on the interwebs for finding your spiritual gift, but like, what would you recommend as like a starting point? Yeah, that's a really, that's a good question. I and and if I came across harsh against those two, no. You didn't. I was just. Well, yeah. And that was interesting to me. Like I had learned that this week. I had never thought of that
before, right? Because I've, I've often thought about these, these tools and these assessments and, but this guy had sort of mentioned like, they're not, they're sort of based on personality assessments. And so that really doesn't distinguish between necessarily a spiritual gift. It's distinguishing more between personality and character traits.
And so I, I guess maybe there's a survey out there or maybe there's an assessment out there that doesn't focus on those sorts of traits, but focuses on Scripture in the Bible. But again, you and I were chatting about this yesterday, Jonah, and we were just saying that I think, I think it needs it needs to be something that you do, but you have to bring somebody else in to that conversation.
Because if I go, hey, you know what, I think I have the gift of leadership and then I just begin pursuing leadership. And then someone else is like, you don't have the gift of leadership. Like someone else needs to affirm that in you, right? Because you may be misguided and you may be because we all know people who, who think they're good at something and it's like, well, maybe, maybe they're not though. And so I think it's one thing where it's like you're maybe prayerfully discerning.
I think just I, I, I think I mentioned this, I wasn't very, I wasn't in my notes 100% of the time on Sunday. And so I may have said something. I know I said it in one of the services, but I may not have said it in the other one, but it was in the recording, which I
listened back to yesterday. And I had said that find an area that you think you might be that you might want to serve in, in the church or maybe in a ministry And you sense like, Hey, I feel like I have a good personality for this. I feel like I'd be really gifted in it.
And then try try serving in that area and maybe you immediately recognize like, yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking at and I'm gifted in it. And then someone else sees you doing, oh, wow, you're actually really good at that. Like then, you know, right. Or maybe you do it for a while and you're like, no, I hate this actually.
And, and I don't like this, I don't feel like I'm gifted in it. Well, then move on from that and try something else until you find an area that you feel empowered in it. So it might just be trial by error until you find something you feel empowered by. And I guess that's what I wanted to emphasize that once you find an area that you are spiritually gifted in, you will like it because you've been gifted to do it. And so it won't be a burden. It won't be something that you
feel annoyed at doing. You will be excited and willing to sacrifice for it. Like you said, Jake, this person that now it's like now I, I can't get enough of church, right? Like everything else in life is getting in the way of me getting to church and serving. That's exactly what it will be in service that like now, I I don't mind sacrificing my time to do this thing because I, I enjoy it. Yeah.
I had an experience some years ago, a gentleman who really believed he had the gift of preaching, and I think only he believed it. I don't know if anybody else did. And I felt sad for him because he was a dear St. and he was a great man of God in every other way except that he wanted, he wanted the microphone. And my comment to him was, if God is calling you to do that, he will affirm it through the body.
It will come out. And he was teaching and I'm not saying it was bad or anything, but nobody else really thought that he was a strong teacher or even a preacher at all. And so it, it just, it never went anywhere. And he was a good man otherwise. But so my, I did have a question. How do you help a person sincerely believes they have a particular gift, but no one else believes it. How do you help to navigate that? Wow, that's tough.
Well, I think, I think it would be that, that honest way, right? Like if someone I, I in no way, I mean, it would depend on the, the area of service, right? Like there, there may be areas of service where like it's not that they're less important, but they, they don't require as much. But let's say we're like ushering like that doesn't require a whole lot of background training and a background, all these different things. You don't need a whole lot of, of training to do that.
So that may be a job where it's like we could fill a position and it's filling, it's meeting a need here at the church and you get like, well, let's put you there and see how you do. And then after a while, you know, the head usher comes up and says, this guy's just horrible. I can't depend on nothing. He doesn't know what he's doing. And then maybe you would go, OK, well, maybe you don't have, maybe maybe that's not an area of service for you.
And so I think it would be like working with that person, being patient with them, maybe trying to ask questions of like, well, why do you feel you have that gift? Has anybody else affirmed that gift in you?
It has there, has there been anything in your life where you felt like, let's say it was leadership, let's say, do you have any stories or, or things that have come up in your life of, of opportunities that you had to lead, where somewhere where you led a situation and, and you helped someone?
And so maybe try helping them. And again, if it's like, well, if there's no fruit of leadership ability in your life, well, maybe they're just not old enough and maybe they need to cultivate it more and maybe it needs to be hashed out. But also maybe they don't have that gift. I think also sometimes a a person who is very gifted and doing a great job sometimes just needs affirmation because they get tired. I think of Moses in the desert.
