3. Gifts of the Spirit, Part 2

It was 5:00 in the morning on a very snowy cold winter's day that a missionary candidate arrived for a strange early-morning appointment with a missionary examiner.  He was ushered into an office where he sat waiting until 8:00 for an interview.  When, finally, the interviewer came into the room - a retired missionary - the examiner said the first question to the 
applicant for mission service, "Can you spell?"

The missionary candidate said "Yes..."

And so the examiner said, "spell 'baker'"

"B-A-K-E-R"

"Very good.  How good are you at numbers?"

"Pretty good"

"Add 2 and 2."

"4"

"That's fine.  I think you have probably passed your interview and I will notify the mission board tomorrow of those results."

And he was dismissed.  And he walked out rather confused and bemused by the whole thing.  And the next day, the missionary examiner presented the report of his interview to the mission board, and this is what he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the candidate that I interviewed yesterday is a worthy candidate to be a missionary.  He has all of the qualifications needed by a missionary.  First of all, I tested him on self-denial by making him get up at 5:00.  And he left the warm bed and came through the snow without complaint.  Secondly, I tested him on his promptness and sense of responsibility and he came on time. Third, I tested him on his patience by making him wait three hours before I showed up.  Fourth, I tested him on his temper because he showed no signs of anger at the delay.  Fifth, I tested his humility by asking him questions any seven year old could answer.  And he showed, again, no indignation.  And, so you see, because he manifests the fruits of the Spirit so needed by a missionary, I recommend he be accepted."  

Now, I think that's a parenthetical story.  But I think it makes a good point: we who are so frequently wrapped up in examining people's credentials - in terms of what the world calls qualification - need to know that the scripture places its emphasis, not upon the demonstration of gifts, but upon the production of fruit.  The Holy Spirit's gifts are necessary for the growth and the maturity of the body of Christ, but the Spirit-produced fruit is more significant.  And the missionary examiner in the story saw that.  Perhaps that's why in order to answer the question "what are these spiritual gifts" its necessary first of all to begin by saying what they are not, in order to clear the ground of some of the confused thinking that we have.

In the first place, the gifts of the Spirit are not the same as the fruits of the Spirit.  Now I suppose you say, "that's self-evident, but it doesn't seem to be, in the kind of garbled thinking that's reflected in much of the writing and much of the publication, and even many of the tapes that are being hawked all over the country today. The gifts of the Spirit are not the same as the fruits of the Spirit, and there's several instances of that.  In the first place, the fruits of the Spirit are much more important than the gifts.  Now you wouldn't hear that, or know that, or understand that from a lot of the talk concerning the gifts.  But the fruits of the Spirit, according to the teaching of scripture, are much more important than the gifts, because Godliness is more desired than giftedness.  Jesus said, "I have called you and appointed you that you might go and bear much fruit."  He does not say, "I've called you in order that you can demonstrate how gifted you are" 

"I've called you that you bear much fruit and that your fruit would remain."  You see, the church at Corinth, to which Paul wrote some of the primary teachings concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit, was a church that in the first chapter is described as saying "so you are not lacking in any gift".  Indeed, the Corinthian church had gifts in such abundance that these gifts were causing many problems, because they were not Godly. They did not demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit, they just paraded the gifts of the Spirit and the result is they were in deep trouble.  And that's why the apostle Paul writes to them and he puts the chapter on fruit - which is basically the "love chapter", chapter 13 - right in the middle of this discourse.  And he says to these Corinthians, who are so proud of their gifts and so busy parading them and putting each other down on the basis of gifts, "hey let me tell you something: without love, which is the primary fruit of the Spirit, you're gifts are nothing but a lot of noise.  Tinkling brass or a clanging symbol."  The possession of gifts does not indicate Godliness.  And that's why the church was so riddled with problems - including four different ways that church was split, the condoning and even kind of pride of broad-mindedness concerning sexual sin within the leadership of the church, drunkenness at the Lord's table.  And this in a church that has all of the gifts.  The problem was they demonstrated none of the fruit, and they are called to bear fruit.  

