Sermons / August 30, 2026 // Summary on Gifts

Theme: Summary on Gifts Passage: 1 Corinthians 12–13 Main Idea: The Spirit builds up our church to reflect Christ by giving us differing gifts. Three topics of importance concerning gifts for the church: Definition of Gifts: 1. Spirit-gifts: At their core, these gifts are given by the Holy Spirit of God.  - The Spirit empowers the Gospel message to bring salvation (2:4). - The Spirit fills God’s people to make God’s message known to and through them (2:10–15). - The Spirit fosters unity, not division, within Christ’s body, His church, making us a temple within which He dwells (3:1–16). - The Spirit unites us individually as believers with Christ so that we honor God with the actions done in our bodies (6:17–19). - The Spirit reveals his presence in our lives by our embracing and living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ (12:1–3). - The Spirit distributes differing gifts to each of us for the betterment of the church body (12:4–11).  - The Spirit fills us as believers with life in anticipation of our future spiritual existence in our glorified bodies (15:44–46). 2. Grace-gifts:  - They are enabled by God’s gift of grace to us in Jesus Christ (1:4–7) - They are a unique manifestation of God’s grace in us individually (7:7; 12:4, 9, 28). - They enable others to share in God’s grace through each of us, so that they are to be desired (12:31). Implications:  - Everyone receives these: the Spirit is at work within every believer within the church. - They include more mundane gifts as well as supernatural extraordinary manifestations. All reflect the Spirit’s presence. - They seem to include special endowments by the Spirit as well as the natural talents that we have been born with or developed.  - The expression of a gift at one moment may not mean that one possesses that gift permanently. - All gifts stem from the grace of God manifest to us in His Spirit’s presence in our lives. - No one gift takes precedence over others in manifesting the Spirit’s presence. - The Spirit distributes gift(s) to every believer for the building up the body, as He determines what is best for the body. - They are for serving others within the body of believers. The End of Charismatic Gifts: The Coming of Christ (13:8–12) - The spiritual gifts are for this present time to build up the church. - They come to an end with the state of things brought about by Christ’s second coming. Two Caveats: This does not mean that every claimed instance of a Spiritual manifestation of a gift is generated by the Holy Spirit. We should trust and pray for God to work in miraculous ways in and through His body. God’s choice to work in miraculous ways is completely up to His discretion. The Permanence of Love (13:13). - Stemming from God’s nature, love binds together the other virtues as well as the church body (13:2; 7). - Love must undergird all our interactions and uses of our spiritual gifts because our love for one another reveals Jesus to this world. Application Questions: From the emphasis these last weeks on spiritual gifts, what have you learned, and how has this series changed or enhanced your understanding of gifts? Why do you think Paul chose to use two different words to describe these gifts (Spirit-gifts; grace-gifts)? What do each contribute to your understanding of the nature and purpose of these gifts? How would you respond to someone claiming that they possessed one of the more supernatural gifts of the Spirit (tongues; healings; prophecy)? Why are these gifts necessary for us now as a church but unnecessary after Christ’s second coming? How can we know if love undergirds the use of our gifts?