He'll actually accused God. What did I ever do to deserve this? God hand picked him and chose him and and delegated this job to him. And he was a great leader. He was, he was excellent. But he did get tired. Yeah, it might be helpful. I'm just listening to you guys talk about it. It might be helpful to distinguish the gifts, the spiritual gifts, from areas of service. That's that's. True, because, because like like just let's just, let's just take one example.
Like what would what gift? Spiritual gift would be beneficial for someone on our welcome team to have. Like friendliness. Like a spiritual gift. Spiritual gift, not a talent, not something like that. Let's what is a like a spiritual gift that it would be good for them to have. I think like. I would like one would be encouragement. Encouragement, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you, you, you.
And then the other one, I think would be another one that would, could, could help would be discernment, being able to discern is this person having a hard day, a compassionate heart, someone who has the gift of hospitality, right? Someone who's like a, a welcoming person already. So like the gift of those gifts, all of them are different, right? We would say they're all different. They're all manifestations of the spirit, but they're all being utilized in one area of
service. So like, for instance, for your man, for your man who, who's thought, thought he was a great preacher, well, if he didn't have the gift of knowledge or of wisdom, then he's probably not going to be a good, good preacher. Someone who has the gift of knowledge or wisdom can, can convey truth from the, from the scriptures and then and then like apply them to someone's life. Not everybody has that gift.
They may be the best teacher like as far as like teaching normal things, but they can't explain scripture at all. That's that's not something that has to gift the spiritual gift of teaching. Yeah. That's just a talent, right? Yeah, well, and that's that's probably a good opportunity to talk about those differences between spiritual gifts and natural talents you. Actually had a question come in about that. So what are the like? Can talent become a spiritual
gift? Here's I'll just give you one of the hypotheticals. You use this one in your sermon. So if someone has a talent to bake or cook and they love hosting, is that more of a talent at this point or is it a spiritual gift? Yeah. And so the way that the way that I would distinguish talents and and spiritual gifts is like, I guess the purpose of a spiritual gift in my mind would be to strengthen someone's faith or to strengthen someone's understanding or to grow somehow
grow them in Christ, right. And so does eating a pie strengthen my faith in Christ. Sometimes if it's, if it's like a mince pie, yeah, it restores your faith for sure. It encourages you. No. And I, and it's so like that's where I would distinguish it. It's like, well, no, a pie doesn't strengthen my faith. Food doesn't strengthen my faith. Like even like the ability to play a guitar or musical ability, it doesn't necessarily strengthen my faith at all.
But can that gift, can that natural talent rather be used in tandem with your spiritual gift to strengthen someone's faith? Yes, absolutely. So if I'm an excellent at baking pie, which I'm not, then I might use I might bake a really great pie. And I'm good at making cake pops. I I do. I've tried my hand at cake pops and they're pretty good
actually. But yeah, I could now make cake pops invite some people over and we would have an edifying conversation talking about our faith, talking about what God's been teaching us in his word. And so the cake pops aren't strengthening someone faith, but the conversation that we're having around that talent that I have that does. And so how do we use our talents? And so the same thing with the musical ability, right? Like the Holy Spirit doesn't gift somebody with acoustic
ability. You know, you don't wake up one day. Like after I receive the Holy Spirit, it's like now all of a sudden I can play acoustic guitar. Amazingly. No, that's not what he does. That's a natural talent that you can develop, which you can use to facilitate strengthening someone in the Lord. And so that's the distinction that I would make. That's helpful. Yeah, I hope so. And it's helpful for me too,
right. Like I, I, I've been encouraged by other teachers who have sort of helped to clarify those different things, but I would say the spiritual gift is a specific way for you to strengthen someone's faith. And in my mind, just a practical way that we do that because I also want to be careful of like maybe we've unhelpfully yoked together spiritual gifts with service of the church. I. Think so, yeah. And I. Don't think that that's a direct correlation. Can you use your spiritual gift
to serve the church? Yes. I think so it's true. I think that's true because the way that the conversation started, right? Like we, we just naturally, all of us, even in this room, like we naturally gravitated to, Oh, well, you'd use, you know, we always all of a sudden start talking about like areas of service, which which I mean, but I think that's like that's the danger, right, of us thinking like to maybe too broadly or maybe too narrowly, I don't know, that we're just thinking
in the wrong way. So go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off, but we're guilty of it too. We are. And, you know, well, conveniently, spiritual gifts is coming up at the season where we're nominating volunteers for ministries, right? And so, you know, we really could have pushed for that and obviously we would encourage people to serve. I think that's sort of a distinction a brother on Sunday
helped me to see to see that. I mean, I, I recognize the distinction, but he helped me to see that distinction even more clearly in the text that it says there's a variety of gifts. There's a varieties of service, there's a varieties of activities. And so maybe those are all three separate areas, right? Maybe there's specific gifts
that I can use. And so that gift that I have, whether it's mercy or knowledge or wisdom, I can use to build someone else up in the Lord. But then there's also activities in service. And maybe that's where we would say, here's ways for you to be serving in the church to just practically help us. You know, when we get together on a Sunday, there's a lot of practical things that need to happen. We need ushers in the parking
lot to help park cars. We need greeters in the sanctuary to help people find their seats and to welcome people. We, we need Sunday school teachers and Sunday school helpers to help facilitate those things. Like there's a practical reality to those things that are also needed, right? And so usually your spiritual gift may work in tandem with that, but also there may just be like a sacrifice involved in
like in giving to the church. But yeah, I, I sort of saw that like maybe maybe we unhelpfully yoke those things together and it's not always true. Because I think probably we all would agree that the greatest way that you should be using your spiritual gift is not like, oh, well, I was, I did, I did. I was in Usher on Sunday. And so now my service is done.