And that's why the qualifications for the offices of leadership of the church says in I Timothy 3 and also in Titus 1, that "must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to much wine, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, able to manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect, for if anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?  He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the Devil.  He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the Devil's trap."  And so on, and so on.  And you will notice that the emphasis is not upon the gifts.  You'd think they would say, "well he's got to be a good administrator and he's got to have this gift, and this gift, and this gift."  It doesn't say anything about that.  Its an emphasis on the fruits of the Spirit, which validate our commitment.

I remember how my theology was rattled a few years ago when a fellow came up to me down on First avenue, who was very, very drunk and in a rather tough condition.  When he saw my collar, he said to me, "Father, I want you to know that I am a Christian."  

And I said, "I'm glad you told me because you give me no evidence of that." Now I wasn't being smart, I was trying to make a point.

And he said, "I'll give you some evidence."  

And he proceeded to speak in an unknown tongue.  It was beautiful, but I was revolted because it is pure water out of a foul cistern.  Now, the manifestation of any gift is invalidated without the fruit, because the Biblical teaching surrounding gifts is that there is a distinct and clear difference between gifts and fruit.  And Godliness is more to be desired than giftedness.  And that's why every major passage on gifts in the new testament is accompanied by a passage on the fruit.  That's why I Corinthians 12 and 14, which are gift chapters, have - right smack in the middle - chapter 13, which pulls it all into perspective on their fruit.  Romans 12 lists the gifts of the Spirit and immediately following it says, "let love be without hypocrisy, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love" and on for 11 more verses.

Secondly, not only are the fruits of the Spirit more important than the gifts of the Spirit, but the gifts of the Spirit help define what a Christian does, but the fruit of the Spirit demonstrates what a Christian IS.  The one, that is gifts, has to do with service.  Those are tools.  The other, the fruit, has to do with the character of the person.  What a man is, is vastly more important than what he does.  Not in our society.  If a man IS something, we frequently will excuse all kinds of boorish behavior, because that's what he is.

Now, you medical men, please forgive me here, but I'm going to use you as an illustration.  If somebody stands up in a congregational business meeting on a real matter, or in a Bible study, and somebody makes the statement, "this is what I think it says", and everybody knows its Doctor so and so who says it, they go, "oh yeah!"  But if a teamster stands up, or somebody whose hands are covered with callouses and back is bent by the toil of digging a ditch all of his life, and says, "That's what I think" and its different than the doctor says, guess who they vote with.  You see, what a man IS, is so important in our society.  That's why we run around with our titles hanging all over us.  That's why there are some people that are incapable of giving their name without giving their pedigree, so that you can automatically pop them in the right slot high enough up.  And the more important they are, the higher the slot.  And the more eager they are that you know it.  Until they get real important, and then you know it anyway so they don't have to tell you.

One reason why I go incognito all the time and introduce myself as Bud Palmberg is partly because I don't want people to determine who I am by what I do.  Now, granted, there ought to be some correlation there.  I ought to be a man of God as well as a guy with a job of a preacher.  But that doesn't always hold true.  Just read your paper.  But with me, of course, if they find out that I'm a minister, they stick me in a slot and run everything else through a discounting procedure and I can't throw the weight I want to throw.  So its best they don't know what I am.  Just loud.

The gifts of the Spirit help define what a Christian does, but its the fruit of the Spirit that defines him AS a Christian.  What a man is, is so much more important than what he does.  I don't care what you do.  I do care who you are - before God, who you are.  Because, you see, what a man does should grow out of what a man is.  So that's why the scripture talks in such plain and simple language when it says, "you don't pick figs off a thistle" "You don't get sweet water out of a foul well"  That's the principle.

There's another difference between the fruits and the gifts.  And that is the duration.  The Bible makes it very plain that the gifts of the Spirit are temporal.  They pass. I Corinthians 13 names three of them and it says, "prophecy and tongues and knowledge will vanish away."  Now there are a lot of people who say its already happened - it happened at the end of the Apostolic age and all the rest (we may get into that a little bit), but they say it passes away.  But it says in the same passage, "faith hope and love will abide."  The gifts are temporal.  They're for a purpose and when that purpose is met, its no longer needed - its not a merit badge you wear on a sash around you and say, "hey, I used this back in '28 and I still got it."  But the fruit is permanent.