No, no, no, no, that's, that's a misunderstanding of what your spiritual gift is. I think probably the most practical direction that we're headed as a church is discipleship groups. Everybody has a responsibility to strengthen others in their faith.
And so if you're a part of a group of men or women and you're holding each other accountable to read, you're holding each other, you're praying for each other, you're memorizing God's word in those conversations that you're having on a weekly basis. You're going to strengthen my faith in a way that like, wow, like you, the way you, God showed that to you and the way that you saw that, like I would have never noticed that, right,
right. And we can strengthen and edify each other by sharing what God is doing in US, in and through us, through His Word, right? And it will also help you find out what your gifts are, right? Because you're, you're using them in a group like, and you're being like, like you mentioned earlier when I said that like very beginning when I was saying just just distinguishing. We can't help each other find out, right? But then you said, but we know
each other really well. Well, that's part of it. Like, like you're not going to be able to show up on a Sunday and me know you for three days and say, Oh yeah, your spiritual gift is prophecy, Jake, or you must have the gift of
apostleship. You know, it's like you're not going to find that stuff out unless you've spent lots of time with someone and you've seen how God uses and gifts them, you know, and that way you can clearly point out, yeah, you do have the gift of teaching or, or discernment even like discernment is, is something that that we talk about it a lot, like our wives probably have greater discernment than we do. A lot of times they can, they can just like a conversation after a conversation, right?
You've had a conversation with someone, both of you were there and you get a decent read on them. And then your, your wife says that person is creepy or something like that. You know, you just sort of like they, they have a bet sometimes they have a better way. And I know that that's true in my in my family. And I'm glad. Oh, oh man, I'm glad. And if I had just, I need to have the gift of being able to listen to my wife at times about that stuff.
So, yeah, but that comes with just knowing people, right? Like, like you don't know that about your wife on the first date. Yeah, that's helpful. I think like talents. Talents are used are ways that you express your gift maybe. Well, and I and I would. I was that you can get to it. Yeah.
And, and I will add to that that like, I mean, let's just, let's just say if someone has a natural ability, let's let's say for like having like a, like an outgoing personality or like public speaking, let's say, for instance, like now if the Spirit gives you with leadership or wisdom or knowledge or the ability to preach and teach, it's like, well, your natural gift is going to tie in very well with that, that gift that
he's given you to lead, right? Well, I mean, now I just think of like, but that this is a good, good differentiation, like between like being able to do something well and then being able to do something well as a Christian. Like, like, I don't know, I don't, I don't know if this person's a Christian or not, but like take like Jordan Peterson, a fantastic communicator, communicates a lot of truth, but I don't know if I, I can't tell if he's a Christian, but like
probably not. Like I don't know. I mean, but, but like then you take, if you, if he were to become a Christian and like to be expounding truth from the scriptures, from the pulpit, it would be like you would be using a talent that he gave that he was given and, and as a gift to the church, right. So that like, that's the thing, you know, I don't know, maybe I'll get maybe I'll find out I was wrong. And I hope I am, I hope, I hope
he does get safe. You know, I was thinking another, another one that's famous of Malcolm Gladwell, a famous podcaster, another Canadian. He's a fantastic communicator, but he would say probably that he's not a believer. You know, he grew up in a Christian home, but not a believer. But these these, these people have extraordinary talent to be able to convey stories and all these things. But it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that they're that they're that that's their spiritual gift.
It is a talent, spiritual gift would be you're using it for the for the edification of the church. Yeah. So I don't know, that's good. Yeah, that is helpful. I, I, I hope it's helpful to see that distinction. It they may also tie together when I mentioned this, this story of Simon the Sorcerer, like I, I have in this mind like so here's a guy who who was famous. He was very well known for his public, his public ministry of magic, right?
And here it almost seems like like Peter seems to call out like this desire in his heart to to continue. Now in his, you know, it says that he believed. We don't know if that meant that he was truly converted or not, but he believed and wanted to be a part of the ministry. And now it seems like he wants that same fame and that same glory. But now through the laying on of hands. And I sort of get this picture
in my mind. I have no idea what happened and I have no idea if this is true or not. But maybe God in his sovereignty would have Simon the sorcerer in a very private area of ministry. If he if he truly became a Christian, maybe sort of as a as a play on his life in ministry.
Now he was going to serve in some less well known way, but he was very content to do that because like we think of you, Jake, you mentioned Paul many, many times over the years where it's like here he has this, this great ministry, but then after he Christ calls him, he's like, I'm going to show him how much
he has to suffer. There's like a there's like a direct correlation to like what you the way you lived before Christ and a total contradiction to the way you're going to live after Christ. That's really helpful. And so maybe God in his wisdom would would make it the opposite of your talent. You know, maybe he would go. Well, you were famous for that before, and now it's now you're not. And if it's real, as it wasn't Paul's, like he didn't mind the hardship and the pain and the
suffering. He took it as a service for Christ. Yeah. Yeah. So another question we had, we'll shift gears a little bit. Yeah, in your sermon you mentioned you sort of like outed yourself as a a nuanced cessationist. Cessation is like, like you think some of the gifts may have ceased or like, for instance, apostleship. I think like, like, I don't know where Jake stands on this, but like I, I would think that
apostleship is one that is gone. My definition of apostleship would be someone who was trained, discipled by the Lord Jesus directly. And so like so. They were an eyewitness. Eyewitness. Yeah. Like in the book of Acts when they had to replace Judas, it was like, OK, it has to be an eyewitness. It has to be someone who was with us from the beginning. So like there are very few of those people, right? Like those were people who were. So I think that that's so that's my definition of that.
I think some others might define apostleship like, like someone who wants to be frontline ministries, so like church planting in unreached places of the world, they might say they have the gift of apostleship. I think it's like maybe like in the, the theme of Apostolic ministry, like frontline work. But but I think that that gift has ceased. I don't, I don't think we have, we don't, I don't think we see those anymore. So that's like that.
Maybe, I mean, that's for a broader conversation, if anyone wants to have a conversation with us happy. But in Eastman, you mentioned specifically you use the gift that of healing. That was in the text here. And so we had one question come in about that. They just, they just asked for you to elaborate on what you said about the no one having the gift of healing.
I don't know exactly what you said because of the certain time or the season that we live in. And then they they referenced James 14 to 16 and they said it sounds like God wants to heal people all the time. Just wanted to hear your thoughts about it more. So could you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, well, and so I'm, I'm, I, I've read over the question a number of times and was thinking through it. And I sometimes, sometimes it's hard to get at like the root of a question.
Like you're trying to, I analyze words very carefully. And so you're trying like for a living. What are, what are, what are they, what are they trying to get at? Because I don't, I don't want to misunderstand the question, right? I, I don't want to assume things. I don't want to misunderstand. I think what they're asking is it seems like it, it seems like when you read this text and when he seems, when you read James's text, which, yeah, Tony, you can maybe pull it up and read it for us.
This person is saying that it, it seems like healing is, is a part, is supposed to be a part of the life of the church always like that, that God will still heal, that healing hasn't ceased. And so it needs to be a part of. Yeah, church ministry or this seems like it's supposed to be normative in church ministry even today. Yeah. All right, So I'm actually going to start at 13 because I think it's helpful for context. Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray.
Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So there's the text. Yeah. And so I mean, there's, there's a lot there, right? I was sort of sort of thinking through that text. And I guess I'll start at the beginning.
OK, So cessationism, like you said, is this idea that there are some gifts that were for a season there. They're called sign gifts, which is that they were, they were a sign of the coming of the Messiah. And so some people believe that those gifts have ceased. There's there's no longer a need for them because the purpose of the sign gifts like healing and miracles were to validate Jesus ministry. And so the, the need for those gifts has has ceased. And prophecy would be another
one, right? Like, like we would say there there's prophesying in the sense of like speaking forth God's word. And then there's prophesying, which is like foretelling God's word. And we would say that there, there's a sense in which there's, there's no, like, there's no longer a need for prophecy. Like, like we have the full, we have God's full word. Jesus was the final prophet. He's come and, and we don't need any prophetic word because we have God's word. It's, it's useful for every
area, right? Timothy. And so with, with cessationism, it's not to say that healing and miracles have ceased. That's not what it's saying. And so I, I, I did say that in my sermon. I, I hope I communicated that faithfully. I do believe God works miracles. I do believe God works healing. IA 100% believe that I I had a number of stories shared with me this week and in the past and and I've heard them. I've witnessed them even in my own life. And it's like I know God does miracles.