Here's a fourth difference, that is that the gifts are given and therefore to be discovered.  But the fruit of the Spirit is to be developed.  What I have been given, I need to discover.  That which I am, I need to develop.  The fruits are the normal expected outcome of Christian growth - of maturity.  Of conformity to Christ and of the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit.  They grow in a Christian's life as a result.  As a result of the believer's walk with God and his obedience and his yieldness to the Holy Spirit.  And gifts without fruit are worthless.  The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the prerequisite for the effective exercise of gifts.  And the reason the Corinthian church was such a total wipe-out was because they had all the gifts and thought "that's all" and that their gifts somehow validated the fact that they must be Godly.  Nothing of the sort!

A fifth difference is that each believer is not given all of the gifts.  Not all of you, and all of us, are to have all of the gifts, but all of us are to produce all of the fruit.  Understand?  Therefore, while we must not be ignorant of spiritual gifts, we need to guard ourselves against preening ourselves on their possession, because they are - after all - only gifts and they are not earned like a merit badge and therefore cannot be paraded as part of our qualifications.  They are not nearly as important.  Jesus said in that passage pastor Steve read from John 15 and the choir sang "I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain."  And Paul, praying for the church at Philippi in the first chapter says, "And this I pray: that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment" (now, those are a couple of the gifts).  But he says, "So that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ - having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God."  Now listen carefully: we are instructed to use the gifts for service, but we are to center on bearing the fruit for His glory.  And again I say that the gifts without the fruit of a Godly life are nothing.

Alright, gifts are not spiritual fruit.  Secondly, the gifts of the Spirit are not the same as natural talents.  And there are several reasons for this also.  First of all, spiritual gifts are only given to believers.  The only people that ever have the gifts of the Holy Spirit are those who have been born of God.  Who are born by the work of the Holy Spirit in their life.  But natural talents have nothing to do with it.  I know atheists and agnostics and all kinds of people who have talents.  Music ability, art ability, athletic ability, mechanical ability, cooking, languages, teaching - name it, they've got all kinds of talent.  I love to watch the Sonics.  I'm just staggered by that.  When Gus Williams breaks for that center line, he goes up with the ball in his right hand, but he suddenly discovers that there's somebody guarding the right side of the basket, so he puts the ball in his left hand.  When he sees that the basket is pretty well covered and he's not going to get to it anyway, he passes it over his back to somebody.  All the while, he's flying in the air.  Now that's called "wing time".  And I have never understood how somebody bigger than I am is able to jump higher than I am, and stay up longer than I can.  Because when I jump, I go up and down right away.  And when these guys go down the line, watch them sometime - they just float and I don't understand it.  There's something illegal in the laws of physics about that, but it is also called "talent".  

Now when I went out for basketball - and I was one of the few guys that went out for basketball - four years (it was a four year high school and never made the team).  Most guys got smart after the second year.  I went out all four years.  Because I knew that there wasn't anything that difficult, because I boxed with several of the guys on the basketball team and I could clean their clocks.  I could knock them all over the ring whenever I felt like it.  But on the basketball court...  You see, I was good at shooting.  I was good.  Real good.  The older I get the better I was.  Well, you see, the coach required something else.  You had to bounce the ball down to get within range of the basket.  And I could bounce the ball, but guys kept trying to take it away from me.  And then I would get confused.  And I dribbled it down my knees and my feet and the other guys.  If they'd leave me alone...  You see, I can go to the right, but couldn't go to the left.  And it didn't take a very smart defensive man to figure out I could only go one way.  So I never made it.  Now, that's the difference between desire and talent.  I had the desire - man, they couldn't keep me away.  But I didn't have any talent.  Had nothing to do with how good you were, or how smart.  Boy, some of the biggest remedial people you ever saw in your life were on the basketball team.  Well, look at the newspapers today and you can see what's happening with their "ghost transcripts" that are taking place.  Alright, there's a difference between talent and spiritual gifts as well.  No unbeliever has a spiritual gift.  And every believer has at least one.