I know God does healing. And I guess maybe I even it to my own perspective. As I, as I thought about it this week, I thought maybe I was thinking a little bit too narrowly when it comes to like this gift of healing. Because what I was thinking in terms of healing is like, well, if I look at someone who has the gift of preaching and teaching, they use that gift all the time, right? Whenever they have an opportunity, they'll use that
gift. And so when I was thinking of the gift of healing, I'm thinking like, OK, well, maybe someone, maybe at that time, someone had the gift of healing and they could just walk around and heal people at will. And so maybe I was thinking a little bit too narrowly in the terms of what healing is. Maybe, maybe there's someone who has healing and, and, and a strong faith and just when they feel prompted by God, they can pray for a person and they've
seen fruit from that, right? And so I'm open to that. And, and I guess my point was, if the spirit is the one who gives a gift and someone had the gift of healing, I would think that we would see that in our church and we would know of it, right? We would know that that if I'm going to go pray for someone, I'm bringing this person along because they have the gift of healing. And if God's going to heal them, this is the person who has that
gift. In the same way that I would go, well, if I need this sermon preached, I know Jonah and Jake are excellent preachers. And so I'm going to have them preach it because I know they have the gift of preaching and teaching. And so God does work miracles. I hope that's clear. I am not a guy who lacks faith. You know, it's interesting to me even in that text of James, it doesn't say if someone's sick, call the person in the church
who has the gift of healing. It says call the elders and the elders will pray and the prayer of faith heals them. Not the person who has the gift of healing, not the person who has a spiritual gift. It's the prayer of faith. And so I agree that. God does work miracles and that's why we need to pray because we believe in a supernatural God who does go beyond normal means. And so we need to pray and we need to have faith that God can
and does heal. But we also need to acknowledge that we do live in a fallen world and our faith in God is not dependent on healing or miracles. It's God is not God just when he heals and maybe you guys want to add to that. I do want to share a quote, a reading from from John MacArthur, but maybe OK, I'll do that right now. This might just be helpful for for us understanding again, this is just one man's opinion. That's this is like his his teaching on healing.
He says healing was a temporary sign gift used by Christ, the apostles, the 70, and a few associates of the apostles such as Philip. This ability was identified as a gift belonging to the apostles. Although Christians today do not have the gift of healings, God certainly still hears and answers the faithful prayers of his children and he references James 5/13/16 there. Some people feel that healing should be common and expected in every area, but this is not the
case. Physical healings are very rare. Throughout the Old Testament record, only a few are recorded. There was never a time before the coming of Christ when healings were common. Only in His lifetime and that of His apostles was there a veritable explosion of healing. This was due to the unique need to accredit the Messiah and to authenticate the first miracles of the Gospel.
Jesus and his apostles temporarily banished disease from Palestine, but that was the most monumental area of redemptive history and called for such authentication. To normalize healing would be to normalize the arrival of the Savior. This gift belong to the sign gifts for that era only. The gifts of healings were never used solely for bringing people physical health. Paul and so I this was an interesting point that I wanted to bring up too, that that healings are never just for the
sake of healing, right? That's that's not what the purpose of what the healings were because and he references Paul, Paul was sick but never healed himself or asked another human to heal him. His friend Epaphroditus was near death and Paul did not heal him. God intervened when Timothy was sick. Paul did not heal him, but told
him to take some wine. Paul left Trophimus I'll at Myletus. Healings were not the everyday norm in Paul's ministry but did occur when he entered a new region, for example, Malta, where the gospel and its preacher needed authentication. That healing was the first mention of healing since the lame man was healed in Lystra, which was Acts 14, in connection with the arrival of Paul and the
gospel there. Prior to that, the nearest healing was Peter in Acts Chapter 9 and the resurrection of Tabatha in nine as well so that people would believe the gospel Peter preached. And so he's making the point that even in the apostles ministry, like it wasn't like every 5 seconds someone was being healed. It's like sometimes you go like 14 chapters and there's no healing. Like it's not. It was never meant to usher in this season of just constant
miracles and healing. They were meant to authenticate and validate their ministry as being from Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Yeah. It's. A super good point to think about that because like it's paradigm shifting, honestly, because if you think about, if you think about the gospels, like when Jesus did a miracle, like let's start his first miracle, right, the wedding at Cana. Well, he didn't turn water into wine for no reason. He did it to show those who saw that he did that who he was
right? You can see like their eyes were opened. Who is who is this man? Well, this man is God. Then all the other miracles that follow all the things that he did were done for the the for the express purpose and intent to demonstrate that he was the fulfillment like he's he's tell us he's complete. He's telling us that that he has fulfilled all the prophecy and
that the Messiah is here. It was exactly what MacArthur saying there to prove to them who he was now and then you say, well, and then he gets to sort of frustrated with the Pharisees. And then after after he's done so many signs and they still want more, He's like, you're hard headed right. You're you're like, yeah, it so, yeah, you demand a sign. Well, I'm not giving you another sign. I've already shown you who I am.