Secondly, not only does spiritual gifts given only to believers, but talents have to do with techniques and methods.  Whereas the Holy Spirit's gifts have to do with spiritual abilities.  And I don't mean just abilities in spiritual matters.  I mean that talents rely on natural powers developed.  But the gifts of the Spirit rely on spiritual endowment.  Its what the Holy Spirit gives to us.  Its not something we work up and develop.  That's a talent.

Third, talents and gifts also differ in their effect.  Talents can instruct and inspire and entertain on a natural level.  But something supernatural happens when someone exercises a spiritual gift.  It may look like the same, but the effect is entirely different.  Persons are spiritually reborn, their lives are permanently changed or they're incredible blessed or encouraged or exhorted or something else, but that's what happens when the Holy Spirit is exercising Himself through a believer, through a gift.

Next, the natural talent and the spiritual gifts MAY be related.  May be related.  But spiritual gifts not just souped-up natural talents.  Our natural facilities and faculties may point in the direction in which our spiritual gifts will be used.  Let me illustrate.  Suppose a Christian with a magnificent voice sings in concerts to the delight and enjoyment of thousands.  Singing is a natural talent.  It has been developed and trained through discipline, and work, and his own strength.  And the result of that exercised talent is thrilling and inspiring, but it is only a natural talent.  Now, suppose the same person is a Christian, and God, through His mercy, chooses to give him a gift, which He wants to use through the singing.  He's still the same singer, sings the same way, but if he has the gift of exhortation, people who hear his singing are tremendously encouraged and challenged and up built.  Or if he has the gift of evangelism, people find Christ through his singing.  Sounds just like it always did.  But the result is different.  So natural talents and spiritual gifts may be related.  My talents may point in the direction which the spiritual gifts may be, but they may not.  So be sure you draw a distinction.  But don't draw a separation, because God may choose to use that.  Remember, while gifts may build on a natural foundation, they also may not.  Now let me illustrate that.

There's a man in southern California by the name of John Wimber.  He's now a pastor, but before John became a Christian, John Wimber is a magnificent musician - still is for that matter - he was one of the best jazz musicians that I've ever had the privilege of meeting personally.  He played with Count Basie, and he played with Dave Brubeck, and he played with Stan Kenton.  Now those are three big names, but they are big names in different traditions in jazz music.  And he played with all of them.  He's a terrific guy.  He's not only an instrumentalist, but he is also a composer, an arranger, and all the rest, besides he's a good business man.  He starts a business - a little music store - now he's got a whole bunch - and he makes money like crazy.  He just can't help it.  Now, he's a man of enormous talents.  When John Wimber became a Christian, everybody that knew John Wimber said, "Oh boy, now watch how God gifts him and uses his music."  Didn't happen.  He's still one of the best reed men around.  He still is a writer and composer - oh he wrote a couple of Christian songs, no big deal - they weren't so good.  God gave him a different gift.  God gave him the gift of evangelism.  It has nothing to do with his music.  Now, I suppose God could - if He wanted to - when he's playing his sax sometime, win somebody to Christ through his sax playing, but I don't think the sax will make it.  But John has a gift of evangelism and he comes into a room, and I don't care if there's two people in it or three thousand, he's like a bird dog on field trial.  He walks into that room and you just see him start to vibrate, and then he goes on point.  And he knows that person not only needs Christ, but wants Him.  How's he know it?  Who knows?  God knows.  He has the gift of evangelism, he moves in on this guy, sits down, opens a conversation, the guy doesn't feel pressured, he doesn't feel pushed, he doesn't feel beat up on or anything, he's just sitting there saying, "Yeah, give me more!  Give me more!"  And John just gives him more.  Now because John's a great musician, you'd think maybe he'd sing to him or something.  But that's his talent.  And God gifted him some place else.  There are over 2,000 people that I know of, down in southern California who, on a one-on-one relationship with John Wimber, have come to know Jesus Christ.  He's now a pastor.  He's a pastor with the fastest growing churches in the country and its incredible to see what he does.  He's also the most unorthodox minister I've met in a long time - maybe that's the reason I like him so much.  