So like I've proved who I am. Then you go to that to Acts where MacArthur like gives out this all that was for, for people to believe the gospel, right. So like I would argue that like if there is a miraculous healing now, like, like that's not something that that that's just done on its own. It's done for a purpose, like if God chooses to heal someone and he does and the people who I've had like the like testimony from that say the Lord healed me.
They don't say, hey, I went this guy healed me. They say the Lord healed me, right, I was healed by the Lord. And so it's for the testimony of demonstrating to others. Maybe it's your you. Maybe it's a testimony to an unbelieving Doctor Who is who who God is drawing to himself and and is like wanting to prove that that he's real. But it it there's always a reason behind it. The edification of the church, but also to glorify God. And so if like, healing happens outside of that, then I don't
know. Yeah, go ahead, Jake. There's a, there's another element here that comes to my mind as I'm listening to, to you both talk about this. And I, I, I would, I would agree the, the idea that God still does miracles is true. And I think it, I think it's also very specific. And for me now to just say, OK, we have somebody in the church who can pray that prayer of healing and just anybody happens. No, I wouldn't go there. At the same time, I think
there's certain points in time. For instance, I had a missionary tell me a story one time. It didn't happen to the missionary himself herself, but to to somebody else. And they shared the stories were in Latin America and a very. Poor. Backwards, primitive society. But they started the church there, and this church, of course, they had no access to medical care and whatnot. It was just just very primitive. So they studied the Bible.
They learned the Bible and then one day somebody is sick. And so the elders of that church, they prayed and they, this missionary was there. They prayed over the sick person and then they all left. Later on, the missionary found out the elders had gone back to pray again. And the mission asked, why did you go back to pray again over the sick person after I left? I said, because we knew you didn't believe. They said we knew you didn't believe, you didn't have the faith.
And so I don't know what the outcome was of that prayer, but that was a powerful like rebuke almost to this missionary that this missionary God doesn't do that or basically, we'll pray, but nothing's going to happen, kind of that thing, you know, and I'm not saying that I believe that God does miracles all over the place just because somebody has the gift of healing. At the same time, I agree with you Joe God does miracles still. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. And I think again, always going back to Christ in the in the garden is, is such a wonderful example because the, the thing that we have to be careful of is this movement of people who say, like, man, if you just had enough, yeah, hard enough right then. And I feel like what a cruel thing to say. I know someone shared with me on Sunday that they they heard of that experience that someone went, they would go to a family and say you just didn't have enough faith.
What a cruel thing to say to a family after their loved one passes away that like, it's your fault they're dead. And so that's the thing that we're being cautious of to say it's like, that's not true. That's not biblical because who had more faith in Jesus? No one. No one had more faith in Jesus. Jesus was perfect. And he prayed that if it was possible for the cup to be removed. But he is seeking God's will
above all. And it was God's plan and it was the the triune God's plan to save humanity through his death and resurrection. And so his suffering was used to bring life to sinners. And so in the same way for us that you said it's paradigm shifting to think about about the way the healings were used, I think that that should shape our prayers not just for healing, but also for suffering. How is God using? And we should pray for that.
If someone gets cancer, if someone gets sick or if someone is healed, our prayer should always be God. Use this for your glory in death. Use this to draw sinners to yourself in healing. Use this to draw sinners to yourself to see your power. But in everything that like God gets the glory, yeah. Absolutely. You remind me of that the story, I think, I think we talked about this yesterday.
You're about using death as a way to draw people to to the Lord. And like we were talking about the difference between weddings and funerals for I preached a wedding or I officiated a wedding over the weekend and we talked about which ones we like better. We'd probably say we like funerals better. And then you're like, what, why? And then, well, this is the story that one of our professors said. He said that he he preached a lot of weddings, but he preached
funerals too. And there was this, this one lady who he preached their funeral and, and he said, like a decade later, like he would have people come to him and say, I got saved at so and so's funeral, like I got, and he would say it was more than one. People were like, so that the Lord used the death of a St. where he could go and preach the gospel and, and, and like faithfully preach the gospel and
people are listening. So he used that as a way to like, to draw someone in to himself and to save them. And so like, don't we? We shouldn't overlook the fact that God is doing so many things, you know, and they're like, if we could get past our own, like, selfish desires and understand that, yeah, it's, it's horrible to lose a loved one, but the Lord is doing something right. He's teaching. He's teaching someone through it. He may be drawing someone to himself for salvation through it.
Yeah. We don't want to be guilty of like, you know, going against the will of the Lord. So anyway. And well, that's really important because to, to pray for something. I, I think we need to pray with faith. But at the end of the day, I think, I, I don't think it's a cop out to say, but your will be done. I, I, I think there's people who say that it is right, like, oh,
that's just a lack of faith. You're, it's sort of your cop out to go like, well, if God doesn't answer your prayer, We, we were consumed with God's. No, it's not a cop out. That's faithful praying. That's that's praying that acknowledges that. Who am I to get to decide anything right? Like I am asking because I have faith that God can do it, but I am not ultimately seeking my will. But Paul did, he asked three times in order to remove this thorn from me.
And God says my strength is sufficient, right? So Paul did not get that prayer answer. And of course, Paul had lots of faith. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, but we have to be subject to God's. He's our master. He's the master. It's just like the kids come to you and they ask you for something and they can ask, they can, they can ask and sometimes you'll say yes, but maybe other times you'll say no. Ultimately the decision's up to
you. And that's that same sovereign will that God has that we're subject to his plan and his purpose. We don't know what he's doing. We don't know how he, his plan is to use something. And so we have to be subject to his will. But I guess just to maybe clarify, I, I'm open, I'm opened. I was going to say this in my sermon and maybe I should have said it just to clarify to
people. I sort of thought of saying, you know, if all of a sudden the Holy Spirit gifted someone in our church and like they healed cancer, broken bones and they, they healed people. I am totally open to that. Like I, I wouldn't be like, no, that gift is ceased. I wouldn't do that. I would be like, praise God, we have somebody in our church who can heal cancer. Anybody who has cancer, go over to that person's house and they'll pray for you. I'll be healed.
I would praise God for that. I'm totally open to that. I just think, I just tend to think it was, it was for a season. And I think now God still answers those prayers at times, although I think it's not normative, I think death and and disease and suffering are, are usually the ways that God uses us to draw him to himself. And our ultimate healing, our, our prayers for healing are answered. They are the moment we die and we usher and we're ushered into the presence of our Savior and
we're healed forever more. That's the ultimate healing. And I would say even before that in this life, our prayers for healing are ultimately answered in our salvation, spiritual healing, the spiritual healing, because we're, we once were dead, but now we're alive in Christ. And so I, I just don't want anybody to think that like, I don't believe in healing. I don't believe in, I don't believe in faith. I, I think God does do those things. I absolutely do.
And and so I think we should pray, we should have faith, and we should ask God and we should believe that he can do it. Amen. Any final thoughts on your sermon? Oh, Jake. Joel, sorry. Before we get to final thoughts, Jake has one more thought. This whole concept of gift, I think is so fascinating and it's intriguing. It's it's I think a great topic to discuss and I'm all in on it.
And I think we come with such a wide variety of perspectives and differences, and it's important that we remain unified as a church body in this. But there's 11 aspect of this whole gifting thing that we won't go into too much, but the whole gift of tongues. And we know what's happened to
the charismatic movement. And somehow it's been this whole thing has been pulled from the past in today's context and just hijacked it. And people now have this idea of speaking in tongues, which may or may not happen. But Paul talks about this one little short piece I read in the book called Dangerous Fire. I believe it is, but I think it's been MacArthur. Yeah, it's been MacArthur. I just read a short little snippet. Strange, strange fire. Strange fire.
Sorry. Yeah, anyway, so this idea that, okay, now somebody have the gift of tongues, you can go to a foreign country and just start. He doesn't have to take language training. He just not goes there. You know, that's foolishness. And so I'm not saying that God, well, God did that the book of act, but it's the only time we find it in the Corinthian church too. We talked about how they the taking this paganism into into
their midst. And I think we have to be careful when even when we talk about gifts in general, that we don't start mixing it up with all kinds of other stuff, new age stuff and all kinds of experiences that are not real. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's very important. Yeah, with tongues, with just like any other gift, right? Like, well, I feel like I'm beating the dead horse here. What would be the purpose for it?
To edify the church and to glorify God, not to bring us some new revelation, not to. So like, if you're speaking in tongues, then I would believe that the purpose for that would be to edify, to build up the church and and. If it doesn't do that, then. Then it's not a gift of the Spirit. Yeah. So it's that's that's an easy one that honestly is an easier 1 to discern than a lot of the others.
If it happens and you're there and and no one interprets it, that's obviously not an utterance from the Holy Spirit. Then again, if it's if it's just random and this doesn't build up to edify the church, then you know it's not. And I don't think we can conjure them up right. Right. And I was, I was, I was clear to mention that too. I think that's sort of the point that it's like this, this, if it's a spiritual gift, it's not something you can just do in your flesh, right?