By the way, he had been a Christian two weeks and there was a side man, in the trio that he was playing with at the time, that he really wanted to bring to the Lord.  And so he brought him to a Bible study because John had been told, "you ought to go to a Bible study."  And so he goes to this church, he finds out the pastor's got a Bible study, so he goes to the pastor's Bible study.  And Wimber's really funny when he tells it, but anyway this minister gets in there and people are just sitting around chatting and having a good time, and the pastor's have a good time.  Seems like a regular guy although he was dressed in his basic narrow black tie, and when he got all done with the chatter and time to start the Bible study, Wimber said, "I never saw anything like it: the guy changed voices.  Just completely."  He'd say, "Now let's look at the word of God."  And he said, "This guy had the most stained-glass voice I ever heard in my life.  And he just put it on, and then when he closed his Bible, he'd go back to normal voice.  I thought it was connected with when he opened his Bible."  And he said, "he pulled out a Bible - it was the biggest blackest Scofield Bible in captivity."  And he said, "I was a little nervous about all this anyway, and I thought, 'boy, this guy sitting next to me, who is just coming down from a trip, was saying ''hey man, what is this?'' especially when the guy's voice changed and everything."  

And so this minister said, "Let's look at the word of God".

And this guy turns to Wimber and says, "what's that?"

Now, Wimber, because he knew this man and loved this man and knew his language - he cared enough to understand his language - he was a part of that culture, he turns to him and says, "What the guys is laying on you man, is 'that's a heavy chart'"  Now a musician understood that.  And he'd go on with this all night long, translating.

The subject that night was the grace of God.  And, oh this guy just waxed so eloquent about grace that the side man's looking to see when Grace was coming in.  He just couldn't figure it out.  And finally, he turns to Wimber and he says, "What is this 'grace' he's talking about?  Man, I don't understand that."

And Wimber's response to him was, "its like this man: there's an opening on Basie's band with no audition."  You see, that's grace to a musician.  That's unmerited favor to a musician. It can't be earned.  It can't be deserved.  All you can do is say, "oh, thank you!"  And receive it. You see, that's a gift.  That's not a talent.  That's not something you write up in the little book and then you memorize "fifteen ways to witness to a musician".  You may sell some books, but you're going to wind up with a lot of people who bought the book and tried it, and it just bombs out, and then they're going to feel guilt on top of everything else.  Hey, part of our reason for spending any time with the gifts is to get rid of our guilt trips.

But don't expect because you are a school teacher that God has given you this spiritual gift of teaching.  And churches do this all the time.  We're so dumb!  We find out somebody's a school teacher - "Oh boy, do I have a Sunday school class for you."  And they bomb out sometimes because, while they are skilled and talented professional teachers, they are not gifted.  You have encountered, in your lifetime in Christ, Sunday school teachers who could not understand any of the pedagogical arguments or the philosophical approaches to education if their very lives depended upon it, but who were gifted conveyors of God.  You see, there's a difference.  He may, however, take that same school teacher and take that talent and use it at the vehicle for His gifts.  Isn't it wonderful that God is so unpredictable, so creative, so tailor-made for our needs and for the ministry He has for us to perform.

Now I've got to quit.  Next Sunday I want to talk on a couple of other matters of what gifts are not, and let me tell you this much in case you're not here next Sunday, you got to know this much: do not confuse spiritual gifts with your role as a Christian.  Don't confuse those.  Some of you have the tendency to run around saying, "Well that's not my gift, so I don't have to do it."  And we have roles as Christians that we are called to fulfill in obedience to God's word - whether we're gifted in that, or not.  The gift just makes it just super fun.  But don't confuse the roles.  Well, I'd better quit or I'll get started on that too.