It's something that has to be empowered by the Spirit. Which would differentiate it from a talent. Right, go ahead. But I but I would say even like, I mean, maybe you guys have experienced this. I know I have. It's like I can preach in the flesh, but then it bears no spiritual fruit. The Holy Spirit may use it to, to bear spiritual fruit, but it's like, but I need to be using my gift in tandem with the Spirit. It's it's a spiritually
empowered gift. And so, yeah, like you said, then it would just be a talent if I'm having it in my flesh. Yeah, that's good. OK, Now Joe, any final words? I I would just encourage people to to pursue it. I know again, maybe we've not been super helpful in like resources to look into. I think maybe let's not overcomplicate it. I don't think it needs to be the Super complicated thing like like ask people, pray about it.
Look at look at ways that you can sense that you're gifted in strengthening and encouraging other people. So find your gift, find find what area you feel like people after their, after they talk with you, they feel strengthened, they feel edified, they feel encouraged. And then look for activities, look for areas of service. Again, we have tons of areas of service in the church. We always need Sunday school teachers.
We always need Sunday school helpers, worship ministry and, and, and that in there, the music ministry. I mean, I don't like to call it the worship ministry. I like all, all, all aspects of our Christian life are worshiped. And so we call it the music ministry. But there's lots of areas to serve there. There's the need for ushers, welcome team, those sorts of things.
Like there's lots of ways that you can serve your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And so look for opportunities and you may be getting a text from us. I can say one one way. You won't be able to, like, discern it. Like you'll be very hard to discern your spiritual gift if you're not in the Word. Yeah. You need to be in the Word every day. The Lord's not going to gift you with something if he knows you're not going to use it. Yeah, so. And you have to.
Function as a part of the body. Function in the body. Next Sunday we'll talk about that like you have to be one with the body for it to work. That was an excellent segue, Pastor Jake, to to what like, you know, give us a like a quick overview of what you're going to be, you're going to be teaching from the same chapter. The last part, well, the starting from verse 13 to the end, and one, it's basically many members, many gifts, one body. Yeah, there's all very key parts.
Yeah, foot, lot of big toes. Not a very good foot, is it? We're different, serving the same God through the same Spirit with different gifts. Yeah. And I want to expand on that next Sunday. That's exciting. Looking forward to that. Yeah. One final thing, things we like. Joe, did you have anything that you like that you'd like to share with the church community via the podcast? Yes, I do. Compelling community. There we go. I almost forgot it last week.
I listened to a book, an audio book called Compelling, Compelling Community by Mark or sorry, Mark Dever. Mark Dever is one of the editors on it, the other guy. I'll pull it up in a second, but it was an excellent book on how the body of Christ is how it is to be a unique body and it's different from anything in the world. So it was by Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop, the compelling community. And so one of the the things that I appreciated most about the book.
I would recommend it to anybody who wants to see what the purpose of the church is. But talking about spirit empowered things, he says a lot of times we gear our church to to being distinct in the ways that like the world is. So let's say like, oh, if you're a young 20 something, then we'll put you with other young 20 somethings. And if you're a single mother, then we'll put you with other
single mothers. And if you're 55 years old and in whatever, then we'll put you with other 55 year old people. And he says the problem is that's not a spirit empowered gospel community because those distinctions would exist in the world. We see them everywhere. The power of the gospel is seen in the fact that you have Italians in Mennonites coming together and worshiping Jesus.
The fact that you would have older generation and younger generation coming together and having gospel community. And I thought, wow, that's so interesting that like a gospel knit community is people coming together in Christ in ways that you wouldn't see in the world, right. And so I, that was just one of the things that really stood out to me, but it's, it's an excellent book.
You mean you mean to tell me like former Catholics, Baptists and Mennonites can all be in the same church and have unity? Praise God. Amen. That's really cool. So compelling, the compelling community. I'll put it in the show notes and then I have one that I like things that I like. My pastor back in Louisville. Joe and I actually had the same pastor back in Louisville. He put out a new book.
It's called A Savior is Born from Heaven's Throne to Bethlehem's Manger, and he goes through the accounts in Matthew and Luke around Jesus birth just in time for Christmas. It's like a devotional style. It's not necessarily like you would see devotions, like daily devotions, but it's written in a way that that's not super academic. It's just a way for the church to be strengthened in learning about our Savior's birth. So it's perfect for Christmas.
So we'll put this in the show notes as well. All of his resources have been fantastic. We've been through. We did Victory over the enemy just recently. As far as a Wednesday night, then maybe this will be a Wednesday night study before long. Who knows? Maybe not this year. But a saviour is born by William Cook. Yeah. So that that's what I like. Pastor Jake, you didn't have anything this week. Not this week. You don't like anything. It's fine.
Next week you'll come back with something that you like. I know you had a busy week. You got married off your son. Yep, he got married and so it's been a very busy week for us, but other than that it's all good. Great, great. Well LMC, we are praying for you. Umm, let us know how we can serve you and until next time, you guys have a great week.